The special artist in American culture: A biography of Frank Hamilton Taylor (1846-1927)

As a Special Artist (newspaper illustrator) for papers such as the New York Daily Graphic and Harper\u27s Weekly, author and illustrator of numerous guidebooks, and astute recorder of Philadelphia, Frank Hamilton Taylor left a unique visual and written record of late nineteenth, early twentieth century American life. His work provided the growing, increasingly literate urban middle class with information about their country from the excitement of the Centennial Exposition to the tragedy of lives lost at sea. In addition, Taylor\u27s documentation of leisure pursuits, particularly in the Thousand Islands area of New York, helped define what constituted recreation for the expanding non-manual work force who sought escape from the regiment of daily life. And his Philadelphia series of watercolors and wash drawings provide an almost microscopic view of the urban environment, capturing the city\u27s ethos. Gifted artists, Specials like Taylor went beyond the mere recording of facts. They invested those facts with charm and spirit. Their portrayal of the American scene, and fascination with the country\u27s diversity, foreshadowed important shifts in American art as the historic symbols of Europe were no longer requisite. The growing outdoor movement also owed a dept to the Special Artist who made Americans aware and proud of the country\u27s incomparable landscape. The images of the Special Artist, besides informing, could also be a powerful persuasive tool. Taylor\u27s documentation for Harper\u27s Weekly of Ulysses S. Grant\u27s trip to Florida, Cuba, and Mexico in 1880 for example shows a commanding, decisive figure. Exactly the perception Grant\u27s political advisors wanted in order to distance the former president from his scandal-ridden administration, and allow him to seek a third Republican party nomination. Taylor\u27s tourist guidebooks, often done for the country\u27s burgeoning railroads were arguably equally manipulative, describing where the railroads wanted people to vacation, not just popular tourist destinations. Taylor represents the skilled Special Artist whose contributions to American art, journalism, and the development of American culture have been undervalued. His sketches, watercolors, and engravings are important primary research documents. And his life is a three-dimensional representation of the Gilded Age values he recorded on paper

Reconstruction Algorithm Characterization and Performance Monitoring in Limited-angle Chromotography

Hyperspectral data collection and analysis is an increasing priority with the growing need to obtain greater classification precision than offered by traditional spatial imagery. In this thesis, trends in hyperspectral chromotomographic reconstruction are explored where reconstruction is performed using a series of spatial-chromatic images. Chromotomography involves capturing a series of two-dimensional images where each image is created by placing a prism in front of the focal plane array; causing spectral dispersion corresponding to a series of prism angles over a single rotation. Before testing reconstruction, synthetic data is produced, approximating what would be produced from prism dispersion on the focal plane array. The pseudo-inverse singular matrix problem is addressed where two methods are compared to find which produces minimal error. The standard iterative error reduction algorithm, SVD-POCS, is shown to be incapable of reconstructing the mean of the source scene, making absolute radiometry analysis impractical. However, SVD-POCS is shown to provide the least error if the goal is to perform relative radiometry analysis. Additional constrains are needed to make absolute radiometry analysis possible. The added constraints of non-negativity, spatial extent of the cold field stop, forcing the sum, and keeping the mean for each iteration improves absolute radiometric performance. These additional constraints also allow use of a warm field stop to monitor reconstruction error for both the pseudo-inverse and iterative improvement algorithm. Error can be calculated each iteration to ascertain when a minimum has been reached in a mean square error sense. Thus, minimum mean square error of the reconstruction can be obtained with confidence

USING DECISION TREES TO IDENTIFY TOURISM STAKEHOLDERS BASED ON LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION IN TOURISM AND COMMUNITY POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of decision tree analysis in the identification of stakeholders who participate in and who do not participate in tourism and political activities in a community. Decision tree analysis is a tool for partitioning a data set based on the relationships between a set of independent variables and a dependent variable. The research reported here tests the application of, decision tree analysis, an analytical technique that is not traditionally used to segment stakeholders in tourism. Based on the results of the decision tree analysis four groups were identified: high participants, high-moderate participants, lowmoderate participants, and low participants

Session A, 2015 First Place: Whatever the Case May Be: Investigating Trichoptera Diversity in Three Adirondack Streams

Caddisfly larvae are used as an indicator species for stream health. Anthropogenic development and pollution threaten the quality of streams and the diversity of macroinvertebrates such as caddisflies. The larvae develop in the stream in cases built from sand and organic matter and adults remain near the stream. We hypothesize that the diversity of larvae will be the same as the diversity of adults in three streams at Cranberry Lake Biological Station. Larvae were collected at ten sites in three streams near the campus using d-nets and forceps. Adults were caught at one site at each stream at night using a UV light trap. The ANOVA/Tukey’s Test, Shannon-Weiner Index, paired t-test, and Sorenson’s Coefficient were all performed to determine the difference in diversity between all three streams and between larvae and adults at each stream. The results of the ANOVA/Tukey’s Test showed no significant difference in diversity between all three sites. We reject our null hypothesis, as the paired t-test done for each stream site between aquatic and terrestrial samples showed no significant difference. We therefore conclude that terrestrial caddisfly diversity can be indicative of stream health

CICE Magazine, No. 6

The Conference as Classroom RPNC what? A Message from the Campus Trans Advocacy and Inclusion Committee The Feeling of Being Uprooted Religion & Mandy\u27s Meals: Restaurant Review of Cho Dang The Myth of Thanksgivinghttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cicemagazine/1005/thumbnail.jp

Discodermolide interferes with the binding of tau protein to microtubules

AbstractWe investigated whether discodermolide, a novel antimitotic agent, affects the binding to microtubules of tau protein repeat motifs. Like taxol, the new drug reduces the proportion of tau that pellets with microtubules. Despite their differing structures, discodermolide, taxol and tau repeats all bind to a site on β-tubulin that lies within the microtubule lumen and is crucial in controlling microtubule assembly. Low concentrations of tau still bind strongly to the outer surfaces of preformed microtubules when the acidic C-terminal regions of at least six tubulin dimers are available for interaction with each tau molecule; otherwise binding is very weak

The amino terminus of tau inhibits kinesin-dependent axonal transport: Implications for filament toxicity

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Neuroscience Research 87 (2009): 440-451, doi:10.1002/jnr.21850.The neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other tauopathies is characterized by filamentous deposits of the microtubule-associated protein tau, but the relationship between tau polymerization and neurotoxicity is unknown. Here, we examined effects of filamentous tau on fast axonal transport (FAT) using isolated squid axoplasm. Monomeric and filamentous forms of recombinant human tau were perfused in axoplasm, and their effects on kinesin- and dyneindependent FAT rates evaluated by video microscopy. While perfusion of monomeric tau at physiological concentrations showed no effect, tau filaments at the same concentrations selectively inhibited anterograde (kinesin-dependent) FAT, triggering the release of conventional kinesin from axoplasmic vesicles. Pharmacological experiments indicated that the effect of tau filaments on FAT is mediated by protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) and glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) activities. Moreover, deletion analysis suggested that these effects depend on a conserved 18-amino acid sequence at the amino terminus of tau. Interestingly, monomeric tau isoforms lacking the C-terminal half of the molecule (including the microtubule binding region) recapitulated the effects of full-length filamentous tau. Our results suggest that pathological tau aggregation contributes to neurodegeneration by altering a regulatory pathway for FAT.Research supported by NIH awards NS049834 (N.E.L.), AG14453 (L.I.B.), NINDS grants NS23868, NS23320, NS41170 and NS43408 (S.B.), MDA (S.B.), ALSA (G.M, S.B), and HDSA (G.M.)

Tau Interaction with Tubulin and Microtubules: From Purified Proteins to Cells

International audienceMicrotubules (MTs) play an important role in many cellular processes and are dynamic structures regulated by an important network of microtubules-associated proteins, MAPs, such as Tau. Tau has been discovered as an essential factor for MTs formation in vitro, and its region implicated in binding to MTs has been identified. By contrast, the affinity, the stoichiometry, and the topology of Tau-MTs interaction remain controversial. Indeed, depending on the experiment conditions a wide range of values have been obtained. In this chapter, we focus on three biophysical methods, turbidimetry, cosedimentation assay, and Förster Resonance Energy Transfer to study Tau-tubulin interaction both in vitro and in cell. We highlight precautions that must be taken in order to avoid pitfalls and we detail the nature of the conclusions that can be drawn from these methods about Tau-tubulin interaction

Domains of Neuronal Microtubule-associated Proteins and Flexural Rigidity of Microtubules

Microtubules are flexible polymers whose mechanical properties are an important factor in the determination of cell architecture and function. It has been proposed that the two most prominent neuronal microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), tau and MAP2, whose microtubule binding regions are largely homologous, make an important contribution to the formation and maintenance of neuronal processes, putatively by increasing the rigidity of microtubules. Using optical tweezers to manipulate single microtubules, we have measured their flexural rigidity in the presence of various constructs of tau and MAP2c. The results show a three- or fourfold increase of microtubule rigidity in the presence of wild-type tau or MAP2c, respectively. Unexpectedly, even low concentrations of MAPs promote a substantial increase in microtubule rigidity. Thus at ∼20% saturation with full-length tau, a microtubule exhibits >80% of the rigidity observed at near saturating concentrations. Several different constructs of tau or MAP2 were used to determine the relative contribution of certain subdomains in the microtubule-binding region. All constructs tested increase microtubule rigidity, albeit to different extents. Thus, the repeat domains alone increase microtubule rigidity only marginally, whereas the domains flanking the repeats make a significant contribution. Overall, there is an excellent correlation between the strength of binding of a MAP construct to microtubules (as represented by its dissociation constant Kd) and the increase in microtubule rigidity. These findings demonstrate that neuronal MAPs as well as constructs derived from them increase microtubule rigidity, and that the changes in rigidity observed with different constructs correlate well with other biochemical and physiological parameters