Bright Lines and Bailouts: To Bail or Not To Bail, That Is the Question

A financial-institution bailout involves government intervention through a transaction or forbearance targeted to a financial institution or group of financial institutions. The action is preemptive as the financial institution does not fail and go out of business, but remains a going concern, benefiting creditors, shareholders, or counterparties. In the absence of a bailout, the financial institution would either be forced to go through receivership or bankruptcy in the prescribed legal form, or have its role in financial intermediation disrupted. Financial-institution bailout policy in the United States is implemented through three agencies: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department. The need for orderly financial dealings, particularly in times of crisis, would dictate a consistent approach by these agencies based on cumulative experience, ensuring that officials devote public resources only where there is a well-defined, transparent, and verifiable policy justification for a bailout. Yet the bailouts over the past year do not reflect a well-defined, transparent, and verifiable policy justification. Even in the cases where a standard has been articulated, the agencies have not demonstrated that they can successfully implement that standard in practice. Beyond the inconsistencies and implementation problems, financial-institution bailout policy has been unwieldy, inequitable, extremely costly, disruptive, and lacking in transparency and oversight. The policy response of bailouts and maintenance of the status quo has been precisely the wrong response, as it has led to retaining many of the mega-financial institutions that pose systemic risk, thus planting the seeds for future crises. This present crisis has demonstrated that undertaking bailouts of troubled institutions, which involves structuring transactions that attempt to transform the institution into a viable one, while simultaneously projecting the reaction of investors and markets, is a process for which government is ill-suited. These bailout powers should be revoked. Financial angst still hangs over the system as the underlying imbalances that led to the crisis have not been reconciled. The ultimate answer is to place troubled institutions into receivership or the relevant form of bankruptcy -- including many of the institutions that have already been bailed out

Electronic fingerprinting of RNA

This is the published version. Copyright by Oxford University Press 1988. All rights reserved.Software has been developed to assist RNA fingerprinting analysis. One program generates, from a DNA sequence data file, the oligonucleotides resulting from digestion of an RNA transcript labeled with any specified nucleotide(s). Oligonucleotides are sorted according to their position on the fingerprint. Expected molar yields and products of secondary redigestion are also indicated. A second program facilitates calculation of experimental molar yields of oligonucleotides

Enzyme nomenclature: Functional or structural?

This is the published version. Copyright 2000 by the RNA Society.Altman and colleagues (this issue) call attention to the inability of current standardized enzyme nomenclature to distinguish between enzymatic activities that reside in nonhomologous macromolecules. This issue is highlighted by the fact that the pre-tRNA 5′-maturation activities of bacteria and plant chloroplasts present the first instance (of which I am aware) of two naturally occurring enzymes that cannot be evolutionarily related, but which catalyze an identical reaction. (In the classic example of convergent evolution between the trypsin family and subtilisin, the enzymes do not have an identical substrate specificity.) Altman and colleagues propose that a single trivial name be used only for members of a family of homologous macromolecules; in other words, that different trivial names be given to enzymes that catalyze the same precursor–product conversion but do so with different catalytic mechanisms, or which are not members of a single family of homologous macromolecules

Development of Laboratory Scale Conical Spouted Bed Reactors

Conical spouted beds (CSBs) are a form of a fluidized bed that is characteristic of its spouting behaviors. The conical spouted bed has a small inlet that diverges through a conical section towards a larger fixed-diameter column which is filled with static spouting media. By injecting a fluid at a sufficient velocity, a small spout will form in which the spouting media will become entrained by the fluid particles and carried to the top of the system where it will circulate back into the system. It has been shown that CSB reactors have the potential for increasing the heat circulation in fuel reforming techniques used for the production of hydrogen rich syngas. This thesis investigates the design and behavior of a cold-flow laboratory scaled conical spouted bed (CSB) including the effects of system parameters such as the stagnated bed height, inlet diameter, cone angle, particle selection and fluid selection. These parameters were varied through a series of test in which the pressure was measured with respect to the inlet gas velocity to determine the minimum spouting point. Previous correlations are compared to measured data and it was found that these correlations were insufficient at predicting the measured points accurately. This is due to separate parameters being used and scaled differently than the current study. Therefore, a new correlation is presented with an average error of 8.2% - significantly less than that of other correlations. The behaviors found were expected based on the physical hydrodynamic behavior as well as other behaviors being detailed including the effects of internal spouting and unstable spouting. With a fundamental hydrodynamic study complete, the addition of chemical reactions may be introduced to further understand the effects of CSB reactors for more efficient production of eco-friendly fuel sources

Precursors to 16S and 23S ribosomal RNA from a ribonuclease III− strain of Escherichia coli contain intact RNase III processing sites

This is the published version. Copyright 1980 by the Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.Escherichia coli cells lacking the ribosomal RNA processing enzyme RNase III do not excise the normal RNA precursors pl6a (17S) and p23a from nascent rRNA transcripts. These cells produce, instead, slightly larger pl6b and p23b precursors. Digestion of pl6b or p23b rRNA with RNases A plus Tl yields double-stranded fragments composed of sequences located at both the 5′ and the 3′ end regions of the molecules. The terminal duplex, or stem, of p 16b contains sequences surrounding the site of RNase III processing which in wild-type cells produces pl6a rRNA: the p23b stem likewise contains an intact RNase III cleavage site. The results confirm our earlier prediction for the structure of rRNA transcripts, and also yield a definite secondary structure for the pl6 stem, which was not uniquely determined by the corresponding DNA sequence. These experiments demonstrate the absence of significant RNase III processing activity in rnc-105 strains of E. coli, and implicate the participation of another endonuclease(s) 1n rRNA processing in mutant and wild-type cells

Substrate masking: binding of RNA by EGTA-inactivated micrococcal nuclease results in artifactual inhibition of RNA processing reactions

This is the published version. Copyright Oxford University Press 1991. All rights reserved.Inhibition of an RNA processing reaction after treatment with the Ca2+- dependent micrococcal nuclease (MN) is often used as a criterion for the presence of a required RNA or ribonucleoproteln component in the system. Following MN digestion, the nuclease is inactivated with EGTA and radiolabeled substrate is added to assay for remaining RNA processing activity. We found previously that inhibition of RNA processing by MN need not involve RNA hydrolysis: EGTA-inactivated MN can suppress RNA processing if the assay is performed in the absence of carrier RNA. We now demonstrate both by native gel electrophoresis and by nitrocellulose filter retention that EGTA-inactivated MN forms a complex with free RNA which can be dissociated by addition of synthetic polynucleotldes or heparin. In the absence of Ca2+ , nuclease binds to precursor tRNA with an apparent KD ≃ 1.4 × 10−6 M, comparable to its reported affinity for DNA. In an assay for endonucleolytlc tRNA maturation, inactivated MN bound to radiolabeled pre-tRNA physically blocks the sites of endonuclease cleavage and prevents tRNA processing. We call this phenomenon ‘substrate masking’. Addition of excess carrier RNA competes with pre-tRNA for MN binding and restores normal processing

Cleavage specificity of chloroplast and nuclear tRNA 3'-processing nucleases.

This is the publisher's version. Copyright 2015 by the American Society for Microbiology.tRNAs in eukaryotic nuclei and organelles are synthesized as precursors lacking the 3'-terminal CCA sequence and possessing 5' (leader) and 3' (trailer) extensions. Nucleolytic cleavage of the 3' trailer and addition of CCA are therefore required for formation of functional tRNA 3' termini. Many chloroplast tRNA genes encode a C at position 74 which is not removed during processing but which can be incorporated as the first base of the CCAOH terminus. Sequences downstream of nucleotide 74, however, are always removed. Synthetic yeast pre-tRNA(Phe) substrates containing the complete CCA74-76 sequence were processed with crude or partially purified chloroplast enzyme fractions. The 3'-extended substrates (tRNA-CCA-trailer) were cleaved exclusively between nucleotides 74 and 75 to give tRNA-COH, whereas a 3'-mature transcript (tRNA-CCAOH) was not cleaved at all. A 5'-, 3'-extended chloroplast tRNA-CAG-trailer was also processed entirely to tRNA-COH. Furthermore, a 5'-mature, 3'-extended yeast pre-tRNA(Phe) derivative, tRNA-ACA-trailer, in which C74 was replaced by A, was cleaved precisely after A74. In contrast, we found that a partially purified enzyme fraction (a nuclear/cytoplasmic activity) from wheat embryo cleaved the 3'-extended yeast tRNA(Phe) precursors between nucleotides 73 and 74 to give tRNA(OH). This specificity is consistent with that of all previously characterized nuclear enzyme preparations. We conclude that (i) chloroplast tRNA 3'-processing endonuclease cleaves after nucleotide 74 regardless of the nature of the surrounding sequences; (ii) this specificity differs from that of the plant nuclear/cytoplasmic processing nuclease, which cleaves after base 73; and (iii) since 3'-mature tRNA is not a substrate for either activity, these 3' nucleases must require substrates possessing a 3'-terminal extension that extends past nucleotide 76. This substrate specificity may prevent mature tRNA from counterproductive cleavage by the 3' processing system