Creating Counternarratives on Trauma Informed Care Through Student Podcasting

This research explored how participatory action research (PAR) specifically youth participatory action research (YPAR) could be utilized to help inform and bring change to an alternative high school’s trauma-informed care. The study was informed by critical race theory (Yosso, 2005), trauma-informed care (Day et al, 2017), and youth participatory action research (Halliday, 2019; Goessling, 2020). The YPAR project was conducted at an urban/suburban alternative education high school in Marin county California with nine 11th and 12th graders who engaged in a series of subject-themed forums and then created a podcast informed by an interview they conducted with a community member. Students held a symposium in which they shared the podcasts with administration and other adult leaders and successfully petitioned the school administration to add after school programs. The research found that YPAR is a culturally responsive way to cultivate student agency around school policy and support meaningful exploratory dialogue that informs engaged practices in the delivery of trauma-informed care. These findings have important implications for how teachers can provide the space for students to create change in their school environments, support one another in navigating life challenges and create connections to mentors in the larger community

Rethinking Imperialism and Resistance in West Africa: Historiographic Connections for the Classroom

Even in the postcolonial era, West African history remains plagued by Eurocentric myths and media-driven stereotypes. Though specialists have been struggling with this problem for decades, a rift remains between the elite world of academia and the African history being taught in American schools. In an attempt to bridge this gap, this essay provides a case study and a list of suggested resources designed to help nonspecialist world history teachers rethink European colonial power and its impact on our conception of African history. Through its examination of how West African responses to imperialism interacted with, adapted to, and were ultimately conditioned by European power structures, this essay touches on a range of topics, including pre-colonial African history; the partition of Africa; decolonization; linkages between slavery, colonial labor coercion, and the spread of capitalism; and the continuing impact of colonial rule on present-day conflict in the postcolonial African states

Approaches to Support Student Learning in Introductory Programming Laboratory Classes

Objectives: This thesis will explore some innovative solutions to communication difficulties that exist in higher education teaching of introductory programming. Communication between a teacher and student is important, as it is the main opportunity where a student can ask a teacher questions about a particular problem they have, and a teacher can give feedback to direct them towards a solution. It is expected that through utilising technology in laboratory practical classes, communication between teachers and student can be improved. Methods: This thesis primarily explores the possibilities of using student compiler and method invocation data, collected during a practical class and sent directly to a teacher. This data maybe beneficial as a method of allowing teachers to see if a student requires help. This thesis utilises a variety of research methods including questionnaires, observations of classroom interactions and collection of data recorded from student and teachers interactions with the technology. The approaches are used during an investigation into the current approaches of laboratory practical teaching, before progressing onto investigations using the technology developed that accompanies this thesis. Results: The results identified that the majority of the students and teachers who used the technology felt that it improved their ability to communicate within laboratory practical classes. The teachers felt that they could use the data collected by the technology to view activity from the students and see a student’s progress. The teachers could interpret the data collected from the technology and students who needed help could be identified. Conclusions: This thesis has demonstrated that technology has the potential to improve communication in laboratory classes, and enable teachers to support students more effectively. However, the technology developed in this thesis, does not eliminate the requirement for a teacher to interact with a student face-to-face, but rather its role is to act as an indicator of students who may need assistance

Empire of the Hajj: Pilgrims, Plagues, and Pan-Islam under British Surveillance,1865-1926

From roughly 1865 to 1926, the forces of European imperialism brought the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca under the scrutiny of non-Muslim interests. The driving force behind this dramatic change was the expansion of the British Empire’s maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean basin. With the development of steamship travel and the opening of the Suez Canal, colonial authorities became increasingly involved in the surveillance of seaborne pilgrims. During this period, the hajj came to be recognized as both the primary conduit for the spread of epidemic diseases, such as cholera and plague, and a critical outlet for the growth of Pan-Islamic networks being forged between Indian dissidents, pilgrims, and the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the British and Ottoman empires engaged in a struggle for control of the hajj, which would ultimately reshape both the hajj and the political landscapes of the Middle East and South Asia

Ovine listeriosis: development of novel serological assays for diagnosis, experimental validation and field investigations into the epidemiology of infection

A panel of anti-Listeria monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) were produced following the immunization of mice with heat-killed Listeria monocytogenes serovar 4b. Five of the mAbs recognised an antigen irregularly present in a number of species and serovars of the genera Listeria and Bacillus. The antigen spontaneously adhered to sheep erythrocytes and was putatively identified as lipoteichoic acid (LTA). A competitive sandwich ELISA was developed which revealed that three of the mAbs recognised the same or overlapping antigenic epitopes.A protein of 58,000 Da molecular mass was purified from the supernatant fluid of a dialysis sac culture of L. monocytogenes serovar 4b by cation exchange chromatography. The purified protein, homogeneous on SDSPAGE, was identified as listeriolysin O (LLO) and used to develop an indirect ELISA for the measurement of anti-LLO antibodies in sheep sera.Oral dosing of lambs with L. monocytogenes serovar 4b daily for three days produced no clinical signs but conferred protection against bacteraemia following subsequent homologous subcutaneous challenges. Signs of systemic illness were unremarkable after the subcutaneous injections but between two and 61 days later neurological symptoms developed in six lambs. Histopathological lesions of listeric encephalomyelitis were demonstrated and it seems probable these cases developed as the result of infection ascending via the spinal nerves.Antibodies to whole cell antigens were detected in the sera of challenged animals using serum agglutination tests and ELISA, and antibodies to LLO were detectable by immunoblotting and indirect ELISA. The subclass of antibody involved in the anti-LLO response was shown to be predominantly IgG. However, the competitive sandwich ELISA for the detection of anti-LTA antibodies was an unreliable indicator of infection. Seroconversion after oral dosing was apparently a consequence of host invasion since no antibody responses were detected when lambs were dosed with heat-killed L. monocytogenes. After oral dosing with viable L. innocua no antibody response to L. monocytogenes somatic antigens could be recognised.In field studies the detection of anti-LLO antibodies by ELISA was shown to be useful for diagnosis of both septicaemic and abortion forms of listeriosis. However, anti-LLO antibodies were detected in clinically normal ewes from silage fed flocks suggesting that animals may be exposed to infection yet remain clinically normal as is consistent with the experimental studies. In confirmed cases of listeric encephalitis it was impracticable to diagnose the condition by the measurement of anti-LLO antibody titres or by the detection of LLO in CSF samples. Although unsuitable for the diagnosis of this form of infection the indirect ELISA and the measurement of anti-LLO antibodies may be useful in clarifying the pathogenesis of listeric encephalitis and the circumstances in which listeriosis occurs in sheep flocks.In an examination of Listeria isolates from clinical cases of listeriosis nine isolates, all recovered from abortion cases, were identified as L. ivanovii and the remaining 108 as L. monocytogenes, with serovar l/2a predominating. The majority of isolates were from cases of encephalitis and serovar l/2b strains were confined to this form of disease

Modification of Projected Velocity Power Spectra by Density Inhomogeneities in Compressible Supersonic Turbulence

(Modified) The scaling of velocity fluctuation, dv, as a function of spatial scale L in molecular clouds can be measured from size-linewidth relations, principal component analysis, or line centroid variation. Differing values of the power law index of the scaling relation dv = L^(g3D) in 3D are given by these different methods: the first two give g3D=0.5, while line centroid analysis gives g3D=0. This discrepancy has previously not been fully appreciated, as the variation of projected velocity line centroid fluctuations (dv_{lc} = L^(g2D)) is indeed described, in 2D, by g2D=0.5. However, if projection smoothing is accounted for, this implies that g3D=0. We suggest that a resolution of this discrepancy can be achieved by accounting for the effect of density inhomogeneity on the observed g2D obtained from velocity line centroid analysis. Numerical simulations of compressible turbulence are used to show that the effect of density inhomogeneity statistically reverses the effect of projection smoothing in the case of driven turbulence so that velocity line centroid analysis does indeed predict that g2D=g3D=0.5. Using our numerical results we can restore consistency between line centroid analysis, principal component analysis and size-linewidth relations, and we derive g3D=0.5, corresponding to shock-dominated (Burgers) turbulence. We find that this consistency requires that molecular clouds are continually driven on large scales or are only recently formed.Comment: 28 pages total, 20 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Physico-electrochemical Characterization of Pluripotent Stem Cells during Self-Renewal or Differentiation by a Multi-modal Monitoring System.

Monitoring pluripotent stem cell behaviors (self-renewal and differentiation to specific lineages/phenotypes) is critical for a fundamental understanding of stem cell biology and their translational applications. In this study, a multi-modal stem cell monitoring system was developed to quantitatively characterize physico-electrochemical changes of the cells in real time, in relation to cellular activities during self-renewal or lineage-specific differentiation, in a non-destructive, label-free manner. The system was validated by measuring physical (mass) and electrochemical (impedance) changes in human induced pluripotent stem cells undergoing self-renewal, or subjected to mesendodermal or ectodermal differentiation, and correlating them to morphological (size, shape) and biochemical changes (gene/protein expression). An equivalent circuit model was used to further dissect the electrochemical (resistive and capacitive) contributions of distinctive cellular features. Overall, the combination of the physico-electrochemical measurements and electrical circuit modeling collectively offers a means to longitudinally quantify the states of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation