Transitioning into College During a Pandemic and Civil Unrest

This qualitative constructivist case study examines how the graduating class of 2020 navigated the transition into college during a pandemic and civil unrest. The semi-structured interviews allowed for emic language and exploration of personal experiences of the emotional, social, and cultural impacts on this unique year of transitioning into higher education. The participants graduated from a large suburban high school and attend a large urban university in the Midwest. This research provided the opportunity for students to share their thoughts and feelings as they traversed this new landscape. The result of the research identified themes that supported the successful transition during this unprecedented time. Themes included Schlossberg’s four S’s: support, self, situation, and strategy. Motivation was also a very clear theme to aid in the transition process. The completion of this research provided evidence that more studies would provide knowledge and applicable suggestions for students transitioning into college during precarious times. Keywords: Transition, Pandemic, Civil Unrest, Schlossberg’s Transition Theor

Pryor Mountain mustangs: on the range or on the bring?

At the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range straddling the Montana-Wyoming border, the fate of a herd of mustangs rests with the Bureau of Land Management and local horse conservationists. Nationally, the two sides are generally pitted against each other in the ugly world of horse politics. But in the Pryors, advocates and government have forged a tenuous partnership. Both sides want to see healthy horses on healthy range. And there could hardly be a better herd to benefit from such a truce. The Pryor Mountain mustangs have a unique genetic heritage at stake. The horses are some of the last surviving relics of an old-world horse lineage that dates back to the equines originally brought to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors. It’s a lineage on the cusp of being eclipsed in the wild

The New School of Wood Engraving

This article traces the history of modern wood engraving, including the argument in the art world that took place regarding whether wood engraving could be considered art in the first place. As the art form gained popularity with print publishers due to its convenience and beauty, internal debates took place about which direction the art form should take, especially within the New School of wood engraving that had emerged. Research for the article was aided by Syracuse University\u27s Special Collections

A Soft Spot in a Hard Place

A Soft Spot in a Hard Place, edited by Zachary Gough with Thomas Gokey, Max Haiven, and Cassie Thornton, is a small collection of texts and conversations that contributes to the project of understanding how creativity, art, and the imagination might help us refigure our relationship to money, debt, capitalism, and our economic lives as a whole. This book is part of the Reference Points series published through Portland State University Art and Social Practice MFA Program. The series is an evolving pedagogical framework in which graduate students formulate and research a significant topic or practitioner(s) related to socially engaged art. Because the series is designed to shift and respond to the concerns of the program\u27s current students and faculty, mode, structure, and content are open-ended.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/reference_points/1010/thumbnail.jp

Kinetics and Free Energy of Ligand Dissociation Using Weighted Ensemble Milestoning

We consider the recently developed weighted ensemble milestoning (WEM) scheme [J. Chem. Phys. 152, 234114 (2020)], and test its capability of simulating ligand-receptor dissociation dynamics. We performed WEM simulations on the following host-guest systems: Na$^+$/Cl$^-$ ion pair and 4-hydroxy-2-butanone (BUT) ligand with FK506 binding protein (FKBP). As proof or principle, we show that the WEM formalism reproduces the Na$^+$/Cl$^-$ ion pair dissociation timescale and the free energy profile obtained from long conventional MD simulation. To increase accuracy of WEM calculations applied to kinetics and thermodynamics in protein-ligand binding, we introduced a modified WEM scheme called weighted ensemble milestoning with restraint release (WEM-RR), which can increase the number of starting points per milestone without adding additional computational cost. WEM-RR calculations obtained a ligand residence time and binding free energy in agreement with experimental and previous computational results. Moreover, using the milestoning framework, the binding time and rate constants, dissociation constant and the committor probabilities could also be calculated at a low computational cost. We also present an analytical approach for estimating the association rate constant ($k_{\text{on}}$) when binding is primarily diffusion driven. We show that the WEM method can efficiently calculate multiple experimental observables describing ligand-receptor binding/unbinding and is a promising candidate for computer-aided inhibitor design

The Fold Illusion: The Origins and Implications of Ogives on Silicic Lavas

Folds on the surfaces of mafic lavas are among the most readily recognized geological structures and are used as first-order criteria for identifying ancient lavas on Earth and other planetary bodies. However, the presence of surface-folds on the surface of silicic lavas is contested in this study and we challenge the widely accepted interpretation that silicic lava surfaces contain folds using examples from the western United States and Sardinia, Italy. We interpret the ridges and troughs on their upper surfaces, typically referred to as ‘ogives’ or ‘pressure ridges’, as fracture-bound structures rather than folds. We report on the absence of large-scale, buckle-style folds and note instead the ubiquitous presence of multiple generations and scales of tensile fractures comparable to crevasses in glaciers and formed in ways similar to already recognized crease structures. We report viscosity data and results of stress analyses that preclude folding (ductile deformation in compression) of the upper surface of silicic lavas at timescales of emplacement (weeks to months). Therefore, analysis of fold geometry (wavelength, amplitude, etc.) is erroneous, and instead the signal produced reflects the strength and thickness of the brittle upper surface stretching over a ductile interior. The presence of ogives on the surfaces of lavas on other planetary bodies may help to elucidate their rheological properties and crustal thicknesses, but relating to their tensile strength, not viscosity

Digital PCR methods improve detection sensitivity and measurement precision of low abundance mtDNA deletions

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations are a common cause of primary mitochondrial disorders, and have also been implicated in a broad collection of conditions, including aging, neurodegeneration, and cancer. Prevalent among these pathogenic variants are mtDNA deletions, which show a strong bias for the loss of sequence in the major arc between, but not including, the heavy and light strand origins of replication. Because individual mtDNA deletions can accumulate focally, occur with multiple mixed breakpoints, and in the presence of normal mtDNA sequences, methods that detect broad-spectrum mutations with enhanced sensitivity and limited costs have both research and clinical applications. In this study, we evaluated semi-quantitative and digital PCR-based methods of mtDNA deletion detection using double-stranded reference templates or biological samples. Our aim was to describe key experimental assay parameters that will enable the analysis of low levels or small differences in mtDNA deletion load during disease progression, with limited false-positive detection. We determined that the digital PCR method significantly improved mtDNA deletion detection sensitivity through absolute quantitation, improved precision and reduced assay standard error