Mediterranean Identities: Across the wine-dark sea

Mediterranean Identities: Across the Wine-Dark Sea thematically explores the material culture of the Mediterranean basin of the first millennium BC. The themes were chosen to highlight the regional variations between Hellenic city-states, colonies, and their neighbours. Each section draws out the differing ways in which identity was expressed in the art and design of artefacts made for practical purposes, including coinage, feasting sets, clothing, toys, entertainment, votive offerings and funerary items. The objects chosen for display represent the strengths of the Nicholson Collection and reflect the collecting priorities of former curators. Many of the Etruscan artefacts were collected by Sir Charles Nicholson (1808–1903) in the mid-1850s and formed part of the foundation of the University’s Museum of Antiquities. Arthur Dale Trendall (1909–1995), followed by Alexander Cambitoglou (1922–2019), actively pursued new acquisitions that demonstrated the development of Greek and south Italian ceramics, becoming leaders of the field. Further acquisitions to the collection were assisted by Richard Green (1936–), particularly in regard to ancient theatre studies

Roman Spectres

Roman Spectres explores ancient Roman identity and how contemporary societies have conceptualised the ancient Roman world. The exhibition brings together significant Roman portraiture of the Nicholson Collection with large ceramic vessels (amphorae), funerary inscriptions and Pompeiian frescoes as individual touchstones to the lives of named and unnamed Roman people. Underlying themes of death, commemoration, remembrance and discovery underpin each section of the exhibition. The objects selected for display were chosen in order to highlight the role of these particular material types in academic constructions of historical narratives. Roman Spectres also includes a LEGO recreation of Pompeii, with three different narratives woven together in an anachronistic presentation of the history of the site, including its ancient buildings, re-discovery and role in European and Western popular culture. Through re-telling the history of this significant archaeological site in a popular and accessible medium, it is intended that visitors will be able to reflect on how historical meaning is created in the modern day, and on Pompeii's role in shaping modern understandings of ancient Roman society

Hercules: Myth and Legacy

Hercules: Myth and Legacy is an interdisciplinary exhibition that uses two narrative arcs simultaneously to retell the ancient mythological saga of Hercules’ twelve labours and to discuss the reception of Hercules in the history of science, technology and art from the post-Renaissance period to the modern day. This exhibition is the second in a series at the Chau Chak Wing Museum devoted to reception studies. The first exhibition, Animal Gods: Classics and Classification, focussed on Homeric epics the Trojan War and the Odyssey to introduce Linnaeus’ classification and naming systems, highlighting the role of Latin mythographer texts in the application of names, often without consideration of the physical attributes of the animal being named. However, for the name Hercules, the physical characteristics of the animal, place, or invention are of utmost consideration, in order to associate them with the traits of the ancient figure. The display includes ancient Athenian and post-Renaissance art alongside, animals, plants and objects that represent the variety of ways the name Hercules and the names of his associates or adversaries have been applied in the world around us

Memento: Remembering Roman Lives

The intention of the exhibition Memento: Remembering Roman Lives is exactly that—to remember the people named on these funeral inscriptions. The memorials name sailors from Egypt, Dalmatia and Thrace serving in the Imperial Fleet based at Misenum on the Bay of Naples and their wives; a slave from the Imperial household in Rome; a wrestler from Amastris on the Black Sea; freedmen, freedwomen and their patrons; husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, as well as foster children (their age at death given with precision down to the last hour)

Animal Gods: Classics and Classificiation

Although biological sciences and classical studies are today disparate disciplines, natural philosophers once drew heavily upon the mythological figures of the ancient past when creating new scientific names for animal and plant species across the world. Beginning with Linnaeus in the 18th century, these scholars were trained in the Classics as part of their formal education, and a working knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek was commonplace among their peers. Significantly, it was not the great epics and poetic works of antiquity that supplied their names. Rather, taxonomists drew upon the work of ancient Roman mythographers, who had catalogued the many versions and variations of the myths and legends as they knew them. These mythographer texts act almost as handlists to who did what, who went where, and who was related to who, in the ancient myths. Animal Gods: Classics and Classification examines the reception of Classics in natural history, exploring entomological specimens and their mythological namesakes side by side

Evaluation of a Brief Sodium Screener in Two Samples

The Sodium Screener© (SS©), as developed by NutritionQuest (Berkeley, CA, USA), was designed to reduce the burden of repeated dietary or urinary sodium measurements, but the accuracy of daily sodium intake estimates has not been reported. Associations were examined between sodium intakes derived from the SS© scores and repeated 24-h recalls (24DR) in two studies with different administration modes. In one study, 102 registered dietitians (RD) completed three Automated Self-Administered 24DRs (ASA24©), version 2014, followed by the SS©; both were self-administered and web-based. In the second sample, (the Study of Household Purchasing Patterns, Eating, and Recreation or SHoPPER), trained dietitians conducted 24DR interviews with 69 community-dwelling adults in their homes; all the community adults then completed a paper-based SS© at the final visit. In the RD study, SS©-predicted sodium intakes were 2604 ± 990 (mean ± Standard deviation (SD)), and ASA24© sodium intakes were 3193 ± 907 mg/day. In the SHoPPER sample, corresponding values were 3338 ± 1310 mg/day and 2939 ± 1231 mg/day, respectively. SS© -predicted and recall sodium estimates were correlated in the RD study (r = 0.381, p = 0.0001) and in the SHoPPER (r = 0.430, p = 0.0002). Agreement between the SS© and 24-h recalls was poor when classifying individuals as meeting the dietary sodium guidelines of 2300 mg/day or not (RD study: kappa = 0.080, p = 0.32; SHoPPER: kappa = 0.207, p = 0.08). Based on repeated 24DR either in person or self-reported online as the criterion for estimating daily sodium intakes, the SS© may require additional modifications

Candidate Gene Analysis of Femoral Neck Trabecular and Cortical Volumetric Bone Mineral Density in Older Men

In contrast to conventional dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, quantitative computed tomography separately measures trabecular and cortical volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD). Little is known about the genetic variants associated with trabecular and cortical vBMD in humans, although both may be important for determining bone strength and osteoporotic risk. In the current analysis, we tested the hypothesis that there are genetic variants associated with trabecular and cortical vBMD at the femoral neck by genotyping 4608 tagging and potentially functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 383 bone metabolism candidate genes in 822 Caucasian men aged 65 years or older from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS). Promising SNP associations then were tested for replication in an additional 1155 men from the same study. We identified SNPs in five genes (IFNAR2, NFATC1, SMAD1, HOXA, and KLF10) that were robustly associated with cortical vBMD and SNPs in nine genes (APC, ATF2, BMP3, BMP7, FGF18, FLT1, TGFB3, THRB, and RUNX1) that were robustly associated with trabecular vBMD. There was no overlap between genes associated with cortical vBMD and trabecular vBMD. These findings identify novel genetic variants for cortical and trabecular vBMD and raise the possibility that some genetic loci may be unique for each bone compartment. © 2010 American Society for Bone and Mineral Researc

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN