Digital lace:a collision of responsive technologies

Designing with properties such as colour-change and light using electronics and digital control brings new challenges within art and design, and a range of new possibilities for aesthetics, tactility and functionality. Heimtextil 2014 (accessed April 2014) promotes emerging materials and technologies as one of four trends which highlight the increasing demand for unique products utilizing novel material properties and digital making. However, there is still limited insight into the creative potential of these materials that are fundamental to the exploitation of 'smart' material properties, the development of new 'smart' surfaces and digital tools that facilitate designing with colour-change and light-emitting properties specific to textiles. This submission to the Fiber arts category presents new material concepts as Digital Lace: a novel, multifaceted textile which will be presented as an interactive table runner for a digitally manufactured console table. Digital Lace explicitly pools together the digital-craft skills base and disparate expertise of printed textile practitioner and thermochromic specialist, Sara Robertson (SR) and constructed textile practitioner and light-emitting optical fibre specialist, Sarah Taylor (ST). Within the context of 'smart', material development and experimentation, Digital lace exploits and amalgamates the responsive technologies of dye and fibre with digital-control

An Application of the CCSR Noncognitive Framework: Bringing Together Typical and Exceptional Student Research

The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (CCSR) published a report in 2012 entitled Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners. The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance: A Critical Literature Review in which they drew together research from fields such as psychology, economics, and education to present noncognitive factors as a malleable means to improve student performance in school. According to the framework derived by CCSR, noncognitive factors include academic mindsets, academic perseverance, academic behaviors, learning strategies, and social skills, which interact to influence academic performance. Researchers often focus on either typically developing or exceptional student populations. This division is not reflected in K-12 schools, where teachers have a diverse set of learners in each classroom. This paper draws together research with typically developing or exceptional student populations to align the terminology with the CCSR framework to encourage greater collaboration across disciplines

The Role of Indicators in Promoting Gender Equality Through the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals

With the global rise of evidence-based policy, indicators have become an increasingly important part of governance. Indicators are statistics that represent social experiences, turning complex norms into simplified representations. Although seemingly objective, indicators reflect the values and beliefs of the actors who create them. An indicator’s normative underpinnings have significant consequences for social governance and policy because of an indicator’s power to shape understanding. This multi-manuscript dissertation analyzes the impact of governance by indicators as seen in the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals (MDGs and SDGs), two major United Nations initiatives in the field of global social governance. The focus is on the goals for gender equality, MDG 3 and SDG 5. The dissertation shows how gender indicators can be used as strategic frames for advancing gender equality. My work takes a feminist and pro-quantitative approach, showing how these two approaches can and do work together. Paper #1 presents indicators as ‘actants’, or non-human actors, that act as a method of communication. The paper argues that they can be contested but that effective contestation and change depend on engaging with, rather than simply dismissing, numerical language. When spaces of contestation open up during transitional periods, as happened during the move from the MDGs to the SDGs, engaging with the language of numbers and indicators helps actors gain an audience. Paper #2 explores a feminist critique of measurement and knowledge production in the MDGs and SDGs, based on UN Women’s engagement. In so doing, the paper shows the value of engaging with indicator-driven agendas as a successful feminist strategy. In recognizing the value of quantification and data-driven evidence in policy, this paper also speaks to the tension between feminist critique of quantitative knowledge production and the feminist approach’s welcoming of multiple ways of knowing. Paper #3 assesses the possibilities and challenges of evaluating the MDGs using official MDG data, comparing pre- and post-treatment results. It shows how statistical constraints in the form of availability, quality, and predictive ability create roadblocks for MDG evaluation, despite the fact that the Goals were set up with measurability and accountability in mind. The paper argues for greater consideration of the framing effects of indicators, as they shape understanding of a problem and potential solutions. While MDG indicators were designed for measurement, the way they frame issues may have more important implications for empirical evaluation

The Role of Indicators in Promoting Gender Equality Through the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals

With the global rise of evidence-based policy, indicators have become an increasingly important part of governance. Indicators are statistics that represent social experiences, turning complex norms into simplified representations. Although seemingly objective, indicators reflect the values and beliefs of the actors who create them. An indicator’s normative underpinnings have significant consequences for social governance and policy because of an indicator’s power to shape understanding. This multi-manuscript dissertation analyzes the impact of governance by indicators as seen in the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals (MDGs and SDGs), two major United Nations initiatives in the field of global social governance. The focus is on the goals for gender equality, MDG 3 and SDG 5. The dissertation shows how gender indicators can be used as strategic frames for advancing gender equality. My work takes a feminist and pro-quantitative approach, showing how these two approaches can and do work together. Paper #1 presents indicators as ‘actants’, or non-human actors, that act as a method of communication. The paper argues that they can be contested but that effective contestation and change depend on engaging with, rather than simply dismissing, numerical language. When spaces of contestation open up during transitional periods, as happened during the move from the MDGs to the SDGs, engaging with the language of numbers and indicators helps actors gain an audience. Paper #2 explores a feminist critique of measurement and knowledge production in the MDGs and SDGs, based on UN Women’s engagement. In so doing, the paper shows the value of engaging with indicator-driven agendas as a successful feminist strategy. In recognizing the value of quantification and data-driven evidence in policy, this paper also speaks to the tension between feminist critique of quantitative knowledge production and the feminist approach’s welcoming of multiple ways of knowing. Paper #3 assesses the possibilities and challenges of evaluating the MDGs using official MDG data, comparing pre- and post-treatment results. It shows how statistical constraints in the form of availability, quality, and predictive ability create roadblocks for MDG evaluation, despite the fact that the Goals were set up with measurability and accountability in mind. The paper argues for greater consideration of the framing effects of indicators, as they shape understanding of a problem and potential solutions. While MDG indicators were designed for measurement, the way they frame issues may have more important implications for empirical evaluation

Cytotrophoblast extracellular vesicles promote maternal adaptation to pregnancy

Pregnancy requires integration between the embryo/fetus and the mother. The placenta promotes maternal adaptations to meet the physiologic, immunologic, and metabolic demands of the developing offspring. To mediate these changes, the placenta releases large quantities of extracellular vesicles (EVs) that facilitate communication between the embryo/fetus and the mother. Few studies have investigated the contents and functions of EVs from primary cytotrophoblasts (CTBs) at midgestation. In this study, I isolated EVs from second trimester CTBs by differential ultracentrifugation and characterized them by transmission electron microscopy, immunoblotting, and mass spectrometry. The 100,000 x g pellet was enriched for vesicles with a cup-like morphology typical of exosomes. They expressed the exosomal markers CD9 and hepatocyte growth factor-regulated tyrosine kinase substrate (HRS), and the trophoblast proteins placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) and HLA-G. Mass spectrometry showed that the placental EVs contained proteins with roles in localization, transport, and immune functions. A cytokine array revealed that the CTB 100,000 x g pellet contained a significant amount of TNF-a. In terms of functions in local tissues, CTB EVs increased decidual stromal cell (dESF) transcription and secretion of NF-kB targets, including IL-8 as measured by qRT-PCR and cytokine array. A soluble form of the TNF-a receptor inhibited the ability of CTB 100,000 x g EVs to increase dESF secretion of IL-8. Together, the data suggest that CTB EVs enhance decidual cell release of inflammatory cytokines, which I theorize is an important component of successful pregnancy. In terms of distant sites, CTB 100,000 x g EVs promoted pancreatic b-cell proliferation and insulin production both in vivo and in vitro. Ultimately, this work identified CTB EVs as drivers of maternal adaptation to pregnancy in local and distant tissues and creates a foundation to investigate functions of these vesicles in other tissues and in the context of pregnancy complications

Environmental Conservation as an Instrument of National Political Economy: Culture, Livelihoods, and territorial rights of the Emberá of Panama

This paper argues that areas of environmental conservation in the Panama Canal Watershed Zone were originally designed to fit an economic utility rather than to protect habitat. As a result there was an exclusion of forest-based communities in policy design and implementation, creating lasting impacts on indigenous Emberá territorial rights, livelihood opportunities, and traditional cultural practices. Based on recent fieldwork and a review of relevant secondary literature, this paper discusses how Emberá communities in in Chagres National Park have adapted their culture and livelihoods to accommodate environmental regulation and explores what prospects the Emberá see for future generations if they do not mobilize for territorial rights. This paper concludes by recommending that the Panamanian government look towards community-based conservation management in order to most effectively achieve the preservation of the Canal Zones’ valuable natural and cultural resources

Young Adults\u27 Autistic Behaviors Predict P1 and N170 Responses to Emotion Stimuli

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by core deficits in social, communication, and motor skills (CDC, 2013). Deficits in emotional processing have also been identified, especially with negative emotions and surprise. These behavioral deficits are reflected in differences in neural responses, specifically with the P1 and N170 event-related potential components. The current study explored how these neural differences in emotion processing are modified by autistic behaviors in a subclinical population using a task that varied both by facial features available and instructions intended to modify the type of processing occurring. The results supported previous findings that those with low levels of autistic behaviors have increased neural attention, as measured by P1 and N170 amplitude, to fearful stimuli, while those with high levels did not show higher amplitudes. Exploratory analyses using autistic behaviors as a continuous variable showed this same response pattern with surprise for P1 yet showed an increase in N170 amplitude in those with high levels of autistic behaviors. These findings maintained their significance when controlling for social anxiety-related behaviors. Additionally, the results demonstrated that, in those with high levels of autistic behaviors, less neural attention occurred in response to faces in which only the eye region was shown, contrasting the increase in neural attention in those with low levels of autistic behaviors when presented the eye region instead of a face. Together the findings indicate in a subclinical population that the impact of autistic behaviors on the processing of emotions varies by emotion as well as by the facial features available