Israel, 'Disproportionate' Force and the Media: Misconstruing the Laws of War

It has become common to use the term 'disproportionate' to describe the conduct or impact of Israel's military operations. The media's frequent use of the term betrays at least two types of distortions. First, it confuses criticism of ends (the kinds of military objectives Israel pursues) and criticism of means (the forms of military force chosen by Israel). Second, it suggests systematic failure of moral judgment and moral concern on the part of Israel - namely, wilful indifference to the consequences of its actions on civilians - which are no more in evidence in Israel's military operations than in any other state's military operations. This paper analyses the various forms that this kind of criticism has taken in contemporary media discourse and considers the possible origins of the accusations. It describes the norms that govern the conduct of warfare and the principles that inform the law related to proportionality; these do not provide simple criteria for determining legitimate ends and means, and nor do they yield the conclusion that Israel is a persistent violator of international humanitarian law on the basis of 'disproportionate' practices. It concludes with some reflections on the place of these themes within wider currents of antisemitic practices and tropes

Collective Bargaining in American Higher Education

[Excerpt] No discussion of governance in higher education would be complete without a consideration of the role of collective bargaining. Historically, most researchers interested in the subject have directed their attention to the unionization of faculty members. Given several recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that leave open the possibility that unionization of faculty in private colleges and universities may increase in the future, we discuss collective bargaining for faculty in the first section (Leatherman 2000, A16). Recently, however, attention has been also directed at the unionization of two other groups in the higher education workforce. Activists on a number of campuses have pressed for academic institutions to pay their low-wage employees a living wage, and this has brought attention to the role of staff collective bargaining in academia. In the second section, we present the first empirical estimates of the impact of staff bargaining on staff salaries in higher education. Finally, the number of public universities in which teaching assistants, and in some cases research assistants, have won the right to bargain collectively began to expand rapidly at the turn of the twenty-first century. A NLRB ruling in 2001 that permitted collective bargaining for teaching assistants at New York University (NYU), led the university in the following year to become the first private one to sign a contract with a union representing teaching assistants. Building on this ruling, graduate assistant organizing campaigns are underway at a number of prestigious private universities. In the third section we address why graduate assistants are increasingly interested in organizing and then present evidence on the effects of graduate student unions on a number of economic variables

Complex Interplay of Evolutionary Forces in the ladybird Homeobox Genes of Drosophila melanogaster

Tandemly arranged paralogous genes lbe and lbl are members of the Drosophila NK homeobox family. We analyzed population samples of Drosophila melanogaster from Africa, Europe, North and South America, and single strains of D. sechellia, D. simulans, and D. yakuba within two linked regions encompassing partial sequences of lbe and lbl. The evolution of lbe and lbl is highly constrained due to their important regulatory functions. Despite this, a variety of forces have shaped the patterns of variation in lb genes: recombination, intragenic gene conversion and natural selection strongly influence background variation created by linkage disequilibrium and dimorphic haplotype structure. The two genes exhibited similar levels of nucleotide diversity and positive selection was detected in the noncoding regions of both genes. However, synonymous variability was significantly higher for lbe: no nonsynonymous changes were observed in this gene. We argue that balancing selection impacts some synonymous sites of the lbe gene. Stability of mRNA secondary structure was significantly different between the lbe (but not lbl) haplotype groups and may represent a driving force of balancing selection in epistatically interacting synonymous sites. Balancing selection on synonymous sites may be the first, or one of a few such observations, in Drosophila. In contrast, recurrent positive selection on lbl at the protein level influenced evolution at three codon sites. Transcription factor binding-site profiles were different for lbe and lbl, suggesting that their developmental functions are not redundant. Combined with our previous results on nucleotide variation in esterase and other homeobox genes, these results suggest that interplay of balancing and directional selection may be a general feature of molecular evolution in Drosophila and other eukaryote genomes

Characterization of protein-binding to the spinach chloroplast psbA mRNA 5' untranslated region.

RNA-binding proteins play a major role in regulating mRNA metabolism in chloroplasts. In this work we characterized two proteins, of 43 and 47 kDa, which bind to the spinach psbA mRNA 5' untranslated region (psbA encoding the D1 protein of photosystem II). The 43 kDa protein, which is present in the stroma and in membranes, co-sediments with a complex of 68S. It was purified, and the N-terminal sequence was determined. Upon homology search it was identified as the chloroplast homologue of the Escherichia coli ribosomal protein S1. The 47 kDa protein, which, in contrast with the 43 kDa protein, sediments with a small sedimentation coefficient, is only detected in the stromal fraction. It is soluble in an uncomplexed form. By deletion analysis, an element within the psbA mRNA 5' untranslated region was identified that is necessary but not sufficient for binding of stromal proteins. The 'central protein binding element' ranges from nucleotide -49 to -9 of the psbA mRNA 5' untranslated region. It comprises the Shine-Dalgarno-like GGAG motif and, 7 nucleotides upstream, an endonucleolytic cleavage site involved in psbA mRNA degradation in vitro . The mechanistic impacts of this region in relation to RNA-binding proteins are discussed