The Spark of Reimagination

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience. Each experience was a thrilling opportunity to reimagine the world. The honors program at Utah State University presented my peers and me with challenge after challenge to envision the world through new eyes. Journalism historian Mike Sweeney offered perspectives for understanding global conflict and everyday communication in his Propaganda, Persuasion, and Censorship honors seminar, offered in 2003 as the U.S. was attempting to justify the decision to engage in the Iraq War. In Carol Dehler’s historical geology course, the Rocky Mountain backdrop of our campus was transformed from a static outdoor playground for skiers and hikers into a rich and complex billion-year record documenting life, upheaval, and metamorphosis in its fossils and sediments

Loss Translated: Saudade in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop

In 1954, former U.S. poet laureate Elizabeth Bishop wrote in a letter from Brazil to Robert Lowell, a dear friend and fellow poet: With much love and saudades as they say here, a very nice word that seems to include all the sentiments of missing friends in one.” This insightful observation illuminates a concept central to Brazilian culture which has been designated one of the most difficult words to translate. Later, Bishop defined the idea as “the characteristic Brazilian longing or nostalgia,” which she “strongly associates with homesickness.” Bishop’s fascination with the concept, I argue, is more than that of a distant cultural observer. As her comprehension of saudade developed, the idea completely altered her own understanding of loss, home and even Bishop’s own art. This is evident, not only in her letters to Lowell, but also in her own poems and short stories about Brazil and her childhood in Nova Scotia. By understanding the role of saudade in the work of Elizabeth Bishop, scholars are able to comprehend not only the importance of this Portuguese concept in her own work but also the complexity of the poet’s cultural identity

HB 324 - Low THC Oil

The Act allows for the production, manufacturing, and dispensing of low THC oil in the State of Georgia, in accordance with a licensing regime that will be regulated by a twelve-member board. Additionally, the Act provides for a tracking system of production, purchase, and patient registration information, as well as licensing provisions for the University System of Georgia and the State Board of Pharmacy

Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran

As Iran edges closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb and its missiles extend an ever darker diplomatic shadow over the Middle East and Europe, Iran is likely to pose three threats. First, Iran could dramatically up the price of oil by interfering with the free passage of vessels in and through the Persian Gulf as it did during the l980s or by threatening to use terrorist proxies to target other states\u27 oil facilities. Second, it could diminish American influence in the Gulf and Middle East by increasing the pace and scope of terrorist activities against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Israel, and other perceived supporters of the United States. Finally, it could become a nuclear proliferation model for the world and its neighbors (including many states that otherwise would be more dependent on the United States for their security) by continuing to insist that it has a right to make nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then withdrawing once it decides to get a bomb. To contain and deter Iran from posing such threats, the United States and its friends could take a number of steps: increasing military cooperation (particularly in the naval sphere) to deter Iranian naval interference; reducing the vulnerability of oil facilities in the Gulf outside of Iran to terrorist attacks, building and completing pipelines in the lower Gulf region that would allow most of the non-Iranian oil and gas in the Gulf to be exported without having to transit the Straits of Hormuz; diplomatically isolating Iran by calling for the demilitarization of the Straits and adjacent islands, creating country-neutral rules against Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty state members who are suspected of violating the treaty from getting nuclear assistance from other state members and making withdrawal from the treaty more difficult; encouraging Israel to set the pace of nuclear restraint in the region by freezing its large reactor at Dimona and calling on all other states that have large nuclear reactors to follow suit; and getting the Europeans to back targeted economic sanctions against Iran if it fails to shut down its most sensitive nuclear activities.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1726/thumbnail.jp

Working with Homeless Women and Children: Opportunities for Training

The diversity of the homeless population allows for unique training opportunities in psychiatry, especially for child and adolescent psychiatry fellows. The prevalence of psychopathology both existing in and as a result of displacement and disenfranchisement requires a specialized knowledge of this population and provides an extraordinary education in community outreach, emergency psychiatry and social service delivery systems. The authors review their experience of working with homeless women and children in the community. Possibilities for more comprehensive training and research are also presented

Archipelago of the Sexiled: A Demonstration of Archivepelago

In 1997, Manolo Guzmán defined the notion of sexile: “the exile of those who have had to leave their nations of origin on account of their sexual orientation.” Archivepelago is a Neo4j graph database project visualizing connections between 19th and 20th century sexiled writers and artists by drawing upon archival finding aids documenting the letters they wrote to one another as well as instances of these writers translating one another’s work. By mapping these connections, the developers of Archivepelago seek a deeper understanding of how notions of sexuality and gender developed in this period transnationally, the nature of queer artistic influence and kinship, and how these factors manifested in the literature produced by these authors. This project is also indebted to digital humanities projects examining transnational movements as networks such as Annette Joseph-Gabriel’s Mapping Marronage and In the Same Boats by Kaiama Glover, et. al. as well as scholarship in the field of Island Studies. This poster outlines an initial proof-of-concept iteration of this digital public humanities project featuring an interactive visualization of correspondence between writers including Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, and Isadora Duncan as well as, in a future release, translations taking place within this network (e.g., Langston Hughes’ translations of the works of Gabriela Mistral and Federico García Lorca). Users are able to explore this network, review the dates of letters/translations and birth/death dates of figures in the network, as well as filter displays based upon types of connections and tags. The presentation will consider process and method

Whole genome sequencing of \u3ci\u3eMoraxella bovoculi\u3c/i\u3e reveals high genetic diversity and evidence for interspecies recombination at multiple loci

Moraxella bovoculi is frequently cultured from the ocular secretions and conjunctiva of cattle with Infectious Bovine Keratoconjunctivitis (IBK). Previous work has shown that single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) diversity in this species is quite high with 81,284 SNPs identified in eight genomes representing two distinct genotypes isolated from IBK affected eyes (genotype 1) and the nasopharynx of cattle without clinical IBK signs (genotype 2), respectively. The goals of this study were to identify SNPs from a collection of geographically diverse and epidemiologically unlinked M. bovoculi strains from the eyes of IBK positive cattle (n = 183) and another from the eyes of cattle (most from a single population at a single time-point) without signs of IBK (n = 63) and to characterize the genetic diversity. Strains of both genotypes were identified from the eyes of cattle without IBK signs. Only genotype 1 strains were identified from IBK affected eyes, however, these strains were isolated before the discovery of genotype 2, and the protocol for their isolation would have preferentially selected genotype 1 M. bovoculi. The core genome comprised ~74% of the whole and contained \u3e127,000 filtered SNPs. More than 80% of these characterize diversity within genotype 1 while 23,611 SNPs (~18%) delimit the two major genotypes. Genotype 2 strains lacked a repeats-in-toxin (RTX) putative pathogenesis factor and any of ten putative antibiotic resistance genes carried within a genomic island. Within genotype 1, prevalence of these elements was 0.85 and 0.12 respectively in strains from eyes that were IBK positive. Recombination appears to be an important source of genetic diversity for genotype 1 and undermines the utility of ribosomal-locus-based species identification. The extremely high genetic diversity in genotype 1 presents a challenge to the development of an efficacious vaccine directed against them, however, several low-diversity pilin-like genes were identified. Finally, the genotype-defining SNPs described in this study are a resource that can facilitate the development of more accurate M. bovoculi diagnostic tests

An Orientation Dependent Size Illusion Is Underpinned by Processing in the Extrastriate Visual Area, LO1

We use the simple, but prominent Helmholtz’s squares illusion in which a vertically striped square appears wider than a horizontally striped square of identical physical dimensions to determine whether functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) BOLD responses in V1 underpin illusions of size. We report that these simple stimuli which differ in only one parameter, orientation, to which V1 neurons are highly selective elicited activity in V1 that followed their physical, not perceived size. To further probe the role of V1 in the illusion and investigate plausible extrastriate visual areas responsible for eliciting the Helmholtz squares illusion, we performed a follow-up transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) experiment in which we compared perceptual judgments about the aspect ratio of perceptually identical Helmholtz squares when no TMS was applied against selective stimulation of V1, LO1, or LO2. In agreement with fMRI results, we report that TMS of area V1 does not compromise the strength of the illusion. Only stimulation of area LO1, and not LO2, compromised significantly the strength of the illusion, consistent with previous research that LO1 plays a role in the processing of orientation information. These results demonstrate the involvement of a specific extrastriate area in an illusory percept of size

Differentiation of \u3ci\u3eMannheimia haemolytica\u3c/i\u3e genotype 1 and 2 strains by visible phenotypic characteristics on solid media

Genotype 2 Mannheimia haemolytica associate with the lungs of cattle with bovine respiratory disease more frequently than genotype 1 strains. Different colony colors and morphologies were identified between genotype 1 and 2 solid media cultures. Genotype of strains, and frequency differences between them in mixed cultures are discernable by visual inspection. Supplements attache