Descriptions of new luperine genera and species from Mexico : with keys to related taxa (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae)

The section Scelidites ofthe subtribe Luperina is diagnosed and described. A key is provided to separate the genera within this section. Cyphotarsis Jacoby is reduced to a junior synonym of Metacoryna Jacoby. Microscelida, new genus, is erected to include Agelastica viridis Jacoby, Luperus subcostatus Jacoby, Luperus subglabratus Jacoby, Scelidopsis violacea Jacoby, and seven newly described species. A key and diagnoses are provided to enable recognition of each species within this new genus. Scelidacne, new genus, is erected to include a single newly described species

The Western North American Genus Androlyperus Crotch, 1873 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae)

The five previously known species of Androlyperus are redescribed and diagnosed. Androlyperus nataliae n. sp. is described from the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. A taxonomic key is provided to facilitate species identification

To Be the Body of Christ: Discipleship (Solidarity) and Eucharist

In this presentation, I explore the relation between discipleship as solidarity and Eucharist. To this end, the Gospel of Luke sets the scriptural parameters, as the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus and their experience of recognizing Jesus at table in the breaking of bread is narrated only in this Gospel. Written in the final decades of the first century and addressed to a community of mixed social and economic standing, Luke’s narrative has come under critique for its tendency to convey double-messages and its ambiguity toward women and the poor. New Testament scholar Sharon Ringe has argued that Luke “pulled his punches:” Luke speaks about the poor, but he speaks to the rich; he emphasizes charity, but seems not to advocate change in repressive political and economic arrangements. We too live in a powerful nation of increasingly deep and wide social and economic disparities and divisions. This gospel raises as many questions for us as it seeks to answer: How are we to live if we call ourselves disciples of Jesus? Do we speak truth to power or pull our punches? What does it mean for us to be the body of Christ

Eliminating Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities: Reconsidering Comparative Approaches

The focus on eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities has brought critical attention to the poor health status of minority populations. Assessing the health outcomes of racial minority groups by comparing them to a racial majority standard is valuable for identifying and monitoring health inequities, but may not be the most effective approach to identifying strategies that can be used to improve minority health outcomes. Health promotion planning models and public health history both suggest that minority health promotion is more likely to be derived from interventions rooted in culturally and historically grounded contextual factors. In this essay, we highlight limitations of comparative approaches to minority health research and argue that integrating emic (or within-group) approaches may facilitate research and interventions more consonant with national goals to promote health and reduce disparities than comparative approaches

Construction of a novel phagemid to produce custom DNA origami scaffolds.

DNA origami, a method for constructing nanoscale objects, relies on a long single strand of DNA to act as the 'scaffold' to template assembly of numerous short DNA oligonucleotide 'staples'. The ability to generate custom scaffold sequences can greatly benefit DNA origami design processes. Custom scaffold sequences can provide better control of the overall size of the final object and better control of low-level structural details, such as locations of specific base pairs within an object. Filamentous bacteriophages and related phagemids can work well as sources of custom scaffold DNA. However, scaffolds derived from phages require inclusion of multi-kilobase DNA sequences in order to grow in host bacteria, and those sequences cannot be altered or removed. These fixed-sequence regions constrain the design possibilities of DNA origami. Here, we report the construction of a novel phagemid, pScaf, to produce scaffolds that have a custom sequence with a much smaller fixed region of 393 bases. We used pScaf to generate new scaffolds ranging in size from 1512 to 10 080 bases and demonstrated their use in various DNA origami shapes and assemblies. We anticipate our pScaf phagemid will enhance development of the DNA origami method and its future applications

Behavior of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Cosmological Models in Scalar-Tensor Gravity

We analyze solutions to Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmologies in Brans-Dicke theory, where a scalar field is coupled to gravity. Matter is modelled by a $\gamma$-law perfect fluid, including false-vacuum energy as a special case. Through a change of variables, we reduce the field equations from fourth order to second order, and they become equivalent to a two-dimensional dynamical system. We then analyze the entire solution space of this dynamical system, and find that many qualitative features of these cosmologies can be gleaned, including standard non-inflationary or extended inflationary expansion, but also including bifurcations of stable or unstable expansion or contraction, noninflationary vacuum-energy dominated models, and several varieties of ``coasting," ``bouncing," ``hesitating," and ``vacillating" universes. It is shown that inflationary dogma, which states that a universe with curvature and dominated by inflationary matter will always approach a corresponding flat-space solution at late times, does not hold in general for the scalar-tensor theory, but rather that the occurence of inflation depends upon the initial energy of the scalar field relative to the expansion rate. In the case of flat space ($k=0$), the dynamical system formalism generates some previously known exact power-law solutions.Comment: Slight stylistic changes and some references added. This version to be published in {\sl Annals of Physics

Geographic variability in Calligrapha verrucosa (Suffrian 1858), a willow-feeding leaf beetle from western North America(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

A diagnosis is provided to separate Calligrapha verrucosa (Suffrian) from similar species. Geographic variability is described and illustrated for various populations of C. verrucosa. A map is provided to indicate the distribution of this species