What makes you not a Sikh? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Sikh values contrasted with or were shared by non-Sikh adolescents. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Sikh values was fielded in a sample of 364 non-Sikh schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Values where attitudes were least positive concerned Sikh duties/code of conduct, festivals, rituals, prayer Gurdwara attendance, listening to scripture recitation, the amrit initiation. Sikh values empathized with by non-Sikhs concerned family pride, charity, easy access to ordination and Gurdwaras, maintaining the five Ks, seeing God in all things, abstaining from meat and alcohol and belief in the stories of Guru Nanak. Further significant differences of attitude toward Sikhism were found in comparisons by sex, age and religious affiliation. Findings are applied to teaching Sikhism to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends the extension of values mapping to specifically Sikh populations

From birchbark talk to digital dreamspeaking: A history of Aboriginal media activism in Canada

The thesis addresses the interconnectedness of Aboriginal media practices; historically changing government policies; Aboriginal social and political movements; and the local situations of reserve and urban Aboriginal peoples in Canada. It is premised on the idea that in order to understand the cultural transformations associated with the rise of modern Aboriginal society, it is necessary to assess the development of Aboriginal communications media and their impact, and to draw out the ways that colonial processes underwrite contemporary media practices. Focusing on the communicative aspects of Aboriginal agency, it documents colonialism as a form of communication, and tracks Native communicative agency on a broad historical and socao-cultural scale. It attends to the centrality of people and their social relations, rather than to media texts or technology. It offers an analysis of media as a social form and media production as a crucial form of social action. It examines the "cultural mediations" that occur through Aboriginal media production. My principle concern is with Aboriginal strategies of indigenizing, or diminishing the massness of, communications media through narrowcasting . Highlighting media practices and technologies as sites of hybridity and creative adaptation, I assert that the Native mediascape serves as a locus for the production of localizing, nationalizing, and modernizing discourses. The popular version of the narrative of Canadian colonialism conveys the idea that European colonizers made readers of listeners and that agriculture, literacy and more recently, "the media" were imposed on hapless Indian communities by the state. My analysis draws attention to the ways that technologies of literacy, printmaking, radio and television are actively and selectively appropriated, renovated and redeployed by Native peoples themselves. I show that by mobilizing Aboriginal audiences to imagine local communities and to forge social identities that are predicated on Aboriginally-authorized discursive constructs, Indigenous media activists are contributing to the articulation of divergent modernities and a new social order.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD

Display of antigens on polyester inclusions lowers the antigen concentration required for a bovine tuberculosis skin test

The tuberculin skin test is the primary screening test for the diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis (TB), and use of this test has been very valuable in the control of this disease in many countries. However, the test lacks specificity when cattle have been exposed to environmental mycobacteria or vaccinated with Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Recent studies showed that the use of three or four recombinant mycobacterial proteins, including 6-kDa early secretory antigenic target (ESAT6), 10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP10), Rv3615c, and Rv3020c, or a peptide cocktail derived from those proteins, in the skin test greatly enhanced test specificity, with minimal loss of test sensitivity. The proteins are present in members of the pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex but are absent in or not expressed by the majority of environmental mycobacteria and the BCG vaccine strain. To produce a low-cost skin test reagent, the proteins were displayed at high density on polyester beads through translational fusion to a polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase that mediates the formation of antigen-displaying inclusions in recombinant Escherichia coli. Display of the proteins on the polyester beads greatly increased their immunogenicity, allowing for the use of very low concentrations of proteins (0.1 to 3 μg of mycobacterial protein/inoculum) in the skin test. Polyester beads simultaneously displaying all four proteins were produced in a single fermentation process. The polyester beads displaying three or four mycobacterial proteins were shown to have high sensitivity for detection of M. bovis-infected cattle and induced minimal responses in animals exposed to environmental mycobacteria or vaccinated with BCG.Full Tex

AI solutions for human problems

Abstract Background Bronchiectasis is a chronic respiratory condition. Persistent bacterial colonisation in the stable state with increased and sometimes altered bacterial burden during exacerbations are accepted as key features in the pathophysiology. The extent to which respiratory viruses are present during stable periods and in exacerbations is less well understood. Methods This study aimed to determine the incidence of respiratory viruses within a cohort of bronchiectasis patients with acute exacerbations at a teaching hospital and, separately, in a group of patients with stable bronchiectasis. In the group of stable patients, a panel of respiratory viruses were assayed for using real time quantitative PCR in respiratory secretions and exhaled breath. The Impact of virus detection on exacerbation rates and development of symptomatic infection was evaluated. Results Routine hospital-based viral PCR testing was only requested in 28% of admissions for an exacerbation. In our cohort of stable bronchiectasis patients, viruses were detected in 92% of patients during the winter season, and 33% of patients during the summer season. In the 2-month follow up period, 2 of 27 patients presented with an exacerbation. Conclusions This pilot study demonstrated that respiratory viruses are commonly detected in patients with stable bronchiectasis. They are frequently detected during asymptomatic viral periods, and multiple viruses are often present concurrently

What Three-, Four-, and Five-Year-Olds do in a Classroom Library Corner: Interactions with Books

The College at Brockport Drake Memorial Library respects the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. This item may be protected by copyright but is made available here under a claim of fair use (17 U.S.C. §107) for non-profit research and educational purposes. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.This study looked at the types of interactions three-, four-, and five-year-olds had with books in a preschool classroom library corner. This study took place in a rural cooperative preschool program consisting of 21 students. Questions addressed were: What percentage of time spent in the library corner was actually spent interacting with books? What Interactions did students have with books in the library corner? What percentage of time spent in the library corner was spent on each type of interaction with books? The data were collected over 32 classroom observation periods. Each observation took place during center time which was ten minutes dally. Every sixty seconds the researcher placed a tally mark ln the correct interaction category on the checklist for each student in the library center. The six categories observed were adult reading to child, child reading to adult, child reading to self, student reading to student, choosing books, and off task. The researcher completed both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data collected. This study shows that children exposed to literature are taking advantage of the opportunity. This can be seen in the fact that these 21 preschoolers were on task interacting with books 77% of the time.SUNY BrockportEducation and Human DevelopmentMaster of Science in Education (MSEd)Education and Human Development Master's These

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What Three-, Four-, and Five-Year-Olds do in a Classroom Library Corner: Interactions with Books

This study looked at the types of interactions three-, four-, and five-year-olds had with books in a preschool classroom library corner. This study took place in a rural cooperative preschool program consisting of 21 students. Questions addressed were: What percentage of time spent in the library corner was actually spent interacting with books? What Interactions did students have with books in the library corner? What percentage of time spent in the library corner was spent on each type of interaction with books? The data were collected over 32 classroom observation periods. Each observation took place during center time which was ten minutes dally. Every sixty seconds the researcher placed a tally mark ln the correct interaction category on the checklist for each student in the library center. The six categories observed were adult reading to child, child reading to adult, child reading to self, student reading to student, choosing books, and off task. The researcher completed both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data collected. This study shows that children exposed to literature are taking advantage of the opportunity. This can be seen in the fact that these 21 preschoolers were on task interacting with books 77% of the time

A preliminary study of genetic factors that influence susceptibility to bovine tuberculosis in the British cattle herd

Associations between specific host genes and susceptibility to Mycobacterial infections such as tuberculosis have been reported in several species. Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) impacts greatly the UK cattle industry, yet genetic predispositions have yet to be identified. We therefore used a candidate gene approach to study 384 cattle of which 160 had reacted positively to an antigenic skin test (‘reactors’). Our approach was unusual in that it used microsatellite markers, embraced high breed diversity and focused particularly on detecting genes showing heterozygote advantage, a mode of action often overlooked in SNP-based studies. A panel of neutral markers was used to control for population substructure and using a general linear model-based approach we were also able to control for age. We found that substructure was surprisingly weak and identified two genomic regions that were strongly associated with reactor status, identified by markers INRA111 and BMS2753. In general the strength of association detected tended to vary depending on whether age was included in the model. At INRA111 a single genotype appears strongly protective with an overall odds ratio of 2.2, the effect being consistent across nine diverse breeds. Our results suggest that breeding strategies could be devised that would appreciably increase genetic resistance of cattle to bTB (strictly, reduce the frequency of incidence of reactors) with implications for the current debate concerning badger-culling