Peek Into the Future of Education Using Glass

Glass, an everyday material found in every home and school, now finds new life as part of some of the most cutting-edge technology available. Through their invention of Gorilla Glass®, Corning Glass Works has introduced a new type of glass that is both stronger and thinner. The enhanced glass finds new life in interactive glass walls, collaborative worktables, and even augmented reality glasses. As glass technology moves from the stuff of futuristic fantasy into actuality, the possibilities for its use in the world of education are numerous

Roundtable Discussion Examining Ritual, Technology, and Community in Urban Communication

Pervasive technologies that now exist in the urban setting have greatly improved the ability to connect on a macro-level, but have minimized the intimate shared experience of community on a micro level. This paper explores how technology has changed rituals within the global community and has contributed new methods to the process of human interaction. Technology’s influence on civic engagement, business meetings, shopping and socializing are examined to assess the impact technology has on human connections

Is Obamacare on life support? (with transcript)

Penn Law’s Allison Hoffman and Bloomberg Law’s Victoria Pelham dissect the current state the Affordable Care Act, state exchanges, and productive steps forward to improve the U.S. health insurance system

Connecting to Educational Resources Online with QR Codes

Quick Response (QR) codes are two-dimensional barcodes which can be scanned with web-enabled mobile devices. These codes connect directly to a website, video, phone number, or text message, providing instant access to information resources whenever and wherever needed. This paper will examine to what extent QR codes are currently being used in schools, and will explore the possibilities of integrating QR codes in school settings. Embedded in this discussion are descriptions of the next evolution of this form of technology

The SseC translocon component in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is chaperoned by SscA

Background: Salmonella enterica is a causative agent of foodborne gastroenteritis and the systemic disease known as typhoid fever. This bacterium uses two type three secretion systems (T3SSs) to translocate protein effectors into host cells to manipulate cellular function. Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-2 encodes a T3SS required for intracellular survival of the pathogen. Genes in SPI-2 include apparatus components, secreted effectors and chaperones that bind to secreted cargo to coordinate their release from the bacterial cell. Although the effector repertoire secreted by the SPI-2 T3SS is large, only three virulence-associated chaperones have been characterized. Results: Here we report that SscA is the chaperone for the SseC translocon component. We show that SscA and SseC interact in bacterial cells and that deletion of sscA results in a loss of SseC secretion, which compromises intracellular replication and leads to a loss of competitive fitness in mice. Conclusions: This work completes the characterization of the chaperone complement within SPI-2 and identifies SscA as the chaperone for the SseC translocon

Essays on disability and employment

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation consists of three essays which examine the impact of public policy on labor market outcomes of those with disabilities. The first essay analyzes a microlending program for people with disabilities in India. People with disabilities are disproportionately represented among the poorest of the poor in developing countries. An increasingly common method of combating poverty in developing countries, providing microlending through self help groups, has been largely unavailable to the disabled. This essay reports on one of the first programs in India to provide people with disabilities access to self help groups and microlending. Between 2002 and 2004, the Indira Kranthi Patham program began over 23,000 self help groups for people with disabilities in rural Andhra Pradesh. I evaluate the effect of this program on borrowing, education, labor market, and asset ownership outcomes by comparing people with disabilities to their non-disabled siblings in treatment and control villages. The estimates suggest that the program led to increased borrowing, education, and asset ownership, while having negative to zero impact on labor market participation among the disabled. The second essay evaluates the labor market effects of the American with Disabilities Act. In 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act(ADA) to improve the labor market opportunities of the disabled. Immediately following the enactment of the ADA, the employment rate of people with disabilities declined. However, the longer term labor market consequences of the ADA have not been studied. Interest in the longer term post-ADA employment trends of people with disabilities derives from the weakening of the ADA's employment provisions by the Supreme Court. The weakening of these provisions has decreased the cost to employers of hiring disabled workers. This essay uses variation in state disability laws and data from twenty years of the March Current Population Survey to determine the short and longer term impact of the ADA on labor market outcomes of people with disabilities. The estimates suggest that the ADA led to a short-term decline in weeks worked and labor force participation of those with disabilities while having an insignificant impact on these outcomes in the medium and longer run. The final essay explores the wage implications of the American with Disabilities Act for those with disabilities. Those with disabilities have persistently lower wages than the non-disabled. To improve labor market outcomes of the disabled, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Immediately following the enactment of the ADA, the wages of people with disabilities decreased. However, the longer term wage consequences of the ADA have not been studied. Interest in longer term post-ADA wage trends of people with disabilities derives from the weakening of the ADA's employment provisions by the Supreme Court. This essay uses variation in state disability laws and data from twenty years of the March Current Population Survey to determine the short and longer term impact of the ADA on the log weekly wages of people with disabilities. Using data from the March Current Population Survey, this essay shows that the ADA led to a longer term increase in the weekly wages of those with disabilities. This finding is sensitive to the composition of the sample. Furthermore, this essay presents evidence that the wage effect of the ADA varies according to level of education.by Allison V. Thompkins.Ph.D

Root competition can cause a decline in diversity with increased productivity

1  Plant community theory often invokes competition to explain why species diversity declines as productivity increases. Competition for all resources might become more intense and lead to greater competitive exclusion or, alternatively, competition for light only could become more intense and exclude poor light competitors. 2  To test these hypotheses, we constructed communities of seven old-field species using combined monocultures. Constructs experienced no interspecific competition, only shoot competition or only root competition, with and without fertilizer. Diversity in these limited interaction communities was compared to diversity in unfertilized and fertilized mixtures of the seven species. 3  Diversity decreased with fertilization in mixtures and in communities with only root competition. Shoot competition had small effects on the community and did not contribute to changes in diversity with fertilization. 4  Root competition may strongly impact plant community structure in unproductive communities where light never becomes limiting, or under non-equilibrium conditions following human disturbances.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75541/1/j.1365-2745.2003.00768.x.pd