Bankruptcy Officials vs. The Internal Revenue Service: A Federal House Divided Against Itself

This article will discuss several current areas of dispute between bankruptcy officials; i.e., trustees and judges, and the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) as evidenced by litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and certain federal circuit courts of appeal. A policy resolution to the numerous conflicts will be suggested along with specific statutory modifications to alleviate the costly burden of continued future litigation

Field Identification of the Mice Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis and P. maniculatus gracilis in Central New York

Field identification of the White-footed Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis) and Long-tailed Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis) is difficult because of their similar external morphology. Peromyscus were sampled by live-trapping during a five-year period (1992-1996) at the Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, Van Etten, New York and identified to species by electrophoresis of their salivary amylase. No electromorphs were shared between P. leucopus and P. maniculatus, thus permitting unambiguous species identification of individuals. Means and ranges of four external measurements (ear, head-body, hind-foot, and tail) and tail to head-body ratio were determined for amylase-genotyped live mice. Although some body measurements did differ on average between the two species (ear, head-body, and tail for adults; hind-foot and tail for juveniles), the ranges of these overlap considerably. When the four external measurements (excluding the tail to head-body ratio) were used to construct two discriminant-function equations, they yielded correct identification of 80% of the adult P. l. noveboracensis and P. m. gracilis assessed excluding juveniles, and 71% of adult and juvenile mice combined. The function reported here allows partial field identification, but genetic analysis remains the only reliable field method for differentiation between live P. l. noveboracensis and P. m. gracilis. Includes erratum for a figure in this article

An Analysis of the Dynamics of Mammalian Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Evolution'

The dynamics of the substitution process for mammalian mitochondrial DNA have been modeled. The temporal behavior of several quantities has been studied and the model's predictions have been compared with estimates obtained from recent mtDNA sequence data for an increasingly divergent series of primates, the mouse and the cow (Anderson et al. 1981, Bibb et al. 1981. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the decrease in the proportion of transitions observed as divergence increases is a consequence of the highly biased substitution process. In addition, the results support the hypothesis that, although a portion of the mtDNA molecule evolves at an extremely rapid rate, a significant portion of the molecule is under strong selective constraints

Caffeoylquinic Acids Biosynthesis and Accumulation in Cynara cardunculus: State of the Art

Plant secondary metabolites are highly evolved compounds performing different functions, and have been widely exploited from food to medicine. A constant supply of phenols, a class of secondary metabolites, provides preventive and defensive mechanisms to reduce the risk of chronic diseases in human beings; among them mono- and di-caffeoylquinic acids (monoCQAs, diCQAs) have attracted a growing academic and industrial interest in recent years. In Cynara cardunculus L. the biosynthetic pathway of chlorogenic acid (CGA, 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid) has been the subject of our several recent studies. Here, we report the state of the art on the isolation and in vitro functional characterization of the genes involved in the biosynthetic pathway of the CGA: HCT (hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA shikimate/quinate hydroxycinnamoyl-transferase), HQT (hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA quinate hydroxyl-cinnamoyl-transferase), two HQT-like genes, we named Acyltransf_1 and Acyltransf_2, and C3’H (p-coumaroyl ester 3’-hydroxylase). Plant phenolics are known to be involved in the plant stress response and we found out that in globe artichoke the exposure to UV-C induces the production of diCQAs. In UV-C treated globe artichoke leaves, the expression level of C3´H, HCT, HQT, Acyltransf_1, Acyltransf_2 genes was strongly increased, thus confirming their involvement in the synthesis of chlorogenic acid. The development of DNA-based markers for the isolated genes made it possible to locate them within the previously developed genetic maps of the species

Application of cladistics to the analysis of genotype-phenotype relationships

We seek to understand the relative contribution of allelic variations of a particular gene to the determination of an individual's risk of atherosclerosis or hypertension. Work in progress is focusing on the identification and characterization of mutations in candidate genes that are known to be involved in determining the phenotypic expression of intermediate biochemical and physiological traits that are in the pathway of causation between genetic variation and variation in risk of disease. The statistical strategy described in this paper is designed to aid geneticists and molecular biologists in their search to find the DNA sequences responsible for the genetic component of variation in these traits. With this information we will have a more complete understanding of the nature of the organization of the genetic variation responsible for quantitative variation in risk of disease. It will then be possible to fully evaluate the utility of measured genetic information in predicting the risk of common diseases having a complex multifactorial etiology, such as atherosclerosis and hypertension.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42664/1/10654_2004_Article_BF00145343.pd

Regulation of Ubx Expression by Epigenetic Enhancer Silencing in Response to Ubx Levels and Genetic Variation

For gene products that must be present in cells at defined concentrations, expression levels must be tightly controlled to ensure robustness against environmental, genetic, and developmental noise. By studying the regulation of the concentration-sensitive Drosophila melanogaster Hox gene Ultrabithorax (Ubx), we found that Ubx enhancer activities respond to both increases in Ubx levels and genetic background. Large, transient increases in Ubx levels are capable of silencing all enhancer input into Ubx transcription, resulting in the complete silencing of this gene. Small increases in Ubx levels, brought about by duplications of the Ubx locus, cause sporadic silencing of subsets of Ubx enhancers. Ubx enhancer silencing can also be induced by outcrossing laboratory stocks to D. melanogaster strains established from wild flies from around the world. These results suggest that enhancer activities are not rigidly determined, but instead are sensitive to genetic background. Together, these findings suggest that enhancer silencing may be used to maintain gene product levels within the correct range in response to natural genetic variation