Them that are without: a biblical theology of outsiders and preaching on outsiders in Churches of Christ

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1470/thumbnail.jp

Extreme Fermi surface smearing in a maximally disordered concentrated solid solution

We show that the Fermi surface can survive the presence of extreme compositional disorder in the equiatomic alloy Ni0.25Fe0.25Co0.25Cr0.25. Our high-resolution Compton scattering experiments reveal a Fermi surface which is smeared across a significant fraction of the Brillouin zone (up to 40% of 2π/a). The extent of this smearing and its variation on and between different sheets of the Fermi surface have been determined, and estimates of the electron mean free path and residual resistivity have been made by connecting this smearing with the coherence length of the quasiparticle states

Dynamical spin susceptibility in La2 CuO4 studied by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is a powerful probe of elementary excitations in solids. It is now widely applied to study magnetic excitations. However, its complex cross-section means that RIXS has been more difficult to interpret than inelastic neutron scattering (INS). Here we report high-resolution RIXS measurements of magnetic excitations of La2CuO4, the antiferromagnetic parent of one system of high-temperature superconductors. At high energies (~2 eV), the RIXS spectra show angular-dependent dd orbital excitations which are found to be in good agreement with single-site multiplet calculations. At lower energies (<0.3 eV), we show that the wavevector-dependent RIXS intensities are proportional to the product of the single-ion spin-flip cross section and the dynamical susceptibility of the spin-wave excitations. When the spin-flip crosssection is dividing out, the RIXS magnon intensities show a remarkable resemblance to INS data. Our results show that RIXS is a quantitative probe the dynamical spin susceptibility in cuprate and therefore should be used for quantitative investigation of other correlated electron materials.Comment: 12 page

Regulation of Liver Regeneration by Hepatocyte O-GlcNAcylation in Mice

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Background & Aims The liver has a unique capacity to regenerate after injury in a highly orchestrated and regulated manner. Here, we report that O-GlcNAcylation, an intracellular post-translational modification regulated by 2 enzymes, O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) and O-GlcNAcase (OGA), is a critical termination signal for liver regeneration following partial hepatectomy (PHX). Methods We studied liver regeneration after PHX on hepatocyte specific OGT and OGA knockout mice (OGT-KO and OGA-KO), which caused a significant decrease (OGT-KO) and increase (OGA-KO) in hepatic O-GlcNAcylation, respectively. Results OGA-KO mice had normal regeneration, but the OGT-KO mice exhibited substantial defects in termination of liver regeneration with increased liver injury, sustained cell proliferation resulting in significant hepatomegaly, hepatic dysplasia, and appearance of small nodules at 28 days after PHX. This was accompanied by a sustained increase in expression of cyclins along with significant induction in pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic gene expression in the OGT-KO livers. RNA-sequencing studies revealed inactivation of hepatocyte nuclear 4 alpha (HNF4α), the master regulator of hepatic differentiation and a known termination signal, in OGT-KO mice at 28 days after PHX, which was confirmed by both Western blot and immunohistochemistry analysis. Furthermore, a significant decrease in HNFα target genes was observed in OGT-KO mice, indicating a lack of hepatocyte differentiation following decreased hepatic O-GlcNAcylation. Immunoprecipitation experiments revealed HNF4α is O-GlcNAcylated in normal differentiated hepatocytes. Conclusions These studies show that O-GlcNAcylation plays a critical role in the termination of liver regeneration via regulation of HNF4α in hepatocytes

Physical and chemical impacts of a major storm on a temperate lake: a taste of things to come?

Extreme weather can have a substantial influence on lakes and is expected to become more frequent with climate change. We explored the influence of one particular extreme event, Storm Ophelia, on the physical and chemical environment of England's largest lake, Windermere. We found that the substantial influence of Ophelia on meteorological conditions at Windermere, in particular wind speed, resulted in a 25-fold increase (relative to the study-period average) in the wind energy flux at the lake-air interface. Following Ophelia, there was a short-lived mixing event in which the Schmidt stability decreased by over 100 Jm-2 and the thermocline deepened by over 10 m during a 12-hour period. As a result of changes to the strength of stratification, Ophelia also changed the internal seiche regime of Windermere with the dominant seiche period increasing from ~17 h pre-storm to ~21 h post-storm. Following Ophelia, there was an upwelling of cold and low-oxygenated waters at the southern-end of the lake. This had a substantial influence on the main outflow of Windermere, the River Leven, where dissolved oxygen concentrations decreased by ~48 %, from 9.3 mg L-1 to 4.8 mg L-1, while at the mid-lake monitoring station in Windermere, it decreased by only ~3%. This study illustrates that the response of a lake to extreme weather can cause important effects downstream, the influence of which may not be evident at the lake surface. To understand the impact of future extreme events fully, the whole lake and downstream-river system need to be studied together

Perioperative fluid and volume management: physiological basis, tools and strategies

Fluid and volume therapy is an important cornerstone of treating critically ill patients in the intensive care unit and in the operating room. New findings concerning the vascular barrier, its physiological functions, and its role regarding vascular leakage have lead to a new view of fluid and volume administration. Avoiding hypervolemia, as well as hypovolemia, plays a pivotal role when treating patients both perioperatively and in the intensive care unit. The various studies comparing restrictive vs. liberal fluid and volume management are not directly comparable, do not differ (in most instances) between colloid and crystalloid administration, and mostly do not refer to the vascular barrier's physiologic basis. In addition, very few studies have analyzed the use of advanced hemodynamic monitoring for volume management

Exchange of functional domains between a bacterial conjugative relaxase and the integrase of the human adeno-associated virus

Endonucleases of the HUH family are specialized in processing single-stranded DNA in a variety of evolutionarily highly conserved biological processes related to mobile genetic elements. They share a structurally defined catalytic domain for site-specific nicking and strand-transfer reactions, which is often linked to the activities of additional functional domains, contributing to their overall versatility. To assess if these HUH domains could be interchanged, we created a chimeric protein from two distantly related HUH endonucleases, containing the N-terminal HUH domain of the bacterial conjugative relaxase TrwC and the C-terminal DNA helicase domain of the human adeno-associated virus (AAV) replicase and site-specific integrase. The purified chimeric protein retained oligomerization properties and DNA helicase activities similar to Rep68, while its DNA binding specificity and cleaving-joining activity at oriT was similar to TrwC. Interestingly, the chimeric protein could catalyse site-specific integration in bacteria with an efficiency comparable to that of TrwC, while the HUH domain of TrwC alone was unable to catalyze this reaction, implying that the Rep68 C-terminal helicase domain is complementing the TrwC HUH domain to achieve site-specific integration into TrwC targets in bacteria. Our results illustrate how HUH domains could have acquired through evolution other domains in order to attain new roles, contributing to the functional flexibility observed in this protein superfamily.This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) grant MR/N022890/1 to EH and grant 1001764 to RML; National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant RO1-GM09285 to CRE; Spanish Ministry of Economy and competitiveness (MINECO) grant BIO2013-46414-P to ML and AFM is supported by a Doc.Mobility fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript