God of the Cheese Wheel

The cheese shop on Shattuck is famous. It boasts the largest selection of cheeses foreign and domestic in Northern California, and is known to give an almost unlimited number of free samples. Most of the employees—called cheese consultants—are retired chefs now spending their golden years guiding the faithful to the best pairings for a plum tart or a dry champagne. On the afternoon I finally enter the shop, after years upon lustful years of walking past, I have three dollars in my wallet. My student loan payment is overdue again, and I’m praying HR won’t audit my time card. But as I stand in the doorway, the glass counter seems to gleam with particular insistence. Underneath, bright stacks of wheels and rounds—Bries and Montasios and Jarlsburgs, Munsters upon Asiagos upon Camemberts—form an altar of aromatic temptation. Surely I can go in, sample one cheese, and leave. Surely this is possible. I cross the threshold

Orientation: Meeting the needs of students

Orientation is defined as an adjustment or adaptation to a new environment, situation, custom, or set of ideas. It is also defined as introductory instruction concerning a new situation. These definitions aptly apply to college orientation purposes and goals; however, the process of orientation has gone far beyond this in its scope and usage in the modern college setting. The first orientation course on record was at Boston University in 1888 while the first known course offered for credit was established at Reed College in 1911. Orientation programs have grown steadily in depth and scope since that time. The creators of these early programs faced many issues that are still relevant in planning programs. These concerns center around the purposes, goals, and content of the program as well as the social and academic support of the student

Predictors of Physical Activity Among Persons With Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic neurological disease whose prevalence within the world\u27s population is increasing. Symptoms of this disease are fatigue, loss of coordination, numbness and tingling, paralysis, and blindness. Currently there is no cure for the disease and, with its disabling variety and severity of symptoms, it is important to look for possibilities that could help slow its progression. Physical activity is one health behavior that promises to slow the progression of the MS among persons afflicted with this disease. Research has revealed that an exercise program improves several measures of well-being, reduces fatigue, and improves strength. While physical activity has been suggested as a management tool, those with MS demonstrate lower levels of physical activity compared to those without MS in the U.S. population. This thesis investigates what influences individuals with MS to participate in physical activity. Its purpose is to look into the possibility that demographic, social hierarchy, social support, and psycho-social/personality characteristics may help predict physical activity regimens among persons with MS. Isolating the determinants of voluntary exercise in the MS subpopulation would enable clinicians and the public health community to develop effective policies and interventions that promote physical activity

HOW MARGINALIZED STUDENTS FIND THEMSELVES INCLUDED IN SYLLABI: AN INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

This dissertation presents the first known Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) investigation of how marginalized students are included in syllabi. This study fills a gap in the literature due to the changing demographic of college students, the absence of faculty who share these marginalized identities, the syllabus being the first point of contact with students, and syllabi studies not including student voices. There were two research questions: how do marginalized students understand themselves as included in syllabi? and, how do marginalized students make meaning of their experiences with syllabi through their intersecting identities? This study used IPA to analyze each participant\u27s syllabus experience. A purposeful homogenous sampling yielded seven marginalized third- and fourth-year undergraduate students from four Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern universities. Individual semi-structured recorded interviews that lasted between 51–128 minutes collected the data. After data analysis, member-checking confirmed the researcher\u27s interpretations. Five themes emerged through the analysis: Expressing feelings from syllabi policies; Centering identities in course materials; The link between syllabus, faculty, and course; Creating equitable partnerships; and Providing solutions for identities. The participants understood themselves as not included in syllabi policies and course materials. They found policies had a punitive nature, lack of flexibility, and did not include their identities. There were negative and positive effects on their well-being, and they provided a link between the syllabus and syllabus day. Through their experiences, they offered ideas and solutions to help them feel inclusion not only for themselves but for other marginalized identities. This study contributes to the field by providing insight into the experiences of marginalized students and syllabi. Based on this study, there is work that must be done by faculty, administration, faculty developers, accessibility and disability services offices to implement inclusive pedagogy and universal design for learning (UDL) in all courses. Further studies can add to this study, examine the change with the incorporation of inclusive pedagogy and UDL, syllabus day, faculty resistance to change, and syllabi policy reform

Pupillometric analysis for assessment of gene therapy in Leber Congenital Amaurosis patients

Background: Objective techniques to assess the amelioration of vision in patients with impaired visual function are needed to standardize efficacy assessment in gene therapy trials for ocular diseases. Pupillometry has been investigated in several diseases in order to provide objective information about the visual reflex pathway and has been adopted to quantify visual impairment in patients with Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA). In this paper, we describe detailed methods of pupillometric analysis and a case study on three Italian patients affected by Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) involved in a gene therapy clinical trial at two follow-up time-points: 1 year and 3 years after therapy administration. Methods: Pupillary light reflexes (PLR) were measured in patients who had received a unilateral subretinal injection in a clinical gene therapy trial. Pupil images were recorded simultaneously in both eyes with a commercial pupillometer and related software. A program was generated with MATLAB software in order to enable enhanced pupil detection with revision of the acquired images (correcting aberrations due to the inability of these severely visually impaired patients to fixate), and computation of the pupillometric parameters for each stimulus. Pupil detection was performed through Hough Transform and a non-parametric paired statistical test was adopted for comparison. Results: The developed program provided correct pupil detection also for frames in which the pupil is not totally visible. Moreover, it provided an automatic computation of the pupillometric parameters for each stimulus and enabled semi-automatic revision of computerized detection, eliminating the need for the user to manually check frame by frame. With reference to the case study, the amplitude of pupillary constriction and the constriction velocity were increased in the right (treated eye) compared to the left (untreated) eye at both follow-up time-points, showing stability of the improved PLR in the treated eye. Conclusions: Our method streamlined the pupillometric analyses and allowed rapid statistical analysis of a range of parameters associated with PLR. The results confirm that pupillometry is a useful objective measure for the assessment of therapeutic effect of gene therapy in patients with LCA

Empowering Teachers, Empowering Leadership: A Multisite Case Study of School Restructuring and Accountability for Student Achievement

Accountability is the watchword of the 1990s, particularly in education. In exchange for greater flexibility and autonomy, schools have been asked to assume greater accountability for student outcomes. Implicit in this shift of authority and responsibility is the belief that changing the locus of control will result in changes in student achievement. Decentralizing accountability thus has multiple implications for the teaching and learning process, governance and decision making, and school site leadership. In 1993, San Diego City Schools adopted a student achievement accountability policy and initiated a demonstration program to develop an accountability system model for the district. This ethnographically-oriented case study investigated three of these pilot schools through interviews with teachers and site administrators, site observations, and document review. The purpose was to explore issues, challenges, and successes involved in school reform around student achievement accountability; identify what kinds of governance and leadership were most embraced by the teachers and administrators; look into school accountability cultures; and discuss implications for educational policymakers and practitioners. The study found that implementation of the accountability policy occurred uniquely in each context in interaction with school culture and collective experience. At all three schools, however, focusing on standards and developing related assessments engaged teachers in substantive conversations about student performance, and teaching and learning, which began to influence instructional practices. These schools embraced participatory governance structures that empowered teachers to engage in and influence decision making, and school site leadership began to evolve into a communal endeavor shared among teachers and administrators. The intersection of student achievement accountability, school restructuring, and school site leadership has significant implications for educators. The study presents the following recommendations to educational policymakers and practitioners: (a) encourage and sustain site autonomy and accountability by building capacity for meaningful, participatory school site decision making; (b) invest heavily in ongoing, systematic professional and organizational development; (c) promote entrepreneurial mindsets grounded in sound educational practice, and consider reform efforts as research and development opportunities; and (d) reconceptualize and develop leadership as an empowering, relational process

Research Note: The Coverage of War: Do Women Matter? A Longitudinal Content Analysis of Broadsheets in Germany

Our social consciousness reserves the role of fighter solely for men. Women are not considered as being authoritative or decisive actors in the context of war and violence. During armed conflicts or other violent crises, female acting subjects seem to leave the public (i.e. media) stage – a place where they are underrepresented even under normal circumstances. Furthermore, media coverage of war, it is said, largely assigns the role of the victim to women. However, there is not much empirical evidence to support this view due to the significant lack of longitudinal quantitative studies on media coverage of women during wartime. In order to investigate this, a framing analysis of media coverage of war between 1989 and 2000 was conducted in Germany. This article reports on the results of this framing analysis and the representation of women during wartime in quality German newspapers. It is the first longitudinal gender-specific framing analysis of war coverage ever carried out in any country

Single photon quantum cryptography

We report the full implementation of a quantum cryptography protocol using a stream of single photon pulses generated by a stable and efficient source operating at room temperature. The single photon pulses are emitted on demand by a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in a diamond nanocrystal. The quantum bit error rate is less that 4.6% and the secure bit rate is 9500 bits/s. The overall performances of our system reaches a domain where single photons have a measurable advantage over an equivalent system based on attenuated light pulses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Persistent organic pollutant burden, experimental POP exposure and tissue properties affect metabolic profiles of blubber from grey seal pups

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic, ubiquitous, resist breakdown, bioaccumulate in living tissue and biomagnify in food webs. POPs can also alter energy balance in humans and wildlife. Marine mammals experience high POP concentrations, but consequences for their tissue metabolic characteristics are unknown. We used blubber explants from wild, grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) pups to examine impacts of intrinsic tissue POP burden and acute experimental POP exposure on adipose metabolic characteristics. Glucose use, lactate production and lipolytic rate differed between matched inner and outer blubber explants from the same individuals and between feeding and natural fasting. Glucose use decreased with blubber dioxin-like PCBs (DL-PCB) and increased with acute experimental POP exposure. Lactate production increased with DL-PCBs during feeding, but decreased with DL-PCBs during fasting. Lipolytic rate increased with blubber dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolites (DDX) in fasting animals, but declined with DDX when animals were feeding. Our data show that POP burdens are high enough in seal pups to alter adipose function early in life, when fat deposition and mobilisation are vital. Such POP-induced alterations to adipose glucose use may significantly alter energy balance regulation in marine top predators with the potential for long term impacts on fitness and survival