He Was a Heck of a Nice Guy, Kind of Shy, and the Kids Liked Him

This interview with Robert Habenstein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Missouri, was recorded over the phone on December 23 and December 29, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Habenstein and Dr. Patricia Morrow Habenstein approved posting the present version on the web. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places

Abwesenheit von Rom: Aristokratische Interaktion in der späten römischen Republik und in der frühen Kaiserzeit

The immense ideological significance that the city of Rome held since the times of the late republic corresponded until the 2nd century AD with the actual supremacy of the urbs within the Imperium Romanum: Rome was the place where socially and politically influential players and groups met; it was where they tried to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding and agreement through complex ways of interaction. Until well into the imperial era the senatorial aristocracy considered the interacting presence of Rome as a major constant of their lifestyle. At least until the 1st century AD the emperors could not disengage themselves from the reference framework that the city was. Therefore, the forms and the reasons for aristocratic and imperial absence are of particular interest. Which role the absence of Rome played in the system of aristocratic interaction and which implications it had for politics and the society of the late republic and the early imperial era is the subject of the present study. Astrid Habenstein's work was awarded by the Historical Institute at the University of Bern with the prize for the best PhD-thesis in 2012.Der immensen ideellen Bedeutung, die der Stadt Rom seit der späten Republik zugemessen wurde, entsprach bis in das 2. Jhd. n. Chr. die reale Vorrangstellung der urbs im Imperium Romanum: In Rom trafen die gesellschaftlich und politisch maßgebenden Akteure und Gruppen aufeinander, hier versuchten sie in Form komplexer Interaktionen gegenseitiges Verständnis und Einvernehmen herzustellen. Bis in die Kaiserzeit betrachtete die Senatsaristokratie die interagierende Präsenz in Rom als wesentliche Größe ihrer Lebensführung. Zumindest im 1. Jhd. n. Chr. konnten sich auch die Kaiser nicht vom Referenzrahmen der Stadt lösen. Umso interessanter sind Formen und Anlässe aristokratischer oder kaiserlicher Absenz. Welche Funktionen die Abwesenheit von Rom im System der aristokratischen Interaktion hatte und welche Implikationen dies für Politik und Gesellschaft der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit mit sich brachte, ist Gegenstand der vorliegenden Studie. Die Arbeit wurde 2012 mit dem Preis des Historischen Instituts der Universität Bern für die beste Dissertation des Jahres 2012 ausgezeichnet

Abwesenheit von Rom: Aristokratische Interaktion in der späten römischen Republik und in der frühen Kaiserzeit

The immense ideological significance that the city of Rome held since the times of the late republic corresponded until the 2nd century AD with the actual supremacy of the urbs within the Imperium Romanum: Rome was the place where socially and politically influential players and groups met; it was where they tried to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding and agreement through complex ways of interaction. Until well into the imperial era the senatorial aristocracy considered the interacting presence of Rome as a major constant of their lifestyle. At least until the 1st century AD the emperors could not disengage themselves from the reference framework that the city was. Therefore, the forms and the reasons for aristocratic and imperial absence are of particular interest. Which role the absence of Rome played in the system of aristocratic interaction and which implications it had for politics and the society of the late republic and the early imperial era is the subject of the present study. Astrid Habenstein's work was awarded by the Historical Institute at the University of Bern with the prize for the best PhD-thesis in 2012

Structural characterization of supramolecular assemblies by 13C spin dilution and 3D solid-state NMR.

13C spin diluted protein samples can be produced using [1-13C] and [2-13C]-glucose (Glc) carbon sources in the bacterial growth medium. The 13C spin dilution results in favorable 13C spectral resolution and polarization transfer behavior. We recently reported the combined use of [1-13C]- and [2-13C]-Glc labeling to facilitate the structural analysis of insoluble and non-crystalline biological systems by solid-state NMR (ssNMR), including sequential assignment, detection of long-range contacts and structure determination of macromolecular assemblies. In solution NMR the beneficial properties of sparsely labeled samples using [2-13C]-glycerol (13C labeled Cα sites on a 12C diluted background) have recently been exploited to provide a bi-directional assignment method (Takeuchi et al. in J Biomol NMR 49(1):17–26, 2011 ). Inspired by this approach and our own recent results using [2-13C]-Glc as carbon sources for the simplification of ssNMR spectra, we present a strategy for a bi-directional sequential assignment of solid-state NMR resonances and additionally the detection of long-range contacts using the combination of 13C spin dilution and 3D NMR spectroscopy. We illustrate our results with the sequential assignment and the collection of distance restraints on an insoluble and non-crystalline supramolecular assembly, the Salmonella typhimurium type III secretion system needle

Solid-state NMR sequential assignments of α-synuclein

Parkinson's disease is amongst the most frequent and most devastating neurodegenerative diseases. It is tightly associated with the assembly of proteins into high-molecular weight protein species, which propagate between neurons in the central nervous system. The principal protein involved in this process is α-synuclein which is a structural component of the Lewy bodies observed in diseased brain. We here present the solid-state NMR sequential assignments of a new fibrillar form of this protein, the first one with a well-ordered and rigid N-terminal par

Atomic structure and handedness of the building block of a biological assembly.

Noncovalent supramolecular assemblies possess in general several unique subunit subunit interfaces.The basic building block of such an assembly consists of several subunits and contains all unique interfaces. Atomic-resolution structures of monomeric subunits are typically accessed by crystallography or solution NMR and fitted into electron microscopy density maps. However, the structure of the intact building block in the assembled state remains unknown with this hybrid approach. Here, we present the solid-state NMR atomic structure of the building block of the type III secretion system needle. The building block structure consists of a homotetrameric subunit complex with three unique supramolecular interfaces. Side-chain positions at the interfaces were solved at atomic detail. The high-resolution structure reveals unambiguously the helical handedness of the assembly, determined to be right-handed for the type III secretion system needle.Additionally, the axial rise per subunit could be extracted from the tetramer structure and independently validated by mass-per-length measurements

Extensive de novo solid-state NMR assignments of the 33kDa C-terminal domain of the Ure2 prion

We present the de novo resonance assignments for the crystalline 33kDa C-terminal domain of the Ure2 prion using an optimized set of five 3D solid-state NMR spectra. We obtained, using a single uniformly 13C, 15N labeled protein sample, sequential chemical-shift information for 74% of the N, Cα, Cβ triples, and for 80% of further side-chain resonances for these spin systems. We describe the procedures and protocols devised, and discuss possibilities and limitations of the assignment of this largest protein assigned today by solid-state NMR, and for which no solution-state NMR shifts were available. A comparison of the NMR chemical shifts with crystallographic data reveals that regions with high crystallographic B-factors are particularly difficult to assign. While the secondary structure elements derived from the chemical shift data correspond mainly to those present in the X-ray crystal structure, we detect an additional helical element and structural variability in the protein crystal, most probably originating from the different molecules in the asymmetric unit, with the observation of doubled resonances in several parts, including entire stretches, of the protein. Our results provide the point of departure towards an atomic-resolution structural analysis of the C-terminal Ure2p domain in the context of the full-length prion fibril

Automated solid-state NMR resonance assignment of protein microcrystals and amyloids

Solid-state NMR is an emerging structure determination technique for crystalline and non-crystalline protein assemblies, e.g., amyloids. Resonance assignment constitutes the first and often very time-consuming step to a structure. We present ssFLYA, a generally applicable algorithm for automatic assignment of protein solid-state NMR spectra. Application to microcrystals of ubiquitin and the Ure2 prion C-terminal domain, as well as amyloids of HET-s(218-289) and α-synuclein yielded 88-97% correctness for the backbone and side-chain assignments that are classified as self-consistent by the algorithm, and 77-90% correctness if also assignments classified as tentative by the algorithm are include