Along divergent paths: a two-part thesis in creative and technical writing

Due to the difference topics representing each co-major--Creative Writing and Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Communications--this thesis is divided into two parts. Part I focuses on the creative writing portion of my thesis--the first half of my young adult fantasy novel. Part II focuses on my interests in visual communication and secondary education as fulfillment for the rhetoric portion of my master\u27s degree in English.;Abstract Part I: Creative Writing Two magical books--one good, one evil--each concealed and protected until now.;It began 300 years ago in the secluded mountain town of Cennfhain. There, the battle between The Senchen and The Shadows raged until virtue triumphed and bound evil into the Book of Umbra. A family of scribes--the MacBaharins--were chosen to preserve The Book of Illumination that recorded testimonies of the battle and the incantations used to defeat The Shadows. Now, The Shadows have returned, seeping from their parchment prison and seeking the one person who according to the prophecies possesses the power to release them on the world. Fourteen-year-old Fallon has dreamed about this moment for years. In two weeks, The Passing Ceremony will officially decree her adulthood in the eyes of The Council and the laws of Cennfhain. She will be free to make her own choices and make her opinion heard--without having to shout them. She may even be free enough to practice her magic. But when Fallon learns the true purpose of The Passing Ceremony, making choices and being an adult isn\u27t as simple as she thought--especially when she is accused of murder and fleeing for her life. Caught between The Council\u27s plan to steal magic and a malevolent shadowy force determined to kill her newborn sister, Fallon must find the strength, courage, and magic to defeat the ancient evil threatening to destroy everyone and everything she loves.;Abstract Part II: Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Communication Literacy concerns have existed for decades--bound by the ability to read, write, and speak within a cultural and societal framework. With the advent of the Information Age, however, literacy has evolved to include visual communication--the ability to \u27read,\u27 interpret, understand, use and create information presented in pictorial or graphic images. Because secondary (and elementary) educators are the main resource for improving the quality of students\u27 visual literacy skills, it is necessary to raise important questions concerning how visual communication is positioned within teacher preparation programs. This study investigates the evolution of literacy, the impact of visual communication on learning, and critical visual design principles educators need to create usable instructional materials and equip secondary students with visual literacy skills. Applying these findings to an analysis of three teacher preparation programs in Iowa reveals that although research proves the importance of visual communication in today\u27s technological society, limited opportunities exist for future secondary educators to acquire these skills

Call and Response: SEM President’s Roundtable 2016, “Ethnomusicological Responses to the Contemporary Dynamics of Migrants and Refugees”

The privilege of organizing the SEM President’s Roundtable in 2016 and 2017 provided an opportunity to call attention to a topic that has concerned my teaching and research since graduate school. For the first iteration of “Ethnomusicological Responses to the Contemporary Dynamics of Migrants and Refugees” I convened a panel of people whose perspectives I admire. I wanted to learn from them, and I did. As someone who has been involved with Middle Eastern and more specifically Arab music and culture within my own academic and regional community, I was making new efforts in the fall of 2016 toward engaged ethnomusicology in Virginia among my own newest neighbors, and organizing this SEM President’s Roundtable gave me courage and inspiration. Our “Call and Response” presents snapshots from five colleagues who are engaged with communities of migrants and refugees in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America..

Topological analysis of protein co-abundance networks identifies novel host targets important for HCV infection and pathogenesis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High-throughput methods for obtaining global measurements of transcript and protein levels in biological samples has provided a large amount of data for identification of 'target' genes and proteins of interest. These targets may be mediators of functional processes involved in disease and therefore represent key points of control for viruses and bacterial pathogens. Genes and proteins that are the most highly differentially regulated are generally considered to be the most important. We present topological analysis of co-abundance networks as an alternative to differential regulation for confident identification of target proteins from two related global proteomics studies of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We analyzed global proteomics data sets from a cell culture study of HCV infection and from a clinical study of liver biopsies from HCV-positive patients. Using lists of proteins known to be interaction partners with pathogen proteins we show that the most differentially regulated proteins in both data sets are indeed enriched in pathogen interactors. We then use these data sets to generate co-abundance networks that link proteins based on similar abundance patterns in time or across patients. Analysis of these co-abundance networks using a variety of network topology measures revealed that both degree and betweenness could be used to identify pathogen interactors with better accuracy than differential regulation alone, though betweenness provides the best discrimination. We found that though overall differential regulation was not correlated between the cell culture and liver biopsy data, network topology was conserved to an extent. Finally, we identified a set of proteins that has high betweenness topology in both networks including a protein that we have recently shown to be essential for HCV replication in cell culture.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results presented show that the network topology of protein co-abundance networks can be used to identify proteins important for viral replication. These proteins represent targets for further experimental investigation that will provide biological insight and potentially could be exploited for novel therapeutic approaches to combat HCV infection.</p

Unlocking the potential of deep learning for marine ecology: overview, applications, and outlook

The deep learning (DL) revolution is touching all scientific disciplines and corners of our lives as a means of harnessing the power of big data. Marine ecology is no exception. New methods provide analysis of data from sensors, cameras, and acoustic recorders, even in real time, in ways that are reproducible and rapid. Off-the-shelf algorithms find, count, and classify species from digital images or video and detect cryptic patterns in noisy data. These endeavours require collaboration across ecological and data science disciplines, which can be challenging to initiate. To promote the use of DL towards ecosystem-based management of the sea, this paper aims to bridge the gap between marine ecologists and computer scientists. We provide insight into popular DL approaches for ecological data analysis, focusing on supervised learning techniques with deep neural networks, and illustrate challenges and opportunities through established and emerging applications of DL to marine ecology. We present case studies on plankton, fish, marine mammals, pollution, and nutrient cycling that involve object detection, classification, tracking, and segmentation of visualized data. We conclude with a broad outlook of the field’s opportunities and challenges, including potential technological advances and issues with managing complex data sets.publishedVersionPaid Open Acces

Unlocking the potential of deep learning for marine ecology: overview, applications, and outlook

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