The London Pianist: Theresa Jansen and the English Works of Haydn, Dusseck, and Clementi

Over the last decade, our understanding of the performance circumstances surrounding The London Pianoforte School (c. 1766-1860) has increased remarkably. This understanding not only has recognized the distinction of the English piano and repertoire from their counterparts in Vienna, but also has encouraged interest in the careers of pianists working in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. One of the significant figures represented in this group of professional musicians is virtuoso pianist, Theresa Jansen (c. 1770-1843). Jansen’s career as a pianist had a significant impact on English piano repertoire, as she was the dedicatee of concert sonatas by Jan Ladislav Dussek, Muzio Clementi, and Joseph Haydn. Arguably, the works dedicated to Jansen by Haydn represent the only English Classical piano works living in today’s canon of solo piano concert repertoire: the Grand Sonatas in C major, Hob. XVI: 50 and E-flat major, Hob. XVI: 52. Although Jansen’s most documented role in musical history has been her important connection to Haydn, Jansen was herself a composer and published one of the only known grand sonatas written by a woman, the Grand Sonata for the Piano Forte in A major. This essay will introduce Jansen’s compositions to modern scholarship and historical performance. It will also deepen our understanding of Jansen’s professional career by recognizing her important contribution to piano repertoire as a performer-dedicatee, and by encouraging her inclusion as a contributing member of the London Pianoforte School

VIRAL PARTICLE DETECTION IN WASTEWATER

Wastewater is an underutilized resource for recognizing the epidemiology of pathogen transmission and infections within a community that has the potential to mitigate disease outbreaks. Pathogens of public health concern, such as adenovirus, norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2, occur in wastewater from excretion of infected individuals. Despite the potential for wastewater pathogen data to predict future outbreaks, the relationship between viral shedding patterns in wastewater and case counts of infectious disease remains unclear. An evaluation of the peer-reviewed literature was conducted to compile characteristics of adenovirus, norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater environment. These characteristics were considered in prioritizing the key pathogens for wastewater monitoring programs. SARS-CoV-2 is recommended to have the highest priority due to the recent pandemic, in addition to high caseload, shedding volumes, and contagiousness. Adenovirus receives the next highest priority because the positive PCR detections have been increasing (indicating there may be an increase in cases), the large case burden, and pathogen hardiness in wastewater. Norovirus receives the final ranking of the three but should still be a priority due to high caseload, shedding volume, and contagiousness. Wastewater-based epidemiology is gaining recognition as a substantial sector of epidemiology and public health research. This work provides a criteria platform to inform future quantitative microbial risk assessments that will build a framework for interpreting wastewater pathogen monitoring data. This framework will aid community leaders in public health decision-making based on the occurrence of specific pathogens detected in sewage

Temporal, Phenotypic, and Quantitative Characterization of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells during Development of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis in Obese Strain Chickens

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of the thyroid glands with mononuclear cells resulting in destruction of the thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies have described mononuclear cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various mononuclear cells infiltrating the thyroids has not been well defined. In this project, the mononuclear cell infiltrate was characterized phenotypically and quantitatively in OS chickens over the first six weeks of life using specific markers to identify various mononuclear cell populations. Frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected from OS chickens at 1, 4, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42 days of age (n = 4 to 5 birds/age) were used in this study. Frozen thyroid sections (8 μm thick) were used in an indirect immunochemical staining procedure to identify macrophages, B cells, T cells, T helper cells, cytotoxic T cells, γδ T cells, and MHC II expressing cells using monoclonal antibodies to chicken KUL-01, Bu-1, CD3, CD4, CD8, γδ T cell receptor, and MHC II cell surface molecules, respectively. Stained sections were evaluated by microscopy at 40x magnification, and the percentage area of the thyroid tissue occupied by various cell types determined. Thyroid infiltration was first observed at 7 days and was near completion in most samples from 3 weeks onwards. Macrophages were the first cells to infiltrate, but T cells dominated the response at later time-points. Early in the response, ratios of T cells to B cells, and T helper to cytotoxic T cells were similar (near 1), but both increased above 2 with advanced infiltration. MHC II expression reached very high levels by 14 days and remained at nearly 100% thereafter, reflecting the intensive inflammatory activity of the autoimmune response. This study provided new insights regarding the participating immune cells and the chronological order of their infiltration into thyroid glands, laying the foundation for further study into mechanisms involved in onset, progression, and autoimmune activities in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in the OS chicken model

Temporal, Phenotypic, and Quantitative Characterization of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells during Development of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis in Obese Strain Chickens

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of the thyroid glands with mononuclear cells resulting in destruction of the thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies have described mononuclear cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various mononuclear cells infiltrating the thyroids has not been well defined. In this project, the mononuclear cell infiltrate was characterized phenotypically and quantitatively in OS chickens over the first six weeks of life using specific markers to identify various mononuclear cell populations. Frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected from OS chickens at 1, 4, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42 days of age (n = 4 to 5 birds/age) were used in this study. Frozen thyroid sections (8 μm thick) were used in an indirect immunochemical staining procedure to identify macrophages, B cells, T cells, T helper cells, cytotoxic T cells, γδ T cells, and MHC II expressing cells using monoclonal antibodies to chicken KUL-01, Bu-1, CD3, CD4, CD8, γδ T cell receptor, and MHC II cell surface molecules, respectively. Stained sections were evaluated by microscopy at 40x magnification, and the percentage area of the thyroid tissue occupied by various cell types determined. Thyroid infiltration was first observed at 7 days and was near completion in most samples from 3 weeks onwards. Macrophages were the first cells to infiltrate, but T cells dominated the response at later time-points. Early in the response, ratios of T cells to B cells, and T helper to cytotoxic T cells were similar (near 1), but both increased above 2 with advanced infiltration. MHC II expression reached very high levels by 14 days and remained at nearly 100% thereafter, reflecting the intensive inflammatory activity of the autoimmune response. This study provided new insights regarding the participating immune cells and the chronological order of their infiltration into thyroid glands, laying the foundation for further study into mechanisms involved in onset, progression, and autoimmune activities in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in the OS chicken model

Temporal, Phenotypic, and Quantitative Characterization of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells During Development of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis in Obese Strain Chickens

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis (SAT) and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of thyroid glands with mononuclear immune cells resulting in the destruction of thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies described immune cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various immune cells infiltrating the thyroids have not been well defined. In this project, frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected at 1, 4, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42 days of age (n = 4 to 5 OS birds/age) were used. Frozen thyroid sections (8-μm thick) were prepared and used in an indirect immunohistochemical staining procedure to identify macrophages, B cells, T cells, T helper cells, cytotoxic T cells, γδ T cells, and MHC II-expressing cells. Stained sections were evaluated by microscopy, and the percentage of tissue area occupied by various cell types was determined. Thyroid infiltration was first observed at 7 days of age, and immune cells occupied the entire tissue in most samples from 3 weeks onwards. Macrophages were the first cells to infiltrate, but T cells dominated the response. MHC II expression reached very high levels by 14 days and remained at nearly 100% thereafter. This study provided new insights regarding the participating immune cells and the chronological order of their infiltration into thyroid glands during SAT development in OS chickens

Temporal, Phenotypic, and Quantitative Characterization of Thyroid Infiltrating Mononuclear Cells During Development of Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis in Obese Strain Chickens

The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis (SAT) and is a well-established biomedical model for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans. Both conditions are characterized by the infiltration of thyroid glands with mononuclear immune cells resulting in the destruction of thyroid tissue and impairment of the thyroid’s endocrinological functions. Past studies described immune cell infiltration in thyroids of the OS chickens, but the time-course, cell composition, and relative amounts of the various immune cells infiltrating the thyroids have not been well defined. In this project, frozen and stored thyroid glands that were previously collected at 1, 4, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42 days of age (n = 4 to 5 OS birds/age) were used. Frozen thyroid sections (8-μm thick) were prepared and used in an indirect immunohistochemical staining procedure to identify macrophages, B cells, T cells, T helper cells, cytotoxic T cells, γδ T cells, and MHC II-expressing cells. Stained sections were evaluated by microscopy, and the percentage of tissue area occupied by various cell types was determined. Thyroid infiltration was first observed at 7 days of age, and immune cells occupied the entire tissue in most samples from 3 weeks onwards. Macrophages were the first cells to infiltrate, but T cells dominated the response. MHC II expression reached very high levels by 14 days and remained at nearly 100% thereafter. This study provided new insights regarding the participating immune cells and the chronological order of their infiltration into thyroid glands during SAT development in OS chickens

Search for Gravitational Waves from Scorpius X-1 in LIGO O3 Data With Corrected Orbital Ephemeris

Improved observational constraints on the orbital parameters of the low-mass X-ray binary Scorpius~X-1 were recently published in Killestein et al (2023). In the process, errors were corrected in previous orbital ephemerides, which have been used in searches for continuous gravitational waves from Sco~X-1 using data from the Advanced LIGO detectors. We present the results of a re-analysis of LIGO detector data from the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo using a model-based cross-correlation search. The corrected region of parameter space, which was not covered by previous searches, was about 1/3 as large as the region searched in the original O3 analysis, reducing the required computing time. We have confirmed that no detectable signal is present over a range of gravitational-wave frequencies from $25\textrm{Hz}$ to $1600\textrm{Hz}$, analogous to the null result of Abbott et al (2022). Our search sensitivity is comparable to that of Abbott et al (2022), who set upper limits corresponding, between $100\textrm{Hz}$ and $200\textrm{Hz}$, to an amplitude $h_0$ of about $10^{-25}$ when marginalized isotropically over the unknown inclination angle of the neutron star's rotation axis, or less than $4\times 10^{-26}$ assuming the optimal orientation.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Typeset with AASTeX 6.3.1. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.0286

PHACTS, a computational approach to classifying the lifestyle of phages

Motivation: Bacteriophages have two distinct lifestyles: virulent and temperate. The virulent lifestyle has many implications for phage therapy, genomics and microbiology. Determining which lifestyle a newly sequenced phage falls into is currently determined using standard culturing techniques. Such laboratory work is not only costly and time consuming, but also cannot be used on phage genomes constructed from environmental sequencing. Therefore, a computational method that utilizes the sequence data of phage genomes is needed

Wastewater Sequencing Reveals Community and Variant Dynamics of the Collective Human Virome

Wastewater is a discarded human by-product, but its analysis may help us understand the health of populations. Epidemiologists first analyzed wastewater to track outbreaks of poliovirus decades ago, but so-called wastewater-based epidemiology was reinvigorated to monitor SARS-CoV-2 levels while bypassing the difficulties and pit falls of individual testing. Current approaches overlook the activity of most human viruses and preclude a deeper understanding of human virome community dynamics. Here, we conduct a comprehensive sequencing-based analysis of 363 longitudinal wastewater samples from ten distinct sites in two major cities. Critical to detection is the use of a viral probe capture set targeting thousands of viral species or variants. Over 450 distinct pathogenic viruses from 28 viral families are observed, most of which have never been detected in such samples. Sequencing reads of established pathogens and emerging viruses correlate to clinical data sets of SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, and monkeypox viruses, outlining the public health utility of this approach. Viral communities are tightly organized by space and time. Finally, the most abundant human viruses yield sequence variant information consistent with regional spread and evolution. We reveal the viral landscape of human wastewater and its potential to improve our understanding of outbreaks, transmission, and its effects on overall population health

Critical design review: Speedfest Orange Team

A task was given to create a small, hand launchable, jet propelled hotliner to compete in the 30N class. The aircraft must not only demonstrate specific speed and efficiency characteristics, but it also must be easy and fast to assemble, reliable and desirable for purchase. The Oklahoma Sate Orange team developed such an aircraft that is marketed to be an attractive and stylish hotliner, and is able to travel at high speeds and turn fast. The Tempest, which was envisioned, designed, and built by the team is a forward swept aircraft that has a bottom mounted engine, and a inverted Y tail. The aircraft can be launched by hand or cart, and goes upwards of 200 mph. The task to fly for 4 minutes and fly pylons was completed on Speedfest day