Bringing Law to the Community: Facilitating Access to Justice in Metropolitan Detroit

Wayne County is Michigan’s most populous county with 1.775 million residents and its county seat in Detroit. Unlike many other counties throughout the state, Wayne county does not provide a government-supported law library to serve its residents. The Arthur Neef Law Library which serves the Wayne State University Law School has a long-standing tradition of opening its doors to provide legal research services and resources to members of the community. A fundamental mission of the Law Library, as well as the entire University, is “…meaningful engagement in its urban community”. Legal professionals, students and faculty from other educational institutions, and community residents who need legal information are referred to, and depend on, the Arthur Neef Law Library collections and librarian expertise. Community patrons typically account for approximately seventy percent of reference desk patrons. Librarians provide traditional reference and research services, as well as instruction in basic legal research and the use of database, government information, open access and free web resources, legal self-help materials and print publications to community patrons. The diverse experience levels of community patrons, including literacy and technical skills, familiarity with legal materials, and communication abilities, provide unique challenges. One of the most compelling is the need for librarians to balance patron expectations with the best use of the library\u27s resources. Collaboration with, and connections to, other librarians and libraries (law and non-law), as well as knowledge of their collections plays a significant role in facilitating access to justice for community patrons

The B73 maize genome: complexity, diversity, and dynamics

We report an improved draft nucleotide sequence of the 2.3-gigabase genome of maize, an important crop plant and model for biological research. Over 32,000 genes were predicted, of which 99.8% were placed on reference chromosomes. Nearly 85% of the genome is composed of hundreds of families of transposable elements, dispersed nonuniformly across the genome. These were responsible for the capture and amplification of numerous gene fragments and affect the composition, sizes, and positions of centromeres. We also report on the correlation of methylation-poor regions with Mu transposon insertions and recombination, and copy number variants with insertions and/or deletions, as well as how uneven gene losses between duplicated regions were involved in returning an ancient allotetraploid to a genetically diploid state. These analyses inform and set the stage for further investigations to improve our understanding of the domestication and agricultural improvements of maize