Colonial Trauma in Márquez and Rushdie’s Magical Realism

Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children are hallmarks of the genre of magical realism. A typically problematic genre in terms of classification, this article looks at magical realism from a Freudian perspective, with particular reference to Freud’s notion of The Uncanny. Freud’s notion of uncanniness deals in displacement; it is uncomfortable, haunting and cyclical. The dominant presence of such uncanny effects in magical realist literature, I argue, reveals the haunting presence of colonial trauma within the current postcolonial psyche

Characterisation of PP2Cβ in regulating tumour suppressor pathways in cancer cell lines : A thesis presented to Massey University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Masters in Genetics

Tumour suppressor p53 is a key regulator in preventing neoplastic transformation by inducing cell cycle arrest or death in response to stress-signalling pathways. Consequently, p53 is often non-functional during the early stages of cancer development through either direct mutation or aberrant expression of negative regulators. PP2Cβ is a protein phosphatase which was recently identified as a negative regulator of p53 and cellular senescence. However, the function of PP2Cβ in cancer development is not fully understood. The aim of this study was to characterise PP2Cβ and its regulation of p53 pathways in human cancer cell lines. This aim was split into two objectives. The first objective was to examine the effects of PP2Cβ on p53 pathways and cell proliferation in four cancer cell lines with various genetic backgrounds. A protein analysis using western immunoblotting procedures indicates that p53 pathways are activated in cell lines expressing wildtype p53 and Ras. Consistent with activated p53 pathways, PP2Cβ knockdown significantly reduced proliferation rates, which could be attributed to an increased expression of a p53 target gene, p21 cell cycle inhibitor. The second objective was to investigate the mechanisms regulating of PP2Cβ gene expression. Previously, p63 was identified as a potential negative regulator of PP2Cβ gene expression based on a modular relational database that integrated microarray results with a genome-wide search of p53 family member response elements. It was therefore hypothesized that p63 could negatively regulate PP2C gene expression. Mammalian expression vectors carrying either the p63 or p73 expression cassette were constructed and PP2Cβ expression was analysed upon overexpression of p53 family members (p53, p63 and p73) in two human cancer cell lines. A reverse-transcriptase coupled quantitative PCR showed that overexpression of p63 resulted in decreased PP2Cβ expression in p53 wildtype cell line. Taken together the results presented here suggest that restoration of tumour suppressors such as p53 and Rb activity by PP2C inhibition could be used as a potential therapeutic strategy in cancer treatment

Urban Populations of Queen Snakes (Regina Septemvittata) and Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon)

Undergraduate Basi

Health Care Coverage and Access for Children in Low-Income Families: Stakeholder Perspectives from California

An important question to ask about any health care system is how well it serves children in low-income families. In California, the question raises much optimism, though there are continuing areas of concern. On one hand, 88 percent of eligible children were enrolled in Medi-Cal as of 2013, the state's Medicaid program, up 7 percent since 2007 (The Urban Institute 2015). Moreover, the state is now gearing to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to all children in low-income families. The increase is thanks to California's comprehensive implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and additional state-based initiatives that will soon expand. On the other hand, stakeholders are concerned that access to high quality health care services for children in low-income families is not keeping pace with rapid expansion in access to insurance. This issue brief was prepared as part of a small-scale qualitative study funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to convey recent positive developments, remaining unmet needs, and emerging issues in children's health care coverage and delivery, from the perspective of knowledgeable stakeholders. Issue briefs on children's health in Colorado and Texas and a cross-state analysis are also available

Innovation in China: the rise of Chinese inventors in the production of knowledge

In 2010 China was the world's fourth largest filer of patent applications. This followed a decade of unprecedented increases in investment in skills and Research and Development. If current trends continue China could rank first in the very near future. We provide evidence that the growth in Chinese patenting activity has been accompanied by a growth in Chinese inventors creating technologies that are near to the science base. Part of the success of China has been to attract the investment of foreign multinationals. This is also true for a number of other Emerging Economies. Europe's largest multinational firms increasingly file patent applications that are based on inventor activities located in emerging economies, often working alongside inventors from the firm's home country.China; innovation; offshoring; patents.

The Gut Brain Connection: Does our diet affect our mood?

Recent research studies have revealed that there is validity to the claim that “you are what you eat”. In fact, emerging science suggests that there is evidence supporting that eating a nutrient dense healthy diet impacts one’s mental health. The goal of this research is to explore how the foods we consume affect our emotions. More specifically this poster focuses on the gut-brain connection and how individuals with depression are impacted by their food choices. To investigate the link between nutrition and depression, a literature review of three prominent research articles was completed. The articles examined include A modified Mediterranean dietary intervention for adults with major depression: Dietary protocol and feasibility data from the SMILES trial, Healthy dietary indices and risk of depressive outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies, and Antidepressant foods: An evidence-based nutrient profiling system for depression. Evaluation of each of these studies reveal that proper nutrition can improve symptoms in individuals diagnosed with depression

Assertiveness in Nursing Students

The problem that this study focused on was that there was minimal evidence on whether or not nursing students become more assertive throughout their academic education. The purpose of this study was to compare the assertiveness scores of sophomore level nursing students and senior level-nursing students. The study was guided by Hildegard Peplau’s theory of interpersonal relations in nursing, which focuses on the therapeutic process between nurses and patients, rather than on internal patient pathology. The descriptive, comparative study used a 15-question survey design and a convenience sample of sophomore and senior level nursing students at a large urban Midwest university. Recruitment, informed consent, and data collection occurred during the sophomore and senior classes. An independent sample T test was used to determine group differences in assertiveness. The results revealed that the sophomore level students were more assertive than the senior level-nursing students