The honorable fraternity of moving merchants: Yankee peddlers in the Old South, 1800--1860

Yankee peddlers were ubiquitous in the countryside and in the imagination of the Old South. Social and economic forces pushed young men off the farms of rural New England and pulled them into an expanding, national market. The shortage of land for a burgeoning population spurred the exodus from the countryside, while the lure of profits from a vocation with low entry costs attracted many young men who preferred seeking the main chance in the commercial marketplace to a state of protracted dependency as a farm hand, a factory operative, or an outwork producer. Hired by firms to peddle clocks, tinware, and other notions, their experiences in the marketplace transmogrified these deracinated New England farm boys into sharp, itinerant traders. In the course of this transformation, these migrant workers from New England were indelibly marked by the culture in which they were raised, even as they moved away from familiar values to embrace an emerging market creed.;The thousands of young men from New England who peddled in the South between 1800 and 1860 provided rural southern households direct access to consumer goods. They joined native southern petty merchandisers---hucksters, cake bakers, watermen and groggery keepers---in an interracial, face-to-face economy whose actions threatened the fixed ranks and organic hierarchy of slave society. The Yankee peddler gradually became a more threatening figure to southern planters. Antebellum southern sensibilities towards northern society and market institutions evolved from Southerners\u27 real and fictionalized encounters with Yankee peddlers. Virginia planters hated debt, even as they continued to consume goods they could not afford, and rather than fault themselves for high living, they blamed the agents of consumer desire---Yankee peddlers---for conspiring with women and enslaved dependents to undermine their authority and worsen their economic plight. Southern caricatures of the Yankee peddler put a face on the impersonal forces of the national marketplace that intruded into traditional exchange networks. The fictive Yankee peddler\u27s violation of the southern home elucidates the apprehensions antebellum southern society experienced as it was integrated into the national market and edged towards secession

Increasing valued behaviors precedes reduction in suffering: Findings from a randomized controlled trial using ACT

Background: Psychological flexibility theory (PFT) suggests three key processes of change: increases in value-directed behaviors, reduction in struggle with symptoms, and reduction in suffering. We hypothesized that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) would change these processes and that increases in valued action and decreases in struggle would precede change in suffering. Method: Data were derived from a randomized clinical trial testing ACT (vs. waitlist) for treatment-resistant patients with primary panic disorder with/without agoraphobia (n = 41). Valued behavior, struggle, and suffering were assessed at each of eight sessions. Results: Valued actions, struggle, and suffering all changed over the course of therapy. Overall changes in struggle and suffering were interdependent whereas changes in valued behavior were largely independent. Levels of valued behaviors influenced subsequent suffering, but the other two variables did not influence subsequent levels of valued action. Discussion: This finding supports a central tenet of PFT that increased (re-)engagement in valued behaviors precedes reductions in suffering. Possible implications for a better understanding of response and non-response to psychotherapy are discussed

LivestockPlus: The sustainable intensification of forage-based agricultural systems to improve livelihoods and ecosystem services in the tropics

As global demand for livestock products (such as meat, milk, and eggs) is expected to double by 2050, necessary increases to future production must be reconciled with negative environmental impacts that livestock cause. This paper describes the LivestockPlus concept and demonstrates how the sowing of improved forages can lead to the sustainable intensification of mixed crop–forage–livestock–tree systems in the tropics by producing multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits. Sustainable intensification not only improves the productivity of tropical forage-based systems but also reduces the ecological footprint of livestock production and generates a diversity of ecosystem services (ES), such as improved soil quality and reduced erosion, sedimentation, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Integrating improved grass and legume forages into mixed production systems (crop–livestock, tree–livestock, crop–tree–livestock) can restore degraded lands and enhance system resilience to drought and waterlogging associated with climate change. When properly managed tropical forages accumulate large amounts of carbon in soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen (legumes), inhibit nitrification in soil and reduce nitrous oxide emissions (grasses), and reduce GHG emissions per unit livestock product. The LivestockPlus concept is defined as the sustainable intensification of forage-based systems, which is based on three interrelated intensification processes: genetic intensification – the development and use of superior grass and legume cultivars for increased livestock productivity; ecological intensification – the development and application of improved farm and natural resource management practices; and socio-economic intensification – the improvement of local and national institutions and policies, which enable refinements of technologies and support their enduring use. Increases in livestock productivity will require coordinated efforts to develop supportive government, non-government organization, and private sector policies that foster investments and fair market compensation for both the products and ES provided. Effective research-for-development efforts that promote agricultural and environmental benefits of forage-based systems can contribute towards implemention of LivestockPlus across a variety of geographic, political, and socio-economic contexts

The Annotation, Mapping, Expression and Network (AMEN) suite of tools for molecular systems biology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High-throughput genome biological experiments yield large and multifaceted datasets that require flexible and user-friendly analysis tools to facilitate their interpretation by life scientists. Many solutions currently exist, but they are often limited to specific steps in the complex process of data management and analysis and some require extensive informatics skills to be installed and run efficiently.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed the Annotation, Mapping, Expression and Network (AMEN) software as a stand-alone, unified suite of tools that enables biological and medical researchers with basic bioinformatics training to manage and explore genome annotation, chromosomal mapping, protein-protein interaction, expression profiling and proteomics data. The current version provides modules for (i) uploading and pre-processing data from microarray expression profiling experiments, (ii) detecting groups of significantly co-expressed genes, and (iii) searching for enrichment of functional annotations within those groups. Moreover, the user interface is designed to simultaneously visualize several types of data such as protein-protein interaction networks in conjunction with expression profiles and cellular co-localization patterns. We have successfully applied the program to interpret expression profiling data from budding yeast, rodents and human.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>AMEN is an innovative solution for molecular systems biological data analysis freely available under the GNU license. The program is available via a website at the Sourceforge portal which includes a user guide with concrete examples, links to external databases and helpful comments to implement additional functionalities. We emphasize that AMEN will continue to be developed and maintained by our laboratory because it has proven to be extremely useful for our genome biological research program.</p

In Support of a Patient-Driven Initiative and Petition to Lower the High Price of Cancer Drugs

Comment in Lowering the High Cost of Cancer Drugs--III. [Mayo Clin Proc. 2016] Lowering the High Cost of Cancer Drugs--I. [Mayo Clin Proc. 2016] Lowering the High Cost of Cancer Drugs--IV. [Mayo Clin Proc. 2016] In Reply--Lowering the High Cost of Cancer Drugs. [Mayo Clin Proc. 2016] US oncologists call for government regulation to curb drug price rises. [BMJ. 2015

Genome-wide association study identifies six new loci influencing pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure.

Numerous genetic loci have been associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in Europeans. We now report genome-wide association studies of pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP). In discovery (N = 74,064) and follow-up studies (N = 48,607), we identified at genome-wide significance (P = 2.7 × 10(-8) to P = 2.3 × 10(-13)) four new PP loci (at 4q12 near CHIC2, 7q22.3 near PIK3CG, 8q24.12 in NOV and 11q24.3 near ADAMTS8), two new MAP loci (3p21.31 in MAP4 and 10q25.3 near ADRB1) and one locus associated with both of these traits (2q24.3 near FIGN) that has also recently been associated with SBP in east Asians. For three of the new PP loci, the estimated effect for SBP was opposite of that for DBP, in contrast to the majority of common SBP- and DBP-associated variants, which show concordant effects on both traits. These findings suggest new genetic pathways underlying blood pressure variation, some of which may differentially influence SBP and DBP