Chemostats are a continuous culture system in which cells are grown in a tightly controlled, chemically constant environment where culture density is constrained by limiting specific nutrients. Unlike batch cultures, the selective pressure imposed in a chemostat is constant. This has made them a desirable tool for evolution and competition experiments. Traditionally, chemostat experiments with S. cerevisiae have been constrained due to the limited number of cultures that can be run at once. In order to solve this problem our team is working with a new culturing system that allows 64 chemostats to be run simultaneously. In our experiment we evolved 96 biological replicates of haploid MATa yeast cells under either constant sulfur, phosphate, or glucose limiting environments for 300 generations. We are now using a variety of techniques including array-comparative genomic hybridization and whole genome sequencing of evolved populations to characterize mutations that have been selected for during the course of these evolution experiments. These techniques have revealed that amplification of genes that code for nutrient transporters are a common mutation that occur in the evolved populations over the course of the experiments. Therefore, we will also be experimenting with strains that have the most common amplified genes knocked-out in the hopes of identifying alternative pathways for nutrient-limited fitness increases. Changes in the genome can be correlated to changes in relative fitness, which we assayed through competition with a green fluorescent protein (GFP) expressing ancestral strain every 50 generations. Ultimately it is our hope that higher replicate number will better reveal the spectrum of genes important for adaptive growth in specific nutrient-limited environments.

Ai WeiWei, a contemporary Chinese artist and self-described "dissident," is the first to admit that political activism forms the basis of his aesthetic. In an artist’s statement, from a recent exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, Ai plainly stated: “I’ve always believed it is essential for contemporary artists to question established assumptions and challenge beliefs.” The majority of Ai’s installations at the Hirshhorn function as a platform for his renegade agenda, and his piece He Xie is no exception. The striking collection of ceramic river crabs, in various shades of red and brown, is invested with manifest symbolism. However, a deeper investigation of the work reveals a latent significance, not readily gleaned from a limited investigation of its formal elements. In order to adequately engage with Ai’s work, one must look beyond the surface and trace the installation back to its historical origins and cultural conditions. To draw out his strategic use of symbolism, I analyze Ai’s installation according to German art historian Erwin Panofsky's iconographical approach. Panofsky begins with the simplest translation of visual forms and works his way toward a more nuanced historical and culturally relevant perspective. In short, Panofsky’s three-pronged methodological approach allows me to demonstrate the complexity of Ai’s He Xie. In this presentation, I discuss the conceptual stimulus behind Ai's sprawling display of porcelain delicacies, exploring its political significance and identifying a larger metaphysical trend in the artist's career.

Most people think of idealism as an old and forgotten notion from antiquity. However, today, this concept seems to have taken on an afterlife. This essay looks at how Photoshop goes beyond stylistic preferences of the past and investigates how photo editing informs our current notion of ideal forms. Instead of a sculptor such as Praxiteles carving his vision of Aphrodite of Knidos, a designer using Photoshop idealizes the figure with key commands.  These altered types permeate dominant media, producing a widespread prescription for the female body. Through creating a case study of edited photos seen in magazines and advertising I will provide evidence that a widespread ideal is in fact being created, an ideal which would not be able to be created without the help of Photoshop. Ralph Lauren Co. took Photoshop too far when they morphed Filippa Hamilton, a beautiful model, into an unnatural creation. In this Photoshopped image of Hamilton in which her head is larger than her hips, many have noted that she looks painfully emaciated and almost cartoonish. It is unrealistic to think that any woman could naturally be that thin. This is an example of how Photoshop is being used to create an unattainable ideal beauty, one which cannot even be obtained with the help of plastic surgery. This widespread ideal has led many women to go so far as to use plastic surgeries in the hopes of obtaining the current, electronically enhanced, ideal form of feminine beauty. I will also be examining how these examples of excessive photo editing and the unnatural ideal they create have become a problem within our society. This research helps to examine how current technologies are exacerbating the societal problem of low self-esteem seen in females who do not fit into this ideal.

Despite strong public support for school counseling intervention programs, there remains a lack of state and federal funding for such programs. Typical of national trends, Seattle area schools in low-income communities suffer from a severe lack of funding for intervention programs. As a counseling intern in one of Seattle’s urban elementary and middle schools (PK-8), I have seen the impact that school counselors and interventions programs can have on a student’s personal and academic achievement. But, not much is known about whether the group interventions work as well as other forms of interventions. The hypothesis of this study is that the effectiveness of individual counseling combined with group intervention has a more significant impact than a singular approach. The methodological approach of this research is to conduct a literature review of current areas of effectiveness of school counseling programs in elementary schools; I will also conduct an interview with my practicum instructor, a school counselor. I anticipate that a combined approach is more useful because it gives students an opportunity to talk about academic and personal topics, allowing them to see that they are not alone. This study has implications for the planning and funding of elementary school interventions.

Estrogen has been shown to directly influence auditory function, with high levels of estrogen receptor expression in the central auditory system of mice correlated with elevated high-frequency auditory thresholds. These findings and others raise the possibility that hormonal modulation might be used to treat some hearing deficiencies. The big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, provides a unique opportunity to study an easily accessible, complex auditory pathway in a highly social mammalian species. Bats experience large seasonal differences in both estrogen levels and behavior. During fall mating season, males produce “song” calls to attract females. During winter torpor, a state of decreased physiological activity, the need for hearing is greatly reduced. During spring gestation, estrogen levels are high to support a healthy pregnancy and, after giving birth, females are sensitive to the call frequency of their pups. We hypothesized that seasonally fluctuating estrogen levels in the bat brain have a direct effect on auditory processing which varies throughout the year. We measured blood estrogen levels of male and female bats over the course of the year, and recorded sound-evoked responses of single neurons in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (IC), the midbrain auditory center. We specifically measured changes in basic response properties such as call selectivity, frequency tuning, and threshold changes. Afterwards, we perfused the bat, sliced the brain into 40µ sections, and stained for estrogen receptors. These measurements enabled us to correlate blood estrogen levels with both estrogen receptor expression throughout the central auditory system of the brain and functional measurements of neural sensitivity and selectivity across the audible frequency range.

Exposure to vocalizations from members of their own species can influence how infants learn to hear and communicate. Eptesicus fuscus is a social mammal that lives in large colonies and uses many types of vocalizations for both communication and echolocation. We hypothesize that due to the fact that they live in large, well organized social groups, big brown bats should be social learners. In order to test this, we presented altered calls that have been raised or lowered in frequency and bandwidth to bats as they developed from infancy to adulthood. In order to limit exposure to natural maternal vocalizations, pups were reversibly deafened with silicon earplugs whenever they were in the presence of other bats. Every other day, we isolated the pups, removed the earplugs, presented altered calls and recorded the pups’ response. At the end of the study, we tested changes in the organization of the auditory nuclei by measuring frequencies of neurons in several layers the inferior colliculus (IC), a central nucleus in the auditory system in response to auditory stimulation. We compared these results to each infant's twin, as Eptesicus fuscus is usually born in pairs. This gives us a genetically similar control raised in identical conditions. Our results suggest a divergence in call frequency beginning in week two, related to the exposure to lowered artificial stimuli. There is also a shift in the organization of the bands of the IC, with larger low frequency bands and smaller high frequency bands. This suggests that the pups not only altered their vocalizations in response to altered stimuli, but that the frequency organization in auditory structures of the brain remains plastic beyond birth. Humans, like bats, are social mammals, and research into mechanisms of IC plasticity may provide some insight into the development of human hearing.