The Photochemistry of <i>N</i>-Arylsulfonyl Amino Acids and Peptides

The photochemistry of arylsulfonamides has received continuing interest for the last four decades for three main reasons: 1) arylsulfonamides offer convenient acceptor properties for studying photo-induced electron transfer (PIET.) processes in chromophorically modified peptide models, 2) arylsulfonamides have potential as photoremovable protecting groups in organic synthesis, but this has so far remained largely unrealized, 3) arylsulfonamide pharmaceuticals are generally photolabile and photostability is an important consideration in the development of new drugs. We have studied a series of p-toluenesulfonyl amino acid derivatives and undertaken comprehensive product analysis to elucidate the photoproducts and identify common pathways of photodegradation. We found that the tosyl a-amino acids formed toluenesulfinic acid as a major photoproduct in conjunction with ammonia, carbon dioxide and a carbonyl compound. Upon changing the carboxylate to an ester or an amide, a Cɑ-H abstraction became the dominant process to give a carbonyl compound, toluenesulfinic acid and ammonia. These were also the major photoproducts with a tosyl ß-amino acid. A mechanism is proposed that involves an initial electron transfer (ET) from the carboxyl function to the sulfonyl moiety to give a biradical intermediate that could react to produce most of the observed products. Some differences in product distribution were found with different amino acid side-chains, although bulky aliphatic or sulfur containing side-chains produced little variation. A tyrosine derivative underwent side-chain cleavage, implying electron transfer from the side-chain rather than the carboxyl function. Peptide bond cleavages occurred in the majority of amide derivatives, which can also be explained by an electron transfer mechanism. The results showed that S-N cleavage to form the free amino acid moiety occurs in very poor yield due to a complex array of competing photoreactions. A photoyellowing was seen in many of the amide compounds which may be due to photochromism, a process that is consistent with our photo-induced electron transfer hypothesis

A Comparative Study of the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test Data

The purpose of this study was to compare NSST data (Lee, 1969, 1971) with data obtained in Portland, Oregon for children 4.0-4.11 years of age. The questions this study sought to answer were: 1) Is there a significant difference between the expressive and receptive scores obtained by Lee, (1969, 1971) and the scores obtained in Portland, Oregon? 2) What are the means, standard deviations and percentiles of the NSST scores of a select group of four-year-old children in Portland, Oregon

The Ursinus Weekly, January 10, 1978

Ursinus news in brief: Craft attempts prior restraint; Lilly Endowment scratched; Band hangs Mandel; Dishes returned; Cornell students march for time off • Library may curtail hours • Task force considers curriculum • Bankruptcy negates loans • C.I.A. investigates U.C. • Directory published • Tobin appointed • Employment curtailed • Opinion: Ursinus safety • Letters to the editor • A Vegetarian\u27s view • Censorship vs. student rights • Movie attack: Close encounters of the third kind • Dr. Parsons working on new book • Matty Simmons: The Man behind National Lampoon • Dylan to tour in the new year • Ursinus b-ball: marked improvement • Wrestling opens season • Men\u27s swimming • Study before you sleephttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1080/thumbnail.jp

Erratum: Author Correction: Identification of genes required for eye development by high-throughput screening of mouse knockouts.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/s42003-018-0226-0.]

Male gays in the female gaze: women who watch m/m pornography

This paper draws on a piece of wide-scale mixed-methods research that examines the motivations behind women who watch gay male pornography. To date there has been very little interdisciplinary research investigating this phenomenon, despite a recent survey by PornHub (one of the largest online porn sites in the world) showing that gay male porn is the second most popular choice for women porn users out of 25+ possible genre choices. While both academic literature and popular culture have looked at the interest that (heterosexual) men have in lesbian pornography, considerably less attention has been paid to the consumption of gay male pornography by women. Research looking at women's consumption of pornography from within the Social Sciences is very focused around heterosexual (and, to a lesser extent, lesbian) pornography. Research looking more generally at gay pornography/erotica (and the subversion of the ‘male gaze’/concept of ‘male as erotic object’) often makes mention of female interest in this area, but only briefly, and often relies on anecdotal or observational evidence. Research looking at women's involvement in slashfic (primarily from within media studies), while very thorough and rich, tends to view slash writing as a somewhat isolated phenomenon (indeed, in her influential article on women's involvement in slash, Bacon-Smith talks about how ‘only a small number’ of female slash writers and readers have any interest in gay literature or pornography more generally, and this phenomenon is not often discussed in more recent analyses of slash); so while there has been a great deal of very interesting research done in this field, little attempt has been made to couch it more generally within women's consumption and use of pornography and erotica or to explore what women enjoy about watching gay male pornography. Through a series of focus groups, interviews, and an online questionnaire (n = 275), this exploratory piece of work looks at what women enjoy about gay male pornography, and how it sits within their consumption of erotica/pornography more generally. The article investigates what this has to say about the existence and nature of a ‘female gaze’

The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation

Using a sample of 57,377 star-forming galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we study the relationship between gas-phase oxygen abundance and environment in the local Universe. We find that there is a strong relationship between metallicity and environment such that more metal-rich galaxies favor regions of higher overdensity. Furthermore, this metallicity-density relation is comparable in strength to the color-density relation along the blue cloud. After removing the mean dependence of environment on color and luminosity, we find a significant residual trend between metallicity and environment that is largely driven by galaxies in high-density regions, such as groups and clusters. We discuss the potential source of this relationship between metallicity and local galaxy density in the context of feedback models, with special attention paid to quantifying the impact of environment on the scatter in the mass-metallicity relation. We find that environment is a non-negligible source of scatter in this fundamental relation, with > 15% of the measured scatter correlated with environment.Comment: Submitted to MNRA

Identification of genes required for eye development by high-throughput screening of mouse knockouts.

Despite advances in next generation sequencing technologies, determining the genetic basis of ocular disease remains a major challenge due to the limited access and prohibitive cost of human forward genetics. Thus, less than 4,000 genes currently have available phenotype information for any organ system. Here we report the ophthalmic findings from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, a large-scale functional genetic screen with the goal of generating and phenotyping a null mutant for every mouse gene. Of 4364 genes evaluated, 347 were identified to influence ocular phenotypes, 75% of which are entirely novel in ocular pathology. This discovery greatly increases the current number of genes known to contribute to ophthalmic disease, and it is likely that many of the genes will subsequently prove to be important in human ocular development and disease

A large scale hearing loss screen reveals an extensive unexplored genetic landscape for auditory dysfunction

The developmental and physiological complexity of the auditory system is likely reflected in the underlying set of genes involved in auditory function. In humans, over 150 non-syndromic loci have been identified, and there are more than 400 human genetic syndromes with a hearing loss component. Over 100 non-syndromic hearing loss genes have been identified in mouse and human, but we remain ignorant of the full extent of the genetic landscape involved in auditory dysfunction. As part of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, we undertook a hearing loss screen in a cohort of 3006 mouse knockout strains. In total, we identify 67 candidate hearing loss genes. We detect known hearing loss genes, but the vast majority, 52, of the candidate genes were novel. Our analysis reveals a large and unexplored genetic landscape involved with auditory function

Identification of genes required for eye development by high-throughput screening of mouse knockouts

International audienc