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Library Perspectives, Issue 68, February 2023
No full textThis issue includes items about the Libraries\u27 Winter Term courses, special acquisitions, OhioLINK transformative agreements, Excellence in Library Research Award winner Kiran Williams \u2722, staff retirements, and Staff Excellence Award winners.https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/perspectives/1127/thumbnail.jp
Changes in Tolerance of Amphenicol and Tetracycline Antibiotics with Stress-Responsive Transcription Factor Overexpression in E. coli
No full textAntibiotic resistance has become a global issue due to antibiotic over prescription, indiscriminate use in livestock consumed by humans, and natural evolution of various bacterial species. Bacteria use many mechanisms to evade antibiotic action; one well-studied mechanism is the growth of biofilm, a sedentary state of bacteria surrounded by a hydrated and protective extracellular matrix. We are interested in how the overexpression of specific stress-responsive signaling pathways influence how Escherichia coli tolerate different classes of antibiotics and if the combination of pathway activation and antibiotic treatment changes biofilm formation and composition. We are studying the overexpression of the transcription factors rpoF and rpoH.154N in E. coli in combination with chloramphenicol, florfenicol, and tetracycline. We are measuring the growth of the bacteria using UV-visible spectroscopy to record the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and measuring biofilm growth using a crystal violet assay. Preliminary results show that the overexpression of either rpoH.154N or rpoF enhances the MIC for chloramphenicol above 4.4 µg/mL, the commonly reported MIC for E. coli. Our next steps include narrowing down the MIC for these antibiotics under differing experimental conditions and collecting biofilm growth data
Myocardial Fibrosis Assessment in Hypertensive Individuals with Chronic Kidney Disease
No full textBackground:Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with an increased risk of myocardial fibrosis which is a substrate for arrhythmia and heart failure. Myocardial fibrosis can be assessed non-invasively by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) T1 mapping or by circulating biomarkers; however, the performance of such biomarkers in the setting of impaired kidney function has not been rigorously tested.
Methods:The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) enrolled 9,361 US participants aged ≥50 years, at increased cardiovascular risk, and randomized them to intensive (\u3c120mmHg) or standard (\u3c140mmHg) systolic blood pressure lowering. A subgroup of 337 SPRINT participants with and without CKD had CMR T1 mapping, and measured plasma biomarkers of myocardial fibrosis: C-terminal propeptide of procollagen type I (CICP), N-terminal propeptide of procollagen type 3 (P3NP), and Galectin 3 (Gal-3) at study baseline.
Results:Study participants had a mean age of 64.3 [SD 8.9] years, 44.8% were women, and 21% had CKD. The levels of Gal-3, PICP, and PIIINP were found inversely correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and positively correlated with log-transformed spot albumin/creatinine (p-value \u3c 0.001 for all). No correlation was found between the level of the three biomarkers and the CMR T1 times, a more precise measure of myocardial fibrosis.
Conclusion:In individuals with and without CKD, Gal-3, PICP, and PIIINP levels were not associated with CMR T1 times. Elevated plasma biomarkers level in the context of CKD should be interpreted with caution as it may reflect their decreased urinary clearance, rather than true pathologic processes
This Is A Place of Healing : Ecowomanism and the Radical Interior of Black Women Farmers Since the Great Migration
No full textGuided by Black women writers, historians, and practitioners who center ethics of care in their scholarship, my research seeks to expand on their intellectual tradition to recognize the everyday practices of African-American women farmers as radical acts of self-making, community-building, and agrarian values. Through oral history interviews with Black women farmers from Northeast Ohio, this project tells the story of Black women’s role in simultaneously keeping culture and agricultural practices alive while caring for their community in both the past and present. Grounded in Black Geographies theory and the praxis of “Ecowomanism,” my interdisciplinary approach intentionally transcends white supremacist and capitalist conceptions of time to understand the spatial imagination of Black agricultural workers who migrated during the Great Migration and how their children have come to understand their own relationship with land. My project’s methodology combines geographic and ethnographic analysis of “Rust Belt” cities in the Midwest, experiential “Participatory-Action Research\u27\u27 (PAR) at Black-owned farms and gardens in Northeast Ohio, and oral history interviews through the lens of Black feminist/womanist praxis. I use Black feminism/womanism interchangeably to emphasize the deeply political and spiritual experience that is not defined by biological gender, but is also specific to Black women farmers’ position at the intersection of gender, labor, and agency. Ultimately, I am arguing that the Black agrarian tradition is a distinctly Black feminist/womanist practice which embraces spiritual connection, healing, and relationality and comes from an inner consciousness of self-worth and agency—which I have called the “radical interior.
Translation as an Act of Friendship
No full textI chose to undertake a creative translation project for my research in the Hispanic Studies honors program. The project was inspired by two polar translation theories. These theories explore what can be gained from the practice of translation as well as the ethics of the discipline. One theory argues that simply translating a work is enough acknowledgment of the culture that it comes from. The other advocates for untranslatability, the decision to not translate things that can simply not be understood outside of the native language and cultural context. I wanted to investigate the middle ground between the two works and write my own theory to unite them. I then applied my own theoretical conclusions in practice and translated ten poems from a poetry book entitled Terapia con animales, written by young Argentine poet Daniela Ema Aguinksy
Decision Making in Open Multiagent Systems
No full textIn many real-world applications of AI, the set of actors and tasks are not constant, but instead change over time. Robots tasked with suppressing wildfires eventually run out of limited suppressant resources and need to temporarily disengage from the collaborative work in order to recharge, or they might become damaged and leave the environment permanently. In a large business organization, objectives and goals change with the market, requiring workers to adapt to perform different sets of tasks across time. We call these multiagent systems (MAS) open agent systems (OASYS), and the openness of the sets of agents and tasks necessitates new capabilities and modeling for decision making compared to planning and learning in closed environments. In this article, we discuss three notions of openness: agent openness, task openness, and type openness. We also review the past and current research on addressing the novel challenges brought about by openness in OASYS. We share lessons learned from these efforts and suggest directions for promising future work in this area. We also encourage the community to engage and participate in this area of MAS research to address critical real-world problems in the application of AI to enhance our daily lives