Europe\u27s Evolving Regulatory Strategy for GMOs --- The Issue of Consistncy with WTO Law: of Kine and Brine

This Essay deals with one question: If challenged, how would regulatory restrictions on genetically modified organisms ( GMOs ) be judged by a World Trade Organization ( WTO ) adjudicating body. Many of the controversies about the effect of WTO law on domestic regulation have been influenced by the view that the law as it stands may well impede the ability of governments to regulate new and uncertain risks to health and the environment. The result in the Beef Hormones case is often cited for this proposition. In this Essay we aim to show that, contrary to an increasingly widespread popular perception, if WTO law is properly interpreted, GMO-related measures, where non-discriminatory against other WTO Members, can pass the test of consistency with even the most stringent of relevant WTO rules

Europe\u27s Evolving Regulatory Strategy for GMOs – The Issue of Consistency with WTO Law: Of Kine and Brine

This Essay deals with one question: If challenged, how would regulatory restrictions on genetically modified organisms ( GMOs ) be judged by a World Trade Organization ( WTO ) adjudicating body. Many of the controversies about the effect of WTO law on domestic regulation have been influenced by the view that the law as it stands may well impede the ability of governments to regulate new and uncertain risks to health and the environment. The result in the Beef Hormones case ( Hormones case ) is often cited for this proposition. In this Essay we aim to show that, contrary to an increasingly widespread popular perception, if WTO law is properly interpreted, GMO-related measures, where non-discriminatory against other WTO Members, can pass the test of consistency with even the most stringent of relevant WTO rules

First Record of a Bloom of Gonyaulax monilata in Coastal Waters of Mississippi

Data are presented on a bloom of the toxic dinoflagellate Gonyaulax monilata in coastal waters of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. This paper documents the first record of a bloom of this species in Mississippi Sound and adjacent Gulf of Mexico

First Record of a Bloom of Gonyaulax monilata in Coastal Waters of Mississippi

Data are presented on a bloom of the toxic dinoflagellate Gonyaulax monilata in coastal waters of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. This paper documents the first record of a bloom of this species in Mississippi Sound and adjacent Gulf of Mexico

Phase separation and rotor self-assembly in active particle suspensions

Adding a non-adsorbing polymer to passive colloids induces an attraction between the particles via the `depletion' mechanism. High enough polymer concentrations lead to phase separation. We combine experiments, theory and simulations to demonstrate that using active colloids (such as motile bacteria) dramatically changes the physics of such mixtures. First, significantly stronger inter-particle attraction is needed to cause phase separation. Secondly, the finite size aggregates formed at lower inter-particle attraction show unidirectional rotation. These micro-rotors demonstrate the self assembly of functional structures using active particles. The angular speed of the rotating clusters scales approximately as the inverse of their size, which may be understood theoretically by assuming that the torques exerted by the outermost bacteria in a cluster add up randomly. Our simulations suggest that both the suppression of phase separation and the self assembly of rotors are generic features of aggregating swimmers, and should therefore occur in a variety of biological and synthetic active particle systems.Comment: Main text: 6 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary information: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary movies available from httP://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1116334109/-/DCSupplementa

Evaluation of E-Learning Lessons for Strengthening Early Childhood Practitioner Use of Family Capacity-Building Practices

Findings from a case study field-test evaluation of e-learning lessons for promoting early childhood intervention practitioners’ understanding and use of family capacity-building practices are described. Participants were two early childhood program directors, two early childhood technical assistance providers, and two early childhood intervention practitioners. Pattern matching was used to evaluate whether or not participants with different roles and responsibilities judged the instructional design, interactivity, video illustrations, and usefulness of the e-learning lessons similarly or differently. Results indicated that the different features of the e-learning lessons were rated highly by all but one participant and that the patterns of responses were much the same regardless of participants’ professional roles or responsibilities. Participant feedback and suggestions were used to revise the e-learning lessons and correct technical problems

Distance-Restricted Firefighting on Finite Graphs

In the classic version of the game of firefighter, on the first turn a fire breaks out on a vertex in a graph $G$ and then $b$ firefighters protect $b$ vertices. On each subsequent turn, the fire spreads to the collective unburnt neighbourhood of all the burning vertices and the firefighters again protect $b$ vertices. Once a vertex has been burnt or protected it remains that way for the rest of the game. We previously introduced the concept of $\textit{distance-restricted firefighting}$ where the firefighters' movement is restricted so they can only move up to some fixed distance $d$ and they may or may not be permitted to move through burning vertices. In this paper we establish the NP-Completeness of the distance-restricted versions of the $\textit{Maximum Vertices Saved}$ problem and present an integer program for solving these problems. In the penultimate section we also discuss some interesting properties of the $\textit{Expected Damage}$ function

The Characterization of two diverse magnetotactic bacteria: LEMS and MMS-1

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are a diverse group of prokaryotes that biomineralize membrane-bound magnetic crystals known as magnetosomes. The magnetosomes are aligned within the cell and consist of either magnetite (Fe3O4) or greigite (Fe3S4). The biomineralization of magnetosomes consists of several processes including: invagination of the cytoplasmic membrane, iron uptake into the cell and then into the magnetosome membrane vesicle, and crystallization of the mineral phase inside the vesicle. Mam genes control magnetosome biomineralization with most of the genes present in an island called a magnetosome island. Many of the mam genes are conserved between different species of MTB. The genes that are in the island have suggested that they play a significant role in the organization of the magnetosomes and how they align within the cell. The focus of this investigation is to determine if certain conserved mam genes are found in two isolated and metabolically diverse magnetotactic spirillums: LEMS and MMS-1