46 research outputs found
Ann Fessler
No full textInstallation artist, filmmaker, and author Ann Fessler has spent four decades using her platform as an artist to bring hidden histories and stories to light. She turned to the subject of adoption in 1989 and has produced three documentary films, numerous audio and video installations, and written an award-winning book, The Girls Who Went Away, based on 100 interviews with women who lost children to adoption in the 1950s–early 70s. Fessler has been the recipient of a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard and grants from the NEA, the RI and Maryland State Arts Councils, LEF Foundation, RI Foundation, and RISCA. Her work is in the collection of major museums including the Whitney and MoMA in NY. Fessler, who received her MA in Media from Webster University and MFA in photography from the University of Arizona, is a professor at Rhode Island School of Design where she has taught since 1993.
networksrhodeisland.orghttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/faculty_networksri_risdprofiles/1001/thumbnail.jp
Historiosophy of I. A. Fessler
No full textThe article analyzes the main aspects of the historical and philosophical concept of I. A. Fessler. His views on the position of historical science in relation to other types of knowledge and forms of spiritual culture, the problematic of historical fact and truth, the concept of reliability and plausibility, the nature of knowledge, the driving forces of the historical process, the profession of a historian, the relationship between the author and the reader are considered. The religious character of Fessler’s historiosophy and its connection with the intellectual background of European thought of the late 18th and early 19th centuries is explored
The Role of the L4 33K Gene in Adenovirus Infection
No full textAbstractThe late phase of adenovirus infection is characterized not only by the synthesis of late proteins and the assembly of new virions, but also by the inhibition of early gene expression and host cell translation. Previous work has demonstrated that both of these inhibitory effects depend upon expression from the major late transcription unit (MLTU), controlled by the major late promoter (MLP). Furthermore, the repression of early gene expression has been shown to be mediated in trans, suggesting a role for one or more MLTU-encoded soluble factor(s). A possible candidate for such a factor is the L4-encoded 33K gene product, a protein conserved throughout the Mastadenoviridae, but of no known function. To test the role of this protein in viral infection, a stop codon was placed at the 20th position of the 33K ORF. Viable virus with genomes containing the mutation were recovered in an overlap recombination assay. Phenotypic analysis revealed that the mutant virus had a significant deficiency in both kinetics of replication and final yield, as compared to the wild-type virus. Detailed analysis of infected cells showed that there was no detectable change in the regulation of expression of several early genes and the pIX gene. This suggests either that 33K is not involved in this late phase phenomenon or that this function is replaceable by another late protein(s). Late protein synthesis and accumulation were similar to those in wild-type-infected cells. However, the reduced yield of infectious mutant virus could be accounted for by a marked deficiency in the accumulation of intermediate particles and completed capsids, suggesting a role for 33K in the process of assembly. In addition there was a small but reproducible deficiency in the shutoff of host cell translation. These results show that the 33K protein plays an important, although apparently not essential, function in the late phase of virus infection
Penalized Weighted Least-Squares Image Reconstruction for Positron Emission Tomography
No full textPresents an image reconstruction method for positron-emission tomography (PET) based on a penalized, weighted least-squares (PWLS) objective. For PET measurements that are precorrected for accidental coincidences, the author argues statistically that a least-squares objective function is as appropriate, if not more so, than the popular Poisson likelihood objective. The author proposes a simple data-based method for determining the weights that accounts for attenuation and detector efficiency. A nonnegative successive over-relaxation (+SOR) algorithm converges rapidly to the global minimum of the PWLS objective. Quantitative simulation results demonstrate that the bias/variance tradeoff of the PWLS+SOR method is comparable to the maximum-likelihood expectation-maximization (ML-EM) method (but with fewer iterations), and is improved relative to the conventional filtered backprojection (FBP) method. Qualitative results suggest that the streak artifacts common to the FBP method are nearly eliminated by the PWLS+SOR method, and indicate that the proposed method for weighting the measurements is a significant factor in the improvement over FBP.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85851/1/Fessler105.pd
A minimal fragment of MUC1 mediates growth of cancer cells.
No full textThe MUC1 protein is aberrantly expressed on many solid tumor cancers. In contrast to its apical clustering on healthy epithelial cells, it is uniformly distributed over cancer cells. However, a mechanistic link between aberrant expression and cancer has remained elusive. Herein, we report that a membrane-bound MUC1 cleavage product, that we call MUC1*, is the predominant form of the protein on cultured cancer cells and on cancerous tissues. Further, we demonstrate that transfection of a minimal fragment of MUC1, MUC1*(1110), containing a mere forty-five (45) amino acids of the extracellular domain, is sufficient to confer the oncogenic activities that were previously attributed to the full-length protein. By comparison of molecular weight and function, it appears that MUC1* and MUC1*(1110) are approximately equivalent. Evidence is presented that strongly supports a mechanism whereby dimerization of the extracellular domain of MUC1* activates the MAP kinase signaling cascade and stimulates cell growth. These findings suggest methods to manipulate this growth mechanism for therapeutic interventions in cancer treatments
Implementing Service-Learning as a Pre-Service Teacher
No full textThis project explores service-learning in math at the middle school level and addresses the challenges and possibilities of pre-service teachers implementing service learning as a part of their educational preparation. The focus was a semester long experience with an 8th grade teacher in a math classroom at a middle school in Findlay, Ohio during the 2010-2011 school year. Activities included engagement in a math classroom, design, and implementation of a service-learning project, and regular reflection between the author and the teacher partner. Partners in the project included the Hancock United Way and Findlay Community Gardens. Key questions included: how can pre-service teachers effectively learn to use service-learning pedagogy, and what are the challenges of pre-service teachers partnering with and working in K-12 schools
Comments on “The Convergence of Mean Field Procedures for MRF's”
No full textThe author comments that Zhang (see ibid., vol.5, no.12, p.1662-65, 1996) attempts to establish the convergence of a mean field iteration for an Ising Markov random field (MRF) for large values of the hyperparameter value ? is not correct for the function T?(u) defined. The convergence of the mean field iteration remains an open question for large ?Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85973/1/Fessler88.pd
The Universality of Shakespeare
No full textIn this essay it is my purpose to examine and analyze the life and works of Shakespeare to find whether or not he is Universal. Of course, it will be impossible in a work of this kind to consider all the author\u27s works, but I shall look for particular passages, scenes, and characters, and from these to observe whether the alleged statement, that Shakespeare\u27s powers are all-reaching and all-pervading, is actually true
Hidden-Data Spaces for Maximum-Likelihood PET Reconstruction
No full textThe author shows that expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms based on smaller complete data spaces will typically converge faster. As an example, he compares the two maximum-likelihood (ML) image reconstruction algorithms of D. G. Politte and D. L. Snyder (1991) which are based on measurement models that account for attenuation and accidental coincidences in positron-emission tomography (PET).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86022/1/Fessler120.pd
Users Guide for PWLS-3D 1.0 Iterative 3D Reconstruction Software
No full textThis document is a users guide for the PWLS-PCG-3D 1.0 software subset of the ASPIRE software suite. This software is available from the author's web site. Work supported in part by NIH grants CA-60711 and CA-54362 and the Whitaker Foundation. 2 I. INTRODUCTION This document is a users guide for the PWLS-PCG-3D 1.0 software subset of the ASPIRE software suite. Readers should first be familiar with the ASPIRE documentation [1]. Readers should also refer to my paper on preconditioning methods for the conjugate-gradient algorithm [2]. The (quadratically) penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) approach to image reconstruction computes an estimate of the image by minimizing the following objective function: x = arg min x #(x), #(x) = 1 2 (y - Gx) # W (y -Gx) - n # (y -Gx) + 1 2 x # Rx (1) where . x is the unknown image (volume), . y is (typically a processed version of) the measured projection data, . G is the system matrix, . W is a diagonal weighting matrix with nonnegati..
