Formation, Repair, and Genotoxic Properties of Bulky DNA Adducts Formed from Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines

4-(Methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and N′-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) are tobacco-specific nitrosamines present in tobacco products and smoke. Both compounds are carcinogenic in laboratory animals, generating tumors at sites comparable to those observed in smokers. These Group 1 human carcinogens are metabolized to reactive intermediates that alkylate DNA. This paper focuses on the DNA pyridyloxobutylation pathway which is common to both compounds. This DNA route generates 7-[4-(3-pyridyl)-4-oxobut-1-yl]-2′-deoxyguanosine, O2-[4-(3-pyridyl)-4-oxobut-1-yl]-2′-deoxycytosine, O2-[4-(3-pyridyl)-4-oxobut-1-yl]-2′-deoxythymidine, and O6-[4-(3-pyridyl)-4-oxobut-1-yl]-2′-deoxyguanosine as well as unstable adducts which dealkylate to release 4-hydroxy-1-{3-pyridyl)-1-butanone or depyriminidate/depurinate to generate abasic sites. There are multiple repair pathways responsible for protecting against the genotoxic effects of these adducts, including adduct reversal as well as base and nucleotide excision repair pathways. Data indicate that several DNA adducts contribute to the overall mutagenic properties of pyridyloxobutylating agents. Which adducts contribute to the carcinogenic properties of this pathway are likely to depend on the biochemistry of the target tissue

The effect of dredging on the plant community of a Missouri-River floodplain wetland.

A plant community gradient, consisting of Open-water, bulrush, Grass, and Forest Zones, was evaluated both before (1995) and one-year after (1997) restoration-dredging of a wetland along the Missouri River in east-central Nebraska. Species diversity declined significantly (P ≥ 0.05) in both the Bulrush and Grass Zones (-24 and -30 species) but not elsewhere. The Open-water Zone, which increased the most with dredging (+40 meters), was dominated by duckweed (Lemna minor) (53% canopy cover in 1995 and 45% in 1997) and watermeal (Wolddia columbiana) (53% and 61%) both before and after dredging. Coontail (Ceratophylum demersum) increased significantly (7% to 25%). The greatest species decline occurred with river bulrush (Scirpus fluviatilis) (50% to 28%) both due to a substantial reduction in the areal extent of the Bulrush Zone(-14 m width) and a significant decline in canopy cover of bulrush within the zone (55% in 1995 to 29% in 1997). Reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) declined significantly in all terrestrial zones (average decline of 31%). Despite declines in cover in these and other native wetland species, most survived dredging, suggesting that, at least in this one instance, dredging to restore the backwater habitat can be accomplished without a substantive loss of associated plant communities

Awareness Cultivation: Designing a Transcultural Patient Family Advisory Council

This project explores the rationale that supports designing and implementing a transcultural patient family advisory council (PFAC) at a large academic center in the Midwest where eight disease-diagnosis based PFAC\u27s already exist. Potential pitfalls and obstacles that could interfere with such a council being successful will also be reviewed. In addition, Madeline Leininger\u27s theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality is applied to add support to this effort. Specifically, the stranger to trusted friend enabler explains how having such a committee can foster mutually beneficial relationships that demonstrate a change in culture and attitudes at this traditional physician-lead institution

Managerial Contracting: A Preliminary Study

Important types of contractual relationships—among them those between integrated product manufacturers and their suppliers—are neither fully transactional nor fully relational. The agreements that govern these relationships incorporate highly detailed written terms that focus not only on what is promised but also on the details of how it is to be achieved and how suppliers’ actions will be monitored and responded to over the life of the agreement. Together with the implicit relational contracts that support their operation, these provisions create an economic hybrid that lies between markets and hierarchies, a set of relatively standard institutional arrangements that give buyers the right (but not the obligation) to exercise a package of quasi-integration rights that enables them to obtain many of the most important benefits of vertical integration while simultaneously reaping most of the core benefits of outsourcing. The contract provisions used to govern these relationships are termed here “managerial provisions” because they employ the techniques of intra-firm hierarchy that managers use to organize relationships and increase productivity within firms. This article focuses on a sub-set of these provisions, namely those that are analogous to the eighteen management practices that the World Management Survey (WMS) reveals are closely associated with persistent performance differences across similarly situated enterprises. After documenting the convergence between these practices and the terms of procurement con-tracts, the article suggests that the contract governance regime these practices create is well designed to support the creation and maintenance of cooperative relationships, strengthen the force of network governance, and scaffold the emergence of the type of inter-firm process-based trust that is associated with better supplier performance. More generally, this article concludes that in the modern economy, where the value of so many types of contracts—from research and development alliances to business process outsourcing agreements and beyond—depends on employees of the contracting entities working together much as if they worked for a single firm, lawyers would be well advised to look to the broad array of managerial techniques successfully used within firms (not only those based on WMS practices) to develop new ways to better govern transactions between firms

Chapter 7: Social Health: Beyond Absence of Social Isolation and Loneliness

This chapter evaluates key social theories of aging that explain the social health state of older Americans. It examines evidence on social networks and social connectedness as well as social isolation and loneliness in aging experience. It calls to promote and protect the rights of social health of older adults