Lift Every Voice: Institutional Climate and the Experiences of Undocumented Students at Jesuit Universities

In recent years, researchers have paid increased attention to the challenges undocumented students face in accessing higher education. However, within this growing field of inquiry, the unique experiences of undocumented students at Jesuit universities have been largely unexamined. Building on the groundbreaking study of the situation of undocumented students at the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, which was published as the Immigrant Student National Position Paper (ISNPP), this article presents findings collected at the University of San Francisco as a part of a university-wide effort to assess the needs of undocumented students on campus. Three key themes emerged from this mixed-method study: (1) social justice is a draw and an anchor for undocumented students, (2) an institutional culture of silence breeds silence as an individual navigational strategy among undocumented students, and (3) unique financial stresses shape feelings of belonging for undocumented students. These themes both corroborate the ISNPP report and build a more nuanced understanding of the undocumented student experience on Jesuit campuses by highlighting the influence of institutional climate on student voice and student experience at the University of San Francisco

Three Boys, Three Murders: Children’s Rights, State Violence and the Open Wound of the U.S.-Mexico Border

This article examines the killing of three teenage boys at the U.S.-Mexico border between 2010 and 2013. Through an examination of these murders at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Enforcement agents, the article argues that the murders of Sergio Adrían Hernández Guereca, José Antonio Elena Rodríguez and Cruz Marcelino Velasquez Acevedo at the U.S.-Mexico border exemplify the reality that not all children are afforded the so-called universal protection of childhood as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights law. We can see how the state repudiates its role as protector of brown children at the border through the deployment of three tactics—the protecting of Border Patrol agents, victim-blaming and the justification of lethal violence in non-life-threatening situations, and the casting of the U.S.-Mexico border as a zone of exceptionalism—and ultimately how situating these killings within a human rights framework illuminates the possibilities of such a framework

Determination of allelic expression of H19 in pre- and peri-implantation mouse embryos

July 2013.A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School At the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science.Thesis supervisor: Dr. Rocio Melissa Rivera.Includes vita.H19 is a maternally-expressed imprinted non-coding RNA with tumor suppressor activity. H19 is located in an imprinted cluster which contains the paternally-expressed fetal growth factor Igf2. Monoallelic expression of H19 and Igf2 is regulated by allele-specific interaction of shared enhancers. Previous work has shown that embryo culture can result in biallelic expression of H19. However, preliminary data in our laboratory suggest that biallelic expression of H19 is a normally-occurring event during peri-implantation in the mouse. To test this, the allelic expression of H19 was compared between in vitro- and in vivo-developed embryos at 84, 96, and 108 hours following ovulation. We found that as embryos advance through preimplantation development they start expressing H19 in a biallelic manner regardless of treatment. In a subsequent study, we microdissected peri-implantation embryos into two halves, one containing the inner cell mass (ICM) and the other containing the primary trophoblast giant cells (PTGC). PTGCs are invasive embryonic cells that initiate uterine implantation. The PTGC-containing half of the embryo had greater expression of H19 and less Igf2 than the ICMcontaining half of the embryo. We speculate that biallelic expression of H19 is part of a normal physiologic event in peri-implantation mouse embryos to reduce Igf2 levels in the PTGCs in order to control their invasive behavior.Includes bibliographical references (pages 98-138)

Maimonides in Old Spanish: Some Notes on "Visión Deleitable" and the Reception of the "Guide" in 15th Century Spain

The first part of this study offers a synoptic overview of Alfonso de la Torre’s selective engagement with Maimonidean philosophy in the first part of his Visión Deleitable. Our analysis is complemented with some comparative notes on the reception of Maimonides’s thought in late medieval Spain. Visión Deleitable’s fate will be examined in comparison to two other 15th century works of Jewish or converso authorship that also broached the Guide for the Perplexed for the benefit of Christian readers: the Old Spanish translation of Maimonides’s Guide by Pedro de Toledo and Moshe Arragel’s commentary on his Bible translation for the Christian Master of Calatrava, don Luis de Guzmán

Traducción y exégesis en las Biblias romanceadas

Este ensayo ofrece algunas reflexiones metodológicas para beneficio de hispanistas sobre la edición de las Biblias romanceadas desde la perspectiva del hebraísmo, sobre todo el reto que supone para estas ediciones la impronta textual de la exégesis rabínica –el conjunto de interpretaciones judías inspiradas por la Biblia hebrea–. Un repaso introductorio sobre la exégesis judía tardomedieval da paso a un muestrario de diez pasajes (su mayoría de la Biblia de Arragel) que ilustran la diversidad de huellas exegéticas judías en el cuerpo de estas traducciones

«Ya, ya se abren las flores»: la lírica de Santa Teresa en la historia literaria de la mística cristiana

There are very few Christian mystics in the Western Middle Ages that resort to verse as a means of expression in their writing, an anomaly if compared, e.g., to the centrality of poetry strictu senso in the literary history of Arabic and Persian Sufism. The first half of this study offers a comprehensive evaluation of Teresa of Ávila’s body of poetry —the converso Carmelite reformer— within the literary history of Christian mysticism, all of it set in contrast with San Juan de la Cruz’s poetry, framed by selective references to her few precursors in the 13th and 14th centuries (Mechtild de Magdeburg, Hadewijch de Brabante, Jacopone da Todi and Richard Rolle), and with Hispanic love literature as a secular comparandum. The second part will showcase Saint Teresa’s aesthetics in her mystical theology with a close reading of her lyric gloss on Song of Songs 2,16, «Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi».Son muy pocos los místicos cristianos en la Edad Media occidental que han recurrido al verso como vehículo expresivo: una anomalía histórica si se compara, por ejemplo, con la centralidad de la poesía strictu senso en la historia literaria del sufismo árabe y persa. La primera mitad de la charla ofrece una valoración de conjunto sobre la lírica de Santa Teresa en la historia literaria de la mística cristiana, enmarcada por referencias selectivas a sus exiguos precursores en el siglo XIII (Mechtild de Magdeburg, Hadewijch de Brabante, Jacopone da Todi y Richard Rolle) y con la literatura amatoria hispánica como telón de fondo. La segunda mitad de la presentación ilustra la estética de la Santa con una lectura de su glosa lírica al Cantar de los Cantares 2,16: «Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi»

Designing an experimental HIV/HCV intervention to promote the safe re-use of drug preparation materials by injection drug users in Puerto Rico

Injection drug users (IDUs) in San Juan, Puerto Rico are characterized by high rates of daily injecting, injection of shared drugs, re-use of injection syringes, and use of shooting galleries. They lack adequate access to new injection syringes and drug preparation equipment, and experience elevated rates of HIV and HCV infection. Between April and August, 2006, researchers and active IDUs collaborated in the development of an experimental HIV/HCV intervention aimed at identifying drug preparation items and practices that will enable IDUs to make drug solutions without potentially contaminated injection syringes contacting materials used to prepare drugs. The collaboration involved discussing and testing a variety of drug preparation items and practices in office and community settings. The process was repeated until concerns that had been raised were resolved, and a tentative set of intervention items and practices to be evaluated in a community field trial was identified. Throughout, a strong emphasis was placed on the capacity of an item or practice to address common problems confronted by IDUs (blunted needles, clogged syringes, injected particles) in addition to the core aim of reducing contamination of preparation materials by blood in injection syringes

Exploring the differences in cloud properties observed by the Terra and Aqua MODIS Sensors

The aerosol-cloud interaction in different parts of the globe is examined here using multi-year statistics of remotely sensed data from two MODIS sensors aboard NASA's <i>Terra</i> (morning) and <i>Aqua</i> (afternoon) satellites. Simultaneous retrievals of aerosol loadings and cloud properties by the MODIS sensor allowed us to explore morning-to-afternoon variation of liquid cloud fraction (CF) and optical thickness (COT) for clean, moderately polluted and heavily polluted clouds in different seasons. Data analysis for seven-years of MODIS retrievals revealed strong temporal and spatial patterns in morning-to-afternoon variation of cloud fraction and optical thickness over different parts of the global oceans and the land. For the vast areas of stratocumulus cloud regions, the data shows that the days with elevated aerosol abundance were also associated with enhanced afternoon reduction of CF and COT pointing to the possible reduction of the indirect climate forcing. A positive correlation between aerosol optical depth and morning-to-afternoon variation of trade wind cumulus cloud cover was also found over the northern Indian Ocean, though no clear relationship between the concentration of Indo-Asian haze and morning-to-afternoon variation of COT was established. Over the Amazon region during wet conditions, aerosols are associated with an enhanced convective process in which morning shallow warm clouds are organized into afternoon deep convection with greater ice cloud coverage. Analysis presented here demonstrates that the new technique for exploring morning-to-afternoon variability in cloud properties by using the differences in data products from the two daily MODIS overpasses is capable of capturing some of the major features of diurnal variations in cloud properties and can be used for better understanding of aerosol radiative effects

Gamma Irradiation of Aqueos Solution of L-Aspartic Acid, L-Aspartic Acid in Solid State, and L-Aspartic Acid Adsorbed into Na-Montmorillonite: Its Relevance in Chemistry Prebiotic

Aspartic acid is an amino acid present in the modern proteins, however, is considered a primitive amino acid hence its importance in prebiotic chemistry experiments studies. In some works of prebiotic chemistry have been studied the synthesis and the stability of organic matter under high energy sources, and the role of clays has been highlighted due to clays that can affect the reaction mechanisms in the radiolytic processes. The present work is focused on the study of the role of Namontmorillonite in the gamma radiolysis processes of L-aspartic acid. Gamma radiolysis processes were carried out in three different systems a) L-aspartic acid in aqueous solution; b) L-aspartic acid in solid-state; and c) L-aspartic acid adsorbed into Na-montmorillonite. L-aspartic acid was analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography−electrospray ionization−mass spectrometry (HPLCESI-MS). The results showed that the decomposition of L-aspartic acid considerably decreased in the presence of clay thus highlighting the protector role of clays and favors the stability of organic matter even under the possible high energy conditions of primitive environments. The principal product ofgamma radiolysis of L-aspartic acid was succinic acid produced by deamination reaction. On the other hand, when aspartic acid was irradiated in solid-state the main product was the L-aspartic acid dimer. Both radiolysis products are important for chemical evolution processes for L-aspartic acid in primitive environments