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MiRNAs control skin homeostasis through post-transcriptional gene repression by binding to their target mRNAs. However, their role in regulation of apoptosis and hair loss in alopecia areata (AA) is largely unknown, which became the aim of this study. In AA mouse model (C3H/HeJ), global miRNA profiling revealed 22 miRNAs with significant changes in their expression in AA affected skin. Amongst these miRNAs, miR-486-5p was dramatically decreased in alopecic skin in both humans and mice, in striking contrast to its prominent expression in the hair follicle (HF) epithelium of healthy anagen skin. Moreover, the expression of both pri-miR-486 and miR-486 is down-regulated in the human anagen HFs and keratinocytes treated with IFN-g, one of the key factors contributing to the immune privilege (IP) collapse in HFs. Intradermal delivery of miR-486-5p mimic into mouse skin affected by AA prevented premature entrance of HFs into catagen phase and reduced the numbers of CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes in the peri- and intra-follicular skin compartments. Consistently, subcutaneous administration of miR-486-5p inhibitor delayed anagen progression associated with a higher number of intrafollicular NKG2D+ cells in C3H/HeJ mice. Silencing of miR-486-5p in human anagen HFs ex vivo caused premature catagen development and led to suppression of IP by up-regulating HLA class 1, IRF1, ICAM1 and CADM1 expression of which CADM1 was confirmed to be a direct target of miR-486- 5p. Transcriptome profiling of primary human epidermal keratinocytes overexpressing miR-486-5p revealed damping the signalling pathways associated with inflammatory chemokines, cytokines and interleukins. Taken together, these data suggest that miR-486-5p plays a protective role in the pathogenesis of AA by maintaining anagen phase and preventing the IP collapse. / National Alopecia Areata Foundation

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This project examines the relationship between femininity and empowerment in George R. R. Martin's fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. It combines medieval historical context, psychological and sociological research, and feminist theory to construct a framework through which to discuss how power functions in Martin's fictional world of Westeros. With six key characters, I argue that femininity operates as a kind of natural resource anyone can use to access empowerment, regardless of how one personally identifies; further, I illustrate how these routes to power are ultimately more successful than others. Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister, and Daenerys Targaryen are the most prominent figures I discuss at length, but Lord Varys, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, and Tyrion Lannister also serve as successful examples who additionally demonstrate the feminine as separated from sex and gender. Overall, I aim to illuminate how power is not exclusively accessed or utilized through masculinity or the rejection of the feminine, specifically by analyzing these six characters' empowerment. / Master of Arts / The heroes and heroines of fantasy fiction often access power by adopting masculine traits and rejecting femininity. But in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, characters who exhibit feminine traits and behaviors are more successful in accessing and maintaining power than those who do not. This project examines the characters of Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister, and Daenerys Targaryen—and also Lord Varys, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, and Tyrion Lannister—through the lens of medieval history and feminist theory to show how those characters succeed by using femininity as a means of empowerment.

貪腐是先進國家檢視政府行政效率的重要指標，貪腐會影響國家整體形象，甚至左右外國直接投資與金融市場的評比。中國之國家預防腐敗局的機構定位突顯中國內部對貪腐問題與政治結構調整問題。因此，本研究針對中國大陸貪腐問題、貪腐機制之演變過程、國家預防腐敗局現階段工作成效與不足之處、國家預防腐敗局未來工作方向展望與挑戰等問題，以文獻分析方法進行探討與分析。 經過本研究的分析與討論，本研究歸納以下論點： 一、中國大陸貪腐問題可以用尋租理論解釋，當改革開放後，地方官員可以藉由經濟特區許可證或稅務等工作內容，進行利益勾結與建立政商貪腐集團。 二、貪腐機制可分為權權交易模式與權錢交易模式，其貪腐集團的交接與政權交接息息相關。改革開放前的貪腐模式為權權交易模式，改革開放後為權錢交易模式。 三、中共貪腐機制以政治運作角度分析其過程，可以視為政權交接期間的合作式賽局崩解與重新建立，其崩解原因在於內部利益分配不平均導致矛盾加深，藉著政權交接期間之權力洗牌模式，產生新的貪腐集團與經濟利益分配模式。 四、過去中共對於貪腐問題的處理模式屬於政權協商方式，例如屬於江澤明體系的陳良宇貪腐案歷經「陳良宇涉嫌貪污」至「陳良宇同志違紀問題」的兩種處理模式，透露出中共對於貪腐問題的防治處理屬於政權協商的模式。因此，國家預防腐敗局的設立過程背後潛伏著個政治派系的妥協。 五、就組織架構而言，國家預防腐敗局目前位於監察部之下，部門本身並無獨立監察權，僅被視為調研與幕僚單位，此與香港或新加坡之獨立性反貪腐機構的特性有所差異。 六、在中共維持黨政雙軌制下，中紀委與監察部將是反貪腐制度的主軸，所以短期而言，對內部角色定位，國家預防腐敗局的功能將定位於中紀委領導的執行單位，負責實際的反貪腐之協調運作；對外部角色定位，國家預防腐敗局將定位於接收國際組織的意見，國家預防腐敗局的角色將是整合國際反貪腐的科技運作。 七、就國家預防腐敗局之未來發展模式，國家預防腐敗局需要建立獨立監察權，且其成員任命方式必須擺脫派系協商的影子，但在中共目前政治角力過程下，國家預防腐敗局之未來發展將視內部政治利益與輿論壓力的角力結果而定。 / The extent of corruption is an important index to review the administrative efficiency of the governments among advanced countries. The corruption issue affects the image of a country, the foreign direct investment and the rating of financial market. The role of National Bureau of Corruption Prevention of China (thereafter as “NBCP”) stresses the problems of corruption in internal systems of China and political restructuring. Therefore, this study adopts the literature analysis method to explore and analyze the corruption problems in China, the development of corruption prevention scheme, the performance and deficiencies of NBCP, and the future prospects and challenges of NBCP. After the analysis and discussions in this study, the conclusions are as follows. First, the problems of corruption in China could be interpreted by the rent-seeking theory. After China’s reform, the local government officials could take advantage of the permission of economically-designated zone or taxation, etc. to collude with private enterprises based on interests, and form the corruption groups. Second, according to the past literatures, the patterns of corruption in China could be categorized as the exchange of privilege for privilege and the exchange of privilege for money, and the transition of both corruption groups and regimes is closely bound up. From the perspective of rent-seeking theory, the exchange of privilege for privilege is the pattern of corruption before China’s reform, with the exchange of privilege for money standing for the ones after China’s reform. Third, from the perspective of operation of political system in China, the transition of regimes could be interpreted as the process of collapse and rebuilding in the dynamics of cooperative games. The reasons of collapse could result from the disequilibrium in the allocation of internal interests and then conflicts from the disequilibrium. Therefore, by the reshuffle of political interests during the transition of regimes, the new corruption groups and new scheme for the allocation of economic interests appear. Fourth, China used to deal with corruption through regime consultation. For instance, the corruption case of Chen, Lian-yu in the administration of Jiang, Ze-ming ,which was shifted from original tone of “Chen, Lian-yu suspected in corruption” to “Chen, Lian-yu’s violating disciplines”, shows that the strategy for corruption in China could be categorized by the features of regime consultation. Hence, the setup of NBCP implies the compromises among different political groups. Fifth, in terms of organizational structure, NBCP is under the Ministry of Supervision, without independent supervision, and only works as the research and staff unit of independent supervision, which differs from the independence of the anti-corruption institute of Hong Kong and Singapore. Sixth, under the present dual-track system of China, the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the CPC and Ministry of Supervision play the main roles in the system of anti-corruption. In the short term, as to the internal role, NBCP is regarded as the execution unit of Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. As to the external role, NBCP is responsible for receiving the opinions from international organizations and integrating the technology of international anti-corruption. Seventh, the future model of NBCP should build up the independent supervision and appoint the members without the influence of the political groups. However, in the struggle of different political groups in Chinese Communist party, the future development of NBCP will depend on the outcome of the struggle between internal political interests and public stress.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Frederick Burrack / This study is an intertwined critical autoethnography through which my experiences, my stories, are woven together with memories of family, students, and teaching career. Together, the telling of these stories will explore how I negotiated my identity development throughout my middle and high school experiences at a time when I could have been labeled as an at-risk student. The development into my professional career and personal life all influenced strongly by my participation in music education. Filtering these stories and memories through the lens of critical whiteness theory, this study interrogates the social assumptions that may be placed on at-risk students, exploring how these assumptions function within the context of access within our current music education structures, and investigates the ways in which social support systems allow opportunities for access of white male students and privilege in music education. An overarching question guiding this research is: How does the interrogation of such white privileges inform how one develops their identity as a music educator, a researcher, an academic, a husband, a father, a human, as well as, the curricular structures in place guiding access within music education?

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Perceptual, "context-aware" applications that observe their environment and interact with users via cameras and other sensors are becoming ubiquitous on personal computers, mobile phones, gaming platforms, household robots, and augmented-reality devices. This dissertation's main thesis is that perceptual applications present several new classes of security and privacy risks to both their users and the bystanders. Existing perceptual platforms are often completely inadequate for mitigating these risks. For example, we show that the augmented reality browsers, a class of popular perceptual platforms, contain numerous inherent security and privacy flaws. The key insight of this dissertation is that perceptual platforms can provide stronger security and privacy guarantees by controlling the interfaces they expose to the applications. We explore three different approaches that perceptual platforms can use to minimize the risks of perceptual computing: (i) redesigning the perceptual platform interfaces to provide a fine-grained permission system that allows least-privileged application development; (ii) leveraging existing perceptual interfaces to enforce access control on perceptual data, apply algorithmic privacy transforms to reduce the amount of sensitive content sent to the applications, and enable the users to audit/control the amount of perceptual data that reaches each application; and (iii) monitoring the applications' usage of perceptual interfaces to find anomalous high-risk cases. To demonstrate the efficacy of our approaches, first, we build a prototype perceptual platform that supports fine-grained privileges by redesigning the perceptual interfaces. We show that such a platform not only allows creation of least-privileged perceptual applications but also can improve performance by minimizing the overheads of executing multiple concurrent applications. Next, we build DARKLY, a security and privacy-aware perceptual platform that leverages existing perceptual interfaces to deploy several different security and privacy protection mechanisms: access control, algorithmic privacy transforms, and user audit. We find that DARKLY can run most existing perceptual applications with minimal changes while still providing strong security and privacy protection. Finally, We introduce peer group analysis, a new technique that detects anomalous high-risk perceptual interface usages by creating peer groups with software providing similar functionality and comparing each application's perceptual interface usages against those of its peers. We demonstrate that such peer groups can be created by leveraging information already available in software markets like textual descriptions and categories of applications, list of related applications, etc. Such automated detection of high-risk applications is essential for creating a safer perceptual ecosystem as it helps the users in identifying and installing safer applications with any desired functionality and encourages the application developers to follow the principle of least privilege. / text