Going on a [Power] Trip: A Postcolonial Examination of Select Voluntourism Organizations\u27 Rhetorical Strategies

The phenomenon of voluntourism – a combination of travel and volunteering, most often in a country other than one’s own – is steadily becoming a more and more common trend. As such, it was timely to conduct an analysis on the messages that the organizations that operate these programs use to attract participants, and the underlying ideology conveyed within these. The purpose of this study was to examine the websites of three such organizations (Cross-Cultural Solutions, Global Citizens Network, and Global Volunteers) in order to identify and analyze the ideological characteristics that they present. By examining these from a postcolonial perspective, I critiqued the ways in which these sites rely on a framework of division between volunteer and host, as well as the propagation of unequal power relationships within this division, in order to encourage potential volunteers’ participation. I further compared these prevailing rhetorical strategies with the organizations’ mission and vision statements, revealing a lack of fidelity to the values that they profess therein

A new model for workforce development: university of Nevada Las Vegas educator externship program

Educators and future educators must be a part of the continual career awareness and experience process of students and future students. Teachers need to know how their subjects can add to the employability of their students. This program provides a vehicle for school curriculum to be developed and implemented in all academic disciplines

Whole Genome Phylogenetic Tree Reconstruction Using Colored de Bruijn Graphs

We present kleuren, a novel assembly-free method to reconstruct phylogenetic trees using the Colored de Bruijn Graph. kleuren works by constructing the Colored de Bruijn Graph and then traversing it, finding bubble structures in the graph that provide phylogenetic signal. The bubbles are then aligned and concatenated to form a supermatrix, from which a phylogenetic tree is inferred. We introduce the algorithms that kleuren uses to accomplish this task, and show its performance on reconstructing the phylogenetic tree of 12 Drosophila species. kleuren reconstructed the established phylogenetic tree accurately, and is a viable tool for phylogenetic tree reconstruction using whole genome sequences. Software package available at: https://github.com/Colelyman/kleurenComment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted at BIBE 2017. Minor modifications to the text due to reviewer feedback and fixed typo

Does Job Stability Mediate the Relationship Between Intimate Partner Violence and Mental Health Among Low‐Income Women?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100283/1/ajop12053.pd

Autonomous Vehicles Operating Collaboratively to Avoid Debris and Obstructions

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the safety and increased fuel efficiency of an automated collision avoidance system in collaborative vehicle platooning. This project was cosponsored by Daimler Trucks North America headquartered in Portland, Oregon, as well as Dr. Birdsong, and Dr. DeBruhl of Cal Poly. The mechanical engineering team consists of Cole Oppenheim, James Gildart, Toan Le, and Kyle Bybee who worked in coordination with a team of computer engineers. Vehicle platooning is a driving technique to increase the fuel efficiency of a group of vehicles by following a lead vehicle closely to reduce the drag experienced by the group. Specifically, large tractor trailer trucks could become more efficient utilizing vehicle platooning. To implement this system most effectively would require an automatic system for collision avoidance. The goal for the mechanical engineering team working on this project was build and design two scale model vehicles, a test track, and dynamic models of the vehicles. These were then interface with computer vision software and hardware (created in collaboration of a team of computer engineers) that allows the vehicles to autonomously platoon and avoid objects that would otherwise cause a collision. Interactions with the computer engineering team occurred at minimum on a weekly basis and more whenever necessary. Interactions between the team’s original occurred as meetings to determine each team individual progress until integration could be accomplished. When the systems were being integrated, meetings occurred regularly (2-3 times a week) to ensure the vehicles could properly execute their design function. The goal of this project is to demonstrate how this system could be implemented in truck platooning safely and to demonstrate the advantages of platooning with system developed. This project was intended and will be presented to compete at the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles conference in the Netherlands in June of 2019. This report covers the scope of work of this project, the preliminary design direction, and the final design direction, and the final design for the assembly of the two 1/10 scale cars, the track design, and the controls strategy to interface with the CPE’s software

Long-term trends in depression among women separated from abusive partners

This study tested a cumulative adversity hypothesis, where differences in postseparation stressors among battered women were expected to lead to a widening gap in levels of women’s depression over time. Ninety-four women separated fromtheir abusive partners were interviewed six times over a 2-year period. Consistent with the hypothesis, inequalities grew over time.Women who were exposed to the greatest amount of violence and secondary stressors shortly after shelter exit experienced relatively higher levels of depression that either did not improve or significantly increased with time. Social support was the only resource to have the hypothesized decreasing effect on depression.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90508/1/Anderson-Saunders-Yoshihama-Bybee-Sullivan _2003 Long term trends in depression among survivors VAW.pd

Light environment drives evolution of color vision genes in butterflies and moths

Opsins, combined with a chromophore, are the primary light-sensing molecules in animals and are crucial for color vision. Throughout animal evolution, duplications and losses of opsin proteins are common, but it is unclear what is driving these gains and losses. Light availability is implicated, and dim environments are often associated with low opsin diversity and loss. Correlations between high opsin diversity and bright environments, however, are tenuous. To test if increased light availability is associated with opsin diversification, we examined diel niche and identified opsins using transcriptomes and genomes of 175 butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera). We found 14 independent opsin duplications associated with bright environments. Estimating their rates of evolution revealed that opsins from diurnal taxa evolve faster—at least 13 amino acids were identified with higher dN/dS rates, with a subset close enough to the chromophore to tune the opsin. These results demonstrate that high light availability increases opsin diversity and evolution rate in Lepidoptera

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy in a Caucasian Italian woman: Case report

BACKGROUND: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is an acute cardiac syndrome characterized by transient LV regional wall motion abnormalities (with peculiar apical ballooning appearance), chest pain or dyspnea, ST-segment elevation and minor elevations of cardiac enzyme levels CASE PRESENTATION: A 68-year-old woman was admitted to the Emergency Department because of sudden onset chest pain occurred while transferring her daughter, who had earlier suffered a major seizure, to the hospital. The EKG showed sinus tachycardia with ST-segment elevation in leads V2–V3 and ST-segment depression in leads V5–V6, she was, thus, referred for emergency coronary angiography. A pre-procedural transthoracic echocardiogram revealed regional systolic dysfunction of the LV walls with hypokinesis of the mid-apical segments and hyperkinesis of the basal segments. Coronary angiography showed patent epicardial coronary arteries; LV angiography demonstrated the characteristic morphology of apical ballooning with hyperkinesis of the basal segments and hypokinesis of the mid-apical segments. The post-procedural course was uneventful; on day 5 after admission the echocardiogram revealed full recovery of apical and mid-ventricular regional wall-motion abnormalities. CONCLUSION: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a relatively rare, unique entity that has only recently been widely appreciated. Acute stress has been indicated as a common trigger for the transient LV apical ballooning syndrome, especially in postmenopausal women. The present report is a typical example of stress-induced takotsubo cardiomyopathy in a Caucasian Italian postmenopausal woman