The Urban Unbanked In Mexico And The United States

This paper examines the ways in which lower-income households obtain basic financial services in urban communities in Mexico and the United States. And it discusses the efforts that private sector and government organizations are making to lower the cost or improve the quality of those services. The paper summarizes available information on these issues and assesses the rationale and challenges facing the strategies that both countries are using to improve the financial services available to lower-income households, giving particular attention to unbanked households, meaning households that do not have deposit accounts with any regulated deposit-taking institution, and also to lower-income households in large urban areas. In comparing the experiences of the two countries, the paper reviews the extent to which lower-income households are unbanked, their use of non-bank financial services, and strategies for improving financial services to the unbanked. The underlying differences between the countries\u27 typical household incomes-national income per capita in Mexico in 2002 was US$8,540, compared with$35,060 in the United States (World Bank 2003)-may also influence the difference in percentage of unbanked-9.1 percent of families in the United States compared with 76.4 percent found in a recent study in Mexico City

Reagents for determinations of trace impurities in water—phase II

Determinations of trace impurities, pollutants, in water are often complicated by a large number of factors which consume a great deal of time. Thus, ideal reagents--sensitive, specific, stable, water-soluble reagents--are needed for rapid, spectrophotometric determinations of trace impurities in water. A new method for the determination of nitrate in water is described which uses zinc 1-naphthol-4-sulfonate, an easily prepared, readily purified, stable, water-soluble reagent; the reagent is much better than 1-naphthol-4-sulfonic acid, for the determination of nitrate proposed earlier by another worker and subsequently found in this laboratory to be satisfactory only under very carefully controlled conditions. The same reagent, zinc 1-naphthol-4-sulfonate, also has been proposed for the rapid, specific, sensitive determination of nitrite in natural waters. Nitrite readily can be determined at ppm levels in the presence of several thousand fold excess of nitrate. Full development of water resources, and the control of pollutants returned to natural-water systems, are dependent upon methods of determining trace constituents; significant contributions toward meeting those needs have been accomplished in this work. The methods can readily be applied to such diverse systems as lakes where agricultural fertilizer run-off may be significant, to effluents from plants in the food-preparation industry, and to natural-water systems in highly mineralized areas. Effective new research areas are readily identified as an extension of the work reported here, particularly the study of systems which contain ppm-levels of nitrite in the presence of significant concentrations of nitrate.U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological SurveyOpe

Cloning and expression of a mammalian peptide chain release factor with sequence similarity to tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetases

The termination of protein synthesis is encoded by in-frame nonsense (stop) codons. Most organisms use three nonsense codons: UGA, UAG, and UAA. In contrast to sense codons, which are decoded by specific tRNAs, nonsense codons are decoded by proteins called release factors (RFs). Here we report the cloning of a mammalian RF cDNA by the use of monoclonal antibodies specific for rabbit RF. Functional studies showed that, when expressed in Escherichia coli, the protein encoded by this cDNA has in vitro biochemical characteristics similar to those of previously characterized mammalian RFs. DNA sequencing of this eukaryotic RF cDNA revealed a remarkable sequence similarity to bacterial and mitochondrial tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetases, with the greatest similarity confined to the synthetase active site, and no obvious similarity to bacterial RFs

Ethical duties of nephrologists:when patients are nonadherent to treatment

When providing care, nephrologists are subject to various ethical duties. Beyond the Hippocratic notion of doing no harm, nephrologists also have duties to respect their patients' autonomy and dignity, to meet their patients' care goals in the least invasive way, to act impartially, and, ultimately, to do what is (clinically) beneficial for their patients. Juggling these often-conflicting duties can be challenging at the best of times, but can prove especially difficult when patients are not fully adherent to treatment. When a patient's nonadherence begins to cause harm to themselves and/or others, it may be questioned whether discontinuation of care is appropriate. We discuss how nephrologists can meet their ethical duties when faced with nonadherence in patients undergoing hemodialysis, including episodic extreme agitation, poor renal diet, missed hemodialysis sessions, and emergency presentations brought on by nonadherence. Furthermore, we consider the impact of cognitive impairment and provider-family conflict when making care decisions in a nonadherence context, as well as how the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic might affect responses to nonadherence. Suggestions are provided for ethically informed responses, prioritizing a patient-narrative approach that is attentive to patients' values and preferences, multidisciplinarity, and the use of behavioral contracts and/or technology where appropriate

Lost circulation in geothermal wells: research and development status

A multifaceted program directed at understanding and helping to solve the lost circulation problem is described. The program involves characterizing loss zones, developing an analytic fluid-dynamics model of zone plugging, screening lost circulation materials in the laboratory and testing some solutions in a large-scale test facility. The status and plans for this program are presented