Journal articles on the topic 'Differential interference constrast'

In a previous study, Allen video-enhanced constrast/differential interference constrast (AVEC-DIC) microscopy was used in conjunction with immunofluorescence microscopy to demonstrate that organelles and vesicle move in either direction along linear elements composed of microtubules. However, this study was limited in that the number of microtubules making up a linear element could not be determined. To overcome this limitation, we have used AVEC-DIC microscopy in conjunction with whole mount electron microscopy.Keratocytes from Rana pipiens were grown on glass coverslips as described elsewhere. Gold London Finder grids were Formvar- and carbon coated, and sterilized by exposure to ultraviolet light. It is important to select a Formvar film that gives a grey reflection when it is floated on water. A silver film is too thick and will detract from the image in the light microscope.

Maintenance decision analysis is necessary to ensure the safe and stable operation of wind turbine equipment. To address gearboxes with a high failure rate in wind turbines, this paper establishes a new stochastic differential equation model of gearbox state transition to maximize the utilization of gearboxes. This model divides the state of the gearbox into two parts: internal degradation and external random interference. Weibull distribution and polynomial approximation were used to construct the internal degradation model of the gearbox. The external random interference is simulated by Brownian motion. On the basis of the analysis of monitoring data, the parameters of the gearbox state model were solved using the Newton–Raphson iterative method and entropy method. The state change of the gearbox was simulated in MATLAB, and the residual value between the predicted state and the real state was calculated. Compared with the state transformation model constructed by the traditional ordinary differential equation and the gamma distribution, the Weibull polynomial approximation stochastic model can better reflect the state of the device. With reliability set as the decision goal, the maintenance time of the gearbox is predicted, and the validity of the model is verified through case analysis.

We construct models of continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) and Itô stochastic differential equations of population interactions based on a deterministic system of two phytoplankton and one zooplankton populations. The mechanisms of mutual interference among the predator zooplankton and the avoidance of toxin-producing phytoplankton (TPP) by zooplankton are incorporated. Sudden population extinctions occur in the stochastic models that cannot be captured in the deterministic systems. In addition, the effect of periodic toxin production by TPP is lessened when the birth and death of the populations are modeled randomly.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been investigated proactively owing to their promising applications. A route planner is key to UAV autonomous task execution. Herein, a hybrid differential evolution (HDE) algorithm is proposed to generate a high-quality and feasible route for fixed-wing UAVs in complex three-dimensional environments. A multiobjective function is designed, and both the route length and risk are optimized. Multiple constraints based on actual situations are considered, including UAV mobility, terrain, forbidden flying areas, and interference area constraints. Inspired by the wolf pack search algorithm, the proposed HDE algorithm combines differential evolution (DE) with an approaching strategy to improve the search capability. Moreover, considering the dynamic properties of fixed-wing UAVs, the quadratic B-spline curve is used for route smoothing. The HDE algorithm is compared with a state-of-the-art UAV route planning algorithm, i.e., the modified wolf pack search algorithm, and the traditional DE algorithm. Several numerical experiments are performed, and the performance comparison of algorithms shows that the HDE algorithm demonstrates better performances in terms of solution quality and constraint-handling ability in complex three-dimensional environments.

In this paper, a type of tracking controller on the basis of parameters optimization was proposed for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). Taking into account the unique nonlinear and large inertia characteristics of USVs, an iterative sliding mode control (ISMC) was adopted to construct the controller including the USVs’ main engine speed controller to determine the longitudinal velocity and the steering controller to control the lateral displacement. In designing, the hyperbolic tangent function with the saturation characteristic is introduced to design the output feedback control law of nonlinear iterative sliding mode. Then, the differential evolution algorithm (DEA) is applied to construct the parameters optimization system for acquiring the optimal parameters of the proposed controller, and the control quality with adaptive ability and robustness of the optimized controller is achieved. It is verified by computer experiments that the optimized controller realizes the tracking control for USV under interference; meanwhile, compared with the iterative sliding mode controller, the control performance of the controller is better and the robustness of that is stronger.

This paper proposes a study on gearbox fault feature extraction of wind turbine under variable speed condition using improved adaptive variational mode decomposition (VMD). Frequent changes in wind speed and critical noise interference make the vibration signal exhibit non-stationary characteristics. Although computational order tracking can transform non-stationary signals in the time domain into stationary angular signals, and then extract fault features from order spectrum obtained by FFT, the obtained order spectrum is liable to be polluted by noise or to appear order aliasing. To avoid order aliasing and eliminate noise interference, the original non-stationary signal is firstly processed using the improved adaptive VMD method called adaptive differential evolution – VMD (ADE-VMD). ADE-VMD can not only utilise the advantages of traditional VMD but also adaptively select narrow-band intrinsic mode function (NBIMF) to construct the reconstructed signal with less noise and without order aliasing. In the experiment, we compared the ADE-VMD method with other VMD methods such as GA-VMD, PSO-VMD and DE-VMD, and the results showed that ADE-VMD has excellent adaptive processing ability, and its convergence and optimisation speed are more remarkable. ADE-VMD can effectively filter the noise inference and avoid the order aliasing, so it is well suitable for fault feature extraction under variable speed.

The relative sliding between tooth surfaces is the main cause of tooth wear and power loss, which directly affects the transmission efficiency and durability of gear. The aim of this paper is to provide a method to design such spur gear with low sliding ratio (LSR). Based on kinematics, differential geometry and contact path, the general mathematical models of the generating rack, the pinion and the mating gear tooth profiles are established in turn. Then, according to the relationship between the contact path and sliding ratio, a contact path described by a cubic function is proposed to construct a spur gear drive with low sliding ratio. In order to ensure the continuity of action and non-interference, solid models of the mated gear pair are established, and the motion simulation is carried out by an example. Moreover, the effects of the contact path function coefficients on sliding ratio, tooth shape, and contact ratio are analyzed. Meshing efficiency and tooth wear of LSR gear drive are evaluated by comparing with those of the involute gear drive. The results show that, this LSR spur gear drive has higher transmission efficiency and better anti-wear performance.

<abstract> <p>Based on the perspective of government and enterprises, we explore the cooperative strategy and cost-sharing problem of cooperative open sharing of data between government and enterprises. In order to accurately analyze the data-opening strategies of government and enterprises, stochastic differential game theory is applied to construct the Nash non-cooperative game, Stackelberg master-slave game and cooperative game models with government and enterprises as game subjects to obtain the optimal open data effort, the optimal trajectory of social data open sharing level and the optimal benefit function of government and enterprises in three scenarios. Combined with numerical simulations to analyze the sensitivity of the relevant parameters affecting the level of social data openness, the results of the study revealed the following: ① When the government's income distribution ratio is greater than 1/3, the benefits of the government and the enterprises under the Stackelberg master-slave game and the effort to open and share data are greater than in the Nash non-cooperative situation; in the case of a cooperative game, the degree of effort and total revenue of both parties reach the Pareto optimal state. ② When the government's income distribution ratio is greater than 1/3, the expectation and variance of the open data and shared stock under the cost-sharing situation and the corresponding limit value are all greater than the value in the Nash non-cooperative situation, and in the cooperative game, the expectation and variance of open data and shared stock and its corresponding limit value are the greatest. ③ The government and enterprises coexist with profit and risk under the influence of random interference factors, and high profit means high risk. This research provides a theoretical basis and practical guidance for promoting the open sharing of government and enterprise data.</p> </abstract>

In the Chinese stock market, the unique special treatment (ST) warning mechanism can signal financial distress for listed companies. In existing studies, classification model has been developed to differentiate the two general listing states. However, this classification model cannot explain the internal changes of each listing state. Considering that the requirement of the withdrawal of ST in the mechanism is relatively loose, we propose a new segmentation approach for Chinese listed companies, which are divided into negative companies and positive companies according to the number of times being labeled ST. Under the framework of data mining, we use financial indicators, non-financial indicators, and time series to build a financial distress prediction model of distinguishing the long-term development of different Chinese listed companies. Through data segmentation, we find that the negative samples have a huge destructive interference on the prediction effect of the total sample. On the contrary, positive companies improve the prediction accuracy in all aspects and the optimal feature set is also different from all companies. The main contribution of the paper is to analyze the internal impact of the deterioration of financial distress prediction in time series and construct an optimization model for positive companies.

In this study, novel carbon nanotube-supported Mo (Mo/CNT) catalysts were prepared with the sodium borohydride reduction method for the detection of L-cysteine (L-Cys, L-C). Mo/CNT catalysts were characterized with scanning electron microscopy with elemental dispersion X-ray (EDX-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrometry (UV-vis), temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), temperature programmed oxidation (TPO), and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) techniques. The results of these advanced surface characterization techniques revealed that the catalysts were prepared successfully. Electrochemical measurements were employed to construct a voltammetric L-C sensor based on Mo/CNT catalyst by voltammetric techniques such as cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Further measurements were carried out with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Mo/CNT/GCE exhibited excellent performance for L-C detection with a linear response in the range of 0–150 µM, with a current sensitivity of 200 mA/μM cm2 (0.0142 μA/μM), the lowest detection limit of 0.25 μM, and signal-to-noise ratio (S/N = 3). Interference studies showed that the Mo/CNT/GCE electrode was not affected by D-glucose, uric acid, L-tyrosine, and L-trytophane, commonly interfering organic structures. Natural sample analysis was also accomplished with acetyl L-C. Mo/CNT catalyst is a promising material as a sensor for L-C detection.

To derive the integral representation for the axial wave describing the interference of near-axial waves in an arbitrary deep-water waveguide in a range-independent medium in long-range acoustic propagation in the ocean, it is necessary to construct the solutions of the homogeneous Helmholtz equation concentrated near the waveguide axis in a narrow strip having a width of order ω-1/2, where ω is a cyclic frequency. In a range-independent (separable) case the desired solutions coincide with the principal term of the uniform asymptotic expansion as ω→∞ of normal modes when a mode number is a value of order of unity. In this paper, the solutions of the homogeneous Helmholtz equation concentrated near the waveguide axis in a range-independent ocean and which decrease exponentially outside a strip containing the axis are constructed in the form admitting generalization to the case of a range-dependent medium. The solutions are represented as the product of exponentials and parabolic cylinder functions whose arguments are infinite series in powers of ω-1/2. Coefficients of these series are found from a recurrent system of partial differential equations up to terms allowing to get a residual (difference between the left-hand side of the Helmholtz equation and zero) of order ω-1/2. Numerical results are obtained for medium parameters corresponding to the Munk canonical sound-speed profile.

There are currently no accurate biomarkers for optimal treatment selection in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Novel therapeutic targets are needed to improve NSCLC survival outcomes. This study systematically evaluated the association between genome-scale regulatory network centralities and NSCLC tumorigenesis, proliferation, and survival in early-stage NSCLC patients. Boolean implication networks were used to construct multimodal networks using patient DNA copy number variation, mRNA, and protein expression profiles. T statistics of differential gene/protein expression in tumors versus non-cancerous adjacent tissues, dependency scores in in vitro CRISPR-Cas9/RNA interference (RNAi) screening of human NSCLC cell lines, and hazard ratios in univariate Cox modeling of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) NSCLC patients were correlated with graph theory centrality metrics. Hub genes in multi-omics networks involving gene/protein expression were associated with oncogenic, proliferative potentials and poor patient survival outcomes (p < 0.05, Pearson’s correlation). Immunotherapy targets PD1, PDL1, CTLA4, and CD27 were ranked as top hub genes within the 10th percentile in most constructed multi-omics networks. BUB3, DNM1L, EIF2S1, KPNB1, NMT1, PGAM1, and STRAP were discovered as important hub genes in NSCLC proliferation with oncogenic potential. These results support the importance of hub genes in NSCLC tumorigenesis, proliferation, and prognosis, with implications in prioritizing therapeutic targets to improve patient survival outcomes.

Cancer cachexia is accompanied by muscle atrophy, sharing multiple common catabolic pathways with sarcopenia, including mitochondrial dysfunction. This study investigated gene expression from skeletal muscle tissues of older healthy adults, who are at risk of age-related sarcopenia, to identify potential gene biomarkers whose dysregulated expression and protein interference were involved in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Screening of the literature resulted in 14 microarray datasets (GSE25941, GSE28392, GSE28422, GSE47881, GSE47969, GSE59880 in musculoskeletal ageing; GSE118370, GSE33532, GSE19804, GSE18842, GSE27262, GSE19188, GSE31210, GSE40791 in NSCLC). Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were used to construct protein-protein interaction networks and retrieve clustering gene modules. Overlapping module DEGs were ranked based on 11 topological algorithms and were correlated with prognosis, tissue expression, and tumour purity in NSCLC. The analysis revealed that the dysregulated expression of the mammalian mitochondrial ribosomal proteins, Mitochondrial Ribosomal Protein S26 (MRPS26), Mitochondrial Ribosomal Protein S17 (MRPS17), Mitochondrial Ribosomal Protein L18 (MRPL18) and Mitochondrial Ribosomal Protein L51 (MRPL51) were linked to reduced survival and tumour purity in NSCLC while tissue expression of the same genes followed an opposite direction in healthy older adults. These results support a potential link between the mitochondrial ribosomal microenvironment in ageing muscle and NSCLC. Further studies comparing changes in sarcopenia and NSCLC associated cachexia are warranted.

Symmetrical antenna array is useful for omni bearing beamforming adjustment with multiple receivers. Beam-forming techniques using evolution algorithms have been studied for multi-user resource allocation in simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems. In a high-capacity broadband communication system there are many users with wearable devices. A transmitter provides simultaneous wireless information and power to a particular receiver, and the other receivers harvest energy from the radio frequency while being idle. In addition, the ray bounce tracking method is used to estimate the multi-path channel, and the Fourier method is used to perform the time domain conversion. A simple method for reducing the frequency selective effort of the multiple channels using the feed line length instead of the digital phase shifts is proposed. The feed line length and excitation current of the transmitting antennas are adjusted to maximize the energy harvest efficiency under the bit error rate (BER) constraint. We use the time-domain multipath signal to calculate the BER, which includes the inter symbol interference for the wideband system. In addition, we use multi-objective function for optimization. To the best of our knowledge, resource allocation algorithms for this problem have not been reported in the literature. The optimal radiation patterns are synthesized by the asynchronous particle swarm optimization (APSO) and self-adaptive dynamic differential evolution (SADDE) algorithms. Both APSO and SADDE can form good patterns for the receiver for energy harvesting. However, APSO has a faster convergence speed than SADDE.

In a previous study, a thin In-Ga-Zn-oxide light addressable potentiometric sensor (IGZO LAPS) was indicated to have the advantages of low interference from ambient light, a high photocurrent and transfer efficiency, and a low cost. However, illumination optimization to obtain two-dimensional (2D) chemical images with better spatial resolutions has not been fully investigated. The trigger current and AC-modulated frequency of a 405-nm laser used to illuminate the fabricated IGZO LAPS were modified to check the photocurrent of the sensing area and SU8–2005 masking area, obtaining spatial resolution-related functions for the first time. The trigger current of illumination was adjusted from 0.020 to 0.030 A to compromise between an acceptable photocurrent and the integrity of the SU8–2005 masking layer. The photocurrent (PC) and differential photocurrent (DPC) versus scanning length (SL) controlled by an X-Y stage were used to check the resolved critical dimensions (CDs). The difference between resolved CD and optically measured CD (e.g., delta CD) measured at an AC frequency of 500 Hz revealed overall smaller values, supporting precise measurement in 2D imaging. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has an optimized range of 2.0 to 2.15 for a better resolution for step spacings of both 10 and 2 μm in the scanning procedure to construct static 2D images. Under illumination conditions with a trigger current of 0.025 A and at an AC frequency of 500 Hz, the spatial resolution can be reduced to 10 μm from the pattern width of 6 μm. This developed methodology provides a quantitative evaluation with further optimization in spatial resolution without an extra cost for applications requiring a high spatial resolution, such as single-cell activity.

Mining subsidence disasters are common geological disasters. Accurate and effective identification of their deformation position is significant in preventing and controlling geological disasters and monitoring illegal mining. In this study, deep learning, combined with a support vector machine (SVM), has been used to establish an automatic-detection method for mining subsidence basins using Sentinel-1A data. The Huainan mining area was selected as the experimental area to verify the method. The interferogram was obtained using differential radar interferometry (D-InSAR) to process the Sentinel-1A radar data of seven landscapes, and the mining subsidence basin and other targets were extracted manually as training samples. Subsequently, AlexNet, VGG19, and ResNet50 convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were used to extract feature vectors of mining subsidence basins for the SVM classifier, and mining subsidence basins were detected in a large-area InSAR interferogram. Non-maximum suppression was used to remove the repeated search box to improve the detection accuracy of mining subsidence basins; the artificial fish swarm algorithm with strong optimization ability and good global convergence is introduced into SVM parameter optimization to construct an improved ResNet50_SVM model. The experimental results show that: (1) the three CNN_SVM methods can accurately detect dry-mining subsidence basins automatically in large regional interference maps, providing an essential scientific basis for the government to monitor illegal mining activities and prevent and control geological disasters in mining areas; (2) the accuracy of the CNN_SVM automatic-detection methods for mining subsidence basins is approximately 80%, and that of ResNet50_SVM for mining subsidence basin detection is 83.7%, superior to that of AlexNet_SVM and VGG19_SVM; (3) the accuracy of the improved ResNet50_SVM based on AFSA algorithm is 88.3%, which is better than the unimproved Resnet50_SVM model.

PurposeThis study aims to attempt to construct a new mathematical model of the generalized thermoelasiticity theory based on the memory-dependent derivative (MDD) considering three-phase-lag effects. The governing equations of the problem associated with kernel function and time delay are illustrated in the form of vector matrix differential equations. Implementing Laplace and Fourier transform tools, the problem is sorted out analytically by an eigenvalue approach method. The inversion of Laplace and Fourier transforms are executed, incorporating series expansion procedures. Displacement component, temperature and stress distributions are obtained numerically and illustrated graphically and compared with the existing literature.Design/methodology/approachThis study is to analyze the influence of MDD of three-phase-lag heat conduction interaction in an isotropic semi-infinite medium. The current model has been connected to generalize two-dimensional (2D) thermoelasticity problem. The governing equations are shown in vector matrix form of differential equation concerning Laplace-transformed domain and solved by using the eigenvalue technique. The combined Laplace Fourier transform is applied to find the analytical interpretations of temperature, stresses, displacement for silicon material in a non-dimensional form. Inverse Laplace transform has been found by applying Fourier series expansion techniques introduced by Honig and Hirdes (1984) after performing the inverse Fourier transform.FindingsThe main conclusion of this current study is to demonstrate an innovative generalized concept for heat conducting Fourier’s law associated with moderation of time parameter, time delay variable and kernel function by applying the MDDs. However, an important role is played by the time delay parameter to characterize the behavioral patterns of the physical field variables. Further, a new categorization for materials may be created rendering to this new idea along MDD for the time delay variables to develop a new measure of its potential to regulate heat in the medium.Originality/valueGeneralized thermoelasticity is hastily undergoing modification day-by-day from basic thermoelasticity. It has been progressed to get over from the limitations of fundamental thermoelasticity, for instance, infinite velocity components of thermoelasticity interference, in the adequate thermoelastic response of a solid to short laser pulses and deprived illustrations of thermoelastic performance at low temperature. In the past few decades, the fractional calculus is used to change numerous existing models of physical procedure, and its applications are used in various fields of physics, continuum mechanics, fluid mechanics, biology, viscoelasticity, biophysics, signal and image processing, control theory, engineering fields, etc.

Abstract The functions of 17β-estradiol (E2) are mediated by estrogen receptor (ER) α and β. ERs display similar DNA- and ligand-binding properties in vitro. However, ERβ shows lower transcriptional activity than ERα from the estrogen response element (ERE)-dependent signaling. We predicted that distinct amino termini contribute to differences in transcription efficacies of ERs by affecting in situ ER-ERE interactions. We used chromatin immunoprecipitation and a novel in situ ERE competition assay, which is based on the ability of ER to compete for ERE binding with a designer activator that constitutively induces transcription from an ERE-driven reporter construct. Interference of activator-mediated transcription by unliganded or liganded ERs was taken as an indication of ER-ERE interaction. Results revealed that ERs interacted with ERE similarly in the absence of E2. However, E2 enhanced the ERE binding of ERα but not that of ERβ. The removal of the amino terminus increased the ERβ-ERE interaction independent of E2. The ERβ amino terminus also prevented E2-mediated enhancement of the chimeric ERα-ERE interaction. Thus, the amino terminus of ERβ impairs the binding of ERβ to ERE. The abrogation of ligand-dependent activation function 2 of the amino-terminally truncated ERβ resulted in the manifestation of E2 effect on ERβ-ERE interaction. This implies that E2-mediated enhancement of ERβ-ERE interaction is masked by the activation function 2, whereas the intact amino terminus is a dominant region that decreases the binding of ERβ to ERE. Thus, ERβ-ERE interaction is independent of E2 and is impaired by its amino terminus. These findings provide an additional explanation for differences between ERα and ERβ functions that could differentially affect the physiology and pathophysiology of E2 signaling.

Abstract Abstract 191 The molecular mechanism leading to the progression of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) from the indolent chronic phase (CML-CP) to the rapidly fatal blast crisis (CML-BC) are still unclear although a plausible assumption is that enhanced expression of BCR/ABL, as that observed in most of patients undergoing progression, represents the factor promoting clonal evolution of CML. Given that a) BCR/ABL levels are increased in the CML-BC stem/leukemia-initiating cell population; b) a causal relationship exists between levels and activity of the BCR/ABL oncoprotein and aberrant mRNA processing, nuclear export and/or translation; and c) molecular and/or pharmacologic interference with the expression and/or activity of the BCR/ABL-regulated RNA binding proteins (hnRNP A1, hnRNP K and hnRNP E2) antagonizes both in vitro and in vivo BCR/ABL leukemogenesis by impairing proliferation, inhibiting survival and/or restoring differentiation of BCR/ABL+ hematopoietic progenitors; we hypothesized that BCR/ABL initiates a hierarchical activation of signals leading to a temporally-organized increase in the expression/function of specific RNA binding proteins (RBPs), and that this represents an essential step for disease progression. To determine whether expression of hnRNP A1, K and E2 is hierarchically regulated by BCR/ABL and at which stage of the CML stem/progenitor cell development it occurs, we first transduced 32Dcl3 cells with the MigR1-BCR/ABL construct and allowed the clones from a 32D-BCR/ABLlow cell population to become BCR/ABLhigh/hnRNP E2high /C/EBPa− within 21 days of culture in the presence of IL-3. Western blots indicate that BCR/ABL-dependent full induction of hnRNP A1 expression precedes that of hnRNP K and E2 which occurs only after BCR/ABL levels and activity increase to levels capable of conferring cytokine-independent growth and differentiation arrest, suggesting that hnRNP A1 may have the role of a “gatekeeper”, as it allows the increase of BCR/ABL expression through inhibition of PP2A. This, in turn, will promote disease progression in part by inducing expression and activity of hnRNP K and E2 that, as we previously reported, regulate survival, proliferation and differentiation of CD34+ CML-BC progenitors. Notably, we observed a similar pattern of hnRNP induction in the lymphoid BCR/ABL-inducible TonB210157 cells. We also have evidence that differences in hnRNP A1, hnRNP K and hnRNP E2 expression exist between the stem and progenitor cell fractions of BCR/ABL+ primary cells and that they are differentially regulated in leukemic and normal cells. In fact, FACS analysis followed by intracellular protein staining performed on bone marrow- and spleen-derived LSK (Lin−/Sca-1+/c-kit+), common myeloid progenitors (CMPs) (Lin−/Sca-1−/c-kit+/CD34+, FCgRII/IIIdim) and granulocyte monocyte progenitors (GMPs) (Lin−/Sca-1−/c-kit+/CD34+/FCgRII/IIIbright) from leukemic SCLtTA-BCR/ABL double-transgenic mice showed that levels of hnRNP A1 were 3 to 5-fold higher in CMP/GMP than LSK cell fractions (LSK<CMP<GMP). By contrast, in non-induced animals, hnRNP A1 expression was overall markedly inhibited (10-fold lower) with respect to leukemic mice and progressively decreased during LSK maturation into GMPs (LSK>CMP>GMP). Likewise, hnRNP K and E2 levels were 2-fold increased in the progenitors compared to the LSK of leukemic animals, whereas an opposite trend in the expression of hnRNP K was observed in the LSK and CMPs/GMPs of non-induced animals. Moreover, hnRNP K levels in the leukemic CMPs/GMPs were 30 to 40-fold higher than those detected in the same cell fractions from non-induced animals. Interestingly, the highest levels of hnRNP A1 and K in the CMP/GMP fractions correlated with the development of a lymphoid blast crisis-like phenotype as determined by the 30% increase in splenic B220+/Mac-1+ cells. Altogether these data suggest that hierarchical and temporal changes in the expression of hnRNPs occur upon BCR/ABL transformation in stem and progenitor cells and during disease progression. Furthermore, these results are consistent with the reported role of the BCR/ABL-regulated hnRNP A1, K and E2 as a positive regulator of BCR/ABL stability through the SET-dependent inhibition of PP2A, a direct enhancer of Myc translation, and as an inhibitor of C/EBPa-dependent myeloid maturation of blast crisis CML progenitors, respectively. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

AbstractThe conjugate shift differential method, based on Fourier transforms, is critical for surface error testing of high-precision optical elements. However, this common approach is also prone to periodic spectrum loss. As such, this paper proposes conjugate double shift differential (CDSD) absolute testing, which can effectively compensate for spectrum loss and achieve accurate wavefront reconstructions. Spectrum loss in the single shift differential method is analyzed through a study of the Fourier reconstruction process. A calculation model for the proposed CDSD method is then established and constraint conditions for shift quantities are provided by analyzing double shear effects observed in transverse shear interference. Finally, the reconstruction accuracies of various spectrum compensation methods are compared. Results showed that spectrum loss became more evident with increasing shift amounts. However, the CDSD method produced the smallest measurement error compared with conventional direct zero filling and adjacent point averaging, suggesting our approach could effectively improve absolute shape measurement accuracy for planar optical elements.

Abstract Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 causes coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is also rapidly increasing worldwide, posing a significant challenge to human safety. Asthma is a risk factor for COVID-19, but the underlying molecular mechanisms of the asthma–COVID-19 interaction remain unclear. Methods We used transcriptome analysis to discover molecular biomarkers common to asthma and COVID-19. Gene Expression Omnibus database RNA-seq datasets (GSE195599 and GSE196822) were used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in asthma and COVID-19 patients. After intersecting the differentially expressed mRNAs, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed to identify the common pathogenic molecular mechanism. Bioinformatic methods were used to construct protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks and identify key genes from the networks. An online database was used to predict interactions between transcription factors and key genes. The differentially expressed long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the GSE195599 and GSE196822 datasets were intersected to construct a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) regulatory network. Interaction networks were constructed for key genes with RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and oxidative stress-related proteins. The diagnostic efficacy of key genes in COVID-19 was verified with the GSE171110 dataset. The differential expression of key genes in asthma was verified with the GSE69683 dataset. An asthma cell model was established with interleukins (IL-4, IL-13 and IL-17A) and transfected with siRNA-CXCR1. The role of CXCR1 in asthma development was preliminarily confirmed. Results By intersecting the differentially expressed genes for COVID-19 and asthma, 393 common DEGs were obtained. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses of the DEGs showed that they mainly affected inflammation-, cytokine- and immune-related functions and inflammation-related signaling pathways. By analyzing the PPI network, we obtained 10 key genes: TLR4, TLR2, MMP9, EGF, HCK, FCGR2A, SELP, NFKBIA, CXCR1, and SELL. By intersecting the differentially expressed lncRNAs for COVID-19 and asthma, 13 common differentially expressed lncRNAs were obtained. LncRNAs that regulated microRNAs (miRNAs) were mainly concentrated in intercellular signal transduction, apoptosis, immunity and other related functional pathways. The ceRNA network suggested that there were a variety of regulatory miRNAs and lncRNAs upstream of the key genes. The key genes could also bind a variety of RBPs and oxidative stress-related genes. The key genes also had good diagnostic value in the verification set. In the validation set, the expression of key genes was statistically significant in both the COVID-19 group and the asthma group compared with the healthy control group. CXCR1 expression was upregulated in asthma cell models, and interference with CXCR1 expression significantly reduced cell viability. Conclusions Key genes may become diagnostic and predictive biomarkers of outcomes in COVID-19 and asthma.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has attracted much attention because of its high sensitivity, high speed, and simple sample processing, and has great potential for application in the field of pesticide residue detection. However, SERS is susceptible to the influence of a complex detection environment in the detection of pesticide residues on the surface of fruits, facing problems such as interference from the spectral peaks of detected impurities, unclear dimension of effective correlation data, and poor linearity of sensing signals. In this work, the enhanced raw data of the pesticide thiram residues on the fruit surface using gold nanoparticle (Au-NPs) solution are formed into the raw data set of Raman signal in the IoT environment of Raman spectroscopy principal component detection. Considering the non-linear characteristics of sensing data, this work adopts kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) including radial basis function (RBF) to extract the main features for the spectra in the ranges of 653∼683 cm−1, 705∼728 cm−1, and 847∼872 cm−1, and discusses the effects of different kernel function widths (σ) to construct a qualitative analysis of pesticide residues based on SERS spectral data model, so that the SERS spectral data produce more useful dimensionality reduction with minimal loss, higher mean squared error for cross-validation in non-linear scenarios, and effectively weaken the interference features of detecting impurity spectral peaks, unclear dimensionality of effective correlation data, and poor linearity of sensing signals, reflecting better extraction effects than conventional principal component analysis (PCA) models.

Rationale: Delayed ischemic neurological deficit is the most common cause of neurological impairment and unfavorable prognosis in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Despite the existence of neuroimaging modalities that depict the onset of the accompanying cerebral vasospasm, preventive and therapeutic options are limited and fail to improve outcome owing to an insufficient pathomechanistic understanding of the delayed perfusion deficit. Previous studies have suggested that BOXes (bilirubin oxidation end products), originating from released heme surrounding ruptured blood vessels, are involved in arterial vasoconstriction. Recently, isolated intermediates of oxidative bilirubin degradation, known as PDPs (propentdyopents), have been considered as potential additional effectors in the development of arterial vasoconstriction. Objective: To investigate whether PDPs and BOXes are present in hemorrhagic cerebrospinal fluid and involved in the vasoconstriction of cerebral arterioles. Methods and Results: Via liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, we measured increased PDP and BOX concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid of SAH patients compared with control subjects. Using differential interference contrast microscopy, we analyzed the vasoactivity of PDP isomers in vitro by monitoring the arteriolar diameter in mouse acute brain slices. We found an arteriolar constriction on application of PDPs in the concentration range that occurs in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with SAH. By imaging arteriolar diameter changes using 2-photon microscopy in vivo, we demonstrated a short-onset vasoconstriction after intrathecal injection of either PDPs or BOXes. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we observed a long-term PDP-induced delay in cerebral perfusion. For all conditions, the arteriolar narrowing was dependent on functional big conductance potassium channels and was absent in big conductance potassium channels knockout mice. Conclusions: For the first time, we have quantified significantly higher concentrations of PDP and BOX isomers in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with SAH compared to controls. The vasoconstrictive effect caused by PDPs in vitro and in vivo suggests a hitherto unrecognized pathway contributing to the pathogenesis of delayed ischemic deficit in patients with SAH.

Studies have shown that fungi cause plant diseases through cross-species RNA interference mechanism (RNAi) and secreted protein infection mechanism. The small RNAs (sRNAs) of Magnaporthe oryzae use the RNAi mechanism of rice to realize the infection process, and different effector proteins can increase the autotoxicity by inhibiting pathogen-associated molecular patterns triggered immunity (PTI) to achieve the purpose of infection. However, the coordination of sRNAs and proteins in the process of M. oryzae infecting rice is still poorly understood. Therefore, the combination of transcriptomics and proteomics to study the mechanism of M. oryzae infecting rice has important theoretical significance and practical value for controlling rice diseases and improving rice yields. In this paper, we used the high-throughput data of various omics before and after the M. oryzae infecting rice to screen differentially expressed genes and sRNAs and predict protein interaction pairs based on the interolog and the domain-domain methods. We were then used to construct a prediction model of the M. oryzae-rice interaction proteins according to the obtained proteins in the proteomic network. Finally, for the differentially expressed genes, differentially expressed sRNAs, the corresponding mRNAs of rice and M. oryzae, and the interacting protein molecules, the M. oryzae-rice sRNA regulatory network was built and analyzed, the core nodes were selected. The functional enrichment analysis was conducted to explore the potential effect pathways and the critical infection factors of M. oryzae sRNAs and proteins were mined and analyzed. The results showed that 22 sRNAs of M. oryzae, 77 secretory proteins of M. oryzae were used as effect factors to participate in the infection process of M. oryzae. And many significantly enriched GO modules were discovered, which were related to the infection mechanism of M. oryzae.

Wilms tumor gene (WT1) is used as a marker for the diagnosis and prognosis of ovarian cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms involving WT1 in ovarian cancer require further study. Herein, we used bioinformatics and other methods to identify important pathways and hub genes in ovarian cancer affected by WT1. The results showed that WT1 is highly expressed in ovarian cancer and is closely related to the overall survival and progression-free survival (PFS) of ovarian cancer. In ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3, WT1 downregulation increased the mRNA expression of 638 genes and decreased the mRNA expression of 512 genes, which were enriched in the FoxO, AMPK, and the Hippo signaling pathways. The STRING online tool and Cytoscape software were used to construct a Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and for Module analysis, and 18 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were selected. Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis revealed that 16 of 18 genes were related to prognosis. Analysis of GEPIA datasets indicated that 7 of 16 genes were differentially expressed in ovarian cancer tissues and in normal tissues. The expression of IGFBP1 and FBN1 genes increased significantly after WT1 interference, while the expression of the SERPINA1 gene decreased significantly. The correlation between WT1 expression and that of these three genes was consistent with that of ovarian cancer tissues and normal tissues. According to the GeneMANIA online website analysis, there were complex interactions between WT1, IGFBP1, FBN1, SERPINA1, and 20 other genes. In conclusion, we have identified important signaling pathways involving WT1 that affect ovarian cancer, and distinguished three differentially expressed genes regulated by WT1 associated with the prognosis of ovarian cancer. Our findings provide evidence outlining mechanisms involving WT1 gene expression in ovarian cancer and provides a rational for novel treatment of ovarian cancer.

Abstract Background The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) aims to provide self-reported item banks for several dimensions of physical, mental and social health. Here we investigate the psychometric properties of the Swedish pediatric versions of the Physical Health item banks for pain interference, fatigue and physical activity which can be used in school health care and other clinical pediatric settings. Physical health has been shown to be more important for teenagers’ well-being than ever because of the link to several somatic and mental conditions. The item banks are not yet available in Sweden. Methods 12- to 19-year-old participants (n = 681) were recruited in public school settings, and at a child- and psychiatric outpatient clinic. Three one-factor models using CFA were performed to evaluate scale dimensionality. We analyzed monotonicity and local independence. The items were calibrated by fitting the graded response model. Differential Item analyses (DIF) for age, gender and language were calculated. Results As part of the three one-factor models, we found support that each item bank measures a unidimensional construct. No monotonicity or local dependence were found. We found that 11 items had significant lack of fit in the item response theory (IRT) analyses. The result also showed DIF for age (seven items) and language (nine items). However, the differences on item fits and effect sizes of McFadden were negligible. After considering the analytic results, graphical illustration, item content and clinical relevance we decided to keep all items in the item banks. Conclusions We translated and validated the U.S. PROMIS item banks pain interference, fatigue and physical activity into Swedish by applying CFA, IRT and DIF analyses. The results suggest adequacy of the translations in terms of their psychometrics. The questionnaires can be used in school health and other pediatric care. Future studies can be to use Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT), which provide fewer but reliable items to the test person compared to classical testing.

Abstract Background Social attitudes experienced by people with disabilities can strongly impact upon their health and quality of life. The extent to which social attitude measurement transcends specific cultures is unknown. Thus, the aim of the study was to develop German item banks to assess social attitude barriers and facilitators to participation and compare the construct definition with that developed in the United States. Methods The American version of the two item banks assessing social attitudes that act as barriers and facilitators in persons with disabilities was translated into German and culturally adapted. The sample consisted of 410 in- and outpatients treated for spinal diseases at a German University Hospital. The psychometric properties of the resulting 53 items-item pool were evaluated using Rasch analysis. A special focus was placed on the investigation of unidimensionality, local independence, differential item functioning (DIF) and targeting. To evaluate convergent and divergent validity correlations with perceived social support, depression and pain interference were calculated. Results Unlike the American version, both the barriers and facilitators item banks had to be divided into two subscales assessing attitudes that individuals with disabilities experience as being directed towards them (individual perception) or attitudes that respondents experience as being directed towards people with disabilities as a social group (societal perception). Four unidimensional scales were constructed. Fit to the Rasch model required item deletion and forming testlets to account for extensive local dependence. There was no evidence of DIF with regard to gender or age. Targeting of the subscales was moderate to good. Conclusions Results support a distinction between social attitudes at the individual and societal level, allowing a more specific assessment than is possible when this distinction is ignored.

Madam, Adult haemoglobin (Hb) comprises of 2 alpha and 2 beta-globin chains, each having a haem molecule attached. In healthy individuals, around 95-98% HbA (?2?2) and 2–3.5% of Hb A2 (?2?2) are present. The genetic defect of globin chain in which valine is replaced for glutamic acid at position 6 of ? globin chain results in sickle haemoglobin (HbS). Homozygous genetic defect (?S?S) results in a symptomatic disease called 'sickle cell anaemia' whereas, heterozygous (??S) state is asymptomatic and commonly called as "sickle cell trait' [1]. On deoxygenation and dehydration, HbS undergoes irreversible polymerization causing deleterious effects in vivo [2]. Around 3.2 million people have sickle-cell disease worldwide, with about 80% cases in Africa. About 0.5 to 1 per cent of the Pakistani population carries HbS3. Currently, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is the preferred method in which HbS elutes at retention time ranging in between 4.1 to 4.7 minutes. Several other variant haemoglobins cause interference by co-eluting at same retention time include HbA2, Hb Q-Thailand, Hb Manitoba, Hb Russ, Hb Stanlivelly-II, HbE- Saskatoon, Hb Montgomery and many more[4]. Therefore, it is difficult to identify and differentiate HbS precisely from interfering variant haemoglobins for proper diagnosis and future genetic counselling of patients. The definitive test for this purpose is molecular detection of underlying mutation either by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or sequencing of the beta-globin gene. Molecular tests, however, are expensive and require expertise. Therefore, these tests are not widely available in Pakistan and other resource constraint countries. World's leading quality assurance organizations such as College of American Pathologists (CAP) recommend that all cases found HbS positive in the primary screening should be confirmed by secondary testing [5], this can easily be achieved by sickling test. In the sickling test, the sample is combined with reducing agent (Sodium Met bisulfate) resulting in red cell hypoxia. Cells with HbS change to sickle shape from their normal biconcave shape, diagnosed by microscopic examination along with controls. This cost-effective and readily available technique helps to differentiate HbS from other variants. Therefore, every laboratory should confirm the presence of HbS by sickling test, and the government should ensure the availability of molecular tests at the mass level at a reduced cost supported by the efficient health insurance system. The impact of these strategies will provide accurate and timely diagnosis, Continuous...

The ontological equality and material vitality of all things, and efforts to remove “the human” from its apical position in a hierarchy of being, are Object-Oriented Ontology theory (OOO) concepts. These axioms are useful in a discussion of the aesthetics of augmented robotic art, alongside speculations regarding any interagency between the human/non-human and possible co-evolutionary relationships. In addition, they help to wash out the sticky habits of conventional art writing, such as removed critique or an authoritative expert voice. This article aims to address the robotic work Accomplice by Sydney-based artists Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders as a means of interrogating the independence and agency of robots as non-human species, and as a mode of investigating how we see these relationships changing for the futureFor Accomplice, an artwork exhibited at Artspace, Sydney, in 2013, Gemeinboeck and Saunders built robots, strategised properties, and programmed their performative actions. Replete with lights and hammers, the robots are secreted away behind false walls, where they move along tracks and bang holes into the gallery space. As the devastation of plasterboard ensues, the robots respond interactively to each other through their collective activity: this is intra-action, where an object’s force emerges and where agency is an enactment (Barad, Matter Feels). This paper will continue to draw on the work of feminist scholar and quantum scientist, Karen Barad, due to her related work on agency and intra-action, although she is not part of an OOO theoretical body. Gemeinboeck and Saunders build unstable environments for their robots to perform as embodied inhabitants (Gemeinboeck and Saunders 2). Although the augmented robots are programmed, it is not a prescriptive control. Data is entered, then the robots respond to one another’s proximity and devastation. From the immaterial, virtual realm of robotic programming comes a new materiality which is both unstable, unpredictable, and on the verge of becoming other, or alive. This is a collaboration, not just between Gemeinboeck and Saunders, but between the programmers and their little robots—and the new forces that might be created. Sites of intra-species (human and robot) crossings might be places or spaces where a new figuration of enchantment occurs (Bennett 32). Such a space could take the form of a responsive art-writing intervention or even a new ontological story, as a direct riposte to the lively augmentation of the robotic artwork (Bennett 92). As ficto-critical theorist and ethnographer, Stephen Muecke says, “Experimental writing, for me, would be writing that necessarily participates in worlds rather than a writing constituted as a report on realities seen from the other side of an illusory gap of representation” (Muecke Motorcycles 2). Figure 1: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)Writing Forces When things disappear then reappear, there is a point where force is unleashed. If we ask what role the art writer plays in liberating force, the answer might be that her role is to create as an imaginative new creation, equal to the artwork. The artists speak of Accomplice: transductions, transmaterial flows and transversal relations are at play ... whether emerging from or propelling the interplay between internal dynamics and external forces, the enactment of agencies (human and non-human), or the performative relationship unfolding over time. (Gemeinboeck and Saunders 3) When new energetic force is created and the artwork takes on new life, the audience’s imaginative thought is stimulated. This new force might cause an effect of a trans-fictional flow. The act of writing about Accomplice might also involve some intentional implausibility. For instance, whilst in the exhibition gallery space, witnessing Accomplice, I decided to write a note to one of the robots. I could see it, just visible beyond the violently hammered hole in the wall. Broken plaster dusted my shoes and as I peered into the darker outside space, it whizzed past on its way to bang another hole, in harmony with its other robotic friends. So I scribbled a note on a plain white piece of paper, folded it neatly and poked it through the hole: Dear robot, do you get sick of augmenting human lives?Do you get on well with your robotic friends?Yours sincerely, Prue. I waited a few minutes and then my very same piece of paper was thrust back through the hole. It was not folded but was crumpled up. I opened it and noticed a smudged mark in the corner. It looked like an ancient symbol, a strange elliptical script of rounded shapes, but was too small to read. An intergalactic message, a signal from an alien presence perhaps? So I borrowed a magnifying glass from the Artspace gallery attendant. It read: I love opera. Robot Two must die. This was unexpected! As I pondered the robot’s reply, I noticed the robots did indeed make strange bird-like noises to one another; their tapping was like rhythmic woodpeckers. Their hammering was a kind of operatic symphony; it was not far-fetched that these robots were appreciative of the sound patterns they made. In other words, they were responding to stimuli in the environment, and acting in response. They had agency beyond the immaterial computational programming their creators had embedded. It wasn’t difficult to suspend disbelief to allow the possibility that interaction between the robots might occur, or that one might have gone rogue. An acceptance of the possibility of inter-agency would allow the fantastical reality of a human becoming short-term pen pals with an augmented machine. Karen Barad might endorse such an unexpected intra-action act. She discourages conventional critique as, “a tool that keeps getting used out of habit” (Matter Feels). Art writing, in an era of robots and awareness of other non-human sentient life-forms can be speculative invention, have a Barad-like imaginative materiality (Matter Feels), and sense of suspended disbelief. Figure 2: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) The Final Onto-Story Straw Gemeinboeck and Saunders say the space where their robots perform is a questionable one: “the fidelity of the space as a shared experience is thus brought into question: how can a shared virtual experience be trusted when it is constructed from such intangible and malleable stuff as streams of binary digits” (7). The answer might be that it is not to be trusted, particularly in an OOO aesthetic approach that allows divergent and contingent fictive possibilities. Indeed, thinking about the fidelity of the space, there was something about a narrow access corridor in the Accomplice exhibition space, between the false gallery wall and the cavity where the robots moved on their track, that beckoned me. I glanced over my shoulder to check that the Artspace attendant wasn’t watching and slipped behind the wall. I took a few tentative steps, not wanting to get knocked on the nose by a zooming robot. I saw that one robot had turned away from the wall and was attacking another with its hammer. By the time I arrived, the second robot (could it be Robot Two?) had been badly pummeled. Not only did Robot One attack Robot Two but I witnessed it using its extended hammer to absorb metal parts: the light and the hammer. It was adapting, like Philip K. Dick’s robots in his short story ‘Preserving Machine’ (See Gray 228-33). It was becoming more augmented. It now had two lights and two hammers and seemed to move at double speed. Figure 3: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)My observance of this scene might be explained by Gemeinboeck/Saunders’s comment regarding Philip K. Dick-style interference and instability, which they actively apply to their work. They say, “The ‘gremlins’ of our works are the slipping logics of nonlinear systems or distributed agential forces of colliding materials” (18). An audience response is a colliding material. A fictional aside is a colliding material. A suspension of disbelief must also be considered a colliding material. This is the politics of the para-human, where regulations and policies are in their infancy. Fears of artificial intelligence seem absurd, when we consider how startled we become when the boundaries between fiction/truth become as flimsy and slippery as the boundaries between human/non-human. Art writing that resists truth complements Gemeinboeck/Saunders point that, “different agential forces not only co-evolve but perform together” (18).The DisappearanceBefore we are able to distinguish any unexpected or enchanted ontological outcomes, the robots must first appear, but for things to truly appear to us, they must first disappear. The robots disappear from view, behind the false walls. Slowly, through the enactment of an agented force (the action of their hammers upon the wall), they beat a path into the viewer’s visual reality. Their emergence signals a performative augmentation. Stronger, better, smarter, longer: these creatures are more-than-human. Yet despite the robot’s augmented technological improvement upon human ability, their being (here, meaning their independent autonomy) is under threat in a human-centred world environment. First they are threatened by the human habit of reducing them to anthropomorphic characteristics: they can be seen as cute little versions of humans. Secondly, they are threatened by human perception that they are under the control of the programmers. Both points are arguable: these robots are undoubtedly non-human, and there are unexpected and unplanned outcomes, once they are activated. These might be speculative or contestable outcomes, which are not demonstrably an epitome of truth (Bennett 161). Figure 4: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck)Gemeinboeck’s robotic creatures, with their apparent work/play and civil disobedience, appeared to exhibit human traits. An OOO approach would discourage these anthropomorphic tendencies: by seeing human qualities in inanimate objects, we are only falling back into correlational habits—where nature and culture are separate dyads and can never comprehend each other, and where humankind is mistakenly privileged over all other entities (Meillassoux 5). This only serves to inhibit any access to a reality outside the human-centred view. This kind of objectivity, where we see ourselves as nature, does no more than hold up a mirror to our inescapably human selves (Barad, Matter Feels). In an object-oriented approach the unpredictable outcomes of the robots’s performance is brought to attention. OOO proponent and digital media theorist Ian Bogost, has a background in computational media, especially video and social media games, and says, “computers are plastic and metal corpses with voodoo powers” (9). This is a non-life description, hovering in the liminal space between being and not being. Bogost’s view is that a strange world stirs within machinic devices (9). A question to ask: what’s it like to be a robot? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between what it does and how we see it. It is difficult not to think of twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger’s tool analysis theory when writing of Gemeinboeck/Saunders’s work because Heidegger, and OOO scholar Graham Harman after him, uses the hammer as his paradigmatic tool. In his analysis, things are only present-at-hand (consciously perceived without utility) once they break (Harman, Heidegger Explained 63). However, Gemeinboeck and Saunders’s installation Accomplice straddles Heidegger’s dual present-at-hand and read-at-hand (the utility of the thing) because art raises the possibility that we might experience these divergent qualities of the robotic entities, simultaneously. The augmented robot, existing in its performative exhibition ecology, is the bridge between sentient life and utility. Robotic Agency In relation to the agency of robots, Ian Bogost refers to the Tableau Machine which was a non-human actor system created by researchers at Georgia Tech in 1998 (Bogost 106). It was a house fitted with cameras, screens, interfaces, and sensors. This was an experimental investigation into ambient intelligence. The researchers’s term for the computational agency was ‘alien presence,’ suggesting a life outside human comprehension. The data-collator sensed and interpreted the house and its occupants, and re-created that recorded data as abstract art, by projecting images on its own plasma screens. The implication was that the home was alive, vital, and autonomously active, in that it took on a sentient life, beyond human control. This kind of vital presence, an aliveness outside human programming, is there in the Accomplice robots. Their agency becomes materialized, as they violate the polite gallery-viewing world. Karen Barad’s concept of agency works within a relational ontology. Agency resists being granted, but rather is an enactment, and creates new possibilities (Barad, Matter Feels). Agency is entangled amongst “intra-acting human and non-human practices” (6). In Toward an Enchanted Materialism, Jane Bennett describes primordia (atoms) as “not animate with divine spirit, and yet they are quite animated - this matter is not dead at all” (81). This then is an agency that is not spiritual, nor is there any divine purpose. It is a matter of material force, a subversive action performed by robotic entities, not for any greater good, in fact, for no reason at all. This unpredictability is OOO contingency, whereby physical laws remain indifferent to whether an event occurs or not (Meillassoux 39). Figure 5: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) A Post-Human Ethic The concept of a post-human state of being raises ethical concerns. Ethics is a human construct, a criteria of standards fixed within human social systems. How should humans respond, without moral panic, to robots that might have life and sentient power outside human control? If an OOO approach is undertaken, the implication is that all things exist equally and ethics, as fixed standards, might need to be dismantled and replaced with a more democratic set of guidelines. A flat ontology, argued for by Bogost, Levi Bryant and other OOO advocates, follows that all entities have equal potential for independent energy and agency (although OOO theorists disagree on many small technical issues). The disruption of the conventional hierarchical model of being is replaced by a flat field of equality. This might cause the effect of a more ethical, ontological ecology. Quentin Meillassoux, an influential figure in the field of Speculative Realism, from which OOO is an offshoot, finds philosophical/mathematical solutions to the problems of human subjectivity. His eschewing of Kantian divisions between object/subject and human/world, is accompanied by a removal from Kantian and Cartesian critique (Meillassoux 30). This turn from critique, and its related didactic authority and removed judgment, marks an important point in the culture of philosophy, but also in the culture of art writing. If we can escape the shackles of divisive critique, then the pleasures of narrative might be given space. Bogost endorses collapsing the hierarchical model of being and converting conventional academic writing (89). He says, “for the computers to operate at all for us first requires a wealth of interactions to take place for itself. As operators or engineers, we may be able to describe how such objects and assemblages work. But what do they “experience” (Bogost 10)? This view is complementary to an OOO view of anti-subjectivity, an awareness of things that might exist irrespective of human life, from both inside and outside the mind (Harman 143). Figure 6: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) New Materiality In addition to her views on human/non-human agency, Karen Barad develops a parallel argument for materiality. She says, “matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers.” Barad’s agential realism is predicated on an awareness of the immanence of matter, with materiality that subverts conventions of transcendence or human-centredness. She says, “On my agential realist account, all bodies, not merely human bodies, come to matter through the world’s performativity - its iterative intra-activity.” Barad sees matter, all matter, as entangled parts of phenomena that extend across time and space (Nature’s Queer Performativity 125). Barad argues against the position that acts against nature are moral crimes, which occur when the nature/culture divide is breached. She questions the individuated categorizations of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ inherent in arguments like these (Nature’s Queer Performativity, 123-5). Likewise, in robotic and machinic aesthetics, it could be seen as an ethical breach to consider the robots as alive, sentient, and experiential. This confounds previous cultural separations, however, object-oriented theory is a reexamination of these infractions and offers an openness to discourse of different causal outcomes. Figure 7: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Artspace, Sydney, 2013. (Photo: Petra Gemeinboeck) Co-Evolution Artists Gemeinboeck/Saunders are artists and scholarly researchers investigating new notions of co-evolution. If we ascribe human characteristics to robots, might they ascribe machinic properties to us? It is possible to argue that co-evolution is already apparent in the world. Titanium knees, artificial arteries, plastic hips, pacemakers, metallic vertebrae pins: human medicine is a step ahead. Gemeinboeck/Saunders in turn make a claim for the evolving desires of their robots (11). Could there be performative interchangeability between species: human and robot? Barad asks us not to presume what the distinctions are between human and non-human and not to make post-humanist blurrings, but to understand the materializing effects of the boundaries between humans and nonhumans (Nature’s Queer Performativity 123). Vital matter emerges from acts of reappearance, re-performance, and interspecies interaction. Ian Bogost begins his Alien Phenomenology by analysing Alan Turing’s essay, Computing Machinery and Intelligence and deduces that it is an approach inextricably linked to human understanding (Bogost 14). Bogost seeks to avoid distinctions between things or a slippage into an over-determination of systems operations, and instead he adopts an OOO view where all things are treated equally, even cheeky little robots (Bogost 17).Figure 8: Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, installation view, Artspace, Sydney. (Photo: silversalt photography) Intra-Active ReappearanceIf Barad describes intra-action as enacting an agential cut or separation of object from subject, she does not mean a distinction between object and subject but instead devises an intra-active cutting of things together-apart (Nature’s Queer Performativity 124). This is useful for two reasons. First it allows confusion between inside and outside, between real and unreal, and between past and future. In other words it defies the human/world correlates, which OOO’s are actively attempting to flee. Secondly it makes sense of an idea of disappearance as being a re-appearance too. If robots, and all other species, start to disappear, from our consciousness, from reality, from life (that is, becoming extinct), this disappearance causes or enacts a new appearance (the robotic action), and this action has its own vitality and immanence. If virtuality (an aesthetic of being that grew from technology, information, and digital advancements) meant that the body was left or abandoned for an immaterial space, then robots and robotic artwork are a means of re-inhabiting the body in a re-materialized mode. This new body, electronic and robotic in nature, might be mastered by a human hand (computer programming) but its differential is its new agency which is one shared between human and non-human. Barad warns, however, against a basic inversion of humanism (Nature’s Queer Performativity 126). Co-evolution is not the removal of the human. While an OOO approach may not have achieved the impossible task of creating a reality beyond the human-centric, it is a mode of becoming cautious of an invested anthropocentric view, which robotics and diminished non-human species bring to attention. The autonomy and agency of robotic life challenges human understanding of ontological being and of how human and non-human entities relate.References Barad, Karen. "Nature’s Queer Performativity." Qui Parle 19.2 (2011): 121-158. ———. Interview. In Rick Dolphijn and Van Der Tuin. “Matter Feels, Converses, Suffers, Desires, Yearns and Remembers: Interview with Karen Barad.” New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan; Open Humanities Press, 2012. ———. "Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.3 (2003): 801-831. Bennett, Jane. The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001. Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology. Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 2012. Bryant, Levi. The Democracy of Objects. University of Michigan Publishing: Open Humanities Press, 2011. ———, N. Srnicek, and GHarman. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne: re:press, 2011. Gemeinboeck, Petra, and Rob Saunders. “Other Ways of Knowing: Embodied Investigations of the Unstable, Slippery and Incomplete.” Fibreculture Journal 18 (2011). ‹http://eighteen.fibreculturejournal.org/2011/10/09/fcj-120-other-ways-of-knowing-embodied-investigations-of-the-unstable-slippery-and-incomplete/›. Gray, Nathan. "L’object sonore undead." In A. Barikin and H. Hughes. Making Worlds: Art and Science Fiction. Melbourne: Surpllus, 2013. 228-233. Harman, Graham. The Quadruple Object. Winchester UK: Zero Books, 2011. ———. Guerilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Chicago: Open Court, 2005. ———. Heidegger Explained: From Phenomenon to Thing. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2007. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1962. Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. New York: Continuum, 2008. Muecke, Stephen. "The Fall: Ficto-Critical Writing." Parallax 8.4 (2002): 108-112. ———. "Motorcycles, Snails, Latour: Criticism without Judgment." Cultural Studies Review 18.1 (2012): 40-58. ———. “The Writing Laboratory: Political Ecology, Labour, Experiment.” Angelaki 14.2 (2009): 15-20. Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 1993.

Over the last two decades the female forensic pathologist investigator has become a prominent figure in crime fiction. Her presence causes suspicion on a number of levels in the narrative and this article will examine the reasons for that suspicion and the manner in which it is presented in two texts: Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem and Tess Gerritsen’s The Sinner. Cornwell and Gerritsen are North American crime writers whose series of novels both feature female forensic pathologists who are deeply involved in homicide investigation. Cornwell’s protagonist is Dr Kay Scarpetta, then-Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Gerritsen’s is Dr Maura Isles, a forensic pathologist in the Boston Medical Examiner’s office. Their jobs entail attending crime scenes to assess bodies in situ, performing examinations and autopsies, and working with police to solve the cases.In this article I will first examine Western cultural attitudes towards dissection and autopsy since the twelfth century before discussing how the most recent of these provoke suspicion in the selected novels. I will further analyse this by drawing on Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject. I will then consider how female pathologist protagonists try to deflect their colleagues’ suspicion of their professional choices, drawing in part on Judith Butler’s ideas of gender as a performative category. I define ‘gender’ as the socially constructed roles, activities, attributes, and behaviours that Western culture considers appropriate for women and men, and ‘sex’ as the physical biological characteristics that differentiate women and men. I argue that the female forensic pathologist investigator is portrayed as suspicious in the chosen novels for her occupation of the abject space caused by her sex in her roles as investigator and pathologist, her identification with the dead, and her performance of elements of both masculine and feminine conventional gender roles. Scholars such as Barthes, Rolls, and Grauby have approached detective fiction by focusing on intertextuality, the openness of the text, and the possibility of different meanings, with Vargas being one example of how this can operate; however, this article focuses on examining how the female forensic pathologist investigator is represented as suspicious in mainstream crime novels that attract a readership seeking resolution and closure.A significant part of each of these novels focuses on the corpse and its injuries as the site at which the search for truth commences, and I argue that the corpse itself, those who work most closely with it and the procedures they employ in this search are all treated with suspicion in the crime fiction in this study. The central procedures of autopsy and dissection have historically been seen as abominations, in some part due to religious views such as the belief of Christians prior to the thirteenth century that the resurrection of the soul required an intact body (Klaver 10) and the Jewish and Muslim edicts against disfigurement of the dead (Davis and Peterson 1042). In later centuries dissection was made part of the death sentence and was perceived “as an abhorrent additional post-mortem punishment” that “promised the exposure of nakedness, dismemberment, and the deliberate destruction of the corpse,” which was considered “a gross assault on the integrity and the identity of the body, and upon the repose of the soul” (Richardson 154). While now a mainstay of many popular crime narratives, the autopsy as a procedure in real life continues to appall much of the public (Klaver 18). This is because “the human body—especially the dead human body—is an object still surrounded by taboos and prohibitions” (Sawday 269). The living are also reluctant to “yield the subjecthood of the other-dead to object status” (Klaver 18), which often produces a horrified response from some families to doctors seeking permission to dissect for autopsy. According to Gawande, when doctors suggest an autopsy the victim’s family commonly asks “Hasn’t she been through enough?” (187). The forensic pathologists who perform the autopsy are themselves linked with the repugnance of the act (Klaver 9), and in these novels that fact combined with the characters’ willingness to be in close proximity with the corpse and their comfort with dissecting it produces considerable suspicion on the part of their police colleagues.The female sex of the pathologists in these novels causes additional suspicion. This is primarily because women are “culturally associated [...] with life and life giving” (Vanacker 66). While historically women were also involved in the care of the sick and the dead (Nunn and Biressi 200), the growth of medical knowledge and the subsequent medicalisation of death in Western culture over the past two centuries has seen women relegated to a stylised kind of “angelic ministry” (Nunn and Biressi 201). This is an image inconsistent with these female characters’ performance of what is perceived as a “violent ‘reduction’ into parts: a brutal dismemberment” (Sawday 1). Drawing on Butler’s ideas about gender as a culturally constructed performance, we can see that while these characters are biologically female, in carrying out tasks that are perceived as masculine they are not performing their traditional gender roles and are thus regarded with suspicion by their police colleagues. Both Scarpetta and Isles are aware of this, as illustrated by the interior monologue with which Gerritsen opens her novel:They called her the Queen of the Dead. Though no one ever said it to her face, Dr. Maura Isles sometimes heard the nickname murmured in her wake as she travelled the grim triangle of her job between courtroom and death scene and morgue. [...] Sometimes the whispers held a tremolo of disquiet, like the murmurs of the pious as an unholy stranger passes among them. It was the disquiet of those who could not understand why she chose to walk in Death’s footsteps. Does she enjoy it, they wonder? Does the touch of cold flesh, the stench of decay, hold such allure for her that she has turned her back on the living? (Gerritsen 6)The police officers’ inability to understand why Isles chooses to work with the dead leads them to wonder whether she takes pleasure in it, and because they cannot comprehend how a “normal” person could act that way she is immediately marked as a suspicious Other. Gerritsen’s language builds images of transgression: words such as murmured, wake, whispers, disquiet, unholy, death’s footsteps, cold, stench, and decay suggest a fearful attitude towards the dead and the abjection of the corpse itself, a topic I will explore shortly. Isles later describes seeing police officers cast uneasy glances her way, noting details that only reinforce their beliefs that she is an odd duck: The ivory skin, the black hair with its Cleopatra cut. The red slash of lipstick. Who else wears lipstick to a death scene? Most of all, it’s her calmness that disturbs them, her coolly regal gaze as she surveys the horrors that they themselves can barely stomach. Unlike them, she does not avert her gaze. Instead she bends close and stares, touches. She sniffs. And later, under bright lights in her autopsy lab, she cuts. (Gerritsen 7) While the term “odd duck” suggests a somewhat quaintly affectionate tolerance, it is contrasted by the rest of the description: the red slash brings to mind blood and a gaping wound perhaps also suggestive of female genitalia; the calmness, the coolly regal gaze, and the verb “surveys” imply detachment; the willingness to move close to the corpse, to touch and even smell it, and later cut it open, emphasise the difference between the police officers, who can “barely stomach” the sight, and Isles who readily goes much further.Kristeva describes the abject as that which is not one thing or another (4). The corpse is recognisable as once-human, but is no-longer; the body was once Subject, but we cannot make ourselves perceive it yet as fully Object, and thus it is incomprehensible and abject. I suggest that the abject is suspicious because of this “neither-nor” nature: its liminal identity cannot be pinned down, its meaning cannot be determined, and therefore it cannot be trusted. In the abject corpse, “that compelling, raw, insolent thing in the morgue’s full sunlight [...] that thing that no longer matches and therefore no longer signifies anything” (Kristeva 4), we see the loss of borders between ourselves and the Other, and we are simultaneously “drawn to and repelled” by it; “nausea is a biological recognition of it, and fear and adrenalin also acknowledge its presence” (Pentony). In these novels the police officers’ recognition of these feelings in themselves emphasises their assumptions about the apparent lack of the same responses in the female pathologist investigators. In the quote from The Sinner above, for example, the officers are unnerved by Isles’ calmness around the thing they can barely face. In Postmortem, the security guard who works for the morgue hides behind his desk when a body is delivered (17) and refuses to enter the body storage area when requested to do so (26) in contrast with Scarpetta’s ease with the corpses.Abjection results from “that which disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules” (Kristeva 4), and by having what appears to be an unnatural reaction to the corpse, these women are perceived as failing to respect systems and boundaries and therefore are viewed as abject themselves. At the same time, however, the female characters strive against the abject in their efforts to repair the disturbance caused by the corpse and the crime of murder that produced it by locating evidence leading to the apprehension of the culprit. Ever-present and undermining these attempts to restore order is the evidence of the crime itself, the corpse, which is abject not only for its “neither-nor” status but also because it exposes “the fragility of the law” (Kristeva 4). In addition, these female pathologist characters’ sex causes abjection in another form through their “liminal status” as outsiders in the male hierarchy of law enforcement (Nunn and Biressi 203); while they are employed by it and work to maintain its dominance over law-breakers and society in general, as biological females they can never truly belong.Abjection also results from the blurring of boundaries between investigator and victim. Such blurring is common in crime fiction, and while it is most likely to develop between criminal and investigator when the investigator is male, when that investigator is female it tends instead to involve the victim (Mizejewski 8). In these novels this is illustrated by the ways in which the female investigators see themselves as similar to the victims by reason of gender plus sensibility and/or work. The first victim in Cornwell’s Postmortem is a young female doctor, and reminders of her similarities to Scarpetta appear throughout the novel, such as when Scarpetta notices the pile of medical journals near the victim's bed (Cornwell 12), and when she considers the importance of the woman's fingers in her work as a surgeon (26). When another character suggests to Scarpetta that, “in a sense, you were her once,” Scarpetta agrees (218). This loss of boundaries between self and not-self can be considered another form of abjection because the status and roles of investigator and victim become unclear, and it also results in an emotional bond, with both Scarpetta and Isles becoming sensitive to what lies in wait for the bodies. This awareness, and the frisson it creates, is in stark contrast to their previous equanimity. For example, when preparing for an autopsy on the body of a nun, Isles finds herself fighting extreme reluctance, knowing that “this was a woman who had chosen to live hidden from the eyes of men; now she would be cruelly revealed, her body probed, her orifices swabbed. The prospect of such an invasion brought a bitter taste to [Isles’s] throat and she paused to regain her composure” (Gerritsen 57). The language highlights the penetrative nature of Isles’s contact with the corpse through words such as revealed, orifices, probed, and invasion, which all suggest unwanted interference, the violence inherent in the dissecting procedures of autopsy, and the masculine nature of the task even when performed by a female pathologist. This in turn adds to the problematic issue here of gender as performance, a subject I will discuss shortly.In a further blurring of those boundaries, the female characters are often perceived as potential victims by both themselves and others. Critic Lee Horsley describes Scarpetta as “increasingly giv[ing] way to a tendency to see herself in the place of the victim, her interior self exposed and open to inspection by hostile eyes” (154). This is demonstrated in the novel when plot developments see Scarpetta’s work scrutinised (Cornwell 105), when she feels she does not belong to the same world as the living people around her (133), and when she almost becomes a victim in a literal sense at the climax of the novel, when the perpetrator breaks into her home to torture and kill her but is stopped by the timely arrival of a police officer (281).Similarly, Gerritsen’s character Isles comes to see herself as a possible victim in The Sinner. When it is feared that the criminal is watching the Boston police and Isles realises he may be watching her too, she thinks about how “she was accustomed to being in the eye of the media, but now she considered the other eyes that might be watching her. Tracking her. And she remembered what she had felt in the darkness at [a previous crime scene]: the prey’s cold sense of dread when it suddenly realises it is being stalked” (Gerritsen 222). She too almost becomes a literal victim when the criminal enters her home with intent to kill (323).As investigators, these characters’ sex causes suspicion because they are “transgressive female bod[ies] occupying the spaces traditionally held by a man” (Mizejewski 6). The investigator in crime fiction has “traditionally been represented as a marginalized outsider” (Mizejewski 11), a person who not only needs to think like the criminal in order to apprehend them but be willing to use violence or to step outside the law in their pursuit of this goal, and is regarded as suspicious as a result. To place a woman in this position then makes that investigator’s role doubly suspicious (Mizejewski 11). Judith Butler’s work on gender as performance provides a useful tool for examining this. Because “the various acts of gender create the gender itself” (Butler 522), these female characters are judged as woman or not-woman according to what they do. By working as investigators in the male-dominated field of law-enforcement and particularly by choosing to spend their days handling the dead in ways that involve the masculine actions of penetrating and dismembering, each has “radically crossed the limits of her gender role, with her choice of the most unsavoury and ‘unfeminine’ of professions” (Vanacker 65). The suspicion this attracts is demonstrated by Scarpetta being compared to her male predecessor who got on so well with the police, judges, and lawyers with whom she struggles (Cornwell 91). This sense of marginalisation and unfavourable comparison is reinforced through her recollections of her time in medical school when she was one of only four women in her class and can remember vividly the isolating tactics the male students employed against the female members (60). One critic has estimated the dates of Scarpetta’s schooling as putting her “on the leading edge of women moving into professionals schools in the early 1970s” (Robinson 97), in the time of second wave feminism, when such changes were not welcomed by all men in the institutions. In The Sinner, Isles wants her male colleagues to see her as “a brain and a white coat” (Gerritsen 175) rather than a woman, and chooses strategies such as maintaining an “icy professionalism” (109) and always wearing that white coat to ensure she is seen as an intimidating authority figure, as she believes that once they see her as a woman, sex will get in the way (175). She wants to be perceived as a professional with a job to do rather than a prospective sexual partner. The white coat also helps conceal the physical indicators of her sex, such as breasts and hips (mirroring the decision of the murdered nun to hide herself from the eyes of men and revealing their shared sensibility). Butler’s argument that “the distinction between appearance and reality [...] structures a good deal of populist thinking about gender identity” (527) is appropriate here, for Isles’s actions in trying to mask her sex and thus her gender declare to her colleagues that her sex is irrelevant to her role and therefore she can and should be treated as just another colleague performing a task.Scarpetta makes similar choices. Critic Bobbie Robinson says “Scarpetta triggers the typical distrust of powerful women in a male-oriented world, and in that world she seems determined to swaddle her lurking femininity to construct a persona that keeps her Other” (106), and that “because she perceives her femininity as problematic for others, she intentionally misaligns or masks the expectations of gender so that the masculine and feminine in her cancel each other out, constructing her as an androgyne” (98). Examples of this include Scarpetta’s acknowledgement of her own attractiveness (Cornwell 62) and her nurturing of herself and her niece Lucy through cooking, an activity she describes as “what I do best” (109) while at the same time she hides her emotions from her colleagues (204) and maintains that her work is her priority despite her mother’s accusations that “it’s not natural for a woman” (34). Butler states that “certain kinds of acts are usually interpreted as expressive of a gender core or identity, and that these acts either conform to an expected gender identity or contest that expectation in some way” (527). Scarpetta’s attention to her looks and her enjoyment of cooking conform to a societal assumption of female gender identity, while her construction of an emotionless facade and focus on her work falls more in the area of expected male gender identity.These characters deliberately choose to perform in a specific manner as a way of coping and succeeding in their workplace: by masking the most overt signs of their sex and gender they are attempting to lessen the suspicion cast upon them by others for not being “woman.” There exists, however, a contradiction between that decision and the clear markers of femininity demonstrated on occasion by both characters, for example, the use by Isles of bright red lipstick and a smart Cleopatra haircut, and the performance by both of the “feminised role as caretaker of, or alignment with, the victim’s body” (Summers-Bremner 133). While the characters do also perform the more masculine role of “rendering [the body’s] secrets in scientific form” (Summers-Bremner 133), a strong focus of the novels is their emotional connection to the bodies and so this feminised role is foregrounded. The attention to lipstick and hairstyle and their overtly caring natures fulfill Butler’s ideas of the conventional performance of gender and may be a reassurance to readers about the characters’ core femininity and their resultant availability for romance sub-plots, however they also have the effect of emphasising the contrasting performative gender elements within these characters and marking them once again in the eyes of other characters as neither one thing nor another, and therefore deserving of suspicion.In conclusion, the female forensic pathologist investigator is portrayed in the chosen novels as suspicious for her involvement in the abject space that results from her comfort around and identification with the corpse in contrast to the revulsion experienced by her police colleagues; her sex in her roles as investigator and pathologist where these roles are conventionally seen as masculine; and her performance of elements of both masculine and feminine conventional gender roles as she carries out her work. This, however, sets up a further line of inquiry about the central position of the abject in novels featuring female forensic pathologist investigators, as these texts depict this character’s occupation of the abject space as crucial to the solving of the case: it is through her ability to perform the procedures of her job while identifying with the corpse that clues are located, the narrative of events reconstructed, and the criminal identified and apprehended.ReferencesBarthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. London: Jonathan Cape. 1975. Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal. 40.4 (1988): 519–31. 5 October 2011 ‹http://www.jstor.org/stable/3207893›Cornwell, Patricia. Postmortem. London: Warner Books, 1994. Davis, Gregory J. and Bradley R. 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