Pennsylvania State Research Articles

Hair fiber morphology and function: at the intersection of anthropology, physiology, and engineering

Humans are unique among mammals in having a nearly naked body but a fur‐covered head. Furthermore, scalp hair is one of the most variable traits among human populations. However, the evolutionary emergence of scalp hair, the factors contributing to its evolution, and its subsequent diversification remain largely unknown. Among the few discussions of human scalp hair evolution is the hypothesis that hairy scalps may have evolved as protective barriers against solar radiation in bipedal savannah dwellers. Managing thermal load would be particularly important in the context of a large thermogenic and thermosensitive brain. And as the presence and morphology of fur, or hair, is generally of great importance to mammalian thermoregulation, we set out to test the thermal effect of scalp hair (morphology). To do this, we developed methods for the quantification of hair fiber morphology and experimentally tested the effect of scalp hair (and variation in its morphology) on heat gain from solar radiation. Thermal manikins are human models designed for scientific testing of thermal environments and to simulate heat transfer between the skin and the environment in a range of temperatures. Using one such thermal manikin, we collected data on heat flux when the manikin was equipped with no wig, and wigs of various hair textures. Our preliminary results show that tightly curled scalp hair, in particular, minimizes the heat gained from solar radiation (Figure 1). The study is being expanded and experiments repeated to enable statistical testing. We plan to use these data in mathematical models of human physiological response to estimate the impact scalp hair might have had in early human evolution. In this research we combined anthropological theory, physiological models and engineering methods to answer a longstanding question of human evolution ‐ why did humans evolve scalp hair and why does it vary? The innovative work stemming from this collaboration provided the opportunity to tackle old questions in new ways and pave the way for more potential interdisciplinary work.Support or Funding InformationThis work is supported by the National Science Foundation (award number 1847845); the Wenner‐Gren Foundation (grant number 9911); and the Africana Research Center at The Pennsylvania State University.Solar heat gain in different hair textures at three windspeeds.Figure 1

Lack of proper reimbursement is hampering adoption of minimally invasive gastrointestinal endoscopy in North America

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) and related procedures are minimally invasive and cost-effective alternates to surgery. However, there is no approved or listed current procedural terminology (CPT) for ESD. We aimed to review the current reimbursement process hurdles for ESD procedures in private practice model in United States. We reviewed the data of two advanced endoscopists (one in New York and other in Pennsylvania State) performing ESD in their private practice set-ups. We found the reimbursement process was complex, with number of refusals varied from 0-9 for ESD procedures. It was not paid at all in 8.3% of cases by the medical insurance. Endoscopic mucosal resection, which is considered inferior as compared to ESD, but has a listed CPT, was denied in only 0.83% cases. Our data highlights the billing hurdles by the endoscopists to adopt ESD-related procedures in private practice model.

"The Spanish Element in Our Nationality": Spain and America at the World's Fairs and Centennial Celebrations, 1876–1915 by M. Elizabeth Boone

Reviewed by: "The Spanish Element in Our Nationality": Spain and America at the World's Fairs and Centennial Celebrations, 1876–1915 by M. Elizabeth Boone Alisa Luxenberg M. Elizabeth Boone. "The Spanish Element in Our Nationality": Spain and America at the World's Fairs and Centennial Celebrations, 1876–1915. THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UP, 2020. 272 PP. ART HISTORIAN M. ELIZABETH BOONE TAKES UP Walt Whitman's challenge from his 1883 essay to understand the "Spanish Element in Our Nationality," given that the Spanish monarchy and then the independent republic of Mexico governed significant portions of the future United States into the nineteenth century. Boone's response is a first-rate study of a complex discourse that covers multiple continents and countries, languages, and historical moments while balancing political agendas and aesthetic trends, centers and margins. It participates in a wider critical reexamination of narratives of U.S. history, particularly their pervasive diminishing of Spanish and Latinx contributions, by such scholars as Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, W.W. Norton & Company, 2014) and Mauricio Tenorio Trillo (Historia y celebración: América y sus centenarios, Tusquets, 2010). And in a subtle yet powerful way, Boone recovers for the term "American" its original, broader significance which encompassed all countries on both continents, a reminder that the United States has no exclusive claim to it. In this handsomely produced book, Boone considers the ways in which nations in North and South America and Spain were in dialogue as they constructed their national histories through the cultural production of world's fairs and centennial expositions celebrating the host country's political independence. To that end, she investigates several large-scale expositions between 1876 and 1915 in Philadelphia, Barcelona, Paris, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, San Francisco, and San Diego, through which the hosts controlled opportunities to present a compelling national past and identity to an international public. The American lands had all been subjected to Spanish imperialism; as independent nations, they now acknowledged or suppressed that past, even as they entered into new political and economic relationships with Spain. Spain also affected American national narratives by its decisions concerning participation and representation at the [End Page 143] expositions. Boone identifies and explains how these American nations toggled between acknowledging, resisting, or reinterpreting their relationships with Spanish (and Indigenous) cultures as they constructed their origin stories. Boone's research is interdisciplinary and rich, including deep archival work, sensitive and original readings of visual art and architecture, acknowledgment and questioning of the scholarly literature, and engagement with broader methodological and theoretical concerns. The scholarship on world's fairs and other international expositions has burgeoned over the last four decades across academic disciplines, including art history. National ideologies, particularly of the host nation, have been a central theme of these studies, but what makes Boone's book unusual is its multinational discussion sustained over several fairs, decades, and geographic-cultural environments. Her introduction to the scholarly literature and her methodology makes clear that she wants "to unsettle and reconsider traditional hierarchies and ways of understanding art, identity, and the nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (10). While paying close attention to the architecture and the fine art at the fairs, she also integrates into her discussions of national representation a broad variety of visual objects, from a full-scale reproduction of the Liberty Bell covered in oranges (thank you, California) to the colorful posters and commercial photographs that promoted the fairs and provided souvenirs. Drawing on sociologist Paul Connerton (How Societies Remember, Cambridge UP, 1989), who observes that our experience of the present is largely dependent on our representations of the past, which we deploy to legitimize our current social order (8), Boone investigates various spectacles and ritual performances at these international and commemorative fairs well beyond their visual components. She also considers these attempts to manufacture a past through their somatic experiences of consuming foods, listening to music, moving through buildings or along the midway, and interacting with living persons, if only impersonators of other cultures and times. Over five chapters focused on discrete expositions, Boone crafts highly interdisciplinary interpretations of the...

Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain by Silvia Z. Mitchell

Reviewed by: Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain by Silvia Z. Mitchell María Cristina Quintero Silvia Z. Mitchell Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain. PENNSYLVANIA STATE UP, 2019. 312 PP. IN RECENT DECADES, scholars of early modern Spain have reclaimed for the historical record the lives and deeds of women who wielded political power. Relegated for centuries to the sidelines, female rulers are finally being given proper credit for their significant contributions to the politics of their age. Sylvia Z. Mitchell's book is a welcome addition to the work by historians such as Magdalena S. Sánchez, Theresa Earenfight, and Grace E. Coolidge, to name only three. Mariana of Austria—the daughter and sister of two Holy Roman Emperors, the second wife of Philip IV, and the mother to the last Spanish Habsburg monarch, Charles II—has traditionally been depicted as a contumacious, unintelligent woman who was a singularly incompetent ruler. Expanding on the work of other historians, prominently Laura Oliván Santaliestra, Mitchell offers a definitive corrective to this biased and misogynist view. In this meticulously researched book, the author weaves a compelling tale of the fortunes of a woman who would spend nearly fifty years at the Spanish court and who would assume many roles: adolescent bride, queen consort, queen mother, and—after Philip's death—regent, tutor, governor, and curator. Divided into seven chapters, plus an introduction and a conclusion, the book is not just a biography of a remarkable woman but also a fascinating study of the gender politics within the Habsburg court at a particularly fraught historical period. Chapter 1 begins with a description of the dynastic matrimonial policies that led to Mariana's marriage to her much older uncle, Philip IV. Mitchell describes the education and training Mariana received from an early age in Austria before undertaking the year-long journey to Spain to become queen consort. Her primary responsibility, like that of all queens consort, was to provide an heir to the throne, and Mitchell describes how Mariana's body and its reproductive potential were subject to intense vigilance and commentary within and beyond the Spanish court. Mitchell is a clear-eyed, nonsentimental [End Page 175] writer who does not exploit the young queen's circumstances for melodrama, but there is nonetheless pathos in many of the descriptions of Mariana's life, as when we learn that she experienced "five recorded pregnancies and births in addition to several miscarriages in her sixteen years as queen consort" (37). The chapter ends with Philip's death and the beginning of Mariana's regency, at age thirty, on behalf of the three-year-old heir to the throne, Charles. Chapter 2 deals with the complex system of governance and the intricate workings of the court that Mariana had to navigate as regent. Attention is given to the spatial configuration of power in the Alcázar, with its separation of the king's and queen's households. Mariana's regency created a unique situation at the court: the disappearance of the king's household and the preeminence of the queen's as the center of power. Of particular interest is the description of the gendered nature of her household and the challenges from courtiers chafing under the feminization of the court. In addition, Mariana inherited a war with Portugal, a monarchy deeply in debt, and an imminent military threat from France. Mitchell provides an important corrective to misconceptions about Mariana's reign, notably the role of the Junta de Gobierno, the consultative organ of government that Philip decreed should be established upon his death. This move has been interpreted by historians as the dying king's recognition of his wife's inexperience and incompetence in matters of government. Mitchell shows that, on the contrary, Philip had great confidence in his wife's intelligence and invested her with full sovereignty. At the same time, the author vividly recounts the intense challenges Mariana faced and the strategies she had to repeatedly deploy to assert her authority. Occasionally, the author seems to protest too much. In the same section where Mitchell insists on Mariana's exceptional...

Contradictions of neoliberal urbanism in Mumbai, India

Parikh, Aparna. 2018. “Contradictions of neoliberal urbanism in Mumbai, India.” PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University.Feminist scholarship has focused on intimate experiences of marginalized act...

Walking into Democratic Citizenship: Anti-Corruption Protests in Romania’s Capital

Walking into Democratic Citizenship: Anti-Corruption Protests in Romania’s Capital

The application of the orthogonal conditional nonlinear optimal perturbations method to typhoon track ensemble forecasts

The orthogonal conditional nonlinear optimal perturbations (CNOPs) method, orthogonal singular vectors (SVs) method and CNOP+SVs method, which is similar to the orthogonal SVs method but replaces the leading SV (LSV) with the first CNOP, are adopted in both the Lorenz-96 model and Pennsylvania State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU/NCAR) Fifth-Generation Mesoscale Model (MM5) for ensemble forecasts. Using the MM5, typhoon track ensemble forecasting experiments are conducted for strong Typhoon Matsa in 2005. The results of the Lorenz-96 model show that the CNOP+SVs method has a higher ensemble forecast skill than the orthogonal SVs method, but ensemble forecasts using the orthogonal CNOPs method have the highest forecast skill. The results from the MM5 show that orthogonal CNOPs have a wider horizontal distribution and better describe the forecast uncertainties compared with SVs. When generating the ensemble mean forecast, equally averaging the ensemble members in addition to the anomalously perturbed forecast members may contribute to a higher forecast skill than equally averaging all of the ensemble members. Furthermore, for given initial perturbation amplitudes, the CNOP+SVs method may not have an ensemble forecast skill greater than that of the orthogonal SVs method, but the orthogonal CNOPs method is likely to have the highest forecast skill. Compared with SVs, orthogonal CNOPs fully consider the influence of nonlinear physical processes on the forecast results; therefore, considering the influence of nonlinearity may be important when generating fast-growing initial ensemble perturbations. All of the results show that the orthogonal CNOP method may be a potential new approach for ensemble forecasting.

Big Data Interprets US Opioid Crisis

[Abstract] Since 2010, there has been a new round of drug crises in the United States. The abuse of opioids has led to a sharp increase in the number of people involved in drug crimes in the United States. There is an urgent need to explore solutions to the drug crisis in the United States. In this paper, the model of in-depth analysis is established under the condition of obtaining the opioid data and the influence factor data of the large sample of 5 states [1]. In the first part, we use the HSRI model based on the differential equation model to predict the initial value, find the initial position of the drug transfer, and obtain the curve of the number of different groups over time by fitting the data, so that the curves can be predicted. The changing trends of the groups in the future. It was found that in Kentucky State, the county’s most likely to start using opioids were pike and Bale. In Ohio, the county’s most likely to start using opioids are Jackson and Scioto. In Pennsylvania State, Mercer and Lackawanna are the counties most likely to start using opioids. Martinsville and Galax are the counties where Virginia State is most likely to start using opioids. Logan and Mingo are the counties where West Virginia State is most likely to start using opioids.In the second part, the grey Prediction model is used to further analyze the time series of each factor, the maximum likelihood estimation method is used to obtain the weight of each factor, and the weight coefficient matrix is used to simulate the multivariate regression equation, and the factors that have the greatest influence on opioid abuse are educational background and family composition. In the third part, the hypothesis test model of two groups (the data type is proportional) is used to verify the difference between the influence factors (including the predicted values) in the first two parts of the states, thus verifying the feasibility between them. At the same time, we put forward a few suggestions to combine the current situation in the United States with the CDC data. We believe that in order to address the opium crisis, the U.S. government needs to strengthen not only oversight of doctors ' prescriptions. Drugs also require the concerted efforts of all sectors of society to radically reduce barriers to the use of opioids.

Exploring Alternative Pathways to Institutional Field Development and Change

As organizational fields have grown more dynamic, structurally diverse, complex and heterogeneous in membership, the accelerated pace of field transformation has spurred formation of new fields, created new entrepreneurial opportunities, and enabled social innovation to solve grand challenges. Yet despite a shift in scholarly study from structural and normative isomorphism to complexity, conflict and agency, we lack robust understanding of what triggers change and the mechanisms by which fields are transformed. This symposium gathers four perspectives on the processes involved in how fields change, develop, decline and reinstitutionalize, in entrepreneurial contexts relevant to grand challenges and wicked problems. In discussion with a seminal thinker in theorizing about fields, the authors’ emergent theorizing is linked with more traditional and contemporary perspectives, illuminating a forward-looking path for scholarship that leads to deeper understanding of factors shaping field trajectories. Maintenance Work in Cross-Sector Partnerships: Frame Plurality Key to Solving Complex Social Issue Presenter: Shahzad Ansari; Cambridge U. Field-Convening Organizations:Shaping Standards in the Emerging Field of Human Genomics Presenter: Celeste Diaz Ferraro; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Forrest Briscoe; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Barbara Gray; Pennsylvania State U. Under No Circumstances Is the Hybrid to Be Accepted: Social Cohesion & Emergence of Hybrid EV Tech Presenter: Byungchae Jin; Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Presenter: David A. Kirsch; U. of Maryland Presenter: Wesley Sine; Cornell U. How Controversy in Adjacent Fields Shaped Emerging Narratives & Practices in Japanese Whale-Watchi Presenter: Jean-Baptiste Litrico; Smith School of Business, Queen's U. Presenter: Jesper Edman; Waseda U.

Moving the Needle Forward: An Actionable Agenda for Diversity Research

The proposed symposium highlights recent research projects engaged in furthering an actionable agenda for diversity research, an agenda that is aimed at addressing prevalent inequality in the workplace. The topics addressed in the proposed symposium apply varied lenses to the challenge of applying diversity management practices to end inequality in the workplace but they also share a common theme: examining how constructs at different levels of analyses within firms jointly shape employment outcomes for traditionally under-represented groups. The studies are, therefore, not only diverse in the level of interest but also representatives of a nuanced appreciation of practical insights to reduce inequality in the workplace. Overall, the symposium will accomplish three goals; (1) to understand the impact of diversity interventions and diversity climates on all employees (2) to highlight how biases towards under-represented groups can be mitigated; (3) to provide a forum for an open dialogue on the challenges and opportunities of conducting actionable research for building an inclusive workplace. Unpacking the Drivers of Agentic Biases for Women at Work Presenter: Anyi Ma; Duke U. Presenter: Ashleigh Shelby Rosette; Duke U. A Social Networks Lens to Understanding the Relationship between Inclusive Climates and Outcomes Presenter: Lisa H. Nishii; Cornell U. Presenter: Kristie Lynne McAlpine; Michigan State U. Understanding How Shared Impact Affects Womens and Racial Minorities Workplace Perceptions Presenter: Seval Gündemir; U. of Amsterdam Presenter: Katherine W. Phillips; Columbia U. Presenter: Astrid Carlotta Homan; U. of Amsterdam How Diversity Practices Can Lower the Gender Gap in Resource Allocation Presenter: Min Young Yoon; Penn State U. Presenter: Aparna Joshi; Pennsylvania State U.

Henry James and American Painting by Colm Tóibín, Marc Simpson, and Declan Kiely

Reviewed by: Henry James and American Painting by Colm Tóibín, Marc Simpson, and Declan Kiely Wendy Graham Colm Tóibín, Marc Simpson, and Declan Kiely. Henry James and American Painting. The Morgan Library and Museum with the Pennsylvania State UP 2017. I will preface my review of the exhibition catalog with an account of the exhibition, June 9 through September 10, 2017, that gave rise to it. It might be said that the constraints of mounting an exhibition in one large room presaged limitations in the catalog. Following the Morgan Library and Museum's well-received exhibitions dedicated to homebody literary geniuses, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Dickinson, curators and staff attempted to encompass the cosmopolitan visual culture of Henry James. The curators required an organizing theme that would limit the scope of the exhibition to a manageable size. Even so, "Henry James and American Painting" seems a bit of a misnomer. The artists featured in the exhibit were expatriated Americans rather than members of the indigenous Hudson River or Ashcan Schools. John Singer Sargent was reared and trained in Europe; J. A. M. Whistler studied in Paris and lived abroad; American painter William Morris Hunt studied with Frenchmen Thomas Couture and Jean Francois Millet; John La Farge, the son of French émigrés, drew inspiration from Japanese art; Frank Duveneck, the son of German immigrants, received training in Munich; his student and later wife, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Boott, spent much of her time in Europe before settling in Italy. The curators employ the term "expatriate" as a label but ignore the exiles' quests for a richer cultural and historical background than America could supply in the 1870s. Two autograph letters from Henry James to La Farge deplore the painter's poverty of inspiration in "toney" Newport (HJL 1: 119–22, 133–35), but this commentary is omitted from the information tag. A handful of reviews of American artists (Winslow Homer, Duveneck) exhibiting on American shores obscure the fact that James's principal engagement with pictures occurred in England and on the continent. If American painting is a red herring, the [End Page 200] exhibition and catalog aim to shed light on James's personal relations with American artists and how these friendships informed his writings on art and, more important, his formulation of characters and plots. The exhibit's didactic panels and object captions, charmingly anecdotal and suggestive, have a unifying theme: James's friendships with artists, acquaintance with locales, and other biographical data. There is little formal analysis on offer, either of individual paintings or of the correspondences between the pictorial and literary aesthetic. Impressionism is mentioned briefly in the context of Lila Cabot Perry's acquaintance with Monet's circle rather than Sargent's brushwork. The quality of the works showcased at the Morgan is high. The museumgoer is greeted by Sargent's famous portrait of Henry James (1913), which belongs to the National Portrait Gallery, London. With its appraising gaze, bald dome of genius, and sensual lips, the portrait shows James at the height of his powers, though advanced in years. The curators playfully identify the quality of masculine arrogance that incited a suffragette to plunge a dagger into the freshly painted portrait. A wall displaying photographs of James (plus sketches and amateur portraits in oils) supports the thesis that James's reticence about his private life and destruction of personal papers did not interfere with his sitting for his portrait. James was clearly a figure, or rather a visage, of fascination for his artistic circle. An array of gorgeous Sargent pictures of Italian scenes and interiors reinforces the notion that James and Sargent, a bachelor expatriate of uncertain sexuality who took an interest in fashionable women, were "mirror images." Among these pictures, An Interior in Venice (The Curtis Family) of 1898 attests to James's critical acumen in signaling Sargent's disregard for faces. James's friend Mrs. Ariana Curtis took exception to her portrait (and something louche in her son's bearing) and rejected the artist's proffered gift, whereas the sterling tea service is an example of bravura painting. The curators summarize James's championship of Sargent and career-boosting recommendation that...

Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art by Laura Anne Kalba

Reviews 193 subsaharienne, notamment au Sénégal, tandis que le troisième chapitre établit l’affiliation au texte biblique pour montrer les mécanismes mensongers qui érigent l’hétérosexualité comme unique possibilité normative. L’analyse queer est donc nécessaire pour comprendre les mécanismes d’exclusion en jeu dans cette injonction sociale à l’appartenance dans un contexte de diaspora. On note l’analyse du processus qui mène à l’enracinement de cette mythologie généalogique dans le chapitre suivant. Le cinquième chapitre réitère la tentation que la généalogie fixe et le besoin de racines qui se constitue à travers une analyse exceptionnelle du roman Roots de Alex Haley dans un contexte de diaspora arménienne. Queer Roots est important pour les études francophones, une contribution théorique cruciale pour les études queer, postcoloniales et utile pour les chercheurs qui sont intéressés par l’impact de l’intrusion de la mémoire collective dans la fabrication de l’identité de l’individu. Augustana College (IL) Chadia Chambers-Samadi Kalba, Laura Anne. Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 207. ISBN 978-0-271-07700-0. Pp. 266. Kalba explores the revolutionary burst of color on all levels of French culture during the nineteenth century. A whole new rainbow of colors made itself visible in science, technology, commerce, fashion, home decorating, and art. All these developments were paralleled by a continuing discussion of the subject by critics, scientists, and artists. Kalba devotes her first chapter to the chemist M.-E. Chevreul, who was both a teacher and the master of the dye works at the Gobelins tapestry workshop. In his De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (1839), he elaborated a systematic classification of colors to bring under control what he considered the tasteless proliferation of badly-matched color arrangements in modern dress and décor. His work was highly influential for a time, but it soon became dated when English and German chemists invented synthetic dyes in mid-century, thereby unleashing a broad gamut of previously unheard-of hues, like mauve, onto the market. Consumers derived too much pleasure and merchants too much profit from the new colors to pay attention to Chevreul’s theories and the admonitions of self-appointed arbiters of taste. Even the latter were not immune to the onslaught of color and commercialism. The advertising posters created by Jules Chéret, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others plastered all over Paris came to be looked upon as collectable works of art. Color was manifest in the greater variety of clothing and other goods for sale in the new department stores at prices within reach of the middle and working classes. It was also a major factor in the way these items were displayed by merchandisers who wanted to attract customers for them. Color became a central focus of public celebrations in the new and improved ways of staging fireworks. Here color increasingly became a value in itself, without reference to an external narrative. It helped to create a world of fantasy, permitting onlookers to escape for a moment from the concerns of everyday existence. Color was, of course, a significant preoccupation of the Impressionist painters in their effort to capture the fleeting impressions of modern reality on the human eye. Kalba discusses at length the theory and treatment of color in Degas, Renoir, and Monet.While Degas celebrated the invasion of color in the visible universe of contemporary French society, Renoir adopted a more conservative, classicizing approach. Monet remained aloof from the issue, emphasizing instead how changes in atmospheric conditions affect our way of seeing things. The expatriate American painter J.A.M. Whistler expressed his fascination with the modernity of color in his depiction of a fireworks display, Nocturne in Black and Gold. The Neo-Impressionists, like Seurat and Signac, welcomed the influence of scientific theories about color on the elaboration of the pointilliste technique in their works. Kalba discerns a similarity between their paintings and the new autochrome color photography developed at the end of the century by the Lumière brothers and other inventors. University of...

A detailed risk assessment of shale gas development on headwater streams in the Pennsylvania portion of the Upper Susquehanna River Basin, U.S.A.

The development of unconventional oil and gas (UOG) involves infrastructure development (well pads, roads and pipelines), well drilling and stimulation (hydraulic fracturing), and production; all of which have the potential to affect stream ecosystems. Here, we developed a fine-scaled (1:24,000) catchment-level disturbance intensity index (DII) that included 17 measures of UOG capturing all steps in the development process (infrastructure, water withdrawals, probabilistic spills) that could affect headwater streams (<200km2 in upstream catchment) in the Upper Susquehanna River Basin in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. The DII ranged from 0 (no UOG disturbance) to 100 (the catchment with the highest UOG disturbance in the study area) and it was most sensitive to removal of pipeline cover, road cover and well pad cover metrics. We related this DII to three measures of high quality streams: Pennsylvania State Exceptional Value (EV) streams, Class A brook trout streams and Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture brook trout patches. Overall only 3.8% of all catchments and 2.7% of EV stream length, 1.9% of Class A streams and 1.2% of patches were classified as having medium to high level DII scores (>50). Well density, often used as a proxy for development, only correlated strongly with well pad coverage and produced materials, and therefore may miss potential effects associated with roads and pipelines, water withdrawals and spills. When analyzed with a future development scenario, 91.1% of EV stream length, 68.7% of Class A streams and 80.0% of patches were in catchments with a moderate to high probability of development. Our method incorporated the cumulative effects of UOG on streams and can be used to identify catchments and reaches at risk to existing stressors or future development.

Abstract P5-10-04: Spectrum of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer gene variants in an African American cohort

Abstract Background: Few reports describe the spectrum of mutations in breast and ovarian cancer predisposition genes found specifically in African Americans. Methods: 560 women who self-identified as African American (AA) from the University of Pennsylvania and Wayne State University were included in this IRB-approved, case-control study. Cases (n=218 with a personal history of breast and/or ovarian cancer) and controls (n=342 without breast or ovarian cancer) underwent germline genetic testing using the Color Genomics 19-gene breast and ovarian cancer risk panel. The subset of AA patients diagnosed with breast cancer ≤40 (n=185) was compared to an institutional cohort of white patients with breast cancer diagnosed ≤40 (n=189). Results: Of 218 AA cases, 70 had pathogenic or likely pathogenic (P/LP) mutations (BRCA1: n=36; BRCA2: n=24; TP53: n=3; RAD51D: n=2; ATM: n=2; CHEK2: n=2 and MSH6: n=1). Forty-two of 218 patients (19%) had at least one variant of uncertain significance (VUS). Of 342 AA controls, 5 women had P mutations in 5 distinct genes: BRCA2, ATM, BRIP1, PALB2 and PMS2. 55 control patients (16%) had at least one VUS. Many of the 75 P/LP mutations (cases, 70 mutations; controls, 5 mutations) in the full AA cohort were unique variants. In the 135 patients who had BRCA1/BRCA2 sequencing prior to testing under this protocol, the Color Genomics platform identified all 56 pathogenic mutations. Among AA patients diagnosed with breast cancer ≤40 (n=185), the incidence of TP53 and ATM pathogenic mutations was similar to the white, early-onset breast cancer cohort (n=189): TP53, 1% in both cohorts; ATM = 1% in AA patients and 2% in whites. However, no patients in the AA, early-onset cohort had germline CHEK2 mutations, compared to 4% of white, early-onset breast cancer patients (p=0.007). Conclusions: Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate the importance of considering germline mutation testing in the AA population. Examination of mutations and disease phenotypes within the AA population may facilitate understanding of the clinical risk associated with variants of uncertain significance. Further comparative data between the AA and white cohorts will be presented. Citation Format: Shah PD, Digiovanni L, Maxwell KN, Bradbury AR, Van Den Akker J, Kim S, Gil E, Simon MS, Nathanson KL, Domchek SM. Spectrum of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer gene variants in an African American cohort [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2016 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-10-04.

Exposure to criminal environment and criminal social identity in a sample of adult prisoners: The moderating role of psychopathic traits.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of period of incarceration, criminal friend index (a retrospective measure intended to quantify criminal associations before 1st incarceration), and 4 psychopathy factors (interpersonal manipulation, callous affect, erratic lifestyle, and antisocial behavior) in criminal social identity (CSI) while controlling for age and gender. Participants were a sample of 501 incarcerated offenders (male n = 293; female n = 208) from 3 prisons located in Pennsylvania State. Moderated regression analyses indicated no significant direct association between period of incarceration and CSI or between criminal friend index and Measure of Criminal Social Identity (MCSI). However, a significant moderating effect of interpersonal manipulation on the relationship between period of incarceration and MCSI was observed. Period of incarceration was significantly positively correlated with MCSI (particularly with the in-group ties subscale) for only those offenders who scored high (1 SD above the mean) on interpersonal manipulation and significantly negatively correlated for those who scored low (1 SD below the mean) on interpersonal manipulation. Also, criminal friend index was positively significantly associated with in-group ties for high levels (1 SD above the mean) of callous affect. The main findings provide evidence for the claim that prisoners are likely to simulate changes in identity through the formation of bonds with other offenders and that this can be achieved using interpersonal manipulation skills. (PsycINFO Database Record

NSF funds new research centers

Pennsylvania State and Cornell Universities have won the first awards in NSF’s Materials Innovation Platforms program. The universities will serve as research centers for materials scientists nationwide who want to use high-end instruments to study bulk and thin-film crystalline materials. “NSF is focusing on crystal growth because the U.S. has fallen behind in this area of science after having been a global leader in material synthesis,” says F. Fleming Crim, NSF assistant director for mathematical and physical sciences. The effort is part of the Materials Genome Initiative’s goal to halve the speed and cost of taking materials discoveries from the lab to industry. Penn State will develop instruments to study metal chalcogenide materials—such as sulfides, selenides, and tellurides—that are used in digital circuits and flexible electronics. Cornell is heading a multi-institution team that includes Johns Hopkins, Clark Atlanta, and Princeton Universities. It will focus on examining oxide and oxide-based two-dimensional

Peeling Back the Layers: Social Class and Inequality at Work

In the face of increasing inequality in America, interest in the topic of social class is on the rise. Social class not only influences people's life circumstances (such as educational attainment and long-term health), but it also has far-reaching implications on people's perceptions, decisions, and behavior, and experiences and interactions in the workplace. In this symposium, we bring together papers that address the role of social class in workplace interactions, including the ways in which experiences with social class influence and are influenced by organizations. Overall, we aim to increase awareness of this topic for organizational researchers, and to stimulate connections and critical conversations that will motivate future research developments and exploration of the many layers of social class within organizations. Interdependent Teams Promote Greater Person-Team Fit and Performance Among Working-Class Individuals Presenter: Andrea Dittmann; Northwestern U. Presenter: Nicole Stephens; Northwestern U. Presenter: Sarah Townsend; U. of Southern California Class Encounters of a Third Kind: Constructing Spaces for Cross-Class Connection Presenter: Maureen A. Scully; U. of Massachusetts, Boston Can You See Me Now? Social Invisibility and Career Success for the Black Professional Class Presenter: Kisha S. Jones; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Tiffany D. Johnson; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Lawrence Houston; Oregon State U. Experiencing and Managing Personal Wealth: Understanding Extreme Wealth and Class Work among CEOs Presenter: Jennifer J. Kish-Gephart; U. of Arkansas Presenter: Shannon L. Rawski; U. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh Presenter: Joanna Tochman Campbell; U. of Cincinnati Presenter: Barbara Gray; Pennsylvania State U.

The Impossible Craft: Literary Biography by Scott Donaldson

Reviewed by: The Impossible Craft: Literary Biography by Scott Donaldson Dale Salwak (bio) Scott Donaldson, The Impossible Craft: Literary Biography. Pennsylvania State UP, 2015. 284 pp. ISBN 978-0-271-06528-1; $39.95. In this handsomely presented book, Scott Donaldson draws upon his own expertise as well as the methods and the testimony of other writers whose work he admires to offer a sympathetic scrutiny of what Lytton Strachey called in Eminent Victorians (1918) “the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing” (vi), the biography. In this instance, Donaldson focuses on the literary biography. Full of anecdotes, hard-won advice, details of craft, and compelling case studies, this text is also an engaging and disarmingly honest account of the problems he encountered, and the pleasures he experienced, while trying to reconstruct “without prejudice” but with definitive completeness the life and work of a gallery of uniquely American authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, Winfield Townley Scott, Charlie Fenton, Archibald MacLeish, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. He has divided his book into five sections: Beginnings, Topics in Literary Biography, The Impossible Craft, Case Studies, and, where he is at his most exhilarating, The Cheever Misadventure. Following a sketch of the complex history of biography from Greco-Roman times to the present, Donaldson chronicles his own biography and explains how it influenced his path toward writing about other people’s lives. From Yale, Donaldson went on to become a Morse code intercept operator during the Korean War, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, a publicist at Pillsbury, an editor and publisher of a fledgling weekly, The Bloomington Suburbanite, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, and, finally, a professor at the College of William and Mary. [End Page 829] During a summertime reading of the poet Winfield Townley Scott’s letters and journals at Brown University’s John Hay Library, Donaldson explains, his future was sealed: “There was no clap of thunder, but I’d found something I could do, something I really wanted to do. … I would be a literary biographer” (11). The more he learned about Scott and then other literary figures, he says, the more eager he was to display that learning on the page while pursuing at the same time his principle occupation as a university professor. He had become, as Richard D. Altick famously called such a person, a “scholar adventurer” (4). Although with each project Donaldson gave full and earnest study to his subjects, at every step of the way he was faced like all biographers with tremendous barriers. No matter how many letters, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, earlier biographies, memoirs, photographs, and other sources were available to him, he says, there remained what Victoria Glendinning called “lies and silences” (49) in the public record. “Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man,” wrote Mark Twain, “but the real biography of a man is lived in his head twenty-four hours a day, and that you can never know” (qtd. in Kaplan 9). There’s so much about every individual that remains beyond reach no matter how thorough the search, and finding those limits was, Donaldson writes, both daunting and intriguing; that’s what makes biography an “impossible craft.” Other workaday problems confronting Donaldson stemmed from the inability to verify facts or documents, from encountering conflicting accounts of the same events, from the complexities of copyright and securing permissions, and perhaps the most difficult of all, deciding on how to construct the work. What shape shall the book take? Straight narrative? Topical treatment? Essay? Where should the narrative begin? How should it end? What is the biographer’s proper relationship with the subject? Donaldson examines these matters and many others. Opening the door to private lives clearly raised ethical and legal questions as well. How far should he go in respecting the privacy of the family—or of other people implicated in the life he is describing? Is it ethical to disregard instructions in documents left by the dead, even more to use those documents as a basis for further diagnosis? Surely, Donaldson writes, the biographer has a responsibility in the selection of evidence...

Status, Power, and Identity in Early Modern France: The Rohan Family, 1550–1715 by Jonathan Dewald

Dewald, Jonathan. Status, Power, and Identity in Early Modern France: The Rohan Family, 1550–1715. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2015. ISBN 978-0271 -06616-5. Pp. 264. $75. Perhaps it was du Bellay’s 1549 Défense that convened the writings on paper that established seventeenth-century France—fraught with nascent, unfolding conventions , and upstarts and false starts—upon stone. But none should expect the French scholar to approach history with the straight rigidity of the pillars that erected the French academies of the time, because history bends. Between paper and stone, we receive Dewald’s study of the Rohan family. His work not only thoroughly and successfully examines the particular social history of a prominent family in early-modern France, it also presents history as the resultant, organic movements of a thing thrown against diametrically opposed materials. Between time and physical space, for example, his work on seventeenth-century France eventually moves us to (re)interpret current notions of dominance and power in our society. Starting as early as the year 1000 and ending in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Dewald narrates the creation of the Rohan identity, a process that moved between imagined and real alliances with powerful ancestors; actual inner conflicts with living relatives; and political and religious principalities that threatened to out the family as untrustworthy of both credit and credibility. Dewald argues that the dominance of the Rohan family was not fed by blood, but by ideologies based on strategy, myth, persuasion, and luck. He also presents notions of change and stasis—otherwise considered as mutually incomprehensible—as opposing materials that form a symbiotic relationship, both fulfilling perpetual, requisite functions needed to guarantee their existence. It is, in fact, movements between seemingly diametric opposites that rhythmed the life of Duke Henri de Rohan, the central figure in the book. Between his father’s absence and his mother’s ballet; the politics of man, and the religions of God; between public spaces, and isolation; between war and exile; the noise of barbarous actions, and the silence of reasoned philosophy; somewhere between the tradition of sexism and sexual oppression, and the fear of powerful women, and the female sex, Dewald shows how Rohan’s reputation was written on paper, and his image carved in stone at Geneva’s St. Pierre Cathedral. Dewald’s work—for its keen attention to the multiple stimuli that influenced the Rohan’s particular history—is beneficial to social historians and contributes widely to early-modern French studies, namely to the fields of politics, economics, religion, and women and gender studies. Though Dewald does not venture to reveal specific applications of his work to current discourse on status, power, and identity, one discovers constructive interpretative frameworks to define privilège, a term that has become a part of popular cultural conversations today. Of particular importance, one notes that Dewald’s work, for the same reasons mentioned above, fully complements studies of French literature of the early-modern period. The representation of Henri de Rohan gives the courtly agitations of Madame de La Fayette’s 242 FRENCH REVIEW 89.4 Reviews 243 Princesse new meaning. The contexts of social mobility and dangerous ambition that staged the demise of La Fontaine’s grenouille, for example, are better understood. Sewanee: The University of the South Julian Ledford Duyker, Edward. Dumont d’Urville: Explorer & Polymath. Honolulu: UP of Hawai‘i, 2014. ISBN 978-0-8248-5139-2. Pp. 671. $69. Duyker’s book is a detailed account of French admiral Dumont d’Urville’s three voyages of exploration in the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. The first journey was on the ship Coquille in 1823–26; the second and third, under his own command, on the Astrolabe in 1827–29 and 1837–40. These expeditions were undertaken under the official sponsorship of the French royal governments of Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis-Philippe, respectively. Besides being sent on missions of exploration, he was commissioned to find out about the circumstances surrounding the death of his predecessor La Pérouse and his crew in 1778. He was also entrusted with the secret task of scouting out possible locations for penal colonies similar...

Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France by Tracy Adams

les spécialistes et les amateurs de cinéma, ainsi que ceux qui s’intéressent aux questions d’actualité politique et religieuse. Davidson College (NC) Caroline Beschea-Fache Literary History and Criticism edited by Marion Geiger Adams,Tracy. Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France.University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2014. ISBN 978-0-271-05071-3. Pp. xi + 220. $75. In this compelling study, Adams firmly situates Pizan’s texts in their historical context, exploring and documenting Pizan’s literary participation in the growing conflict between the Orleanists (or Armagnacs) and the Burgundians, including her efforts to delineate the concept of kingship in France. Adams convincingly demonstrates that while Pizan has long been regarded by historians and literary critics as politically neutral, in fact her writings clearly support the Orleanists. In chapter 1, Adams explains her rationale for reexamining the corpus of Pizan. She establishes the context for Pizan’s political writings: the seemingly endless and sometimes violent struggle for control of the French throne, in particular the ongoing feud between Louis of Orleans and Philip of Burgundy (and later Jean of Burgundy, Philip’s son and successor). Based on the poet’s comments in the autobiographical parts of her works, Adams argues that Pizan was an Orleanist sympathizer. Chapter 2 describes the beginnings of the rivalry between the dukes and lays a foundation for the argument that Pizan supported the regency of Louis of Orleans during the frequent episodes of madness suffered by his brother, King Charles VI. Adams reads Pizan’s love poetry as political commentary, demonstrating that the poet seeks to inspire in her readers respect and obedience toward rightful authority, and outrage toward those who defy it and attempt to undermine it. Chapter 3 analyzes a variety of narratorial strategies that Pizan developed in order to influence her readers’ perception of the worsening discord between the dukes, declaring and justifying her support for Louis. The poet simultaneously showcases her prudence and erudition, and positions herself as an influential political voice.As conflict between the dukes mounted, Pizan’s commentary reflected a corresponding increase in intensity and more clearly political aims. Chapter 4 analyzes Pizan’s works that defend Queen Isabeau’s regency and those that establish parallels between Louis of Orleans and his father, Charles V, while chapter 5 explores the poet’s writings that urge her readers to take action against the growing threat posed by Jean of Burgundy.As the dauphin (who would ultimately be crowned Charles VII) approached adulthood, France was still gravely beset by civil conflict; Pizan’s writings of this period sometimes promote peace, but more often justify violence, as Adams 204 FRENCH REVIEW 89.3 Reviews 205 establishes in chapter 6. Tracy Adams paints an enthralling picture of court life and the machinations of nobles vying for power and legitimate authority in late Medieval France. She makes Pizan come alive for her reader, not as a wise but neutral observer and chronicler, but as a participant in and shaper of deeply significant decisions and events. Not only will this book provoke“debate about Christine’s attitudes toward the Armagnac-Burgundian conflict”(10),as the author hopes,it will surely inspire renewed and vigorous study of the poetry of Christine de Pizan, and of this tumultuous period of French history. Saint Louis University Kathleen M. Llewellyn Bernard, Claudie. Le jeu des familles dans le roman du XIXe siècle. Saint-Étienne: PU de Saint-Étienne, 2013. ISBN 978-2-86272-645-8. Pp. 323. 25 a. Taking its title from the card game le jeu des sept familles, this volume explores the dynamics of ten fictional households in novels published between 1830 and 1900, a period of profound social transition in France during which, Bernard argues, the importance of maternal love and filial bonds begin to eclipse that of traditional paternal authority. Throughout the study, Bernard characterizes family groups according to their varying degrees of sameness (mêmeté), such as the extent to which they share physical space, genetic traits, or a last name; she also underscores their elements of difference (alterité), especially in relationships between men and women, where incest and same-sex unions are prohibited. The...