Openness in participation, assessment, and policy making upon issues of environment and environmental health: a review of literature and recent project results

Issues of environment and environmental health involve multiple interests regarding e.g. political, societal, economical, and public concerns represented by different kinds of organizations and individuals. Not surprisingly, stakeholder and public participation has become a major issue in environmental and environmental health policy and assessment. The need for participation has been discussed and reasoned by many, including environmental legislators around the world. In principle, participation is generally considered as desirable and the focus of most scholars and practitioners is on carrying out participation, and making participation more effective. In practice also doubts regarding the effectiveness and importance of participation exist among policy makers, assessors, and public, leading even to undermining participatory practices in policy making and assessment

Salt-and histone H1-induced structural changes of reconstituted minichromosomes.

Structural changes of reconstituted SV 40 minichromosomes have been studied in relation to the salt concentration and addition of histone H1 by sedimentation and electron microscopy. Sedimentation data are represented as functions of the NaCl concentration and the Debye-Hückel electrostatic screening radius 1/alpha. The latter representation which proved to provide more information revealed three structural states of the SV 40 reconstitutes which can be additionally characterized by electron microscopy as follows: Expanded or relaxed conformation including free DNA spacers between the nucleosomes at low salt concentration (approx. 0.001 M-0.05 M NaCl), increasing condensation at moderate salt concentration (approx. 0.05 M-0.3 M NaCl) and expansion of this condensed state above approx. 0.3 M NaCl. The condensation of the reconstitutes at moderate salt concentration does not require the presence of histone H1. H1 seems to stabilize the condensed state against electrostatic expansion. The condensation might be promoted by salt-dependent conformational changes of naked superhelical DNA as revealed by sedimentation measurements