Sequence organization of feline leukemis virus DNA in infected cells

A restriction site map has been deduced of unintegrated and integrated FeLV viral DNA found in human RD cells after experimental infection with the Gardner-Arnstein strain of FeLV. Restriction fragments were ordered by single and double enzyme digests followed by Southern transfer (1) and hybridization with 32P-labeled viral cDNA probes. The restriction map was oriented with respect to the 5' and 3' ends of viral RNA by using a 3' specific hybridization probe. The major form of unintegrated viral DNA found was a 8.7 kb linear DNA molecule bearing a 450 bp direct long terminal redundancy (LTR) derived from both 5' and 3' viral RNA sequences. Minor, circular forms, 8.7 kb and 8.2 kb in length were also detected, the larger one probably containing two adjacent copies of the LTR and the smaller one containing one copy of the LTR. Integrated copies of FeLV are colinear with the unintegrated linear form and contain the KpnI and SmaI sites found in each LTR

The pilgrimage to Elvis Presley\u27s Graceland: A study of the meanings of place

Sites become places when people bestow meaning, such as sanctity, upon them. Throughout human history, sacred places have continually emerged within cultural groups. Sacred places commonly focus on heroic figures. A pilgrimage is the visible expression of the sanctity of a place. This thesis examines the motives, meanings and experiences which are associated with the journey to Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion and grave in Memphis, Tennessee. Data came from questioning 209 people visiting Presley’s home in the summer of 1984, from fan clubs around the world, and from personal interviews with key figures in Memphis. In my analysis of the data, I searched for the essence of the Memphis experience. The kinds of answers gave more insight than did the numbers of people giving them. The field material gathered in Memphis was very rich in detail and laden with emotion. It revealed the similarities and differences between two groups of visitors: pilgrims and tourists. Whereas both groups admired Presley, the meanings they bestowed upon him and the places in his life varied greatly. Tourists tended to be passive observers in a sterile setting; pilgrims found a tremendous vitality in that same environment. Expectations which travelers have of their destination’s aesthetic qualities are not related to the meanings which they assign to that place. One’s perceptions of the heroic figure influences the meaning of place, and in turn the assigned significance of place affects one’s environmental experiences there. The pilgrimage in popular culture is not likely to be a passing fad, because it fulfills a human need

Feline Master

A poe

Competition and the structure of granivore communities

Journal ArticleWe trace the development of our investigations of granivory in desert ecosystems, illustrating the synthesis of the comparative and experimental approaches and noting the essential contributions of both. In the process, we also call attention to several major difficulties inherent to experimentation on this scale and describe some relatively unconventional experiments designed to circumvent some of these problems

Preliminary study of seed predation in desert and montane habitats

Journal ArticleMultifactorial experiments in which domestic seeds in shallow glass containers were distributed in desert and montane habitats provided data on identity of seed predators (whether rodents or ants), spatial and temporal pattern of their foraging activities, and their preferences for sizes and species of seeds. The results indicate that in some desert ecosystems both rodents and ants are important and efficient collectors of seeds. These two taxa overlap greatly in several parameters of seed utilization, suggesting that they are potentially close competitors. Rodents removed much more seed than ants, perhaps because they are more efficient at locating and harvesting large clumps. This technique has considerable promise for assessing the significance of competitive interactions between distantly related taxa in natural ecosystems

Observation of Intralaminar Cracking in the Edge Crack Torsion Specimen

The edge crack torsion (ECT) test is evaluated to determine its suitability for measuring fracture toughness associated with mode III delamination growth onset. A series of ECT specimens with preimplanted inserts with different lengths is tested and examined using nondestructive and destructive techniques. Ultrasonic inspection of all tested specimens reveals that delamination growth occurs at one interface ply beneath the intended midplane interface. Sectioning and optical microscopy suggest that the observed delamination growth results from coalescence of angled intralaminar matrix cracks that form and extend across the midplane plies. The relative orientation of these cracks is approximately 45 deg with respect to the midplane, suggesting their formation is caused by resolved principal tensile stresses arising due to the global mode-III shear loading. Examination of ECT specimens tested to loads below the level corresponding to delamination growth onset reveals that initiation of intralaminar cracking approximately coincides with the onset of nonlinearity in the specimen's force-displacement response. The existence of intralaminar cracking prior to delamination growth onset and the resulting delamination extension at an unintended interface render the ECT test, in its current form, unsuitable for characterization of mode III delamination growth onset. The broader implications of the mechanisms observed in this study are also discussed with respect to the current understanding of shear-driven delamination in tape-laminate composites