Toward an Abbasid History of Emotions: The Case of Slavery

The idea that there can be histories of everything or anything has not yet taken root in the field of Islamic history, which is still dominated by political history. There has been a revival of women's history, and gender studies is flourishing, but these developments have brought about only one radical rethinking of mainstream narratives: Nadia Maria El Cheikh's Women, Islam, and Abbasid Identity, which argues that Abbasid society's construction of early Islam and of its own self-image is profoundly gendered, because Women, gender relations, and sexuality are at the heart of the cultural construction of identity, as they are discursively used to fix moral boundaries and consolidate particularities and differences

Cloud Modeling of a Network Region in H-alpha

In this paper, we analyze the physical properties of dark mottles in the chromospheric network using two dimensional spectroscopic observations in H-alpha obtained with the Gottingen Fabry-Perot Spectrometer in the Vacuum Tower Telescope at the Observatory del Teide, Tenerife. Cloud modeling was applied to measure the mottles' optical thickness, source function, Doppler width, and line of sight velocity. Using these measurements, the number density of hydrogen atoms in levels 1 and 2, total particle density, electron density, temperature, gas pressure, and mass density parameters were determined with the method of Tsiropoula & Schmieder (1997). We also analyzed the temporal behaviour of a mottle using cloud parameters. Our result shows that it is dominated by 3 minute signals in source function, and 5 minutes or more in velocity.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomische Nachrichten - Astronomical Note

Treatment-Induced Changes in Plasma Adiponectin Do Not Reduce Urinary Albumin Excretion in the Diabetes Prevention Program Cohort.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Molecular data suggests that adiponectin may directly regulate urinary albumin excretion. In the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) we measured adiponectin and albuminuria before and after intervention, and we previously reported increases in adiponectin with interventions. Here we have used the DPP dataset to test the hypothesis that treatment-related increases in adiponectin may reduce albuminuria in obesity. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: We evaluated cross-sectional correlations between plasma adiponectin and urinary albumin excretion at baseline, and the relationship of treatment-related changes in adiponectin and albuminuria. Baseline and follow-up urine albumin to creatinine ratios (ACR (albumin to creatinine ratio)) and plasma adiponectin concentration were available in 2553 subjects. RESULTS: Adjusting for age, sex and race/ethnicity, we observed a statistically significant but weak inverse relationship between adiponectin and ACR at baseline (conditional Spearman\u27s rho = (-) 0.04, p = 0.04). Although DPP treatments significantly increased plasma adiponectin, there were no treatment effects on ACR and no differences in ACR across treatment groups. There was a weak direct (not inverse) association between change in adiponectin and change in albuminuria (adjusted Spearman\u27s rho = (+) 0.04, p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: In a large, well-characterized cohort of obese dysglycemic subjects we observed a weak inverse association between circulating adiponectin concentrations and urinary albumin excretion at baseline. Contrary to the hypothesized effect, treatment-related increases in plasma adiponectin were not associated with a reduction in ACR. The association of change in adiponectin with change in ACR should be assessed in populations with overt albuminuria before excluding a beneficial effect of increasing adiponectin to reduce ACR in obesity

Topics in coarsening phenomena

These lecture notes give a very short introduction to coarsening phenomena and summarize some recent results in the field. They focus on three aspects: the super-universality hypothesis, the geometry of growing structures, and coarsening in the spiral kinetically constrained model.Comment: Lecture notes. Fundamental Problems in Statistical Physics XII, Leuven, Aug 30 - Sept 12, 200

Journal of Physics: conference Series

The convergent close-coupling calculations of e+-Li and e+-Na collisions are reported. The target is treated as one active electron interacting with an inert ion core. The positronium formation channels are taken into account explicitly utilizing both negative- and positive-energy Laguerre-based states. A large number of channels and high partial waves are used to ensure the convergence of the cross sections

Glycerol: An unexpected major metabolite of energy metabolism by the human malaria parasite

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malaria is a global health emergency, and yet our understanding of the energy metabolism of the principle causative agent of this devastating disease, <it>Plasmodium falciparum</it>, remains rather basic. Glucose was shown to be an essential nutritional requirement nearly 100 years ago and since this original observation, much of the current knowledge of <it>Plasmodium </it>energy metabolism is based on early biochemical work, performed using basic analytical techniques (e.g. paper chromatography), carried out almost exclusively on avian and rodent malaria. Data derived from malaria parasite genome and transcriptome studies suggest that the energy metabolism of the parasite may be more complex than hitherto anticipated. This study was undertaken in order to further characterize the fate of glucose catabolism in the human malaria parasite, <it>P. falciparum</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Products of glucose catabolism were determined by incubating erythrocyte-freed parasites with D-[1-¹³C] glucose under controlled conditions and metabolites were identified using ¹³C-NMR spectroscopy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Following a 2 h incubation of freed-<it>P. falciparum </it>parasites with 25 mM D-[1-¹³C] glucose (<it>n </it>= 4), the major metabolites identified included; [3-¹³C] lactate, [1,3-¹³C] glycerol, [3-¹³C] pyruvate, [3-¹³C] alanine and [3-¹³C] glycerol-3-phosphate. Control experiments performed with uninfected erythrocytes incubated under identical conditions did not show any metabolism of D-[1-¹³C] glucose to glycerol or glycerol-3-phosphate.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The identification of glycerol as a major glucose metabolite confirms the view that energy metabolism in this parasite is more complex than previously proposed. It is hypothesized here that glycerol production by the malaria parasite is the result of a metabolic adaptation to growth in O₂-limited (and CO₂elevated) conditions by the operation of a glycerol-3-phosphate shuttle for the re-oxidation of assimilatory NADH. Similar metabolic adaptations have been reported previously for other microaerobic/anaerobic organisms, such as yeast, rumen protozoa and human parasitic protozoa.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data highlight the need to re-evaluate the carbon and redox balance of this important human pathogen, ultimately leading to a better understanding of how the parasite is able to adapt to the variable environments encountered during parasite development and disease progression.</p

The infinite-range quantum random Heisenberg magnet

We study with exact diagonalization techniques the Heisenberg model for a system of SU(2) spins with S=1/2 and random infinite-range exchange interactions. We calculate the critical temperature T_g for the spin-glass to paramagnetic transition. We obtain T_g ~ 0.13, in good agreement with previous quantum Monte Carlo and analytical estimates. We provide a detailed picture for the different kind of excitations which intervene in the dynamical response chi''(w,T) at T=0 and analyze their evolution as T increases. We also calculate the specific heat Cv(T). We find that it displays a smooth maximum at TM ~ 0.25, in good qualitative agreement with experiments. We argue that the fact that TM>Tg is due to a quantum disorder effect.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figure

Functional expression of TcoAT1 reveals it to be a P1-type nucleoside transporter with no capacity for diminazene uptake

It has long been established that the Trypanosoma brucei TbAT1/P2 aminopurine transporter is involved in the uptake of diamidine and arsenical drugs including pentamidine, diminazene aceturate and melarsoprol. Accordingly, it was proposed that the closest Trypanosoma congolense paralogue, TcoAT1, might perform the same function in this parasite, and an apparent correlation between a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) in that gene and diminazene tolerance was reported for the strains examined. Here, we report the functional cloning and expression of TcoAT1 and show that in fact it is the syntenic homologue of another T. brucei gene of the same Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter (ENT) family: TbNT10. The T. congolense genome does not seem to contain a syntenic equivalent to TbAT1. Two TcoAT1 alleles, differentiated by three independent SNPs, were expressed in the T. brucei clone B48, a TbAT1-null strain that further lacks the High Affinity Pentamidine Transporter (HAPT1); TbAT1 was also expressed as a control. The TbAT1 and TcoAT1 transporters were functional and increased sensitivity to cytotoxic nucleoside analogues. However, only TbAT1 increased sensitivity to diamidines and to cymelarsan. Uptake of [3H]-diminazene was detectable only in the B48 cells expressing TbAT1 but not TcoAT1, whereas uptake of [3H]-inosine was increased by both TcoAT1 alleles but not by TbAT1. Uptake of [3H]-adenosine was increased by all three ENT genes. We conclude that TcoAT1 is a P1-type purine nucleoside transporter and the syntenic equivalent to the previously characterised TbNT10; it does not mediate diminazene uptake and is therefore unlikely to play a role in diminazene resistance in T. congolense

Transcriptome Assembly and Annotation of Johnsongrass (Sorghum Halepense) Rhizomes Identify Candidate Rhizome-Specific Genes

Rhizomes facilitate the wintering and vegetative propagation of many perennial grasses. Sorghum halepense (johnsongrass) is an aggressive perennial grass that relies on a robust rhizome system to persist through winters and reproduce asexually from its rootstock nodes. This study aimed to sequence and assemble expressed transcripts within the johnsongrass rhizome. A de novo transcriptome assembly was generated from a single johnsongrass rhizome meristem tissue sample. A total of 141,176 probable protein-coding sequences from the assembly were identified and assigned gene ontology terms using Blast2GO. Estimated expression analysis and BLAST results were used to reduce the assembly to 64,447 high-confidence sequences. The johnsongrass assembly was compared to Sorghum bicolor, a related nonrhizomatous species, along with an assembly of similar rhizome tissue from the perennial grain crop Thinopyrum intermedium. The presence/absence analysis yielded a set of 98 expressed johnsongrass contigs that are likely associated with rhizome development