Are Biotech Crops and Conventional Crops Like Products? An Analysis Under GATT

The transatlantic debate over the use of genetically modified organisms ( GMO s) as food products, with the US as a proponent on one side, and the European Union ( EU ) as an opponent on the other, is set to take center stage. The US has initiated formal legal action under the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement System, charging that the EU violates several agreements of international trade law, including Article III of GATT, an anti-protectionist measure which forbids a country from favoring its own products over imported like products. The US claims that GMOs and conventional crops are like products,, and that the EU moratorium on GMOs thus violates Article III. This iBrief assesses the US like products claim, most notably in light of Asbestos, a recent WTO case which provides important guidance for determining likeness under four criteria

Risk management under Omega measure

We prove that the Omega measure, which considers all moments when assessing portfolio performance, is equivalent to the widely used Sharpe ratio under jointly elliptic distributions of returns. Portfolio optimization of the Sharpe ratio is then explored, with an active-set algorithm presented for markets prohibiting short sales. When asymmetric returns are considered we show that the Omega measure and Sharpe ratio lead to different optimal portfolios

A Low-cost, Long-range, and Solar-based IoT Soil Quality Monitor

The project objective is to create a low-cost, long-range, and solar-based IoT soil quality monitoring system. The system must transmit packages of data gathered from separate nodes, consisting of two different types of sensors, to a centralized gateway receiver to be displayed to the user in an elegant and readable manner. The end goal of the project is to supplement produce grown by large agricultural bodies around the United States without the misuse of water resources. This report presents the need for this system, details the components of the system, and the rationale behind design choices. It serves as a comprehensive guide to all the work that has been completed, provides an outlook for future iterations, and demonstrates the viability of LoRa communication for low power packet sending in a rural environment

A Low-cost, Long-range, and Solar-based IoT Soil Quality Monitor

The project objective is to create a low-cost, long-range, and solar-based IoT soil quality monitoring system. The system must transmit packages of data gathered from separate nodes, consisting of two dierent types of sensors, to a centralized gateway receiver to be displayed to the user in an elegant and readable manner. The end goal of the project is to supplement produce grown by large agricultural bodies around the United States without the misuse of water resources. This report presents the need for this system, details the components of the system, and the rationale behind design choices. It serves as a comprehensive guide to all the work that has been completed, provides an outlook for future iterations, and demonstrates the viability of LoRa communication for low power packet sending in a rural environment

Compensation for Geoengineering Harms and No-Fault Climate Change Compensation

While geoengineering may counteract negative effects of anthropogenic climate change, it is clear that most geoengineering options could also have some harmful effects. Moreover, it is predicted that the benefits and harms of geoengineering will be distributed unevenly in different parts of the world and to future generations, which raises serious questions of justice. It has been suggested that a compensation scheme to redress geoengineering harms is needed for geoengineering to be ethically and politically acceptable. Discussions of compensation for geoengineering harms, however, sometimes presume geoengineering has presented new and unique challenges to compensation that cannot be readily accommodated by existing compensation practices. The most explicit formulation of this view was recently presented by Toby Svoboda and Peter J. Irvine, who argued that two forms of uncertainty in geoengineering — namely, ethical uncertainty and scientific uncertainty — make it immensely difficult to devise an ethically and politically satisfactory compensation scheme for geoengineering harms. In this paper, we argue against the view that geoengineering presents new and unique challenges relating to compensation. More specifically, we show that placing these challenges within the broader context of anthropogenic climate change reveals them to be less serious and less specific to geoengineering than some appear to believe

Gefitinib and High-Dose Fractionated Radiotherapy for Carcinomatous Encephalitis from Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

Carcinomatous encephalitis is a rapidly fatal form of metastasis caused by miliary spread of systemic cancer into the brain parenchyma. The diagnostic criteria and optimal treatment for this disease are not well defined. We report a patient with rapid neurologic deterioration from carcinomatous encephalitis from lung adenocarcinoma. She was treated with gefitinib and high-dose fractionated whole brain radiotherapy, and eventually improved neurologically and was discharged home on hospital day 48. Gefitinib and high-dose fractionated radiotherapy may have synergistic activity in patients with carcinomatous encephalitis from non-small cell lung cancer having favorable prognostic factors. More importantly, timely recognition of this disease and the use of large fraction radiation therapy are necessary to control rapid neurologic deterioration

Perivascular epithelioid cell tumour of the uterus: what do we know?

Perivascular epithelioid cell neoplasm (PEComa) is a rare mesenchymal tumour characterized by distinctive histological and immunohistochemical perivascular epithelioid cells. These tumours can be found in various anatomic sites, with gynaecologic PEComas accounting for nearly one-fourth of reported cases in the literature. However, due to its non-specific clinical presentation and a lack of definitive radiological appearance, the diagnosis of PEComas remains challenging. In this case report, we describe a 45-year old lady suffering from urinary retention secondary to large uterine fibroids, who then underwent a total hysterectomy. Postoperative histopathology with immunohistochemical stains confirmed an unexpected finding of uterine PEComa. Although the treatment of gynaecologic PEComas remains controversial, complete surgical resection with negative margins is recommended. A multidisciplinary approach will be beneficial in determining the necessity of adjuvant therapy such as targeted therapy with mTOR inhibitors, especially for PEComas which exhibit aggressive and high-risk features

Oogenesis: Single cell development and differentiation

AbstractOocytes express a unique set of genes that are essential for their growth, for meiotic recombination and division, for storage of nutrients, and for fertilization. We have utilized the newly sequenced genome of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus to identify genes that help the oocyte accomplish each of these tasks. This study emphasizes four classes of genes that are specialized for oocyte function: (1) Transcription factors: many of these factors are not significantly expressed in embryos, but are shared by other adult tissues, namely the ovary, testis, and gut. (2) Meiosis: A full set of meiotic genes is present in the sea urchin, including those involved in cohesion, in synaptonemal complex formation, and in meiotic recombination. (3) Yolk uptake and storage: Nutrient storage for use during early embryogenesis is essential to oocyte function in most animals; the sea urchin accomplishes this task by using the major yolk protein and a family of accessory proteins called YP30. Comparison of the YP30 family members across their conserved, tandem fasciclin domains with their intervening introns reveals an incongruence in the evolution of its major clades. (4) Fertilization: This set of genes includes many of the cell surface proteins involved in sperm interaction and in the physical block to polyspermy. The majority of these genes are active only in oocytes, and in many cases, their anatomy reflects the tandem repeating interaction domains essential for the function of these proteins. Together, the expression profile of these four gene classes highlights the transitions of the oocyte from a stem cell precursor, through stages of development, to the clearing and re-programming of gene expression necessary to transition from oocyte, to egg, to embryo