Menageries and Museums: John Simons\u27 The Tiger that Swallowed the Boy (2012) and the Lives and Afterlives of Historical Animals

A few years ago two very old taxidermied Colobus monkeys turned up in the basement of Vienna’s Natural History Museum. They were sent by the collector Henry Smeathman to one of his patrons, the wealthy naturalist and collector, Thomas Pennant. The monkeys’ story, of how they travelled from Sierra Leone to England in the early 1770s, sheds light on the intersection of collecting with the history of the British slave trade. The article then moves from museums to menageries, and to further discussion of the lives and afterlives of animals via a review of John Simons’ The Tiger that Swallowed the Boy: Exotic Animals in Victorian England (2012)

Toothsome Termites and Grilled Grasshoppers: A cultural history of invertebrate gastronomy

This article examines the recent turn to entomophagy (insect eating) as a new source of nutrition in a world confronted by increasing population, degraded soils, and food insecurity. Although many regard entomophagy with disgust, there is a case to be made that many insects are much more nutritious, as well as greener and cleaner¹, than many of the foods we regularly eat without thinking. Also, there is nothing new about insect eating or the belief in entomophagy as a sustainable and sensible practice. There is a long cultural history in countries such as Africa and Australia, for instance

Poetic Destinies and Destinations

This paper surveys some of the anxieties poets felt in the mid eighteenth-century about the future of poetry in Britain, anxieties which had a formative influence on the 1790s generation of young romantic poets: was poetry in terminal decline, and if so, what part of the world would serve as poetry's new destination? Thomas Gray's poem, The Bard. A Pindaric Ode (1757) is a case in point. This poem was inspired by the story of King Edward I's massacre of the rebellious Welsh Bards, slaughtered, according to one account, because of their ability to incite the people to sedition. Standing “On a rock, whose haughty brow/ Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood” the last of the Bards “with a master’s hand and prophet’s fire,/ Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre” (Lonsdale 185-6). Joining his voice to the “grisly band” of his dead fellow-bards, Gray’s freedom-fighting Bard prophesies doom to the victorious Edward, then hurls himself into the abyss below—an end preferable to that of living under the yoke of foreign domination

Keats, Women, and the Demon Poesy

When Keats abruptly claimed, in one ofhis letters, that 'What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth-whether it existed before or not', he expanded upon his somewhat gnomic text by adding: 'The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dreamhe awoke and found it truth'. The allusion is to the nativity of Eve, as described by Milton in Book VIII of Paradise Lost. In this scene, Adam is laid asleep by God but in such a way that he is still able to see, by means of his 'fancy', the creation of Eve from his left rib. Miraculously, the gap between fiction (dream) and actuality closes, so that Eve appears, in the flesh, exactly according to the image of Adam's desire

Evanescent wave spectroscopy using hollow cylindrical waveguide probes

Optical waveguides carry bound modes which consist of a core E and H field, winch is oscillatory across the waveguide and evanescent in the waveguide cladding. Both the core and cladding component of each mode has the same frequency and propagation constant. When the frequency of the light earned by the waveguide matches an absorption transition of the material of the cladding, the mode loses optical power as it propagates due to the attenuation of the evanescent cladding portion of the mode. This process is called attenuated total reflection spectroscopy (ATR) or evanescent wave spectrophotometry. As in simple transmission spectrophotometry the absorbance of the mode is related to the interaction length of the waveguide with the absorbing cladding, the concentration of the absorbing species of the cladding and the fraction of the optical power in the evanescent waves of the various modes. This work firstly represents a theoretical analysis of the bound modes that can exist in a step index hollow cylindrical waveguide, their evanescent power fraction and the effective length of such a waveguide when located in an absorbing cladding material. The waveguide is found to have a normalized frequency or effective V number whose magnitude determines the total number of bound modes and influences the mean evanescent power fraction between modes. This effective V number reduces to that of the solid step index fiber waveguide in the limit of a zero radius inner cavity Likewise the expression for the mean evanescent mode power fraction becomes - in the limit of zero inner radius - identical to that of the fiber waveguide. The evanescent absorbance of such a hollow waveguide located in an absorbmg fluid is modeled in terms of the bulk absorption coefficient of the fluid and the waveguide dimensions. In the second part of the thesis a set of experimental absorbance values for ATR spectrophotometry using a hollow silica waveguide probe are reported. Good correspondence is found between the theoretical model and the experimental data

DNA Microarray Genotyping and Virulence and Antimicrobial Resistance Gene Profiling of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bloodstream Isolates from Renal Patients.

Thirty-six methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream isolates from renal patients were genetically characterized by DNA microarray analysis and spa typing. The isolates were highly clonal, belonging mainly to ST22-MRSA-IV. The immune evasion and enterotoxin gene clusters were found in 29/36 (80%) and 33/36 (92%) of isolates, respectively

The role of sand lances (Ammodytes sp.) in the Northwest Atlantic ecosystem: a synthesis of current knowledge with implications for conservation and management

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Staudinger, M. D., Goyert, H., Suca, J. J., Coleman, K., Welch, L., Llopiz, J. K., Wiley, D., Altman, I., Applegate, A., Auster, P., Baumann, H., Beaty, J., Boelke, D., Kaufman, L., Loring, P., Moxley, J., Paton, S., Powers, K., Richardson, D., Robbins, J., Runge, J., Smith, B., Spiegel, C., & Steinmetz, H. The role of sand lances (Ammodytes sp.) in the Northwest Atlantic ecosystem: a synthesis of current knowledge with implications for conservation and management. Fish and Fisheries, 00, (2020): 1-34, doi:10.1111/faf.12445.The American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus, Ammodytidae) and the Northern sand lance (A. dubius, Ammodytidae) are small forage fishes that play an important functional role in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (NWA). The NWA is a highly dynamic ecosystem currently facing increased risks from climate change, fishing and energy development. We need a better understanding of the biology, population dynamics and ecosystem role of Ammodytes to inform relevant management, climate adaptation and conservation efforts. To meet this need, we synthesized available data on the (a) life history, behaviour and distribution; (b) trophic ecology; (c) threats and vulnerabilities; and (d) ecosystem services role of Ammodytes in the NWA. Overall, 72 regional predators including 45 species of fishes, two squids, 16 seabirds and nine marine mammals were found to consume Ammodytes. Priority research needs identified during this effort include basic information on the patterns and drivers in abundance and distribution of Ammodytes, improved assessments of reproductive biology schedules and investigations of regional sensitivity and resilience to climate change, fishing and habitat disturbance. Food web studies are also needed to evaluate trophic linkages and to assess the consequences of inconsistent zooplankton prey and predator fields on energy flow within the NWA ecosystem. Synthesis results represent the first comprehensive assessment of Ammodytes in the NWA and are intended to inform new research and support regional ecosystem‐based management approaches.This manuscript is the result of follow‐up work stemming from a working group formed at a two‐day multidisciplinary and international workshop held at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Massachusetts in May 2017, which convened 55 experts scientists, natural resource managers and conservation practitioners from 15 state, federal, academic and non‐governmental organizations with interest and expertise in Ammodytes ecology. Support for this effort was provided by USFWS, NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (Award # G16AC00237), an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to J.J.S., a CINAR Fellow Award to J.K.L. under Cooperative Agreement NA14OAR4320158, NSF award OCE‐1325451 to J.K.L., NSF award OCE‐1459087 to J.A.R, a Regional Sea Grant award to H.B. (RNE16‐CTHCE‐l), a National Marine Sanctuary Foundation award to P.J.A. (18‐08‐B‐196) and grants from the Mudge Foundation. The contents of this paper are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New England Fishery Management Council and Mid‐Atlantic Fishery Management Council. This manuscript is submitted for publication with the understanding that the United States Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes. Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government

When are the hands of healthcare workers positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?

Hand hygiene is a key component in reducing infection. There are few reports on the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on healthcare workers\u27 (HCWs\u27) hands. The aim of this study was to establish whether HCWs\u27 fingertips were contaminated with MRSA in a clinical hospital setting. The study was conducted in an acute tertiary referral hospital on four MRSA wards that were part of a larger research study on MRSA epidemiology and four other wards not included in the study. The fingertips from all categories of 523 HCWs were sampled on 822 occasions by the imprinting of fingertips on MRSA chromogenic agar plates. The type of hand hygiene agent used, if any, and the immediate prior activity of the HCW were recorded. Overall, 38/822 (5%) fingertips from 523 HCWs were MRSA-positive; 12/194 (6%) after clinical contact, 10/138 (10%) after contact with the patient\u27s environment and 15/346 (4%) after no specific contact. MRSA was recovered on 2/61 (3%) occasions after use of alcohol hand rub, 2/35 (6%) after 4% chlorhexidine detergent, 7/210 (3%) hand washing with soap and water, and 27/493 (5%) when no hand hygiene had been performed. MRSA was recovered from HCWs on seven of the eight wards. MRSA was more frequently present on fingertips on the four non-study wards vs the four MRSA study wards [18/250 (7%), 3/201 (1%), respectively; P\u3c=0.004]. The isolation of MRSA from HCWs\u27 fingertips, including after hand hygiene, indicates that more educational programmes are necessary to improve the quality of hand hygiene to prevent transmission of MRSA

Chlamydia Screening in Ireland: a pilot study of opportunistic screening for genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection in Ireland (2007-2009). Economic evaluation

Economic Evaluation The aim of the economic evaluation was to examine the cost effectiveness of the two screening models tested in the Chlamydia Screening in Ireland Pilot (CSIP) study: (a) Clinical Setting screening, and (b) ’Pee-in-a-pot’ periodic screening in third level institution/college settings. The methodological approach comprised of a dynamic transmission model paired with an economic model. In both analyses, screening was compared to a control strategy of no organised screening, that is existing care in Ireland. A public health system or provider perspective was adopted with respect to costs. The analysis considered the cost of screening to the health service, and the costs of infection and complications, not any additional costs reported by young people in accepting a chlamydia screening test. Health outcomes were assessed in terms of major outcomes (MOs) averted and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) gained. The costs of Clinical Setting screening were presented in terms of the cost per offer (€26 ), the cost per negative case (€66), the cost per positive case (€152), and the cost per partner notified and treated (€74). The costs of ’Pee-in-a-pot’ screening were presented in terms of the cost per negative case (€39), the cost per positive case (€125), and the cost per partner notified and treated (€74). In both analyses, screening was estimated to result in fewer major outcomes, fewer QALYs lost, and higher healthcare costs compared to the control strategy. The incremental cost effectiveness analyses indicated that screening in the Clinical Setting would result in an incremental cost per MO averted of €6,093 and an incremental cost per QALY gained of €94,717. ’Pee-in-a-pot’ screening was estimated to result in incremental cost effectiveness ratios of €2,294 per MO averted and €34,486 per QALY gained respectively. In Ireland, there is no fixed and generally agreed cost effectiveness threshold below which health care technologies would be considered by policy makers to be costeffective. Nonetheless, on the basis of other technologies that are currently funded, it is not likely that screening delivered in the Clinical Setting, given an incremental cost per QALY in the region of the €94,717 found in this study, would be considered cost effective. ’Pee-in-a-pot’ screening in third level institution/college settings may be considered cost effective if a cost effectiveness threshold in the region of €45,000 per QALY gained is used. This is open to question, however, given the current economic climate and its resulting impact in terms of imposing further constraints on future healthcare budgets. It is also important to note that this strategy would have minimal in impact in reducing overall chlamydia prevalence in the population, if not supported by general population screening and prevention strategy