Johnson County Community College

The author describes an instructional strategy that deepens students’ understanding of the elements of in-text and works cited page citation elements in an age of citation makers.

Abstract Plants employ the Calvin-Benson cycle (CBC) to fix atmospheric CO2 for the production of biomass. The flux of carbon through the CBC is limited by the activity and selectivity of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO). Alternative pathways that do not use RuBisCO to fix CO2 exist but occur only in anaerobic microorganisms. Rather than modifying existing routes of carbon metabolism in plants, we have developed a synthetic carbon fixation cycle that does not exist in nature, but is inspired by metabolisms of bacterial autotrophs. This synthetic cycle uses endogenous plant metabolites to fix CO2 and yield glyoxylate as a product. In this work, we build and characterize a condensed, reverse tricarboxylic acid (crTCA) cycle in vitro and in planta. We demonstrate that a simple, synthetic cycle can be used to fix carbon in vitro under aerobic and mesophilic conditions and that these enzymes retain activity when expressed transiently in planta. We then evaluate stable transgenic lines of Camelina sativa that have both phenotypic and physiologic changes. Transgenic C. sativa are shorter than controls with increased rates of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation and changes in photorespiratory metabolism. This first iteration of a build-test-learn phase of the crTCA cycle provides promising evidence that this pathway can be used to increase photosynthetic capacity in plants.

Amphimerus sp. is a fluke that dwells in the biliary tracts of vertebrate definitive hosts including humans, domestic, and wild mammals in Latin America. Opisthorchiid liver infections are rarely studied in the Americas confirming its status as a neglected tropical disease. In Ecuador, small trematode eggs were reported in human cases from the province of Manabí in 1949, and recently, Amphimerus sp. adults were recovered from human and reservoir hosts in the province of Esmeraldas. Due to the lack of research on the infectious sources of Amphimerus sp. in the continent, we have developed a series of epidemiological studies with parasitological and molecular techniques to elucidate the endemicity of opisthorchiid fluke infections. We developed a cross-sectional study in three communities at Pedro Pablo Gómez parish in the province of Manabí, Ecuador. We examined a total of 176 fecal samples to detect opisthorchiid eggs, and four fish species to find opisthorchiid metacercariae. To study adult worms, we treated and purged seven patients in a family and dissected the livers of a dog and a cat infected. We observed morphological features of adults and metacercariae and used polymerase chain reaction with restricted fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and DNA sequencing of a section of the ITS2 gene for identification. Small trematode eggs were detected in 63 (35.8%) out of 176 fecal samples of residents in the three study sites. Adult opisthorchiid flukes were recovered from human patients, a dog and a cat, and they were morphologically and molecularly identified as Amphimerus sp. Opisthorchiid metacercariae were also identified molecularly as Amphimerus sp. in four fish species, i.e., Rhoadsia altipinna, Bryconamericus bucay, Andinoacara rivulatus, and Piabucina aureoguttata. Metacercariae of the heterophyid Haplorchis pumilio were also found in the four fish species examined. This is the first study to confirm the current endemicity of Amphimerus sp. in Pedro Pablo Gómez, Manabí, Ecuador. The adult worms isolated here shared morphological characteristics with previous Amphimerus sp. descriptions and were molecularly similar to Amphimerus sp. described in the province of Esmeraldas. Moreover, this study is the first to document four fish species as infection sources of Amphimerus sp. detected via a molecular protocol targeting the metacercariae of the parasite. Fish species identified here should be targeted for public health campaigns to avoid further human liver-fluke infections by Amphimerus sp. or potential intestinal-fluke infections by H. pumilio or others.

“Junipero Serra was a nazi not a saint!” “GENOCIDE EQUALS SAINTHOOD?” “NATIVE LIVES MATTER.” These were just a few of the slogans emblazoned on posters and banners during protests opposing the eighteenth-century priest Junípero Serra's canonization in 2015. Accusations that Serra committed genocide also reverberated in the press. Vincent Medina—a Catholic Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Indian and the assistant to the curator at one of California's surviving missions—told the New York Times that canonizing “the leader of the disastrous, genocidal California mission system is a way that the church further legitimized the pain and suffering of Ohlone and countless other California Indians.” The journalist and Pomo descendant Rose Aguilar wrote in the Guardian, “This genocide is just another disgraceful example of Native American history that is forgotten, whitewashed or ignored.”1 Others—especially the Catholic Church—disputed this characterization of Serra and embraced a familiar refrain among those who object to accusations of genocide. The archbishop of Los Angeles and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, for example, on a Web site promoting Serra's sainthood, claimed that “during the mission era, most Native Californians who died prematurely did so because of Europeans diseases to which the Indians had no immunity.” Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles Edward Clark told the National Catholic Reporter that Spanish missionaries “had no concept of germ theory. How could they know? No one knew. Serra was certainly not culpable.” Gregory Orfalea, a professor of English and a Serra biographer, agreed, writing in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that “what killed most of [California's Indians], in or out of the missions, was disease, lethal germs—which no Spaniard of Serra's time had any clue about.”2

Traditional Japanese poems with strong nature themes are still very relevant today as relatable statements of environmental consciousness and the value and appreciation of nature, and can be a useful tool for environmental education. This paper is a brief study of various aspects and elements of these poems, particularly the related aesthetic and philosophical perspectives of wabi-sabi and Zen Buddhism and the importance of nature and season, with the goal of developing greater appreciation for their relevance and communicative power. To illustrate these concepts, related but otherwise independent poems are presented in several coherent groupings and analyzed with regard to wabi-sabi/Zen terms, season terms, and additional nature terms. Wabi-sabi is one of the core concepts and defining perspectives of Japanese culture, has its roots in the Zen perspective, and exemplifies many of the core tenets of Zen. The wabi-sabi and Zen perspectives in Japanese poetry with particularly strong environmental themes provide a vehicle for environmental communication with great emotive power. National and international government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and institutions of higher education have all created or hosted online haikupages to facilitate their environmental education missions. In particular, the universal appeal, timelessness, and nature-focus of the wabi-sabi and Zen perspectives contribute to the continued relevance of these poems to developing environmental awareness and addressing contemporary concerns about the environment, including the intractable problem of climate change, the solution to which is unlikely to be found in the same technoscientific paradigm that created it.

Let $R$ be a Gorenstein local ring with maximal ideal $\mathfrak{m} $ satisfying $\mathfrak{m} ^3=0\ne \mathfrak{m} ^2$. Set $\mathfrak{k} =R/\mathfrak{m} $ and $e=rank _{\mathfrak{k} }(\mathfrak{m} /\mathfrak{m} ^2)$. If $e>2$ and $M$, $N$ are finitely generated $R$-modules, we show that the formal power series \[ \sum _{i=0}^\infty rank _{\mathfrak{k} }\left (Ext ^i_R(M,N)\otimes _R\mathfrak{k} \right )t^i \] and \[ \sum _{i=0}^\infty rank _{\mathfrak{k} }\left (Tor _i^R(M,N)\otimes _R \mathfrak{k} \right )t^i \] are rational, with denominator $1-et+t^2$.

Investigations of ancient political economies frequently focus on craft production. How manufacturing is organized can provide critical insights on more than the economy because social interactions and political processes are also involved. Here we consider how the acquisition, fabrication, and distribution of obsidian blades figured in the political strategies of craftworkers and elites within the Late Classic (AD 600–800) lower Cacaulapa Valley, northwestern Honduras. This evidence provides insights into the organization of craft manufacture across southeastern Mesoamerica and suggests that current models do not capture the varied production strategies that may be pursued within the same polity.