Several justifications exist for the death penalty, yet it is only recently that the concept of “closure” has come to serve as a rationale for American capital punishment. This contemporary justification promises murder victims’ families that the execution of their loved one’s murderer should provide them with “closure”—a contested word that typically denotes an end to the pain associated with their loved one’s murder. How and when this new narrative came about has garnered little scholarly attention, particularly as murder victims’ families begin to challenge closure as relevant to their healing. The goals of the current study seek to: 1) elucidate how closure entered the American death penalty debate; 2) illustrate the myriad meanings assigned to closure, identifying how various stakeholders have trafficked in the term’s use; 3) examine how closure has been used politically to legitimize death penalty practices and the state’s right to take life; and 4) critically analyze claims that closure has “symbolically transformed” the American death penalty today. The study employs discursive textual analysis of nearly 2500 American newspaper stories from 1989 to 2008, legislative hearings, legal case histories, academic and popular sources, and archival materials from American death penalty and victims’ rights groups during this twenty year period. The findings illustrate that closure entered death penalty discourse in the late 1980s, and reached a tipping point in news coverage in 2001 with Timothy McVeigh’s execution. While the term was used in nearly every way imaginable, the findings illustrate it was most prominently used in supporting secondary victims’ “right to view” the executions of their loved ones’ murderers and in justifying Timothy McVeigh’s execution for his role in the Oklahoma City Bombing. I argue that the media’s sensational portrayals of such historical moments allowed them to serve as “galvanizing events” ushering in closure as a powerful symbol in justifying the state’s right to take life and the view that executions are a form of “therapeutic justice.” Despite closure being used to support certain death penalty practices, the analyses presented here provide little support for the notion that closure has “symbolically transformed” American capital punishment today as has been suggested by some scholars. Closure is a small blip in print news coverage and does not resonate strongly with Americans’ support for capital punishment in national opinion polls. The study concludes with a critical examination of the role of closure as a contemporary, and empirically unchallenged, justification for the death penalty—one that serves as an empty promise for murder victims’ loved ones. / text

During optic cup morphogenesis, the neuroectodermal layers of the optic vesicle (OV) invaginate ventrally, and fuse at the choroid fissure (CF) along the proximo-distal axis such that the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) are confined within the cup. Failure of CF closure results in colobomas, which are characterized by the persistence of a cleft or hole at the back of the eye. While CF closure is a critical aspect of ocular development, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying this process are poorly understood. My research examined CF closure and colobomas using zebrafish as a model system. In the first study, I determined that early cell fate changes within the eye field could cause colobomas using the zebrafish mutant blowout. Colobomas in blowout resulted from defects in optic stalk morphogenesis whereby the optic stalk extended into the retina and impeded the edges of the CF from meeting and fusing. Positional cloning of blowout identified a nonsense mutation in patched1, a negative regulator of the Hedgehog pathway. Up-regulation of Hedgehog pathway activity causes disruption in the patterning of the OV into proximal and distal territories, revealing that cell fate determination, mediated by Hedgehog signaling, is intimately involved in regulating CF closure. In the second study, I examined Bcl6 function and regulation during zebrafish eye development. bcl6 encodes a transcriptional repressor expressed in the ventral retina during zebrafish eye development. Loss of Bcl6 function leads to colobomas along with up-regulation of p53, a previously known Bcl6 target, and an increase in the number of apoptotic cells in the retina, demonstrating that Bcl6 plays a critical role in preventing apoptosis in the retina during early eye development. I also showed that Vax1 and Vax2 act upstream of bcl6 in the ventral retina. Furthermore, I identified functional interactions between Bcl6, Bcor and Hdac1 during eye development, demonstrating that Bcl6 functions along with Bcor and Hdac1 to mediate cell survival by regulating p53 expression. Together my studies expand the gene regulatory network involved in cell fate determination and cell survival during CF closure and ventral retina formation, and provide mechanistic insight into coloboma formation. / text

Η εφαρμογή των γεωδαιτικών μεθόδων στη χάραξη και παρακολούθηση των υπογείων έργων ακολουθεί σε γενικές γραμμές μια συγκεκριμένη πρακτική η οποία όμως (1) δεν έχει τεκμηριωθεί ως προς την ακρίβεια και τα όρια εφαρμογής της, και (2) τα στοιχεία που συλλέγονται στα διάφορα έργα στη συντριπτική τους πλειοψηφία δεν αξιολογούνται ή αξιοποιούνται. Η παρούσα Διατριβή στοχεύει να συνεισφέρει στο διπλό αυτό στόχο και γι’ αυτό περιλαμβάνει δύο βασικές ενότητες: Η πρώτη ενότητα στοχεύει στην τεκμηρίωση της ακρίβεια της γεωδαιτικής μεθόδου με βάση αναλυτική και πειραματική προσέγγιση και διερευνάται η ποιότητα και η αξιοπιστία διαθέσιμων παρατηρήσεων από αριθμό υπογείων έργων. Ειδικότερα, υπολογίστηκε η ακρίβεια χάραξης σηράγγων, ανάλογη του κύβου του πλήθους στάσεων σκόπευσης. Στη συνέχεια εκτιμήθηκαν οι αναλυτικές ακρίβειες στον υπολογισμό των οριζοντίων και κατακορύφων μετακινήσεων και συγκλίσεων κατά την παρακολούθηση σηράγγων και πραγματοποιήθηκαν πειραματικές μετρήσεις για την ακρίβεια των γεωδαιτικών οργάνων και μεθόδων που εφαρμόζονται. Με βάση τα αποτελέσματα η γεωδαιτική μέθοδος κρίνεται επαρκής και ακριβής για τη χάραξη και παρακολούθηση των συνήθων σηράγγων. Η δεύτερη ενότητα, βασισμένη σε παρατηρήσεις από διάφορες σήραγγες, στοχεύει στον έλεγχο της κινηματικής σημείων ή διατομών ελέγχου σηράγγων, τον έλεγχο των γεωμετρικών χαρακτηριστικών συγκλίσεων αλλά και της τυπολογίας της χρονικής εξέλιξης των μετακινήσεων. Αναλύθηκαν περιπτώσεις χωροχρονικής εξέλιξης μετακινήσεων που αποκλίνουν από την τυπική μορφή, με βασικό χαρακτηριστικό την εμφάνιση απότομων, ανεξήγητων μετακινήσεων. Ειδικότερα, η ανάλυση των διαθέσιμων στοιχείων από τις σήραγγες Τυμφρηστού, Καλλιδρόμου κ.α. οδήγησε στο συμπέρασμα ότι η υπερβολική αύξηση των μετακινήσεων τοπικά σε μια περιοχή προκαλεί κάτω από ορισμένες συνθήκες αλυσιδωτά νέες μετακινήσεις σε γειτονικές, προσωρινά σταθεροποιημένες περιοχές του έργου. / Geodetic techniques are widely used for the guidance and monitoring of underground structures, but (1) their accuracy and efficiency are not tested and (2) deformation data, collected during tunnel excavation, are not further evaluated. A contribution towards the solution of both these problems is the aim of this dissertation, which consists of two parts. In the first part the applicability and accuracy of the geodetic techniques were assessed using analytical and experimental techniques. Three main conclusions were obtained. First, that the errors of coordinates along a tunnel are proportional to the cube of the number of stations. Second, it was found that non-prismatic reflectors have a non-linear response and contributes to significant errors (>1-2mm) in convergence measurements and third, that the noise of actual monitoring measurements from several tunnels is at maximum ±4mm. In the second part of this dissertation deformation data from a number of tunnels were analyzed. Analytical methodologies were introduced for the estimation of the geometrical pattern of tunnel section distortion and mathematical, function approximation techniques are followed to model the typical pattern of tunnel deformation. Studies of monitoring data from tunnels that faced instabilities and high deformation (as Tymfristos tunnel, Kallidromo tunnel etc.) revealed that high tunnel closure locally, may induce a new phase of deformation to other nearby, previously stabilized, sections.

Leadership courses are emerging across higher education institutions taking various shapes and forms. Some are coordinated and run by faculty sometimes leading to a minor, major, or certificate. Others are coordinated by student affairs professionals. The focus of this study is to understand the experiences that student affairs professionals have in implementing and coordinating leadership courses in academic units. Because on many campuses leadership courses are being implemented by student affairs professionals, there are distinctive intricacies involved. Plagued by the complexity of the inter-profession relationship between student affairs and faculty, implementing and coordinating courses is not a simple matter. In addition to learning about student affairs professionals' experiences, this study also shares strategies that these professionals use in trying to implement and coordinate leadership courses in academic units. Drawing from literature on the professions as well as leadership development helps shed light on the complex dynamics underlying the course implementation and coordination process. Implications for both research and practice are included.

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Increasing the rate of orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) can reduce risks such as periodontal disease and caries. This study investigated whether light emitting diode (LED) phototherapy could accelerate the rate of OTM. Orthodontic patients with bilaterally symmetric extraction of premolars were recruited. During space closure, LED phototherapy was applied to one side of the dental arch for a specified time and the contralateral side acted as the control. Space closure was measured immediately prior to, during and later in space closure. All 11 patients were compliant with LED application. The results revealed no significant changes in the rate of OTM with LED phototherapy over 3 months of extraction space closure. The findings were contrary to previous findings with laser phototherapy and could be related to the dosage or method of LED phototherapy delivery. Further investigations are needed to determine whether LED phototherapy application can influence the rate of OTM.

Proper embryonic patterning requires precise spatio-temporal regulation of retinoic acid (RA) activity. Morphogenesis can be regulated at the level of RA distribution, mainly via its synthesis and catabolism by the RALDH and CYP26 enzymes respectively, and at the level of RA-mediated transcription through activation of its cognate nuclear receptor, the retinoic acid receptors (RARs) α, β, and γ. Loss of Cyp26b1 leads to increased local levels of RA in tissues such as the limb and craniofacial structures, and results in neonatal lethality. Visible gross phenotypic defects in neonates include phocomelia (shortening of the limbs), adactyly (missing digits), micrognathia (shortened lower jaw), and open eyes at birth. In addition, these embryos exhibit cleft palate and have a paucity of vibrissal (whisker) and pelage (hair) follicles. We have previously shown that ablating the gene encoding RARγ in a Cyp26a1-null background was able to rescue the caudal abnormalities associated with improper RA exposure in these embryos by limiting aberrant RA signalling, and thus rescuing expression domains of target genes involved in caudal development. I show here that ablating Rarg in a Cyp26b1-null background is able to partially rescue the defects associated with loss of CYP26B1. These include a reduction in the severity of limb defects, rescued vibrissae, fused eyelids, and recovered aspects of axial skeletal development. This compound-null murine model illustrates that RARγ plays a specific role in transducing the RA signal within tissues that are affected by the loss of CYP26B1. Further molecular analysis of the pathways responsible for directing limb bud outgrowth and eyelid fusion provided insight into pathways regulated by RARγ in these rescued tissues. / Thesis (Ph.D, Pathology & Molecular Medicine) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-01 15:38:52.05

No description available.

No description available.

Increasing the rate of orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) can reduce risks such as periodontal disease and caries. This study investigated whether light emitting diode (LED) phototherapy could accelerate the rate of OTM. Orthodontic patients with bilaterally symmetric extraction of premolars were recruited. During space closure, LED phototherapy was applied to one side of the dental arch for a specified time and the contralateral side acted as the control. Space closure was measured immediately prior to, during and later in space closure. All 11 patients were compliant with LED application. The results revealed no significant changes in the rate of OTM with LED phototherapy over 3 months of extraction space closure. The findings were contrary to previous findings with laser phototherapy and could be related to the dosage or method of LED phototherapy delivery. Further investigations are needed to determine whether LED phototherapy application can influence the rate of OTM.