thesis

Tea is a beverage consumed by individuals from a multitude of different cultures. It is often taken up with open arms and welcomed as a prominient compnent of cultures, diets, and daily social interactions. The value of tea is based as much on its physical cultures that enjoy tea interact with the beverage in different ways, I argue that tea has its own culture. From interviews with four informants, I found three dominant components of the tea culture that have swayed them to join : (1) tea can be a medium for social gatherings, (2) tea is beneficial to the mind and body, (3) people take the time to fully enjoy the experience. This thesis seeks to understand the value tea has for Floridian tea enthusiasts, the roots of the tea culture, and what it is about tea that has caused many to become "addicted".

The kinesin family of microtubule motors is divided into subfamilies based on structure and function. KIF9, founder of the Kinesin-9 family, has been found to interact with the GTPase Gem. Subsequent studies have shown that KIF9 is vital for flagellar movement and podosome regulation. Previous work has proposed KIF9 is required for microtubule organization as well as proper mitotic entry, progression and completion. In this study, I examined the function of KIF0 in mitotic progression using shRNA-mediated knockdown, and overexpression. In knockdown cells, I saw a significant delay in mitotic progression as well as an increase in multipolarity and multinuclearity, suggesting a failure of cytokinesis. Overexpression of KIF9 produced similar effects on mitotic progression, as well as a marked increase in chromosome distance during anaphase. Taken with previous results, my research indicated that KIF9 is required for normal mitotic progression and completion, possible via regulation of the contractile ring.

The issue of sexual exploitation of children occurs in various forms and across socio-economic, racial, and cultural classes. Children experience abuse at the hands of authority figures who are family members, friends, and sometimes strangers. The discussions on this social issue tell the stories of children who have experienced abuse along with the processes and outcomes that arise in providing assistance to help them cope with these unwanted experiences. Discourses in the fields of psychology, social work, medical sciences, and law have in their own unique style, taken different measures to highlight and address this social problem. However,there is remarkably little discussion held on the institutional changes that are required to stop this practice of child sexual abuse and public discourse and response is not reflective of the urgency required to address the issue. I argue that to address the issue of child sexual abuse requires addressing all the elements entrenched in the institutions of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality that fosters and promotes the subjugation of women and children, which is a topic best addressed through feminist theory.

Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are being evaluated for the treatment of a broad array of diseases due to their ability to secrete a variety of therapeutically beneficial paracrine-acting factors. For example, MSC conditioned media (MSC-CM) has been shown to inhibit hypoxia-induced apoptosis in human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) via activation of the P13-AKT pathway. However, the factors secreted by MSCs responsible for this effect have yet to be identified. Recent studies have shown that the glycoprotein Follistatin-like 1 (FSTL1) activates the P13-AKT pathway by binding to the receptor disco-interacting protein (DIP2A) expressed on the surface of cells. Based on our data indicating that MSCs constitutively secrete high quantities of FSTL1, we hypothesize that this protein principally mediates the anti-apoptopic effect of MSC-CM on HAECs. Loss-of-function studies employing siRNA-mediated knockdown of the protein and neutralizing antibodies will be used to assess the role of FSTL1 in growth and survival of HAECs following exposure to hypoxic stress.

Shigeru Miyamoto's The Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time pushed the boundaries of video game design in 1998 by introducting players to one of the first virtual worlds fully-rendered in three-dimensions. The shift from rendering game worlds in two-dimensions to rendering them in three-dimensions required the development of new techniques for constructing virtual worlds. This thesis focuses on the construction of the virtual realm in Ocarina of Time, particularly the ways by which players are presented with cosmology of the virtual world and the divine ordering of the races that dwell there. In addition, this thesis explores how the process of building the virtual worldof Hyrule is mimicked in the design of the game's individual levels, in terms of the spaces that players explore, the rules they are bound by, and the goals that they must reach while progressing through the central plot.

I begin by identifying right-libertarians as individuals who believe, foremost, that legislators should reduce the size of the national government. A number of right-libertarians support a Congressional tax reform proposal, the Fair Tax. This support is surprising because the bill is revenue neutral : it therefore does not directly address concerns over increasing Congressional spending or growth of government. Are right-libertarians sacrificing their principles for expediency or is there some other explanation? I argue right-libertarians mainly support the bill because they (1) believe Congress would abolish the IRS as soon as it went into effect, increasing citizens' privacy in the process ; and (2) view it as a gradual reform that would lead to further legislation intended to reduce the size of government.

In this study, relationships between social networks and personality in a small liberal arts college were examined. Participants were asked to list members of their social networks, the activities in which they participated, and to complete the Sentence Completion Test (SCT), and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). On the CPI, individuals with high scores on measures related to extraversion (particularaly the CPI Sociability scale) will have a greater network size and report a larger number of activities. In additon, the extent to which participants formed relationships with individuals with similar levels of ego development, and similar personality profiles, that is, the degree of homophily in relationships were evaluated. Finally, it was examined whether this homophily increased over time, that is, whether students increasingly gravitated towards others with similar personalities during the college years.

From the time of Peter the Great the dacha has fulfilled various roles in the environs of Russia's cities : in the 18th century it was the palatial mansions of the aristocratic elite outside of St. Petersburgand Moscow ; in the 19th century the dacha became a summer rental property for urbanites to escape the cramped and dirty cities ; in the Soviet dominated 20th century the dacha was organized into garden plot communities for subsistence farming. However, the privatization of land following the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled a shift in the dacha's existence. Lamp-lined streets and perfectly pruned lawns began to fill the territory beyond the belt of gray, generic apartment structures where the dacha was once king. In light of the dacha's decline, this thesis explores the origins and development of suburbanization in post-Soviet Russia and discusses its shared and dissenting characteristics with that of the West.

Druid Hills is a historic suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, that was initially designed by landscape architech Frederick Law Olmsted in 1893. As one of Atlanta's first suburbs, Druid Hills has faced the consequences of sprawl, particularly in the 1980s when the Georgia Department of Transportation proposed construction of the Presidential Parkway, an expressway that would have cut through the middle of the neighborhood. In opposition to the expressway, members of the surrounding communities organized Citizens Against Unnecessary Thoroughfares In Older Neighborhoods (CAUTION). The strategic rhetoric of CAUTION's campaign emphasized Druid Hills' significance as "Olmsted's Vision of Atlanta," yet their use of this iconic figure did not capture the complete cultural landscape of Druid Hills. Although Olmsted designed the initial layout of the suburb, the suburb's form departed from his design during its development. I argue that preserving the community requires a comprehensive portrait of its varied history.

Dynactin is a multisubunit protein complex that functions as a processivity cofactor to cytoplasmic dynein, assisting in vesicle transport and cell division. Independent of dynein,dynactin also serves to anchor microtubules to the centrosome. The functions of the majority of dynactin's subunits have been described to a certain degree ; however, the p24 subunit remains largely uncharacterized. Among the few things that are known about p24 are that it has a predicted molecular weight of about 20,822 Da, forms an a-helix, and binds directly to the p150[Glued] subunit. In order to explore its function further, we have performed shRNA-mediated knockdown, and fluorescent microscopy. We observe that microtubule disorganization is amplified due to the loss of p24. Our findings support the model that p24 serves as reinforcement to stabilize p150[Glued] at the centrosome.