DRESS-Down: /ε/-lowering in Apparent Tme in a Rural Scottish Community

This paper presents a sociophonetic investigation of /ɛ/-lowering in apparent time. The data come from 24 speakers, across three generations from Buckie, northeast Scotland (12 males, 12 females). Acoustic analysis of the DRESS-vowel reveals that it is lowering in apparent time. Inspection of the constraints reveals an interaction of internal and external constraints. Analysis of the phonetic context revealed that following-l promoted DRESS lowering. However, this conditioning was only significant for the young females who were shown to be leading the change. The results presented here are related to broader phonological characteristics of the Buckie dialect as well as ongoing changes in a number of different English varietie

Sir Arthur Somervell: designs on the song cycle

The study in the following pages explores Sir Arthur Somervell's fascination with the song cycle. Its appeal drew together two of his favourite passions, that is, songwriting and storytelling. All the cycles are settings of nineteenth-century poets with narratives drawn from single works or contrived from a collection of poems. Although Somervell was looked upon as old-fashioned in his art, in the matter of the song cycle he is seen trying to keep abreast of the times by following trends that were being manifest by his contemporaries and sometimes being innovative from his own inspiration. The theme of experimentation is the line of enquiry that the thesis explores. The six song cycles fall into three groups (of two each) in that process, though not strictly chronologically. Maud, the first (1898), from Tennyson's epic drama of obsessive love and tragedy, is placed with A Shropshire Lad (1904), Housman's bittersweet chronicle of a young military recruit, although two subsequent cycles intervened, but in style both betray Schumannesque influence. The cycles of 1901 (Love in Springtime) and 1903 (Wind Flowers), the two least-known in his output of song cycles, show Somervell experimenting with anthology. The last two cycles, James Lee's Wife, 1907 and A Broken Arc, 1923, though separated by nearly two decades, fail together naturally, united by their lyric source, Robert Browning, and by their more expansive style

Myocardial Macrophage Phenotypic Variation and Cytokine-Mediated Induction of HIV-Associated Cardiac Disease: A Dissertation

Ventricular dysfunction and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) develop among untreated HIV-infected people at much higher rates than among HIV-negative individuals, resulting in significant contributions to morbidity and mortality. Mechanisms underlying development of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy (HIVCM) are as yet poorly understood. The well-characterized simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) model of HIV infection provides a unique context for HIVCM pathogenesis studies in that SIV-infected rhesus monkeys develop myocardial lesions and contractile dysfunction similar to those described in HIV-infected people, suggesting a shared disease mechanism. Lymphocytic myocarditis is a commonly reported finding in AIDS patients at autopsy and constitutes one of several conditions known to predispose to development of DCM, irrespective of HIV-infection status. As lymphocytic myocarditis also occurs with high frequency among SIV-infected rhesus monkeys, a retrospective analysis of rhesus monkey cardiac tissue collected at necropsy was performed to examine viral and cellular correlates of lymphocytic inflammation within myocardial tissue. One subpopulation of macrophages, which has been reported by other groups to be associated with an anti-inflammatory phenotype, was found to correlate inversely with lymphocytic infiltration and positively with numbers of virus infected cells, suggesting effects of an anti-inflammatory cytokine production profile. In contrast, the detrimental effects of inflammatory cytokines on myocardial structure and function are well-recognized and HIV infection in general is characterized by chronic immune activation and inflammatory cytokine dysregulation. To further investigate a role for myocardial cytokine production in development of HIVCM, a prospective study was conducted in which SIV-infected rhesus monkeys and uninfected controls were treated with recurrent administration of inactivated Mycobacterium aviumcomplex bacteria (MAC). SIV-infected, MAC-treated animals rapidly developed significant ventricular systolic dysfunction and chamber dilatation not seen in control groups, suggesting an exaggerated myocardial sensitivity to exogenous antigenic stimulation. Concurrent treatment with the TNFα antagonist etanercept completely abrogated development of these changes, strongly implicating a causative role for TNFα in evolution of the contractile dysfunction and chamber remodeling. Findings reported from the current studies suggest that characteristics of local myocardial macrophage populations and the myocardial tissue cytokine milieu may play more important roles than lymphocytic infiltration, cardiomyocyte damage, or viral proteins in the pathogenesis of HIVCM

Assessment of Nitrifying Bacteria in Massard Plant Using Molecular Tools

The discharge of nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) has become an increasingly important issue in the United States. Ammonia (NH3) is a common contaminant found in domestic wastewater and agricultural runoff. It can cause toxicity in fish if left untreated. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends low national criteria for ammonia limits in freshwater. With these greater restrictions, ammonia-nitrogen limit compliance (5 mg/L) has become an issue at the Massard WWTP in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The purpose of this research is to assess the ammonia removal in the Massard WWTP in order to improve the ammonia-nitrogen removal in the future. This purpose led to the testing of Nitrosomonas europaea in monitored wastewater samples. The addition of N. europaea in the wastewater did not result in improved ammonia removal, indicating inhibitions were present. When analyzing the activated sludge and trickling filter biomass using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), indigenous nitrifiers were found present, though not in great quantity. Future studies are needed to determine the identity of the nitrifying-inhibiting factors

DRESS-Down: /ε/-lowering in Apparent Tme in a Rural Scottish Community

This paper presents a sociophonetic investigation of /ɛ/-lowering in apparent time. The data come from 24 speakers, across three generations from Buckie, northeast Scotland (12 males, 12 females). Acoustic analysis of the DRESS-vowel reveals that it is lowering in apparent time. Inspection of the constraints reveals an interaction of internal and external constraints. Analysis of the phonetic context revealed that following-l promoted DRESS lowering. However, this conditioning was only significant for the young females who were shown to be leading the change. The results presented here are related to broader phonological characteristics of the Buckie dialect as well as ongoing changes in a number of different English varietie