Approximate N³LO Parton Distribution Functions: In the pursuit of theoretical uncertainties...

This thesis presents the first global analysis of parton distribution functions (PDFs) at approximate N³LO in the strong coupling constant α, extending beyond the current highest NNLO achieved in PDF fits. To achieve this, a general formalism for the inclusion of theoretical uncertainties from missing higher orders (MHOs) in a PDF fit is established. By using the currently available knowledge surrounding the next highest order (N³LO) in α, consistent, justifiable and explainable approximate N³LO (aN³LO) PDFs are constructed, including estimates for missing higher order uncertainties (MHOUs). Specifically, N³LO approximations for splitting functions, transition matrix elements, coefficient functions and K-factors for multiple processes are introduced. Crucially, these are constrained to be consistent with the wide range of already available information about N³LO to match the complete result at this order as accurately as possible. Using this approach, this thesis includes results from a fully consistent approximate N³LO global fit within the MSHT framework. This relies on an expansion of the Hessian procedure used in previous MSHT fits to allow for sources of theoretical uncertainties. These are included as nuisance parameters in a global fit, controlled by knowledge and intuition based prior distributions. The differences between these aN³LO PDFs and the standard NNLO MSHT20 PDF set are investigated, as well as the impact of using aN³LO PDFs on the LHC production of a Higgs boson at this order. Alongside this, guidelines are provided on how these PDFs should be be used in phenomenological investigations. Finally, the effect of fitting to recent high-x datasets currently not included as standard in the MSHT20 global fit is discussed, with a focus on aN³LO PDFs at high-x

Creating Collaborative Connections through Conversation, Community, and Cranes

The Common Read program at Minnesota State University, Mankato created a collaboration of cranes across campus to help connect the community. We will be discussing how we, Library Services, connected one story with a diverse population through partnerships, promotion, engagement, and art! Come learn how we took the solitary endeavor of reading and added a creative hands-on component to increase campus and community connections and participation. We created videos for promotion and education using our in-house resources – and you can do it too! Learn from our successes and also learn what didn\u27t work. Find out more about how we promoted the Common Read through social media: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.! We\u27ll show you how to use free technology resources and how to have fun with it

Conventional signs, imperial designs: mapping the Gold Coast, 1874-1957

This dissertation challenges conventional cartographic histories of Africa that invariably present a Eurocentric view of the mapping of the continent. These histories typically consider tend to position the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 as the key moment in the mapping of Africa by European explorers, surveyors, and mapmakers. In contrast, this study offers a more balanced cartographic history examining the roles played by Africans in the mapping of the continent. The mapping of the British colony of the Gold Coast (Ghana) serves as a case study that illustrates the influence of Africans surveyors, cartographers, and chiefs in the mapping of Africa. The research hinges on three central arguments. First, the techniques and technology of mapping enabled the governance of the colony, as maps were everyday tools of rule. Second, Africans were critical to the mapping of Ghana from its colonial inception through its independence in 1957. Their cartographic training and contributions to colonial mapping help to explain the striking continuities in mapping into the postcolonial era. Third, local chiefs, though not directly involved with the mapping practices, informed the mapping of boundaries by the colonial administration, thus influencing their territories of rule in northeastern Ghana. This study demonstrates that cartography was a commonplace tool of colonial administration, and there is a cartomentality to such maps. By this I mean, the maps have an instrumentality fostering administrative strategies while also there is a continuous pursuit of a higher degree of accuracy to achieve better knowledge and administrative coherence. It also correlates these interventions to administrative tactics of governing the population, the economy, and the territory. Further, this dissertation illuminates that maps were not solely constructed by British colonial agents. African surveyors and cartographers were influential in the mapping of colonial Ghana and their contributions to mapping was not solely framed around British colonial affairs, but reflected local and regional socio-political dynamics or an interest in scientific practice. A third contribution of this study is its focus on African agency, demonstrating that individuals not actively involved in the mapping process as professionals still influenced the mapping of the colony. Namely, local chiefs concerned with their territories of rule sought to influence their socio-political territory of rule and thereby influenced the making of colonial maps

Genomic Evolution in the Oomycetes

Members of the oomycete class include some of the most devastating pathogens of plants and animals. Oomycetes secrete large arsenals of effector proteins that perform a wide range of functions, including sequestering nutrients from hosts and the environment, degrading host cells to facilitate colonisation, and modulating host immune responses. Recent genome sequencing projects have generated large amounts of oomycete genomic data. Availability of which facilitated bioinformatic characterisation of the secretomes of diverse oomycete species. Using comparative genomic, network, and phylogenetic methods, this thesis reports the identification of lineage and species-specific expansions of effectors. Despite their ubiquity and the threat that oomycetes pose to global food security, there is a lack of dedicated tools to analyse oomycete genomes. To this end, the Oomycete Gene Order Browser (OGOB) was developed. OGOB is a database and novel tool that facilitates comparative genomic and syntenic analyses of oomycete genomes. Analyses using OGOB highlighted the high degree of syntenic conservation within oomycete genera. Furthermore, tandem gene duplication was shown to play a significant role in the expansion and evolution of effector proteins. The data presented in this thesis also describes the first large-scale genomic and proteomic investigations of the widespread phytopathogens Phytophthora chlamydospora, Phytophthora gonapodyides and Phytophthora pseudosyringae. Mass spectrometry analyses identified approximately 300 extracellular proteins per species, many of which are putativly involved in infection or osmotrophy. The expression of approximately 3,000 proteins for each species was validated at the protein level. Comparative genomic analysis of CAZymes suggest that oomycete lifestyles may be linked to their CAZyme repertoires. Overall, the data presented in this thesis expands our knowledge of oomycete genome evolution

Appendices and Codebook for Evaluating Nursing Faculty\u27s Use of Frameworks and Standards in Information Literacy Instruction: A Multi-Institutional Study

In January 2018, the ACRL Health Sciences Interest Group (HSIG) convened a working group to revise the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Nursing (2013) into a Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education for Nursing. For nearly two years, the working group has conducted research to understand how nursing faculty integrate information literacy instruction in nursing education. Results from a review of the literature and surveying of nursing faculty at nine higher education institutions suggest that a majority of nursing faculty are unaware of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education but are intentional in using the AACN Essentials and other nursing standards to integrate information literacy in course curriculums

Comparative Genomic and Proteomic Analyses of Three Widespread Phytophthora Species: Phytophthora chlamydospora, Phytophthora gonapodyides and Phytophthora pseudosyringae

The genus includes some of the most devastating plant pathogens. Here we report draft genome sequences for three ubiquitous species-, , and . is an important forest pathogen that is abundant in Europe and North America. and are globally widespread species often associated with aquatic habitats. They are both regarded as opportunistic plant pathogens. The three sequenced genomes range in size from 45 Mb to 61 Mb. Similar to other oomycete species, tandem gene duplication appears to have played an important role in the expansion of effector arsenals. Comparative analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) across 44 oomycete genomes indicates that oomycete lifestyles may be linked to CAZyme repertoires. The mitochondrial genome sequence of each species was also determined, and their gene content and genome structure were compared. Using mass spectrometry, we characterised the extracellular proteome of each species and identified large numbers of proteins putatively involved in pathogenicity and osmotrophy. The mycelial proteome of each species was also characterised using mass spectrometry. In total, the expression of approximately 3000 genes per species was validated at the protein level. These genome resources will be valuable for future studies to understand the behaviour of these three widespread species

Comparative Genomic and Proteomic Analyses of Three Widespread Phytophthora Species: Phytophthora chlamydospora, Phytophthora gonapodyides and Phytophthora pseudosyringae

The genus includes some of the most devastating plant pathogens. Here we report draft genome sequences for three ubiquitous species-, , and . is an important forest pathogen that is abundant in Europe and North America. and are globally widespread species often associated with aquatic habitats. They are both regarded as opportunistic plant pathogens. The three sequenced genomes range in size from 45 Mb to 61 Mb. Similar to other oomycete species, tandem gene duplication appears to have played an important role in the expansion of effector arsenals. Comparative analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) across 44 oomycete genomes indicates that oomycete lifestyles may be linked to CAZyme repertoires. The mitochondrial genome sequence of each species was also determined, and their gene content and genome structure were compared. Using mass spectrometry, we characterised the extracellular proteome of each species and identified large numbers of proteins putatively involved in pathogenicity and osmotrophy. The mycelial proteome of each species was also characterised using mass spectrometry. In total, the expression of approximately 3000 genes per species was validated at the protein level. These genome resources will be valuable for future studies to understand the behaviour of these three widespread species

A Dataset for Learning Graph Representations to Predict Customer Returns in Fashion Retail

We present a novel dataset collected by ASOS (a major online fashion retailer) to address the challenge of predicting customer returns in a fashion retail ecosystem. With the release of this substantial dataset we hope to motivate further collaboration between research communities and the fashion industry. We first explore the structure of this dataset with a focus on the application of Graph Representation Learning in order to exploit the natural data structure and provide statistical insights into particular features within the data. In addition to this, we show examples of a return prediction classification task with a selection of baseline models (i.e. with no intermediate representation learning step) and a graph representation based model. We show that in a downstream return prediction classification task, an F1-score of 0.792 can be found using a Graph Neural Network (GNN), improving upon other models discussed in this work. Alongside this increased F1-score, we also present a lower cross-entropy loss by recasting the data into a graph structure, indicating more robust predictions from a GNN based solution. These results provide evidence that GNNs could provide more impactful and usable classifications than other baseline models on the presented dataset and with this motivation, we hope to encourage further research into graph-based approaches using the ASOS GraphReturns dataset.Comment: The ASOS GraphReturns dataset can be found at https://osf.io/c793h/. Accepted at FashionXRecSys 2022 workshop. Published Versio

Whole Genome Sequence of the Commercially Relevant Mushroom Strain Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23

Agaricus bisporus is an extensively cultivated edible mushroom. Demand for cultivation is continuously growing and difficulties associated with breeding programs now means strains are effectively considered monoculture. While commercial growing practices are highly efficient and tightly controlled, the over-use of a single strain has led to a variety of disease outbreaks from a range of pathogens including bacteria, fungi and viruses. To address this, the Agaricus Resource Program (ARP) was set up to collect wild isolates from diverse geographical locations through a bounty-driven scheme to create a repository of wild Agaricus germplasm. One of the strains collected, Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23, has been crossed extensively with white commercial varieties leading to the generation of a novel hybrid with a dark brown pileus commonly referred to as ‘Heirloom’. Heirloom has been successfully implemented into commercial mushroom cultivation. In this study the whole genome of Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23 was sequenced and assembled with Illumina and PacBio sequencing technology. The final genome was found to be 33.49 Mb in length and have significant levels of synteny to other sequenced Agaricus bisporus strains. Overall, 13,030 putative protein coding genes were located and annotated. Relative to the other A. bisporus genomes that are currently available, Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23 is the largest A. bisporus strain in terms of gene number and genetic content sequenced to date. Comparative genomic analysis shows that the A. bisporus mating loci in unifactorial and unsurprisingly highly conserved between strains. The lignocellulolytic gene content of all A. bisporus strains compared is also very similar. Our results show that the pangenome structure of A. bisporus is quite diverse with between 60–70% of the total protein coding genes per strain considered as being orthologous and syntenically conserved. These analyses and the genome sequence described herein are the starting point for more detailed molecular analyses into the growth and phenotypical responses of Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23 when challenged with economically important mycoviruses

Genomic diversity, chromosomal rearrangements, and interspecies hybridization in the Ogataea polymorpha species complex

The methylotrophic yeast Ogataea polymorpha has long been a useful system for recombinant protein production, as well as a model system for methanol metabolism, peroxisome biogenesis, thermotolerance, and nitrate assimilation. It has more recently become an important model for the evolution of mating-type switching. Here, we present a population genomics analysis of 47 isolates within the O. polymorpha species complex, including representatives of the species O. polymorpha, Ogataea parapolymorpha, Ogataea haglerorum, and Ogataea angusta. We found low levels of nucleotide sequence diversity within the O. polymorpha species complex and identified chromosomal rearrangements both within and between species. In addition, we found that one isolate is an interspecies hybrid between O. polymorpha and O. parapolymorpha and present evidence for loss of heterozygosity following hybridization