Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Post-Civil War World

Adrian Brettle pushes revisionist interpretations of the Confederate state another important step farther. Colossal Ambitions is a thorough examination of confident, expansionist ideas about the Confederate future. Learn more about Brettle\u27s book in my interview with him, which you can find on the homepage

Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era

The Confederate President and His Presidency This slim volume contains much more than first meets the eye. William J. Cooper, Jr., Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University, is the author of important works on southern politics and a recent biography of Jefferson Davis, e...

Cwbr Author Interview: What Shall We Do With The Negro? : Lincoln, White Racism, And Civil War America

Interview with Dr. Paul D. Escott, Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest University Interviewed by Christopher Childers Civil War Book Review (CWBR): Your latest book is titled What Shall We Do with The Negro? : Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America. Now in this book, you attempt to revise what is really a celebratory depiction of Abraham Lincoln as the great emancipator by noting his reticence in many ways to ending the institution of slavery by force. How have historians, in your opinion, erred in chronicling Lincoln\u27s record on the slavery issue? Paul D. Escott (PDE): There is a deep celebratory impulse..

The Civil War as Global Conflict: Transnational Meanings of the American Civil War

Putting the Civil War in a Transnational Context This diverse but useful volume had its origin in a conference held at the College of Charleston in 2011. Thanks to rather small print, the volume contains no fewer than twelve essays, plus an introduction by the editors and the text of a ro...

'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

Impact of electrostatic crosstalk on spin qubits in dense CMOS quantum dot arrays

Quantum processors based on integrated nanoscale silicon spin qubits are a promising platform for highly scalable quantum computation. Current CMOS spin qubit processors consist of dense gate arrays to define the quantum dots, making them susceptible to crosstalk from capacitive coupling between a dot and its neighbouring gates. Small but sizeable spin-orbit interactions can transfer this electrostatic crosstalk to the spin g-factors, creating a dependence of the Larmor frequency on the electric field created by gate electrodes positioned even tens of nanometers apart. By studying the Stark shift from tens of spin qubits measured in nine different CMOS devices, we developed a theoretical frawework that explains how electric fields couple to the spin of the electrons in increasingly complex arrays, including those electric fluctuations that limit qubit dephasing times $T_2^*$. The results will aid in the design of robust strategies to scale CMOS quantum technology.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Gene-based analysis in HRC imputed genome wide association data identifies three novel genes for Alzheimer's disease.

Late onset Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia for which about 30 susceptibility loci have been reported. The aim of the current study is to identify novel genes associated with Alzheimer's disease using the largest up-to-date reference single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel, the most accurate imputation software and a novel gene-based analysis approach which tests for patterns of association within genes, in the powerful genome-wide association dataset of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project Consortium, comprising over 7 million genotypes from 17,008 Alzheimer's cases and 37,154 controls. In addition to earlier reported genes, we detected three novel gene-wide significant loci PPARGC1A (p = 2.2 × 10-6), RORA (p = 7.4 × 10-7) and ZNF423 (p = 2.1 × 10-6). PPARGC1A and RORA are involved in circadian rhythm; circadian disturbances are one of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. PPARGC1A is additionally linked to energy metabolism and the generation of amyloid beta plaques. RORA is involved in a variety of functions apart from circadian rhythm, such as cholesterol metabolism and inflammation. The ZNF423 gene resides in an Alzheimer's disease-specific protein network and is likely involved with centrosomes and DNA damage repair

Linking protective GAB2 variants, increased cortical GAB2 expression and decreased Alzheimer's Disease pathology

GRB-associated binding protein 2 (GAB2) represents a compelling genome-wide association signal for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) with reported odds ratios (ORs) ranging from 0.75–0.85. We tested eight GAB2 variants in four North American Caucasian case-control series (2,316 LOAD, 2,538 controls) for association with LOAD. Meta-analyses revealed ORs ranging from (0.61–1.20) with no significant association (all p>0.32). Four variants were hetergeneous across the populations (all p<0.02) due to a potentially inflated effect size (OR = 0.61–0.66) only observed in the smallest series (702 LOAD, 209 controls). Despite the lack of association in our series, the previously reported protective association for GAB2 remained after meta-analyses of our data with all available previously published series (11,952-22,253 samples; OR = 0.82–0.88; all p<0.04). Using a freely available database of lymphoblastoid cell lines we found that protective GAB2 variants were associated with increased GAB2 expression (p = 9.5×10−7−9.3×10−6). We next measured GAB2 mRNA levels in 249 brains and found that decreased neurofibrillary tangle (r = −0.34, p = 0.0006) and senile plaque counts (r = −0.32, p = 0.001) were both good predictors of increased GAB2 mRNA levels albeit that sex (r = −0.28, p = 0.005) may have been a contributing factor. In summary, we hypothesise that GAB2 variants that are protective against LOAD in some populations may act functionally to increase GAB2 mRNA levels (in lymphoblastoid cells) and that increased GAB2 mRNA levels are associated with significantly decreased LOAD pathology. These findings support the hypothesis that Gab2 may protect neurons against LOAD but due to significant population heterogeneity, it is still unclear whether this protection is detectable at the genetic level

Association of polygenic score for major depression with response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder

Lithium is a first-line medication for bipolar disorder (BD), but only one in three patients respond optimally to the drug. Since evidence shows a strong clinical and genetic overlap between depression and bipolar disorder, we investigated whether a polygenic susceptibility to major depression is associated with response to lithium treatment in patients with BD. Weighted polygenic scores (PGSs) were computed for major depression (MD) at different GWAS p value thresholds using genetic data obtained from 2586 bipolar patients who received lithium treatment and took part in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) study. Summary statistics from genome-wide association studies in MD (135,458 cases and 344,901 controls) from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) were used for PGS weighting. Response to lithium treatment was defined by continuous scores and categorical outcome (responders versus non-responders) using measurements on the Alda scale. Associations between PGSs of MD and lithium treatment response were assessed using a linear and binary logistic regression modeling for the continuous and categorical outcomes, respectively. The analysis was performed for the entire cohort, and for European and Asian sub-samples. The PGSs for MD were significantly associated with lithium treatment response in multi-ethnic, European or Asian populations, at various p value thresholds. Bipolar patients with a low polygenic load for MD were more likely to respond well to lithium, compared to those patients with high polygenic load [lowest vs highest PGS quartiles, multi-ethnic sample: OR = 1.54 (95% CI: 1.18–2.01) and European sample: OR = 1.75 (95% CI: 1.30–2.36)]. While our analysis in the Asian sample found equivalent effect size in the same direction: OR = 1.71 (95% CI: 0.61–4.90), this was not statistically significant. Using PGS decile comparison, we found a similar trend of association between a high genetic loading for MD and lower response to lithium. Our findings underscore the genetic contribution to lithium response in BD and support the emerging concept of a lithium-responsive biotype in BD

Convergent genetic and expression data implicate immunity in Alzheimer's disease

Background Late–onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) is heritable with 20 genes showing genome wide association in the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project (IGAP). To identify the biology underlying the disease we extended these genetic data in a pathway analysis. Methods The ALIGATOR and GSEA algorithms were used in the IGAP data to identify associated functional pathways and correlated gene expression networks in human brain. Results ALIGATOR identified an excess of curated biological pathways showing enrichment of association. Enriched areas of biology included the immune response (p = 3.27×10-12 after multiple testing correction for pathways), regulation of endocytosis (p = 1.31×10-11), cholesterol transport (p = 2.96 × 10-9) and proteasome-ubiquitin activity (p = 1.34×10-6). Correlated gene expression analysis identified four significant network modules, all related to the immune response (corrected p 0.002 – 0.05). Conclusions The immune response, regulation of endocytosis, cholesterol transport and protein ubiquitination represent prime targets for AD therapeutics