Patricia Nguyen Interview

BIO: Patricia Nguyen is an artist, educator, and scholar born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans. Her research and performance work examines critical refugee studies, political economy, forced migration, oral histories, inherited trauma, torture, and nation building in the United States and Vietnam. She has published work in Women Studies Quarterly, Harvard Kennedy School\u27s Asian American Policy Review, and The Methuen Drama Anthology of Modern Asian Plays edited by Siyuan Liu and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Patricia is currently the Anne Frank Visiting Scholar at the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine. As a performance artist, she has performed at the Nha San Collective in Vietnam, Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, Jane Addams Hull House, Oberlin College, Northwestern University, University of Massachusetts Boston, Links Hall, Prague Quadrennial, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile. Patricia has over 15 years experience working in arts education, community development, and human rights in the United States and Vietnam. She has facilitated trainings and workshops with The Fulbright Program, American Center at the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, Jane Addams Hull House, Christina Noble Foundation, Social Workers Association in Vietnam, Vietnamese American Young Leadership Association in New Orleans (VAYLA‐NO), Asian Human Services, and 96 Acres on issues ranging from forced migration, mental health, youth empowerment, and language access. She is co-founder and executive director of Axis Lab, a community centered art, food, and design studio based in Uptown, Chicago that focuses on equitable development for the Southeast Asian community. http://www.patricianguyen.info

Subjective impressions of child cochlear-implant users: effects of conversational fluency, intelligibility, speech perception, and communication mode

This paper investigates the conversational fluency of young cochlear implant users. The study compares objective measures and subjective impressions of conversation fluency, relates how children’s communication skills influence both objective and subjective measures of conversational fluency, and compares the performance of children who use an oral mode with those who use a total communication mode in everyday conversation

Functionalized Polycarbonate Commercial Filters for Water Purification

Can commerercially available filtration membranes be easily functionalized in such a way to enhence the removal the charged contaminants in the water treatment process? The literature demonstrates there have been two pioneering works that demonstrated that Ultrathin Self-Assembled Nanoparticle (USANP) membranes (composed of ~5 nm diameter metallic gold nanoparticles surrounded by organic ligands) when applied to commercial membranes displayed charge sensitive rejection to molecular dyes and also have the ability to charge modify the openings in commercial filters. The rejection mechanisms in these works are proposed to be either size dependent or charged based. Recent experimental results have demonstrated that the supporting filter for these USANP membranes can be functionalized solely with highly charged molecular dye Direct Red 80 using no USANP membranes. After functionalization with direct red 80 alone, average rejection for tested molecular dyes at a concentration of 145 µM increased from 31.8 % to 85.6 % even without the addition of a USANP layer. This indicates that dyes themselves are capable of functionalizing the commercial membranes providing an additional method to enhanced rejection of charged contaminants. This poster highlights the efforts made by a Preservice and Early Career Research for Teachers (PERT) team and an Undergraduate student who was awarded an Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Award to measure the rejection results of these two different functionalization methods. Knowledge gained from these experiments may allow for enhanced rejection of charged based contaminants in polluted waters

Effects of silver nanoparticles (NM-300K) on Lumbricus rubellus earthworms and particle characterization in relevant test matrices including soil.

The impact of silver nanoparticles (AgNP; at 0 mg Ag/kg, 1.5 mg Ag/kg, 15.4 mg Ag/kg, and 154 mg Ag/kg soil) and silver nitrate (AgNO3 ; 15.4 mg Ag/kg soil) on earthworms, Lumbricus rubellus, was assessed. A 4-wk exposure to the highest AgNP treatment reduced growth and reproduction compared with the control. Silver nitrate (AgNO3 ) exposure also impaired reproduction, but not as much as the highest AgNP treatment. Long-term exposure to the highest AgNP treatment caused complete juvenile mortality. All AgNP treatments induced tissue pathology. Population modeling demonstrated reduced population growth rates for the AgNP and AgNO3 treatments, and no population growth at the highest AgNP treatment because of juvenile mortality. Analysis of AgNP treated soil samples revealed that single AgNP and AgNP clusters were present in the soil, and that the total Ag in soil porewater remained high throughout the long-term experiment. In addition, immune cells (coelomocytes) of earthworms showed sensitivity to both AgNP and AgNO3 in vitro. Overall, the present study indicates that AgNP exposure may affect earthworm populations and that the exposure may be prolonged because of the release of a dissolved Ag fraction to soil porewater

Avoidance, biomass and survival response of soil dwelling (endogeic) earthworms to OECD artificial soil: potential implications for earthworm ecotoxicology

Soil dwelling earthworms are now adopted more widely in ecotoxicology, so it is vital to establish if standardised test parameters remain applicable. The main aim of this study was to determine the influence of OECD artificial soil on selected soil-dwelling, endogeic earthworm species. In an initial experiment, biomass change in mature Allolobophora chlorotica was recorded in Standard OECD Artificial Soil (AS) and also in Kettering Loam (KL). In a second experiment, avoidance behaviour was recorded in a linear gradient with varying proportions of AS and KL (100% AS, 75% AS + 25% KL, 50% KS + 50% KL, 25% AS + 75% KL, 100% KL) with either A. chlorotica or Octolasion cyaneum. Results showed a significant decrease in A. chlorotica biomass in AS relative to KL, and in the linear gradient, both earthworm species preferentially occupied sections containing higher proportions of KL over AS. Soil texture and specifically % composition and particle size of sand are proposed as key factors that influenced observed results. This research suggests that more suitable substrates are required for ecotoxicology tests with soil dwelling earthworms