Encouraging creative behavior through art education

In this thesis, I discuss different strategies that encourage creative behavior through high school art education that I argue would have benefits beyond the limits of art. By examining theories around creativity and creative behavior through particular published sources including Ken Robinson’s (2011) Learning to be Creative, Theories of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2008), and the Handbook of Creativity by Robert J. Sternberg (1999), I analyze how creativity functions on a psychological level. Additionally, in order to provide practical examples, I examine a number of art programs designed specifically for high school students where the focus is on the development of teens’ creative behavior. Guided by the principles of qualitative research methods and in particular those of participant observation, I document through description and analysis my own teaching strategies designed to enhance creative behavior of high school students participating in a series of after-school art classes. This thesis concludes with a critical analysis and discussion of the characteristics of the art studio as an active learning space that encourages students’ creative behavior, which I argue would also benefit students in areas other than art

Are systematic reviews up-to-date at the time of publication?

BACKGROUND: Systematic reviews provide a synthesis of evidence for practitioners, for clinical practice guideline developers, and for those designing and justifying primary research. Having an up-to-date and comprehensive review is therefore important. Our main objective was to determine the recency of systematic reviews at the time of their publication, as measured by the time from last search date to publication. We also wanted to study the time from search date to acceptance, and from acceptance to publication, and measure the proportion of systematic reviews with recorded information on search dates and information sources in the abstract and full text of the review. METHODS: A descriptive analysis of published systematic reviews indexed in Medline in 2009, 2010 and 2011 by three reviewers, independently extracting data. RESULTS: Of the 300 systematic reviews included, 271 (90%) provided the date of search in the full-text article, but only 141 (47%) stated this in the abstract. The median (standard error; minimum to maximum) survival time from last search to acceptance was 5.1 (0.58; 0 to 43.8) months (95% confidence interval = 3.9 to 6.2) and from last search to first publication time was 8.0 (0.35; 0 to 46.7) months (95% confidence interval = 7.3 to 8.7), respectively. Of the 300 reviews, 295 (98%) stated which databases had been searched, but only 181 (60%) stated the databases in the abstract. Most researchers searched three (35%) or four (21%) databases. The top-three most used databases were MEDLINE (79%), Cochrane library (76%), and EMBASE (64%). CONCLUSIONS: Being able to identify comprehensive, up-to-date reviews is important to clinicians, guideline groups, and those designing clinical trials. This study demonstrates that some reviews have a considerable delay between search and publication, but only 47% of systematic review abstracts stated the last search date and 60% stated the databases that had been searched. Improvements in the quality of abstracts of systematic reviews and ways to shorten the review and revision processes to make review publication more rapid are needed

Mitochondria-encoded genes contribute to evolution of heat and cold tolerance in yeast

Genetic analysis of phenotypic differences between species is typically limited to interfertile species. Here, we conducted a genome-wide noncomplementation screen to identify genes that contribute to a major difference in thermal growth profile between two reproductively isolated yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces uvarum. The screen identified only a single nuclear-encoded gene with a moderate effect on heat tolerance, but, in contrast, revealed a large effect of mitochondrial DNA (mitotype) on both heat and cold tolerance. Recombinant mitotypes indicate that multiple genes contribute to thermal divergence, and we show that protein divergence in COX1 affects both heat and cold tolerance. Our results point to the yeast mitochondrial genome as an evolutionary hotspot for thermal divergence.This work was supported by the NIH (grant GM080669) to J.C.F. Additional support to C.T.H. was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Hatch project 1003258), the National Science Foundation (DEB-1253634), and the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE BER Office of Science DE-SC0018409 and DE-FC02-07ER64494 to T. J. Donohue). C.T.H. is a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences and a Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Vilas Trust Estate, respectively. D.P. is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 747775).Peer reviewe

Effective Sample Size: Quick Estimation of the Effect of Related Samples in Genetic Case-Control Association Analyses

Correlated samples have been frequently avoided in case-control
genetic association
 studies in part because the methods for handling them are either not
easily implemented or not widely known. We
advocate one method for case-control association analysis of correlated
samples -- the effective sample size method -- as a simple and
accessible approach that does not require specialized computer programs.
The effective sample size method captures the variance inflation
of allele frequency estimation exactly, and can be used to modify the
chi-square test statistic, p-value, and 95% confidence interval of
odds-ratio simply by replacing the apparent number of allele counts with the
effective ones. For genotype frequency estimation, although a single
effective sample size is unable to completely characterize the variance inflation,
an averaged one can satisfactorily approximate the simulated result.
The effective sample size method is applied to the rheumatoid arthritis
siblings data collected from the North American Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium (NARAC)
to establish a significant association with the interferon-induced
helicasel gene (IFIH1) previously being identified as a type 1 diabetes
susceptibility locus. Connections between the effective sample size
method and other methods, such as generalized estimation equation,
variance of eigenvalues for correlation matrices, and genomic controls,
are also discussed.
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Dental Development and Anomalies in Cleft Lip and Palate

Cleft lip and/or palate is a birth defect with heterogeneous clinical presentations. Prevalence and cleft-types differ by gender, ethnic groups and geographic locations. Published literature indicates high frequencies of cleft-associated dental anomalies, commonly variations in tooth-number, shape and size. Delayed dental development is also reported with catch-up growth at a later age. In the unilateral cleft phenotype, delayed development can occur on the cleft-side of the maxilla. Dental anomalies present frequently in the spectrum of cleft defects. Heterogeneity of defects is wide-ranging and may represent different aetiological origins of cleft phenotypes and sub-types due to: genetic mutations with altered ectomesenchymal growth; iatrogenesis from disrupted blood supply during early postnatal surgery; and maldevelopment or mistimed development. Orofacial clefting and odontogenesis may share critical pathways

Complete Multiparty Session Type Projection with Automata

Multiparty session types (MSTs) are a type-based approach to verifying communication protocols. Central to MSTs is a projection operator: a partial function that maps protocols represented as global types to correct-by-construction implementations for each participant, represented as a communicating state machine. Existing projection operators are syntactic in nature, and trade efficiency for completeness. We present the first projection operator that is sound, complete, and efficient. Our projection separates synthesis from checking implementability. For synthesis, we use a simple automata-theoretic construction; for checking implementability, we present succinct conditions that summarize insights into the property of implementability. We use these conditions to show that MST implementability is PSPACE-complete. This improves upon a previous decision procedure that is in EXPSPACE and applies to a smaller class of MSTs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach using a prototype implementation, which handles global types not supported by previous work without sacrificing performance.Comment: 24 pages, 44 pages including appendix; CAV 202

MEDIAL-LATERAL HIP POSITIONS PREDICTED KINETIC ASYMMETRIES DURING BILATERAL SQUATS IN COLLEGIATE ATHLETES FOLLOWING ACLR

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) re-injury rates are high in collegiate athletes, and double-leg squats are commonly used following ACL reconstruction (ACLR). The purpose was to quantify the correlations between the medial-lateral shoulder/hip kinematics and bilateral kinetic asymmetries during double-leg squats in collegiate athletes at two assessments. Seventeen collegiate athletes performed three double-leg squats 0-6 months and/or 6-12 months following ACLR. Medial-lateral shoulder/hip positions and bending angles were calculated. Medial-lateral hip positions were significant and strongly correlated with ground reaction force and knee moment asymmetries. A commercially available camera may be used to capture the frontal plane motion as a low-cost and more convenient tool to monitor bilateral kinetic asymmetries during double-leg squats in patients following ACLR