Human Rights and the War on Terror: Colombia

The events of September 11 continued of the pattern of redefinition in the conflict in Colombia. The complex war of today actually began decades ago as a small political struggle, which has gradually developed into a large-scale civil war. The continuation and growth of civil strife in Colombia witnessed the emergence of several organized anti-government guerrilla movements. Some of these groups have since been defeated or have integrated themselves into the recognized political system. Others have continued to violently challenge Colombian government authority. Currently, the two most significant anti-government insurgency groups are the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN). These guerrilla groups seek profound economic and political revolution that threatens the Colombian government as well as the existing social structure of the country. To address the specific concerns of the economic elite paramilitary forces have formed with the purpose of combating the guerrilla groups. The coalition of paramilitary forces is known as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). The government of Colombia mobilized a large military effort to quell the insurgency, and has frequently been accused of collaborating with the AUC in the fight against the guerrillas

An Internship in Otavalo, Ecuador

As a student of Fairhaven College, I have the unique opportunity to formulate my own major that caters to my specific interests and needs. **Latin American Social Issues: Population and Health” is the interdisciplinary concentration that 1 have created. This focus consists of a few different components that are intended to give me a well-rounded view of contemporary Latin America and the best approaches to servicing the health problems of the region. Classes relating to the rich past of the region, such as Mexican History and Latin American History, have played an important role in developing this perspective. Knowledge of the past and the reasons behind the creation of current conditions in Latin America is imperative in devising new approaches towards complex health problems. Similarly, I have found that studies relating to the social issues of Latin America are also an invaluable aspect of this major. I have undertaken several independent studies to focus in on specific details of development that are not fully covered in conventional classes. Family planning, microcredit programs, and structural adjustment loans are all topics that I have researched through independent studies at Fairhaven College. In addition to the academics at Western Washington, travel and study abroad programs have proven to be other extremely effective methods of researching this concentration. I realized the value of foreign experiences while traveling throughout Central America during the spring of 1996 and studying in Morelia, Mexico during the winter of 1997. Fortunately, 1 had another chance to continue my research while studying in Latin America last year. During the winter and spring quarters of 1998,1 had the opportunity to conduct my studies in Ecuador. The winter quarter was spent in the capital, Quito, attending classes at a small foundation called CIMAS (Centro Investigation de Medio Ambiente y Salud or Center of Environment and Health Investigation). These classes were taught in Spanish and focused primarily on the history of Latin America, particularly Ecuador, as well as the contemporary issues that face the region today. Topics such as environmentalism, economics, and health were thoroughly covered in these seminars

Study of GaN LED ITO nano-gratings with standing wave analysis

This study reveals the effect of nanoscale ITO transmission gratings on light emission from the top, sides, and bottom of a GaN light-emitting diode (LED), based on the substrate standing wave analysis. First, we show that sapphire substrate thickness affects the standing wave pattern in the LED and find the best- and worst-case sapphire thicknesses. Second, we find that adding nanoscale ITO transmission gratings can improve light extraction by 222% or 253%, depending on the reference chosen. Third, we observe that maximizing top light emission with the nano-grating can significantly reduce bottom and side light emissions. Finally, we study grating performance over different wavelengths and generate the LED spectrum

Human Rights and the War on Terror: Complete 2005 - 2007 Topical Research Digest

“9/11 changed everything.” Not really. In fact, there has been far more continuity than change over the past six years in both international and domestic politics. Nonetheless, human rights often have been harmed—although not by terrorism but by “the war on terror.

Marketing as a means to transformative social conflict resolution: lessons from transitioning war economies and the Colombian coffee marketing system

Social conflicts are ubiquitous to the human condition and occur throughout markets, marketing processes, and marketing systems.When unchecked or unmitigated, social conflict can have devastating consequences for consumers, marketers, and societies, especially when conflict escalates to war. In this article, the authors offer a systemic analysis of the Colombian war economy, with its conflicted shadow and coping markets, to show how a growing network of fair-trade coffee actors has played a key role in transitioning the country’s war economy into a peace economy. They particularly draw attention to the sources of conflict in this market and highlight four transition mechanisms — i.e., empowerment, communication, community building and regulation — through which marketers can contribute to peacemaking and thus produce mutually beneficial outcomes for consumers and society. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for marketing theory, practice, and public policy

From proteomic analysis to potential therapeutic targets: functional profile of two lung cancer cell lines, A549 and SW900, widely studied in pre-clinical research

Lung cancer is a serious health problem and the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. The standard use of cell lines as in vitro pre-clinical models to study the molecular mechanisms that drive tumorigenesis and access drug sensitivity/effectiveness is of undisputable importance. Label-free mass spectrometry and bioinformatics were employed to study the proteomic profiles of two representative lung cancer cell lines and to unravel the specific biological processes. Adenocarcinoma A549 cells were enriched in proteins related to cellular respiration, ubiquitination, apoptosis and response to drug/hypoxia/oxidative stress. In turn, squamous carcinoma SW900 cells were enriched in proteins related to translation, apoptosis, response to inorganic/organic substances and cytoskeleton organization. Several proteins with differential expression were related to cancer transformation, tumor resistance, proliferation, migration, invasion and metastasis. Combined analysis of proteome and interactome data highlighted key proteins and suggested that adenocarcinoma might be more prone to PI3K/Akt/mTOR and topoisomerase IIα inhibitors, and squamous carcinoma to Ck2 inhibitors. Moreover, ILF3 overexpression in adenocarcinoma, and PCNA and NEDD8 in squamous carcinoma shows them as promising candidates for therapeutic purposes. This study highlights the functional proteomic differences of two main subtypes of lung cancer models and hints several targeted therapies that might assist in this type of cancer.publishe

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead