Evelyn Underhill\u27s concept of mysticism and its relation to common misrepresentations

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/2096/thumbnail.jp

Examining Early Childhood Gender Socialization Through Children’s Picture Books

This analysis examines gender representations found in children’s picture books through a symbolic interactionist perspective, employing conceptual ideas produced by West and Zimmerman (1987) and West and Fenstermaker 1995). Through a qualitative content analysis of 20 picture books from the past 15 years, I examine how gender is portrayed through both human and animal characters. I find that children’s picture books reflect our patriarchal society as they are male-centered, male-dominated, and male-identified (Johnson 2014). Children’s picture books depict patriarchal gender portrayals and provide children with examples of gender performances that satisfy patriarchal gender norms. This research has implications beyond books; it reflects the damaging and limiting cultural representations of gender that children learn at very young ages

True Confessions From a Wannabee Heel

True Confessions from a Wannabe Heel is a collection composed of memoir -themed personal essays in lyrical and mosaic styles touching on the themes of violence, wrestling, sexuality, love, mental health, and the significance of home. The essays are representative of my experiences growing up in an unstable home and how the effects of growing up in that environment shaped how I view the world around me. There are essays reflecting on how we perceive violence in the world, and how that violence has become more widely accepted, and how the line that we draw for what is acceptable seems to move with each trauma. The collection also explores the dynamics of marriage, the burdens we carry for those that we love, and the power of storytelling through a controlled lens, a theme highlighted by the strong focus on different wrestling storylines

The Effects of Providing Social and Nutritional Enrichment to Dairy Calves on Development, Behavior and Learning

The objective of this study was to measure the effects of both a nutritional (water nipple) and social (partner calf) enrichment on calf body weight, grain intake, water intake, behavior and learning. The enrichments included 1) water provided from a nipple vs. a bucket (nutritional) and 2) visual and tactile access to a partner vs. isolated rearing with no visual or tactile access to a partner calf (social). A total of 72 Holstein and Jersey dairy calves were pseudo-randomly distributed into 4 treatments at birth [Individual/Bucket (IB), Paired/Bucket (PB), Individual/Nipple (IN), Paired/Nipple (PN)]. Socially and nutritionally enriched calves drank more water than non-enriched calves (Social: 5.02 ± 0.27 kg/d vs 3.723 ± 0.27 kg/d respectively; P = 0.0009; Nutritional: 4.93 ± 0.27 kg/d vs. 3.81 ± 0.26 kg/d respectively; P = 0.004). No difference in daily grain intake was found between individual or pair reared calves except during wk 8 (1.31 ± 0.07 kg/d vs 1.60 ± 0.07 respectively kg/d; P= 0.04). There were no differences in average body weight among treatments (P \u3e 0.20). Pre-milk delivery, calves reared on a water bucket spent more time standing (P= 0.03) and when paired, less time non-nutritively suckling compared to water nipple reared calves (P = 0.05). Grooming time was highest during period 2 (wk 3, 4, 5; P = 0.01)) pre-milk delivery. Post-milk delivery, calves reared on a water bucket spent more time drinking milk (7.13 ± 0.40 vs 5.37 ± 0.39 min; P = 0.005)and grooming (P= 0.05), and less time drinking water (P \u3c 0.001)and lying (6.17 ± 1.02 vs 9.19 ± 0.97 min, respectively; P= 0.04)than water nipple reared calves. Water nipple calves when paired exhbited longer drinking times (P = 0.04)..The most notable behavior was cross suckling post-milk delivery, as the weeks progressed water bucket reared calves increased time spent cross-suckling while water nipple calves maintained the amount of time spent cross-suckling. At wk 8 a subset of 24 calves (6 from each treatment) were trained over 14-d period to differentiate between an “X” and “O” cue to receive a milk reward (visual discrimination task). Learning (% correct choices) was compared using a Wilcoxon-signed rank test. Calves individually reared had greater overall correct choices than pair reared calves (0.63 ± 0.02 % correct/total choices vs 0.57 ± 0.02 % correct/total choices respectively: P = 0.05), while calves reared with a nutritional enrichment (water nipple) had greater overall correct choices compared to water bucket reared calves (0.64 ± 0.02 % vs 0.56 ± 0.02 %, P = 0.02). These results indicate that social and nutritional enrichments positively influence calf cognitive performance, water intake, and lying, cross-sucking, grooming behaviors

A Media Content Analysis of the NCAA: In-Game Advertising during the Men's College World Series

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is charged with keeping college sport amateur yet required to make millions of dollars for the member institutions. This dichotomy deals with conflicting institutional logics in college sport: education versus commercialism. The purpose of this study was twofold, first to examine the television coverage provided during the NCAA Men's College World Series (CWS) exploring the non-programmatic messaging taking place in the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) broadcasts. Second, to determine which institutional logic (NCAA [educational mission] vs. ESPN [corporate broadcasting mission]) was reflective in the non-programmatic content within the CWS broadcasts. A sample of the 2009 CWS ESPN broadcasts (N=5) was utilized. Consistent with content analysis guidelines and to ensure intercoder reliability, two trained coders viewed the games and recorded non-programmatic messages. The results determined the dominant institutional logic (ESPN [Corporate Broadcasting mission]) emerged in the CWS broadcasts

Bolivian Public Health Care: Interculturation for Indigenous Rights

This thesis is concerned with Bolivian public health care, specifically how interculturation plays a part in bringing indigenous rights and representation. By examining indigenous traditional healing and Western medicine, this thesis attempts to answer the question of: is the role of pluralizing medical practices a mechanism that successfully gives more power toward the representation and inclusion of indigenous rights in Bolivia? If so, how exactly has interculturation taken place? This thesis hypothesizes that through projects of cultural sensitivity and the respecting of Aymara and Quechua languages, rituals, and traditions, indigenous representation is enhanced in the Bolivian public health care field, allowing for health care professional and traditional healers to work together in alleviating Bolivia’s poor public health indicators. The theories of interculturation, medical enculturation and cultural sensitivity as it contributes to recognizing indigeneity are examined via a theoretical framework. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis, data was gathered from various international organizations, national programs and ministries, and the 2001 Bolivian census data. In all, through various analyses it is possible to determine that the act of interculturation in public health care is crucial for including the indigenous population into national representation

An illustrated primer

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 117).Educational technology has received unprecedented attention recently, as the efficacy of traditional education methods are coming into question. This thesis introduces the Primer - an e-textbook that initially customizes the presentation of a given course's content to the preferences of the reader, then gradually scales those customizations back as the reader progresses through the e-textbook. The Primer is designed to assist in the "two sigma" problem [1] of bringing the educational experience of a student closer to that of receiving individual instruction from a competent tutor that uses mastery learning techniques. The Primer initially improves the accessibility of a new course to the student by customizing the representation of the course's content to the student's needs; additional instructional videos, dereferencing of definitions, and hyperlinks back to the defining information originally introducting a concept are provided given the students' preferences. These customizations are based both on the strengths and weaknesses in the student's background in the course's preresequites, and the information presentation styles preferred by the student. The Primer reduces these customizations over the course of the textbook so that the e-textbook gradually and eventually reflects the delivery style intended by the e-textbook's author, and to give consistency across users' e-textbook experience. The goal is a method of information delivery that is personalized, yet standardized. The Primer allows students to ease into an e-textbook without becoming discouraged with the presentation style native to the e-textbook's field. It can prevent the student from becoming discouraged by providing more support for areas of the e-textbook's content in which the student has unstable grounding. The Primer was implemented using readings from 6.01 and additional content from OCW Scholar, and feedback was received from students as well as professionals in the field of educational technology.by Kendra Leigh Pugh.M. Eng

Imaging and visualizing SARS-CoV-2 in a new era for structural biology.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had a global impact and has put scientific endeavour in the spotlight, perhaps more than any previous viral outbreak. Fortuitously, the pandemic came at a time when decades of research in multiple scientific fields could be rapidly brought to bear, and a new generation of vaccine platforms was on the cusp of clinical maturity. SARS-CoV-2 also emerged at the inflection point of a technological revolution in macromolecular imaging by cryo-electron microscopy, fuelled by a confluence of major technological advances in sample preparation, optics, detectors and image processing software, that complemented pre-existing techniques. Together, these advances enabled us to visualize SARS-CoV-2 and its components more rapidly, in greater detail, and in a wider variety of biologically relevant contexts than would have been possible even a few years earlier. The resulting ultrastructural information on SARS-CoV-2 and how it interacts with the host cell has played a critical role in the much-needed accelerated development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. Here, we review key imaging modalities used to visualize SARS-CoV-2 and present select example data, which have provided us with an exceptionally detailed picture of this virus

The vaccinia chondroitin sulfate binding protein drives host membrane curvature to facilitate fusion

Cellular attachment of viruses determines their cell tropism and species specificity. For entry, vaccinia, the prototypic poxvirus, relies on four binding proteins and an eleven-protein entry fusion complex. The contribution of the individual virus binding proteins to virion binding orientation and membrane fusion is unclear. Here, we show that virus binding proteins guide side-on virion binding and promote curvature of the host membrane towards the virus fusion machinery to facilitate fusion. Using a membrane-bleb model system together with super-resolution and electron microscopy we find that side-bound vaccinia virions induce membrane invagination in the presence of low pH. Repression or deletion of individual binding proteins reveals that three of four contribute to binding orientation, amongst which the chondroitin sulfate binding protein, D8, is required for host membrane bending. Consistent with low-pH dependent macropinocytic entry of vaccinia, loss of D8 prevents virion-associated macropinosome membrane bending, disrupts fusion pore formation and infection. Our results show that viral binding proteins are active participants in successful virus membrane fusion and illustrate the importance of virus protein architecture for successful infection.</p

Cryo-electron tomography of NLRP3-activated ASC complexes reveals organelle co-localization.

NLRP3 induces caspase-1-dependent pyroptotic cell death to drive inflammation. Aberrant activity of NLRP3 occurs in many human diseases. NLRP3 activation induces ASC polymerization into a single, micron-scale perinuclear punctum. Higher resolution imaging of this signaling platform is needed to understand how it induces pyroptosis. Here, we apply correlative cryo-light microscopy and cryo-electron tomography to visualize ASC/caspase-1 in NLRP3-activated cells. The puncta are composed of branched ASC filaments, with a tubular core formed by the pyrin domain. Ribosomes and Golgi-like or endosomal vesicles permeate the filament network, consistent with roles for these organelles in NLRP3 activation. Mitochondria are not associated with ASC but have outer-membrane discontinuities the same size as gasdermin D pores, consistent with our data showing gasdermin D associates with mitochondria and contributes to mitochondrial depolarization