Portable Fluorescence Illuminator

This Final Design Review (FDR) document outlines the senior design project implemented by a team of three mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for a professor in the biochemistry and chemistry department, Dr. Javin Oza. The project involved designing and manufacturing a portable ultraviolet fluorescence illuminator that will indicate the fluorescent glow of biomaterials for viewing purposes. The goal was to create a portable product out of recyclable material that can be used in field applications and increase accessibility to affordable science equipment. The initial sponsor and user interviews, technical background research, product research, and project objectives develop the specific requirements for the portable fluorescence illuminator in conjunction with the sponsor’s requirements and define the project’s outcome goals. The concept design demonstrates the results of the concept ideation process and indicates the design direction of the team. The final design of the illuminator details all of the features and parts incorporated into the device and how it meets Dr. Oza’s specifications. The manufacturing plan outlines the materials, manufacturing operations, and assembly necessary to make the device. The design verification plan describes the various engineering tests that will be used to verify the illuminator meets the sponsor’s specifications. The included project timeline contains all major milestones that were met over the duration of the project. The final conclusion includes reflections on the project and recommendations for the uses and future applications of the product

Postmodern Influence in Family Therapy Research: Reflections of Graduate Students

Postmodernism has influenced family therapy in significant ways, from clinical work to family therapy research. Little has been written, however, on how to conduct postmodern research in a manner reflecting marriage and family therapy inquiries. The present study seeks to investigate doctoral students understanding of postmodern family therapy research. Using collaborative language theory and collaborative inquiry, students participated in a dialogue to answer several questions: a) what is postmodernism, b) what is postmodern research, c) what does postmodern research look like, and d) what does this mean for the field of marriage and family therapy. Students indicated that postmodern research is characterized by its flexibility in methods, translates into a new way of conducting research, and creates a natural bridge between family therapy researchers and clinicians

Social and Leisure Participation by People with Dementia: A Caregiver Resource Guide

The purpose of this caregiver education intervention is to increase caregiver self-efficacy and effectiveness in increasing social participation and quality of life for those they are caring for as well as decreasing caregiver stress and burnout associated with providing care for those diagnosed with Alzheimer\u27s. The guide will include education and resources for these caregivers detailing safety precautions, strategies to reduce difficult behaviors impacting social and leisure engagement, and resources to decrease caregiver burden.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesspring2024/1029/thumbnail.jp

Luxury Textiles in Italy, the Low Countries and Neighbouring Territories (Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries): A Conceptual Investigation

This book chapter is not available through ChesterRepThroughout human history luxury textiles have been used as a marker of importance, power and distinction. Yet, as the essays in this collection make clear, the term ‘luxury’ is one that can be fraught with difficulties for historians. Focusing upon the consumption, commercialisation and production of luxury textiles in Italy and the Low Countries during the late medieval and early modern period, this volume offers a fascinating exploration of the varied and subtle ways that luxury could be interpreted and understood in the past. Beginning with the consumption of luxury textiles, it takes the reader on a journey back from the market place, to the commercialisation of rich fabrics by an international network of traders, before arriving at the workshop to explore the Italian and Burgundian world of production of damasks, silks and tapestries. The first part of the volume deals with the consumption of luxury textiles, through an investigation of courtly purchases, as well as urban and clerical markets, before the chapters in part two move on to explore the commercialisation of luxury textiles by merchants who facilitated their trade from the cities of Lucca, Florence and Venice. The third part then focusses upon manufacture, encouraging consideration of the concept of luxury during this period through the Italian silk industry and the production of high-quality woollens in the Low Countries. Graeme Small draws the various themes of the volume together in a conclusion that suggests profitable future avenues of research into this important subject

Genetic analysis and prevalence studies of the brp exopolysaccharide locus of Vibrio vulnificus

Phase variation in the Gram-negative human pathogen Vibrio vulnificus involves three colonial morphotypes- smooth opaque colonies due to production of capsular polysaccharide (CPS), smooth translucent colonies as the result of little or no CPS expression, and rugose colonies due to production of a separate extracellular polysaccharide (EPS), which greatly enhances biofilm formation. Previously, it was shown that the brp locus, which consists of nine genes arranged as an operon, is up-regulated in rugose strains in a c-di-GMP-dependent manner, and that plasmid insertions into the locus resulted in loss of rugosity and efficient biofilm production. Here, we have used non-polar mutagenesis to assess the involvement of individual brp genes in production of EPS and related phenotypes. Inactivation of genes predicted to be involved in various stages of EPS biosynthesis eliminated both the rugose colonial appearance and production of EPS, while knockout of a predicted flippase function involved in EPS transport resulted in a dry, lightly striated phenotype, which was associated with a reduction of brp-encoded EPS on the cell surface. All brp mutants retained the reduced motility characteristic of rugose strains. Lastly, we provide evidence that the brp locus is highly prevalent among strains of V. vulnificus. © 2014 Garrison-Schilling et al

From Possibility to Action: An Interdisciplinary Action-Learning School dealing with Waste

For more than a decade, researchers and activists have collaborated in the Simeto Valley for the advancement of development inspired by social solidarity and the need of reconnecting people to the local ecosystem. Over time, this experiment has progressively turned into an interdisciplinary action research partnership that involves now mainly planners and anthropologists. One of the activities carried out in the Valley is an action-learning Summer School organized by the University of Memphis in partnership with the University of Massachussets, Boston and the University of Catania. The work of this partnership lies between planning and anthropology and has generated an interdisciplinary space and a shared methodology of action-learning. This methodology is neither exclusively inductive nor used as a basis for deduction, but modified in the course of collective action. This paper describes the theoretical and pedagogical principles underlying CoPED and draws on its 2017 edition, which focused on Zero Waste, to show how it provides a platform for theory-in-action

Establishing Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology host.

Microalgae constitute a diverse group of eukaryotic unicellular organisms that are of interest for pure and applied research. Owing to their natural synthesis of value-added natural products microalgae are emerging as a source of sustainable chemical compounds, proteins and metabolites, including but not limited to those that could replace compounds currently made from fossil fuels. For the model microalga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, this has prompted a period of rapid development so that this organism is poised for exploitation as an industrial biotechnology platform. The question now is how best to achieve this? Highly advanced industrial biotechnology systems using bacteria and yeasts were established in a classical metabolic engineering manner over several decades. However, the advent of advanced molecular tools and the rise of synthetic biology provide an opportunity to expedite the development of C. reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology platform, avoiding the process of incremental improvement. In this review we describe the current status of genetic manipulation of C. reinhardtii for metabolic engineering. We then introduce several concepts that underpin synthetic biology, and show how generic parts are identified and used in a standard manner to achieve predictable outputs. Based on this we suggest that the development of C. reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology platform can be achieved more efficiently through adoption of a synthetic biology approach.M.A.S and J.R were funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grant BB/I00680X/1, M.A.S was also funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7) project SPLASH (Sustainable PoLymers from Algae Sugars and Hydrocarbons), grant agreement number 311956. G.T.D.T.N was funded in part by Murray Edwards College and the Cambridge Philosophical Society. D.L. was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and K.E.H was funded by BBSRC grant BB/I013164/1.This paper was originally published in The Plant Journal (Scaife MA, Nguyen GTDT, Rico J, Lambert D, Helliwell KE, Smith AG, The Plant Journal 2015, doi:10.1111/tpj.12781)