A Study Of Fifty Industrial Technology Programs For A Comparative Evaluation Of Prairie View\u27s Industrial Technology Program

Even though a considerable expansion of technician training has taken place during the past five years, it is doubtful whether the nation will be able to meet the projected need unless the rate of increase in training facilities are accelerated. With the fast changing world of today, there is a need for a large number of well-trained technicians. This has created a need for well-developed technology programs. These programs should keep abreast of the rapid changes in industry. In order to keep abreast, periodical evaluations of industrial technology programs are advisable. To understand our culture in America we must understand technology because it is our culture. To understand what has made America great, we must search technology. To understand what will keep America great, we must study technology. In the past few years, the enrollment in Industrial Technology at Prairie View A. and M. College has increased tremendously. To provide these students with the best available experiences and training, a study of Industrial Technology curriculums was needed. The purpose of the study was to compare the Industrial Technology program at Prairie View A. and M. College with other similar programs. This study may prove helpful to the Industrial Technology Division at Prairie View A. & M. College. This study has shown small differences and basic similarities between the fifty selected programs and Prairie View\u27s program which could be considered as a competitive Industrial Technology Program

Faithful Disbelief: Christopher Morse Between Foucault and Barth

"And what do you do?" As a graduate student studying Christian theology in a country that increasingly expects education institutions to focus primarily on the production of tech-savvy laborers, this is quite an awkward question. What role do academic theologians play in this kind of educational system? What is the task of theology in this context? In pursuing answers to these questions, I return to one of the first works on theology I studied, written by one of my first theology professors: Christopher Morse’s Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian Disbelief. In Not Every Spirit, Morse examines the task of theology (in particular, dogmatics, that field of theology concerned with the faithfulness of claims regarding God), and rehearses the theological work he prescribes. As I will be focusing on the task of theology in this paper, I will engage with the corresponding section of Morse’s book here. Not Every Spirit begins with Morse’s claim that "to believe in God is not to believe in everything." In other words, while the emphasis in some churches may be on what ideas about God or authorities on God are to be believed, such belief necessarily implies a disbelief of other ideas and authorities. Christian faith is, then, a matter of "faithful disbelief.

Breaking the Chains of Chattel Teamwork: The Future of Black Liberation Theology

"No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard." —President Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union Address President Barack Obama closed his address with "God bless America," thereby giving divine sanction to the myth of U.S. American exceptionalism, that the people of the United States compose "the one indispensable nation in world affairs." Before you write off this explicit mention of God’s blessing as stock presidential rhetoric, note that Obama offers this affirmation in the context of his citation of the prevalent "cynical" mood among the U.S. American public. He attributes this cynicism to lagging faith in U.S. American economic and political institutions. Obama characterizes the people of the United States as struggling to find meaning in a country that is disappointing their hopes and falling short of their values. These issues of faith and meaning warrant theological reflection. The President seems unable to grasp the religious question hiding behind these issues. President Obama’s characterization of U.S. American history as an extended exercise in teamwork required a blatant whitewashing of history. To offer solace to the wayward people of the United States, Obama recast more than three hundred years of chattel slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow segregation into the mold of chattel teamwork

Identification of chemical inducers of metastasis-related cell differentiation events using peptide microarrays

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a key indicator of cancer progression and metastasis in vivo. The most important inducer of EMT is activation of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) pathway. In addition to initiating EMT, TGF-β is able to cause cancer cells to switch cell states from the non-stem cancer cell (NSCC) to the more invasive and tumorigenic cancer stem cell (CSC) state. Investigation into factors that can activate the TGF-β pathway, and thereby initiate EMT or the NSCC-to-CSC conversion, is therefore of critical importance. It is well known that the chemical environment immediately surrounding the cell determines cell differentiation events. Small molecules such as peptides, then, can induce such events in cells that are bound to the peptides. In this project, we aimed to identify peptide ligands that were able to induce EMT in cells adhered to the peptide surface. Five peptides previously discovered through phage display (panning against MDA-MB-231 cells) along with three control peptides, were printed onto gold-coated glass slides in a patterned array using a DNA microarray printer and tested against NMuMG cells. The arrays of cells were then fixed and stained for eCadherin (an epithelial marker). We found that after four days of culture on the peptide-modified surfaces, eCadherin levels were decreased on two of the five test peptide surfaces, as well as in both of the positive control peptide surfaces, suggesting that those cell populations underwent EMT. Future studies will indicate whether these peptides can additionally induce the NSCC-to-CSC conversion. *Indicates faculty mentor

CFGP: a web-based, comparative fungal genomics platform

Since the completion of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome sequencing project in 1996, the genomes of over 80 fungal species have been sequenced or are currently being sequenced. Resulting data provide opportunities for studying and comparing fungal biology and evolution at the genome level. To support such studies, the Comparative Fungal Genomics Platform (CFGP; http://cfgp.snu.ac.kr), a web-based multifunctional informatics workbench, was developed. The CFGP comprises three layers, including the basal layer, middleware and the user interface. The data warehouse in the basal layer contains standardized genome sequences of 65 fungal species. The middleware processes queries via six analysis tools, including BLAST, ClustalW, InterProScan, SignalP 3.0, PSORT II and a newly developed tool named BLASTMatrix. The BLASTMatrix permits the identification and visualization of genes homologous to a query across multiple species. The Data-driven User Interface (DUI) of the CFGP was built on a new concept of pre-collecting data and post-executing analysis instead of the ‘fill-in-the-form-and-press-SUBMIT’ user interfaces utilized by most bioinformatics sites. A tool termed Favorite, which supports the management of encapsulated sequence data and provides a personalized data repository to users, is another novel feature in the DUI

Polyamine homoeostasis as a drug target in pathogenic protozoa: peculiarities and possibilities

New drugs are urgently needed for the treatment of tropical and subtropical parasitic diseases, such as African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, leishmaniasis and malaria. Enzymes in polyamine biosynthesis and thiol metabolism, as well as polyamine transporters, are potential drug targets within these organisms. In the present review, the current knowledge of unique properties of polyamine metabolism in these parasites is outlined. These properties include prozyme regulation of AdoMetDC (S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase) activity in trypanosomatids, co-expression of ODC (ornithine decarboxylase) and AdoMetDC activities in a single protein in plasmodia, and formation of trypanothione, a unique compound linking polyamine and thiol metabolism in trypanosomatids. Particularly interesting features within polyamine metabolism in these parasites are highlighted for their potential in selective therapeutic strategies