The Differentiation of Chick Embryonic Myoblasts in Primary Culture

The differentiation of chick embryonic skeletal myoblasts results in the formation of myotubes which are the precursors of muscle fibres. The fusion of mononucleated myoblasts represents an apparent switching point in differentiation since it results in both the formation of multinucleated myotubes and the stimulation of muscle specific protein synthesis. The aim of this project has been to examine the biochemical events involved in this process of terminal differentiation by using primary cultures of chick embryonic myoblasts as a model system

Irish newspapers and the Spanish Civil War

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 1, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Timothy Vos.M. A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2010.The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 generated debate in the Irish Free State over how (or whether) the emerging nation should intervene in the conflict. Examination of the debate reveals a deeper discourse surrounding the Irish Free State's role as a small but independent power in Europe and a discussion over what kind of nation that should be. Newspapers were among the chief sites of discourse on the subject of Ireland's role in the Spanish Civil War. This discourse was influenced by the newspapers' alignments to specific political and ecclesiastical institutions in Ireland; thus, the debate over how the Irish Free State should proceed in its policy on Spain became a debate on what that policy would say about Irish national identity. This thesis examines that debate as it took place in four newspapers: the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Irish Worker, and the Irish Press. These newspapers had competing audiences and ideologies, and each had a different take on the Spanish Civil War that, in turn, shaped their perceptions of Irish national identity.Includes bibliographical reference

Il Tempo della Moda: a Dialogue on Fashion and Time

A three-thousand word dialogue that outlines some of the concepts that Evans and Vaccari developed in the course of expanding the English-language edition (2020) of their anthology first published in Italian as Il Tempo della Moda (Mimesis, 2019)

Avian Flu: An AgentSheets Project

To use Agent Sheets software to tract the spread of the Avian Flu given certain factors

The patient experience: effects of employee engagement on patient satisfaction

The purpose of this essay is to describe the importance of patient experience and satisfaction in the healthcare delivery system through observation and analysis of implemented best practices in a hospital case study. There is a correlation between the impact nursing staff and other clinicians have on the patient and the patients’ perception of the healthcare institution and overall experience of receiving healthcare services. In an evolving and dynamic healthcare environment, patient satisfaction has become more important as there is a greater emphasis on consumer accountability and choice. This emphasis is in part due to changes and provisions made by the Affordable Care Act in hopes of remedying overutilization and excessive healthcare spending in the U.S. In this time of healthcare reform, there has been a transition in hospital reimbursement models. The Value-Based Purchasing model emphasizes a transition from volume to value by engaging both patients and medical professionals to make better decisions impacting health. This model adds monetary incentives for clinicians to establish and deliver a coordinated continuum of care while maintaining the patient as the central focus of the healthcare experience. Best practices implemented in a small hospital aim to engage and support its employees to best meet and exceed the needs of the patients within the community it serves. This hospital case study exemplifies the significant impact patient satisfaction has on the organization and delivery of care in the public health sector

The Modernist Body: Mechanization, Motion and the Missing Part

With an introduction by Christopher Breward, Professor Evans presented her research on modernism and the first fashion shows in France and America from 1900-1929. Walter Benjamin described the advent of ‘new velocities’ that gave modern life an altered rhythm, and from 1900 the desire to see women’s fashion in motion flourished on both sides of the Atlantic as models tangoed, slithered, swaggered and undulated across couture house and department store stages. Evans connects the first fashion shows to Taylorism, the chorus line and Fordist aesthetics, arguing that their modernism was that of the rationalisation of the body in the fields of work, leisure and mass culture, rather than of the avant garde. Yet the modernist body was also gendered and motile. Animated film strips of modernist sensibilities, early twentieth-century fashion models developed a unique language of the body. Their paradoxical modernity lay in their capacity to constitute themselves as objects through the eloquence of their mute performance. In a period when the social and economic emancipation of women were urgent and pressing questions, however, what kind of agency can be attributed to women whose performance was so fleeting, so ambiguous, and so minimal

Bystander Behavior and Victim Coping Strategies: A Mixed Methods Study of Rural Bullying

Bullying is one of the most pervasive issues affecting American youth and schools. Youth can be actively involved in bullying as a victim, bully, or bully/victim (i.e., alternates between being a bully and a victim), or less involved as a bystander (i.e., an individual who witnesses bullying, but is not directly involved as the bully or victim) who offers varying degrees of support to the bully or victim. There is expansive research on bullying perpetration and victimization; however, bystander research is in its infancy. This volume contributes to addressing this gap in our knowledge. Bystanders are individuals who witness a bullying event, but are not directly involved as a bully or victim. Bystanders play a vital role in the bullying dynamic because their behavior often dictates whether or not an episode of bullying continues or ends, and thus bystander behavior impacts classroom rates of bullying. Prosocial bystanders defend victims which often puts an end to the bullying and negative bystanders support the bully which often perpetuates the bullying. Current research on bystander behavior is limited to relatively small samples of urban and suburban youth outside of the United States and neglects to examine how both individual- and school-level factors representing social capital deprivation, anti-social capital, and positive social capital are associated with bystander behavior. Another gap in bullying research is the lack of qualitative studies examining coping strategies that victims use to deal with bullying victimization. The current dissertation aims to fill these gaps in the bullying research. The first two papers examine how the absence and presence of social capital is associated with negative and prosocial bystander behavior. The first paper examines how social capital deprivation (e.g., negative social relationships such as friend rejection and parent-adolescent conflict) and anti-social capital (e.g., anti-social relationships that provide social capital such as delinquent friends) at the individual- and school-levels are associated with the likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior (e.g., assisting the bully) in a large sample (N=5,752) of racially/ethnically diverse rural youth. It was hypothesized that social capital deprivation and anti-social capital would be associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior. Following multiple imputation, a binary logistic regression with robust standard errors was run. In partial support of the hypothesis, results indicated that social capital deprivation in the form of peer pressure and verbal victimization and anti-social capital in the form of delinquent friends, bullying perpetration, verbal perpetration, and physical perpetration were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior. Findings highlight the necessity of establishing and maintaining sources of positive social support for disenfranchised youth. The second paper investigates how positive social capital at the individual- and school-levels is associated with the likelihood of engaging in prosocial bystander behavior. Prosocial bystanders are individuals who actively intervene in the bullying dynamic to support the victim; this positive behavior often ends the bullying. The current study fills a gap in bystander research by assessing how social capital in the form of social support, community engagement, mental health functioning, and positive school experiences and characteristics are associated with the likelihood of prosocial bystander behavior in a large sample (N=5,752) of racially/ethnically diverse rural youth. It was hypothesized that the presence of social capital would be significantly associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in prosocial bystander behavior. Following multiple imputation, an ordered logistic regression with robust standard errors was run. In partial support of the hypothesis, social capital in the form of friend and teacher support, ethnic identity, religion orientation, and future optimism were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in prosocial bystander behavior. Findings highlight the importance of establishing and maintaining positive social relationships and community engagement in order to decrease school bullying. The third paper uses qualitative methodology to examine the coping strategies of 22 rural middle- and high-school victims of bullying. A combination of the Transactional Model of Coping and the Approach-Avoidant Model of Coping serves as a guiding frameworks for this study. A descriptive/thematic approach with grounded theory overtones was used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that youth use a variety of emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies such as internalizing, help seeking, physical and verbal aggression, standing up for themselves, and prosocial bystander behavior to cope with the stress of being bullied. In line with past research, problem-focused coping strategies predominated and some of these strategies changed slightly between middle- and high-school. Findings indicate that although victimized youth report negative internalizing symptoms as a result of being bullied, these youth are often resilient and rely on a number of innovative coping strategies. Overall, findings suggest that social capital deprivation (i.e., peer pressure and verbal victimization) and anti-social capital (i.e., delinquent friends, bullying perpetration, verbal perpetration, and physical perpetration) are detrimental to positive social functioning as these factors were associated with significant increases in the likelihood of engaging in negative bystander behavior. Increasing youth's social capital is one possible way of combatting the negative effects of social capital deprivation and anti-social capital. Social capital in the form of positive social relationships (i.e., friend and teacher support), community engagement (i.e., ethnic identity and religious orientation), and positive mental health functioning (i.e., future optimism) are associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in prosocial bystander behavior. Based on these findings, youth with one or many sources of social support are potential prosocial bystanders who have the ability to interrupt the bullying dynamic. In contrast, youth with many negative social connections are at risk of perpetuating bullying by offering support to the bullies. This finding highlights the importance of offering these at risk youth social support as a means of increasing their social capital. In addition, although victimized youth are a vulnerable group, they often display great resilience and employ many problem-focused coping strategies following victimization. One such strategy is engaging in prosocial bystander behavior, which suggests that victims of bullying could be mobilized to increase classroom rates of prosocial bystander behavior. Finally, areas for future research are highlighted in each of the papers.Doctor of Philosoph

A Novel Methodology for the Asymmetric Synthesis of beta-Lactams and beta-Amino Acids

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