Response to Professor Rosenbloom: \u3ci\u3eFifty Shades of Gray Infrastructure: Land Use and the Failure to Create Reslient Cities\u3c/i\u3e, 93 Wash. L. Rev. 317 (2018)

This piece is a response to Jonathan Rosenbloom, Fifty Shades of Gray Infrastructure: Land Use and The Failure to Create Resilient Cities, 93 Wash. L. Rev. 317 (2018)

Like Water for Energy: The Water-Energy Nexus Through the Lens of Tax Policy

Water is essential for life. Inadequate potable water supplies lead to poverty, disease, starvation, and civil strife. Climate change is likely to put more pressure on the world\u27s supply of fresh water. Rising sea levels will introduce salt into some fresh water systems. As high mountain snow cover and glaciers decline, they will store less fresh water. As regions heat up, droughts will become more persistent. Producing energy uses water. How much water is used depends on the source of the energy. Yet in the rush to transition to a renewable energy economy, policy makers have paid little heed to the potential water consequences. Reducing C02 emissions will not help society if the alternative energy sources use more water than the traditional energy sources they replace. This Article examines the links between renewable energy tax incentives and water consumption. Tax incentives for renewable energy sources should account for water consumption as well as the potential for reduced CO2 emissions. This Article begins with a review of water use statistics for traditional energy sources and a comparison of water use statistics from various renewable energy sources. Next, this Article analyzes the U.S. federal tax incentives for energy sources, paying particular attention to newer incentives for renewable sources and the water impact of those incentives. Finally, this Article provides some recommendations for legislative action

Making the Internal Revenue Service Work

This is an Article about how to redesign the federal tax system so that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can administer it more effectively given that Congress is only willing to let the IRS have around 82,000 employees and a $12 billion budget. As the IRS Oversight Board and the National Taxpayer Advocate have frequently emphasized, the United States underinvests in the IRS. Underinvesting means that taxpayer services are suffering and that tax enforcement has been significantly weakened. With budget deficits for “as far as the eye can see” and the recent IRS troubles with tax-exempt political organizations, the prospects for increased funding for the IRS are remote. In this Article, we consider a variety of approaches that would make it easier for the IRS to raise and collect revenue, and we offer a number of recommendations for legislative and administrative changes. For example, we recommend simplifying the tax system, enhancing third-party reporting, and streamlining the tax-filing and dispute-resolution procedures. In short, this Article discusses how the tax system should be designed so that it can work with a modestly-funded tax administrator. Part II of this Article provides an overview of the federal tax system, and Part III of this Article provides an overview of tax administration. Part IV of this Article discusses the key problems with current tax administration. Finally, Part V of this Article offers a number of recommendations for change, including some that would require legislation and some that could be achieved administratively

Borrowing from Millennials to Pay Boomers: Can Tax Policy Create Sustainable Intergenerational Equity?

At the outset, Part I of the Article provides an overview of sustainable intergenerational justice and tax policy. Part II then provides an overview of the U.S. tax system, deficits, and public debt. Part III then considers how taxes can influence the level of resources that are available to future generations, and Part IV considers how taxes can influence the mix of resources that are available to future generations

Annotated 18S and 28S rDNA reference sequences of taxa in the planktonic diatom family Chaetocerotaceae

The species-rich diatom family Chaetocerotaceae is common in the coastal marine phytoplankton worldwide where it is responsible for a substantial part of the primary production. Despite its relevance for the global cycling of carbon and silica, many species are still described only morphologically, and numerous specimens do not fit any described taxa. Nowadays, studies to assess plankton biodiversity deploy high throughput sequencing metabarcoding of the 18S rDNA V4 region, but to translate the gathered metabarcodes into biologically meaningful taxa, there is a need for reference barcodes. However, 18S reference barcodes for this important family are still relatively scarce. We provide 18S rDNA and partial 28S rDNA reference sequences of 443 morphologically characterized chaetocerotacean strains. We gathered 164 of the 216 18S sequences and 244 of the 413 28S sequences of strains from the Gulf of Naples, Atlantic France, and Chile. Inferred phylogenies showed 84 terminal taxa in seven principal clades. Two of these clades included terminal taxa whose rDNA sequences contained spliceosomal and Group IC1 introns. Regarding the commonly used metabarcode markers in planktonic diversity studies, all terminal taxa can be discriminated with the 18S V4 hypervariable region; its primers fit their targets in all but two species, and the V4-tree topology is similar to that of the 18S. Hence V4-metabarcodes of unknown Chaetocerotaceae are assignable to the family. Regarding the V9 hypervariable region, most terminal taxa can be discriminated, but several contain introns in their primer targets. Moreover, poor phylogenetic resolution of the V9 region affects placement of metabarcodes of putative but unknown chaetocerotacean taxa, and hence, uncertainty in taxonomic assignment, even of higher taxa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Allergic reaction related to ramipril use: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are widely prescribed for patients with diabetes as a nephroprotector drug or to treat hypertension. Generally they are safe for clinical practice, but the relationship between these drugs and angioedema is known. The exact mechanism for ACE inhibitors-induced angioedema is not clear and it is still a matter of discussion.</p> <p>Case Report</p> <p>We reported a case of a 23-year-old black female with an 11 year history of type 1 diabetes, regularly monitored in the department of diabetes, in use of 0,98 UI/kg/day of human insulin, which presented an allergic reaction 24 h after ramipril use. The drug had been prescribed to treat diabetic nephropathy. There was no previous history of drug induced or alimentary allergy. The patient was instructed to discontinue the use of ramipril and oral antihistaminic drug and topical corticosteroid were prescribed. Skin biopsies were performed and confirmed the clinical hypothesis of pharmacodermy. The evaluation of ACE polymorphism identified <it>DD </it>genotype. Six months after the withdrawal of ramipril the patient was prescribed the angiotensin-II receptor blocker (ARB) losartan as nephroprotector. She remained well without adverse reactions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>ACE inhibitors-induced angioedema is uncommon and the clinical presentation is variable with lips, tongue, oropharinge, and larynge as the most common locations. The presence of angioedema during treatment requires the immediate cessation of treatment due to the risk of possible severe complications. The case reported presented moderate symptoms, with the development of early onset edema in uncommon regions. ACE <it>DD </it>genotype had been associated with angioedema-ACE inhibitors induced. In patients who have experienced ACE inhibitor-related angioedema, ARB should be used cautiously used. However in the case of our patient, the prescription of losartan as nefroprotector did not result in any recurrent adverse effect.</p

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN