Overview and Operation of U.S. Financial Sanctions, Including the Example of Iran

Financial sanctions are increasingly being used in the mix of international economic sanctions being employed by the United Nations, regional entities, and individual countries, including the United States. These financial sanctions have become more focused and effective as the tools and techniques have improved significantly for tracing and identifying the financial transactions of terrorists, weapons proliferators, human rights violators, drug cartels, and others. These sanctions can not only freeze financial assets and prohibit or limit financial transactions, but they also impede trade by making it difficult to pay for the export or import of goods and services. In spite of this growing impact of financial sanctions, these sanctions are not well understood outside of a small group of experts. This article provides an introduction to the mechanics and operation of U.S. financial sanctions, and it illustrates their use against Iran

Abroad

This is the worst idea I\u27ve ever had in my life. Such were my thoughts as I embarked on a 5,000 mile, four month long journey in Rome, Italy. Travelling internationally is valuable to any student wondering if it is worth it. If you want to survive a semester abroad you must learn from both the everyday and the extraordinary. Looking back, I can state with authority that my experiences in Rome actually bettered me as both a designer and a person. The case in point is a workshop completed alongside Roma Tre students

What We Do

Ryan Carter\u27s answer to What we do. A student perspective on the place of iteration in our explanations to family and friends

Exploring the role of metabolism in cancer and cardiac settings

Metabolism supports all aspects of cellular function. As such, dysregulated control of the enzymes and signalling pathways coordinating metabolism is common in diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Despite the critical role of metabolism in these diseases and their global burden, their complexity has limited the development of therapeutics that directly target their metabolism. Therefore, this thesis explored the role of extrinsic and intrinsic metabolic dysfunction and characterised examples of metabolism’s potential role in future therapeutics. This work utilised examples of diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) to illustrate pathology downstream of extrinsic metabolic dysfunction occurring with insulin resistance in type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), which remodels the heart independent of adjacent vascular disease. Given that the pathological processes underlying DCM are poorly characterised, and no therapeutics are currently available, this work explored the utility of 2D monolayer, and 3D engineered heart tissue human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte (hiPSC-CM) models to characterise human-relevant DCM pathology in vitro and explore the trade-offs between model complexity and practicality. A multi-omics approach showed that both models demonstrated the expected shift to fatty acid metabolism and blunting of insulin signalling. The 3D model exhibited a more mature phenotype but showed increased variability. Moreover, phenotypes emerging in animal models of DCM were identified, such as deregulated CD36 trafficking and blunted hypoxia signalling. Examples were given for the intrinsic metabolic dysregulation that supports growth and survival in cancer. Transcriptomics from tumour biopsies was integrated with positron emission tomography (PET) measures for metabolite radiotracer uptake to infer this dysregulation in patients. We examined the utility of dynamic modelling of PET measures using the glucose radiotracer 2-deoxy-2 [18F]-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG). A robust correlation-based pathway approach established that simple dynamic models, which incorporate tracer perfusion and uptake across biological compartments, outperform static measures such as the standardised uptake value (SUV) and complex multi-compartmental models that overfit the data. They associated with the glycolysis term, absent from static findings, identified the most significant pathways, and showed robust detection of inflammatory signals. Dynamic approaches also more robustly established the pathways, such as oxidative phosphorylation, associated with metformin treatment, a metabolic drug under investigation for repurposing in cancer therapy. We used this established methodology to investigate an emerging radiotracer for glutamine uptake, 18F-Fluciclovine, evaluating its ability to characterise glutamine metabolism and its utility in the clinical setting for breast cancer. Immunohistochemistry and metabolomics confirmed that 18F-Fluciclovine was taken up by the glutamine transporter ASCT2 as a proxy for glutamine. 18F-Fluciclovine uptake was associated with pyrimidine metabolism, a biosynthetic pathway incorporating glutamine to supply proliferating cells with nucleotides. Clustering patients by pyrimidine metabolism expression captured the differences in oncogenic signalling, proliferation, and survival, highlighting pyrimidine metabolism’s role in pathology. Our radiogenomics analysis shows potential for metabolic drugs, like metformin, to treat cancer and cardiovascular disease concurrently. However, current cancer therapies like doxorubicin (DOX) lead to cardiotoxicity. Therefore, we used a rodent model of DOX cardiotoxicity to investigate the metabolic drug 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide riboside (AICAR), previously shown to restore cardiac function. Transcriptomics explored a potential mechanism for this protection, confirming that DOX remodels the heart through substrate metabolism deregulation and fibrosis. AICAR, which activates AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), restored glycolytic gene expression and heme metabolism, indicative of reduced mitochondrial ferroptosis. A set of ‘rescue genes’ altered by DOX and restored by AICAR were identified, including evidence for alleviating DOX-induced MYC signalling that may mediate heart remodelling. This thesis used omics-based approaches to highlight metabolism’s role in human health and disease, characterising examples of intrinsic metabolic dysfunction, as seen in cancer, and extrinsic metabolic dysfunction, as in diabetic cardiomyopathy. The research employed in vitro, in vivo, and in situ measures to evaluate metabolic changes and their therapeutic implications, highlighting the potential of radiogenomics and hiPSC-CM models in advancing our understanding and treatment of metabolic diseases and the repurposing of metabolic drugs to target cancer and mitigate the cardiotoxicity that follows current treatment strategies

Measuring High School Counselor Beliefs on the Importance of MTMDSS Universal Supports Since COVID-19

The U.S. onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought immediate and unprecedented disruption to California secondary education. High school students in California have endured varying degrees of uncertainty, hardship, and trauma, with the full extent of impacts on students not yet known. California high school counselors, faced with the dilemma of how to support student needs effectively and equitably during COVID-19, have looked to the state as well as professional organizations for guidance on best support practices. Multi-tiered support frameworks, such as MTSS and MTMDSS have emerged as prominent pandemic response recommendations and are being implemented throughout California. The implementation and use of MTSS/MTMDSS by school counselors presupposes a belief in these systems. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study aimed to explore and measure California high school counselor beliefs about the importance of MTMDSS (Tier 1) Universal Supports since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from 113 California high school counselors through the researcher-developed Universal Supports Importance Scale (USIS) survey instrument and from 6 follow-up semi-structured interviews. Findings suggested that the counselors studied had high levels of belief in the importance of MTMDSS Universal Supports; however, enhancements to the USIS are recommended to capture a more complete range of school counselor beliefs in future research. This study also sought to validate the USIS instrument, which displayed strong evidence for overall quality of items design and showed promise for future use

CROWDFUNDING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE BUSINESS MODELS OF INDUSTRY STAKEHOLDERS

Challenges currently facing the music industry have led many key players to reevaluate their business models in order to survive the changing environment. Crowdfunding has become a popular way among musicians and artists to finance creative projects and/or careers. Crowdfunding works by collecting investments from a pool of people in order to raise funds for a venture, idea, or project. In recent years, crowdfunding has gained significant traction in the music industry, especially among independent artists. The introduction of crowdfunding into the mix of business models has not only impacted artists but record labels and live sector companies as well. As it grows, more industry stakeholders will be impacted by its presence. It is argued in this paper that artist management companies stand to benefit from incorporating crowdfunding into their business models and proposes how they might partner with existing platforms in order to incorporate crowdfunding

Analysis of β-globin chromatin micro-environment using a novel 3C variant, 4Cv

Copyright: © 2010 Pink et al.Higher order chromatin folding is critical to a number of developmental processes, including the regulation of gene expression. Recently developed biochemical techniques such as RNA TRAP and chromosome conformation capture (3C) have provided us with the tools to probe chromosomal structures. These techniques have been applied to the β-globin locus, revealing a complex pattern of interactions with regions along the chromosome that the gene resides on. However, biochemical and microscopy data on the nature of β-globin interactions with other chromosomes is contradictory. Therefore we developed a novel 4C variant, Complete-genome 3C by vectorette amplification (4Cv), which allows an unbiased and quantitative method to examine chromosomal structure. We have used 4Cv to study the microenvironment of the β-globin locus in mice and show that a significant proportion of the interactions of β-globin are inter-chromosomal. Furthermore, our data show that in the liver, where the gene is active, β-globin is more likely to interact with other chromosomes, compared to the brain where the gene is silent and is more likely to interact with other regions along the same chromosome. Our data suggest that transcriptional activation of the β-globin locus leads to a change in nuclear position relative to the chromosome territory.Ryan Pink is supported by a grant from Action Medical Research; Daniel Caley is supported by a grant from The Dunhill Medical Trust; David Carter is supported by a grant from the British Society for Haematology

Environmental Site Assessment and Hydrogeologic Impacts to Groundwater at St. Ignatius, Montana and Hanford, Washington

The following Environmental Studies Master’s Portfolio is a compilation of works completed individually and with peers in order to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree. These works demonstrate range, depth, and the interdisciplinary nature of the course of study. As an undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University, I studied Environmental Science with a concentration in hydrogeology. I was interested in learning about the natural world and wanted to develop a deeper connection to it. Inevitably, I was exposed to courses that examined the causes and effects of hazardous waste site remediation, and this topic became my passion. The Environmental Studies program has provided an opportunity to shift my focus from deepening my understanding of the questions about how and why hazardous waste is regulated and disposed of, to advancing my knowledge of what should come next. I have focused my efforts on environmental remediation and how people can respond to environmental issues such as hazardous waste disposal

Size and Scope of Juab County Agriculture 2019

Juab County is located in the western central part of Utah. It shares its western border with Nevada. Other surrounding Utah counties include Tooele, Utah, Sanpete, and Millard. Its primary economic base comes from agriculture, manufacturing, mining, recreation, and electrical power. As of 2017, the population was estimated at 11,250. This fact sheet provides information on land use and ownership, growing season, crop and livestock production, and age and income of farm operators in Juab County