3,234 research outputs found
Illustriousness in the farmhouse villa: reading virtue from a Flemish-Veronese merchant family's history
The Italian nobility has a long history tied to landownership, a dynamic example of which lies in the history of Verona from the late sixteenth century. Sweeping economic change, intellectual currents, agricultural policies, and the built heritage facilitated the rise in status of some mercantile families. Tracing the pressures facing a foreign merchant family emigrating to Venice and settling in Veronaâs Valpolicella reveals the importance of social integration for the familyâs members. Their farmhouse villa estate represents an enduring monument not only to the contemporary value of civic virtue but also to the construction of a noble identity
Deformable vehicle wheel Patent
Resilient vehicle wheel for lunar surface trave
Quantifying biosynthetic network robustness across the human oral microbiome
Metabolic interactions, such as cross-feeding, play a prominent role in microbial communitystructure. For example, they may underlie the ubiquity of uncultivated microorganisms. We investigated this phenomenon in the human oral microbiome, by analyzing microbial metabolic networks derived from sequenced genomes. Specifically, we devised a probabilistic biosynthetic network robustness metric that describes the chance that an organism could produce a given metabolite, and used it to assemble a comprehensive atlas of biosynthetic capabilities for 88 metabolites across 456 human oral microbiome strains. A cluster of organisms characterized by reduced biosynthetic capabilities stood out within this atlas. This cluster included several uncultivated taxa and three recently co-cultured Saccharibacteria (TM7) phylum species. Comparison across strains also allowed us to systematically identify specific putative metabolic interdependences between organisms. Our method, which provides a new way of converting annotated genomes into metabolic predictions, is easily extendible to other microbial communities and metabolic products.https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/392621v1First author draf
Metabolic network percolation quantifies biosynthetic capabilities across the human oral microbiome
The biosynthetic capabilities of microbes underlie their growth and interactions, playing a prominent role in microbial community structure. For large, diverse microbial communities, prediction of these capabilities is limited by uncertainty about metabolic functions and environmental conditions. To address this challenge, we propose a probabilistic method, inspired by percolation theory, to computationally quantify how robustly a genome-derived metabolic network produces a given set of metabolites under an ensemble of variable environments. We used this method to compile an atlas of predicted biosynthetic capabilities for 97 metabolites across 456 human oral microbes. This atlas captures taxonomically-related trends in biomass composition, and makes it possible to estimate inter-microbial metabolic distances that correlate with microbial co-occurrences. We also found a distinct cluster of fastidious/uncultivated taxa, including several Saccharibacteria (TM7) species, characterized by their abundant metabolic deficiencies. By embracing uncertainty, our approach can be broadly applied to understanding metabolic interactions in complex microbial ecosystems.T32GM008764 - NIGMS NIH HHS; T32 GM008764 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R01 DE024468 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R01 GM121950 - NIGMS NIH HHS; DE-SC0012627 - Biological and Environmental Research; RGP0020/2016 - Human Frontier Science Program; NSFOCE-BSF 1635070 - National Science Foundation; HR0011-15-C-0091 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; R37DE016937 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R37 DE016937 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R01GM121950 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R01DE024468 - NIDCR NIH HHS; 1457695 - National Science FoundationPublished versio
Interview with Diane Dewhirst (2) by Mike Hastings
Biographical NoteDiane Dewhirst was born on May 28, 1957, in Framingham, Massachusetts, to Joan Priscilla Audubon and Robert Thornton Dewhirst. She grew up in Boston and Philadelphia. Her father worked in sales for an energy firm. Majoring in journalism at the University of Ohio and then transferring to Northwestern, she was graduated with a degree in political science. She worked on Jimmy Carterâs presidential campaign in 1976, as an intern for Common Cause, the Democratic National Committee, and briefly for ABC News on delegate selection rules, covering the 1984 presidential election. She then became press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which George Mitchell chaired, and later joined Mitchellâs press staff, where she served as his communications director for over ten years. At the time of this interview, she was senior advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
SummaryInterview includes discussion of: Iran-Contra and writing Men of Zeal; clean air; acid rain; long term health care; spousal impoverishment; how the press office operated; the national press; the âdugoutâ on the Senate floor; Clarence Thomas hearings; CODELs; Foreign travel: Canada, Mexico, Soviet Union, Germany, Middle East; health care debate; and relationship with Bob Dole
Interview with Diane Dewhirst (1) by Mike Hastings
Biographical NoteDiane Dewhirst was born on May 28, 1957, in Framingham, Massachusetts, to Joan Priscilla Audubon and Robert Thornton Dewhirst. She grew up in Boston and Philadelphia. Her father worked in sales for an energy firm. Majoring in journalism at the University of Ohio and then transferring to Northwestern, she was graduated with a degree in political science. She worked on Jimmy Carterâs presidential campaign in 1976, as an intern for Common Cause, the Democratic National Committee, and briefly for ABC News on delegate selection rules, covering the 1984 presidential election. She then became press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which George Mitchell chaired, and later joined Mitchellâs press staff, where she served as his communications director for over ten years. At the time of this interview, she was senior advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
SummaryInterview includes discussion of: family and educational background; early interest in politics; work on the DNC (Democratic National Committee); meeting Senator Mitchell as a part of the Compliance Review Committee of the DNC; her work for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) under Mitchell; Mitchell and the press; Mitchellâs relationship with the press in Maine; Mitchellâs divorce; and the transition from being a member of the personal staff to the majority leaderâs staff; oil spill legislation; spousal impoverishment legislation; and linking clean air issues with the health care debate
The âSouthern questionâ in Australia: the 1925 Royal Commissionâs Racialisation of Southern Italians
Thomas Arthur Ferry (1877-1963) conducted several Royal Commissions in his role as under-secretary for Queenslandâs Premier and Chief Secretaryâs Department. His now frequently cited first Report remains the most controversial. While racialising Southern Italians, he articulated the âSouthern Questionâ, but this Royal Commission was also symptomatic of systemic racism in Australia. Drawing from Eduardo Bonilla-Silvaâs theory of âracialized social systemsâ and Thomas Guglielmoâs application of this framework in his analysis of Italian-Americans in Chicago, this article focuses on the racialist origins, continuities and implications of the Ferry Report which crystallised the racist attitudes of the day
Thinking Practice: CPD as Ethical Work
This study draws upon a methodological approach based on the use of objects to explore the experiences of a group of teachers undertaking a Masters-level Continuing Professional Development programme. Eight Respondents were invited to bring three objects to their interview that represented significant aspects of their practice in relation to the course. These objects afforded an exploration of respondentsâ views, experiences and consideration of the impact of the programme on their professional identities. In order to engage analytically with the data the work draws upon notions of spatiality as well as the later work of Foucault on truth and subject formation.
The thesis considers the role of professional learning as shaped by the current policy process and, how professional learning is, in turn, shaped by the teachers undertaking the course. Such a consideration allows for a methodological take on the CPD process as one whereby people, as well as objects, such as âstandardsâ, play equally important roles.
In drawing upon the later work of Foucault (1984a, 1984b) analysis of the data considered the ways in which the practices of the course that the teachers engaged with (AskÄsis) lead to a desire to speak their mind and express ideals of truth about educational practice (ParrhÄsia). This means that in thinking about their practice through the activities and processes of the programme encourages the development of the ethical work of the teacher. In the light of such problematisation, this study encourages a rethinking of both policy and practice and argues for a change in the discourse of education from the concept of professional development to that of professional learning within a relational and ethical framing
GBM radiosensitizers: dead in the waterâŠor just the beginning?
The finding that most GBMs recur either near or within the primary site after radiotherapy has fueled great interest in the development of radiosensitizers to enhance local control. Unfortunately, decades of clinical trials testing a wide range of novel therapeutic approaches have failed to yield any clinically viable radiosensitizers. However, many of  the previous radiosensitizing strategies were not based on clear pre-clinical evidence, and in many cases blood-barrier penetration was not considered. Furthermore, DNA repair inhibitors have only recenly arrived in the clinic, and likely represent potent agents for glioma radiosensitization. Here, we present recent progress in the use of small molecule DNA damage response inhibitors as GBM radiosensitizers. In addition, we discuss the latest progress in targeting hypoxia and oxidative stress for GBM radiosensitization
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