Accountability and Intervening Agency: An Asymmetry between Upstream and Downstream Actors

Suppose someone (P1) does something that is wrongful only in virtue of the risk that it will enable another person (P2) to commit a wrongdoing. Suppose further that P1’s conduct does indeed turn out to enable P2’s wrongdoing. The resulting wrong is agentially mediated: P1 is an enabling agent and P2 is an intervening agent. Whereas the literature on intervening agency focuses on whether P2’s status as an intervening agent makes P1’s conduct less bad, I turn this issue on its head by investigating whether P1’s status as an enabling agent makes P2’s conduct more bad. I argue that it does: P2 wrongs not just the victims of ϕ but P1 as well, by acting in a way that wrongfully makes P1 accountable for ϕ. This has serious implications for compensatory and defensive liability in cases of agentially mediated wrongs

The group of endotrivial modules for the symmetric and alternating groups.

We complete a classification of the groups of endotrivial modules for the modular group algebras of symmetric groups and alternating groups. We show that, for n ≥ p2, the torsion subgroup of the group of endotrivial modules for the symmetric groups is generated by the sign representation. The torsion subgroup is trivial for the alternating groups. The torsion-free part of the group is free abelian of rank 1 if n ≥ p2 + p and has rank 2 if p2 ≤ n < p2 + p. This completes the work begun earlier by Carlson, Mazza and Nakano

PENGARUH SUBTITUSI TEPUNG IKAN DENGAN TEPUNG KEONG MAS (Pomaceae canaliculata) PADA PAKAN TERHADAP RASIO KONVERSI PAKAN, RETENSI PROTEIN DAN RASIO EFISIENSI PROTEIN IKAN LELE DUMBO (Clarias gariepinus)

This research executed in laboratory indoor faculty of husbanry - fishery in university muhammadiyah of Malang on 1 - 28 Decembers 2008. Intention of this research to know substitution influence of flour keong fish with flour keong mas ( Pomacea canaliculata) at feed to feed conversion ratio, retention of protein and fish protein efficiency ratio lele dumbo ( Clarias gariepinus). Method applied is experiment method and design of experiments applied is completely randomized design ( RAL) with 5 treatment that is: comparison of substitution of flour keong mas with fish meal is p1 0 % : 100 %, p2 25 % : 75 %, p3 50 % : 50 %, p4 75 % : 25 %, p5 100 : 0 % and each repeated 3 times. Result of research shows flour keong mas as substitution of fish gives result influential very real to feed conversion ratio ( FCR), retention of protein ( RP) and protein efficiency ratio ( REP) fish lele dumbo ( Clarias gariepinus). Test result bnt ( smallest reality difference) feed conversion ratio of fish lele dumbo shows treatment p1, p2 and p3 differs in to treatment of p4 and p5. Treatment of p2 yields ratio value fcr is low by 2,68. Test result bnt for retention of fish protein lele dumbo shows treatment p1, p2 and p3 differs in to treatment of p4 and p5. Treatment of p2 yields retention value of highest protein equal to 43,19%. test result bnt feed efficiency ratio shows treatment p1, p2 and p3 differs in to treatment of p4 and p5. treatment of p2 shows value is highest 1,25 %. Level of survival rate at treatment of p1 equal to 93,33%, treatment of p2 equal to 90%, treatment of p3 and p5 83,33 and treatment of p4 equal to 80%. To obtain maximum result at feed conversion ratio, retention of protein and protein efficiency ratio and can cost effective feed production better apply is feed with substitution of flour keong mas equal to 50%

Investigation of HIV-1 Gag binding with RNAs and Lipids using Atomic Force Microscopy

Atomic Force Microscopy was utilized to study the morphology of Gag, {\Psi}RNA, and their binding complexes with lipids in a solution environment with 0.1{\AA} vertical and 1nm lateral resolution. TARpolyA RNA was used as a RNA control. The lipid used was phospha-tidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2). The morphology of specific complexes Gag-{\Psi}RNA, Gag-TARpolyA RNA, Gag-PI(4,5)P2 and PI(4,5)P2-{\Psi}RNA-Gag were studied. They were imaged on either positively or negatively charged mica substrates depending on the net charges carried. Gag and its complexes consist of monomers, dimers and tetramers, which was confirmed by gel electrophoresis. The addition of specific {\Psi}RNA to Gag is found to increase Gag multimerization. Non-specific TARpolyA RNA was found not to lead to an increase in Gag multimerization. The addition PI(4,5)P2 to Gag increases Gag multimerization, but to a lesser extent than {\Psi}RNA. When both {\Psi}RNA and PI(4,5)P2 are present Gag undergoes comformational changes and an even higher degree of multimerization

Triangulating the Real Projective Plane

We consider the problem of computing a triangulation of the real projective plane P2, given a finite point set S={p1, p2,..., pn} as input. We prove that a triangulation of P2 always exists if at least six points in S are in general position, i.e., no three of them are collinear. We also design an algorithm for triangulating P2 if this necessary condition holds. As far as we know, this is the first computational result on the real projective plane

The mechanical relaxation study of polycrystalline MgCNi3

The mechanical relaxation spectra of a superconducting and a non-superconducting MgCNi3 samples were measured from liquid nitrogen temperature to room temperature at frequency of kilohertz. There are two internal friction peaks (at 300 K labeled as P1 and 125 K as P2) for the superconducting sample. For the non-superconducting one, the position of P1 shifts to 250 K, while P2 is almost completely depressed. It is found that the peak position of P2 shifts towards higher temperature under higher measuring frequency. The calculated activation energy is 0.13eV. We propose an explanation relating P2 to the carbon atom jumping among the off-center positions. And further we expect that the behaviors of carbon atoms maybe correspond to the normal state crossovers around 150 K and 50 K observed by many other experiments.Comment: 4 figure

Adoption of Pollution Prevention: The Role of Information Spillover, Mandatory Regulation, and Voluntary Program Participation

Interest in promoting Pollution Prevention (P2) has been increasing since 1991, following the passage of the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990. As part of the PPA, facilities that are subject to the Toxics Releases Inventory (TRI) are required to disclose the number of incremental P2 activities for each listed chemicals from 1991 onward. Though the disclosure is required by the PPA, the adoption of P2 remains a voluntary initiative by firms. To promote P2 ethic among firms, the U.S.EPA has established several voluntary programs and P2 information clearinghouse. P2 technologies were more likely to be facility- and operation- specific and involved considerable information costs and uncertainty. Firms might learn about P2 technologies from their peers through information spillovers. Furthermore, the adoption of P2 technologies might have been motivated in part by regulatory pressures and in part by voluntary commitments. To investigate the role of information spillover, regulatory pressure and voluntary commitment in motivating the adoption of P2 technologies, we focus on the first voluntary program initiated by the U.S. EPA, the 33/50 program. The objective of the program was to reduce the releases of 17 chemicals by 33% by 1992 and by 50% by 1995. It also sought to promote P2 as the preferred method to achieve the reduction. We conduct the empirical analysis on 6974 facilities that were eligible for the 33/50 program from 1991 to 1995. We estimate the number of P2 technologies adopted for 33/50 chemicals and other TRI chemicals at the facility level with respect to program participation, compliance costs to regulations, prior P2 experience by the neighbors on the respective chemicals, and the program participation ratio in the neighborhood. We address the endogeneity of program participation with instrumental variables, and control for location and industry fixed effects. We find that facilities were more likely to learn about adoption of P2 technologies from their industry peers. The direct impact of program participation was only evident for 33/50 chemicals, and the presence of program participants did not significantly motivate P2 adoption in the neighborhood.Pollution prevention, Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), Voluntary 33/50 program, Information spillover, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q55, C21, L51,

Phosphatidylinositol (4,5)-bisphosphate turnover by INP51 regulates the cell wall integrity pathway in "Saccharomyces cerevisiae"

Signal transduction pathways are important for the cell to transduce external or internal stimuli where second messengers play an important role as mediators of the stimuli. One important group of second messengers are the phosphoinositide family present in organisms ranging from yeast to mammals. The dephosphorylation and phosphorylation cycle of the phosphatidylinositol species are thought to be important in signaling for recruitment or activation of proteins involved in vesicular transport and/or to control the organization of the actin cytoskeleton. In mammals, phosphatidylinositol (4,5)bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2) signaling is essential and regulated by various kinases and phosphatases. In the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae PI(4,5)P2 signaling is also essential but the regulation remains unclear. My dissertation focuses on the regulation of PI(4,5)P2 signaling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The organization of the actin cytoskeleton in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is regulated by different proteins such as calmodulin, CMD1, and here I present data that CMD1 plays a role in the regulation of the only phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate 5-kinase, MSS4, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. CMD1 regulates MSS4 activity through an unknown mechanism and thereby controls the organization of the actin cytoskeleton. MSS4 and CMD1 do not physically interact but MSS4 seems to be part of a large molecular weight complex as shown by gel filtration chromatography. This complex could contain regulators of the MSS4 activity. The complex is not caused by dimerization of MSS4 since MSS4 does not interact with itself. Two pathways, the cell wall integrity pathway and TORC2 (target of rapamycin complex 2) signaling cascade are important for the organization of the actin cytoskeleton. Loss of TOR2 function results in a growth defect that can be suppressed by MSS4 overexpression. To further characterize the link between MSS4 and the TORC2 signaling pathway and the cell wall integrity pathway we looked for targets of PI(4,5)P2. The TORC2 pathway and the cell wall integrity pathway signal to the GEF ROM2, an activator of the small GTPase RHO1. In our study we identified ROM2 as a target of PI(4,5)P2 signaling. We observed that the ROM2 localization changes in an mss4 conditional mutant. This suggests that the proper localization needs PI(4,5)P2. This could be mediated by the putative PI(4,5)P2 binding pleckstrin homology (PH) domain of ROM2. To better understand the regulation of PI(4,5)P2 levels in Saccharomyces cerevisiae we focused on one of the PI(4,5)P2 5-phosphatases, INP51. Here we present evidence that INP51 is a new negative regulator of the cell wall integrity pathway as well as the TORC2 pathway. INP51 probably regulates these two pathways by the turnover of PI(4,5)P2 thereby inactivating the effector/s. The deletion of INP51 does not result in any phenotype, but when combined with mutations of the cell wall integrity pathway we observe synthetic interaction. INP51 together with the GTPase activating protein (GAP) SAC7, responsible for the negative regulation of RHO1, negatively regulates the cell wall integrity pathway during vegetative growth. One of the targets of cell wall integrity pathway, the cell wall component chitin, which is normally deposited at the bud end, bud neck and forms bud scars, is delocalized in the mother cell in the sac7 inp51 double deletion mutant. In addition, another downstream component of the cell wall integrity pathway, the MAP kinase MPK1, has increased phosphorylation and protein level in the sac7 inp51 double deletion mutant. This suggests that INP51 is important for the negative regulation of the cell wall integrity pathway. Furthermore, we show evidence that INP51 forms a complex with TAX4 or IRS4, with two EH-domain containing proteins, that positively regulates the activity of INP51 and in this manner negatively regulate the cell wall integrity pathway. The EH-domain is known to bind the NPF-motif. This motif is present in INP51 and is important for INP51 interaction with TAX4 or IRS4. The EH-NPF interaction is a conserved mechanism to build up protein networks. The interaction between an EH-domain containing protein and a PI(4,5)P2 5-phosphatase is conserved. This is demonstrated by the epidermal growth factor substrate EPS15 (EH) interaction with the PI(4,5)P2 5-phosphatase synaptojanin the mammalian orthologue of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae INP proteins. In summary, INP51 together with TAX4 and IRS4, forms complexes important for regulation of PI(4,5)P2 levels. The complexes are linked to the TORC2 signaling pathway and the cell wall integrity pathway, specifically regulating MPK1 activation and chitin biosynthesis. The work presented in this dissertation facilitates the development of a model of the complex regulation of PI(4,5)P2 signaling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae