The Whistling Wife : Women and Popular Song in the Postbellum American South

This study discusses the practice of music-making by middle and upper class women in the nineteenth-century American South, and the ways in which the practice was continued in the decades following the Civil War amid changing class and gender politics. The study examines two sheet music collections, one from the South and one from the North, dating from the 1880s and 1890s. An examination of the content of these collections reveals differing attitudes over changing class and gender politics and acceptable practices for music-making in the North and South. A discussion of these young women and their families tells their stories through the sheet music they left behind

Academic impropriety: violation of normative teaching behaviors as identified by nursing educators

With public criticism of American higher education on the rise, it is prudent for those in the academy to reflect upon their responsibilities to their students. Of particular salience is an examination of what constitutes misconduct within the faculty role. This dissertation reports the results of a study designed to identify what nursing educators believe to be the violation of normative teaching behaviors. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was utilized to develop an understanding of the actions that constitute academic impropriety. The College Teaching Behaviors Inventory, a survey instrument designed by Braxton and Bayer (1999), was distributed to deans and faculty members of all associate degree nursing programs accredited by the National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission in the United States. Results reveal that nursing educators (n=604) identified nine patterns of normative behavior categorized as either inviolable or admonitory based upon the degree of sanction required if the norm should be violated. A discussion of each of the identified norms with fictional vignettes is provided. This study validates the need for critically reflective teaching that is conscious of the special nature of the teacher-student relationship. The results of this research have implications for higher education relative to issues of student retention, institutional policy regarding ethical faculty conduct, and preparation of graduate students for teaching in the college classroom

The importance of active-learning, student support, and peer teaching networks: A case study from the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, Australia

In the Australian state of Victoria, the city of Melbourne endured the world’s longest number of lockdown days, with severe government health orders and travel restrictions in place for extended periods of 2020 and 2021. In common with others, we found the provision of field teaching in introductory geology, structural geology, and volcanology, and the online replacement of practical instruction in petrology and petrography to be the greatest pedagogical challenges. We developed and used a range of different virtual field excursions that, given time and travel constraints imposed on us, were necessarily “low-tech” and non-immersive. Despite this, our students largely engaged enthusiastically with the virtual excursions, met many preexisting learning goals, and gained additional skills, particularly in regional-scale geological synthesis. In teaching petrology and petrography online, curated resources improved student understanding of some fundamental concepts, and it was advantageous that students were all assessed using identical imagery, rather than one sample from a non-identical class-set. On the other hand, we found we were less able to train students in the advanced skills of thin section interpretation. Assessment changes associated with online teaching have resulted in a permanent shift from low-level recall-style assessments to instead emphasizing higher-level synthesis and “geological thinking” skills. Our efforts throughout the pandemic demonstrated the value of instructor-student engagement and yielded teaching resources that have subsequently enhanced our face-to-face teaching and increased flexibility for students. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of collaborative teaching practice and we have increasingly seen the benefits of local and national-scale teaching networks for peer support and for resource sharing

A Two-Loop Test of M(atrix) Theory

We consider the scattering of two Dirichlet zero-branes in M(atrix) theory. Using the formulation of M(atrix) theory in terms of ten-dimensional super Yang-Mills theory dimensionally reduced to $(0+1)$-dimensions, we obtain the effective (velocity dependent) potential describing these particles. At one-loop we obtain the well known result for the leading order of the effective potential $V_{eff}\sim v^4/r^7$, where $v$ and $r$ are the relative velocity and distance between the two zero-branes respectively. A calculation of the effective potential at two-loops shows that no renormalizations of the $v^4$-term of the effective potential occur at this order.Comment: 17 pages, tex, 1 figure, a few misprints corrected. Version to appear in Nuclear Physics

Impaired Memory Cd8 T-Cell Responses Against an Immunodominant Retroviral Cryptic Epitope

The immunodominant cryptic epitope SYNTGRFPPL, encoded within open reading frame 2 of the LP-BM5 retroviral gag gene, is critical for protection against retroviral-induced pathogenesis. The goal of this study was to dissect the memory response against this unique immunodominant cryptic epitope. Unlike the protective acute effector population of SYNTGRFPPL-specific CD8 T cells, long-lived SYNTGRFPPL-specific CD8 T cells lacked the ability to protect susceptible mice infected with LP-BM5 retrovirus. Compared to memory CD8 T cells against a conventional epitope with similar MHC-I specificity, primed and restimulated using similar conditions, long-lived SYNTGRFPPL-specific CD8 T cells were impaired in their ability to recall against antigen, with reduced cytolytic capabilities and cytokine production. Since similar priming and restimulation regimes were utilized to generate each effector CD8 T cell population, this study has potentially broad implications with regard to the selection criteria of potent, highly conserved cryptic epitopes for use in epitope-based vaccines

Tackling the NFL: An analysis of the role of the government in workplace safety

This research analyzes how the federal government can play a role in solving the concussion crisis in the National Football League (NFL). The government has intervened in private sector industries in the past on the grounds of improving safety and health, most notably through the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The government has intervened in several issues that affect the sports industry, such as antitrust issues and substance abuse, but has not made any significant impact on concussion legislation. Based on three case studies of other industries, the NFL concussion crisis prompts government intervention. However, because the phenomenon is so recent, football is a unique industry, and the NFL has particularly addressed the situation with internal policy, government intervention has not taken place.Honors Thesi

Influence of association state and DNA binding on the O2-reactivity of [4Fe-4S] fumarate and nitrate reduction (FNR) regulator

The fumarate and nitrate reduction (FNR) regulator is the master switch for the transition between anaerobic and aerobic respiration in Escherichia coli. Reaction of dimeric [4Fe-4S] FNR with O2 results in conversion of the cluster into a [2Fe-2S] form, via a [3Fe-4S] intermediate, leading to the loss of DNA binding through dissociation of the dimer into monomers. In the present paper, we report studies of two previously identified variants of FNR, D154A and I151A, in which the form of the cluster is decoupled from the association state. In vivo studies of permanently dimeric D154A FNR show that DNA binding does not affect the rate of cluster incorporation into the apoprotein or the rate of O2-mediated cluster loss. In vitro studies show that O2-mediated cluster conversion for D154A and the permanent monomer I151A FNR is the same as in wild-type FNR, but with altered kinetics. Decoupling leads to an increase in the rate of the [3Fe-4S]1+ into [2Fe-2S]2+ conversion step, consistent with the suggestion that this step drives association state changes in the wild-type protein. We have also shown that DNA-bound FNR reacts more rapidly with O2 than FNR free in solution, implying that transcriptionally active FNR is the preferred target for reaction with O2

Boundaries in M-Theory

We formulate boundary conditions for an open membrane that ends on the fivebrane of {\cal M}-theory. We show that the dynamics of the eleven-dimensional fivebrane can be obtained from the quantization of a ``small membrane'' that is confined to a single fivebrane and which moves with the speed of light. This shows that the eleven-dimensional fivebrane has an interpretation as a $D$-brane of an open supermembrane as has recently been proposed by Strominger and Townsend. We briefly discuss the boundary dynamics of an infinitely extended planar membrane that is stretched between two parallel fivebranesComment: 16 pages, phyzz

Optimising the location of antenatal classes

Objectives: To combine micro simulation and location-allocation techniques to determine antenatal class locations which minimise the distance travelled from home by potential users. Design: Micro simulation modelling and location-allocation modeling. Setting: City of Leeds, U.K. Participants: Potential users of antenatal classes. Methods: An individual-level micro simulation model was built to estimate the number of births for small areas by combining data from the UK Census 2001 and the Health Survey for England 2006. Using this model as a proxy for service demand, we then used a location-allocation model to optimize locations. Findings: Different scenarios show the advantage of combining these methods to optimize (re)locating antenatal classes and therefore reduce inequalities in accessing services for pregnant women. Key Conclusions: Use of these techniques should lead to better use of resources by allowing planners to identifyoptimal locations of antenatal classes which minimise women’s travel. Implications for practice: These results are especially important for health-care planners tasked with the difficult issue of targeting scarce resources in a cost-efficient, but also effective or accessible, manner

Boundary restriction for negative emotional images is an example of memory amplification

We investigated whether boundary restriction—misremembering proximity to traumatic stimuli—is a form of memory amplification and whether re-experiencing trauma plays a role in boundary restriction errors. In four experiments, subjects viewed a series of traumatic photographs. Later, subjects identified the photographs they originally saw among distracters that could be identical, close-up, or wide-angled versions of the same photographs. Subjects also completed measures of mood, analogue PTSD symptoms, phenomenological experience of intrusions, and processing style. Across experiments, subjects were more likely to incorrectly remember the photographs as having extended boundaries: boundary extension. Despite this tendency, the extent to which subjects re-experienced traumatic aspects of the photographs predicted how often they incorrectly remembered the photographs as having narrower boundaries: boundary restriction. Our data suggest that although boundary extension is more common, boundary restriction is related to individual differences in coping mechanisms post-trauma. These results have theoretical implications for understanding how people remember trauma.Australian Research Council ARC DP14010266