“Spirit of Improvement” explores the social, economic, and architectural consequences of waterfront improvement initiatives undertaken in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston from the waning years of the colonial period through the passage of the first federally-sponsored warehousing act in 1846. City-dwellers replaced a haphazardly-constructed warren of crooked streets, wooden storehouses and buildings, and dilapidated wharves of the colonial period, with orderly streetscapes, brick and stone buildings, and expanded infrastructure dedicated to local and international commerce. Though in each city, construction differed in scale and regional form, improvements everywhere were a daunting physical, financial, and political task. This dissertation seeks to present the stories of men and women throughout American cities to uncover the social and economic complexities that lay at the heart of improvement initiatives in the colonial and early national periods. Merchants and speculators sought new forms of government authorization and the consent of property holders to reorder the landscape. Architects and engineers drafted cutting-edge designs for warehouses and harbors that looked to European examples and embraced the aesthetics of neoclassicism, industrial technology, and emerging theories of public health and disease prevention. White and black laborers dredged harbors, extended docks, and erected brick and stone warehouses. Female boardinghouse and shopkeepers established businesses adjacent to the wharves. Not only did residents confront the persistence of improvement projects in their midst, they also confronted their personal relationships to the abundance of interests jostling for prominence in the early-national marketplace. As a result, these initiatives proved highly contentious both for the elites who could afford to fund competing projects, as well as for the artisans, free and enslaved laborers, small business and property holders, and families living and working on the margins of society. As the cities’ poor and middling sorts witnessed the transformations occurring around them, many were left to grapple with the question, “Improvement, but for whom?” Today, inhabitants of America’s port cities will find many of these themes all-too familiar: the presence of corporate development along shorelines; the role of celebrated architects and planners in the design and construction of expensive waterfront buildings; the ousting of long-term residents and businesses in the face of high rents or shifting clientele; and the emergence of a socially invisible, but economically essential, service-sector workforce who provide the necessary labor to keep these ventures afloat. “Spirit of Improvement” seeks to uncover the complex historical roots of America’s fascination with waterfront development—a phenomenon that stretches back to the improvement initiatives of the early republic, when merchant-entrepreneurs began to truly exploit infrastructure’s economic potential. In the early nineteenth century, capitalist development served the interests of merchants and businessmen involved international trade and commerce. Today, we look to the future of our urban waterfronts and confront the historical foundations on which these physical and social structures stand.

Stem cell pluripotency and self-renewal are two important attributes of human embryonic stem cells which have led to enhanced interest in stem cell research. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie the regulation and maintenance of these properties is imperative to the clinical application of stem cells. Pluripotency and self-renewal are regulated by different genes, transcription factors and other co-factors such as FoxD3 and Klf4. Oct4, Nanog and Sox2 are central to the stem cell regulatory circuitry. They form interactions with co-factors to promote cell proliferation and inhibit differentiation by negatively regulating differentiation markers. However, there are other novel pluripotency associated factors yet to be studied. In this study, bioinformatics and functional analyses were employed to identify a potential pluripotency gene called YY1AP1 from our lab's pre-existing microarray data. YY1AP1, a transcription regulatory gene, showed consistent down-regulation with induced cell differentiation. It was further investigated. First, its co-localization with Oct4 in both hESCs and iPSCs was confirmed by immunofluorescence staining. Knockdown experiments were then performed on this gene to investigate effects of knocking it down on gene expression in hESCs. Knocked-down cells were characterized for markers of pluripotency and differentiation at the transcript level. Results showed a down-regulation of pluripotency genes with no specific promotion of any of the germ layer markers. Gene expression at the protein level in knocked down cells was then assessed for YY1AP1, and its binding partner YY1, and pluripotency markers. Results showed that proteins of YY1AP1, YY1, Oct4, Nanog and CTCF were down regulated while the tumour suppressor gene protein, p53, was up-regulated in YY1AP1 deficient stem cells. Protein to protein interaction studies showed that YY1AP1, YY1, Nanog and CTCF proteins directly interacted with each other. Differentiation of YY1AP1deficient cells into EBs led to an almost complete shutdown of all gene expression, an indication that the cells did not form 'real' EBs. Differentiation of YY1AP1 ablated cells did not support any lineage promotion either. These results suggest a potentially new role for YY1AP1 in proliferation and self-renewal of stem cells through its possible direct binding to CTCF or its indirect binding to CTCF in complex with YY1.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

It is commonly accepted that instrumental responses that have been extinguished can return. For example, in a phenomenon known as the renewal effect, extinguished behaviors return upon removal from the extinction context. Another well-accepted notion is that instrumental behaviors can be thought of as goal-directed actions, which form over the course of moderate amounts of practice or training, and habits, which form after extended practice. Despite years of research on both topics, what happens to actions and habits following extinction is poorly understood. The present experiments examined the renewal of actions and habits following retroactive interference paradigms such as extinction and additional training. Experiment 1 examined renewal of an action following its extinction in a separate context, and demonstrated that the extinguished behavior renewed as an action upon return to the acquisition context. Experiment 2 asked the same question about habits, and found that the behavior renewed as a habit after extinction upon return to the acquisition context. Experiment 3 examined renewal of goal-directed responding in one context following extensive training and conversion into habit in another context. It demonstrated that a single response could manifest as a habit in one context, and renew as an action in the original training context. Experiment 4 asked if this effect depends on returning to the acquisition context, or simply removal from the habit training context. The results suggest that mere removal from the habit training context is sufficient to renew the goal-directed properties of a behavior. Together, the results suggest that actions and habits can be inhibited in a context-specific manner by extinction, and that instrumental behaviors can have both action and habit properties that can each renew under the proper circumstances. The results also expand on the notion that habits are especially context specific, while actions can transfer across contexts.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert Warren, School of Urban Affairs & Public Policy. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is an attempt to study the role of Ahmad Surkati in al-Ishrad movement in Java and its implications for the Arab community in Indonesia.

No description available.

In order to meet the real demand of urban development, the government referred to international and domestic theories, laws, and practical affairs, explored the difficulties of urban renewal practice which our country encountered in the past, and finally established the Urban Renewal Regulations Draft. Later the Draft was submitted to the Executive Yuan to request for further discussion of the Legislation Yuan in June, 1997. It was passed after three times¡¦ reading on Oct.22, 1998, and formally announced by the President to be carried out publicly on Nov.11 of the same year in accordance with the Presidential Official Number 8700232460 of the Republic of China. For the purpose of giving an impulse to the urban renewal and encouraging the folk people to participate in the development and investment on slummy areas, Kaohsiung City Government considered the special demand of urban renewal and the beneficial attraction of participating, to be convenient for people to apply every benefit, such as the Building Floor Area Reward, Tax Reduction, and Expenses Subsidy, etc. and established the standards of the Evaluation Norm of Building Floor Area Reward, Delimitation and Definition Norm of Renewal Unit, and Rights Transformation of Minimum Allot Square Unit . Meanwhile, due to the right and obligation of the autonomous people, Kaohsiung City Government established the Urban Renewal Local Ordinance of Kaohsiung City with the spirit of elasticity and non-strictness under the 18th and 28th of Local Laws. The Urban Renewal Regulations and its related laws were legislated continually. The Urban Renewal Local Ordinance of Kaohsiung City was legislated by the cooperation of the city government and the city council, and it¡¦s strictly confirmed that the whole system of urban renewal will promote the advanced reuse of urban land by effective plans, which help revive the urban functions, improve the urban residential environment, increase the public benefits, and stimulate the prosperity of construction business. This paper provides practical examples for Execution to the Implementation of the Urban Renewal for Kaohsiung City, and suggests Kaohsiung City Government reinforce the concepts through every kind of occasion and way to ensure that the local government of urban renewal, Implementer, and people of the renewed areas can understand the contents of urban renewal, and advance the urban renewal as the first priority.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 2006. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-145).

Project (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1991. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-72).