Thesis--Ohio State University. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 192-196.

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L’infection primaire par le cytomégalovirus (CMV) humain est asymptomatique. Le sujet infecté reste cependant porteur du virus à l’état latent. Le CMV ne se réactive que sporadiquement chez l’individu immunocompétent. Chez les patients immunodéprimés, la réactivation du CMV peut induire des maladies à CMV touchant des organes vitaux et peut mettre en jeu le pronostic vital du patient. Les traitements standards sont efficaces mais leurs effets secondaires et l’apparition de souches virales résistantes relancent l’engouement pour le développement de nouvelles thérapies. Lors de ma thèse, j’ai utilisé le système CRISPR/Cas9 afin de déstabiliser le génome du CMV. Nous avons choisi de cibler le gène UL122/UL123 codant pour les molécules immediate early essentielles au cycle lytique réplicatif et à la sortie de la latence. Nous avons comparé deux stratégies utilisant soit un soit trois gRNAs, respectivement appelées singleplex et multiplex ciblant ce même gène. Alors que le singleplex induit des insertions et délétions au site de coupure du gRNA, la stratégie multiplex induit la délétion de 3500 paires de bases du gène ciblé. De ce fait, la stratégie multiplex bloque efficacement l’expression du gène ciblé, la réplication virale et le relargage de nouveaux virions. Une autre stratégie a été développée pour cibler spécifiquement le génome à l’état latent. Les deux régions homologues TR et le gène LUNA sont ciblés par deux gRNAs. Cette seconde stratégie résulte elle aussi en une diminution du nombre de copies de génome viral lors du cycle lytique de réplication. Il est désormais possible d’envisager de nouvelles solutions thérapeutiques anti-HCMV avec la stratégie CRISPR/Cas9. / The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) primary infection is usually asymptomatic but leads to latent infection of blood progenitor cells. Immunocompromised patients are at high risks of HCMV reactivation, which is associated with severe end organ diseases and increased mortality in transplant patients. Standard anti-viral treatments based on nucleotide analogues decreased the occurrence of HCMV reactivation and diseases, but induce side effects and drug-resistant viral strains. In this thesis, we introduced new anti-viral approaches based on the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool. Two strategies are designed to target the UL122/123 gene of HCMV encoding the immediate early proteins, essential for lytic viral replication and reactivation from latency. We validated that the disruption of the UL122/123 gene by the CRISPR/Cas9 system to abrogate viral replication. The multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 system (three gRNA) was much more efficient than the singleplex approach targeting the same gene. Target gene expression, concomitant genome replication and virion release were significantly impaired by the multiplex strategy. A further anti-HCMV CRISPR/Cas9 system was developed specifically to target the HCMV genome during latency. Two gRNAs target the viral genome at three target sites: LUNA, essential for reactivation, and the two homolog TR regions. We verified this duplex strategy on the lytic replicating virus and detected mutations at the target site as well as the reduction of viral genome copy number. In conclusion, the anti-HCMV strategies based on two or three gRNAs efficiently blocked viral replication. This provides the basis for the development of an anti-HCMV CRISPR/Cas9 therapy.

The neon-sodium cycle (NeNa cycle) of hydrogen burning is active in stars of the Asymptotic Giant Branch, in classical novae, and in supernovae of type Ia. The thermonuclear reaction rate of the 22Ne(p,γ)23Na reaction is determined by a large number of resonances, and it represents the most uncertain rate in the NeNa cycle. This PhD thesis reports on an experiment to study tentative 22Ne(p,γ)23Na resonances at Elab = 71 and 105 keV, as well as the direct capture component of the reaction rate for Elab ≤ 400 keV. The measurements were performed deep underground at the Laboratory for Un- derground Nuclear Astrophysics - LUNA (Gran Sasso, Italy), taking advantage of the strong reduction in the cosmic ray induced background. The LUNA-400-kV electrostatic accelerator and a differentially pumped, windowless gas target of iso- topically enriched 22Ne gas were used. The γ-rays from the reaction were detected with a 4π bismuth germanate scintillator. The data show upper limits on the strengths of the resonances at Elab = 71 and 105 keV of 5.8 × 10−11 and 7.0 × 10−11 eV respectively. The resonances at Elab = 156.2, 189.5 and 259.7 keV have been re-studied and show 20% higher strength than the literature. The present experiment did not show any evidence for the direct capture process at the low energies studied. In addition to the experimental work at LUNA, the 3He(α, γ)7Be and 7Be(p, γ)8B reactions were studied using the most recent solar neutrino data available. Based on the standard solar model and the experimentally measured fluxes of solar 7Be and 8B neutrinos, the astrophysical S-factors of both reactions were evaluated directly in the solar Gamow peak.

The neon-sodium cycle (NeNa cycle) of hydrogen burning is active in stars of the Asymptotic Giant Branch, in classical novae, and in supernovae of type Ia. The thermonuclear reaction rate of the 22Ne(p,γ)23Na reaction is determined by a large number of resonances, and it represents the most uncertain rate in the NeNa cycle. This PhD thesis reports on an experiment to study tentative 22Ne(p,γ)23Na resonances at Elab = 71 and 105 keV, as well as the direct capture component of the reaction rate for Elab ≤ 400 keV. The measurements were performed deep underground at the Laboratory for Un- derground Nuclear Astrophysics - LUNA (Gran Sasso, Italy), taking advantage of the strong reduction in the cosmic ray induced background. The LUNA-400-kV electrostatic accelerator and a differentially pumped, windowless gas target of iso- topically enriched 22Ne gas were used. The γ-rays from the reaction were detected with a 4π bismuth germanate scintillator. The data show upper limits on the strengths of the resonances at Elab = 71 and 105 keV of 5.8 × 10−11 and 7.0 × 10−11 eV respectively. The resonances at Elab = 156.2, 189.5 and 259.7 keV have been re-studied and show 20% higher strength than the literature. The present experiment did not show any evidence for the direct capture process at the low energies studied. In addition to the experimental work at LUNA, the 3He(α, γ)7Be and 7Be(p, γ)8B reactions were studied using the most recent solar neutrino data available. Based on the standard solar model and the experimentally measured fluxes of solar 7Be and 8B neutrinos, the astrophysical S-factors of both reactions were evaluated directly in the solar Gamow peak.

In this dissertation, I analyze the strategies of resistance employed by Morisco narrators featured in three texts written and circulated in early modern Spain. As a diverse minority population of Muslim converts to Christianity, and their descendants, the Moriscos were constructed as a dangerous, sexually perverse Other whose bodies and cultural practices became targets of intense public scrutiny and surveillance. I argue that the narrators of the texts under study embed disguised, ambiguous forms of resistance in their public performances that challenge the system of blood purity that marks them as categorically inferior. The acts of writing and speaking, I propose, provide them with a space to reflect on their own complex, hybrid identities and to advocate for more flexible and inclusive definitions of Spanish subjecthood. The first text that I examine is Francisco Núñez Muley’s Memorial to the Royal Audiencia and Chancery Court of Granada, composed in 1567 as an attempt to negotiate renewed taxation in exchange for the protected status of Morisco cultural traditions. The second is Miguel de Luna’s Historia verdadera del Rey Don Rodrigo (1592, 1600), a pseudohistorical novel that rewrites the foundational Spanish legend of Rodrigo and La Cava, aiming to reverse positive depictions of the Vigisoths and negative depictions of Arabic leaders. I conclude with an analysis of the Morisco characters from Part II of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote (1615), showing how resistance of narrow definitions of Spanish citizenship persisted even after the systematic expulsion of the Moriscos. My analysis draws on James C. Scott’s theory of public and hidden transcripts, which maintains that subordinate groups, even in the most controlled environments, have historically found ways to challenge their oppressors through veiled forms of resistance. To examine the tension between collective and individual Morisco identities within the texts, I unite Scott’s theory with the concept of intersectionality, looking to the ways in which lineage, religion and ethnicity collide with gender and class to facilitate and shape acts of resistance. I focus especially on how the narrators of the three texts engage questions of women’s sexuality to undermine oppressive discourses that masquerade as truth. I find that the revered figure of the virginal woman is a particularly potent symbol of resistance that the narrators develop to disrupt the normative parameters of Spanish subjecthood. In the process, they also open the paradigm of virginity to Morisco women, routinely stereotyped as hypersexual burdens to the empire, and create opportunities for these women to exert agency.

When considering the Latina dancer in the United States it is easy to conjure images of a fruit crowned Carmen Miranda shimming in front of the camera, videos of Jennifer Lopez swinging her hips in dark and crowded clubs, sultry salsa dancers rocking and twisting on their bedazzled stilettos, or Jalisco girls who swirl the hemlines of their rainbow colored skirts as they parade down the street. These depictions of the Latina dancer are duly noted for creating a means of visibility for an otherwise invisible demographic. However, they also function to reinforce stereotypical ideas of the Latina moving body which limit Latina agency by positioning dancing Latinas within a set of prescribed representational practices. My study bridges Latina/o studies with dance studies in order to ask how Latina women are utilizing modern and contemporary dance styles to upset and redefine notions of the dancing Latina. I focus on the choreography of four women in particular; Michelle Manzanales, Maray Gutierrez, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Nancy Turano who each presented work in association with Luna Negra Dance Theatre’s Latina Choreographers Project. Through my study I place the project’s mission into dialog with the corpus of choreography commissioned during its three-year lifespan (2006-2009). My close analysis serves to elucidate the stories that the choreographers chose to tell. For some, the deconstruction of icons provided the most compelling exercise in the process of excavating beneath quintessential Latino facades. For others, the strong recollections of home and the feeling of not being able to assert a defined location characterized their investigations of cultural identity. The Latina Choreographers Project, I contend, sets a historical precedent by pursuing and presenting the work of Latina choreographers in a field that has traditional excluded the Latina voice. I argue that by engaging four choreographers with extraordinarily diverse relationships to Latinidad and presenting them to an American audience, the Latina Choreographer Project presents an invaluable opportunity for intercultural and cross-cultural dialog that aims to relay the complexity and nuances of a contemporary Latina experience. / text

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2008. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-40).

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For many centuries, the study of the Sun has been an important testbed for understanding stars that are further away. One of the first astronomical observations Galileo Galilei made in 1612 with the newly invented telescope concerned the sunspots, and in 1814, Joseph von Fraunhofer employed his new spectroscope to discover the absorption lines in the solar spectrum that are now named after him. Even though more refined and new modes of observation are now available than in the days of Galileo and Fraunhofer, the study of the Sun is still high on the agenda of contemporary science, due to three guiding interests. The first is connected to the ages-old human striving to understand the structure of the larger world surrounding us. Modern telescopes, some of them even based outside the Earth’s atmosphere in space, have succeeded in observing astronomical objects that are billions of lightyears away. However, for practical reasons precision data that are important for understanding stars can still only be gained from the Sun. In a sense, the observations of far-away astronomical objects thus call for a more precise study of the closeby, of the Sun, for their interpretation. The second interest stems from the human desire to understand the essence of the world, in particular the elementary particles of which it consists. Large accelerators have been constructed to produce and collide these particles. However, man-made machines can never be as luminous as the Sun when it comes to producing particles. Solar neutrinos have thus served not only as an astronomical tool to understand the Sun’s inner workings, but their behavior on the way from the Sun to the Earth is also being studied with the aim to understand their nature and interactions. The third interest is strictly connected to life on Earth. A multitude of research has shown that even relatively slight changes in the Earth’s climate may strongly affect the living conditions in a number of densely populated areas, mainly near the ocean shore and in arid regions. Thus, great effort is expended on the study of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Also the Sun, via the solar irradiance and via the effects of the so-called solar wind of magnetic particles on the Earth’s atmosphere, may affect the climate. There is no proof linking solar effects to short-term changes in the Earth’s climate. However, such effects cannot be excluded, either, making it necessary to study the Sun. The experiments summarized in the present work contribute to the present-day study of our Sun by repeating, in the laboratory, some of the nuclear processes that take place in the core of the Sun. They aim to improve the precision of the nuclear cross section data that lay the foundation of the model of the nuclear reactions generating energy and producing neutrinos in the Sun. In order to reach this goal, low-energy nuclear physics experiments are performed. Wherever possible, the data are taken in a low-background, underground environment. There is only one underground accelerator facility in the world, the Laboratory Underground for Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) 0.4MV accelerator in the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. Much of the research described here is based on experiments at LUNA. Background and feasibility studies shown here lay the base for future, higher-energy underground accelerators. Finally, it is shown that such a device can even be placed in a shallow-underground facility such as the Dresden Felsenkeller without great loss of sensitivity.