A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili

This intellectual history of Standard Swahili explores the long-term, intertwined processes of standard making and community creation in the historical, political, and cultural contexts of East Africa and beyond. Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also around the globe. The book pivots on the question of whether standardized versions of African languages have empowered or oppressed. It is inevitable that the selection and promotion of one version of a language as standard—a move typically associated with missionaries and colonial regimes—negatively affected those whose language was suddenly deemed nonstandard. Before reconciling the consequences of codification, however, Robinson argues that one must seek to understand the process itself. The history of Standard Swahili demonstrates how events, people, and ideas move rapidly and sometimes surprisingly between linguistic, political, social, or temporal categories. Robinson conducted her research in Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, and the United Kingdom. Organized around periods of conversation, translation, and codification from 1864 to 1964, the book focuses on the intellectual history of Swahili’s standardization. The story begins in mid-nineteenth-century Zanzibar, home of missionaries, formerly enslaved students, and a printing press, and concludes on the mainland in the mid-twentieth century, as nationalist movements added Standard Swahili to their anticolonial and nation-building toolkits. This outcome was not predetermined, however, and Robinson offers a new context for the strong emotions that the language continues to evoke in East Africa. The history of Standard Swahili is not one story, but rather the connected stories of multiple communities contributing to the production of knowledge. The book reflects this multiplicity by including the narratives of colonial officials and anticolonial nationalists; East African clerks, students, newspaper editors, editorialists, and their readers; and library patrons, academic linguists, formerly enslaved children, and missionary preachers. The book reconstructs these stories on their own terms and reintegrates them into a new composite that demonstrates the central place of language in the history of East Africa and beyond.https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1018/thumbnail.jp

Large-scale educational telecommunications systems for the US: An analysis of educational needs and technological opportunities

The needs to be served, the subsectors in which the system might be used, the technology employed, and the prospects for future utilization of an educational telecommunications delivery system are described and analyzed. Educational subsectors are analyzed with emphasis on the current status and trends within each subsector. Issues which affect future development, and prospects for future use of media, technology, and large-scale electronic delivery within each subsector are included. Information on technology utilization is presented. Educational telecommunications services are identified and grouped into categories: public television and radio, instructional television, computer aided instruction, computer resource sharing, and information resource sharing. Technology based services, their current utilization, and factors which affect future development are stressed. The role of communications satellites in providing these services is discussed. Efforts to analyze and estimate future utilization of large-scale educational telecommunications are summarized. Factors which affect future utilization are identified. Conclusions are presented

Happiness and age in European adults: The moderating role of gross domestic product per capita.

Studies of happiness levels across the life span have found support for two rival hypotheses. The positivity effect states that as people get older, they increasingly attend to positive information, which implies that happiness remains stable or increases with age, whereas the U-shaped hypothesis posits a curvilinear shape resulting from a dip during midlife. Both have been presented as potentially universal hypotheses that relate to cognitive and/or biological causes. The current study examined the happiness-age relationship across 29 European nations (N = 46,301) to explore whether it is moderated by national wealth, as indexed by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. It was found that eudaimonic and hedonic happiness remained relatively stable across the life span only in the most affluent nations; in poorer nations, there was either a fluctuating or steady age-associated decline. These findings challenge the cultural universality of the happiness-age relationship and suggest that models of how age relates to happiness should include the socioeconomic level of analysis

Four Years Since COVID-19 Day Zero: A Time to Evaluate Past and Future Pandemic Control Policies and Practices in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Four years after the first case of COVID-19, the world is still determining how best to prevent and control the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were employed at the start of the pandemic as the only available options, prior to effective vaccines and antiviral agents. The World Health Organization recommended dual vaccination for 70% worldwide as the threshold for a return to “normal” community life. Immunization rates needed to increase in all global regions, irrespective of socioeconomic status, necessitating more equitable access. During the pandemic, wealthier countries hoarded vaccine supplies even when their citizens were immunized. This highlights the already enormous difficulties in healthcare provision faced by low-income sub-Saharan African countries, which remain at risk as industrialized nations have progressed to a post-pandemic era. Thus, in addition to redoubling vaccination efforts public health policymakers should consider ongoing and future use of NPIs. In this narrative account, we advocate that various NPI practices should not be shelved; rather, more research is needed to evaluate their impact in parallel with booster vaccination. This especially applies to so-called “long COVID”. Lessons learned from implementing best practices in resource-limited settings should be incorporated into preparedness guidelines for future infectious disease outbreaks

Mental Toughness in Strength and Conditioning Training: Is it really necessary? Perspectives of elite NCAA Strength and Conditioning coaches

In recent years, there has been an increased awareness and consideration of the association of mental toughness (MT) in high performance in sports. However, MT remains both one of the most accepted and misunderstood terms in applied sport psychology, especially when it comes to strength and conditioning training and female student-athletes. PURPOSE: To investigate the beliefs of Strength and Conditioning Coaches (SSC) of women’s collegiate basketball in regards to MT. In more detail, based on the literature, field tendencies, and practice, 8 areas of interest were covered: 1) Conceptualization, 2) Value, 3) Development, 4) Gender Differences, 5) Measurement, 6) Differences in the responsibilities to develop MT when compared to basketball coaches, 7) Implementation, and 8) Level of interest in learning more. METHODS: Ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 SCCs for women’s basketball from the same Power 5 conference were recruited via email. The study followed an observational and cross-sectional model while a fixed and convergent mixed-method design was used. Data were collected on a quantitative instrument (i.e., questionnaire) and on a qualitative instrument (i.e., interview). Eight SCCs completed the Stronger Than Average Mentality (S.T.A.M.) questionnaire on Qualtrics. S.T.A.M. is a 34-item instrument, which was piloted first. In addition, its items’ reliability was estimated using Guttman’s λ2. Six participated in a semi-structured interview of 10 open-ended questions. Both instruments’ items were developed based on the same 8 areas of interest stated above. Capturing the descriptive information about the sample was the goal of analysis of the quantitative data (i.e., descriptive statistics), while data reduction was the goal of analysis of the qualitative data (i.e., thematic analysis). Then, integration of the results from the two strands was performed looking for corroborating or complementary information, which resulted in a 90% inter-rater agreement. In cases of conflict, analytic induction was run. RESULTS: There was convergence of the findings in all 8 areas of interest. In more detail, all SCC’s find MT to be important and would like to know more about it. The majority of SCC’s claimed that they know what MT is, that MT can be developed, that the head coach has more responsibility towards developing MT, and that they know how to measure it. However, there was high variability when ranking MT’s key attributes, while there was no consensus on whether MT can be developed in student-athletes or on whether there are gender differences in MT. None SCC reported use of an instrument for measurement. CONCLUSION: MT is of value in strength and conditioning in this conference. The findings confirm conclusions of previous research, which indicated that –although MT is reported to be widely used– at the same time, it is a very unclear term. More education of the coaches is necessary, especially in regards to the key components of MT, MT training, and MT measurement. Future research should perhaps use a more grounded theory approach and recruit SCC’s from other sports and different environments (e.g., conference, level, country). The development in this age and the transferability outside sports are two issues that should be addressed in future research efforts

From students to citizens: the impacts of an intergenerational experiential learning program on undergraduate student development

Undergraduate education can strengthen its focus on developing ethical and social literacy in students through incorporating service programs based in experiential learning. Prior research demonstrates experiential learning augments students’ learning outcomes, perceived meaning of education, and social competencies. Experiential learning incorporating intergenerational communication promotes understanding of aging, value placed on service, and sheds light on unforeseen skills and goals for students. This study evaluated the impacts of an intergenerational experiential learning program on character social, and educational development outcomes in students. Further, the study explored the benefits of such programs for older adults. Ultimately, the program developed students’ character relevant to finding purpose, recognizing strengths, showing gratitude, developing coping strategies, and making goals for the future. In reference social development, the program improved their skills for relationship building, attitudes toward older adults, and perspectives regarding intergenerational interactions. Qualitatively, participants collectively endorsed themes of character development, relational development, and intergenerational transfer

Creating an Interactive Guide to Support Health Disparities Competency

Authors share their educational resource developed for the health sciences, that guides users in awareness of health disparities, vulnerable populations, and social determinants of health, directing them to specific guidance and resources available through the library

The Interplay Between the Neuronal Plasma Membrane and Cell Signaling in Alzheimer’s Disease

The lack of understanding in the molecular and cellular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has hindered efforts towards finding treatments that effectively modify disease trajectory. Therapeutic development for AD has focused on targeting amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology, long thought to be the cause of AD pathogenesis, but these have failed in clinical trials. Aβ is a sticky aggregation-prone protein that disrupts membrane structure and interferes with specific receptors in the brain, impairing synaptic plasticity, an important process for learning and memory, and eventually causes cell death. The interplay between disruption of the neuronal membrane and neuronal receptors in AD overlaps with inflammation and oxidative stress in a feedback loop that makes it difficult to ascertain the causes and effects of AD. More recent genetic and epidemiology data indicates that lipid metabolism is critical in AD pathogenesis, underscoring the need to understand how brain lipid composition (especially cholesterol) in brain affects amyloid toxicity. In the first part of this work the relevant background literature of lipid mediated mechanisms of AD is discussed and an overview of methods used herein are provided. In the second part, the results of biomedical nanotechnology experiments where atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study interactions of supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) with melatonin and Aβ at the molecular level. Chapter 3 shows the characterization of biophysical changes that melatonin induces in SLBs of DOPC/DPPC/Cholesterol by AFM and atomic force spectroscopy (AFS). Overall, AFM imaging revealed that melatonin increases disordered domain coverage, reduces bilayer thickness and indentation depth, increases membrane fluidity, and decreases membrane adhesion, though large variability was observed. In Chapter 4, for the first-time contact mode high-speed AFM (HS-AFM) was shown to be able to image lipid membranes of different compositions. HS-AFM was used to capture large areas of membranes comparing the effects of Aβ monomers and oligomers to different phase separated lipid bilayers composed of low and high cholesterol showing different interaction mechanisms. In the third part of this thesis the influence of membrane composition and amyloid toxicity on HT22 neuronal cell viability, cholesterol metabolism, morphology, and receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling pathways was elucidated. Beginning in Chapter 4, cholesterol oxidase assays and AFM verify cell cholesterol content reduction and Aβ structure, respectively. There was no effect of Aβ on cholesterol recovery and cell viability studies show that cholesterol depletion was modestly protective against both Aβ monomers and oligomers. In Chapter 5, the cholesterol-dependent effects of Aβ monomers and oligomers on HT22 cell morphology by phase contrast optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) reveal apoptotic and necrotic populations of HT22 cells exposed to Aβ and that that membrane cholesterol depletion prevents these changes in morphology. In Chapter 7, the effects of cholesterol and Aβ on baseline Tyrosine Receptor Kinase B (TrkB) receptors and PDGF receptor-α (PDGFRα) signaling, reveal that RTK signaling is cholesterol-dependent and that high concentration Aβ oligomers increase the likelihood of RTK impairment, but there was no statistically significant effect of Aβ on PDGFRα signaling. This work provides experimental evidence that membrane cholesterol is not strongly involved in the mechanisms of Aβ toxicity in HT22 cells, but its reductions may be mildly protective. RTK signaling in HT22 cells is impaired by Aβ but is not involved in the protective mechanisms of cholesterol depletion. Aβ disrupts membrane biophysical structure and receptor signaling pathways triggering metabolic dysfunction and both apoptotic and necrotic cell death mechanisms

Cry Baby

Red cover with music notes in circleshttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/6268/thumbnail.jp