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Episode 1: Honda DC1920
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This episode features three alums from the class of 2020: Elana Helou, Annie Kary, and Alina Siminiouk. Their Design Clinic project with Honda was on the design of a long-range heavy payload drone
Teaching Note—Teaching Trumpism
Get PDFThe election of Donald Trump was an astounding moment in the history of the United States. As academics across disciplines and social work as a profession struggled to understand the election and its effects, several syllabi were crowd sourced to explain the phenomenon known as Trumpism. This article describes a social work social policy course derived from these syllabi, as well as the pedagogical choices and consequences of teaching this course at the graduate level
Emergent Intra-Pair Sex Differences and Organized Behavior in Pair Bonded Prairie Voles (Microtus ochrogaster)
Get PDFIn pair bonding animals, coordinated behavior between partners is required for the pair to accomplish shared goals such as raising young. Despite this, experimental designs rarely assess the behavior of both partners within a bonded pair. Thus, we lack an understanding of the interdependent behavioral dynamics between partners that likely facilitate relationship success. To identify intra-pair behavioral correlates of pair bonding, we used socially monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) and tested both partners using social choice and non-choice tests at short- and long-term pairing timepoints. Females developed a preference for their partner more rapidly than males, with preference driven by different behaviors in each sex. Further, as bonds matured, intra-pair behavioral sex differences and organized behavior emerged—females consistently huddled more with their partner than males did regardless of overall intra-pair affiliation levels. When animals were allowed to freely interact with a partner or a novel vole in sequential free interaction tests, pairs spent more time interacting together than either animal did with a novel vole, consistent with partner preference in the more commonly employed choice test. Total pair interaction in freely moving voles was correlated with female, but not male, behavior. Via a social operant paradigm, we found that pair-bonded females, but not males, are more motivated to access and huddle with their partner than a novel vole. Together, our data indicate that as pair bonds mature, sex differences and organized behavior emerge within pairs, and that these intra-pair behavioral changes are likely organized and driven by the female animal
Geology Downtown: A Tour of the Rocks of Northampton\u27s Buildings
No full textDowntown Northampton is a geological museum, displaying a variety of rocks that have been quarried, sculpted, and incorporated into the buildings. Many visitors to the city walk by these rocks without noticing them at all, or seeing them only as architectural features, not museum offerings. This guide has been created to help you see the geological wonders that support, decorate, and enhance Northampton\u27s buildings
Monetary Sanctions and Housing Instability
Get PDFThe relationship between criminal legal involvement and housing is complex because the causal arrow goes both ways. Research documents a homelessness-incarceration nexus whereby homelessness is criminalized, and incarceration leads to homelessness. In this article, we broaden the scope of housing outcomes by considering housing instability more generally and we shift the focus to legal financial obligations (LFOs) as a specific kind of criminal legal sanction, apart from incarceration or the effects of a record. Our data consist of surveys and qualitative interviews with people paying LFOs (N = 519), interviews with court actors (N = 443), and more than 1,900 hours of courtroom ethnography in eight states, plus nationally representative survey data. We find substantial evidence of a housing instability-LFO nexus, a caustic churn whereby a population with identifiable housing hardships is saddled with a punishment that deepens financial strain and thus weakens housing stabilit
The Effect of a Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator on the Developing C2C12 Proteome
No full textTamoxifen is a well-known estrogen-positive breast cancer treatment that functions as a selective estrogen receptor modulator. In this role, tamoxifen competitively binds to estrogen receptors found in breast tissue and blocks the binding of endogenous estrogen which is known to stimulate cancer growth. Estrogen receptors are not confined to breast tissue though, they are also found on muscle cells. Evidently, skeletal muscle, like all other tissues in the body, is affected by sex hormones. In fact, many studies have cited differences between female and male muscle physiology and metabolism; these differences are found in hormone expression, metabolic rate, oxidative capacity, and energy expenditure (Oh et al., 2011). The use of a cell line derived from a female mouse will demonstrate how female muscle physiology and metabolism are affected by tamoxifen specifically. This is especially important considering women are more likely to suffer from breast cancer, 1 in 8 compared to 1 in 833 for men, and subsequently receive tamoxifen as a treatment (American Cancer Society). Furthermore, muscle development, myogenesis, does not only occur during embryonic development, it also occurs when there is muscle damage. Within fully mature skeletal muscle, a non-proliferating subset of myoblasts, satellite cells, is present and is responsible for repairing damaged muscle tissue. Intense muscular exertion is able to create plasmalemmal micro-tears thereby damaging the cells and requiring a recapitulation of myogenesis to create new myoblasts that elicit repair or replace the damaged cells and tamoxifen could affect these processes, so this must be examined. Lastly, examining the change in protein expression after removing the cell’s ability to make use of estrogen due to tamoxifen, will elucidate the molecular basis of gender dimorphism in skeletal muscle tissue
The Addition of Non-Canonical Amino Acids to Engineered Cancer-Targeting Proteins
No full textThough overall cancer mortality rates have been decreasing in the last two decades, current cancer treatments still come with a wide range of side effects that can be detrimental to a patient’s quality of life. There is a critical need for cancer treatment solutions like precision medicine, which allows for the development of treatments based on the molecular and genetic characteristics of a disease to increase treatment efficacy and lower toxicity. Targeted drug delivery systems, for instance, aim to carry drug molecules directly to cancer cells by targeting biomarkers with a binding protein. Studies have shown that the cell surface receptor mesothelin (MSLN) is abundantly expressed in multiple types of cancer, and is thus an attractive biomarker for targeted drug delivery. Previous members of the Moore lab have engineered non-antibody fibronectin type III (Fn3) proteins which have been shown to selectively bind to MSLN receptors. Now, work must be done to enable conjugation of a drug or drug-loaded polymer to the Fn3 protein for a complete targeted drug delivery mechanism. The goal of this thesis was to work towards the incorporation of the non-canonical amino acid azidohomoalanine to allow for Fn3/polymer binding. Azidohomoalanine cannot be directly incorporated into a protein structure, so first a direct amino acid addition using the azidohomoalanine canonical analog methionine needed to be performed. The placement of the new amino acid in the Fn3 protein structure was designed, and a polymerase chain reaction synthesis was conducted to add the methionine codon to the Fn3 DNA sequence. Two transformations were performed, first to clone the DNA sample and then to express the Fn3 protein with methionine incorporated (Fn3-met). A concentrated and purified protein stock of Fn3-met was successfully produced, and was used to conduct an initial binding assay study that confirmed Fn3-met binds to MSLN even with the added amino acid. Future 3 work will include conducting further binding assays to quantify any changes in the Fn3/MSLN binding affinity with the methionine addition, and moving forward with the substitution of azidohomoalanine for methionine in the Fn3-met protein structure
Simulation of a Magneto-optical Trap for Oxygen Atoms
No full textThis thesis simulates the process of laser cooling and trapping oxygen atoms using a Zeeman slower and Magneto-optical trap. The discharge source is simulated by a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with a temperature of 100[K]. The atoms are slowed down preliminary by the Zeeman slower, which consists of a spatially varying magnetic field and a laser beam opposite to the atomic beam. Atoms that are slowed down effectively and did not decay out of the metastable states are then sent to the MOT simulation. The MOT consists of a magnetic field to trap the atoms, and six counter-propagating lasers, two on each axis, to trap and cool the atoms. Out of a flux of 1010 atoms, 90,000 atoms did not decay and are trapped by the MOT. The atoms\u27 final velocity is 2:6[m=s] with a corresponding temperature of 0:005[K
