Bioculture Journal
Not a member yet
1309 research outputs found
Sort by
re:Engineered: Exposing the the Architectural and Environmental Possibilities of New Structural Wood Composites
No full textWhile wood is indisputably the most sustainable building material used in the Built Environment, very little of it is recycled at the end of a building’s life. Although both lumber quality and supply continue to decline annually, we persist with our view of wood only as a disposable commodity that is more easily replaced than recycled. This thesis rethinks the ways we create, use, and ultimately dispose of wood and Engineered Wood Products (EWPs) and highlights the many inherent advantages - both existing and potential - that future Engineered Wood Products might offer in an architectural context. The use of recycled waste wood fiber in EWP’s could eliminate the most energy intensive portions of the production process. The development of recycled supply streams would relieve pressure on our forests, allowing them to better fulfill their carbon sequestering potential. As engineered wood products are refined through more frequent and varied application, their identity as wood elements evolves as well. In addition to addressing the environmental possibilities of engineered wood products, this thesis aims to investigate the potential implication of this evolution on the aesthetic and tactile possibilities and the perceptions of engineered wood composites
Collect, Blend, Disperse: A Hybrid Strategy for the Othello Neighborhood
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012This project aims at the idea of making unemployed minority youth and low-income families in the ethnically diverse Othello neighborhood to become self-sufficient and to become contributing members in their communities by providing shelter and practical training education (culinary school of arts). The site wants to be a catalyst in Othello to bring its community together by sharing resources, and connecting with each other
The Synthetic Biology Open Language a data exchange standard for biological engineering
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012Synthetic biology is the emerging research and engineering field concerned with the design and construction of new biological functions and systems. Synthetic biologists are engineering organisms to solve outstanding problems in medicine, bio-energy, environmental health, and nutrition. Their goal is to improve the biological engineering process by applying standardization, decoupling, and abstraction. To more efficiently engineer gene circuits synthetic biologists need software tools that support standardized data exchange. For my dissertation research I led the development and deployment of the Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL). In this dissertation, I present the SBOL community, the specification, and demonstrations of its use. The SBOL community is supported by stakeholders from the synthetic biology software community. The SBOL Core specifies the vocabulary, data model, and format to define the standard. I describe SBOL Core as a common representation for synthetic biology designs capable of describing theoretical DNA component designs; annotated DNA sequence; and collections of components. To aid the exchange synthetic biological designs among software tools I explain the software libraries which support the implementation of SBOL. Then, I illustrate the recognition of its value and acceptance by the stakeholders through the deployment of the technology at collaborating sites. Finally, I show how the choice of Semantic Web technology to facilitate the information exchange between software can also be used for information retrieval to improve the selection of DNA components in new designs. Through this work I contribute to the development of informatics standards a computational infrastructure to enable a rapid biological engineering process for biotechnology
Virus-driven evolution of an antiviral gene in deep and shallow time
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012The emergence of AIDS in the early 20th century has provoked studies to better understand the evolutionary history of viruses and the factors that govern their spread. Pandemic Human Immunodeficiency Virus-type 1 (HIV-1), which currently infects 34 million people worldwide, emerged following the transmission of a lentivirus between chimpanzees and humans. A growing list of apparently nonpathogenic, species-specific simian strains (known as Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) has now been characterized in dozens of African primates, suggesting that primate lentiviruses are older and more widespread than originally thought. To estimate the extent to which primates and lentiviruses have coexisted, and to determine whether past and present lentivirus infections exhibit pathogenesis, we tracked the interaction between host and virus on a molecular level over evolutionary time. Specifically, we characterized the lentivirus-driven evolution of host restriction factor APOBEC3G (A3G) in Old World Monkey (OWM) species. We found that residues 128 and 130 of A3G, which determine susceptibility to antagonism by the lentiviral accessory protein Vif, are undergoing recurrent adaptive evolution in both ancestral and contemporary primate populations. We used a broad panel of SIV Vif isolates to demonstrate that natural variation in OWM A3G confers resistance to Vif-mediated degradation, suggesting that adaptive variants of the host factor were selected upon exposure to pathogenic lentiviruses at least 5-6 million years ago (MYA). Furthermore, in members of the divergent Colobinae subfamily of OWM, a multi-residue insertion event in A3G that arose approximately 12 MYA blocks the activity of Vif, suggesting an even more ancient origin of SIV. In response to these two adaptive strategies employed by OWM hosts, Vif proteins have counter-evolved to target distinct surfaces of the A3G substrate. Furthermore, some Vif proteins, like that of SIVsm infecting sooty mangabeys, have evolved broad specificity that may facilitate cross-species transmission events. Our findings support that a genetic conflict between primates and lentiviruses has been underway for millions of years and continues to this day. The ancient and ongoing conflict we described may have important implications for our understanding of HIV pathogenesis and spread in human populations. Our studies reveal that, while primate lentiviruses may have modern consequences for human health, they have ancient origins in our non-human primate relatives
Ordination Ceremony at B. Māē Tōp Nua (Karen village) - on Čao Khana Amphoe's tape recorder, but original tape
No full textTyped index and transcript of tape recording of Ordination Ceremony at B. Māē Tōp Nua (Karen village) - on Čao Khana Amphoe's tape recorder, but original tape.Typed index and transcript of tape recording of Ordination Ceremony at B. Māē Tōp Nua (Karen village) - on Čao Khana Amphoe's tape recorder, but original tape
The Value of Social Media for Patients: Social Supports, Networking, and Learning in Online Healthcare Communities
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012Social media are changing the way we learn about health and illness. Yet, there is limited information about whether online healthcare communities have a significant effect on patients' health conditions, as they do in healthcare communities in the offline world. To better understand what value social media bring to patients, research is needed to investigate this expanding phenomenon--patients joining OHCs and helping each other. In this dissertation, I conduct three studies to examine this increasingly important circumstance. In the first study I proposed a nonhomogeneous Partially Observed Markov Decision Process model to examine patients' health outcome dynamics related to their online activities. The Internet provides easier and greater access to health- and medical-related information than ever before. OHCs enhance this access by providing user-generated content about firsthand experiences and various social supports that patients need. The results indicate that patients receive benefits from learning from others, and participation in the online community helps patients improve their health conditions and better engage in the disease self-management process. Whereas the public accessibility of OHCs offers great promise for patients, it also carries the risk of information overload. In the second study, I propose a model that incorporates widely examined homophily features in offline social networking studies with endogenous online network measurements to examine network dynamics. I found that individuals' preference for communicating in the online social networking environment could be explained by network characteristics and their positions in the network. Although the Internet provides the opportunity for patients to access "more people like me" in a very fast and highly convenient way, it remains unknown how effective these online social interactions are in improving patients' health conditions. In the third study, I investigate how patients use information gleaned from others' shared experiences in the online healthcare communities. The results provide evidence for the existence of social contagion in OHCs, particularly in the areas of health information seeking and knowledge creation. In sum, these investigations provide evidence of the prominent role that social media are assuming in healthcare and raise important and promising questions for future research in this field
Core complex exhumation in peri-Adriatic extension, and kinematics of Neogene slip along the Saddle Mountains thrust
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012Abstract The geometry and kinematics of map scale faults are the record of tectonic mountain building processes. This study focuses upon three distinct faults in three distinct orogens, the Alpi Apuane detachment in the Northern Apennines, the Mid-Bosnian Schist detachment in the internal Dinarides, and Saddle Mountains fault in eastern Washington. Mountain building in the Central Mediterranean is controlled by convergence between the African and Eurasian continental plates, yet local kinematics and structural trends owe their genesis to a complicated interplay between discrete and often poorly defined continental and Oceanic fragments. The Peri-Adriatic sub-region of the Central Mediterranean is dominated by the Adria continental micro-plate; interaction between Adria and neighboring plates has given rise to the Eastern Alps, Apennines, Dinarides and Albanides. Of particular interest is a contrast in the role of extension along the convergent margins of the Adria plate. Along the western margin of Adria, subduction of Adria lithosphere beneath the Apennines has maintained syn-convergence extension from at least middle Miocene to the present; this process is manifested as a sustained cycle of burial, metamorphism, and subsequent exhumation along normal faults of Adria crust, and overlying fore-deep sediments. In the Dinarides, along the eastern margin of Adria, Jurassic-Eocene subduction of the distal oceanic portion of the Adria plate beneath Eurasia was concluded by collision and a change in subduction dynamics as the thick continental Adria lithosphere entered the subduction zone. In the first two chapters of this study I use field, microstructural, and thermochronometric techniques to determine the nature of shear zone tectonites and the thermal conditions during normal faulting in the Apennines, and the polarity and timing of slip along a detachment that cut to at least the middle crust in the internal Dinarides. The third chapter of this study focuses upon elucidating the kinematics of fault slip using sub-surface seismic data within the Yakima fold-and-thrust belt in eastern Washington. In areas of active shortening, assessment of seismic hazards is difficult without a-priori knowledge of fault geometry. I determined geometric aspects of the Saddle Mountains anticline from a seismic reflection profile, and using kinematic forward modeling techniques, inverted for kinematically viable end member fault geometries representative of extant geometric models currently in use for seismic hazard assessment
Emotion Regulation in Adults with a History of Childhood Abuse Following PTSD Treatment
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012Objective: The findings that adults with a history of childhood abuse (CA) have greater emotion regulation difficulties than adult trauma survivors without a history of CA (e.g., Cloitre, Scarvalone, & Difede, 1997) has led to the hypothesis that existing PTSD treatments may not be adequate for improving the emotion regulation deficits of adults with a history of CA (Cloitre et al., 2010). This study compared changes in emotion regulation over the course of PTSD treatment with either prolonged exposure (PE) therapy or sertraline in adults with and without a history of CA. Method: Two hundred adults with PTSD received 10 weeks of either PE or sertraline. Emotion regulation and trait affect were assessed pre- and post-treatment with the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003), the Negative Mood Regulation Scale (Catanzaro & Mearns, 1990), and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Results: Individuals with a history of CA did not differ from individuals without a history of CA at pre-treatment on PTSD severity, emotion regulation, or positive/negative affect. In addition, treatment was effective at improving emotion regulation and trait affect in those with and without a history of CA, and no significant differences in emotion regulation or trait affect emerged at post-treatment between adults with and without a history of CA. Furthermore, non-inferiority analyses indicated that the emotion regulation and trait affect outcomes of those with a history of CA were not inferior to the emotion regulation and trait affect outcomes of those without a history of CA. Conclusion: Contrary to clinical lore regarding clients presenting for PTSD treatment, the current findings suggest that those with a history of CA do not differ from those without a history of CA in terms of emotion regulation and trait affect. Further, these findings cast doubt on the assumption that CA predicts worse emotion regulation outcomes following PTSD treatment
La carne en la poesía de Manuel Ramos Otero: o cómo el cuerpo discurre en sublevación cultural
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012De cómo el poeta puertorriqueño Manuel Ramos Otero utiliza la imagen del cuerpo y sus estados como representación de sus luchas, creencias y causas
The Perceptual-Cognitive Body and the Consumption of Material Space: A Critical Proposal for the Danish Pavilion
No full textThesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012Architecture is inhabited by bodies. Yet, it is not always a concern for architects to study body-space dynamics as an integral part of the design process. This experimental and theoretically driven project seeks to explore the ways in which the body informs a work of design. More specifically, it suggests that architectural design could make use of the body's sensory faculties - in particular, body memory and proprioception - as a tool to promote an individual's awareness of the built environment and facilitate the development of rich social spaces. There are two segments to this design research project. The first is an analysis of literatures and architectural examples that address the body's relevance in design. The second is an application of the concepts examined to the design of the Danish Pavilion for the World Expo in Milan, Italy. A key objective is to reorient the processes of conceptualization and synthesis toward the sentient body, which links the human subject to the architectural object