Hannah Huddle: Visually Comparing Art and Science

Hannah Huddle, a junior at VCU majoring in communications arts with a concentration in scientific illustration, has been working on a research project with VCU biology professor Dr. Lesley Bulluck, and a group of six students, researching the Prothonotary Warbler. Unlike most researchers, Huddle is both studying the biology of the bird and making illustrations of the bird and the research involving the Warbler

Zanzabari Textile Designs Bridge Cultural Contexts in Graphics

VCU senior Leah Schmidt studied textiles for two months in Zanzibar, Tanzania this past summer, focusing on native textile designs and traditional methods. A Graphic Design major, Schmidt was a recipient of both the VCU Arts Dean’s International Study Grant and an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Fellowship Grant (also known as a UROP Grant). Schmidt worked alongside her faculty advisor and many local Zanzabari designers and artisans to identify the methods used in screen printing, weaving, and batik dying. She related the designs and patterns of the Zanzabari natives to those she uses in graphic design

Pattern recognition receptors in antifungal immunity

We thank the Wellcome Trust for funding this study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Trends and Disparities in TB among U.S.-born Black and White Chicago Residents, 1998-2008

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: To describe the decline of tuberculosis (TB) cases among U.S.-born non-Hispanic (NH) black and white Chicago residents. METHODS: Data from the National TB Surveillance System was used to analyze trends and characteristics of reported TB cases among U.S.-born NH black and U.S.-born NH white Chicago residents from 1998-2008. RESULTS: Chicago reported a total of 3,821 TB cases over the 11-year time period. Of these, 1,916 were U.S.-born NH black and 235 were U.S.-born NH white. The proportion of cases attributable to U.S.-born NH blacks was 63% (294/469) in 1998 and 34% in 2008 (72/213). Analysis for trends from 2000-2008 revealed a greater than predicted decrease in rates among U.S.-born NH blacks (p CONCLUSION: Despite more TB risk factors in Chicago’s U.S.-born black population, there was a narrowing of TB case disparity in Chicago from 1998-2008. Continued focused strategies aimed at controlling TB are needed

Achieving literacy excellence through: identifying and utilizing high yield strategies

The purpose of this study was to delve into the literacy instructional strategies of selected high-performing K-2 teachers in a Clark County, Nevada school district. The study assessed the efficacy of teachers using five core literacy components: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension for student achievement. High performing teachers were defined as consistently demonstrating student performance gains of 25% in at least one of the five core literacy components over a 3-year period. The research question for this study was: What instructional strategies are used by selected high-performing K-2 teachers who work with diverse populations that have demonstrated a minimum gain of 25% in reading as measured by AIMSweb to develop (a) phonemic awareness, (b) phonics, (c) fluency, (d) vocabulary, and (e) comprehension? The study used a qualitative method of data collection and analysis through in-depth teacher interviews, classroom observations, and district-wide data analysis. Interviews were open-ended and observations involved six teachers during their classroom literacy instructional time. Checklists were used to facilitate data collection during observations. Classroom pictures, teachers’ lesson plans, and AIMSweb data were used to support results. The findings revealed that the most successful literacy strategies for teaching the five components of literacy were: phonemic awareness (word manipulation, word play, and word sort), phonics (word study, sound/spelling, and decoding/encoding), fluency (choral reading, repeated timed reading, partner/student-adult reading, and reading connected text with corrective feedback), vocabulary (explicit instruction on word meaning/independent word learning, direct instruction on new vocabulary, and context clues), and comprehension (predicting, inferring, making connections, using graphic organizers, and activating/building on prior knowledge). In addition, study conclusions revealed that the most successful strategies for teaching K-2 literacy included teacher collaboration and planning; strategic use of individual, small, and whole grouping; and integrating technology. Several recommendations emerged from the study. Teachers need to be given ongoing professional development and resources for teaching the five component specific literacy strategies. Time needs to consistently be allotted for teachers to collaborate and plan for literacy instruction. Exploring diverse student populations, and their literacy acquisition needs, is vital to the education of youth. Placing emphasis on differentiated instruction, study replication, and analyzing literacy strategies and acquisition practices using varied methodologies will improve educational outcomes

Knowledge-Based Competencies Necessary for the Frontline Construction Supervisor : Improving Safety through Knowledge

Evaluating supervisor competency levels has been a management challenge since the beginning of supervisory roles in the construction process. Supervisors perform a critical role in the workplace with respect to workplace safety and health. Supervisors are the driving component of the operational aspects of management systems and often convey messages from upper level management directly to line level work force. As a supervisor serves as a liaison for the line level work force, it is vitally important supervisors have a clear understanding of his roles and responsibilities within his organization. As upper level management strives to improve the safety record of an organization, the supervisor must be valued as a key component of an organizations struggle to help establish a proactive safety culture. The issue presents itself when the true level of supervisor competency cannot be determined by management. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key knowledge-based competencies that are suggested to be the most important to the construction supervisor with respect to improving construction site safety performance.  M.S

Reversible Inhibition of Mycobacterial DnaB Protein Splicing by Zinc

Inteins are emerging as post-translational regulatory elements, undergoing conditional protein splicing in response to a variety of environmental cues. Inteins are seamlessly removed by self-splicing from exteins, or flanking portions of the host protein, which they interrupt. DnaB of Mycobacterium smegmatis, a helicase essential for replication, harbors two inteins known as DnaBi1 and DnaBi2, each with discrete structural characteristics and insertion positions. DnaBi1 was used here to design a reporter system which links splicing with resistance to the antibiotic kanamycin. We built a construct that strictly requires catalytically active DnaBi1 for survival in the presence of kanamycin and used this construct to probe for factors that influence splicing in vivo of M. smegmatis, the native context of the intein. We show that zinc, biologically relevant during mycobacterial pathogenesis, is a potent inhibitor of DnaBi1 in vivo, and using a separate reporter system, that zinc inhibits DnaBi1 in vitro. We present the crystal structure of DnaBi1 bound to zinc, and finally propose that DnaBi1 splicing inhibition by zinc may be important during mycobacterial infection

Prosody and Purpose in the English Renaissance

Originally published in 1989. In Prosody and Purpose in the English Renaissance the eminent scholar O. B. Hardison Jr. sets out "to recover the special kinds of music inherent in English Renaissance poetry." The book begins with a thorough and wide-ranging survey of the development of prosodic theory from the ancient ars metrica tradition to the sixteenth century, with special emphasis on such issues as the relation of verse form and genre, the relation of syntax to prosody, and the role of language reform in shaping Renaissance prosody. The second part of the book considers the impact of prosodic traditions on specific literary works and verse forms, among them Surrey's Aeneid, Heywood's translation of Seneca's Thyestes, Sackville and Norton's Gorboduc, and the dramatic and epic verse of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. Throughout, Hardison examines not only how poets crafted their verse but why. He explores authorial purposes ranging from technical attempts to match sound and genre to the lofty aims of improving the vernacular or ennobling culture, from the dramatist's practical search for verse forms suited to the stage to Milton's quest for a meter fit to convey divine relation

Toward Freedom and Dignity

Originally published in 1973. Toward Freedom and Dignity is a humanist's view of the humanities in an age of burgeoning technology. O. B. Hardison Jr. deals with the status of the humanities and their future—how they are regarded and how they may come to contribute to a genuinely humane society. He argues that humanistic studies are not a luxury in either education or society. They are central to the preparation of human beings for the kind of society that is possible if we manage to avoid an Orwellian technocracy. Social goals and priorities must be set in terms of the ideal of a culture truly adjusted to human needs and human limitations. In framing his argument, Hardison draws on ideas of the humanities since the Renaissance, especially on the philosophical humanities that emerged in Europe in the works of authors like Kant, Schiller, and Coleridge. He is untroubled by anti-humanistic trends in college curricula and the surrounding culture, and he contends that we have only one practical option: to ensure that culture evolves toward a more humane society, toward freedom and dignity

Digital and Gradient Refractive Index Planar Optics by Nanoimprinting Porous Silicon

Due to the drawbacks of traditional refractive optics, the implementation of planar or nearly planar optical devices has been of research interest for over a century. Subwavelength gratings are a particularly promising option for creating flat optical devices; however, the implementation of subwavelength grating-based optics is limited by fabrication constraints. Recently, we implemented flat optical devices using the nanoimprinting of refractive index (NIRI) process, a process which was pioneered in a previous study but remained largely unproven in terms of device fabrication. The planar, gradient index microlenses we fabricated were found to possess an effective medium similar to a subwavelength grating. We determined that the gradient index planar microlenses successfully focused collimated incident light with focal full-width-half-maximums of less than 14 μm at wavelengths as low as 406 nm. We also fabricated digitally patterned waveguides between 0.35 and 2 μm in width using the NIRI process. We found a propagation loss in the non-oxidized waveguides of 8.1 ± 0.245 dBm/mm, which we were able to reduce by roughly 8 times following a full oxidation of the waveguides