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Mammalian-Yeast Dynein Chimeras: Design, Construction, and Analysis
No full textMotor proteins, such as cytoplasmic dynein, play a vital role in the maintenance of spatial, temporal, and metabolic homeostasis within eukaryotic cells. These proteins transport cargo utilizing the cell’s highway-like network of microtubules. The goal of this project is to design chimeric proteins between S. cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast) and H. sapiens (human/mammal) by using genetic manipulation to alter the microtubule binding domain (MTBD) and create the following chimeras in yeast: 1. fully mammalian dynein, 2. Mammalian MTBD with point mutation A3337G, 3. fully yeast MTBD within a mammalian dynein, and 4. yeast MTBD with point mutation G3337A. The focus of this research is to decipher the mechanisms of processivity in cytoplasmic dynein. During this process a plasmid was successfully assembled containing the gene sequence of a uracil (URA3) cassette and dynein flanking regions using NEB’s HiFi technology. An additional cassette with truncated human dynein was designed and ordered from GenScript. PCRs were performed to isolate DNA fragments to be used in transformations further along in the project Chimeric motors can be observed via total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRF), via single motor assays or ensemble assays in flow chambers or immobility/motility assays. The immobility/motility assay procedure has been another focus of this project, which allows for the observation of the entire ATP driven stepping cycle, which will help distinguish how these chimeras affect dynein processivity by identifying non-processive motors and non-binding motors
Environmental Contributions to Cognitive Development: The Role of Cognitive Stimulation
Get PDFEarly environmental experiences influence children\u27s cognitive and neural development. In particular, cognitive stimulation, defined as environmental inputs that engage the senses and provide learning opportunities for children, fosters acquisition of knowledge across various cognitive domains. Low levels of cognitive stimulation in early life may restrict learning opportunities, contributing to lasting consequences for neural development and later academic and occupational achievement. This review delves into the role of cognitive stimulation in neural development and related cognitive performance, available tools for measuring cognitive stimulation in various settings, and offers insights into future research directions. In addition, variability in cognitive stimulation, often linked to differences in socioeconomic status, may create disparities in children\u27s access to enriching experiences that provide the foundation for learning. We therefore briefly review the role of socioeconomic status in cognitive stimulation and cognitive development. We also leverage evidence from intervention studies to illustrate the importance of cognitive stimulation for children\u27s outcomes. Investigating the influence of cognitive stimulation on children\u27s brain and behavior development is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to foster the healthy development of all children and unlocking their full potential
Cognitive Stimulation As a Mechanism Linking Socioeconomic Status and Neural Function Supporting Working Memory: A Longitudinal fMRI Study
Get PDFChildhood experiences of low socioeconomic status are associated with alterations in neural function in the frontoparietal network and ventral visual stream, which may drive differences in working memory. However, the specific features of low socioeconomic status environments that contribute to these disparities remain poorly understood. Here, we examined experiences of cognitive deprivation (i.e. decreased variety and complexity of experience), as opposed to experiences of threat (i.e. violence exposure), as a potential mechanism through which family income contributes to alterations in neural activation during working memory. As part of a longitudinal study, 148 youth between aged 10 and 13 years completed a visuospatial working memory fMRI task. Early childhood low income, chronicity of low income in early childhood, and current income-to-needs were associated with task-related activation in the ventral visual stream and frontoparietal network. The association of family income with decreased activation in the lateral occipital cortex and intraparietal sulcus during working memory was mediated by experiences of cognitive deprivation. Surprisingly, however, family income and deprivation were not significantly related to working memory performance, and only deprivation was associated with academic achievement in this sample. Taken together, these findings suggest that early life low income and associated cognitive deprivation are important factors in neural function supporting working memory
Translating Power: Linguistic Domination in the Sicilian Court
No full textThe Translation History in Global Perspective series on Hopscotch Translation seeks to highlight an ongoing conversation between scholars working on the history of translation and translators for a broader audience. The series continues the discussion begun at a roundtable of the same name at the 2024 meeting of the American Historical Association and will feature contributions from participants in that roundtable and others. In this third essay in the series, Joshua C. Birk introduces us to the multilingual politics of 12th-century Sicily
Responsive District Heating for a Sustainable Power Grid
Get PDFThe electrification of energy use for building heating-cooling and transportation sectors increases stress on an already strained electric power grid. Shifting energy end-use to electricity presupposes that electricity generation is relatively clean in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the legacy power system and significant operational constraints on the power grid though, the majority of electricity generation is now, and will continue for many years, to be predominantly powered from fossil fuel combustion. The continuing need to decrease carbon and other GHGs raises the need to find clean energy sources outside of the electric power grid.
One clean energy technology for building heating and cooling is geothermal energy, a well-proven and mature technology option, especially for district heating applications. With the main energy source being clean and renewable, geothermal energy decreases direct combustion of fossil fuels, and so contributes significantly to reducing GHGs from building energy needs. With the goals of sustainability and reduced emissions, serving building heating and cooling with geothermal systems rather than pushing for electrification will reduce the burden on the power grid and have a high probability of decreasing pollutant emissions from building energy demands.
This paper introduces a geothermal energy system for Smith College, in Northampton MA, USA, that includes geothermal heat exchangers, thermal energy storage and heat pumps. Elements of the system rely on electricity for operation, making responsive demand for both thermal energy and for electrical use integral to the system design. The proposed district heating system is designed to decrease GHG emissions and support the College goal to minimize operations costs
The Bell Jars: Smith College, \u3ci\u3ePelargonium sidoides\u3c/i\u3e, and Sylvia Plath\u27s Botanical Imagination
Get PDFSylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar chronicles prize-winning college student Esther Greenwood’s descent into melancholy and attempted suicide. An emerging writer, Esther sees clearly the paths available to her under 1950s US patriarchy: homemaker or eccentric intellectual. Each on its own is untenable, and choosing one precludes the other. The bell jar metaphor conjures a sense of confinement and suffocation, but this essay offers a multispecies reading that shows why such an interpretation is too narrow. The essay looks carefully at the bell jar, its function within her story, and the context within which Plath encountered it, namely, as a student of botany at Smith College conducting lab exercises on photosynthesis using the South African silverleaf geranium (Pelargonium sidoides). Through archival research on Plath and botanical instruction at the college, the essay shows that the bell jars Plath used were not tools of oppression. Rather, they were tools for growing plants from faraway places that require higher atmospheric humidity: technologies for making dislocated life possible. Plath’s cross-species encounters with exotic plants at the conservatory were critical to her conception of life as a woman under patriarchy—like the silverleaf geranium, living in a world not built for her
Forty Years of Inferential Methods in the Journals of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
Get PDFWe are launching a series to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. In 2024, we will publish virtual issues containing selected papers published in the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution journals, Molecular Biology and Evolution and Genome Biology and Evolution. Each virtual issue will be accompanied by a perspective that highlights the historic and contemporary contributions of our journals to a specific topic in molecular evolution. This perspective, the first in the series, presents an account of the broad array of methods that have been published in the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution journals, including methods to infer phylogenies, to test hypotheses in a phylogenetic framework, and to infer population genetic processes. We also mention many of the software implementations that make methods tractable for empiricists. In short, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution community has much to celebrate after four decades of publishing high-quality science including numerous important inferential methods
The Vindication of the World Essays Engaging with Stephen Phillips
No full textStephen Phillips has devoted his career to excavating some of the most valuable gems of Indian philosophy and bringing them into conversation with contemporary thought. This volume honors him and follows his lead by continuing his lifelong project: faithfully interpreting Sanskrit texts to think along with their authors about ideas that still perplex us today.
It features ten new essays focusing on epistemology, logic, and metaphysics from outstanding philosophers and scholars of Sanskrit philosophy, with contributions varying in methodology: both historical and cross-cultural. Further, in addition to essays on Nyāya and Advaita Vedānta, it engages with Navya-Nyāya (“new Nyāya”), an important but understudied part of Indian philosophy. Through these investigations, in conversation with Phillips\u27s groundbreaking work, the contributors show the value of cross-cultural engagement for philosophical progress.
The Vindication of the World will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in Indian philosophy, comparative philosophy, and, more generally, epistemology, logic, and metaphysics.https://scholarworks.smith.edu/phi_books/1008/thumbnail.jp
