Given the current obesity epidemic, the prevalence of overweight and obese patients with critical illness is increasing rapidly, however how obesity shapes critical illness and immune response to infection is not entirely understood. We developed a clinically relevant murine model of obesity in the context of sepsis, and examined organ specific inflammatory responses. Male C57BL/6 mice were fed either a high fat Western Diet (WD) (Modified Breslow, 21% Butterfat and 0.15% cholesterol) or normal chow diet (NCD) for 6, 15 or 27 weeks. Sepsis was induced by cecal ligation and perforation (CLP), and six hours post-surgery, plasma and tissue samples were harvested and flash frozen in liquid nitrogen. Septic obese mice at 15 and 27 weeks had significantly (p<0.0001) lower levels of lung myeloperoxidase (26.3±3.8 U/mg tissue) compared to age matched ad libitum (44.1±2.8 U/mg tissue) and diet restricted (63.2±5.60 U/mg tissue) controls, indicative of less lung inflammation. Obese mice (4.23±0.10g) had significantly enlarged livers compared to controls (1.55±0.80g and 1.22±0.031g), with pronounced steatosis, and hepatocyte ballooning, independent of sepsis. These findings are in congruence with clinical observations that obese individuals are protected from sepsis-induced lung injury, however the mechanisms involved are not entirely clear. We also examined effects of housing conditions on susceptibility to developing metabolic syndrome, and inflammatory response in our obesity and sepsis model. For this study, animals were fed either WD or NCD for 15 weeks and were housed in static or ventilated cages. Unlike static cages, ventilated cages have HEPA filtered air supply system and exhaust air ventilation, protecting the animals from air borne particles and preserving the microbiological barrier. Therefore, ventilated cages provide a more sterile environment compared to static cages. After 15 weeks, fecal matter was collected from the cages and mice were subjected to sepsis using the CLP technique. Six hours post surgery, animals were sacrificed and tissues were harvested, snap frozen and stored at -80°C. The animals from the more sterile environment (ventilated cages) had significantly (p<0.0001) less weight gain and did not show signs of overt hyperglycemia, compared to mice housed in a less sterile environment (static cages). In addition, obese mice housed in static cages had less lung injury compared to controls during early sepsis, however this difference was not evident in mice from ventilated cages. There were also significant differences in the fecal microbe composition, where ventilated groups had greater Firmicutes (69% ± 0.06% for WD and 76% ± 0.03%) and less Bacteroidetes population (15% ± 0.04% for WD and 12% ± 0.02% for NCD) compared to static groups (Firmicutes: 42% ± 0.08% for WD and 24% ± 0.02% for NCD, Bacteroidetes: 37% ± 12% for WD and 53% ± 29% for NCD). This study highlighted the impact of environment on the susceptibility to developing metabolic syndrome, and the potential impact on the associated immune responses, in our mouse models of obesity and sepsis. Leptin is an important mediator of immune responses to infection, and the levels are elevated during diet induced obesity in both mice and humans. We found that mice treated with leptin one hour prior to surgery, had significantly less injury (32.62±1.6 U/mg tissue) compared to saline treated animals (46.58±3.48 U/mg tissue), as evident from lung myeloperoxidase levels and histopathology scores. In addition, proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) over expressing mice on a normal diet, had significantly greater lung injury (46.51±4.51 U/mg tissue myeloperoxidase levels) compared to knockouts (31.14±1.75 U/mg tissue), this difference was not observed in WD fed mice with differential PCKS9 expression. In conclusion, WD fed mice had significantly less lung inflammation but greater hepatic injury. Furthermore, both leptin and PCSK9 are important mediators of lung inflammation in early sepsis. / Thesis / Doctor of Science (PhD)

The observation of first grade children as they became readers led the researcher to this study. Some children found reading an effortless task, some progressed as expected with instruction, while others struggled. An effort was undertaken to gain insight into the various paths children took on their way to independent reading. The goal of this qualitative study was to describe the reading experiences of first grade children in order to enhance understanding and to describe their paths to look for similarities and differences. Five themes emerged from this study. First, the study found differing definitions of reading among the children, parents, and teachers. These conflicting definitions sometimes led to complications as the children learned to read. Second, the social construction of learning to read was clearly demonstrated by these children. Children in this study read together, held conversations about how to work their way through text, and engaged in joint decision making. While the children learned from and with each other throughout the study, a third theme that emerged was that of the personal nature of learning to read. In addition to reading and learning with peers, the children also chose to read alone. This seemed to be a time to try out and internalize new learning, as well as time to practice what was known. The various paths that the children took as they learned to read yielded a fourth theme. While the path for some was rather linear, others took a more circuitous route. The ability of the children in this study to identify more able readers and to seek them out to read and listen to emerged as the fifth and final theme. / Ed. D.

The primary purpose of this qualitative study was to discover the kinds of issues that were troubling sixth-grade students while they were in school through focus groups which were led by eighth-grade peer helpers in the school, the Natural Helpers. The second purpose of this study was to evaluate the information that the Natural Helpers gathered in the focus groups and to compare this information to the information that the participants reported on a personal problem checklist. Third, the purpose of this study was to keep a tally of the types of worries about which the sixth graders sought help from heir guidance counselor. Fourth, the purpose of this study was to compare these findings to information in the existing literature. The participants were 48 sixth-grade students (21 males and 27 females) whose heterogeneously-grouped classes at a suburban middle school in the Roanoke Valley in Virginia were randomly selected to participate in this study. After the students and the parents of the students signed informed consent forms, the students completed personal problem checklists and participated in one of nine student-led focus groups. Two of the focus groups were exclusively male, two were exclusively female, and the remaining groups contained males and females. Results from the study indicated that the participants reported a variety of worries, but the majority of their discussions pertained to issues concerning grades, social lives, violence, trouble at school, and family issues. The sixth graders reported similar issues as concerns on the personal problem checklist and sought assistance from their guidance counselor for similar concerns. However, there was one main difference in the findings between the three methodologies: the students sought assistance for worries concerning violence and spoke extensively about their concerns regarding violence during the focus groups but did not report violence as a main concern on the problem checklist. Probable reasons for these differences were addressed. Overall, the participants reported many concerns that were similar to the concerns that were reported by other adolescents in the professional literature, and they reported concerns that were consistent with the developmental literature. Exclusively male focus groups, exclusively female focus groups, and mixed focus groups generated similar information with a few noted exceptions regarding the content of their discussions and with a few noted exceptions regarding the extent to which the males spoke during the groups. This study generated recommendations for future research and for the counseling profession. / Ed. D.

The purpose of this study was to explore parents' perceptions of children entering kindergarten and their understanding of school readiness. In this collective case study, drawing on parent interviews and artifact sampling and guided by discourse analysis (Gee, 2015), I employed Saldaña's (2021) cycle coding methods to explore the themes of what parents perceive and co-construct as 'school readiness'. Data collected for this study includes video recorded interviews of four participants as well as artifacts of their child(ren)'s classroom assessments, parent-teacher conference forms and packets, and a checklist shared by the parents. The findings of the study showed parents' perception of school readiness is a limited list of basic skills, emotional skills, social skills, and "doing school behaviors". Furthermore, parents can co-construct with their child's teacher a better understanding of school readiness and believe that assessments do not adequately measure their child's school readiness. This study is useful to professionals in the early childhood field by showing ways to close the discrepancy between what parents believe school readiness is and what schools expect of incoming kindergarten students.

A partir da descoberta dos íntrons, muitas questões sobre sua origem vêm sendo discutidas como: porque eles existem em eucariotos e não são encontrados em procariotos, quando e como eles se originaram. Basicamente duas hipóteses existem para explicar a origem dos íntrons: \"introns-early\" e \"introns-late\". A primeira hipótese sugere que íntrons e éxons já existiam nos primeiros genes e os íntrons foram perdidos posteriormente na linhagem de bactérias. A hipótese oponente, introns-late, assume que os íntrons foram adicionados posteriormente durante a evolução, somente em eucariotos. Introns de genes diferentes podem sofrer recombinação durante a divisão celular e assim formar novos genes. Este processo permite e aumenta a freqüência de troca completa de éxons e, conseqüentemente, aumenta a probabilidade de novos genes funcionais serem formados. Este fenômeno é chamado de \"exon-shuffling\" e é um mecanismo importante em relação a origem de muitas proteínas novas em eucariotos. Entretanto, o papel do exon-shuffling na criação das proteínas no ancestral comum dos procariotos e eucariotos é o ponto de discordância entre as hipóteses introns-early e introns-late porque este mecanismo depende da presença dos introns no progenoto. Excesso de éxons simétricos é considerado uma evidência de exon-shuffling, já que a troca de éxons flanqueados por íntrons da mesma fase não muda o quadro de leitura do gene receptor. Nesta tese, apresentamos dois estudos relacionados ao papel do fenômeno de exon-shuffling na evolução das proteínas. No primeiro estudo, observamos que existe uma correlação significativa entre unidades simétricas de shuffling e a idade de domínios protéicos. Domínios antigos, presentes em procariotos e eucariotos, são mais freqüentemente flanqueados por íntrons de fase zero e são preferencialmente localizados nas partes centrais das proteínas. Domínios modernos são mais freqüentemente flanqueados por íntrons de fase um e estão presentes predominantemente nas extremidades das proteínas. Propomos um modelo no qual o shuffling de domínios antigos flanqueados por íntrons de fase zero deve ter sido importante durante a criação das partes centrais das proteínas no ancestral comum de eucariotos e procariotos. Shuffling de domínios modernos, predominantemente flanqueados por íntrons de fase um, deve ter sido importante para a origem das extremidades das proteínas durante a evolução de eucariotos. O segundo estudo trata do possível papel do exon-shuffling na evolução de peptídeos sinal em proteínas humanas. Recentemente, foi mostrado que existe uma predominância de íntrons de fase um próximo ao sítio de clivagem de peptídeos sinal em genes humanos [Tordai, H., Patthy, L. (2004) FEBS lett. 575:109-111]. Os autores sugeriram que tal distribuição é causada pela inserção de íntrons em sítios de inserção preferencial AGG. Apresentamos evidências de que o sinal observado não é tão forte como inicialmente mostrado e que não existe excesso desproporcional de AGG que daria suporte a inserção em sítios preferenciais. Como estas proteínas evoluíram através de exon-shuffling, levantamos a possibilidade de que este fenômeno possa também ter sido amplamente responsável pelo excesso de íntrons de fase um. Acreditamos que os dados presentes nestes dois estudos representam uma contribuição importante para o campo de estudo de evolução de íntrons e do fenômeno de exon-shuffling porque estes apresentam dados importantes e originais acerca do papel do \"exon-shuffling\" antigo e moderno durante a evolução das proteínas. / Since the discovery of introns, many questions about their origin have been raised such as: why they exist in eukaryotic organisms and not in prokaryotes, when and how did they originate. Mainly, there are two hypotheses explaining the origin of introns: ?introns-early? and ?introns-late?. The first hypothesis suggests that introns and exons already existed in the first genes and were lost later in the bacteria lineage. The opposing hypothesis, introns-late, assumes that introns were inserted late in evolution, in eukaryotic organisms only. Introns from different genes may suffer recombination during cell division and this way form new genes. This process allows and increases the frequency of exchanging complete exons and, consequently, increases the probability of forming new functional genes. This phenomenon is called ?exon-shuffling? and is an important mechanism accounting for the origin of many new proteins in eukaryotes. However, the role of exon-shuffling in the creation of proteins in the ancestor of prokaryotes and eukaryotes is the point of disagreement between the hypotheses \"introns-early\" and \"introns-late\" because this mechanism depends of the presence of introns in the progenote. Excess of symmetric exons is thought to represent evidence for exon-shuffling since the exchange of exons flanked by introns of the same phase does not disrupt the reading frame of the host gene. In this thesis, we present two studies concerning the role of the exon-shuffling phenomenon in protein evolution. In the first study, we found that there is a significant correlation between symmetric units of shuffling and the age of protein domains. Ancient domains, present in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, are more frequently bounded by phase zero introns and their distribution is biased towards the central part of proteins. Modern domains are more frequently bounded by phase one introns and are present predominantly at the ends of proteins. We propose a model in which shuffling of ancient domains mainly flanked by phase zero introns would have been important during the creation of the central part of proteins in the ancestor of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Shuffling of modern domains, predominantly flanked by phase one introns, would have accounted for the origin of the extremities of proteins during eukaryotic evolution. The second study accounts the possible role of exon-shuffling in the acquisition of signal peptides in human proteins. It was recently shown that there is a predominance of phase one introns near the cleavage site of signal peptides of human genes [Tordai, H., Patthy, L. (2004) FEBS lett. 575:109-111]. The authors suggested that it was due to intron insertion at AGG proto-splice sites. We present evidence that the signal observed is not as strong as initially shown and that there is no disproportional excess of AGG that would support insertion at proto-splice sites. As these proteins evolved by exon-shuffling, we raise the possibility that this phenomenon might also be largely responsible for such excess of phase one introns. We believe the data present in these two studies represent an important contribution to the field of introns and exon-shufling evolution due to their important and original data concerning the role of ancient and modern exon-shuffling during the evolution of the proteins.

This thesis argues that both the epistle of James and the Didache reflect tensions among the early Christian communities. The community concerns reflected in the texts of each book are investigated. Then their group maintenance strategies are analyzed. It will be shown that both writings have a similar concern on the harmony and cohesiveness of the Christian communities. On the other hand, there are differences as well as similarities in their strategies for reducing conflict. An analysis of the community tensions reflected in James is given. This shows that James is not merely a random collection of traditional teachings beyond critical studies. Interpretative issues, including grammatical and rhetorical questions surrounding passages in James are considered carefully in order to explore the epistle’s rhetorical situation. It will be argued that reflected in the text are real concerns for tensions among the audience, not merely general ethical instructions. Then results from social-scientific studies on social identity and conflict phenomena are bring in to further explore the possible group dynamics for communities in conflict. This enhances one’s understanding of the meaning and purpose of the teaching in James. Theses group dynamics also fill in some gaps between passages in James. Hence, the coherence of the book is highlighted in the study. Lastly, these social-scientific theories also provide a framework for analyzing the strategies of maintaining group cohesiveness in James. Next, a parallel study is given for the Didache. This study shows that besides chapters 11-15, which clearly reflect dangers of dispute among the early believers, other sections of the document also reflect the Didachist’s concern for tensions among the early Christians. Then the group maintenance strategy of the Didache is analyzed using a similar framework as that used for James. Finally, a comparison between the two writings is given from the perspective of group maintenance. Similarities and differences in the books’ community concerns as well as their means for maintaining harmony in the community are highlighted to indicate the significance of these documents for the early Christian communities.

Wang, Ying. / Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-107). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on September, 2016).

This dissertation is a study of the reception of the Jesuit-trained Italian author, Giovanni Botero (1544–1617) in early-seventeenth century England. It examines how Botero was translated for an English audience, and reconstructs the debates to which Botero was relevant and helped stimulate in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Part I examines the publication history of Botero’s books in England and finds that the translators and printers edited Botero significantly. Its primary focus is thus on who was translating Botero and for what purposes, and who was printing and selling the resulting books. It establishes that the most prominent of Botero’s books in England were the Della grandezza della città (1588), Della ragion di stato (1589), Relazioni Universali (1591–1595). Chapters I–III accordingly consider these works in turn. Chapter IV then briefly turns to consider Botero’s other works, including I prencipi (1600). Part II then turns to look at Botero’s readers. Four further chapters consider Botero’s reception in relation to four broad themes: geography and travel (Chapter I); climate and situation (Chapter II); colonies and commerce (Chapter III); and responses to Machiavelli (Chapter IV). Each of these chapters examine Botero’s contributions to these themes, other contemporary authors whom he was read alongside, and how and why people were reading him to speak to these debates. Ultimately, the backdrop to this story is English colonialism in the Americas and Ireland and a growing interest in understanding the political significance of trade. The dissertation therefore contributes to our understanding of the history of early modern political thought, translation and reception, and English-Italian intellectual exchange in the early modern period. Ultimately, the thesis tells two stories – one about the importance of this Italian author in seventeenth-century England, the other about the intellectual origins of certain key themes in British political thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Widows and their fatherless children are commonly perceived to be the most deserving category amongst the poor. The frequent exhortations in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament clearly and constantly reminded the early Christian Church of the divine expectations God had enjoined upon them in this matter. There appears to be no obstacle, theological or moral, to perceiving them as worthy recipients of Christian charity and pastoral care. Yet the results of this study show that in the early centuries of the church the fatherless family was invisible to its leadership. They were not perceived as needy people deserving support but were regarded as a problem, rather than real human beings. Ambiguous material in the Gospels and in the other writings of the New Testament, where references to them are sparse and sometimes unsympathetic, allowed creativity of interpretation to occur permitting evasion of the giving of straightforward support, and instead facilitated greater management and control by the clergy. Their informal self-organisation and methods of mutual self-help were increasingly eroded. The only extensive study of the support of the fatherless family in Roman society and the Church is the four volume habilitation thesis of Jens-Uwe Krause, Witwen und Waisen im Römischen Reich, published between 1994-1995. This large study deals with the long period 200 BCE – 600 CE diachronically. Apart from the 2009 collection of essays edited by Sabine R. Hübner and David M. Ratzan. Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, which deals mainly with elite, political, and literary figures rather than the poor, little else has been written on the fatherless child in antiquity. The issue of whether 1 Timothy 5:3-16 and similar later material are referring to an ‘Order’ of widows, typified by Bonnie Thurston’s 1989 book, The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church, has proved a major diversion. Recent work by Steven Friesen and Bruce Longenecker reinforce the conception of the composition of the early church as being primarily that of the poor. My focus is on the neglected area of pastoral care of the poor fatherless family within the earliest church, concentrating on the first 300 years CE. The existence of the poor fatherless family created financial, social and moral difficulties for the church leadership, which forced them to devise novel ways to deal with the duties encumbering them. How could they control these sexually experienced, but vulnerable and dependent, women with their young children? One way was to re-define them as something else. The first method, and the most successful, was to split them up into two distinct groups, old people and full orphans, each requiring a different approach. Another strategy was to make widows represent someone or something other than themselves. Their alter egos will be shown to be human, literary or theological. The third trend observed was an effort towards extinguishing the voice of women. If women and fatherless children were to epitomise something else other than themselves, then their own self-perceived reality had to be kept well hidden. They could not be allowed to speak or socialise. If they did speak their words had to be rendered unheard or to be of no effect. Finally, the young fatherless children of widows have no voice and consequently have been rendered invisible. They do not appear in the Gospels. In the rest of the New Testament and the writings of the early church fathers, they receive little more than a cursory mention as part of a literary trope, or are transformed into barely mentioned full orphans.

abstract: This mixed methods study examined whether participation in a virtual community of practice (vCoP) could impact the implementation of new skills learned in a professional development session and help to close the research to implementation gap. Six participants attended a common professional development session and completed pre- , mid- , and post-intervention surveys regarding their implementation of social emotional teaching strategies as well as face-to-face interviews. Both quantitative and qualitative data was examined to determine if participation in the vCoP impacted implementation of skills learned in the PD session. Quantitative data was inconclusive but qualitative data showed an appreciation for participation in the vCoP and access to the resources shared by the participants. Limitations and implications for future cycles of research are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018