Imitating Ovid

At the University of Texas in the early 1980s, I spent some time discussing Ovid’s Amores with Peter Green, who was then working on his translation of Ovid’s Erotic Poems (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books 1982). Conversations with Peter, Douglass Parker (1927–2011), Cynthia Shelmerdine, and others intersected with the work I was then doing on English Renaissance translations of Ovid1 and led to these poems. They are not quite literal enough to be called translations, but they are close enough to be called Ovid

Imitating Ovid

At the University of Texas in the early 1980s, I spent some time discussing Ovid’s Amores with Peter Green, who was then working on his translation of Ovid’s Erotic Poems (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books 1982). Conversations with Peter, Douglass Parker (1927–2011), Cynthia Shelmerdine, and others intersected with the work I was then doing on English Renaissance translations of Ovid1 and led to these poems. They are not quite literal enough to be called translations, but they are close enough to be called Ovid

Documents: Andrew Atkinson Humphreys\u27 Seminole War Field Journal

Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (1810-1883) was born into a prominent Philadelphia family of Quaker origin. His grandfather, Joshua Humphreys, a distinguished naval architect later known as the Father of the American Navy, served as chief naval constructor (1794-1801) and designed the first U.S. warships, including the Constitution ( Old Ironsides ) and her five sister ships

The Ruthless Hand of War: Andrew A. Humphreys in the Second Seminole War

In late February 1836, 2d Lt. Andrew A. Humphreys (1810-1883) reported for duty at Fort Drane in the remote interior of the Florida peninsula. Green and untried, the young West Pointer chronicled his first experiences at war in a leather bound journal tucked away among his personal possessions. I delight in extremes, he wrote in its opening pages, and certainly my profession leads to them - from the center of civilization to the wildest forests, I am transferred in a few days. In January luxuriating in the delights of our capital, in February suffering from hunger, thirst and fatigue in the hammocks of Florida. 1 Given his previous deployments with the Second Artillery Regiment at Fort Marion near St. Augustine (1833-34) and the topographical engineers in West Florida (1834-35), Humphreys anticipated better than most the physical hardships associated with active service in the region. Still, the summer of 1836 was uncommonly sickly, and, coupled with marauding Indians and searing subtropical heat, the war nearly broke Humphreys, shattering his health as well as any illusions of battlefield glory.

Differences in the trophic ecology of micronekton driven by diel vertical migration.

Many species of micronekton perform diel vertical migrations (DVMs), which ultimately contributes to carbon export to the deep sea. However, not all micronekton species perform DVM, and the nonmigrators, which are often understudied, have different energetic requirements that might be reflected in their trophic ecology. We analyze bulk tissue and whole animal stable nitrogen isotopic compositions (δ 15N values) of micronekton species collected seasonally between 0 and 1250 m depth to explore differences in the trophic ecology of vertically migrating and nonmigrating micronekton in the central North Pacific. Nonmigrating species exhibit depth-related increases in δ 15N values mirroring their main prey, zooplankton. Higher variance in δ 15N values of bathypelagic species points to the increasing reliance of deeper dwelling micronekton on microbially reworked, very small suspended particles. Migrators have higher δ 15N values than nonmigrators inhabiting the epipelagic zone, suggesting the consumption of material during the day at depth, not only at night when they migrate closer to the surface. Migrating species also appear to eat larger prey and exhibit a higher range of variation in δ 15N values seasonally than nonmigrators, likely because of their higher energy needs. The dependence on material at depth enriched in 15N relative to surface particles is higher in migratory fish that ascend only to the lower epipelagic zone. Our results confirm that stark differences in the food habits and dietary sources of micronekton species are driven by vertical migrations

Uniform semiclassical wave function for coherent 2D electron flow

We find a uniform semiclassical (SC) wave function describing coherent branched flow through a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), a phenomenon recently discovered by direct imaging of the current using scanned probed microscopy. The formation of branches has been explained by classical arguments, but the SC simulations necessary to account for the coherence are made difficult by the proliferation of catastrophes in the phase space. In this paper, expansion in terms of "replacement manifolds" is used to find a uniform SC wave function for a cusp singularity. The method is then generalized and applied to calculate uniform wave functions for a quantum-map model of coherent flow through a 2DEG. Finally, the quantum-map approximation is dropped and the method is shown to work for a continuous-time model as well.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Variations in vertebral venous vasculature

INTRODUCTION Cadaveric studies have previously documented typical patterns of venous drainage within vertebral bodies (VBs) [1,2,3], comprised primarily of the basivertebral vein, a planar tree like structure at the mid-height of the VB. These studies, however, are limited in the number of samples available, and so have not examined any potential differences in this anatomy in conditions such as scoliosis. MRI is able to create 3D images of soft tissue structures in the spine, including the basivertebral vein without the use of contrast. As a non-invasive imaging technique this opens up the possibility of examining the venous network in multiple VBs within the same subject, in healthy controls as well as in subjects with abnormal anatomy such as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). CONCLUSIONS High resolution MRI scans allow in vivo quantification of the vertebral venous system at multiple levels on healthy and scoliotic populations for the first time. The length of the basivertebral vein was seen to have a significant bias to the right hand side of the VB in both healthy and AIS adolescents. The spatial pattern of this vein showed large variations in branching both within and across individuals

Engineering improved ethylene production: Leveraging systems Biology and adaptive laboratory evolution

Ethylene is a small hydrocarbon gas widely used in the chemical industry. Annual worldwide production currently exceeds 150 million tons, producing considerable amounts of CO2 contributing to climate change. The need for a sustainable alternative is therefore imperative. Ethylene is natively produced by several different microorganisms, including Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola via a process catalyzed by the ethylene forming enzyme (EFE), subsequent heterologous expression of EFE has led to ethylene production in non-native bacterial hosts including E. coli and cyanobacteria. However, solubility of EFE and substrate availability remain rate limiting steps in biological ethylene production. We employed a combination of genome scale metabolic modelling, continuous fermentation, and protein evolution to enable the accelerated development of a high efficiency ethylene producing E. coli strain, yielding a 49-fold increase in production, the most significant improvement reported to date. Furthermore, we have clearly demonstrated that this increased yield resulted from metabolic adaptations that were uniquely linked to the EFE enzyme (WT vs mutant). Our findings provide a novel solution to deregulate metabolic bottlenecks in key pathways, which can be readily applied to address other engineering challenges

Est locus uni cuique suus: City and Status in Horace’s Satires 1.8 and 1.9

This is the published version