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Promoting Environmental Education Through Digital Media: The Development of an Environmental Education App for Children.
No full textActive environmental learning opportunities for young children are on the decline. This is partially due to parental and societal concerns surrounding children’s outdoor exploration and the development of new forms of mostly electronic entertainment in which so many children engage. This decline affects the new generations not only in their ability to be stewards of our natural world but also may contribute negatively to many aspects of their physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. The review of the literature indicates a need for effective environmental education and identifies media as an applicable learning tool. This study was two-pronged. The purpose of the first phase was to identify best and worst practices in both environmental education and app development. To this end, educators, app developers, and leaders of environmental initiatives were interviewed and asked a series of open-ended questions. Results indicated the need for the creation of effective, developmentally appropriate environmental learning tools and identified concerns that current digital tools are developed without adequate consideration of the educational and developmental needs of students. The second phase of this study applied the information obtained to design a pilot environmental education app for children
Beyond Cultural Competence: Examining Mechanisms of Trust-Building Between Early Childhood Teachers and Students.
No full textThis work analyzes the mechanisms of trust development as a key aspect of relationship-building in early childhood classrooms, with a special emphasis on trust-building across boundaries of experience and identity
Algorithmic Transparency.
No full textUtilizing traditional media and processes -- notably woodcut and observational drawing -- as a point of entry into the structure, power and poetry of algorithms, Nika Korchok is reimagining anatomy in the context of the instructional format of an algorithm.Keywords: process-based work; instructional art; computer science; technology and art; algorithms; algorithmic art
Fall and Fallout: The Narrative Language of Paradise Lost.
No full textSenior honors thesis on Paradise Lost (John Milton). Advisors: Ichiro Takayoshi, Jess Keiser. Completed Fall 2017-Spring 2018, defended May 2, 2018
Role of Micropores in the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane on MoV(TeNb) Mixed Metal Oxides.
No full textOxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) routes for the catalytic transformation of abundant light alkanes to higher value chemicals have the potential to overcome the current traditional processes and, in doing so, provide significant economic advantages and mitigate environmental concerns. Despite improved energy efficiency prospects, ODH based processes are yet to be fully implemented until catalysts with desired performance goals can be developed. MoV based mixed metal oxides with M1 phase are well known to produce high ethylene (C2H4) yields during ethane (C2H6) ODH at moderate reaction temperatures. Improvements of these materials have been limited by insufficient molecular level understandings of the nature of active sites and mechanistic origins of high selectivity. This experimental work examines the role of the micropores of these M1 phase oxides in controlling activity and selectivity. These micropores have similar sizes (0.4 nm) to C2H6, which hints at a well-matched fit that permits C2H6 access to active sites within the pores while cyclohexane (C6H12) remains restricted by size (0.6 nm) to external surface sites. Measured ODH rate ratios, calculated activation enthalpies, and observed product selectivities are used to elucidate the roles of these micropores in the selective ODH of C2H6. These show that micropores stabilize desired C-H activation transition states and destabilize O-insertion reactions by steric hindrance to proximate C-O contact within the tightly confining concave pore walls. These detailed molecular level understandings provide important guidance to the development of improved selective oxidation catalysts for desired transformations that are limited by more favored but undesired reaction pathways
Anachronistic America: Nostalgia and Modernism, 1920-1950
No full textAbstract: American artists during the interwar period grappled with the radical technological, social, and economic changes of the second quarter of the twentieth century by turning to the past and allowing the anachronistic to seep into their art, by employing past visual tropes, antiquated subjects, and outmoded painting techniques. Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and John Atherton all echoed different moments of the American past to inform their modern paintings with a sense of the uncanny and the nostalgic. Hopper looked at the Victorian Era for his 1925 canvas, The Bootleggers, Wood turned to the Hudson River School for his 1935 painting, Death on Ridge Road, and Atherton was inspired by the armor collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the American Surrealist movement in the 1930s, for his wartime, Invasion paintings. The anachronistic, time that is out of joint, highlights the nostalgic tone of these three artists' work, in which the artists yearn for a pre-Depression and pre-Second World War era. The three case studies provide further understanding to the sense of the outdated found within the American figurative tradition in the early twentieth century, as these artists attempted to create art that was rooted in the America past but was, ultimately, wholly modern.Thesis (M.A.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Art and Art History.Advisor: Eric Rosenberg.Keyword: Art history
Promoting safe walking among older people: the effects of a physical and cognitive training intervention vs. physical training alone on mobility and falls among older community-dwelling men and women (the PASSWORD study): design and methods of a randomized controlled trial.
No full textBackground: Safe and stable walking is a complex process involving the interaction of neuromuscular, sensory and cognitive functions. As physical and cognitive functions deteriorate with ageing, training of both functions may have more beneficial effects on walking and falls prevention than either alone. This article describes the study design, recruitment strategies and interventions of the PASSWORD study investigating whether a combination of physical and cognitive training (PTCT) has greater effects on walking speed, dual-task cost in walking speed, fall incidence and executive functions compared to physical training (PT) alone among 70-85-year-old community-dwelling sedentary or at most moderately physically active men and women.Keywords: Aging, Executive function, Physical activity, Prevention, Sedentary.Springer Open
Screen of Glioblastoma Cancer Stem Cells with a Kinase Inhibitor Library
No full textAbstract: Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer in adults. Despite aggressive treatment modalities, median survival post diagnosis has changed little since the 1980s and remains stagnant at 12-14 months. There are a host of novel, targeted therapies being developed such as immunotherapy but up until now, none of them has been able to extend progression-free survival in any significant way. Because of this, research into the underlying mechanisms that control cell proliferation and tumor invasion is critical to the development of more targeted therapies. GBM is a prime example of the cancer stem cell theory in which a subset of tumor cells with stem-like properties is responsible for the maintenance and recurrence of tumors. These GBM stem cells (GSCs) are resistant to chemo- and radiotherapy making their eradication the largest obstacle to treatment. We obtained a commercially available kinase inhibitor (KI) library and used it to screen three of our GSC lines. After incubating the cells with KIs for 6-8 days, we performed the PrestoBlue cell viability assay to determine which compounds were growth inhibitory. Our results show that inhibition of the kinases in the RTK/Ras/PI3K signaling pathway, commonly altered in GBM, leads to significant suppression of GSC proliferation. Additionally, protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitors were among the most effective compounds in the entire library. We performed Western Blot analysis of the downstream targets of PKC in order to further understand this result. We show that inhibition of PKC suppressed phosphorylation of Ribosomal Protein S6 but had no effect on the activation of extracellular-signal related kinases (ERK1/2) or Nuclear Factor Kappa-Light-Chain-Enhancer of B Cells (NF-κB) p65.Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Pharmacology and Drug Development.Advisor: Brent Cochran.Keyword: Cellular biology
Stacking Green Infrastructure Benefits: A Spatial Multi-Criteria Approach to Green Infrastructure Planning in Seattle, Washington
No full textAbstract: Green infrastructure, defined as any greenery within urban areas, provide a myriad of benefits and services to improve the quality of life for residents. This multi-functionality makes it popular as a sustainable development tool. However, green infrastructure is mainly used or defined as low-impact development technology to mitigate stormwater runoff. Research indicates that there is a lack of inclusion of multiple green infrastructure benefits in decision-making, and a gap in the analysis of overlapping spatial needs for green infrastructure benefits. This thesis focuses on creating a spatial multi-criteria decision-analysis (S-MCDA) model to determine where green infrastructure will provide multiple ecosystem services. This model determined areas of multi-benefit priority areas for green infrastructure in the City of Seattle. Specifically, this thesis analyzed the spatial, land use and ownership properties of the following ecosystem services: stormwater runoff mitigation, air pollution mitigation, carbon sequestration, urban heat island mitigation, habitat resilience, and access to green space. Social vulnerability was also included in the analysis to investigate any existing social and environmental inequities. Through the S-MCDA analysis the results of this study indicate that the districts with the highest priority need for multiple green infrastructure benefits are: the Southeast, North Seattle, and the industrial and manufacturing areas. Spatial statistics analysis results show there is opportunity and demand for siting green infrastructure based on the need for multiple benefits.Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.Advisor: Barbara Parmenter.Committee: Sumeeta Srinivasan.Keywords: Urban planning, Sustainability, and Geographic information science and geodesy
People's Electric Power: Community Energy Solutions to Empower Democracy and Combat Climate Change
No full textAbstract: Since the inception of the electric power industry, communities have struggled with how to develop, regulate, restrict or own energy infrastructure and how to interface with the electric power industry as a whole. Today, these struggles are amplified as the world reckons with unprecedented environmental challenges and growing economic inequality. Across the United States and the world, communities have sought to advance local priorities, such as affordable rates, reliable and resilient power, or cleaner energy, through a variety of energy initiatives that assert local control over one or more sectors of the energy system. This thesis reviews a series of local interventions in the United States, primarily examining community initiatives in Massachusetts, Colorado and California, and offers a framework for comparing local "energy democracy" initiatives.Thesis (M.A.)--Tufts University, 2018.Submitted to the Dept. of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.Advisor: Penn Loh.Committee: Ann Rappaport.Keywords: Alternative energy, Urban planning, and American history