Rebuilding of the Temple and Renewal of Hope: Leadership Lessons from Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah

The past three decades have been witness to a nascent but compelling body of literature on lessons in leadership for business derived from biblical narratives. The aim of this paper is to advance that effort. Specifically, this study considers the leadership of Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, who built the Second Temple on the ruins of the First. When he arrived in Judah from Babylonia, the walls of Jerusalem were breached and the entire country was filled with people hostile to constructing the Temple. One of the mysteries of the Bible is the disappearance of Zerubbabel from the biblical record. This paper discusses mistakes made by Zerubbabel as a leader, how Ezra and Nehemiah rectified these errors, and demonstrates what leaders of today can learn from the issues involved in the construction of the Second Temple

Multistrain HIV-1 Elimination: A CRISPR-Cas9 and Theranostics-based Approach

A critical barrier to achieving a functional cure for infection by human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1) rests in the presence of latent proviral DNA integrated in the nuclei of host CD4+ T cells and mononuclear phagocytes. Accordingly, HIV-1-infected patients must adhere to lifelong regimens of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to prevent viral rebound, CD4+ T cell decline, and progression to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Gene editing using clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas9 technology stands as one means to inactivate integrated proviral DNA. We devised a mosaic gRNA CRISPR-Cas9 system- TatDE- that targets viral transcriptional regulator genes tat / rev, while also accounting for clinical HIV-1 sequence diversity. TatDE effectively reduced viral replication in all 7 HIV-1 strains tested by an average of 82%, and attenuated latency reversal in HIV-1-infected ACH2 T cells by 94%. In establishing the TatDE system, we identify a positive association between CRISPR target conservation and antiviral efficacy. Moreover, TatDE’s simultaneous cleavage of 5 HIV-1 exons (tat1-2 / rev1-2 / and gp41) suggest that exonic disruption may be a guiding principal in designing CRISPR for HIV-1 elimination. Limitations to utilizing an alternate vector, recombinant adeno-associated virus 9 (rAAV9), for HIV-1 removal are experimentally addressed. Preliminary data exploring the design of virus-like particles and nanoparticles for CRISPR-Cas9 delivery are presented. To guide the development of curative nanoparticles for HIV-1 infection, europium sulfide (EuS) theranostic nanoprobes were devised. EuS aided in the identification of dynamin-mediated endocytosis as a mechanism for particle uptake in CD4+ T cells and macrophages. Additionally, EuS facilitated the non-invasive characterization of nanoformulation biodistribution using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT-CT). Thus, advances in the arenas of molecular biology, theranostics, and material science coalesce in providing a pathway towards HIV-1 elimination

Rebuilding of the Temple and Renewal of Hope: Leadership Lessons from Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah

The past three decades have been witness to a nascent but compelling body of literature on lessons in leadership for business derived from biblical narratives. The aim of this paper is to advance that effort. Specifically, this study considers the leadership of Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, who built the Second Temple on the ruins of the First. When he arrived in Judah from Babylonia, the walls of Jerusalem were breached and the entire country was filled with people hostile to constructing the Temple. One of the mysteries of the Bible is the disappearance of Zerubbabel from the biblical record. This paper discusses mistakes made by Zerubbabel as a leader, how Ezra and Nehemiah rectified these errors, and demonstrates what leaders of today can learn from the issues involved in the construction of the Second Temple

Oferenda

Oferend

Linguistic Limbo: Writing and Rewriting in Hebrew and Yiddish

This dissertation offers new modes of understanding Hebrew-Yiddish literary bilingualism by redefining ‘where’, ‘by whom’ and, most importantly, ‘how’ Jewish bilingualism was created. Focusing on three writers who wrote extensively in both Yiddish and Hebrew—Hirsch Dovid Nomberg, Aharon Reuveni, and Zalman Shneour—this project offers an account of bilingual writing in an age of monolingualization, expanding the gallery of bilingual writers, the modalities of Jewish bilingualism and its temporality. In the inclusion of these diverse bilingual practices this dissertation focuses on translation and self-translation as central practices in the ongoing production of Hebrew-Yiddish literature. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of Zionism, the two World Wars, the dismantling of Jewish communities across Europe, and the rapid spread of secularism. My work uncovers the changing bilingualism of these times, in comparing prose by three relatively marginalized writers who shared a proclivity for writing in both Hebrew and Yiddish, but who diverged in terms of geographic location, ideology, and poetics. Each chapter is devoted to a writer and a major work of prose: Eretz yisroel eindruken un bilder (The Land of Israel – Impressions and Pictures) by Nomberg, Ad Yerushalayim (To Jerusalem) by Reuveni and Shklover yidn/Anshe Shklov (The Jews/People of Shklov) by Shneour. Each chapter delineates the bilingual aspects of the work and contextualizes it within the oeuvre of that writer. These three writers worked against cultural trends, changing their bilingual poetics, covertly and overtly, to offer a complex vision of literature as more translingual, innovative, and more malleable than monolingualism allowed. My dissertation argues that these bilingualisms lasted much longer than previous scholarship has contended, not ending around the fin de siècle as previously thought, but rather decades later, if at all. In this expansion, I find that these texts, despite their variety of form, share the use of bilingualism as a self-conscious theme and not only as an invisible method of composition. Thus, my research pushes back against the notion of the death of bilingualism. The fact that the ideological pressures to conform to a regime of monolingualism were so strong enabled hidden forms of bilingualism to develop, with each writer modifying his poetics idiosyncratically. Thus, the unique cultural circumstances of Jewish modernity recreated bilingual writing.PHDNear Eastern StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150018/1/yaakovh_1.pd

POWER UP: A Persuasive Writing Strategy for Secondary Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

In the area of written expression, students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) typically perform one to two grades below their same age, non-disabled peers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on writing interventions to improve these outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a persuasive writing strategy called POWER UP to improve the quality of persuasive essays for secondary students with EBD. The results suggest that a mnemonic strategy based on the Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model (SRSD) can improve the quality of persuasive writing essays for secondary students with EBD

Utilizing risk-controlling prediction calibration to reduce false alarm rates in epileptic seizure prediction

IntroductionEpilepsy is a neurological disease characterized by sudden, unprovoked seizures. The unexpected nature of epileptic seizures is a major component of the disease burden. Predicting seizure onset and alarming patients may allow timely intervention, which would improve clinical outcomes and patient quality of life. Currently, algorithms aiming to predict seizures suffer from a high false alarm rate, rendering them unsuitable for clinical use.MethodsWe adopted here a risk-controllingprediction calibration method called Learn then Test to reduce false alarm rates of seizure prediction. This method calibrates the output of a “black-box” model to meet a specified false alarm rate requirement. The method was initially validated on synthetic data and subsequently tested on publicly available electroencephalogram (EEG) records from 15 patients with epilepsy by calibrating the outputs of a deep learning model.Results and discussionValidation showed that the calibration method rigorously controlled the false alarm rate at a user-desired level after our adaptation. Real data testing showed an average of 92% reduction in the false alarm rate, at the cost of missing four of nine seizures of six patients. Better-performing prediction models combined with the proposed method may facilitate the clinical use of real-time seizure prediction systems

Development of in-vessel reflood instrumentation at ORNL. [PWR]

A program under the sponsorship of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission was intiated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in late 1977. The program, Advanced Instrumentation for Reflood Studies (AIRS), is charged with developing instrumentation for measurement of in-vessel fluid phenomena in pressurized water reactor reflood facilities. The goal of the ORNL program is to develop techniques and systems for measuring fluid flow in-core, deentrainment in the upper plenum and liquid fallback from the upper plenum into the core. A large portion of the development at ORNL is devoted to the impedance probes for measurement of two-phase flow velocities and void fractions. Film probe development at ORNL is limited to adapting the present techniques to the environment of a reflood facility. As the development progresses on all the measurement techniques, ORNL will fabricate and supply instrument systems to the reflood facilities included in the 2D/3D Program

Detection of lung carcinoma arising from ground glass opacities (GGO) after 5 years - A retrospective review

Pure ground glass opacities (GGO) may indicate pre-invasive subtypes of lung carcinoma. These neoplasms typically demonstrate indolent patterns of growth; Fleischner Society guidelines recommend up to five years of serial imaging. Our aim was to determine the frequency of diagnosed carcinoma arising from GGO detected beyond 5 years of surveillance. We reviewed pathologic diagnoses of lung carcinoma (n = 442) between 2016 and 2018 of a tertiary academic hospital and National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center to identify all cancers that arose from ground glass opacities detected on CT scan. Of the 442 cases of lung carcinoma, 32 (7%) were found that arose from pure GGOs and were ultimately diagnosed as cancer. Among the subgroup of GGOs, 78% (n = 25) were diagnosed within five years of surveillance, but up to 22% (n = 7) required between five and twelve years of serial follow up prior to definitive diagnosis. In order to detect 95% of cancers, GGOs would need to be followed for 7.9–12.7 years based upon a Kaplan-Meier estimate (p = 0.05). No patients who had lung carcinoma arising from GGOs died (0/32) within a follow-up time of one to three years. These data suggest that a greater number of lung carcinomas would be detected upon routine follow up of GGOs that extended beyond the current recommendation of five years. The overall survival of the cohort was 100%, consistent with existing data that these cancers are indolent. It is unknown whether a higher detection rate from longer interval follow up would impact overall survival

RuBisCO-Inspired CO2 Activation and Transformation by an Iridium(I) Complex

The synthesis of a new iridium(I) complex containing an enamido phosphine anion (dbuP(-)) and its unique reactivity with CO2 is reported. The complex binds two equivalents of CO2 and initiates a highly selective reaction cascade. The reaction leads to the reversible cleavage of CO2 and the enamido ligand as well. Computational analysis points to the existence of a relatively stable Ir-CO2 complex as a reaction intermediate prior to CO2 cleavage, which was confirmed experimentally. The observed transformation resembles several aspects of enzymatic CO2 fixation by RuBisCO