Amplifying Agency and Presence of Native American Women in 21st Century Literature

This project analyzes Native American women\u27s voices and agency through their presence in a variety of 21st-century literary genres. The texts illuminate a clear presence of Native American authors who actively write Native American female characters that are powerful and take agency over their bodies and stories. The examples of Native American female characters allow readers to see more realistic and relatable figures within literature. Chapter one focuses on the empowering Native American female protagonists in Larissa FastHorse’s What Would Crazy Horse Do? (2019) and Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty (2020). The playwrights offer crucial insight into more empowering and complex meanings of feminine autonomy through their female leads. These Native American female characters demonstrate their voices and desires to protect Native American women’s rights, presence, and heritage. Chapter two focuses on Heid E. Erdrich\u27s poetry collection National Monuments (2008) and critics’ history and literature that dehumanize Native American women’s bodies. Erdrich changes the narrative to show the beautiful and robust heritage by exerting her subjects’ agency and reclaiming their bodies. I focus on the powerful examples of Native American female characters who are tenacious, strong, and voice the presence of women. This chapter exposes the urgency for reclamation of Native American women’s bodies and their voices amongst the sea of injustice and prejudices. Chapter three analyzes how Stephen Graham Jones’s novel The Only Good Indians (2020) subverts the narrative that Native American women are victims by making the women the heroes of the narrative. These characters are seen as other than stereotypical horror characters and as Native American women who empower readers. The female characters depict more realistic Native American women who demonstrate agency and presence through their actions. I conclude that these texts amplify the presence and voices of Native American women within 21st-century literature. The texts offer a rich foundation of Native American female characters as heroines who assert their agency and autonomy through different genres that deliberately defy the victim trope and absence. I argue the vitality of Native American women to be recognized as powerful and autonomous within 21st-century literature

Into the Final Frontier: The Expanse of Space Commercialization

This Note explores the emerging commercialization of space and the legal questions that arise as companies seek to further exploit the space economy. Whether or not new laws passed in the United States and in Luxembourg that purport to give ownership rights to companies that harvest space materials comply with the Outer Space Treaty is disputed. Furthermore, the international space regime may not be equipped to govern a new age in space. This Note advocates that space mining should be legalized but finds that space law in its current form is inadequate to effectively regulate space mining and other emerging space activities such as tourism

IKZF1 lesions in adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia - the chicken or the egg?

The IKZF1 gene encodes the transcription factor IKAROS, a master regulator of lymphocyte differentiation. IKZF1 is commonly deleted in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), particularly in BCR-ABL1+ ALL. Lesions in IKZF1 carry the hallmarks of RAG mediated deletion, the expression of which is controlled by IKAROS. The title of this thesis, “IKZF1 lesions… the chicken or the egg?”, refers to the unknown sequence of events which leads up to the deletion of IKZF1 since RAG expression dependent on IKAROS and therefore could not be deleted without RAG activity. The most common intragenic deletion involves the removal of the DNA binding domain in exons four to seven (Δ4-7), and produces a dominant negative (DN) which inhibits wild-type IKAROS function via dimerisation. Other focal deletions involving exons two or eight cause loss of function (LOF). Firstly, to ascertain if IKZF1 deletions (ΔIKZF1) had an impact on outcome, I screened 498 patients with B-ALL by end-point PCR for the four most common deletions: Δ4-7, Δ2-7 Δ4-8 and Δ2-8. IKZF1 lesions had no impact on outcome, despite minimal residual disease (MRD) positivity being more likely after induction therapy. A comparison of PCR and MLPA revealed a large number of discrepancies, highlighting that neither technique alone is sufficient for ΔIKZF1 detection. Next, I compared Ig/TCR and BCR-ABL1 based MRD to see if one technique was better at predicting survival. Several specimens had significantly different MRD levels, though neither of technique was proven better at predicting outcome. I also show that the type and number of Ig/TCR rearrangements differ significantly based on IKZF1 status, and that IKZF1 breakpoint sequences differ significantly based on BCR-ABL1 status, suggesting altered RAG activity. Finally, I established several cell line models in order to observe the effects of DN and LOF IKZF1 lesions on drug sensitivity. I showed that NALM-6 cells with LOF or DN IKZF1 lesions have increased resistance to dexamethasone, and that the presence of mesenchymal stromal cells in co-culture enhanced survival of ALL cells regardless of IKZF1 and BCR-ABL1 status. The data in this thesis has shown that while there is no impact of ΔIKZF1 on outcome in patients with ALL, it is likely that its impact is dependent on other cooperating lesions when these results are considered within the wider context of other trial data. Despite no impact seen in the clinical data, the cell line experiments have confirmed that ΔIKZF1 contributes to a more aggressive phenotype although the cause of this remains unclear

Evaluating The Effectiveness of the Good Behavior Game with General Education High School Students Utilizing a Changing Criterion Component

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the interdependent group contingency procedure known as the Good Behavior Game (GBG) with upper-level (i.e., 10th, 11th, and 12th grade) general education high school students utilizing a changing criterion design. The effectiveness of the GBG has been investigated with a variety of behaviors across many developmental levels; however, limited research has been done at the high school level. To date, only a few studies have examined the effectiveness of the GBG with a general education high school population, one with a single 9th grade classroom (Kleinman & Saigh, 2011) and one unpublished thesis utilizing an ABAB design across three high school classrooms, consisting mostly of 9th grade students (Mitchell, 2012). The present study adds to the literature base of the GBG by extending the versatility of the GBG to a broader age range of general education high school population with specific attention paid to older students as well as the criterion component of the GBG. These effects were evaluated across three classrooms, which all demonstrated decreases in disruptive behaviors during intervention phases (which were affected by the criterion level) as well as increases in academic engagement. Additionally, teachers found the GBG/TC to be acceptable for use in their classrooms. These results support the use of a modified version of the GBG in high school classrooms

The Effects of the Good Behavior Game With General Education High School Students

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the interdependent group contingency procedure known as the Good Behavior Game (GBG) on decreasing disruptive behaviors in general education high school students. The effectiveness of the GBG has been investigated in many studies as means of managing a variety of behaviors across many developmental levels; however, not all populations have been investigated. Although many studies exist that have utilized the GBG to alter behaviors across ages ranging from pre-school to adulthood, few studies exist in which the GBG has been used with a general education high school population. The present study adds to the literature base of the GBG by extending the versatility of the GBG to a general education high school population. To date, only one other study exists which has examined the effectiveness of the GBG with high school general education students (Kleinman & Saigh, 2011). Though supportive of the positive effects on disruptive behavior in this population, Kleinman and Saigh had several limitations regarding methodology and only used one classroom which limited the external validity of the intervention. The present study extends this literature base with further investigation of the game, by presenting the game as a Teamwork Competition (TC), and utilizes a separate ABAB withdrawal design across three classrooms, with withdrawal and reimplementation in two of the classrooms. All three classrooms demonstrated decreases in disruptive behaviors during intervention phases. Classrooms also had increases in disruptive behaviors during the withdrawal phase. Teachers and students found the GBG/TC to be acceptable for use in their classrooms. These results support the use of a modified version of the GBG in high school classrooms

Instruction type and stereotype threat in analytical reasoning: Can creativity help?

Stereotype threat is the fear that a person\u27s behavior or performance will confirm an existing stereotype of a group with which that person identifies. The purpose of this study was to look at the effect of instruction and emphasis on the female performance on an analytical reasoning task. This study tested undergraduate students taking a psychology course from California State University at San Bernardino. In this thesis, the task was framed as either an analytical reasoning task, a creative reasoning task, or there was no framing present. This study found that performance did differ as a result of instruction type, with creative instruction yielding higher scores. Varying instruction type performance can improve performance on an analytical reasoning task