5,176 research outputs found
The construction of Karen Karnak: The multi-author-function
No full textThis thesis is situated within the comparatively recent developments of Web 2.0 and the emergence of interactive WikiMedia, and explores the mode of authorship within a Read/Write culture compared to that of a Read/Only tradition. The hypothesis of this study is that the role of the audience has become merged with the author, and as such, represents new functions and attributes, distinct from a more conventional concept of authorship, in which the roles of audience and author are more separate. Read/Write and participatory culture, as defined by this study, is focused on collaboration, and includes the influences of D.I.Y. culture, Open-Source practices and the production of text by multiple authors. Multi-authorship presents a re-thinking of several concepts which support the notion of the individual author, since the focus of multi-authorship is not on attribution and ownership of a finished text, but on the continued malleability of a text. Modes of multi-authorship, demonstrated in the use of the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and Karen Eliot, represent declarative authors whose names signify multiple origins, whilst concurrently indicating a distinct body of work. The function of these names form an important context to this study, since primary research involves the construction of an experimental mode of multi-authorship utilising WikiMedia technology and the interaction of thirty nine participants, who are invited to create a body of work under the collective pseudonym Karen Karnak. The data generated by this experiment is analysed using aspects of Michel Foucault's author-function to identify and determine power structures inherent in the WikiMedia context. The interplay of power structures, including concepts such as identity, ownership and the body of work, affect the resulting mode of authorship and contribute to the construction of Karen Karnak, suggesting further areas of research into the emerging multi-author
The Magazine Women Believed in: "Marriage Advice" 1950-1955
No full textIn the United States society, the 1950s is seen as a time of great conservatism where both men and women were placed into specific gender roles that dictated much of how they lived their lives. One institution that verified these gender roles and stereotypes to be true was women's magazines. These magazines contained sections such as fashion segments, helpful cooking guidelines, advertisements, and advice columns that seemed to target middle class, white, suburban married housewives. One advice column that seemed to particularly focus on the idea of a happy housewife and married life was the column Making Marriage Work, which appeared in the magazine Ladies Home Journal during this 1950s time period. The author of this column, Clifford R. Adams, idealized the 1950s perfect housewife existence and through his advice he encouraged women to strive for this lifestyle, while there were other sources demonstrating that this perceived notion of the perfect housewife did not exist during the 1950s time period
Alexa Discussion Board Skill
No full textabstract: A common challenge faced by students is that they often have questions about course material that they cannot ask during lecture time. There are many ways for students to have these questions answered, such as office hours and online discussion boards. However, office hours may be at inconvenient times or locations, and online discussion boards are difficult to navigate and may be inactive. The purpose of this project was to create an Alexa skill that allows users to ask their Alexa-equipped device a question concerning their course material and to receive an answer retrieved from discussion board data. User questions are mapped to discussion board posts by use of the cosine similarity algorithm. In this algorithm, posts from the discussion board and the user’s question are converted into mathematical vectors, with each term in the vector corresponding to a word. The values of these terms are computed based on the word’s frequency within the vector’s corresponding document, the frequency of that word within all the documents, and the length of the document. After the question and candidate posts are converted into vectors, the algorithm determines the post most similar to the user’s question by computing the angle between the vectors. With the most similar discussion board post determined, the user receives the replies to the post, if any, as their answer. Users are able to indicate to their Alexa device whether they were satisfied by the answer, and if they were unsatisfied then they are given the opportunity to either rephrase their question or to have the question sent to a database of unanswered questions. The professor can view and answer the questions in this database on a website hosted by use of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service. The Alexa skill does well at answering questions that have already been asked in the discussion board. However, the skill depends heavily on the user’s word choice. Two questions that are semantically identical but different in phrasing are often given different answers. This is because the cosine algorithm measures similarity on the basis of word overlap, not semantic meaning, and thus the application never truly “understands” what type of answer the user desires. Improving the performance of this Alexa skill will require a more advanced question answering algorithm, but the limitations of Amazon Web Services as a development platform make implementing such an algorithm difficult. Nevertheless, this project has created the basis of a question answering Alexa skill by demonstrating a feasible way that the resources offered by Amazon can be utilized in order to build such an application
Author Correction: Hippocampal oxytocin receptors are necessary for discrimination of social stimuli
No full textThe original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Alexa H. Veenema, which was incorrectly given as Alexa Veenema. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.</jats:p
Interchromophoric Interactions Between TMR, Alexa, and BODIPY Fluorophores
No full textabstract: The fundamental photophysics of fluorescent probes must be understood when the probes are used in biological applications. The photophysics of BODIPY dyes inside polymeric micelles and rhodamine dyes covalently linked to proteins were studied. Hydrophobic boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) dyes were noncovalently encapsulated inside polymeric micelles. Absorbance and fluorescence measurements were employed to study the photophysics of these BODIPY dyes in the micellar environments. Amphiphilic polymers with a hydrophobic character and low Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC) protected BODIPYS from the aqueous environment. Moderate dye loading conditions did not result in ground-state dimerization, and only fluorescence lifetimes and brightnesses were affected. However, amphiphilic polymers with a hydrophilic character and high CMC did not protect the BODIPYS from the aqueous environment with concomitant ground-state dimerization and quenching of the fluorescence intensity, lifetime, and brightnesses even at low dye loading conditions. At the doubly-labeled interfaces of Escherichia coli (E. coli) DNA processivity β clamps, the interchromophric interactions of four rhodamine dyes were studied: tetramethylrhodamine (TMR), TMR C6, Alexa Fluor 488, and Alexa Fluor 546. Absorbance and fluorescence measurements were performed on doubly-labeled β clamps with singly-labeled β clamps and free dyes as controls. The absorbance measurements revealed that both TMR and TMR C6 readily formed H-dimers (static quenching) at the doubly-labeled interfaces of the β clamps. However, the TMR with a longer linker (TMR C6) also displayed a degree of dynamic quenching. For Alexa Fluor 546 and Alexa Fluor 488, there were no clear signs of dimerization in the absorbance scans. However, the fluorescence properties (fluorescence intensity, lifetime, and anisotropy) of the Alexa Fluor dyes significantly changed when three methodologies were employed to disrupt the doubly-labeled interfaces: 1) the addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) detergent to denature the proteins, 2) the addition of clamp loader (γ complex) to open one of the two interfaces, and 3) the use of subunit exchange to decrease the number of dyes per interface. These fluorescence measurements indicated that for the Alexa Fluor dyes, other interchromophoric interactions were present such as dynamic quenching and homo-Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (homo-FRET).Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Chemistry 201
Alexa Dyes, a Series of New Fluorescent Dyes that Yield Exceptionally Bright, Photostable Conjugates
No full text Alexa 350, Alexa 430, Alexa 488, Alexa 532, Alexa 546, Alexa 568, and Alexa 594 dyes are a new series of fluorescent dyes with emission/excitation spectra similar to those of AMCA, Lucifer Yellow, fluorescein, rhodamine 6G, tetramethylrhodamine or Cy3, lissamine rhodamine B, and Texas Red, respectively (the numbers in the Alexa names indicate the approximate excitation wavelength maximum in nm). All Alexa dyes and their conjugates are more fluorescent and more photostable than their commonly used spectral analogues listed above. In addition, Alexa dyes are insensitive to pH in the 4-10 range. We evaluated Alexa dyes compared with conventional dyes in applications using various conjugates, including those of goat anti-mouse IgG (GAM), streptavidin, wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), and concanavalin A (ConA). Conjugates of Alexa 546 are at least twofold more fluorescent than Cy3 conjugates. Proteins labeled with the Alexa 568 or Alexa 594 dyes are several-fold brighter than the same proteins labeled with lissamine rhodamine B or Texas Red dyes, respectively. Alexa dye derivatives of phalloidin stain F-actin with high specificity. Hydrazide forms of the Alexa dyes are very bright, formaldehyde-fixable polar tracers. Conjugates of the Alexa 430 (ex 430 nm/em 520 nm) and Alexa 532 (ex 530 nm/em 548 nm) fluorochromes are spectrally unique fluorescent probes, with relatively high quantum yields in their excitation and emission wavelength ranges. </jats:p
University of Chicago East Asia by the Book! Author Talk: Shakespeare and East Asia, Tuesday May 25, 2021 at 5 pm CDT / 6 pm EDT
No full textRegister at https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jyEzkIZYQZ6bKzjjr3faZg :::: The University of Chicago East Asia by the Book! Author Talks is proud to present a book launch of Alexa Alice Joubin's Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford University Press). Chair: Haun Saussy (University of Chicago). Discussant: Michael Saenger (Southwestern University). The event is co-sponsored by the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore. ::::: How did Kurosawa influence George Lucas' Star Wars? Why do critics repeatedly use the adjective Shakespearean to describe Gong Joon-ho's film Parasite (2019)? How do East Asian cinema and theater portray vocal disability and transgender figures
Physiological Responses to Exercise in Hypoxia: The Effect of Cold-Air Exposure and Sex Differences
No full textThe effects of acute hypoxic exposure on physiological responses during exercise have been extensively studied in recent decades, given the growing number of individuals engaging in high-altitude (HA) activities for both training and recreational purposes. Understanding the impact of reduced oxygen availability on the physiological mechanisms involved in exercise responses is crucial for enhancing human tolerance to HA, thereby mitigating the health risks associated with this extreme environment. However, real-world HA scenarios often involve multiple stressors, with one of the most common being extremely low ambient temperatures. Despite the prevalence of such conditions, there is a scarcity of specific studies investigating the interaction between cold and hypoxic effects on exercising responses. This is largely due to the experimental, temporal, and practical challenges associated with such approaches. Additionally, many studies exploring the effects of acute hypoxic exposure on exercise physiology have predominantly focused on male subjects. This limitation complicates the understanding of whether tailored interventions based on biological sex are necessary to ensure the safest high-altitude exposure for both men and women.
This doctoral thesis addresses these gaps by investigating the combined cold-hypoxic effects on whole-body exercise responses and examining the influence of biological sex on various aspects related to oxygen transportation within the organism at high altitudes. The research provides valuable insights into the intricate interaction between exercise and hypoxic stimuli while considering the real-world characteristics of HA exposure and its implications for all practitioners.
In particular, Study 1 explores the independent and combined effects of cold and hypoxia on maximal, submaximal, and lactate threshold responses in trained male subjects. The findings indicate that both cold and hypoxia independently impact exercising responses, with the combination of the two stressors exhibiting additive effects on the majority of considered outcomes.
Continuing from Study 1, Study 2 aims to investigate potential exacerbation effects of combined cold-hypoxic exposure on respiratory muscle fatigue (RMF) and exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB). This study seeks to elucidate the relationship between exercising ventilatory responses and the pulmonary function and respiratory muscles work at simulated freezing altitudes. Results show that both respiratory muscle fatigue and exercise-induced bronchoconstriction are negatively affected by cold exposure, with no significant additional impairments related to the hypoxic stimulus, at least after high-intensity exercise of short duration.
Finally, study 3 compares ventilatory responses, lung diffusion capacity, and cardiovascular adaptations in trained men and women during exercise in hypoxia. Similar responses to exercise during simulated high-altitude exposure have been observed in both sexes, suggesting no influence of biological sex on the variations in the functioning of the examined systems when circulating oxygen availability is reduced.
This doctoral thesis and the data presented herein want to expand our understanding of hypoxic exercise and stimulate new research on this topic, minding the gap between experimental settings and real-world situations
Engaging High Water Users in Water Conservation #1: High Water Users’ Experiences and Perceptions of Water
No full textFlorida has an abundance of water, but still faces an increased pressure on water resources because of a growing population, prosperous tourism, and an active agricultural industry. This 5-page fact sheet is the first in a series discussing how Extension can improve high water users' engagement in water conservation by focusing on high water users' characteristics, experiences with water issues, and perceptions of water. Written by Pei-wen Huang and Alexa J. Lamm, and published by the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, July 2016.
AEC593/WC255: Engaging High Water Users in Water Conservation #1: High Water Users' Experiences and Perceptions of Water (ufl.edu
Engaging High Water Users in Water Conservation #1: High Water Users’ Experiences and Perceptions of Water
No full textFlorida has an abundance of water, but still faces an increased pressure on water resources because of a growing population, prosperous tourism, and an active agricultural industry. This 5-page fact sheet is the first in a series discussing how Extension can improve high water users' engagement in water conservation by focusing on high water users' characteristics, experiences with water issues, and perceptions of water. Written by Pei-wen Huang and Alexa J. Lamm, and published by the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, July 2016.
AEC593/WC255: Engaging High Water Users in Water Conservation #1: High Water Users' Experiences and Perceptions of Water (ufl.edu
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