Virginia Abolishes Locality Rule in Medical Malpractice

The Virginia General Assembly, in recognition of a modem medical society, has abolished the presumption which favors the application of a same or similar locale standard to determine the requisite care of a health care provider. The same or similar standard has been used consistently since 1918 in malpractice litigation and, more recently, in proceedings before the medical malpractice review panels in Virginia. This standard was first adopted by statute in 1977, and though it appeared to intend a broader standard than the local standard, it was in fact interpreted as a clear statutory adoption of the Virginia case law rule. The new statute, repealing the 1977 statute, adopts the statewide standard of care as the presumption which now can only be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence that, in consideration of local customs and practice, another standard would be more appropriate

Habitat associations of the Coastal Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon Tenebrosus) at its northern range limit

Knowledge of species-environment associations is critical for the management of threatened amphibian populations facing habitat fragmentation and a restricted range. The Coastal Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon tenebrosus) is subject to habitat degradation from logging and human development and is classified as Threatened at its northern range limit in British Columbia, Canada. We examined habitat associations for D. tenebrosus in relation to relative abundance and presence/absence for 32 streams sampled across the approximately 100 km range of the species in British Columbia. Of 12 environmental variables we measured at 100-m stream reaches and the adjacent riparian zone, D. tenebrosus relative abundance was positively associated with stream elevation, forest age, and the percentage of boulders within streams. A higher stream gradient was the best predictor of D. tenebrosus presence within a stream reach, with present sites having a 91% higher gradient than absent sites. When excluding sites with low relative abundance, D. tenebrosus presence was also predicted by greater forest age surrounding streams and higher site elevation. Our study highlights that conservation planning for stream-associated amphibians with patchy distributions may be improved by an understanding of species-specific habitat associations at the stream-reach scale

Barriers to Participation in Extension Expanded Foods and Nutrition Programs

Barriers to participation in Extension programs often influence the means of program delivery and approaches to developing educational programs. A study of Expanded Foods and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) clientele in one of North Carolina\u27s poorer rural counties accentuates the difficulties faced by these limited resource clientele in their participation in the EFNEP program, as well as challenges to Extension to recognize and overcome such barriers. The research found that essentially all of this limited resource audience expressed some level of barriers. These included logistical, social, situational, and emotional barriers

The Reaction Process A+A->O in Sinai Disorder

The single-species reaction-diffusion process $A+A\to O$ is examined in the presence of an uncorrelated, quenched random velocity field. Utilising a field-theoretic approach, we find that in two dimensions and below the density decay is altered from the case of purely diffusing reactants. In two-dimensions the density amplitude is reduced in the presence of weak disorder, yielding the interesting result that Sinai disorder can cause reactions to occur at an {\it increased} rate. This is in contrast to the case of long-range correlated disorder, where it was shown that the reaction becomes sub-diffusion limited. However, when written in terms of the microscopic diffusion constant it is seen that increasing the disorder has the effect of reducing the rate of the reaction. Below two dimensions, the effect of Sinai disorder is much more severe and the reaction is shown to become sub-diffusion limited. Although there is no universal amplitude for the time-dependence of the density, it is universal when expressed in terms of the disorder-averaged diffusion length. The appropriate amplitude is calculated to one-loop order.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

PRESSURE PULSES AT

Voyager 1 (V1) crossed the heliopause into the local interstellar medium (LISM) in 2012. The LISM is a dynamic region periodically disturbed by solar transients with outward-propagating shocks, cosmic-ray intensity changes and anisotropies, and plasma wave oscillations. Voyager 2 (V2) trails V1 and thus may observe the solar transients that are later observed at V1. V2 crossed the termination shock in 2007 and is now in the heliosheath. Starting in 2012, when solar maximum conditions reached V2, five possible merged interaction regions (MIRs) have been observed by V2 in the heliosheath. The timing is consistent with these MIRs driving the transients observed by V1 in the LISM. The largest heliosheath MIR was observed by V2 in late 2015 and should reach V1 in 2018.Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.) (contract 959203

Gene transfer: anything goes in plant mitochondria

Parasitic plants and their hosts have proven remarkably adept at exchanging fragments of mitochondrial DNA. Two recent studies provide important mechanistic insights into the pattern, process and consequences of horizontal gene transfer, demonstrating that genes can be transferred in large chunks and that gene conversion between foreign and native genes leads to intragenic mosaicism. A model involving duplicative horizontal gene transfer and differential gene conversion is proposed as a hitherto unrecognized source of genetic diversity

The role of the RACK1 ortholog Cpc2p in modulating pheromone-induced cell cycle arrest in fission yeast

The detection and amplification of extracellular signals requires the involvement of multiple protein components. In mammalian cells the receptor of activated C kinase (RACK1) is an important scaffolding protein for signal transduction networks. Further, it also performs a critical function in regulating the cell cycle by modulating the G1/S transition. Many eukaryotic cells express RACK1 orthologs, with one example being Cpc2p in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. In contrast to RACK1, Cpc2p has been described to positively regulate, at the ribosomal level, cells entry into M phase. In addition, Cpc2p controls the stress response pathways through an interaction with Msa2p, and sexual development by modulating Ran1p/Pat1p. Here we describe investigations into the role, which Cpc2p performs in controlling the G protein-mediated mating response pathway. Despite structural similarity to Gβ-like subunits, Cpc2p appears not to function at the G protein level. However, upon pheromone stimulation, cells overexpressing Cpc2p display substantial cell morphology defects, disorientation of septum formation and a significantly protracted G1 arrest. Cpc2p has the potential to function at multiple positions within the pheromone response pathway. We provide a mechanistic interpretation of this novel data by linking Cpc2p function, during the mating response, with its previous described interactions with Ran1p/Pat1p. We suggest that overexpressing Cpc2p prolongs the stimulated state of pheromone-induced cells by increasing ste11 gene expression. These data indicate that Cpc2p regulates the pheromone-induced cell cycle arrest in fission yeast by delaying cells entry into S phase