First Demonstration of a Scintillating Xenon Bubble Chamber for Detecting Dark Matter and Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

A 30-g xenon bubble chamber, operated at Northwestern University in June and November 2016, has for the first time observed simultaneous bubble nucleation and scintillation by nuclear recoils in a superheated liquid. This chamber is instrumented with a CCD camera for near-IR bubble imaging, a solar-blind photomultiplier tube to detect 175-nm xenon scintillation light, and a piezoelectric acoustic transducer to detect the ultrasonic emission from a growing bubble. The time of nucleation determined from the acoustic signal is used to correlate specific scintillation pulses with bubble-nucleating events. We report on data from this chamber for thermodynamic "Seitz" thresholds from 4.2 to 15.0 keV. The observed single- and multiple-bubble rates when exposed to a $^{252}$Cf neutron source indicate that, for an 8.3-keV thermodynamic threshold, the minimum nuclear recoil energy required to nucleate a bubble is $19\pm6$ keV (1$\sigma$ uncertainty). This is consistent with the observed scintillation spectrum for bubble-nucleating events. We see no evidence for bubble nucleation by gamma rays at any of the thresholds studied, setting a 90% C.L. upper limit of $6.3\times10^{-7}$ bubbles per gamma interaction at a 4.2-keV thermodynamic threshold. This indicates stronger gamma discrimination than in CF$_3$I bubble chambers, supporting the hypothesis that scintillation production suppresses bubble nucleation by electron recoils while nuclear recoils nucleate bubbles as usual. These measurements establish the noble-liquid bubble chamber as a promising new technology for the detection of weakly interacting massive particle dark matter and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Published versio

CRIMES AND OFFENSES Sexual Exploitation of Children: Provide for Criminal and Civil Penalties

The Act amends the Code to define sexual exploitation of children, mandate reporting by film processors of suspected exploitation, and provide criminal penalties as well as forfeiture of materials or property used in such crimes or derived from its gross profits. July 1, 198

The Classical Versus the Grotesque Body in Edith Wharton\u27s Fiction

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton\u27s inconvenient women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the Angel in the House. The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to its libertine nature. Using theorists and critics such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Laura Mulvey, and Judith Butler, as well as secondary critics Emily J. Orlando, Claire Preston, and Elizabeth Ammons, this thesis will explore Wharton\u27s preoccupation with the grotesque and her ultimate preference for the transitional body--a combination of the two opposing ideals

CRIMES AND OFFENSES Child Custody: Amend Interference with Custody Law

The Act amends the Code definition of interference with custody to include the willful and intentional retention of a child past the period of legal visitation. The Act applies to children retained within the state. July 1, 198

CRIMES AND OFFENSES Sexual Exploitation of Children: Provide for Criminal and Civil Penalties

The Act amends the Code to define sexual exploitation of children, mandate reporting by film processors of suspected exploitation, and provide criminal penalties as well as forfeiture of materials or property used in such crimes or derived from its gross profits. July 1, 198

Under Pressure from the Empirical Data: Does Externalism Rest on a Mistaken Psychological Theory?

The tradition of semantic externalism that follows Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1975) is built on the assumption that the folk have essentialist commitments about natural kinds. Externalists commonly take the body of empirical data concerning psychological essentialism as support for this claim. However, recent empirical findings (Malt, 1994; Kalish, 2002) call the psychological theory of essentialism into question. This thesis examines the relevance of these findings to both essentialism and semantic externalism. I argue that these findings suggest that these theories fail to reflect folk beliefs about natural kinds and folk natural kind term usage. This leads me to propose an alternative thesis-- the Ambiguity Thesis-- that is better able to accommodate the existing body of empirical data

The Impact Of The 340B Drug Pricing Program On Post-Launch Drug Prices

Government mandated drug-pricing policies are an understudied—but potentially significant—factor in the price of drugs. The 340B program is one of the more controversial government-mandated prescription drug discount programs. Proponents argue that the program helps health care systems cover the cost of care they provide for low-income patients. Critics argue that the program unfairly benefits certain health care systems by assuring them lower drug prices, drives consolidation and reduces competition in the health care market, and drives up the cost of drugs. Despite this last claim, there is very little evidence that the 340B program actually impacts post-launch drug prices (i.e., the price of drugs once they are on the market). This project uses regression analysis to explore how growth in the 340B program—specifically, growth in 340B hospitals that have 340B status because they serve a large number of low-income patients—impacts the cost of drugs administered in the outpatient setting (physician-administered drugs). The project’s findings reveal that growth in this subset of 340B hospitals (DSH-340B sites) between 2008 and 2017 is associated with an increase in the price of physician-administered drugs that were either on patent or had not been off-patent for more than four time periods (i.e., 24 months). These findings serve as evidence that should be used to inform policy decisions regarding the future of the 340B program

Multifunctional Polymeric Micelles for Drug Resistant Breast Cancer: Self-Assembling Poly(Lactide-Co-Glycolide)-Graft-Polyethylenimine

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and the leading cause of cancer death in women. Systemic breast cancer therapies include 1) hormone therapy, 2) immunotherapy, and 3) chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is commonly used in combination with immunotherapy, achieving synergistic activity by multiple mechanisms specific to the type of breast cancer. However, the efficacy of anticancer drugs has been limited by their toxic side effects in normal cells and drug resistance acquired by cancer cells. Therefore, the development of a novel treatment strategy for the selective delivery of therapeutic agents to breast cancer cells is crucial to improve the therapeutic index and efficacy/toxicity balance. The objective of this project is to develop multi-functional polymeric nanotherapeutics for breast cancer therapy that specifically target malignant cells and provide combinatorial delivery of an anticancer drug and therapeutic nucleic acid designed to reduce the expression of proteins responsible for drug resistance. These multi-functional polymeric nanotherapeutics will consist of three functional components 1) folate (FA) as a targeting moiety to deliver these nanotherapeutics to FA receptor alpha-positive breast cancer cells (FA receptor is over-expressed in 32% of breast cancers), 2) small interfering RNA (siRNA) designed against multidrug resistant protein (ABCB1), a gene responsible for drug resistance in cancer cells, and 3) the chemotherapeutic, Doxorubicin (DOX). The efficacy of these targeted multifunctional nanotherapeutics will be evaluated in FA-receptor alpha positive (FA+) drug resistant breast cancer cells. To achieve this goal, FA-functionalized polymeric micelle nanoparticles, folate-polyethylenimine-graft-poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (FA-PgP) were designed as a targeted drug and nucleic acid delivery carrier. We synthesized and characterized FA-PgP and demonstrated that the FA-PgP polymeric micelle is a promising carrier for plasmid DNA capable of transfecting breast cancer (MCF-7, MDA-MB-435 Wild Type, and MDA-MB-435 DOX resistant) cells in media containing 10% serum. We also demonstrated that FA-PgP exhibited selectivity by comparing transfection efficiencies in folate receptor alpha positive (MCF-7, MDA-MB-435 Wild Type, and MDA-MB-435 DOX resistant) and negative breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-468) in vitro and demonstrated that PgP can deliver pGFP (plasmid encoding green fluorescence protein) and pbGal (plasmid encoding beta- galactosidase gene) as reporter genes efficiently in an athymic Nu/Nu mouse drug resistant breast tumor model. Finally, Doxorubicin loaded FA-PgP was able to induce increased or similar cytotoxicity compared its free drug counterpart in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-435 DOX resistant lines and over a LD50 response in MDA-MB-468 and MDA-MB-435 Wild Type cells. Furthermore, FA-PgP exhibited FA+ related selectivity in all breast cancer cell lines tested. Future work includes utilizing therapeutic siRNAs targeting ABCB1 with FA-PgP to overcome drug resistance in breast cancers

Constructing Arabic as Heritage: Investment in Language, Literacy, and Identity among Young U.S. Learners

The numbers of learners studying Arabic in the U.S. have increased more than any other language over the last ten years. As a critical language, important for strategic political and economic reasons, Arabic has received considerable support from the Departments of State and Education (Jackson & Malone, 2009; Wiley, 2007). However, Arabic is also a prominent heritage language, important for cultural and interpersonal reasons to the families and communities who speak it and for whom it is a binding force (Fishman, 2001; Van Deusen-Scholl, 2003). Nevertheless, research on learners of Arabic and their learning processes is still very limited. Existing studies have compared Arabic heritage learners’ motivation and the structure of their language knowledge with that of non-HLLs (Husseinali, 2006; Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, 2010), but HLL research has hardly addressed the complex social and cultural influences on their learning processes (He, 2010; Montrul, 2010). Drawing on investment in language learning (Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000) as a theoretical lens, this study asks how learners and their families construct Arabic as heritage and its implications for their beliefs and practices. Focusing on students in a public charter middle school in the southeast U.S. who are studying Arabic as a foreign language, this study seeks to bring together language learning, identity construction, and the challenges and implications of biliteracy for Arabic learners from a range of backgrounds in an effort to understand the complexity of the Arabic learning process. To that end, it uses ethnographic methods including interviews with five focal families, class observations, and surveys and strives for grounded theory. In constructing heritage, each learner and family, from a range of national and cultural backgrounds, must balance priorities regarding the multiple varieties of Arabic, religious literacy, and the role of Arabic in local and global contexts. Results should shed light on the role of social context in language and literacy development for Arabic and comparable LCTLs, contribute to theory regarding the relationship between identity construction and language learning for heritage learners, and suggest approaches to supporting young learners of critical and heritage languages to promote a more multilingual society

Graduate Recital: Douglas Temples, Viola

Kemp Recital Hall April 22, 2018 Sunday Afternoon 3:00p.m