Labouring to Make the Good Wife Good in the journées chrétiennes and Le Menagier de Paris

This paper focuses on two related moments of hybridity in late medieval conduct literature concerned with the management of the conduct of the good wife's daily life. First, it examines the fusion of clerical and lay authority found in the so-called journées chrétiennes, a group of texts written by clerics to help lay people lead a contemplative life from within the married estate. Second, it considers the epistemological confusion evident in a similar attempt to navigate the interpenetration of lay and clerical experience in the opening sections of Le Menagier de Paris. It concludes that such texts make possible, through the labour of their performative reading practices, a process of textual and cultural enrichment that allows their readers to engage with the social in new ways

SDHA gain-of-function engages inflammatory mitochondrial retrograde signaling via KEAP1-Nrf2.

Whether screening the metabolic activity of immune cells facilitates discovery of molecular pathology remains unknown. Here we prospectively screened the extracellular acidification rate as a measure of glycolysis and the oxygen consumption rate as a measure of mitochondrial respiration in B cells from patients with primary antibody deficiency. The highest oxygen consumption rate values were detected in three study participants with persistent polyclonal B cell lymphocytosis (PPBL). Exome sequencing identified germline mutations in SDHA, which encodes succinate dehydrogenase subunit A, in all three patients with PPBL. SDHA gain-of-function led to an accumulation of fumarate in PPBL B cells, which engaged the KEAP1-Nrf2 system to drive the transcription of genes encoding inflammatory cytokines. In a single patient trial, blocking the activity of the cytokine interleukin-6 in vivo prevented systemic inflammation and ameliorated clinical disease. Overall, our study has identified pathological mitochondrial retrograde signaling as a disease modifier in primary antibody deficiency

Stable isotope ratios of egg albumen of three waterbird species nesting in the Colorado River Delta indicate differences in foraging ground and isotopic niche breadth

The Colorado River Delta is one of the most impacted wetland systems in the world and has experienced massive habitat loss owing to severe restrictions in freshwater inflow as a result of dam construction and diversion of water for irrigation. However, the delta still offers nesting and foraging habitats for waterbirds, although the habitats available are highly fragmented and limited. Stable isotope ratio (SIR) analysis was used to assess quantitatively isotopic niche width of gull-billed terns (Gelochelidon nilotica), laughing gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) and snowy egrets (Egreta thula) that nest at an inland and coastal location. The variance in carbon and nitrogen SIR of egg albumen indicated that inland colonies have a much broader isotope niche width (range 2.9 to 23.9) than coastal colonies (<0.1 to 1.4).Species-specific mean albumen δ13C values from inland nests were significantly more depleted in 13C than coastal colonies (-19.5 to -23.1‰ and -10.4 to -14.9‰, respectively). Comparison of albumen δ13C values corrected for trophic fractionation with those of potential prey and primary producers collected at 10 potential foraging grounds indicates that females of the three species that nest in inland colonies did not feed in habitats located in the vicinity of their nesting site, while coastal colonies had distinct isotopic signatures reflecting marine primary production. Inland colonies probably forage in a variety of habitats and for different prey, relying on food webs based mostly on C3 terrestrial plants. Differences in the isotopic composition of eggs from species nesting in the same area and between conspecifics nesting in different habitats indicate that foraging habitats vary substantially, suggesting that feeding varies as a function of local resource availability. These results suggest that a variety of habitat types fulfill the foraging needs of this suite of nesting waterbird species, especially in inland colonies. Since the specific feeding areas of nesting females from the inland colonies have not been identified, protection of the remaining wetlands within the Colorado River Delta is warranted. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Assessment of carbon in woody plants and soil across a vineyard-woodland landscape

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Quantification of ecosystem services, such as carbon (C) storage, can demonstrate the benefits of managing for both production and habitat conservation in agricultural landscapes. In this study, we evaluated C stocks and woody plant diversity across vineyard blocks and adjoining woodland ecosystems (wildlands) for an organic vineyard in northern California. Carbon was measured in soil from 44 one m deep pits, and in aboveground woody biomass from 93 vegetation plots. These data were combined with physical landscape variables to model C stocks using a geographic information system and multivariate linear regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Field data showed wildlands to be heterogeneous in both C stocks and woody tree diversity, reflecting the mosaic of several different vegetation types, and storing on average 36.8 Mg C/ha in aboveground woody biomass and 89.3 Mg C/ha in soil. Not surprisingly, vineyard blocks showed less variation in above- and belowground C, with an average of 3.0 and 84.1 Mg C/ha, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This research demonstrates that vineyards managed with practices that conserve some fraction of adjoining wildlands yield benefits for increasing overall C stocks and species and habitat diversity in integrated agricultural landscapes. For such complex landscapes, high resolution spatial modeling is challenging and requires accurate characterization of the landscape by vegetation type, physical structure, sufficient sampling, and allometric equations that relate tree species to each landscape. Geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques are useful for integrating the above variables into an analysis platform to estimate C stocks in these working landscapes, thereby helping land managers qualify for greenhouse gas mitigation credits. Carbon policy in California, however, shows a lack of focus on C stocks compared to emissions, and on agriculture compared to other sectors. Correcting these policy shortcomings could create incentives for ecosystem service provision, including C storage, as well as encourage better farm stewardship and habitat conservation.</p

Visual cues of oviposition sites and spectral sensitivity of Cydia strobilella L.

We investigated whether the spruce seed moth (Cydia so-obilella L., Tortricidae: Grapholitini), an important pest in seed orchards of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.), can make use of the spectral properties of its host when searching for flowers to oviposit on. Spectral measurements showed that the flowers, and the cones they develop into, differ from a background of P. abies needles by a higher reflectance of long wavelengths. These differences increase as the flowers develop into mature cones. Electroretinograms (ERGs) in combination with spectral adaptation suggest that C. strobilella has at least three spectral types of photoreceptor; an abundant green-sensitive receptor with maximal sensitivity at wavelength lambda(max) = 526 nm, a blue-sensitive receptor with kr a = 436 nm, and an ultraviolet-sensitive receptor with lambda(max) = 352 nm. Based on our spectral measurements and the receptor properties inferred from the ERGs, we calculated that open flowers, which are suitable oviposition sites, provide detectable achromatic, but almost no chromatic contrasts to the background of needles. In field trials using traps of different spectral properties with or without a female sex pheromone lure, only pheromone-baited traps caught moths. Catches in baited traps were not correlated with the visual contrast of the traps against the background. Thus, visual contrast is probably not the primary cue for finding open host flowers, but it could potentially complement olfaction as a secondary cue, since traps with certain spectral properties caught significantly more moths than others

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article