Cultural Reconstruction: Nation, Race, and the Invention of the American Magazine, 1830-1915

Cultural Reconstruction asks: How did the U.S. develop a national culture simultaneously unified and fractured by race? The little-examined history of American magazines offers a vital clue. The dissertation's first part demonstrates how postJacksonian American culturists, deeply disturbed by the divisive partisanship of "male" politics, turned to the "female" culture of sentimentality with the hope of creating a coherent and inclusive nation. These culturists believed a nationally circulating magazine would be the medium of that culture. This belief derived from the wide success of the penny press revolution of the 1830s. Cutting against the traditional reading of the penny press, Cultural Reconstruction claims that newspapers were a major proponent of sentimentality but were barred from creating a national audience by their intense local appeal. Antebellum magazinists, from Edgar Allen Poe to James Russell Lowell, attempted to adapt the sentimental worldview of the penny press to a national audience, but were frustrated by a series of cultural rifts expressed chiefly in gendered terms. Part two of the dissertation examines how the postCivil War magazine furthered the project of sentimentality and became the leading medium of national culture. Responding to the 1870s collapse of Political Reconstruction, editors such as Richard Watson Gilder at the Century employed a series of innovative aesthetic strategiesgreater realism, local color, and regional dialectbelieving they were creating a cultural panorama of American life. But this project of reconstruction was riven by two fundamentally conflicting visions of American identity: the regional versus the racial. The dissertation explores correspondence between Northern magazinists and white and black Southern authors (George Washington Cable, Charles Chesnutt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Thomas Nelson Page) to reveal how race won out: Northern editors helped invent and popularize "Southern" memories of the Old South and the Civil War. In the process, the magazines nationalized white Southern conceptions of racial separation and prepared the way for the explosive nationwide reaction to the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. Cultural Reconstruction shows how twentieth-century American national unity was paradoxically bound up in racial division

Methadone and buprenorphine-related deaths among people prescribed and not prescribed Opioid Agonist Therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic in England

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus pandemic resulted in many changes which had the potential to impact mortality related to opioid agonist therapy (OAT; methadone, buprenorphine), including changes in the prescribing and dispensing of OAT and patterns of drug availability and use. We aimed to assess the impact of the first lockdown (initiated March 23rd 2020) on methadone- and buprenorphine-related deaths in England in people both prescribed and not prescribed OAT using data from the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths. METHODS: This was a retrospective post-mortem toxicology study of OAT-related deaths which occurred in the 3-month period March 23rd to June 22nd in the years 2016-2020. Provisional data regarding numbers accessing treatment for opioid use disorder was provided by the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System. RESULTS: We found a 64% increase in methadone-related deaths in March to June 2020 compared to March to June 2019 (2019 n = 96; 2020 projected n = 157). There were increases in the mortality rate of both in-treatment decedents (22% increase; 2019 n = 45; an exponential smoothing model of the 2016-19 trend [α=0.5] predicted 44 deaths in 2020, 55 were reported) and decedents not prescribed methadone (74% increase; 2019 n = 46; 2016-19 trend predicted 43 deaths in 2020, 80 were reported). There was no increase in buprenorphine-related deaths (2019 n = 9/529; 2020 n = 11/566). There were no changes in the numbers of deaths where other opioids or multiple substances were detected, or in methadone levels detected. Numbers of people accessing treatment for opioid use disorder in 2020 did not decrease relative to previous years (p >0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Methadone-related deaths in non-prescribed individuals, but not prescribed individuals, increased considerably above the annual trend forecast for 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown in England. Further studies are thus needed to understand this difference

Pair Plasma Dominance in the Parsec-Scale Relativistic Jet of 3C345

We investigate whether a pc-scale jet of 3C345 is dominated by a normal plasma or an electron-positron plasma. We present a general condition that a jet component becomes optically thick for synchrotron self-absorption, by extending the method originally developed by Reynolds et al. The general condition gives a lower limit of the electron number density, with the aid of the surface brightness condition, which enables us to compute the magnetic field density. Comparing the lower limit with another independent constraint for the electron density that is deduced from the kinetic luminosity, we can distinguish the matter content. We apply the procedure to the five components of 3C345 (C2, C3, C4, C5, and C7) of which angular diameters and radio fluxes at the peak frequencies were obtainable from literature. Evaluating the representative values of Doppler beaming factors by their equipartition values, we find that all the five components are likely dominated by an electron-positron plasma. The conclusion does not depend on the lower cutoff energy of the power-law distribution of radiating particles.Comment: 17 page

Increased gravitational force reveals the mechanical, resonant nature of physiological tremor

Human physiological hand tremor has a resonant component. Proof of this is that its frequency can be modified by adding mass. However, adding mass also increases the load which must be supported. The necessary force requires muscular contraction which will change motor output and is likely to increase limb stiffness. The increased stiffness will partly offset the effect of the increased mass and this can lead to the erroneous conclusion that factors other than resonance are involved in determining tremor frequency. Using a human centrifuge to increase head-to-foot gravitational field strength, we were able to control for the increased effort by increasing force without changing mass. This revealed that the peak frequency of human hand tremor is 99% predictable on the basis of a resonant mechanism. We ask what, if anything, the peak frequency of physiological tremor can reveal about the operation of the nervous system.This work was funded by a BBSRC Industry Interchange Award to J.P.R.S. and R.F.R. C.J.O. was funded by BBSRC grant BB/I00579X/1. C.A.V. was funded by A∗Midex (Aix-Marseille Initiative of Excellence

Single-chain Fv phage display propensity exhibits strong positive correlation with overall expression levels

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Single chain Fvs (scFvs) are widely applied in research, diagnostics and therapeutic settings. Display and selection from combinatorial libraries is the main route to their discovery and many factors influence the success of this process. They exhibit low thermodynamic stability, resulting in low levels of premature cytosolic folding or aggregation which facilitates <it>sec </it>YEG-mediated translocation and phage in <it>E. coli</it>. However, there is little data analysing how this is related to and influenced by scFv protein expression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We characterised the relationship between overall scFv expression and display propensity for a panel of 15 anti-tetanus toxin scFvs and found a strong positive correlation (Rho = 0.88, p < 0.005) between the two parameters. Display propensity, overall expression and soluble localisation to the periplasm and extracellular fractions were clone specific characteristics which varied despite high levels of sequence homology. There was no correlation between display of scFv or its expression in non-fused (free) form with soluble scFv localisation to the periplasm or culture supernatant. This suggests that divergence in the fate of scFv-pIII and non-fused scFv after translocation to the periplasm accounts for the observed disparity. Differential degrees of periplasmic aggregation of non-fused scFv between clones may affect the partitioning of scFv in the periplasm and culture supernatant abrogating any correlation. We suggest that these factors do not apply to the scFv-pIII fusion since it remains anchored to the bacterial inner membrane as part of the innate phage packaging and budding process.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We conclude that in the absence of premature cytosolic aggregation or folding, the propensity of a scFv to be displayed on phage is directly related to its overall expression level and is thus indirectly influenced by factors such as codon bias, mRNA abundance or putative DNA motifs affecting expression. This suggests that scFvs capable of high overall expression and display levels may not produce high yields of non phage-fused soluble protein in either the periplasmic or extracellular fractions of <it>E. coli</it>. This should be considered when screening clones selected from combinatorial libraries for further study.</p> <p>The nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the anti-tetanus toxin scFvs have been deposited in the EMBL data base: accession numbers-C1: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749134">AM749134</ext-link>, C2: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749135">AM749135</ext-link>, C3: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749136">AM749136</ext-link>, C4: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749137">AM749137</ext-link>, C5: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749138">AM749138</ext-link>, N1: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749139">AM749139</ext-link>, N2: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749140">AM749140</ext-link>, N3: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749141">AM749141</ext-link>, N4: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749142">AM749142</ext-link>, N5: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749143">AM749143</ext-link> J1; <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749144">AM749144</ext-link>, J2: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749145">AM749145</ext-link>, J3: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749146">AM749146</ext-link>, J4: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749147">AM749147</ext-link>, J5: <ext-link ext-link-type="embl" ext-link-id="AM749148">AM749148</ext-link>.</p

Towards a free-free template for CMB foregrounds

A full-sky template map of the Galactic free-free foreground emission component is increasingly important for high sensitivity CMB experiments. We use the recently published \ha data of both the northern and southern skies as the basis for such a template. The first step is to correct the \ha maps for dust absorption using the 100 $\mu$m dust maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998). We show that for a range of longitudes, the Galactic latitude distribution of absorption suggests that it is 33 per cent of the full extragalactic absorption. A reliable absorption-corrected \ha map can be produced for $\sim 95$ per cent of the sky; the area for which a template cannot be recovered is the Galactic plane area $|b| < 5^{\circ}$, $l=260^{\circ}-0^{\circ}-160^{\circ}$ and some isolated dense dust clouds at intermediate latitudes. The second step is to convert the dust-corrected \ha data into a predicted radio surface brightness. The free-free emission formula is revised to give an accurate expression (1 per cent) for the radio emission covering the frequency range 100 MHz to 100 GHz and the electron temperature range 3000 to 20000 K. The main uncertainty when applying this expression is the variation of electron temperature across the sky. The emission formula is verified in several extended H{\sc ii} regions using data in the range 408 to 2326 MHz. A full-sky free-free template map is presented at 30 GHz; the scaling to other frequencies is given. The Haslam et al. all-sky 408 MHz map of the sky can be corrected for this free-free component, which amounts to a $\approx 6$ per cent correction at intermediate and high latitudes....Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in M.N.R.A.S. High-resolution versions of figs 2,7 (in colour), 9 and 11 can be obtained from ftp://ftp.jb.man.ac.uk/pub/cdickins/ff_paper/FINAL_FIGURES

Usefulness of gene expression profiling of bronchoalveolar lavage cells in acute lung allograft rejection.

BackgroundChronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) is the main limitation to long-term survival after lung transplantation. Because effective therapies are lacking, early identification and mitigation of risk factors is a pragmatic approach to improve outcomes. Acute cellular rejection (ACR) is the most pervasive risk factor for CLAD, but diagnosis requires transbronchial biopsy, which carries risks. We hypothesized that gene expression in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cell pellet (CP) could replace biopsy and inform on mechanisms of CLAD.MethodsWe performed RNA sequencing on BAL CPs from 219 lung transplant recipients with A-grade ACR (n = 61), lymphocytic bronchiolitis (n = 58), infection (n = 41), or no rejection/infection (n = 59). Differential gene expression was based on absolute fold difference &gt;2.0 and Benjamini-adjusted p-value ≤0.05. We used the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery Bioinformatics Resource for pathway analyses. For classifier modeling, samples were randomly split into training (n = 154) and testing sets (n = 65). A logistic regression model using recursive feature elimination and 5-fold cross-validation was trained to optimize area under the curve (AUC).ResultsDifferential gene expression identified 72 genes. Enriched pathways included T-cell receptor signaling, natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. A 4-gene model (AUC = 0.72) and classification threshold defined in the training set exhibited fair performance in the testing set; accuracy was 76%, specificity 82%, and sensitivity 60%. In addition, classification as ACR was associated with worse CLAD-free survival (hazard ratio = 2.42; 95% confidence interval = 1.29-4.53).ConclusionsBAL CP gene expression during ACR is enriched for immune response pathways and shows promise as a diagnostic tool for ACR, especially ACR that is a precursor of CLAD

Intrinsic Absorption in the Spectrum of NGC 7469: Simultaneous Chandra, FUSE, and STIS Observations

We present simultaneous X-ray, far-ultraviolet, and near-ultraviolet spectra of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 7469 obtained with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Previous non-simultaneous observations of this galaxy found two distinct UV absorption components, at -560 and -1900 km/s, with the former as the likely counterpart of the X-ray absorber. We confirm these two absorption components in our new UV observations, in which we detect prominent O VI, Ly alpha, N V, and C IV absorption. In our Chandra spectrum we detect O VIII emission, but no significant O VIII or O VII absorption. We also detect a prominent Fe K alpha emission line in the Chandra spectrum, as well as absorption due to hydrogen-like and helium-like neon, magnesium, and silicon at velocities consistent with the -560 km/s UV absorber. The FUSE and STIS data reveal that the H I and C IV column densities in this UV- and X-ray- absorbing component have increased over time, as the UV continuum flux decreased. We use measured H I, N V, C IV, and O VI column densities to model the photoionization state of both absorbers self-consistently. We confirm the general physical picture of the outflow in which the low velocity component is a highly ionized, high density absorber with a total column density of 10^20 cm^-2, located near the broad emission line region, although due to measurable columns of N V and C IV, we assign it a somewhat smaller ionization parameter than found previously, U~1. The high velocity UV component is of lower density, log N=18.6, and likely resides farther from the central engine as we find its ionization parameter to be U=0.08.Comment: Minor correction to abstract; STScI eprint #1683; 50 pages, incl. 19 figures, 4 tables; Accepted to Ap

Getting into hot water:sick guppies frequent warmer thermal conditions

Ectotherms depend on the environmental temperature for thermoregulation and exploit thermal regimes that optimise physiological functioning. They may also frequent warmer conditions to up-regulate their immune response against parasite infection and/or impede parasite development. This adaptive response, known as ‘behavioural fever’, has been documented in various taxa including insects, reptiles and fish, but only in response to endoparasite infections. Here, a choice chamber experiment was used to investigate the thermal preferences of a tropical freshwater fish, the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), when infected with a common helminth ectoparasite Gyrodactylus turnbulli, in female-only and mixed-sex shoals. The temperature tolerance of G. turnbulli was also investigated by monitoring parasite population trajectories on guppies maintained at a continuous 18, 24 or 32 °C. Regardless of shoal composition, infected fish frequented the 32 °C choice chamber more often than when uninfected, significantly increasing their mean temperature preference. Parasites maintained continuously at 32 °C decreased to extinction within 3 days, whereas mean parasite abundance increased on hosts incubated at 18 and 24 °C. We show for the first time that gyrodactylid-infected fish have a preference for warmer waters and speculate that sick fish exploit the upper thermal tolerances of their parasites to self medicate

Radio source calibration for the VSA and other CMB instruments at around 30 GHz

Accurate calibration of data is essential for the current generation of CMB experiments. Using data from the Very Small Array (VSA), we describe procedures which will lead to an accuracy of 1 percent or better for experiments such as the VSA and CBI. Particular attention is paid to the stability of the receiver systems, the quality of the site and frequent observations of reference sources. At 30 GHz the careful correction for atmospheric emission and absorption is shown to be essential for achieving 1 percent precision. The sources for which a 1 percent relative flux density calibration was achieved included Cas A, Cyg A, Tau A and NGC7027 and the planets Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. A flux density, or brightness temperature in the case of the planets, was derived at 33 GHz relative to Jupiter which was adopted as the fundamental calibrator. A spectral index at ~30 GHz is given for each. Cas A,Tau A, NGC7027 and Venus were examined for variability. Cas A was found to be decreasing at $0.394 \pm 0.019$ percent per year over the period March 2001 to August 2004. In the same period Tau A was decreasing at $0.22\pm 0.07$ percent per year. A survey of the published data showed that the planetary nebula NGC7027 decreased at $0.16\pm 0.04$ percent per year over the period 1967 to 2003. Venus showed an insignificant ($1.5 \pm 1.3$ percent) variation with Venusian illumination. The integrated polarization of Tau A at 33 GHz was found to be $7.8\pm 0.6$ percent at pa $= 148^\circ \pm 3^\circ$.}Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, submitted to MNRA