From family tradition to national consciousness: an ethnographic study of Estonian knitting

Knitting has been widely practised and appreciated by Estonian people as an indispensable part of Estonian cultural heritage. As a traditional handicraft skill with hundreds of years of history, knitting is not only of practical importance considering the nature condition but also to a certain extent being constructed as a symbol of Estonia throughout the twentieth century as well as nowadays. This dissertation is an ethnographic study focusing on Estonian knitting, in particular, on the point of the role of knitting in the process of national identity construction. To dates, there is still a knowledge gap in the field of study on Estonian knitting in English-speaking academia. Apart from a limited amount of Estonian authors either being translated or write in English (for example Anu Pink, Siiri Reimann, Kristi Jõeste), the only English-speaking author whose work is regularly mentioned as a reference and to a certain extent considered to be with an academic character is Nancy Bush. Most of the publications on Estonian knitting have only focused on its practical aspect, i.e. patterns and techniques. In this dissertation, I aim to explore the function of knitting being a means of identity construction and link between individuals and nation space in Estonia. My theory bases are material culture studies and semiotic studies: I study knitting as material culture; my focus on the semiotic approach is made for decoding the meanings behind knitting and setting Estonian knitting as a signifier of collective cultural identity. I use ethnography as a method for this research project. In this dissertation, I present data collected during my fieldwork (including participant observation, visual data collection, interviews) period from September 2017 to August 2018. I also make autoethnography as a highlight considering my own identity of being at the same time an estophile and a knitter researching Estonian knitting. This dissertation aims to explore the unique role of knitting in Estonian culture both on family and national levels. Specifically, I present my findings of knitting being a symbol of the cultural root in Estonia, in particular for those people who knit. Thus, knitting helps to construct a part of Estonian national identity and enhance people’s sense of belonging to Estonia. I also attempt to show the importance of knitting in constructing a new image of the Estonian nation in a post-Soviet context.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5173435*es

The Opening of ROSTA Windows: “Mayakovsky Style” and the Culture of Soviet Posters

Russian Evolution:Russian Reflections Date: 21st October 2017 Saturday Part of a one day conference at the Institute of English Studies with International Speakers on the work of Professor Yuri Rozhdestvensky (1926-1999): his Contribution to Linguistics, Rhetoric, Communication Theory, Semiotics, Poetics and Narratology. The work of Professor Yuri Rozhdestvensky (formerly of the Moscow State Lomonosov University, Moscow) is almost completely unavailable in English. This conference provides analysis of two parts of his book, General Philology – the Introduction and Chapter Five entitled ‘Printed Literature’ (this work is translated for the first time by Paul and Elena Richard and is now available on: https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk ) Analysis of this translated work reveals Rozhdestvensky’s lifelong interest and commitment to a theory of culture as a historical, linguistic, philological and semiotic development. The conference highlights the analysis of poetics in Chapter Five with reference to Professor V. V. Vinogradov whose work is also largely unavailable in English translation. The use of codes, as defined by Roman Jakobson, provides the theory for the provision of connections between Rozhdestvensky’s analysis of culture, poetics, linguistics, semiotics and philology whereby his work can be understood by those unfamiliar with his theoretical position. This includes special emphasis on Vinogradov’s theory of the image of the author. The necessary component of diachrony in Rozhdestvensky’s work and the links to the discipline of Narratology are highlighted. It is concluded that Rozhdestvensky has unique and original contributions to make to academic studies through his particular understanding of a Theory of Culture

Effect of isopropyl myristate on the viscoelasticity and drug release of a drug-in-adhesive transdermal patch containing blonanserin

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of isopropyl myristate (IPM), a penetration enhancer, on the viscoelasticity and drug release of a drug-in-adhesive transdermal patch containing blonanserin. The patches were prepared with DURO-TAK® 87-2287 as a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) containing 5% (w/w) of blonanserin and different concentrations of IPM. An in vitro release experiment was performed and the adhesive performance of the drug-in-adhesive patches with different concentrations of IPM was evaluated by a rolling ball tack test and a shear-adhesion test. The glass transition temperature (Tg) and rheological parameters of the drug-in-adhesive layers were determined to study the effect of IPM on the mechanical properties of the PSA. The results of the in vitro release experiment showed that the release rate of blonanserin increased with an increasing concentration of IPM. The rolling ball tack test and shear-adhesion test showed decreasing values with increasing IPM concentration. The results were interpreted on the basis of the IPM-induced plasticization of the PSA, as evidenced by a depression of the glass transition temperature and a decrease in the elastic modulus. In conclusion, IPM acted as a plasticizer on DURO-TAK® 87-2287, and it increased the release of blonanserin and affected the adhesive properties of the PSA

VertU: universal multilocus primer sets for eDNA metabarcoding of vertebrate diversity, evaluated by both artificial and natural cases

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a powerful tool for monitoring biodiversity in natural ecosystems. The accuracy of eDNA metabarcoding relies heavily on the PCR primers that amplify target sequences. For vertebrates, most available primers are designed for particular groups. There have been inadequate attempts to design “universal” primers applicable to all vertebrates. Here, we developed three new universal primer sets (V12S-U, V16S-U, and VCOI-U) targeting mitochondrial 12S, 16S, and COI genes, respectively. They work for all vertebrate groups, with amplification length of 200-250 bp, facilitating the use of short-read sequencing platforms. We evaluated and compared the species detection ability of our primer sets and seven previously published ones through both in-silico PCR and experiment tests with mock DNA and zoo eDNA. The species detection success of the new primer sets is over 90%, showing better performance than previously published primer sets. We also tested our new primers with water eDNA samples of natural environments, and detected a total of 895 vertebrate OTUs (BLAST identity ≥ 0.95), comprising 182 species, 195 genera, and 94 families. Our results indicated that utilizing multiple markers can achieve better species detection than using only a single marker, which is especially important for monitoring large biological communities like vertebrates. The new primer sets enable researchers to detect the presence of species of different vertebrate groups in one eDNA metabarcoding survey, which simplifies the workflow and reduces the cost. It has the potential to serve as an alternative/complementary tool for future eDNA metabarcoding studies targeting vertebrates

Airborne flux measurements of ammonia over the southern Great Plains using chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Peer reviewe

Periodic changes in the N-glycosylation of immunoglobulin G during the menstrual cycle

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is the most abundant plasma glycoprotein and a prominent humoral immune mediator. Glycan composition affects the affinity of IgG to ligands and consequent immune responses. The modification of IgG N-glycosylation is considered to be one of the various mechanisms by which sex hormones modulate the immune system. Although the menstrual cycle is the central sex hormone-related physiological process in most women of reproductive age, IgG N-glycosylation dynamics during the menstrual cycle have not yet been investigated. To fill this gap, we profiled the plasma IgG N-glycans of 70 healthy premenopausal women at 12 time points during their menstrual cycles (every 7 days for 3 months) using hydrophilic interaction ultra-performance liquid chromatography (HILIC-UPLC). We observed cyclic periodic changes in the N-glycosylation of IgG in association with the menstrual cycle phase and sex hormone concentration in plasma. On the integrated cohort level, the modeled average menstrual cycle effect on the abundance of IgG N-glycosylation traits was low for each trait, with the highest being 1.1% for agalactosylated N-glycans. However, intrapersonal changes were relatively high in some cases; for example, the largest difference between the minimum and maximum values during the menstrual cycle was up to 21% for sialylated N-glycans. Across all measurements, the menstrual cycle phase could explain up to 0.72% of the variation in the abundance of a single IgG glycosylation trait of monogalactosylation. In contrast, up to 99% of the variation in the abundance of digalactosylation could be attributed to interpersonal differences in IgG N-glycosylation. In conclusion, the average extent of changes in the IgG N-glycopattern that occur during the menstrual cycle is small; thus, the IgG N-glycoprofiling of women in large sample-size studies can be performed regardless of menstrual cycle phase

Evaluating airborne fluxes of reactive nitrogen compounds over the marine boundary layer: from eddy covariance to wavelet transform

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2019Reactive nitrogen compounds (Nr) have different fates in the atmosphere due to differences in the governing process of chemical transformation, physical transport and deposition. Quantifying dry deposition of critical Nr including N2O5, HNO3, and ClNO2 is important for assessing their atmospheric lifetime and potential impacts on NOx cycling and ecosystems. However, little is known quantitatively and qualitatively about surface-atmosphere exchange of these species, especially under dark wintertime conditions. In this study, we use a comprehensive dataset from the Wintertime INvestigation of Transport, Emissions and Reactivity (WINTER) campaign to characterize the chemistry, sources, and removal rates of Nr. Employing both eddy covariance and wavelet analysis methods, we quantified exchange velocities and evaluate their validity using turbulence conditions, spectral patterns, and Nr budget constraints. We focus analysis on the wintertime marine boundary layer due to a greater prevalence of active vertical mixing, though evidence for surface layer decoupling is also present in the flux observations, as well as less stringent requirements on measurement frequency. We find that under conditions of strong vertical mixing, exchange velocities for N2O5, HNO3, and ClNO2 were -0.78 cm·s-1, -0.68 cm·s-1, -0.73 cm·s-1 on average indicating net deposition, with a range from -4 cm·s-1 to 3 cm·s-1 and an measurement uncertainty of 30%. A box model of nighttime reactive nitrogen chemistry is able reproduce the observations by invoking the observationally derived deposition velocities. To our knowledge, this is the first full simultaneous measurement and evaluation of N2O5, HNO3, and ClNO2 fluxes from an aircraft using eddy covariance, with which we provided an observation-based framework for assessing the impact of air-surface exchange on the fate of key nitrogen species

Emissions and Chemistry of Reactive Nitrogen in Wildfire Plumes

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2022Wildfires are an important source of reactive nitrogen species to the atmosphere, accounting for approximately 25% of global annual nitrogen oxides (NOx). Emissions of wildfires are highly variable depending on factors such as fuel types and burning conditions, yet in situ measurements and quantification of primary emissions from open wildfires have been scarce. This work presents detailed observations of reactive nitrogen emissions and chemistry within wildfire plumes sampled during the Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud chemistry, Aerosol absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) aircraft campaign with unprecedented comprehensive measurements of over 250 wildfire plume transects. In this dissertation, I systematically investigate the complexities of reactive nitrogen chemistry in authentic smoke, including radical sources, photochemical evolutions, and secondary pollutant formation. I demonstrate that the emission ratios of nitrous acid (HONO) from fires may be significantly underestimated in previous studies where measurements were not close enough to fire sources, highlighting the critical need to update the values in regional air quality models. I show that HONO is the most important primary radical source in fresh wildfire plumes, contributing over 90% of hydrogen oxidies (HOx ≡ OH + HO2) production in plumes with age shorter than an hour. I then evaluate potential drivers of variability in HONO emissions across the range of fires sampled, and find a dependence on modified combustion efficiency and fuel nitrogen proxy. With the observational constraints, I examine the rapid daytime post-emission changes of reactive nitrogen using a 0-D photochemical box model. The model underpredicts the loss of NOx in fires with high NOx emissions, and I show that current model mechanisms likely miss out on a suite of oxidized organic nitrogen species such as alkyl and acyl peroxynitrates in fire plumes, consistent with a suite of organic nitrogen compounds measured by chemical ionization mass spectrometry. I find HONO mixing ratios in aged smoke are systematically higher than expected from known chemical reactions, and conducted extensive correlation analysis to identify potential secondary sources of HONO. From an ideal case study of sufficiently aged smoke, I show that the missing HONO production could be predicted by an empirical multilinear regression of two candidate mechanisms – the photolysis of particle nitrate and the aerosol heterogeneous uptake of NO2. The relationship could also be extended to all aged smoke detected in the campaign with good consistency

Secondary HONO Box Modeling Data for WE-CAN

Model initializations for the Taylor Creek Fire observed in summer 201