Minnesota State University, Mankato
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Location of the Fibronectin Binding Domain on the Fibronectin Attachment Protein of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis
Get PDFMycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP) is an acid-fast bacillus that causes a fatal granulomatous ileocolitis called Johne’s Disease that affects primarily ruminants. The impact of MAP infection in the US dairy industry is particularly severe, with up to 70.4% of the herds being infected and annual losses as high as $1.5 billion. MAP is capable of persisting for months in the livestock environment and surviving the pasteurization process. While several vaccines are available, none can prevent infection and treatment with antimycobacterial chemotherapy does not result in a cure. Management and control of MAP infection requires characterization of host-pathogen interaction at the earliest stages in pathogenesis. It is known that establishment of infection requires MAP to bind to M cells found in the bovine ileal epithelial layer covering Peyer’s patches, a process that is mediated by a fibronectin (FN) protein bridge between host cell and MAP fibronectin attachment protein (FAP-P). Although, MAP and other mycobacteria express several FN binding proteins, interference or blocking FAP-P’s ability to bind FN virtually eliminates M cell targeting and intestinal tissue invasion. The binding motif on FN that is recognized by FAP-P has not been demonstrated definitively. Identifying this location may enable the use of peptides that can be added to milk replacer to prevent MAP infection in calves. In this study, we have used a peptide sequence corresponding to the FN binding domain of FAP-P in a luminescence assay to probe a series of FN fragments that together span the length of the FN monomer to identify which of the fragments contained the FAP-P binding site. FN fragments 2, 3, and 4 which contained 550-650 residues and did not overlap. Fragment 1 contained 1959 residues and completely overlapped fragments 2 and 3 and with a partial 78-residue overlap of fragment 4. Significant signal was observed when FN fragments 1 and 4 were probed. This indicated that the site on FN recognized by FAP-P was within this 78-residue region. Further investigation with heat-denatured fragment 4 resulted in reduced probe binding, suggesting that FAP-P binds to a linear sequence of amino acids. Future work will include competition experiments in cell culture
Celebrity, Music, and Public Persona: A Case Study of Taylor Swift
Get PDFStudies have shown that celebrity culture is one of many significant sources of influence that inform the construction of individuals’ identities as well as their outlook on work, life ambitions, and accomplishment. Celebrity also offers a unique window with which to examine both how social structures operate in the mainstream, and how social inequalities are reproduced. This study utilizes qualitative research methodology by way of longitudinal content analysis to examine how Taylor Swift’s public persona has evolved comparatively throughout the early and late stages of her career, specifically in regard to her gender, age, and music. This study identifies ten narrative themes significant to Swift’s constructed public persona in interviews conducted between the years 2009-2022: personality, emotions, music career, making music, aspects of celebrity and fame, personal life, relationships, social and cultural issues, speaking up, and perspective. These findings reinforce the themes found in the literature review and suggest new insights on celebrity, gender and sexism, artist autonomy, commodification, and public persona
Seasonal Starch Allocation in Starry Stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa) Harvested from Lake Koronis, MN, and Development of Non-Chemical Management Recommendations
Get PDFStarry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa) (Desvaux in Loiseleur) J. Groves is an invasive macro alga that can take over entire water columns and outcompete native species. Previous research has quantified seasonal life history and phenology but there is no research quantifying carbohydrate allocation which was the aim for Chapter II. Management efforts to control Nitellopsis obtusa have been limited to stressing the thalli and have not been able to directly target the reproductive bulbils on larger scales. Smaller scale efforts such as the use of hand pulling can be used but hand pulling is not realistic for larger infestations. Chapter III was conducted to test the effects of clipping and harvesting stress on N. obtusa to give a baseline on the effect of stress on the production of bulbils and the regrowth of thalli. Management needs to stress the growth of N. obtusa as much as possible to reduce the production of bulbils and limit the spread of current infestations in waterways. Both studies utilized samples harvested from Lake Koronis, Minnesota, USA from 2020 and 2021 to quantify starch allocation patterns in N. obtusa and to grow reserve cultures of N. obtusa. Starch was quantified using the Amylase/Amyloglucosidase method through a commercially purchased STA20 starch assay kit from Sigma Aldrich (Sigma Aldrich, St. Louis, Missouri). The starch data was then compared to environmental variables such as light transmittance (%), pH, and water temperature (℃) via mixed procedures models in SAS. The seasonal average low and high points of starch storage were observed to be June (3.3%) and April (24.9%) for thalli biomass then June (21.0%) and November (73.0%) for bulbils. These bulbils spread easily, spread rapidly, can store a lot of energy (73% starch), and are a major concern for the invasion of N. obtusa. Thalli biomass (g) was about 97.0% lower than reference thalli biomass after four clipping treatments and bulbil density (N m-2) was about 46.0% lower than reference bulbil density after one clipping treatment. Suggesting that mechanical clipping stress opens the water column to induce bulbil sprouting and reduce the total bulbil bank in the sediment. Mechanical clipping treatments would then be recommended to be used in conjuncture with other management methods to stress the alga as much as possible to reduce total biomass and bulbil production starting in June
A Mexican American Stuck in Egypt: Poems about everyday Chicano expatriate life in the Cradle of Civilization
No full textMy thesis is a collection of forty-eight poems divided into five sections. The first section is one poem that chronicles my departure from Atlanta, Georgia to Shibeen al-Kowm, Egpyt. The second section contains two poems describing the arrival process and culture shock. The third section is twenty-eight poems describing the people, places, and incidents in Shibeen al-Kowm. The fourth section is ten poems dedicated to my visits in Cairo. And the fifth section covers seven poems of my final weeks in Egypt. Overall, these poems explore my travels in Egypt, culture shock that I experienced, reflections on being an unemployed expatriate, grappling with my identity as a Mexican American, Muslim and follower of the Salafi sect of Islam, the religious indoctrination and hypocrisy I became aware of while in Egypt, my struggles with love and polygyny, the beginning states of losing faith, isolation from my family and relatives, the discrimination I felt by Egyptians towards non-Egyptians, the bureaucracy of visas and paperwork, Middle Eastern politics, the misogyny I witnessed and practiced, and the instances of the Orientalism-Occidentalism spectrum that occur while I waited for my entry visa into Saudi Arabia
Post Cancellation Access Journal Collections to Improve Library Services
Get PDFPost Cancellation Access (PCA) journal collections can improve library services. Other libraries can take better advantage of the PCA rights they negotiate and serve as better stewards of the rights they acquire. At the Electronic Resources Minnesota (ERMN) conference in 2022, we demonstrated how to create and maintain PCA collections using the Alma library management system. These collections are useful for several purposes and contribute directly to how we perform holdings analysis.
In this Charleston 2023 presentation, we demonstrate both how to create these collections and how to use them to support core library functions, including collection development and even instruction. The presentation includes an overview on PCA collections, a how-to demonstration to create these collections, and a review of several applications. In addition to demonstrating PCA coverage as a holdings category, we show how we use subscription, aggregator, open access, and other holdings categories in reports
October 2023 Library & Learning Newsletter
Get PDFPDF version of the October 2023 (Volume 2, Issue 3) Library & Learning Newsletter
Plants and Environment: A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of the Vosburg Site (21FA002)
Get PDFRecognized archaeologically by their distinct material culture, Oneota sites exist in many ecological zones across the Upper Midwest during the late Precontact period, c. 1000-1700 CE. Consequently, the sites are hardly homogenous. Across localities, Oneota groups are recognized as food producers who grew Zea mays (maize), Cucurbita pepo (squash), and later Phaseolus vulgaris (bean). The utilization of other wild and domesticated botanical resources across localities is not as well documented.. While extensive paleoethnobotanical analyses have been completed for the late Precontact period in southeastern Minnesota (Schirmer) and southwestern Wisconsin (Arzigian), little is known about plant utilization by Oneota groups on the Minnesota prairie. As a result, there is a significant gap in archeologists’ knowledge and understanding of Oneota plant utilization. The Vosburg site (21FA002) is a Blue Earth phase Oneota site located in Minnesota, within the woodland-prairie transitional ecotone. Radiocarbon dates date the site’s occupation at c. 1300-1400 CE. The macrobotanical remains from the northern half of a large, culturally significant feature from the Vosburg site were analyzed and compared to those of previous paleoethnobotanical studies from contemporaneous Oneota sites in the Red Wing and La Crosse localities and the Sheffield site (21WA013). Differences in the botanical assemblages were examined in light of subsistence, technology, and environment. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of understanding the diversity of plant utilizations by Oneota groups, in different localities. Moreover, this study provided a more accurate understanding of the environment of southern Minnesota c. 1300-1400, with the development of big woods vegetation beginning centuries earlier than previously thought. This study is a significant contribution to archeologists’ limited understanding of diversity in Oneota plant assemblages and of the Blue Earth phase of Oneota in southeastern Minnesota
Emily Hanford, Reading Instruction, and an Age of Clownery
No full textWe live in an age of clownery. In today’s clown age, radio journalists (Emily Hanford) get more attention from schools, state legislators, and even groups like the Illinois Reading Council than do teachers, serious academicians, researchers, and scholars when talking about reading instruction. In this age of clownery, for-profit groups are making decisions about what gets taught in our schools and what kind of professional development teachers receive. The voices of teachers and literacy experts, scholars, researchers have been silenced while the faceless moneychangers from the educational industrial complex are amplified But one of the problems in combating clowns is the effectiveness of their own clownery. Amongst the clutter of jokes disguised as facts, it can be difficult to get accurate (truthful) information out to the public. Today, know-nothing radio journalists are considered experts in reading instruction. As well, an article or column in a newspaper or magazine, written by a reporter who is hired to write about stuff about everything, gets more attention than a solid, peer-reviewed article published in an academic journal. That’s just the way of things. That’s how most come to understand reality. Decision makers are bottle-fed the warm milk of distortion from the teat of American Public Media
Volume 46, 2023, Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal, Front Matter
Get PDFFront matter and Table of Contents for Volume 46 (2023) of the Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal