Conceptualizing the Variables That Shape the International Student Experience in Higher Education

The period since 1990 has been marked by an accelerated pace of globalization. As a consequence, the challenge of acculturation has been more noticeable than earlier periods, where migration occurred among more similar populations. The recent migration includes the highest levels of international student exchange, with the US being the top destination. Literature on globalization, multiculturalism and diversity in higher education does not address why institutions of higher education offer different resources and programming to their international students. Interviews conducted with educational administrators at three small liberal arts colleges in the United States, with review of documents made available to the researcher by the colleges, form the core data that is analyzed and compared to interpret the approach each institution takes toward mediating international student challenges. The thesis examines the data collected at each college to identify and explain how: 1.) student agency, 2.) awareness and understanding, and 3.) organizational structure and alignment, affect 4.) the institutional resources and programing made available to international students at college. Finally, a conceptual model, based on an analysis of the data is developed to explain how the interaction among these four variables, in turn, determines the outcomes and experiences of international students in college. The model is presented as a tool for the analysis of institutional variation in addressing international student challenges, as well as for improving resource development and programming at institutions of higher education

Excessive Presences: An Ethnography of Experiences of Crisis in the Italian Asylum System

The debate around forced migration and mental health focuses mainly on the effect of stressful experiences on the wellbeing of migrants. Although there is a large body of anthropological literature criticizing the medicalisation of trauma and emphasizing the correlations between restrictive migration policies and migrants’ mental distress, research rarely goes beyond the categories of suffering, illness and health. The assumption that a psychic life falling outside the ordinary is fundamentally a predicament is rarely questioned. The aim of this thesis is to fill this gap in research, by considering “divergent,” non-ordinary experiences as possible other ways of being in the world. Therefore, this study examines alternative, idiosyncratic, ways of perceiving, sensing and making sense of the world, understanding them as unconventional narratives – and sometimes even as counternarratives – about their social, political and historical background. The research draws on information collected from refugees during eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Torino, Italy. The main research findings are twofold. Firstly, this thesis offers a new angle on the link between the social and the psychological. The research analyses the effects of asylum policies and practices on migrants’ sense of self and of belonging, arguing not only that mental distress happens at the conjuncture between subject and macro forces, but also that mental disorders can provide a privileged perspective on the work of ordering mechanisms – namely, migration policies restricting citizenship’s rights, and interventions reproducing precarity. Also, this thesis considers the relationality of mental distress, arguing that even the most idiosyncratic experience of crisis is always situated in a space of social, political and historical relationships. Therefore, crisis entails a disruptive potential, for it creates a disturbance into the social world. By arguing for the need to include divergent memories in academic and policy discourses, this research contributes to the debate surrounding the politics of “refugee voices” in forced migration and refugee studies. Secondly, this thesis contributes to the debate around ethnographical methods in anthropology. In employing mental disorder as an ethnographic object, this research makes use of the idiosyncratic as a device to unfold the opaqueness and the implicit in the collective. Also, this research provides a new understanding of the researcher’s positionality, and, specifically, of the effects of being open and vulnerable to the field. By being simultaneously exposed and responsive to others, ethnographers are witnesses for they bear the marks left by field encounters

[FeFe]-hydrogenases as biocatalysts in bio-hydrogen production

© 2016, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. [FeFe]-hydrogenases catalyse H2 production at exceptionally high turnover numbers (up to 104s−1). They are found in a variety of strict or facultative anaerobic microorganisms, such as bacteria of the genus Clostridium, Desulfovibrio, Thermotoga, and eukaryotes ranging from unicellular and coenobial green algae to anaerobic fungi, ciliates and trichomonads. Key to their activity is an organometallic centre, the H-cluster that cooperates tightly with the protein framework to reduce two protons into molecular hydrogen. The assembly of the catalytic site requires a specialised cellular mechanism based on the action of three other enzymes, called maturases: HydE, HydF and HydG. Recent advancements in the recombinant production of [FeFe]-hydrogenases have provided leaps forward in their exploitation in H2 production for clean energy storage. [FeFe]-hydrogenases have been used in several fermentative approaches where microorganisms are engineered to overexpress specific [FeFe]-hydrogenases to convert low-cost materials (e.g. wastes) into H2. [FeFe]-hydrogenases have also been proven to be excellent catalysts in different in vitro devices that can produce hydrogen directly from water, either via water electrolysis or via light-driven mechanisms, thus allowing the direct storage of solar energy into H2

Oxygen Stability in the New [FeFe]-Hydrogenase from Clostridium beijerinckii SM10 (CbA5H)

© 2016 American Chemical Society. The newly isolated Clostridium beijerinckii [FeFe]-hydrogenase CbA5H was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy coupled to enzymatic activity assays. This showed for the first time that in this enzyme the oxygen-sensitive active state Hox can be simply and reversibly converted to the oxygen-stable inactive Hinact state. This suggests that oxygen sensitivity is not an intrinsic feature of the catalytic center of [FeFe]-hydrogenases (H-cluster), opening new challenging perspectives on the oxygen sensitivity mechanism as well as new possibilities for exploitation in industrial applications

Therapy-Related Myeloid Neoplasms in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia

Secondary myelodysplasia (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are frequent long term complications in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) and Waldenström Macroglobulinemia (WM) patients. Although disease-related immune-suppression plays a crucial role in leukemogenesis there is great concern that therapy may further increase the risk of developing these devastating complications

Atypical effect of temperature tuning on the insertion of the catalytic iron?sulfur center in a recombinant [FeFe]-hydrogenase

© 2015 The Protein Society. The expression of recombinant [FeFe]-hydrogenases is an important step for the production of large amount of these enzymes for their exploitation in biotechnology and for the characterization of the protein-metal cofactor interactions. The correct assembly of the organometallic catalytic site, named H-cluster, requires a dedicated set of maturases that must be coexpressed in the microbial hosts or used for in vitro assembly of the active enzymes. In this work, the effect of the post-induction temperature on the recombinant expression of CaHydA [FeFe]-hydrogenase in E. coli is investigated. The results show a peculiar behavior: the enzyme expression is maximum at lower temperatures (20C), while the specific activity of the purified CaHydA is higher at higher temperature (30C), as a consequence of improved protein folding and active site incorporation

Assessing individual performance in team sports: A new method developed in youth volleyball

Studying the role of individual differences in team sports performance is a challenge. The main problem is having an available measure of individual performance of each member of the team. In particular, in youth sports, where the level of specialization is reactively low, it appears appropriate that this measure takes the entire performance of the athlete into consideration (i.e., that it assesses all of the athlete\u2019s gestures), while maintaining an ecological validity criterion. Therefore, we devised and calculated an individual assessment measure in volleyball following the subsequent steps: Firstly, we video-recorded at least three volleyball games for each of the 114 youth volleyball players who participated in the study. Then, two independent expert observers evaluated each individual performance by attributing a score to every single gesture performed by the athletes during the games. The derived individual score was adjusted and controlled for the team performance measure, namely the result of each Set the athlete participated in (and for the amount of participation of the athlete to each game). The final measure of individual performance in volleyball proved to be reliable, showing a high level of interrater agreement (r = .841, p < .001) and a significant correlation with the amount of experience in volleyball (r = .173, p < .05)

Alemtuzumab in the treatment of fludarabine refractory B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)

The introduction of immunotherapeutic agents has provided renewed hope for Chronic lymphocytic leukemia fludarabine-refractory patients. Several clinical trials have shown that alemtuzumab is a more effective option compared to combination chemotherapy for treatment of patients who have relapsed or who are refractory to fludarabine, including those with poor prognostic factors. Although there are significant potential toxicities associated with alemtuzumab, such as infusional reactions and the risk of cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation, most are manageable. Pre-treatment anti-pyretics and anti-histamines are recommended to prevent or mitigate the acute infusional reactions associated with intravenous infusion. Recent use of alemtuzumab via the subcutaneous route has been shown to be well tolerated and has yielded similar response rates to the infusional method of administration. Prophylaxis with thrimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole (TMP/SMZ) as well as valacyclovir or a similar anti-viral can prevent many of the opportunistic infections seen in early trials. Reactivation of CMV infection can be effectively managed with monitoring and early treatment. Chemo-immunotherapy combination with alemtuzumab has been tested and demonstrated unprecedented clinical results in relapsed and refractory patients. The use of this agent earlier in the algorithm of patients with these characteristics should be considered. Future areas of research will include the use of alemtuzumab in combination with other monoclonal antibodies and other targeted therapies