Beyond the Threshold: Investing in Women-led Small and Growing Businesses

This collaborative research project was designed to address the need for greater depth, insight, and clarity on the problems of underinvestment in Women-led Small and Growing Businesses (WSGBs), including those led by younger women (18-35 years old). It is an intentionally exploratory process intended to foster collaboration among ANDE members while also contributing to the existing body of knowledge and identifying areas for further exploration, study, and action. The research recognizes that women entrepreneurs are not a homogenous group, and attempts where possible to make distinctions based on other socioeconomic and demographic factors, as well as to acknowledge the variance in preferences even among those narrower groups

Got Caries? Breast milk and Early Childhood Caries?

Objective: To provide an analysis of the association between the longevity of breastfeeding and development of ECC. Determine the optimal time frame in which mothers should cease breastfeeding to reduce ECC development. Methods: Dr. Brickhouse, PubMed, Google Scholar and other scholarly databases were utilized to find current scientific evidence on the effects of breast milk on ECC. Relevant articles were summarized to write a review of literature. 16 articles published from 2015 to the present date were reviewed and cited. Results: From the studies, there is strong evidence to support breastfeeding beyond 12 months of age increases the prevalence of ECC. Furthermore, increased frequency and duration of breastfeeding leads to higher incidence of ECC. Conclusion: Findings indicate dental health care providers should recommend either ceasing breastfeeding at 12 months of age or provide ECC prevention education to caregivers. Further research is required to minimize data discrepancies between US and international countries.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/denh_student/1002/thumbnail.jp

Characterisation of novel lung cancer cell lines for immuno-inhibitory markers

The present study investigates the expression of immune biomarkers, PD-L1 and HLA-1 on novel lung cancer cell lines (H838, H838-EGFR, A549, A549-ALK, HCC 827, NCI 1650, TWIT, Jacket). PD-L1 and HLA-1 characterisation were initially performed and analysed via flow cytometry. These results showed that the expression of PD-L1 and HLA-1 varies across the cell lines from high percent to low. The effect of IFNy on biomarkers expression was also investigated following a 48 hour incubation period. of the cell lines analysed the expression of PD-L1 increases with IFNy stimulation whilst HLA-1 remains relatively unchanged. Trypan blue assays for cell viability were performed, showing that when stimulated, cells were 100% viable whereas viability decreases upon IFNy exposure

Locating Truth in the Search for Certainty: A Comparison of Foundationalism in Irenaeus’ Second-Century Writings and in Twenty-First-Century Evangelicalism

With a vast library of literature written on Irenaeus of Lyons, this thesis seeks to offer particular insights regarding prominent secondary literature on the bishop and his legacy in modern evangelicalism. This essay finds that key literature positioned as introductions to Irenaeus do not integrate key sources which are necessary to establish the second-century context of his writings. Instead they rely on Irenaeus’ own account of his context, and a skewed, fourth-century, Eusebian generalisation of earliest Christianity. The mistake of deliberating ideas without analysis of those being targeted is echoed in evangelicalism and, in particular, evangelical appropriations of Irenaeus’ material. This essay also finds that language of the ‘obviousness’ of one’s ideology and claims to ‘common sense’ reduces non-Irenaean and non-evangelical ideologies from the level of ideas to the level of moral integrity. If this reduction is rushed, authors place their literature less in a genre of academic investigation on the level of ideas and closer to a rhetorical exhortation which aims to elevate certainty in the current self. This paper concludes that to engage in a discussion on the merit of ideas, in both Irenaeus studies and in evangelical appropriations of Irenaeus, critical empathy with non-Irenaean material or non-evangelical material must be demonstrated, respectively. Among secondary contributions, this paper seeks to incorporate a heightened esteem for Irenaeus’ other extant piece, Demonstration; includes a diagram and associated analysis of the bishop’s truth verification network not before illustrated; and includes the beginnings of a critique of the viewpoints that (a) fundamentalistic evangelicalism and its key tenets (like biblical inerrantism) existed from earliest Christianity, but also (b) that fundamentalistic evangelicalism began with Enlightenment thinking. Instead, this essay attempts to show that the foundationalism which is key to fundamentalistic evangelicalism existed in similar but not identical forms to those in the second century

The application of adaptive mesh techniques to numerical simulations of gravity current flows

The performance of unstructured adaptive meshes (adaptive meshes) in simulations of gravity current flows is evaluated in order to assess their utility for ocean modelling. Adaptive mesh models aim to capture transient and complex dynamics in an efficient manner by refining or coarsening the mesh as the flow evolves. Gravity currents that exhibit such behaviour therefore present an ideal test case to investigate the promise of the adaptive mesh approach. The prime focus is on gravity currents generated in the idealised lock-exchange set-up and simulated with the Imperial College Ocean Model (Fluidity-ICOM). The Froude number (non-dimensional front speed) and background potential energy (a measure of the mixing) are used to evaluate the performance of fixed and adaptive meshes. Adaptive mesh simulations produce comparable values of the diagnostics to the higher resolution fixed mesh simulations whilst using at least one order of magnitude fewer nodes. The results also compare well with published values. Here, the metrics that guide the mesh adapt are formed from a modified Hessian and a user-defined weight for selected solution fields. The best performing of these simple metrics (denoted M2) incorporates a scaling by the determinant of the modified Hessian. This gives greater weighting to smaller-scale fluctuations leading to better representation of these features. Simulations of a gravity current on an incline are also presented that showcase the strength of M2 and progress the modelled scenario towards a realistic ocean overflow. The choice of metric is fundamental to the ability of the adaptive mesh to represent the flow. This decision will remain key for ocean models, from idealised studies to scenarios of increasing complexity. The potential for good representation of the flow and efficiency gains with adaptive meshes demonstrated here offers a promising outlook for their use in ocean modelling

WORK, WORKERS, AND REPRODUCING SOCIAL CONTROL: RACIAL POST-FORDISM AND ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS

This dissertation interrogates the composition of workers, work, and class, as processes in contemporary capitalism and in other existing or future systems. The first section develops a theoretical framework to understand work and workers which draws on Autonomist Marxist, Black radical, and Marxist feminist literatures. This includes considering new forms and organizations of work that arise from current capitalist economic relations, racialized work, and reproductive work. With this framework I build a theory of racial post-Fordism as the current system of economic relations. In the next section, I apply this theory of racial post-Fordism to work and workers in the contemporary U.S. prison system. I analyze data from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) to identify patterns in work assignment allocation in prisons. I find that job allocation in prisons follows a similar pattern of occupational segregation by race and gender as in the free economy. I also analyze a series of questions from the SPI which ask prison workers how important various aspects of their work are to them. There are also patterns by gender in race in these answers, and the content of the questions themselves highlights the racialized nature of prison work and work ethic. The third section is split into two parts. The first part is a brief case study of reproductive work and the reproduction of subjectivity in the Soviet Union. I analyze archival time use data, ethnographic, and autobiographic sources, in addition to contemporary literature on reproductive work and subjectivity. Reproductive work was heavily gendered, and women continued perform the majority of it throughout the Soviet era. The second part of the third section assesses some theoretical models of future economic systems. I analyze some of the most well-known models, and consider some of the contemporary social reproduction theory literature which address the social reproduction issues that the preceding models neglect. Finally, I critique these models as lacking an adequate critique of care as a concept and practice, and make some suggestions to move towards a liberatory practice of reproductive and caring work

Investigating the potential regulation of Asic2 by microRNAs

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease which causes neurodegeneration. It is a disease which affects mainly young adults, and symptoms become more aggressive over time. It is thought that mutations in a variety of genes may be a large contributor to the development of MS. Many Linkage and Genome Wide Association Studies have been performed to find genes which may be mis-expressed among different sections of the world’s population. Through one of these Genome Wide Associations a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) was found in the 3’ UTR of the ACCN1 gene. This gene codes for Acid Sensing Ion Channel 2, a major ion channel predominantly found in cells within the Central Nervous System (CNS). As this channel is closely connected to systems in the CNS which are known to be affected in patients with MS, it was thought that the SNP should be investigated further. As the SNP was found in the 3’ UTR it was suggested that miRNAs may play a role. This study took on this suggestion and investigated the possibility of ACCN1 being controlled by a miRNA and whether this control was in any way affected by the SNP found. The initial experiment found that of the two variants, rs28936A was controlled more strongly by a miRNA than the variant rs28936G. Resequencing of the samples showed a further three SNPs in the same region. Several miRNA target sites were predicted that contained at least one of the SNPs, however none of these could be validated experimentally using luciferase essays. The three SNPs were tested individually using the same luciferase experiment but none were found to have a more significant effect over luciferase expression over the others. The results therefore indicate that all SNPs contribute to the reduction in miRNA binding. Further research is proposed to investigate in more detail, potential miRNA candidates. It was concluded from these results that the ACCN1 gene is being controlled by an unknown miRNA via binding to the 3’UTR, that the rs28936A variant is more strongly controlled by the miRNA and that of all SNPs found (including the two originals and three ‘new’ SNPs) none have a significantly stronger miRNA control than the other

How changes to how the Census counts people has implications for democracy and inequality

The US Census Bureau recently announced that it will be changing the demographics it measures and how it counts people. Hannah L. Walker and Rebecca U. Thorpe argue that the Bureau's revisions are an important opportunity to correct current practices of counting prisoners as residents where they are incarcerated rather than in their home communities. Such practices distort democratic representation and influence benefits and state aid