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Greek Epic Parody And The Classical Life Of Heroic Epic Poetry
The extant corpus of Greek epic parody is small and difficult to circumscribe. Scholars have largely considered fragments of hexameter epic parody in isolation without contextualizing them alongside parodic epic allusion in comedy and iambus. Modern theoretical approaches to parody that emphasize the importance of strict formal categories have encouraged this approach. However, the semantic breadth of the Greek term paroidia, from which “parody” is derived, suggests that epic parody must also be approached as a trans-generic literary phenomenon. With this in mind, I examine how parodies of heroic epic in different genres from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE engage with the contemporary “life” of heroic epic: how it was consumed, how its poet was imagined, how it related to other genres and verse forms, and what knowledge or insight it was understood to contain. This guiding principle informs close comparative readings of fragments and passages that use the language or formal elements of heroic epic to comic or critical effect. Primary case studies include Hipponax fr. 126 Degani, Hegemon fr. 1, Aristophanes’ Peace 1270-1304, Strato Comicus fr. 1, and Matro of Pitane fr. 1; discussions of many other examples appear for context. I begin by offering foundational interpretations for a few important but understudied fragments, and showcasing the variety of ways in which imitation of epic language and form may invite the epic world into a contemporary comic setting (chapter 1). Each subsequent chapter focuses on a different aspect of the lived experience of epic poetry in the sixth to fourth centuries and examines how parodists invoke these contemporary practices and phenomena to make epic speak to current issues; topics include modes of epic performance (chapter 2); the close relationship of epic with other literary and subliterary verse forms (chapter 3); and the role of epic in educational and intellectual developments (chapter 4). By this approach, I offer richer interpretations of some difficult poetic fragments, fresh literary historical contexts for more canonical passages, and new insights into the life of epic poetry in antiquity
E7, Ptpn14, And Yap1: How Papillomaviruses Retain Cells In The Basal Epithelial Layer With Implications For Persistence And Carcinogenesis
Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infections cause about 4.5% of the human cancer burden. The HPV E7 oncoprotein is one of the primary drivers of HPV-mediated carcinogenesis and facilitates HPV replication. The most well-studied HPV E7 activity is inactivation of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (RB1), which dysregulates the cell cycle. However, there is substantial evidence to suggest that HPV E7 must have other activities in addition to RB1 inactivation. HPV E7 proteins from diverse HPV genotypes interact with the host cell tumor suppressor protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor 14 (PTPN14). Many HPV E7 proteins also direct PTPN14 for proteosome-mediated degradation. Through my dissertation work, I sought to identify the role of PTPN14 degradation by HPV E7 in the HPV replicative cycle and carcinogenesis. To initially characterize PTPN14 function in keratinocytes, we used mutant HPV E7 proteins that cannot degrade PTPN14, CRISPR knockout of PTPN14, and high throughput RNA sequencing to assess differential gene expression. We found that PTPN14 degradation by HPV E7 broadly represses genes related to keratinocyte differentiation. In a subsequent study, we used three-dimensional organotypic epithelial cultures to study the mechanism downstream of PTPN14 degradation. We found that PTPN14 loss in keratinocytes promotes basal cell-specific activation of the HIPPO pathway transcriptional regulator YAP1. PTPN14 degradation and YAP1 activation by HPV E7 did not prevent terminal differentiation in these cultures. Instead, the repression of differentiation observed in monolayer culture translated to delayed commitment to differentiation and promotion of basal cell identity in the three-dimensional system. This indicated that PTPN14 degradation by HPV E7 may help HPV resist epithelial turnover and facilitate persistent infection. YAP1 and its paralogue TAZ are oncogenes when dysregulated. Accordingly, through these studies we also found that PTPN14 degradation and YAP1/TAZ transcriptional activity contribute to the ability of HPV E7 proteins from oncogenic genotypes to extend the lifespans of primary keratinocytes, a metric of E7 carcinogenic activity. Overall, the experiments described in this dissertation outline the effects of PTPN14 degradation by HPV E7 in keratinocytes and stratified squamous epithelia which have implications for HPV persistence and HPV-mediated carcinogenesis
Job Flexibility and Household Labor Supply: Understanding Gender Gaps and the Child Wage Penalty
This dissertation investigates how occupational flexibility affects married couples\u27 labor supply and the gender pay gap around childbirth. Using the NLSY79 data and Goldin\u27s (2014) measure of occupational flexibility, I show that flexibility is a significant determinant of married couples\u27 labor supply adjustments. When a husband\u27s job exhibits low flexibility, couples are more likely to specialize with the wife dropping out of the labor market and the husband increasing hours worked. In contrast, couples with greater flexibility show less labor supply adjustment to childbirth. To analyze the relationship between occupational flexibility and family-friendly labor market policies, I develop and estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of couples\u27 decision-making about labor supply and occupations. In the model, occupations are characterized by wage-hours schedules and flexibility levels. I find that increasing women\u27s and men\u27s own occupational flexibility increases labor force participation by 4 percentage points in the childbirth year. Interestingly, increasing husband\u27s flexibility has a greater impact on the wife\u27s labor adjustment than her own flexibility, augmenting her participation rate and working hours by 10 and 7 percentage points. Finally, I evaluate the effects of family-friendly policies providing temporary flexibility for couples experiencing a birth in the last two years. Policies that target women increase female labor supply and reduce the gender pay gap by 8% in the long run. However, when the benefits are offered to both spouses, the positive effects on the wife\u27s labor supply are weakened, and the gender pay gap expands in the long run
Biofabrication Approaches with Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels for Cartilage Repair
Current therapies to repair damaged articular cartilage fail to consistently or fully restore the biomechanical function of cartilage. Although cell-based clinical techniques have emerged for the treatment of focal defects in articulating joints, these approaches typically lead to inferior tissue formation when compared to native, healthy cartilage. Alternatively, subchondral microfracture is a surgical procedure that aims to recruit endogenous mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) from the underlying bone marrow to facilitate neocartilage formation in focal defects. Similarly, microfracture typically results in the formation of repair cartilage incapable of withstanding the loading environment of the articulating joint over time. New biomaterial-based strategies are therefore in significant demand to improve cartilage tissue formation and maturation within focal defects. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a glycosaminoglycan that is found in native cartilage and that shows promise as a biomaterial for cartilage tissue engineering due to its innate bioactivity and ability to form hydrogels, water-swollen polymer networks that may be engineered to mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM). Moreover, hydrogels may be employed as materials for biofabrication, which involves the use of automated additive manufacturing processes such as 3D printing to fabricate living, biological constructs. This dissertation describes the design and implementation of HA hydrogels for the biofabrication of articular cartilage towards improving existing therapies for damaged cartilage. Multiple biofabrication approaches, including extrusion bioprinting, melt-electrowriting, and digital light processing are investigated to engineer scaffolds with rationally designed geometries, mechanical properties, porosities, and biodegradability. Conserved across all these approaches is the use of thiol-ene based photochemistry to control the formation and resultant material properties of HA hydrogels modified with norbornene functional groups. Taken together, the employment of these biofabrication approaches for cartilage repair has significantly informed the design and implementation of future therapies for articular cartilage damage
An Exploration of Two Community Advisory Boards within Community Engagement Centers at Institutions of Higher Education
Civic engagement has become an important part of the educational landscape at institutions of higher education in the United States. The development of mutually-beneficial community-university partnerships has become a common interest for practitioners and researchers as the rise in civic engagement across higher education has grown. Institutions of higher education began to collaborate with communities as a way to connect intellectual, human, and financial resources to solve real-world community problems (Benson, Harkavy & Puckett, 1996). However, building mutually-beneficial partnerships between communities and institutions, often distinguished by reciprocity, shared goals, and effective communication (Bringle, Games, & Malloy, 1999; Harkavy, 1998; Harkavy & Benson, 1998; Jacoby, 2003; Pompa, 2002) is a complex endeavor. The partnerships between communities and universities often involve challenges such as paternalism, unequal power, elitism, clashes in values, and often-wrought histories (Strier, 2014). As a way to support building partnerships based in mutuality, and to address some of the challenges present in the complexity of community-university partnerships, community engagement centers on college and university campuses have created Community Advisory Boards (CABs). While Community Advisory Boards have become a structure within the practitioner-realm of community engagement work within higher education, there are gaps in the higher education literature and research that investigate CABs as models aimed to support and strengthen partnerships between communities and universities. This qualitative multi-site case study aims to fill the gaps through a comparative exploration of two Community Advisory Boards at Philadelphia area institutions of higher education. The CABs are housed within two different community engagement centers. The two CABs are located within Drexel University’s Dornsife Center and the Community College of Philadelphia’s Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership. Through archival data, interviews, observations, surveys, memo writing, and member checks, I analyze and synthesize the similarities, differences, and patterns across these two cases by exploring the role, responsibilities and functions of the CABs and the successes and challenges to building strong mutually beneficial partnerships between the community and the institutions of higher education
Visualizing the Theory of Improvement of an Ap for All Program
Advanced Placement for All (AP for All) is a high school reform movement designed to address systemic inequities in student access to advanced coursework. However, the evidence of the impact of the AP Program for traditionally underrepresented students is mixed. One way to view AP for All is as one of many examples of promising initiatives which, once scaled across innumerable schools, fail to meet expectations. This leads to predictable cycles of adoption that often end in abandonment. Improvement science seeks to break this condition by incorporating systematic improvement processes into promising reforms. This qualitative study applied improvement science to a single school’s AP for All Program. Interviews with teachers and leaders were used to create a driver diagram to visualize the school’s collective theory of improvement for their AP Program and answer the following questions: (1) What is the AP for All Program at the school that is the site of the study attempting to do? How do different stakeholders (teachers and school leaders) describe the theory of improvement of the school’s AP for All model, and to what extent are they aligned or inconsistent? (2) How does the process of creating a theory of improvement model contribute to practitioner understanding of their AP for All Program? (3) For educational leaders, what is the value in using a driver diagram in practice to understand a program that is multiple years into implementation? The driver diagram revealed overall alignment between stakeholder groups of the AP for All Program goals as well as the primary and secondary drivers, which are the systems designed to meet the program goals. The diagram also called attention to drivers where teachers and leaders differed in their views. Engaging teachers and leaders in the driver diagram results yielded insights into how teachers and leaders viewed those differences and the ways in which they planned to use the knowledge from the study in their own practice. This study supported a school community with learning about their AP for All Program and contributed to the research on how elements of improvement science might deepen school implementation
Bringing Identity to the Forefront: The Benefits of Highlighting Identity and Diversity
Prior research overwhelmingly shows that when information about an individual’s marginalized identity is communicated inadvertently (via a name that signals gender or race, for example), that information tends to trigger prejudiced behavior. As a result, both conventional wisdom and extant research suggest that women and racial minorities should obscure or de-emphasize their minority status to reduce their likelihood of experiencing discrimination. In this work, I propose that women and racial minorities might instead benefit from strategically emphasizing their demographic identity. This approach has two potential benefits: when a person’s marginalized identity is made more salient, (1) the potential for discrimination on the basis of that identity is also more salient, so decision-makers may be more likely to avoid prejudiced behavior and (2) it highlights an opportunity to support marginalized people, which may appeal to those who want to engage in pro-diversity behaviors. I also investigate whether and why marginalized people strategically choose teams to emphasize their identity, and how organizations might leverage these insights to motivate pro-diversity behavior in their employees. In Chapter 1, I share evidence from two audit experiments—one with politicians and another with students—as well as an online experiment showing that women and racial minorities benefit from explicitly mentioning their demographic identity in requests for help (e.g., by including statements like “As a Black woman...”). Politicians and students responded 24.4% and 79.6% more often, respectively, when help-seeking emails included an explicit mention of the sender’s marginalized identity. In Chapter 2, I find that when women and racial minorities expect to compete for a job or promotion, they’re more willing to be tokens because they think standing out based on their demographic identity will be strategically beneficial, suggesting that they intuit the benefits of highlighting identity that I establish in Chapter 1. In Chapter 3, I build on these insights in an audit experiment exploring how feedback about either discriminatory or pro-diversity behaviors in one’s professional ingroup influences subsequent prejudice. Returning to the population of city councilors in Study 1, I first deliver PSAs with negative feedback (evidence that city councilors discriminate against Black constituents) or positive feedback (evidence that city councilors support Black constituents who emphasize their identity) then measure subsequent response rates to Black vs. White male help-seekers. Receiving negative feedback does not influence responsiveness to Black men relative to receiving no feedback, but positive feedback induces a regression-estimated 36.3% increase in city councilors’ response rates to Black men. Positive feedback seems to create new descriptive norms for pro-diversity behavior that councilors are motivated to maintain. Together, my dissertation illuminates the previously unexplored benefits of strategically highlighting marginalized identity, diversity, and bias, suggesting that women and racial minorities don’t always need to obscure or hide their identity to succeed
Storying the Gap: Critical and Emergent Literacies in Women Leading Large, K-12 Independent Schools
Gender disparity at the leadership level of large (defined by the National Association of Independent Schools as \u3e700 students) K-12 independent schools is a critical and persistent issue in the ongoing effort to foster equity and justice in historically white and male-led independent schools in the United States. Since 2009, the number of women leading all independent schools has increased from 31% to 41% in 2021 (Rowe, 2021). While a greater number of women lead independent schools today than in years past, they remain significantly underrepresented as heads (22%) of large (\u3e700) independent schools (NAIS DASL, Heads Gender, 2020). Previous studies on women and independent school leadership have sought to explain the gender gap through research on pipeline, preparedness, women’s self-perceptions, mentorship, and sponsorship, but have not focused on large, K-12 independent schools, where women heads are a significant minority, or on the leadership skills, called literacies in this study, within that group. Using mixed-methods research including a quantitative survey of 30 of the 45 women leading large, K-12 independent schools in 2020, qualitative follow-up interviews, and analysis of exemplary digital “leader communications” from 2020-2021, this research study identifies some of the critical and emergent literacies that women leaders possess and perform as leaders. Areas for future research include the development of a theory of leadership praxis for women who lead historically male-led independent schools, an expanded typology of leadership literacies for all aspiring independent school heads, and deeper investigation of systemic biases that result in ongoing leadership gaps and inequities in large, K-12 independent schools
Collation Model for Ms. Codex 1048: Comptes Adrien de le Borve
Accounts received from the provinces of Viane and Morbecque in Flanders. Written in Flanders, 1484-1485 (f. 2r).https://repository.upenn.edu/sims_models/1104/thumbnail.jp
Scrutinizing Coppa: The Privacy of Our Past, Present, and Future
As the Internet has grown, children’s lives have become increasingly intertwined with online goods and services, which has raised concerns about their digital privacy and safety. This thesis scrutinizes the economic and legal implications of Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, “the Rule”), which regulates the data collection and retention policies of online services to protect the privacy and safety of children. It examines selected enforcement actions, proposed amendments, privacy policies and practices of platforms used as education technology (“EdTech”), incorporating the concerns and opinions of industry experts. In doing so, this thesis finds that COPPA has shortcomings in its methods of enforcement, compliance efforts, and the legislation itself. This thesis concludes after an evaluation of the legislation and proposals to update the Rule