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Examining The Role of Seipin and The Lipid Droplet Assembly Factor In Lipid Droplet Biogenesis
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As We Were
No full textAs We Were follows a young man finding meaning in the small things in life while reuniting with an old friend
Remnants of Stars Past - The Formation of Supernova Remnants
No full textAll stars die. Some stars die more violently than others. Supernovae occur when a star cannot resist the pull of gravity and collapses in on itself, causing a huge explosion to occur. Similar to an explosion on Earth, a supernova ejects a slurry of gaseous particles outwards. As this ejecta expands, it interacts with the interstellar medium around the supernova and forms the supernova remnant. Lasting for millions of years, the formation of supernova remnants undergoes four key phases: free expansion phase, adiabatic phase, snowplow phase, and a dissipation phase. Throughout these four phases, the supernova remnant emits radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum through synchrotron radiation, shock-heating, and recombination processes. The formation of supernova remnants serve as a high-energy playground that helps us understand the later stages of stellar evolution
Operational Definitions and Validity in Expert versus Novice Differences in Athlete Decision-Making
No full textExpert athletes are a population that can be used to study fast, automatic decision-making. Expert athletes make frequent, rapid decisions based on their experience and sport-specific decision-making skills. Methodology and operationalization differ across studies of expert decision-making in athletes. In particular, this review considers how researchers operationalize expertise across studies. Often expert groups are defined through years of experience or competition level but do not consider all facets of expertise. Researchers often do not justify their categorization of experts and novices. The review also compares the differences in assessments of decision-making throughout empirical research because of concerns with construct validity, internal validity, and external validity. Few studies use the same measurement of decision-making, and many use other cognitive processes as proxies to evaluate the decision-making of their participants. Future research could consider a framework for operationalizing and justifying definitions of expertise. As a research area, future studies should adopt open science practices like preregistration and make efforts to replicate previous findings
Homes Away from Home: The Use of Alternative Homemaking Strategies by Migrants in America
No full textThe Theatrics of Resistance: Gendering bodies through infrapolitics in post-Soviet Central Asia
No full textDuring the decade after the dismantling of the Soviet Union, women in Central Asia engaged with a multitude of different gender ideologies, while incubating the rejuvenation of nationalism, Islam, and myriad new identities. The collision of utopian dreams, capitalism, globalism, conservative gender norms, and nationalist tendencies fused together in one volatile decade. As new nations were built, so were new peoples, and, as I argue, new conceptions of gender. Women across the former Soviet Union felt the collapse of the nation through the lens of subjugation. National processes of forming new identities in Central Asia, distinct from the Soviet past, were constrained and guided by masculine values and tendencies that subjugated the feminine. As national identity took prominence over gender identity, Central Asian women struggled to resist hegemonic masculinities that dominated productive power structures. However, they did not sit by passively. Women were active participants in the construction of their own gender and national identities. Undermining discursive hegemonies, women acted in resistance through subversive, quotidian acts (that were often not acts of outward protest) through which they expressed their multitude of identities.
Using power and performativity frameworks established by Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, I investigate the ways in which women in Central Asia formulated their own gender identities through resistance to hegemonic masculinities. Rather than overt protests, I focus on those “small,” infrapolitical acts that did not take the form of intentional protest to understand how women defined both gender ideals and identities against reactionary post-Soviet Central Asia.
Presented at Encounters and Entanglements in Eurasia and Beyond (Conference at Macalester College
Adolescent Stress Influences Organization of Sex-Specific Neuroendocrine Mechanisms and Female Sexual Functioning in Adulthood
No full textSexual differentiation is the process by which an organism’s nervous system becomes masculinized or feminized, where exposure to sex steroid hormones early in life organizes neural circuits that activate sex-typical behavior after puberty. While this process was long thought to be complete following the perinatal period, adolescence has recently been posited as a critical period for an organism’s sexual differentiation, during which steroid hormones continue to organize neural circuits associated with male and female physiology and behavior. Additionally, adolescence is a time of marked alterations in hormonal stress responsiveness, which can have short- and long-term neurobehavioral effects. This review explores the influence of adolescent stress exposure on the sexually dimorphic development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is responsible for the stress response, and on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG), which is responsible for the activation of male- and female-typical sex behavior. The relationship between these two neuroendocrine mechanisms is addressed as it relates to the differential neurobehavioral consequences of adolescent stress in males and females. Females display a more pronounced hormonal response than males to stress exposure during and following adolescence, necessitating further investigation into the interference of stress-induced gonadal and glucocorticoid hormone secretion on HPA and HPG feedback in females specifically. This sex-specific disruption of female neuroendocrine feedback provides tractability in elucidating the consequences of adolescent stress exposure on female sexual functioning in adulthoo
The Effect of Awe Experienced in Nature on Small-self and Prosocial Behavior
No full textAwe is a transcendent emotion often experienced in the presence of something vast that transcends one’s previous understanding. It can be experienced as a positive emotion, as in the presence of great beauty, and as a more negative emotion as in the presence of a threat like a natural disaster. The sense of vastness experienced through awe leads people to feel a sense of small-self, where individuals feel less focused on themselves and more connected to others. Research suggests that awe diminishes the perceived size of the self by shifting focus away from personal concerns and toward a sense of connection with something bigger. Nature is a strong elicitor of awe as demonstrated by studies that have people go on “awe walks”, watch videos of nature, and describe an experience in which they felt awe. Awe experienced in nature leads to small-self which in turn leads to an increase in prosocial behaviors such as generosity, humility, and cooperation. By reducing the focus on the self, awe and small-self can lead to behaviors that foster social cohesion. Fostering opportunities for awe in nature could lead to more social harmony in communities by promoting these positive social behaviors. Through a review of the existing literature – while addressing limitations like correlational studies and reliance on self-reports – this paper explains the mechanism of awe in nature’s effect on fostering prosocial behaviors
