Fission yeast Rad26 responds to DNA damage independently of Rad3

BACKGROUND: The Rad26/Rad3 complex in fission yeast detects genotoxic insults and initiates the cell cycle arrest and recovery activities of the DNA damage checkpoint. To investigate how the Rad26/Rad3 complex performs these functions, we constructed and characterized Rad26-GFP. RESULTS: Rad26-GFP localized to approximately six nuclear dots in cycling cells. Following treatment with a DNA damaging agent, Rad26-GFP localization changed. Damaged cells contained one or two bright Rad26-GFP spots, in addition to smaller, more numerous Rad26-GFP speckles. Genetic analyses demonstrated that these Rad26-GFP patterns (dots, spots and speckles) were unaffected by null mutations in other DNA damage checkpoint genes, including rad3(+). Data obtained with our Rad26.T12-GFP fusion protein correlate spots with cell cycle arrest activities and speckles with DNA repair activities. In addition, physiological experiments demonstrated that rad26Δ and rad3Δ alleles confer sensitivity to a microtubule-depolymerizing drug. CONCLUSION: We have discovered three distinct Rad26-GFP cellular structures. Formation of these structures did not require other checkpoint proteins. These data demonstrate that Rad26 can respond to genotoxic insult in the absence of Rad3 and the other checkpoint Rad proteins

Epistemic Schmagency?

Constructivist approaches in epistemology and ethics offer a promising account of normativity. But constructivism faces a powerful Schmagency Objection, raised by David Enoch. While Enoch’s objection has been widely discussed in the context of practical norms, no one has yet explored how the Schmagency Objection might undermine epistemic constructivism. In this paper, I rectify that gap. First, I develop the objection against a prominent form of epistemic constructivism, Belief Constitutivism. Belief Constitutivism is susceptible to a Schmagency Objection, I argue, because it locates the source of normativity in the belief rather than the agent. In the final section, I propose a version of epistemic constructivism that locates epistemic normativity as constitutive of agency. I argue that this version has the resources to respond to the Schmagency Objection

Integration of car sharing (city car clubs) into urban planning and management

Integration of car sharing (city car clubs) into urban planning and managemen

Management of Pain in Children with Burns

Burn injuries are common in children under 10 years of age. Thermal injury is the most common mechanism of injury and scalds account for >60% of such injuries. All children with burns will experience pain, regardless of the cause, size, or burn depth. Undertreated pain can result in noncompliance with treatment and, consequently, prolonged healing. It is acknowledged that the monitoring and reporting of pain in children with burns has generally been poor. Due to the adverse physiological and emotional effects secondary to pain, adequate pain control is an integral and requisite component in the management of children with burns. A multidisciplinary approach is frequently necessary to achieve a robust pain relief. Key to successful treatment is the continuous and accurate assessment of pain and the response to therapy. This clinical review article discusses the essential aspects of the pathophysiology of burns in children provides an overview of pain assessment, the salient principles in managing pain, and the essential pharmacodynamics of commonly used drugs in children with burn injuries. Both pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment options are discussed, although a detailed review of the latter is beyond the scope and remit of this article

An examination of the extent of implementation of the information security system and IT audit system in Ghananian Banks

The study examined the impact of information security and information technology (IT) audit in selected banks in Ghana. The study specifically, ascertained the degree of exposure to threats, it examined the extent of implementation of information security and IT audit system in the bank to protect information from threats, determined the impact, the performance and finally identified the challenges of the banks in managing information security system. A structured questionnaire was used as the main research instrument.  Four banks were selected for the study, including two local and two foreign banks. A total of 20 employees (5 from each) were sampled from the Headquarters of each bank in Accra. Only managers, IT managers, and Risk managers were sampled. The study found that the sampled level exposure of banks to threats to information systems is low. Local banks were however more exposed to threats than foreign banks. Largely the banks managed threats to information system by implementing strategies, including having an information security policy, information security organization, asset and human resource security system, information access control IT Audit system. The performance of banks in information system was moderate. Information security and IT audit system had correlated positively to the overall performance of the banks. Availability of information security policy has significant positive impact on bank performance. The study encouraged the banks to improve upon their information security and IT audit practices to ensure improvement in the performance of the banks in information security management. Keywords: Employee, Technology, Audit,Managemen

Analyticity and Systematicity in Anglophone Aesthetics

The scope of this project is threefold. Firstly, it is metaphilosophical, as it concerns a question of method. Secondly, it is aesthetical, as it concerns a question of method in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Thirdly, it is historiographical, as it draws from the corpus of the philosophy of art, aesthetics and art history, and considers these texts not only by way of their ideas but also by way of their history. This dissertation entertains a significant organizational shift by adopting and adapting a narrower scope of anglophone aesthetics (AA). This shift renders AA as biphasic, admitting of earlier (EAA) and later (LAA) phases, the ‘early-late distinction’, categorized by exemplary texts per phase. Upon investigation of these texts, the EAA-LAA shift poses a constitutive methodological shift, the Problem of Systematic Inconsistency (PSI), from non-systematicity to systematicity. This inconsistency, it is argued, is merely apparent, and is explainable as a swapping of priority between analytic and systematic methods from EAA to LAA, which holds systematicity of some sort to be implicit in EAA. To elucidate this, various modes of analysis and models of system are presented. From a formalist outlook, an historiographical examination of cubism is used to concretize the proposed solution to the PSI. Of particular focus is the shift from analytic (AC) to synthetic (SC) cubism, wherein it is diagrammatically shown that cubist ‘signs’ played an implicit role throughout AC like that described of systematicity throughout EAA. Comparison between realist and idealist art yields a key distinction, the ‘unitary-plenary distinction’, between two definitions of system in terms of the presence or absence of a privileged ‘kernel’. That both EAA and LAA entertained a realist plenary rather than idealist unitary systematicity, implicit in the former and explicit in the latter, is the solution to the PSI

Realism, Objectivity, and Evaluation

I discuss Benacerraf's epistemological challenge for realism about areas like mathematics, metalogic, and modality, and describe the pluralist response to it. I explain why normative pluralism is peculiarly unsatisfactory, and use this explanation to formulate a radicalization of Moore's Open Question Argument. According to the argument, the facts -- even the normative facts -- fail to settle the practical questions at the center of our normative lives. One lesson is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension

Management of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt: Evidence from impact of adoption of cultural control practices in Uganda

Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) is an important emerging and non-curable infectious plant pathogen in sub-Saharan Africa that can cause up to 100% yield loss, negatively impacting sustainable access to food and income to more than 100 million banana farmers. This study disentangles adopters into partial and full adopters to investigate the factors that are relevant to sustain the adoption process of BXW control practices and quantifies the impact of adopting the practices. Data from a randomly selected sample of 1200 banana farmers in Uganda where the disease is endemic was used. A multinomial logit model was used to determine the factors affecting adoption of control practices and augmented inverse probability weighting was employed to estimate the impacts of adoption on banana productivity and sales. Results show that training a woman farmer and having diverse sources of information about BXW control practices increased adoption of the control practices and reduced the disease incidences. Farmers who adopted all the recommended control practices achieved significantly the highest values of banana production and sales. We conclude that improving information access through farmers’ preferred communication channels, having women-inclusive trainings, and a combination of cultural practices are effective ways for sustaining adoption of the control practices

Evaluation of Optimum Inclusion Level Azanza Garckeana Pulp on Survival of Clarias Fingerlings

The mortality and survival rate of feeding Clarias gariepinus with optimum inclusion of Azanza garckeana was studied for 8 weeks. 150 fingerlings of the same size was stocked in fifteen plastic bowls, 30 fingerlings was stocked each in triplicate and aerated throughout the period of experiment. Fish feed of  40% crude protein at 0 % Azanza garckeana inclusion ( control D1), 10%(D2), 15%(D3), 20%(D4) and 25%(D5) inclusions of  Azanza garckeana.The experiment  was monitored for mortality and survival rate with reference to inclusion levels. The results of the experiment showed that, the highest mortality rate observed was in the control D1 (22). The mortality rates in the other treatments were   D4 (15), D2 (12), D5(11) and the lowest in D3(5). Percentage survival was highest in  D3 (83.3), followed by  D5 (63.3), D2 (60), D4 (50) and lowest in D1 (26.6) .From the result it could be concluded that 150g(15%) inclusion level  of A. garckeana would give better survival rate in  the culture of Clarias gariepinus. Keywords: Azanza garckeana, proximate composition, optimum inclusion, survival rate fingerlings.