They don\u27t need men and they don\u27t need God : The Liberatory Possibilities of Waywardness in Toni Morrison\u27s Paradise

While Toni Morrison’s work is often a topic of critical conversations regarding race and gender in the United States, less attention is paid to her 1997 novel Paradise. Morrison’s many-layered, multi-voiced work explores the tensions between the rigidly patriarchal, all-black town of Ruby, Oklahoma, and the wayward women who live in a nearby mansion known as the Convent. The women create an unlikely community at the Convent, and Ruby’s patriarchs are so threatened by them that they murder the women. In this paper, I argue that the women in the Convent community enact alternative ways of being by claiming waywardness as a liberatory subject position. Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals provides definitions of wayward and waywardness from which I contextualize the women’s community as well as their relationship to Ruby. Drawing further on Elizabeth Spelman’s work in “Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views,” I connect the body/spirit dichotomy engendered by Plato, Christian, and Western philosophies to Ruby’s rigid standards of womanhood which the Convent women defy. The body/spirit binary relegates women to the object position of waywardness when they are perceived to be lacking virtue. However, when the Convent women claim waywardness as a liberatory subject position, they reject the body/spirit binary altogether and unite the two through a spirit work ritual in the Convent’s cellar. I contend the women’s waywardness, the Convent, and their ritual are interlocking facets of their transformation. Waywardness is both the basis of their community and the social position which allows them to imagine and eventually enact alternative ways of being apart from patriarchal control

Use of music in the learning disabilities classroom

In summary, the purpose of this paper is to discuss briefly how music, when used in the learning disabilities classroom can be an effective therapeutic tool in overcoming or compensate for marginal learning deficits in the academic or social areas

Profiling risk factors for chronic uveitis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: a new model for EHR-based research.

BackgroundJuvenile idiopathic arthritis is the most common rheumatic disease in children. Chronic uveitis is a common and serious comorbid condition of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, with insidious presentation and potential to cause blindness. Knowledge of clinical associations will improve risk stratification. Based on clinical observation, we hypothesized that allergic conditions are associated with chronic uveitis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients.MethodsThis study is a retrospective cohort study using Stanford's clinical data warehouse containing data from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital from 2000-2011 to analyze patient characteristics associated with chronic uveitis in a large juvenile idiopathic arthritis cohort. Clinical notes in patients under 16 years of age were processed via a validated text analytics pipeline. Bivariate-associated variables were used in a multivariate logistic regression adjusted for age, gender, and race. Previously reported associations were evaluated to validate our methods. The main outcome measure was presence of terms indicating allergy or allergy medications use overrepresented in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients with chronic uveitis. Residual text features were then used in unsupervised hierarchical clustering to compare clinical text similarity between patients with and without uveitis.ResultsPreviously reported associations with uveitis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients (earlier age at arthritis diagnosis, oligoarticular-onset disease, antinuclear antibody status, history of psoriasis) were reproduced in our study. Use of allergy medications and terms describing allergic conditions were independently associated with chronic uveitis. The association with allergy drugs when adjusted for known associations remained significant (OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.22-5.4).ConclusionsThis study shows the potential of using a validated text analytics pipeline on clinical data warehouses to examine practice-based evidence for evaluating hypotheses formed during patient care. Our study reproduces four known associations with uveitis development in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients, and reports a new association between allergic conditions and chronic uveitis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients

Three New Species of Tursiocola (Bacillariophyta) from the Skin of the West Indian Manatee (Trichechus manatus)

Three new species of Tursiocola are described from the skin of the West Indian manatee bringing the total number of known species in the genus to seven. The range of morphological diversity within the genus is greatly expanded. The number of poroid rows on the copulae is no longer a valid characteristic for the separation of Tursiocola from the ceticolous genus Epiphalaina. The presence of a butterfly-like structure in the central area of the former is at present the best criterion for separating the 2 genera. The 3 new Tursiocola species accounted for nearly 90% of all diatom valves on the manatee skin. No other diatom taxa previously described as new from the skin of cetaceans were present on the manatee

Light Attenuation in Estuarine Mangrove Lakes

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) cover has declined in brackish lakes in the southern Everglades characterized by low water transparencies, emphasizing the need to evaluate the suitability of the aquatic medium for SAV growth and to identify the light attenuating components that contribute most to light attenuation. Underwater attenuation of downwards irradiance of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) was determined over a three year period at 42 sites in shallow (\u3c2 m depth) mangrove-surrounded lakes in two sub-estuaries in the coastal Everglades, Florida USA. Turbidity, chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and phytoplankton chlorophyll a (chl a) were measured concurrently and their respective contributions to the light attenuation rate were estimated. Light transmission to the benthos relative to literature estimates of minimum requirements for SAV growth indicated that the underwater light environment was often unsuitable for SAV. Light attenuation rates (n = 417) corrected for solar elevation angles ranged from 0.16 m-1 to 9.83 m-1 with a mean of 1.73 m-1. High concentrations of CDOM with high specific light absorption contributed the most to light attenuation followed by turbidity and chl a. CDOM alone sufficiently reduces light transmission beyond the estimated limits for SAV growth, making it difficult for ecosystem managers to increase SAV abundance by management activities. Light limitation of SAV in these areas may be a persistent feature because of their proximity to CDOM source materials from the surrounding mangrove swamp. Increasing freshwater flow into these areas may dilute CDOM concentrations and improve the salinity and light climate for SAV communities

Variable responses within epiphytic and benthic microalgal communities to nutrient enrichment

We examined the spatial extent of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitation of each of the major benthic primary producer groups in Florida Bay (seagrass, epiphytes, macroalgae, and benthic microalgae) and characterized the shifts in primary producer community composition following nutrient enrichment. We established 24 permanent 0.25-m2 study plots at each of six sites across Florida Bay and added N and P to the sediments in a factorial design for 18 mo. Tissue nutrient content of the turtlegrass Thalassia testudinum revealed a spatial pattern in P limitation, from severe limitation in the eastern bay (N:P \u3e 96:1), moderate limitation in two intermediate sites (approximately 63:1), and balanced with N availability in the western bay (approximately 31:1). P addition increased T. testudinum cover by 50-75% and short-shoot productivity by up to 100%, but only at the severely P-limited sites. At sites with an ambient N:P ratio suggesting moderate P limitation, few seagrass responses to nutrients occurred. Where ambient T. testudinum tissue N:P ratios indicated N and P availability was balanced, seagrass was not affected by nutrient addition but was strongly influenced by disturbance (currents, erosion). Macroalgal and epiphytic and benthic microalgal biomass were variable between sites and treatments. In general, there was no algal overgrowth of the seagrass in enriched conditions, possibly due to the strength of seasonal influences on algal biomass or regulation by grazers. N addition had little effect on any benthic primary producers throughout the bay. The Florida Bay benthic primary producer community was P limited, but P-induced alterations of community structure were not uniform among primary producers or across Florida Bay and did not always agree with expected patterns of nutrient limitation based on stoichiometric predictions from field assays of T. testudinum tissue N:P ratios

Approaches to Forming a Water-soluble Extracellular Domain From α3 Subunits of Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors

Obtaining structural information on the extracellular domain (ECD) of α3 subunits of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) by x-ray crystallography is desirable for the design of drugs intended to therapeutically target specific nAChRs and treat the various diseases and disorders caused by nAChR complications such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other disorders of the nervous system. Separating the ECD from the rest of the structure is advantageous because the transmembrane domains make nAChRs difficult to crystallize. In order to explore the possibility of creating a water soluble ECD from the α3 subunits of nAChRs through the proteolysis of the ECD away from the transmembrane domains, the nAChR expression yield of mutant α3 nAChR subunits containing a flexible linker at the ECD/M1 interface was measured. The flexible linker used was an 18 amino acid sequence consisting of the residues alanine-glycine-serine repeated six times (6xAGS) and was designed as a possible flexible environment in which to contain a protease site. The nAChR yield, as measured by yield of [3H]epibatidine binding sites, was much lower for the α3 nAChR subunits containing the flexible linker at the ECD/M1 interface than for the control subunits without the linker. Therefore, the 6xAGS flexible linker is not the optimum environment in which to contain a protease site in α3 nAChR subunits

Upper Cretaceous Sediment in Montana

Cretaceous sediments in Montana record events during a period of unusual geologic interest. After a long period of extensive submergence of the area during Jurassic time, came a period of varying continental and marine deposition with consequent variations in the types of sediments laid down. A study of these variations, their extent, and their cause has been the primary object of this thesis