The Plains of Mars, European War Prints, 1500-1825

Over fifty original prints by renowned artists from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, including Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Théodore Géricault, and Francisco de Goya, among many others, are featured inThe Plains of Mars: European War Prints, 1500-1825. On loan from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the works of art included in this exhibition examine the topics of war and peace, propaganda, heroism, brutal conflicts, and the harrowing aftermath of battle. Spanning from the Renaissance to the Romantic periods and encompassing a wide geographic scope including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the Low Countries, England, and North America, the prints depict triumphant Renaissance soldiers, devastating scenes of violence, and satirical caricatures of political figures. Also on display is Goya’s compelling “Disasters of War” series, completed in response to the brutality of the Spanish War of Independence. Goya’s prints serve as a powerful testament to the horrors faced by both soldiers and civilians. Under the direction of Professor Felicia Else and Shannon Egan, Melissa Casale ‘19 and Bailey Harper ‘19 have researched and written didactic labels, catalogue essays, and created an interactive digital interface to complement the exhibition. Together, Melissa and Bailey will lead public tours of the exhibition. A Gallery Talk by Prof. Peter Carmichael will draw connections between the depictions of warfare on view in the Gallery with representations of the American Civil War. James Clifton, Director of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will be delivering a lecture in conjunction with the exhibition. Dr. Clifton, who also serves as curator of Renaissance and Baroque painting at MFAH, curated the exhibition in its first iteration and wrote the exhibition catalogue (published by Yale University Press). Dr. Clifton’s lecture not only will provide an overview of the exhibition, but also will focus on the concept of “mediated war.” A full-color catalogue with images and essays by Bailey Harper ’19 and Melissa Casale ’19, under the supervision of Profs. Felicia Else and Shannon Egan, is planned to accompany the exhibition.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1028/thumbnail.jp

Sourcing drugs with stable isotopes

ManuscriptCarbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope ratios at natural abundance levels are useful tools in determining the region-of-origin for both cocaine and heroin. Here we show that cocaine originating from different geographic regions of South America exhibited pronounced differences in their δ13C and δ15N values. The distinct isotope-ratio combinations allow reliable determination of the region-of-origin for the major coca growing regions along the Andean Ridge

Quantifying the Impact of Replication on the Quality-of-Service in Cloud Databases

Cloud databases achieve high availability by automatically replicating data on multiple nodes. However, the overhead caused by the replication process can lead to an increase in the mean and variance of transaction response times, causing unforeseen impacts on the offered quality-of-service (QoS). In this paper, we propose a measurement-driven methodology to predict the impact of replication on Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) environments. Our methodology uses operational data to parameterize a closed queueing network model of the database cluster together with a Markov model that abstracts the dynamic replication process. Experiments on Amazon RDS show that our methodology predicts response time mean and percentiles with errors of just 1% and 15% respectively, and under operational conditions that are significantly different from the ones used for model parameterization. We show that our modeling approach surpasses standard modeling methods and illustrate the applicability of our methodology for automated DBaaS provisioning

Disease burden and quality of life of in children with sickle cell disease in Italy: time to be considered a priority

The objective of the present article is to highlight the need for attention to Quality of Life of patients with Sickle Cell Disease living in Italy. The transformation of sickle cell disease from a severe life-threatening disease of childhood into a chronic, lifelong condition due to the significant improvements in care and treatment options, imposes increasing new challenges to health care providers and patients. Patients now face physical, psychosocial and emotional challenges throughout their lives. They generally have to receive chronic treatments and regular multidisciplinary monitoring which increase social and emotional burden rendering adherence to treatment sometimes complicated. A chronic disease impacts all aspects of patients’ lives, not only the physical one, but also the social and emotional aspects as well as the educational and working life. The entire “Quality of Life” is affected and recent evidence demonstrates the importance quality of life has for patients with chronic illness. The results of this review focus on emerging data regarding quality of life across the lifespan of patients with Sickle Cell Disease, and highlight the need for more action in this field in Italy, where recent immigration and improved care determine an increasing population of children with sickle cell disease being taken into long term care

5% lidocaine medicated plaster double effect in a case of orofacial localized neuropathic pain

Roberto Casale,1,2 Yuriy Romanenko,2,3 Massimo Allegri4–6 1Department of Clinical Neurophysiology and Pain Rehabilitation Unit, Foundation "Salvatore Maugeri", Research and Care Institute, IRCCS, Pavia, Italy; 2EFIC Montescano Pain School, Montescano, Italy; 3Department of Neurology, Lugansk City Hospital 4, Lugansk, Ukraine; 4Department of Clinical, Surgical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; 5Pain Therapy Service Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy; 6SIMPAR group, Pavia, Italy Abstract: Localized neuropathic pain (LNP) is a type of neuropathic pain that is characterized by “consistent and limited area(s) of maximum pain associated with negative or positive sensory signs and/or spontaneous symptoms characteristic of neuropathic pain”. This definition encompasses a huge number of neuropathic orofacial pain syndromes. We present a case report of a patient who was affected with sleep apnea syndrome treated with nocturnal oxygen mask delivery, in whom orofacial LNP hampered the wearing of a mask due to unbearable burning and throbbing pain. The application of 5% lidocaine medicated plaster during the night led to an impressive reduction of both the pain level and the size of the painful area due to the plaster's pharmacological mechanisms, which were associated with a secondary benefit due to its mechanical protective action. This case report shows how these two factors could be of clinical value and have to be considered more systematically in the treatment of LNP in reducing pain and the size of the painful area. Keywords: trigeminal pain, localized neuropathic pain, topical treatment, 5% lidocaine medicated plaste

Flora and Fauna in East Asian Art

Flora and Fauna in East Asian Art is the fourth annual exhibition curated by students enrolled in the Art History Methods course. This exhibition highlights the academic achievements of six student curators: Samantha Frisoli ’18, Daniella Snyder ’18, Gabriella Bucci ’19, Melissa Casale ’19, Keira Koch ’19, and Paige Deschapelles ’20. The selection of artworks in this exhibition considers how East Asian artists portrayed similar subjects of flora and fauna in different media including painting, prints, embroidery, jade, and porcelain. This exhibition intends to reveal the hidden meanings behind various representations of flora and fauna in East Asian art by examining the iconography, cultural context, aesthetic and function of each object.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1025/thumbnail.jp

Examination on total ozone column retrievals by Brewer spectrophotometry using different processing software

The availability of long-term records of the total ozone content (TOC) represents a valuable source of information for studies on the assessment of short-and long-term atmospheric changes and their impact on the terrestrial ecosystem. In particular, ground-based observations represent a valuable tool for validating satellite-derived products. To our knowledge, details about software packages for processing Brewer spectrophotometer measurements and for retrieving the TOC are seldom specified in studies using such datasets. The sources of the differences among retrieved TOCs from the Brewer instruments located at the Italian stations of Rome and Aosta, using three freely available codes (Brewer Processing Software, BPS; O3Brewer software; and European Brewer Network (EUBREWNET) level 1.5 products) are investigated here. Ground-based TOCs are also compared with Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) TOC retrievals used as an independent dataset since no other instruments near the Brewer sites are available. The overall agreement of the BPS and O3Brewer TOC data with EUBREWNET data is within the estimated total uncertainty in the retrieval of total ozone from a Brewer spectrophotometer (1%). However, differences can be found depending on the software in use. Such differences become larger when the instrumental sensitivity exhibits a fast and dramatic drift which can affect the ozone retrievals significantly. Moreover, if daily mean values are directly generated by the software, differences can be observed due to the configuration set by the users to process single ozone measurement and the rejection rules applied to data to calculate the daily value. This work aims to provide useful information both for scientists engaged in ozone measurements with Brewer spectrophotometers and for stakeholders of the Brewer data products available on Web-based platforms