The alien within : Residual Catholicism and the emerging national identity of post-Reformation England

This dissertation contributes to the current critical discourse in Early Modern English Studies on the conceptions and literary representations of national and racial identity in 16th- and 17th-century England. Central to this discourse is an examination of how the English defined themselves in relation to those they deemed as others : the foreign and marginalized members of society. My study is unique because I look at individual figures of otherness ---the Irishman, the Turk, and the Jew---in light of their common characteristic: their shared significance as coded figures of Catholicism. Ultimately, my dissertation unifies disparate conversations about race, religion, and politics in Early Modern Studies. Central to this study is an examination of the work by major canonical writers: specifically Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare

Sonographic Evaluation of Lisfranc Ligament Injuries

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135195/1/jum2009283351.pd

Sonographic Evaluation of Lower Extremity Interosseous Membrane Injuries

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135663/1/jum200322121369.pd

Minimizing off-target signals in RNA fluorescent in situ hybridization

Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques are becoming extremely sensitive, to the point where individual RNA or DNA molecules can be detected with small probes. At this level of sensitivity, the elimination of ‘off-target’ hybridization is of crucial importance, but typical probes used for RNA and DNA FISH contain sequences repeated elsewhere in the genome. We find that very short (e.g. 20 nt) perfect repeated sequences within much longer probes (e.g. 350–1500 nt) can produce significant off-target signals. The extent of noise is surprising given the long length of the probes and the short length of non-specific regions. When we removed the small regions of repeated sequence from either short or long probes, we find that the signal-to-noise ratio is increased by orders of magnitude, putting us in a regime where fluorescent signals can be considered to be a quantitative measure of target transcript numbers. As the majority of genes in complex organisms contain repeated k-mers, we provide genome-wide annotations of k-mer-uniqueness at http://cbio.mskcc.org/∼aarvey/repeatmap

Systemic sclerosis cutaneous expression: Management of skin fibrosis and digital ulcers

Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disease with cutaneous involvement. Clinical manifestations result from the balance of inflammations/autoimmunity process and fibrogenesis. Patients suffer from skin ulcers, non-ulcerative lesions including digital pitting scars, telangiectasias, subungual hyperkeratosis, abrasions, fissures, and subcutaneous calcinosis. A review about the pathophysiology of the disease, the physical examination of the patients, the instrumental assessment, and possible treatments is performed

Programming in situ immunofluorescence intensities through interchangeable reactions of dynamic DNA complexes

The regulation of antibody reporting intensities is critical to various in situ fluorescence imaging analyses. While such control is often necessary to visualize sparse molecular targets, the ability to tune marker intensities is also essential for highly multiplexed imaging strategies where marker reporting levels must be tuned to both optimize dynamic detection ranges and minimize crosstalk between different signals. Existing chemical amplification approaches generally lack such control. Here, we demonstrate that linear and branched DNA complexes can be designed to function as interchangeable building blocks that can be assembled into organized, fluorescence reporting complexes. We show that the ability to program DNA strand displacement reactions between these complexes offer new opportunities to deterministically tune the number of dyes that are coupled to individual antibodies in order to both increase and controllably balance marker levels within fixed cells

Multiple General Anesthesia in Children: A Systematic Review of Its Effect on Neurodevelopment

The effect of multiple general anesthesia (mGA) procedures administered in early life is a critical theme and has led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue an alert. This systematic review seeks to explore the potential effects on neurodevelopment of mGA on patients under 4 years. The Medline, Embase and Web of Science databases were searched for publications up to 31 March 2021. The databases were searched for publications regarding “children multiple general anesthesia OR pediatric multiple general anesthesia”. Case reports, animal studies and expert opinions were excluded. Systematic reviews were not included, but they were screened to identify any possible additional information. A total of 3156 studies were identified. After removing the duplicates, screening the remaining records and analyzing the systematic reviews’ bibliography, 10 studies were considered suitable for inclusion. Comprehensively, a total cohort of 264.759 unexposed children and 11.027 exposed children were assessed for neurodevelopmental outcomes. Only one paper did not find any statistically significant difference between exposed and unexposed children in terms of neurodevelopmental alterations. Controlled studies on mGA administered before 4 years of age support that there might be a greater risk of neurodevelopmental delay in children receiving mGA, warranting the need for careful risk/benefit considerations

Imaging individual microRNAs in single mammalian cells in situ

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are potent negative regulators of gene expression that have been implicated in most major cellular processes. Despite rapid advances in our understanding of miRNA biogenesis and mechanism, many fundamental questions still remain regarding miRNA function and their influence on cell cycle control. Considering recent reports on the impact of cell-to-cell fluctuations in gene expression on phenotypic diversity, it is likely that looking at the average miRNA expression of cell populations could result in the loss of important information connecting miRNA expression and cell function. Currently, however, there are no efficient techniques to quantify miRNA expression at the single-cell level. Here, a method is described for the detection of individual miRNA molecules in cancer cells using fluorescence in situ hybridization. The method combines the unique recognition properties of locked nucleic acid probes with enzyme-labeled fluorescence. Using this approach, individual miRNAs are identified as bright, photostable fluorescent spots. In this study, miR-15a was quantified in MDA-MB-231 and HeLa cells, while miR-155 was quantified in MCF-7 cells. The dynamic range was found to span over three orders of magnitude and the average miRNA copy number per cell was within 17.5% of measurements acquired by quantitative RT-PCR

A systematic, intensive statistical investigation of data from the Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Drugs (CARD) for compliance and illicit opioid abstinence in substance addiction treatment with buprenorphine/naloxone

BACKGROUND: Buprenorphine and naloxone (bup/nal), a combination partial mu receptor agonist and low-dose delta mu antagonist, is presently recommended and used to treat opioid-use disorder. However, a literature review revealed a paucity of research involving data from urine drug tests that looked at compliance and abstinence in one sample. METHOD: Statistical analysis of data from the Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Drugs (CARD) was used to assess compliance and abstinence during treatment in a large cohort of bup/nal patients attending chemical-dependency programs from eastern USA in 2010 and 2011. RESULTS: Part 1: Bup/nal was present in 93.4% of first (n = 1,282; p \u3c.0001) and 92.4% of last (n = 1,268; p \u3c.0001) urine samples. Concomitantly, unreported illicit drugs were present in 47.7% (n = 655, p =.0261) of samples. Patients who were compliant to the bup/nal prescription were more likely than noncompliant patients to be abstinent during treatment (p =.0012; odds ratio = 1.69 with 95% confidence interval (1.210, 2.354). Part 2: An analysis of all samples collected in 2011 revealed a significant improvement in both compliance (p \u3c 2.2 × 1