The History of Bridal Gowns, Mesopotamia to the Present

This presentation offers an overview of the history of bridal gowns from Mesopotamia to the present

2022 Honors Portfolio

Four years flew by so fast. My four years at Fontbonne could not have been better. Well, maybe the pandemic didn’t have to happen, but some things in life you just can’t change. When I started Fontbonne four years ago I was a very different person than I am today. I was completely panicked to be starting college, I was shy and quiet, and I felt like I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Four years later, and although I would still consider myself an introvert, I realize that I had nothing to panic about. All of the faculty at Fontbonne were there for me; they helped me succeed. I became a member of TELOS, ALD, and ODK. I have made so many friends, and I love that my professors know me personally. Being a TELOS scholar has allowed me to explore my inner self and make the most out of this absolutely amazing school, Fontbonne University. My sophomore year at Fontbonne was, like many others, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our family suddenly shifted from being scattered around the country to myself, my 3 siblings, and my parents now all learning and working remotely from home. I feel strongly about the importance of family, and I am close with all my siblings, especially my twin brother. Although it’s absolutely fabulous to have siblings, and I wouldn’t change it for the world, it can also come with challenges. My sister went to college in New York, and now works in New York as a teacher. My twin brother is in college in New York, and my younger brother is also in college in New York. Can you see a theme here? It was really hard for me to be the only one here with my parents. I felt less than them, and I felt like I was missing out. But what I’ve realized is that what I have at Fontbonne, a close-knit community with professors who know me by name, that is something that I wouldn’t get in New York. What’s important to me is to be in a friendly and supportive environment. That is where I succeed. I have no desire to ever live in New York. It’s a great place to travel to and be a tourist, but it’s not for me to live there. This was something that I struggled with at first, but now I am able to see it clearly. In June of 2020, after three months of quarantine, my younger brother, 18 at the time, went out for a bike ride. In his 20th mile, when he was almost home, a delivery truck driver reversed without looking, and struck him. I was on the floor of my room doing yoga with my puppy Charlie when my twin brother called me. He never calls me out of the blue. When I answered he said, “Don’t panic, Avi was out biking and was hit by a truck, we are on the way to the scene.” Avi was unconscious and rushed to Children’s Hospital. His saving grace was that he was wearing a helmet, which saved his life. Avi spent hours in the emergency room where he kept asking the same questions repetitively and screaming in pain from a broken bone. Avi had no idea what happened to him. On his care team was a child life specialist named Ericka. She came into the room and started talking to Avi. She asked him about his family and where he was going to college. Avi started telling her about our family’s new puppy Charlie. Ericka calmed Avi down, and that calmed the rest of us too. Ericka went from room to room with Avi explaining what was happening and what the procedures would be like. The accident changed Avi, and it also changed me. As my brother was home and recovering, I realized I wanted to work in a profession that benefited other people. Avi’s description of how Ericka helped him through his recovery piqued my interest in the field of child life. When I began college in the fall of 2018 at Fontbonne University, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for a career. I have always had a creative side to me, and a love for fashion, so I majored in Fashion Merchandising. This program allowed me to grow my creativity and expand my knowledge of fashion, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit my life to it. After my brother’s accident I realized I had a different calling. My brother’s accident was definitely one aspect that led me to this profession, but when I look back at my life, especially my four years at Fontbonne, this job of being able to help sick kids feel a little bit better really is so fitting for me. I know what it’s like to be a sick kid, and not know where your life is heading. I know what trauma feels like, and I want to help kids feel better when life seems out of their control. My education at Fontbonne has led me to a degree in fashion merchandising, however it is really much more than a degree. People can reflect and notice the challenges and hurdles they have had to tackle, or they can look at all those challenges and realize how that has made them a better person, perhaps the best person they can be. This portfolio reflects my four years at Fontbonne, and how each aspect of TELOS, transformation, exploration, leadership, occupation, and service/social justice has allowed me to showcase my true passions and allowed me to be the best version of myself possible. This is a portfolio of me.https://griffinshare.fontbonne.edu/telos-portfolios-2022/1001/thumbnail.jp

“At ‘Amen Meals’ It’s Me and God” Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Women’s Ritual

New ritual practices performed by Jewish women can serve as test cases for an examination of the phenomenon of the creation of religious rituals by women. These food-related rituals, which have been termed ‘‘amen meals’’ were developed in Israel beginning in the year 2000 and subsequently spread to Jewish women in Europe and the United States. This study employs a qualitative-ethnographic methodology grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews to describe these nonobligatory, extra-halakhic rituals. What makes these rituals stand out is the women’s sense that through these rituals they experience a direct con- nection to God and, thus, can change reality, i.e., bring about jobs, marriages, children, health, and salvation for friends and loved ones. The ‘‘amen’’ rituals also create an open, inclusive woman’s space imbued with strong spiritual–emotional energies that counter the women’s religious marginality. Finally, the purposes and functions of these rituals, including identity building and displays of cultural capital, are considered within a theoretical framework that views ‘‘doing gender’’ and ‘‘doing religion’’ as an integrated experience

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Logarithmic sensing in Bacillus subtilis aerotaxis

Aerotaxis, the directed migration along oxygen gradients, allows many microorganisms to locate favorable oxygen concentrations. Despite oxygen’s fundamental role for life, even key aspects of aerotaxis remain poorly understood. In Bacillus subtilis, for example, there is conflicting evidence of whether migration occurs to the maximal oxygen concentration available or to an optimal intermediate one, and how aerotaxis can be maintained over a broad range of conditions. Using precisely controlled oxygen gradients in a microfluidic device, spanning the full spectrum of conditions from quasi-anoxic to oxic (60 n mol/l–1 m mol/l), we resolved B. subtilis’ ‘oxygen preference conundrum’ by demonstrating consistent migration towards maximum oxygen concentrations (‘monotonic aerotaxis’). Surprisingly, the strength of aerotaxis was largely unchanged over three decades in oxygen concentration (131 n mol/l–196 μ mol/l). We discovered that in this range B. subtilis responds to the logarithm of the oxygen concentration gradient, a rescaling strategy called ‘log-sensing’ that affords organisms high sensitivity over a wide range of conditions. In these experiments, high-throughput single-cell imaging yielded the best signal-to-noise ratio of any microbial taxis study to date, enabling the robust identification of the first mathematical model for aerotaxis among a broad class of alternative models. The model passed the stringent test of predicting the transient aerotactic response despite being developed on steadystate data, and quantitatively captures both monotonic aerotaxis and log-sensing. Taken together, these results shed new light on the oxygen-seeking capabilities of B. subtilis and provide a blueprint for the quantitative investigation of the many other forms of microbial taxis

Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition

The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are measured. Here, we use a pest-control database encompassing 132 studies and 6,759 sites worldwide to model natural enemy and pest abundances, predation rates, and crop damage as a function of landscape composition. Our results showed that although landscape composition explained significant variation within studies, pest and enemy abundances, predation rates, crop damage, and yields each exhibited different responses across studies, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing in landscapes with more noncrop habitat but overall showing no consistent trend. Thus, models that used landscape-composition variables to predict pest-control dynamics demonstrated little potential to explain variation across studies, though prediction did improve when comparing studies with similar crop and landscape features. Overall, our work shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others. Future efforts to develop tools that inform farmers when habitat conservation truly represents a win–win would benefit from increased understanding of how landscape effects are modulated by local farm management and the biology of pests and their enemies

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

SOSORT consensus paper: school screening for scoliosis. Where are we today?

This report is the SOSORT Consensus Paper on School Screening for Scoliosis discussed at the 4th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities, presented by SOSORT, on May 2007. The objectives were numerous, 1) the inclusion of the existing information on the issue, 2) the analysis and discussion of the responses by the meeting attendees to the twenty six questions of the questionnaire, 3) the impact of screening on frequency of surgical treatment and of its discontinuation, 4) the reasons why these programs must be continued, 5) the evolving aim of School Screening for Scoliosis and 6) recommendations for improvement of the procedure

Ancestral diversity improves discovery and fine-mapping of genetic loci for anthropometric traits - the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry Consortium

Hispanic/Latinos have been underrepresented in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for anthropometric traits despite their notable anthropometric variability, ancestry proportions, and high burden of growth stunting and overweight/obesity. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed densely-imputed genetic data in a sample of Hispanic/Latino adults to identify and fine-map genetic variants associated with body mass index (BMI), height, and BMI-adjusted waist-to-hip ratio (WHRadjBMI). We conducted a GWAS of 18 studies/consortia as part of the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry (HISLA) Consortium (Stage 1, n=59,771) and generalized our findings in 9 additional studies (HISLA Stage 2, n=10,538). We conducted a trans-ancestral GWAS with summary statistics from HISLA Stage 1 and existing consortia of European and African ancestries. In our HISLA Stage 1+2 analyses, we discovered one BMI locus, as well as two BMI signals and another height signal each within established anthropometric loci. In our trans-ancestral meta-analysis, we discovered three BMI loci, one height locus, and one WHRadjBMI locus. We also identified three secondary signals for BMI, 28 for height, and two for WHRadjBMI in established loci. We show that 336 known BMI, 1,177 known height, and 143 known WHRadjBMI (combined) SNPs demonstrated suggestive transferability (nominal significance and effect estimate directional consistency) in Hispanic/Latino adults. Of these, 36 BMI, 124 height, and 11 WHRadjBMI SNPs were significant after trait-specific Bonferroni correction. Trans-ancestral meta-analysis of the three ancestries showed a small-to-moderate impact of uncorrected population stratification on the resulting effect size estimates. Our findings demonstrate that future studies may also benefit from leveraging diverse ancestries and differences in linkage disequilibrium patterns to discover novel loci and additional signals with less residual population stratification

Social Movements and International Relations: A Relational Framework

Social movements are increasingly recognized as significant features of contemporary world politics, yet to date their treatment in international relations theory has tended to obfuscate the considerable diversity of these social formations, and the variegated interactions they may establish with state actors and different structures of world order. Highlighting the difficulties conventional liberal and critical approaches have in transcending conceptions of movements as moral entities, the article draws from two under-exploited literatures in the study of social movements in international relations, the English School and Social Systems Theory, to specify a wider range of analytical interactions between different categories of social movements and of world political structures. Moreover, by casting social movement phenomena as communications, the article opens international relations to consideration of the increasingly diverse trajectories and second-order effects produced by social movements as they interact with states, intergovernmental institutions, and transnational actors