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Event Related Potential Study of Visual Selective Attention and Working Memory in Children
No full textOne current model of visual selective attention proposes two mechanisms that work together to achieve processing of important information: facilitation – which controls the processing of relevant target stimuli – and suppression – which works to filter out irrelevant distracting stimuli. While facilitation is seen in all ages, previous research indicates suppression develops later in childhood (Plebanek & Sloutsky 2017; 2019; Wong-Kee-You et al., 2019). One theory regarding the development of selective attention is that it is linked to the development of working memory – given the functional and neural overlap between the two processes (Downing, 2000; LaBar et al., 2019). This study investigated the developmental timeline of suppression using electrophysiological methods to create a quantitative physiological measure of facilitation and suppression during visual selective attention using the P1/N1 event related potential (ERP) components for 24 adults and 12 children (8-12 years-old). Our results reveal a suppression effect of the N1 component for adults, but not for children; suggesting that suppression may not develop before the age of 12. Additionally, we discovered children reach adult levels for visual working memory capacity between the ages of 10-12 years-old; and that for children only, visual working memory capacity has a significant interaction with attention ability. This indicates that working memory capacity develops earlier and may influence later development of selective attention skills – including suppression. Understanding the development of attention and working memory will provide useful information in creating effective classroom management strategies and enhancing the focus of task-related information to foster childhood learning.Neuroscience and BehaviorPsychology & Educatio
The Gap Between Technology Access and Efficient Use in Rural Communities of Less Developed Nations
No full textFilm, Media, Theater departmentThis research aims to investigate the gap between access and efficient use of communication technology in less developed rural communities, with a particular focus on rural Indian communities. Economic processes, infrastructure, behavioral and social factors influencing efficient technology adoption in low-income, low-resource, and information constrained communities are explored to identify strategies to overcome these barriers. The potential for media related technologies to uplift rural communities is analyzed, including the emergence of mobile phones as a primary form of media communication infrastructure. The research compares digitization plans and initiatives by less developed country governments to expose limited effort to enhance media exposure and media literacy within rural communities. Common factors that affect the efficient use of technology are lack of investment in local telecommunications infrastructure, lack of diffusion of devices for accessing information, improvement in literacy rates, exposure to a wider range of social norms, and willingness to learn new work and life strategies. Through qualitative data collected from a survey of residents in the Amravati district of Maharashtra, India, and case studies from other developing nations, this research shows the significant impact digitized social and information technology can have on rural communities' quality of life, poverty alleviation, enhanced self-employment, including farming, reduced unemployment for those seeking jobs, and development of other social sectors with critical media literacy. The study emphasizes the need for media literacy and related technological infrastructure to support rural communities ability to innovate and protect these communities from potential adverse impacts of social media misinformation and to encourage increased awareness of and participation in telecommunications and media-related policy-making processes. It should be a major policy goal to improve rural citizens’ participation in these policy-making processes.Film StudiesOther or Special Majo
The Impact of Sex and Aging on Heat Shock Protein Induction in a Drosophila melanogaster Model of Glial Tauopathy
No full textTauopathies are a family of neurodegenerative diseases, which include Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal lobe dementia, and progressive supranuclear palsy. This subclass of diseases is characterized by the aggregation of hyperphosphorylated tau in neurons and glia. Heat shock chaperone proteins (HSPs) are able to help maintain proteostasis by helping to monitor protein synthesis, folding, trafficking, assembly of quaternary structures, turnover, and clearance of toxic aggregates. However, these protective mechanisms are insufficient when responding to tau proteotoxicity. Further complicating the matter, many neurodegenerative diseases present sexual dimorphisms in their onset, progression, and severity. Additionally, studies have shown that certain HSPs can become overwhelmed by stress as the system ages, which in turn causes a decline in the global defense mechanism. As a result, this study seeks to uncover how glial tau aggregation, age, and sex concurrently impact the chaperone system by performing a holistic screening of HSP induction in a Drosophila melanogaster model. Our studies highlighted how each heat shock chaperone uniquely contributes to the proteostasis machinery. Responses to our experimental variables vary greatly across this protein family. Female flies seem to respond more globally to heat shock by itself or in combination with glial tau or aging stress. Male flies exhibit stronger responses to the simultaneous combination of all three stresses. Basal suppression of HSP27 and the age-dependency of HSP70 and HSP27’s upregulation in response to tau in females may indicate a predisposition towards disease, as these are crucial HSP pathways in glial cells. Further investigation into the causes of these sex-related differences is warranted to unravel the mechanisms behind the chaperone response to glial tau.Biochemistr
Investigating the Effects of Glial Subtype-Specific Tau Expression in Drosophila melanogaster
No full textTauopathies are a diverse group of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by the aggregation of a microtubule-associated protein, tau. Recent studies have revealed that a subset of tauopathies can be classified by tau aggregation primarily in glial cells. Glial cells play a significant role in regulating overall nervous system health and disease conditions through a variety of functions unique to each glial subtype. However, detailed mechanisms by which tau toxicity manifests into disease states in specific glial subtypes are yet unknown. In this study, we utilized Drosophila melanogaster and its collaborative glial network to develop a glial tauopathy model that allows for subtype-specific tau overexpression. We investigated how tau expression, specifically in astrocyte-like glia (ALG) or cortical glia (CG), affects glial viability during development and hypothesized that human tau overexpression would yield glial cell subtype-specific toxicity with a more extensive impact in ALG than in CG. Results showed that while ALG-specific tau expression led to ALG cell count increase in young female flies, CG-specific tau expression led to extensive CG cell death in both sexes. Our study demonstrates that glial cell types respond differently to tau overexpression, highlighting the importance of evaluating each cell type individually in disease conditions.Neuroscience and Behavio
The Integration of Net Zero Designs and Vernacular Vietnamese Architecture
No full textRapid urbanization and globalization have brought about cultural erosion in Vietnam as
reflected in the International Style buildings that dominate today’s skyline. On top of that,
global warming and the negative consequences of human dependence on fossil fuels have
aggravated rising sea levels and air and water pollution, which heavily affect the South of
Vietnam, particularly Ho Chi Minh City, the economic center of Vietnam.
Recently, in COP 27, Vietnam reaffirmed its commitment to net zero by 2050, as initially
declared in COP 26, making great strides and investments in the green building sectors.
However, Vietnam has no pilot net zero building projects, specifically in the residential area.
Buildings are responsible for over 30% of the city’s total energy use and associated
greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, new-built buildings are high in embodied energy
and embodied carbon. Net zero designs, which produce as much energy as they consume,
can reduce fossil fuel-reliant energy and promote the implementation of renewable energy.
Regarding materials, building methods, and passive design strategies, Vietnamese
vernacular architecture is an excellent example of low embodied energy building. Thus, the
widespread implementation of net zero designs with vernacular architecture attributes will
reduce the energy consumption of the building sector and the embodied carbon within the
projects.
My thesis focuses on the revitalization of Vietnamese traditional culture and the
incorporation of the environmental principles developed by our ancestors in combination
with modern net-zero design strategies to optimize the sustainability of building designs.
The product of my thesis is a mid-rise, mixed-use net-zero residential development located
in Thu Duc City, a municipal city under the administration of Ho Chi Minh City. Thu Duc City
is currently under development to become the city’s new financial and technological center.
This thesis is a design guide to how Vietnam can move forward with its net zero goal by 2050
and minimize the environmental impacts caused by the building sector while prioritizing the
health of Vietnamese people.Architectural Studie
The role of Aurora-A in Drosophila melanogaster fat body cell migration
No full textAfter Drosophila melanogaster undergoes metamorphosis, the fly breaks free of the pupal case in a process called eclosion. Pharate adult lethality is a phenomenon in which the developed fly fails to eclose and dies inside the pupal case. Early in metamorphosis, the larval fat body in Drosophila melanogaster undergoes tissue remodeling, going from attached sheets of cells to individual spherical cells. These remodeled cells are motile and are able to migrate and provide energy to target tissues. Incomplete fat body remodeling has been linked to pharate adult lethality, likely due to insufficient energy for eclosion. Two lines of flies, aurA14641 and aurA8839 are both pharate adult lethal and are known to have incomplete fat body remodeling, and both have different point mutations in the gene Aurora-A (aurA).
Aurora-A is a protein kinase known to be a regulator of the cytoskeleton. It has been found to promote actin-driven cell motility in other types of motile cells, by promoting activation of the actin-depolymerizing protein cofilin. I hypothesize that aurA mutations inhibited cofilin activity, resulting in alterations to the actin cytoskeleton that prevented fat body cell migration.
The fat body remodeling and actin organization of the aurA mutants was compared to a wild-type control. Both aurA lines showed incomplete fat body remodeling, and one of the lines had irregularities in the actin cytoskeleton. Crosses were generated that overexpressed and underexpressed cofilin in the fat body. These lines also both showed incomplete fat body remodeling and altered actin organization. The similarities between this cofilin knockdown and the aur-A8839 line suggest that the mutation in aurA may be affecting the cofilin activation in fat body cells. However, the cofilin knockdown line was not pharate adult lethal, which indicates that disruption of cofilin alone is not sufficient to cause the pharate adult lethality seen in the aurA mutants and instead is likely one of a number of pleiotropic effects.Biological Science
Hot Dust in Galaxies at 0.25 < z < 0.29
No full textThermal dust emission within galaxies is driven by heating from young, hot stars. Because
of this, one way to examine star formation in a galaxy is through the distribution of starlight
and hot dust light. Independent component analysis (ICA) is a method of separating each
source in a mixed signal by maximizing each signal’s negentropy. Negentropy is the opposite
of entropy, which is a measure of the disorder in a system, so the sources are separated by
maximizing their order. ICA can be used to separate starlight and hot dust light within
galaxies, and has been used previously to calculate total stellar masses and study star for-
mation in galaxies at z 0. This thesis applies this method to characterize the distribution of
starlight and dust light in galaxies at 0.25 ≤ z ≤ 0.29 and calculate their total stellar masses.
The results in this thesis show that star formation in the target galaxies is primarily
on the outermost edges of the galaxies, potentially indicating an inside-out star formation
history. Additionally, the results presented here show that star formation decreases with
increasing total stellar mass. Galaxies in this range of redshifts emitted the light observed
about 3 billion years ago, so these results provide insight into how galaxies have changed
since this era.Astronom
Dyslexic Students in China: Experiences and Sense-Making from the Perspectives of the Students and Others Around Them
No full textDyslexia is a distinctive and persistent learning disability in reading and writing despite average
intelligence and adequate education. In China, approximately 15 million students exhibit symptoms of dyslexia (Xinhua News Agency, 2016). In a society with cut-throat education competitions, China’s social awareness and institutional support for dyslexic students are sorely absent. This study examined experiences and sense-making around the dyslexic identity in China, both from the perspectives of dyslexic students and those around them. The Ecology of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) served as the theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics that surround the dyslexic students. The project design adopted Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al., 2009) through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with three groups of participants. Each group was centered on a Chinese dyslexic student and included their parent as the representative of the student’s microsystem. Through explorations of descriptive and interpretative accounts, this study revealed that the parents took on most of the responsibilities in supporting dyslexic students’ academic and personal development while other aspects of the student’s ecological system failed to provide any assistance. Moreover, the competitive environment fostered a narrow sense of success, causing stress and frustrations for the dyslexic students and their families. Finally, each dyslexic student showed a distinctive relationship with China’s education system based on their family’s socio- economic status and political opinions, demonstrating an intersectionality between dyslexic identity and other factors within the dyslexic student’s ecological system. These findings endeavored to raising awareness about this marginalized group and initiating a discourse on providing support for dyslexic students in China.Psychology & Educatio
Bianca Pitzorno's "Riding the Broom": A Translation and Critical Introduction
No full textAnglophone publishing industries in the United States and the United Kingdom lead in the global export of English literature in translation. However, their import of translated international works does not equally reflect this level of production. Thus, when translating children’s literature in unreceptive markets, translators must confront the foreignness of non-English names and other cultural references. How do these translators imagine their young audience? How does their conception of childhood affect the methods they apply in their translation? These questions underscore a complex discussion in the translation of children’s literature: should we domesticate foreign literature for the comfort of local readers?
My project includes a complete English translation of the renowned Italian author Bianca Pitzorno’s children’s novel "A cavallo della scopa" (1999). The introductory chapter that precedes my translation consists of several sections which address the author and the contents of the novel, as well as an analysis of the novel’s themes. Additionally, I reflect on how I navigated the translation process (translating rhyme, real and fictional proper names, and other cultural aspects of Pitzorno’s Italian fantasy world).Italia
Talk the Fire Out: An Experiment in Multimodal Storytelling
No full textThis thesis includes embedded videos hosted on the internet.This study demonstrates the benefits of using multiple artistic modes to tell a story. The bulk of the research I present here was occupied with studying the work of storytellers who use multiple media and deciphering the reasons for the choices they make, particularly in places where the medium shifts. I then used this information to make these same choices in my own creative work. I found that a change in medium can dramatically shift the perspective of the audience, pulling them deeper into the story. It also allows audience members who process information and communicate differently to access the story. Working in multiple media allows the storyteller to meet the audience where they are and engage them in it by moving them through different positions relative to the story and by providing a variety of ways in.Danc