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Conformational Dynamics of the HIV-Vif Protein Complex
No full textHuman immunodeficiency virus-1 viral infectivity factor (Vif) is an intrinsically disordered protein responsible for the ubiquitination of the APOBEC3 (A3) antiviral proteins. Vif folds when it binds Cullin-RING E3 ligase 5 and the transcription cofactor CBF- β. A five-protein complex containing the substrate receptor (Vif, CBF- β, Elongin-B, Elongin-C (VCBC)) and Cullin5 (CUL5) has a published crystal structure, but dynamics of this VCBC-CUL5 complex have not been characterized. Here, we use molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and NMR to characterize the dynamics of the VCBC complex with and without CUL5 and an A3 protein bound. Our simulations show that the VCBC complex undergoes global dynamics involving twisting and clamshell opening of the complex, whereas VCBC-CUL5 maintains a more static conformation, similar to the crystal structure. This observation from MD is supported by methyl-transverse relaxation-optimized spectroscopy NMR data, which indicates that the VCBC complex without CUL5 is dynamic on the μs-ms timescale. Our NMR data also show that the VCBC complex is more conformationally restricted when bound to the antiviral APOBEC3F (one of the A3 proteins), consistent with our MD simulations. Vif contains a flexible linker region located at the hinge of the VCBC complex, which changes conformation in conjunction with the global dynamics of the complex. Like other substrate receptors, VCBC can exist alone or in complex with CUL5 and other proteins in cells. Accordingly, the VCBC complex could be a good target for therapeutics that would inhibit full assembly of the ubiquitination complex by stabilizing an alternate VCBC conformation
Neighborhood Effects on Economic Outcomes of Youths
Get PDFThis paper analyzes the long-term neighborhood effects on incomes of youths in the United States. The working dataset comes from the National Longitudinal Survey of the Youths and consists of the youths between the age of 12 and 14 in 1997. Their neighborhood characteristics between 1998 and 2001 are analyzed to predict their household incomes in 2015. Using two-stage probit models and OLS regressions, this paper suggests two main findings. First, the youths in safe neighborhoods between 1998 and 2001 are 81.5 percentage- point more likely than the youths from risky neighborhoods to earn above the median household income in 2015. Also, living in safe neighborhoods increases the youths’ incomes in 2015 by 221.2 percentage- point. These results show that the neighborhood environment in which the individuals grow up as youths has a significant impact on their adulthood incomes. As a result, this paper supports policy initiatives that actively seek to assist low-income families to move into affluent neighborhoods to break the poverty trap
The Power of Big Companies? A Hedonic Pricing Approach of Estimating the Impact of Amazon Inc. to the Local Housing Market
No full textThe activities of Amazon Inc. are often considered as important signals to investors. Once Amazon announces the plan for a new campus, investors start to purchase properties in the neighborhood, trusting that Amazon would raise the housing prices. In this paper, I use over 70,000 housing transactions in Seattle between 2011 to 2017 to investigate the impact of Amazon’s new campus on the housing prices. Based on a difference-in-differences hedonic model, my results reveal that Amazon’s new campus actually decreases property value by 3%- 5% for homes located within 2 miles of the headquarter and by 4% for the ones located between 2 to 4 miles from the headquarter
Stock Buybacks and Innovation: An Analysis of the Effects of Share Repurchases on Research & Development Expenditures
Get PDFRates of stock buybacks have recently hit an all-time high, and have gained a lot of attention from both the business community and the mainstream media. A polarizing debate exists over whether or not stock buybacks are harmful to the economy, especially in the context of stagnant wages and rising income inequality throughout the United States. The primary goal of this research paper is to examine what effect stock buybacks have, if any, on the innovation of large multi-national corporations. The analytical framework uses logit regression and ordinary least squares regression analysis to add to the debate surrounding the effects of share repurchases. Results show that share repurchases are correlated with an increased likelihood that a given company will increase its research & development expenditure in the subsequent year following the repurchase. This can be likely attributed to correlation between large cash holdings and repurchases as well as between large cash holdings and the pursuit of new innovations. While results add to the literature by suggesting correlation between research & development increases and share repurchases, additional paths for future research are proposed
Adverse Birth Outcomes and Race: Exploring Race, Gender and Their Combined Influence on the Adverse Birth Outcomes of Black and Latina Women
Get PDFBlack women have uniquely stressful pregnancies as a result of their intersecting racial and gender identities, which can predispose them to adverse birth outcomes. This study explores whether gendered racism influences detrimental birth outcomes for Black and Latina women in comparison to White women. A sample of 111 women (Mage = 39.50; SDage = 10.64; range 23-67; MEdu= 14.98; SDEdu= 1.88; age range 12-19 years) participated in a survey measuring sexism, racism, and gendered racism on birth outcomes (baby birth weight, gestational period, maternal health issues). There were 38 Black women, 31 Latina women, and 42 White women in the analytical sample. One-way ANOVA results indicated Black and Latina women did not express significantly different levels of sexism, compared to White women. However, there were statistically significant differences in their experiences of both racism and gendered racism.There were no statistically significant differences between Black, Latina, and White women in terms of gestational period, baby birth weight, or maternal health issues. Understanding the factors that influence adverse birth outcomes is a step forward to minimizing the maternal and infant mortality rates of Black families
Legacies of American Slavery in the South: An Analysis of White Racial Resentment Towards African Americans
Get PDFThis study aims to explore whether the historical institution of slavery in the United States is manifested in contemporary white racial resentment towards African Americans through engaging institutional replication, racial threat, and intergroup contact theories. Present differences in the residential integration of blacks and whites at the county-level is hypothesized to be a mediating factor in the relation between the presence of slavery in 1860 and attitudinal measures of current white racial resentment. This study analyzes three distinct sources of data: the proportion of slaves in 1860 counties is derived from the U.S. Census Bureau, black-white dissimilarity indices are calculated from the 2017 five-year American Community Survey estimates, and racial resentment along with the demographic variables of this study are derived from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (n = 10,880). The population of inquiry is narrowed so as only to involve data on the antebellum and postbellum South. While the present findings do not reveal a statistically significant association between slave legacy and white racial resentment, and black-white integration is nonsignificant, this study shows that conservative political ideology is a potent determinant of white racial resentment across all statistical analyses, consistent with insights of prior research. Holding constant all other variables, education, religious affiliation variables, and age impact white racial resentment. These results illuminate the grip of political ideology in the current era on attitudes related to race and provide fruitful foundation for further research
Things Forgotten
No full texthttps://creativematter.skidmore.edu/lib_stu_art_fall2019/1001/thumbnail.jp
Bringing the Personal into Public Life: How Relational Morality and Meaningful Action Can Enrich an Organization’s Work
Get PDFWhile an overly detached perspective dominates contemporary discourse on development and other public projects, an alternative approach, built on a personal perspective, can enrich an organization’s work. Organizations can bring elements of a personal perspective into the public realm, employing the virtues of relational morality and restoring the possibility for meaningful action. Narrative accounts from many people who have experienced The Tandana Foundation’s work show how one organization has brought a personal approach to collective work, generating positive results. While emphasizing the personal aspects is important to counterbalance the dominance of a detached perspective, it is important to bring elements of both perspectives together in order to steer between the converse excesses of instrumentalism or alienation and pettiness or parochialism. As organizations like The Tandana Foundation, as well as other NGOs, institutions, and businesses, apply a personal vocabulary to public life, they reclaim space for agency and meaningful action
Automatic Scaling of Text for Training Second Language Reading Comprehension
Get PDFFor children learning their first language, reading is one of the most effective ways to acquire new vocabulary. Studies link students who read more with larger and more complex vocabularies. For second language learners, there is a substantial barrier to reading. Even the books written for early first language readers assume a base vocabulary of nearly 7000 word families and a nuanced understanding of grammar. This project will look at ways that technology can help second language learners overcome this high barrier to entry, and the effectiveness of learning through reading for adults acquiring a foreign language. Through the implementation of Dokusha, an automatic graded reader generator for Japanese, this project will explore how advancements in natural language processing can be used to automatically simplify text for extensive reading in Japanese as a foreign language