Authorized Agents: The Projects of Native American Writing in the Era of Removal.

This dissertation examines how Native American writing and performance mediated between tribal nations and colonial institutions during the period of Indian removal. It analyzes collaborative publications by writers, orators, and tribal leaders from four different Indian nations between 1820 and 1860: Sharitarish and Petalesharo (Pawnee); Black Hawk, Keokuk, and Hardfish (Sauk); Peter Pitchlynn (Choctaw); and Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Peter Jones, and George Copway (Ojibwe). I argue that these authors generated what I call “publication projects”: collaborative forms of writing and speaking that imagined institutional and discursive change through navigating colonial institutional networks. Embracing oral performance, manuscript writing, and print publishing, Native writers asserted themselves within the overlapping networks of colonial and tribal governments and civil society, such as the Office of Indian Affairs, missionary organizations, and educational institutions. As publication in the nineteenth century was not principally the work of addressing disembodied or cross-regional audiences, these Native American publication projects sought to inflect associational networks wherein Indian policy was made and knowledge created, and in which Indian removal was both promoted and debated. Removal-era Native writings and performances therefore register attempts to assert control over publication technologies in order to alternately critique or modify such networks, or to mobilize them to contribute to the work of Indian nation-building. Through collaborative and highly mediated publications, Native writers, speakers, and tribal leaders asserted themselves as “authorized agents,” performing a public and politicized Native presence to claim a place for tribal nations in North America. As situational acts of writing and performance, these projects negotiated and contested the local and regional pressures through which North American settler colonialism manifested.PhDAmerican CultureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113633/1/fpkeld_1.pd

Response shifts in mental health interventions: An illustration of longitudinal measurement invariance.

The efficacy of treatments for depression is often measured by comparing observed total scores on self-report inventories, in both clinical practice and research. However, the occurrence of response shifts (changes in subjects' values, or their standards for measurement) may limit the validity of such comparisons. As most psychological treatments for depression are aimed at changing patients' values and frame of reference, response shifts are likely to occur over the course of such treatments. In this article, we tested whether response shifts occurred over the course of treatment in an influential randomized clinical trial. Using confirmatory factor analysis, measurement models underlying item scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck & Beamesderfer, 1974) of the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (Elkin, Parloff, Hadley, & Autry, 1985) were analyzed. Compared with before treatment, after-treatment item scores appeared to overestimate depressive symptomatology, measurement errors were smaller, and correlations between constructs were stronger. These findings indicate a response shift, in the sense that participants seem to get better at assessing their level of depressive symptomatology. Comparing measurement models of patients receiving psychotherapy and medication suggested that the aforementioned effects were more apparent in the psychotherapy groups. Consequently, comparisons of observed total scores on self-report inventories may yield confounded measures of treatment efficacy. © 2013 American Psychological Association

Imaging Single-Stranded DNA, Antigen-Antibody Reaction and Polymerized Langmuir-Blodgett Films with an Atomic Force Microscope

The combination of an (AFM) atomic force microscope together with microfabricated cantilevers that have integrated tips opens many possibilities for imaging systems of great importance in biology. We have imaged single-stranded 25mer DNA that was adsorbed on treated mica or that was covalently bound with a crosslinker to a polymerized Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) film, the top monolayer of a bilayer system. At low magnification the AFM shows cracks between solid domains, like in an image taken with a fluorescence microscope. At higher magnification, however, the AFM reveals much finer cracks and at still higher magnification it reveals rows of individual molecules in the polymerized LB film with a spacing of 0.45 nm. We have also imaged a LB film consisting of lipids in which 4% of the lipids had hapten molecules chemically bound to the lipid headgroups. Specific antibodies can then bind to these hapten molecules and be imaged with the AFM. This points to the possibility of using the AFM to monitor selective antibody binding

An Exploratory Quantitative Study into the Relationship between Catholic Affiliation and the Development of Social Entrepreneurship Education in the USA

Catholic educationalists have long stressed the role of Catholic universities in advancing the cause of social justice to counter the increasing commodification of business relationships and the lack of social responsibilities of the business world. Is this rhetoric or reality? In this empirical paper involving 501 USA universities that have an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited business school, we examine the relationship between Catholic affiliation and the universities’ decisions to offer social entrepreneurship and non-profit management courses to business students. Our study found that universities with Catholic affiliation are significantly more likely to offer both non-profit management and social entrepreneurship courses to business students. Our results offer evidences that Catholic universities are indeed working towards making a difference, with the vision and flexibility to do so

Intramolecular Cooperative Effects in Multichromophoric Cavitands Exhibiting Nonlinear Optical Properties

We report on the design, synthesis, and characterization of a new class of multichromophoric cavitands based on resorcin[4]arenes. The novel compounds have exhibited high values of second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties, as evidenced by electric-field-induced second harmonic generation (EFISHG) measurements. Theoretical calculations indicate the presence of edge-to-face T-shaped interactions between the aromatic building blocks within these multichromophoric systems, which is further supported by the detection of hypsochromic shifts in UV-vis and upfield aromatic chemical shifts in 1H NMR. We proved for the first time that the gain in the quadratic hyperpolarizabilities of multichromophoric NLO macrocycles, originating from the near parallel orientations of the subchromophores, can be partially suppressed if the distance between the dipolar subunits falls into a specific range, where intramolecular cooperative and/or collective effects are operative. Our finding will contribute to the better understanding of the phenomenon of cooperativity in new molecular materials with promising NLO properties. (Figure Presented). © 2015 American Chemical Society

Construct validation of the Amblyopia and Strabismus Questionnaire (A&SQ) by factor analysis

Background: The Amblyopia and Strabismus Questionnaire (A&SQ) was previously developed to assess quality of life (QoL) in amblyopia and/or strabismus patients. Here, factor analysis with Varimax rotation was employed to confirm that the questions of the A&SQ correlated to dimensions of quality of life (QoL) in such patients. Methods: Responses on the A&SQ from three groups were analyzed: healthy adults (controls) (n = 53), amblyopia and/or strabismus patients (n = 72), and a historic cohort of amblyopes born between 1962-1972 and occluded between 1968-1974 (n = 173). The correlations among the responses to the 26 A&SQ items were factor-analysed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). As the development of the A&SQ was intuitive-deductive, it was expected that the pattern of correlation could be explained by the five a priori hypothesized dimensions: fear of losing the better eye, distance estimation, visual disorientation, diplopia, and social contact and cosmetic problems. Distribution of questions along the factors derived by PCA was examined by orthogonal Varimax rotation. Results: Data from 296 respondents were analyzed. PCA provided that six factors (cutoff point eigenvalue >1.0) accumulatively explained 70.5% of the variance. All A&SQ dimensions but one matched with four factors found by Varimax rotation (factor loadings >0.50), while two factors pertained to the fifth dimension. The six factors explained 33.7% (social contact and cosmetic problems); 10.3% (near distance estimation); 8.7% (diplopia); 7.2% (visual disorientation); 6.3% (fear of losing the better eye); and 4.3% (far distance estimation), together 70.48% of the item variance. Conclusion: The highly explained variance in the A&SQ scores by the factors found by the PCA confirmed the a priori hypothesized dimensions of this QoL instrument