Creating a Virtual Method to Examine Parents’ Impact on Spatial Problem-Solving

Virtual data collections have become increasingly popular in recent years because of their benefits to research. The goal of the study was to create a virtual data collection method to examine how parents teach their children to think spatially. Specifically, the long-term goal was to create a virtual method to observe how natural parental interactions can influence a child’s performance on a spatial task. To create the virtual method, we first explored how other researchers use virtual methods. Using already published methods as a starting point, through trial and error, we focused on creating a virtual method that is inclusive for all participants, easy and convenient for parents, and able to capture the essence of an interactive in-person study. The results of the study will be used to conduct virtual data collection in the coming years to enrich the understanding of parents’ influence on their children’s development while expanding the tools available for studying early development

Horsepower in the Civil War: Uses, Suffering, and Personal Relationships

“A dog may be man's best friend...but the horse wrote history. ” “The history of mankind is carried on the back of a horse. ” Both of those sayings are from unknown authors, but the statements embrace the substantial impact that horses have had on America to this day. Horses have been a major part of American history, whether their use was for transportation, companionship, war, recreational riding, or farming. When someone mentions America, the bald eagle and the American flag automatically come mind, but the often unrecognized and overlooked hero in American history is the horse. One of the most beautiful things to behold and experience is a horse running freely through a field. The ground trembling with every magnificent step of a creature so powerful yet so gentle, weighing over a thousand pounds, ever so gracefully puts down. The soft look in their eyes that seem to pierce merrily through the human soul, bringing awareness to every hope, dream, and fear. The horse has truly earned its place in American history and the hearts of people, young and old. People see the horse as an American icon because of the beauty, hope, grace, power, and freedom that they exhibited in war. However, some people believe that history cannot take into account the value of horses in war because of the fact that they could not express their feeling

Access and Integration: Perspectives of Disabled Students Living on Campus

Disabled students may face ableist challenges in the campus residential environment. Although campus housing plays a critical role in retention by promoting social integration, little is known about what promotes the engagement of disabled students in campus living environments because the literature about these students focuses on legal topics or accommodations. In this study, we wanted to understand how disabled students experienced living on campus and how the residential experience promoted social integration. We employed a critical constructivist case study approach, framing disability from a social justice perspective. Data for this study come from interviews with 24 students attending four highly residential liberal arts colleges. Students reported that the degree of accessibility, flexibility, use of accommodations, and staff disability awareness and responsiveness influenced their social integration and residential experience. Implications for practice include providing disability-specific staff training, tailoring accommodations to individual students, conceptualizing access broadly, using single rooms creatively, and viewing dining services as part of the housing experience even if the administrative locations are different

Alternative roles for Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteriocins

Bacteriocins are multi-protein assemblies that bear striking resemblance to bacteriophage (virus) tails. Bacteriocins are an extracellular contractile injection system that kill closely related bacteria by puncturing their cell membrane. Mounting evidence suggests that besides interbacterial competition, bacteriocins also mediate interactions between bacteria and diverse eukaryotic hosts by assembling extracellular hexagonal-bacteriocin arrays composed of numerous bacteriocin particles. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen that produces bacteriocins called R2 pyocins which lyse susceptible bacteria. Based on homology to other contractile injection systems, we hypothesize that P. aeruginosa produces bacteriocin arrays that modulate host responses during infection. We have developed a method to quantify R2 pyocins utilizing the lysis of susceptible strains of P. aeruginosa. We are currently applying this quantification method to optimize the production and purification of pyocins to test in host-pathogen models. We have also generated a fluorescently labelled R2 pyocin for the detection of bacteriocin arrays using fluorescence microscopy. These experiments are essential to enable future evaluation of the effect of R2 pyocins on host pathogen interactions

Neural correlates of explicit and implicit emotion processing in relation to treatment response in pediatric anxiety

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136676/1/jcpp12658_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136676/2/jcpp12658.pd

Impact of pubertal timing and depression on error‐related brain activity in anxious youth

Anxiety disorders are associated with enhanced error‐related negativity (ERN) across development but it remains unclear whether alterations in brain electrophysiology are linked to the timing of puberty. Pubertal timing and alterations of prefrontal and limbic development are implicated in risk for depression, but the interplay of these factors on the ERN–anxiety association has not been assessed. We examined the unique and interactive effects of pubertal timing and depression on the ERN in a sample of youth 10–19 years old with anxiety disorders (n = 30) or no history of psychopathology (n = 30). Earlier pubertal maturation was associated with an enhanced ERN. Among early, but not late maturing youth, higher depressive symptoms were associated with a reduced ERN. The magnitude of neural reactivity to errors is sensitive to anxiety, depression, and development. Early physical maturation and anxiety may heighten neural sensitivity to errors yet predict opposing effects in the context of depression.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146936/1/dev21763.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146936/2/dev21763_am.pd

Sticky Gecko Feet: The Role of Temperature and Humidity

Gecko adhesion is expected to be temperature insensitive over the range of temperatures typically experienced by geckos. Previous work is limited and equivocal on whether this expectation holds. We tested the temperature dependence of adhesion in Tokay and Day geckos and found that clinging ability at 12°C was nearly double the clinging ability at 32°C. However, rather than confirming a simple temperature effect, our data reveal a complex interaction between temperature and humidity that can drive differences in adhesion by as much as two-fold. Our findings have important implications for inferences about the mechanisms underlying the exceptional clinging capabilities of geckos, including whether performance of free-ranging animals is based solely on a dry adhesive model. An understanding of the relative contributions of van der Waals interactions and how humidity and temperature variation affects clinging capacities will be required to test hypotheses about the evolution of gecko toepads and is relevant to the design and manufacture of synthetic mimics