The Increasing Role Of Interest Groups In Investment Transactions Involving International Financial Institutions

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The Legal and Institutional Framework for an Airport Noise-Compatibility Land Use Program

This article will assess the constitutionality of zoning to promote noise-compatible development and the problems of establishing an institutional framework for such land use management. Particular attention will be paid to the location of authority to administer a noise-compatibility program and to procedures for enforcing the program\u27s goals

The Trigger Price Mechanism: Limitation on Administrative Discretion under the Antidumping Laws

The world steel market, Jong subject to cyclical fluctuations, is presently faced with a severe problem of overproduction. United States producers of steel in particular have suffered difficulties in the current crisis. While the industry\u27s problems are not new, conditions of slack demand and overcapacity have recently resulted in the implementation of a new system to administer the antidumping Jaws of the United States to curb imports of foreign-produced steel. This article will describe and evaluate this new system, the trigger price mechanism (TPM), and consider its role as a constraint on the administrative discretion of the United States Department of the Treasury

Numerical Observation of a Tubular Phase in Anisotropic Membranes

We provide the first numerical evidence for the existence of a tubular phase, predicted by Radzihovsky and Toner (RT), for anisotropic tethered membranes without self-avoidance. Incorporating anisotropy into the bending rigidity of a simple model of a tethered membrane with free boundary conditions, we show that the model indeed has two phase transitions corresponding to the flat-to-tubular and tubular-to-crumpled transitions. For the tubular phase we measure the Flory exponent $\nu_F$ and the roughness exponent $\zeta$. We find $\nu_F=0.305(14)$ and $\zeta=0.895(60)$, which are in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions of RT --- $\nu_F=1/4$ and $\zeta=1$.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, REVTEX, final published versio

Transport and Elastic Properties of Fractal Media

We investigate the influence of fractal structure on material properties. We calculate the statistical correlation functions of fractal media defined by level-cut Gaussian random fields. This allows the modeling of both surface fractal and mass fractal materials. Variational bounds on the conductivity, diffusivity and elastic moduli of the materials are evaluated. We find that a fractally rough interface has a relatively strong influence on the properties of composites. In contrast a fractal volume (mass) has little effect on material properties.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

The Statistical Mechanics of Membranes

The fluctuations of two-dimensional extended objects membranes is a rich and exciting field with many solid results and a wide range of open issues. We review the distinct universality classes of membranes, determined by the local order, and the associated phase diagrams. After a discussion of several physical examples of membranes we turn to the physics of crystalline (or polymerized) membranes in which the individual monomers are rigidly bound. We discuss the phase diagram with particular attention to the dependence on the degree of self-avoidance and anisotropy. In each case we review and discuss analytic, numerical and experimental predictions of critical exponents and other key observables. Particular emphasis is given to the results obtained from the renormalization group epsilon-expansion. The resulting renormalization group flows and fixed points are illustrated graphically. The full technical details necessary to perform actual calculations are presented in the Appendices. We then turn to a discussion of the role of topological defects whose liberation leads to the hexatic and fluid universality classes. We finish with conclusions and a discussion of promising open directions for the future.Comment: 75 LaTeX pages, 36 figures. To appear in Physics Reports in the Proceedings of RG2000, Taxco, 199

Five-year follow up of genotypic resistance patterns in HIV-1 subtype C infected patients in Botswana after failure of thymidine analogue-based regimens

Objective: Our objective was to establish genotypic resistance profiles among the 4% of Batswana patients who experienced virologic failure while being followed within Botswana's National Antiretroviral Treatment Program between 2002 and 2007. Methods: At the beginning of the national program in 2002, almost all patients received stavudine (d4T), together with didanosine (ddI), as part of their first nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)-based regimen (Group 1). In contrast, the standard of care for all patients subsequently enrolled (2002-2007) included zidovudine/lamivudine (ZDV/3TC) (Group 2). Genotypes were analyzed in 26 patients from Group 1 and 37 patients from Group 2. Associations between mutations were determined using Pearson's correlation coefficient and Jaccard's coefficient of similarity. Results: Seventy-eight percent of genotyped patients possessed mutations associated with protease inhibitor (PI) resistance while 87% and 90%, respectively, exhibited mutations associated with NRTIs and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs). The most frequent PI mutations involving resistance to NFV were L90M (25.2%) and D30N (16.2%), but mutations at positions K45Q and D30N were often observed in tandem (P = 60.5, J = 50; p = 0.002; Group 2) alongside Q61E in 42.8% of patients who received ZDV/3TC. Both major patterns of thymidine analogue mutations, TAM 1 (48%) and TAM 2 (59%), were represented in patients from Group 1 and 2, although M184V was higher among individuals who had initially received ddI (61% versus 40.5%). In contrast, L74V was more frequent among individuals from Group 2 (16.2% versus 7.7%). Differences in regard to NNRTI mutations were also observed between Group 1 and Group 2 patients. Conclusion: Despite a low rate of therapeutic failure (4%) among these patients, those who failed possessed high numbers of resistance mutations as well as novel resistance mutations and/or polymorphisms at sites within reverse transcriptase and protease

A multi-stage genome-wide association study of bladder cancer identifies multiple susceptibility loci.

We conducted a multi-stage, genome-wide association study of bladder cancer with a primary scan of 591,637 SNPs in 3,532 affected individuals (cases) and 5,120 controls of European descent from five studies followed by a replication strategy, which included 8,382 cases and 48,275 controls from 16 studies. In a combined analysis, we identified three new regions associated with bladder cancer on chromosomes 22q13.1, 19q12 and 2q37.1: rs1014971, (P = 8 × 10⁻¹²) maps to a non-genic region of chromosome 22q13.1, rs8102137 (P = 2 × 10⁻¹¹) on 19q12 maps to CCNE1 and rs11892031 (P = 1 × 10⁻⁷) maps to the UGT1A cluster on 2q37.1. We confirmed four previously identified genome-wide associations on chromosomes 3q28, 4p16.3, 8q24.21 and 8q24.3, validated previous candidate associations for the GSTM1 deletion (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹) and a tag SNP for NAT2 acetylation status (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹), and found interactions with smoking in both regions. Our findings on common variants associated with bladder cancer risk should provide new insights into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis