In 1956 Darrel Parker was convicted of murdering his wife, with no evidence of his guilt except his own confession. Like Parker, some individuals confess to crimes which they did not commit. These confessions are generally made with a lawyer present when police us deception or coercion. While deception is constitutional, and a permitted police tactic, coercion is not. THis paper distinguished between the two and provides a philosophical framework for determining when deception becomes coercive. While non-coercive deception can lead to false confessions, I do not argue that deception should be banned, as it is a useful tool for police in catching criminals. Instead, I argue that police may deceive suspects, but prosecutors and judges should provide a check by using a three-pronged test to ensure that individuals are not convicted of crimes they did not commit.

The media has a significant influence on any political process. In Venezuela, particularly, the media plays an important rold in defining the electorate's political opinion and attitude toward the political process. This thesis analyzed how the media's preference for conflict and individual personalities exacerbated overall societal tensions and polarization in Venezuela since 1999. I suggest a framework for a future content analysis of news coverage of the 2012 presidential election in order to quantify and qualify the evolution of bias and balance in Venezuela's mass media.

The pyramid ant, Dorymyrmex bureni, is one of the most common and conspicuous ants of open, sandy habitats in the southeastern US. To examine the architecture of D. bureni nests in different habitats, I made wax casts of the subterranean tunnels and chambers of nests in a disturbed college campus site (n=3) and a relatively undisturbed greenway preserve site (n=5). Nests of pyramid ant, Dorymyrmex bureni, consist of two basic units : horizontal chambers and descending shafts connecting them. Chambers near the surface are tunnel-like with branches arranged in a nexus, while deeper chambers were more compact in outline. Chamber height is more or less constant, but chamber shape becomes more complex and lobed in characteristic ways as chambers enlarge. Nests have a top-heavy distribution of chamber area at all sizes because chambers are larger and closer together in the upper nest regions.

The kinesin superfamily of microtubule motor proteins is subdivided into families based upon structure and function. KIF9 is the founding member of the Kinesin-9 family, which is a largely uncharacterized group of kinesins. It was originally identified by sequence homology to other kinesins. Subsequent studies have shown that KIF9 interacts with proteins involved in cell shape remodeling, cell migration and proper centrosomal positioning. We have examined KIF9 function in mammalian cells using shRNA-mediated knockdown and GFP-plasmid overexpression. By knocking dow KIF9 expression in these cells, we have seen several effects on normal cell cycle progression. Using various cell cycle markers, we have observed a decrease in the number of cells in late S phase. In addition, there is a marked increase in the number of cells in early mitosis in unexpected time intervals. We propose that KIF9 is required for proper cell progression, via a potentially novel checkpoint mechanism.

The dauer larva is an alternate larval stage which allows the nematode C. elegans to survive environmestress during development. Dauer formation requires autophagy, a cellular process responsible for degrading and recycling cytoplasmic components. I investigated the role of a spinster orthiolog, C13C4.5, by examining the effects of C13C4.5 loss-of-function and by generating a transgenic strain which expressed a C13C4.5::GFP fusion protein. Under normal conditions C13C4.5::GFP is expressed diffusely in the intestine, but under autophagy-promoting conditions the expression pattern becomes more punctate. This is consistent with localization of C13C4.5 to autophagolysomoes during autophagy, as has been shown for spinster in D. melanogaster. Loss of C13C4.5 function in a dauer-constitutive mutant resulted in a reduction in the proportion of animals entering into the dauer stage. Together these data suggest that C13C4.5 is involved in dauer formation and the autophagy pathway.

The Supreme Court's Ruling in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989) eld that "A State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause." (489 U.S. 189 at 197). A state child protection agency's failure to prevent near-fatal abuse of a four year old child under its supervision was not considered a violation of the child's fourteenth amendment rights. This thesis critcally examines the reasoning behind the majority decision in DeShaney ; and using feminist legal theory, discusses ways to effectively address state policy and liability when private violence is used on vulnerable citizens, challenging the arbitrary dichotomy between the public and private spheres.

DNA methylation, the addition of a methyl group to the 5' position of DNA cytosines (5mC), is generally associated with transcriptional repression during early embryo formation ; however, in the adult brain, it is dynamically regulated and plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of memory. Very recently, it has been hypothesized that DNA hydroxymethylation, the addition of a hydroxyl group to methylated cytosines (5mC), serves as an intermediate in the DNA demethylation pathway. GIven its recent discovery, the role of DNA hydroxymethylation in memory has not yet been explored. In this study, we developed an immunofluorescent triple labeling protocol in order to begin examining the involvement of 5mC and 5hmC in neurons activated by consolidation of a contextual memory associated with methamphetamine in the brain's reward center, the nucleus accumbens.

Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? Historically, philosophers, poets, artists, and scientists have striven to define and express one of the most complex words in the English language : beauty. In contemporary society we tend to casually ascribe the word beauty to many various objects,paintings, sounds, and ideas. Its meaning can adhere to a stone, to the oscillating waves of an ocean, to the nonorganic as to the organic. Perceptions of Beauty is a project the follows my journey as an artist and how my perception of beauty has changed over the past four years. Using examples from select artists, philosophers, and scientific studies, I will contend that Beauty is not "in the eye of the beholder," but is a complex and formulated characteristic that inspires not only an emotional response, but evokes mechanisms that defy our understanding of ourselves.

Caloric restriction (CR), the reduction of nutrient intake short of malnutrition, extends the lifespan of various organisms and can improve measures of human health. Whether mechanisms of lifespan extension are conserved between humans and model organisms is unknown. In mammals, implementing CR is easily achieved by providing a restricted group with a fraction of the food consumed by an "ad libitum" fed group, which has unlimited food access. Due to the difficulty in directly controlling Drosophila food intake, caloric restriction, performed similarly to the mammalian paradigm, has never been tested in flies. Here, we demonstrate a system that allows measurement of food intake throughout life. This system will be used to measure fly lifespan under caloric restriction analogous to current mammalian studies. Our work will help tease apart the differences between the various caloric and dietary restriction paradigms in Drosophila, strengthening our understanding of how fly models relate to mammalian systems.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an increasingly common neurological disorder that mainly affects memory formation and retention. It is characterized by unique intercellular neurofibrillary tangles and extracellular beta-amyloid plaques. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi's) are competitive antagonists against histone deacetylases, causing histone acetyltransferases to acetylate the genome unregulated. This thesis investigates the use of new histone deacetylase inhibitors on recovering memory in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. By use of a fear conditioning paradigm, we have shown that these HDACI's increase memory in AD mice, but show either no effect or a positive effect in wild-type mice. Future experiments will investigate the efficacy of compound 966 and the spine density of hippocampal brain slices after fear conditioning trials.