Excellence on Stage and in Life: The Mosaic Model for Youth Development through the Arts

In 2008, Mosaic released the findings of a three-year study conducted by the University of Michigan Department of Psychology, The Detroit Initiative and area-Detroit community based organizations. The study identifies and assesses the internationally acclaimed, professional performing arts training program's goals, practice methods, and expected outcome. Mosaic seeks to empower young people with the tools necessary to create positive changes in their lives and communities by helping them to develop patterns of cooperation, disciplined work habits and effective problem-solving skills through the creation of high-quality, professional-level performances of theatre and music. By highlighting the immense talent of young Detroiters, Mosaic helps to create positive peer role models and young people who can view a more positive future for themselves and for their community

Comment: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Comment: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation [arXiv:0708.0302]Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000619 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Oxidative stress and the use of antioxidants in stroke

Transient or permanent interruption of cerebral blood flow by occlusion of a cerebral artery gives rise to an ischaemic stroke leading to irreversible damage or dysfunction to the cells within the affected tissue along with permanent or reversible neurological deficit. Extensive research has identified excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation and cell death as key contributory pathways underlying lesion progression. The cornerstone of treatment for acute ischaemic stroke remains reperfusion therapy with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA). The downstream sequelae of events resulting from spontaneous or pharmacological reperfusion lead to an imbalance in the production of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) over endogenous anti-oxidant protection strategies. As such, anti-oxidant therapy has long been investigated as a means to reduce the extent of injury resulting from ischaemic stroke with varying degrees of success. Here we discuss the production and source of these ROS and the various strategies employed to modulate levels. These strategies broadly attempt to inhibit ROS production or increase scavenging or degradation of ROS. While early clinical studies have failed to translate success from bench to bedside, the combination of anti-oxidants with existing thrombolytics or novel neuroprotectants may represent an avenue worthy of clinical investigation. Clearly, there is a pressing need to identify new therapeutic alternatives for the vast majority of patients who are not eligible to receive rt-PA for this debilitating and devastating disease

Through the funhouse looking glass: Europe's ship of states

What is the nature of the European Union? Does it have the characteristics of a state, and if so, which? We employ a single imagea poster that won a Marshall Plan competition in 1950to examine the various legal perspectives of the EU that have emerged over the past six decades. Created as a symbol of European unity at the outset of European integration, the image was used half a century later on the book cover of Andrew Moravcsik's instant classic on intergovernmentalism. Here, we reinterpret the image yet againin four different ways. This attempt to sort out the legal perspectives of the EU was inspired by the Lisbon Treaty Case that is currently before the German Constitutional Court and will be decided in May 2009. --

Curricular noticing: A comprehensive framework to describe teachers’ interactions with curriculum materials

Building on the work of Professional Noticing of Children’s Mathematical Thinking, we introduce the Curricular Noticing Framework to describe how teachers recognize opportunities within curriculum materials, understand their affordances and limitations, and use strategies to act on them. This framework builds on Remillard’s (2005) notion of participation with curriculum materials, connects with and broadens existing research on the relationship between teachers and written curriculum, and highlights new are as for research. We argue that once mathematics educators better understand the strategic curricular practices that support ambitious teaching, which we refer to as professional curricular noticing, then this knowledge can lead to recommendations for how to support the curricular work of teachers, particularly novice teachers

Spacecraft command verification: The AI solution

Recently, a knowledge-based approach was used to develop a system called the Command Constraint Checker (CCC) for TRW. CCC was created to automate the process of verifying spacecraft command sequences. To check command files by hand for timing and sequencing errors is a time-consuming and error-prone task. Conventional software solutions were rejected when it was estimated that it would require 36 man-months to build an automated tool to check constraints by conventional methods. Using rule-based representation to model the various timing and sequencing constraints of the spacecraft, CCC was developed and tested in only three months. By applying artificial intelligence techniques, CCC designers were able to demonstrate the viability of AI as a tool to transform difficult problems into easily managed tasks. The design considerations used in developing CCC are discussed and the potential impact of this system on future satellite programs is examined

Gene Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

The last decade has seen substantial advances in the development of gene therapy strategies and vector technology for the treatment of a diverse number of diseases, with a view to translating the successes observed in animal models into the clinic. Perhaps the overwhelming drive for the increase in vascular gene transfer studies is the current lack of successful long-term pharmacological treatments for complex cardiovascular diseases. The increase in cardiovascular disease to epidemic proportions has also led many to conclude that drug therapy may have reached a plateau in its efficacy and that gene therapy may represent a realistic solution to a long-term problem. Here, we discuss gene delivery approaches and target diseases

A Molecular and Phylogenetic Analysis of Cryobiosis in Nematodes of the Genus Panagrolaimus

Many organisms are able to survive freezing temperatures through the development of biochemical and physiological adaptations. These biochemical adaptations may include the synthesis of proteins such as antifreeze proteins or cryoprotectants such as trehalose, the elimination of ice nucleators, and the expression of stress associated proteins (such as molecular chaperones, antioxidants, late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins). Physiological adaptations include the ability to undergo cryoprotective dehydration. The molecular mechanisms underlying freezing stress tolerance are poorly understood. One of the main aims of this project was to employ phylogenetic, proteomic, and transcriptomic approaches to gain insights into the adaptations that aid the survival of the free- living cryotolerant nematode Panagrolaimus superbus. Panagrolaimus sp. from temperate, subpolar, polar and continental geographic regions show a range of freezing ability from strains that show high survival upon direct exposure to -80 oC to those that are freezing sensitive. Acclimation significantly improves the freezing survival of temperate, subpolar, polar and continental Panagrolaimus strains and species. They also undergo anhydrobiosis and a correlation exists between desiccation tolerance and freezing tolerance. A phylogenetic study did not find a relationship between freezing phenotype, biogeography and phylogeny. The freezing and desiccation tolerance of ten new tropical Panagrolaimus strains was investigated. These strains are desiccation tolerant but not freezing tolerant, suggesting that freezing survival requires some specialised adaptations. A phylogenetic study of all the Panagrolaimus strains used in this study showed that the desiccation tolerant tropical Panagrolaimus strains are more divergent from the other strains and species in this study. Protein extracts from freezing tolerant Panagrolaimus sp. can inhibit the growth of ice along specific planes of an ice crystal, resulting in hexagonal bipyrimidal ice crystals. This ice faceting capacity was considered most likely to be due to the presence of ice binding proteins. An ice affinity purification method was implemented to purify ice-binding proteins from P. superbus. Several proteins found to be enriched in the ice fraction were identified by mass spectrometry. As none of the identified proteins was an obvious ice binding protein, it was not possible to determine whether these proteins had ice-binding protein activity. The divergence times for five Panagrolaimus strains and species were estimated using the relaxed molecular clock approach. The Panagrolaimus sp. were found to have diverged from other nematodes 70.12 million years ago. The Antarctic nematode P. davidi diverged from its Californian sister species PS1579 approximately 17.18 million years ago and the Arctic nematode P. superbus diverged from its Pennsylvanian sister species Panagrolaimus sp. AF36 9.97 million years ago. The genes that are differentially expressed in response to a period of cold acclimation were determined using the next generation sequencing method RNA-seq. A large number of novel genes were significantly up-regulated (P-value <0.01) including those involved in the oxidative stress response, transporting, membrane modification, metabolism, signalling and cytoskeleton remodelling

The Relationship Between Graduate Counseling Students’ Meaning in Life and Their Crisis

Viktor Frankl published Man’s Search for Meaning in 1946, documenting the horrors of the concentration camps. Based on his prison experience in the camps, Frankl (1984) believed that meaning in life could be found in suffering. The theoretical framework for this research study was based on Frankl’s theory of logotherapy, an extension of existentialism. In today’s society, we can find many parallels to Frankl’s descriptions of suffering in the natural and human-made disasters that have occurred such as the 1999 shooting at Columbine, the levee failure in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina, the floods in the spring of 2011 in the South, and in 2011 the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power failure in Japan. The purpose of the present study was to explore if graduate counseling students’ (GCS) meaning in life is related to their crisis experiences.Data collection was completed electronically. Qualtrics™, a web-based service, was used to distribute the researcher-designed survey, Graduate Counseling Student Crisis Experience Questionnaire (GCSCEQ) and the Purpose in Life (PIL) test. Results of this study indicated that there was no relationship between meaning in life and overall experiences, number of experiences, or intensity of GCS’ crisis experiences. Additionally, results indicated that GCS’ crisis experiences and meaning in life are impacted by the category of their disaster experiences, the intensity of their experiences and their age

Trace metal speciation studies

The development of methods capable of determining individual metal species at trace levels is a widely researched topic. The majority of the techniques developed for this purpose involve the use of “coupled” instrumental techniques to separate and detect metal species at low concentrations, also additional derivatisation steps are often required prior to detection. This approach requires lengthy analysis times and high manual input to construct and maintain the interface between the two instruments. Complicated sample preparation procedures are also necessary for tissue samples. These factors discourage the implementation of routine environmental monitoring of trace metal species. In the course of this study, alternative techniques for trace metal speciation are examined. The criteria for these techniques is that each should be straightforward in design and operation requiring a minimal level of manual input while remaining cost effective. The use of a solid phase extraction technique known as Matrix Solid Phase Dispersion (MSPD) is evaluated for extracting arsenic species from fish tissues. MSPD involves physically grinding up tissue samples with a quantity of chromatographic packing material and packing the resulting mixture into a column followed by selective elution of the analytes with mobile phase. The technique is developed and validated for five arsenic species. The effectiveness of this technique is then assessed by comparison with an existing liquid-liquid extraction protocol. The feasibility of capillary electrophoretic methods (CE) for routine trace metal speciation is examined for arsenic and methylated tin species respectively. This technique involves the separation of charged species in narrow bore capillary tubing under the influence of an electric field. CE offers the benefits of highly efficient separations, short analysis times, minimal sample preparation requirements and small reagent consumption. Problems with low sensitivity can be overcome with electrostacking and indirect detection methods which allows the technique to be extended to the area of trace metal analysis