Warren\u27s Audubon: A Vision Revisited

This thesis consists of a Polish translation of a volume of Robert Penn Warren\u27s poetry: Audubon: A Vision accompanied by an introductory essay focusing on historical, cultural and psychological aspects of the poems. As a novelist, Robert Penn Warren is well known to the Polish reading public. All his major novels have been translated into Polish and received with great acclaim, which has been confirmed by numerous editions. Warren\u27s popularity among Polish readers may be attributed to the fact that his fiction is permeated with a peculiar sense of melancholy and a profound awareness of tragic national history, features inevitably appealing to all Slavic nations, and to the Poles particularly with their turbulent past. The first part of the introduction aims at making the readers aware of the difficulties of literary translation. It also briefly highlights the different approaches to translating poetry bringing the readers closer to those aspects of the poems that may possibly be lost in translation. This section of the thesis examines numerous syntactic and lexical discrepancies between Polish and English, and explains why the several liberties the author allowed herself should not be regarded as distortions of the original. The next two sections introduce Warren the poet and Audubon the ornithologist to the Polish reading public and also discuss some critical responses to Audubon: A Vision which may enhance the reading and understanding of Warren\u27s most representative poetic work The intriguing figure of Jean Jacques Audubon may be of interest to the Polish reader since Audubon, himself a cultural exile, may metaphorically personify the immigrant experience. This type of human experience is not unfamiliar to numerous generations of Poles who have been affected by the painful aftermath of being displaced, whether be it for political or other causes. Another reason for discussing the persona of Audubon in the introductory part is that his unusual personality encompassed an artistic nature alongside that of a frontier man. From among the men of letters who have been inspired by Audubon\u27s mysterious personality, Robert Penn Warren is probably the one who reveals the complexity of Audubon\u27s nature in the most brilliant and condensed way. By moving smoothly from the image of Audubon the hunter and the explorer to Audubon the artist in the moment of vision, Warren builds a bridge that links his own artistic experience with Audubon\u27s. In doing so, Warren places himself in the historical context of being an American, the new man who, reaching further and further, crosses the frontiers, both the real and the imaginary. Warren\u27s Audubon: A Vision is unanimously regarded by critics as unparalleled in his literary output which makes it the best choice for translation. Because of the fact that this collection offers profound historical, cultural, mythical, biographical and autobiographical insights it may be of interest to the Polish audience. Another important reason that justifies translating it into Polish is that Audubon: A Vision reflects Warren\u27s preoccupation with violence, historical awareness, an everlasting search for identity and the meaning of life. By creating, in this collection, both realistic and mythic images, and by consciously mixing frontier vernacular with abstract and sublime poetic diction, Warren proves his exceptional maturity of artistic vision

Spectral gap of segments of periodic waveguides

We consider a periodic strip in the plane and the associated quantum waveguide with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We analyse finite segments of the waveguide consisting of $L$ periodicity cells, equipped with periodic boundary conditions at the ``new'' boundaries. Our main result is that the distance between the first and second eigenvalue of such a finite segment behaves like $L^{-2}$.Comment: 3 page

South Atlantic Variability Arising from Air–Sea Coupling: Local Mechanisms and Tropical–Subtropical Interactions

Interannual variability in the southern and equatorial Atlantic is investigated using an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) coupled to a slab ocean model (SOM) in the Atlantic in order to isolate features of air–sea interactions particular to this basin. Simulated covariability between sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and atmosphere is very similar to the observed non-ENSO-related covariations in both spatial structures and time scales. The leading simulated empirical coupled mode resembles the zonal mode in the tropical Atlantic, despite the lack of ocean dynamics, and is associated with baroclinic atmospheric anomalies in the Tropics and a Rossby wave train extending to the extratropics, suggesting an atmospheric response to tropical SST forcing. The second non-ENSO mode is the subtropical dipole in the SST with a mainly equivalent barotropic atmospheric anomaly centered on the subtropical high and associated with a midlatitude wave train, consistent with atmospheric forcing of the subtropical SST. The power spectrum of the tropical mode in both simulation and observation is red with two major interannual peaks near 5 and 2 yr. The quasi-biennial component exhibits a progression between the subtropics and the Tropics. It is phase locked to the seasonal cycle and owes its existence to the imbalances between SST–evaporation and SST–shortwave radiation feedbacks. These feedbacks are found to be reversed between the western and eastern South Atlantic, associated with the dominant role of deep convection in the west and that of shallow clouds in the east. A correct representation of tropical–extratropical interactions and of deep and shallow clouds may thus be crucial to the simulation of realistic interannual variability in the southern and tropical Atlantic

Joint genomic and proteomic analysis identifies meta-trait characteristics of virulent and non-virulent Staphylococcus aureus strains

Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen of humans and warm-blooded animals and presents a growing threat in terms of multi-drug resistance. Despite numerous studies, the basis of staphylococcal virulence and switching between commensal and pathogenic phenotypes is not fully understood. Using genomics, we show here that S. aureus strains exhibiting virulent (VIR) and non-virulent (NVIR) phenotypes in a chicken embryo infection model genetically fall into two separate groups, with the VIR group being much more cohesive than the NVIR group. Significantly, the genes encoding known staphylococcal virulence factors, such as clumping factors, are either found in different allelic variants in the genomes of NVIR strains (compared to VIR strains) or are inactive pseudogenes. Moreover, the pyruvate carboxylase and gamma-aminobutyrate permease genes, which were previously linked with virulence, are pseudogenized in NVIR strain ch22. Further, we use comprehensive proteomics tools to characterize strains that show opposing phenotypes in a chicken embryo virulence model. VIR strain CH21 had an elevated level of diapolycopene oxygenase involved in staphyloxanthin production (protection against free radicals) and expressed a higher level of immunoglobulin-binding protein Sbi on its surface compared to NVIR strain ch22. Furthermore, joint genomic and proteomic approaches linked the elevated production of superoxide dismutase and DNA-binding protein by NVIR strain ch22 with gene duplications

Identification of Secreted Exoproteome Fingerprints of Highly-Virulent and Non-Virulent Staphylococcus aureus Strains

Staphylococcus aureus is a commensal inhabitant of skin and mucous membranes in nose vestibule but also an important opportunistic pathogen of humans and livestock. The extracellular proteome as a whole constitutes its major virulence determinant; however, the involvement of particular proteins is still relatively poorly understood. In this study, we compared the extracellular proteomes of poultry-derived S. aureus strains exhibiting a virulent (VIR) and non-virulent (NVIR) phenotype in a chicken embryo experimental infection model with the aim to identify proteomic signatures associated with the particular phenotypes. Despite significant heterogeneity within the analyzed proteomes, we identified alpha-haemolysin and bifunctional autolysin as indicators of virulence, whereas glutamylendopeptidase production was characteristic for non-virulent strains.Staphopain C (StpC) was identified in both the VIR and NVIR proteomes and the latter fact contradicted previous findings suggesting its involvement in virulence. By supplementing NVIR, StpC-negative strains with StpC and comparing the virulence of parental and supplemented strains, we demonstrated that staphopain C alone does not affect staphylococcal virulence in a chicken embryo model

Report D’Atelier: Coproduction de services climatiques pour le secteur de la nutrition au Sénégal

Les 15 et 16 novembre 2021, le projet Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow (ACToday) de Columbia World, en collaboration avec le Laboratoire de Recherche en Nutrition et Alimentation Humaine (LARNAH) de l'Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), le Conseil national pour le Développement de la Nutrition (CNDN), et l'Agence Nationale de Météorologie du Sénégal (ANACIM) ont co-organisé un atelier à Dakar, au Sénégal, pour faire progresser la coproduction de services climatiques pour la nutrition dans le pays. L'atelier, qui a rassemblé 22 participants issus d'un large éventail d'organisations universitaires, gouvernementales, onusiennes et à but non lucratif travaillant dans le domaine de la nutrition, visait à identifier les possibilités d'intégration des informations climatiques dans diverses décisions et interventions liées à la nutrition, et à établir les besoins et les priorités en matière d'informations climatiques pour le secteur

Hybridization of Advanced Oxidation Processes with Membrane Separation for Treatment and Reuse of Industrial Laundry Wastewater

A new attempt to treat and reuse the industrial laundry wastewater using biological treatment followed by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and membrane separation is presented. Three various configurations of the hybrid systems were investigated: (1) biological treatment in a Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) – photocatalysis with suspended TiO2 P25, enhanced with in situ generated O3 – ultrafiltration (UF) – nanofiltration (NF); (2) biological treatment in MBBR– photocatalysis with immobilized TiO2 P25, enhanced with in situ generated O3 – UF - NF; (3) biological treatment in MBBR – photolysis/ozonation (with in situ generated O3) – UF – NF. For comparison purpose the wastewater was additionally treated in the MBBR – UF – NF mode (4). Application of AOPs contributed to the UF membrane fouling mitigation during treatment of the biologically pretreated laundry wastewater. The highest improvement of the UF permeate flux was found in case of the MBBR effluent treated with application of the immobilized TiO2 bed which was attributed to the highest efficiency of mineralization observed for that system. Since the applied wastewater contained significant amounts of inorganic ions, mainly Na+ and Cl-, the NF as the final polishing step was proposed. The quality of NF permeate was independent on the AOP mode applied and, moreover, significantly higher than the quality of water currently used in the laundry. It was concluded that the NF permeate could be recycled to any stage of the laundry system. Taking into consideration that application of TiO2 increases the overall treatment costs and that although the O3/UV pretreatment is less efficient than photocatalysis, it still allows to improve the UF permeate flux for ca. 35% compared to the direct UF of the MBBR effluent, the MBBR – UV/O3 – UF – NF system was proposed as the most beneficial configuration for the treatment and reuse of the industrial laundry wastewater

Bad Phages in Good Bacteria: Role of the Mysterious orf63 of λ and Shiga Toxin-Converting 824B Bacteriophages

Lambdoid bacteriophages form a group of viruses that shares a common schema of genome organization and lifecycle. Some of them can play crucial roles in creating the pathogenic profiles of Escherichia coli strains. For example, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) acquired stx genes, encoding Shiga toxins, via lambdoid prophages (Stx phages). The results obtained so far present the evidence for the relation between the exo-xis region of the phage genome and lambdoid phage development, however molecular mechanisms of activities of the exo-xis genes’ products are still unknown. In view of this, we decided to determine the influence of the uncharacterized open reading frame orf63 of the exo-xis region on lambdoid phages development using recombinant prophages, λ and Stx phage 824B. We have demonstrated that orf63 codes for a folded protein, thus, it is a functional gene. NMR spectroscopy and analytical gel filtration were used to extend this observation further. From backbone chemical shifts, Orf63 is oligomeric in solution, likely a trimer and consistent with its small size (63 aa.), is comprised of two helices, likely intertwined to form the oligomer. We observed that the deletion of phage orf63 does not impair the intracellular lambdoid phage lytic development, however delays the time and decreases the efficiency of prophage induction and in consequence results in increased survival of E. coli during phage lytic development. Additionally, the deletion of phage orf63 negatively influences expression of themajor phage genes and open reading frames from the exo-xis region during prophage induction with hydrogen peroxide. We conclude, that lambdoid phage orf63 may have specific functions in the regulation of lambdoid phages development, especially at the stage of the lysis vs. lysogenization decision. Besides, orf63 probably participates in the regulation of the level of expression of essential phage genes and open reading frames from the exo-xis region during prophage induction

Climate Risk Management Curriculum for Agriculture Gaps and Opportunities at USSEIN

Results of a survey of USSEIN students (28), instructors (14) and staff (2) provide insights into perceived needs, gaps and opportunities to expand curriculum on climate risk management in agriculture (CRMA) to prepare future agricultural professionals to strengthen the resilience of Senegal’s agricultural sector to its variable and changing climate. The web-based survey covered interest and demand in CRMA, the degree to which USSEIN’s current curriculum meets demand and prepares future professionals, and constraints to providing and receiving instruction on CRMA topics. Responses show that students anticipate that CRMA will be important for their future professional roles. Students and instructors recognize demand for instruction on a range of climate risk management issues. Perceptions of the degree to which USSEIN’s current curriculum prepares students for future CRMA professional roles were quite varied. Respondents perceived lower demand for instruction, and lower relevance for future professional roles, for agricultural insurance than for the other CRMA topics covered. While most instructors and staff perceive that CRMA topics are covered in their courses, most students reported that they were not currently enrolled in or aware of courses, that provide CRMA content. Students were somewhat more likely than instructors to be to be engaged in CRMA issues and activities, to perceive demand for instruction in CRMA topics, and to be very positive about the adequacy of USSEIN’s current curriculum to prepare for future roles related to CRMA. Students highlighted availability of relevant courses as constraints to receiving CRMA instruction, whereas instructors and staff highlighted resource constraints (funding, curriculum, expertise) as the main limitation to offering CRMA instruction