Legislative Exclusions or Exemptions of Property from the Insolvent Estate

The general policy in South African insolvency law is that assets must be recovered and included in the insolvent estate, and that this action must be to the advantage of the creditors of the insolvent estate. But there are several exceptions to this rule and an asset that is the subject of such an exception may be excluded from the insolvent estate. The Insolvency Act, however, does not expressly distinguish between excluded and exempt assets, thereby resulting in problem areas in the field of exemption law in insolvency in South Africa. It may be argued that the fundamental difference between excluded and exempt assets is that excluded assets should never form part of an insolvent estate and should be beyond the reach of the creditors of the insolvent estate, while exempt assets initially form part of the insolvent estate, but in certain circumstances may be exempted from the estate for the benefit of the insolvent debtor, thereby allowing the debtor to use such excluded or exempt assets to start afresh before or after rehabilitation. Modern society, socio-political developments and human rights requirements have necessitated a broadening of the classes of assets that should be excluded or exempted from insolvent estates. This article considers assets excluded from the insolvent estates of individual debtors by legislation other than the Insolvency Act. It must, however, be understood that these legislative provisions relate to insolvent estates and thus generally overlap in one way or another with some provisions of the Insolvency Act.   

Competitive titration in living sea urchin embryos of regulatory factors required for expression of the CyIIIa actin gene

Previous studies have located some twenty distinct sites within the 2.3 kb 5' regulatory domain of the sea urchin CyIIIa cytoskeletal actin gene, where there occur in vitro high-specificity interactions with nuclear DNA-binding proteins of the embryo. This gene is activated in late cleavage, exclusively in cells of the aboral ectoderm cell lineages. In this study, we investigate the functional importance in vivo of these sites of DNA-protein interaction. Sea urchin eggs were coinjected with a fusion gene construct in which the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene is under the control of the entire CyIIIa regulatory domain, together with molar excesses of one of ten nonoverlapping competitor subfragments of this domain, each of which contains one or a few specific site(s) of interaction. The exogenous excess binding sites competitively titrate the available regulatory factors away from the respective sites associated with the CyIIIa.CAT reporter gene. This provides a method for detecting in vivo sites within the regulatory domain that are required for normal levels of expression, without disturbing the structure of the regulatory domain. We thus identify five nonoverlapping regions of the regulatory DNA that apparently function as binding sites for positively acting transcriptional regulatory factors. Competition with a subfragment bearing an octamer site results in embryonic lethality. We find that three other sites display no quantitative competitive interference with CyIIIa.CAT expression, though as shown in the accompanying paper, two of these sites are required for control of spatial expression. We conclude that the complex CyIIIa regulatory domain must assess the state of many distinct and individually necessary interactions in order to properly regulate CyIIIa transcriptional activity in development

Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptors and Systemic Hemodynamic and Renal Responses to Stress and Altered Blood Volume in Conscious Rabbits

We examined how systemic blockade of type 1 angiotensin (AT1-) receptors affects reflex control of the circulation and the kidney. In conscious rabbits, the effects of candesartan on responses of systemic and renal hemodynamics and renal excretory function to acute hypoxia, mild hemorrhage, and plasma volume expansion were tested. Candesartan reduced resting mean arterial pressure (MAP, −8 ± 2%) without significantly altering cardiac output (CO), increased renal blood flow (RBF, +38 ± 9%) and reduced renal vascular resistance (RVR, −32 ± 6%). Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was not significantly altered but sodium excretion (UNa+V) increased fourfold. After vehicle treatment, hypoxia (10% inspired O2 for 30 min) did not significantly alter MAP or CO, but reduced heart rate (HR, −17 ± 6%), increased RVR (+33 ± 16%) and reduced GFR (−46 ± 16%) and UNa+V (−41 ± 17%). Candesartan did not significantly alter these responses. After vehicle treatment, plasma volume expansion increased CO (+35 ± 7%), reduced total peripheral resistance (TPR, −26 ± 5%), increased RBF (+62 ± 23%) and reduced RVR (−32 ± 9%), but did not significantly alter MAP or HR. It also increased UNa+V (803 ± 184%) yet reduced GFR (−47 ± 9%). Candesartan did not significantly alter these responses. After vehicle treatment, mild hemorrhage did not significantly alter MAP but increased HR (+16 ± 3%), reduced CO (−16 ± 4%) and RBF (−18 ± 6%), increased TPR (+18 ± 4%) and tended to increase RVR (+18 ± 9%, P = 0.1), but had little effect on GFR or UNa+V. But after candesartan treatment MAP fell during hemorrhage (−19 ± 1%), while neither TPR nor RVR increased, and GFR (−64 ± 18%) and UNa+V (−83 ± 10%) fell. AT1-receptor activation supports MAP and GFR during hypovolemia. But AT1-receptors appear to play little role in the renal vasoconstriction, hypofiltration, and antinatriuresis accompanying hypoxia, or the systemic and renal vasodilatation and natriuresis accompanying plasma volume expansion

SBV regularity for Hamilton-Jacobi equations in Rn\mathbb R^n

In this paper we study the regularity of viscosity solutions to the following Hamilton-Jacobi equations $$\partial_t u + H(D_{x} u)=0 \qquad \textrm{in} \Omega\subset \mathbb R\times \mathbb R^{n} .$$ In particular, under the assumption that the Hamiltonian $H\in C^2(\mathbb R^n)$ is uniformly convex, we prove that $D_{x}u$ and $\partial_t u$ belong to the class $SBV_{loc}(\Omega)$.Comment: 15 page

Filosofia come stile di vita. Conversazione con Luigi Vero Tarca

OBJECTIVE: To examine factors associated with chronic energy deficiency (CED) and anaemia in disadvantaged Indian adults who are mostly involved in subsistence farming. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study in which we collected information on socio-demographic factors, physical activity, anthropometry, blood haemoglobin concentration, and daily household food intake. These data were used to calculate body mass index (BMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), daily energy expenditure, and energy and nutrient intake. Multivariable backward stepwise logistic regression was used to assess socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with CED (defined as BMI<18 kg/m²) and anaemia. SETTING: The study was conducted in 12 villages, in the Rishi Valley, Andhra Pradesh, India. SUBJECTS: Individuals aged 18 years and above, residing in the 12 villages, were eligible to participate. RESULTS: Data were available for 1178 individuals (45% male, median age 36 years (inter quartile range (IQR 27-50)). The prevalence of CED (38%) and anaemia (25%) was high. Farming was associated with CED in women (2.20, 95% CI: 1.39-3.49) and men (1.71, 95% CI: (1.06-2.74). Low income was also significantly associated with CED, while not completing high school was positively associated with anaemia. Median iron intake was high: 35.7 mg/day (IQR 26-46) in women and 43.4 mg/day (IQR 34-55) in men. CONCLUSIONS: Farming is an important risk factor associated with CED in this rural Indian population and low dietary iron is not the main cause of anaemia. Better farming practice may help to reduce CED in this population

Ectopic expression of Thy-1 in the kidneys of transgenic mice induces functional and proliferative abnormalities.

Hybrid human--mouse Thy-1.1 genes were injected into pronuclei of Thy-1.2 mice to produce transgenic animals. A hybrid gene composed of the 5' part of the mouse Thy-1.1 gene combined with the 3' human untranslated regions was expressed abnormally in the kidney podocytes, which resulted in severe protein-uria and subsequent death in several founder mice. A hybrid Thy-1 gene composed of the human coding region with the 5' and 3' flanking regions of the mouse gene was expressed abnormally in a different part of the kidney (the tubular epithelia), which resulted in a proliferative kidney disorder. In addition, a neoplasm was found in the brain of one of these mice. These results show that the Thy-1 protein can play an important role in the activation, proliferation, and differentiation of many different cell types

A large-scale inheritance-based morphological lexicon for Russian

In this paper we describe the mapping of Zaliznjak’s (1977) morphological classes into the lexical representation language DATR (Evans and Gazdar 1996). On the basis of the resulting DATR theory a set of fully inflected forms together with their as-sociated morphosyntax can automatically be generated from the electronic version of Zaliznjak’s dictionary (Ilola and Mustajoki 1989). From this data we plan to develop a wide-coverage morphosyntactic lemma-tizer and tagger for Russian

Investigating the medium range order in amorphous Ta₂O₅ coatings

Ion-beam sputtered amorphous heavy metal oxides, such as Ta2O5, are widely used as the high refractive index layer of highly reflective dielectric coatings. Such coatings are used in the ground based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), in which mechanical loss, directly related to Brownian thermal noise, from the coatings forms an important limit to the sensitivity of the LIGO detector. It has previously been shown that heat-treatment and TiO2 doping of amorphous Ta2O5 coatings causes significant changes to the levels of mechanical loss measured and is thought to result from changes in the atomic structure. This work aims to find ways to reduce the levels of mechanical loss in the coatings by understanding the atomic structure properties that are responsible for it, and thus helping to increase the LIGO detector sensitivity. Using a combination of Reduced Density Functions (RDFs) from electron diffraction and Fluctuation Electron Microscopy (FEM), we probe the medium range order (in the 2-3 nm range) of these amorphous coatings

The hepatic response following infection with Listeria monocytogenes

In the present study, we investigated the liver specific response upon infection with L. monocytogenes, a model pathogen for Gram-positive infections over a period of 5days. We used whole genome microarray chips to determine the temporal transcriptome at five observation points. Relative mRNA levels were validated for a representative subset of genes by quantitative Real-Time PCR. In the analysis of these data we followed a strict methodology. The quality of microarray data was ensured by several measures, including quality control tools developed and optimized at our institution. The biological effects of differentially expressed genes were investigated and interpretation of these results was followed by confirmatory experiments. In conclusion, this work allows a unique insight into regulatory networks of several biological processes and interconnections following an infection with L. monocytogenes. Based on our results and by integration of known literature, LXR-&#945; and related transcription factors are proposed to be fundamental for the regulation of hepatic and subsequently systemic response to pathogens.In der vorliegenden Studie untersuchten wir die Leber-spezifische Antwort nach Infektion mit L. monocytogenes, ein Gram-positives Modell-Bakterium über einen Zeitraum von 5 Tagen hinweg. Dabei machten wir Gebrauch von whole genome microarrays, mit dessen Hilfe das transiente Transkriptom zu fünf verschiedenen Zeitpunkten bestimmt wurde. Relative mRNA-Veränderungen wurden anhand einer repräsentativen Auswahl von Genen mittels quantitativer Echtzeit-PCR validiert. Die Analyse gewonnener Daten folgte einer strikten Methodologie. Die Qualität der microarray Daten wurde durch bioinformatische Programme, die an unserem Institut enwickelt und optimiert wurden, gesichert. Basierend auf dem Expressionsmuster differenziell regulierter Gene wurden biologische Rückschlüsse gezogen, die in subsequenten Experimenten untersucht und validiert wurden. Zusammenfassend bietet diese Arbeit einen einzigartigen Einblick in regulatorische Netzwerke verschiedenster biologischer Funktionen und Interaktionen nach Infektion mit L. monocytogenes. Basierend auf diesen Resultaten und eingebettet in bekannte Literatur, stellt sich eine herausragende Rolle für LXR und verwandte Transkriptionsfaktoren bei der hepatischen und subsequent auch systemischen Immunantwort dar