Kurt Vonnegut, modernity, and the self: a guide to the good life.

What are people for? This is a question Kurt Vonnegut raises in his first novel, 1952’s Player Piano. Over five decades later, when he concludes a career with 2005’s A Man Without a Country, he is still asking, “What is life all about?” (66). These are the central questions for Vonnegut, and his novels, short stories, essays, interviews, correspondence, and commencement addresses offer a singular, life-long attempt at an answer. In this dissertation I offer a reading of Vonnegut not just as a writer concerned with philosophical questions, but rather, on a deeper, more personal level, as a philosopher of the self. Vonnegut offers a unified, coherent, and systematic philosophical worldview, one in which purpose, foma, aesthetic experience, and community are non-negotiable elements for “the good life.” By bringing Vonnegut’s thought and work into conversation with Camus, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and diasporic theory, a goal of this dissertation is to explore Vonnegut’s work in philosophical, anthropological, cultural, and individualistic terms. The good life for Vonnegut is ultimately one in which the individual is able to say “yes” to existence in the midst of modernity. Purposelessness, embarrassment, hopelessness, shame, and loneliness are serious philosophical problems for Vonnegut, and his work represents a systematic attempt to come to terms with and ultimately (hopefully) work through them, not just for his readers, but as this dissertation will illustrate, for himself as well

COMPETING RISKS IN THE SUBURBANIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND

The rapid change in the character of land use in traditional agricultural regions of the Midwest has led to public concern in recent years. As a result, policy makers have attempted to forge novel ways to cope with problems associated with loss of farmland and the encroachment of urban/suburban sprawl. Some of the policies that have been implemented or suggested in a number of jurisdictions include purchase of development right programs, impact fees, agricultural zoning, and preferred tax treatment for agricultural land uses, among others. In this paper, we explore the forces that promote land use change in order to help public officials make informed decisions on policy implementation.Land Economics/Use,

Prospectus, January 21, 1998

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1998/1001/thumbnail.jp

Sex Trafficking: A Part of Voices Against Violence

Our group would like to gain extensive knowledge on the topic of sex trafficking and how it relates to homelessness and drug abuse. Learning about the cycle of prostitution and how these individuals become trapped. Finding the main source this wicked problem, and brainstorming ideas on how we can stop it. Finding resources available to women who have broke the cycle and are trying to turn their lives around. Also, encouraging education programs that inform young adults to be aware of certain situations that could get them caught in this cycle. Expanding our knowledge on how and why individuals are trafficked and why traffickers target certain people. The group wants to come up with a project that will benefit the women affected by these issues

Associations between conflicting nutrition information, nutrition confusion and backlash among consumers in the UK

Objective: To examine the effects of exposure to conflicting nutritional information (CNI) through different forms of media on nutrition-related confusion and backlash among consumers in the United Kingdom. Design: Cross-sectional survey administered via Qualtrics among 18-75 year-old participants in the UK. The sample was stratified by age and gender with quotas defined according to the 2011 UK census distribution. Setting: Qualtrics’ Online panel of respondents in the United Kingdom Participants: 676 participants comprising nearly an equal number of females (n=341) and males (n=335) and a majority (58.6%) from households whose income was less than £30,000. Results: Our findings showed that nearly 40% of respondents were exposed to some or a lot of CNI. We found that while exposure to CNI from TV and online news increased nutrition confusion, CNI from health professionals increased backlash. Exposure to CNI from social media and health websites was associated with reduced backlash. We also found that nutrition confusion and backlash were negatively associated with exercise behavior and fruit and vegetable consumption respectively. Conclusion: Our study supports the theoretical pathways that explain the influence of CNI exposure on nutrition-related cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Additionally, different types of online information sources are associated with these outcomes to varying degrees. In the context of obesity and diabetes rates in the UK, our findings call for a) further experimental research into the effects of CNI on consumers’ diet-related cognitions and behaviors, and b) multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary approaches to address this problem

The Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium: A State-Wide Collaborative Network for Sustainable, Outreach, Education, and Action

This paper explores the organizational theory, programs, and concomitant challenges faced by a state-level higher education consortium for sustainability in the United States, the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium (PERC). We provide insights for other institutions of higher education that may want to form consortia or consider changes to existing consortia. PERC members collaborate to advance sustainability on member campuses, in local communities, and across the Commonwealth. PERC envisions thriving, just communities on a healthy planet, and seeks to inspire higher education communities throughout the Commonwealth to lead transformational sustainability efforts through example, expertise, and collaboration. This chapter provides a brief theoretical background in PERC as a collaborative. It shares history and context for PERC’s mission and activities as well as an overview of its programs. It includes reflections on challenges to collaboration and coordination, including from COVID-19, changing digital technology, disparities among PERC institutions, accelerating sustainability challenges in the Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism and hyperpartisanship in the Commonwealth and the United States, and PERC’s own staffing, volunteerism, participation, and funding challenges. The chapter closes by revisiting the organization’s 2021–2025 Strategic Plan as an invitation to consider how cooperation, coordination, and collaboration among higher education institutions can positively impact sustainability across sectors

Brain endothelial miR-146a negatively modulates T-cell adhesion through repressing multiple targets to inhibit NF-κB activation.

Pro-inflammatory cytokine-induced activation of nuclear factor, NF-κB has an important role in leukocyte adhesion to, and subsequent migration across, brain endothelial cells (BECs), which is crucial for the development of neuroinflammatory disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS). In contrast, microRNA-146a (miR-146a) has emerged as an anti-inflammatory molecule by inhibiting NF-κB activity in various cell types, but its effect in BECs during neuroinflammation remains to be evaluated. Here, we show that miR-146a was upregulated in microvessels of MS-active lesions and the spinal cord of mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. In vitro, TNFα and IFNγ treatment of human cerebral microvascular endothelial cells (hCMEC/D3) led to upregulation of miR-146a. Brain endothelial overexpression of miR-146a diminished, whereas knockdown of miR-146a augmented cytokine-stimulated adhesion of T cells to hCMEC/D3 cells, nuclear translocation of NF-κB, and expression of adhesion molecules in hCMEC/D3 cells. Furthermore, brain endothelial miR-146a modulates NF-κB activity upon cytokine activation through targeting two novel signaling transducers, RhoA and nuclear factor of activated T cells 5, as well as molecules previously identified, IL-1 receptor-associated kinase 1, and TNF receptor-associated factor 6. We propose brain endothelial miR-146a as an endogenous NF-κB inhibitor in BECs associated with decreased leukocyte adhesion during neuroinflammation

MicroRNA-155 negatively affects blood-brain barrier function during neuroinflammation.

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction is a hallmark of neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and stroke. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying neurovascular dysfunction during BBB breakdown remain elusive. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have recently emerged as key regulators of pathogenic responses, although their role in central nervous system (CNS) microvascular disorders is largely unknown. We have identified miR-155 as a critical miRNA in neuroinflammation at the BBB. miR-155 is expressed at the neurovascular unit of individuals with MS and of mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). In mice, loss of miR-155 reduced CNS extravasation of systemic tracers, both in EAE and in an acute systemic inflammation model induced by lipopolysaccharide. In cultured human brain endothelium, miR-155 was strongly and rapidly upregulated by inflammatory cytokines. miR-155 up-regulation mimicked cytokine-induced alterations in junctional organization and permeability, whereas inhibition of endogenous miR-155 partially prevented a cytokine-induced increase in permeability. Furthermore, miR-155 modulated brain endothelial barrier function by targeting not only cell-cell complex molecules such as annexin-2 and claudin-1, but also focal adhesion components such as DOCK-1 and syntenin-1. We propose that brain endothelial miR-155 is a negative regulator of BBB function that may constitute a novel therapeutic target for CNS neuroinflammatory disorders

Metadata management for high content screening in OMERO

High content screening (HCS) experiments create a classic data management challenge—multiple, large sets of heterogeneous structured and unstructured data, that must be integrated and linked to produce a set of “final” results. These different data include images, reagents, protocols, analytic output, and phenotypes, all of which must be stored, linked and made accessible for users, scientists, collaborators and where appropriate the wider community. The OME Consortium has built several open source tools for managing, linking and sharing these different types of data. The OME Data Model is a metadata specification that supports the image data and metadata recorded in HCS experiments. Bio-Formats is a Java library that reads recorded image data and metadata and includes support for several HCS screening systems. OMERO is an enterprise data management application that integrates image data, experimental and analytic metadata and makes them accessible for visualization, mining, sharing and downstream analysis. We discuss how Bio-Formats and OMERO handle these different data types, and how they can be used to integrate, link and share HCS experiments in facilities and public data repositories. OME specifications and software are open source and are available at https://www.openmicroscopy.org