The Case for National DNA Identification Cards

Foes of the United States have demonstrated their ability to strike at the heart of this country. Fear of renewed attacks and a desire for greater national security have now prompted many to call for improvements in the national personal identification system. In particular, the possibility of a national identification card containing the carrier\u27s DNA information is being seriously considered. However, this raises difficult questions. Would such a card system, and the extraction of individuals\u27 DNA it entails, violate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution? This article will show that such a card system could in fact be found to be constitutional under the law of privacy as it stands today

3D Molecular Structures: Patentable Subject Matter Under 35 U.S.C. §101?

With the advent of protein engineering, the determination of a protein’s 3D structure has taken on a whole new importance. This has prompted some to call for the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] to break with tradition and allow patents on the three-dimensional structural information of proteins. This iBrief will discuss whether such information would constitute patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101, and how much protection patents on this information could actually confer

“Would they not wish the feast might ever last?”: Strong Spice, Oral History and the Genesis of Globe to Globe

The 2012 Globe to Globe Festival proved a great success. Actors, directors, musicians, dancers, designers and technicians travelled from all over the world to perform on the Globe stage. Visitors to London’s Cultural Olympiad enjoyed six jam-packed weeks of Shakespeare, presented in an array of international languages. The Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, and his Festival Director, Tom Bird, had achieved what seemed, to many, the impossible. Nonetheless, filmed interviews with Dromgoole and Bird, conducted during the festival by the American documentary-maker Steve Rowland, offer tantalizing insights into the genesis of the festival venture. These candid interviews confirm the sometimes farcical, often exhausting, but invariably serendipitous truth behind the Globe to Globe Festival’s short, intense history. Although the Globe was “flying completely blind,” it still succeeded in hosting a glorious feast of Shakespearean delights, seasoned with the strong spice of multiculturality

Informal mealtime pedagogies: exploring the influence of family structure on young people's healthy eating dispositions

Families are increasingly recognised as informal sites of learning, especially with regard to healthy eating. Through the use of Bourdieu's conceptual tools, this paper explores the role of family meals within different family structures and the informal pedagogic encounters that take place. How they help to construct young people's healthy eating beliefs, values and dispositions, together with what influences their ability to conduct healthy lifestyle practices within different social and material conditions, is also considered. This study draws from semi-structured interviews with students (n =62) from three inner city comprehensive schools in the Midlands, UK, who were invited to interview with a friend from the same family structure. The interview protocol sought to uncover how often young people ate with their family and elicit their subjective views of family meals as a social context (pedagogical field) in which health messages were conveyed. Corresponding interview data were analysed using thematic analysis which revealed two main themes: (1) the importance of family meals as a pedagogic context for the (re)production of health-related beliefs, values and dispositions and (2) the influence of family structure on individual agency. The narratives illustrate the varying role of family meals for young people in different fields and suggest that family (as a primary field) with its particular practices can act as a site of informal pedagogy, but crucially, only for those whose social and material conditions allow. We should therefore not assume that family meals are 'normative' for all families and may serve different functions for different families. Hence, in a period of economic depression and prolonged austerity, encouraging family units of any structure to invest in family meals from an early age will help to enhance young people's healthy dispositions. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Microtubule length distributions in the presence of protein-induced severing

Microtubules are highly regulated dynamic elements of the cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells. One of the regulation mechanisms observed in living cells is the severing by the proteins katanin and spastin. We introduce a model for the dynamics of microtubules in the presence of randomly occurring severing events. Under the biologically motivated assumption that the newly created plus end undergoes a catastrophe, we investigate the steady state length distribution. We show that the presence of severing does not affect the number of microtubules, regardless of the distribution of severing events. In the special case in which the microtubules cannot recover from the depolymerizing state (no rescue events) we derive an analytical expression for the length distribution. In the general case we transform the problem into a single ODE that is solved numerically.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

The leadership of principals and science heads in schools with a Christian philosophy: expectations and realities

Prospective Science Heads and prospective Heads of School all have expectations for the nature of the role that they apply for. This research provides prospective Heads of School and prospective Science Heads in schools based on a Christian philosophy with a pool of information on how the realities in these leadership positions differ from the expectations held by other prospective applicants, the expectations of governance (the employers) and the past expectations of incumbents.The research establishes the views of the key decision makers in a school community based on a Christian world-view regarding: 1. Desired outcomes for students: expectations of the school community. 2. The expected leadership characteristics in the role of Principal. 3. The expected leadership characteristics in the role of Head of Science. 4. The differences in expected leadership characteristics between the roles of Principals and Science Heads. 5. The extent to which the actual leadership role differs from that which was expected for successful applicants for these positions. 6. The extent to which the actual leadership role is understood by staff with aspirations for seeking promotion to that role

Safe, healthy and sustainable demolition

The £198M demolition industry sector is part of the construction industry, worth approximately £2.2bn in the UK p.a albeit such a small fraction it is nevertheless the largest provider of secondary building products, handles 32 million tonnes (approximately) of waste each year and is principally responsible for clearing brownfield sites in readiness for new build. Sustainable demolition activities are at the forefront of the UK Government and many NGO s policies on waste reduction, increased recycling and reclamation of waste building products at the end of life cycle. However, there are problems in developing more sustainable demolition processes based on historical methods of working, in particular, those involving manual handling activities. Whilst the UK construction industry boasts reduced accident and incident rates the demolition sectors rates are in the ascendency, rising by 43% overall from 1996 to 2009. That said, it would appear that those working within the sector are unaware of the rise in accidents which has steadily increased by 100% since 2000. Despite the demolition sector s increased use of mechanical applications for structural demolition, the prolonged and prolific method of stripping out buildings by hand remains a major risk and causal factor for injuries. The results of this research have identified the causation of such an increase in accident occurrence and has offered an insight into how the reduction of accident and incident may be accomplished. This research is unique in that practising exponents of the demolition sector have participated in providing exclusive evidence of methodology, accident reporting and waste handling protocols that give clear indications of a gulf in current thinking by government, NGO s and the enforcing authorities. The research has also identified failings in product and building design that create unsustainable conditions for safe, efficient and cost effective demolition, dismantling and handling of materials at end of life. This realisation also opens up the debate on the role of designers and their contribution to a safe and sustainable demolition process

Chlamydomonas fla Mutants Reveal a Link Between Deflagellation and Intraflagellar Transport

Background: Cilia and flagella are often lost in anticipation of mitosis or in response to stress.There are two ways that a cell can lose its flagella: resorption or deflagellation. Deflagellationinvolves active severing of the axoneme at the base of the flagellum; this process is defective inChlamydomonas fa mutants. In contrast, resorption has been thought to occur as a consequence ofconstitutive disassembly at the tip in the absence of continued assembly, which requiresintraflagellar transport (IFT). Chlamydomonas fla mutants are unable to build and maintain flagelladue to defects in IFT.Results: fla10 cells, which are defective in kinesin-II, the anterograde IFT motor, resorb theirflagella at the restrictive temperature (33°C), as previously reported. We find that in standardmedia containing ~300 microM calcium, fla10 cells lose flagella by deflagellation at 33°C. Thistemperature-induced deflagellation of a fla mutant is not predicted by the IFT-based model forflagellar length control. Other fla mutants behave similarly, losing their flagella by deflagellationinstead of resorption, if adequate calcium is available. These data suggest a new model wherebyflagellar resorption involves active disassembly at the base of the flagellum via a mechanism withcomponents in common with the severing machinery of deflagellation. As predicted by this model,we discovered that deflagellation stimuli induce resorption if deflagellation is blocked either bymutation in a FA gene or by lack of calcium. Further support for this model comes from ourdiscovery that fla10-fa double mutants resorb their flagella more slowly than fla10 mutants.Conclusions: Deflagellation of the fla10 mutant at the restrictive temperature is indicative of anactive disassembly signal, which can manifest as either resorption or deflagellation. We proposethat when IFT is halted by either an inactivating mutation or a cellular signal, active flagellardisassembly is initiated. This active disassembly is distinct from the constitutive disassembly whichplays a role in flagellar length control

The NIMA-family Kinase, Nek1 Affects the Stability of Centrosomes and Ciliogenesis

Background: Mutations in Nek1 (NIMA-Related Kinase 1) are causal in the murine models ofpolycystic kidney disease kat and kat2J. The Neks are known as cell cycle kinases, but recent workin protists has revealed that in addition to roles in the regulation of cell cycle progression, someNeks also regulate cilia. In most cells, cilia are disassembled prior to mitosis and are regeneratedafter cytokinesis. We propose that Neks participate in the coordination of ciliogenesis with cellcycle progression. Mammalian Nek1 is a candidate for this activity because renal cysts form inresponse to dysfunctional ciliary signalling.Results: Here we report that over-expression of full-length mNek1 inhibited ciliogenesis withoutdisrupting centrosomes in the murine renal epithelial cell line IMCD3. In contrast, over-expressionof the kinase domain with its associated basic region, but without the acidic domain, caused loss ofcentrosomes. As expected, these cells also failed to grow cilia. Both defective ciliogenesis inresponse to too much mNek1 and disassembly of centrosomes in response to expression of thekinase lacking the presumptive regulatory domain was abrogated by kinase-inactivating mutationsor by removal of the coiled-coil domain. We observed that kinase-inactive, C-terminal truncationsof mNek1 retaining the coiled-coil domain localized to the cilium, and we define a ciliary targetingregion within the coiled-coil domain.Conclusion: Based on our data, we propose that Nek1 plays a role in centrosome integrity,affecting both ciliogenesis and centrosome stability