Religious Affiliations and Attitudes of Homeless Problem Drinkers

Based on particular studies in the field of alcoholism, this thesis specifically examines, evaluates, and interprets information and data concerning the religious affiliations and attitudes of homeless problem drinkers

Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

This is a book review of Jennifer Baldwin and Daniel Hodge White, eds., Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Ladham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022)

Effects of MTN Enzyme Deficiency on \u3ci\u3eE. coli\u3c/i\u3e O157:H7 Growth and Virulence

The bacterial enzyme Methylthioadenosine/S-adenosylhomocysteine (MTA/SAH) nucleosidase (MTN) is involved in methionine and adenine salvage from the by-products of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM, AdoMet) dependent reactions. MTN plays a critical role in alleviating product inhibition of SAM dependent reactions, including methylation reactions and the synthesis of polyamines, vitamins, and autinducer signals. Due to its absence from humans and its importance to bacterial metabolism, MTN is a potential target for the development of novel antibiotics to treat microbial infections. In this study, a MTN gene knock-out (MTN KO) strain of the pathogen E. coli O157:H7 was created to study the impact of MTN activity on bacterial growth, virulence, and autoinducer-dependent events; and to model the effects that would be expected from complete pharmacologic interruption of enzyme activity. E. coli O157:H7 was chosen as the topic of study since it is a serious gram-negative pathogen responsible for severe diarrhea that can progress to cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and factors influencing its virulence are well known. The MTN KO strain showed delayed growth, minimal biofilm production, and decreased in vitro virulence when compared to the parental wild type (WT) strain. Notably, the MTN KO strain showed a reduced ability to adhere to cultured mammalian cells. An analysis of virulence factor expression showed that the MTN KO strain secreted less Shiga-toxin, type-III secretory proteins, and hemolysin activity than the parental WT strain. Culture supplementation with autoinducer-2 precursor, 4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentanedione (DPD) did not restore the growth or virulence of the MTN KO strain, suggesting that the virulence defect was not the result of a loss of autoinducer-2 signaling. However, culture supplementation with lipoate, thiamine and biotin partially reconstituted the growth and virulence phenotypes of the KO strain to WT levels, indicating that altered vitamin-dependent metabolic activity played a role in the defect. The lipoate- and thiamine-dependent enzymes in the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex were overexpressed in the MTN KO strain, but the enzyme complex showed lower specific activity than the WT strain, suggesting that the ability to synthesize these vitamins was compromised in the KO strain. Other metabolic enzymes (lactate dehydrogenase, alcohol dehydrogenase, glutamate dehydrogenase) were found to have specific activities equal to the WT strain, thus providing release points for excess metabolites in the KO strain. This study provides support for MTN as a target for antibiotic treatment. Our results indicate that one mechanism by which MTN specific inhibitors could exert their antibiotic effect is by interrupting vitamin dependent processes, particularly in central carbon metabolism. While loss of MTN activity was not bactericidal in this case, the significant reduction in bacterial growth, biofilm formation and virulence suggests that the bacteria treated with MTN inhibitors could have increased susceptibility to traditional antibiotics and the host immune system responses. This supports the incorporation of MTN inhibitors into combination drug therapies with standard antibiotics. Finally, the creation and analysis of a MTN KO strain provides a valuable tool to explore potential mechanisms of antibiotic action that can be used in comparative studies to examine the antimicrobial activities of future MTN inhibitors

Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality in American Cinema

This is a book review of Kameelah L. Martin, Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality in American Cinema

Guidelines for Lutheran Worship Covering the Festival Half of the Church Year

The objective of this thesis has been to prepare a study of the origin and purpose of the various seasons of the festival half of the Church Year and to integrate the Propers for the Sundays, Festivals, and Ferial Days of the Festival Half of the Church Year for congregational use. This objective in itself has made it Impossible to follow much of the procedure usually required in the writing of a thesis for a degree of Bachelor of Divinity. For example, the literary style of the thesis is simple and popular, and there is a lack of direct quotations, other than those of the Propers. The purpose of the thesis has also made it advisable not to set off in separate paragraphs the longer quotations of the Propers. On the other hand, it has made it advisable to note the source of such quotations in the body of the thesis. Also since much of the material in this thesis, especially the integration of the Propers, is the result of personal study, it has been possible for the most part to document only the historical data cited

Epidemic model on a network: analysis and applications to COVID-19

We analyze an epidemic model on a network consisting of susceptible-infected-recovered equations at the nodes coupled by diffusion using a graph Laplacian. We introduce an epidemic criterion and examine different vaccination/containment strategies: we prove that it is most effective to vaccinate a node of highest degree. The model is also useful to evaluate deconfinement scenarios and prevent a so-called second wave. The model has few parameters enabling fitting to the data and the essential ingredient of importation of infected; these features are particularly important for the current COVID-19 epidemic

Eigenvectors of graph Laplacians: a landscape

We review the properties of eigenvectors for the graph Laplacian matrix, aiming at predicting a specific eigenvalue/vector from the geometry of the graph. After considering classical graphs for which the spectrum is known, we focus on eigenvectors that have zero components and extend the pioneering results of Merris (1998) on graph transformations that preserve a given eigenvalue $\lambda$ or shift it in a simple way. These transformations enable us to obtain eigenvalues/vectors combinatorially instead of numerically; in particular we show that graphs having eigenvalues $\lambda= 1,2,\dots,6$ up to six vertices can be obtained from a short list of graphs. For the converse problem of a $\lambda$ subgraph $G$ of a $\lambda$ graph $G"$, we prove results and conjecture that $G$ and $G"$ are connected by two of the simple transformations described above