Taking the Mystery Out of Mastery

Whether mastery learning can continue as a viable approach despite a hostile surrounding remains to be determined

The Myth of the “Welfare Queen”: Reproductive Oppression in the Welfare System

This paper focuses on two major policy flaws that are rooted in the racist stereotype of the “welfare queen.” These policies work together to punish single motherhood and deny poor women the ability to control their own reproductive futures. They were enacted under the guise that they will stop the cycle of poverty. In reality, they drive women and families deeper into it. First, in the background section, this paper gives an overview of the history of the “welfare queen” myth and the dramatic changes in the U.S. welfare system. In the analysis section, part one covers the family cap rule, which punishes poor women who have children if they are already on welfare. It also provides a brief history of how welfare benefits have been used to coercively sterilize poor women of color for decades. Part two covers the lack of adequate funding for contraceptives and abortion care. The two strategies of preventing poor women from procreating, while also barring their access to pregnancy prevention, create an impossible situation for poor women in this country. They are denied the right to have children and they are denied the right to not have children. The biggest problem is the fact that simply because these women are poor, governments believe they have the right to dictate their entire family planning future. This alienates a fundamental right based purely on socioeconomic status. The final section of this paper presents simple and introductory recommendations for changing our systems of welfare from inherently classist and racist regimes that oppress poor women, to a structure that will return to the original target of eliminating poverty instead of the poor

Antibacterial properties of novel Eumelanin-Inspired Phenylene Indolyne derivatives

BACKGROUND: The eumelanin core represents a novel compound having the intrinsic ability to act as scaffolding for functional groups which may possess antibacterial properties. The purpose of this study was to investigate the antibacterial potential of eumelanin-inspired phenylene indolyne (EIPE) derivatives EIPE-1 and EIPE-HCl which are hydrophobic and hydrophilic, respectively.METHODS: A standardized disk agar diffusion bioassay was employed to determine the susceptibility and resistance levels of 12 gram-positive and 13 gram-negative bacteria to nonpolar and polar EIPE derivatives. The bioassay was performed by dissolving the compounds in dimethyl sulfoxide and impregnating filter paper disks which were placed onto Mueller Hinton agar plates spread inoculated in a standardized manner to obtain even cell lawns after incubation for 18±1 hours at 37°C. Zones of growth inhibition were measured with the aid of electronic calipers.RESULTS: Five strains of Staphylococcus aureus, plus Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus epidermidis were all found to be susceptible to the hydrophobic derivative EIPE-1, while other gram-positive and all gram-negative organisms exhibited resistant phenotypes at potencies tested. The more polar EIPE-HCl derivative failed to inhibit growth of any of the organisms examined, regardless of gram reactivity.CONCLUSION: Hydrophobic EIPE derivative EIPE-1 clearly possesses a gram-positive antibacterial spectrum, although only certain organisms are susceptible at the potencies employed for this study. The susceptibility of two methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains (SFL 8 and SFL 64) to EIPE-1 suggests that its mechanism of action does not involve the penicillin-binding proteins of peptidoglycan biosynthesis targeted by mainstream B-lactam antibiotics. The uniform resistance of 13 phylogenetically disparate gram-negative bacteria supports the notion that intrinsic outer membrane exclusion properties may play a role in the mechanism underlying their phenotypic resistance to the molecule. The more polar EIPE-HCl possesses no antibacterial properties at the potencies examined here. Future work will include performing minimal inhibitory concentration bioassays to quantitatively describe susceptibly in selected gram-positive bacteria. In addition, batch culture growth kinetics assays will be crucial to learning the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for susceptibility and resistance to EIPE-1

Relationship between susceptivity to triclosan sensitization by outer membrane permeabilization and cell surface hydrophobicity properties in opportunistically pathogenic Serratia species

BACKGROUND: The nosocomial opportunists Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Serratia marcescens are atypically resistant to the hydrophobic biocide triclosan due largely to outer membrane impermeability properties for hydrophobic substances. However, we have recently shown that the degree of cell envelope impermeability for triclosan differs dramatically among other opportunistically pathogenic Serratia species. Moreover, susceptivity to sensitization to triclosan by outer membrane premeabilization also differs among other intrinsically resistant species. The purpose of the present study was to determine if cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) properties underlie susceptivity to triclosan sensitization by outer membrane premeabilization in selected species as we further characterize their cell surface properties in anticipation of investigating their propensities to form in vitro biofilms.METHODS: Three Serratia species (marcescens, fonticola, and odorifera) exhibiting disparate degrees of susceptivity to triclosan sensitization by outer membrane premeabilization were examined to determine their susceptibility levels to mechanistically-disparate hydrophobic molecules and their CSH properties. Intrinsic resistance to hydrophobic antibacterial agents was assessed using a standardized disk agar diffusion bioassay. CSH was determined using conventional crystal violet binding, hydrocarbon adherence, and 1-N-phenylnapthylamine uptake assays routinely employed in this laboratory.RESULTS: S. marcescens and S. fonticola were intrinsically resistant to all mechanistically-disparate hydrophobic antibacterial agents examined to include triclosan, while S. odorifera was susceptible. The CSH properties of all these differed only slightly, despite the disparate susceptivities of the two triclosan-resistant species to triclosan sensitization.CONCLUSION: These data suggest that phenotypic differences seen in three opportunistic Serratia species with regard to intrinsic resistance to hydrophobic antibacterial agents in general, and triclosan specifically are at least due in part to disparate abilities of their outer membranes to exclude hydrophobic substances. Moreover, susceptivity to triclosan sensitization by outer membrane premeabilization in the triclosan-resistant species S. marcescens and S. fonticola appears not to be influenced by differences in cell surface hydrophobicity properties