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Research@UIC > Funding
Opportunities > Campus Research Board: Spring 2006 Funded Projects Abstracts
Campus Research Board
Spring 2006 Funded Projects Abstracts
- Translation of
Nahuatl documents for "The Aztecs and the Making of
Colonial Mexico" exhibition at Newberry Library, Chicago, Sept. 30,
2006 - January 13, 2007
This project will support the translation of Nahuatl (the language of the
Aztecs) documents to English for the exhibition, “The Aztecs and the
Making of Colonial Mexico” at the Newberry Library, fall 2006. A collaborative
project between Professor Cristian Roa-de-a-Carrera (UIC, Spanish Department)
and the PI, this exhibit explores the persistence and vigor of indigenous
culture and intellectual production in colonial Mexico from 1519 to the
eighteenth century. Aztec historical events, leaders, and deities have come
to play a major role as symbols of contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American
identity. But popular understanding of Aztec culture misses a crucial and
equally fascinating part of its history - the period that followed the European
invasion. Many assume that Aztec culture was “lost” after the
conquest and that European dominance was so total and overwhelming that
Aztec civilization crumbled in the wake of conquest. Certainly, the conquest
had profound and devastating effects on Mexican indigenous society; but
this exhibit emphasizes the lesser-known history of indigenous survival
and creative adaptation. Many of the documents in the exhibit are written
or glossed (e.g. maps and other pictorial material) in Nahuatl. The translation
of these texts and glosses will be important to prepare interpretive texts
and translations for the exhibition in order to provide viewers with a more
comprehensive and immediate understanding of what they are viewing.
- New Light on Chaucer's London Home
- Envisioning China:
Education & Practice in the Global Centur
This research has at its core three goals:: To advance the culture
of international exchange; To promote the discipline of architecture through
an enhanced understanding of and education for global professional practice;
and to address the issues associated with sustainable development and historic
preservation within the context of new forms of urbanism and urbanization.
This project will draw upon preliminary research that began with an urban
design studio taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Fall 2004
for a pilot city, Shunde, in southern China. Through this experience and
interviews with professionals involved in Chinese projects I have begun
to look at questions regarding continuing communication and technology gaps
between China and the U.S., the specific roles of the planning and design
professions, and ways of modeling educational exchange to the advantage
of both societies and to advance interaction between architectural schools
and professionals. Through this second round of research and travel, I hope
to work more directly with schools and practices ""on the ground"" in
China and increase opportunities for global exchange and research enhanced
by direct relationships with Chicago architectural firms and Chinese
design academies.
- Chicago's Public Buildings, Places, Sites and Spaces
- Talmudic Manuscript Travel
This ward will enable the PI to travel from New York to Jerusalem
to study manuscripts of the Talmud, the foundational corpus of Judaism
composed between the first and seventh centuries of the Common Era. The
PIs research
concerns the question of early Jewish-Christian relations and how the
two groups imagined the border between them. The border employed to speak
about
such differences is the Jordan River, the subject of the PI's current
book project. While the project deals with texts from antiquity, it is relevant
to contemporary debates about political religion. Political borders defined
by religion are evident not only in post-Saddam Iraq and in Israel-Palestine,
but also in the rhetoric of Homeland Security. A return to the foundational
texts of Scripture widens current perspectives and has legitimacy in
the
eyes of fundamentalists and secularists alike. Achieving such dual-legitimacy
is no small feat in the midst of the culture wars, and, as a Bible scholar,
the PI sees this move as a needed intervention. Since a scholar must
not rely on printed editions of primary texts, PI will consult manuscripts
at
the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem and the Jewish Theological Library
in New York City.
- Bucolic Metaphors: History, Subjectivity and Gender in Early Modern Spanish
Pastoral
- From Kakuma to Rogers Park: Narratives of Gender, Generation and
Genocide
- Publication subsidy for Indelible Imprint: Stanley Fish and Milton Studies
- Collection and Analysis of Native American Dialects of English for Use
in the Theater
- The Maya Chacmool
- Public Performance and Artist Talk at SIGGRAPH 2006 Boston
- Kant: Manuscript
Preparations …etc (Various)
This CRB will support the translation into German of a paper the PI
will give in Jena, Germany this October at a conference in celebration
of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Hegel's "Phenomenology
of Spirit". The PI's paper is entitled, "Cognition as a
'Means': Hegel's Critique of Kant in the Introduction to the Phenomenology".
- Kizhi - passing excellence
This project will develop a real-time large scale high-resolution
visualization of the world famous architectural ensemble ""Kizhi"".
The Kizhi Pogost is located on an island in Lake Onega in northern Karelia
in Russia. It is an authentic museum of an ancient wood building tradition,
an outstanding example of medieval and post-medieval orthodox settlements,
which presents a unique artistic achievement. This ensemble preserves
a concentration of masterpieces of the Russian heritage and is included
in
the List of Most Endangered Sites of the World Monuments Watch protected
by World Heritage List of UNESCO. The focus of this project is to create
an interactive visualization of the history of Kizhi beginning at the
14th Century and going through today in the 21st Century. The project will
capitalize
on the latest achievements of computer graphics visualization techniques
and the current research of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)
in the field of interactive stereoscopic computer graphics, devices and
frameworks, high-resolution tiled graphic displays, and network distributed
collaborative technologies.
- Managing the Body: Beauty, Health and Fitness
in Britain, 1880s-1950s
Managing the Body: Beauty, Health and Fitness in
Britain, 1880s 1950s” is a history of physical culture in
Britain within the wider context of debates about gender, beauty, public
health and fitness. Concern about physical deterioration arose in the
late nineteenth century when public health advocates drew attention
to the poor health of the urban masses. At the same time, doctors observed
a rise of degenerative diseases among the middle class. New body ideals
and regimen of bodily discipline emerged in response to urban, sedentary
lifestyles, modern diets, a proliferation of visual images of beautiful
bodies and growing anxiety about the health and fitness of the nation.
The PI places the history of body management at the center of political
debate and chart the fortunes of the patriotic physical culture, life
and health reform movement, which emerged in the late nineteenth century
and disintegrated during the Second World War. This research will result
in a book under contract with Oxford University Press.
- Evaluation of a novel anticancer drug ARC in
neuroblastoma
Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common pediatric solid tumor with high morbidity
and mortality, which accounts for 15% of all childhood cancer-related deaths
in the US. Only 12-20% of children with advanced disease achieve long-term
survival with conventional therapies. For this reason development of new
therapies against NB is essential. Using a high-throughput cell-based assay,
we identified a small molecule, a nucleoside analog named ARC that in low
concentrations rapidly induces very robust apoptosis in NB cells. The goal
of this proposal is to investigate the mechanisms of ARC-induced apoptosis
in human NB cells. We will determine if ARC may induce apoptosis by suppressing
the expression of antiapoptotic genes, including members of two key antiapoptotic
gene families Bcl-2 and IAP. If ARC downregulates these proteins, we will
check whether individual suppression of these genes by siRNA is lethal
to NB cells, while continuously elevated level of these proteins protects
these cells from ARC induced toxicity. The funding from CRB will permit
us to determine if ARC has a potential as a novel chemotherapeutic drug
against NB. In addition, these data will be useful to evaluate the potential
of ARC as an anticancer drug against different types of cancer.
- EPEC modulates signaling in intestinal epithelial cells
Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) is a food-borne pathogen
that causes diarrhea primarily in children. EPEC infection is responsible
for significant
infant mortality in developing countries. The precise mechanism by which
this bacterium causes diarrhea is presently not known. In studies examining
the effects of EPEC on cultured intestinal epithelial cells we discovered
that the pathogen activates the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR)
on these cells. EGFR is a key signaling molecule in epithelial cells
and its activation typically leads to specific events within epithelial
cells – these
include the stimulation of pathways that promote the survival of these
cells, as well as activation of genes responsible for inflammation. Recently
it
was reported that interference with EGFR signaling inhibited the colonization
of the related pathogen RDEC-1 in a rabbit model of the disease, and
also to curtail disease; the mechanism, however, was not defined. Preliminarily,
we have determined one or more molecules secreted into the medium by
EPEC
activate EGFR in intestinal epithelial cells. We propose to characterize
the molecules of EPEC responsible for EGFR activation, and define the
mechanism of such activation. These studies will likely shed light on the
initial
host cell events that occur during EPEC infection.
- MyHC isoforms and
smooth muscle contraction
The overall hypothesis governing this proposal is that the specific
isoforms of one of the major contractile proteins in smooth muscle,
namely the myosin
heavy chain (MyHC), contribute to distinct contractile properties of
smooth muscles. In mammalian smooth muscle, four isoforms of MyHC are
expressed,
making it difficult to elucidate the function of each individual isoform.
In vitro studies have suggested that certain functional properties such
as speed of contraction may indeed be conferred, at least in part, by
specific isoforms of the myosin heavy chain. Little progress has been
made though,
in vivo, as the MyHC isoform ratio is tightly controlled and no models
currently exist that significantly alter the isoform ratio. This proposal
describes
the generation of two lines of transgenic mice that express only a single
isoform of the myosin heavy chain (MyHC). The experiments outlined will
directly test, in vivo, the hypothesis that the individual isoforms of
the myosin heavy chain contribute to the distinct contractile properties
of
smooth muscle. By transgenically manipulating the myosin isoform composition
of smooth muscles, we will be able to identify the unique contributions
each individual isoform of smooth muscle myosin heavy chain makes to
smooth muscle contractile function in vivo.
- Integrated center for the study of neuromodulation (ICSN)
- Novel role of
p67phox in alpha-1 adrenergic receptor-stimulated cardiac hypertrophy
The
PIs previously reported that a1-adrenergic receptor (AR) stimulation
induces cardiac growth (hypertrophy) in adult rat ventricular myocytes
(ARVM),
and NADPH oxidase (NOX) seems to be involved in a1-AR signal transduction
pathway as overexpression of a dominant negative (DN) mutant of NOX subunit
p67phox prevented a1-AR-induced hypertrophy in ARVM. In this study, they
hypothesized that p67phox mediates a1-AR-stimulated cardiac hypertrophy,
and its signaling function may involve a novel reactive oxygen species
(ROS)-independent
mechanism. Specific Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that p67phox mediates
a1-AR-stimulated myocardial hypertrophy in vitro via an ROS-independent
signaling mechanism to initiate the immediate-early activation of MEK1/2-ERK1/2
kinase cascade, which subsequently induces cardiac hypertrophy. Specific
Aim 2 will test the hypothesis that myocardial p67phox mediates a1-AR-stimulated
cardiac hypertrophy in vivo. PIs will first establish a stable transgenic
(Tg) mouse line with cardiac-specific overexpression of the DN-p67 transgene
using the Tg founder mice that they recently generated. Since the commercially
available Tg mice with myocardial overexpression of a constitutively
activated mutant (CAM) of a1B-AR develop cardiac hypertrophy, they
will cross-breed
DN-p67 Tg mice with the CAM-a1B Tg mice. The cardiac phenotypes and function
of the resultant positive hybrid mice (DN-p67/CAM-a1B) will be compared
to that of their parent lines.
- Role
of ITSN family in mouse development
Intersectin is a modular protein that regulates critical biochemical pathways
important for cell growth, differentiation and survival. Through its various
protein interaction domains, intersectin regulates the temporal and spatial
activation of critical biochemical pathways in the cell. The importance
of intersectin is underscored by its presence on the Down’s Syndrome
Critical Region of Chromosome 21, its overexpression Down’s Syndrome
patients and its ability to promote the oncogenic transformation of cells
in culture. Humans possess two distinct genes encoding highly related intersectin
family members designated intersectin 1 and intersectin 2. To begin to
address the physiological importance of this highly conserved family of
modular proteins, the PIS propose to develop genetically engineered mice
that lack expression of each of these intersectin genes. They will purchase
from the Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers genetically modified mouse
embryonic stem (ES) cells that have been designed to lack expression of
the intersectin gene family. These ES cells were created by a consortium
of laboratories that have undertaken the task of disrupting all the genes
in the mouse. These ES cells will then be used to create mutant mice in
collaboration with the Transgenic Production facility here at UIC. The
resulting mutant mice will be analyzed for specific physiological problems
and will serve as an invaluable resource for understanding the function
of intersectin in both normal and disease processes.
- The Pharmacognetics of risperidone-induced
prolactin elevation and bone turnover in pediatric/adolescents with
bipolar disorder
Risperidone is a commonly used antipsychotic medication in pediatric psychiatry,
accounting for 1/2 of all atypical antipsychotic prescriptions for children
and adolescents. While risperidone is one of the first line agents for pediatric
bipolar disorder, approximately 30% of patients will discontinue therapy
due to side-effects. Up to 70% of these patients have prolactin elevations
after treatment which may be putting them at risk for unrecognized bone
loss over time. The primary objectives of this study are to characterize
the relationship between risperidone-induced prolactin elevation and bone
turnover in youth with bipolar disorder and begin to determine the relationship
between genetic variability in the dopamine-2 receptor (a regulator of prolactin
release) and prolactin elevation. We will enroll subjects from the Pediatric
Mood Disorders Clinic who begin risperidone as part of normal clinical practice.
Along with routine laboratory work, we will collect blood samples to assess
genetic markers, prolactin, and markers of bone formation and resorption.
This will be done at baseline and a follow-up visit after eight weeks along
with side effect assessments and clinical rating scales. This data will
be used to support future studies of the pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic-associated
side-effects in the pediatric and adolescent patient population.
- Novel strategies for the ex vivo expansion of umbilical
cord blood stem cells
The hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) is the parent cell present in
the bone cavity producing all types of blood cells. Many patients having
cancer
of blood cells can be potentially cured by transplantation of HSC from
a healthy donor. Although umbilical cord blood (CB) is a useful stem cell
source for transplantation, the limited number of HSC present in a CB unit
makes it an inadequate graft for an adult patient. An increase in the number
of CB HSC in culture is desired. We have previously shown that the HSC
treated with chemical substace, 5-aza-2’-deoxyctidine (5azaD) and
trichostatin A (TSA) is capable of increasing the number of engraftable
marrow HSC without altering their capacity to become functional mature
blood cells. In this proposal, we will attempt to determine whether 5azaD
and TSA expanded CB HSC in culture can result in an increase in the number
of functional stem cells when injected into an animal and give rise to
all types of blood cells, the ultimate proof of stem cell function. Our
second objective is to understand the molecular mechanism of expansion
of CB HSC using 5azaD and TSA. This proposal will provide new insights
into the availability of CB as a potential source of stem cell grafts for
unrelated transplantation for patients suffering from blood cancers or
other cancers in which stem cell transplant is needed.
- Validation of a developmentally and ecologically
sensitive parent-child intervention for preschool
behavior problems
For preschool children, disruptive behavior problems are the most
common reason for referral for mental health services and one of the central
impediments
to early school readiness. Previous research has shown that interventions
targeting parenting are associated with significant reductions in disruptive
behaviors. Similar programs have been applied with moderate success in
preschool populations, but most been “downward extensions” of
programs developed for older children and have not adequately targeted
the unique developmental issues of the preschool period. Furthermore, growing
up in a low-income environment increases risk of early emerging disruptive
behavior problems however, such high-risk families are consistently difficult
to engage in treatment and demonstrate poorer response to treatment. In
response to these limitations, the PIs created a developmentally and ecologically
sensitive parent-child intervention for preschool disruptive behavior problems
specifically designed to target low-income, underserved, and ineffectively
treated families. The purpose of this study is to validate this intervention.
- Techniques
for security analysis and retrofitting of password programs
This project explores the protection of password information on systems
from unauthorized disclosure. Phase One focuses on the automated analysis
of programs that handle passwords to detect potential flaws that may lead
to password disclosures. Phase Two looks at automated retrofitting of programs
to prevent any unauthorized password disclosures. The PIs solution draws
from compiler based program analysis and transformation techniques. Pis
will implement two software tools that perform analysis and retrofitting
of existing code. These tools will be implemented in the context of C programs
for the Linux operating system. This research will allow PIs to enhance
computer security specialization curriculum which was recently certified
by the National Security Advisory (NSA).
- Joint coding
and routing in wireless networks
PIs will investigate the optimal joint design of error correcting codes
and of routing strategies for wireless networks. In other words, how
to combat the errors introduced by the physical communication channels
and
at the same time find the best route in the network from a source to
its destination. The fundamental insight is that bits in communication
networks
do not behave like fluids in pipes. Bits can be processed and combined
along the way from the source to the destination instead of being simply
forwarded,
as it is done in today's networks. However, a unified study of the limiting
trade-offs between coding and routing in wireless networks is still lacking.
The motivation for this study is two-fold. Firstly, it has been verified
that a separate design approach of codes and routing algorithms (which
works fine for wired networks, such as the Internet) performs poorly
on wireless
networks. Secondly, future communication networks will be based on wireless
peer-to-peer technology. Known coding and decoding strategies do not
take into account the multi-hop and broadcast/interference nature of
the wireless
networks. The determination of the ultimate trade-off involved in joint
coding and routing in networks will serve as a benchmark to compare the
performance of practical schemes, while it will be a step towards a general
network information theory.
- Tame Geometry and Diophantine problems
- Stigma as a risk factor
among HIV-affected adolescents
As parents with HIV are living longer, an increasing number
of African-American adolescents are living with an HIV-positive mother.
Inner-city adolescents are at-risk for adverse outcomes, i.e. drug
abuse, sexual risk, and psychiatric disorders; having a mother with
HIV/AIDS
is another potential stressor, particularly HIV stigma. Theory and
preliminary research point to stigma as a key contributor to risk
in
adolescents
who are not infected themselves but who are affected by their mother’s
HIV disease. However, little is known about the effects of HIV-associated
stigma on African-American youth with infected mothers. This study
will begin to explore this gap in knowledge.
The study’s objectives are: 1) to establish the feasibility of
recruitment, enrollment, and assessment with thirty (30) African-American
HIV-infected mothers and one of their non-infected adolescent children;
2) to explore the adolescents’ experience of HIV-associated stigma;
and 3) to examine the relationship among HIV-associated stigma, adolescent
adverse outcomes, and specific maternal and adolescent factors. Each
mother/teen dyad will participate in separate structured interviews
including standardized scales and open-ended questions. Although
the sample size is small, the relationships between variables will
highlight strong associations for future study and eventually inform
the development
of interventions for adolescents and their HIV-positive mothers.
- Do Democratic Countries attract more
foreign direct investment than non-democratic countries?
Foreign direct investment (FDI), which has dramatically increased during
the globalization of the world economy in the past two decades, is thought
to play a vital role in the transformation of non-democratic countries
(e.g., Bolivia, Botswana, and Chile). Accordingly, whether democratic
countries attract more FDI inflows than non-democratic countries has
become one of the most salient issues in the discipline of political
science. Current scholarship on this issue, however, provides inconclusive
and puzzling findings. While some studies report a positive relationship
between democratic regimes and FDI inflows, others find a negative relationship.
This research project employs empirical analysis with a cross-sectional,
time-series dataset over 72 developing countries during the period from
1980 to 2004. The unit of analysis of this research project is developing
countries because they are the ones that most fiercely fight for FDI,
indicating the presence of more political dynamics with respect to FDI-related
policy changes. I expect that, when FDI panel data for developing countries
over the past two decades are properly analyzed, the empirical results
reveal that democracy (conceptualized and measured as the role of veto
players) is, at best, weakly associated with increase of FDI.
- The relation
between depression, anxiety, and emotional responsiveness
Urban early childhood teachers' perceptions of inclusive education
Emotional responsivity has long been considered a hallmark characteristic
of psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety disorders. However,
at this point, we have only begun to understand the ways in which the
emotional systems of individuals with these conditions are dysfunctional.
The current study seeks to examine the emotional processes of individuals
with major depression and panic disorder and will also use behavioral
and psychophysiological methods in order to identify potential biological
markers for these conditions. Each participant will undergo a comprehensive
battery of assessments, which will include clinical assessments (e.g.,
diagnostic interviews), and the administration of personality and mood
questionnaires. Additionally, we will record individuals’ electrophysiological
responses to tasks designed to measure sensitivity to reward and sensitivity
to threatening stimuli. Four groups of individuals will participate – those
with depression and panic disorder, those with depression only, those
with panic disorder only, and a non-psychiatric control group. It is
hypothesized that those with depression will exhibit a reduced sensitivity
to reward and those with panic disorder will exhibit an increased sensitivity
to threatening stimuli. It will also be explored whether a reduced sensitivity
to reward and increased sensitivity to threatening stimuli are specific
to depression and panic disorder.
- Urban
early childhood teachers' perceptions of inclusive education
There are several limitations to existing research on the topic of
inclusion. First, many studies investigating inclusion have focused
on elementary school students but little research has been conducted
on preschoolers
(Rafferty & Griffin, 2005). Second, research on preschool inclusion
relies primarily on interviews of small numbers of teachers. Third, little
research has been conducted in urban settings. Because the interplay of
poverty, cultural diversity and disability complicates teachers’ classroom
practices, how urban early childhood teachers perceive inclusion may be
different from teachers in other settings. Therefore, there is a need
to conduct a large scale study on urban early childhood teacher’s
perceptions of inclusion. The purpose of this study is to use a survey
methodology to investigate early childhood teachers’ perceptions
of inclusion in Chicago Public Schools. The relationship between personal
and professional characteristics and early childhood teachers’ perceptions
regarding inclusive education will be explored. Additionally, barriers
and supports regarding inclusive education will also be examined in order
to design appropriate professional development programs on the topic of
inclusion. Based on the collected information, a proposal on how to enhance
early childhood teachers’ competence in including children with
disabilities in their classrooms will be developed to pursue external
funding.
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