Serpentine Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Prints

This thesis explores images of sea serpents in nineteenth-century print culture that reflect an ongoing effort throughout the century to locate, capture, catalogue, and eventually poeticize the sea serpent. My research centers primarily on the sea serpent craze that occurred within the New England and Mid-Atlantic states between 1845 and 1880 and examines the following three prints: Albert Koch’s Hydrarchos, a fossil skeleton hoax, printed in an 1845 advertisement by Benjamin Owen, a book and job printer; an 1868 Harper’s Weekly illustration titled The Wonderful Fish; and Stephen Alonzo Schoff’s etching, The Sea Serpent from 1880, based on an 1864 painting by Elihu Vedder. By examining the illustrations and eyewitness accounts of sea serpent sightings, it is possible to show how art infused historically specific meaning into the schematized and persistent form of the sea serpent. It is not only that people saw serpents that looked like the ones they had seen in pictures, but that the pictures offered a kind of template on which viewers could inscribe particular historical fears. I catalogue the evolution of serpent imagery during a time of political upheaval, including serious threats to national unity as well as threats to the racial, gender, and social hierarchy that had underpinned the republic’s early order. The sea serpent motif could be adapted to different threats to social stability. I argue that the search to locate a physical or “actual” sea serpent body, founded in such anxieties, shaped the design and meaning of serpent images, all the more so because artists and viewers began with certain schemas, which are reflected in the illustrations that often accompanied sea serpent sightings. Taking into account the booming mass media of the era, changing practices in natural history and science, a burgeoning culture of hoax and publicity stunts, attitudes about war and violence, and concepts of human beauty and sexuality, this thesis explores how the monstrous body of the sea serpent thrived in the nineteenth-century United States. Adviser: Wendy Kat

Executive Summary: Therapeutic Monitoring of Vancomycin for Serious Methicillin- Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Infections: A Revised Consensus Guideline and Review of the American Society of Health- System Pharmacists, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154898/1/phar2376.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154898/2/phar2376_am.pd

Nanomechanical detection of antibiotic-mucopeptide binding in a model for superbug drug resistance

The alarming growth of the antibiotic-resistant superbugs methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) is driving the development of new technologies to investigate antibiotics and their modes of action. We report the label-free detection of vancomycin binding to bacterial cell wall precursor analogues (mucopeptides) on cantilever arrays, with 10 nM sensitivity and at clinically relevant concentrations in blood serum. Differential measurements quantified binding constants for vancomycin-sensitive and vancomycin-resistant mucopeptide analogues. Moreover, by systematically modifying the mucopeptide density we gain new insights into the origin of surface stress. We propose that stress is a product of a local chemical binding factor and a geometrical factor describing the mechanical connectivity of regions affected by local binding in terms of a percolation process. Our findings place BioMEMS devices in a new class of percolative systems. The percolation concept will underpin the design of devices and coatings to significantly lower the drug detection limit and may also impact on our understanding of antibiotic drug action in bacteria.Comment: Comments: This paper consists of the main article (6 pages, 5 figures) plus Supplemental Material (6 pages, 3 figures). More details are available at http://www.london-nano.co

Pharmacogenetic inhibition of eIF4E-dependent <i>Mmp9</i> mRNA translation reverses fragile X syndrome-like phenotypes

SummaryFragile X syndrome (FXS) is the leading genetic cause of autism. Mutations in Fmr1 (fragile X mental retardation 1 gene) engender exaggerated translation resulting in dendritic spine dysmorphogenesis, synaptic plasticity alterations, and behavioral deficits in mice, which are reminiscent of FXS phenotypes. Using postmortem brains from FXS patients and Fmr1 knockout mice (Fmr1−/y), we show that phosphorylation of the mRNA 5′ cap binding protein, eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E), is elevated concomitant with increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) protein. Genetic or pharmacological reduction of eIF4E phosphorylation rescued core behavioral deficits, synaptic plasticity alterations, and dendritic spine morphology defects via reducing exaggerated translation of Mmp9 mRNA in Fmr1−/y mice, whereas MMP-9 overexpression produced several FXS-like phenotypes. These results uncover a mechanism of regulation of synaptic function by translational control of Mmp-9 in FXS, which opens the possibility of new treatment avenues for the diverse neurological and psychiatric aspects of FXS

Serpentine Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Prints

This thesis explores images of sea serpents in nineteenth-century print culture that reflect an ongoing effort throughout the century to locate, capture, catalogue, and eventually poeticize the sea serpent. My research centers primarily on the sea serpent craze that occurred within the New England and Mid-Atlantic states between 1845 and 1880 and examines the following three prints: Albert Koch’s Hydrarchos, a fossil skeleton hoax, printed in an 1845 advertisement by Benjamin Owen, a book and job printer; an 1868 Harper’s Weekly illustration titled The Wonderful Fish; and Stephen Alonzo Schoff’s etching, The Sea Serpent from 1880, based on an 1864 painting by Elihu Vedder. By examining the illustrations and eyewitness accounts of sea serpent sightings, it is possible to show how art infused historically specific meaning into the schematized and persistent form of the sea serpent. It is not only that people saw serpents that looked like the ones they had seen in pictures, but that the pictures offered a kind of template on which viewers could inscribe particular historical fears. I catalogue the evolution of serpent imagery during a time of political upheaval, including serious threats to national unity as well as threats to the racial, gender, and social hierarchy that had underpinned the republic’s early order. The sea serpent motif could be adapted to different threats to social stability. I argue that the search to locate a physical or “actual” sea serpent body, founded in such anxieties, shaped the design and meaning of serpent images, all the more so because artists and viewers began with certain schemas, which are reflected in the illustrations that often accompanied sea serpent sightings. Taking into account the booming mass media of the era, changing practices in natural history and science, a burgeoning culture of hoax and publicity stunts, attitudes about war and violence, and concepts of human beauty and sexuality, this thesis explores how the monstrous body of the sea serpent thrived in the nineteenth-century United States. Adviser: Wendy Kat

Autism Spectrum Disorder in Rural Georgia: Resources and Education

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is neurodevelopmental disorder that is increasingly common with 1:44 children currently meeting the criteria for diagnosis. Though ASD can be reliably diagnosed in children at as early as 18 months of age, the average age of diagnosis nationally is 4.5 years. Delayed diagnosis is associated with missed therapeutic opportunities, financial resources, and social support. Children in rural communities tend to be diagnosed later than their sub/urban counterparts and face unique barriers to receiving care. Some barriers may be attributed to a lack of healthcare access (lack of local specialists, limited treatment options, etc . . .) but others are informational. Rural caregivers may be less knowledgeable about ASD signs and therefore less able to articulate concerns about their children, and rural physicians have been shown to do ASD screens less frequently, be perceived as less knowledgeable about ASD signs by caregivers, and provide behavioral testing referrals less frequently. Program: In order to address informational barriers to ASD diagnoses and care, we received a G08 grant from the National Library of Medicine to develop informational resources aimed at increasing ASD awareness in rural caregivers, and improving rural physicians’ understanding of ASD signs and treatment options. The central pillars of our efforts will be a website for promoting rural ASD awareness (the Autism ToolKit) and an online physician education course. The Autism ToolKit will work with rural caregivers to generate information on issues specific to ASD in rural communities and act as a resource for those seeking treatment. The online course will use the Mercer University School of Medicine’s preceptor network to ensure rural physicians have a current understanding of ASD signs, and help them identify workable testing and treatment options for their patients