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Stayin\u27 Alive (Even Without Oxygen): Retinal Development in \u3ci\u3eAustrofundulus limnaeus\u3c/i\u3e
No full textThe vertebrate eye is one of the most metabolically active organs in the body and is particularly sensitive to environmental stressors such as oxygen deprivation. Understanding how eye development proceeds under such conditions can provide critical insights into mechanisms of cellular resilience, tissue organization, and developmental plasticity. The annual killifish Austrofundulus limnaeus represents a unique model for investigating these processes due to its remarkable tolerance to anoxia during embryogenesis. However, the wild-type form is heavily pigmented, limiting the effectiveness of traditional imaging techniques for studying eye development. This thesis characterizes eye development and anoxia resilience in both wild-type and melanin-deficient (tyrKO) A. limnaeus embryos.
Using a combination of morphological analysis, survival assays, and whole-mount immunohistochemistry, this work demonstrates that the tyrKO line offers enhanced optical access to the developing eye without compromising the species\u27 hallmark stress tolerance. Results show that tyrKO embryos exit diapause earlier than their wild-type counterparts and exhibit significantly increased anoxia survival at intermediate developmental stages. High-resolution imaging reveals improved nuclear and cytoskeletal visualization in tyrKO embryos, although discrete retinal lamination remains unresolved under current conditions.
Together, these findings establish the tyrKO line as a powerful new tool for studying vertebrate eye development under extreme physiological stress. This model may also provide a foundation for future studies on retinal diseases linked to hypoxia, including diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy of prematurity, and age-related macular degeneration. This work lays the foundation for future studies on molecular mechanisms of stress adaptation, retinal organization, and developmental resilience in an anoxia-tolerant system
Notes on a Descent Into Isolated Unconsciousness, Or: The (Post-)Traumatic Resubstantiation of the Ego
No full textA rip-roaring psychological novel, epistolary self-help book and bracingly diuretic Künstlerroman at once, an all-in-one if there ever was one. Conceived on a typewriter and Imagineeringly executed in Google Docs, Notes is a genre-spanning, future Pulitzer Prize-winning encyclopedic art piece set in the only square foot of real estate with any real value: the mind. Fear and loathing never felt so good
Diapause and Anoxia-Induced Quiescence Are Unique States in Embryos of the Annual Killifish, Austrofundulus Limnaeus
Get PDFDiapause is a state of developmental and metabolic dormancy that precedes exposure to environmental stresses. Yet, diapausing embryos are typically stress-tolerant. Evidence suggests that diapausing embryos “prepare” for stress as part of a gene expression program as they enter dormancy. Here, we investigate if diapause II embryos of the annual killifish Austrofundulus limnaeus, which can survive for hundreds of days of anoxia, can mount a transcriptomic response to anoxic insult. Bulk RNAseq was used to characterize the transcriptomes of diapause II embryos exposed to normoxia, 4 h and 24 h anoxia, and 2 h and 24 h normoxic recovery from anoxia. Differential expression and gene ontology analyses were used to probe for pathways that may mitigate survival. Transcriptional factor analysis was used to predict potential mediators of this response. Diapausing embryos exhibited a robust transcriptomic response to anoxia and recovery that returns to near baseline conditions after 24 h. Anoxia induced an upregulation of genes involved in the integrated stress response, lipid metabolism, p38mapk kinase signaling, and apoptosis. Developmental and mitochondrial genes decreased. We conclude that diapause II embryos mount a robust transcriptomic stress response when faced with anoxic insult. This response is consistent with mediating expected challenges to cellular homeostasis in anoxia
Islands in Motion: The Transnational Ties Between Japan and Hawaii, 1885-1945
Get PDFNative Hawaiians have been joined on their islands by Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, and Europeans in recent centuries. Because of this, Hawaii has generally had a more tolerant attitude towards racial diversity. However, the relationship between Hawaii and Japan is a transnational one that has evolved over generations. In 1941, 37% of Hawaii’s population was Japanese. Beginning with only 150 contract laborers in 1868, immigrants had come from Japan to Hawaii in droves throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attracted by steady work and wages. Since then, Japanese people and their descendants have had a marked impact on the culture of Hawaii. Japanese food, language, music, and clothing is inherent to modern Hawaii culture, just as Hawaiian culture is omnipresent in Japan. But when 353 Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Japanese-American identity became a threat in the United States. In Hawaii, the intertwining of Japanese and Hawaiian culture fostered an interracial community on the islands, such that when Japan became the enemy of the United States, Japanese-Hawaiians were largely exempt from suspicion. But retaining so much of traditional Japanese culture, as well as trying to assimilate into American culture, created an intricate identity for Japanese-Hawaiians that complicated their relationships to Hawaii, the United States, Japan, and a world at war in general.
Part of the panel: Asia in Collision Moderator: Professor Jennifer Kern
Teaching From Past Example: Various Interpretations of Livy\u27s Rape of Lucretia
Get PDFThe final kings of Rome were expelled in 509 B.C.E. after one of their princes raped a woman, driving her to end her own life. Pure and chaste, this woman was the utmost model of feminine virtue. Her death would bring great political change at the end of the sixth century B.C.E., but her story would be carried on and projected to provoke something similar for millennia. One significant driver of this was Titus Livius, who wrote of her in the first book of his Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome written c. 29 B.C.E. His account showcased a model of feminine morality, a reminder of the great foundations of Rome. To begin to amend his nation’s current state, Livy pulled a past reference. His reference of Lucretia, however, would go much further than the pages of his book, being picked up by numerous varied successors. St. Augustine of Hippo would analyze her sanctity shortly after Rome’s sack in 410 C.E. to introduce new Christian values to a shaken nation. Christine de Pizan would use her example 1405 C.E. to grant women their exodus from a misogynistic culture and in 2015 C.E. Fiona Shaw would expand upon her story in opera to tie together the women of the past and present. Through the ages there have been countless renditions of Lucretia’s tale, but each could be linked in their edifying goal. Livy’s account of Lucretia granted scholars, writers, poets and playwrights of future millennia a malleable medium for aiding their circumstance.
Part of the panel: Alternative Narratives and Visibility Moderator: Professor Patricia Schechte
Guidelines for a Good Life: How Morality Tales Have Shaped Communities and Cultural Landscapes
Get PDFMorality tales have played a crucial role in shaping moral and political structures throughout history. These stories, varying in format from plays, to books, to even musical albums, are easily accessible to readers. They use simple language and terms that can be understood between social classes and strata to teach people how to live a more “moral” life. This paper studies the socio-political effects of these morality tales through in-depth analyses of the Greek Aesop’s Fables, Confucius’ the Analects, the Indian Panchatantra, the medieval play Everyman, and a modern American musical album “Free to Be… You and Me.” The lessons within these tales not only reflect the ethical ideals of their respective time periods, but also how they have changed and adapted to fit modern day life. By examining their enduring relevance and influence, this paper demonstrates how morality tales have shaped both individual lives and communities throughout cultures and time periods.
Keywords: Morality tales, Morality, Ethics, Politics, History, Culture
Part of the panel: Reflections of Humanity Moderator: Professor Katrine Barbe
The Confluence of Millenarianism and Sabbateanism in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands
Get PDFThe seventeenth century was a time of religious tension and a spike in apocalyptic rhetoric across not only the European continent, but also the Middle East and North Africa. Shabbatai Tzvi, a false Messiah based in the Ottoman Empire, promoted his own divine nature along with his subversive rewriting of Jewish law. Tzvi gained traction by capitalizing on the belief among persecuted Jewish communities worldwide that the Jews were soon to be redeemed; Protestants, facing their own predicted end-of-days in 1666, found commonalities in this theology. In a Netherlands newly free from Spain’s Catholic rule, Amsterdam boasted some of the most notorious followers of Shabbatai Tzvi. This paper aims to investigate how Sabbateanism affected the prosperity of the Sephardic community and its relations with their Ashkenazi and Dutch Protestant neighbors, using primary-source texts and scholarly analyses of the religious and interfaith dynamics of the time. The effects provide a possible look into how embracing the study of Sabbateanism might change the modern Jewish community.
Part of the panel: Creating Space: Community in Unlikely Places Moderator: Professor Richard Beyle
From Prison Cells to Parliament: How the H-Block Hunger Strikes Transformed Sinn Féin to Enable Peace in Northern Ireland
Get PDFThe 1988 Good Friday Agreement signed in Belfast is regarded as a landmark feat of diplomacy. Allowing for a non-violent redistribution of power, the Good Friday Agreement marked the end of a nearly thirty-year period of violence known as The Troubles. The efficacy of this agreement relied on the participation of members of the I.R.A. and Sinn Féin, something that likely would not have happened if not for a 1981 Hunger Strike that changed the public’s perception of the Irish Republican movement and launched the platform for Sinn Féin as a legitimate political organization. This paper explores the development of the H-Block prison protests and the subsequent political campaigns that allowed the movement to shift from armalite to ballot box and ultimately achieve peace in Northern Ireland.
Part of the panel: Wagers, Wounds, and WordsModerator: Professor Thomas Lucket
Restricted Nonlinear Simulations of Flow Over Riblets: Characterizing Drag Reduction and its Breakdown
Get PDFThe restricted nonlinear (RNL) model is employed as low-order representation of turbulent flow over riblets at ≈ 395. Comparisons with direct numerical simulations (DNS) verify the ability of the model to accurately capture low-order statistics, as well as trends in drag-alteration and secondary motion as a function of riblet geometry and spacing. We demonstrate the ability of the RNL model to reproduce additional flow features by decomposing the roughness function to isolate contributions from the total stress and comparing its predictions to DNS data. An analysis of the spectra of Reynolds shear stress shows that the RNL model captures Kelvin- Helmholtz-like rollers linked to riblet drag reduction breakdown but slightly over predicts the total stresses. The reproduction of the overall trends in stresses and flow features linked to the breakdown of riblet induced drag-reduction suggests that the nonlinearity and scale interactions retained in the RNL system are adequate to capture the key mechanisms underlying turbulent flow over a range of riblet geometries. These results also indicate that examining the limitations of the model may provide insight into the critical nonlinear interactions underlying drag alteration due to riblets
Design and Synthesis of Near-Infrared PSMA-Targeted Probes for Prostate Cancer Imaging and Surgical Resection
No full textProstate cancer (PCa) is a leading cause of cancer and cancer deaths in men. Radical prostatectomy is the leading treatment, but due to difficulties in maintaining negative surgical margins that are critical for ensuring complete cancer removal, prostatectomies are associated with cancer recurrence. Fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS) has shown promise in reducing the incidence of positive surgical margins through the use of targeted fluorescent probes that visually delineate otherwise ambiguous cancerous tissues. This work aims to produce two targeted near-infrared (NIR) probes viable for PCa imaging and FGS-assisted resection. Methods: Two pentamethine cyanine dyes conjugated with the PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) targeting vector EuK (glutamate-urea-lysine) were synthesized and characterized. Structural and purity characterization were completed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and high performance liquid chromatography (HP-LC). For in vitro characterization, several PCa cell lines exhibiting different levels of PSMA expression were cultured, stained, and imaged via fluorescence microscopy. Results: Molecular docking studies supported the probe design, with each probe having docking scores of -13.4 kcal/mol. The probes shared an excitation lambda maximum at 644 nm and an emission lambda maximum at 664 nm. Moreover, the probes possessed high molar extinction coefficients and adequate quantum yields. The in vitro studies demonstrated that each probe had strong specificity for PSMA. Conclusion: Each probe displayed suitable optical properties and excellent affinity towards PSMA-expressing PCa cells. These results support the viability of EuK-conjugated Sulfo-Cy5 dyes as NIR probes for cancer-specific imaging and FGS-assisted prostatectomies