Effects of Amendments to H-2A Rules on Use of H-2A Program in Tobacco Growing States

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Exits Among U.S. Burley Tobacco Growers After the End of the Federal Tobacco Program

This study explores the relationship between family/farm characteristics and the probability of exiting burley tobacco farming in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. Following the termination of the federal tobacco program in 2004, 54% of burley tobacco–growing households in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia exited burley tobacco farming by 2006. Tobacco yield, tobacco farm cash receipts, tobacco price, off-farm employment, and farm size are the most dominant variables discriminating between exiting and surviving tobacco farms. Data for this study came from a mail survey of burley tobacco producers in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina in May 2006.burley tobacco, exit, federal tobacco program, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Financial Economics, Land Economics/Use, Risk and Uncertainty, C25, Q12, Q18,

A Simple Tool For Quality Assessment In Education

A quality assessment tool is presented to detect the presence of out-of-control conditions in a school course system. The tool detects whether or not a set of courses offered by a certain discipline constitutes a stable (or in-control) system of courses. A system of courses is said to be stable if the variation in students' performance from course to course is only due to common causes. Students' performance in a course may be measured by their term grades in that course or any other method of evaluation. The proposed quality tool has the advantage of being applicable to numerical grades as well as to ordinal letter grades such as A, B, C, etc. A further advantage is that the proposed tool can be implemented graphically as a quality control chart. A pilot case study of the proposed tool was initiated in Fall 1995 to monitor a system of six of basic 200-level courses in the Department of Business Administration at Alabama State University. The results of this pilot study show that the system was out-of-control for the period Fall 1995 to Fall 1999 and then became in-control in Fall 2001

The extent and effectiveness of protected areas in the UK

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to which 196 countries including the UK are contracting parties, set out 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets to be met by 2020. Elements of Aichi Target 11 call for at least 17% of terrestrial land and inland water to be protected and effectively managed by 2020. Each national government is requested to report progress against this goal in national reports submitted at intervals to the CBD, and these are used as the basis of reporting towards the 17% target. Figures reported for the UK’s protected area coverage are inclusive of a wide range of levels of designation, management and condition. Here, we examine the protection given to sites under UK legislation and designations as a case study. We find that although 28% of UK land is reported by the UK government to be protected, only 11.4% of land area falls within protected areas designated primarily for nature conservation. Condition monitoring indicates that at most 43–51% of protected areas in the UK are currently in favourable condition, which suggests as little as 4.9% of UK land area may be effectively protected for nature. However, estimates of protected area coverage vary greatly depending on the types of protected areas considered ‘effectively protected’ as measured by management category and site condition. Taking the UK as an example of a country that has reportedly met the target, we suggest that global progress may have been overestimated, and that future targets and indicators need to focus on the quality as well as quantity of protected areas

Viral genome packaging terminase cleaves DNA using the canonical RuvC-like two-metal catalysis mechanism

Bacteriophages and large dsDNA viruses encode sophisticated machinery to translocate their DNA into a preformed empty capsid. An essential part of this machine, the large terminase protein, processes viral DNA into constituent units utilizing its nuclease activity. Crystal structures of the large terminase nuclease from the thermophilic bacteriophage G20c show that it is most similar to the RuvC family of the RNase H-like endonucleases. Like RuvC proteins, the nuclease requires either Mn2+, Mg2+ or Co2+ ions for activity, but is inactive with Zn2+ and Ca2+. High resolution crystal structures of complexes with different metals reveal that in the absence of DNA, only one catalytic metal ion is accommodated in the active site. Binding of the second metal ion may be facilitated by conformational variability, which enables the two catalytic aspartic acids to be brought closer to each other. Structural comparison indicates that in common with the RuvC family, the location of the two catalytic metals differs from other members of the RNase H family. In contrast to a recently proposed mechanism, the available data do not support binding of the two metals at an ultra-short interatomic distance. Thus we postulate that viral terminases cleave DNA by the canonical RuvC-like mechanism

1952: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

Delivered in the Auditorium of Abilene Christian College, February, 1952 ABILENE, TEXAS PRICE, $3.00 firm foundation publishing house Box 77 Austin Cl, Texa

Exercise-induced reversal of age-related declines of oxidative reactions, mitochondrial yield, and flavins in skeletal muscle of the rat

The ability of gastrocnemius muscle homogenates to catalyze the oxidation of succinate, glutamate + malate, pyruvate + malate, palmitoyl-coenzyme A, decanoylcarnitine and palmitoylcarnitine in the presence of ADP decreased by approximately 32% in sedentary male Sprague-Dawley rats between the ages of 9 and 25 months. Following 21 weeks of treadmill training (running), such homogenates from 25-month-old animals catalyzed oxidations 55% more rapidly than those from 25-month-old sedentary rats, and 17% faster than those from 9-month-old sedentary rats. Total and peptide-bound flavin of gastrocnemius muscles also declined between 9 and 25 months of age and were elevated in the 25-month-old endurance trained rats to levels greater than both 9- and 25-month-old sedentary animals. The yield of protein in the mitochondrial fraction from the quadriceps femoris muscle decreased between 9 and 25 months and was restored to the 9-month level by endurance training. The kinetic characteristics of the isolated mitochondria were not influenced by age or exercise. These data indicate that 2-year-old rats retain the capacity to increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and mitochondrial population density in response to endurance training.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24891/1/0000318.pd

Interleukin-17D and Nrf2 mediate initial innate immune cell recruitment and restrict MCMV infection.

Innate immune cells quickly infiltrate the site of pathogen entry and not only stave off infection but also initiate antigen presentation and promote adaptive immunity. The recruitment of innate leukocytes has been well studied in the context of extracellular bacterial and fungal infection but less during viral infections. We have recently shown that the understudied cytokine Interleukin (IL)-17D can mediate neutrophil, natural killer (NK) cell and monocyte infiltration in sterile inflammation and cancer. Herein, we show that early immune cell accumulation at the peritoneal site of infection by mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) is mediated by IL-17D. Mice deficient in IL-17D or the transcription factor Nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2), an inducer of IL-17D, featured an early decreased number of innate immune cells at the point of viral entry and were more susceptible to MCMV infection. Interestingly, we were able to artificially induce innate leukocyte infiltration by applying the Nrf2 activator tert-butylhydroquinone (tBHQ), which rendered mice less susceptible to MCMV infection. Our results implicate the Nrf2/IL-17D axis as a sensor of viral infection and suggest therapeutic benefit in boosting this pathway to promote innate antiviral responses

The role of clathrin in post-golgi trafficking in toxoplasma gondii

Apicomplexan parasites are single eukaryotic cells with a highly polarised secretory system that contains unique secretory organelles (micronemes and rhoptries) that are required for host cell invasion. In contrast, the role of the endosomal system is poorly understood in these parasites. With many typical endocytic factors missing, we speculated that endocytosis depends exclusively on a clathrin-mediated mechanism. Intriguingly, in Toxoplasma gondii we were only able to observe the endogenous clathrin heavy chain 1 (CHC1) at the Golgi, but not at the parasite surface. For the functional characterisation of Toxoplasma gondii CHC1 we generated parasite mutants conditionally expressing the dominant negative clathrin Hub fragment and demonstrate that CHC1 is essential for vesicle formation at the trans-Golgi network. Consequently, the functional ablation of CHC1 results in Golgi aberrations, a block in the biogenesis of the unique secretory microneme and rhoptry organelles, and of the pellicle. However, we found no morphological evidence for clathrin mediating endocytosis in these parasites and speculate that they remodelled their vesicular trafficking system to adapt to an intracellular lifestyle