NAFTA and the Regulation of Financial and Other Services

This PDF contains a central article and response articles, these are then followed by a short discussion piece

Dignity Through Duty for the "homely and Rude" : the Pastoral Tradition of Wordsworth and George Eliot

Englis

Evaluation of well designs to improve access to safe and clean water in rural Tanzania

The objective of this study was to examine three well designs: drilled wells (20–30 m deep), closed dug wells (\u3e5 m deep), and hand-dug open wells (\u3c5 m deep), to determine the water quality for improving access to safe and clean water in rural communities. Heterotrophic plate count (HPC), total coliforms (TC), Escherichia coli (E. coli) and turbidity, were used to assess the water quality of 97 wells. Additionally, the study looked at the microflora diversity of the water, focusing on potential pathogens using outgrowth, PCR, and genome sequencing for 10 wells. Concentrations of TC for the open dug wells (4 × 104 CFU/100 mL) were higher than the drilled (2 × 103 CFU/100 mL) and closed dug wells (3 × 103 CFU/100 mL). E. coli concentration for drilled and closed dug wells was \u3c22 MPN (most probable number)/100 mL, but higher for open wells (\u3e154 MPN/100 mL). The drilled well turbidity (11 NTU) was within the standard deviation of the closed well (28 NTU) compared to open dug wells (49 NTU). Drilled and closed wells had similar microbial diversity. There were no significant differences between drilled and closed dug wells. The covering and lining of hand-dug wells should be considered as an alternative to improve access to safe and clean water in rural communities

In Situ Real-Time Quantification of Microbial Communities: Applications to Cold and Dry Volcanic Habitats

We report field tests of an instrument using multi-wavelength excitation and detection of fluorescence capable of detection and discrimination of viable cells, non-viable cells (not metabolically active but not decomposed), and spores in extreme arid environments where low microbial abundances are expected. These new results are presented for cold and dry volcanic habitats worldwide, e.g., the arid core of the Atacama Desert, Mt. Kilimanjaro glacier and Kibo area, Pali Aike caldera, and the western US volcanic and desert soils in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and California. Our results are comparable to previous studies reported in the literature for the same environments. We find these extreme environments there have a base level of ∼103 - 104 cells/g. This is the lower limit of detectable life on terrestrial soils, as we did not observe any quantities less than this, even though the described instrumentation is capable of such measurements. Samples from more conventional environments show much higher microbial cell densities, ca. 108 cells/g or higher, with this same instrument. This base level of microbial life is nearly equal in all the measurements from the extreme environments both hot and cold, and is likely controlled primarily by the sparse nutrients rather than temperature

In Situ Real-Time Quantification of Microbial Communities: Applications to Cold and Dry Volcanic Habitats

We report field tests of an instrument using multi-wavelength excitation and detection of fluorescence capable of detection and discrimination of viable cells, non-viable cells (not metabolically active but not decomposed), and spores in extreme arid environments where low microbial abundances are expected. These new results are presented for cold and dry volcanic habitats worldwide, e.g., the arid core of the Atacama Desert, Mt. Kilimanjaro glacier and Kibo area, Pali Aike caldera, and the western US volcanic and desert soils in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and California. Our results are comparable to previous studies reported in the literature for the same environments. We find these extreme environments there have a base level of ∼103 - 104 cells/g. This is the lower limit of detectable life on terrestrial soils, as we did not observe any quantities less than this, even though the described instrumentation is capable of such measurements. Samples from more conventional environments show much higher microbial cell densities, ca. 108 cells/g or higher, with this same instrument. This base level of microbial life is nearly equal in all the measurements from the extreme environments both hot and cold, and is likely controlled primarily by the sparse nutrients rather than temperature

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A Neurotoxic Phosphoform of Elk-1 Associates with Inclusions from Multiple Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a number of features including the formation of inclusions, early synaptic degeneration and the selective loss of neurons. Molecules serving as links between these shared features have yet to be identified. Identifying candidates within the diseased microenvironment will open up novel avenues for therapeutic intervention. The transcription factor Elk-1 resides within multiple brain areas both in nuclear and extranuclear neuronal compartments. Interestingly, its de novo expression within a single dendrite initiates neuronal death. Given this novel regionalized function, we assessed whether extranuclear Elk-1 and/or phospho-Elk-1 (pElk-1) protein might be associated with a spectrum of human neurodegenerative disease cases including Lewy body Disease (e.g. Parkinson's), Alzheimer's disease, and Huntington's Disease. We first determined the importance of Elk-1 post-translational modifications on its ability to initiate regionalized cell death. We next screened human cases from three major neurodegenerative diseases to look for remarkable levels of Elk-1 and/or pElk-1 protein as well as their association with inclusions characteristic of these diseases. We compared our findings to age-matched control cases. We find that the ability of Elk-1 to initiate regionalized neuronal death depends on a specific phosphosite, T417. Furthermore, we find that T417+ Elk-1 uniquely associates with several types of inclusions present in cases of human Lewy body Disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Huntington's Disease. These results suggest a molecular link between the presence of inclusions and neuronal loss that is shared across a spectrum of neurodegenerative disease