French Society Abroad: The Popularization of French Dance Throughout Europe, 1600-1750

This paper explores the dissemination of French dance, dance notation, and dance music throughout Europe, and it explains the reasons why French culture had such an influence on other European societies from 1600-1750. First, the paper seeks to prove that King Louis XIV played a significant role in the outpour of French dance and the arts. Next, the paper discusses prominent French writers of dance notation who influenced the spread of French dance literature and training throughout Europe. Finally, the paper delineates European composers and their involvement in the development and production of French dance music. Using academic, peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and other scholarly sources, this paper seeks to accurately present the information in an orderly fashion. The paper contains visual evidence of dance and music notation to assist the reader in understanding the subject matter. Additionally, theories of contemporary authors as well as authors from the time period are discussed to present concrete evidence. The two main types of dance discussed in the paper are ballroom and court dances, which were prominent within the French royal court. One major finding of the research is the fact that French court and ballroom dances were specifically designed to communicate the power and prestige of King Louis XIV; consequently, other European countries were influenced to strive for similar prestige. Another finding is that many forms of French dance notation were translated and published in other countries, which increased the use of French dance throughout Europe. Musically, European composers such as Handel and Mozart included elements of French dance music in their compositions, and thus played a significant role in prevalence of French dance music throughout Europe. Overall, this paper proves that French dance received wide recognition due to political influence, availability of dance notation, and the involvement of prominent composers

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Models of classroom assessment for course-based research experiences

Course-based research pedagogy involves positioning students as contributors to authentic research projects as part of an engaging educational experience that promotes their learning and persistence in science. To develop a model for assessing and grading students engaged in this type of learning experience, the assessment aims and practices of a community of experienced course-based research instructors were collected and analyzed. This approach defines four aims of course-based research assessment—(1) Assessing Laboratory Work and Scientific Thinking; (2) Evaluating Mastery of Concepts, Quantitative Thinking and Skills; (3) Appraising Forms of Scientific Communication; and (4) Metacognition of Learning—along with a set of practices for each aim. These aims and practices of assessment were then integrated with previously developed models of course-based research instruction to reveal an assessment program in which instructors provide extensive feedback to support productive student engagement in research while grading those aspects of research that are necessary for the student to succeed. Assessment conducted in this way delicately balances the need to facilitate students’ ongoing research with the requirement of a final grade without undercutting the important aims of a CRE education

Interactive XCMS Online: simplifying advanced metabolomic data processing and subsequent statistical analyses.

XCMS Online (xcmsonline.scripps.edu) is a cloud-based informatic platform designed to process and visualize mass-spectrometry-based, untargeted metabolomic data. Initially, the platform was developed for two-group comparisons to match the independent, "control" versus "disease" experimental design. Here, we introduce an enhanced XCMS Online interface that enables users to perform dependent (paired) two-group comparisons, meta-analysis, and multigroup comparisons, with comprehensive statistical output and interactive visualization tools. Newly incorporated statistical tests cover a wide array of univariate analyses. Multigroup comparison allows for the identification of differentially expressed metabolite features across multiple classes of data while higher order meta-analysis facilitates the identification of shared metabolic patterns across multiple two-group comparisons. Given the complexity of these data sets, we have developed an interactive platform where users can monitor the statistical output of univariate (cloud plots) and multivariate (PCA plots) data analysis in real time by adjusting the threshold and range of various parameters. On the interactive cloud plot, metabolite features can be filtered out by their significance level (p-value), fold change, mass-to-charge ratio, retention time, and intensity. The variation pattern of each feature can be visualized on both extracted-ion chromatograms and box plots. The interactive principal component analysis includes scores, loadings, and scree plots that can be adjusted depending on scaling criteria. The utility of XCMS functionalities is demonstrated through the metabolomic analysis of bacterial stress response and the comparison of lymphoblastic leukemia cell lines