Cultivating resilience : antidotes to White fragility in racial justice education

This qualitative study explores what skills, tools and approaches may be helpful antidotes to white fragility in racial justice education. This study is in response to the challenge posed by white fragility, as defined by Robin DiAngelo (2011) in which white people experience such extreme emotions in response to learning about racism in the USA that they become either defensive such that they are unable to engage in a learning experience, or so swept up in guilt or shame that they require substantial emotional tending in order to continue to engage in the educational experience. Robin DiAngelo frames this phenomenon as a lack of stamina rather than a permanent or personality-based inability to engage (2011), thereby inviting inquiry into what tools, skills or approaches may serve to build that stamina, or increase resilience in racially charged learning and conversation. This qualitative study responds to DiAngelo’s framework of stamina building by applying clinical understandings of trauma—in particular, neurophysiological responses to perceived threats—to the manifestations of white fragility. Drawing on theoretical frameworks that bridge the neuropsychology of trauma, patterns of white fragility in racial justice education, and best practices in trauma-informed pedagogy, this study explores what personal and pedagogical tools, skills and approaches may serve as antidotes to patterns of white fragility with the goal of increasing internal resources to sustain engagement in racial justice education. This qualitative study collected data through interviews with white facilitators of white racial justice education groups/classes and through a workshop/focus-group on white fragility and its antidotes. The two-part design acknowledges the unique knowledge and information available from both facilitators and participants. Three high-level findings on antidotes to white fragility emerged from the interview and workshop data. First, facilitators expressed that mindfulness is both a crucial component of personal transformation and a supportive factor in effective personal and group engagement with difficult content. Second, caring relationships were named as the primary factor supporting sustained engagement with racial justice work for both participants and facilitators. Third, the use of embodied and narrative-based pedagogical approaches including storytelling, art, play, theater, and meditation as well as a culture of “radical love” supported the development of the other two factors of mind-body awareness and relationship development. Further, this study finds preliminary evidence that the phenomenon of white fragility manifests differently based on one’s racial identity development phase. Participant descriptions of fragile and resilient moments align with patterns of neurophysiological responses to and recovery from perceived threats; further analysis and additional research is needed to explore the applicability of trauma-informed pedagogy in racial justice education

Soya bean tempe extracts show antibacterial activity against Bacillus cereus cells and spores

Aims: Tempe, a Rhizopus ssp.-fermented soya bean food product, was investigated for bacteriostatic and/or bactericidal effects against cells and spores of the food-borne pathogen Bacillus cereus. Methods and results: Tempe extract showed a high antibacterial activity against B. cereus ATCC 14579 based on optical density and viable count measurements. This growth inhibition was manifested by a 4 log CFU ml-1 reduction, within the first 15 min of exposure. Tempe extracts also rapidly inactivated B. cereus spores upon germination. Viability and membrane permeability assessments using fluorescence probes showed rapid inactivation and permeabilization of the cytoplasmic membrane confirming the bactericidal mode of action. Cooked beans and Rhizopus grown on different media did not show antibacterial activity, indicating the unique association of the antibacterial activity with tempe. Subsequent characterization of the antibacterial activity revealed that heat treatment and protease addition nullified the bactericidal effect, indicating the proteinaceous nature of the bioactive compound. Conclusions: During fermentation of soya beans with Rhizopus, compounds are released with extensive antibacterial activity against B. cereus cells and spores. Significance and Impact of Study: The results show the potential of producing natural antibacterial compounds that could be used as ingredients in food preservation and pathogen contro

Trade-offs between tRNA abundance and mRNA secondary structure support smoothing of translation elongation rate

Translation of protein from mRNA is a complex multi-step process that occurs at a non-uniform rate. Variability in ribosome speed along an mRNA enables refinement of the proteome and plays a critical role in protein biogenesis. Detailed single protein studies have found both tRNA abundance and mRNA secondary structure as key modulators of translation elongation rate, but recent genome-wide ribosome profiling experiments have not observed significant influence of either on translation efficiency. Here we provide evidence that this results from an inherent trade-off between these factors. We find codons pairing to high-abundance tRNAs are preferentially used in regions of high secondary structure content, while codons read by significantly less abundant tRNAs are located in lowly structured regions. By considering long stretches of high and low mRNA secondary structure in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli and comparing them to randomized-gene models and experimental expression data, we were able to distinguish clear selective pressures and increased protein expression for specific codon choices. The trade-off between secondary structure and tRNA-concentration based codon choice allows for compensation of their independent effects on translation, helping to smooth overall translational speed and reducing the chance of potentially detrimental points of excessively slow or fast ribosome movement.European Commission (Marie-Curie Actions Initial Training Network for Integrated Cellular Homeostasis (NICHE) project 289384

Bioactivity of tempe by inhibiting adhesion of ETEC to intestinal cells, as influenced by fermentation substrates and starter pure cultures

Soya bean tempe is known for its bioactivity in reducing the severity of diarrhoea in piglets. This bioactivity is caused by an inhibition of the adhesion of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) to intestinal cells. In this paper, we assessed the bioactive effect of soya tempe on a range of ETEC target strains, as well as the effect of a range of cereal and leguminous substrates and starter pure cultures. Soya bean tempe extracts strongly inhibited the adhesion of ETEC strains tested. All tempe made from other leguminous seeds were as bioactive as soya bean tempe, whereas tempe made from cereals showed no bioactivity. Using soya beans as substrate, fermentation with several fungi (Mucor, Rhizopus spp. and yeasts) as well as Bacillus spp. resulted in bioactive tempe, whereas fermentation with lactobacilli showed no bioactivity. The active component is releasedor formed during the fermentation and is not present in microbial biomass and only partly in unfermented substrates. The bioactivity being not specific for a single ETEC strain, makes the bioactive tempe relevant for applications in animal husbandry

Bioactive components of fermented soya beans effective against diarrhoea-associated bacteria

Tempe is a fermented food, obtained by fungal fermentation of soya beans. During the processing specific flavour, texture and nutritional properties are achieved. Previous research has indicated that tempe reduced the incidence and severity of diarrhoea. In this thesis the bioactive effects of tempe on diarrhoea-associated bacteria are described. Tempe appeared to be antibacterial against Bacillus cereus cells and spores, but not against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). Nevertheless, tempe was found to inhibit the adhesion of ETEC to intestinal epithelial cells. Experiments showed that the inhibition of adhesion was caused by an interaction between ETEC and tempe extracts. A range of ETEC strains was shown to be sensitive for the anti-adhesive component, making the bioactivity of broader interest for applications in feed matrices. Furthermore, several substrates (legumes and cereals) were fermented and all fermented legumes tested were equally bioactive as the fermented soya beans, whereas the fermented cereals were not active. The use of different starter cultures showed that Bacillus spp., moulds and some yeasts were capable to release or form the bioactive component during fermentation, thus the bioactivity was not specific for one microbial species. After heating, defatting and protease treatment of the bioactive tempe extracts, they remained bioactive. On the contrary, after treatment with polysaccharide degrading enzyme mixtures the bioactivity was lost. This suggests that the bioactive component contains carbohydrates, and explains the interaction between ETEC and tempe extracts, which could indeed be established by carbohydrates of the tempe extract. Ultra-filtration revealed the bioactive component to have molecular masses >30 kDa. Further purification yielded an active fraction with an increased carbohydrate content. Monosaccharide analysis showed the importance of arabinose in the bioactive components. In conclusion, the bioactive component is released or formed during fermentation by enzymatic degradation of legumes. The bioactive component is of carbohydrate nature and contains arabinose, which originates from arabinan or arabinogalactan chains of the pectic cell wall polysaccharides of legumes. <br/

Polling models with multi-phase gated service

In this paper we introduce and analyze a new class of service policies called multi-phase gated service. This policy is a generalization of the classical single-phase and two-phase gated policies and works as follows. Each customer that arrives at queue i will have to wait K_i cycles before it receives service. The aim of this policy is to provide an interleaving scheme to avoid monopolization of the system by heavily loaded queues, by choosing the proper values of interleaving levels Ki. In this paper, we analyze the effectiveness of the interleaving scheme on the queueing behavior of the system, and consider the problem of identifying the proper combination of interleaving levels (K_1,...,K_N) that minimizes a weighted sum of the mean waiting times at each of the N queues. Obviously, the proper choice of the interleaving levels is most critical when the system is heavily loaded. For this reason, we to obtain closed-form expressions for the asymptotic waiting-time distributions in heavy trafficc, and use these expressions to derive simple heuristics for approximating the optimal interleaving scheme. Numerical results with simulations demonstrate that the accuracy of these approximations is extremely high

In situ recordings of presumed folliculo-stellate cells in the intermediate lobe of the pituitary gland of Xenopus laevis

Contains fulltext : 28957.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

The application of Approximate Dynamic Programming techniques

Koole, G.M. [Promotor]Bhulai, S. [Copromotor

Service - Level Variability and Impatience in Call Centers

Koole, G.M. [Promotor