Placenta, the Sculpture, and the Invisible Blood of Women

Placenta is a giant, soft model of a human placenta, made from knitted sections of fabric pieced together around a free-standing frame. It was knitted by women out of hand-dyed yarn made from discarded t-shirts. The #placentaproject drew together a team of women (and a handful of men) who believed that it was a socially useful thing to create and exhibit a giant human placenta in order to enliven the amount of public conversation and understanding of the bodily work of women. The work of the sculpting process used a domestic craft as an act of protest—a monument to the unpaid and uncounted labour of women. This article describes the narrative of the process of the sculpting work and explores personal themes about the invisibility of women’s reproductive blood, both in health and in society itself. It also describes the anatomic and physiological learning that took place in the process of sculpting and exhibiting the work, which led to a more deeply felt awe at the work of women that often goes unnoticed. Placenta is on tour around Australia and was recently exhibited at the Australian Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement Conference, held in Sydney, in July 2019

IPM information technology

The use of information technology to obtain and manage IPM information will continue to grow. By applying the basic principles of information taxonomies such as tagging information with terms from vocabularies, filtering and aggregation, knowledge workers will have the necessary tools to become increasingly informed about the realm ofiPM

Use of the internet for information organization, distance learning, and specimen presentation

The advent of the internet has had an effect on the discipline of entomology. The history of the relationship between entomology and the internet is summarized, and several effects are examined in detail. One effect is to create an explosion of available information about insects and pest management, largely available on the world-wide web (WWW). A metadata-based solution to categorizing, searching and filtering this information is presented, along with a case study that used this solution to examine the value added by the use of metadata. In the case study website, one third of the users arrived at web pages containing entomological information by following links that were autogenerated based on metadata. Original software for extracting, assigning and managing metadata across sites is presented. A second effect is the enabling of new teaching methods, including the use of three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality insect models. Photographic 3D models were created using QuickTime VR and compared to standard teaching methodology. The QTVR models were significantly more effective. Lastly, the internet enables distance education. A web-based online introductory distance education course in entomology was constructed and offered for several years. Enrollment increased markedly over the time course was offered. Retention averaged 79% +/- 7.9% in the online section compared to 93% +/- 4.0% in the traditional section. Analysis of log files showed that problems with cheating during online evaluations was rampant, with 15 of 22 students cheating on one or both of the exams analyzed. Potentional solutions to this problem are presented.*;*This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation)

What Works for Parents: How Parents Support Their Children with Math Homework in Rural Ghana

Family and Consumer Sciences programs target families in deprived rural and urban communities with the objective of equipping them with skills to improve family well-being, education, and relationships. In recent years, the focus of FCS in Ghana has been on parental styles and education that foster parents’ involvement in their children\u27s school work. Using a child-parent interactive model, a series of math activities were delivered to children between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Group activities were also facilitated by the FCS staff. Parents used local materials, such as small empty cans, bottles, leaves, stones, sticks, old newspapers, and sand, to explain math concepts. Staff, parents, and children used fun activities and role plays to demonstrate developmental processes that enhance effective child development. The lessons identified were tied to the understanding of appropriate parenting styles that foster acquisition of skills for basic math concepts. Parents reported increased interest and confidence in math and were more proactive in supervising their children to complete their homework. The importance of the model lies in its simplicity in conveying fundamental knowledge that relates to the interwoven aspect of developmental domains to ensure children experience maximal success with math-related activities

VEB-econ: An Outreach Tool for Designing Vegetative Environmental Buffers

Vegetative environmental buffers, or VEBs, are rows of trees and shrubs purposefully planted to mitigate livestock odor. In this article, we present VEB-econ, a free-to-use geographic information system–based decision support tool Extension professionals can implement when working with livestock producers in designing site-specific VEBs. A soil database links tree and shrub species recommendations to soil-based suitability guidelines. VEB-econ estimates annualized cost for tree establishment and management and opportunity costs and factors in potential Natural Resources Conservation Service cost-share payments. Additionally, VEB-econ can be used to design field windbreaks. VEB-econ is designed specifically to be useful to Extension professionals and other air quality stakeholders

TAL Effector-Nucleotide Targeter (TALE-NT) 2.0: tools for TAL effector design and target prediction

Transcription activator-like (TAL) effectors are repeat-containing proteins used by plant pathogenic bacteria to manipulate host gene expression. Repeats are polymorphic and individually specify single nucleotides in the DNA target, with some degeneracy. A TAL effector-nucleotide binding code that links repeat type to specified nucleotide enables prediction of genomic binding sites for TAL effectors and customization of TAL effectors for use in DNA targeting, in particular as custom transcription factors for engineered gene regulation and as site-specific nucleases for genome editing. We have developed a suite of web-based tools called TAL Effector-Nucleotide Targeter 2.0 (TALE-NT 2.0; https://boglab.plp.iastate.edu/) that enables design of custom TAL effector repeat arrays for desired targets and prediction of TAL effector binding sites, ranked by likelihood, in a genome, promoterome or other sequence of interest. Search parameters can be set by the user to work with any TAL effector or TAL effector nuclease architecture. Applications range from designing highly specific DNA targeting tools and identifying potential off-target sites to predicting effector targets important in plant disease

Partisipasi Politik Perempuan dalam Pemilu Legislatif Tahun 2014 di Kecamatan Siau Barat Selatan1

Indonesia merupakan Negara pertama di kawasan Asia-Pasifik yangmembentuk kementerian khusus untuk meningkatkan peran perempuan. Berbagaikegiatan perempuan yang muncul sejak pemerintahan Orde baru baik organisasiprofesi maupun ikatan kerja suami, PKK, Kowani, dll. Hal tersebut menunjukkanadanya pertumbuhan partisipasi politik perempuan yang semakin besar dan telahbanyak membantu melaksankan program-program pemerintah. Berbagai jabatanpolitis telah dicapai seperti menjadi menteri, anggota parlemen, ketua partai,bupati, camat, lurah dll. Tetapi jika dilihat dari jumlah maupun pengaruhnyadalam Perumusan kebijaksanaan nasional sangatlah kecil. Partisipasi perempuandibidang politik pada masa reformasi kini mengalami perluasan peran menjadianggota parlemen. Partisipasi perempuan dalam pemilu legislatif menunjukanadanya kemajuan bagi proses demokrasi yang berbudaya partisipatoris dan tentusaja hal ini membuat kaum perempuan lebih kaya akan pemenuhan haknya.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hal-hal yang menyebabkanrendahnya partisipasi politik perempuan dalam pemilihan umum legislatif 2014di Kecamatan Siau Barat Selatan. Sedangkan konsep yang digunakan dalampenelitian ini adalah konsep tentang partisipasi sedangkan Metode yangdigunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah deskritif kualitatif.Hasil yang di peroleh dalam penelitian ini adalah 1) Perempuanberpartisipasi dan menjatuhkan pilihan politiknya berdasarkan informasi yangdia terima, dimana partispasi politik ini juga ternyata berkorelasi dengan kondisilingkungan dimana perempuan itu tinggal. Hal ini membuat partisipasi politiktiap perempuan berbeda-beda. Terdapat perempuan yang menggunakan hakpilihnya berdasarkan informasi dan pengetahuan yang diperoleh tentang profilpartai, figur caleg, serta visi dan misinya, akan tetapi juga terdapat perempuanyang menggunakan hak pilihnya meski dengan pengetahuan yang sangatminim tentang partai, caleg dan juga visi dan misinya. 2) Terdapat pula pemilihperempuan yang memiliki pengetahuan dan informasi tentang proses PemiluLegislatif, tetapi dari berbagai informasi yang diterima pemilih perempuan tersebuttidak menggunakan hak pilihnya, hal ini karena adanya anggapan bahwa prosespolitik yang ada tidak mampu meyakinkannya bahwa akan ada Perubahan yanglebih baik. 3) Partisipasi politik perempuan di Kecamatan Siau Barat Selatanterbentuk melalui soalisasi dan berbagai informasi yang diterima dan dikeloladalam lingkungan sosial pemilih perempuan. Informasi-informasi yang adaakan membentuk bangunan Kognitif pemilih perempuan dan yang nantinyaakan mendorongnya untuk memberikan afirmasi pada pilihan politiknya

A Spatial Stochastic Model of AMPAR Trafficking and Subunit Dynamics

In excitatory neurons, the ability of a synaptic connection to strengthen or weaken is known as synaptic plasticity and is thought to be the cellular basis for learning and memory. Understanding the mechanism of synaptic plasticity is an important step towards understanding and developing treatment methods for learning and memory disorders. A key molecular process in synaptic plasticity for mammalian glutamatergic neurons is the exocytosis (delivery to the synapse) of AMPA-type glutamate receptors (AMPARs). While the protein signaling pathways responsible for exocytosis have long been investigated with experimental methods, it remains unreasonable to study the system in its full complexity via only in vitro and in vivo studies. A large number of protein interaction states are observed, creating a system both difficult to monitor and limited in spatiotemporal resolution in an experimental setting. Thus, a computational modeling approach could be employed to help elucidate the underlying protein interaction mechanisms. Here we develop a systematic model to investigate the spatiotemporal patterning of AMPARs. We replicate in silico two distinct mechanisms of AMPAR trafficking related to variation in AMPAR subunit functionality. This model is validated against current knowledge of AMPAR trafficking and used to explore spatial localization of AMPARs to specific synaptic sites, as well as to describe the differences in the spatiotemporal dynamics between the two interacting pathways. These findings help to explain how AMPAR trafficking occurs and can serve as a step towards understanding the role it plays in synaptic plasticity