A NOVEL NON-LETHAL LAPAROSCOPIC APPROACH TO DETECT INTERSEX (TESTICULAR OOCYTES) IN LARGEMOUTH BASS (MICROPTERUS SALMOIDES) AND SMALLMOUTH BASS (MICROPTERUS DOLOMIEU)

The appearance of testicular oocytes (TO) in wild fish populations has received considerable attention in the scientific literature and public media. Current methods to quantify TO are lethal; instead, a non-lethal alternative was examined. Laparoscopic insertion into the genital pore allowed internal visualization of the gonad and detection of TO by collecting five testis biopsies in smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu and largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides. Overall, biopsies quantified similar levels of TO detection and severity to conventional transverse sectioning with less than 10% mortality. Suitability of surgical anesthetics, tricaine methanesulfonate and electronarcosis were examined in laboratory and field applications. Electronarcosis had the added benefit of rapid sex identification and immediate release of female fish with minimal trauma, representing significant benefits when sampling small or compromised populations. Laparoscopy may be useful for monitoring the prevalence and severity of TO in these fish species when lethal sampling is not a desired outcome.

Developing Quantitative Methodologies for the Digital Humanities: A Case Study of 20th Century American Commentary on Russian Literature

Using scientific methods in the humanities is at the forefront of objective literary analysis. However, processing big data is particularly complex when the subject matter is qualitative rather than numerical. Large volumes of text require specialized tools to produce quantifiable data from ideas and sentiments. Our team researched the extent to which tools such as Weka and MALLET can test hypotheses about qualitative information. We examined the claim that literary commentary exists within political environments and used US periodical articles concerning Russian literature in the early twentieth century as a case study. These tools generated useful quantitative data that allowed us to run stepwise binary logistic regressions. These statistical tests allowed for time series experiments using sea change and emergency models of history, as well as classification experiments with regard to author characteristics, social issues, and sentiment expressed. Both types of experiments supported our claim with varying degrees, but more importantly served as a definitive demonstration that digitally enhanced quantitative forms of analysis can apply to qualitative data. Our findings set the foundation for further experiments in the emerging field of digital humanities.