1.2. Are We Ready for New (Digital) Ways to Record Archaeological Fieldwork? A Case Study from Pompeii

Beyond outlining some of the experiences and outcomes of the conversion of the University of Cincinnati’s excavations at Pompeii to a “paperless” project, particularly through the highly publicized adoption of iPads to record our archaeological fieldwork, this paper is about our discipline’s polarized response to such developments. In particular, it aims to set the pessimism about paperless methods, held by a sizable demographic, within a wider socio-academic context. Much of it is about admitting we have a problem: that is, a disciplinary consternation for changes to the ways we record data and produce knowledge in the field. More than a defense of the use of tablet computers over pieces of paper to record archaeological fieldwork, what follows is ultimately a call to balance our commonly romanticized views of experience and tradition in the ways we do things with the intellectual value in exploring new ideas and developments in core methodology.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1003/thumbnail.jp

Methods of isolating specific compounds from supramammary lymph node tissue

Methods of forming proteinaceous products such as cell culture supplement capable of supporting the growth and culturing of cells, tissue, and organs, are generally disclosed. One method generally provides for the collection of the internal tissue of an animal, such as a bovine, and the processing of the internal tissue to degrade and/or lyse the tissue components. A cell culture supplement or other proteinaceous product can be prepared from the processed tissue. A proteinaceous product can include, for example, a complete protein profile of the tissue or only certain biological factors extracted from the tissue. Collected internal tissue can be lymphatic tissue such as the supramammary glands of a dairy or beef cow or the thymus gland of a veal calf

Must Cosmological Perturbations Remain Non-Adiabatic After Multi-Field Inflation?

Even if non-adiabatic perturbations are generated in multi-field inflation, the perturbations will become adiabatic if the universe after inflation enters an era of local thermal equilibrium, with no non-zero conserved quantities, and will remain adiabatic as long as the wavelength is outside the horizon, even when local thermal equilibrium no longer applies. Small initial non-adiabatic perturbations associated with imperfect local thermal equilibrium remain small when baryons are created from out-of-equilibrium decay of massive particles, or when dark matter particles go out of local thermal equilibrium.Comment: 12 pages, typographical errors corrected, acknowledgment added. Article accepted for publication in Physical Review

Mapping the Evolution of Racially Mixed and Segregated Neighborhoods in Chicago

The Chicago metropolitan region consists of a spatially complex mosaic of neighborhoods, in which measures of racial and ethnic composition vary dramatically. Understanding these patterns and their evolution has been hindered by ambiguities in the use of terms like ‘diverse’ or ‘segregated’, which are often posited as opposite ends of a one-dimensional scale. Using a new taxonomy of neighborhood composition, we have mapped the evolving patterns of Chicago\u27s neighborhoods in 1990, 2000, and 2010, and tabulated census tracts that have undergone transitions or remained stable. Looking beyond the Chicago metropolitan area, we have developed an interactive atlas of similar maps for states and metropolitan areas across the United States

Trauma-informed Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative symptoms are regarded as forms of disconnection from external stimuli, internal experiences, and interpersonal relationships. The Contextual Trauma Treatment (CTT) model for survivors of prolonged childhood abuse integrates Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) treatment. DBT enhances capacities for skillful interactions with others, and identifying and tolerating emotional experiences through the use of didactically-taught skill-based groups that balance encouraging acceptance of difficulties with the recognition of the need for change. This presentation will provide an overview of CTT for conceptualizing dissociation in the context of family of origin environment and development, and describe how TRIP integrates trauma-informed and DBT-informed treatment

The Spatial, Ionization, and Kinematic Conditions of the z=1.39 Damped Ly-alpha Absorber in Q0957+561 A,B

We examined the sizes of the absorption clouds in a z=1.3911 damped Ly-alpha absorber (DLA) in the double image lensed quasar Q0957+561 A,B (separation 135 pc at the absorber redshift). Using HIRES/Keck spectra, we studied the MgII 2796,2803 doublet, FeII multiplet, and MgI 2853 transition in absorption. We defined six "clouds" in the system of sightline A and seven clouds in the system of sightline B. An examination of the N(v) profiles, using the apparent optical depth method, reveals no clear physical connection between the clouds in A and those in B. The observed column density ratios of all clouds is log[N(MgI)/N(FeII)] ~ -2 across the full velocity range in both systems and also spatially (in both sightlines). This is a remarkable uniformity not seen in Lyman limit systems. The uniformity of the cloud properties suggests that the multiple clouds are not part of a "halo". Based upon photoionization modeling, we constrain the ionization parameters in the range -6.2 < log(U) < -5.1, where the range brackets known abundance ratio and dust depletion patterns. The inferred cloud properties are densities of 2 < n_H < 20 cm^-3, and line of sight sizes of 1 < D < 25 pc. The masses of the clouds in system A are 10 < M/M_sun < 1000 and in system B are 1 < M/M_sun < 60 for spherical clouds. For planar clouds, the upper limits are 400 M_sun and 160 M_sun for A and B, respectively. We favor a model of the absorber in which the DLA region itself is a single cloud in thiscomplex, which could be a parcel of gas in a galactic ISM. A spherical cloud of ~10 pc would be limited to one of the sightlines (A) and imply a covering factor less than 0.1 for the DLA complex. We infer that the DLA cloud properties are consistent with those of lower density, cold clouds in the Galactic interstellar medium.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; final versio

Fibroblast growth factors 1 and 2 in cerebrospinal fluid are associated with HIV disease, methamphetamine use, and neurocognitive functioning.

BackgroundHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and methamphetamine use commonly affect neurocognitive (NC) functioning. We evaluated the relationships between NC functioning and two fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) in volunteers who differed in HIV serostatus and methamphetamine dependence (MAD).MethodsA total of 100 volunteers were categorized into four groups based on HIV serostatus and MAD in the prior year. FGF-1 and FGF-2 were measured in cerebrospinal fluid by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays along with two reference biomarkers (monocyte chemotactic protein [MCP]-1 and neopterin). Comprehensive NC testing was summarized by global and domain impairment ratings.ResultsSixty-three volunteers were HIV+ and 59 had a history of MAD. FGF-1, FGF-2, and both reference biomarkers differed by HIV and MAD status. For example, FGF-1 levels were lower in subjects who had either HIV or MAD than in HIV- and MAD- controls (P=0.003). Multivariable regression identified that global NC impairment was associated with an interaction between FGF-1 and FGF-2 (model R(2)=0.09, P=0.01): higher FGF-2 levels were only associated with neurocognitive impairment among subjects who had lower FGF-1 levels. Including other covariates in the model (including antidepressant use) strengthened the model (model R(2)=0.18, P=0.004) but did not weaken the association with FGF-1 and FGF-2. Lower FGF-1 levels were associated with impairment in five of seven cognitive domains, more than FGF-2, MCP-1, or neopterin.ConclusionThese findings provide in vivo support that HIV and MAD alter expression of FGFs, which may contribute to the NC abnormalities associated with these conditions. These cross-sectional findings cannot establish causality and the therapeutic benefits of recombinant FGF-1 need to be investigated

Modulation of transmembrane domain interactions in neu receptor tyrosine kinase by membrane fluidity and cholesterol

The activation mechanism of the ErbB family of receptors is of considerable medical interest as they are linked to a number of human cancers, including an aggressive form of breast cancer. In the rat analogue of the human ErbB2 receptor, referred to as Neu, a point mutation in the transmembrane domain (V664E) has been shown to trigger oncogenic transformation. While the structural impact of this mutation has been widely studied in the past to yield models for the active state of the Neu receptor, little is known about the impact of cholesterol on its structure. Given previous reports of the influence of cholesterol on other receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), as well as the modulation of lipid composition in cancer cells, we wished to investigate how cholesterol content impacts the structure of the Neu transmembrane domain. We utilized high-resolution magic angle spinning solid-state NMR to measure 13C–13C coupling of selectively labelled probe residues in the Neu transmembrane domain in lipid bilayers containing cholesterol. We observe inter-helical coupling between residues that support helix–helix interactions on both dimerization motifs reported in the literature (A661-XXX-G665 and I659-XXX-V663). We further explore how changes in cholesterol concentration alter transmembrane domain interactions and the properties and mechanics of the bilayer. We interpret our results in light of previous studies relating RTK activity to cholesterol enrichment and/or depletion, and propose a novel model to explain our data that includes the recognition and binding of cholesterol by the Neu transmembrane domain through a putative cholesterol-recognition/interaction amino acid consensus sequence

Conditional knockout of the Menkes disease copper transporter demonstrates its critical role in embryogenesis

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 7 (2012): e43039, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043039.The transition metal, copper (Cu), is an enzymatic cofactor required for a wide range of biochemical processes. Its essentiality is demonstrated by Menkes disease, an X-linked copper deficiency disorder characterized by defects in nervous-, cardiovascular- and skeletal systems, and is caused by mutations in the ATP7A copper transporter. Certain ATP7A mutations also cause X-linked Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 3 (SMAX3), which is characterized by neuromuscular defects absent an underlying systemic copper deficiency. While an understanding of these ATP7A-related disorders would clearly benefit from an animal model that permits tissue-specific deletion of the ATP7A gene, no such model currently exists. In this study, we generated a floxed mouse model allowing the conditional deletion of the Atp7a gene using Cre recombinase. Global deletion of Atp7a resulted in morphological and vascular defects in hemizygous male embryos and death in utero. Heterozygous deletion in females resulted in a 50% reduction in live births and a high postnatal lethality. These studies demonstrate the essential role of the Atp7a gene in mouse embryonic development and establish a powerful model for understanding the tissue-specific roles of ATP7A in copper metabolism and disease.This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants DK59893 and DK093386 to M.J.P., and DK44464 to J.D.G