That Other Form of Madness: A Multidisciplinary Study of Infectious Disease Within the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Between the years of 1882 and 1925, the Milwaukee County Poor Farm buried several thousand members of Milwaukee’s indigent population in what would later be designated Cemetery II. In 1991 and early 1992, after discovery of the cemetery during construction of parts of the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center, 1,649 burials were excavated. The graves had long been abandoned and the headstones bulldozed, leaving a register of burials without any obvious way of associating each individual with their identity. A copy of the register is curated at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archaeological Research Laboratory. The Milwaukee County Poor Farm was a vast complex of buildings that included a county hospital, a tuberculosis sanitarium, an orphanage, and housing for the poor. The graves typify those of pauper burials, containing few grave goods and therefore few ways in which to reassociate the individuals with their names. My dissertation is one of many collaborative projects that focus on the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery and aims to restore as much identity and humanity as is possible to these long forgotten, disenfranchised citizens of Milwaukee County. My contribution to this project is to use traditional bioarchaeological methods, combined with molecular biology, and incorporate material culture analysis and historical research to provide a comprehensive look at what it was like to live in the early 20th century in Milwaukee County as a pauper with an infectious disease. This dissertation also presents molecular biological data from dental calculus rather than bone tissue as a way of moving away from destructive analysis for DNA work in bioarchaeology. In order to apply molecular biological techniques to archaeological material, it is typical to rely on extracting DNA from bone tissue, since other material may not be available. Regardless of how much bone is needed, and for ancient DNA in particular this can be up to a gram, this is a destructive technique that is being applied to an individual’s remains in most instances without their consent. Dental calculus, calcified dental plaque, is now being explored as a way of obtaining DNA from a deceased individual that would not destroy any of that person’s biological material. However, with the ability to analyze the DNA from a deceased person can come the assumption that we have all of the information that we need about them and their cause of death. This dissertation takes a holistic approach to bioarchaeology and combines the discussion of post-mortem agency and theories of suffering to advocate for a new paradigm for bioarchaeological work. In order to meet the aforementioned goals, I developed a multi-scalar research protocol. First, I analyzed the individuals from the MCPFC who had vertebrae present to look for signs of tuberculosis. I then extracted bone and dental calculus from their remains and extracted DNA from both sources. I used Polymerase Chain Reaction to examine the extracted DNA for evidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Brucella species, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. The results from this DNA analysis were analyzed using Fisher’s Exact Tests and were combined with the material culture data from the 1991/1992 excavations. Finally, in order to support the goals of this dissertation and of the larger MCPFC project, I used the data at hand to reconstruct the lives of the poor who suffered and died from infectious diseases in a time before effective treatment was available

Molecular Identification of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemetery

The possibility of identifying Mycobacterium tuberculosis in skeletal remains has been a debated topic for many years. This study utilizes the remains from the 1991 and 1992 excavations of the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemetery, a collection of human skeletons ranging from 1882 to 1925, of various ages and sexes, to address that possibility. To test the utility of previously used methods of osteological identification of tuberculosis, the collection has been analyzed for the IS6110 repetitive element marker using molecular biological techniques, such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Eighty-six skeletons from the collection have been analyzed, with nine of them showing evidence of skeletal tuberculosis. PCR has also been carried out with the oxyR marker to rule out Mycobacterium bovis contamination on all positive IS6110 samples. The goal of the study was to evaluate whether or not osteological identification of M. tuberculosis is possible and whether it can be confirmed using molecular biological techniques

Impact of spatial resolution on large-scale ice cover modeling of mountainous regions

For reconstructing paleoclimate or studying glacial isostatic effects on the Earth’s lithosphere, increasingly more studies focus on modeling the large-scale ice cover in mountainous regions over long time scales. However, balancing model complexity and the spatial extent with computational costs is challenging. Previous studies of large-scale ice cover simulation in mountain areas such as the European Alps, New Zealand, and the Tibetan Plateau, typically used 1-2 km spatial resolution. However, mountains are characterized by high peaks and steep slopes - topographic features that are crucial for glacier mass balance and dynamics, but poorly resolved in coarse resolution topography. The Instructed Glacier Model (IGM) is a novel 3D ice model equipped with a physics-informed neural network to simulate ice flow. This results in a significant acceleration of run times, and thereby opening the possibility of higher spatial resolution runs. We use IGM to model the glaciation of the European Alps with different resolutions (2 km and 200 m) over a time period of 160,000 years. We apply a linear cooling rate to present-day climate until 6 °C colder to mimic ice age conditions. Preliminary results indicate systematic, resolution-related differences: At the beginning of cooling the 2 km resolution yields slightly more ice volume. However, this trend reverses when ice flows together from high elevations and fill large valleys with thick ice. When the Alps are fully ice covered, we find up to 14% more ice volume in the higher resolution models which, however, is not uniformly distributed in space

Studying the spatial distribution of interstellar dust

The spacial distribution of interstellar dust reflects both interstellar dynamics and the processes which form and destroy dust in the interstellar medium (ISM). The IRAS survey, because of its high sensitivity to thermal emission from dust in the IR, provides new approaches to determining the spatial distribution of dust. The initial results are reported of an attempt to use the IRAS data to probe the spatial distribution of dust - by searching for thermal emission from dust in the vicinity of bright stars. These results show that this technique (which relies on finding IR emission associated with randomly selected stars) can ultimately be used to study the distribution of dust in the ISM. The density of the cloud producing the IR emission may be derived by assuming that the dust is at its projected distance from the star and that the heating is due to the star's (known) radiation field. The heating radiation is folded into a grain model, and the number of emitting grains adjusted to reproduce the observed energy distribution. It is noted that this technique is capable in principle of detecting dust densities much lower than those typical of the cirrus clouds

Glacial and erosional contributions to Late Quaternary uplift of the European Alps (GEOLQUEA)

Isostatic adjustments of the Earth’s surface to changes in water, ice, and sediment loading are important contributions to present-day uplift/subsidence rates in many regions on Earth. In the absence of significant horizontal tectonic shortening in the central and western parts of the European Alps, uplift rates larger than 2 mm/yr are difficult to explain by geodynamic processes and have been a matter of debate for many decades. Here we examine the likely contribution of glacial isostatic adjustment in the European Alps in response to changes in ice loading using state of the art ice flow and lithospheric numerical modeling. In contrast to a similar previous approach (Mey et al., 2016), we employ a transient ice sheet model over the last glacial cycle (100 kyr) in combination with a spherical viscoelastic solid earth model. We present ice model results using the Instructed Glacier Model (Jouvet et al., 2021), in which we tested the effect of spatial resolution on the growth and extent of the European ice cap. We found significant differences using a model resolution of 200 m compared to a resolution of 2000 m, which is commonly used in large-scale glacier modeling studies. These differences result in near-steady state volumetric differences at the maximum ice extent of +13% for the high compared to the low-resolution model. In addition, we observed periods of marked ice growth that initiated at significantly different times for the different resolution models. Therefore, we conclude that a realistic ice loading history requires a sufficiently high spatial resolution, which is significantly higher than used in previous models. Based on the modeled ice loading histories, we used the lithosphere and mantle model VILMA (Klemann et al., 2008, J. Geodyn.) to predict the vertical land motion. These estimates are based on a global 60 km thick elastic lithosphere, followed by a 200 km thick viscous layer with a viscosity of 1020 Pa s, which increases to 5 x 1020 Pa s down to 670 km depth, and 3.16 x 1021 Pa s to the core mantle boundary. Preliminary results indicate similar first-order lithospheric responses, with spatiotemporal differences in the magnitude of postglacial response. We hope to present more results based on further ice models that are forced by a more realistic climate history

Unexpected Consequences: Women’s experiences of a self-hypnosis intervention to help with pain relief during labour.

Background Self-hypnosis is becoming increasingly popular as a means of labour pain management. Previous studies have produced mixed results. There are very few data on women’s views and experiences of using hypnosis in this context. As part of a randomized controlled trial of self-hypnosis for intra-partum pain relief (the SHIP Trial) we conducted qualitative interviews with women randomized to the intervention arm to explore their views and experiences of using self-hypnosis during labour and birth. Methods Participants were randomly selected from the intervention arm of the study, which consisted of two antenatal self-hypnosis training sessions and a supporting CD that women were encouraged to listen to daily from 32 weeks gestation until the birth of their baby. Those who consented were interviewed in their own homes 8-12 weeks after birth. Following transcription, the interviews were analysed iteratively and emerging concepts were discussed amongst the authors to generate organizing themes. These were then used to develop a principal organizing metaphor or global theme, in a process known as thematic networks analysis. Results Of the 343 women in the intervention group, 48 were invited to interview, and 16 were interviewed over a 12 month period from February 2012 to January 2013. Coding of the data and subsequent analysis revealed a global theme of ‘unexpected consequences’, supported by 5 organising themes, ‘calmness in a climate of fear’, ‘from sceptic to believer’, ‘finding my space’, ‘delays and disappointments’ and ‘personal preferences’. Most respondents reported positive experiences of self-hypnosis and highlighted feelings of calmness, confidence and empowerment. They found the intervention to be beneficial and used a range of novel strategies to personalize their self-hypnosis practice. Occasionally women reported feeling frustrated or disappointed when their relaxed state was misinterpreted by midwives on admission or when their labour and birth experiences did not match their expectations. Conclusion The women in this study generally appreciated antenatal self-hypnosis training and found it to be beneficial during labour and birth. The state of focused relaxation experienced by women using the technique needs to be recognized by providers if the intervention is to be implemented into the maternity service

Use of web conferencing technology for conducting online focus groups among young people with lived experience of suicidal thoughts : mixed methods research

Background: There is an increasing interest in engaging people with lived experience in suicide prevention research. However, young people with suicidal thoughts have been described as a “hard-to-include” population due to time, distance, stigma, and social barriers. Objective: This study aims to investigate whether conducting synchronous Web conferencing technology–based online focus groups (W-OFGs) is a feasible method to engage young people with lived experience of suicidal thoughts in suicide prevention research. Methods: Young people aged between 16 and 25 years and living in Sydney, Australia, were recruited through flyers, emails, and social media advertisements. The W-OFGs were established using a Web conferencing technology called GoToMeeting. Participants’ response rate, attendance, and feedback of the W-OFGs were analyzed to determine whether the W-OFG system is feasible for suicide prevention research. Researchers’ reflections about how to effectively implement the W-OFGs were also reported as part of the results. Results: In the pre–W-OFG survey, 39 (97.5%) young people (n=40) chose to attend the online focus group. Among the 22 participants who responded to the W-OFG invitations, 15 confirmed that they would attend the W-OFGs, of which 11 participants attended the W-OFGs. Feedback collected from the participants in the W-OFG and the post–W-OFG survey suggested that online focus groups are acceptable to young people in suicide prevention research. Considerations for selecting the Web conferencing platform, conducting the mock W-OFGs, implementing the risk management procedure, inviting participants to the W-OFGs, and hosting and moderating the W-OFGs as well as a few potential ethical and pragmatic challenges in using this method are discussed in this study. Conclusions: The Web conferencing technology provides a feasible replacement for conventional methods, particularly for qualitative research involving vulnerable populations and stigmatized topics including suicide prevention. Our results indicate that this modality is an optimal alternative to engage young people in the focus group discussion. Future studies should compare the data collected from the Web conferencing technology and conventional face-to-face methods in suicide prevention research to determine if these two methods are equivalent in data quality from a quantitative approach

Off-Chip-Controlled Droplet-on-Demand Method for Precise Sample Handling

We present a simple, stable, and highly reproducible off-chip-controlled method for generating droplets-on-demand. To induce the droplet generation, externally pre-programmed positive pressure pulses are applied to the dispersed phase input while the continuous phase channel remains at constant input pressure. By controlling solely one fluid phase, the method allows for connecting multiple independent dispersed-phase channels to a single continuous channel. Experimental results show that the method allows for a droplet generation frequency of 33 Hz and a high reproducibility of droplets with standard deviations less than 5% of the mean value. Moreover, utilization of the off-chip-controlled method results in the simplicity in chip design and allows rapid (5 min) and cost-efficient (0.5 USD) prototyping of the device.(VLID)4926439Version of recor

Asymptotic normality for random simplices and convex bodies in high dimensions

Central limit theorems for the log-volume of a class of random convex bodies in $\mathbb{R}^n$ are obtained in the high-dimensional regime, that is, as $n\to \infty$. In particular, the case of random simplices pinned at the origin and simplices where all vertices are generated at random is investigated. The coordinates of the generating vectors are assumed to be independent and identically distributed with subexponential tails. In addition, asymptotic normality is also established for random convex bodies (including random simplices pinned at the origin) when the spanning vectors are distributed according to a radially symmetric probability measure on the $n$-dimensional $\ell _p$-ball. In particular, this includes the cone and the uniform probability measure