Boney, the Transnational Agent of Nationhood:: Visual Culture and Total War in 1812

Der Beitrag untersucht englische und russische Karikaturen aus der napoleonischen Ära. Im Vordergrund stehen Zeichnungen von George Cruikshank (1792–1878) und Ivan Terebenev (1780–1815). 1812 markierte für beide den Beginn ihrer Laufbahn als Karikaturisten. Terebenev zeigte sich inspiriert von englischen Karikaturen des 18. Jhs und wandte sich diesem Genre zu, um einen russischen Patriotismus zu motivieren. Noch im Jahr 1812 kaufte Cruikshank Terebenevs anti-napoleonische Karikaturen, zeichnete sie nach und verkaufte sie mit englischen Übersetzungen. Die Tatsache, dass ein englischer und ein russischer Künstler die gleichen visuellen Mittel und Motive anwenden konnten, wenn sie sich mit dem Geschehen von 1812 auseinandersetzten, weist darauf hin, dass die nationalen Diskurse in England und Russland einander ähnelten. Der Beitrag untersucht diese Ähnlichkeiten und stellt die Frage, welche Schlussfolgerungen sich daraus für die Entstehung moderner Nationen ergeben, wie diese mit der Geburt der politischen Karikatur zusammenhängt und welche transnationalen Verbindungen um 1812 in der europäischen Karikatur zu erkennen sind

Construction and Transformation of a Thermotoga-E. coli Shuttle Vector

Background: Thermotoga spp. are attractive candidates for producing biohydrogen, green chemicals, and thermostable enzymes. They may also serve as model systems for understanding life sustainability under hyperthermophilic conditions. A lack of genetic tools has hampered the investigation and application of these organisms. This study aims to develop a genetic transfer system for Thermotoga spp. Results: Methods for preparing and handling Thermotoga solid cultures under aerobic conditions were optimized. A plating efficiency of similar to 50% was achieved when the bacterial cells were embedded in 0.3% Gelrite. A Thermotoga-E. coli shuttle vector pDH10 was constructed using pRQ7, a cryptic mini-plasmid found in T. sp. RQ7. Plasmid pDH10 was introduced to T. maritima and T. sp. RQ7 by electroporation and liposome-mediated transformation. Transformants were isolated, and the transformed kanamycin resistance gene (kan) was detected from the plasmid DNA extracts of the recombinant strains by PCR and was confirmed by restriction digestions. The transformed DNA was stably maintained in both Thermotoga and E. coli even without the selective pressure. Conclusions: Thermotoga are transformable by multiple means. Recombinant Thermotoga strains have been isolated for the first time. A heterologous kan gene is functionally expressed and stably maintained in Thermotoga

Nazione nomade: cinema, nazione e memoria nel Kazakistan post-sovietico

L’articolo esamina il tentativo del nuovo stato-nazione kazako di fornire al suo popolo una storia e il modo in cui esso si articola come una sorta di «nazione nomade»: un vivace processo, tuttora in corso, per costruire allo stesso tempo un sentimento di identità nazionale ed un senso di memoria storica centrato sui nomadi. Lo stato ha assunto la guida di questo esercizio di nation-building, e il cinema kazako, spesso dipendente dal sostegno statale, ha giocato anch’esso un ruolo da protagonista. L’autore sostiene che i registi kazaki, rispondendo all’invito del presidente Nursultan Nazarbaev a creare delle narrazioni nazionali, si sono rivolti ai nomadi e al passato nomade come fonte per la memoria e la nazione kazake. La reazione dei cittadini kazaki è stata variegata: molti hanno celebrato quello che vedevano come un «nuovo patriottismo kazako» articolato sul grande schermo. Altri hanno criticato in questo cinema certi aspetti della nazione nomade, in particolare il ruolo dello stato kazako nel promuoverlo e l’adattamento delle tecniche hollywoodiane da parte dei registi kazaki. Altri ancora si sono tenuti alla larga dal cinema kazako in generale. Di conseguenza, verso la fine del 2009 Nazarbaev ha dichiarato che i registi kazaki dovrebbero iniziare a prestare maggiore attenzione al presente e non solo al passato; al cinema però la nazione nomade non ha cessato di esistere. Il film Myn Bala («Mille ragazzi») del maggio 2012 scava nello stesso territorio storico di Nomad del 2005, il film che per molti aspetti ha segnato l’inizio della svolta del nuovo cinema kazako verso il passato nomade. This article examines the new Kazakh nation-state’s attempt to provide a history to its people and how this attempt functions as a sort of «nomadic nationhood»: an ongoing, vibrant process of building both a sense of national identity and a sense of historical remembrance that center on nomads. The state has taken the lead in this nation-building exercise, and Kazakh films, often relying on state support, have also played a starring role. The author argues that Kazakh filmmakers, responding to President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s calls to create national narratives, have turned to nomads and the nomadic past as the source for Kazakh nationhood and remembrance. The reception among Kazakh citizens has produced a mixed bag: many audience members have celebrated what they see as a «new Kazakh patriotism» articulated onscreen. Others have criticized certain aspects of the onscreen nomadic nationhood, particularly the Kazakh state’s role in promoting it and Kazakh filmmakers’ adaptation of Hollywood techniques. Still others have stayed away from Kazakh films entirely. As a result, Nazarbayev declared in late 2009 that Kazakh filmmakers should start to pay more attention to the present and not just the past, but the cinematic nomadic nationhood has not stopped. The May 2012 film Myn Bala («A Thousand Boys») mines the same historical territory as 2005’s The Nomad, the film that in many ways initiated the new Kazakh cinema’s turn to the nomadic past

A Mean-Field Theory for Coarsening Faceted Surfaces

A mean-field theory is developed for the scale-invariant length distributions observed during the coarsening of one-dimensional faceted surfaces. This theory closely follows the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory of Ostwald ripening in two-phase systems [1-3], but the mechanism of coarsening in faceted surfaces requires the addition of convolution terms recalling the work of Smoluchowski [4] and Schumann [5] on coalescence. The model is solved by the exponential distribution, but agreement with experiment is limited by the assumption that neighboring facet lengths are uncorrelated. However, the method concisely describes the essential processes operating in the scaling state, illuminates a clear path for future refinement, and offers a framework for the investigation of faceted surfaces evolving under arbitrary dynamics. [1] I. Lifshitz, V. Slezov, Soviet Physics JETP 38 (1959) 331-339. [2] I. Lifshitz, V. Slyozov, J. Phys. Chem. Solids 19 (1961) 35-50. [3] C. Wagner, Elektrochemie 65 (1961) 581-591. [4] M. von Smoluchowski, Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916) 557-571. [5] T. Schumann, J. Roy. Met. Soc. 66 (1940) 195-207

Story and Illustration Reconstituted: Children's Literature in Canadian Reading Programs

This study addresses the differences between literature in children's trade books and the literature in commercial elementary language arts reading programs used in Canada. Although the nature of the literature included in language arts programs has received considerable scrutiny in the United States, there is no parallel body of research in the Canadian context. Using a textual content analysis, all the literature selections contained in the three most extensively used reading programs in Canada were where possible compared with the corresponding trade books. Numerous differences between trade book literature and the corresponding selections in the reading programs suggest that the two are not equivalent in the reading experiences they provide for children. The changes included alterations to format such as omissions, additions, substitutions, and reordering of text and illustrations. Many of the original selections reconstituted in the reading programs were impoverished by the changes. Further research is needed on how these changes alter children's reading experiences.Cette élude se penche sur les différences entre la littérature pour enfants dans les publications commerciales et celle que l'on retrouve dans les cours de langues et littérature pour les élèves de l'élémentaire au Canada. Alors qu'aux États-Unis, la nature de la littérature étudiée dans les cours de langue et littérature a fait l'objet d'examens détaillés, au Canada, aucune recherche comparable n'a été entreprise. En s'appuyant sur une analyse de contenu approfondie, nous avons, dans la mesure du possible, comparé toute la littérature étudiée au sein des trois programmes de lecture les plus populaires au Canada, aux textes correspondants dans les publications commerciales. Les nombreuses différences repérées entre les publications commerciales et les sélections correspondantes employées dans les programmes de lecture permettent de conclure que les deux ne fournissent pas élèves des expériences de lecture équivalentes. Parmi les écarts notons des changements de format tels des omissions, des ajouts, des substitutions et une réorganisation du texte et illustrations. Plusieurs des sélections originales qui avaient été reconstituées dans les programmes de lecture avaient été appauvries par les changements. Davantage d'études devraient porter sur la façon dont ces changements modifient l'expérience de lecture des enfants

Assessment Techniques Corresponding to Scientific Texts in Commercial Reading Programs: Do They Promote Scientific Literacy?

This research is part of a larger study of commercial reading programs used in Canada in grades 1-6. The specific purposes of the results reported here were to identify and quantify the assessment techniques suggested for the selections that contain scientific content, to show how the assessments differ by grade, to evaluate the nature and quality of the assessments, and to examine the extent to which the assessments help foster scientific literacy. It was found that the assessments occurred in six major forms and employed about a dozen assessment tools that engage students in nearly 20 tasks. Such variety is endorsed in both literacy and science education position statements. The assessments showed some weak trends by grade, but primarily left the purpose of the assessments to teachers’ judgment. The consequence is that teachers probably will choose the assessments for formative rather than summative evaluation, an approach also endorsed by literacy and science education policy statements. Hardly any of the assessments focused on the specificities of learning to read texts that are scientific such as interpreting descriptions of methods and research findings and thus had limited use in promoting this particular aspect of scientific literacy

The mitogen and stress-activated protein kinase 1 regulates the rapid epigenetic tagging of dorsal horn neurons and nocifensive behaviour

Phosphorylation of histone H3 at serine 10 (p-H3S10) is a marker of active gene transcription. Using cognitive models of neural plasticity, p-H3S10 was shown to be downstream of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signalling in the hippocampus. In this study, we show that nociceptive signalling after peripheral formalin injection increased p-H3S10 expression in the ipsilateral dorsal horn. This increase was maximal 30 minutes after formalin injection and occurred mainly within p-ERK-positive neurons. Spinal p-H3S10-enhanced expression was also observed in neurokinin 1 receptor (NK1R), c-Fos, and Zif268 positive neurons and was inhibited by ablation of serotonergic descending controls. The mitogen and stress-activated protein kinase 1 (MSK1) is downstream of ERK and can induce p-H3S10. We found that, after formalin injection, most phospho-MSK1 (p-MSK1)-positive cells (87% ± 3%) expressed p-ERK and the majority of p-H3S10-positive cells (85% ± 5%) expressed p-MSK1. Inhibition of ERK activity with the MEK inhibitor SL327 reduced formalin-induced p-ERK, p-MSK1, and p-H3S10, demonstrating that spinal p-MSK1 and p-H3S10 were at least partly downstream of ERK signalling. Crucially, pharmacological blockade of spinal MSK1 activity with the novel MSK1 inhibitor SB727651A inhibited formalin-induced spinal p-H3S10 and nocifensive behaviour. These findings are the first to establish the involvement of p-H3S10 and its main kinase, MSK1, in ERK regulation of nociception. Given the general importance of ERK signalling in pain processing, our results suggest that p-H3S10 could play a role in the response to injury

Construction and transformation of a Thermotoga-E. coli shuttle vector

Abstract Background Thermotoga spp. are attractive candidates for producing biohydrogen, green chemicals, and thermostable enzymes. They may also serve as model systems for understanding life sustainability under hyperthermophilic conditions. A lack of genetic tools has hampered the investigation and application of these organisms. This study aims to develop a genetic transfer system for Thermotoga spp. Results Methods for preparing and handling Thermotoga solid cultures under aerobic conditions were optimized. A plating efficiency of ~50% was achieved when the bacterial cells were embedded in 0.3% Gelrite. A Thermotoga-E. coli shuttle vector pDH10 was constructed using pRQ7, a cryptic mini-plasmid found in T. sp. RQ7. Plasmid pDH10 was introduced to T. maritima and T. sp. RQ7 by electroporation and liposome-mediated transformation. Transformants were isolated, and the transformed kanamycin resistance gene (kan) was detected from the plasmid DNA extracts of the recombinant strains by PCR and was confirmed by restriction digestions. The transformed DNA was stably maintained in both Thermotoga and E. coli even without the selective pressure. Conclusions Thermotoga are transformable by multiple means. Recombinant Thermotoga strains have been isolated for the first time. A heterologous kan gene is functionally expressed and stably maintained in Thermotoga.</p

Iris: an Extensible Application for Building and Analyzing Spectral Energy Distributions

Iris is an extensible application that provides astronomers with a user-friendly interface capable of ingesting broad-band data from many different sources in order to build, explore, and model spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Iris takes advantage of the standards defined by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance, but hides the technicalities of such standards by implementing different layers of abstraction on top of them. Such intermediate layers provide hooks that users and developers can exploit in order to extend the capabilities provided by Iris. For instance, custom Python models can be combined in arbitrary ways with the Iris built-in models or with other custom functions. As such, Iris offers a platform for the development and integration of SED data, services, and applications, either from the user's system or from the web. In this paper we describe the built-in features provided by Iris for building and analyzing SEDs. We also explore in some detail the Iris framework and software development kit, showing how astronomers and software developers can plug their code into an integrated SED analysis environment.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Computin