University at Albany, State University of New York
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Deskilling Or Reskilling: The Impact Of Increased Digital Technology Use On Teaching As A Craft
Get PDFThis study focuses on teachers and the impact technology has on their instruction, with a focus on how technology affects their craft. Technology moved into classrooms over several decades, but was boosted significantly by the need to migrate to online instruction by the recent COVID19 pandemic. This migration required teachers to adapt methodologies to offer instruction. This study exposes what teachers articulate about their skills. Their experiences with immersion into digital platforms provide rich commentary on the purpose, progress, and pitfalls of online teaching for them and their students. For this qualitative study, a sample of 16 teachers from urban and suburban districts participated in semi-structured interviews. Half of the teachers were experienced (Veterans), with at least 12 years in the classroom, and half were newer (Novices), with three to five in the classroom. The veteran teacher participants raised concerns over such long-term issues as technology maintenance and sustainability. Several noted that teachers and students seemed to expect that instruction should be entertaining. Several acknowledged that technology made organization easier, although several also indicated that technology frequently hindered personal interaction. Novice teacher participants acknowledged that digital technology, which had been a part of their lives for many years, served to make material readily accessible. The Novice participants also identified the struggle some of their veteran colleagues had utilizing available platforms. Several, including participants from both groups, also talked about the possibility of reimagining education. Teachers in this study recognized that technology implementation would require re-skilling to develop their ability to use digital technology knowledgeably. Novice teachers were more comfortable with the technology but acknowledged that they needed to develop their skills with content and delivery. The differences and similarities among the teachers in the sample raise many suggestions about the both the potential of technology infusion and the concerns about lack of direction and purpose for both teaches and students as reliance on technology becomes more prevalent in classrooms. These teachers raised significant issues worthy of continued research
Maternal Experience-Driven Changes In Oxytocin Neuron Co-Localization With Crf Receptors In The Hypothalamus Of Mice
Get PDFThe postpartum period is a time of adaptiveness for new mothers who have to not only maintain their own health and well-being, but also that of a brand-new life. In both humans and across various common laboratory species like rats, mice, and non-human primates, priorities must shift greatly for a new mother to now include initiation and maintenance of offspring-focused behaviors regardless of her circumstances.The neurobiology of this adaptivity includes a complex sequence of changes that amount to suppression of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1 (CRFR1) is a receptor involved with initiating the physiological stress response and is important for stress- and maternal-related behaviors. Relatedly, oxytocin is commonly implicated in maternal stress buffering to continue maternal behaviors like nursing. With the sudden expression of CRFR1 in oxytocin neurons in hypothalamic brain regions during the postpartum period, we have turned to exploring how this unique receptor co-localization might be important for the shifting priorities of mothers across the postpartum period. We are interested in determining what specific factors of the postpartum period contribute to the appearance of CRFR1 in oxytocin neurons and how they might work to influence circulating oxytocin hormone release following stress. Since these receptors are integral to the stress response, we also will investigate the impact of chronic stress, a common condition of human mothers, on these co-localized neurons and maternal behaviors. After being subjected to these same stressors as offspring, we will also explore the possibility that these neurons and behaviors might be altered once these stressed offspring become mothers themselves. Finally, we will begin an examination of what changes might be happening in another receptor for CRF, CRFR2 during the early postpartum period
Studies In Prefix Rewriting
Get PDFIn this dissertation, we introduce computational problems with respect to prefix grammars and introduce a new concept called \emph{left-linear phrase-structure grammars}
Design And Fabrication Of Injectable Alginate Hydrogel Microstrands For Mesenchymal Stem Cell Delivery In Salivary Gland Tissue Regeneration
Get PDFFibrosis is a pathological wound healing process, driven by excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) following tissue remodeling. Fibrosis occurs in diseased or damaged salivary glands caused by several conditions, such as Sjogren’s syndrome or radiation for head and neck cancers. Having better insight into the cellular and molecular progression of fibrosis will allow us to model new therapeutic approaches as fibrosis prevents salivary gland tissue regeneration and function. Pharmacological, tissue engineering and cell-based regeneration strategies have been widely explored to restore lost salivary gland function. Among cell-based therapies, exploitation of mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSC) for salivary gland regeneration has been actively pursued due to their anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the therapeutic potential of MSC-based therapies relies on successful migration and engraftment of cells to the diseased or injured site of the tissue or organ. Despite their immunomodulatory properties, MSCs need a delivery vehicle, which can support their growth and allow them to maintain their functional characteristics (phenotype) during transplantation. FDA-approved, biocompatible alginate hydrogels in the form of microstrands have great potential to deliver MSCs at the site of injured tissue due to their ECM mimicking properties, ease of chemical modulations, ease of handling for implantation. Microstrands of diameters ≤200 µm do not limit diffusion of oxygen, nutrients, cytokines, or growth factors unlike bulk hydrogels. In this work, we address the unmet limitations of current fabrication methodologies of cell-laden microstrands using vacuum-driven devices. Two types of devices were designed, developed and optimized to fabricate alginate hydrogel microstrands of desired diameter with high repeatability and reproducibility. We also demonstrated that cell-laden alginate microstrands of different cell types, fabricated using these devices, were able to maintain high cell viability, high-density growth, and homeostatic marker expression. We also determined how factors, such as supplemental calcium ions and high cell-seeding density, affect the mechanical properties of alginate hydrogel microstrands with time. Further, we explored the feasibility of fabricating small-volume alginate hydrogel microstrands (as low as 25 µL) and using these cell-laden microstrands as cell delivery vehicles for in vivo MSC implantation experiments. Overall, in this work, we have developed devices to fabricate injectable cell-laden alginate hydrogel microstrands for cell delivery and in vivo tissue regeneration, including MSC delivery to fibrotic salivary glands
Interplay Between Cellular Stress Mechanisms And Immune Responses In Restricting Zika Virus Infection
Get PDFFlavivirus infections pose significant global health risks, often leading to serious neurological and congenital complications such as microcephaly. These viruses induce complex cellular stress responses pathways encompassing the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), Integrated Stress Response (ISR), autophagy, apoptosis, and the antiviral immune response, which dictate cell fate by either promoting survival to combat virus-induced damage or initiating cell death under prolonged stress. Despite the antagonizing functions, flaviviruses employ various subversion strategies, facilitated by viral proteins, to ensure successful infections even in the presence of activated cellular responses. Recent studies highlight dynamic interactions among stress response pathways during infection, emphasizing the need for further exploration
Wretched Refuse: Garbage And The Making Of New York City
Get PDFWretched Refuse: The Making of New York City. is a social and economic history of waste management in New York City from the late nineteenth century through the 1990s. This dissertation uses waste management as a lens to examine the city’s social and economic life over the long twentieth century, and especially its class and racial hierarchies. Wretched Refuse argues that waste management was a critical part of New York City’s physical and economic growth over the course of the twentieth century. Sanitation was a public health problem that needed to be solved in order for New York to grow into a truly global city, and New York’s waste management problems predominantly fell on the poor, immigrants, and minorities. However, waste was more than a technical problem to be solved. Waste also undergirded New York’s physical and economic expansion between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Landfills, whether municipal or private, added new land to the city’s boundaries along the waterfront and converted what was seen as economically unviable marsh land into recreational or residential space. Refuse was also an important commodity in the city’s changing economy over the course of the twentieth century, from being used to manufacture products like fertilizers to creating land for recreational space and housing in the transition to a post-industrial economy
Managing Work-Life Interrelationships Among High School Teachers Through Icts
Get PDFThe primary focus of research on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and work-life interrelationships has been on traditional office work. However, occupations such as teaching are worthwhile to study because they are structured differently than a traditional office given that students are the direct consumers of teacher labor. There is a lot of face-to-face engagement with students in the classroom, while at the same time teacher’s jobs increasingly incorporate the usage of ICTs. Secondary schools for students (generally 14 through 18 years of age) are complex environments where both teachers and students are experiencing permeations of personal life into the school (or work) environment that are facilitated by ICTs. A distinctive quality of secondary schools as an organizational setting is the large number of digital natives who are present due to teachers educating a younger demographic. Digital natives are considered younger people who were raised in the digital world (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). The research reported on in this paper examines 1) what organizational and institutional influences impact how high school teachers use ICTs to manage personal life concerns while on the job, 2) what the implications of using ICTs while at work in a high school setting are for the purpose of managing personal life with respect to problematizing boundaries between public and private, 3) how the teachers respond to student’s technology practices that function to manage the student’s work-life interrelationships, and 4) how the teacher’s technology practices that function to manage their own work-life interrelationships influence student’s technologically enabled work-life management practices. Findings indicate 1) that organizational and institutional influences that impacted how the high school teachers used ICTs to manage personal life concerns included the technological conditions that were present, the rules surrounding technology usage during the work day, and the heavy workload experienced by the teachers as three influencing factors. Teachers managed these conditions by employing technologies-in-practice of improvisation and productivity. Additionally, 2) the virtual, electronic environment in which they work, as well as the physical environment afforded them less privacy, and teachers had to navigate being constantly subjected to surveillance by their students, colleagues, and administration. 3) Teachers were also forced to respond to student’s technology practices that functioned to manage the student’s work-life interrelationships by employing various techniques to manage their student’s ICT use in order to preserve a classroom setting that was conducive to learning. 4) Teachers indirectly disciplined themselves to follow the school rules and set a good example for students, while also balancing the need to manage their own work-life boundaries and modeling for students how to do so. The teachers, students, and administrators ultimately constituted a community of practice where they were all intertwined and interacting together and their work was tied to and relied on the work of the other subgroups
State Policies On Maternal And Infant Health In The United States
Get PDFIn the United States (US), state-level policies are critical structural determinants of maternal and infant health outcomes. State policies profoundly affect prenatal care utilization and pregnancy outcomes, particularly among marginalized pregnant persons with stigmatized health conditions. In this three-paper dissertation, I focus on two closely interrelated policies that aim to address significant public health concerns in the US: prenatal syphilis screenings and the criminalization of prenatal substance use. My research revolves around two central questions: First, do these policies effectively improve the pregnancy outcomes of high-risk populations, or do they cause unintended consequences? Second, if challenges in policy design and implementation hinder improving pregnancy outcomes, what are these challenges? In Paper 1, through descriptive analyses using disease surveillance data, I find a decline in the effectiveness of state-level prevention efforts for mother-to-child syphilis transmission (i.e., congenital syphilis (CS)) using a measure of percent of cases averted. Significant disparities exist between states demonstrating high versus low performance in CS prevention. In Paper 2, I focus on the prenatal syphilis screening policy, which I identify as critical in CS prevention from findings in Paper 1. I conduct qualitative interviews to understand the barriers and facilitators of policy adoption and implementation of prenatal syphilis screening. Results suggest that negative social constructions of pregnant persons with syphilis and politics of reproduction profoundly affect state policy changes and implementation strategies. Furthermore, to navigate these challenges, public health officials are exploring various policy instruments to promote prenatal syphilis screening. In Paper 3, I delve into another policy that emerged as a major barrier to the implementation of the prenatal syphilis screening policy in Paper 2: the criminalization of prenatal substance use. Employing a quasi-experimental design, I examine whether such criminalization leads to negative policy feedback effects and prompts health system avoidance among the target population. Findings suggest that criminalization has not significantly improved prenatal care utilization, maternal health, and birth outcomes at the population level. In addition, I find that it disproportionately reduces prenatal care utilization and harms birth outcomes among non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and Medicaid beneficiaries, the groups most likely to be targeted. Collectively, my dissertation highlights that current state policies on maternal and infant health among marginalized pregnant persons are based on negative social constructions and stereotypes. These policies have not effectively achieved their intended goals; instead, they have resulted in negative feedback effects that disempower the target group, leading to system avoidance that may spill over to neighboring policy areas. Such negative constructions and the associated political environment significantly constrain policy changes and implementation, hindering desired policy outcomes
Advancing Equity: An Examination Of Education Policy Impacts On Students With Disabilities
Get PDFStudents with disabilities (SWDs) in U.S. public schools face unique challenges that profoundly shape their educational experiences and transition into adulthood, such as lower academic achievement and higher rates of exclusionary discipline and juvenile justice involvement. These disparities have far-reaching implications, impacting high school graduation rates, college enrollment, and future employment prospects, thus perpetuating broader social and economic inequalities. Understanding what aspects of special education are conducive to learning and development for SWDs is important for identifying evidence-based strategies that can help improve educational experiences and outcomes for SWDs. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of effective educational practices for SWDs, by focusing on the roles and effectiveness of educators, and their interaction with classroom and school characteristics. Additionally, this research assesses the impact of discipline policy reforms, which grant educators greater discretion in administering school discipline, on learning and disciplinary outcomes for SWDs and non-SWDs. The overarching goal is to inform evidence-based education policies that support the academic and socio-emotional development of SWDs, ultimately fostering their successful transition into adulthood
Generative AI and Photographic Transparency
Get PDFThere is a history of thinking that photographs provide a special kind of access to the objects depicted in them, beyond the access that would be provided by a painting or drawing. What is included in the photograph does not depend on the photographer’s beliefs about what is in front of the camera. This feature leads Kendall Walton to argue that photographs literally allow us to see the objects which appear in them. Current generative algorithms produce images in response to users’ text prompts. Depending on the parameters, the output can resemble specific people or things which are named in the prompt. This resemblance does not depend on the user’s beliefs, so generated images are in this sense like photographs. Given this parallel, how should we think about AI-generated image