In a unique partnership with the Indian NGO, the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), based in Orakhan, Nainital District, Uttarkhand, twenty students studied development and gender, and worked on an internship. As students who participated in the Environment and Development in the Indian Himalayan study abroad program, we found our internships, consequent research and findings important to share with a greater audience. Our specific research areas covered two topics: agriculture and health. The internship involving agriculture examined the-three year-old National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS). CHIRAG wanted to evaluate NAIS in order to prioritize the production risks of potatoes and apples as perceived by farmers due to their long-term goal of potentially providing an alternative scheme. The goal of the project was to collect data in order for CHIRAG to have a foundation to build upon. There is interest, in providing a robust and well-rounded project that protects farmers, but still profitable for insurance companies. The internship involving health looked at dais (midwives) and frequency of safe deliveries that occurred within the past year. The interview resulted in 32 questions in order to evaluate the safety of deliveries in the hills. The key questions under investigation were: according to you, how can you have a safe delivery? Why did you choose the location you did? By whom was your delivery performed? How long was your delivery? During the delivery, was a vaginal examination given? Much like the agriculture project, the goal of the study was to provide data for CHIRAG that it could utilize to determine what areas/villages need to be focused on in an effort to reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity by providing trained dais.

Using PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and soft lithography processes to form micropost arrays yields a highly effective method for measuring the contractile forces of cells. Despite the success of soft lithography to replicate the microscale post structures, there is an apparent flaw in the fabrication process. Nanoscale surface cracks are visible on the PDMS after the micropost arrays are removed from the replicating negative mold, which is made of silanized PDMS. These cracks undermine the cell force measurements of micropost arrays by creating irregular post alignments and bending tendencies. My research has focused on identifying the cause of these surface cracks and on testing alternative mold materials to replace silanized PDMS as the negative mold material. It was found that surface cracks could be eliminated by removing the strains induced by thermal expansion. However, this approach is cumbersome because a constant 65ºC needs to be maintained during the casting and handling process. Currently, I am screening new polymer materials, e.g. fluoroelastomers and fluorinated silicones, to identify if they are compatible with the soft lithography process.

Galaxies with a growing black hole are known as “active galaxies” and, if they are extremely bright, “quasars.” Our research group studies broad absorption line quasars (BAL QSOs) because these objects, in particular, probe the high velocity gas very close to the central black hole. Our project aims to determine the appropriate timescales for probing variability in BAL QSO spectra. The variability timescales can constrain the size of the emitting and absorbing gas cloud near the supermassive black hole. We have observations of seventeen BAL QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory's 1.5m telescope's FAST Spectrograph. These objects are first identified as BAL QSOs in SDSS and we subsequently observe them with FAST across 3 consecutive nights, and then on day 9, 27, and 81. Additional observations are acquired for 1 and 2 year cadences. We also obtain a set of control non-BAL quasar spectra, in which we expect to see little or no variability. We assess the magnitude of the variability in the observed spectra of our BAL QSOs and determine which constraints our investigations can put on the outflows impacting the BAL region.

Sensory neurons are indispensable for normal behavior; they carry information regarding touch, temperature, pain and propioception from the outside world to the brain and the rest of the body. Sensory neurons in the peripheral nervous system are clustered in segmentally arrayed structures called dorsal root ganglia (DRG). We have characterized a mutant, sensory deprived (sdp), that fails to grow any DRG. We have identified four mutant alleles of sdp; all four of these mutants carry coding changes in the gene encoding RECK (reversion-inducing-cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs). RECK is involved in the regulation and expression of MMPs. A loss of function of RECK could lead to a defect in neural crest migration or an increase in Notch signaling which keeps precursor cells in an undifferentiated state rather than differentiating into neurons of the DRG. We are currently investigating RECK's function in the development of the peripheral nervous system through gel assays of MMP activity and rescuing the sdp phenotype through MMP inhibitors.

Marking cells with fluorescent proteins (FPs) is a useful technique to monitor cellular process in biological systems using fluorescence microscopy. A fluorescence imaging cryomicrotome can be used to detect fluorescence at high resolution throughout a whole animal. An imaging cryomicrotome is an instrument that makes very thin slices, sequentially through a frozen sample, taking a filtered image of a specific wavelength. These images are then complied to produce a full scan of the organism. However, the fluorescence emitted from FPs may be dim compared to the autofluorescence from the gastrointestinal system from ingredients in fish food including chlorophyll and amino acids. We have been using an imaging cryomicrotome in order to observe three-dimensional localization of FPs within tissues. Trout were injected with plasmid DNA encoding FP or with bacteria expressing FP. Image data was processed using LabVIEW and IDL programs to reduce noise from autofluorescence. We have analyzed several rainbow trout with the cryomicrotome and observed fluorescence that could possibly be associated with our FP vectors. We are working to amplify signal and to remove noise from the fluorescence images of rainbow trout. In additional to localizing FP within tissues, quantification of fluorescence signals is also a goal. By improving the quality of rainbow trout samples and developing post-imaging methods we can measure emission intensity though surface level tissues and through the entire organism.

Recent advancements in laser cooling techniques have helped provide access to the extremely low temperatures, necessary to create Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC’s). Laser cooling relies upon the interactions of light with atoms which results in a slowing force. For light to interact with atoms it must be controllable and near a resonance frequency of that atom. Thus cooling techniques are sensitive to fluctuations in the laser’s frequency. To reduce such fluctuations, stabilizing the cooling laser to a particular frequency is required. This project involves the development of a saturated absorption laser spectroscopy (SALS) apparatus for stabilizing lasers to optical transitions in the ytterbium atom. A vacuum chamber has been constructed to house the sample and includes glass viewports to let in the laser light for spectroscopy. To perform SALS the sample must be heated to a few hundred degrees Celsius in order to create sufficient vapor density for a usable optical signal. SALS is a two beam method, which exploits the saturation of atomic transitions caused by the absorption of light. The beams are counter-propagating and result in a Doppler free signal, which yields a stable reference source. Considerable attention has to be paid to the vacuum chamber design to simultaneously achieve proper spectroscopic signals and avoid unwanted interactions of the hot vapor with the glass viewports. I will report on the design and construction of the vacuum chamber and the performance of our ytterbium laser spectroscopy setup.

Medical amnesty programs are school policies that encourage students to seek help from medical services during alcohol-related emergencies (AREs), such as instances of alcohol poisoning and accidental injuries, by eliminating school sanctions for the students who may have been engaged in an illegal activity (e.g., underage drinking). Oster-Aaland and Eighmy (2007) outlined five assumptions concerning the efficacy of medical amnesty policies at encouraging students to seek medical services during AREs. Each of the five assumptions must be evaluated before colleges can confidently enact medical amnesty programs, without worrying that the programs will enable student drinkers, rather then protect them from harm. One assumption that has needed greater attention is that students are sober enough themselves to call for help if necessary. This study, in an effort to understand the validity of this assumption of medical amnesty, examined one event in which students were concerned about a peer’s level of intoxication. To understand how the student’s own level of intoxication influenced their decision to help their peer, we gathered data concerning Blood Alcohol Level (BAL) for the student and peer, the peer’s  alcohol poisoning symptoms, and the student’s helping behavior to determine how one’s own BAL during the event influenced the form of assistance they chose. 

The Protein Interaction Search Engine (PRISE) is a biomedical text mining system built to help researchers find interactions between proteins described in the abstracts of biomedical articles from the PubMed database. The current implementation of PRISE consists of a Protein Recognizer (PR) module that identifies proteins in a given abstract, and a Protein Interaction Detection (PID) module that finds the actual interactions and their location in the abstract. PRISE consists of a frontend web interface that allows users to query the system with a protein and returns a list of interactions and related PubMed article links in both a textual and graphical format. The current implementation of the PR+PID pipeline is computationally expensive because it relies on extensive natural language processing (NLP) such as the construction of dependency trees. Many of the PubMed abstracts that enter the pipeline, however, do not contain interactions. Pushing these abstracts through the PR+PID pipeline is a waste of computational resources. We therefore developed a filter that, based on a lightweight NLP scan of an abstract, makes an initial educated guess as to whether the abstract contains a protein interaction. To this end, we use a multinomial Naïve Bayes model to identify terms that indicate the presence of an interaction, and score each abstract based on the occurrence of those terms. The filter then blocks those abstracts from entering the PR+PID pipeline for which it is highly confident that they do not discuss a protein interaction, thereby reducing the work load on the system.

The addition of transgenes to crop plants can introduce valuable agronomic traits such as pesticide resistance and increased yields. When performing transformations with plant DNA, transgenes have typically been introduced into the nuclear genome. An alternative is to introduce transgenes into the plastid (chloroplast) genome. This alternative provides a natural biological containment against dispersal by pollen to non-target plants due to the maternal inheritance of plastids. There is also a potential for higher expression of the transgene in the plastid. With current methods the efficiency of plastid transformation has been low, approximately 5 transformants per particle bombardment with tobacco plants and about 70 with cultured liverwort cells. Our goal is to improve the efficiency using cultured liverwort cells as our model system. Two possible ways of increasing plastid transformation efficiency are to vary the age of leaf tissue or cultured cells and to modify the form (or structure) of the plasmid DNA used to introduce the transgene. For the former, transformation may improve with younger tissue, where plastid DNA (cpDNA) replication is highest. For the latter, linearized plasmids may increase efficiency compared to the standard circular form of the plasmid. We have used particle bombardment to deliver either circular or linearized plasmid DNA to plastids in liverwort cells. In addition, the plastid transformation process was performed on cells that had grown for one to seven days after subculture. Our initial experiments do, in fact, show improved results using the linear form of the plasmid. To verify insertion of the transgene, we isolate total DNA from positive (green) colonies and use PCR to amplify the wild type or transgenic DNA. We will then apply any insights for increasing transformation efficiency that we gain using cultured liverwort cells to whole plant systems, such as tobacco, and ultimately to economically important crops, such as maize.

In the study of geophysical flows, it is essential to understand the manner in which water transports nutrients, contaminants, and other particles that affect the health of aquatic systems. The chemical and biological processes related to these substances are dependent on the residence time of the particular constituent and often proceed exponentially, making them sensitive to small variations in the age of a fluid parcel in the system. In practice, residence time is difficult to measure and is often estimated by a quantity known as hydraulic residence time, which represents a case of ideal behavior. However, in environmental flows, vortices and short circuits often cause large deviations from the ideal case, causing this to be an inaccurate representation of actual residence time. In the present study we examine how the spatial distribution of age changes with time in the specific case of a coastal river plume by performing a series of experiments on a 2m diameter rotating table. In this configuration, an anticyclonic eddy sets up near the river mouth and is seen to accumulate a fraction of the river discharge. In the first stages of the bulge development, fluid is retained in the core of the bulge, resulting in an age distribution that exhibits a maximum in the core of the bulge and decreases radially. After approximately 10 rotation periods, the bulge becomes unstable, and smaller eddies initiate mixing between the core and the outer portions of the bulge, transporting older fluid from the center of the bulge into the coastal current. When the rotation rate is low, retention in the bulge increases and the maximum and average ages are also higher. Preliminary results also suggest that greater retention rates lead to a more homogenized distribution of age in the bulge.

Transformation is the uptake of foreign DNA into a cell leading to a heritable change in the cell’s genome. The foreign DNA (transgene) is usually introduced into the nuclear genome. An alternative is to introduce the transgene into the plastid genome, which has some advantages. For example, the transgene may be silenced in the nuclear genome. Another advantage is that maternal inheritance in plastids affords natural biological containment against dispersal of the transgene to non-target plants by pollen. Currently, plastid transformation has a very low efficiency. Our objective is to increase this efficiency in tobacco. Our lab has discovered that chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is found mostly in linear and branched molecules, with only a minor fraction in circular molecules. We will compare the transformation efficiency achieved using either a circular or linear plasmid. Also, because we have found that the amount of DNA per chloroplast decreases as leaves mature, we will assess transformation efficiency as leaves mature. We predict that transformation will be more successful with younger tissue where cpDNA replication is highest. The transgene will be delivered to tobacco plastids using particle bombardment and transformants selected using antibiotic selection and GFP expression. PCR will then be used to characterize the cpDNA of the transformants.

Skin blisters and irritation at the interface between a prosthetic device and a patient’s residual limb are common problems for amputees. At present, few quantitative methods exist for the measurement and adjustment of the forces exerted at this interface. A need exists for sensing technology which can be used to measure these forces and facilitate precise adjustments of prosthetic geometry to increase wearer comfort. Our research objective was to produce a flexible, stretchable, capacitance-based shear and normal force sensing array, which could be integrated with moisture and temperature sensors into a “sensitive skin.” This sensing array could then be attached inside the prosthetic socket and used to monitor and reduce factors which result in sores and discomfort. Individual pixels of the array were composed of top and bottom plates, each containing several precisely aligned electrodes, separated by flexible silicone rubber. Finite element modeling was used extensively to optimize both the mechanical and electrical properties of the sensor cells to achieve the necessary sensitivity, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ratio. Multiple cells were then connected using commercially available stretchable conductors to create a flexible, stretchable sensor array. Purpose built electronics were used to monitor the capacitance of each electrode pair in real time and transmit it to a PC. The capacitance data was then analyzed to produce a continuous plot of the shear and normal force distribution over the array. Subsequent work will likely focus on integration of force, temperature, and humidity sensors into a single unit, as well as further miniaturization of sensor pixels in order to improve the spatial resolution of the array. In addition to biomedical uses, the sensor arrays have applications in many other fields such as robotics, where the sensors could be used to give autonomous robots a human-like sense of touch.

The fine structure constant is a fundamental scientific quantity because it characterizes the strength of the fundamental interaction between light and matter. Cold ytterbium (Yb) atoms are promising candidates for accurate measurements of this constant using atom interferometry techniques. It is possible to cool Yb atoms to temperatures of few micro-Kelvin using coherent laser radiation. This is achieved by using laser cooling, where atomic motion is cooled by counter-propagating resonant laser light at 556nm (green), a wavelength not easily reachable by common laser sources. Therefore, a laser source should be developed to perform laser cooling of Yb on this transition. Light at 556nm can be produced by second harmonic generation (SHG) or “frequency doubling” of light at 1112nm (the fundamental). In SHG, a medium doubles the frequency of incident light through a non-linear process. In this project, we use a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal heated to 100 degree C to achieve the phase-matching for frequency doubling of an 1112nm fiber laser source. Since the efficiency of the non-linear process is strongly dependent on the intensity of the fundamental, we will increase the available 1112nm intensity using a resonant build-up cavity around the LBO crystal. So far, we have constructed a temperature stabilized crystal oven, and set up the build-up cavity without the LBO crystal. We will install the crystal-oven assembly into the cavity shortly to test the performance of the complete SHG system for production of 556nm light. We expect to produce sufficient power at this wavelength for laser cooling of ytterbium. This system will form a part of the atom interferometry apparatus to measure the fine structure constant, of fundamental importance in condensed matter physics, atomic physics, and quantum-electrodynamics.

Texans are often assumed to embody the Texas Ranger stereotypes of ethnic intolerance, blind American pride and steadfast pro-security views. However, after the 2006 Secure Fence Act–outlining 670-miles of border fencing–was signed into law, it was uniquely the Texas border region, and not other U.S. border states, that adamantly opposed the U.S. federal government’s installation of the border fence. This research examines the statements of protest in the city of Eagle Pass, Texas in order to understand why proponents of border security would vehemently reject the U.S. border fence. This case study illuminates 1) the unique impact of the U.S. border fence on Texan border residents, 2) the cross-border community and interdependency between Texan cities and their Mexican counterparts, and 3) the distinct function of the fence in border communities versus for the U.S. federal government and the general U.S. population. My data consists of semi-structured interviews with Eagle Pass residents, collected July-August 2009. Their statements of protest become authentic indicators of their spatial sense of “we” (i.e. community). Eagle Pass residents are at the site of construction and are thus bombarded not only with the symbolic but physical implications of the border fence, both of which challenge the essential characteristics of their community. I find that historical, economic and social values of their local way of life and cross border community with Piedras Negras are compromised. This research moves away from the state-centric perspective of studying border policy and borders to examine alternative definitions of community from the locals perspective that extend beyond political boundaries. From this analysis, we can begin to further document how the built environment has both real and intangible significances for communities and that conceptions of Texans must be redefined.

Upon entering office in 1989, Argentine president Carlos Menem spearheaded an effort to implement what is commonly described as one of the most rapid and comprehensive neoliberal economic restructuring programs ever seen in Latin America. Many of these economic policies had major implications for the character of the Buenos Aires cityscape. My research traces the effects of neoliberal policies on practices of public space, urban citizenship, and national identity in Buenos Aires, Argentina through an analysis of urban contestation in the Palermo district. My project centers the following question: Why does the Palermo district have high levels of neighborhood-based activism, despite the fact that it is one of the wealthiest and most privileged districts in Buenos Aires’ northern corridor? In response to this question, I argue that Palermo residents mobilize in order to contest the neoliberalization of urban planning and defend the cultural identity of their barrio. More specifically, these residents reject neoliberal urban modernization because it destroys earlier edified forms of the city which physically represent the myth of Buenos Aires as a white, European, and middle-class city. Thus, my project traces how this national myth became inscribed into the Buenos Aires urban landscape at the turn of the 20th century, and how Palermo residents mobilize to defend this urban palimpsest. In order to advance this argument, my project examines two forms of urban contestation in the Palermo district. The first form is a local neighborhood green space defense group called La Asociación Amigos del Lago de Palermo made up of Palermo residents who campaign to prevent the privatization of Palermo Park. The second form is several cultural resistance groups in Palermo Viejo who mobilize in order to prevent the construction of mega-residential towers and the marginalization of middle-class residents in the district.

Using the theoretical framework of material culture studies, I investigate what types of objects and commodities signify ‘middle class’ status to people living in different communities throughout the greater Seattle area. An analysis of how affordable/attainable this ‘standard of living’ is follows, as well as a discussion based on study participants reflections upon and reactions to ‘middle class’ as a status signifier and the desirable commodities that make it visible. Differences of ethnicity, age, and gender in connection to variations in material culture and perceptions of middle class in America are also explored. I use quantitative survey methods and ethnographic interviews to answer my research questions.

Mechanisms leading to airway remodeling in asthmatic children are poorly understood. Periostin, an integrin ligand and extracellular matrix protein, has been proposed as a gene involved in asthmatic airway remodeling. Periostin expression by bronchial epithelial cells (BEC) from asthmatic adults was recently shown to be greater than from healthy adults. Our aims are to determine if periostin expression by BEC’s from asthmatic children is greater than from healthy children, unstimulated and in response to IL4 and IL13 stimulation or rhinovirus-16 (RV-16) infection. We carefully phenotyped atopic asthmatic (n=6) and healthy children (n=6) ages 6-16 yrs. who underwent anesthesia for an elective surgical procedure. Bronchial brushings were performed to obtain BECs. BECs were grown and differentiated in transwells at an air-liquid interface. Differentiated cells were then stimulated with IL4 and IL13 (50ng/mL each), infected with RV16 at multiplicity of infection of 0.1, or maintained unstimulated. RNA was isolated and gene expression measured using realtime quantitative PCR. Periostin expression was normalized using GAPDH as a housekeeping gene. We found that periostin expression by asthmatic BEC’s was 4.5-fold greater than by healthy BEC’s. Following IL-4 & IL-13 exposure periostin expression by asthmatic BEC’s was 1.1-fold greater than by healthy BEC’s. Following RV-16 infection periostin expression by asthmatic BEC’s was 2-fold greater than by healthy BEC’s. To our knowledge, these data are the first from pediatric human BEC’s demonstrating greater periostin expression by cells from asthmatic children than from healthy children. These results suggest that airway epithelial periostin expression is unique to cells from asthmatics. Identification of a unique airway epithelial gene expression pattern from asthmatic children may be useful as a biomarker to aid in the diagnosis of asthma in young children, and will assist in the design of future mechanistic studies to assess the role of periostin expression in asthmatic airway remodeling.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is a dominantly inherited, progressive neurodegenerative disease, which falls in a family of disorders caused by an expanded CAG repeat within the gene’s protein-coding region. This type of mutation produces an abnormal poly-glutamine tract within the diseased protein, leading to errors in folding and the formation of characteristic intracellular aggregates. SCA7 results in neurodegeneration within the hindbrain as well as photoreceptor degeneration in the retina, resulting in a loss of motor coordination and vision. To further characterize SCA7 pathogenesis, this study investigated the possibility of disease reversibility using a SCA7 murine model. At 24 weeks, cre-mediated recombination was induced to excise the mutant gene, effectively ceasing mutant gene expression in animals. Prior to and following gene excision, animals were observed for phenotypic changes in gait, spine curvature, hind limb clasping, ability to walk on a cage ledge, and performance on a Rotarod test. All animals were followed through 44 weeks of age, or the average lifespan of SCA7 mice. Following gene excision, SCA7 animals improved in all measured parameters of motor coordination, showing some reversal of disease pathology. Utilizing immunohistochemistry techniques, cerebellar sections from mice (aged 43-44 weeks) were analyzed for the pathology of Purkinje cell dendrites and Bergmann glia processes, two cerebellar cell types previously found to be significantly affected in ataxic animals. When compared with untreated SCA7 mice, there was a decrease in the degree of degeneration in both cell types of SCA7 animals that underwent gene excision treatment. These results suggest that continued expression of the mutant gene is necessary for SCA7 pathology to progress and that treatment, even after the onset of disease symptoms, may have the potential to ameliorate the disease phenotype.

The Northern Min dialects of Chinese have been known since the 70's to display irregular phonological correspondences to the rest of the Chinese dialects.  In particular, consonants in certain classes of words have undergone lenition or weakening, and those classes of words have also undergone irregular tonal development.  Several hypotheses have been proposed to account for these anomalies.  The most intriguing hypothesis, put forth by Jerry Norman, is that these reflect another set of consonants at the proto-Min level.  He later proposed that these consonants were phonetically prenasalized, on the basis of certain words thought to be of Mien origin.  We will attempt to show that these consonants were in fact some sort of glottalized consonants, based on evidence from Kra-Dai loanwords, Mien loanwords and tonal evidence.  We argue that the development of glottalized consonants at the proto-Min level was similar to the development of glottalized consonants under 'minority influences' in several modern Chinese dialects.  We also discuss the implications of these loanwords in terms of Southeast China's ancient linguistic and cultural history.

In recent years, a movement to protect a special, highly vulnerable category of unauthorized immigrants called unaccompanied minors began. Unaccompanied minors are children younger than eighteen years, present in the United States without documentation, parents, or other legal guardians. Prior to 2003, these minors were held in jails and denied many rights. Due to the work of human rights organizations, the government began to place these minors in residential shelters, where their lives change substantially. They are exposed to many different perspectives, cultures, opportunities and changes while living at these shelters, including following a structured schedule, attending school and going on outings. An important question is: How are these youth adapting to these new living arrangements? Much literature has focused on undocumented adults and youth with families, but there has been a dearth of research on undocumented minors who migrate by themselves. This research focuses on a residential shelter and the interactions of unaccompanied minors who reside there. Through interviews and participant observation, I examined the shelter’s role in the lives of these youth to determine whether the interactions they had with residential staff, the environment of the shelter, and other youth induced any behavioral changes during their stay. My findings suggest that the longer the youth stayed at the shelter, the more their future aspirations, perspectives and behavior changed. Some became more social, confident, comfortable, mischievous, angry, depressed or curious. Factors that contributed to behavioral change included the age of the individual, how he was treated and viewed within the group, how he viewed the shelter, events that affected his family, whether he was going to be deported, and his desire to continue living in the U.S. Research of this nature is important for understanding how these institutions are altering the lives of unaccompanied minors.

Presolar grains are small grains of material, found in meteorites, with isotopic ratios differing from those in the solar system at large. They are believed to have originated from distinct astrophysical events such as novae before the formation of our solar system. A nova is caused by the accretion of hydrogen onto a white dwarf star from a larger neighboring star in a binary star system, which results in a thermonuclear runaway on the surface of the white dwarf that ejects material into space. Novae are currently being modeled on computers using existing experimental data and theory. These calculations predict an isotopic ratio for sulfur-33 (33S) to sulfur-32 (32S) that may be up to 150 times that of the solar ratio. This prediction could allow for clear identification of presolar grains from novae, but is subject to uncertainty due to a lack of data on the main destruction mechanism for 33S in novae, the 33S(p,γ) 34Cl reaction. This is a reaction in which a proton combines with 33S to form an excited state of chlorine-34 (34Cl) that promptly decays to a lower energy state of 34Cl by emitting a gamma ray. We are currently using a Van de Graff accelerator to accelerate protons toward a copper target that is implanted with 33S. The objective of this experiment is to measure the resulting gamma rays to determine the gamma ray branching ratios of resonances pertinent to nova reaction rates. When combined with data from a planned experiment at TRIUMF in Canada this will lead to a more accurate prediction for isotopic ratios of sulfur in presolar nova grains. Additionally our data may contribute to predicting whether or not gamma rays emitted from decay of the 34Cl meta-stable state in nova outflows may be observed by telescopes orbiting the Earth.

The use of mobile phones in developing countries provides a practical way for economically, socially and governmentally marginalized people to locate the most profitable market to sell their goods. In areas where infrastructure is limited, transportation is a key problem. Not only does the choice of a distant market link to extra transport cost but the quality of goods are frequently degraded be the time the destination is reached. For example, the Maasai of Kenya drive their cattle on foot to market; the greater the distance, the greater the likelihood of increased mortality rates and general decline in health on the journey. Lack of knowledge from lack of effective ICT (information communication technology) adds to the challenge of efficient market choices. Mobile phones are often the only effective technology available. Published research into mobile phone use among marginalized people in the developing world is problematic. For one, most studies address issues that are unrelated to each other. Second, they rarely focus on marginalized, low-income, rural communities. This thesis contains a representative group of those often left out of mobile phone research. The Maasai, located in the remote Rift Valley are the subjects of my original research conducted from 2006-2010. Additionally, a qualitative instrumental case study (2007) provides the supportive framework, focusing on the uses of mobile phones in a commercial fishing industry in Kerala, India. Furthermore, an extensive quantitative study by Nairobi University (2005) supplies data for cell phone use in eleven sub-Saharan African countries. The results of these studies and the Maasai findings coalesce to form my conclusions that hopefully apply to similar communities across the globe. This thesis presents evidence that economically-marginalized people engaged in commerce can increase income levels by increasing profits through improved market information when mobile phones are available as a communication tool.

Recognizing that midwives play an integral role in many small, decentralized communities within the developing world, the Portable Ultrasound Group aims to make it easier for them to diagnose the three most common antenatal complications: placenta previa, breech presentation, and multiple births. Obstetric ultrasonography is a highly effective method of diagnosing these conditions; however the cost is prohibitive in most developing countries. Additionally, ultrasonographic machines are often difficult to use and require more time to learn properly than is feasible for most midwives. Our aim is to reduce maternal mortality rates in the developing world by producing a substantially less expensive, easier-to-use ultrasonographic device which can be used by midwives to detect basic antenatal complications. We propose a device consisting of an ultrasonic transducer and a portable computer, connected VIA a universal serial bus (USB). The sonogram of the fetus will be displayed on the portable computer, allowing midwives the capability of analyzing these sonograms to diagnose basic antenatal complications and share these images with expectant mothers. Midwives will then be capable of transmitting these sonograms VIA a mobile phone network for further analysis and diagnosis at a nearby equipped healthcare facility. Potential complications include: Adequate and consistent power supply for the portable computer; Enhancing usability and the user experience for users (midwives) of the device; Avoiding an ethnocentric design. We will be discussing the process of designing the ultrasound device, as well as giving a brief demonstration of our current prototype.

Past work with multiple input devices in low resource educational environments has largely been motivated by patterns of dominance that emerge when a large group of students is asked to share a single computer — inevitably, some students, at the cost of others, derive higher value out of the experience. Conversely, concern has been expressed about the lack of social learning and collaboration that results when students are given computers for individual usage. One means of addressing both concerns is to design multiple-input-based educational experiences to encourage collaboration among students. To explore this approach, we compared several different educational game setups in a controlled study with 192 primary school students in Bangalore, India. In the course of this study, we found that as collaboration was encouraged or enforced, patterns of dominance began to re-emerge, even though students each had direct interactivity with the computer. In this presentation, we examine and discuss these patterns as they relate to intervention design and environment.

Geoarchaeology has played a vital role in helping researchers answer important questions about site formation processes through the study of soils, sediments, and geological features at archaeological sites. Geoarchaeology provides methods to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic features within sites. Cape Krusenstern is a coastal site above the Arctic Circle in Northwest Alaska that was occupied by people during the late Northern Archaic Tradition, the Arctic Small Tool Tradition, and the Northern Maritime Tradition - three major cultural traditions in Alaskan pre-history. Our goal is to use geoarchaeological methods on the archaeological soils and sediments collected from Cape Krusenstern to distinguish between specific events and locations of human activity and investigate whether people were involved in the formation of a recurring feature type that although common in archaeological sites, is not well understood by archaeologists. By determining pH levels, measuring organic content and phosphorus levels, magnetic susceptibility, particle size analysis, and determining physical properties of the sediment we have data that allows us to reconstruct site formation processes at Cape Krusenstern. By comparing these data from known anthropogenic features with the mysterious features we can determine the origins of the anomalous features. This is of special importance for Cape Krusenstern because contained within it there is 4,000 years of Alaskan pre-history. Geoarchaeology will help us and future researchers understand the complex formation processes which have occurred at Cape Krusenstern.

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, features an atmosphere similar enough to that of prehistoric Earth to yield useful astrobiological comparisons between the two solar bodies. Titan’s orbit places it near the magnetopause of Saturn, which is the boundary between the magnetosphere (where the magnetic field of Saturn is the prevalent magnetic force) and the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF). This orbital location may affect both the shape of Saturn’s magnetopause and the loss rate of the thick atmosphere of Titan during increased solar wind pressure. A three-dimensional multi-fluid simulation of the ionized plasmas around Saturn is run with and without Titan on the dayside of Saturn during a pulse of higher-pressure solar wind and IMF. The simulation data is visualized to allow comparisons of the magnetic field and the velocities, densities, and temperatures of the three major ion plasma groups around Titan and Saturn. Analysis focuses on the heavy ion plasmas from Titan accumulating near the magnetopause. The results indicate that Titan loses enough heavy ions in these conditions to decrease the impact of the IMF and solar wind on Saturn. This reduced impact is the result of the heavy ion plasmas corotating with Saturn and counteracting the compression of the magnetosphere by the increased IMF and solar wind. The effect of this interaction on the atmosphere of Titan demonstrates an ion loss rate large enough to have significantly altered its atmosphere throughout the multibillion-year lifespan of Titan to date. Understanding the effect of Titan on the magnetosphere of Saturn provides important information about the moon-planet interaction, and can be compared with measured data from the Cassini probe now orbiting Saturn. The determined loss rate of Titan’s atmosphere will allow a more meaningful comparison with the atmosphere of Earth.

Homologous recombination (HR) is a DNA repair mechanism that facilitates genetic manipulations in bacteria. In Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58, efficient HR requires in excess of 1.2 kilobase (kb) of homology making its application in the laboratory challenging. The product of the recA gene is required for recombination. Previous work has shown that the addition of a heterologous recA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa can alter recombination efficiency in Escherichia coli. In light of this work, we determined to investigate the effect of replacing the recA gene of C58 with the recA gene of Azotobacter vinelandii. In A. vinelandii, effective recombination requires less than 300 base pairs (bp) of homologous DNA suggesting that this addition may enhance recombination in C58. A recA replacement vector has been created using splicing by overlap extension (SOE) PCR. The vector was transferred to a rifampicin resistant strain of A. tumefaciens C58 where HR was used to replace the wild type recA. Single recombination events arising via Campbell integration of the vector were retained to investigate the role of multiple recA genes on recombination. Experiments are underway using deletion vectors with 1.5, 1.0 and 0.5 kb regions of homology flanking a kanamycin resistance gene to indicate whether there has been a change in recombination efficiency.

My senior capstone project for the Program on the Environment focused on environmental education in low-income communities of Seattle. My internship through the Nature Consortium’s Youth Art Program at the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club involved teaching young children and teens valuable environmental lessons through the creative arts. Low-income communities, many times burdened by social inequities, reflect the longstanding achievement gap in student performance between low-income students and their well-off peers. Environmental afterschool programs address this gap by providing safe and engaging classes that promote opportunities for critical thinking, complex decision-making, and community service. My work specifically, involved creating a lesson plan, children’s mural, and pre- and post-assessments of students’ critical thinking ability. Pre- and post-assessments were administered to 12 students between the ages of seven and ten during a culinary arts class. Using concept maps, I found that the majority of students could better comprehend and critically think about where certain foods come from, an important environmental and health concern. This case study and my work with Nature Consortium suggests that many environmental outreach programs, especially in low-income communities, are relatively effective but hindered by a serious lack of resources including staff support and budget limitations.

 The purpose of this project is to design a drill guide for use in arthroscopic shoulder surgery. The clinical problem addressed is reattachment of the torn anterior labrum to the glenoid bone of the shoulder joint. An unrepaired torn labrum can lead to shoulder instability with recurrent dislocations. In the current repair method, the surgeon arthroscopically places suture anchors into the glenoid bone and then secures the labrum into near anatomic position with a series of knots. Suture anchors are metal or bioabsorbable screws that secure sutures to bone. Suture anchor use can lead to problems including shoulder weakness, stiffness, instability and/or pain any number of years after surgery. The project develops an alternative surgical method for treatment of labral tears sans suture anchors. A drill guide will be designed to permit accurate drilling of a bone tunnel via which a suture can be passed. The project will first determine the proper diameter and angle in which the hole should be drilled by using a Sawbones® model. Braided, non-absorbable sutures will be passed through the hole drilled into the glenoid bone and through the labrum tissue. The suture will secure the labrum tissue to the glenoid bone. This construct, the labrum sutured to the glenoid bone, will be loaded in compression, tension, and torsion and stiffness of the glenoid rim will be determined. Three different drill guide designs will be fabricated based on the results of stiffness testing and will be drawn and evaluated using Solidworks. The highest ranked tool will be fabricated from stainless steel. The drill guide prototype will be tested using Sawbones and a cadaver model. The labral repair to bone will be loaded biomechanically as described above, and the tool modified as necessary. The final drill guide prototype will be described and surgical protocol recommended.

Circadian disruptions are associated with mental disease, especially depression and bipolar disorder, which is characterized by alternating periods of mania and depression. Furthermore, people doing shift work, who typically show internally desynchronized circadian rhythms, have a higher incidence of mental disease. Nevertheless no clear causal link between circadian disruptions and mental disease has been established. My project utilizes a unique desynchrony protocol that produces the stable desynchronization of circadian rhythms within the same individual. The goal of this project is to exploit this protocol to establish whether genetically and neurologically intact rats with desynchronized circadian rhythms exhibit behavioral manifestations of depression, mania or alternating mania and depression. Rats with disrupted circadian rhythms were evaluated for anxiety using the marble-burying test and the open field test, as well as for depression-like behavior using the forced-swim test (FST). The FST revealed that, compared to controls, desynchronized rats alternate between depression-like behavior, characterized high immobility, and hyperactivity, characterized by increased swimming. In the last experiment, we tested the ability of lithium, one of few successful drugs used to treat bipolar disorder, to revert the FST behavioral phenotype of desynchronized rats.

Fitness is a measure of reproductive success and offspring survival. Size should be an important parameter of survival and hence fitness, so we compared bill length and depth, flipper length, and foot length, measures of structural size of penguins, between successful (their chicks survived to adulthood) and unsuccessful Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus). We examined heritability of size between successful parents and their offspring because heritability plus differences between successful and unsuccessful parents would indicate that directional selection is occurring. Since 1983, we have measured over 56,000 Magellanic at Punta Tombo, Argentina and have 7,300 parent-chick pairs. From those pairs, 329 offspring were re-sighted as adults. We separated parents based on sex and the year that they bred, creating four year groups; 1988-1989, 1995-1996, 2002-2004, and all years (1983-2004). We used logistic regression with success or failure (1 or 0) as the response variable and the four traits as predictor variables for each year group and each sex. For female parents there were no significant differences between successful and unsuccessful sizes for any year group (P > 0.05). For successful males, bill depth was smaller in 1988-1989 (P = 0.01, n = 451), larger in 2002-2004 (P = 0.01, n = 352), and foot length was longer for all years (P = 0.001, n = 1706). Bill depth and foot length of males appear to be inherited by their male offspring. Size may be important for male breeding success because large size confers advantages to males in winning nests. However it may have costs as big fledgling males may be less likely to survive after fledging if food is poor. Understanding how size relates to fitness in males and females provides a greater understanding of the selective forces that determine optimal body size and how fitness changes when environmental conditions vary.

 Daylight and access to views in classrooms and workspaces are important factors in creating a quality indoor environment that enhances student learning performance and motivation and worker productivity. Recent studies have found that student performance is significantly higher in well daylit classrooms than in classrooms with poor daylighting, that students perform better in classrooms with ample views out windows. Direct sun penetration and glare through windows has been found to negatively impact student and worker performance. These studies have important implications the future of classroom and office design, and can inform the design of windows for high performance buildings. Windows must be designed with careful consideration of orientation, position, and shading to provide even diffuse daylighting throughout a room as well as ample views out windows in order to create a high quality indoor environment for students, teachers, and workers. 

Every designer has his or her own understanding of design, depending on several important factors: when and where they received their design education; their personal experiences; and the discipline in which they practice. Each designer also approaches the process of ideation differently based on these factors. Within these individual conceptions of what it means to design something and how one can create the optimum mental environment to generate creative ideas for addressing a problem is a wealth of knowledge that is invaluable to designers of all educational, personal, and professional backgrounds. This paper focuses on exposing techniques designers from a wide range of disciplines have developed to support successful ideation. In studying how different designers ideate and what tools lead to success or mediocrity, I hope to shed light on the ostensibly mystical concept of the creative process, with the goal of generating a landscape of ideation techniques that other designers, and especially design students, can draw from. In order to gather data from a diverse sample of practicing and student designers, I am designing a survey and conducting unstructured interviews. The resultant quantitative data will be graphically analyzed to uncover salient themes and patterns, while the qualitative data will be used to give context and insight into the human experience of the ideation process. The results of my analysis will culminate in an anthology of ideation techniques and case studies that designers can make use of and expand upon in their own work.

Diatoms, a type of phytoplankton, are microscopic organisms that live in the world’s oceans where sufficient sunlight and nutrients for photosynthesis is available. They require distinct nutrients to maximize their growth and photosynthetic ability, such as nitrogen (N). When available N is limited, diatom cells become stressed, changing their growth rates and gene expressions. In response to this stimuli, they may up- or down-regulate important genes. Such gene regulations can be determined using a tiling array, a type of microarray that uses short fragments as probes to cover the entire genome. This approach was used to test the gene expression of nutrient-replete and limited cultures of Thalassiosira pseudonana, the first diatom with a sequenced genome. Following these experiments, we chose Fragilariopsis cylindrus and Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries to investigate the effects of N-starvation on a diverse group of diatoms. In silico analysis conducted on F. cylindrus, P. multiseries and T. pseudonana identified numerous conserved genes among the three species with significant up- and down- regulation in T. pseudonana during N-limitation. Based on these results, we chose two genes of interest for further analysis. We designed primers to target and amplify UNKNOWN 4888 and CHR18 in both F. cylindrus and P. multiseries under limiting and control conditions. Changes in gene transcript accumulation were measured using quantitative PCR (qPCR). N-limited cultures of F. cylindrus and P. multiseries showed a decrease in growth rates. In F. cylindrus, UNKNOWN 4888 was down-regulated, which is consistent with our hypothesis and the pattern seen in T. pseudonana. CHR 18 showed no expression change, a result we did not expect and which was not seen in T. pseudonana. This result may be impacted by variability within the biological replicates. The gene regulations of P. multiseries are currently under investigation and will be compared to F. cylindrus and T. pseudonana.

International adoption has become increasingly popular for American families in recent years. This increase has been complimented by a greater willingness of parents to adopt children racially and culturally different than themselves. These changes in the nature of adoption present a new challenge in understanding how these children are responding to adoption and integration into different cultural settings. How do they balance these multiple identities, and how does that change as they grow up and transition to new environments? For this study I conducted fieldwork in Seattle, Washington working with college-aged students who were adopted into American families as well as agencies and communities who assist families in the adoption and enculturation process. I collected data using participant observation and informal interviews. This study focuses on the adopted persons’ integration into the United States and the methods by which they become “American.” Factors such as age at adoption and quality and availability of programs open to parents and children through all stages of their education were closely studied for their effects. The information gathered in this study will help international adoption agencies improve both their programs designed to minimize assimilation difficulties and the methods by which they match children with families.