A novel body coloration phenotype in Anolis sagrei:Implications for physiology, fitness, and predation

<div><p>In animals, color signals that convey information about quality are often associated with costs linked to the expression of coloration and may therefore be honest signals of sender quality. Honest indicators are often seen in sexual signals that are used by males to advertise quality to females. Carotenoid and pterin pigments are responsible for yellow, orange, and red coloration in a variety of taxa, but can also serve important roles as antioxidants by reducing free radicals in the body. In this study, we test the effects of a novel full-bodied orange color phenotype of the brown anole, <i>Anolis sagrei</i>, on mate choice, physiology, and survival. We found no evidence that lizards expressing the orange phenotype were preferred by females. Additionally, they did not differ in immune function, running endurance, or maximum sprint speed from lizards that did not express the novel phenotype. Pigment extractions revealed that orange body coloration resulted from pterin pigments and not carotenoids. Visual models suggest that the orange phenotype is less conspicuous to bird predators than the brown phenotype and may provide an adaptive explanation for the persistence of this trait. Given its small, yet positive effect on fitness, we expect the orange color phenotype to increase in frequency in subsequent decades.</p></div

Use of Daptomycin for the Treatment of Methicillin-Resistant Coagulase-Negative Staphylococcal Ventriculitis

Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are the main pathogens causing hospital-acquired external-ventricular-drain- (EVD-) and lumbar-drain- (LD-) associated meningitis and ventriculitis. The treatment of these infections can be challenging and may require combination of intraventricular and intravenous administration of antibiotics. Limited animal data demonstrate rapid daptomycin bactericidal activity, adequate penetration in the setting of inflamed meninges, and extended half-life in the ventricles Steenbergen et al. (2009). There are limited clinical data using daptomycin intravenously and/or intraventricularly for the treatment of central nervous system infections (CNS) Elvy et al. (2008), Stucki et al. (2007), Lee et al. (2008) and Wallace et al. (2009). We report here our experience in the treatment of an EVD-related infection

Nation-states, intellectuals, and utopias in postcolonial fiction

This dissertation seeks to avoid the common reading of postcolonial novels as embracing nationalism because they challenge empire. While recognizing that postcolonial novelists contest the imperialist construction of Africans and Asians as biologically, culturally, and intellectually inferior to Europeans, it maintains that concepts such as hybridity, mimicry, in-betweenness, and third space elide the concern of many postcolonial novelists with the current dilemmas of their societies. In fact, the canonical status these concepts have acquired in academia tends to obscure the critique much postcolonial fiction mounts against the postcolonial nation-state, the role it conceives for the dissident intellectual, and the utopian possibilities it imagines for a more promising future. Because Chinua Achebe\u27s Anthills of the Savannah, Salman Rushdie\u27s Midnight\u27s Children, and Nadine Gordimer\u27s July\u27s People explore these issues in all their complexity, they serve as the primary object of analysis. These novels expose the inability of the postcolonial nation-state to fulfill the aspirations of Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, and South Africans for a democratic polity. Moreover, they complement their critique of the nation-state by offering tentative utopian alternatives. The visions they propose do not prescribe the ideal commonwealth in the tradition of classical utopias, such as Thomas More\u27s Utopia; they gesture, instead, towards possibilities and horizons which remain largely fragmentary, undecided, and contradictory. To explore fully the issues that preoccupy Achebe, Gordimer, and Rushdie, the dissertation draws on a wide range of theoretical insights and methods, including Aijaz Ahmad\u27s and Arif Dirlik\u27s critique of postcolonial studies, Michel Foucault\u27s analysis of bio-power, the feminist critique of nationalism, and Fredric Jameson\u27s postmodern theory of utopia. In addition, it situates Anthills, Midnight\u27s Children, and July\u27s People in their historical contexts in order to examine how they negotiate and intervene in the modern histories of the nation-states they dramatize. Aside from the nation-state and utopia, the dissertation explores the importance these novels accord the dissident intellectual as the voice of his or her people against the oppression of the nation-state