Temperate State Research Articles

The Clipped Life of the Wife in Edith Wharton’S Short Story Entitled “A Journey”

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the life of the young wife that is clipped by many “othering” factors that prevent her from becoming a Self. The analysis is focused on the “othering” factors and the impacts on the young wife and on her relationship with her sick husband. The analysis is done through the perspective of existentialism combining the existentialism of Sartre and Beauvoir. Since the focus is on the female character, the particular perspective used is on the existential feminism focusing on the “woman-being-for-others” mode of being. The methods of research are the combination of library research method with its close-reading technique, the qualitative method, and the contextual method of literary analysis. The result shows that it is difficult for a wife to be a Self when she has to face many “othering” factors such as the husband’s illness, the doctors’ suggestion to move to a temperate climate State, the new environment, and the death of the husband while they are still on the train. These “othering” factors do not only clip the wife’s socialization, love and relationship with her husband, and anticipation to return home, but also clip the wife’s life so that she will never have a chance to be a Self forever.

Firn changes at Colle Gnifetti revealed with a high-resolution process-based physical model approach

Abstract. Our changing climate is expected to affect ice core records as cold firn progressively transitions to a temperate state. Thus, there is a need to improve our understanding and to further develop quantitative process modeling, to better predict cold firn evolution under a range of climate scenarios. Here we present the application of a distributed, fully coupled energy balance model, to simulate cold firn at the high-alpine glaciated saddle of Colle Gnifetti (Swiss–Italian Alps) over the period 2003–2018. We force the model with high-resolution, long-term, and extensively quality-checked meteorological data measured in the closest vicinity of the firn site, at the highest automatic weather station in Europe (Capanna Margherita, 4560 m a.s.l.). The model incorporates the spatial variability of snow accumulation rates and is calibrated using several partly unpublished high-altitude measurements from the Monte Rosa area. The simulation reveals a very good overall agreement in the comparison with a large archive of firn temperature profiles. Our results show that surface melt over the glaciated saddle is increasing by 3–4 mm w.e. yr−2 depending on the location (29 %–36 % in 16 years), although with large inter-annual variability. Analysis of modeled melt indicates the frequent occurrence of small melt events (<4 mm w.e.), which collectively represent a significant fraction of the melt totals. Modeled firn warming rates at 20 m depth are relatively uniform above 4450 m a.s.l. (0.4–0.5 ∘C per decade). They become highly variable at lower elevations, with a marked dependence on surface aspect and absolute values up to 2.5 times the local rate of atmospheric warming. Our distributed simulation contributes to the understanding of the thermal regime and evolution of a prominent site for alpine ice cores and may support the planning of future core drilling efforts. Moreover, thanks to an extensive archive of measurements available for comparison, we also highlight the possibilities of model improvement most relevant to the investigation of future scenarios, such as the fixed-depth parametrized routine of deep preferential percolation.

The Novel Halovirus Hardycor1, and the Presence of Active (Induced) Proviruses in Four Haloarchaea.

The virus Hardycor1 was isolated in 1998 and infects the haloarchaeon Halorubrum coriense. DNA from a frozen stock (HC1) was sequenced and the viral genome found to be 45,142 bp of dsDNA, probably having redundant, circularly permuted termini. The genome showed little similarity (BLASTn) to known viruses. Only twenty-two of the 53 (41%) predicted proteins were significantly similar to sequences in the NCBI nr protein database (E-value ≤ 10−15). Six caudovirus-like proteins were encoded, including large subunit terminase (TerL), major capsid protein (Mcp) and tape measure protein (Tmp). Hardycor1 was predicted to be a siphovirus (VIRFAM). No close relationship to other viruses was found using phylogenetic tree reconstructions based on TerL and Mcp. Unexpectedly, the sequenced virus stock HC1 also revealed two induced proviruses of the host: a siphovirus (Humcor1) and a pleolipovirus (Humcor2). A re-examination of other similarly sequenced, archival virus stocks revealed induced proviruses of Haloferax volcanii, Haloferax gibbonsii and Haloarcula hispanica, three of which were pleolipoviruses. One provirus (Halfvol2) of Hfx. volcanii showed little similarity (BLASTn) to known viruses and probably represents a novel virus group. The attP sequences of many pleolipoproviruses were found to be embedded in a newly detected coding sequence, split in the provirus state, that spans between genes for integrase and a downstream CxxC-motif protein. This gene might play an important role in regulation of the temperate state.

Salmonella source attribution in a subtropical state of Australia: capturing environmental reservoirs of infection.

Salmonellosis is a leading cause of hospitalisation due to gastroenteritis in Australia. A previous source attribution analysis for a temperate state in Australia attributed most infections to chicken meat or eggs. Queensland is in northern Australia and includes subtropical and tropical climate zones. We analysed Queensland notifications for salmonellosis and conducted source attribution to compare reservoir sources with those in southern Australia. In contrast to temperate Australia, most infections were due to non-Typhimurium serotypes, with particularly high incidence in children under 5 years and strong seasonality, peaking in summer. We attributed 65.3% (95% credible interval (CrI) 60.6-73.2) of cases to either chicken meat or eggs and 15.5% (95% CrI 7.0-19.5) to nuts. The subtypes with the strongest associations with nuts were Salmonella Aberdeen, S. Birkenhead, S. Hvittingfoss, S. Potsdam and S. Waycross. All five subtypes had high rates of illness in children under 5 years (ranging from 4/100 000 to 23/100 000), suggesting that nuts may be serving as a proxy for environmental transmission in the model. Australia's climatic range allows us to conduct source attribution in different climate zones with similar food consumption patterns. This attribution provides evidence for environment-mediated transmission of salmonellosis in sub-tropical regions.

Black-legged kittiwakes as messengers of Atlantification in the Arctic

Climate warming is rapidly altering marine ecosystems towards a more temperate state on the European side of the Arctic. However, this “Atlantification” has rarely been confirmed, as long-term datasets on Arctic marine organisms are scarce. We present a 19-year time series (1982–2016) of diet samples from black-legged kittiwakes as an indicator of the changes in a high Arctic marine ecosystem (Kongsfjorden, Svalbard). Our results highlight a shift from Arctic prey dominance until 2006 to a more mixed diet with high contribution of Atlantic fishes. Capelin, an Atlantic species, dominated the diet composition in 2007, marking a shift in the food web. The occurrence of polar cod, a key Arctic fish species, positively correlated with sea ice index, whereas Atlantic species demonstrated the opposite correlation indicating that the diet shift was likely connected with recent climate warming. Kittiwakes, which gather available fish and zooplankton near the sea surface to feed their chicks, can act as messengers of ecosystem change. Changes in their diet reveal that the Kongsfjord system has drifted in an Atlantic direction over the last decade.

Design of adaptive dead-time control circuit for resonant half-bridge driver

To decrease the switching loss and the dead-time effect of resonant half-bridge inverter, a novel adaptive dead-time control circuit of resonant half-bridge driver Integrated Circuit (IC) is presented. Without increasing the pin number of IC, this circuit takes a novel strategy to adaptively regulate dead time to a temperate range between high and low thresholds. The high and low thresholds are adaptive to the fall time of output signal in a half-bridge clock cycle. The IC of the designed circuit is suitable for high-voltage applications. The dead-time regulation range of this circuit achieves 0–3.5 µs. The range of temperate dead-time state is 300 ns. The failure signal of this circuit can protect the IC and peripheral power devices by regulating operation in three clock cycles. Both simulation and measurement of the proposed circuit in a half-bridge driver IC with an operating frequency at 50 kHz are presented based on the 0.5 µm 700 V BCD process. The results of simulation and measurement show that the presented circuits’ performance is perfect.

Emergence of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter in a temperate north Indian State

This study aims to determine drug sensitivity, metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) production and elaboration of blaOXA-type carbapenemases in Acinetobacter spp. in a temperate climate area in north India with a heavy influx of tourists. Antimicrobial sensitivity of 165 isolates was performed. Imipenem-resistant isolates were subjected to combined disk (CDT) and double-disk diffusion tests (DDT) for MBL detection. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and MBL production were tested by Etest. A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed for the detection of genes encoding blaOXA-23 like, blaOXA-24 like, blaOXA-51 like and blaOXA-58 like genes. Ninety-nine (60%) isolates were imipenem-resistant (MICs 2–96 μg/mL). Fifty (50.5%) of the 99 carbapenem-resistant isolates were MBL producers by CDT and 26 (26.3%) by DDT. The majority (77%) of the isolates elaborated blaOXA-23 and blaOXA-51 like genes. Forty seven of the 50 MBL-positive isolates harboured blaOXA-23 like and blaOXA-51 like genes. MBL-producing Acinetobacter has emerged as a major pathogen in Kashmir with elaboration of blaOXA-23 and blaOXA-51 related carbapenemases. This poses a significant challenge for healthcare professionals and policy planners, and needs to be addressed immediately. Primary care physicians treating visitors to Kashmir need to be aware of the situation.

Pseudolysogeny in Mycobacterium diernhoferi ATCC19341.

Lysogeny is characterized by the stable integration of the bacteriophage genome (the prophage) with the bacterial chromosome (Jacob & Wollman, 1959). There are however a number of host-phage relationships, collectively referred to as pseudolysogeny, in which the prophage appears to coexist in a temperate state with the host but without the occurrence of a stable inheritable union of their respective genomes. The literature concerning pseudolysogeny has been reviewed by Baess (1971). In a form of pseudolysogeny referred to as the carrier state (Hayes, 1968), the prophage is carried within the bacterium as an episome-like unit which does not replicate in sequence with the bacterial chromosome. Thus, in contrast to true lysogeny, the prophage is only transmitted to a minority of the progeny. However, in some bacteria the phages undergo replication with lysis of the host and reinfection of surrounding phage-free bacteria, thus maintaining the presence of the phage in the culture. The cycle of curing and reinfection may be blocked by culturing the strain in the presence of an antiserum or other substances capable of neutralizing the extracellular phages. Strains of bacteria exhibiting pseudolysogeny of the carrier-state type are detectable by observing the spontaneous appearance of phage plaques when cultured on suitable solid media. Beck (1965) described a strain of Mycobacterium fortuitum, referred to as strain C.U. This strain was found to be pseudolysogenic by Baess (1971) who isolated phage BK5 from the spontaneously-appearing plaques. Subsequently the phenomenon was observed in two other strains of M. fortuitum, ATCC23029 (I. Baess, personal communication) and ATCC 23041 (Nordstrom & Grange, 1974). In addition a form of pseudolysogeny was observed in Mycobacterium smegmatis ATcC607 after the experimental infection of this strain with phage LI (Tokunaga & Sellers, 1970). It was therefore of interest to determine whether pseudolysogeny occurred naturally in mycobacterial species other than M. fortuitum. This paper reports the occurrence of pseudolysogeny in Mycobacterium diernhoferi ATCC 19341, which was observed during a study of roo rapidly growing mycobacteria representing twelve different species. METHODS