An organized lie & hope in 2018

This article was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community

Resurrection

This article was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community."I spent the summer of 2017 immersed in a contextual education internship at South Street Ministries in Akron, Ohio. Though involved in many aspects of South Street’s summer programming, my main areas of study were... " [EXCERPT

Podcast episode 1: Kathe Darr

This article and podcast was originally published in The Prophet -- a journal created by and for the students at the Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) to amplify the voices of STH students by promoting and sharing a range of perspectives on matters of concern including, but not limited to, spiritual practices, faith communities and society, the nature of theology, and current affairs. It serves as a platform for STH students to share their academic work, theological reflections, and life experiences with one another and the wider community.Professor Kathe Darr, newly-installed Harrell F. Beck Chair of Hebrew Scripture, speaks to Emily Ling (MDiv ’19) about her new role, her life at and away from BU, and the occasional Netflix binge

Enhancing Job Awareness Through Career Exploration Course – A Report

In recent years, in developed countries such as the USA, Europe and Japan, ‘career search behaviour’ awareness and practice via university courses have been a keen focus. However, this is not the case in Malaysia, even worse is, university students do not think about it at all.  This career exploration course was introduced with the aim to raise undergraduate students’ awareness toward job searching before graduation. This was a 14-week career exploration introductory course with four main interventions; 1) to set your future career goal, conduct an interview with a graduated senior from the same faculty, who work in the industry you are interested in and then share with your course mate the interview results and what you have learned from the interview via oral presentation, 2) once the career goal is set,  learn the techniques of making career-related documents(e.g., resume writing), 3)do a self-examination on the knowledge and skills required in the job market and make a career searching action plan, 4) share and discuss your actual job search action plan via second oral presentation. Learning achievement is measured via continuous assessments and final written examination. Excerpts from the written examination revealed that students were more aware of the importance of conducting job searching activities before graduation and skills learned on career-related documents and writing the job search action plan have been useful to them.近年、欧米、日本を中心に大学生の「キャリア探索行動」のような意識と実践に着目してきた一方、マレーシアでは大学生が職業の前に職業探索を行うところか、それを考えることさえ意識していない。そこで就職活動に対する意識向上させる授業実践を行った。本実践では一学期、すなわち１４週間にわたり、次の４つを学生にさせた。１）職業についての希望や目標を明確にしていくため、自分が興味のある業界で働いている学部の先輩を訪ね、実際の仕事と内容などをインタビューする。そのインタビューの結果をクラス内発表し、発表を通じて、教室でクラスメートとOBOG訪問する際に必要であったマナーなどの情報を共有する。２）明確になった自己の職業に対する目標を設定し、企業への履歴書など書類作成する。３）職場における必要な知識、スキルなど自己検討し、今後のキャリア計画を考え作成する。４）再びクラス内で、キャリア計画を発表し、クラスメート間でコメントし合う。本授業の学習達成度は、教師の継続評価と期末試験で測る。期末試験で本授業に対する内省文を書かせたところ、多くの学習者が自己理解、就職活動の準備を卒業する前に行う、キャリア計画の重要性が有意義であったと回答した。また、本授業の学習者同士のコメントの話し合いを通じて、OBOGに対するマナーや言葉遣いなどが重要であることを学ばせることができた

Interactive Meaning Potentials in Weight-loss Web-advertising: The Female Body in Crisis

The common saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” is no longer questioned in the twenty-first century where information is extensively rendered in visual terms. The rise of digital capture devices and online social media presumes that visual culture is heading towards greater influence in every aspect of life. This paper explores the ways visual representations attract the viewer’s attention, and based on Jewitt and Oyama’s analytical framework of visual social semiotics seeks to understand the meaning-making potentials of weight-loss advertising. Three key factors: distance, contact, and point of view are shown to be crucial in creating complex and subtle relations between the represented and the viewer. I examine several images from a weight-loss website advertisement (www.acaiburnmax.com) to demonstrate how the semiotic resources of meaning making are comprehended, and more importantly, to expose the flawed gender message that only a slim, shapely, beautiful woman is attractive and succeeds in a heterosexual relationship.

Seeking Serious Tourists – Balancing Culture, Conservation and Economic Gains from Aboriginal Tourism

Ethnic culture, often complemented by attractive relatively natural environments, is the core tourism attraction for indigenous areas. With the rise of aboriginal tourism, many regions with indigenous people intend to reform their economies by introducing tourism development. However, some places where this has occurred have exhibited adverse consequences, such as the breaking up of conventional social/cultural norms and distortion of unique ethnic cultures. Thus, it is critical to establish an approach to development that can satisfy both cultural and economic concerns to achieve sustainable development in aboriginal regions. Based on serious leisure theory, it is proposed that serious travelers can contribute offer enhanced prospects of contributing to aboriginal communities in terms of both economic gains and cultural conservations. The idea is assessed in the context of aboriginal community in Taiwan and the empirical findings mostly verify the above claims. Serious aboriginal tourists express their support for ethnic culture with real spending on culture-related products and services. Likewise, serious aboriginal travelers reveal their passions for ethnic culture by demanding more cultural experiences and, more willingly donate for aboriginal cultural conservation. Thus, it is suggested that, aboriginal destinations should cater more to the serious traveler market to make sustainable development possible

Visualizing B Cell Development: Creating an Immunology Video Game

The foundational immunology concepts of lymphocyte development are important for beginning science students to comprehend. Video games offer the potential for a novel approach to teaching this complex subject matter by more effectively engaging students in this material. However, currently available educational video games intended to teach immunology have distinct limitations such as a lack of explicit demonstrations of the stages of lymphocyte development and clonal selection. This project identifies the content focus and gameplay mechanics of currently available immunology video games. Using this as a basis, a novel approach for developing an immunology video game was outlined with the primary goal of improving integration of educational content. A proof of concept was developed for the B lymphocyte development portion of the game content and a partial prototype was developed in Unity 5 3D. The important contribution of this thesis was the development of a new approach to designing a more effective educational video game specifically for immunology. Outcomes of this research will serve to inform future biomedical communicators on how to develop content for active learning games in immunology and provide a guide for designing full length educational video games featuring novel gameplay mechanics such as those identified through this project

The Role of Astrocytes in Tumor Growth and Progression

Current research is continually implicating the importance of astrocytes as active participants in neurological injury, disease, and tumor progression. This chapter will discuss some of these emerging concepts, especially as they relate to tumor biology. Astrocytes themselves can become tumorigenic, such as the case in gliomas, which often have aberrant signaling in key regulating genes of astrocyte development. Astrocytes secrete factors that maintain the tight junctions of the blood brain barrier (BBB), which in turn regulates the success or failure of metastatic cells extravasating into the brain. This astrocytic association with the brain vasculature also promotes brain tumor stem cell characteristics, which are known to be necessary for tumor initiation. Tumor cells within the brain make direct contacts with astrocytes through gap junctions, which subsequently lead to increased chemoresistance of the tumor cells. Astrocytes have also been shown to effect tumors cells via secretion of degradative enzymes, cytokines, chemokines, and growth factors, all of which have been shown to promote tumor cell proliferation, survival, and invasion. Thus, research in astrocyte biology and the role of astrocytes in the tumor microenvironment has and will likely continue to reveal novel targets for cancer intervention