Defining Primary and Academic Discourse through Instructional Methods in a Single Junior High Classroom

In this study, I examine the use of academic discourse in the school setting and discuss the relation of the primary discourse to academic discourse. I focus on the verbal exchanges between a teacher and her students as these students acquire the academic discourse of the English classroom. The study focuses on the ideas of primary discourse and secondary or academic discourse as presented by Gee (1996) and focuses on his idea of Social languages. Using a microethnographic study, I develop the idea of how the teacher related to her students and how a single educator felt about the purpose of academic discourse in relation to the students she teaches in an urban junior high school classified as economically disadvantaged by the free and reduced lunch rate. Data sources included ten classroom observations, transcriptions, interviews with the student participants, and interviews with the teacher participant. The data collected in this study develop an understanding of the student experience in a society that is changing rapidly and demanding them to use academic discourse. I acknowledge the changes the students and teacher experienced throughout the study and the importance of both discourses in the academic setting. I conclude my study with implications suggesting that primary discourse and academic discourse serve a purpose in the school setting and should be used in the instructional methods of educators. My data indicates the frustrations students cope with in the school setting, and they feel they must lose themselves in the school setting. Thus, this dissertation suggests primary discourse be made visible in the school setting and be allowed as vehicle for teaching the academic discourse and Social languages desired in various Social settings

Transcranial Therapy for Intracerebral Hemorrhage and Other Brain Pathologies using Histotripsy

Brain pathologies including stroke and cancer are a major cause of death and disability. Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) accounts for roughly 12% of all strokes in the US. ICH is characterized by the rupture of vessels resulting in bleeding and clotting inside the brain. The presence of the clot causes immediate damage to surrounding brain tissue via mass effect with delayed toxic effects developing in the following days. This leads to 30-day mortality rate of 40% and motivates the need to quickly evacuate the clot. Craniotomy surgery and minimally invasive methods using thrombolytics are common procedures but are limited by morbidity and susceptibility to rebleeding, leading to poor outcomes. Histotripsy is a non-thermal ultrasound ablation technique that uses short duration, high amplitude rarefactional pulses (>26 MPa) delivered via an extracorporeal transducer to generate targeted cavitation using the intrinsic gas nuclei in the target tissue. The rapid and energetic bubble expansion and collapse of cavitation create high stress and strain in tissue at the focus that fractionate it into an acellular homogenate. This dissertation presents the role of histotripsy as a novel ultrasound technology with potential to address the need for an effective transcranial therapy for ICH and other brain pathologies. The first part of this work investigates the effects of ultrasound frequency and focal spacing on transcranial clot liquefaction using histotripsy. Histotripsy pulses were delivered using two 256-element hemispherical transducers of different frequency with 30-cm aperture diameters. Treatment durations ranged from 0.9-42.4 min. Liquefied clot volumes ranging from 6-59 mL were drained via catheter and syringe. The second part addresses safety concerns for histotripsy ICH treatment through investigation in a porcine ICH model. 1.75-mL clots were formed in the porcine brain. The cores of the clots were liquefied with histotripsy 48-h after formation, and the liquefied contents were either evacuated or left within the brain. A control group was left untreated. The cores of clots were liquefied without damage to the perihematomal tissue. An average volume of 0.9±0.5 mL was drained after histotripsy treatment. The third part presents the development of a catheter hydrophone method for transcranial phase aberration correction and drainage of the clot liquefied with histotripsy. A prototype hydrophone was fabricated to fit within a catheter. Corrections with the catheter hydrophone resulted in improvements in focal pressure of up to 60% at the geometric focus and 27%-62% across a range of electronic steering locations. The cores of clots liquefied with histotripsy were readily drained via the catheter. The fourth part focuses on the development of a preclinical system for translation to human cadaver ICH models. A 360-element, 700 kHz hemispherical array with a 30-cm aperture was designed and integrated with a surgical navigation system. Calibrated simulations of the transducer suggest an effective therapeutic volume between 48-105 mL through the human skull. The navigation system allows real-time targeting and placement of the catheter hydrophone via a pre-operative CT or MRI. The fifth part of this work extends transcranial histotripsy therapy beyond ICH to the treatment of glioblastoma. This section presents results from an investigation into cancer immunomodulation using histotripsy in a mouse glioblastoma model. The results suggest histotripsy has some immunomodulatory capacity as evidenced by a 2-fold reduction in myeloid derived suppressor cells and large increases in interferon-γ concentrations (3500 pg/mL) within the brain tumors of mice treated with histotripsy.PHDBiomedical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155219/1/tgerhard_1.pd

Advancing the case for microbial conservation

The majority of the biomass and biodiversity of life on the Earth is accounted for by microbes. They play pivotal roles in biogeochemical cycles and harbour novel metabolites that have industrial uses. For these reasons the conservation of microbial ecosystems, communities and even specific taxa should be a high priority. We review the reasons for including microorganisms in conservation agenda. We discuss some of the complications in this endeavour, including the unresolved argument about whether microorganisms have intrinsic value, which influences some of the non-instrumental motivations for their conservation and, from a more pragmatic perspective, exactly what it is that we seek to conserve (microorganisms, their habitats or their gene pools). Despite complications, priorities can be defined for microbial conservation and we provide practical examples of such priorities

Pseudomonas sp. strain MF30 suppresses Fusarium wilt of tomato in vivo

In a search of bacterial biological control agents, 50 bacterial isolates collected from roots of wild plants in northern Sweden were tested in vivo for suppression of wilt of tomato caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. Tomato plants were sown in 10-cm-diam. pots and after 21 d 7 ml of bacterial suspension (ca. 2x109 cfu ml-1) was poured into the soil around each plant. Two days later, 10 ml of pathogen suspension was soil-inoculated (106 conidia ml-1) around the same plants. After a further 20 days, disease incidence was measured. One bacterial isolate, MF30, protected plants from Fusarium wilt, even though the fungal pathogen and not MF30 actually colonized the plant. Several mechanisms may have contributed to the suppression of Fusarium wilt, including systemic induced resistance. The MF30 strain is highly similar to members of the RNA group I of the Pseudomonas fluorescens, well known for its capacity to induce systemic resistance

Att vårda sina lungor : Egenvård vid kronisk obstruktiv lungsjukdom

SAMMANFATTNING Bakgrund: Sveriges befolkning lever längre. År 2013 dog tre miljoner människor i världen av KOL. Då symtom som andfåddhet och hosta ses hos patienterna behöver de utbildning i egenvård för att hantera dessa. Den viktigaste åtgärden är rökstopp och att utföra egenvård för att bevara sin hälsa. Problem: Då patientgruppen växer kommer ett ökat behov av utbildning för patienterna i egenvård. Sjuksköterskor träffar KOL patienter i många sammanhang och behöver kunskap i hur de kan identifiera egenvårdsbrist för att stötta patienten. Metod: Allmän litteraturöversikt. 13 artiklar med kvantitativ och kvalitativ ansats granskades. Syfte: Att skapa en översikt över egenvårdsutbildningens effekter för patienter med kronisk obstruktiv lungsjukdom. Resultat: Egenvårdsutbildning gav patienterna verktyg att hantera sina symtom samt att genom fysisk aktivitet bibehålla en ökad ansträngningsförmåga. Det sågs minskat behov av att söka läkarvård efter genomgången egenvårdsutbildning. Äldre upplevde god förmåga att utföra egenvård. Försämrad egenvård sågs initialt hos patienter som vårdas av nära anhörig. Patienterna önskade utbildning av vårdpersonal på ett lättförståeligt språk. Slutsats: Utbildning i egenvård förbättrar patientens förmåga att hantera sin sjukdom och resultatet ger sjuksköterskan kunskap om vikten av att utbilda patienten. Nyckelord: Egenvårdsförmåga, fysisk aktivitet, kronisk obstruktiv lungsjukdom, Orems egenvårdsteori, symptomlindring, utbildnin