Mosquitoes are vectors for a diverse set of pathogens including arboviruses, protozoan parasites and nematodes. Investigation of transcripts and gene regulators that are expressed in tissues in which the mosquito host and pathogen interact, and in organs involved in reproduction are of great interest for strategies to reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission and disrupt egg development. A number of tools have been employed to study and validate the temporal and tissue-specific regulation of gene expression. Here, we describe protocols that have been developed to obtain spatial information, which enhances our understanding of where specific genes are expressed and their products accumulate. The protocol described has been used to validate expression and determine accumulation patterns of transcripts in tissues related to mosquito-borne pathogen transmission, such as female salivary glands, as well as subcellular compartments of ovaries and embryos, which relate to mosquito reproduction and development. The following procedures represent an optimized methodology that improves the efficiency of various steps in the protocol without loss of target-specific hybridization signals. Guidelines for RNA probe preparation, dissection of soft tissues and the general procedure for fixation and hybridization are described in Part A, while steps specific for the collection, fixation, pre-hybridization and hybridization of mosquito embryos are detailed in Part B.

Population modification strategies based on transgenic mosquitoes carrying genes that prevent parasite transmission play a role in the malaria eradication agenda. They can consolidate elimination gains by providing barriers to parasite and competent vector reintroduction, and allow resources to be focused on new sites while providing confidence that treated areas will remain malaria-free. Strategic planning in selecting field sites, engineered mosquito strains, trial designs, and implementation strategies is needed to achieve a successful first field trial. The trial should use local scientists and adhere to stringent community engagement and regulatory standards. The trial should have an epidemiological end point that results in local disease elimination.

In many ways there could not be a more fascinating method to investigate how Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang, KMT) Government defined itself as the representative government of all of China in the 1960s and 1970s than to consider its state-sanctioned film industry. The films produced by the state represent ideas of national unity and a glorious "homeland" during decades that witnessed the most intense of transformations : in film with the rise and eventual decline of the popularity of Taiwan cinema in Southeast Asia, in literature with the xiangtu (nativist literature) debates, in the economy as factories and the emergence of small business replaced an agricultural infrastructure, and in politics with the end of the Nationalist's international status after losing its seat in the United Nations in 1971. At each stage the state propagated its ideal of "free China" for all to see on the silver screen -- an ideal made all the more complicated by competing regional and cultural influences : from the west by the People's Republic of China, from the north by the heritage of Japanese colonialism, from the east by the United States of America's concurrent military and economic aid, and from the south where a vast capitalist market was governed by lines drawn during the Cold War. Thus, situating these multiple discourses involves both a historical analysis, that is to bring the material and historical moment to light, and a cultural analysis, that is to consider how it is that the state believed images produced in a pop-medium might bolster a government's political status as its films competed on the open market. This dissertation both excavates the socio- historical context of Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s in part by way of on site research in Taiwan thanks to the Ministry of Education (Taiwan, R.O.C.) "Talent Cultivation Project of Taiwanese Literature, History and Art in Globalization" Grant, and it pays close attention to the cinematic form using the lens of cultural studies. All the while it remains focused on the primary motivation for this project : a curiosity to explore a blank space on the map of English language scholarship concerning Mandarin language Taiwan cinema

In the Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously claims that space is the a priori form of outer intuition (the 'Form Thesis'). Inspired by P. F. Strawson's discussion of it, a number of prominent contemporary philosophers have seen in this claim a brilliant and distinctly Kantian insight about the relationship between space and objective experience. Unfortunately, Kant commentators, whose job it is to determine the precise meaning of the Form Thesis, the nature of Kant's argument for it, and its relationship to Kant's claims about space later in the Critique (in particular, in the Transcendental Analytic), have made little progress in their efforts. As I argue, this is because they have failed to see that Kant's Form Thesis is part of a larger metaphysics of space and is only intelligible in terms of it. In my dissertation, I interpret Kant's Form Thesis in light of his (largely unexplored) views about the relationship between space and mutual interaction (which Kant calls 'community'), and about the ontological grounding of various spatial properties. I argue that Kant's Form Thesis is part of a rich metaphysics of space that combines realist and idealist elements, and that takes as its starting point a very general characterization of space as the ground of the possibility of the community of the things in it

Vector control strategies based on population modification of Anopheline mosquitoes may have a significant role in the malaria eradication agenda. They could consolidate elimination gains by providing barriers to the reintroduction of parasites and competent vectors, and allow resources to be allocated to new control sites while maintaining treated areas free of malaria. Synthetic biological approaches are being used to generate transgenic mosquitoes for population modification. Proofs-of-principle exist for mosquito transgenesis, the construction of anti-parasite effector genes and gene-drive systems for rapidly introgressing beneficial genes into wild populations. Key challenges now are to develop field-ready strains of mosquitoes that incorporate features that maximize safety and efficacy, and specify pathways from discovery to development. We propose three pathways and a framework for target product profiles that maximize safety and efficacy while meeting the demands of the complexity of malaria transmission, and the regulatory and social diversity of potential end-users and stakeholders.