You Are Alive is a novel addressing approaches to climate change through the lenses of two sisters: Elidi and Luz. Elidi’s approach to environmental relation is one of control, while Luz embraces adaptation and coexistence. The novel follows Elidi on a path of vengeance in a post-climate collapse landscape ravaged by a new ice age.

This literary fantasy novel is presented as the manuscript of a writer under the pseudonym of “Noisette,” who possesses the final writings of the revolutionary Cazimir Pazikov, a historical figure in the book’s world of whom little is known. In his journal entries, Cazimir Pazikov details the final days of his life. After accidentally murdering his lover, Varina, Cazimir buries her at a crossroads as part of a ritual to resurrect her. To complete the ritual, Cazimir must journey around his native Alban Province (a region of the wartorn Kingdom of Paradigm modeled off 19th century America with European influences) in search of physical artifacts that will serve as proof of his and Varina’s love. During his journey he contends with both human and supernatural obstacles, as well as his own innate flaws. In the end he makes the ultimate sacrifice to undo his ultimate sin and return Varina to life. Influenced by Vladimir Nabokov, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Neil Gaiman, ALL THE WAKING THINGS uses fantastic elements to explore human struggles: love, loss, and atonement.

The Last Cold Winter is a historical novel that takes place in Romania at the end of the 1989 Communist Revolution. George Bird, a naturalized American citizen, returns with his thirty-year-old son, Adrian, to the country they had defected from twenty-eight-years earlier. George Bird is dying of lung cancer, and he wishes to see his parents and his country one last time. The trip quickly turns into a nightmare when he is kidnapped the first day back. Adrian, who doesn’t speak Romanian, must now meet the kidnapper’s demand for a list he knows nothing about in order to save his father. With the help of a hotel clerk, Simona, they travel to Transylvania to uncover his father’s troubled past. In the end, the journey helps Adrian understand the circumstances that had influenced his father’s decision to defect, and his need to atone for them now.

Tom Randolph, the narrator of this short novel, is a recently divorced university instructor. The setting of the novel is inner-city Dallas, where Tom has leased an apartment after leaving his suburban home. Frustrated by a tenacious affection for his former wife Sharon and disgust at her remarriage to a drunken ranch laborer, Tom marries a muddled eighteen-year-old girl, .Faye. When Faye is abducted, Tom assents to Sharon's request to return to him. Tom buries an unrecognizable corpse he thinks is Faye, and Sharon's new "husband" (a bigamist) is killed in a brawl. After Tom and Sharon's remarriage, Faye reappears as a street-corner missionary.

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis. It infects animals and can be a source of zoonosis. In the last five years, Canada has faced two outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in the years 2018 and 2016. BTB is mainly diagnosed using the Tuberculin skin test, a test that detects the cellular immune response to administered purified protein derivative (PPD). A drawback of this test is the high level of false-positive test results caused by the immune response to PPD proteins that are conserved in non-tuberculous mycobacteria. Current serodiagnostic tests can detect the disease especially in the advanced state with, low sensitivity ranging between 9-45%. It is hypothesized that the profiling of the humoral immune responses to selected proteins will lead to the discovery of novel immunogenic protein antigens for improved BTB diagnostic tests. Bioinformatic tools used in this research for the prediction of extracellular or outermembrane proteins from M. bovis genome sequences identified 96 protein candidates. Also, a proteomic study conducted to identify proteins secreted by M. bovis, together with the review of previous proteomic studies of the PPD, led to the identification of an additional 92 protein candidates. A high throughput system was developed to efficiently express and analyze these antigens involving the PCR amplification, in vivo cloning, and in vitro expression of open reading frames (ORFs) coding for selected protein candidates. This was followed by a high throughput recombinant protein purification and a microarray analysis of these purified recombinant proteins with sera from M. bovis-infected animals. The system successfully amplified, cloned, and expressed 159 recombinant proteins. From the microarray screening, 13 antigens exhibited immunological reactions and were able to differentiate the sera of the infected animals from the controls. Out of those 13 antigens, 4 novel antigens Mb2740c, Mb0598c, Mb3469c, and Mb3453c, in addition to two well-known antigens MPB70 and MPB83, gave the highest reactivity; they were selected for further evaluation for diagnostic applications using ELISA and dot blot assays. Two antigens Mb3469c and Mb3453c had a significant ability to differentiate between infected and control cattle as tested in ELISA and dot blot assays, respectively and demonstrated by ROC curve analysis. These two novel antigens could be added to the panel of serodiagnostic antigens for improving BTB serodiagnosis and could be beneficial in the detection of outbreaks caused by certain M. bovis strains.

In this thesis have been included six novels of the indigenous type that represent four countries of Latin America: Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. This type of novel contains elements of social protest, and therefore it is appropriate to examine the problem of the "indio" or (Indian) in relation to the countries where the majority of the population is comprised of "Indians".

The following is a critical preface and portion of a novel-in-progress produced during my master's program in creative writing at the University of North Texas. The preface analyzes the way time and point of view work together to create or determine structure in fiction, as well as provide added meaning. In order to explore these topics I focus on two novels, Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, and speak to how these elements have influenced my own writing style in The Hostess. The Hostess is a story about a group of twenty-something’s working together in a restaurant located in a Mid-West, college town, told from multiple character perspectives, as they struggle to choose between pursuing their passions and creating stability in their lives.

This thesis was aimed towards translated Japanese web novels to findout what kind of features they have and if the translated text kept thefeatures of the original novel. Simultaneously, the translationtechniques utilized in the translated novel were also examined. To findout the answer, two case studies were conducted and the web novelswere chosen at random with some parameters set. An interview wasconducted with translators of web novels to help reinforce or clear updoubts surrounding the results of the case study. The thesis also brieflydescribes the overall industry surrounding web novels. The randomlychosen translated novels did have most of the features of the original.Though some aspects were lost in translation. The translationtechniques utilised were also overwhelmingly literal translation. Whythat is has several possible answers among which the languageproficiency of the translator or no formal training in translation.

Investigation of the adenosine A(2A) receptor on the enhanced rewarding effects of nicotine and dopamine D2 receptor signaling in a novel heritable model of drug abuse vulnerability Seth E. Turney, Loren D. Peeters, Olivia A. Jennings, Liza J. Wills, Russell W. Brown Many years ago, our laboratory along with a collaborator established that neonatal treatment of the dopamine (DA)D2-like receptor agonist quinpirole (NQ) to rats induces an increase in DAD2 receptor sensitivity throughout the animal’s lifetime, which has validity to schizophrenia (SZ) and a number of clinical conditions. These clinical conditions, which include SZ but also bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and major depression all demonstrate increased drug abuse vulnerability, especially to cigarette smoking. Based on this permanent change in DAD2 sensitivity, we bred NQ-treated male and female rats with their NQ-treated or neonatal saline (NS)-treated counterparts. This F1 generation also demonstrated increases in DAD2 signaling, both behaviorally as well as through DAD2 signaling mechanisms. We have shown both d enhanced behavioral responding to nicotine on the conditioned place preference (CPP) and behavioral sensitization paradigms. These F1 offspring of NQ-treated rats also demonstrated increases of G-protein dependent and G-protein independent DAD2 signaling. Interestingly, the adenosine A(2A) receptor forms a mutual inhibitory heteromer with the DAD2 receptor. Adenosine is a known neuromodulator that can increase or decrease synaptic transmission in the brain, and there exists a hypothesis that adenosine dysfunction is the primary system which is disrupted in SZ which leads to changes in the dopamine and other neurotransmitter systems. The drug CGS 21680, an A(2A) agonist which stimulates the A(2A) receptor, is known to decrease DAD2 signaling and has been shown to block nicotine behavioral sensitization. A major focus in this project is on the adenosine A(2A) receptor as a novel pharmacological treatment target, since it is known that antipsychotic drugs which are often used to treat SZ and these other clinical conditions which have increased DAD2 signaling produce deleterious side effects, and novel medications are needed. Results here revealed that a 0.09 mg/kg dose of CGS 21680 was effective to block enhanced nicotine CPP and changes in DAD2 G-protein independent signaling in F1 generation rats. Interestingly, CGS 21680 did not affect G-protein dependent signaling in F1 generation animals, suggesting that the mechanism through which it is working may not be through the traditional DAD2 signaling mechanism. Future work is designed to analyze underlying mechanisms of this effect.

A Heart, Beating, Hard is a novel by Lauren Foss Goodman