Fusobacterium is well characterized as an oropharyngeal pathogen that may induce a septic thrombophlebitis by direct extension of abscess into an adjacent neck vessel (Lemierre's syndrome); its potential for visceral abscess formation, however, remains und

[No abstract]

There are issues worthy of discussion that arise from Ward Churchill’s comments on Mother Earth. There is also the need to state clearly, where he did not, the concerns, perspectives, and conclusions of this study. Further, I have been contacted by several journals to respond to or comment on another version of Churchill’s critique, which was published in The Bloomsbury Review (September, 1988) along with a review article about Mother Earth co-authored by M. Annette Jaimes and Jorge Noriega. The research that led to Mother Earth was motivated by my awareness of a remarkable incongruity between scholars’ descriptions of a figure they call Mother Earth and the ethnographic record. Many notable scholars have described a figure or goddess, usually a personification of the earth, they hold to be central to the beliefs of peoples all over North America since ancient times. The incongruity was all the more complex since I was aware that some contemporary Native Americans often describe similar figures. These claims are not substantiated in the extensive ethnographic records for hundreds of tribal cultures. When I examined the descriptions by scholars to determine their evidence and sources, I found that nearly all are based on the same two statements alleged to have been made by Indians. The descriptions also make an occasional reference to specific North American cultures, most commonly Zuni and Luiseño, where the Mother Earth goddess figures. I went to the historical documents to determine historicity and to the ethnographies searching for evidence of Mother Earth and earth-related concepts (the results of this search are summarized in a bibliographic supplement to Mother Earth, 181-191). Remarkably, what emerged were several lines of narrative, several stories, that reveal much about American history, particularly about the encounter between Native Americans and Americans with European ancestry. These stories continue in this encounter with W. C.

Terrestrial organisms have evolved mechanisms to anticipate the environmental changes associated with diurnal variations in the environment. The primary such mechanism is the circadian timer which is a molecular clock present in every cell of mammals. In order to adjust to external variations, the circadian clock is plastic and responds to environmental stimuli. Two such stimuli are light and food timing. In this dissertation I describe two separate studies, one in mice and another in humans where we have attempted to characterize these two stimuli. In chapter 2, I describe a series of experiments performed in mice in which we have defined the extent of circadian and light driven transcription in the master clock, namely the suprachiasmatic nucleus, residing in the hypothalamic region of the brain. In chapter 3, I describe the development of a behavioral monitoring and data analysis system for understanding the extent of temporal spread of caloric intake in people. To our knowledge this is the first time that smartphones have been employed to characterize human behavior. Our data reveals previously unknown aspects of eating behaviors. In chapter 4, the results obtained from the human behavioral study are discussed. Lastly, in chapter 5, I mention our strategy for future studies using the approach described in chapter 3 and 4. Overall, this dissertation expands our knowledge of light and feeding time inputs to the mammalian timekeeping mechanisms

This study seeks to investigate qualities of peer leaders in a social media-based peer-led HIV intervention. African American and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) peer leaders were recruited through online/offline methods. They were required to have experience with health communication and social media. Over 57% of reported using social networking for seeking sex partners within 3 months. Over 53% spent over 3 hours per week online and about 53% of peer leaders had fewer than 200 Facebook friends. Results suggest that peer leaders can be recruited for social media-based health interventions. Qualities of peer leaders are discussed.

The susceptibility of eight rodent species to a range of widely used and candidate rodenticides was determined in laboratory feeding tests. No choice and choice tests were used to assess toxicity and effect on palatability of the rodenticides to Meriones shawi (Shaw's gerbil), Arvicanthis niloticus (Nile rat), Acomys cahirinus (Egyptian Spiny mouse), Mastomys natalesis (Multumammate rat), Sigmodon hispidus (Cotton rat), Rattus exulans (Polynesian rat), and R. rattus (Ship rat) which responded differently to each chemical. The results of these tests suggest possible rodenticides suitable for control of each species. Field trials are now needed to assess the effectiveness of these compounds under practical conditions.

We prove C ∞ convergence for suitably normalized solutions of the parabolic complex Monge-Ampère equation on compact Hermitian manifolds. This provides a parabolic proof of a recent result of Tosatti-Weinkove. Additionally, let X = M x E where M is an m-dimensional Kähler manifold with negative first Chern class and E is an n-dimensional complex torus. We obtain C ∞ convergence of the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow on X to a Kähler-Einstein metric on M. This strengthens a convergenc°e result of Song-Weinkove and confirms their conjecture