Women in History - Abigail Adams: Life, Accomplishments, and Ideas

Abigail Adams\u27s fame derives in large part from her marriage to the second President of the United States, John Adams (Freidel, 1989). However, she also had attributes of her own that made her an interesting and perennially famous woman in the history of the United States. One of her most enduring legacies is the volume of correspondence she wrote during lonely separations from her husband while he handled the nation\u27s business and left her alone with four children. Firsthand accounts of the period leading up to, during, and following the American Revolution are available through those letters (Withey, 1981). Eventually her great-grandson, Henry Adams, continued the family tradition of writing about events in times of great change. Born in 1744, Abigail Adams lacked a formal education, but she more than made up for that shortcoming with her love of reading, especially literature, and her interest in politics and events surrounding the young colonies. John Adams was first attracted to Abigail Adams due to her ability to converse with him on any topic (Waldrup, 1989). An enduring friendship with Mercy Otis Warren, historian and playwright, was another outlet for Abigail to share her intellect and her concerns about women\u27s issues. She spared no effort in ensuring one of her sons, John Quincy, was well educated and adequately prepared to become a future president, which he did in 1825. Abigail died in 1818 of typhoid fever, so she did not live to see John Quincy\u27s election to the presidency

Tree Growth Yield and Fruit Quality of Different Apple Cultivars Trained as Super Spindle

This study was carried out on Topaz, Cooper 39 and Muscat apple cultivars grafted on M27 rootstocks under Tokat ecological conditions during 2008 - 2010. The trees planted in 2.0 m x 0.5 m row spacing (10,000 trees ha-1) and trained to super spindle (SS) training system. The vegetative development, yield and fruit quality performances of the trees supported by wire – pole combination were observed for three years. At the end of the experiment, it was determined that Cooper 39 had a higher trunk cross sectional area (TCA) than Topaz and Muscat. While cumulative yield (CY) per tree and cumulative yield efficiency (CYE) were determined to be the highest in Cooper 39, these values were found to be the lowest in Topaz. CY per hectare over the first three crop year was found to be the highest in Cooper 39 and the yield reached to 142.9 t.ha1. The lowest CY per hectare (69.6 ton ha-1) was determined in Topa

The Structure At 198 K Of (1R,5R,15R,16R)-5-Isopropenyl-2-Methyl-1(N-(Trans-2-Phenylcyclohexyloxyc Arbonyl)Amino)-2-Cyclohexene

trans-2-Phenylcyclohexyl N-(5-isopropenyl-2-methyl-2-cyclohexan-1-yl)carbamate, C23H31NO2, M(r) = 353.50, orthorhombic, P2(1)2(1)2(1), a = 8.813 (2), b = 9.043 (2), c = 25.643 (5) angstrom, V = 2043.6 (8) angstrom 3, Z = 4, D(x) = 1.15 g cm-3 (198 K), Mo K-alpha radiation, lambda = 0.7107 angstrom, mu = 0.6734 cm-1, F(000) = 768, T = 198 K, R = 0.0547 for 1772 reflections [F(o) greater-than-or-equal-to 4-sigma-(F(o))]. Molecules are H-bonded into infinite columns parallel to a. The H bond involves the NH group and the carbonyl O atom of the carbamate moiety with relevant parameters: N11-H11...O13 (related by 1/2 + x, 1/2 - y, - z); N...O 2.910 (5), H...O 2.11 (5) angstrom, N-H...O 159 (4)-degrees.Robert A. Welch Foundation (F-626)National Institutes of Health (GM 31750)ChemistryBiochemistr

Fractional Hamiltonian analysis of higher order derivatives systems

The fractional Hamiltonian analysis of 1+1 dimensional field theory is investigated and the fractional Ostrogradski's formulation is obtained. The fractional path integral of both simple harmonic oscillator with an acceleration-squares part and a damped oscillator are analyzed. The classical results are obtained when fractional derivatives are replaced with the integer order derivatives.Comment: 13 page

Does solar irradiation drive community assembly of vulture plumage microbiotas?

Abstract Background Stereotyped sunning behaviour in birds has been hypothesized to inhibit keratin-degrading bacteria but there is little evidence that solar irradiation affects community assembly and abundance of plumage microbiota. The monophyletic New World vultures (Cathartiformes) are renowned for scavenging vertebrate carrion, spread-wing sunning at roosts, and thermal soaring. Few avian species experience greater exposure to solar irradiation. We used 16S rRNA sequencing to investigate the plumage microbiota of wild individuals of five sympatric species of vultures in Guyana. Results The exceptionally diverse plumage microbiotas (631 genera of Bacteria and Archaea) were numerically dominated by bacterial genera resistant to ultraviolet (UV) light, desiccation, and high ambient temperatures, and genera known for forming desiccation-resistant endospores (phylum Firmicutes, order Clostridiales). The extremophile genera Deinococcus (phylum Deinococcus-Thermus) and Hymenobacter (phylum, Bacteroidetes), rare in vertebrate gut microbiotas, accounted for 9.1% of 2.7 million sequences (CSS normalized and log2 transformed). Five bacterial genera known to exhibit strong keratinolytic capacities in vitro (Bacillus, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, and Streptomyces) were less abundant (totaling 4%) in vulture plumage. Conclusions Bacterial rank-abundance profiles from melanized vulture plumage have no known analog in the integumentary systems of terrestrial vertebrates. The prominence of UV-resistant extremophiles suggests that solar irradiation may play a significant role in the assembly of vulture plumage microbiotas. Our results highlight the need for controlled in vivo experiments to test the effects of UV on microbial communities of avian plumage

Sites of monomeric actin incorporation in living PTK2 and REF-52 cells

The purpose of this study was to analyze where monomeric actin first becomes incorporated into the sarcomeric units of the stress fibers. We microinjected fluorescently labeled actin monomers into two cell lines that differ in the sarcomeric spacings of ␣-actinin and nonmuscle myosin II along their stress fibers: REF-52, a fibroblast cell line, and PtK2, an epithelial cell line. The cells were fixed at selected times after microinjection (30 s and longer) and then stained with an ␣-actinin antibody. Localization of the labeled actin and ␣-actinin antibody were recorded with low level light cameras. In both cell types, the initial sites of incorporation were in focal contacts, lamellipodia and in punctate regions of the stress fibers that corresponded to the ␣-actinin rich dense bodies. The adherent junctions between the epithelial PtK2 cells were also initial sites of incorporation. At longer times of incorporation, the actin fluorescence extended along the stress fibers and became almost uniform. We saw no difference in the pattern of incorporation in peripheral and perinuclear regions of the stress fibers. We propose that rapid incorporation of monomeric actin occurs at the cellular sites where the barbed ends of actin filaments are concentrated: at the edges of lamellipodia, the adherens junctions, the attachment plaques and in the dense bodies that mark out the sarcomeric subunits of the stress fibers. Cell Motil

Peptide-PEG Amphiphiles as Cytophobic Coatings for Mammalian and Bacterial Cells

SummaryAmphiphilic macromolecules containing a polystyrene-adherent peptide domain and a cell-repellent poly(ethylene glycol) domain were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as a cytophobic surface coating. Such cytophobic, or cell-repellent, coatings are of interest for varied medical and biotechnological applications. The composition of the polystyrene binding peptide domain was identified using an M13 phage display library. ELISA and atomic force spectroscopy were used to evaluate the binding affinity of the amphiphile peptide domain to polystyrene. When coated onto polystyrene, the amphiphile reduced cell adhesion of two distinct mammalian cell lines and pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus strains

Metabolomics Workbench: An International Repository for Metabolomics Data and Metadata, Metabolite Standards, Protocols, Tutorials and Training, and Analysis Tools

The Metabolomics Workbench, available at www.metabolomicsworkbench.org, is a public repository for metabolomics metadata and experimental data spanning various species and experimental platforms, metabolite standards, metabolite structures, protocols, tutorials, and training material and other educational resources. It provides a computational platform to integrate, analyze, track, deposit and disseminate large volumes of heterogeneous data from a wide variety of metabolomics studies including mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry (NMR) data spanning over 20 different species covering all the major taxonomic categories including humans and other mammals, plants, insects, invertebrates and microorganisms. Additionally, a number of protocols are provided for a range of metabolite classes, sample types, and both MS and NMR-based studies, along with a metabolite structure database. The metabolites characterized in the studies available on the Metabolomics Workbench are linked to chemical structures in the metabolite structure database to facilitate comparative analysis across studies. The Metabolomics Workbench, part of the data coordinating effort of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Common Fund\u27s Metabolomics Program, provides data from the Common Fund\u27s Metabolomics Resource Cores, metabolite standards, and analysis tools to the wider metabolomics community and seeks data depositions from metabolomics researchers across the world

The sadism of the author or the masochism of the reader?

The symposium giving rise to this collection and the thriving of the B.S. Johnson Society both indicate that there is something exceptional going on with the literary and academic community’s relationship with this author, something we (collectively) still haven’t quite fathomed. In order to attempt to identify the source of Johnson’s fascination, I want to discuss the author-reader relationship as it comes into focus in his novels since, implicitly and explicitly, this is a recurring issue in academic studies of Johnson’s work (see White 2011)

Host-pathogen genetic interactions underlie tuberculosis susceptibility in genetically diverse mice [preprint]

The outcome of an encounter with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) depends on the pathogen’s ability to adapt to the heterogeneous immune response of the host. Understanding this interplay has proven difficult, largely because experimentally tractable small animal models do not recapitulate the heterogenous disease observed in natural infections. We leveraged the genetically diverse Collaborative Cross (CC) mouse panel in conjunction with a library of Mtb mutants to associate bacterial genetic requirements with host genetics and immunity. We report that CC strains vary dramatically in their susceptibility to infection and represent reproducible models of qualitatively distinct immune states. Global analysis of Mtb mutant fitness across the CC panel revealed that a large fraction of the pathogen’s genome is necessary for adaptation to specific host microenvironments. Both immunological and bacterial traits were associated with genetic variants distributed across the mouse genome, elucidating the complex genetic landscape that underlies host-pathogen interactions in a diverse population