Intersections of Place, Time, and Entertainment in Rural Nebraska in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

As newcomers developed Nebraska settlements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they began to shape the space. This study explores the intersections of place, time, and entertainment in rural Nebraska from the beginning of European American settlement in the late 19th century to the end of the Great Depression. Through such examinations, we can better understand the historical geographies of individual and collective human experience. With such knowledge, we can then recognize how entertainment reflected social life, sense of place, place attachment, and the intricacies and larger scale trends of race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, nationality, and religion. In this work, a variety of sources are mined and examined through primarily qualitative methods. The acknowledgment that research is subjective and selective is present in researching, writing, and producing the narrative. Literature from a variety of disciplines informs the research. Such a study adds to scholarship by incorporating contemporary approaches, methodologies, and theories, such as humanistic, post-modern, feminist, and post-colonial, to the geographic case study approach that has been criticized for being too descriptive and lacking theory. Each chapter contains an examination of leisure activities. Chapter 1, entitled “Everyday Leisure Activities,” explores a wide variety of common entertainments available to people living in and visiting rural Nebraska. The rest of the study examines specific activities via case studies. The Walter Savidge Amusement Company in the early 20th century is the heart of Chapter 2, “Traveling Shows.” Chapter 3, “Ethnic- Religious Entertainment: The German Russian Mennonites of Henderson” demonstrates how leisure activities could vary from the mainstream depending upon a group’s ethnic, national, and religious characteristics. Chapters 4 and 5 explore the state’s amusement parks in the early 20th century by discovering the personality of The Long Pine Amusement Park during its first eight years. The last section, “The Broader Context,” sifts out themes of race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, nationality, and religion, illustrating how they were manifested in entertainment. Adviser: David J. Wishar

Vaccinia Virus Protein C6 Is a Virulence Factor that Binds TBK-1 Adaptor Proteins and Inhibits Activation of IRF3 and IRF7

Recognition of viruses by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) causes interferon-β (IFN-β) induction, a key event in the anti-viral innate immune response, and also a target of viral immune evasion. Here the vaccinia virus (VACV) protein C6 is identified as an inhibitor of PRR-induced IFN-β expression by a functional screen of select VACV open reading frames expressed individually in mammalian cells. C6 is a member of a family of Bcl-2-like poxvirus proteins, many of which have been shown to inhibit innate immune signalling pathways. PRRs activate both NF-κB and IFN regulatory factors (IRFs) to activate the IFN-β promoter induction. Data presented here show that C6 inhibits IRF3 activation and translocation into the nucleus, but does not inhibit NF-κB activation. C6 inhibits IRF3 and IRF7 activation downstream of the kinases TANK binding kinase 1 (TBK1) and IκB kinase-ε (IKKε), which phosphorylate and activate these IRFs. However, C6 does not inhibit TBK1- and IKKε-independent IRF7 activation or the induction of promoters by constitutively active forms of IRF3 or IRF7, indicating that C6 acts at the level of the TBK1/IKKε complex. Consistent with this notion, C6 immunoprecipitated with the TBK1 complex scaffold proteins TANK, SINTBAD and NAP1. C6 is expressed early during infection and is present in both nucleus and cytoplasm. Mutant viruses in which the C6L gene is deleted, or mutated so that the C6 protein is not expressed, replicated normally in cell culture but were attenuated in two in vivo models of infection compared to wild type and revertant controls. Thus C6 contributes to VACV virulence and might do so via the inhibition of PRR-induced activation of IRF3 and IRF7

"Eat and you will be eaten": a qualitative study exploring costs and benefits of age-disparate sexual relationships in Tanzania and Uganda: implications for girls' sexual and reproductive health interventions

BACKGROUND: Age-disparate sex is associated with increased HIV risk among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in sub-Saharan Africa. However, little has been done to understand the dynamics of such relationships from the perspectives of either AGYW or older men, and the communities in which these relationships are embedded. This article explores the motivations and perceived benefits of such relationships for AGYW and older men, plus the social and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) consequences. METHODS: This study held 37 participatory focus group discussions and 87 in-depth interviews with young people aged 14-24 and adult community members aged 25-49 in rural and urban Tanzania and Uganda. Participants were sampled using purposive and snowball techniques. Thematic analysis was conducted with the aid of NVIVO 10 software. RESULTS: Motivations, perceived benefits and costs for AGYW centred around four main themes: financial motivations, emotional support, meeting social expectations and reflections on sexual health. Specifically, AGYW noted that older partners gave gifts/money of higher value compared with younger men. Men's perceived benefits and costs revolved around the need to satisfy their sexual desire, the perception that AGYW were capable of engaging in new and creative sexual styles and their desire for prestige among male peers. Both AGYW and men recognised the social and SRH consequences as: risk of violence, social stigma, risk of unplanned pregnancy and risk of sexually transmitted infections including HIV. CONCLUSION: Interventions need to acknowledge the perceived benefits of age-disparate sexual relationships for AGYW and older men and engage them in critical reflection on the medium- to longer-term consequences versus the shorter-term satisfaction of needs, desires and aspirations, as a way to navigate the constrained opportunities they face given existing structural limitations. Interventions should also tackle the structural constraints AGYW face by helping them access resources, become empowered and challenge the expectation of having to depend financially on men. Interventions with men should unpack the assumption that men are naturally hypersexual. The role of peers for both girls and men should be acknowledged, and a shift from individual targeted interventions to changing norms at the community level should be considered

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection ar

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics

Review of \u3ci\u3eWomen on the North American Plains \u3c/i\u3e edited by Renee M. Laegreid and Sandra K. Mathews

Despite over thirty years having elapsed since Joan Jensen and Darlis Miller, in The Gentle Tamers Revisited, called for new approaches to western women\u27s history, popular stereotypes of what constitutes a Great Plains woman remain deeply ingrained in the general public\u27s imagination. Although three decades of scholarship have slowly chipped away at the typecast, until recently no one piece has consolidated the diversity of women\u27s experiences within the Canadian and American Great Plains. We should herald, therefore, the arrival of Women on the North American Plains. This long-needed collection delivers a powerful corrective to scholarship\u27s and popular imagery\u27s shortcomings. The contributors recognize that there was, and is, no all-inclusive Great Plains woman. Her characteristics have always varied; she did not live in a certain time or place, have a particular religion, belong to one race or ethnicity. She was not always married, or even heterosexual. There was, and is, no one type

Life and Landscapes In The Post-Office Communities of Holt County, Nebraska

Thumb through the pages of a DeLorme gazetteer of any Great Plains state .and you will find small black diamonds, each with its own place-name, scattered throughout the large-scale maps. For those who are familiar with the area, the existence of some of the diamonds, supposedly marking the location of a community, can be confusing since these markers do not represent contemporary towns. Additionally, when you travel country roads in rural areas of the Great Plains you will stumble upon markers that identify a nearby post office, which, also no longer exists. What do these diamonds on the map represent? How does the occasional countryside post-office sign relate? Some studies, such as that of Geary County, Kansas, often mention names on the map like Wreford, Olson, and Moss Springs, which developed from slight concentrations of farms to include a post office and school, [that] never grew further, l but fail to go into more detail describing what such concentrations of people were like. My goal is to reveal the past communities that the cartographic diamonds in a gazetteer represent. More importantly, I hope to contribute to Great Plains scholarship, particularly that of European American settlement, by providing a window into the personalities of boom-and-bust communities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What would a day-in-the-life consist of for a resident of north-central Nebraska in the late 1880s? If they had gone to get their mail, settlers near the community of Dustin in Holt County might have felt as if they had stepped into a small version of a metropolis. On the main street, running north-south, the stores and the print shop were on the west side, while the manse-the home of a Presbyterian pastor-and community hall were located on the east side. The north end of the street was bounded by the blacksmith shop while the church was close to the southern end.2 After gathering the mail at William Dustin\u27s general store, and possibly purchasing items such as wash wringers and an umbrella, settlers might stop by the hardware store to buy supplies to build a new frame for a house or barn. If a family member had been sick, the settler could purchase remedies from the drug store