Ursinus College Alumni Journal, November 1960

President\u27s page • Founders\u27 Day • Wayne Brown memorial • Ritter receives degree • Admissions report • Alumnae in Who\u27s Who • Dr. Helfferich honored • Brother of Dalai Lama at Ursinus • Ursinus Women\u27s Club • Old Timers\u27 Day • Psychology\u27s place in a liberal education • The faculty, cornered • Forsan et haec • Education - Scottish and American • 1960 football results • Vernon Morgan, \u2761 Ursinus\u27 greatest runner • Seven years of alumni sponsorship completed: $188,473 collected for Ursinus in this period • Dr. Helfferich speaks • Loyalty Fund all stars • 1960 Loyalty Fund report • Advance Loyalty Fund report for 1961 • Results of the 1960 Loyalty Fund campaign • Contributors for the 1960 Loyalty Fund campaign • New reunion schedule to begin in 1961 • News about ourselves • Weddings • Births • Necrologyhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/alumnijournal/1069/thumbnail.jp

Detection of bovine inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α with a multiplex electrochemiluminescent assay platform

Commercially available bovine-specific assays are limited in number, and multiplex assays for this species are rare. Our objective was to develop a multiplex assay for the bovine inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and TNFα using the Meso Scale Discovery U-PLEX platform. Do-It-Yourself ELISA kits that contained polyclonal antibodies, both unlabeled and biotinylated, and the specific recombinant bovine cytokine standard, were purchased for each of these three cytokines. The biotinylated antibodies were coupled to linkers that bind to specific locations within each well of the U-PLEX plate. Unique linkers were used for each of the cytokines. The unlabeled antibodies were conjugated with electrochemiluminescent labels to serve as detection antibodies. Each cytokine assay was optimized individually prior to performing an optimization on the multiplex assay containing reagents for all three cytokines. To calculate cytokine concentrations, standard curves were developed using the recombinant cytokines and were run concurrently on each plate. Standard curves for IL-1β and TNF-α were run at concentrations ranging from 0 to 50,000 pg/mL, and for IL-6 from 0 to 10,000 pg/mL. The average lowest level of detection concentration measured by the standard curves were 5.3 pg/mL, 0.92 pg/mL, and 22.34 pg/mL for IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α respectively, as determined by data from seven plates containing bovine plasma samples from a combination of healthy and diseased cattle. The U-PLEX platform was a viable means to develop custom analyte- and species-specific multiplex assays using privately developed or purchased sets of commercially available reagents

EMS Systems: Foundations for the Future

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73462/1/j.1553-2712.1999.tb00094.x.pd

Large genomic differences between Moraxella bovoculi isolates acquired from the eyes of cattle with infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis versus the deep nasopharynx of asymptomatic cattle

Citation: Dickey, A. M., Loy, J. D., Bono, J. L., Smith, T. P. L., Apley, M. D., Lubbers, B. V., . . . Clawson, M. L. (2016). Large genomic differences between Moraxella bovoculi isolates acquired from the eyes of cattle with infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis versus the deep nasopharynx of asymptomatic cattle. Veterinary Research, 47, 11. doi:10.1186/s13567-016-0316-2Moraxella bovoculi is a recently described bacterium that is associated with infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK) or "pinkeye" in cattle. In this study, closed circularized genomes were generated for seven M. bovoculi isolates: three that originated from the eyes of clinical IBK bovine cases and four from the deep nasopharynx of asymptomatic cattle. Isolates that originated from the eyes of IBK cases profoundly differed from those that originated from the nasopharynx of asymptomatic cattle in genome structure, gene content and polymorphism diversity and consequently placed into two distinct phylogenetic groups. These results suggest that there are genetically distinct strains of M. bovoculi that may not associate with IBK

Together forever? Explaining exclusivity in party-firm relations

Parties and firms are the key actors of representative democracy and capitalism respectively and the dynamic of attachment between them is a central feature of any political economy. This is the first article to systematically analyse the exclusivity of party-firm relations. We consider exclusivity at a point in time and exclusivity over time. Does a firm have a relationship with only one party at a given point in time, or is it close to more than one party? Does a firm maintain a relationship with only one party over time, or does it switch between parties? Most important, how do patterns of exclusivity impact on a firm’s ability to lobby successfully? We propose a general theory, which explains patterns of party-firm relations by reference to the division of institutions and the type of party competition in a political system. A preliminary test of our theory with Polish survey data confirms our predictions, establishing a promising hypothesis for future research

Alignathon: A competitive assessment of whole-genome alignment methods

© 2014 Earl et al. Multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) are a prerequisite for a wide variety of evolutionary analyses. Published assessments and benchmark data sets for protein and, to a lesser extent, global nucleotide MSAs are available, but less effort has been made to establish benchmarks in the more general problem of whole-genome alignment (WGA). Using the same model as the successful Assemblathon competitions, we organized a competitive evaluation in which teams submitted their alignments and then assessments were performed collectively after all the submissions were received. Three data sets were used: Two were simulated and based on primate and mammalian phylogenies, and one was comprised of 20 real fly genomes. In total, 35 submissions were assessed, submitted by 10 teams using 12 different alignment pipelines. We found agreement between independent simulation-based and statistical assessments, indicating that there are substantial accuracy differences between contemporary alignment tools. We saw considerable differences in the alignment quality of differently annotated regions and found that few tools aligned the duplications analyzed. We found that many tools worked well at shorter evolutionary distances, but fewer performed competitively at longer distances. We provide all data sets, submissions, and assessment programs for further study and provide, as a resource for future benchmarking, a convenient repository of code and data for reproducing the simulation assessments

A high-resolution map of human evolutionary constraint using 29 mammals.

The comparison of related genomes has emerged as a powerful lens for genome interpretation. Here we report the sequencing and comparative analysis of 29 eutherian genomes. We confirm that at least 5.5% of the human genome has undergone purifying selection, and locate constrained elements covering ∼4.2% of the genome. We use evolutionary signatures and comparisons with experimental data sets to suggest candidate functions for ∼60% of constrained bases. These elements reveal a small number of new coding exons, candidate stop codon readthrough events and over 10,000 regions of overlapping synonymous constraint within protein-coding exons. We find 220 candidate RNA structural families, and nearly a million elements overlapping potential promoter, enhancer and insulator regions. We report specific amino acid residues that have undergone positive selection, 280,000 non-coding elements exapted from mobile elements and more than 1,000 primate- and human-accelerated elements. Overlap with disease-associated variants indicates that our findings will be relevant for studies of human biology, health and disease

Comparison of Statistical Population Reconstruction Using Full and Pooled Adult Age-Class Data

BACKGROUND: Age-at-harvest data are among the most commonly collected, yet neglected, demographic data gathered by wildlife agencies. Statistical population construction techniques can use this information to estimate the abundance of wild populations over wide geographic areas and concurrently estimate recruitment, harvest, and natural survival rates. Although current reconstruction techniques use full age-class data (0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, … years), it is not always possible to determine an animal's age due to inaccuracy of the methods, expense, and logistics of sample collection. The ability to inventory wild populations would be greatly expanded if pooled adult age-class data (e.g., 0.5, 1.5, 2.5+ years) could be successfully used in statistical population reconstruction. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated the performance of statistical population reconstruction models developed to analyze full age-class and pooled adult age-class data. We performed Monte Carlo simulations using a stochastic version of a Leslie matrix model, which generated data over a wide range of abundance levels, harvest rates, and natural survival probabilities, representing medium-to-big game species. Results of full age-class and pooled adult age-class population reconstructions were compared for accuracy and precision. No discernible difference in accuracy was detected, but precision was slightly reduced when using the pooled adult age-class reconstruction. On average, the coefficient of variation (i.e., SE(θ)/θ) increased by 0.059 when the adult age-class data were pooled prior to analyses. The analyses and maximum likelihood model for pooled adult age-class reconstruction are illustrated for a black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) population in Washington State. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Inventorying wild populations is one of the greatest challenges of wildlife agencies. These new statistical population reconstruction models should expand the demographic capabilities of wildlife agencies that have already collected pooled adult age-class data or are seeking a cost-effective method for monitoring the status and trends of our wild resources

Generic nano-imprint process for fabrication of nanowire arrays

A generic process has been developed to grow nearly defect free arrays of (heterostructured) InP and GaP nanowires. Soft nanoimprint lithography has been used to pattern gold particle arrays on full 2 inch substrates. After lift-off organic residues remain on the surface, which induce the growth of additional undesired nanowires. We show that cleaning of the samples before growth with piranha solution in combination with a thermal anneal at 550 C for InP and 700 C for GaP results in uniform nanowire arrays with 1% variation in nanowire length, and without undesired extra nanowires. Our chemical cleaning procedure is applicable to other lithographic techniques such as e-beam lithography, and therefore represents a generic process.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 table