The Politics and Piety of Neoclassical Architecture: How Early American Elites Practiced an Old Religion to Subvert the New One

The Western political revolutions of the 18th century established the ideals of liberty, patriotism, and democracy the United States government grounds its identity into this day. The motive of these ideals, particularly their visual manifestation in Neoclassical government architecture, remain unquestioned. This study provides a historical analysis of the psychology informing the early American elite’s choice to structure the new nation around Roman political and aesthetic standards. Chronicling the subservience inherent in Roman civic religion, as well as the internalizing nature of visual propaganda, the borrowed ancient schematic proves to be a method of de-revolutionizing the American people at the expense of their liberty. These results suggest a trend in the state’s use of the built environment to restrain individualism and continue the cycle of aesthetic injustice in the emergent urban space

Synthetic approaches to leukotriene analogues

A review of the discovery, biological properties, and synthesis of the leukotrienes is presented. The opening of β-alkylstyrene oxides with nucleophiles is also discussed, with respect to the possible preparation of leukotriene analogues in which an aromatic species replaces the triene system... cont'

Use of DNA melting simulation software for in silico diagnostic assay design: targeting regions with complex melting curves and confirmation by real-time PCR using intercalating dyes

BACKGROUND: DNA melting curve analysis using double-stranded DNA-specific dyes such as SYTO9 produce complex and reproducible melting profiles, resulting in the detection of multiple melting peaks from a single amplicon and allowing the discrimination of different species. We compare the melting curves of several Naegleria and Cryptosporidium amplicons generated in vitro with in silico DNA melting simulations using the programs POLAND and MELTSIM., then test the utility of these programs for assay design using a genetic marker for toxin production in cyanobacteria. RESULTS: The SYTO9 melting curve profiles of three species of Naegleria and two species of Cryptosporidium were similar to POLAND and MELTSIM melting simulations, excepting some differences in the relative peak heights and the absolute melting temperatures of these peaks. MELTSIM and POLAND were used to screen sequences from a putative toxin gene in two different species of cyanobacteria and identify regions exhibiting diagnostic melting profiles. For one of these diagnostic regions the POLAND and MELTSIM melting simulations were observed to be different, with POLAND more accurately predicting the melting curve generated in vitro. Upon further investigation of this region with MELTSIM, inconsistencies between the melting simulation for forward and reverse complement sequences were observed. The assay was used to accurately type twenty seven cyanobacterial DNA extracts in vitro. CONCLUSION: Whilst neither POLAND nor MELTSIM simulation programs were capable of exactly predicting DNA dissociation in the presence of an intercalating dye, the programs were successfully used as tools to identify regions where melting curve differences could be exploited for diagnostic melting curve assay design. Refinements in the simulation parameters would be required to account for the effect of the intercalating dye and salt concentrations used in real-time PCR. The agreement between the melting curve simulations for different species of Naegleria and Cryptosporidium and the complex melting profiles generated in vitro using SYTO9 verified that the complex melting profile of PCR amplicons was solely the result of DNA dissociation. Other data outputs from these simulations were also used to identify the melting domains that contributed to the observed melting peaks for each of the different PCR amplicons

How I do it: Minimally invasive Cox-Maze IV procedure

Clinical vignette Our patient is a 66-year-old female with a 2-year history of atrial fibrillation (AF) and mitral valve prolapse who presented with dyspnea on exertion. She was found to be in AF upon her admission electrocardiogram. A transthoracic echocardiogram was performed demonstrating moderate-to-severe mitral regurgitation (MR) with a left atrial (LA) diameter of 5.1 cm and normal left ventricular (LV) function. After completion of her workup, it was decided that the patient would best be treated by a minimally invasive Cox-Maze IV (CMIV) and concomitant mitral valve procedure given her significant MR and symptoms. This article and accompanying video will discuss how the minimally invasive CMIV procedure is performed. Surgical technique

A Novel Anti-diabetic Metabolite from Plants: Biosynthesis, Gene Discovery, and Metabolic Engineering of Montbretin A

Plant specialized metabolites (i.e. secondary metabolites) have been employed by humans for centuries in traditional and modern medicine. They remain an important source for the discovery of new pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. Montbretin A (MbA) is a complex acylated flavonoid glycoside discovered in the below-ground storage organs (corms) of the ornamental plant montbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora). MbA a highly potent and selective inhibitor of the human pancreatic α-amylase (HPA), a key enzyme in starch degradation. MbA is being tested for the treatment of type-2 diabetes. However, due to low abundance of MbA in montbretia plants and due the complex chemical structure of MbA, natural product extraction and chemical synthesis are insufficient for MbA production. Our goal is to develop a heterologous plant production system or a microbial production system for MbA. This requires knowledge of the genes, enzymes and regulating factors of the MbA biosynthetic system in montbretia. We achieved the discovery of the complete biosynthetic pathway of MbA using an approach that combined knowledge of montbretia biology, metabolite profiling, differential transcriptome analysis, cDNA cloning, heterologous gene expression in E. coli, yeast and tobacco, and enzyme biochemistry. This includes the discovery of five new UDP-sugar dependent glycosyltransferases (UGTs) and a BAHD-acyltransferases (AT) which together catalyze the complete assembly of MbA from its different building blocks. To reconstruct MbA production in tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) we enhanced the biosynthesis of flavonol precursors using genes for myricetin biosynthesis and transcription factors from montbtretia, which were stacked with genes of the MbA assembly pathway. We will highlight both challenges and opportunities of exploring novel biosynthetic systems of plant specialized metabolites for the development of new drugs, and bioproducts in general

Privately optimal severance pay

This paper constructs an equilibrium matching model with risk-averse workers and incomplete contracts to study both the optimal private provision of severance pay and the consequences of government mandates in excess of the private optimum. The privately-optimal severance payment is bounded below by the fall in lifetime wealth resulting from job loss. Despite market incompleteness, mandated minimum payments significantly exceeding the private optimum are effectively undone by adjustment of the contractual wage, and have only small allocational and welfare effects

The tip of the iceberg

No abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63050/1/471_ftp.pd

“Different strokes for different folks”

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90351/1/1924_ftp.pd