Regulation of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States Defense Industry

From 1973 to 1986, the amount of foreign capital invested in the United States increased tenfold. In 1973, the amount of foreign direct investment in the United States was $20.556 billion. By 1986, that figure had increased to$ 209.329 billion. Clearly, foreign capital has become a necessary element for the economic growth of the United States and has contributed significantly to the development of the nation. This Comment examines the adequacy of the existing restrictions upon foreign investment in industries holding defense contracts or having access to national security information. After first presenting the reasons underlying the United States commitment to an open investment policy, the existing framework of regulations which apply to investors in any area of the United States economy will be reviewed. An examination of the regulations specifically applicable to investors in the defense industry will follow. Next, the actual operation of the regulatory framework during Fujitsu\u27s attempt to acquire Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation will be considered. Finally, this Comment will analyze the most recent legislative actions to limit foreign investment on a national security basis and will conclude that in implementing the recently enacted Exon Amendment, the United States government must act with restraint and apply its authority to limit only those investments which threaten national security without permitting that authority to become a tool to protect domestic businesses and industries from foreign competition

Dynamic Evolution of Antimicrobial Peptides Underscores Trade-Offs Between Immunity and Ecological Fitness

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.There is a developing interest in how immune genes may function in other physiological roles, and how traditionally non-immune peptides may, in fact, be active in immune contexts. In the absence of infection, the induction of the immune response is costly, and there are well-characterized trade-offs between immune defense and fitness. The agents behind these fitness costs are less understood. Here we implicate antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) as particularly costly effectors of immunity using an evolutionary framework. We describe the independent loss of AMPs in multiple lineages of Diptera (true flies), tying these observations back to life history. We then focus on the intriguing case of the glycine-rich AMP, Diptericin, and find several instances of loss, pseudogenization, and segregating null alleles. We suggest that Diptericin may be a particularly toxic component of the Dipteran immune response lost in flies either with reduced pathogen pressure or other environmental factors. As Diptericins have recently been described to have neurological roles, these findings parallel a developing interest in AMPs as potentially harmful neuropeptides, and AMPs in other roles beyond immunity

A Platform for the Analysis of Qualitative and Quantitative Data about the Built Environment and its Users

There are many scenarios in which it is necessary to collect data from multiple sources in order to evaluate a system, including the collection of both quantitative data - from sensors and smart devices - and qualitative data - such as observations and interview results. However, there are currently very few systems that enable both of these data types to be combined in such a way that they can be analysed side-by-side. This paper describes an end-to-end system for the collection, analysis, storage and visualisation of qualitative and quantitative data, developed using the e-Science Central cloud analytics platform. We describe the experience of developing the system, based on a case study that involved collecting data about the built environment and its users. In this case study, data is collected from older adults living in residential care. Sensors were placed throughout the care home and smart devices were issued to the residents. This sensor data is uploaded to the analytics platform and the processed results are stored in a data warehouse, where it is integrated with qualitative data collected by healthcare and architecture researchers. Visualisations are also presented which were intended to allow the data to be explored and for potential correlations between the quantitative and qualitative data to be investigated

Provenance and Paleogeography of the 25-17 Ma Rainbow Gardens Formation: Evidence for Tectonic Activity at Ca. 19 Ma and Internal Drainage rather than Throughgoing Paleorivers on the Southwestern Colorado Plateau

The paleogeographic evolution of the Lake Mead region of southern Nevada and northwest Arizona is crucial to understanding the geologic history of the U.S. Southwest, including the evolution of the Colorado Plateau and formation of the Grand Canyon. The ca. 25–17 Ma Rainbow Gardens Formation in the Lake Mead region, the informally named, roughly coeval Jean Conglomerate, and the ca. 24–19 Ma Buck and Doe Conglomerate southeast of Lake Mead hold the only stratigraphic evidence for the Cenozoic pre-extensional geology and paleogeography of this area. Building on prior work, we present new sedimentologic and stratigraphic data, including sandstone provenance and detrital zircon data, to create a more detailed paleogeographic picture of the Lake Mead, Grand Wash Trough, and Hualapai Plateau region from 25 to 18 Ma. These data confirm that sediment was sourced primarily from Paleozoic strata exposed in surrounding Sevier and Laramide uplifts and active volcanic fields to the north. In addition, a distinctive signal of coarse sediment derived from Proterozoic crystalline basement first appeared in the southwestern corner of the basin ca. 25 Ma at the beginning of Rainbow Gardens Formation deposition and then prograded north and east ca. 19 Ma across the southern half of the basin. Regional thermochronologic data suggest that Cretaceous deposits likely blanketed the Lake Mead region by the end of Sevier thrusting. Post-Laramide northward cliff retreat off the Kingman/Mogollon uplifts left a stepped erosion surface with progressively younger strata preserved northward, on which Rainbow Gardens Formation strata were deposited. Deposition of the Rainbow Gardens Formation in general and the 19 Ma progradational pulse in particular may reflect tectonic uplift events just prior to onset of rapid extension at 17 Ma, as supported by both thermochronology and sedimentary data. Data presented here negate the California and Arizona River hypotheses for an “old” Grand Canyon and also negate models wherein the Rainbow Gardens Formation was the depocenter for a 25–18 Ma Little Colorado paleoriver flowing west through East Kaibab paleocanyons. Instead, provenance and paleocurrent data suggest local to regional sources for deposition of the Rainbow Gardens Formation atop a stripped low-relief western Colorado Plateau surface and preclude any significant input from a regional throughgoing paleoriver entering the basin from the east or northeast

The release of wastewater contaminants in the Arctic : a case study from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada

The treatment of municipal wastewater in the Arctic is challenging due to a variety of financial, operational, climatic and technical issues. To better understand the efficacy of current wastewater treatment in this region and the hazard posed to receiving waters, we assessed the occurrence of contaminants (i.e., pharmaceuticals, antibiotic resistance genes and nutrients) as they moved through a lagoon-based treatment system in Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, Canada. Wastewater treatment in this community is performed by the use of a lagoon-tundra wetland system that is discharged into the marine environment and is representative of current common practices throughout the region. In 2014, samples were collected before and during lagoon discharge from two locations in the main lagoon, one location downstream from the lagoon effluent and three locations offshore. Grab samples were collected to measure nutrients (e.g. total nitrogen and phosphorus) and the presence of antibiotic resistance gene-bearing microbes, and Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (POCIS) were deployed to collect passively organic contaminants in all locations. A total of six pharmaceuticals were detected from a screen of twenty-eight analytes during the study: atenolol, carbamazepine, clarithromycin, metoprolol, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim. The greatest concentrations of nutrients, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and pharmaceuticals were found in sampling locations within the treatment lagoon. Offshore of the release point, we observed limited to no detection of pharmaceuticals and ARGs and no change in total nitrogen and phosphorus from pre-release. We conclude that the current concentrations of monitored pharmaceuticals do not pose a significant hazard at this time to aquatic organisms in Cambridge Bay

The Mahogany Peaks fault, a late Cretaceous-Paleocene(?) normal fault in the hinterland of the Sevier orogen

The contact separating Ordovician rocks from the underlying lower part of the Raft River Mountains sequence, northwestern Utah, is reinterpreted as a large-displacement low-angle normal fault, the Mahogany Peaks fault, that excised 4-5 km of structural section. High delta(13)C values identified in marble in the lower part of the Raft River Mountains sequence suggest a Proterozoic, rather than Cambrian age. Metamorphic conditions of hanging wall Ordovician and footwall Proterozoic strata are upper greenschist and middle amphibolite facies, respectively, and quantitative geothermometry indicates a temperature discontinuity of about 100 degrees C. A discordance in muscovite Ar-40/Ar-39 cooling ages between hanging wall and footwall strata in eastern exposures, and the lack of a corresponding cooling age discordance in western exposures, suggest a component of west dip for the fault. The juxtaposition of younger over older and colder over hotter rocks, the muscovite cooling age discordance with older over younger, and top-to-the-west shearing down-structure are consistent with an extensional origin. The age of faulting is bracketed between 90 and 47 Ma, and may be synchronous with footwall cooling at about 60-70 Ma. Recognition of the Mahogany Peaks fault, its extensional origin, and its probable latest Cretaceous to Paleocene age provides further evidence that episodes of extension at mid-crustal levels in the hinterland of the Sevier orogenic belt were synchronous with protracted shortening in the foreland fold and thrust belt, and that the Sevier orogen acted as a dynamic orogenic wedge

Applying phylogenomics to understand the emergence of Shiga Toxin producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 strains causing severe human disease in the United Kingdom

Shiga Toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 is a recently emerged zoonotic pathogen with considerable morbidity. Since the serotype emerged in the 1980s, research has focussed on unravelling the evolutionary events from the E. coli O55:H7 ancestor to the contemporaneous globally dispersed strains. In this study the genomes of over 1000 isolates from human clinical cases and cattle, spanning the history of STEC O157:H7 in the United Kingdom were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis reveals the ancestry, key acquisition events and global context of the strains. Dated phylogenies estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor of the current circulating global clone to 175 years ago, followed by rapid diversification. We show the acquisition of specific virulence determinates occurred relatively recently and coincides with its recent detection in the human population. Using clinical outcome data from 493 cases of STEC O157:H7 we assess the relative risk of severe disease including HUS from each of the defined clades in the population and show the dramatic effect Shiga toxin complement has on virulence. We describe two strain replacement events that have occurred in the cattle population in the UK over the last 30 years; one resulting in a highly virulent strain that has accounted for the majority of clinical cases in the UK over the last decade. This work highlights the need to understand the selection pressures maintaining Shiga-toxin encoding bacteriophages in the ruminant reservoir and the study affirms the requirement for close surveillance of this pathogen in both ruminant and human populations