'Making Choices in my Life': Listening to the ideas and experiences of young people in the UK who communicate non-verbally

Service user participation and making choices are frequently advocated, however, they are complex concepts and how they are translated and/or experienced in everyday life can vary amongst different groups of service users. Recognising the importance of participation in current international guidance and UK government policy this paper seeks to explore how research can include a frequently marginalised group of disabled young people, in particular young people with learning disabilities and/or who communicate non-verbally. The paper discusses the use of non-traditional research methods, especially symbols based interviews developed in an ongoing English longitudinal study exploring choices and decision-making processes for young people with life limiting conditions. The paper then presents some research findings and concludes by discussing their implications. In particular, the use of symbols based interviews for informing policy makers about how these young people can be included in research and how listening to them can inform our understanding of decision-making processes

Application of High-Performance Liquid-Chromatography Mass-Spectrometry Platform to Study Metabolism and Epigenetic Control of Metabolism

Naturally occurring small molecules (metabolites, signaling intermediates) are a critical component of the information flow in biology, along with DNA, RNA, and proteins. Metabolomics is an analytical approach that seeks to comprehensively analyze naturally occurring small molecules and quantify their dynamic changes in biological systems. In recent years metabolomics has begun to provide understanding of the metabolic basis of different diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Our lab built a High-Performance Liquid-Chromatography Mass-Spectrometry (HPLC-MS) based metabolomics platform to analyze metabolites from mammalian cells, spent cellular media, and model organisms such as C. elegans. We used C. elegans to elucidate the metabolic changes seen after treatment with Metformin, which is a known activator of the AMPK pathway. Cancer cells exhibit high levels of glycolysis producing large amounts of lactate; circumventing the mitochondrial pathway. This phenomenon is known as the Warburg effect. We hypothesize that cancer metabolism is epigenetically regulated. Epigenetics refers to inheritable traits that are not due to alterations in the primary DNA sequence. DNA methylation is an important epigenetic modification. DNA methylation mainly occurs in the CpG islands of the promoter region of genes. It is believed that during cancer development de novo DNA methyltransferases methylate tumor-suppressing genes allowing cancer cells to proliferate uninhibited. There are two de novo DNMTs, DNMT3A, and DNMT3B. These DNMTs establish the pattern of methylation. We examined de novo DNMT-mediated control of cellular metabolism, identifying global changes in metabolism, as well as differential sensitivity towards glycolytic and mitochondrial inhibitors

Intent inferencing with a model-based operator's associate

A portion of the Operator Function Model Expert System (OFMspert) research project is described. OFMspert is an architecture for an intelligent operator's associate or assistant that can aid the human operator of a complex, dynamic system. Intelligent aiding requires both understanding and control. The understanding (i.e., intent inferencing) ability of the operator's associate is discussed. Understanding or intent inferencing requires a model of the human operator; the usefulness of an intelligent aid depends directly on the fidelity and completeness of its underlying model. The model chosen for this research is the operator function model (OFM). The OFM represents operator functions, subfunctions, tasks, and actions as a heterarchic-hierarchic network of finite state automata, where the arcs in the network are system triggering events. The OFM provides the structure for intent inferencing in that operator functions and subfunctions correspond to likely operator goals and plans. A blackboard system similar to that of Human Associative Processor (HASP) is proposed as the implementation of intent inferencing function. This system postulates operator intentions based on current system state and attempts to interpret observed operator actions in light of these hypothesized intentions

Reflections on a Transnational Project: Suffrage in the Americas

Suffrage is the most significant political development within modern Liberal states. Despite this fact, it is curious as to why suffrage movements have so little history. This article focuses on the creation of an edited volume that seeks to address the women’s suffrage story across the Americas. While the intellectual process of the project is discussed in some detail, this article is predominantly a reflection on the process of developing a collaborative project and the challenges inherent to a transnational approach. This project reveals both the significance of suffrage and simultaneously the fractured landscape within individual countries, suffrage movements and the body politics as countless individuals and groups were excluded from the concept of ‘citizenship.’ It has become clear at this juncture that although significant gaps within women’s history across the hemisphere remain, attempting to compile a hemispheric story such as this one would have been unthinkable even a few decades ago and this type of project could also have not happened much earlier in the historiography

The Dating and Hooking Up Experiences of Black Women at Predominantly White Institutions: A Phenomenological Study

Within this study, we explored the dating and hooking up experiences of Black women interested in dating men while attending predominantly White institutions. Using a phenomenological approach, we investigated how participants’ dating and hooking up experiences influenced their college experiences. We used intersectionality, thriving, and belongingness to theoretically frame the study. Five themes emerged: defining dating and hooking up, the value of education, Black women’s wants, Black women’s experiences, and men’s expectations. We close with implications for practice and recommendations for future research

A Classroom Experiment on Exchange Rate Determination with Purchasing Power Parity

We develop a classroom experiment on exchange rate determination appropriate for undergraduate courses in macroeconomics and international economics. Students represent citizens from different countries and need to obtain currency to purchase goods. By participating in a sealed bid auction to buy currency, students gain a better understanding of currency markets and the determination of exchange rates. The implicit framework for exchange rate determination is one in which prices are perfectly flexible (in the long run) so that purchasing power parity (PPP) prevails. Additional treatments allow students to examine the impact of transport costs, nontradable goods and tariffs on the exchange rate and to explore possible deviations from PPP.