Starting From Scratch: Reasserting Indian Country in Alasky by Placing Alaska Native Land Into Trust

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was enacted for the purpose of promoting economic development in remote Alaska Native villages. ANCSA has fallen short of this goal. ANCSA dissolved the trust relationship between Alaska Native tribes and the federal government by transferring former tribal lands to state-chartered, Native corporations. As a result, ANCSA severed Alaska Native tribal authority from tribal lands. Today, tribal governments in Alaska are without the resources necessary to address issues that threaten the survival of their communities. Tribal governments throughout the lower 48 states have long used federal land-into-trust provisions to expand and consolidate former tribal lands through reacquisition. In Alaska, however, a longstanding policy excludes Alaska Natives from placing their lands into trust. Without a means of reasserting tribal authority, tribal governments in Alaska are left to rely on a failing state and federal apparatus to combat poverty, social disorder, emigration, and a changing climate. A 2013 decision by a United States District Court has revived the proposition of establishing new Indian country in Alaska. In Akiachak Native Community v. Salazar,\u27 the district court held that ANCSA does not provide an absolute bar for Alaska Natives wishing to place their lands into trust. This decision has prompted the Department of the Interior to remove the Alaska Exception from its land into-trust regulations, thus opening up the possibility for tribal governments in Alaska to rebuild their former trust lands. Despite the actions of the district court and the Interior Department, obstacles remain that limit the ability of tribal governments in Alaska to place their lands into trust. To overcome ANCSA\u27s limitations on trusteeship, Congress must amend ANCSA to make settlement lands eligible for trust status. Additionally, the Interior Department must overcome regulatory ambiguity by creating separate criteria to evaluate land acquisitions in Alaska. When these limitations are removed, tribal governments in Alaska will be able to expand their territorial reach and access crucial economic development tools tied to Indian country, allowing them to work in partnership with both the state and the federal government to meet the needs of Native communities

The Structures of Four Complexes of 2,2,6,6-Tetramethyl-3,5- -heptanedione Containing One, Four, Four and Nine Cu(II) Ions

The structures of bis-(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptanedionato) Cu(II) 1, di-fts-methoxy-di-μ-methoxy-tetrakis [ (2,2,6,6-tetramethy 1 ~ -3,5-heptanedionato)Cu(II)] 2, μ4-oxa-bispyrazolatotetrakis[(2,2,6,6- -tetramethyl-3,6-heptanedionato)Cu(II)] 3, and hexa-μ3-hydroxy- -μ6-(hydrogendioxo-0,0\u27)-nonakis[(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptanedionctto) Cu(II)] 4 were determined by X-ray diffraction techniques. Compound 1 is a planar molecule with weak packing interactions and high thermal motion due to the interactions between the bulky t-butyl groups. The observed density is only 1.14 Mgm-s. Compound 2 is a step tetramer concenptually derived from squareplanardimers in which the axial site of one Cu(II) ion in each dimer is occupied by a bridging oxygen from an adjacent dimer. Compound 3 has four Cu(II) ions tetrahedrally coordinated to a central oxygen atom. Compound 4 has six Cu(II) ions occupying the corners of a trigonal prism and three lying above the rectangular faces. Six hydroxyl ions each coordinate three Cu(II) ions, one from each end of the prism and one from the face. In the center is an (0-H ... Of3 unit which trigonally binds the Cu(II) ions on each end of the prism. The bulky t-butyl groups in the four complexes effectively isolate the central Cu(II) ions from any intermolecular interactions

Redox-Mediated and Ionizing-Radiation-Induced Inflammatory Mediators in Prostate Cancer Development and Treatment

SIGNIFICANCE: Radiation therapy is widely used for treatment of prostate cancer. Radiation can directly damage biologically important molecules; however, most effects of radiation-mediated cell killing are derived from the generated free radicals that alter cellular redox status. Multiple proinflammatory mediators can also influence redox status in irradiated cells and the surrounding microenvironment, thereby affecting prostate cancer progression and radiotherapy efficiency. RECENT ADVANCES: Ionizing radiation (IR)-generated oxidative stress can regulate and be regulated by the production of proinflammatory mediators. Depending on the type and stage of the prostate cancer cells, these proinflammatory mediators may lead to different biological consequences ranging from cell death to development of radioresistance. CRITICAL ISSUES: Tumors are heterogeneous and dynamic communication occurs between stromal and prostate cancer cells, and complicated redox-regulated mechanisms exist in the tumor microenvironment. Thus, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory strategies should be carefully evaluated for each patient at different stages of the disease to maximize therapeutic benefits while minimizing unintended side effects. FUTURE DIRECTIONS: Compared with normal cells, tumor cells are usually under higher oxidative stress and secrete more proinflammatory mediators. Thus, redox status is often less adaptive in tumor cells than in their normal counterparts. This difference can be exploited in a search for new cancer therapeutics and treatment regimes that selectively activate cell death pathways in tumor cells with minimal unintended consequences in terms of chemo- and radio-resistance in tumor cells and toxicity in normal tissues

Redox-Modulated Phenomena and Radiation Therapy: The Central Role of Superoxide Dismutases

SIGNIFICANCE: Ionizing radiation is a vital component in the oncologist\u27s arsenal for the treatment of cancer. Approximately 50% of all cancer patients will receive some form of radiation therapy as part of their treatment regimen. DNA is considered the major cellular target of ionizing radiation and can be damaged directly by radiation or indirectly through reactive oxygen species (ROS) formed from the radiolysis of water, enzyme-mediated ROS production, and ROS resulting from altered aerobic metabolism. RECENT ADVANCES: ROS are produced as a byproduct of oxygen metabolism, and superoxide dismutases (SODs) are the chief scavengers. ROS contribute to the radioresponsiveness of normal and tumor tissues, and SODs modulate the radioresponsiveness of tissues, thus affecting the efficacy of radiotherapy. CRITICAL ISSUES: Despite its prevalent use, radiation therapy suffers from certain limitations that diminish its effectiveness, including tumor hypoxia and normal tissue damage. Oxygen is important for the stabilization of radiation-induced DNA damage, and tumor hypoxia dramatically decreases radiation efficacy. Therefore, auxiliary therapies are needed to increase the effectiveness of radiation therapy against tumor tissues while minimizing normal tissue injury. FUTURE DIRECTIONS: Because of the importance of ROS in the response of normal and cancer tissues to ionizing radiation, methods that differentially modulate the ROS scavenging ability of cells may prove to be an important method to increase the radiation response in cancer tissues and simultaneously mitigate the damaging effects of ionizing radiation on normal tissues. Altering the expression or activity of SODs may prove valuable in maximizing the overall effectiveness of ionizing radiation

The \u3ci\u3eExxon Valdez\u3c/i\u3e Reopener: Natural Resources Damage Settlements and Roads Not Taken

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill caused extensive natural resource damage to the Prince William Sound. Lawsuits addressing this natural resource damage resulted in a settlement that required Exxon to pay $900 million over time to trustees charged with spending this money to restore the damaged environment of the Sound and nearby areas. The settlement included a “Reopener Clause,” which pledges Exxon to spend an additional$100 million to fund restoration or rehabilitation of resources whose injuries were not foreseeable in 1989. This Article urges the State of Alaska and the United States to seek enforcement of the Reopener Clause, to restore natural resources and Native subsistence uses that were not addressed in the initial settlement and have not recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Alternatively, this Article urges Native entities to intervene in the case and seek enforcement of the Reopener Clause. To date, neither Alaska nor the federal government have requested any of the $100 million Exxon may be required to pay to compensate for additional damages resulting from the oil spill. We offer extended comment on this most famous of all natural resource damage cases. Special attention will be paid to legal roads not taken

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected