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Increasing stress tolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using lipocalin genes
Get PDFSaccharomyces cerevisiae is a microorganism that is commonly used in industries, but its productivity is significantly hindered by its inability to resist high stress levels found in industrial processes. By increasing stress tolerance in S. cerevisiae, its role in industrial processes could be maximized. The objective of this study is to determine if complementation of lipocalin genes into the wildtype and knockout strains of S. cerevisiae can increase stress tolerance against a variety of stressors. We identified the knockout yeast strains, ALD3, ALD4, PDX3, and ILV1, as being sensitive to various stressors including salinity, heat, oxidative, and osmotic stresses. Arabidopsis thaliana At-TIL (AT5G58070) and Homo sapiens OBP2B (AY358981), two identified lipocalin genes, were cloned into the yeast shuttle vector, p415 GPD, and transformed into the wildtype, BY4743, and knockout strains of yeast. Growth phenotypes of both transformants and non-transformant cells of the wild type and knockout strains were tested against heat, oxidative, and osmotic stresses, in addition to their alcohol tolerance levels. Compared to the wildtype and knockout strains, ALD4::TIL showed increased stress tolerance against heat when exposed to 50°C for 10 minutes. BY4743::TIL and ALD4::TIL showed increased stress tolerance against oxidative stress when exposed to 1mM H2O2 , but none of the transformants showed increased tolerance when exposed to 2mM H2O2. The cells showed no improvement in osmotic stress tolerance with either of the lipocalins, At-TIL or OBP2B, when exposed to 1.0M sorbitol. The ALD4::TIL and ILV1::TIL transformants showed increased stress tolerance against salinity when exposed to 0.8 M NaCl, while the OBP2B transformants seem to be irresponsive to the salinity stress
Writing fiction; a phenomenological study of the creative writing experience of fiction writers
Get PDFWhile the focus of previous psychological research on artistic creativity has been mainly cognitive, the phenomenology of creativity has been largely neglected. This research aimed to address this gap, exploring how fiction writers experience the creative writing process. Two semi-structured interviews were carried out with published fiction writers. A thematic analysis of these interviews was conducted in order to explore how writers experience the creative writing process. The three common emergent themes that were selected for analysis were firstly, finding your voice, secondly, living between two worlds, and thirdly, facing the challenges of writing. This study generated insight into the creative writing experience of fiction writers
When the Goal is to Be Less Stressed: The Effects of Resilience and Need for Cognition on Completion of Academic and Self-Care Goals
No full textThe demands of college have come to be synonymous with stress for many students, with stress generally being related to academic success (Fraizer et al., 2019; Mirsa & Castillo, 2004). The current global pandemic and associated instructional shifts has provided an additional source of stress for students (Elasem et al., 2020; Pan, 2020). This stress can make it more challenging for students to meet academic goals (Carver & Scheier, 1990; Ferrari & Scher, 2000) and can inhibit engagement in self-care behaviors (Ingram et al., 2020). Some evidence suggests that not all students react to stress the same way, (Larson et al., 2016) and individual difference factors like resilience (Frederickson et al., 2003) and need for cognition (Fleishchhaur et al., 2010; Steinhart & Wyer, 2009) may impact this stress reaction as well as academic and self-care behaviors. The ability to successfully execute academic goals is known to lead to positive academic outcomes (Acee et al., 2012; Morisano et al., 2010), while unfulfilled goals may lead to increased stress (Martin & Tesser, 1996). Connections have been drawn in the previous literature between self-care behaviors and academic outcomes, resilience and stress (Huesman et al., 2009; Larson et al., 2016; Wunsch et al., 2017). However, self-care goal completion has to be studied in the same context as academic goal completion. In the proposed study, I will investigate undergraduate students’ completion of self-set academic and self-care goals in a naturalistic setting over a five-day period. Further, I will examine the relationship between goal completion, perceived stress, resilience, and need for cognition. This work has applied implications in secondary education institutions to establish trainings and campaigns for resilience, self-care, and stress management
Educator preparation reform: an investigation of the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (EDTPA®) as a measure of readiness to teach
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to investigate whether a relationship existed between early-career teachers’ performance on the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) as a measure for improving readiness to teach and their Level of Effectiveness (LOE) score once they begin teaching, and to investigate perceptions of early-career teachers regarding how well the edTPA prepared them to teach. The study addressed three Research Questions: Does a relationship exist between early-career teachers’ performance on the edTPA assessment and their LOE score; Is there a difference in the performance on edTPA outcomes of early-career teachers based on education level, area of certification, or grade point average (GPA); and Is there a difference in the perception of the value of edTPA in early-career teachers since completing the edTPA during their preparation program and entering the teaching workforce. This study employed a correlational non-experimental quantitative research design to explore the relationship between variables. A survey was conducted to gather the early-career teachers’ perceptions of the value of the edTPA during preparation and beginning to teach. The participants in the study consisted of 134 early-career teachers who completed their educator preparation program from the same university and were employed in the same school district. Data analysis indicated no significant association between first-year teachers’ edTPA and LOE scores and no significant interaction between education level and grade level certification on edTPA performance, nor in the interaction between grade level certification and GPA. However, GPA revealed a significant difference for 6-12 grade level certified candidates. The survey had a response rate of 52%. Survey results revealed that 94% of respondents perceived the edTPA as stressful and time consuming and not an accurate assessment of their teaching. However, 54% agreed their participation in the edTPA had better prepared them to be a more effective teacher. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research were identified based on data results and survey responses. There are many factors to consider when determining the value of the edTPA as an assessment of teacher candidates’ preparation and readiness to teach. Further investigation is warranted due to the limited scope of this study
An MPI-based 2D data redistribution library for dense arrays
Get PDFIn HPC, data redistributions (reorganizations) are used in parallel applications to improve performance and/or provide data-locality compatibility with sequences of parallel operations. Data reorganization refers to changing the logical and physical arrangement of data (such as dense arrays or matrices distributed over peer processes in a parallel program). This operation can be achieved by applying transformations such as transpositions or rotations or changing how data is mapped across the process grid P by Q, all of which are accomplished either with message passing or distributed shared memory operations. In this project, we restrict ourselves to a distributed memory model and message passing, not a shared-memory model, nor do we use distributed shared memory APIs. Our primary goal is to generate a library capable of diverse data reorganizations. We aim to develop a high-level Application Programming Interface (API) that directly works with the Message Passing Interface (MPI) to accomplish data redistributions in data-parallel applications and libraries, such as the polymath library, a library of many algorithms all of which implement parallel dense matrix multiplication algorithms with flexible data layouts. Using the reorganization mode of process grid shapes with constant total processes, we plan to observe the performance trends of the polymath dense parallel matrix-multiplication library (which is related research) based on different grid shapes, problem sizes, numbers of processes and decide whether it is more efficient to redistribute data or not to achieve the highest performance. We will test other redistributions for some of the process shapes used with the polymath library to identify how redistribution impacts performance. These tests will provide us with the information to determine if redistribution is worthwhile for non-optimal process layout (as established with the polymath system). Besides changing the shape of the data in terms of its layout on a logical process topology, we also plan to study and demonstrate data transpose algorithms in this library, another useful redistribution mechanism for dense linear algebra in distributed-memory parallel computing
The Real-Time Control of An Active Balance Board with An EMG Monitoring System For Rehabilitation
Get PDFIn this project, we developed a pneumatically driven balance board to be used in the evaluation of dynamic postural control. The development of a balance board that can deliver external perturbations will be significant in the evaluation and treatment of motor control deficits in individuals with chronic low back pain (cLBP)
The Effect of Self-Regulation on Academic Success Among College Students with Traumatic Life Events
Get PDFThe current study investigated the relationship between traumatic life events, academic performance, and self-regulation to predict why some students persevere in college. Students with more trauma were hypothesized to have lower GPAs, high self-regulators would have higher GPAs, and self-regulation would moderate the relationship between traumatic life events and GPA. There was no significant correlation between traumatic life events and GPA (N = 59). High self-regulators had marginally significant higher GPAs, but self-regulation was not found to moderate the relationship between traumatic life events and GPA. The implications of these findings advance our understanding of the critical variables that may help colleges better understand and identify reasons why some students drop out, whereas others are retained
Numerical investigation of airflow and aerosol deposition characteristics within human airways
Get PDFAerosolized drug delivery in human airways is typically used for the treatment of several pulmonary diseases. In this study, large-eddy simulation (LES) is used for the numerical investigation of the airflow and the aerosol deposition characteristics within the upper human airways. LES is performed using the Eulerian-Lagrangian framework where the airflow is modeled using the Eulerian formulation, and the aerosol evolution is tracked in a Lagrangian manner under the dilute suspension conditions using a one-way coupled approach. First, computational framework is assessed in terms of the prediction of the mean flow statistics and the aerosol deposition and comparing with the past experimental and numerical results. Afterward, the effects of inflow Reynolds number (Re) and particle size (d_p) on the deposition fraction (D_F) are examined. The study shows that the effect of Re on D_F is apparent for d_p\u3e5 μm and D_f increases with an increase in d_p
Emma Rochelle Wheeler biographical sketch
Get PDFhttps://scholar.utc.edu/racial-justice-biographies/1006/thumbnail.jp