The Importance Of Math Fact Automaticity

The retention of math facts is a critical step when it comes to solving mathematical equations. The website I designed for my project addresses this topic. It focuses on giving students, teachers and parents the research, tips and resources they need to be successful. Research shows that automaticity with math facts can lessen the academic load of students and also be a predictor of future math success. Using strategies such as interleaving, engaging with manipulatives and learning mnemonic devices has been shown to positively affect one’s recall of basic facts. However, drilling and mindless repetition has a much more negative effect. I took this research and more and displayed it on a website, for my three different audiences to interact with and benefit from. The goal of my project is to give tangible support to students, teachers and parents as they play their role in the fact memorization process

Environmental arsenic exposure in humans : toxicity and adaptation in the Bolivian Andes

Arsenic, a potent toxicant and carcinogen, is naturally present in soil and leaches into groundwater. More than 140 million people worldwide are exposed to arsenic through drinking water. How well humans metabolize arsenic is a susceptibility factor for arsenic toxicity: individuals with a less efficient arsenic metabolism are at higher risk of arsenic-related health effects, such as cancer or cardiovascular disease. In fact, positive selection of a more efficient arsenic metabolism phenotype has been described in the Argentinean Andes, where indigenous populations have been presumably exposed to arsenic for centuries. However, whether this genetic adaptation to arsenic has occurred elsewhere in the Andes was not clear. The overall aim of this thesis was to assess the exposure, toxicity, and potential genetic adaptation to arsenic in the Bolivian Andes. For this, we recruited indigenous women from the Bolivian Andes living in 10 villages around Lake Poopó. In Paper I, we described that these Bolivian women were exposed to arsenic with varying arsenic concentrations in urine (range 12–407 μg/L, median 65 μg/L). The women had on average an efficient arsenic metabolism compared to other populations across the world. Ethnicity, body weight, fish consumption, and tobacco smoking were identified as influencing their capacity to metabolize arsenic. We then showed that these Bolivian women had molecular signs of arsenic toxicity by measuring four toxicity biomarkers in Paper II. Using multivariable-adjusted linear regression models, arsenic exposure was associated with longer telomeres and more copies of mitochondrial DNA in blood, two biomarkers for cancer risk, particularly in women with a less efficient arsenic metabolism. Urinary 4-hydroxy nonenal mercapturic acid, a metabolite of lipid peroxidation, was associated with increasing arsenic exposure. Urinary 8-oxo-2'- deoxyguanosine, a biomarker of oxidative DNA damage, showed discrepant results depending on the biomarker of exposure used: a positive association with urinary arsenic vs. a negative association with blood arsenic. In Paper III, we found four putative cancer-related proteins in urine that were associated with arsenic exposure in blood: tumor necrosis factor ligand superfamily member 6, FASLG; seizure 6-like protein, SEZ6L; Ly6/PLAUR domain-containing protein 3, LYPD3; and tissue factor pathway inhibitor 2, TFPI2. Other factors influencing the variation of these proteins in urine were identified, including urinary osmolality, leukocytes in urine, and age. By combining genotype-phenotype association analyses and genome-wide selection scans for positive selection in Paper IV, we identified genetic signatures of positive selection near AS3MT, the main arsenic methylating enzyme, in the indigenous Bolivian study group. These Bolivian communities have the highest frequency of protective AS3MT alleles associated with a more efficient arsenic metabolism described in the literature. In conclusion, indigenous communities living in the Bolivian Andes were exposed to environmental arsenic and were genetically adapted to methylate arsenic more efficiently at a population level. Despite their efficient arsenic metabolism on average, arsenic exposure was still associated with toxicity biomarkers and changes in urinary cancer-related proteins, stressing the need to tackle the public health concern of arsenic in the Ande

Gene Expression in Experimental Aortic Coarctation and Repair: Candidate Genes for Therapeutic Intervention?

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a constriction of the proximal descending thoracic aorta and is one of the most common congenital cardiovascular defects. Treatments for CoA improve life expectancy, but morbidity persists, particularly due to the development of chronic hypertension (HTN). Identifying the mechanisms of morbidity is difficult in humans due to confounding variables such as age at repair, follow-up duration, coarctation severity and concurrent anomalies. We previously developed an experimental model that replicates aortic pathology in humans with CoA without these confounding variables, and mimics correction at various times using dissolvable suture. Here we present the most comprehensive description of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) to date from the pathology of CoA, which were obtained using this model. Aortic samples (n=4/group) from the ascending aorta that experiences elevated blood pressure (BP) from induction of CoA, and restoration of normal BP after its correction, were analyzed by gene expression microarray, and enriched genes were converted to human orthologues. 51 DEGs with \u3e6 fold-change (FC) were used to determine enriched Gene Ontology terms, altered pathways, and association with National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headers (MeSH) IDs for HTN, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CoA. The results generated 18 pathways, 4 of which (cell cycle, immune system, hemostasis and metabolism) were shared with MeSH ID’s for HTN and CVD, and individual genes were associated with the CoA MeSH ID. A thorough literature search further uncovered association with contractile, cytoskeletal and regulatory proteins related to excitation-contraction coupling and metabolism that may explain the structural and functional changes observed in our experimental model, and ultimately help to unravel the mechanisms responsible for persistent morbidity after treatment for CoA

Developing a Partnership Mindset in Extension 4-H Programs

Partnering has become a growing strategy within the Minnesota Extension 4-H program to support a strong organizational commitment to reach all youth with opportunities to learn, lead, and contribute. A partnership approach requires recognizing the unique contexts in which youth live. Since not all communities are the same, adaptable partnership approaches are essential to developing programs that are responsive to diverse communities. These approaches require staff skills and perspectives that recognize how, with partnerships, we can do better together what each entity could not do alone. Staff with a partnership mindset help pave that pathway. To learn about what a partnership mindset entails and how organizations can support its development, the authors completed a literature review and collected survey data from 32 4-H staff who had successfully developed viable community partnerships to support youth programming in Minnesota, reaching new and typically underserved audiences. Merging youth development research with our survey results, we found that a partnership mindset included persistent effort, effective relationship skills, transparent communication methods, and adaptability. We also learned that organizations can support successful partnership building when they remain adaptable to the needs of varying community contexts and actively provide resources for staff

Comprehensive Parking Study of University and Raymond Avenues, St. Paul.

Prepared for the Midway Chamber of Commerce and St. Anthony Park Community Council. Sponsored by Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota

Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity by approximation

The Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of a module gives a rough measure of its complexity. We bound the regularity of a module given a system of approximating modules whose regularities are known. Such approximations can arise naturally for modules constructed by inductive combinatorial means. We apply these methods to bound the regularity of ideals constructed as combinations of linear ideals and the module of derivations of a hyperplane arrangement as well as to give degree bounds for invariants of finite groups.Comment: Sections 2 and 3 revised to incorporate changes in definitions and terminology.Typos corrected and references updated. 20 pages, AMS LaTe

Piecing It All Together: A Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of HOME Link.

Sponsored by Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota