Electron Microscope Studies of Heteroduplex DNA from a Deletion Mutant of Bacteriophage phi X-174

A population of double-stranded replicative form of DNA molecules from bacteriophage phi X-174 carrying a deletion of about 9% of the wild-type DNA has been discovered in a sample cultivated under conditions where the phage lysozyme gene is nonessential. The structures of deleted monomers, dimers, and trimers were studied by the electron microscope heteroduplex method. The dimers and trimers are head-to-tail repeats of the deleted monomers. Some interesting examples of the dynamical phenomenon of branch migration in vitro have been observed in heteroduplexes of deleted dimer and trimer strands with undeleted monomer viral strands from the wild-type phage

More Than Faith: Latter-Day Saint Women as Politically Aware and Active Americans, 1830-1860

I explore the political ideology and activity of female members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1830 to 1860. Looking at personal sources such as diaries, letters, and poetry, this study posits Mormon women as intellectually active, politically engaged, and culturally aware in addition to religiously devout. This thesis first examines the ways in which early LDS women exhibited Democratic political ideology in the ways in which they viewed themselves and the ways in which they viewed the world around them. Looking at concepts such as “common woman” ideology, producerism, freedom rhetoric, Mormon-American exceptionalism, and Manifest Destiny within Mormon women’s personal writings, I demonstrate that many of these women joined countless other antebellum Americans in their embrace of Jacksonian political ideology. Finally, I explore early Mormon women’s political activity through Relief Society meetings, petitions, and patriotic celebrations, demonstrating that these women often prized democratic rhetoric while endorsing cultural and intellectual conformism to broader LDS policies and norms. By proposing that the Latter-Day Saint foremothers engaged in political thought and action in similar ways as LDS men and non-LDS Democrats, this thesis challenges historical views of Mormon women and the early LDS Church

Lattice Boltzmann simulation of droplet generation in a microfluidic cross-junction

Using the lattice Boltzmann multiphase model, numerical simulations have been performed to understand the dynamics of droplet formation in a microfluidic cross-junction. The influence of capillary number, flow rate ratio, viscosity ratio, and viscosity of the continuous phase on droplet formation has been systematically studied over a wide range of capillary numbers. Two different regimes, namely the squeezing-like regime and the dripping regime, are clearly identified with the transition occurring at a critical capillary number Cacr. Generally, large flow rate ratio is expected to produce big droplets, while increasing capillary number will reduce droplet size. In the squeezing-like regime (Ca ≤ Cacr), droplet breakup process is dominated by the squeezing pressure and the viscous force; while in the dripping regime (Ca > Cacr), the viscous force is dominant and the droplet size becomes independent of the flow rate ratio as the capillary number increases. In addition, the droplet size weakly depends on the viscosity ratio in both regimes and decreases when the viscosity of the continuous phase increases. Finally, a scaling law is established to predict the droplet size

World Rabies Day - a decade of raising awareness

World Rabies Day was set up in 2007 to raise global awareness about rabies, to provide information on how to prevent the disease in at-risk communities and support advocacy for increased efforts in rabies control. It is held annually on September 28th, with events, media outreach and other initiatives carried out by individuals, professionals, organisations and governments from the local to the international level. The Global Alliance for Rabies Control coordinates World Rabies Day, amplifying the campaign's reach through the provision of a central event platform and resources to support events across the world, the promotion of messages through key rabies stakeholders, and the implementation of specific activities to highlight particular issues. Over the last decade, more than 1,700 registered events have been held across the world and shared with others in the global rabies community. Events in canine rabies endemic countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, have increased over time. Beyond the individual events, World Rabies Day has gained the support of governments and international agencies that recognise its value in supporting existing rabies control initiatives and advocating for improvements. As the rabies landscape has changed, World Rabies Day remains a general day of awareness but has also become an integral part of national, regional and global rabies elimination strategies. The global adoption of 2030 as the goal for the elimination of rabies as a public health threat has led to even greater opportunities for World Rabies Day to make a sustainable impact on rabies, by bringing the attention of policy makers and donors to the ongoing situation and elimination efforts in rabies-endemic countries

The role of culture in quality improvement in the intensive care unit: A literature review

Improving the quality of patient care and patient outcomes is a major concern internationally. In a developing health care system, implementing quality improvement is challenging due not only to resource and workforce issues but also cultural factors. Using the method of a focused literature review, this paper discusses the importance of assessing a societal view of culture, social mores and customs, and power relationships in quality improvement activities using the intensive care unit as an exemplar. We conclude that implementing quality improvement strategies in a developing health care system needs to address the broader perspectives of social and cultural systems particularly hierarchical relationships and issues of non-disclosure

Search for New Physics in the Semileptonic D_{l4} Decays, D->K \pi l \nu

New physics effects through the direct CP violation and the decay rate change are investigated in the semileptonic $D_{l4}$ decays, $D^\pm\to K\pi l^\pm \nu$, by including a scalar-exchange interaction with a complex coupling. In the decay process, we included various excited states as intermediate states decaying to the final hadrons, $K+\pi$, and found that among the intermediate states only the lowest state ($K^*$) is dominant and the other higher excited states are negligible, contrary to the $B_{l4}$ decays. We also obtained constraints on the new complex coupling within the multi-Higgs doublet model and the scalar leptoquark models.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages, including 3 figure

The role of culture in quality improvement in the intensive care unit: a literature review

Improving the quality of patient care and patient outcomes is a major concern internationally. In a developing health care system, implementing quality improvement is challenging due not only to resource and workforce issues but also cultural factors. Using the method of a focussed literature review, this paper discusses the importance of assessing a societal view of culture, social mores and customs, and power relationships in quality improvement activities using the intensive care unit as an exemplar. We conclude that implementing quality improvement strategies in a developing health care system needs to address the broader perspectives of social and cultural systems particularly hierarchical relationships and issues of non-disclosure

Healthy Options: A Community-Based Program to Address Food Insecurity

The objectives of this study are to better understand the lived experience of food insecurity in our community and to examine the impact of a community-based program developed to increase access to local, healthy foods. Participants were given monthly vouchers to spend at local farmers’ markets and invited to engage in a variety of community activities. Using a community-based participatory research framework, mixed methods were employed. Survey results suggest that most respondents were satisfied with the program and many increased their fruit and vegetable consumption. However, over 40% of respondents reported a higher level of stress over having enough money to buy nutritious meals at the end of the program. Photovoice results suggest that the program fostered cross-cultural exchanges, and offered opportunities for social networking. Building upon the many positive outcomes of the program, community partners are committed to using this research to further develop policy-level solutions to food insecurity

Tropical arboreal ants: why so abundant?

Book ChapterANTS ARE AMONG the most numerous and readily observed arthropods of tropical forests. Indeed, based on their standing biomass and many effects on other species, ants (Formicidae) are arguably the dominant arthropod family in the canopies of lowland rain forest trees (Tobin 1995). Others have tried to account for the remarkable abundances of arboreal ants in canopy arthropod samples (see especially the works of Majer 1990 and Tobin 1991, 1994), and we attempt to extend these explanations here using stable isotopes to diagnose the trophic specializations of the most abundant ant taxa. We begin with a review of ant diversity and abundance in the tropical arboreal zone

Extended double seesaw model for neutrino mass spectrum and low scale leptogenesis

We consider a variant of seesaw mechanism by introducing extra singlet neutrinos, with which we show how the low scale leptogenesis is realized without imposing the tiny mass splitting between two heavy Majorana neutrinos required in the resonant leptogenesis. Thus, we can avoid the so-called gravitino problem when our scenario is supersymmetrized. We show that an introduction of the new singlet fermion leads to a new contribution which can enhance the lepton asymmetry for certain range of parameter space. We also examine how both the light neutrino mass spectrum and relatively light sterile neutrinos of order a few 100 MeV can be achieved without being in conflict with the constraints on the mixing between the active and sterile neutrinos.Comment: RevTex 12 pages, 1 figure, title changed, typos corrected, numerical results improved, to appear in Phys. Lett.