Trading Identities: National Identity, Loyalty, and Backcountry Merchants in Revolutionary America, 1740-1816

This project tracks the lives a select group of Philadelphia frontier merchants such as George Morgan, David Franks, and others from 1754-1811. “Trading Identities” traces the trajectory of each man’s economic and political loyalties during the Revolutionary period. By focusing on the men of trading firms operating in Philadelphia, the borderlands and the wider world, it becomes abundantly clear that their identities were shaped and sustained by their commercial concerns—not by any new political ideology at work in this period. They were members not of a British (or even American) Atlantic World, but a profit-driven Atlantic World. The Seven Years’ War destroyed the fur trade, so they turned to land speculation. These merchants looked to the British government for repartitions in the form of land grants. When they were repeatedly denied, the merchants approached the new American government for assistance. However, the unstable American government under the Articles of Confederation also rejected their land claims. Although they all failed in land speculation, the new American economy offered enhanced opportunities for them. Ultimately, these men wanted to gain personal wealth and economic stability above any national loyalty or political ideology. After the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1789, the American people still had little or no knowledge what an American was or was supposed to be. It was worse in the backcountry—which as a middle ground had always lacked a clear political identity. Business was their true identity. Ironically, being part of the founding generation of America, these merchants did not develop a true American identity. It was their children’s generation that would cultivate a new American identity and culture

The multidrug resistance IncA/C transferable plasmid encodes a novel domain swapped dimeric protein disulfide isomerase

Background: Bacterial IncA/C plasmids distribute antibiotic resistance genes and encode a conserved thioredoxin-fold protein (DsbP). Results: DsbP shuffles incorrect disulfide bonds in misfolded proteins, and its structure diverges from previously characterized disulfide isomerases. Conclusion: Plasmid-encoded DsbP is a novel domain-swapped protein-disulfide isomerase. Significance: IncA/C plasmids may encode this protein proofreading machinery to ensure horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance genes

Developing a sediment budget for the Root River, southeastern Minnesota.

Excessive sedimentation in streams and rivers is one of the top water quality concerns in the U.S. and globally. While sediment is a natural constituent of stream ecosystems, excessive amounts cause high levels of turbidity which can reduce primary and secondary production, reduce nutrient retention, and have negative impacts on fish reproduction and physiology. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the small sediment particles can also provide attachment places for other pollutants like metals and bacteria. Key questions remain regarding the origin of excessive sediment observed in the Root River watershed, as well as the transport pathways of sediment through the landscape and channel network. To answer these questions, I will develop a sediment budget for the Root River, a 4,500 km2 watershed in southeastern Minnesota. Like other sorts of budgets, sediment budgets are a means of accounting for inputs, outputs, and changes in storage reservoirs within the system. Because watershed sediment fluxes are determined as the sum of many small changes (erosion and deposition) across a vast area, multiple techniques are required to adequately constrain all parts of the sediment budget. Specifically, this budget utilize multiple, redundant lines of evidence including sediment fingerprinting data, remote sensing analyses, watershed modeling, and direct measurements of water flow and sediment loads through continuous monitoring by a number of Minnesota agencies. These overlapping methods will provide a strong constraint for the budget and improve its reliability. After completion, the sediment budget will offer a better understanding of excessive sediment dynamics causing reach impairment in the Root River, which will be used in the development of watershed scale restoration planning