Ujamaa and the Egalitarian Paradox: The Correlation between Socialism and Contemporary Public Service Disparities Among Villages in Rural Tanzania

HonorsInternational StudiesUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167883/1/hjsch.pd

The conceptualisation, practice and value of Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Education – an Educator’s Perspective

The thesis illustrates how entrepreneurship educators understand Design Thinking (conceptual understanding), how and on what level they apply it in their entrepreneurship teaching (educational practice) and why and for what perceived value they choose to do so (perceived value). By adopting a more critical and differentiated perspective on this integration than previously reported in the existing literature, this research study provides novel insights to the question of the conceptualization, practice and value of Design Thinking for Entrepreneurship Education – from an educator’s perspective. It follows an interpretive and qualitative approach, drawing upon semi-structured interviews from 29 entrepreneurship educators from Higher Education in the UK andNorthern Europe. Thus, the thesis demonstrates that entrepreneurship educators integrate Design Thinking in many ways and for different reasons.As a result, this thesis synthesises existing perspectives on Design Thinking (toolset, process, mindset) and defines a framework for the four forms (selective, idea-centric, procedural, holistic) of Design Thinking integration in the context of Entrepreneurship Education. The findings suggest that perceived values of Design Thinking could be explicit and implicit and that entrepreneurship educators integrate Design Thinking to provide value for their students’ learning but also to develop their own teaching practice. Overall, this study contributes to unfolding the Design Thinking concept and advocating a common ground among educators’ sense-making of a Design Thinking integration in Entrepreneurship Education. In conclusion, this study reaffirmed the wide application of Design Thinking within Entrepreneurship Education but presented the new centrality of the educator’s perspective at the core of the discussion on its utility and thus, moving towards convergence of a common understanding. The findings of this research would be of interest for entrepreneurshipeducators and entrepreneurship education researchers who seek a more profound and reflective integration of Design Thinking within Entrepreneurship Education

Mind Over Matter: A Qualitative Examination of the Coping Resources Used by Women with Cancer

Aim: This exploratory study investigates the coping resources used by six women diagnosed with cancer. Objective: The purpose of this study was to provide these women with the opportunity to discuss their cancer experiences along with the specific coping methods they found to be helpful throughout their journey. Methods: The participants, ranging in age from 25 to 63, completed a background questionnaire, followed by either a semi-structured interview (n=3) or an interview via written response (n=3). Results: Several key coping methods were described as being helpful to these women, and these methods fell into three major categories: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal coping resources. Although each of these resource categories had a direct influence on overall well-being itself, the interpersonal and extrapersonal resources also influenced the intrapersonal category, offering an alternate means by which they could influence overall well-being. These findings highlight the many coping resources used by these women when navigating their cancer journey

Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

A Means to what End? Evaluating the Explainability of Software Systems using Goal-Oriented Heuristics

Explainability is an emerging quality aspect of software systems. Explanations offer a solution approach for achieving a variety of quality goals, such as transparency and user satisfaction. Therefore, explainability should be considered a means to an end. The evaluation of quality aspects is essential for successful software development. Evaluating explainability allows an assessment of the quality of explanations and enables the comparison of different explanation variants. As the evaluation depends on what quality goals the explanations are supposed to achieve, evaluating explainability is non-trivial. To address this problem, we combine the already well-established method of expert evaluation with goal-oriented heuristics. Goal-oriented heuristics are heuristics that are grouped with respect to the goals that the explanations are meant to achieve. By establishing appropriate goal-oriented heuristics, software engineers are enabled to evaluate explanations and identify problems with affordable resources. To show that this way of evaluating explainability is suitable, we conducted an interactive user study, using a high-fidelity software prototype. The results suggest that the alignment of heuristics with specific goals can enable an effective assessment of explainability

Quantitative analysis of proteins facilitating fatty acid uptake: CD36, Caveolin-1, FATP4 and ACSL1

Fatty acids are essential for the cellular metabolism but their uptake has to be tightly regulated to prevent fatty acid associated diseases. Proteins that facilitate fatty acid uptake include CD36, FATP4, ACSL1 and Caveolin-1. CD36, FATP4 and ACSL1 increase oleate uptake upon overexpression. CD36 is an integral transmembrane glycoprotein that directly facilitates fatty acid uptake across the plasma membrane. The structural protein Caveolin-1 binds fatty acids and is discussed as potential interaction partner for CD36. The acyl-CoA synthetases FATP4 and ACSL1 are localized intracellularly and activate fatty acids by esterification with coenzyme A, thus driving fatty acid uptake indirectly by metabolic trapping. This study was designed to 1) quantify absolute protein amounts of CD36, FATP4 and ACSL1 proteins in overexpressing cell lines and calculate protein specific oleate uptake 2) test CD36, FATP4, ACSL1 and Caveolin-1 for cooperativity in facilitating fatty acid uptake. MDCK cells were chosen as an unspecialized and unbiased model system and overexpressing cells were generated by retroviral and adenoviral infection. Infection of MDCK cells with increasing amounts of CD36 or FATP4 adenovirus resulted in enhanced fatty acid uptake as measured by incubation with radiolabeled oleic acid for three hours. Protein amounts of CD36 and FATP4 were analyzed by western blotting and absolute protein quantities were calculated by correlation to a recombinant protein standard. Increases in fatty acid uptake correlated to rising protein amounts of CD36 and FATP4 in accordance with rising adenovirus quantities used for infection. Comparison of CD36 and FATP4 expression showed a significant difference in protein quantities whereas the difference in oleate uptake was much smaller: 13 ng CD36 protein increased oleate uptake by 20 % whereas 701 ng FATP4 protein resulted in 37 % enhancement. When CD36 and FATP4 were expressed at equal quantities, oleate uptake was still enhanced more by 10 ng CD36 protein as by 10 ng FATP4 protein (27 % versus 4 %, respectively), indicating that CD36 is more efficient in increasing fatty acid uptake than FATP4. The function of CD36 in fatty acid transport of MDCK cells was independent from Caveolin-1, as an 80 % knock down of Caveolin-1 did not alter CD36 dependent oleate uptake. Immunofluorescence analysis confirmed the localization of CD36 to the plasma membrane whereas FATP4 localized to the endoplasmic reticulum and ACSL1 was expressed at mitochondria.Co-expression of CD36 and FATP4 enhanced oleate uptake significantly more than calculated from single protein overexpression, resulting in an increase by 49 pmol oleate/μg total protein for co-expressing cells as compared to 10 pmol oleate/μg total protein for CD36 and 21 pmol oleate/μg total protein for FATP4 overexpressing cells. Oleate uptake was similarly increased in CD36 and ACSL1 co-expressing cells whereas FATP4 and ACSL1 together enhanced fatty acid uptake less than calculated from single protein overexpression: oleate uptake was increased by 30 pmol oleate/μg total protein in co-expressing cells as compared to 26 pmol oleate/μg total protein in FATP4 and 15 pmol oleate/μg total protein in ACSL1 cells. In conclusion, CD36, FATP1 and ACSL1 enhance fatty acid uptake by two different mechanisms: CD36 directly facilitates fatty acid transport across the plasma membrane whereas FATP4 and ACSL1 indirectly mediate fatty acid uptake by metabolic trapping of intracellular fatty acids. CD36 is expressed at significantly lower protein amounts than FATP4 but increases fatty acid uptake more than FATP4 when expressed at similar quantities. The two acyl-CoA synthetases FATP4 and ACSL1 target similar metabolic processes and therefore show no cooperativity in fatty acid uptake. As both enzyme act intracellularly, their impact on fatty acid uptake is limited by the transport rate of fatty acids across the plasma membrane. CD36 cooperates with FATP4 and ACSL1 in enhancing oleate uptake, probably due to an efficient combination of facilitated fatty acid transport across the plasma membrane by CD36 followed by immediate intracellular fatty acid activation by FATP4 and ACSL1