The Integration of Interactive Packaging within Firestone Brewery IPA Beverage Cans

The use of interactive packaging to pair music with india pale ale would enhance and the customer experience

In the Name of Conservation: the impact of ecological changes, neoliberal policies, and social and environmental imaginaries on traditional parrot hunting among indigenous Jamaican Maroons

Cockpit Country is a dense, upland forest in west-central Jamaica. Its distinctly unnavigable terrain created a “green armour” around Maroon societies during the 18th century war against the British Empire that secured their autonomy and recognition as indigenous peoples. In the present day, it remains a refuge for rare species and Maroon communities. In November 2017, the Jamaican Prime Minister announced plans to designate Cockpit Country as a protected area after years of anti-mining campaigns involving numerous stakeholders. Among them was a Maroon community with whom I had just begun research, following a small group of traditional parrot hunters. What started as an ethnographic exploration of resource use and Maroon history soon broadened, after the announcement, into a socio-ecological study of species conservation, cultural preservation, indigenous knowledge systems, and speaking against extractive industries, all centring around the moniker of “conservation”, giving rise to my question: what, precisely, is conservation? After three years studying conservation action across local and global scales and engaging in conservation praxis, I have come to see conservation as a spectacle: a representational form that eulogizes the political, social, and environmental actions of particular actors within natural spaces. In doing so, it both justifies and dismisses the movement of different forms of capital, washing clean the hands of capitalism while fencing the poor into reservoirs of cultural, agricultural, and labour exploitation. By examining ways that parrot hunting practices have been shifted, nudged, distorted, or transformed, this thesis explores how the spectacle of conservation works. How it is sustained and reproduced through articulations of indigeneity, science, nature, morality. How the “particular actors” become indoctrinated into the spectacle. The necessary practices they must adopt and, drawing from Stuart Hall and Tania Li, the way their identities and intentions must be articulated. I draw from Pierre Bourdieu to contrast the spectacle of conservation with the materiality and sociality of everyday actions through which forms of capital are continually redistributed. In each chapter, I explore a particular imaginary: indigenous practices; environmental change; stakeholder participation; species extinction; and plastic pollution. Each begins with an experience of a hunt, relying on a number of literary devices and the thickest of descriptions to represent the everyday robustly enough to contrast against conservation’s global discourses. Through these counter-images, I trace the movement of capital to understand how these imaginaries reproduce themselves and the objects they collateralise. I end with a discussion of the consequences of leaving everyday practices unseen, unremembered, or unacknowledged in the shadow cast by the spectacle

Validation of the Principal’s Computer Technology Survey

The purpose of this study was to provide a more in-depth analysis of the psychometric characteristics of the Principal’s Computer Technology Survey (PCTS). The PCTS developmental process yielded a 40–item survey with groups of items comprising five subscales (i.e., curriculum integration, perceptions, acquired expertise, needs assessment, and professional development). Principals’ responses to items within the five subscales was measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). An expert panel reviewed the instrument plus exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. This analysis resulted in a restructured instrument with seven subscales instead of the five hypothesized subscales and four fewer items. Measurement invariance of the instrument was found for gender and race. Cronbach’s alpha for the 36 items was .94 and subscale Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .78 to .90

Understanding the role of B cells during Leishmania amazonensis infection

Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne zoonotic disease caused by obligate intracellular protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. Infection of C3HeB/FeJ and C57BL/6 mice with Leishmania major stimulates a healing cell-mediated immune response, while Leishmania amazonensis infection leads to chronic disease. Here we show C3HeB/FeJ mice co-infected with both species of Leishmania heal, while co-infected C57BL/6 mice do not. Using an in vitro killing assay we determined B cells from infected C57BL/6 mice are ineffective in promoting parasite killing compared to B cells from infected C3HeB/FeJ mice. Furthermore, infected C57BL/6 mice produce less antigen-specific antibodies as compared to infected C3HeB/FeJ mice. The mechanism behind the inability of C57Bl/6 mice to heal L. amazonensis is not known. Here we describe for the first time a difference in the draining lymph node germinal center B cell response between co-infected C3H and B6 mice. There are more germinal center B cells, more antibody isotype-switched germinal center B cells, more memory B cells and more antigen-specific antibody-producing cells in co-infected C3H mice compared to B6 mice as early as 2 weeks post-infection. We also show that IL-21 production in both mouse strains is similar at 2 weeks, suggesting the difference in these mouse strains is due to intrinsic B cell differences, rather than a difference in IL-21 production within germinal centers. Mice infected with L. amazonensis have a non-polarized T helper cell response and non-healing, chronic lesions. In vitro, a productive response to this pathogen has been recapitulated through macrophage production of both nitric oxide and superoxide. We show FcγR and cytochrome b558 are necessary for superoxide production during an established infection. We demonstrate NADPH oxidase assembly of gp91phox and p67phox occurs by day 1 during the in vitro infection and is localized directly adjacent to the parasite. However, measurable superoxide production was only detectable at day 5 in vitro, indicating that assembly of these subunits was not sufficient to trigger superoxide production. Using wortmannin inhibition of PI3K, we show inhibition of superoxide production at day 5 and indicating that PI3K is critical for superoxide production at this late stage of infection. These data establish that the FcγR-NADPH oxidase activation pathway is required to kill intracellular L. amazonensis. We propose that this novel pathway requires L. major antigen-specific B cell production of antibodies which bind stimulatory Fcγ receptors to produce superoxide through PI3K-mediated activation of assembled NADPH oxidase complexes that are associated with intracellular amastigote parasites. Understanding the role of this pathway in controlling non-healing cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by L. amazonensis may be critical in determining specific immunomodulation to successfully treat this disease

Connecting Chatman to This Moment

In this editors' note, guest editors Amelia N. Gibson and Nicole A. Cooke introduce the special issue, "Chatman Revisited: Re-examining and Resituating Social Theories of Identity, Access, and Marginalization in LIS.

Anticipatory Product Development Using Design Suggestions

Generally, the present disclosure is directed to determining an optimal solution for building and/or designing a multi-dimensional product. In particular, in some implementations, the systems and methods of the present disclosure can include or otherwise leverage one or more machine-learned models to predict an optimal design solution for building and/or designing a product based on design characteristics and information relating to existing designs

Extrathoracic airway hyperresponsiveness as a mechanism of post infectious cough: case report

Post-infectious cough is a common diagnosis in people with chronic cough. However, the specific infectious aetiology and cough mechanisms are seldom identified

Learning Focused Schools Strategies: The Level of Implementation and Perceived Impact on Student Achievement

Max Thompson’s Learning Focused Strategies approach to school improvement has been embraced by school leaders and teachers as an approach to redesign and reform public schools. The program developers claim schools with 90% minority students and 90% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch programs can achieve at high levels on required curriculum. Examined are the beliefs and attitudes of teachers as related to the degree of implementation of Learning Focused Strategies in their classrooms. The study supported the premise that LFS are research based and effective, that teachers believe the strategies will improve instruction, high level of implementation, enhancing the potential for student success. The study examined the relationships between experience, grade level, degree level, and the self reported degree of implementation

Racism and Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching

Student evaluations of teaching (SET), also known as student course evaluations, are a generally accepted ways to evaluate performance of faculty members in higher education. These evaluations are tied to retention, compensation, promotion, and even hiring. However, there is a strong body of literature demonstrating that SET are highly flawed systems and that basing personnel decisions on them can lead to discriminatory employment practices. Some issues that arise with this reliance on student evaluations of teaching include the so-called reciprocity effect in which students tend to use course evaluations as a punitive action for receiving a lower grade. Other issues include the tendency to put total responsibility for the quality of the education on instructors and grade inflation. Research has also found that student evaluations of teaching are marred with sexist comments, they tend to judge racial minorities more harshly than whites, and they express more negative performance evaluations of faculty when diversity and inclusion topics are the focus of the courses being evaluated. This panel will draw upon the expertise and personal narratives of a group of faculty members who will present their experiences, points of view, and musings regarding the topic of bias in student evaluations. The main goal of this panel is to highlight issues faculty face in LIS education while analyzing the role of SETs in terms of their utility and dangers. Panelist presentations will form a good starting point for ongoing conversations regarding appropriate teaching evaluation tools which are fairer and more objective in evaluating real teaching proficiency rather than lingering on the personal biases of the evaluators

Designing and Evaluating the Quality and Cost-effectiveness of Saturated Sediment Permeameters

Many simulations require accurate measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity, a sediment property that governs the speed at which water flows through sediments relative to head differences. The goal of our project is to design and build an inexpensive permeameter capable of producing accurate hydraulic conductivity values. We tested four permeameters; a standard research grade constant-head permeameter, a falling-head permeameter modeled off of an in situ stream method, a constant-head permeameter made out of 4” PVC pipe, and a similar constant-head permeameter made out of 2” PVC pipe. Our custom-built constant-head permeameters both utilized a U-shaped design, two tubes which form a manometer, and multiple output overflows. Despite significant differences in design, method, and cost, we found that all four of the permeameters yielded relatively consistent mean hydraulic conductivities with low standard deviations (0.004-0.019). We also compared the attributes: price, weight, and number of parts. Our conclusion is that because the average K-value and standard deviation of each design is within reason, the best choice depends on the practitioner’s situation and intention