Investigation of XvSap promoters from the resurrection plant, Xerophyta viscosa

Includes bibliographical references.The XvPSap1 promoter derived from Xerophyta viscosa has been demonstrated to be stress-inducible during dehydration in transgenic Nicotiana tabacum, black Mexican sweetcorn cells and Zea mays. To improve this promoter, for future applications in crop biotechnology, four shortened promoters, XvSap1D, E, F and G were generated by mutagenesis. The generated promoters had circa 50% reduction in size and contained the 5' proximal and 3' distal regions of the XvPsap1 promoter with the internal region removed. The shortened promoters displayed no significant sequence homology to any other known plant promoter, besides XvPSap1. In addition to the shortened promoters, a newly discovered full length XvPSap2 promoter, showing a 56.41% homology with XvPSap 1 was also assessed in this study

EMINENT DOMAIN - MEASURE OF COMPENSATION - ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE OF PAST PROFITS

Plaintiff corporation, lessee for a term of ten years of a tract of real estate located at the intersection of a main highway and the tracks of the lessor railroad, was engaged in the poultry business and in the retail buying and selling of automobile equipment. The location of the plaintiff\u27s leasehold enabled the plaintiff to effect many economies in the operation of its business. The defendant municipality constructed a viaduct over the railroad tracks in such a manner that, while none of the plaintiff\u27s property was actually taken, its usefulness as a retail outlet was destroyed. Plaintiff brought suit for damages and attempted to introduce evidence of past profits for the purpose of establishing the market value of its leasehold interest. In its first opinion the court sustained the trial court in refusing to admit such evidence. In a supplemental opinion, held, that evidence of past profits, if established with reasonable certainty, may be admitted, not as an independent or separate element of damage, but for the purpose of showing the value peculiar to the leasehold and its location. James Poultry Co. v. Nebraska City, 135 Neb. 787, 284 N. W. 273, 136 Neb. 456, 286 N. W. 337 (1939)

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - REGULATION OF SMALL BUSINESS

Ever since the development of the guild system the small tradesman or shopkeeper has attempted in various ways to reduce the number of his competitors. The time-honored method, in theory at least, has been to give better service for less money. The more modern method is to select a delegation from the trade itself whose duty it will be to proceed to the state capitol, there to urge the passage of protective legislation. As a result, legislators have found themselves beseiged by lobbyists who show altruistic concern for the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. Strangely enough, the lawmakers are told that the public can be adequately protected only by legislation which in turn protects this particular lobbyist\u27s trade or occupation. In those instances where these small pressure groups have succeeded, the protection afforded invariably takes the form of a state board or commission with power to exclude newcomers from entering the field. The purpose of this comment is to examine the attitude of state courts toward such legislation and especially to inquire whether the trend toward this type of petty bureauracy is being curbed by the judiciary. Minimum attention will be given to laws which are solely regulatory, nor will supervision incident only to revenue purposes be considered. The subject may be presented most conveniently by a consideration, first, of the type of factual situation involved in recent legislation and litigation, and secondly, of the constitutional basis upon which such laws are held valid or invalid by the courts

The carbon sequestration potential of Commidendrum robustum Roxb. (DC.) within the Millennium Forest restoration site, St Helena Island

The drastic increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) (particularly carbon dioxide CO2) into the atmosphere is causing climate change around the world. Tropical forests are considered to be significant sinks of carbon, but are subject to widespread degradation and deforestation. Restoring and conserving tropical forests as a form of climate change mitigation, through the creation of off-setting schemes, can increase rates of carbon sequestration. Islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change, though they contribute relatively little to the world’s GHG emissions. St Helena Island, a UK Territory with a high rate of endemism in the South Atlantic Ocean, produces an estimated 11,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. St Helena’s native forests were decimated following the island’s discovery in 1502 and only fragments remain. A restoration project, ‘the Millennium Forest’, restoring endemic Commidendrum robustum Roxb. (DC.) woodland to the degraded Crown Wastes area is managed by the St Helena National Trust (SHNT). SHNT hope to use the site as the basis for a carbon off-setting scheme to mitigate CO2 emissions from the island’s new airport (expected to open in early 2016). This study found that C. robustum biomass and its associated carbon pools increased carbon stocks within the Crown Wastes area by approximately 52.5 ± 12.20 tonnes over 15 years. pH was found to be highly correlated with the carbon estimates. Estimated carbon stocks within five terrestrial carbon pools within the Millennium Forest restoration site were: aboveground live carbon 52.15 ± 12.25 tonnes; litter carbon 4.9 ± 2.45 kg carbon; deadwood carbon 397.95 ± 42 kg; belowground carbon 37.8 ± 2.1 kg; and soil organic carbon 297.5 ± 23.1 tonnes. These results and the level of monitoring, reporting and verifying required by international carbon off-setting schemes make a locally established- and run- scheme more financially viable for the island

Computer-assisted instruction: Demographic variables and student attitudes.

This study was an investigation of the relationship between demographic variables and student attitudes toward computer-aided instruction (CAI). selected demographic variables were mathematics aptitude, level of education, rank, race, gender, age, computer-related experience, computer science experience, and attitude toward computers. Results of this investigation will assist designers, developers, and deliverers of CAI in producing better individualized instruction to meet the needs of culturally diverse populations.The study looked for group differences with respect to the independent variables and the importance of the independent variable to the prediction of the dependent variable. From the results of group differences, this study constructed profiles of students who do and who do not have good attitudes toward computers and CAI. Using the General Linear Model, results showed that the variables such as average daily exposure to computers, computer science courses, and attitude toward computers were significant at the 0.05 level. Regression models showed that the attitude toward computers, average daily exposure to computers, race and computer science courses respectively served as the best predictors of attitude toward CAI in a single variable model

Using rhythmic nonces for puzzle-based DoS resistance

To protect against replay attacks, many Internet proto-cols rely on nonces to guarantee freshness. In practice, the server generates these nonces during the initial hand-shake, but if the server is under attack, resources con-sumed by managing certain protocols can lead to DoS vulnerabilities. To help alleviate this problem, we pro-pose the concept of rhythmic nonces, a cryptographic tool that allows servers to measure request freshness with minimal bookkeeping costs. We explore the impact of this service in the context of a puzzle-based DoS re-sistance scheme we call “SYN puzzles”. Our preliminary results based on mathematical analysis and evaluation of a prototype suggests that our scheme is more resistant than existing techniques. 1

No evidence of fine scale thermal adaptation in green turtles

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability: Data are stored in the Ascension Island Government Conservation Department database. Data are available on figshare, under embargo until publication. Beach data: https://figshare.com/s/dc16fbd027a59560ce1d; Lab data: https://figshare.com/s/24788e81a4140547b38b.Adaptation to increasing temperatures may enable species to mitigate the long-term impacts of climate change. Sea turtles have temperature dependent sex determination (TSD) and variation in the thermal reaction norm, which influences offspring sex ratio, has been suggested as a potential adaptive mechanism to rising global temperatures. Here, we investigate the sex ratio of green turtle Chelonia mydas offspring from nests on beaches with notable differences in their thermal properties, to look for evidence of localised adaptation. We compared pivotal temperatures and hatch success in both the laboratory and in situ using eggs laid on two nesting beaches (dark vs. pale sand) at Ascension Island that represent the extremes of the range of incubation temperatures experienced by this population. We found no effect of beach of origin on pivotal temperatures, hatch success, or hatchling size in the laboratory or the wild. This suggests that turtles from the same rookery are not locally adapted to different thermal conditions experienced during incubation. Under predicted climate change scenarios, this will result in reduced hatch success and an increased proportion of female offspring unless temporal or spatial range shifts occur

Fine-scale thermal adaptation in a green turtle nesting population

Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tCopyright © 2011 The Royal SocietyElectronic supplementary material is available at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1098/rspb.2011.1238 or via http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org.The effect of climate warming on the reproductive success of ectothermic animals is currently a subject of major conservation concern. However, for many threatened species, we still know surprisingly little about the extent of naturally occurring adaptive variation in heat-tolerance. Here, we show that the thermal tolerances of green turtle (Chelonia mydas) embryos in a single, island-breeding population have diverged in response to the contrasting incubation temperatures of nesting beaches just a few kilometres apart. In natural nests and in a common-garden rearing experiment, the offspring of females nesting on a naturally hot (black sand) beach survived better and grew larger at hot incubation temperatures compared with the offspring of females nesting on a cooler (pale sand) beach nearby. These differences were owing to shallower thermal reaction norms in the hot beach population, rather than shifts in thermal optima, and could not be explained by egg-mediated maternal effects. Our results suggest that marine turtle nesting behaviour can drive adaptive differentiation at remarkably fine spatial scales, and have important implications for how we define conservation units for protection. In particular, previous studies may have underestimated the extent of adaptive structuring in marine turtle populations that may significantly affect their capacity to respond to environmental change.NERCThe Royal SocietyThe Darwin InitiativeEuropean Social FundOverseas Territories Environment Programm