Crossing Boundaries: A Variety of Perspectives on Preschool Stories

Special editio

Crossing Boundaries: A Variety of Perspectives on Preschool Stories

Emergent curriculum is present in many early childhood classrooms but sharing the deep thoughts, reflections and actions of young children engaged in emergent curriculum is often hindered by the use of traditional report cards. Through the use of year-long preschool stories, teachers write about these young children using the children’s thought processes and experiences as the central data source. This practice illustrates trust of the child and the child’s daily actions as critical in understanding the child. The purpose of this paper is to re-visit previously written preschool stories from multiple perspectives including the child featured in the story, the family of the child, the creator of the preschool stories, and a co-teacher within the community. This reexamination offers another way to consider the preschool stories, opening the work to revision and rethinking.Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 12, Special Edition May 201

Influenza virus inoculum volume is critical to elucidate age‐dependent mortality in mice

The elderly exhibit increased mortality to influenza viral infection for unclear reasons. Mice are frequently used to model how aging impacts disease. Several studies have shown that aged mice exhibit an increased mortality to influenza virus, but two recent studies demonstrated the opposite. These two studies administered the virus intranasally in 20 µL, whereas the other studies used a viral inoculum in at least 30 µL. To determine whether the volume of the inoculum could explain the conflicting reports, we infected young and aged mice via intranasal instillation of 40 µL or 20 µL containing 1 x 104 plaque‐forming units (PFU) of H1N1 influenza virus. We found that intranasal administration of 40 µL but not 20 µL of inoculum resulted in age‐dependent mortality in mice. Compared to aged mice infected with 40 µL inoculum, those infected with 20 µL inoculum showed reduced levels of live virus and IFN‐β in the lung 3 days postinfection. Furthermore, aged mice administered 40 µL of Evans blue intranasally displayed increased dye retention in their bronchoalveolar lavage fluid compared to those administered 20 µL of Evans blue. Our data demonstrate that the inoculating volume of virus is critical for adequate delivery of influenza virus to the lung and thus for efficient infection of aged mice. These findings shed light on discrepant results in the literature regarding aged mice and influenza infection, and establish that mice can be used to examine how aging impacts the response to this biomedically important infection.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148415/1/acel12893.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148415/2/acel12893_am.pd

The β-hairpin of 40S exit channel protein Rps5/uS7 promotes efficient and accurate translation initiation in vivo

Abstract The eukaryotic 43S pre-initiation complex bearing tRNA i Met scans the mRNA leader for an AUG start codon in favorable context. Structural analyses revealed that the β-hairpin of 40S protein Rps5/uS7 protrudes into the 40S mRNA exit-channel, contacting the eIF2•GTP•Met-tRNA i ternary complex (TC) and mRNA context nucleotides; but its importance in AUG selection was unknown. We identified substitutions in β-strand-1 and C-terminal residues of yeast Rps5 that reduced bulk initiation, conferred 'leaky-scanning' of AUGs; and lowered initiation fidelity by exacerbating the effect of poor context of the eIF1 AUG codon to reduce eIF1 abundance. Consistently, the β-strand-1 substitution greatly destabilized the 'P IN ' conformation of TC binding to reconstituted 43S·mRNA complexes in vitro. Other substitutions in β-hairpin loop residues increased initiation fidelity and destabilized P IN at UUG, but not AUG start codons. We conclude that the Rps5 β-hairpin is as crucial as soluble initiation factors for efficient and accurate start codon recognition

Visualization of Murine Intranasal Dosing Efficiency Using Luminescent Francisella tularensis: Effect of Instillation Volume and Form of Anesthesia

Intranasal instillation is a widely used procedure for pneumonic delivery of drugs, vaccine candidates, or infectious agents into the respiratory tract of research mice. However, there is a paucity of published literature describing the efficiency of this delivery technique. In this report we have used the murine model of tularemia, with Francisella tularensis live vaccine strain (FTLVS) infection, to evaluate the efficiency of pneumonic delivery via intranasal dosing performed either with differing instillation volumes or different types of anesthesia. FTLVS was rendered luminescent via transformation with a reporter plasmid that constitutively expressed the Photorhabdus luminescens lux operon from a Francisella promoter. We then used an IVIS Spectrum whole animal imaging system to visualize FT dissemination at various time points following intranasal instillation. We found that instillation of FT in a dose volume of 10 µl routinely resulted in infection of the upper airways but failed to initiate infection of the pulmonary compartment. Efficient delivery of FT into the lungs via intranasal instillation required a dose volume of 50 µl or more. These studies also demonstrated that intranasal instillation was significantly more efficient for pneumonic delivery of FTLVS in mice that had been anesthetized with inhaled (isoflurane) vs. parenteral (ketamine/xylazine) anesthesia. The collective results underscore the need for researchers to consider both the dose volume and the anesthesia type when either performing pneumonic delivery via intranasal instillation, or when comparing studies that employed this technique

Discovering links between elongation factors and general amino acid control in Saccharomyces cerevisiae : this thesis is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosphy (PhD) in Biochemistry at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand.

Continous protein synthesis is essential for life; hence, a steady supply of amino acids must be maintained. In order to respond appropriately to amino acid shortages, cells need to constantly monitor their availability. Cells have a signal transduction pathway, called the general amino acid control (GAAC), for sensing and ameliorating amino acid shortages. Since the sensing occurs on translating ribosomes, the objective of this study was to investigate links between translation elongation and the general amino acid control in S. cerevisiae. In all eukaryotes, Gcn2 and its effector Gcn1 are responsible for monitoring amino acid availability. Active protein synthesis requires eukaryotic translation elongation factors (eEFs) to associate with translating ribosomes. This study focussed on two eEFs, eEF3 and eEF1A, and their potential role in GAAC. Gcn1 has homology to eEF3, which suggests that both proteins utilise overlapping binding sites on the ribosome. Supporting this idea, it was found that over-expression of eEF3 caused sensitivity to amino acid analogues (AAAs), suppressed the growth defect associated with constitutively active Gcn2, and impaired Gcn2 function. The C-terminal domain in eEF3 was found to be responsible for affecting Gcn2 function. Over-expression of this domain was sufficient for ribosome binding and for causing AAAs. These findings suggest that eEF3 influences Gcn1 negatively. For signal perception, Gcn1 and Gcn2 need to access the ribosomal A-site where eEF1A is functional. This suggests a link exists between eEF1A and GAAC. This link was confirmed by the discovery that eEF1A interacts with Gcn2 in vivo. The Gcn2 C-terminal domain was sufficient to precipitate eEF1A, independent of ribosomes, other yeast proteins and RNA. The interaction was lost under amino acid starvation conditions, suggesting that eEF1A is a negative regulator of Gcn2 activation under replete conditions. This study reveals a link between translation elongation and GAAC. As eEF3 and eEF1A are known to interact with each other it is proposed here that they act in concert to inhibit Gcn1 and Gcn2 under replete conditions, hence suggesting a novel mechanism of Gcn2 regulation

Structural design and multi-objective optimization of an advanced composite rotor blade

Advanced composite materials provide a wide range of design freedom by virtue of their anisotropy. For the structural design and optimization of an advanced composite rotor blade, computationally efficient analytical models that can simulate the behaviour of the blade are necessary. A reliable and computationally efficient in-house cross-sectional analysis code has been developed for applications in the preliminary analysis and structural optimization of composite rotor blades. Parametric studies emphasizing the influence of the changes made to the internal structure of the blade are presented to illustrate the variation of the elastic stiffnesses and the coupling stiffness terms as a function of the internal geometry changes. Box-beam and D-spars that are the idealizations of a composite airfoil structure are considered in this work. The variation of the elastic stiffnesses for the actual blade structure with NACA0015 (symmetrical airfoil) and NACA23015 (cambered airfoil) profiles have been accomplished. The internal geometry changes considered include: the web inclination angle of the spar and the web distance from the leading edge. A discussion on the effect of these changes on the actual and idealized structures has been reported. In addition, multi-objective optimization of the cross-sectional design of a helicopter rotor blade with NACA0015 profile has been performed using the min-max approach. The optimization problem has been formulated as target vector optimization while considering the internal geometry variables of the blade. Particle swarm optimization, a multi-agent direct search algorithm, has been selected for the optimization due to its efficacy in dealing with composite optimization problems. A comparison of the optimization results with/without the inclusion of the internal geometry variables has been reported to highlight the role that the internal geometry variables play in the structural design of composite rotor blades.Keywords: Advanced composite rotor blades, Elastic tailoring, Multi-objective optimization, Target vector optimization, Particle swarm optimization.Grâce à leurs propriétés anisotropiques, les matériaux composites avancés présentent une grande liberté en termes de conception et design. Afin de concevoir et optimiser une pale principale en matériaux composites avancés, des modèles analytiques pouvant simuler le comportement de la pale sont nécessaires. Un code mathématique fiable and efficace, en terme de puissance de calcul, a été développé pour faire des analyses préliminaires d'optimisation structurelle de pales principales en composite. Des études paramétriques, démontrant l'influence des changements faits à la structure interne de la pale, sont présentées pour illustrer la variation des modules de rigidité et des termes de couplage de rigidité en fonction de la géométrie interne de la pale.Un caisson et un longeron, qui sont une idéalisation d'un profil aérodynamique en composite, ont été considéré dans ce travail. La variation des modules élastiques de rigidité pour des structures de pales symétriques NACA0015 et cambrées NACA23015 a été déterminée. Les changements de géométrie interne considérés inclus : l'angle d'inclinaison de l'âme du longeron et la distance entre l'âme et le bord d'attaque. Une discussion sur l'effet de ces changements sur les structures réelles et idéalisées est présentée.De plus, une optimisation à objectifs multiples du design de la section transversale d'une pale d'hélicoptère avec un profil NACA0015 a été accomplie avec une approche min-max. Le problème d'optimisation a été formulé en tant qu'une optimisation à vecteur cible tout en considérant les variables géométriques internes de la pale. Une optimisation à essaim de particules, un algorithme de recherche direct à cibles multiples, a été sélectionnée pour l'optimisation à cause de son efficacité à gérer les problèmes d'optimisation avec les composites. Une comparaison des résultats d'optimisation incluant ou non les variables de géométrie internes a été reportée pour souligner le rôle que celles-ci jouent dans la conception structurelle des pales en composite