Postmortem, Elegy, and Genius

This chapter turns to the medical field of pathology, sketching out a new theory of how discursive practices of medicine might be dependent on literary models by examining the history of the postmortem report in relation to the Romantic elegy. It explores a brief moment in the early nineteenth century when medical postmortem reports became widely available to the reading public. Using commemorative responses to the death of John Keats as the central example, but also reading the widely published postmortem reports of the deaths of Napoleon Bonaparte, Lord Byron, and Ludwig van Beethoven, which afforded readers an unexpected degree of closeness with the metaphorically charged bodies of the departed, the chapter focuses on how the postmortem report provides a protocol for interpreting mortality across a range of memorial genres in medical and literary fields. The postmortem report is shown to adopt certain generic qualities of earlier epitaphs, while later elegies by Percy Shelley and Alfred Tennyson continue to display the medical genre’s influence. The postmortem report is revealed to participate in a mutual exchange with literary conventions, as it first appropriates generic conventions from epitaphic literature, and then asserts a scientific protocol of taxonomical classification within humanistic discourse. When used in this commemorative field, reading bodily symptomology becomes a hermeneutics of consolation that brings its readers into intimacy with figures of genius.

CuBi-MeAn Customized Pipeline for Metagenomic Data Analysis

1.AbstractWhole genome shotgun sequencing is a powerful to study microbial community is a given environment. Metagenomic binning offers a genome centric approach to study microbiomes. There are several tools available to process metagenomic data from raw reads to the interpretation there is still lack of standard approach that can be used to process the metagenomic data step by step. In this study CuBi-MeAn (Customizable Binning and Metagenomic Analysis) create a customizable and flexible processing pipeline, to process the metagenomic data and generate results for further interpretation.This study aims to perform metagenomic binning to enhance taxonomical classification, functional potentials, and interactions among microbial populations in environmental systems. This customized pipeline which is comprised of a series of genomic/metagenomic tools designed to recover better quality results and reliable interpretation of the system dynamics for the given systems. For this reason, a metagenomic data processing pipeline is developed to evaluate metagenomic data from three environmental engineering projects.The use of our pipeline was demonstrated and compared on three different datasets that were of different sizes, from different sequencing platforms, and generated from three different environmental sources. By designing and developing a flexible and customized pipeline, this study has showed how to process large metagenomic data sets with limited resources. This result not only would help to uncover new information from environmental samples, but also, could be applicable to any other metagenomic studies across various disciplines.

Improving the phylogenetic resolution of Malaysian and Javan mahseer (Cyprinidae), Tor tambroides and Tor tambra: Whole mitogenomes sequencing, phylogeny and potential mitogenome markers

The true mahseer (Tor spp.) is one of the highest valued fish in the world due to its high nutritional value and great unique taste. Nevertheless, its morphological characterization and single mitochondrial gene phylogeny in the past had yet to resolve the ambiguity in its taxonomical classification. In this study, we sequenced and assembled 11 complete mahseer mitogenomes collected from Java of Indonesia, Pahang and Terengganu of Peninsular Malaysia as well as Sarawak of East Malaysia. The mitogenome evolutionary relationships among closely related Tor spp. samples were investigated based on maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree construction. Compared to the commonly used COX1 gene fragment, the complete COX1, Cytb, ND2, ND4 and ND5 genes appear to be better phylogenetic markers for genetic differentiation at the population level. In addition, a total of six population-specific mitolineage haplotypes were identified among the mahseer samples analyzed, which this offers hints towards its taxonomical landscape.

Phylogenetic Core Groups: a promising concept in search of a consistent methodological framework

In this comment, we analyse the conceptual framework proposed by Aguirre de Cárcer (Microbiome 7:142, 2019), introducing the novel concept of Phylogenetic Core Groups (PCGs). This notion aims to complement the traditional classification in operational taxonomic units (OTUs), widely used in microbial ecology, to provide a more intrinsic taxonomical classification which avoids the use of pre-determined thresholds. However, to introduce this concept, the author frames his proposal in a wider theoretical framework based on a conceptualization of selection that we argue is a tautology. This blurs the subsequent formulation of an assembly principle for microbial communities, favouring that some contradictory examples introduced to support the framework appear aligned in their conclusions. And more importantly, under this framework and its derived methodology, it is not possible to infer PCGs from data in a consistent way. We reanalyse the proposal to identify its logical and methodological flaws and, through the analysis of synthetic scenarios, we propose a number of methodological refinements to contribute towards the determination of PCGs in a consistent way. We hope our analysis will promote the exploration of PCGs as a potentially valuable tool, helping to bridge the gap between environmental conditions and community composition in microbial ecology.

Characterisation of V-type asteroids orbiting in the middle and outer main belt

We present new spectral observations using ground-based telescopes of 23 putative V-type asteroids, selected according to colour surveys in the visible from the Moving Objects Catalogue of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and near-infrared from the Moving Objects VISTA catalogue. Ten asteroids are orbiting in the middle main belt, while five in the outer part of the main asteroid belt. For the observed asteroids we assign a taxonomical classification and confirm the basaltic nature for sixteen of them. The high-quality spectra in the UV range, obtained with the X-Shooter spectrograph at ESO, allowed the identification of the Fe2 + forbidden transition of pyroxene for ten asteroids. This band is centred at 506.5 nm, and it is diagnostic of the Ca-content in the pyroxene form. We determined a low Fe-content composition for asteroids (2452) Lyot, (5758) Brunini, (7675) Gorizia, (9197) Endo, (22308) 1990 UO4, (36118) 1999 RE135, (66905) 1999 VC160, and (189597) 2000 WG119, and a composition more rich in Fe for asteroids (75661) 2000 AB79 and (93620) 2000 UQ70. We also present a dynamical investigation of V-type asteroids in the middle and outer main belt. The principal finding of these simulations is that the middle and outer V-types are more likely to be associated with some families, which were considered as possibly originated from the break-up of a partially or totally differentiated parent body by diverse studies. This reinforces the hypothesis that the identified V-type in the region were not originated from (4) Vesta and that the number of differentiated objects in the middle and outer main belt must have been much larger than previously assumed.

A thermophysical and dynamical study of the Hildas (1162) Larissa and (1911) Schubart

The Hilda asteroids are among the least studied populations in the asteroid belt, despite their potential importance as markers of Jupiter’s migration in the early Solar system. We present new mid-infrared observations of two notable Hildas, (1162) Larissa and (1911) Schubart, obtained using the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST), and use these to characterise their thermal inertia and physical properties. For (1162) Larissa, we obtain an effective diameter of 46.5$^{+2.3}_{-1.7}$ km, an albedo of 0.12 ± 0.02, and a thermal inertia of 15$^{+10}_{-8}$ Jm−2s1/2K−1. In addition, our Larissa thermal measurements are well matched with an ellipsoidal shape with an axis ratio a/b=1.2 for the most-likely spin properties. Our modelling of (1911) Schubart is not as refined, but the thermal data point towards a high-obliquity spin-pole, with a best-fit a/b=1.3 ellipsoidal shape. This spin-shape solution is yielding a diameter of 72$^{+3}_{-4}$ km, an albedo of 0.039± 0.02, and a thermal inertia below 30 Jm−2s1/2K−1 (or 10$^{+20}_{-5}$ Jm−2s1/2K−1). As with (1162) Larissa, our results suggest that (1911) Schubart is aspherical, and likely elongated in shape. Detailed dynamical simulations of the two Hildas reveal that both exhibit strong dynamical stability, behaviour that suggests that they are primordial, rather than captured objects. The differences in their albedos, along with their divergent taxonomical classification, suggests that despite their common origin, the two have experienced markedly different histories.

Prevalence of Hepatitis B in Blood Groups and Level of Education of Blood Donors in Al-Najaf Governorate

Advancement in sequencing techniques and transformative progress in metagenomics provides an unprecedented platform for functional and taxonomic characterization of the enormous microbial diversity inhabiting and governing various biochemical processes of the freshwater sources. Metagenomic analysis of freshwater resources has led to the discovery and identification of novel microbial genes and an understanding of how microorganisms mediate energy and carbon. In this study, we report the taxonomical classification of bacterial sequences obtained from 6 dam reservoir sites in Pune city, Maharashtra, India. The analysis was performed using two different alignment tools: BLAST and Kaiju. The bacterial diversity was dominated by the presence of Vogecella indigofera, uncultured Proteobacterium, Wolinella Succinogenes, Chromobacterium violaceum, and Heliobacter billis. It was further observed that, despite an identical bacterial composition over various reservoir sites, there were nominal differences in the relative abundance of the inhabitant species. Almost all reservoirs were dominated by Vogecella indigofera (~29%) and uncultured Proteobacterium (~15%). A seasonal analysis performed using BLAST resulted in a number of species exclusive to the season and the site of their growth. A high proportion of unidentified sequences were also reported which demands sequential identification. The results obtained through BLAST and Kaiju, were significantly different, suggesting inconsistencies and inaccuracies in existing metagenomic reads comparison.

Prevalence of Hepatitis B in Blood Groups and Level of Education of Blood Donors in Al-Najaf Governorate

Advancement in sequencing techniques and transformative progress in metagenomics provides an unprecedented platform for functional and taxonomic characterization of the enormous microbial diversity inhabiting and governing various biochemical processes of the freshwater sources. Metagenomic analysis of freshwater resources has led to the discovery and identification of novel microbial genes and an understanding of how microorganisms mediate energy and carbon. In this study, we report the taxonomical classification of bacterial sequences obtained from 6 dam reservoir sites in Pune city, Maharashtra, India. The analysis was performed using two different alignment tools: BLAST and Kaiju. The bacterial diversity was dominated by the presence of Vogecella indigofera, uncultured Proteobacterium, Wolinella Succinogenes, Chromobacterium violaceum, and Heliobacter billis. It was further observed that, despite an identical bacterial composition over various reservoir sites, there were nominal differences in the relative abundance of the inhabitant species. Almost all reservoirs were dominated by Vogecella indigofera (~29%) and uncultured Proteobacterium (~15%). A seasonal analysis performed using BLAST resulted in a number of species exclusive to the season and the site of their growth. A high proportion of unidentified sequences were also reported which demands sequential identification. The results obtained through BLAST and Kaiju, were significantly different, suggesting inconsistencies and inaccuracies in existing metagenomic reads comparison.