Costa Rica and the Electric Fence Mentality: Stunting Women\u27s Socio-economic Participation in the 21st Century

Costa Rica is regarded as the “top democracy” in Latin America, exceeding basic developmental standards in most categories. The nation’s achievement is evidenced by women’s strong enrollment and retention rates within the nation’s education system. However, Costa Rica’s overwhelming gender disparity in the labor force reveals significant developmental deficiencies and contradicts fundamental democratic ideals. The pervasion of an “electric fence” mentality stunts women’s socio-economic engagement by restraining them to traditionally prescribed gender roles. To better understand women’s economic detachment, special attention must be paid to those institutional practices that perpetuate cultural norms and discriminatory tendencies. Costa Rica’s education system has a historic proclivity toward social conditioning, having undergone substantial reform to embed democratic allegiance into its national discourse. Socialized norms, imbedded in the education system, have discouraged women’s economic aspirations and fostered gender disparity. The following essay integrates observational fieldwork and research to analyze trends in Costa Rican women’s socio-economic engagement

Letter to Carol Avery Nicholson reporting on Public Relations Committee activities, March 27, 1995

A letter from Amy Beckham Osborne to Carol Avery Nicholson enclosing Osborne\u27s report on the activities of the Public Relations Committee

Letter to Ruth Weeks providing information on Bar Association Conventions, February 15, 1994

A letter from Amy Beckham Osborne to Ruth Weeks including information on state Bar Association Conventions

Letter to Sally Wiant regarding award of a SEAALL Scholarship, December 27, 1993

A letter from Amy Beckham Osborne to Sally Wiant accepting the SEAALL Scholarship awarded to her

Letter to Nancy Strohmeyer regarding the SEAALL Publicity and Public Relations Committee, September 20, 1995

A letter from Amy Beckham Osborne to Nancy Strohmeyer providing Strohmeyer with committee materials

Letter to Ruth Weeks providing information on the Kentucky Bar Association, April 26, 1994

A letter from Amy Beckham Osborne to Ruth Weeks requesting a brochure to send to the Kentucky Bar Association for their convention packets

The power of outliers (and why researchers should ALWAYS check for them)

There has been much debate in the literature regarding what to do with extreme or influential data points. The goal of this paper is to summarize the various potential causes of extreme scores in a data set (e.g., data recording or entry errors, motivated mis-reporting, sampling errors, and legitimate sampling), how to detect them, and whether they should be removed or not. Another goal of this paper was to explore how significantly a small proportion of outliers can affect even simple analyses. The examples show a strong beneficial effect of removal of extreme scores. Accuracy tended to increase significantly and substantially, and errors of inference tended to drop significantly and substantially once extreme scores were removed

Role of complement genetic variants in inflammatory diseases by an interactive database and protein structure modelling

The rare diseases atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome (aHUS) and C3 glomerulopathy (C3G) are associated with dysregulation of complement activation. It is unclear which genes most frequently predispose to aHUS or C3G. Accordingly, a six- centre analysis of 610 rare genetic variants in 13 mostly complement genes from >3500 patients with aHUS and C3G was performed. A new interactive Database of Complement Gene Variants was developed to extract allele frequencies for these 13 genes using the Exome Aggregation Consortium server as the reference genome. For aHUS, significantly more protein-altering rare variation was found in the five genes CFH, CFI, CD46, C3 and DGKE than in ExAC. For C3G, an association was only found for rare variants in C3 and the N-terminal C3b-binding or C-terminal non-surface-associated regions of factor H (FH). FH is the major regulator of C3b and its Tyr402His polymorphism is an age-related macular degeneration risk-factor. To better understand FH complement binding, the solution structures of both allotypes were studied. Starting from known FH short complement regulator domains and glycan structures, small angle X-ray scattering data were fitted using Monte Carlo methods to determine atomistic structures for monomeric FH. The analysis of 29,715 physically realistic but randomised FH conformations resulted in 100 similar best-fit FH structures for each allotype. Two distinct molecular structures resulted; an extended N-terminal domain arrangement with a folded-back C-terminus, or an extended C-terminus and folded-back N-terminus. To clarify FH functional roles in host protection, crystal structures for the FH complexes with C3b and C3dg revealed that the extended N-terminal conformation accounted for C3b fluid phase regulation, the extended C-terminal conformation accounted for C3d binding, and both conformations accounted for bivalent FH binding to the host cell-surface. Finally, statistical analyses indicated that the structural location of rare variants in complement may predict the occurrences of aHUS or C3G

Environmental controls on bacteriohopanepolyol signatures in estuarine sediments

PhD ThesisTo date, research on the fate of methane in marine settings has mainly focused on anaerobic microbial processes. An alternative fate for methane is aerobic methane oxidation (AMO) by methanotrophic bacteria which takes place in aerobic surface sediments and the overlying water column. Tracing methanotroph activity in past environments can be achieved via analysis of a distinctive suite of biomarkers called bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs). BHPs are membrane lipids produced by many prokaryotes comprising a pentacyclic triterpenoid structure with an extended polyfunctionalised side chain. Although, there is much debate about the role of BHPs, studies suggest they regulate cell membrane fluidity, however, the factors controlling their expression are poorly constrained. They have a wide range of structural variation which varies between bacterial phyla and species. The major BHPs produced by methanotrophs are collectively known as the 35-aminoBHPs, most commonly including 35-aminobacteriohopane-32,33,34-triol (aminotriol), 35-aminobacteriohopane-31,32,33,34-tetrol (aminotetrol) and 35-aminobacteriohopane-30,31,32,33,34-pentol (aminopentol), with aminopentol seen as a diagnostic marker for Type I methanotrophs from the phylum Gammaproteobacteria. The changes in methanotroph community composition in estuarine sediments under a range of environmental perturbations and the effect this had on BHP composition, namely the 35-aminoBHPs, was assessed. Aerobic microcosms inoculated with River Tyne (UK) estuarine sediment with a 5% methane amended headspace (unless otherwise stated), were subjected to a range of environmental perturbations; methane concentration (0.1-5%), temperature (4-60°C), pH (4-9) and salinity (1-150 g/L NaCl). Methane oxidation rates were monitored and methanotroph diversity was determined by targeting the particulate methane monooxygenase gene (pmoA). Methane oxidation was observed between 4 and 50°C, at all tested pH values and up to salinities of 70 g/L; however, methanotroph community composition varied with temperature, pH and salinity and these changes were reflected in the 35-aminoBHP signatures quantified by LC-MS analysis. For example, aminopentol was not enriched at pH 9 when the unusual Type I Methylomicrobium spp. were dominant, whilst the maximal production of C-3 methylated aminopentol was witnessed at 50°C when a Methylocaldum sp. was enriched. The hpnR gene, required for the methylation of BHPs at the C-3 position, was also identified in sediments at the aforementioned temperature. Novel iv compounds, identified after the analysis of six previously untested Type I marine methanotrophs within this study, were also found in microcosm sediments in varying abundances. The effect that of growth stage on 35-aminoBHP abundance was determined by analysing aerobic microcosms inoculated with River Tyne estuarine sediment over a 28 day period at times before and after methane oxidation. It revealed the continued production of aminopentol at mesophilic temperatures after methane oxidation was complete. This may have implications for the interpretation of the sedimentary record where aminopentol witnessed in marine settings may not represent periods of significant methane oxidation but rather a response to methane limiting conditions. Anaerobic producers of BHPs were investigated and the preservation and/or degradation of individual compounds was assessed in long-term studies. Microcosms inoculated with anoxic River Tyne estuarine sediment were subjected to sulphate-reducing and methanogenic conditions over a period of 706 and 665 days respectively. Changes in BHP composition over time were quantified by LC-MS with compounds including bacteriohopane-32,33,34,35-tetrol (BHT) and adenosylhopane found to be more resistant to degradation over the course of the study compared to bacteriohopane-32,33,34,35-tetrol cyclitol ether (BHT cyclitol ether). This indicates that some compounds are more resistant to degradation over time compared with others