The Geoff Egan Memorial Lecture 2011. Artefacts, art and artifice: reconsidering iconographic sources for archaeological objects in early modern Europe

A first systematic analysis of historic domestic material culture depicted in contemporaneous Western painting and prints, c.1400-1800. Drawing on an extensive data set, the paper proposes to methodologies and hermeneutics for historical analysis and archaeological correspondence

Characterization of the Rubella Virus Nonstructural Protease Domain and Its Cleavage Site

The region of the rubella virus nonstructural open reading frame that contains the papain-like cysteine protease domain and its cleavage site was expressed with a Sindbis virus vector. Cys-1151 has previously been shown to be required for the activity of the protease (L. D. Marr, C.-Y. Wang, and T. K. Frey, Virology 198:586–592, 1994). Here we show that His-1272 is also necessary for protease activity, consistent with the active site of the enzyme being composed of a catalytic dyad consisting of Cys-1151 and His-1272. By means of radiochemical amino acid sequencing, the site in the polyprotein cleaved by the nonstructural protease was found to follow Gly-1300 in the sequence Gly-1299–Gly-1300–Gly-1301. Mutagenesis studies demonstrated that change of Gly-1300 to alanine or valine abrogated cleavage. In contrast, Gly-1299 and Gly-1301 could be changed to alanine with retention of cleavage, but a change to valine abrogated cleavage. Coexpression of a construct that contains a cleavage site mutation (to serve as a protease) together with a construct that contains a protease mutation (to serve as a substrate) failed to reveal trans cleavage. Coexpression of wild-type constructs with protease-mutant constructs also failed to reveal trans cleavage, even after extended in vitro incubation following lysis. These results indicate that the protease functions only in cis, at least under the conditions tested

Probing the Ionization State of the Universe at z>6

We present high signal-to-noise ratio Keck ESI spectra of the two quasars known to have Gunn-Peterson absorption troughs, SDSS J1030+0524 (z=6.28) and SDSS J1148+5251 (z=6.37). The Ly alpha and Ly beta troughs for SDSS J1030+0524 are very black and show no evidence for any emission over a redshift interval of ~0.2 starting at z=6. On the other hand, SDSS J1148+5251 shows a number of emission peaks in the Ly beta Gunn-Peterson trough along with a single weak peak in the Ly alpha trough. The Ly alpha emission has corresponding Ly beta emission, suggesting that it is indeed a region of lower optical depth in the intergalactic medium at z=6.08. The stronger Ly beta peaks in the spectrum of SDSS J1148+5251 could conceivably also be the result of "leaks" in the IGM, but we suggest that they are instead Ly alpha emission from an intervening galaxy at z=4.9. This hypothesis gains credence from a strong complex of C IV absorption at the same redshift and from the detection of continuum emission in the Ly alpha trough at the expected brightness. If this proposal is correct, the quasar light has probably been magnified through gravitational lensing by the intervening galaxy. The Stromgren sphere observed in the absorption spectrum of SDSS J1148+5251 is significantly smaller than expected based on its brightness, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the quasar is lensed. If our argument for lensing is correct, the optical depths derived from the troughs of SDSS J1148+5251 are only lower limits (albeit still quite strong, with tau(LyA)>16 inferred from the Ly beta trough.) The Ly beta absorption trough of SDSS J1030+0524 gives the single best measurement of the IGM transmission at z>6, with an inferred optical depth tau(LyA)>22.Comment: To appear in July 2003 AJ, 34 pages, 11 figures; minor changes/typos fixe

A Generalized Diffusion Tensor for Fully Anisotropic Diffusion of Energetic Particles in the Heliospheric Magnetic Field

The spatial diffusion of cosmic rays in turbulent magnetic fields can, in the most general case, be fully anisotropic, i.e. one has to distinguish three diffusion axes in a local, field-aligned frame. We reexamine the transformation for the diffusion tensor from this local to a global frame, in which the Parker transport equation for energetic particles is usually formulated and solved. Particularly, we generalize the transformation formulas to allow for an explicit choice of two principal local perpendicular diffusion axes. This generalization includes the 'traditional' diffusion tensor in the special case of isotropic perpendicular diffusion. For the local frame, we motivate the choice of the Frenet-Serret trihedron which is related to the intrinsic magnetic field geometry. We directly compare the old and the new tensor elements for two heliospheric magnetic field configurations, namely the hybrid Fisk and the Parker field. Subsequently, we examine the significance of the different formulations for the diffusion tensor in a standard 3D model for the modulation of galactic protons. For this we utilize a numerical code to evaluate a system of stochastic differential equations equivalent to the Parker transport equation and present the resulting modulated spectra. The computed differential fluxes based on the new tensor formulation deviate from those obtained with the 'traditional' one (only valid for isotropic perpendicular diffusion) by up to 60% for energies below a few hundred MeV depending on heliocentric distance.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted in Ap

Identification of depression in a rural general practice

Major depression is underdiagnosed by general practitioners, but the reasons for this are not clear. This study aimed to establish the prevalence of major depression and coexisting generalised anxiety disorder in a rural general practice in the Orange Free State. It also assessed the predictive value of a screening questionnaire for use by general practitioners. The two practitioners evaluated 858 patients over a 4-week period. Those who met the screening criteria, together with a random sample of 60 patients who did not, were re-evaluated by a registrar in psychiatry who was unaware of the findings of his colleagues. Of the patients studied, 134 (15,6%) had major depression; 59 of these (44,0%) also had coexisting generalised anxiety disorder. The general practitioners had . correctly diagnosed major depression in 32 patients (3,7%) before the study started. The screening questionnaire had a 42% chance of correctly identifying a patient with depression and a 97% chance of correctly identifying a patient who did not have major depression. Both practitioners were equally capable at identifying major depression. The study confirmed both the high prevalence of depression in a rural general practice and its low identification rate. It also showed the advantage of using a screening questionnaire to alert practitioners to the possibility of depression in their patients

Searching For Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect Beyond Temperature Anisotropies: CMB E-mode Polarization-Galaxy Cross Correlation

The cross-correlation between cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies and the large scale structure (LSS) traced by the galaxy distribution, or sources at different wavelengths, is now well known. This correlation results from the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect in CMB anisotropies generated at late times due to the dark energy component of the Universe. In a reionized universe, the ISW quadrupole rescatters and contributes to the large-scale polarization signal. Thus, in principle, the large-scale polarization bump in the E-mode should also be correlated with the galaxy distribution. Unlike CMB temperature-LSS correlation that peaks for tracers at low redshifts this correlation peaks mostly at redshifts between 1 and 3. Under certain conditions, mostly involving a low optical depth to reionization, if the Universe reionized at a redshift around 6, the cross polarization-source signal is marginally detectable, though challenging as it requires all-sky maps of the large scale structure at redshifts between 1 and 3. If the Universe reionized at a redshift higher than 10, it is unlikely that this correlation will be detectable even with no instrumental noise all-sky maps. While our estimates do not guarantee a detection unknown physics related to the dark energy as well as still uncertain issues related to the large angular scale CMB and polarization anisotropies may motivate attempts to measure this correlation using upcoming CMB polarization E-mode maps.Comment: 13 pages; 3 figure panels, JCAP submitte

Global dynamics above the ground state for the nonlinear Klein-Gordon equation without a radial assumption

We extend our previous result on the focusing cubic Klein-Gordon equation in three dimensions to the non-radial case, giving a complete classification of global dynamics of all solutions with energy at most slightly above that of the ground state.Comment: 40 page