Staphylococcus aureus has been extensively studied, yet it remains unclear why certain individuals continually carry the bacteria while others do not. Livestock workers are known to be at an increased risk of S. aureus colonization, but have not been as studied as other high risk groups, including hospitalized patients, have been. Culture based studies have shown other bacteria may decrease the likelihood of S. aureus colonization. Here, we utilize 16s rRNA sequencing to better characterize the ecologic relationships between S. aureus and the other microbes in the nares and oropharynx in a population of livestock workers. A cross-sectional, epidemiological study was conducted enrolling 59 participants (26 of which had livestock contact) in Iowa. Participants were enrolled in one of four ways: from an existing prospective cohort study (n=38), from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Animal Feeding Operations database (n=17), through Iowa county fairs (n=3), and through snowball sampling (n=1). We collected two sets of swabs from the nares and oropharynx of each participant. The first set of swabs was used to assess the microbiome via 16s rRNA sequencing and the second was used to culture S. aureus. We observed livestock workers to have greater diversity in their microbiomes compared to those with no livestock contact. In the nares, there were 26 operational taxonomic units found to be different between livestock workers and non-livestock workers with the greatest difference seen with Streptococcus and Proteobacteria. In the oropharynx, livestock workers with swine exposure were more likely to carry several pathogenic organisms. We also observed colonized livestock workers to be more likely to carry P. gingivalis which may act as a bridge allowing S. aureus to adhere to Streptococcus in the oral cavity. While we observed no significant differences when comparing colonized persons to non-colonized persons in either the nares or oropharynx, Corynebacterium was more abundant in the colonized persons. Colonized individuals also had greater diversity in their nasal microbiome compared to non-colonized individuals. However, when comparing persistently colonized persons to intermittently colonized persons, we found Corynebacterium argentorantense to be more abundant in the persistently colonized individuals. We hypothesized the genera present in the nares and oropharynx of S. aureus carriers would be different from that of non-carriers and there would be differences in the nasal and oropharyngeal microbiomes based on livestock contact and carrier state (persistent, intermittent, and non-carrier). While there were no significant differences between carriers and non-carriers, we were able to identify several operational taxonomic units that were different between livestock worker carrier and non-carriers as well as differences by carrier state. The results of this study are the first to characterize the livestock worker nasal and oropharyngeal microbiomes. Additionally, the results shed light onto several organisms that may be influential in S. aureus carriage. However, further studies are needed to better understand these relationships and determine causality.

Esta dissertação de mestrado realiza uma leitura crítica dA condição humana (1958) de Hannah Arendt. Mais do que contradições reclamadas por seus intérpretes por um lado, democrática radical e, por outro, elitista encontraremos uma coerência com relação ao que batizo como alienação ocidental da alteridade. Nesse sentido, a obra aqui estudada se revela como um momento de elaboração e fixação teórica dessa alienação, principalmente a partir da noção de realidade humana. O argumento é de que para entender isso é necessário não reificar e fetichizar o retorno à pólis, mas, sim, politizar os escritos de Arendt, localizando-os. Em um primeiro momento, parto dos eventos citados no prólogo a fim de remontar os problemas de seu tempo que preocupavam Arendt. Demonstro que a principal questão da autora nesse livro continua a ser a possibilidade de movimentos totalitários, pois estes se baseiam no conformismo das massas. No entanto, para a autora, uma grande responsável por esse conformismo seria o desenvolvimento tecnológico que estaria para liberar a humanidade do fardo do trabalho. Termino afirmando que a chave para entender essa estranha caracterização é enxergar que Arendt pretendeu uma análise do capital sem levar seu processo global em conta. Posteriormente a autora irá afirmar que o terceiro mundo não existe. A seguir procuro entender a era moderna século XVII até início do século XX na visão de Arendt. Para isso, parto de três eventos citados eventos citados no início do último capítulo do livro: o telescópio, a Reforma Protestante e a descoberta da América. Refaço as análises sobre o desenvolvimento da alienação com relação à Terra, resultado do avanço científico representado pelo telescópio; e depois reconstruo sua narrativa sobre a Reforma Protestante que teria dado início ao capitalismo. Neste ponto, trato da dificuldade que a separação entre público e privado apresentada por Arendt. No entanto, afirmo que ainda que essa divisão possa ser interpretada de forma mitigada, ela depende de uma exclusão anterior: a instauração do mundo a precede. Por último, procuro entender a falta de elaboração do terceiro evento, as Grandes Navegações. Além de suas principais consequências não serem mencionadas, não recebemos explicações sobre o tipo peculiar de alienação que engendraram. Neste trabalho escolho nomear alienação ocidental da alteridade. Retorno até o tratamento de Arendt sobre o Imperialismo m Origens do totalitarismo para revelar que o motivo pelo qual a autora se torna incapaz de tratar das colonizações nA condição humana é porque ela está mobilizando essa alienação em suas análises. Assim, sua resposta à sua principal preocupação se encontra muito limitada: conforme mostra a linha que liga as colonizações, escravidão, imperialismo ao nazismo, um dos principais elementos desses movimentos é a insensibilidade para com mortes periféricas. Proponho, por último, que a subversão da divisão da vita contemplativa e vita activa nA condição humana pode ser entendida como uma resposta de Arendt ao totalitarismo. Por outro lado, a manutenção de uma forte divisão entre physis e nomos é a continuação do racismo cultural utilizado para tratar do imperialismo. / This master\'s dissertation performs a critical reading of Hannah Arendt\'s The Human Condition (1958). More than contradictions - on the one hand, radical democratic and on the other, elitist - we will find a coherence with what I call Western alienation from otherness. The work studied here reveals itself as a moment of elaboration and theoretical fixation of this alienation, especially from the notion of human reality. To understand this it is necessary not to reify the return to the polis, but rather to politicize Arendt\'s writings by locating them. I depart from the events cited in the prologue to remount the problems of his time that concerned Arendt. I show that the author\'s main question in this book remains the possibility of totalitarian movements, as these are based on mass conformism. However, for the author, a major responsible for this conformity would be the technological development that would be to \"free humanity from the burden of work\". I argue that the key to understanding this strange characterization is to see that Arendt intended an analysis of capital without taking its global process into account. Later the author will state that \"the third world does not exist\". Next I seek to understand the modern age - the seventeenth century until the early twentieth century - in Arendt\'s view. To this end, I start from three events cited at the beginning of the last chapter of the book: the telescope, the Protestant Reformation, and the \"discovery\" of America. I redo the analysis of the development of alienation from the earth, the result of the scientific advance represented by the telescope; and then reconstruct his narrative about the Protestant Reformation that would have started capitalism. At this point I deal with the difficulty that Arendt\'s separation of public and private presents. However, I contend that even though this division can be interpreted in a mitigated way, it depends on an earlier exclusion: the establishment of the world precedes it. Finally, I try to understand the lack of elaboration of the third event, the Great Navigations. Apart from its main consequences not being mentioned, we have received no explanation of the peculiar kind of alienation they engendered. In this work I choose to name it \"Western alienation from otherness.\" I return to Arendt\'s treatment of Imperialism in Origins of Totalitarianism to reveal that the reason why the author becomes incapable of dealing with colonization in The Human Condition is because she is mobilizing this alienation in her analyzes. Thus, her answer to his main concern is very limited: as the line linking colonization, slavery, imperialism and Nazism shows, one of the main elements of these movements is insensitivity to peripheral deaths. Finally, I propose that the subversion of the division of the vita contemplativa and vita activa in The human condition can be understood as Arendt\'s response to totalitarianism. On the other hand, maintaining a strong division between physis and nomos is the continuation of the cultural racism used to deal with imperialism.

The following writing describes my MFA thesis audio-visual collage project, Attraction. Please, watch the experimental cinematic work before reading this document. The total runtime is 55 minutes.

This thesis examines Black Power in Jamaica, Trinidad, and The Bahamas, comparing and contrasting the ability of the movements to garner the support of the people in these different locales. The primary focus of this work is the Caribbean Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Detailed responses to the movements are presented as those responses relate to not only race, but also class, and the response of local political leadership to the presence and methods of the movements. Following a brief overview of the history of European colonialism and the drive of the colonized for independence from colonial powers, Black Power is studied in greater detail. In this thesis three issues are addressed that relate to the popularity of Black Power. The first is the impact of racial identity and ethnicity on the acceptance of Black Power. This is done through a comparison of Black Power in Jamaica, an independent country with a predominantly black population, and in Trinidad, an independent nation with a diverse population. The Bahamas provides an excellent comparison, as a colony with a large resident white population. The second issue is the political status of each country, and the effect of political status on the ability of Black Power to gain support and momentum. The status of the location as either an independent state, or a colonial state, may have had an impact on the success, or at least the stated objectives, of the Movement as it evolved in that locale. Lastly, issues of class are addressed through an examination of the impact of the economic status of the individual within the society, and then secondarily the overall economic conditions of the country at a given time.

The sexual assault and gendered violence Native American women face has started to garner attention from politicians, newspapers, and Hollywood producers. Most of today's discourse, however, ignores history. My historical analysis reveals how sexual violence against Indigenous women has been institutionalized since the very first days of colonization, and how these institutions ensured gendered violence would endure over time. First, I analyze how gender roles within Indigenous communities, specifically the Cherokee, led to Native women's subjugation and enabled intracommunal violence. Next, I examine particular federal Indian policies that have created a complex system of jurisdictional conflict that prevents tribal governments from addressing sexual assault in their communities. Finally, I bring in Native women's perspectives through creative forms, like fiction and art. These creative forms engage with history in a way that helps complete the historical account. In examining history and Native women's creative forms, I hope to illuminate how historical institutions continue to operate today, and how that conclusion will become the base of a decolonized future.

Studies of European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere have shifted focus from areas of direct European/Native American contact, to investigate Native American groups outside of direct European contact. During Spanish colonization of the Southeastern United States (AD 1520 to AD 1715), the Big Bend region of the Ocmulgee River Valley, in Georgia, located about 160 kilometers from Spanish occupied coast, was inhabited by a Native American polity from the Late Prehistoric into the Mission period. This location is ideal for studying indirect contact. Changes in ceramic production can be used to identify changes in Native American interaction through time. Attributes from ceramics at five sites were recorded, totaling 3,231 sherds. Analysis demonstrates that richness of paste recipes and presence of ceremonial vessels declined, suggesting that regional gatherings declined. Design analysis suggests that interaction with a large variety of Native American groups from outside of the region declined, while interaction with coastal Native American groups in the purview of Spanish colonization increased. This demonstrates that changes to Native American society after European contact were not just the result of interaction with European traditions and technologies, but also the result of changing interaction with Native American groups.

Survival, growth and biomass accumulation of 19 year-old trees planted on an Appalachian surface mine site were evaluated to determine the effect of spoil grading and surface amendment treatments. Three spoil grading treatments (loose-dump, strike-off and graded control) were established to create a range of operationally feasible spoil compaction capable of impacting tree establishment and growth. Likewise, three surface amendment treatments (straw/manure mulch, hardwood bark mulch and control) were applied to determine their effects on tree development. Trees grown under low-compaction grading treatment levels (strike-off and loose-dump) consistently outperformed trees planted in a high-compaction control treatment. Loose-dump preparation resulted in higher survival for five of six tree species and greater biomass in three species for which this metric was estimated. Strike-off preparation resulted in higher diameter at breast height (DBH) values. The addition of straw/manure surface amendment increased biomass for hardwood species for which this value was estimated. Volunteer woody vegetation growing in the same experimental plots was measured and characterized by species. Loose-dump plots exhibited highest overall volunteer stem and native stem density and compacted control plots had lowest volunteer stem density and lowest proportion of native stems. Strike-off plots exhibited intermediate values for both of these measures.

The Volga Germans assert a particular ethnic identity to articulate their complex history as a multinational community even in the absence of traditional practices in language, religious piety, and communal lifestyle. Across multiple migrations and settlements from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Volga Germans' self-constructed group identity served historically as a tool with which to navigate uncertain politics of belonging. As subjects of imperial Russia's eighteenth-century colonization project the Volga Germans held a privileged legal status in accordance with their settlement in the Volga River region, but their subsequent loss of privileges under the reorganization and Russification of the modern Russian state in the nineteenth century compelled members of the group to immigrate to the Midwest in the United States where their distinct identity took its full form. The Volga Germans' arrival on the Great Plains coincided with an era of mass global migration from 1846 to 1940, yet the conventional categories of immigrant identity that subsumed Volga Germans in archival records did not impede their drive for community preservation under a new unifying German-Russian identity. A contingent of Midwest Volga Germans migrated in 1881 to Albina, a railroad town across the Willamette River from Portland, Oregon where the pressures of assimilation ultimately disintegrated traditional ways of life--yet the community impulse to articulate its identity remained. Thus, while Germans are the single largest ethnic group in the U.S. today numbering forty-two million individuals, Portland's Volga German community nevertheless continues to distinguish itself ethnically through its nostalgia for a unique past.

Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and oppression of the Palestinian people has manifested itself in countless ways. The built environment, fueled by spatial theory, has been transformed into an instrument of war that serves a military agenda. In this context, the physical environment is not simply the arena of conflict, but a weapon wielded by occupying forces. This research investigates spatial control through seemingly mundane architecture and military practices, which are deployed deliberately to strangulate Palestinian livelihood and prosperity. Derived from Deleuze and Guittari’s delineation of smooth and striated space, with an emphasis on walls and barriers, this thesis subverts the spatial weaponization by envisioning design as both a retaliatory and reparative force. In doing so, it critiques and protests against the status quo.

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a ubiquitous bacterium that has the potential to cause severe disease in children and adults. Asymptomatic carriage of S. aureus is an important risk factor for developing infection, as well as a key contributor to transmission. Despite the fact that child care workers are at risk of infections, little research has focused on asymptomatic carriage of S. aureus in this occupational group. We collected samples from 110 employees, 81 children, and 214 surfaces at twelve child care facilities, as well as 111 age- and gender-matched adults not employed at child care centers. After adjusting for age, a household contact with a recent influenza-like illness, and a household contact with exposure to cattle, the odds ratio for S. aureus carriage in child care employees was 0.68 (95% CI 0.31 - 1.50, p-value 0.34). The odds of MRSA carriage was 3.09 times higher in child care employees than unexposed adults after adjusting for a history of cigarette smoking (95% CI 1.04 - 9.17, p-value 0.042). Colonization rates of all S. aureus and MRSA in children were 19.8% and 1.23%, respectively. S. aureus and MRSA were isolated from 9.80% and 0.90% of surfaces. Washing children's hands upon arrival had a protective effect among employees (adjusted OR 0.17, 95% CI 0.095 - 0.32, p < 0.0001). Molecular characterization suggested transmission of S. aureus among children, employees, and environmental surfaces. While the overall prevalence of MRSA is low at child care facilities, employees may be at increased risk of carrying this organism.