Autonomy and Gender in Music Training: Classical Music Education in First-and Second-Generation Chinese Immigrants of St. Louis

From the Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA), Spring 2018. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor: Linling Gao-Mile

Effects of Kisspeptin1 on Electrical Activity of an Extrahypothalamic Population of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neurons in Medaka (Oryzias latipes)

Kisspeptin (product of the kiss1 gene) is the most potent known activator of the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis. Both kiss1 and the kisspeptin receptor are highly expressed in the hypothalamus of vertebrates, and low doses of kisspeptin have a robust and long-lasting stimulatory effect on the rate of action potential firing of hypophysiotropic gonadotropin releasing hormone-1 (GnRH1) neurons in mice. Fish have multiple populations of GnRH neurons distinguished by their location in the brain and the GnRH gene that they express. GnRH3 neurons located in the terminal nerve (TN) associated with the olfactory bulb are neuromodulatory and do not play a direct role in regulating pituitary-gonadal function. In medaka fish, the electrical activity of TN-GnRH3 neurons is modulated by visual cues from conspecifics, and is thought to act as a transmitter of information from the external environment to the central nervous system. TN-GnRH3 neurons also play a role in sexual motivation and arousal states, making them an important population of neurons to study for understanding coordination of complex behaviors. We investigated the role of kisspeptin in regulating electrical activity of TN-GnRH3 neurons in adult medaka. Using electrophysiology in an intact brain preparation, we show that a relatively brief treatment with 100 nM of kisspeptin had a long-lasting stimulatory effect on the electrical activity of an extrahypothalamic population of GnRH neurons. Dose-response analysis suggests a relatively narrow activational range of this neuropeptide. Further, blocking action potential firing with tetrodotoxin and blocking synaptic transmission with a low Ca2+/high Mg2+ solution inhibited the stimulatory action of kisspeptin on electrical activity, indicating that kisspeptin is acting indirectly through synaptic regulation to excite TN-GnRH3 neurons. Our findings provide a new perspective on kisspeptin's broader functions within the central nervous system, through its regulation of an extrahypothalamic population of GnRH neurons involved in multiple neuromodulatory functions

Examining the Influencing Factors of Cross-Project Knowledge Transfer: An Empirical Study of IT Service Firms

Despite the significance of knowledge transfer in IT service industry, our understanding of knowledge transfer between projects remains limited. Different from the existing studies mainly examining knowledge transfer at organizational level or at individual level within the same project team, this study examines the factors that influence cross-project knowledge transfer in IT service firms. Based on the process logic of knowledge transfer, we develop an integrated theoretical model that posits that cross-project knowledge transfer is influenced by knowledge, transfer activities, project teams’ transfer capabilities, project team context and project task context. We use the recipient IT project implementation performance to measure the effectiveness of cross-project knowledge transfer. Results of the preliminary test show that the designed questionnaires have scalability for the latent constructs, and the theoretical model has its rationality to some extent. To fully assess our proposed research model, we will collect large data set and perform a complete data analysis to test our model. Our study contributes to existing research by focusing on cross-project knowledge transfer and empirically investigating the performance effect of project-related factors. Results of the study will have important implications for IT practitioners

Revealing nascent proteomics in signaling pathways and cell differentiation.

Regulation of gene expression at the level of protein synthesis is a crucial element in driving how the genetic landscape is expressed. However, we are still limited in technologies that can quantitatively capture the immediate proteomic changes that allow cells to respond to specific stimuli. Here, we present a method to capture and identify nascent proteomes in situ across different cell types without disturbing normal growth conditions, using O-propargyl-puromycin (OPP). Cell-permeable OPP rapidly labels nascent elongating polypeptides, which are subsequently conjugated to biotin-azide, using click chemistry, and captured with streptavidin beads, followed by digestion and analysis, using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Our technique of OPP-mediated identification (OPP-ID) allows detection of widespread proteomic changes within a short 2-hour pulse of OPP. We illustrate our technique by recapitulating alterations of proteomic networks induced by a potent mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor, MLN128. In addition, by employing OPP-ID, we identify more than 2,100 proteins and uncover distinct protein networks underlying early erythroid progenitor and differentiation states not amenable to alternative approaches such as amino acid analog labeling. We present OPP-ID as a method to quantitatively identify nascent proteomes across an array of biological contexts while preserving the subtleties directing signaling in the native cellular environment

Discrimination of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer\u27s Disease Using Transfer Entropy Measures of Scalp EEG

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a neurological condition related to early stages of dementia including Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD). This study investigates the potential of measures of transfer entropy in scalp EEG for effectively discriminating between normal aging, MCI, and AD participants. Resting EEG records from 48 age-matched participants (mean age 75.7 years)-15 normal controls, 16 MCI, and 17 early AD-are examined. The mean temporal delays corresponding to peaks in inter-regional transfer entropy are computed and used as features to discriminate between the three groups of participants. Three-way classification schemes based on binary support vector machine models demonstrate overall discrimination accuracies of 91.7- 93.8%, depending on the protocol condition. These results demonstrate the potential for EEG transfer entropy measures as biomarkers in identifying early MCI and AD. Moreover, the analyses based on short data segments (two minutes) render the method practical for a primary care setting

Association Test Based on SNP Set: Logistic Kernel Machine Based Test vs. Principal Component Analysis

GWAS has facilitated greatly the discovery of risk SNPs associated with complex diseases. Traditional methods analyze SNP individually and are limited by low power and reproducibility since correction for multiple comparisons is necessary. Several methods have been proposed based on grouping SNPs into SNP sets using biological knowledge and/or genomic features. In this article, we compare the linear kernel machine based test (LKM) and principal components analysis based approach (PCA) using simulated datasets under the scenarios of 0 to 3 causal SNPs, as well as simple and complex linkage disequilibrium (LD) structures of the simulated regions. Our simulation study demonstrates that both LKM and PCA can control the type I error at the significance level of 0.05. If the causal SNP is in strong LD with the genotyped SNPs, both the PCA with a small number of principal components (PCs) and the LKM with kernel of linear or identical-by-state function are valid tests. However, if the LD structure is complex, such as several LD blocks in the SNP set, or when the causal SNP is not in the LD block in which most of the genotyped SNPs reside, more PCs should be included to capture the information of the causal SNP. Simulation studies also demonstrate the ability of LKM and PCA to combine information from multiple causal SNPs and to provide increased power over individual SNP analysis. We also apply LKM and PCA to analyze two SNP sets extracted from an actual GWAS dataset on non-small cell lung cancer

Crowdsourcing contests to facilitate community engagement in HIV cure research: a qualitative evaluation of facilitators and barriers of participation.

BACKGROUND: As HIV cure research advances, there is an increasing need for community engagement in health research, especially in low- and middle-income countries with ongoing clinical trials. Crowdsourcing contests provide an innovative bottom-up way to solicit community feedback on clinical trials in order to enhance community engagement. The objective of this study was to identify facilitators and barriers to participating in crowdsourcing contests about HIV cure research in a city with ongoing HIV cure clinical trials. METHODS: We conducted in-depth interviews to evaluate facilitators and barriers to participating in crowdsourcing contests in Guangzhou, China. Contests included the following activities: organizing a call for entries, promoting the call, evaluating entries, celebrating exceptional entries, and sharing entries. We interviewed 31 individuals, including nine HIV cure clinical trial participants, 17 contest participants, and five contest organizers. Our sample included men who have sex with men (20), people living with HIV (14), and people who inject drugs (5). We audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed the data using inductive and deductive coding techniques. RESULTS: Facilitators of crowdsourcing contest participation included responsiveness to lived experiences, strong community interest in HIV research, and community trust in medical professionals and related groups. Contests had more participants if they responded to the lived experiences, challenges, and opportunities of living with HIV in China. Strong community interest in HIV research helped to drive the formulation and execution of HIV cure contests, building support and momentum for these activities. Finally, participant trust in medical professionals and related groups (community-based organizations and contest organizers) further strengthened the ties between community members and researchers. Barriers to participating in crowdsourcing contests included persistent HIV stigma and myths about HIV. Stigma associated with discussing HIV made promotion difficult in certain contexts (e.g., city squares and schools). Myths and misperceptions about HIV science confused participants. CONCLUSIONS: Our data identified facilitators and barriers of participation in HIV cure crowdsourcing contests in China. Our findings could complement existing HIV community engagement strategies and help to design HIV contests for community engagement in other settings, particularly in low- and middle-income countries