Ambivalent Legacy: A Legal History of the South

This volume of essays generated by a February 1983 conference at the University of Southern Mississippi represents a major step in the advancement of the legal history of the South.\u27 Not only does the collection raise challenging questions concerning the history of law in the South, but it also presents outstanding examples of what can be accomplished when legal historians turn their attention to this region and the states that comprise it. Covering abroad geographical and topical range in individualistic fashion, the essays are, for the most part, well researched and written with clarity and style. This Review will address each of the four categories of essays chosen by the editors in structuring the work... Taken as a whole, these essays demonstrate the rich lode of new viewpoints available to historians who explore the causal relationships between law and economics. Attention to Southern law must address the region\u27s interrelated dependence upon agriculture and the institution of slavery. As Lawrence Friedman points out, however, studying the South will give us a new perspective on the national scene. Additionally, although legal scholars have studied law and economics in the post-War South for several years,they certainly would profit by applying these techniques directly to the history of law in all of the United States

Bushrod Washington

In October 1822, President Thomas Jefferson urged Justice William Johnson to take the lead in reinstituting the Jay-Ellsworth Court\u27s practice of issuing seriatim opinions. He extolled the English preference for documenting each judge\u27s reasoning on the issues before the Court and deplored its recent abandonment under the influence of Lord Mansfield. Justifying his own silent acquiescence in opinions of the Marshall Court, Johnson pointed to the situation when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804. He recalled that Cushing was incompetent. Chase could not be got to think or write-Patterson [sic] was a slow man and willingly declined the trouble, and the other two judges you know are commonly estimated as one judge. Johnson\u27s biographer Donald Morgan indicates that Justice Johnson was referring to Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Bushrod Washington as those Justices understood. to act as one judge. Yet Morgan also asserts that these two members of the Court, despite their twinning in the public mind, were in Johnson\u27s view those most entitled to respect among all of his other colleagues. We need to rethink Justice Johnson\u27s identification of Marshall and Washington as one judge, which arose presumably because of their parallel approaches to law and the Constitution. This analysis is important for two reasons: (1) Bushrod Washington\u27s record needs to be reexamined before his habitual silence condemns him to eternal oblivion as Chief Justice Marshall\u27s shadow, and (2) closer attention to Justice Washington\u27s activities provides a clearer understanding of the role a single Justice played within the internal dynamics of the Marshall Court

Flax diseases

1 online resource (PDF, 2 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Aminophylline and progesterone prevent inflammation-induced preterm parturition in the mouse

Although progesterone (P4) supplementation is the most widely used therapy for the prevention of preterm labor (PTL), reports of its clinical efficacy have been conflicting. We have previously shown that the anti-inflammatory effects of P4 can be enhanced by increasing intracellular cAMP levels in primary human myometrial cells. Here we have examined whether adding aminophylline (Am), a non-specific phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitor that increases intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels, to P4 might improve its efficacy using in vivo and in vitro models of PTL. In a mouse model of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced PTL, we found that the combination of P4 and Am delayed the onset of LPS-induced PTL, while the same dose of P4 and Am alone had no effect. Pup survival was not improved by either agent alone or in combination. Myometrial prolabor and inflammatory cytokine gene expression was reduced, but the reduction was similar in P4 and P4/Am treated mice. There was no effect of the combination of P4 and Am on an ex vivo assessment of myometrial contractility. In human myometrial cells and myometrial tissue explants, we found that the combination had marked anti-inflammatory effects, reducing cytokine and COX-2 mRNA and protein levels to a greater extent than either agent alone. These data suggest that the combination of P4 and Am has a more potent anti-inflammatory effect than either agent alone and may be an effective combination in women at high-risk of PTL

Sensor-Based Interior Modeling

Robots and remote systems will play crucial roles in future decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of nuclear facilities. Many of these facilities, such as uranium enrichment plants, weapons assembly plants, research and production reactors, and fuel recycling facilities, are dormant; there is also an increasing number of commercial reactors whose useful lifetime is nearly over. To reduce worker exposure to radiation, occupational and other hazards associated with D&D tasks, robots will execute much of the work agenda. Traditional teleoperated systems rely on human understanding (based on information gathered by remote viewing cameras) of the work environment to safely control the remote equipment. However, removing the operator from the work site substantially reduces his efficiency and effectiveness. To approach the productivity of a human worker, tasks will be performed telerobotically, in which many aspects of task execution are delegated to robot controllers and other software. This paper describes a system that semi-automatically builds a virtual world for remote D&D operations by constructing 3-D models of a robot`s work environment. Planar and quadric surface representations of objects typically found in nuclear facilities are generated from laser rangefinder data with a minimum of human interaction. The surface representations are then incorporated into a task space model that can be viewed and analyzed by the operator, accessed by motion planning and robot safeguarding algorithms, and ultimately used by the operator to instruct the robot at a level much higher than teleoperation

Structural basis for complement factor H-linked age-related macular degeneration

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Nearly 50 million people worldwide suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which causes severe loss of central vision. A single-nucleotide polymorphism in the gene for the complement regulator factor H (FH), which causes a Tyr-to-His substitution at position 402, is linked to approximately 50% of attributable risks for AMD. We present the crystal structure of the region of FH containing the polymorphic amino acid His402 in complex with an analogue of the glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) that localize the complement regulator on the cell surface. The structure demonstrates direct coordination of ligand by the disease-associated polymorphic residue, providing a molecular explanation of the genetic observation. This glycan-binding site occupies the center of an extended interaction groove on the regulator's surface, implying multivalent binding of sulfated GAGs. This finding is confirmed by structure-based site-directed mutagenesis, nuclear magnetic resonance-monitored binding experiments performed for both H402 and Y402 variants with this and another model GAG, and analysis of an extended GAG-FH complex.B. Prosser is funded by the Wellcome Trust Structural Biology Training Program (075415/Z/04/Z). S. Johnson and P. Roversi were funded by grants to S.M. Lea from the Medical Research Council (MRC) of the United Kingdom (grants G0400389 and G0400775). D. Uhrin and P.N. Barlow were funded by the Wellcome Trust (078780/ Z/05/Z). S.J. Clark was funded by an MRC Doctoral Training Account (G78/7925), and R.B. Sim and A.J. Day were funded by MRC core funding to the MRC Immunochemistry Unit