Two Studies of the Impact of Performance Feedback on Community Service Learning Among College Students

In Study 1, I manipulated students\u27 access to frequent written performance feedback from agency supervisors. Thirty-eight service-learning students enrolled in a Midwest university were randomly assigned to a performance feedback (experimental) condition and a no performance feedback (control) condition. Student learning from community service (SLCS) was measured both before and after the semester-long intervention. Students in the experimental group did not show significant improvements in SLCS over those in the control condition. However, an individual differences variable, feedback disposition predicted SLCS. In study 2, I looked at the impact of organizational feedback quality, client feedback quality, student feedback seeking, and 2 sets of individual-differences variables (goal orientation, and feedback disposition) on SLCS. One hundred seventy-seven students, enrolled in ten service learning classes completed surveys assessing these variables. Client feedback quality and feedback disposition predicted SLCS significantly

The BglG group of antiterminators: a growing family of bacterial regulators

The product of the bglG gene of Escherichia coli was among the first bacterial antiterminators to be identified and characterized. Since the elucidation ten years ago of its role in the regulation of the bgl operon of E. coli,a large number of homologies have been discovered in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Often the homologues of BglG in other organisms are also involved in regulating β-glucoside utilization. Surprisingly, in many cases, they mediate antitermination to regulate a variety of other catabolic functions. Because of the high degree of conservation of the cis-acting regulatory elements, antiterminators from one organism can function in another. Generally the antiterminator protein itself is negatively regulated by phosphorylation by a component of the phosphotransferase system. This family of proteins thus represents a highly evolved regulatory system that is conserved across evolutionarily distant genuses

The Mystic Path of Shaikh Bahauddin Zakariya

Shaikh Bahauddin Zakariya (1182-1262) laid the foundation of the Suhrawardi order in Multan, which played a significant role in the socio cultural history of north-western India. His ancestors had migrated from Mecca and settled in Multan. His father Shaikh Wajihuddin was married to the daughter of Maulana Husamuddin Tirmizi, who had migrated to Punjab in the wake of the Mongol invasions. Bahauddin Zakariya was born at Kot Karor, a village near Multan. While still a young boy, he memorized the Quran and learnt to recite it in seven styles of recitation. During a long stay in the famous centres of education – Khurasan, Bukhara, Madina and Palestine- he studied the traditional subjects

Dr Radhakrishnan as a Philosopher

Dr Radhakrishnan’s thinking was Upanishadic.  He also firmly believed in the birth of a new order based on ancient Indian wisdom.  Drawing his inspiration from the Vedas, the Upanisads and the Gita, Radhakrishnan believed that humanity must become one. What kind of religion did Radhakrishnan advocate?  Not a credal or dogmatic one, not an intellectual theology disputing over dogmas and contemplations.  Radhakrishnan takes pride in the fact that Hinduism is not bound up with a creed or a dogma, with a founder – prophet or a historical personality, with a book like the Bible or the Quran, but a “persistent search for truth on the basis of a continuously renewed experience”.  Radhakrishnan, as an ardent Hindu, could not transcend Hinduism itself.  He was respectful of all religions, but it is ultimately Hindu standards by which he judged other religions.  Hinduism was always for him the ideal religion, of course, a Hinduism re-interpreted, purged of all that he found distasteful in it. That President Radhakrishnan was a dhvajasthambalam in the temple of our nation’s consciousness: upright and resplendent in rough weather and fair, inspiring us to a higher purpose.    K R Srinivas Iyengar noted that without the reserves of the spirit, the inner poise, the hidden fire, all other endowments cannot count for much.  And the spirit that moved and sustained our ancient Indian Rishis and Acharyas is not foreign to Professor Radhakrishna

Sri Aurobindo’s Contribution to the Knowledge of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, His Vision of Indian Culture and Human Unity

Sri Aurobindo has been described as an adventure of consciousness. Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga rises to the highest level but also bring down the power of the highest into the lowest terms of consciousness. This Yoga aims at the conquest of the higher pinnacles of consciousness and crossing beyond mind and overmind to the supermind. Sri Aurobindo has provided us illuminating insights as to how Vedic Yoga has developed the long history of India a number of systems of Yoga, as also how there have been periods of specialization and also periods of synthesis. And his own synthesis of Yoga is an integration of the past systems and the new methods that he himself has discovered and perfected. This new synthesis embraces within its wider embrace the truth of the Vedic synthesis of the psychological being of man in its highest flights

Nanofiber-Based Scaffold for Integrative Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is the most frequently injured ligament of the knee, with upwards of 100,000 ACL reconstructions performed annually. Current grafting techniques are limited by insufficient integration with subchondral bone and donor site morbidity issues related to graft harvest, potentially resulting in revision surgery and long-term joint pain. Therefore, significant demand exists for alternative grafting solutions that do not require additional surgery and can regenerate the native ACL-to-bone interface to promote biological fixation of the implanted ACL graft. To address this need, the ideal system must be able to withstand the functional demands of the native tissue by demonstrating physiologically equivalent mechanical properties, be comprised of compositionally varying phases in order to recapitulate the inherent heterogeneity of the native ligament to bone transition and be biodegradable such that it is gradually replaced by the regenerated tissue following implantation. It is hypothesized that a biomimetic, multi-phased scaffold comprised of optimized bone, interface and ligament regions coupled with controlled chemical and/or mechanical stimulation in vitro will guide phase-specific differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and result in a biologically integrated bone-ligament-bone complex in vivo. Mesenchymal stem cells are particularly attractive for this application as they can be routinely harvested from bone marrow, have been shown to respond to chemical, mechanical and structural cues, and are capable of differentiating towards the primary cell types (fibroblasts, osteoblasts and chondrocytes) found within ligament, bone and the ligament-to-bone interface. To this end, a nanofiber-based synthetic graft was designed with compositionally-varying phases to regenerate ligament, bone and interface tissues. The ligament phase was optimized in terms of nanofiber alignment, composition, mechanical stimulation and chemical stimulation. It was demonstrated that an aligned nanofiber substrate coupled with controlled mechanical stimulation was necessary to differentiate MSCs towards a fibroblastic phenotype. The bone phase was optimized in terms of ceramic content and it was shown that a threshold of mineral incorporation into nanofibers was necessary to differentiate MSCs towards an osteogenic phenotype. Lastly, a mechanoactive nanofiber collar was designed to induce interface formation. It was demonstrated that compressive stimulation applied via nanofiber collar contraction induced chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs. Subsequently, the three phases were incorporated to form a synthetic graft, for which graft architecture and cell seeding density were optimized. The resulting graft was cultured in vitro under the optimized parameters, demonstrating the formation of distinct and structurally continuous regions of bone, interface and ligament tissue. The graft was implanted in vivo where it was shown to be suitable for ACL reconstruction as it maintained knee stability and promoted ligament regeneration. In summary, this thesis focuses on the design of a biomimetic, nanofiber-based, integrated bone-ligament-bone construct, and elucidates chemical, mechanical and scaffold design-related parameters that can guide MSC differentiation towards desired tissue types. The impact of these studies extends beyond ligament reconstruction as they yield valuable scaffold design criteria, establish scaffold and culturing-related parameters to induce stem cell differentiation and can readily be applied to the formation of interfaces between soft-to-hard tissues as well as other complex tissues

The relationships between pain and sleep in spinal cord injury patients

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Medicine 2015Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating injury affecting many South Africans. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between SCI pain and sleep issues during acute inpatient rehabilitation. Seventeen participants were recruited. There were 2 interviews in the study; the 1st interview was done on the day participants were recruited. The 2nd interview was conducted a day before participants were discharged. The time elapsed between the first and second interview was 7.9±2.4. The patients were discharged from the Auckland Rehabilitation hospital (Hope ward). In the 2nd interview the questionnaires for pain, sleep and mood measures were repeated, and two additional questions were asked and the answers recorded for analysis of content. The key findings were; majority of the participants were Black, male (82%). The main cause of traumatic SCI was motor vehicle accident (59%). The common sites of injury were in the legs and neck/shoulder areas in both assessment (admission and discharge). The verbal descriptors that were commonly chosen in both assessments were, “sharp, shooting and tight.” Below level neuropathic pain, followed by musculoskeletal pain were the common types of pain reported. Pain interference was reported greatest in sleep and on average pain intensity was moderate (4-6 on 11-point Numerical Rating Scale). Strong correlations and positive relationships between Pain Catastrophizing Scale and subscales, and with the Pittsburgh Insomnia Rating total scale and subscales were reported in this study. Environmental factors were reported to affect sleep. A high incidence of Restless Leg Syndrome was reported in this study (24%). Depression was commonly reported by participants in both assessments. No significant association was found for the measures of sleep, Restless Leg Syndrome, depression and quality of life and the injury characteristics that were assessed. Significant associations were found at the 95% confidence levels for pain scores and injury characteristics (completeness of injury, level of injury and pain sites). Further studies in this area of pain and sleep management is warranted. It is important that clinicians and researchers in this area find appropriate management for secondary issues which have a severe impact on the daily activities of SCI people, decreasing their quality of life. Key words: SCI pain, sleep disturbances, moodMT201

Autobiography as a Quest for Identity

What is the difference between biography and autobiography?  The former is more revealing and hence is more in demand.  According to Graham Greens autobiography is only ‘a sort of life’. It is more selective.  He observed that ‘it begins later and ends prematurely. If one cannot close a book of memoirs on the death bed, any conclusion must be arbitrary’. The reader of an autobiography becomes an interested witness to the writer’s account of his life. He is a keen observer of an author’s obsession with his identity and the crises of his life.  The reader can find lessons for his own life from the author’s account. Necessarily, he is more an active participant of the creative process while reading an autobiography than while reading a novel. The reader is bound to find parallels between the experiences of the writer and his own. The history of autobiographical writing dates back to the ‘confessions’ of       St. Augustine written in the second half of the fourth century.  The difference between Christian idea of confession and autobiography as it developed in the eighteenth, nineteenth and our century must be noted.  Peter Abbes says that ‘confessions, in their traditional form, crave forgiveness, autobiography desires understanding. Confessions are devoted to salvation, autobiographies to individuation’. It is only with Rousseau that the form of memoirs took its present shape – ‘simply myself’. The importance of the individual reader was understood by autobiographers after Rousseau. Gibbon, Goethe, Ruskin, Wordsworth, John Stuart Mill, Newman, Darwin and a host of others gave the field of autobiography its pride of place.  In our century autobiography has been used as a means for relentless self-exploration and for organising our experience

Instructors’ Perceptions and Experiences Re: Creating and Implementing Customized E-Texts in Education Courses

This article presents partial findings from a case study exploring the outcome of an open alternative electronic textbook initiative launched by the College of Education at a large Midwestern university. On the basis of interview data generated by the aforesaid study, this article details the perceptions and experiences of instructors participating in the initiative regarding: (a) their rationale/justification for creating tailored/customized e-texts for their respective courses; (b) the strategies they followed, the challenges they faced, and the benefits they accrued as part of the process of designing, developing, and implementing these e-texts; and (c) how their students responded to the e-texts they created