India\u27s Gestational Surrogacy Market: An Exploitation of Poor, Uneducated Women

The commodification of women is most often associated with the notorious practices of sex trafficking and prostitution. However, in this article, the author examines this historic and global problem through a different lens: the use of women in India as gestational surrogates. The article explains how wealthy Americans have more access to India\u27s gestational surrogacy market than ever before, and how the advent of new technology- such as in vitro fertilization- has also removed practical barriers. Many poor women in India have little opportunity for education or career advancement, and thus become surrogates as a method of survival. The author illustrates how this transactional exchange disregards the health and autonomy of surrogate women

Mine

Fiction by Ali Schanbache

Field Decomposition and the Ground State Structure of SU(2) Yang-Mills Theory

We compute the effective potential of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory using the background field method and the Faddeev-Niemi decomposition of the gauge fields. In particular, we find that the potential will depend on the values of two scalar fields in the decomposition and that its structure will give rise to a symmetry breaking.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. Typos corrected and title change

Duldung und Zwang beim Umgang mit Naturgefahren und Ressourcen in der Stadt der Frühen Neuzeit

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht anhand von verschiedenen Städten Mitteleuropas (vor allem Braunschweig, Würzburg, Utrecht) den Zusammenhang von Duldung und Zwang von Seiten der Obrigkeit gegenüber der jeweiligen Stadtbevölkerung in einem umweltgeschichtlichen Kontext. Dies geschieht vor dem Hintergrund von Naturkatastrophen und Ressourcenknappheiten, die teilweise auf klimatische Einflüsse der sog. Kleinen Eiszeit (15.–19. Jahrhundert) zurückzuführen sind.</p

Sex, Age, and Breed Related Changes in Bovine Testosterone and Intramuscular Collagen

Castration of the male in meat-producing animals has long been a traditional practice in the production of commercial livestock. Numerous research studies have indicated that intact bovine males grow more rapidly, utilize feed more efficiently, and produce a higher yielding carcass than castrates. Even though young bulls have obvious growth and leanness advantages over steers, their meat is usually lower and more variable in tenderness than steers. These differences in tenderness have been attributed to differences in fatness or differences in connective tissue. Factors influencing the amount and strength of intramuscular collagen have been linked to animal age, sex, and breed. The literature strongly indicates that collagen solubility decreases significantly with animal age and that most of these changes take place from birth to about 2 years of age. Results have illustrated that the age-related changes in tenderness are significantly more pronounced in bulls than in steers and heifers, particularly in muscles high in collagen. These findings suggest that age-related changes in the cross-linking of collagen might be related to the sex of the animals. Several workers reported an increase in collagen content in young bulls at about 12 months of age. Others have suggested that the increase in collagen content at this age, which was accompanied by an increased solubility, was due to an increase in collagen synthesis related to the hormonal changes occurring during puberty in young bulls. The objective of this phase of our research was to investigate the influence of animal age, breed, and sex condition (bull vs steer) on the content and solubility of intramuscular collagen using muscle biopsies in the longissimus muscle

Synthesis of Guanosine Diphosphate Fucose in Human Erythrocytes

Chemistr

Inflammatory responses in epithelia: endotoxin-induced IL-6 secretion and iNOS/NO production are differentially regulated in mouse mammary epithelial cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>IL-6 is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that signals via binding to a soluble or membrane bound receptor, while nitric oxide (NO), an oxidative stress molecule, diffuses through the cell membrane without a receptor. Both mediators signal through different mechanisms, yet they are dependent on NFκB. We proposed that both mediators are co-induced and co-regulated in inflamed mammary epithelial cells.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>SCp2 mammary epithelial cells were treated with bacterial endotoxin (ET) for different time periods and analyzed for induction of IL-6 secretion and NO production by ELISA and Griess reaction, respectively. The expression of <it>IL-6 </it>and <it>induced NO synthase (iNOS) </it>was assayed by real time PCR and/or western immunoblots, and the activation of NFκB was assayed by immunobinding assay. To investigate the role of mammary cell microenvironment (cell-substratum or interaction of mammary epithelial cell types; critical to mammary development, function, and disease) in modulation of the inflammatory response, SCp2 cells were cultured with or without extracellular matrix (EHS) or in coculture with their myoepithelial counterpart (SCg6), and assayed for ET-induced IL-6 and NO.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Endotoxin induced NFκB activation at 1 h after ET application. IL-6 secretion and NO production were induced, but with unexpected delay in expression of mRNA for <it>iNOS </it>compared to <it>IL-6</it>. NFκB/p65 activation was transient but NFκB/p50 activation persisted longer. Selective inhibition of NFκB activation by Wedelolactone reduced ET-induced expression of IL-6 mRNA and protein but not iNOS mRNA or NO production, suggesting differences in IL-6 and iNOS regulation via NFκB. SCp2 cells in coculture with SCg6 but not in presence of EHS dramatically induced IL-6 secretion even in the absence of ET. ET-induced NO production was blunted in SCp2/SCg6 cocultures compared to that in SCp2 alone.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The differential regulation of IL-6 and iNOS together with the differential activation of different NFκB dimers suggest that IL-6 and iNOS are regulated by different NFκB dimers, and differentially regulated by the microenvironment of epithelial cells. The understanding of innate immune responses and inflammation in epithelia and linkage thereof is crucial for understanding the link between chronic inflammation and cancer in epithelial tissues such as the mammary gland.</p