Explore the vast range of titles available.

In decades since 11 September 2001 (9/11), surveillance and policing within the United States have increased manifold and, with them, protests against the systemic racism and classism embedded in these practices. These practices go back beyond the 21st century—these modes of policing, power, and protests against them are not new. Due to urban spaces’ concentration of political, economic, and social power and the sheer density of people, they can quickly take on material and symbolic importance that can last for centuries. As public protests increase, so do countermeasures from those wielding power in the forms of both formal and informal policing and surveillance. These policing measures also leave material traces in the landscape, working to create a palimpsest of trauma across urban terrains. The lineage of a surveillance landscape as seen in policing, power, and protest in Lower Manhattan, will be explored through a documentary archaeological approach to examine the residual trauma left in public spaces.

Zierden and Calhoun’s (1984) research design for the city of Charleston, South Carolina, represents one of these early efforts to dictate a clear set of archaeological methodologies for an urban landscape. While some cities now have legislation in place, others, like Charleston, for example, still lack a protective archaeological ordinance (Behre 2021), and concerns around gentrification still form a prominent undercurrent of archaeologists’ work as they grapple with the consequences of mid-century urban-renewal efforts (Britt 2023). In 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic prior to the wide availability of a vaccine and amid a resurgence of protests and calls for action by the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), archaeologists joined in community over Zoom for the 2021 virtual SHA conference, An Archaeological Decameron: Research, Interpretation, and Engagement in the Time of Pandemic. Sumner was an antislavery senator from Massachusetts during the Civil War period, and Calhoun was a vocal and staunch defender of the institution of slavery whose ideologies figured prominently in the secession of the American South.

This dissertation focuses on the fine lines separating and connecting archaeology, heritage tourism, and economic redevelopment. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, many small American historic cities have found themselves in a de-industrialized state with the local economy in flux. Looking to replace the old industrial economy with a ‘new economy’, some of these cities have turned to heritage tourism, both to stimulate their economy, and to establish a new “historical identity” for presentation to residents and visitors. This project looks at how these new heritage tourism destinations are formed, and what they create in the process. The analysis focuses on the role of one of the heritage professionals, namely the archaeologist, and how memory, ritual and the representation of past people, events, and moments can influence the making of the an historic site and its impact on community identity within a preservation project. The analysis focuses on one specific case study, the Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith Historic Site and Interpretive Center located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At this location, a project to construct a new hotel and convention center became the catalyst for salvage archaeology and for the creation of a new heritage tourist initiative. Initially the hotel and convention center was intended purely to encourage economic development within the city, but the site became a forum for debate over preservation politics, community contention, and the search for community identity. With this research, I examine how the desire for heritage reflects people's desire to learn about their own identities. The search for identity in the present can sometimes become a means of escaping to the past for a more nostalgic view of history, through the making and use of myths and rituals. My research also examines the extent to which heritage professionals can mediate the social action that the historic site produces while under investigation, in order to foster a truly community-based project.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a life-saving support system used in neonates and young children with severe cardiorespiratory failure. Although ECMO has reduced mortality in these critically ill patients, almost all patients treated with ECMO develop a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) characterized by a ‘cytokine storm', leukocyte activation, and multisystem organ dysfunction. We used a neonatal porcine model of ECMO to investigate whether rising plasma concentrations of inflammatory cytokines during ECMO reflect de novo synthesis of these mediators in inflamed tissues, and therefore, can be used to assess the severity of ECMO-related SIRS. Previously healthy piglets (3-week-old) were subjected to venoarterial ECMO for up to 8 h. SIRS was assessed by histopathological analysis, measurement of neutrophil activation (flow cytometry), plasma cytokine concentrations (enzyme immunoassays), and tissue expression of inflammatory genes (PCR/western blots). Mast cell degranulation was investigated by measurement of plasma tryptase activity. Porcine neonatal ECMO was associated with systemic inflammatory changes similar to those seen in human neonates. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) concentrations rose rapidly during the first 2 h of ECMO, faster than the tissue expression of these cytokines. ECMO was associated with increased plasma mast cell tryptase activity, indicating that increased plasma concentrations of inflammatory cytokines during ECMO may result from mast cell degranulation and associated release of preformed cytokines stored in mast cells. TNF-α and IL-8 concentrations rose faster in plasma than in the peripheral tissues during ECMO, indicating that rising plasma levels of these cytokines immediately after the initiation of ECMO may not reflect increasing tissue synthesis of these cytokines. Mobilization of preformed cellular stores of inflammatory cytokines such as in mucosal mast cells may have an important pathophysiological role in ECMO-related SIRS.

The multifunctional protein cytochrome c (cyt c) plays key roles in electron transport and apoptosis, switching function by modulating bonding between a heme iron and the sulfur in a methionine residue. This Fe–S(Met) bond is too weak to persist in the absence of protein constraints. We ruptured the bond in ferrous cyt c using an optical laser pulse and monitored the bond reformation within the protein active site using ultrafast x-ray pulses from an x-ray free-electron laser, determining that the Fe–S(Met) bond enthalpy is ~4 kcal/mol stronger than in the absence of protein constraints. The 4 kcal/mol is comparable with calculations of stabilization effects in other systems, demonstrating how biological systems use an entatic state for modest yet accessible energetics to modulate chemical function.

Background Triple negative BCa (TNBC) is defined by a lack of expression of estrogen (ERα), progesterone (PgR) receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) as assessed by protein expression and/or gene amplification. It makes up ~ 15% of all BCa and often has a poor prognosis. TNBC is not treated with endocrine therapies as ERα and PR negative tumors in general do not show benefit. However, a small fraction of the true TNBC tumors do show tamoxifen sensitivity, with those expressing the most common isoform of ERβ1 having the most benefit. Recently, the antibodies commonly used to assess ERβ1 in TNBC have been found to lack specificity, which calls into question available data regarding the proportion of TNBC that express ERβ1 and any relationship to clinical outcome. Methods To confirm the true frequency of ERβ1 in TNBC we performed robust ERβ1 immunohistochemistry using the specific antibody CWK-F12 ERβ1 on 156 primary TNBC cancers from patients with a median of 78 months (range 0.2–155 months) follow up. Results We found that high expression of ERβ1 was not associated with increased recurrence or survival when assessed as percentage of ERβ1 positive tumor cells or as Allred > 5. In contrast, the non-specific PPG5-10 antibody did show an association with recurrence and survival. Conclusions Our data indicate that ERβ1 expression in TNBC tumours does not associate with prognosis.

Anthropogenic releases of mercury (Hg) 1 – 3 are a human health issue 4 because the potent toxicant methylmercury (MeHg), formed primarily by microbial methylation of inorganic Hg in aquatic ecosystems, bioaccumulates to high concentrations in fish consumed by humans 5 , 6 . Predicting the efficacy of Hg pollution controls on fish MeHg concentrations is complex because many factors influence the production and bioaccumulation of MeHg 7 – 9 . Here we conducted a 15-year whole-ecosystem, single-factor experiment to determine the magnitude and timing of reductions in fish MeHg concentrations following reductions in Hg additions to a boreal lake and its watershed. During the seven-year addition phase, we applied enriched Hg isotopes to increase local Hg wet deposition rates fivefold. The Hg isotopes became increasingly incorporated into the food web as MeHg, predominantly from additions to the lake because most of those in the watershed remained there. Thereafter, isotopic additions were stopped, resulting in an approximately 100% reduction in Hg loading to the lake. The concentration of labelled MeHg quickly decreased by up to 91% in lower trophic level organisms, initiating rapid decreases of 38–76% of MeHg concentration in large-bodied fish populations in eight years. Although Hg loading from watersheds may not decline in step with lowering deposition rates, this experiment clearly demonstrates that any reduction in Hg loadings to lakes, whether from direct deposition or runoff, will have immediate benefits to fish consumers. In a 15-year whole-ecosystem, single-factor experiment, stopping experimental mercury loading results in rapid decreases in methylmercury contamination of fish populations and almost complete recovery within the timeframe of the study.

The dynamics of photodissociation and recombination in heme proteins represent an archetypical photochemical reaction widely used to understand the interplay between chemical dynamics and reaction environment. We report a study of the photodissociation mechanism for the Fe(II)-S bond between the heme iron and methionine sulfur of ferrous cytochrome c . This bond dissociation is an essential step in the conversion of cytochrome c from an electron transfer protein to a peroxidase enzyme. We use ultrafast X-ray solution scattering to follow the dynamics of Fe(II)-S bond dissociation and 1 s 3 p (Kβ) X-ray emission spectroscopy to follow the dynamics of the iron charge and spin multiplicity during bond dissociation. From these measurements, we conclude that the formation of a triplet metal-centered excited state with anti-bonding Fe(II)-S interactions triggers the bond dissociation and precedes the formation of the metastable Fe high-spin quintet state. The dissociation mechanism of the heme axial ligand in heme proteins is not yet fully understood. The authors investigate the photodissociation dynamics of the bond between heme Fe and methionine S in ferrous cytochrome c using femtosecond time-resolved X-ray solution scattering and X-ray emission spectroscopy, simultaneously tracking electronic and nuclear structure changes.

From June to August 2018, the eruption of Kīlauea volcano on the island of Hawai‘i injected millions of cubic meters of molten lava into the nutrient-poor waters of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The lava-impacted seawater was characterized by high concentrations of metals and nutrients that stimulated phytoplankton growth, resulting in an extensive plume of chlorophyll a that was detectable by satellite. Chemical and molecular evidence revealed that this biological response hinged on unexpectedly high concentrations of nitrate, despite the negligible quantities of nitrogen in basaltic lava. We hypothesize that the high nitrate was caused by buoyant plumes of nutrient-rich deep waters created by the substantial input of lava into the ocean. This large-scale ocean fertilization was therefore a unique perturbation event that revealed how marine ecosystems respond to exogenous inputs of nutrients.