Andrew Marvell and Privacy

As an elusive private figure who, by his own admission, was ‘inclined to keep [my] thoughts private’ and favoured ‘modest retirement’, Marvell experienced both extremes of private and public life in times when these structural concepts were developing into what have come to be known as the private and public spheres. Moreover, Marvell interacts with the concept of privacy in several ways: through a recurrent language of privacy throughout his work; the prosody and poetics of enclosure in his poetic composition; his choice to publish very little in a flourishing and popular print culture; and, crucially, his ability to conceal. Marvell’s mastery of ambiguity and ambivalence, the difficulty in ascertaining the chronology of many of his poems (which has tempted critics into categorizing his works too schematically), the limited biography, drawing us to the poems for evidence, and his ability to give little away: these factors combined make the paradigm of ‘privacy’ highly complex in his case. Marvell’s career overlaps the development of the private and presents the rising consciousness of the self from a literary perspective. This dissertation suggests that Marvell grew to favour privacy through his varied experiences and by becoming disconcerted with the agents of publishing and publicity. It also perhaps became an interest through which to frame his poetics as well as providing a life-model. I argue that current Marvellian critical orthodoxy, weighted heavily towards his political works, belies the private lyric poet, and, as his later public life appears to pose fewer questions regarding privacy, secrecy and anonymity, these issues which shroud the entirety of Marvell’s life and works are left behind. Following an overview of the development of the private in the seventeenth-century, I suggest three fronts by which Marvell interacts with privacy in different ways at different stages of his career: the dilemma of publishing in his early career; commentary on Cromwell’s switch from private to public life and Fairfax’s retirement; and later poetics of enclosure, assuming that some of his lyric verse was composed while engaged in public affairs at Westminster

Reducing in-stent restenosis therapeutic manipulation of miRNA in vascular remodeling and inflammation

Background: Drug-eluting stents reduce the incidence of in-stent restenosis, but they result in delayed arterial healing and are associated with a chronic inflammatory response and hypersensitivity reactions. Identifying novel interventions to enhance wound healing and reduce the inflammatory response may improve long-term clinical outcomes. Micro–ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) are noncoding small ribonucleic acids that play a prominent role in the initiation and resolution of inflammation after vascular injury.<p></p> Objectives: This study sought to identify miRNA regulation and function after implantation of bare-metal and drug-eluting stents.<p></p> Methods: Pig, mouse, and in vitro models were used to investigate the role of miRNA in in-stent restenosis.<p></p> Results: We documented a subset of inflammatory miRNAs activated after stenting in pigs, including the miR-21 stem loop miRNAs. Genetic ablation of the miR-21 stem loop attenuated neointimal formation in mice post-stenting. This occurred via enhanced levels of anti-inflammatory M2 macrophages coupled with an impaired sensitivity of smooth muscle cells to respond to vascular activation.<p></p> Conclusions: MiR-21 plays a prominent role in promoting vascular inflammation and remodeling after stent injury. MiRNA-mediated modulation of the inflammatory response post-stenting may have therapeutic potential to accelerate wound healing and enhance the clinical efficacy of stenting

Explicit incorporation of spatial variability in a biomass dynamics assessment model

publishedVersio

Incorporating intra-annual variability in fisheries abundance data to better capture population dynamics

To reduce the risk of overexploitation and the ensuing conservation and socio-economic consequences, fisheries management relies on receiving accurate scientific advice from stock assessments. Biomass dynamics models used in stock assessment tend to rely primarily on indices of abundance and commercial landings data. Standard practice for calculating the indices used in these models typically involves taking averages of survey tow data over large, diverse spatial domains. There is a lot of variability in the choice of methodologies used to propagate index uncertainty into the assessment model, many of which require specifying it through expert knowledge or prior distributions. Here we propose an alternative approach that treats each individual survey tow as an independent estimate of the true underlying biomass in the stock assessment model itself. This reduces information loss and propagates uncertainties into the model directly. A simulation study demonstrates that this approach accurately captures underlying population dynamics and reliably estimates variance parameters. We further demonstrate its utility with data from the Inshore Scallop Fishery of south-west Nova Scotia. Results show significant improvements in parameter estimation over previous models while providing similar predictions of biomass with less uncertainty. This reduced uncertainty can improve the resulting scientific advice and lead to improved decision-making by fisheries managers.publishedVersio

Corrections to Bino Annihilation II: One-Loop Contribution to B~B~→Z∗\widetilde B \widetilde B \to Z^*

We calculate the one-loop contribution to the bino annihilation rate due to the process $\widetilde B \widetilde B \to Z^*$, which vanishes at tree level.Comment: 8 pages in LaTex plus 5 postscript figures (included), UCSBTH--94--02, UMN--TH--1233/9

Neutrino Mass Effects in a Minimally Extended Supersymmetric Standard Model

We consider an extension of the supersymmetric standard model which includes singlet Higgs superfield representations (in three generations) to generate neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism. The resulting theory may then exhibit R-parity violation in the couplings of the singlets, inducing $R$-parity violating effective interactions among the standard model superfields, as well as inducing decay of the lightest neutralino, which otherwise would compose a stable LSP. We compute the rates for the resulting neutralino decays, depending on the particular superpotential couplings responsible for the violation of R-parity. We compare to astrophysical constraints on the decay of massive particles.Comment: 12 pages, plain LATEX, 3 non-LATEX figures available in hardcopy on request; one reference corrected; Alberta-THY-2/94, UMN-TH-1237/9

Phases in the MSSM, Electric Dipole Moments and Cosmological Dark Matter

We consider the effect of CP violating phases in the MSSM on the relic density of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). In particular, we find that the upper limits on the LSP mass are relaxed when phases in the MSSM are allowed to take non-zero values when the LSP is predominantly a gaugino (bino). Previous limits of \mb \la 250 GeV for $\Omega h^2 < 0.25$ can be relaxed to \mb \la 650 GeV. We also consider the additional constraints imposed by the neutron and electron electric dipole moments induced by these phases. Though there is some restriction on the phases, the bino mass may still be as large as $\sim$ 350 GeV and certain phases can be arbitrarily large.Comment: 10 pages in LaTeX, with 4 Postscript figures (included

Corrections to Bino Annihilation I: Sfermion Mixing

We consider corrections to bino annihilation due to sfermion mixing.Comment: 11 pages in LaTex plus 4 postscript figures (included), CfPA--93--th--21, UMN--TH--1205/9

Light Stops in the MSSM: Implications for Photino Dark Matter and Top Quark Decay

We consider the viability of the minimal supersymmetric standard model with a light ($m_{\tilde t_1} <$ 45 GeV) stop. In order for its relic abundance to be cosmologically significant, the photino as dark matter must be quite close in mass to the stop, $(m_{\tilde t_1} - m_{\tilde \gamma}) \simeq 3 - 7$ GeV. However, as we show, the photino despite its low mass is virtually undetectable by either direct or indirect means. We also discuss the implications of these masses on the top quark branching ratios.Comment: 11pages, LaTex, UMN-TH-1309/9

Trace element systematics and ore-forming processes in mafic VMS deposits: Evidence from the Troodos ophiolite, Cyprus

The volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits in the Troodos ophiolite (Cyprus) are ancient analogues for modern day seafloor massive sulfide mineralisation formed in a supra-subduction zone environment. In this study we present the first detailed in situ study of trace elements in sulfides from twenty VMS deposits hosted in the Troodos ophiolite to better understand factors that influence the distribution, enrichment and incorporation of trace elements in different sulfide minerals. On a mineral scale, trace elements exhibit systematic variations between pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite. Pyrite preferentially incorporates As, Sb, Au and Te, whilst chalcopyrite is enriched in Co and Se. Sphalerite is trace element poor with the exception of Ag and Cd. Selenium averages 278 ppm (n = 150) in chalcopyrite but only 42 ppm (n = 1322) in pyrite. Bismuth and Te in pyrite show a weak positive correlation (R2 = 0.35) in some VMS deposits possibly linked with the occurrence of Bi-telluride inclusions. Trace element concentrations also vary between colloform and euhedral pyrite, with an enrichment of Au, As, Sb, Cu and Zn in colloform compared to euhedral pyrite. Time resolved laser ablation profiles reveal that the trace element distribution on a mineral scale is not uniform and varies with crystallographic effects, fluctuating physicochemical fluid conditions such as temperature, pH, fS2, fO2 and ligand availability during sulfide precipitation. Incorporation mechanisms in sulfides differ between elements in pyrite, Ag, As, Se and Pb are hosted in solid solution or as nanoscale inclusions, whilst Au, Sb and Te may form micro-scale inclusions. On a regional scale (20 km) the distribution of trace elements exhibits systematic variations between three major structural domains; namely the Solea, Mitsero and Larnaca grabens. The VMS deposits of the magmatic-tectonic Solea graben are enriched in Se, Co, Te, Au and Cu relative to Mitsero, which is a purely extensional feature. Therefore, we hypothesise that a variable magmatic volatile influx related to a) ‘magma’ volume, b) migration of the magmatic-hydrothermal crack front and associated brine liberation or c) a variation in protolith metal concentration are responsible for regional scale variations in VMS geochemistry. This is suggested to be intrinsically linked to the spreading architecture of Troodos