Indian Treaty Fishing Rights and Habitat Protection: The Martinez Decision Supplies a Resounding Judicial Reaffirmation

In the mid-nineteenth century, as the pace of American westward expansion accelerated and tension between white settlers and indigenous tribes mounted, the federal government convinced many Pacific Northwest tribes to enter into treaties that would facilitate white settlement. In exchange for cession of millions of acres of their homeland, the tribes retained the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with white settlers. In the 1905 case United States v. Winans, the United States Supreme Court explained that the treaty fishing right constitutes a servitude upon every piece of land. We have described this servitude as a piscary profit, a familiar property right at common law that must be exercised free from unreasonable interference. While the universally shared assumption at the time the treaties were signed was that the salmon resource was inexhaustible, in fact the salmon have been in precipitous decline since the late-1800s. This scarcity bred conflicts, which have forced the tribes to enforce their treaty fishing right in the courts for over a century. This article explores the history and contours of the treaty fishing right from 1905 to present, tracing the evolution of the federal courts\u27 understanding that implied within the fishing right is a right of access, a right to a fair share of the salmon harvest, and a right of habitat protection. In particular, the article examines the 2007 Culverts Case, in which Judge Ricardo S. Martinez resoundingly affirmed that the treaty fishing right prohibits habitat-damaging activities that preclude tribes from earning a moderate living through fishing-in this case, the state of Washington\u27s construction and maintenance of fish passage-blocking culverts. The article concludes that not only is Judge Martinez\u27s decision the logical progeny of over a century\u27s worth of precedent, the result is consistent with common law principles of profits. In the end, the Martinez Decision represents the most important treaty fishing rights decision in decades, with the potential to rectify a fundamental unfairness in treaty fishing rights law, which previously provided access to fisheries, allocated harvest shares, and yet allowed destruction of the salmon resource, the central consideration of one of the largest real estate transactions in history

A Case Study Of Muscle Activity In Giant Slalom Skiing

Speed of movement respresents the ability essential for successful performance of a sportsman in many branches of sport. This is especially important in ski-jumping where the skier must develop optimum vertical velocity corresponding to the correct ski-jumping technique in extremely complex and demanding inertial environment. The objective of this investigation was to establish the size of the attained vertical velocity measured both in the field and laboratory conditions; its stability and relation to the jump length. The results of the investigation will be, above all, useful to experts in developing the take-off techniqueElectromyography (EMG) and video data from a single female US. Ski Team member were acquired during giant slalom (GS) skiing at Beaver Creek, Colorado. The purpose of the testing was to examine muscle activity relative to the skiing motion. Muscles on the right side of the body, consisting of the lower leg (anterior tibialis (AT) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG», thigh (vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL), rectus femoris (RF), semitendinosus (ST), gracilis (Gr), and gluteus maximus (GM», and trunk (rectus abdominis . (RA), external oblique (EO), and erector spinae (ES» were monitored. Maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) were performed pre- and post-skiing to provide a relative reference for the amplitude of muscle activity (%MVC). EMG during skiing was monitored via a four channel telemetry unit. The eleven muscles were partitioned into three sets. Three skiing trials of a seven gate GS course were completed for each set. Peak amplitude (uv) and time measures (ms) were digitized and averaged across trials for each gate. In six of the eleven muscles, the peak activity occurred when the right leg was the outside leg in a turn (turns 1, 3, 5, 7). The exception to this pattern was for the ES muscles of the lower back. %MVC ranged from 27% (EO at gate 4) to 206% (Gr at gate 5). The coeffcients of variation (CV) ranged from 2.3 (VM at gate 4) to 130% (EO at gate 4), indicating a large amount of variation in arnplitude for several muscle groups. The mean duration of muscle activity across all three muscle sets was consistent, ranging from 1.08 to 1.56 s. Roughly two-thirds of the CV's were less than 14%, indicating that the timing was more consistent than the peak EMG. This case study of EMG activity in GS skiing revealed substantial muscle activity at large percentages of MVC with considerable variation. A large amount of cocontraction between opposing muscles and relatively long duration of muscle activity suggest a quasi static nature of muscle activity during a GS turn. These findings have implications for dryland training of GS skiers. of ski jumpers, and in building a model of performance in ski jumping

17β‐estradiol ameliorates age‐associated loss of fibroblast function by attenuating IFN‐γ/STAT1‐dependent miR‐7 upregulation

Age-related defects in fibroblast differentiation and functionality were previously shown to be associated with impaired hyaluronan (HA) synthase 2 (HAS2) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) function, as a result of upregulated microRNA-7 (miR-7) expression. In aging fibroblasts, inhibiting miR-7 prevented the dysregulation of the HA-mediated CD44/EGFR signaling pathway. Here, we investigated transcriptional upregulation of miR-7 and implicated the age-associated over-activation of JAK/STAT1 as a primary candidate. STAT1 binding sites were identified on the putative miR-7 promoter and stimulation of fibroblasts with the inflammatory cytokine, interferon-{gamma} (IFN-{gamma}), significantly increased miR-7 transcriptional activity and resulted in upregulated miR-7 and loss of EGFR. Additionally, we demonstrated arole for the anti-inflammatory steroid, 17b-estradiol (E2), in the attenuation of miR-7 expression. E2 stimulation promoted estrogen receptor (ER) interactions with the miR-7 putative promoter and suppressed miR-7 expression. E2 also attenuated STAT1expression and activity. Furthermore, treatments with E2 restored fibroblast functionality, including proliferation, migration and differentiation, key events in effective wound healing. In light of our findings, we propose that the regulation of miR-7 by pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators plays a wider role than previously thought. The modulation of fibroblast functions and ultimately wound healing by miR-7 activators or inhibitors could provide realistic targets for the restoration of chronic wound healing capabilities in the elderly

Nuclear hyaluronidase 2 drives alternative splicing of CD44 pre-mRNA to determine profibrotic or antifibrotic cell phenotype

The cell surface protein CD44 is involved in diverse physiological processes, and its aberrant function is linked to various pathologies such as cancer, immune dysregulation, and fibrosis. The diversity of CD44 biological activity is partly conferred by the generation of distinct CD44 isoforms through alternative splicing. We identified an unexpected function for the ubiquitous hyaluronan-degrading enzyme, hyaluronidase 2 (HYAL2), as a regulator of CD44 splicing. Standard CD44 is associated with fibrotic disease, and its production is promoted through serine-arginine–rich (SR) protein–mediated exon exclusion. HYAL2 nuclear translocation was stimulated by bone morphogenetic protein 7, which inhibits the myofibroblast phenotype. Nuclear HYAL2 displaced SR proteins from the spliceosome, thus enabling HYAL2, spliceosome components (U1 and U2 small nuclear ribonucleoproteins), and CD44 pre-mRNA to form a complex. This prevented double-exon splicing and facilitated the inclusion of CD44 exons 11 and 12, which promoted the accumulation of the antifibrotic CD44 isoform CD44v7/8 at the cell surface. These data demonstrate previously undescribed mechanisms regulating CD44 alternative splicing events that are relevant to the regulation of cellular phenotypes in progressive fibrosis