The Sanctuary of Acceptance: Love and Identity Through the Letters and Poetry of John Keats

In this thesis, I propose to explain how it is that the life and work of John Keats assists us in answering the question of how we create ourselves through the presence of others. I aim to do this through an analysis of the work that his relationship with Fanny Brawne inspired. In doing so, I hope to prove that romantic love creates a sort of metaphysical sanctuary for us to inhabit as we shift through the various incarnations of our identity throughout our lives. By synthesizing the theories of phenomenology and transgression, I hope to demonstrate how Keats’ rapid development as a poet was made possible through the sanctuary of acceptance that his love for Fanny Brawne afforded him. These concepts are divided into four sections. The first is a general overview of relevant definitions/terms as I understand and incorporate them. The second discusses how I perceive identity and its construction through influence. The third discusses Keats’ concept of Beauty as a philosophy of truth-making, and how that plays into identity formations. The last section explains how I see love as being necessary in perpetuating these new incarnations of self to occur due to the sanctuary of acceptance that it affords us

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

SETD2 loss-of-function promotes renal cancer branched evolution through replication stress and impaired DNA repair

The research leading to these results is supported by Cancer Research UK (XYG, RAB, EG, PM, PE, SG, C Santos, AJR, NM, PAB, AS and C Swanton), Breast Cancer Research Foundation (C Swanton and NK), Medical Research Council (ID: G0902275 to MG and C Santos; ID: G0701935/2 to AJR and C Swanton), the Danish Cancer Society (AMM, J Bartkova and J Bartek), the Lundbeck Foundation (R93-A8990 to J Bartek), the Ministry of the interior of the Czech Republic (grant VG20102014001 to MM and J Bartek), the National Program of Sustainability (grant LO1304 to MM and J Bartek), the Danish Council for Independent Research (grant DFF-1331-00262 to J Bartek), NIHR RMH/ICR Biomedical Research Centre for Cancer (JL), the EC Framework 7 (PREDICT 259303 to XYG, EG, PM, MG, TJ and C Swanton; DDResponse 259892 to J Bartek and J Bartkova and RESPONSIFY ID:259303 to C Swanton), UCL Overseas Research Scholarship (SG). C Swanton is also supported by the European Research Council, Rosetrees Trust and The Prostate Cancer Foundation. This research is supported by the National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

A structurally distinct TGF-β mimic from an intestinal helminth parasite potently induces regulatory T cells.

Helminth parasites defy immune exclusion through sophisticated evasion mechanisms, including activation of host immunosuppressive regulatory T (Treg) cells. The mouse parasite Heligmosomoides polygyrus can expand the host Treg population by secreting products that activate TGF-β signalling, but the identity of the active molecule is unknown. Here we identify an H. polygyrus TGF-β mimic (Hp-TGM) that replicates the biological and functional properties of TGF-β, including binding to mammalian TGF-β receptors and inducing mouse and human Foxp3+ Treg cells. Hp-TGM has no homology with mammalian TGF-β or other members of the TGF-β family, but is a member of the complement control protein superfamily. Thus, our data indicate that through convergent evolution, the parasite has acquired a protein with cytokine-like function that is able to exploit an endogenous pathway of immunoregulation in the host

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

RNA-Seq reveals large quantitative differences between the transcriptomes of outbreak and non-outbreak locusts

Outbreaks of locust populations repeatedly devastate economies and ecosystems in large parts of the world. The consequent behavioural shift from solitarious to gregarious and the concomitant changes in the locusts’ biology are of relevant scientific interest. Yet, research on the main locust species has not benefitted from recent advances in genomics. In this first RNA-Seq study on Schistocerca gregaria, we report two transcriptomes, including many novel genes, as well as differential gene expression results. In line with the large biological differences between solitarious and gregarious locusts, almost half of the transcripts are differentially expressed between their central nervous systems. Most of these transcripts are over-expressed in the gregarious locusts, suggesting positive correlations between the levels of activity at the population, individual, tissue and gene expression levels. We group these differentially expressed transcripts by gene function and highlight those that are most likely to be associated with locusts’ phase change either in a species-specific or general manner. Finally, we discuss our findings in the context of population-level and physiological events leading to gregariousness.M. Bakkali wishes to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología for the for the Ramón y Cajal fellowship and for the BFU2010-16438 grant that supported both this research and the FPI studentship to Rubén Martín Blázquez. We thank Mrs. Pernille Lavgesen for revision of the English language writing of this manuscript. We also thank the editor for the valuable comments on the manuscript

Different Temporal Structure for Form versus Surface Cortical Color Systems – Evidence from Chromatic Non-Linear VEP

Physiological studies of color processing have typically measured responses to spatially varying chromatic stimuli such as gratings, while psychophysical studies of color include color naming, color and light, as well as spatial and temporal chromatic sensitivities. This raises the question of whether we have one or several cortical color processing systems. Here we show from non-linear analysis of human visual evoked potentials (VEP) the presence of distinct and independent temporal signatures for form and surface color processing. Surface color stimuli produced most power in the second order Wiener kernel, indicative of a slowly recovering neural system, while chromatic form stimulation produced most power in the first order kernel (showing rapid recovery). We find end-spectral saturation-dependent signals, easily separable from achromatic signals for surface color stimuli. However physiological responses to form color stimuli, though varying somewhat with saturation, showed similar waveform components. Lastly, the spectral dependence of surface and form color VEP was different, with the surface color responses almost vanishing with yellow-grey isoluminant stimulation whereas the form color VEP shows robust recordable signals across all hues. Thus, surface and form colored stimuli engage different neural systems within cortex, pointing to the need to establish their relative contributions under the diverse chromatic stimulus conditions used in the literature

CD98 Increases Renal Epithelial Cell Proliferation by Activating MAPKs

CD98 heavy chain (CD98hc) is a multifunctional transmembrane spanning scaffolding protein whose extracellular domain binds with light chain amino acid transporters (Lats) to form the heterodimeric amino acid transporters (HATs). It also interacts with β1 and β3 integrins by its transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains. This interaction is proposed to be the mechanism whereby CD98 mediates cell survival and growth via currently undefined signaling pathways. In this study, we determined whether the critical function of CD98-dependent amino acid transport also plays a role in cell proliferation and defined the signaling pathways that mediate CD98-dependent proliferation of murine renal inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD) cells. We demonstrate that downregulating CD98hc expression resulted in IMCD cell death. Utilizing overexpression studies of CD98hc mutants that either lacked a cytoplasmic tail or were unable to bind to Lats we showed that CD98 increases serum-dependent cell proliferation by a mechanism that requires the CD98hc cytoplasmic tail. We further demonstrated that CD98-dependent amino acid transport increased renal tubular epithelial cell proliferation by a mechanism that does not require the CD98hc cytoplasmic tail. Both these mechanisms of increased renal tubular epithelial cell proliferation are mediated by Erk and p38 MAPK signaling. Although increased amino transport markedly activated mTor signaling, this pathway did not alter cell proliferation. Thus, these studies demonstrate that in IMCD cells, the cytoplasmic and extracellular domains of CD98hc regulate cell proliferation by distinct mechanisms that are mediated by common MAPK signaling pathways

Co-Inoculation with Rhizobia and AMF Inhibited Soybean Red Crown Rot: From Field Study to Plant Defense-Related Gene Expression Analysis

Background: Soybean red crown rot is a major soil-borne disease all over the world, which severely affects soybean production. Efficient and sustainable methods are strongly desired to control the soil-borne diseases. Principal Findings: We firstly investigated the disease incidence and index of soybean red crown rot under different phosphorus (P) additions in field and found that the natural inoculation of rhizobia and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) could affect soybean red crown rot, particularly without P addition. Further studies in sand culture experiments showed that inoculation with rhizobia or AMF significantly decreased severity and incidence of soybean red crown rot, especially for coinoculation with rhizobia and AMF at low P. The root colony forming unit (CFU) decreased over 50 % when inoculated by rhizobia and/or AMF at low P. However, P addition only enhanced CFU when inoculated with AMF. Furthermore, root exudates of soybean inoculated with rhizobia and/or AMF significantly inhibited pathogen growth and reproduction. Quantitative RT-PCR results indicated that the transcripts of the most tested pathogen defense-related (PR) genes in roots were significantly increased by rhizobium and/or AMF inoculation. Among them, PR2, PR3, PR4 and PR10 reached the highest level with co-inoculation of rhizobium and AMF. Conclusions: Our results indicated that inoculation with rhizobia and AMF could directly inhibit pathogen growth and reproduction, and activate the plant overall defense system through increasing PR gene expressions. Combined wit