Has the pendulum swung too far? a legal evaluation of Florida\u27s child abuse and neglect registry

Over the past several years, increasing public emphasis on preventing child maltreatment has resulted in substantial changes to Florida\u27s child abuse and neglect central registry. Many of these recent changes, aimed at preventing child maltreatment, have resulted in over one million false, unsubstantiated, and inconclusive reports of child abuse and neglect within the last decade. While the information held in reports may be useful for identifying and preventing potential child abuse or neglect, due process concerns have been raised with regards to the process of placing a person\u27s name in a report without providing a hearing for challenging or removing inaccurate information. Focusing on Florida law, this research concentrates on: 1) the child maltreatment reporting process, 2) the procedures for maintaining reports, and 3) the accessibility of these reports in order to determine whether due process constitutional rights are protected under Florida\u27s child abuse and neglect reporting laws. The intent of this thesis is to analyze the occurrence of unsubstantiated cases of child maltreatment, incidences of false reporting, and legal remedies available for those wrongfully accused of abusing or neglecting a child. Through the analysis of case law, federal and state statutes, available statistics, child abuse resources, and personal interviews with members of the Florida Legislature, evidence shows that due process constitutional rights are not protected under Florida\u27s child abuse and neglect reporting laws. By raising awareness of the areas of child protection that require legal re-evaluation, this thesis aims to discover the balance between protecting children from harm and protecting adults from the severe ramifications resulting from false and improper allegations of child abuse and neglect

Formation of Rings in a Liquid Film Attached to the Inside of a Rotating Cylinder

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77569/1/AIAA-9447-680.pd

The growth of leading-edge distortions on a viscous sheet

The results of a set of experiments to determine some features of the undulations that develop on the leading edge of a sheet of fluid on an inclined plane are presented. A range of fluid viscosities, fluid volumes, and plate angles was used. In nearly all the cases, the observed disturbances had a triangular or sawtooth shape, with only a single example of a finger or parallel-sided shape appearing. The power-law exponents for the position down the plate of both the tips of the disturbances and their roots, that is, the points where they join the uniform sheet above them, were calculated from a series of photographs, and the corresponding wavelengths measured. The exponents are broadly in line with those that can be deduced from a simple model including viscosity, gravity, and volume flux, and ignoring all capillary effects. This conclusion suggests that the criterion for distinguishing the two types of disturbance does not depend on the global dynamics of the developing structures, and that a detailed analysis of the tip and root regions, where capillarity will be significant, is needed for further progress to be made. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/70941/2/PHFLE6-11-2-307-1.pd

Bestimmung und Vorhersage des Verschleißes für die Auslegung von Dichtungen

[no abstract

Assoziation des Hsp70-2 PstI-Polymorphismus mit dem Krankheitsverlauf bei chronisch-entzündlichen Darmerkrankungen

Die genetischen Grundlagen der chronisch-entzündlichen Darmerkrankungen M. Crohn und Colitis ulcerosa sind komplex und noch nicht in allen Einzelheiten aufgeklärt. Hitzeschockproteine (Hsp72) haben eine protektive Wirkung in entzündeter Darmmukosa. Daher könnte ein Mangel dieser Proteine den Verlauf inflammatorischer Darmerkrankungen beeinflussen. Zur Verifikation dieser Hypothese wurde die genomische DNA aus Leukozyten von 61 kaukasischen Patienten mit M. Crohn und 25 Patienten mit Colitis ulcerosa isoliert. Anschliessend wurde durch Polymerase-Kettenreaktion ein Segment des Hsp70-2 Gens amplifiziert, das einen A/G-Transitionspolymorphismus trägt (Allel B), der mit einer geringeren Hsp72-Expression assoziiert ist. Durch eine Restriktionsanalyse (Enzym: PstI) und konsekutiver Elektrophorese konnte das Vorliegen der Transition überprüft werden. Die aus den Krankenakten erhobenen Krankheitsverläufe (Alter bei Erstdiagnose, Ausdehnung und Lokalisation der Erkrankung, extraintestinale Manifestationen, Operationen, Komplikationen, Medikation) wurden mit den Ergebnissen der Genanalyse korreliert. Das Allel B kam bei Patienten mit M. Crohn nicht signifikant häufiger vor als bei gesunden Personen (44 % bei Patienten vs. 42 % bei Gesunden). Die Resultate zeigten jedoch eine signifikante Assoziation (p<0.05) dieses Polymorphismus mit einem schweren klinischen Verlauf eines M. Crohn, der durch das Auftreten von intestinalen Komplikationen (Fisteln, Darmperforationen und Abszessbildungen) gekennzeichnet ist (51 % bei Patienten mit Komplikationen vs. 32 % bei Patienten ohne Komplikationen). Für die Colitis ulcerosa konnten keine signifikanten Assoziationen, weder mit dem Erkrankungsrisiko noch mit dem klinischen Verlauf gezeigt werden. Diese Daten liefern neue Informationen über genetische Einflüsse auf den Krankheitsverlauf bei chronisch-entzündlichen Darmerkrankungen. Der prädiktive Wert des untersuchten Polymorphismus für den Verlauf des M. Crohn ist aufgrund der multifaktoriellen Ätiologie und Pathogenese der chronisch-entzündlichen Darmerkrankungen jedoch schwierig abzuschätzen

Trypanosoma brucei PRMT1 Is a Nucleic Acid Binding Protein with a Role in Energy Metabolism and the Starvation Stress Response.

In Trypanosoma brucei and related kinetoplastid parasites, transcription of protein coding genes is largely unregulated. Rather, mRNA binding proteins, which impact processes such as transcript stability and translation efficiency, are the predominant regulators of gene expression. Arginine methylation is a posttranslational modification that preferentially targets RNA binding proteins and is, therefore, likely to have a substantial impact on T. brucei biology. The data presented here demonstrate that cells depleted of T. brucei PRMT1 (TbPRMT1), a major type I protein arginine methyltransferase, exhibit decreased virulence in an animal model. To understand the basis of this phenotype, quantitative global proteomics was employed to measure protein steady-state levels in cells lacking TbPRMT1. The approach revealed striking changes in proteins involved in energy metabolism. Most prominent were a decrease in glycolytic enzyme abundance and an increase in proline degradation pathway components, changes that resemble the metabolic remodeling that occurs during T. brucei life cycle progression. The work describes several RNA binding proteins whose association with mRNA was altered in TbPRMT1-depleted cells, and a large number of TbPRMT1-interacting proteins, thereby highlighting potential TbPRMT1 substrates. Many proteins involved in the T. brucei starvation stress response were found to interact with TbPRMT1, prompting analysis of the response of TbPRMT1-depleted cells to nutrient deprivation. Indeed, depletion of TbPRMT1 strongly hinders the ability of T. brucei to form cytoplasmic mRNA granules under starvation conditions. Finally, this work shows that TbPRMT1 itself binds nucleic acids in vitro and in vivo, a feature completely novel to protein arginine methyltransferases.IMPORTANCETrypanosoma brucei infection causes human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, a disease with a nearly 100% fatality rate when untreated. Current drugs are expensive, toxic, and highly impractical to administer, prompting the community to explore various unique aspects of T. brucei biology in search of better treatments. In this study, we identified the protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT), TbPRMT1, as a factor that modulates numerous aspects of T. brucei biology. These include glycolysis and life cycle progression signaling, both of which are being intensely researched toward identification of potential drug targets. Our data will aid research in those fields. Furthermore, we demonstrate for the first time a direct association of a PRMT with nucleic acids, a finding we believe could translate to other organisms, including humans, thereby impacting research in fields as distant as human cancer biology and immune response modulation. Copyright © 2018 Kafková et al

Characterization of Growth Morphology and Pathology, and Draft Genome Sequencing of Botrytis fabae, the Causal Organism of Chocolate Spot of Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.)

Chocolate spot is a major fungal disease of faba bean caused by the ascomycete fungus, Botrytis fabae. B. fabae is also implicated in botrytis gray mold disease in lentils, along with B. cinerea. Here we have isolated and characterized two B. fabae isolates from chocolate spot lesions on faba bean leaves. In plant disease assays on faba bean and lentil, B. fabae was more aggressive than B. cinerea and we observed variation in susceptibility among a small set of cultivars for both plant hosts. Using light microscopy, we observed a spreading, generalized necrosis response in faba bean toward B. fabae. In contrast, the plant response to B. cinerea was localized to epidermal cells underlying germinated spores and appressoria. In addition to the species characterization of B. fabae, we produced genome assemblies for both B. fabae isolates using Illumina sequencing. Genome sequencing coverage and assembly size for B. fabae isolates, were 27x and 45x, and 43.2 and 44.5 Mb, respectively. Following genome assembly and annotation, carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZymes) and effector genes were predicted. There were no major differences in the numbers of each of the major classes of CAZymes. We predicted 29 effector genes for B. fabae, and using the same selection criteria for B. cinerea, we predicted 34 putative effector genes. For five of the predicted effector genes, the pairwise dN/dS ratio between orthologs from B. fabae and B. cinerea was greater than 1.0, suggesting positive selection and the potential evolution of molecular mechanisms for host specificity in B. fabae. Furthermore, a homology search of secondary metabolite clusters revealed the absence of the B. cinerea phytotoxin botrydial and several other uncharacterized secondary metabolite biosynthesis genes from B. fabae. Although there were no obvious differences in the number or proportional representation of different transposable element classes, the overall proportion of AT-rich DNA sequence in B. fabae was double that of B. cinerea