Protecting Puget Sound: An Experiment in Regional Governance

The 1985 Puget Sound Water Quality Act set in motion an ambitious experiment in regional problem-solving: a comprehensive and coordinated approach to protecting Puget Sound from pollution and degradation. This Article summarizes the challenges of regional governance, reviews the background and implementation of the 1985 Act, and discusses some of the controversies and challenges associated with the effort to protect Puget Sound. Dedication: This Article is dedicated to my father, who raised me with a sense of place

Twentieth Century Organ Works as Pedagogical Devices: Using Select Compositions by Hermann Schroeder, Jean Langlais, and Daniel Pinkham as Teaching Tools for the Beginning Organ Student

Countless teaching methods, articles, and books have been written about organ pedagogy. But even with so many options from which to choose, a few of these have emerged as some of the most frequently used teaching materials for beginning organ students

Improving Contractor Safety Experience and Engagement

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Does the House Always Win? An Analysis of Barriers to Wealth Building and College Borrowing

The racial differences in student loan debt must be interpreted through a lens of wealth building inequality. Black individuals in particular are negatively affected by official and unofficial policies that create barriers to building wealth. Financial aid policies then exacerbate this inequality with an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) formula that protects the majority of family assets from being used as required educational contributions. Using the 2011-12 National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS:12) , we examined differences in student loan debt based on wealth building barriers (students’ access to banks, father’s education, and mother’s education). Our ANOVA models show cumulative loan debt is highest amongst students who experience barriers to wealth building (students who do not have bank accounts, students whose fathers have less than a Bachelor’s degree, and students whose mothers have less than a Bachelor’s degree) (p \u3c .05). In addition, a greater percentage of black students than white experience these wealth building barriers

The association between historical childhood sexual abuse and later parenting stress:a systematic review

An individual’s own experiences of childhood and being parented are likely to be key determinants of their later parenting experiences. Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is arguably the most toxic experience to occur in childhood and therefore may be particularly likely to impact on parenting stress in the context of parenting one’s own children. This paper aims to review studies investigating associations between earlier CSA and later parenting to determine the size and consistency of the effects, identify any mediators and moderators of the relationship, and assess the quality of the evidence base. PsycINFO, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Web of Science, PubMed and PILOTS were searched from date of inception until 4th March 2016 and 14 studies met the inclusion criteria. Seven studies indicated a degree of direct association between experiencing CSA and later parenting stress, two studies found no association and five studies suggest that other variables such as locus of control and current stressors may affect the relationship between CSA and parenting stress. Additionally, 10 studies suggest an indirect relationship between CSA and parenting stress through current level of depression. Results suggest the existence of a relationship between CSA and parenting stress though this association is mostly mediated by other variables, including depression and other stressors. Clearer definitions of CSA and use of validated questionnaires are essential to progress this field of research

Novel mechanisms of Atg16L1 recruitment in non-canonical autophagy

Autophagy is a well-studied catabolic process through which cytoplasmic components are targeted for lysosomal degradation by autophagosomes. A key step in this process is the recruitment, processing and lipidation of LC3 to autophagosomes. Recently it has become increasingly apparent that, through the unconventional use of some autophagy related proteins, LC3 can also become lipidated to distinct non-autophagosomal membranes of the endolysosomal system. This process is termed non-canonical autophagy and occurs independently of conventional autophagy initiation signals. Non-canonical autophagy usually occurs after macro endocytic engulfment events such as macropinocytosis, entosis and LC3 associated phagocytosis (LAP). Certain ionophores and lysosomotropic drugs, such as monensin, can also activate this process and promote LC3 lipidation to lysosomes. This project focuses on Atg16L1, an essential autophagy protein that directs the membrane site where LC3 is lipidated. Atg16L1 is relatively well characterised in autophagy but little is known about the mechanisms underlying its role in non-canonical autophagy. This project used a structure/function approach to assess the importance of different domains of Atg16L1 in the context of autophagy versus non-canonical autophagy. I have demonstrated for the first time, that the Atg16L1 C-terminal WD40 domain (CTD) is dispensable for its role in autophagy but essential for LC3 lipidation during non-canonical autophagy. Furthermore, single point mutants were uncovered in the CTD of Atg16L1 that likewise are dispensable for autophagy but fundamental to LC3 lipidation in non-canonical autophagy. These data provide a novel strategy for dissecting canonical and non-canonical autophagy pathways at a molecular level. This project used an existing mouse model with an Atg16L1 truncation (lacking the CTD and nearby residues) and implicated the lack of non canonical autophagy to a defect in MHCII antigen presentation. Furthermore this project has generated new refined Atg16L1 mutant models ablating non-canonical autophagy without affecting canonical autopahgy. In parallel, proteomic analysis was done to provide mechanistic insights into Atg16L1 binding partners in the context of non-canonical autophagy.BBSR

Synthesis of a Vocal Sound from the 3,000 year old Mummy, Nesyamun ‘True of Voice’

The sound of a 3,000 year old mummified individual has been accurately reproduced as a vowel-like sound based on measurements of the precise dimensions of his extant vocal tract following Computed Tomography (CT) scanning, enabling the creation of a 3-D printed vocal tract. By using the Vocal Tract Organ, which provides a user-controllable artificial larynx sound source, a vowel sound is synthesised which compares favourably with vowels of modern individuals

Longitudinal Modeling of Multiple Sclerosis using Continuous Time Models

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, it can lead to severe disability and has no known cure. The majority of prior work in machine learning for multiple sclerosis has been centered around using Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans or laboratory tests; these modalities are both expensive to acquire and can be unreliable. In a recent paper it was shown that disease progression can be predicted effectively using performance outcome measures (POMs) and demographic data. In our work we extend on this to focus on the modeling side, using continuous time models on POMs and demographic data to predict progression. We evaluate four continuous time models using a publicly available multiple sclerosis dataset. We find that continuous models are often able to outperform discrete time models. We also carry out an extensive ablation to discover the sources of performance gains, we find that standardizing existing features leads to a larger performance increase than interpolating missing features