Health Care and the Law: A Strong Prescription for the Future

With health care issues at the forefront of today\u27s news, the dynamic Law & Health Care Program is contributing to the debate - with real world answers

Cultivating Scholarship

Nurturing faculty research and scholarship is a top priority for the law school. Several new initiatives are helping faculty break new ground

An efficient one-step site-directed deletion, insertion, single and multiple-site plasmid mutagenesis protocol

Background: Mutagenesis plays an essential role in molecular biology and biochemistry. It has also been used in enzymology and protein science to generate proteins which are more tractable for biophysical techniques. The ability to quickly and specifically mutate a residue(s) in protein is important for mechanistic and functional studies. Although many site-directed mutagenesis methods have been developed, a simple, quick and multi-applicable method is still desirable. Results: We have developed a site-directed plasmid mutagenesis protocol that preserved the simple one step procedure of the QuikChange (TM) site-directed mutagenesis but enhanced its efficiency and extended its capability for multi-site mutagenesis. This modified protocol used a new primer design that promoted primer-template annealing by eliminating primer dimerization and also permitted the newly synthesized DNA to be used as the template in subsequent amplification cycles. These two factors we believe are the main reasons for the enhanced amplification efficiency and for its applications in multi-site mutagenesis. Conclusion: Our modified protocol significantly increased the efficiency of single mutation and also allowed facile large single insertions, deletions/truncations and multiple mutations in a single experiment, an option incompatible with the standard QuikChange (TM). Furthermore the new protocol required significantly less parental DNA which facilitated the DpnI digestion after the PCR amplification and enhanced the overall efficiency and reliability. Using our protocol, we generated single site, multiple single-site mutations and a combined insertion/deletion mutations. The results demonstrated that this new protocol imposed no additional reagent costs (beyond basic QuikChange T) but increased the overall success rates.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Investigation of taste tainting in salmon flesh in the Ribble catchment

This report presents the findings of the first phase of an investigation into the cause(s) of taints in salmonid fish in the River Ribble, commissioned by the North West Region of the Environment Agency. There have been reports of tainting in fish taken from both the estuary and the freshwater river for many years, but the contaminants involved and their source and transport pathway are unknown. Tainting by phenols has been of specific concern in the past. The work programme comprised: examination of tainting reports; collection of salmonids; their submission for taste testing; literature review; analysis of fish flesh using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) and analysis of river bed sediments. From enquiries, three common descriptors of the 'taint' were identified: disinfectanty; diesely; and muddy. The incidence of taints appears transient/irregular and may therefore relate to the incidence of discharges and specific threshold concentrations of pollutants. The literature review showed that a wide range of organic compounds including many industrial chemicals, and others which are naturally occurring, can taint fish flesh. Taste testing confirmed the presence of tainted salmon and trout in the Ribbie Catchment. It identified a low incidence of 'untainted' fish but demonstrated the 'taint' to be not specific to one tainting substance. Differences were found both between the species and fish from different parts of the catchment. Overall, most fish exhibited an unpleasant flavour, though this may have been influenced to some extent by the fact that most were sexually mature. The worst tainting was found in trout from the river Calder: a soapy/chemical aftertaste. An unpleasant earthy/musty flavour distinguished the salmon from the trout. Phenol was shown to have been a minor issue during the present study, whilst no hydrocarbon taints were identified. Examination of tissue from the eight salmon exhibiting the worst taints revealed the presence of aromatic hydrocarbons, but no phenolic compounds. Other notable substances present in the fish were siioxanes and benzophenone. Data from sediment analysis is presented which shows the main compounds present to be aromatic and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, that concentrations at two locations R. Darwen and R. Calder were significantly higher than at other sites, and that some phenolic compounds were detected at low levels. A paucity of fish flesh taste descriptors linked to specific compounds prevented an obvious correlation to be made between the tastes observed and the organic compounds detected. Descriptors frequently used by the taste testing panel (e.g. earthy, musty, astringency, chemical) cannot be linked to any of the compounds identified in the tissue analyses. No taste information was available from the literature on siioxanes. Aromatic hydrocarbons though present in tissue and sediments were not identified as tainting

Extensions of Signed Graphs

Given a signed graph (G, Σ) with an embedding on a surface S, we are interested in "extending" (G, Σ) by adding edges and splitting vertices, such that the resulting graph has no embedding on S. We show (assuming 3-connectivity for (G, Σ)) that there are a small number of minimal extensions of (G, Σ) with no such embedding, and describe them explicitly. We also give conditions, for several surfaces S, for an embedding of a signed graph on S to extend uniquely. These results find application in characterizing the signed graphs with no odd-K_5 minor

The currency of power in late Anglo-Saxon England

England between the early 970s and 1066 had a remarkable monetary system, consisting of silver pennies of standardised type which were reminted frequently. Each penny carried the name of the individual responsible for its manufacture and identified where he was based. This formidable currency came about thanks to unique conditions in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. An initial reform by Edgar was followed by a rapid sequence of recoinages under his son Æthelred II, which constituted one means of asserting morally responsible governance in the face of perceived divine displeasure. It follows that the chronology and motivation behind the coinage need to be seen as products of central, courtly developments. Actual minting, however, was a matter of individual moneyers dealing with individual customers. Here, it is argued that moneyers and mint‐places need to be seen as part of the wider landscape of formal and informal social power, and that production of coin generally came about through networks of lordship and authority. Integration of the moneyers (typically drawn from the lower elite) across England into centrally controlled mechanisms such as the coinage was one of the underpinning strengths of the late Anglo‐Saxon kingdom, linking different forms of power and giving a large swathe of the political community a stake in the realm's institutions

The Forum Hoard and Beyond: Money, Gift, and Religion in the Early Middle Ages

The law-code known as ‘IV Æthelred’ has been identified since the mid-nineteenth century as a text concerned with tolls, trading and currency in London, dated to around the year 1000. This contribution argues that ‘IV Æthelred’ may have had little if anything to do with Æthelred II (978–1016). By re-evaluating the law-code’s transmission, contents and date, it is proposed that the text consists of two distinct segments, probably put together around 1100 and surviving only in Latin translation. One part is a series of tenth-century decrees on currency crimes, and represents the most detailed statement on this topic to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. The other relates more specifically to London, laying out the tolls incurred by merchants coming to the city from across northern Europe. Frequent use of French terminology marks this portion of the text out, and suggests a date in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest

Gold coinage and its use in the post-roman west

One of the most tangible sets of changes associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire was that which affected the monetary system. By AD 600 the multi-tiered late Roman currency had shrivelled to a shadow of its former self. Copper-alloy issues, which for most of the populace had been the principal coins utilized on a day-to-day basis, were effectively gone, as were those in silver. Little local production of unofficial coin to plug this gap took place (as had happened in the third-century West, and parts of the fifth-century East), suggesting a genuine collapse of the mechanisms which had supported small-scale monetized exchange. This slump forms part of a wider picture of drastic simplification in exchange and economy, the pace and extent of which varied province to province

The laws of London? Iv Æthelred in context

The law-code known as ‘IV Æthelred’ has been identified since the midnineteenth century as a text concerned with tolls, trading and currency in London, dated to around the year 1000. This contribution argues that ‘IV Æthelred’ may have had little if anything to do with Æthelred II (978–1016). By re-evaluating the law-code’s transmission, contents and date, it is proposed that the text consists of two distinct segments, probably put together around 1100 and surviving only in Latin translation. One part is a series of tenth-century decrees on currency crimes, and represents the most detailed statement on this topic to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. The other relates more specifically to London, laying out the tolls incurred by merchants coming to the city from across northern Europe. Frequent use of French terminology marks this portion of the text out, and suggests a date in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest

Taking Back the Beach

The numerous effects of anthropogenic climate change, including sea-level rise, continue to make global changes to our environment. With greenhouse gas emissions come warmer temperatures, melting glaciers, and a higher sealevel. In an attempt to address the rising sea, communities have the option to protect the shoreline, alter structures to be able to remain in the area, or abandon the area as the sea rises. The Texas coast alone is home to roughly 6.5 million people and provides jobs to nearly 2.5 million of those people. As the sea continues to rise, the Texas coast is subject to more severe storms, flooding, and coastline loss. The coastal economy includes various industries that generate billions of dollars in revenue and has ports that are essential for national exporting. As the sea begins to encroach on coastal properties, these industries, as well as the interests of both private property owners and the general public with access to the waterfront, are at risk. However, protecting the coast and balancing the interests of these parties leads to numerous lawsuits and litigation. The Texas Open Beaches Act was an attempt to codify traditional common law doctrines of public trust and rolling easements, which were generally interpreted in favor of the public. However, the 2012 Texas Supreme Court decision in Severance v. Patterson favored the rights of the private property owner over the public’s access to beaches. Because alternative measures to mitigate sea-level rise from impacting waterfront properties can have detrimental ecological effects on the coastal environment, Texas should implement a regulatory scheme that addresses these potential issues. The Texas Coastal Resiliency Plan discusses numerous coastal concerns and outlines several projects to restore Texas coastlines. While this plan aims to protect the coast and its numerous industries, it does not consider how the projects affect property rights. To remedy this, Texas communities should establish regulations that protect public access easements, develop more stringent construction setbacks or permitting procedures, and require more risk disclosure for potential property owners buying coastal properties