A Study of Political Activity among Social Work Students

This localized study explored the level of political activity of students at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. Students were asked to respond to several demographic questions and answer questions regarding the frequency with which they performed certain tasks of political activity. Additionally the study explored relevant literature to establish a framework of national political behavior and political behavior within the field of social work. Political behavior is most strongly predicted by the age of the student with little regard for race, gender, or religious background. Students with a higher level of family history of political interest and those that responded as liberal or very liberal are more likely to engage in a higher level of political activity. Implications for social work educators, administrators, professional, and professional organizations are discussed

Growing Up Deaf in Appalachia: An Oral History of My Mother

This study focuses on the life experiences of a rural, Deaf Appalachian woman, Jane Ann Shelton, a second generation Deaf child born to Deaf parents from the communities of Devil’s Fork (Flag Pond, Tennessee) and Shelton Laurel (Madison County, North Carolina). Over two hours of videotaped interviews were interpreted and transcribed, followed by various other communications to describe the life of a rural, Deaf Appalachian woman without a formal high school degree. As an advocate and a political lobbyist in Tennessee during the 1980s and 90s, she was unparalleled by her peers (deaf or hearing) in her efforts to “enhance the lives of ALL Deaf Tennesseans.” From these interactions and my firsthand knowledge, I crafted stories of her life experiences for the purpose of performing them for both Deaf and hearing audiences. Further studies should be done on rural Deaf Appalachia as precious little oral history has been collected

An evaluation of formal mentoring programmes within two South African organisations

The benefits of informal mentoring are numerous and organisations have recognised these benefits in terms of organisational development. There has been an attempt to harvest these benefits through the introduction of formal mentoring programmes as a tool to fast track and then ultimately retain internal capability. This research on formal mentoring programmes occurred within a qualitative paradigm and data was obtained through document analysis and interviews from five mentoring pairs in one organisation and four mentoring pairs in another. The data was then presented and analysed in terms of the models proposed in the literature. The aim of this research was to evaluate formal mentoring programmes within South African organisations based on a framework provided by the literature. It was found that the literature proposed no formal evaluation model and thus, one was developed based on models of programme evaluation and formal mentoring implementation models. On the evaluation of the two formal mentoring programmes, it was found that there are some issues raised in the literature that are pertinent to both organisations but that there were also issues that were only relevant to one of the programmes. According to the research the differences in perceived success of the mentoring programme lay in the goals of the programme relating to the broader goals and culture of the organisation. It is recommended that future research investigate the impact of organisational culture on the effectiveness of formal mentoring programmes. The research also identified a need for supportive resources although this study did not assess the appropriateness and sufficiency of the resources. Organisations also need to implement effective evaluative practices in order to implement effective changes to the programme

Quantifying sleep architecture dynamics and individual differences using big data and Bayesian networks

The pattern of sleep stages across a night (sleep architecture) is influenced by biological, behavioral, and clinical variables. However, traditional measures of sleep architecture such as stage proportions, fail to capture sleep dynamics. Here we quantify the impact of individual differences on the dynamics of sleep architecture and determine which factors or set of factors best predict the next sleep stage from current stage information. We investigated the influence of age, sex, body mass index, time of day, and sleep time on static (e.g. minutes in stage, sleep efficiency) and dynamic measures of sleep architecture (e.g. transition probabilities and stage duration distributions) using a large dataset of 3202 nights from a non-clinical population. Multi-level regressions show that sex effects duration of all Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) stages, and age has a curvilinear relationship for Wake After Sleep Onset (WASO) and slow wave sleep (SWS) minutes. Bayesian network modeling reveals sleep architecture depends on time of day, total sleep time, age and sex, but not BMI. Older adults, and particularly males, have shorter bouts (more fragmentation) of Stage 2, SWS, and they transition less frequently to these stages. Additionally, we showed that the next sleep stage and its duration can be optimally predicted by the prior 2 stages and age. Our results demonstrate the potential benefit of big data and Bayesian network approaches in quantifying static and dynamic architecture of normal sleep

The Evolution of Gas Clouds Falling in the Magnetized Galactic Halo: High Velocity Clouds (HVCs) Originated in the Galactic Fountain

In the Galactic fountain scenario, supernovae and/or stellar winds propel material into the Galactic halo. As the material cools, it condenses into clouds. By using FLASH three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we model and study the dynamical evolution of these gas clouds after they form and begin to fall toward the Galactic plane. In our simulations, we assume that the gas clouds form at a height of z=5 kpc above the Galactic midplane, then begin to fall from rest. We investigate how the cloud's evolution, dynamics, and interaction with the interstellar medium (ISM) are affected by the initial mass of the cloud. We find that clouds with sufficiently large initial densities (> 0.1 hydrogen atoms per cc) accelerate sufficiently and maintain sufficiently large column densities as to be observed and identified as high-velocity clouds (HVCs) even if the ISM is weakly magnetized (1.3 micro Gauss). We also investigate the effects of various possible magnetic field configurations. As expected, the ISM's resistance is greatest when the magnetic field is strong and perpendicular to the motion of the cloud. The trajectory of the cloud is guided by the magnetic field lines in cases where the magnetic field is oriented diagonal to the Galactic plane. The model cloud simulations show that the interactions between the cloud and the ISM can be understood via analogy to the shock tube problem which involves shock and rarefaction waves. We also discuss accelerated ambient gas, streamers of material ablated from the clouds, and the cloud's evolution from a sphere-shaped to a disk- or cigar-shaped object.Comment: 46 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

Literacy Instruction and Intervention for Middle School Students with Mild Intellectual Disability

Research reveals that many individuals with mild intellectual disability (ID) face significant challenges in foundational literacy skills that hinder their ability to comprehend texts. Thus, individuals with mild ID need access to instruction and intervention that target reading comprehension effectively. However, the extent to which interventions can improve reading comprehension among individuals with mild ID has been unclear. Therefore, the current dissertation was conducted to explore literacy instruction and intervention for individuals with mild ID. Chapter 2 of the dissertation is a synthesis of interventions targeting reading comprehension among individuals with mild ID. The purpose of the synthesis was to identify common features as well as determine the effectiveness of these interventions for individuals with mild ID. Chapter 3 presents findings from a mixed-method study, designed based on findings from the synthesis presented in Chapter 2. The study included an intervention intended to improve the main idea identification skills of one middle school student with mild ID. The student received sentence-level comprehension instruction, and a subsequent interview of the student’s special education teacher helped interpret the findings of the intervention in the context of the entire class. This mixed-method study as well as the Chapter 2 synthesis informed the practitioner manuscript presented in Chapter 4. The practitioner manuscript explains how teachers can provide middle school students with ID explicit instruction on using a main idea identification strategy, supplemented with instructional scaffolds, other forms of instruction, and peer-mediated practice to support students’ comprehension of grade-level texts. The current dissertation yields several important findings. First, the synthesis revealed that explicit instruction and peer-mediated practice improve reading comprehension among individuals with mild ID. Second, the findings of the mixed-method study suggest that middle school students with mild ID require main idea instruction—supplemented with background information and vocabulary instruction—as well as phonics instruction to support reading comprehension. These features were incorporated into the instructional approach outlined in the practitioner manuscript. Areas for future research are discussed throughout the dissertation

Reading Environmental Relations In Contemporary Indian Fiction In English

This dissertation is concerned with what environmental historian Ramachandra Guha calls a &ldquo;marriage&rdquo; of social justice and sustainability in contemporary Indian fiction in English. The project considers how Indian fiction in English represents contemporary environmental issues&mdash;including threats, crises, instability, and injustice&mdash;as interwoven with policy legacies, culture clashes, and communal activities. I focus on the textual relationships between the human and the non-human that evolving socioeconomic and political contexts in India place in flux, such as the fight for Dalit and Adivasi rights and representation amid calls for environmental conservation. Following from materialist ecocriticism (Alaimo, Iovino and Oppermann, etc.), I explore how humans and nonhumans alike are given agency in the texts, how characters cross into primarily nonhuman spaces, how they reassess themselves as both individuals and parts of human-nonhuman collectives, and/or how their sense of self is informed and destabilized by the nonhuman elements around and passing through them. Rather than a specific generic or authorial investigation, I seek to privilege the environment itself as interrelational and continually remade, despite being physically and discursively segmented by human action and representation. To this end, the dissertation is organized around specific environmental resources and concerns in India, including forests, rivers, animals, and climate change, though each chapter does privilege one primary Indian English novel. I then intervene in current ecocritical and social justice discourse by using ecology as a lens to examine representations of those resources and concerns within the texts, which in turn combine mythology, history, and environmental justice narratives. I argue that the inherently relational nature of ecology, which the literature helps illuminate, challenges the anthropocentrism, androcentrism, and classism inherent in Indian environmental policy and politics and, more broadly, also allows us to reconsider humanity&rsquo;s ethical presence on the earth. Through this study, I reconceptualize what environmental humanities critic Rob Nixon calls &ldquo;site-specific struggles&rdquo; of environmental injustice while also considering broader cultural and sociopolitical implications.</p

Impact of single-gene and dual-gene Bt broccoli on the herbivore Pieris rapae (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) and its pupal endoparasitoid Pteromalus puparum (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae)

Transgenic brassica crops producing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are being investigated as candidates for field release to control lepidopteran pests. Information on the potential impact of Bt brassica crops on pests and non-target natural enemies is needed as part of an environmental risk assessment prior to the commercial release. This first tier study provides insight into the tritrophic interactions among Bt broccoli plants, the herbivore Pieris rapae and its parasitoid Pteromalus puparum. We first evaluated the efficacy of three types of Bt broccoli plants, cry1Ac, cry1C and cry1Ac+cry1C, on different instars of P.rapae. Bt broccoli effectively controlled P.rapae larvae, although later instars were more tolerant. The efficacy of different Bt broccoli plants on P.rapae larvae was consistently cry1Ac>cry1Ac+cry1C >cry1C. When the parasitoid P.puparum developed in a P.rapae pupa (host) that had developed from Bt plant-fed older larvae, developmental time, total number and longevity of the P.puparum generated from the Bt plant-fed host were significantly affected compared with those generated from the non-Bt control plant-fed host. Simultaneously, negative effects on P.rapae pupae were found, i.e. pupal length, width and weight were significantly reduced after older P.rapae larvae fed on different Bt plants for 1 or 2 days. Cry1C toxin was detected using ELISA in P.rapae pupae after older larvae fed on cry1C broccoli. However, no Cry1C toxin was detected in newly emerged P.puparum adults developing in Bt-fed hosts. Only a trace amount of toxin was detected from entire P.puparum pupae dissected from the Bt plant-fed host. Moreover, no negative effect was found on the progeny of P.puparum developing from the Bt plant-fed host when subsequently supplied with a healthy host, P.rapae pupae. The reduced quality of the host appears to be the only reason for the observed deleterious effects on P.puparum. Our data suggest that the effects on P.puparum developing in Bt plant-fed P.rapae are mediated by host quality rather than by direct toxicit

CYTOPLASMIC PARTICLES AND AMINOACYL TRANSFERASE I ACTIVITY

It has been possible to show by electron microscopy of samples selected from sucrose gradients that particles of specific size and shape are present in supernatant fluids derived from nucleated animal and plant cells, but not in extracts from Escherichia coli. Aminoacyl transferase I activity in these same gradients sediments in two peaks representing material of approximately 5–7S and 18–20S. A rectangular particle, 100 x 145 A in size, sediments at 19S and coincides with the second peak of transferase I activity. The possibility that the rectangular particle may be a "carrier" particle associated with transferase I is discussed

Effect of Bt Broccoli or Plants Treated With Insecticides on Ovipositional Preference and Larval Survival of Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae)

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), a major pest of cruciferous crops throughout the world, has demonstrated an ability to develop resistance to many different classes of insecticides, including proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis that are expressed in plants (Bt plants). The ovipositional preferences and larval survival of strains (resistant strain, RR; heterozygous strain, RS; susceptible strain, SS) of P. xylostella to Cry1Ac-expressing broccoli or broccoli plants treated with lambda-cyhalothrin or spinosad were studied under greenhouse condition. Numbers of eggs per plant did not differ between Bt broccoli and non-Bt broccoli for Bt-RR, Bt-RS, and Bt-SS adults. Ovipositing adults (spinosad-RR, spinosad-RS, and spinosad-SS) also could not discriminate between spinosad-treated and untreated plants, and oviposition did not increase over the 13 d after spinosad treatment. For broccoli treated with lambda-cyhalothrin at the diagnostic dose of 20 ppm, all three insect strains (lc-RR, lc-RS, and lc-SS) had constant oviposition over time based on linear regressions. At the field dose of 80 ppm, the lc-RR strain had constant oviposition over time. The lc-SS susceptible strain had increasing oviposition over time, but the oviposition pattern on the nonsprayed broccoli also increased over time. Susceptible females layed fewer eggs on plants sprayed with lambda-cyhalothrin than on unsprayed plants. A residue-persistence test showed that spinosad and lambda-cyhalothrin could effectively control SS P. xylostella larvae for 7-9 d after application. These results are discussed in relation to their potential impact on insecticide resistance management strategie