Fine structure of subcultivated stratified squamous epithelium grown on collagen rafts

Subcultivated rat lingual epithelial cells when grown on collagen gels at a liquid-gas interface achieve a highly ordered state that closely resembles the parent tissue. Three distinct cell layers are present; basal, spinous, and keratinized. Basal cells are cuboidal in shape and form a complex interface with the underlying collagen fibrils. Spinous cells form a layer 5-10 cells thick and, with the exception of keratohyalin granules, possess an organellar complement identical with native cells, including membrane-coating granules. The keratinized cell layer increases in thickness as a function of time spent in culture. Forty or more plies of terminally differentiated cells are observed following a 30-day culture period. Terminally differentiated cells while retaining pycnotic nuclei and some other organellar debris are principally envelope-enclosed squames filled with tonofilaments. Keratinization is a continuing process which occurs simultaneously across the full expanse of the culture surface. The high degree of tissue organization observed appears to be the result of feeding the cultures from the undersurface.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/23381/1/0000326.pd

Justice Through a Multispecies Lens

The bushfires in Australia during the Summer of 2019–2020, in the midst of which we were writing this exchange, violently heightened the urgency of the task of rethinking justice through a multispecies lens for all of the authors in this exchange, and no doubt many of its readers. As I finish this introduction, still in the middle of the Australian summer, more than 10 million hectares (100,000 km2 or 24.7 million acres) of bushland have been burned and over a billion individual animals killed. This says nothing of the others who will die because their habitat and the relationships on which they depend no longer exist. People all around the world are mourning these deaths and the destruction of unique ecosystems. As humans on this planet, and specifically as political theorists facing the prospect that such devastating events will only become more frequent, the question before us is whether we can rethink what it means to be in ethical relationships with beings other than humans and what justice requires, in ways that mark these deaths as absolute wrongs that obligate us to act, and not simply as unfortunate tragedies that leave us bereft

Italy and the Stability and Growth Pact

The vision of an economic and monetary union came to be realized within three stages. The limitations for capital movements were removed, the Economic Monetary Institute was founded and when the convergence criteria were met, the joint currency was launched. Italy did not pass the debt criterion to enter into the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) but passed all the other criteria and was accepted. The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) was founded in 1997 to strengthen the budgetary surveillance of countries within the EMU. It consisted of two Council regulations and a Council resolution. In 2005 the SGP was reformed and from that point a lot clearer to interpret. For example, it had been hard to interpret the importance of the Other Relevant Factors (ORF) and which to include in the decision making of an excessive deficit with the unreformed SGP but after 2005 there were clear guidelines to follow. The same year as the reformation the Commission filed a report regarding Italy, the state had a deficit above the 3% reference value and might have an excessive deficit. The Commission found that the deficit was neither temporary nor exceptional which suggested that the deficit criterion of the SGP was not fulfilled. They also found that the debt ratio was not sufficiently diminishing and approaching the reference value at a satisfactory pace and thereby they did not fulfil the debt criterion. The Commission was of the opinion that there existed an excessive deficit in Italy. The Council was of the same opinion and gave Italy strong recommendations to follow for a correction of the excessive deficit. In 2006 and 2008, two follow-up reports about action taken by Italy for the correction was sent from the Commission to the Council. The first one found that there was no meaning to continue the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) and the second one, sent in 2008, was about an abrogation of the decision of the existence of an excessive deficit in 2005. The Council also carried this out. No more than a year after the abrogation a new process started and Italy was once again found with an excessive deficit. The EDP was anew in full action. In a report in 2010 the Commission found that Italy had under the circumstances, amongst other the widely spread economic downturn, taken the adequate action for a correction of the excessive deficit within its time limit. The Council once again agreed and no further steps of the EDP were taken at this stage. Italy has, under the entire time period presented in this paper, failed to reach the debt and deficit criteria and have been acted on in accordance with the SGP. The changes or clarifications if you rather call it that, of the SGP has been of major help to the Commission and Council in their opinions, decisions and recommendations regarding the existence of an excessive deficit and its correction. Without the changes, the outcome for Italy might have been different

Beyond the Basic/Nonbasic Interests Distinction: A Feminist Approach to Inter-Species Moral Conflict and Moral Repair

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2012There is no longer a dearth of well-reasoned argumentation for taking animals seriously and thus for questioning our exploitative relationships with them. It is over-determined that animals warrant moral attention. However, playing close attention to animals quickly reveals that taking their interests into account often generates conflicts with humans' interests. One common way to adjudicate competing claims is to point to a difference between basic interests (food, shelter, water, medical care, and avoiding unnecessary pain) and nonbasic interests (non-subsistence related interests) and claim that basic interests are always more important, morally speaking, than nonbasic ones. For example, a human's nonbasic interest in delicious chicken soup ought not to trump a chicken's basic interest in not suffering a horrific life under factory farming conditions and being killed for others' consumption. Careful attention to humans' interests reveals, however, that some of our seemingly less important interests are tied to highly valued ends. The chicken soup may play a significant role in my Jewish culture and in my relationship with my grandmother, for example. A tension can arise, therefore, between (1) the insight that animals' moral considerability warrants that we not harm them in service of nonbasic human interests and (2) the insight that some of our nonbasic interests are nonetheless morally significant. This tension is the focal point of my dissertation. I critically examine three methodologies for managing the tension between strong obligations to animals and the robustness of human interests (from philosophers Peter Singer, Paul Taylor, and Gary Varner). After arguing that all three are deficient in important ways, I recommend a feminist approach to inter-species conflicts of interest that I think best addresses the tension. The feminist approach is pluralist, non-hierarchical, and contextualized. It highlights how relationships of love and care complicate both humans' and animals' interests. It also underscores the importance of undertaking the work of moral repair in both the inter-human and inter-species realms when causing harm to some party is unavoidable. Thus, the feminist methodology is well positioned to take seriously our strong obligations to animals without ignoring or discounting the robustness of human interests