Intellectual Property Rights and North-South Trade

We study the incentive that a government in the South has to protect the intellectual property rights of Northern firms, and the consequences of the decision taken by the South for welfare in the North and for efficiency of the world equilibrium. We conduct our analysis in the context of a competition between a single Northern producer and a single Southern producer selling some good to an integrated world market. In this competition, only the Northern firm has the ability to conduct R&D in order to lower its production costs, but the Southern firm can imitate costlessly if patent protection for process innovations is not enforced by the government of the South. We find that the interests of the North and the South generally conflict in the matter of protection of intellectual property, with the South benefiting from the ability to pirate technology and the North harmed by such actions. A strong system of intellectual property rights may or may not enhance world efficiency.

Dental Health Care Service Learning Research through Volunteer Children's Programs

poster abstractThis volunteer program outreach service learning research was designed to expand development and participation this program and analyze reasons for participation in this program

Arrest of Stomatal Initials in Tradescantia Is Linked to the Proximity of Neighboring Stomata and Results in the Arrested Initials Acquiring Properties of Epidermal Cells

AbstractWe examined spatial relations of arrested stomatal initials and their differentiated state on leaves of the monocotyledon Tradescantia. The placement and proximity of stomata and arrested stomatal initials to the five nearest stomata were studied to test the hypothesis that if developing stomatal initials occur too close to one another, initials will arrest. The results showed that arrested stomatal initials were not randomly placed, but were closely associated with another stoma, most often in an adjacent cell file. The distance to their nearest stomatal neighbors was less than the equivalent distance between stomata that mature. After stomatal initials form, their position within or across cell files was not adjusted by cell division or expansion. Synergistic effects from several neighboring stomata could not be linked to stomatal arrest; rather, arrest was associated only with the nearest stomatal neighbor. Since the arrest of stomatal initials was distance dependent, a failure intrinsic to the arrested initials is not solely responsible for halting stomatal development. These data show that an inhibitory mechanism adjusts stomatal development to influence the final distribution of Tradescantia stomata. The pigmentation and expansion characteristics of arrested stomatal initials were like those of epidermal cells, indicating that the initials did not remain halted at a specific point in their development. The capacity of arrested initials to differentiate in the epidermal cell pathway indicates that they remain pluripotent after their initial specification and that the opportunity for patterning is long enough to permit their entry into the epidermal cell pathway

Soluble toll like receptor 2 (TLR-2) is increased in saliva of children with dental caries

Background Dental caries is the most common microbial disease affecting mankind. Caries risk assessment methods, identification of biomarkers and vaccine development strategies are being emphasized to control the incidence of the largely preventable disease. Pattern recognition receptors such as the toll like receptors (TLR) have been implicated as modulators of host-microbial interactions. Soluble TLR-2 and its co-receptor, CD14 identified in saliva can bind the cell wall components of cariogenic bacteria and modulate the disease process. The objective of this study is to determine the potential of salivary sTLR-2 and sCD14 as biomarkers of caries activity and indirect measures of the cariogenic bacterial burden. Methods Unstimulated whole saliva was collected from twenty caries free and twenty caries active children between the ages of 5 and 13 years. The concentration of sCD14 and sTLR-2 together with that of the cytokine IL-8 reported to be increased in dental caries was assessed by the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Results While the level of sCD14 and that of IL-8 was equivocal between the two groups, the sTLR-2 concentration in caries active saliva was significantly higher than that in caries free saliva. Conclusions The sTLR-2 in saliva could serve as a potential biomarker for caries activity

Estimating the System Costs of Wind Power Forecast Uncertainty

Uncertainty in forecasts of wind power generation raises concerns of integrating wind power into power system operations and electricity markets at acceptable costs. The analysis presented in this paper uses an optimal power flow (OPF) model in a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) framework to estimate the additional cost of power system operation with uncertain output from a wind farm. A base case dispatch is established along with alternate dispatches based upon a probability distribution of real time wind power generation. The cost of the uncertainty in wind power forecasts is then quantified in terms of the difference in production cost between the base case and the cost for system dispatch under scenarios drawn from the distribution of real time wind power generation. Using various regional load levels and ramp capabilities of other generators, the results from the OPF and MCS show that wind power forecast uncertainty for the test system can increase production cost between 2.5% and 11%

Effects of flanking sequences and cellular context on subcellular behavior and pathology of mutant HTT

Huntington’s disease (HD) is caused by an expansion of a poly glutamine (polyQ) stretch in the huntingtin protein (HTT) that is necessary to cause pathology and formation of HTT aggregates. Here we ask whether expanded polyQ is sufficient to cause pathology and aggregate formation. By addressing the sufficiency question, one can identify cellular processes and structural parameters that influence HD pathology and HTT subcellular behavior (i.e. aggregation state and subcellular location). Using Drosophila, we compare the effects of expressing mutant full-length human HTT (fl-mHTT) to the effects of mutant human HTTexon1 and to two commonly used synthetic fragments, HTT171 and shortstop (HTT118). Expanded polyQ alone is not sufficient to cause inclusion formation since full-length HTT and HTTex1 with expanded polyQ are both toxic although full-length HTT remains diffuse while HTTex1 forms inclusions. Further, inclusions are not sufficient to cause pathology since HTT171-120Q forms inclusions but is benign and co-expression of HTT171-120Q with non-aggregating pathogenic fl-mHTT recruits fl-mHTT to aggregates and rescues its pathogenicity. Additionally, the influence of sequences outside the expanded polyQ domain is revealed by finding that small modifications to the HTT118 or HTT171 fragments can dramatically alter their subcellular behavior and pathogenicity. Finally, mutant HTT subcellular behavior is strongly modified by different cell and tissue environments (e.g. fl-mHTT appears as diffuse nuclear in one tissue and diffuse cytoplasmic in another but toxic in both). These observations underscore the importance of cellular and structural context for the interpretation and comparison of experiments using different fragments and tissues to report the effects of expanded polyQ

Infant oral mutilation (IOM) related to traditional practices among inner city pre-school children in Sudan

Background: The term Infant Oral Mutilation (IOM) refers to the aggressive cultural rituals where primary canine tooth germs of infants are enucleated for therapeutic reasons.Objectives: To determine the prevalence and risk factors for IOM among inner city pre-school children in Khartoum.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 212 randomly selected children from twelve government pre-schools in Khartoum were examined for the presence of IOM. Socio-demographic, feeding and teething-related data were collected by self-administered questionnaires.Results: The mean age of the sample was 4.7 years. The prevalence of clinical IOM was 10.8%. Multivariable regression analysis revealed that children who suffered from diarrhea during teething were 7.15 times more likely to have clinical IOM over their counterparts (p<0.0001). Mothers who were educated below elementary school level were 2.69 times more likely to have children showing clinical IOM (p= 0.0369).Conclusion: The present study showed that the practice of IOM is common among inner city children. Certain teething-related symptoms especially diarrhea and maternal education could be strong determinants of the malpractice of IOM.Keywords: Infant oral mutilation (IOM), traditional practices, pre-school children, Sudan

A preliminary description of climatology in the western United States

We describe the climatology of the western United States as seen from two 1-month perspectives, January and July 1988, of the National Meteorological Center large-scale global analysis, the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), and various station observation sets. An advantage of the NMC analysis and the RAMS is that they provide a continuous field interpolation of the meteorological variables. It is more difficult to describe spatial meteorological fields from the available sparse station networks. We assess accuracy of the NMC analysis and RAMS by finding differences between the analysis, the model, and station values at the stations. From these comparisons, we find that RAMS has much more well-developed mesoscale circulation, especially in the surface wind field. However, RAMS climatological and transient fields do not appear to be substantially closer than the larger-scale analysis to the station observations. The RAMS model does provide other meteorological variables, such as precipitation, which are not readily available from the archives of the global analysis. Thus, RAMS could, at the least, be a tool to augment the NMC large-scale analyses

Effects of flanking sequences and cellular context on subcellular behavior and pathology of mutant HTT

Huntington’s disease (HD) is caused by an expansion of a poly glutamine (polyQ) stretch in the huntingtin protein (HTT) that is necessary to cause pathology and formation of HTT aggregates. Here we ask whether expanded polyQ is sufficient to cause pathology and aggregate formation. By addressing the sufficiency question, one can identify cellular processes and structural parameters that influence HD pathology and HTT subcellular behavior (i.e. aggregation state and subcellular location). Using Drosophila, we compare the effects of expressing mutant full-length human HTT (fl-mHTT) to the effects of mutant human HTTexon1 and to two commonly used synthetic fragments, HTT171 and shortstop (HTT118). Expanded polyQ alone is not sufficient to cause inclusion formation since full-length HTT and HTTex1 with expanded polyQ are both toxic although full-length HTT remains diffuse while HTTex1 forms inclusions. Further, inclusions are not sufficient to cause pathology since HTT171-120Q forms inclusions but is benign and co-expression of HTT171-120Q with non-aggregating pathogenic fl-mHTT recruits fl-mHTT to aggregates and rescues its pathogenicity. Additionally, the influence of sequences outside the expanded polyQ domain is revealed by finding that small modifications to the HTT118 or HTT171 fragments can dramatically alter their subcellular behavior and pathogenicity. Finally, mutant HTT subcellular behavior is strongly modified by different cell and tissue environments (e.g. fl-mHTT appears as diffuse nuclear in one tissue and diffuse cytoplasmic in another but toxic in both). These observations underscore the importance of cellular and structural context for the interpretation and comparison of experiments using different fragments and tissues to report the effects of expanded polyQ