Simultaneous Diversity: Discontinuity, Entanglement, and Contemporary American Fiction

At its broadest conceptual level, "Simultaneous Diversity: Discontinuity, Entanglement, and contemporary American Fiction" investigates how the rhetoric of discontinuity entangles contemporary evolutionary theory, social theory, science studies, and literary fiction. The dissertation's main focus is a partial taxonomy of the heterogeneous field of contemporary American fiction emphasizing the differences between selected individual novels and novelists along with their commonalities. Rather than attempting to describe a unifying zeitgeist or articulate a particular formal or thematic interest as constitutive of contemporary authenticity or now-ness, dismissing non-conforming works as anomalies or residual slag, "Simultaneous Diversity" affirms that everything in the present is of the present. The result is a dynamic taxonomy of "contemporary American fiction" that interrogates the significance of each of these three terms with respect to each of the texts examined. This taxonomy remains "partial" in both the sense of being necessarily incomplete, and in the sense of being a subjective, or necessarily arbitrary, selection of texts and authors. All the novels discussed herein are in my opinion accomplished works of literary fiction that merit more critical attention, but they do not constitute even a personal "canon", much less a prescriptive one; moreover, while the examined nine fictions by six authors amply demonstrate the simultaneous diversity of contemporary American fiction, they by no means fully encapsulate that open-ended field in microcosm

Lung function associated gene Integrator Complex subunit 12 regulates protein synthesis pathways

Background: Genetic studies of human lung function and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease have identified a highly significant and reproducible signal on 4q24. It remains unclear which of the two candidate genes within this locus may regulate lung function: GSTCD, a gene with unknown function, and/or INTS12, a member of the Integrator Complex which is currently thought to mediate 3'end processing of small nuclear RNAs.Results: We found that, in lung tissue, 4q24 polymorphisms associated with lung function correlate with INTS12 but not neighbouring GSTCD expression. In contrast to the previous reports in other species, we only observed a minor alteration of snRNA processing following INTS12 depletion. RNAseq analysis of knockdown cells instead revealed dysregulation of a core subset of genes relevant to airway biology and a robust downregulation of protein synthesis pathways. Consistent with this, protein translation was decreased in INTS12 knockdown cells. In addition, ChIPseq experiments demonstrated INTS12 binding throughout the genome, which was enriched in transcriptionally active regions. Finally, we defined the INTS12 regulome which includes genes belonging to the protein synthesis pathways.Conclusion: INTS12 has functions beyond the canonical snRNA processing. We show that it regulates translation by regulating the expression of genes belonging to protein synthesis pathways. This study provides a detailed analysis of INTS12 activities on a genome-wide scale and contributes to the biology behind the genetic association for lung function at 4q24.</p

Measurement of b Quark Fragmentation Fractions in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV

We have studied the production of B hadrons in 1.8-TeV p-pbar collisions. We present measurements of the fragmentation fractions, f_u, f_d, f_s and f_baryon, of produced b quarks that yield B^+, B^0, B^0_s and Lambda_b hadrons. Reconstruction of several electron-charm final states yields f_s/(f_u+f_d)=0.213+/-0.068 and f_baryon/(f_u+f_d)=0.118+/-0.042, assuming f_u=f_d. If all B hadrons produced in p-pbar collisions cascade to one of these four hadrons, we determine f_u=f_d=0.375+/-0.023, f_s=0.160+/-0.044 and f_baryon=0.090+/-0.029. If we do not assume f_u=f_d, we find f_d/f_u=0.84+/-0.16.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to Physical Review Letter

Advances in structure elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry

The structural elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry plays an important role in modern life sciences and bioanalytical approaches. This review covers different soft and hard ionization techniques and figures of merit for modern mass spectrometers, such as mass resolving power, mass accuracy, isotopic abundance accuracy, accurate mass multiple-stage MS(n) capability, as well as hybrid mass spectrometric and orthogonal chromatographic approaches. The latter part discusses mass spectral data handling strategies, which includes background and noise subtraction, adduct formation and detection, charge state determination, accurate mass measurements, elemental composition determinations, and complex data-dependent setups with ion maps and ion trees. The importance of mass spectral library search algorithms for tandem mass spectra and multiple-stage MS(n) mass spectra as well as mass spectral tree libraries that combine multiple-stage mass spectra are outlined. The successive chapter discusses mass spectral fragmentation pathways, biotransformation reactions and drug metabolism studies, the mass spectral simulation and generation of in silico mass spectra, expert systems for mass spectral interpretation, and the use of computational chemistry to explain gas-phase phenomena. A single chapter discusses data handling for hyphenated approaches including mass spectral deconvolution for clean mass spectra, cheminformatics approaches and structure retention relationships, and retention index predictions for gas and liquid chromatography. The last section reviews the current state of electronic data sharing of mass spectra and discusses the importance of software development for the advancement of structure elucidation of small molecules

Measurement of the mass difference m(D-s(+))-m(D+) at CDF II

We present a measurement of the mass difference m(D-s(+))-m(D+), where both the D-s(+) and D+ are reconstructed in the phipi(+) decay channel. This measurement uses 11.6 pb(-1) of data collected by CDF II using the new displaced-track trigger. The mass difference is found to be m(D-s(+))-m(D+)=99.41+/-0.38(stat)+/-0.21(syst) MeV/c(2)

Expanded encyclopaedias of DNA elements in the human and mouse genomes

All data are available on the ENCODE data portal: www.encodeproject. org. All code is available on GitHub from the links provided in the methods section. Code related to the Registry of cCREs can be found at https:// github.com/weng-lab/ENCODE-cCREs. Code related to SCREEN can be found at https://github.com/weng-lab/SCREEN.© The Author(s) 2020. The human and mouse genomes contain instructions that specify RNAs and proteins and govern the timing, magnitude, and cellular context of their production. To better delineate these elements, phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project has expanded analysis of the cell and tissue repertoires of RNA transcription, chromatin structure and modification, DNA methylation, chromatin looping, and occupancy by transcription factors and RNA-binding proteins. Here we summarize these efforts, which have produced 5,992 new experimental datasets, including systematic determinations across mouse fetal development. All data are available through the ENCODE data portal (https://www.encodeproject.org), including phase II ENCODE1 and Roadmap Epigenomics2 data. We have developed a registry of 926,535 human and 339,815 mouse candidate cis-regulatory elements, covering 7.9 and 3.4% of their respective genomes, by integrating selected datatypes associated with gene regulation, and constructed a web-based server (SCREEN; http://screen.encodeproject.org) to provide flexible, user-defined access to this resource. Collectively, the ENCODE data and registry provide an expansive resource for the scientific community to build a better understanding of the organization and function of the human and mouse genomes.This work was supported by grants from the NIH under U01HG007019, U01HG007033, U01HG007036, U01HG007037, U41HG006992, U41HG006993, U41HG006994, U41HG006995, U41HG006996, U41HG006997, U41HG006998, U41HG006999, U41HG007000, U41HG007001, U41HG007002, U41HG007003, U54HG006991, U54HG006997, U54HG006998, U54HG007004, U54HG007005, U54HG007010 and UM1HG009442