The Repeal of General Utilities For Corporate Liquidations - The Consequences of Incomplete and Unexpected Tax Reform

This article will first discuss the history of the General Utilities doctrine and its gradual demise. Second, it will summarize the provision, noting both relief provisions and provisions designed to prevent tax avoidance under the new rules. Finally, this article will compare the effects of legislation to the justifications that prompted its enactment and discuss its side-effects

A qualitative assessment of direct-labeled cDNA products prior to microarray analysis

BACKGROUND: The success of the microarray process in determining differential gene expression of thousands of genes is dependent upon the quality and integrity of the starting RNA, this being particularly true of direct labeling via a reverse transcription procedure. Furthermore, an RNA of reasonable quality still may not yield reliable hybridization data if the labeling efficiency was poor. RESULTS: Here we present a novel assay for assessing the quality of directly labeled fluorescent cDNA prior to microarray hybridization utilizing the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, which employs microfluidic technology for the analysis of nucleic acids and proteins. Using varying amounts of RNase to simulate RNA degradation, we show the strength of this un-advertised assay in determining the relative amounts of cDNA obtained from a direct labeling reaction. CONCLUSION: Utilization of this method in the lab will help to prevent the costly mistake of hybridizing poor quality direct labeled products to expensive arrays

Sedierung und Analgosedierung für diagnostische und/oder interventionelle Prozeduren in der Pädiatrie

Mit der Zunahme von diagnostischen und interventionellen Verfahren bei pädiatrischen Patienten in den letzten Jahren vergrößerte sich nachweislich auch die Anzahl der (Analgo-)Sedierungen im pädiatrischen Bereich. Um zu überprüfen, ob durch diese Entwicklung möglicherweise Probleme in der Routinearbeit an deutschen Kinderkliniken entstanden sind, hat sich die vorliegende Arbeit als Ziel gesetzt, den Status quo hinsichtlich dieser Thematik zu erheben. Hierzu wurde eine Erhebung mittels eines Fragebogens durchgeführt, welcher zuvor unter Berücksichtigung der bestehenden nationalen und internationalen Leitlinien und Publikationen entworfen worden war. Alle Kliniken für Kinder- und Jugendmedizin in Deutschland wurden angeschrieben, 138 Antworten gingen ein. Betrachtet wurden hierbei sowohl allgemeine organisatorische Parameter als auch einige spezielle diagnostische und interventionelle Verfahren. Die Auswertung der Datenerhebung zeigt, dass sich der praktische Alltag an deutschen Kinderkliniken in einigen Punkten gemäß den Vorgaben nationaler und internationaler Empfehlungen und Leitlinien gestaltet. Genauso gibt es jedoch Themenbereiche, bei denen Nachbesserungsbedarf besteht. Hierzu zählen beispielsweise die Ausstattung des Sedierungsarbeitsplatzes oder das Thema „Schulungen zu (Analgo-)Sedierungen“. In der Zusammenschau der Ergebnisse stellt sich hier die Frage, ob eine Leitlinie der pädiatrischen Fachgesellschaften in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Arbeitskreis „Kinderanästhesie“ sinnvoll, wenn nicht sogar notwendig ist.With the increasing number of diagnostic and interventional procedures at pediatric clinics in recent years, the number of (analgo-)sedations performed by pediatricians has risen at the same time. This doctoral thesis assesses whether this trend is affecting the daily routine at German clinics for pediatrics and youth medicine. Therefore, the status quo of daily clinical practice has been analyzed. For this purpose, we created a questionnaire considering relevant national and international guidelines and publications. All clinics for pediatrics and youth medicine in Germany were surveyed, 138 responses were received. General organizational parameters as well as several specific diagnostic and interventional procedures were observed. Having evaluated the questionnaire, we see that German clinics for pediatrics and youth medicine for the most part act in accordance with national and international recommendations and guidelines. However, there are still subject areas that must be improved. For instance, this concerns the infrastructure at the (analgo-)sedation work space as well as professional training on (analgo-)sedation. Considering all our findings, the implementation of a specific German guideline by the pediatric professional associations in collaboration with the research group “Kinderanästhesie” is considered desirable

A newly-developed community microarray resource for transcriptome profiling in Brassica species enables the confirmation of Brassica-specific expressed sequences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The <it>Brassica </it>species include an important group of crops and provide opportunities for studying the evolutionary consequences of polyploidy. They are related to <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>, for which the first complete plant genome sequence was obtained and their genomes show extensive, although imperfect, conserved synteny with that of <it>A. thaliana</it>. A large number of EST sequences, derived from a range of different <it>Brassica </it>species, are available in the public database, but no public microarray resource has so far been developed for these species.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We assembled unigenes using ~800,000 EST sequences, mainly from three species: <it>B. napus</it>, <it>B. rapa </it>and <it>B. oleracea</it>. The assembly was conducted with the aim of co-assembling ESTs of orthologous genes (including homoeologous pairs of genes in <it>B. napus </it>from each of the A and C genomes), but resolving assemblies of paralogous, or paleo-homoeologous, genes (<it>i.e</it>. the genes related by the ancestral genome triplication observed in diploid <it>Brassica </it>species). 90,864 unique sequence assemblies were developed. These were incorporated into the BAC sequence annotation for the <it>Brassica rapa </it>Genome Sequencing Project, enabling the identification of cognate genomic sequences for a proportion of them. A 60-mer oligo microarray comprising 94,558 probes was developed using the unigene sequences. Gene expression was analysed in reciprocal resynthesised <it>B. napus </it>lines and the <it>B. oleracea </it>and <it>B. rapa </it>lines used to produce them. The analysis showed that significant expression could consistently be detected in leaf tissue for 35,386 unigenes. Expression was detected across all four genotypes for 27,355 unigenes, genome-specific expression patterns were observed for 7,851 unigenes and 180 unigenes displayed other classes of expression pattern. Principal component analysis (PCA) clearly resolved the individual microarray datasets for <it>B. rapa</it>, <it>B. oleracea </it>and resynthesised <it>B. napus</it>. Quantitative differences in expression were observed between the resynthesised <it>B. napus </it>lines for 98 unigenes, most of which could be classified into non-additive expression patterns, including 17 that showed cytoplasm-specific patterns. We further characterized the unigenes for which A genome-specific expression was observed and cognate genomic sequences could be identified. Ten of these unigenes were found to be <it>Brassica</it>-specific sequences, including two that originate from complex loci comprising gene clusters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We succeeded in developing a <it>Brassica </it>community microarray resource. Although expression can be measured for the majority of unigenes across species, there were numerous probes that reported in a genome-specific manner. We anticipate that some proportion of these will represent species-specific transcripts and the remainder will be the consequence of variation of sequences within the regions represented by the array probes. Our studies demonstrated that the datasets obtained from the arrays can be used for typical analyses, including PCA and the analysis of differential expression. We have also demonstrated that <it>Brassica</it>-specific transcripts identified <it>in silico </it>in the sequence assembly of public EST database accessions are indeed reported by the array. These would not be detectable using arrays designed using <it>A. thaliana </it>sequences.</p

Dynamic Zebrafish Interactome Reveals Transcriptional Mechanisms of Dioxin Toxicity

In order to generate hypotheses regarding the mechanisms by which 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (dioxin) causes toxicity, we analyzed global gene expression changes in developing zebrafish embryos exposed to this potent toxicant in the context of a dynamic gene network. For this purpose, we also computationally inferred a zebrafish (Danio rerio) interactome based on orthologs and interaction data from other eukaryotes.Using novel computational tools to analyze this interactome, we distinguished between dioxin-dependent and dioxin-independent interactions between proteins, and tracked the temporal propagation of dioxin-dependent transcriptional changes from a few genes that were altered initially, to large groups of biologically coherent genes at later times. The most notable processes altered at later developmental stages were calcium and iron metabolism, embryonic morphogenesis including neuronal and retinal development, a variety of mitochondria-related functions, and generalized stress response (not including induction of antioxidant genes). Within the interactome, many of these responses were connected to cytochrome P4501A (cyp1a) as well as other genes that were dioxin-regulated one day after exposure. This suggests that cyp1a may play a key role initiating the toxic dysregulation of those processes, rather than serving simply as a passive marker of dioxin exposure, as suggested by earlier research.Thus, a powerful microarray experiment coupled with a flexible interactome and multi-pronged interactome tools (which are now made publicly available for microarray analysis and related work) suggest the hypothesis that dioxin, best known in fish as a potent cardioteratogen, has many other targets. Many of these types of toxicity have been observed in mammalian species and are potentially caused by alterations to cyp1a

NMR derived changes of lipoprotein particle concentrations related to impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, or manifest type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and corresponding borderline states, impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and/or glucose tolerance (IGT), are associated with dyslipoproteinemia. It is important to distinguish between factors that cause T2D and that are the direct result of T2D. Methods The lipoprotein subclass patterns of blood donors with IFG, IGT, with IFG combined with IGT, and T2D are analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The development of lipoprotein patterns with time is investigated by using samples retained for an average period of 6 years. In total 595 blood donors are classified by oral glucose tolerance test (oGTT) and their glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) concentrations. Concentrations of lipoprotein particles of 15 different subclasses are analyzed in the 10,921 NMR spectra recorded under fasting and non-fasting conditions. The subjects are assumed healthy according to the strict regulations for blood donors before performing the oGTT. Results Under fasting conditions manifest T2D exhibits a significant concentration increase of the smallest HDL particles (HDL A) combined with a decrease in all other HDL subclasses. In contrast to other studies reviewed in this paper, a general concentration decrease of all LDL particles is observed that is most prominent for the smallest LDL particles (LDL A). Under normal nutritional conditions a large, significant increase of the concentrations of VLDL and chylomicrons is observed for all groups with IFG and/or IGT and most prominently for manifest T2D. As we show it is possible to obtain an estimate of the concentrations of the apolipoproteins Apo-A1, Apo-B100, and Apo-B48 from the NMR data. In the actual study cohort, under fasting conditions the concentrations of the lipoproteins are not increased significantly in T2D, under non-fasting conditions only Apo-B48 increases significantly. Conclusion In contrast to other studies, in our cohort of “healthy” blood donors the T2D associated dyslipoproteinemia does not change the total concentrations of the lipoprotein particles produced in the liver under fasting and non-fasting conditions significantly but only their subclass distributions. Compared to the control group, under non-fasting conditions participants with IGT and IFG or T2D show a substantial increase of plasma concentrations of those lipoproteins that are produced in the intestinal tract. The intestinal insulin resistance becomes strongly observable

Tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance in Fe/GaAs/Au junctions: orbital effects

We report experiments on epitaxially grown Fe/GaAs/Au tunnel junctions demonstrating that the tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR) effect can be controlled by a magnetic field. Theoretical modelling shows that the interplay of the orbital effects of a magnetic field and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in the GaAs barrier leads to an independent contribution to the TAMR effect with uniaxial symmetry, whereas the Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit coupling does not play a role. The effect is intrinsic to barriers with bulk inversion asymmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure