Board changes at IFOAM's World Board

At the recent elections the World Board of the organic movement’s international governing body, IFOAM, there was a major changing of the guard. Vanaja Ramprasad was one of the members newly elected to the ten-member World Board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. She is the director of India's Green Foundation and she has a passionate interest in “the real reasons for third world poverty and hunger”. In this interview she explains: "My interest in the work was inspired by the deep desire to understand the reasons for the disconnect I saw between the food system and the distancing of the very people who produced it". She declares that organics offers "the only future if the planet is to survive"

The Human Touch: Kerry vs Bush in the White House

What will be the implications for transatlantic relations if either George W. Bush is re-elected to a second term or John F. Kerry wins the US Presidential elections? Does it matter whether George W. Bush is re-elected to a second term? While there is little doubt that most Europeans would prefer a changing of the guard in the White House, it is equally true that on issues that most exasperate America’s allies on the old continent, the US president’s hands are tied. So is Europe not deluding itself in attaching so much importance to a changing of the guard? Or, on the contrary, could a different president make substantial changes in US policies towards Europe. This article analyses the implications of the US presidential elections for transatlantic relations as well as Europe’s possible response to the result

The NLRB\u27s Purple Communications Decision: Email, Property, and the Changing Patterns of Industrial Life

On December 11th, 2014, in a much-anticipated case, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) held in a 3-2 decision that employees with access to an employer’s email system had a presumptive right to use that email system during non-working time under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). In an attempt to adapt to the “changing patterns of industrial life,” the NLRB reversed a seven-year precedent by overturning In re Guard Publ\u27g Co., 351 N.L.R.B. 1110 (2007), and thereby gave employees the statutory right to use employer email systems for non-business purposes. This issue brief argues that the majority opinion in Purple Commc\u27ns, Inc., 361 N.L.R.B. No. 126 (2014) erroneously presumed that a ban on employer email systems interfered with employees’ rights to engage in concerted activities under Section 7. In reality, the influx of alternative avenues of communication, such as smartphones, social media, and tablets, have substantially grown for employees over the past several years, thus strengthening employees’ Section 7 rights. The new framework set forth in Purple Communications not only exaggerates the need for employees to exercise their Section 7 rights by using a company’s email system, but also unfairly burdens an employer’s resources, time, and energy in implementing such access. For these reasons, the rule in Purple Communications is unworkable and the prior Register Guard standard should still apply

OPTIMIZATION OF THE STUDY PROCESS ORGANIZATION IN THE STATE BORDER GUARD COLLEGE

The present paper explores specificity of educational process in the State Border Guard College as a militarized educational institution. It is specific and implementation of educational process in such institution is not possible without the successive and continuous organization of the study process. The correct organization of the study process and scientific content of the training program serves as a basis for development of the students' theoretical knowledge and practical skills and its structural and content organization is essential for the implementation of a qualitative educational process. The aim of the research is to identify the possibilities to improve the structural and content based organization of the study process of the State Border Guard College in order to facilitate the achievement of the goals set by the border guard training process. The study was conducted in the State Border Guard College using scientific, pedagogical and psychological literature analysis and evaluation and document analysis research method. The author brought forward conclusion that the structural and content study process improving in the State Border Guard College can be achieved by changing professional border guard training course program (1 month) and professional further education study program "Border Guarding", study subjects and their succession

Phylogenetic analysis of NADP-malic enzyme and its expression in \u3ci\u3eArabidopsis thaliana\u3c/i\u3e guard cells

Decreased crop yield as a result of insufficient freshwater supply is a distressing problem in world agriculture today. Plants lose water via transpiration through pores located in the epidermis on the underside of the leaf referred to as stomata. The aperture of such a pore is regulated by two adjacent guard cells that swell and subside as water follows ions that are pumped into and from the cell in response to changing environmental conditions. Our hypothesis that one of the six NADP-malic enzyme isoforms in Arabidopsis thaliana is guard-cell specific and plays a role in the mechanism of closing the stomata was tested by isolating guard cell mRNA from A. thaliana and determining the relative expression of the six NADP-ME isoforms in whole leaves and guard cell protoplasts via RT-PCR. The optimization of a guard cell protoplast isolation protocol allowed for the use of very pure mRNA in these experiments. Our results suggested that all six of the NADP-ME isoforms in A. thaliana are expressed in whole leaves, and that but at2g19900 are expressed in the guard cell protoplasts. There was no evidence of a guard cell-specific isoform. Additionally, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis of malic enzyme sequences among plant species in order to test the hypothesis that the C4 form of malic enzyme evolved independently from the forms found in C3 plants. This hypothesis was supported by our preliminary phylogenetic analysis.

THE EFFECT OF A CHANGING MARKET MIX IN SEED CORN ON INVENTORY COSTS

Changing product characteristics are causing U.S. seed corn companies to reevaluate their inventory strategies. A simulation model based upon the Economic Order Quantity model is built in @Risk to reflect a shortened product life cycle and product proliferation. Inventory costs levels increase because of increased uncertainty of demand. Empirical results find that shortening the product life cycle and expanding the product line increases total inventory costs by 120.8%, increases the average inventory level (primarily due to added safety stock) by 56.2%, and increases the cost of carryover, stockout cost, and safety stock cost by 143, 165, and 119 %, respectively. To maintain higher levels of customer service with products displaying shorter life cycles, more safety stock must be held to guard against stockouts.Crop Production/Industries,

Isolation and analysis of the KATI promoter from \u3ci\u3eArabidopsis thaliana\u3c/i\u3e

Plants that reduce water loss by transpiration present less agricultural stress to the environment. Transpiration is limited by the size of pores, or stomata, on the surfaces of leaves. Stomatal aperture is related to the ion concentration in surrounding guard cells, which varies in response to fluctuating concentrations of potassium ions, the principle counter-ion chloride, and the organic counter-ion malate. Levels of malate in guard cells may be altered by increased activity of NADP-Malic Enzyme (NADP-ME) expression. The goal of our research is to create transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants with increased NADP-ME expression in the guard cells, limiting transpiration through decreased stomatal aperture size. Such plants are expected to have less open stomata, be sufficient in yield, and retain the ability to respond to changing environmental conditions. Expression of NADP-ME in Arabidopsis thaliana required the isolation of a strong, guard-cell specific promoter. A promoter of a potassium channel gene, KAT1, is strongly expressed in guard cells. Analysis of the Arabidopsis genome was done to locate KAT1. The KAT1 promoter was amplified and isolated through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Sequence analysis confirmed isolation of KAT1 with minor mutations. Visualization of KAT1 expression was confirmed through the analysis of transgenic plants with the KAT1 promoter fused to the GUS reporter gene. Significant expression of KAT1 was detected exclusively in guard cells of 9-day-old seedlings. The KAT1 promoter will be inserted into a binary vector and then Agrobacterium to transform Arabidopsis thaliana and create transgenic plants. Expression of KAT1 with NADP-ME in Arabidopsis thaliana should result in lower concentrations of malate in guard cells, decreased aperture size of stomata, and a decrease in transpiration rate during gas exchange

Revisiting the Scrap Heap: The Decline and Fall of Smith v. F.W. Morse & Co.

[Excerpt] One of the more difficult tasks facing a federal court is trying to predict how a state’s highest court would rule on a question of law it has not yet addressed. That difficulty is well illustrated by the history of Wenners v. Great State Beverages, Inc., and in particular, the interpretation of that opinion contained in Smith v. F.W. Morse & Co. [ . . . ] This article begins with a close examination of Wenners and the two opinions on which Wenners relied for its now-canonical statement of the relationship between statutory and common law remedies. I continue with a discussion of Smith and the two opinions that Wenners purportedly consigned to the scrap heap. The next section explores the two distinctly different shadows cast by Wenners, one in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the other in the New Hampshire Supreme Court. I conclude by suggesting that, in light of Bliss v. Stow Mills, Inc., the scrap heap may be due for a changing of the guard, with Smith replacing Godfrey.