Recovery, Renewal, and Resiliency: Gulf Coast Small Businesses Two Years Later

Presents findings from a survey of small business owners about the state of the local economy immediately following and in the two years since Katrina made landfall

Quantifying the Effects of Measures to Control Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 in Poultry in Southeast Asia

Despite the ongoing efforts to contain its spread, H5N1 is now considered endemic within poultry in various settings worldwide, threatening both the livelihoods of those involved in poultry production in affected countries and posing a continuous public health risk. The reasons for the varying levels of success in controlling H5N1 in Southeast Asia need to be better understood. In this thesis, various different methods of quantifying the effects of individual control measures, using the types of data available in various different contexts, are discussed and applied. In the first half of this thesis a spatio-temporal survival model is fitted to H5N1 outbreak surveillance data from Vietnam and Thailand using a Bayesian framework in order to account for unobserved infection times. Following vaccination in Vietnam it was found that transmissibility had been successfully reduced but, during a wave of outbreaks in 2007, that this coincided with a reduction in the rate of at which outbreaks were reported following the introduction of infection, limiting the overall impact this reduction in transmissibility had on the total epidemic size. In Thailand, active surveillance was found to be successful in contributing to the control of infection. Furthermore, backyard producers, whilst responsible for the majority of outbreaks, were, on average, less likely to transmit infection than those involved in more intensive production. In the second half of the thesis, the use of final size methods to assess the effectiveness of vaccination from trial data is explored. This involved an investigation into the effects of different assumptions regarding the action by which vaccination confers immunity and fitting estimates of transmissibility to data collected from outbreak investigations in the context of a field trial of vaccination in Indonesia, where, making strong assumptions about the underlying infection process, a reduction in both within and between flock transmissibility was detected for outbreaks occurring in areas where vaccination was being carried out

Senior Recital: Patrick Walker, organ

https://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/musi_senior/1027/thumbnail.jp

Postglacial environments in relation to landscape and soils on the Cary drift, Iowa

The objectives of this study were to evaluate environmental and time factors in the genesis of soils and soil landscapes on the Cary drift in Iowa, with special reference to soils of the Clarion toposequence. The stratigraphy of five bogs along the Des Moines lobe was studied in detail; and as a result, a general bog stratigraphy was established for the Cary drift in Iowa. The stratigraphic zones and appropriate radiocarbon dates are as follows: upper muck zone (UM), 0-3,000 years; upper silt zone (US), 3,000- 8,000 years; lower muck zone (LM), 8,000-10,500 years; lower silt zone (LS) , 10,500-13,000 years; Cary sediments, \u3e13,000 years. Pollen and macro-fossil data indicated that forest vegetation was prominent on the landscape until 8,000 years ago; and subsequently, herbaceous prairie flora dominated the landscape up to the time of settlement. Erosional rates for hillslopes and depositional rates for bog areas were calculated for each of the stratigraphic zones given. The muck zones represent relatively slow hillslope erosion and a preferential accumulation of organic matter in the bog; the silt zones represent relatively rapid erosion and a preferential mineral sedimentation in the bog. Hillslope erosion 8,000 to 3,000 years ago was the greatest of all the intervals and removed an average of 1.7 feet of soil from the upper slopes of the Colo bog watershed and 5.3 feet from the upper slopes of the Jewell Watershed. The extent of erosion and deposition during this interval insures that most soils of the Colo and Jewell watersheds developed on relatively young surfaces under prairie vegetation. Many soils of the Webster, Harpster and Glencoe series developed the upper part of their solum in surficial sediment rather than the drift, and their profile properties relate to the last 3,000 years of prairie environment

Captive/Obsessive: Invention and Desire in Crazy For Vincent

This project is an exploration of the invention of obsession and desire in Hervé Guibert’s Fou de Vincent. Through his autofictional writing Guibert transforms lived reality into literature (or metaphysics) wherein the loved one is invented in the mind of the author and reified through the production of art. The work is considered within the context of Guibert’s social milieu, examining the cross-pollination between he and his friends, Michel Foucault, Sophie Calle, and Hans Georg Berger. Guibert’s literary lineage is sketched through his relationship to Proust, particularly his use of and modifications to the notion of the loved one as “captive” and “fugitive”. As writer, photographer, and filmmaker, Guibert’s interdisciplinary approaches to art-making are considered with particular emphasis on their shared subject matter, namely the synthesis of art and life and the production of the other. This project is partially an attempt to rescue Vincent from the captivity of characterization, while recognizing the impossibility of such attempts. The sick body is considered as a site of resistance is emphasized, and this project shows thatVincent, rather than À l\u27ami qui ne m\u27a pas sauvé la vie, is Guibert’s first “AIDS book”. Writing the other is a process of writing the self and a way to achieve self-knowledge

The Power of a Personal Testimony Booklet: Increasing Gospel Witness in Everyday Life

Evangelism is a key component of the Great Commission and a major responsibility for every Christ-Follower. The practice of personal evangelism, however, is frequently neglected by a majority of Christians. This project will initially examine the current state of personal evangelism in America and the scriptural expectation for all Christians to be frequent communicators of the gospel message. The ultimate purpose of this project is to demonstrate that a member of LivingStone Community Church can increase their Gospel witness in everyday life through the use of a written Personal Testimony Booklet. This pocket-sized booklet consists of two components. The first is a description of the three stages of one’s personal testimony. The second component consists of a unique presentation of the gospel message based upon that person’s spiritual journey. The goal of this thesis will shed light on the value of writing and distributing a personal testimony booklet. Practical suggestions will be offered for how to help church members develop and implement this evangelism method. Action research will primarily examine the success of this evangelism tool in increasing gospel witness in everyday life through surveys and interviews

Phytochrome A mediates blue-light enhancement of second-positive phototropism in Arabidopsis

Hypocotyl phototropism of etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings is primarily mediated by the blue-light receptor kinase phototropin 1 (phot1). Phot1-mediated curvature to continuous unilateral blue light irradiation (0.5 µmol m-2 s-1) is enhanced by overhead pre-treatment with red light (20 µmol m-2 s-1 for 15 min) through the action of phytochrome (phyA). Here, we show that pre-treatment with blue light is equally as effective in eliciting phototropic enhancement and is dependent on phyA. Although blue pre-treatment was sufficient to activate early phot1 signalling events, phot1 autophosphorylation in vivo was not found to be saturated, as assessed by subsequently measuring phot1 kinase activity in vitro. However, enhancement effects to red and blue pre-treatment were not observed at higher intensities of phototropic stimulation (10 µmol m-2 s-1). Phototropic enhancement to red and blue pre-treatments to 0.5 µmol m-2 s-1 unilateral blue light irradiation was also lacking in transgenic Arabidopsis where PHOT1 expression was restricted to the epidermis. Together, these findings indicate that phyA-mediated effects on phot1 signalling are restricted to low intensities of phototropic stimulation and originate from tissues other than the epidermis