The Ursinus Weekly, December 7, 1964

225 voice choir and professional soloists to present annual Messiah performance • Faculty members gain recognition: Yale Press publishes Foster volumes; Dr. Hinkle appointed assistant prof • Psych Club hears Manus on the retarded child • Judy Collins captivates Thursday concert audience: Folk songstress and fine entertainer • E and R church awards grant for scholarship fund • Juniors succeed with turned about turnabout • WSGA appoints judiciary and election boards • Philadelphia Orchestra presents varied concert • An invitation to sophomore and junior women • Editorial: Fa-la-la • Letters to the editor • European tour group readies for next Summer • Romanticism vs. classicism at Kaffee Klatsch • The lively lives of the 942 girls • Ursinus student ends tour of duty in Peace Corps • Bears b-ball men triumph over Del Val and E Baptist: Barry Troster high scorer in both games • Volleyball led by ZX and Demas in last week • Track meeting to be held • Wrestling team meets Princeton • Greek gleanings • Gulf Corporation grants second gift to Chemistry Department • Curtain Club presents The Pooh Saturdayhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1236/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, December 14, 1964

Enthusiastic Pooh audience hears A. A. Milne children\u27s play: Matinee by Curtain Club • Faculty accepts senate approved hours change • Chorus and soloists usher Christmas season with 27th annual Messiah: Students attend full afternoon rehearsal • Christmas activities fill last week of 1964: Robin Roberts at MSGA banquet; Women\u27s banquet; Dorms hold open house; Mrs. Helfferich\u27s party; Candlelight communion; Christmas dance • Greeks hosts to orphans in area parties • Richard P. Richter accepts duties as alumni secretary • Frosh plan cool Ice palace \u2765 • Bridge tourney on UC campus • Spirit of Christmas present • B-ball team splits two close ones, 60-59 and 70-71: Sloppiness and apathy big factors • ZX leads v-ball; Demas second • Wrestling team looks strong • UC girl confesses in dial-a-bride • Letters to the editor • Greek gleanings • Ursinus kitchen food preparation exposedhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1237/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, November 9, 1964

Senior Ball, Friday, offers Camelot, Al Raymond band: Lord and Lady, permanent class officers to be announced • Graduate awards available from science foundation • Miller and Zucker review election returns, meaning • Museum director on American art to be Forum highlight: Dr. Turner to emphasize the 20th century • William Shaffer, vice-president UC Board of Directors, dies • Pancoast in State House to seek greater local power • Faculty action penalizes 4 with fines, demerits • Curtain Club selects cast for Winnie the Pooh production, schedules December showing • English Club to meet tonight • Editorial: Altruism at Ursinus • Life in the cow palace; An eyewitness account • Kaffee Klatsch hosts large crowd to discuss rights • A girl\u27s life at Ursinus: 1906 • Spotlight: UC abroad • Advice column • Bears belt Haverford 19-6 at Haverford homecoming: Tony Motto scores two touchdowns • Soccermen defeat LaSalle 5-2 • Hockey team wins biggest: W.C., best ever, falls 1-0; West Chester places 5 on all-stars, Ursinus team effort proves supreme • Wrestling to start Tuesday • U.C. men\u27s mooning team suffers setback at hands of faculty • 200 dance to Okie Duke at Cafe Montmarte • Greek gleaningshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1233/thumbnail.jp

Disentangling Changes in the Spectral Shape of Chlorophyll Fluorescence : Implications for Remote Sensing of Photosynthesis

Novel satellite measurements of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) can improve our understanding of global photosynthesis; however, little is known about how to interpret the controls on its spectral variability. To address this, we disentangle simultaneous drivers of fluorescence spectra by coupling active and passive fluorescence measurements with photosynthesis. We show empirical and mechanistic evidence for where, why, and to what extent leaf fluorescence spectra change. Three distinct components explain more than 95% of the variance in leaf fluorescence spectra under both steady-state and changing illumination conditions. A single spectral shape of fluorescence explains 84% of the variance across a wide range of species. The magnitude of this shape responds to absorbed light and photosynthetic up/down regulation; meanwhile, chlorophyll concentration and nonphotochemical quenching control 9% and 3% of the remaining spectral variance, respectively. The spectral shape of fluorescence is remarkably stable where most current satellite retrievals occur (far-red, >740nm), and dynamic downregulation of photosynthesis reduces fluorescence magnitude similarly across the 670- to 850-nm range. We conduct an exploratory analysis of hourly red and far-red canopy SIF in soybean, which shows a subtle change in red:far-red fluorescence coincident with photosynthetic downregulation but is overshadowed by longer-term changes in canopy chlorophyll and structure. Based on our leaf and canopy analysis, caution should be taken when attributing large changes in the spectral shape of remotely sensed SIF to plant stress, particularly if data acquisition is temporally sparse. Ultimately, changes in SIF magnitude at wavelengths greater than 740 nm alone may prove sufficient for tracking photosynthetic dynamics. Plain Language Summary Satellite remote sensing provides a global picture of photosynthetic activity-allowing us to see when, where, and how much CO2 plants are assimilating. To do this, satellites measure a small emission of energy from the plants called chlorophyll fluorescence. However, this measurement is typically made across a narrow wavelength range, while the emission spectrum (650-850 nm) is quite dynamic. We show where, why, and to what extent leaf fluorescence spectra change across a diverse range of species and conditions, ultimately informing canopy remote sensing measurements. Results suggest that wavelengths currently used by satellites are stable enough to track the downregulation of photosynthesis resulting from stress, while spectral shape changes respond more strongly to dynamics in canopy structure and chlorophyll concentration.Peer reviewe

The Two-dimensional XMM-Newton Group Survey: z<0.012 groups

We present the results of the 2-dimensional XMM-Newton Group Survey (2dXGS), an archival study of nearby galaxy groups. In this paper we consider eleven nearby systems (z<0.012) in Mulchaey et al. (2003), which span a broad range in X-ray luminosity from 10^40 to 10^43 ergs/s. We measure the iron abundance and temperature distribution in these systems and derive pressure and entropy maps. We find statistically significant evidence for structure in the entropy and pressure of the gas component of seven groups on the 10-20% level. The XMM-Newton data for the three groups with best statistics also suggest patchy metalicity distributions within the central 20--50 kpc of the brightest group galaxy, probed with 2-10 kpc resolution. This provides insights into the processes associated with thermalization of the stellar mass loss. Analysis of the global properties of the groups reveals a subclass of X-ray faint groups, which are characterized by both higher entropy and lower pressure. We suggest that the merger history of the central elliptical is responsible for both the source and the observed thermodynamical properties of the hot gas of the X-ray faint groups.Comment: 18 pages, ApJ, 646, 143, 200

A Requirement for slc15a4 in Imiquimod-Induced Systemic Inflammation and Psoriasiform Inflammation in Mice

There is competing evidence that plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC), the most potent source of IFN-I, may initiate psoriasis. We targeted pDC function using the slc15a4 loss-of-function mouse whose pDC are unresponsive to TLR agonists. slc15a4 treated with the topical TLR7-agonist imiquimod (IMQ) demonstrated decreased epidermal thickening 24 hours post-treatment which was more pronounced by day 5 as compared to wildtype mice. These findings were specific to the acute IMQ model and not the protracted IL23 model that drives inflammation downstream of TLR activation. Systemically, slc15a4 was required for IMQ-induced weight loss and cutaneous accumulation of CD4+ and Siglec H+, but not CD11b+ cells. Consistent with this phenotype and the function of slc15a4, induction of IFN-I was virtually absent systemically and via cutaneous gene expression. Induction of other inflammatory cytokines (cytokine storm) was modestly blunted in slc15a4 except for inflammasome-associated genes consistent with slc15a4 being required for TLR7-mediated (but not inflammasome-mediated) inflammation downstream of IMQ. Surprisingly, only IFN-I gene expression was suppressed within IMQ-treated skin. Other genes including conserved psoriasiform trademark gene expression were augmented in slc15a4 versus littermate controls. Taken together, we have identified a role for slc15a4 but not canonical psoriasiform genes in the imiquimod model of psoriasiform dermatitis

Identification of rare-disease genes using blood transcriptome sequencing and large control cohorts.

It is estimated that 350 million individuals worldwide suffer from rare diseases, which are predominantly caused by mutation in a single gene1. The current molecular diagnostic rate is estimated at 50%, with whole-exome sequencing (WES) among the most successful approaches2-5. For patients in whom WES is uninformative, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has shown diagnostic utility in specific tissues and diseases6-8. This includes muscle biopsies from patients with undiagnosed rare muscle disorders6,9, and cultured fibroblasts from patients with mitochondrial disorders7. However, for many individuals, biopsies are not performed for clinical care, and tissues are difficult to access. We sought to assess the utility of RNA-seq from blood as a diagnostic tool for rare diseases of different pathophysiologies. We generated whole-blood RNA-seq from 94 individuals with undiagnosed rare diseases spanning 16 diverse disease categories. We developed a robust approach to compare data from these individuals with large sets of RNA-seq data for controls (n = 1,594 unrelated controls and n = 49 family members) and demonstrated the impacts of expression, splicing, gene and variant filtering strategies on disease gene identification. Across our cohort, we observed that RNA-seq yields a 7.5% diagnostic rate, and an additional 16.7% with improved candidate gene resolution

Machine learning using digitized herbarium specimens to advance phenological research

Machine learning (ML) has great potential to drive scientific discovery by harvesting data from images of herbarium specimens—preserved plant material curated in natural history collections—but ML techniques have only recently been applied to this rich resource. ML has particularly strong prospects for the study of plant phenological events such as growth and reproduction. As a major indicator of climate change, driver of ecological processes, and critical determinant of plant fitness, plant phenology is an important frontier for the application of ML techniques for science and society. In the present article, we describe a generalized, modular ML workflow for extracting phenological data from images of herbarium specimens, and we discuss the advantages, limitations, and potential future improvements of this workflow. Strategic research and investment in specimen-based ML methods, along with the aggregation of herbarium specimen data, may give rise to a better understanding of life on Earth