515 research outputs found
Satirizing Ethics
No full textI explored three late-night satirical monologues from late-night television following the Orlando Nightclub Shooting on 12 June 2016. I examined the monologues using a social constructionist approach to understand what lessons could be drawn from the event and how a satirist references the nomos when tackling an issue in the world. Satire uses comedic tools to point out follies within society and each host used his or her platform on late-night television to address issues they believed needed to be addressed following the shooting. What I found was that each host aimed to set an agenda in their monologues by emphasizing a) certain facts and information about the event and by b) presenting the audience with a way of viewing what happened and why the issue of gun violence and hate crimes in American needs to be addressed to ensure incidents like these do not happened again
Bridge Club
No full textPhotograph - Bridge Club at Alice B. Donahue's house, Athabasca, Alberta. Left to right: Dr. Brown, Betty Falconer, Betty Lamoureaux (Goodwin), Dot Evan
Spontaneous music : the first generation British free improvisers
No full textThe British free improvisation scene originated in London and Sheffield during the
mid 1960s. In groups such as AMM, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Joseph
Holbrooke, a distinctive and ambitious musicality developed that still occupies most
of its protagonists forty years later.
Marked stylistic contrasts developed within the genre, notably the `atomistic' and
`laminar' methods of interaction. Nonetheless, a consistency of principle and practice
was also apparent that defined British free improvisation as unique. In some respects
the genre resembled its German, Dutch and American counterparts, and also the jazz
and classical avant-gardes that had inspired them. Both conceptually and practically,
however, clear differences remained.
The British free improvisers refined a method and an aesthetic of musical creativity,
which suggested an intimate perspective and a detailed analysis of that which we
accept as `music'. Its techniques and results were unconventional, but remained
consistent with music's defining concepts and experiences. As such, British free
improvisation suggested a more inclusive model of musicality than is common, and
implied a broad critique of the cultural values that define `music' at all. Though the
free improvisers themselves did not explicitly state the connection, their work may be
viewed in the context of Deconstruction: the post-structuralist analytical strategy
associated with philosopher Jacques Derrida.
British free improvisation culminated from innovations within the twentieth century
avant-garde. Referencing styles such as atonality and free jazz, it challenged the
aesthetic, technical and hierarchical standards of Western tradition in a form that was
striking and extreme, but also of logical development and focus. Free improvisation
owed explicit debt to a variety of other musics; its most singular achievement
however, was the redefinition of `rhythm' by which it disguised this fact.
The music of the first generation British free improvisers is reliant upon precise
conceptual and practical execution. But though this has enabled the genre to be
musically innovative, in the long term it has also become a logical problem. With
British free improvisation as its subject, the scrutiny of Deconstruction reveals
significant discrepancies between what `free improvisation' implies and what it
actually represents
The Role of Foxo3 in B Cell Tolerance
No full textThe 55th Annual Medical Student Research Forum at UT Southwestern Medical Center (Monday, January 17, 2017, 2-5 p.m., D1.600)Each year the Medical Student Research Program awards students for the best oral presentation and the best poster presentation as judged by faculty across campus. This author received an award as one of the best poster presentations at this forum.B cells secrete antibodies in order to help defend the body against pathogens. Due to the enormous diversity of B cell receptors required to recognize pathogens, some self-reactive receptors are generated. It is important for the immune system to prevent autoimmune cells from attacking one's self. This can be done at the immature B cell stage through receptor editing, deletion of the B cell, or anergy (inactivation) of the B cell. During editing, the receptor recombines its components in order to generate a new receptor, which is tested for auto-reactivity. If the receptor is strongly auto-reactive after editing, the cell dies by apoptosis. Foxo3 is a transcription factor that participates in pro-apoptotic pathways in several cell types. Previous work in our lab showed that apoptosis is reduced in immature B cells from Foxo3-/- mice, and others have observed decreased levels of Foxo3 in B cells from mouse models of lupus (an autoimmune disease in which B cells produce antibodies reactive against the body's own DNA). It is hypothesized that edited cells that remain auto-reactive may survive inappropriately in the absence of Foxo3. B cells that have undergone receptor editing are more likely to express the Igλ light chain and to have undergone a process called "RS recombination." Foxo3-/- mice were found by flow cytometry to exhibit increased Igλ+ B cells in the immature B cells of the bone marrow, as well as in the transitional B cells of the spleen. PCR demonstrated increased RS recombination in Igλ+ B cells from Foxo3-/- mice compared to wild-type mice. Anti-double-stranded DNA ELISAs were run on supernatants from total B cells stimulated by LPS to secrete antibodies. These showed no difference in auto-reactivity between wild-type mice and Foxo3-/- mice. Thus, there appears to be an increase in receptor editing in the knockout mice, but not an overall increase in the auto-reactivity of the total population of B cells. This suggests that the reduced apoptosis of Foxo3-/- immature B cells allows cells that were originally auto-reactive a longer window of time in which to edit their receptors away from auto-reactivity.Southwestern Medical Foundatio
The costs and benefits of Slovenian independence
No full textOne year is not enough time to draw conclusions about independent Slovenia's prospects, and it may not be easy for other countries to copy Slovenia's model. Slovenia is ethnically homogeneous, culturally and historically compatible with the West, and near (and somewhat protected from)friendly Western neighbors. And despite sharp political divisions, it has shown a political will to fight counterproductive redistribution. Still, Slovenia's experience may offer insights for other new post-Communist economies. Despite the obvious short-run costs of the brutal breakup of Yogoslavia's federal structure, Slovenia's medium- and long-run economic prospects are fairly good. Declining trade with the rest of Yugoslavia dims Slovenia's short-run prospects. But in the long run it may benefit from greater macroeconomic stability, freedom from subsidizing less-developed regions of Yugoslavia, and speedier integration with Western Europe. What has happened to Slovenia does not prove that separation necessarily improves welfare. In fact, had forces amenable to rational debate and compromise prevailed in Yogoslavia, Slovenia's secession might have decreased welfare. Slovenia's experience suggests that secession from a larger entity that is wrecked by political instability may produce economic benefits. Local autonomy gives Slovenia a chance to introduce a new currency and achieve macroeconomic stability, for example. This can work only if the local political constellation is not controlled by coalitions bent on preserving the old system of redistribution and is not hampered by major political divisions that paralyze decisionmaking. In short, secession can be beneficial if the new state is more homogeneous and functions more coherently than the old state. Not all newly independent states would face the costs Slovenia has faced. In the Czech-Slovak breakup, for example, political risk and refugee costs (or rather, the costs of migration) were much smaller than in Slovenia. Indeed, the Czech republic may also expect short-term costs but long-term gains.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Stabilization,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,National Governance
Rent - seeking trade policy : a time series approach
No full textUsing a time-series approach, the author analyzes the relationship between the extent of rent-seeking trade policy and both political and economic variables. For rent-seeking trade policy, the indicator he uses is the number of foreign-trade regulations passed each year for the benefit of a single firm or industry. The author uses data from Uruguay for 1925-83. Uruguay, which experienced an impressive economic decline, is an outstanding example of a rent-seeking society. After being a wealthy economy in midcentury, it suffered almost complete stagnation, which led to social and policital disintegration by the end of the 1960s. Three decades of restrictive regulations on foreign trade had created a nearly closed economy by the end of the 1960s. It was worth analyzing whether policymakers'great receptiveness to demands for protection could account for Uruguay's decline. Over the period 1925-83, the author finds almost 4,000 laws, decrees, and administrative resolutions that create, maintain, or modify a foreign-trade regulation for the benefit of a single firm or industry. About half of them explicitly identify the petitioner - usually a firm or guild. Since the size of the Uruguayan economy changed over the period studied, the author scales the annual number of regulations by output or exports to measure the extent of rent-seeking trade policy. The author shows that the extent of rent-seeking trade policy increased with discretionary policies and under dictatorship. (In the period studied, there were two stages of democracy - until 1932 and from 1943-72 - and two stages of dictatorship.) He also shows that rent-seeking trade restrictions increased under import-substitution strategies and, more unexpectedly, under active export promotion. This suggests that discretionary power leads to wasteful distribution, whether it is used to support inward- or outward-oriented policies. Finally, the author analyzes the correlation between innovations in the trade policy indicator and innovations in the growth rates of output and exports, with a lag of up to 20 years. Surprisingly, he finds a positive correlation with output growth rates after two or three years. But the correlation becomes negative some years later, particularly in the case of exports. The short-run positive impact on growth rates, together with the surprisingly long time lag before the negative impact, may account for policymakers'receptiveness to demands for protection.Trade Policy,Achieving Shared Growth,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies
SPACE-MAKING ROBOTS AS “AGENTS” – A DESIGN PARADIGM BASED ON HUMAN-AGENT INTERACTION
No full text191 pagesThis dissertation explores the topic of designing space-making robots, which are robotic envelopes and volumes (robotic walls, ceilings, floors, partitions, building skins, vehicle interiors, etc.) that define and reconfigure architectural spaces. Space-making robots are essential parts of smart built environment (SBE), architectural robotics, and smart city. They create, define, and reconfigure the architectural spaces we live in. Informed by HAI (Human Agent Interaction) and HRI (Human Robot Interaction) literature, the author argues that people have the tendency to perceive adaptive and interactive space-making robots as agents, so that they can be designed as our companions, partners, friends, etc. Consequently, the human-robot interactions of space-making robots can be designed as human-agent interactions. This design approach is proposed in this dissertation as the “HAI-based design paradigm for space-making robots,” which is validated through both theoretical lens and empirical studies. Based on this design paradigm, the author then proposes a patterned-based, design framework for collaborative environments as an exemplary application of this design paradigm, which is then validated qualitatively through a design exemplar of a partner-like, collaborative space-making robot. Since “space-making robots” are becoming more and more prevalent in our lives especially in confined spaces, the proposed design paradigm and framework can be widely applied to the design of SBE, architectural robotics, and smart cities
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Disciplining conservation : Paul N. Banks and the moorings of library and archives conservation education
No full textThis dissertation is a cultural history of the educational trajectory of the field of library and archives conservation. The continued evolution of the field and, concomitantly, the care of the billions of cultural records held in the vast network of libraries and archives in the United States, depend on a critical reappraisal of its history and disciplinary nature. The first objective of this study is to understand how library and archives conservation became an area of advanced graduate study in the academy. Hence this dissertation maps the period from the 1950s, when a nascent field of library and archives conservation emerged from the stirrings of a “craft” activity, through the 1980s, when it became embedded in a school of library service. Drawing heavily on archival records, woven together with primary and secondary sources from a range of disciplinary perspectives, I analyze and untangle the historical, social, political, and cultural forces that, oftentimes concurrently, worked for and against the professionalization and academic rooting of the field.
In 2009, the library and information science (LIS) discipline effectively expunged conservation from its intellectual domain; within the year library and archives conservation became integrated into the nation’s three art conservation education programs. The second component of this study interrogates this disciplinary disruption. What factors and forces moored the field in LIS for more than twenty-five years? This dissertation points to the misalignment of conservation within the LIS discipline due to distinct epistemological and cultural differences between conservation education and practice and the LIS/school of information field’s steadily increasing focus over the past three decades on computed information. I suggest that for the twenty-five years conservation studies was part of LIS, it was an intellectual and cultural appendage. Significant federal funding rather than disciplinary fit provided the primary fuel that kept conservation in the LIS domain. To an extent, this disciplinary misfit restricted library and archives conservation in terms of its full intellectual development as a cultural conservation specialization.American Studie
Geography at Ottoman State and Tuffat al-Zaman va Haridot al-Avan of Mustafa b. Ali
No full textTuhfetü’z Zaman ve Haridet’ül Evan 16 yy. da Osmanlı Devleti’nde Selimiye Camii muvakkiti Mustafa b. Ali tarafından kaleme alınan coğrafya ve astronomiye dair çeşitli bilgiler barındıran hacimli bir eserdir. Eser yazılırken tıpkı 14-15 yy yazılan Osmanlıda diğer müelliflerin coğrafya eserlerinde olduğu gibi Orta Çağ’da yazılan İbni-i Esir’in Tuhfetü’l Acayib’i, Kazvini’nin Nuzhet’ül Kulub gibi eserlerinin etkisi altında kalındığı görülmektedir. Bunun yanında müellifin muvakkit olması sebebiyle üçüncü bölümde anlatılan yedi iklimdeki şehirlerin Ekvator’a, Mekke’ye ve Kostantiniyye’ye olan uzaklıkları tek tek hesaplanmış ayrıca bu şehirlerin namaz vakitleri hakkında da gerekli hesaplamalar müellif tarafından yapılarak izah edilmiştir. Esere bir bütün halinde baktığımızda yazıldığı dönemde dünyanın şekli hakkındaki düşünceler, gökyüzündeki yıldız ve gezegen gözlemleri, rüzgarlar, okyanuslar, denizler, ırmaklar, nehirler, kuyular, dağlar, adalar ve nihayet yedi iklim içindeki kadim şehirler hakkındaki bilgiler, bugünkü coğrafi ve tarihi bilgilerimizle büyük oranda örtüşmektedir.Tuhfetü’z Zaman and Haridet’ül Evan written by Mustafa b. Ali who was the chief person determining the time for Ezan in the 16. Century of Ottoman Empire, is a voluminous work that contains various information about geography and astronmy. İt is obvious that this piece of work has been greatly influenced by the other Works of geography like Tuhfetü’l Acayib by İbn-i Esir and Nuzhetü’l Kulub by Kazvini as it was the case with the other Works of geography written in the Middle Ages. Additionally, due to the fact that the author was also the chief person determining the accurate time for Ezan, the distances of the cities in seven climates mentioned in the third chapter to the Ecuador, Mecca and Constantine were calculated individwally as well as the prayer times of those cities. When we examine the work as a whole, thoughts about the shape of the world, observations of stars and planets in the sky, winds, oceans, seas, rivers, rivers, wells, mountains, islands, and finally the ancient cities in seven climates, coincide with our geographic knowledge and historical information to a great extent.
Complex, non-native heteronuclear metal centers designed in cytochrome c peroxidase: Expanding the limits of biosynthetic modeling
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Previous issue date: 2018-12-04Multielectron redox reactions often require enzymes with active sites that contain one or more metal centers, called metalloenzymes. Metalloenzymes may contain single metal ions, such as iron or copper, bound to the protein directly or through an organic ligand that chelates the metal, such as porphyrins (heme). Transition metals are especially useful catalytic centers because they can access multiple oxidation states with redox potentials that are tuned by the organic ligand or protein environment to facilitate coupled electron and proton movement. Metalloenzymes that accomplish some of the most challenging natural chemical reactions, such as the reduction of oxygen to water or of sulfite to hydrogen sulfide in a continuous process, require more than one metal ion as a combination of different elements or as two or more unique cofactors that contain the same metallic element; such enzymes are said to possess heteronuclear metal centers.
In order to understand metalloenzymes and to translate that information into catalysts for biotechnological applications, scientists and engineers have designed artificial metalloenzymes as both structural and functional mimics of native enzymes. However, it is challenging to design artificial enzymes with heteronuclear centers because they tend to be structurally and functionally complex. Decades of research has cemented the understanding that biomimicry of the primary coordination shell around active metal ions is rarely sufficient to reproduce the fine control and stability of natural enzyme metal centers; secondary effects induced by the protein environment are required. A complementary approach to synthetic biomimicry and top-down mutation of native enzymes is biosynthetic modeling. By beginning with stable, natural enzymes that are small, but which share some crucial features with more complex metalloenzymes of interest, there has been significant success in building protein-derived interactions that are necessary and sufficient to engineer the activity and stability of natural enzyme catalysts.
A prime example of heteronuclear metalloenzymes is sulfite reductase (SiR), which is an essential enzyme in sulfur assimilation and energy production pathways in bacteria and plants that reduces sulfite (SO32-) to hydrogen sulfide (HS-) at a single heteronuclear metal active center. SiR active sites comprise either a heme cofactor (siroheme) covalently linked to an iron-sulfur cluster ([4Fe-4S]) through a shared Cys ligand or a heme-copper center with linearly coordinated Cu(I) situated ~4 Å above the heme Fe. Both cofactors are biologically unique, reserved only for the six-electron process of sulfite reduction (and closely related nitrite reduction). Despite decades of research into the nature of the siroheme-[4Fe-4S] cofactor, it remains largely a mystery why such a complex cofactor is necessary for sulfite reduction and precisely how its structure and composition are related to efficient catalysis. In this dissertation, I describe the creation of a new structural and functional biosynthetic model of SiR by creating a designed heteronuclear heme-[4Fe-4S] cofactor in cytochrome c peroxidase (CcP). The model (SiRCcP) exhibits spectroscopic and ligand-binding properties of the native enzyme, and sulfite reduction activity was improved—through rational tuning of the secondary sphere interactions around the [4Fe-4S] and the substrate-binding sites—to be close to that of a native enzyme. SiRCcP represents the most complex synthetic metalloenzyme to-date, and the design process provides new insight into the boundaries of biosynthetic engineering.
I also describe the design and characterization of a heme-Cu SiR biosynthetic model in the same CcP scaffold (CuICcP) for direct comparison of the mechanisms and structures of these two evolutionarily distinct enzymes. The structure and metal-binding properties of CuICcP are described, as is a relationship to the catalytic properties of heme-copper oxidase, which shares key active site structures with heme-Cu SiR. Additionally, I will describe the creation of the first binuclear Cu binding site with purple copper center properties in a natural protein that is not based on the cupredoxin fold. Together, these studies are explorations into the plasticity of enzyme active sites and their ability to meet design goals that diverge substantially from native structures and represent an expansion of the limits of biomimicry through protein engineering.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2020-12-01The student, Evan Mirts, accepted the attached license on 2018-12-03 at 14:59.The student, Evan Mirts, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2018-12-03 at 15:24.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2018-12-04 at 16:12.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13179 on 2019-02-07 at 14:18:48Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 109853
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