A partnership model of education at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

How an park conservancy leveraged partnerships to build a very successful environmental education program in an urban national park

A Letter on “The Current Status of Genes and Genetic Testing in Emergency Medicine: A Narrative Review”

On August 25, 2019, you published an article titled “The Current Status of Genes and Genetic Testing in Emergency Medicine: A Narrative Review”. I recently read the article and want to both commend the authors for including information on Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (vEDS) and expand upon the information provided. Thank you for publishing this article

A country that loses control of its past loses control of its future: The Role of Architecture Heritage Maintaining Culture Identity Post Natural Disasters Kathmandu, Nepal as a case study

As one of the most seismically dangerous regions in the world, it is remarkable that Kathmandu maintains to have an abundance of architectural heritage. However, as a result of the 2015 earthquake, many of the esteemed world heritage status buildings and temples were damaged, several beyond repair. Many people share the opinion that the destruction caused by natural disasters provides an opportunity in underdeveloped countries to ‘build back better’ with improved facilities, to ensure an enhanced quality of life. Whilst this strategy is most commonly enforced on vernacular heritage it has also been applied to the significant historical and cultural buildings. Whilst this can still have authentic significance and value to the community, opposing opinions such as Oliver-Smith’s, would suggest that rebuilding in a more modern vernacular could ‘endanger the connection that people have with their built environment, violating cultural norms of space and place, inhibiting the re-weaving of social networks and delaying or stopping the re-emergence of community identity’. Cultural heritage preservation is important to protect a society’s economically valuable material assets, preserve traditions, history and the environment, and a sense of continuity and identity. Historical buildings and heritage function as a collective memory and ‘Without memory, a sense of self, identity, culture and heritage is lost’, it helps give individuals a sense of belonging in time and place. Natural disasters can put architectural heritage at great risk both directly, from the disaster itself such as ground shaking caused by an earthquake, and secondary hazards such as fire caused by a damaged electricity mains. Humans actions such as building repairs can also be a threat to the heritage. This research aims to evaluate the importance of heritage to the local economy and its social significance, and to conclude whether it is best to repair or rebuild heritage or to memorialise or document it and build something new

What Does the Term 'Gay Community' Mean to You - Understandings Among Gay Men in Glasgow and North Lanarkshire

No abstract available

No Sympathy for the Devil: The Guise of the Good Defended

At the intersection of action theory and value theory is a provocative thesis: the Guise of the Good. The Guise of the Good (GG) states that whenever an agent acts intentionally, she sees some good in her action. Thus, according to GG, positive evaluation is essential to the nature of intentional action. Kieran Setiya (2010), however, argues that it is possible to act intentionally without believing that there is any reason to count in favor of one’s action: if intentional action is action for a reason, says Setiya, then the Guise of the Good is false. But I argue that Setiya’s account is insufficiently sensitive to the relationship that agents bear to their own prospective actions. I argue that this relationship is inherently normative and that, consequently, the Guise of the Good is true

Foundations in Wisconsin: A Directory [25th ed. 2006]

The 2006 production of Foundations in Wisconsin marks the 25th edition of the print directory and the 6th year of the online version (www.wifoundations.org). The directory is designed as a research tool for grantseekers interested in locating information on private, corporate, and community foundations registered in Wisconsin. Each entry in this new edition has been updated or reviewed to provide the most current information available. Most of the data was drawn from IRS 990-PF tax returns filed by the foundations. However, additional information was obtained from surveys, foundation Web sites, annual reports, and newsletters. Wisconsin foundations have shown continued growth in several key areas. The number of active grantmaking foundations has risen to 1227, with 77 new foundations identified since last year’s publication. Total grants increased by 15% to a total of $452 million, while assets increased by 6$5.5 billion.https://epublications.marquette.edu/lib_fiw/1004/thumbnail.jp

F. necrophorum Ecotin Inhibits Human Plasma Kallikrein and Human Neutrophil Elastase

Background: Fusobacterium necrophorum is a causative agent of Lemierre’s syndrome (LS) which is characterised by thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein and bacteraemia. F. necrophorum is a Gram-negative, anaerobic bacterium known to possess virulence genes such as a haemolysin, filamentous haemagglutinin and leukotoxin, which target host blood components. Ecotin is a serine protease inhibitor that has not previously been characterised in F. necrophorum, but in E.coli has been shown to have a potent anticoagulant effect. Methods: Next generation and Sanger sequencing were used to confirm the presence of the ecotin gene in the genomes of a collection of F. necrophorum clinical and reference strains. When translated, it was found to be a highly conserved protein made up of 159 amino acids. A plasmid insert was synthesised and ligated into a pET-16b vector. BL21(DE3) chemically competent E. coli cells were used to express the histidine-tagged protein under IPTG conditions and the protein was purified using IMAC sepharose affinity chromatography. Ecotin was added to human plasma kallikrein at concentrations of 0, 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 nM and incubated for 1 hour at room temperature to equilibrate. Kallikrein substrate was then added at concentrations of 0.015, 0.03, 0.06, 0.125, 0.25 and 0.5 mM and fluorescence was monitored every minute for 30 minutes. Ecotin was also added to human neutrophil elastase (HNE) as above and absorbance was monitored every minute for 30 minutes after addition of HNE substrate at concentrations of 0.015 – 0.5 mM. Results: Results show that F. necrophorum ecotin inhibits human plasma kallikrein and human neutrophil elastase in a dose-dependent manner. Data will also be presented on the anticoagulant effects of ecotin during activated partial thromboplastin time, thrombin time and prothrombin time tests on human donor blood. Conclusion: F. necrophorum is known to enter the bloodstream and cause a life threatening condition, therefore understanding the virulence mechanisms that it utilises is of great importance. Inhibition of clotting cascade enzymes suggests that ecotin may play a role in regulating coagulation, while the inhibition of neutrophil elastase suggests another role is to protect the organism from host proteases

Comparison of virulence genes found in draft genomes of F. necrophorum

Fusobacterium necrophorum is a causative agent of persistent sore throat syndrome, tonsillar abscesses and Lemierre’s syndrome (LS) in humans. LS is characterised by thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein and bacteraemia. It is a Gram-negative, anaerobic bacterium which to date has no available reference genome. Draft genomes suggest it to be a single circular chromosome of approximately 2.2Mb. A reference strain of each of the two F. necrophorum subspecies and a clinical isolate from a LS patient were sequenced on a Roche 454 GS-FLX+. Sequence data was assembled using Roche GS Assembler and the resulting contigs annotated using xBASE, Pfam and BLAST. The annotation data was mined for gene products associated with virulence revealing a leukotoxin, haemolysin, filamentous haemagglutinnin, adhesin, hemin receptor, phage genes, CRISPR-associated proteins, ecotin and a putative type V secretion system. Data will be presented on comparative genomics of the three strains, with a focus on putative virulence genes. Tools such as Artemis Comparison Tool and ClustalO were used for sequence alignments and PhyML was used to generate phylogenetic trees. Conserved motifs associated with virulence were also located. Understanding variations at the genomic level may help to explain the increased virulence of some F. necrophorum strains

Ambiguous migrants: contemporary British migrants in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

A bicultural approach to the politics of settler-indigenous relations, rapidly increasing ethnocultural diversity and its status as an ex-British settler society, make Auckland a fascinating and complex context in which to examine contemporary British migrants. However, despite Britain remaining one of the largest source countries for migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the country’s popularity as a destination among British emigrants, contemporary arrivals have attracted relatively little attention. This thesis draws on twelve-months of qualitative research, including in-depth interviews with forty-six participants, photo-elicitation with a smaller group, and participant observation, in order to develop a nuanced account of participants’ narratives, everyday experiences and personal geographies of Auckland. This thesis adopts a lens attentive to the relationship between the past and the present in order to explore British migrants’ imaginaries of sameness and difference, national belonging, place and ‘the good life’ in Aotearoa New Zealand. First, through attention to the ‘colonial continuities’ of participants’ popular geographical and temporal imaginaries of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the lifestyles they associate with it, this thesis is part of growing attention to historical precedents of ‘the good life’ in international lifestyle migration literature. Secondly, by examining participants’ relations with Māori, other ethnicised groups, bi- and multiculturalism, I expand on whether these migrants’ invest, or not, in ‘the settler imaginary’ (Bell 2014). In doing so, I bring crucial nuance to understandings of ethnic and cultural difference, and settler-indigenous relations, in globalising white settler spaces. As neither fully ‘them’ nor ‘us’ (Wellings 2011), British migrants occupy an ambiguous position in ex-British settler societies. Finally, I examine participants’ notions of shared ancestry and of cultural familiarity with Pākehā, and, in doing so, problematise the notion of Britishness as a natural legacy or passive inheritance in this context

Portrayals of Pinochet: Historical Narratives in Chilean Schools

How is the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship represented historically in contemporary Chilean society? To answer this question, this thesis examines the education system, with a focus on high schools and universities in Valparaíso, Chile. I argue that there are two competing discourses about the Pinochet administration - a majority, anti-dictatorship perspective and a minority, pro-regime position - which selectively emphasize differing aspects of the regime. The anti position focuses on human rights violations while the pro perspective puts greater weight on economic achievements. This maps onto Chilean high school institutions, with a majority of upper and upper-middle class students attending private schools and a majority of lower class students attending public schools. As such, the private schools are shown to adopt a highly economic discourse while the public schools are more likely to give a balanced presentation of the dictatorship, including the social issues. In contrast, Chilean universities face fewer institutional constraints, and professors have a higher degree of academic freedom; therefore, the discourse in these institutions instead depends on the individual expertise and class standing of the professors. In order to determine the prevalent historical representation, middle school and high school textbook chapters were analyzed, and interviews were conducted with both Chilean high school teachers and university professors. This study can be replicated in other regions of Chile as well as be expanded to analyze actual high school and university history lessons. The results show that a broader narrative is becoming more common, with economic-based discourses prevalent only in Chilean private high schools and select university classes