Ideology, Identity and the Construction of Urban Communities: The Archaeology of Kamphaeng Saen, Central Thailand (c. Fifth to Ninth Centuries CE).

For the more than 12,000 years that humans have lived in permanent settlements, the majority of sedentary communities have had small populations where relationships based on kinship maintained order and provided group identities. The development of urban communities, whose populations far exceeded those of villages and hamlets, overwhelmed the ability of traditional kinship-based mechanisms to maintain social order. New types of relationships and identities that supplemented kinship ties were needed to unite and govern the residents of early urban centers. During the first millennium CE the people of central Thailand faced these challenges as they underwent population nucleation, urbanization and increased political centralization. As part of this process, by the fifth century CE shared forms of material culture, artistic styles, religious ideologies and settlement plans began to spread among the communities of central Thailand and ultimately beyond, marking the development of the Dvaravati culture. In this dissertation, I examine the origins and dynamics of Dvaravati urban communities from the perspective of regional-level relationships among centers, as well as the socio-economic relationships between the residents within individual centers. I focus on the lower-order Dvaravati center of Kamphaeng Saen, where I used archaeological survey and excavation to investigate the site’s chronology and spatial organization. This research revealed that the community formed relatively abruptly in the fifth century CE, likely as the result of the consolidation of several smaller villages, and was then abandoned by the ninth century CE, several centuries earlier than most other Dvaravati centers. I argue that the construction and use of the earthworks and Buddhist monuments at the site played a key role in the development of the community by fostering non-kinship based group identities, as well as allowing emerging elites to materialize ideological concepts that supported their authority. A regional-level comparison of the configuration of monuments at Dvaravati centers reveals increasing standardization of urban plans that may have partly resulted from emulation and competition between the leaders of these centers. Finally, I compare how the origins and character of Dvaravati centers compare to urban traditions elsewhere in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.PHDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99849/1/mgallon_1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99849/2/mgallon_2.pd

Pyrotechnic Actuator for Retracting Tubes Between MSL Subsystems

An apparatus, denoted the "retractuator" (a contraction of "retracting actuator"), was designed to help ensure clean separation between the cruise stage and the entry-vehicle subsystem of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. The retractuator or an equivalent mechanism is needed because of tubes that (1) transport a heat-transfer fluid between the stages during flight and (2) are cut immediately prior to separation of the stages retractuator. The role of the retractuator is to retract the tubes, after they are cut and before separation of the subsystem, so that cut ends of the tubes do not damage thermal-protection coats on the entry vehicle and do not contribute to uncertainty of drag and consequent uncertainty in separation velocity

Atypical parkinsonism-associated retromer mutant alters endosomal sorting of specific cargo proteins

The retromer complex acts as a scaffold for endosomal protein complexes that sort integral membrane proteins to various cellular destinations. The retromer complex is a heterotrimer of VPS29, VPS35, and VPS26. Two of these paralogues, VPS26A and VPS26B, are expressed in humans. Retromer dysfunction is associated with neurodegenerative disease, and recently, three VPS26A mutations (p.K93E, p.M112V, and p.K297X) were discovered to be associated with atypical parkinsonism. Here, we apply quantitative proteomics to provide a detailed description of the retromer interactome. By establishing a comparative proteomic methodology, we identify how this interactome is perturbed in atypical parkinsonism-associated VPS26A mutants. In particular, we describe a selective defect in the association of VPS26A (p.K297X) with the SNX27 cargo adaptor. By showing how a retromer mutant leads to altered endosomal sorting of specific PDZ ligand–containing cargo proteins, we reveal a new mechanism for perturbed endosomal cargo sorting in atypical parkinsonism

Retriever is a multiprotein complex for retromer-independent endosomal cargo recycling

Following endocytosis into the endosomal network, integral membrane proteins undergo sorting for lysosomal degradation or are retrieved and recycled back to the cell surface. Here we describe the discovery of an ancient and conserved multiprotein complex that orchestrates cargo retrieval and recycling and, importantly, is biochemically and functionally distinct from the established retromer pathway. We have called this complex 'retriever'; it is a heterotrimer composed of DSCR3, C16orf62 and VPS29, and bears striking similarity to retromer. We establish that retriever associates with the cargo adaptor sorting nexin 17 (SNX17) and couples to CCC (CCDC93, CCDC22, COMMD) and WASH complexes to prevent lysosomal degradation and promote cell surface recycling of α5β1 integrin. Through quantitative proteomic analysis, we identify over 120 cell surface proteins, including numerous integrins, signalling receptors and solute transporters, that require SNX17-retriever to maintain their surface levels. Our\ua0identification of retriever establishes a major endosomal retrieval and recycling pathway

Retromer associates with the cytoplasmic amino-terminus of polycystin-2

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common monogenic human disease, with around 12.5 million people affected worldwide. ADPKD results from mutations in either PKD1 or PKD2, which encode the atypical G-protein coupled receptor polycystin-1 (PC1) and the transient receptor potential channel polycystin-2 (PC2) respectively. Although altered intracellular trafficking of PC1 and PC2 appear as an underlying feature of ADPKD, the mechanisms which govern vesicular transport of the polycystins through the biosynthetic and endosomal membrane networks remain to be fully elucidated. Here, we describe an interaction between PC2 and retromer, a master controller for the sorting of integral membrane proteins through the endo-lysosomal network. We show that association of PC2 with retromer occurs via a region in the PC2 cytoplasmic amino-terminal domain, independently of the retromer-binding Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and scar homologue (WASH) complex. Based on observations that retromer preferentially interacts with a trafficking population of PC2, and that ciliary levels of PC1 are reduced upon mutation of key residues required for retromer-association in PC2, our data is consistent with the identification of PC2 as a retromer cargo protein.</jats:p