Melanie Glover and Marc Bremer in a Joint Senior Recital

This is the program for the joint senior recital of pianist Melanie Glover and tenor Marc Bremer. Pianist Donna Tan accompanied Bremer. The recital took place on March 13, 1978, in the Mabee Fine Arts Center Recital Hall

Molecular mechanisms of root hair growth induced by Pi deficiency in Brassica carinata

[no abstract

Fluid fibres in true 3D ferroelectric liquids

We demonstrate an exceptional ability of a high-polarisation 3D ferroelectric liquid to form freely-suspended fluid fibres at room temperature. Unlike fluid threads in modulated smectics and columnar phases, where translational order is a prerequisite for forming liquid fibres, recently discovered ferroelectric nematic forms fibres with solely orientational molecular order. Additional stabilisation mechanisms based on the polar nature of the mesophase are required for this. We propose a model for such a mechanism and show that these fibres demonstrate an exceptional non-linear optical response and exhibit electric field-driven instabilities

Cystic fibrosis (CF) care through the patients' eyes – A nationwide survey on experience and satisfaction with services using a disease-specific questionnaire

SummaryThe patients' perspective is an important aspect of quality management. A newly developed disease-specific questionnaire was used to assess the patients' experiences with care provided in specialised cystic fibrosis (CF) care centres.Methods90 CF centres in Germany were invited to participate. Centre staff collected patient consent forms and sent the patients' addresses to the study centre. The questionnaires for adults and parents had 100 and 104 items respectively, with 3–6 response categories each. Items were dichotomised into “problem scores” (PS), indicating the presence or absence (PS 0%) of a reported problem.Results56 CF centres took part in the survey and recruited 1642 adults with CF and 1205 parents. The response rates were 74% in each group, with 1221 completed questionnaires from adults and 891 from parents. Participants reported good experiences with care. Factor analysis revealed 10 factors covering 70 items. Participants reported the best results for the factors “Physiotherapists” (PS 6%) and “Physician–Patient Relationship” (PS 9%). Factors with the highest problem scores were inpatient and outpatient “Facilities, Hygiene and Services”. CF centres received reports of their own results and mean problem scores of all participating institutions. The problem scores differed considerably between CF centres.ConclusionsThe nation-wide CF-specific patient experience survey identified specific shortcomings which were mainly related to communication, centre organisation, and facilities. Centre staff can use the results to improve the quality of care. We suggest that patients' views should become an integral component of efforts to promote patient-centred care

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales

Negative Staining and Image Classification – Powerful Tools in Modern Electron Microscopy

Vitrification is the state-of-the-art specimen preparation technique for molecular electron microscopy (EM) and therefore negative staining may appear to be an outdated approach. In this paper we illustrate the specific advantages of negative staining, ensuring that this technique will remain an important tool for the study of biological macromolecules. Due to the higher image contrast, much smaller molecules can be visualized by negative staining. Also, while molecules prepared by vitrification usually adopt random orientations in the amorphous ice layer, negative staining tends to induce preferred orientations of the molecules on the carbon support film. Combining negative staining with image classification techniques makes it possible to work with very heterogeneous molecule populations, which are difficult or even impossible to analyze using vitrified specimens

Breast cancer risks associated with missense variants in breast cancer susceptibility genes

BACKGROUND: Protein truncating variants in ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, and PALB2 are associated with increased breast cancer risk, but risks associated with missense variants in these genes are uncertain. METHODS: We analyzed data on 59,639 breast cancer cases and 53,165 controls from studies participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium BRIDGES project. We sampled training (80%) and validation (20%) sets to analyze rare missense variants in ATM (1146 training variants), BRCA1 (644), BRCA2 (1425), CHEK2 (325), and PALB2 (472). We evaluated breast cancer risks according to five in silico prediction-of-deleteriousness algorithms, functional protein domain, and frequency, using logistic regression models and also mixture models in which a subset of variants was assumed to be risk-associated. RESULTS: The most predictive in silico algorithms were Helix (BRCA1, BRCA2 and CHEK2) and CADD (ATM). Increased risks appeared restricted to functional protein domains for ATM (FAT and PIK domains) and BRCA1 (RING and BRCT domains). For ATM, BRCA1, and BRCA2, data were compatible with small subsets (approximately 7%, 2%, and 0.6%, respectively) of rare missense variants giving similar risk to those of protein truncating variants in the same gene. For CHEK2, data were more consistent with a large fraction (approximately 60%) of rare missense variants giving a lower risk (OR 1.75, 95% CI (1.47-2.08)) than CHEK2 protein truncating variants. There was little evidence for an association with risk for missense variants in PALB2. The best fitting models were well calibrated in the validation set. CONCLUSIONS: These results will inform risk prediction models and the selection of candidate variants for functional assays and could contribute to the clinical reporting of gene panel testing for breast cancer susceptibility

The Expression of P-Responsive Genes is Related to Root Hair Growth

Phosphorus deficiency results in the formation of longer root hairs in Brassica carinata cv. Bale to exhaust a greater soil volume. Recently, suppression subtractive hybridization revealed genes that were regulated in P-starved roots in Brassica carinata. Sequencing identified genes sharing homologies to a leucine-rich repeat protein kinase (LRR), a transcription factor of the 14-3-3 family, and a proline rich family protein (PRP) in Arabidopsis thaliana. This study aims at characterizing the expression pattern of these putative P-responsive genes by specifying the response to several nutritional stress factors and by inducing or discontinuing phosphorus deprivation. Root hair length was enhanced with phosphorus and nitrogen deprivation but not with potassium depletion. Likewise, the transcription level of LRR and PRP was increased in -P and -N conditions whereas there was no clear response for 14-3-3. One day after varying P supply, phenotypically the root hair length was changed. Correspondingly, the expression of the root-specific LRR and PRP was induced by P-deficiency and inhibited by the addition of P. The response to P starvation of 14-3-3 followed no clear trend. P-resupply increased the gene expression as well as P removal with a short term repression after 3 hours. In summary, the expression of a LRR receptor-like protein kinase and a proline rich protein suggests a function of these genes in inducing root hair growth. The putative transcription factor 14-3-3 may be of importance in rapid but unspecific stress response

The Expression of P-Responsive Genes is Related to Root Hair Growth

Phosphorus deficiency results in the formation of longer root hairs in Brassica carinata cv. Bale to exhaust a greater soil volume. Recently, suppression subtractive hybridization revealed genes that were regulated in P-starved roots in Brassica carinata. Sequencing identified genes sharing homologies to a leucine-rich repeat protein kinase (LRR), a transcription factor of the 14-3-3 family, and a proline rich family protein (PRP) in Arabidopsis thaliana. This study aims at characterizing the expression pattern of these putative P-responsive genes by specifying the response to several nutritional stress factors and by inducing or discontinuing phosphorus deprivation. Root hair length was enhanced with phosphorus and nitrogen deprivation but not with potassium depletion. Likewise, the transcription level of LRR and PRP was increased in -P and -N conditions whereas there was no clear response for 14-3-3. One day after varying P supply, phenotypically the root hair length was changed. Correspondingly, the expression of the root-specific LRR and PRP was induced by P-deficiency and inhibited by the addition of P. The response to P starvation of 14-3-3 followed no clear trend. P-resupply increased the gene expression as well as P removal with a short term repression after 3 hours. In summary, the expression of a LRR receptor-like protein kinase and a proline rich protein suggests a function of these genes in inducing root hair growth. The putative transcription factor 14-3-3 may be of importance in rapid but unspecific stress response