Navigating Tolkien’s Spatial Allegory

Tolkien’s vast and detailed legendarium has helped pave the way for the fantasy genre as we know it today. His wide variety of characters, detailed maps, and the rich history3 of Middle Earth have all undoubtedly provided inspiration to many modern writers, and continue to hold the interest of both new and old fans of his works. Within his world of Middle Earth, Tolkien has written about thousands of years’ worth of history, and has created for each of his imagined races its own culture and language. However, despite the unique differences of Middle Earth when compared to our own world, many of Tolkien’s key beliefs, such as his close ties to Christianity, have clearly manifested within his legendarium. While the inhabitants of Middle Earth operate under a divine system more like the Greek or Norse pantheon, there are clear Christian elements to his world. Even the physical landscape of Middle Earth, both in the early years of the First Age, and later on in the Third Age, seem to reflect the duality of the Christian concepts of good and evil. Tolkien seems to have set up a world in which intrinsically good things are closer to Heaven, and therefore closer to the Christian concept of God, whereas bad things often dwell underground, closer to the Christian ideas of Satan and Hell. Within the expanse of this spatial allegory that Tolkien has created, the residents of Middle Earth are able to move about in unique ways, and there seems to be a direct relationship between one’s physical elevation and their moral standing at that point in the story. This paper will seek to establish and analyze the allegory created within Tolkien’s legendarium, including its relationship to several key Christian elements, as well as observe a few specific instances of how character morality is directly reflected in their movement. By looking at character movements, and even the physical topography of Middle Earth, with Tolkien’s Christian beliefs in mind, readers can gain a greater understanding of the different ways Tolkien illustrates good and evil within his legendarium, as well as detect similarities between the ultimate fates of morally good and bad characters in the legendarium and keep figures in the Bible

The cloning and characterisation of an endoglucanase and an endoxylanase from Clostridium acetobutylicum in Escherichia coli

Bibliography: pages 215-244.Clostridium acetobutylicum P262 is an endospore forming Gram-positive obligate anaerobe which has been used for the industrial production of acetone and butanol. Strains of C. acetobutylicum have been reported to exhibit some activity towards cellulosic and hemicellulosic substrates. The aim of this thesis was to establish a genebank of C. acetobutylicum P262 DNA in Escherichia coli and to isolate and characterise genes encoding enzymes which show activity towards hemicellulose and cellulose

Determining Interest for a Subcontractor Career Fair

Companies look to Cal Poly Construction Management as a great place to come and recruit for summer interns and new full time positions. But of the 141 companies that recruit at Cal Poly, only 16% of them are subcontractors. With so many general contractors, subcontractors often get passed over. This study looks at the interests from both students and industry to hold a separate recruiting event for subcontractors. It also investigates the best type of event to hold and other logistics

Rotating-term Associate Deans: Pathway to Higher Education Administration

In a recent article in this journal, Betts, Urias, Chavez, and Betts (2009) argue that higher education faces a leadership shortage—due both to expected turnover in senior administrative positions and to lack of clear pathways into administration. As we have discussed elsewhere (Zappe & Gerdes, 2008), administration is not typically a long-term goal for those whose careers begin with faculty appointments. For the few who switch pathways to become academic administrators, an associate dean position often is the point of transition. Below, we describe the advantages of rotating associate dean positions, in which faculty members from the same institution leave the faculty for a fixed term and then return to the faculty. Based on our experience with this practice over the past 22 years, we have developed recommendations applicable to other institutions as well

Step size of the rotary proton motor in single FoF1-ATP synthase from a thermoalkaliphilic bacterium by DCO-ALEX FRET

Thermophilic enzymes can operate at higher temperatures but show reduced activities at room temperature. They are in general more stable during preparation and, accordingly, are considered to be more rigid in structure. Crystallization is often easier compared to proteins from bacteria growing at ambient temperatures, especially for membrane proteins. The ATP-producing enzyme FoF1-ATP synthase from thermoalkaliphilic Caldalkalibacillus thermarum strain TA2.A1 is driven by a Fo motor consisting of a ring of 13 c-subunits. We applied a single-molecule F\"orster resonance energy transfer (FRET) approach using duty cycle-optimized alternating laser excitation (DCO-ALEX) to monitor the expected 13-stepped rotary Fo motor at work. New FRET transition histograms were developed to identify the smaller step sizes compared to the 10-stepped Fo motor of the Escherichia coli enzyme. Dwell time analysis revealed the temperature and the LDAO dependence of the Fo motor activity on the single molecule level. Back-and-forth stepping of the Fo motor occurs fast indicating a high flexibility in the membrane part of this thermophilic enzyme.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure