Domicile Dismantled

Part I of this Article discusses the legal and factual background of Mas v. Perry. This narrative reveals how the case reflects both the changes in American society that were beginning to occur at that time and the struggle of the concept of domicile to keep pace with those changes. Part II traces the development of the fundamental shift in gender roles that began several years before Mas was decided. This section argues that the growing number of women attending college, embarking upon careers, and forming two-career marriages increased the difficulty of measuring domicile, while undermining the efficacy of a gendered presumption such as the one em-bedded in the derivative domicile rule. As Part III will demonstrate, these changes in gender norms occurred in tandem with broader changes in the lives of young Americans. Even as the legal age of majority decreased in the early seventies, the actual age at which young people began to reach the markers of adulthood began to increase. Both women and men began to seek higher education, to delay marriage, and to wait longer to establish homes, families, and careers—and, consequently, to establish any permanent intentions regarding domicile. This newfound period of “emerging adulthood” served to further under-mine the usefulness of domicile as a legal tool. Part IV shows how the new legal age of majority, in combination with shrinking state budgets and the articulation of the right to interstate travel, led to a new focus on the legality of tuition residency requirements. It demonstrates that although the Supreme Court struck down durational residency requirements in other areas of the law, it maintained a dismissive attitude toward student capacity to form domiciliary intent. This attitude, however, did little to stem the wave of litigation that began in the 1960s and has continued into the present day. The cases decided during this period of litigation reveal the interaction of gender changes, emerging adulthood, and domicile. The Article concludes that the confusion over domicile that has emerged in the last fifty years makes it an increasingly unwieldy and unhelpful legal concept. As university regulations and the courts’ convoluted and conflicting reasoning demonstrate, the changes that developed during the era of Mas v. Perry and continued into the present day have made it difficult, if not impossible, to measure domiciliary intent in any consistent, equitable, or meaningful way. Using residence, or residence with additional requirements, is a more sensible and accurate way to handle jurisdictional questions

Goodbye Town

My collection of short stories is set in the fictional town of Lockswood Gap, Tennessee, and centers around the lives of four women. Through various points of view and story lengths, I interweave several story lines to span over a time period of about twenty years. Themes of change and regret are prevalent in these stories, as each of these four women must make, or refuse to make, choices that will impact their lives. I modeled my collection after Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, using individual short stories that share the same group of characters to tell a novel-length story. The ten stories included in my thesis will comprise about threeourths of the novel, and I will add several more to it following my graduation

Domicile Dismantled

Part I of this Article discusses the legal and factual background of Mas v. Perry. This narrative reveals how the case reflects both the changes in American society that were beginning to occur at that time and the struggle of the concept of domicile to keep pace with those changes. Part II traces the development of the fundamental shift in gender roles that began several years before Mas was decided. This section argues that the growing number of women attending college, embarking upon careers, and forming two-career marriages increased the difficulty of measuring domicile, while undermining the efficacy of a gendered presumption such as the one em-bedded in the derivative domicile rule. As Part III will demonstrate, these changes in gender norms occurred in tandem with broader changes in the lives of young Americans. Even as the legal age of majority decreased in the early seventies, the actual age at which young people began to reach the markers of adulthood began to increase. Both women and men began to seek higher education, to delay marriage, and to wait longer to establish homes, families, and careers—and, consequently, to establish any permanent intentions regarding domicile. This newfound period of “emerging adulthood” served to further under-mine the usefulness of domicile as a legal tool. Part IV shows how the new legal age of majority, in combination with shrinking state budgets and the articulation of the right to interstate travel, led to a new focus on the legality of tuition residency requirements. It demonstrates that although the Supreme Court struck down durational residency requirements in other areas of the law, it maintained a dismissive attitude toward student capacity to form domiciliary intent. This attitude, however, did little to stem the wave of litigation that began in the 1960s and has continued into the present day. The cases decided during this period of litigation reveal the interaction of gender changes, emerging adulthood, and domicile. The Article concludes that the confusion over domicile that has emerged in the last fifty years makes it an increasingly unwieldy and unhelpful legal concept. As university regulations and the courts’ convoluted and conflicting reasoning demonstrate, the changes that developed during the era of Mas v. Perry and continued into the present day have made it difficult, if not impossible, to measure domiciliary intent in any consistent, equitable, or meaningful way. Using residence, or residence with additional requirements, is a more sensible and accurate way to handle jurisdictional questions

The value of trust in biotech crop development: a case study of Bt cotton in Burkina Faso

Background: Agricultural biotechnology public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been recognized as having great potential in improving agricultural productivity and increasing food production in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is much public skepticism about the use of GM (genetically modified) crops and suspicion about private sector involvement in agbiotech projects. This case study sought to understand the role of trust in the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in Burkina Faso project by exploring practices and challenges associated with trust-building, and determining what makes these practices effective from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. Methods: We conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews to obtain stakeholders’ understanding of trust in general as well as in the context of agbiotech PPPs. Relevant documents and articles were analyzed to generate descriptions of how trust was operationalized in this evolving agbiotech PPP. Data was analyzed based on emergent themes to create a comprehensive narrative on how trust is understood and built among the partners and with the community. Results: We derived four key lessons from our findings. First, strong collaboration between research, industry and farmers greatly contributes to both the success of, and fostering of trust in, the partnership. Second, this case study also revealed the important, though often unrecognized, role of researchers as players in the communication strategy of the project. Third, effective and comprehensive communication takes into account issues such as illiteracy and diversity. Fourth, follow-up at the field level and the need for a multifaceted communications strategy is important for helping push the project forward. Conclusions: Burkina Faso’s well-established and effective cotton selling system laid the foundation for the implementation of the Bt cotton project – particularly, the strong dialogue and the receptivity to collaboration. Interviewees reported that establishing and maintaining trust among partners, researchers and the community in Burkina Faso greatly contributed to the success of the PPP. By addressing challenges to building trust and engaging in trust-building practices early on, improvements in the effectiveness of agbiotech PPPs are likely

Impact of Autosomal Recessive Juvenile Parkinson’s Disease Mutations on the Structure and Interactions of the Parkin Ubiquitin-like Domain

Autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism (ARJP) is an early onset familial form of Parkinson\u27s disease. Approximately 50% of all ARJP cases are attributed to mutations in the gene park2, coding for the protein parkin. Parkin is a multidomain E3 ubiquitin ligase with six distinct domains including an N-terminal ubiquitin-like (Ubl) domain. In this work we examined the structure, stability, and interactions of the parkin Ubl domain containing most ARJP causative mutations. Using NMR spectroscopy we show that the Ubl domain proteins containing the ARJP substitutions G12R, D18N, K32T, R33Q, P37L, and K48A retained a similar three-dimensional fold as the Ubl domain, while at least one other (V15M) had altered packing. Four substitutions (A31D, R42P, A46P, and V56E) result in poor folding of the domain, while one protein (T55I) showed evidence of heterogeneity and aggregation. Further, of the substitutions that maintained their three-dimensional fold, we found that four of these (V15M, K32T, R33Q, and P37L) lead to impaired function due to decreased ability to interact with the 19S regulatory subunit S5a. Three substitutions (G12R, D18N, and Q34R) with an uncertain role in the disease did not alter the three-dimensional fold or S5a interaction. This work provides the first extensive characterization of the structural effects of causative mutations within the ubiquitin-like domain in ARJP

Lifestyle and late life cognitive health: Sufficient evidence to act now?

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WP3 Country reports - Canada

This report looks at multilevel governance dynamics and at the integration policies targeting migrants developed by six small and medium-sized towns and rural areas in Canada between 2016 and 2021. Primarily based on interviews conducted in each of the selected municipalities, it provides an overview of 1) national, regional, and local integration policies targeting migrants in Canada; 2) policymaking relations among the key actors involved in these policy processes in the six localities and key features of policy networks within which these actors interact; 3) how these actors perceive and define integration. The report finds that the political orientation of the federal and provincial governments in Canada greatly influenced the dynamics of multilevel governance of immigrant integration in the selected Canadian localities, whereas municipalities, which could voluntarily elect to play a role in integration, were not obligated to do so as part of their formal political mandate. In Ontario and B.C., selected municipalities had conducted multiple initiatives intended to assist newcomers. These initiatives were unintegrated into municipal integration strategies and were done in an ad hoc manner in response to specific appeals from the local communities. In Quebec, selected municipalities towns had existing integration policies and infrastructure, including municipally or regionally-sponsored integration dialogues that were intended to coordinate social service delivery for newcomers. Immigration was characterized by all interviewees as the primary solution to labour shortages and population decline in the selected localities. Yet, factors like housing availability, affordability, housing size, and transportation were key issues of concern for immigrant integration. Familiarity between actors and active community mobilization facilitated immigrant integration despite the lack of ethnic diversity and the limited resources of integration particularly in smaller localities.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004714

WP4 Country Reports - Canada

This report looks at migrants’ access to housing, employment, and other relevant resources in six different small and medium-sized towns and rural areas in Canada between 2016 and 2021. Primarily based on interviews conducted in each of the six selected municipalities, secondary data analysis and a policy literature review, it provides an overview of the concrete barriers that migrants face in relation to housing and employment; the local actors who are involved in, and/or seen as responsible for, facilitating their access; any concrete local measures or practices that help or hinder this access; and the specific target groups of these measures, initiatives or practices. The report finds that the concrete barriers facing migrant access to housing are affordability, availability, and size. These factors were particularly acute in Ontario and B.C. where a housing crisis has driven up the average cost of a home and decreased availability. During the study period, Canada possessed low unemployment rates, however, one of the concrete barriers regarding economic integration was foreign credential recognition and language acquisition (English or French). The local actors who were involved included immigrant settlement service organizations, provincial employment ministries, faith organizations or groups of individuals (involved in private sponsorship), provincial/regional chambers of commerce and community service organizations. The measures and practices included employment matching and preparation services, language training programs, job banks, mentoring programs, paid internships, targeted migrant hiring initiatives by municipal and community-service organizations, skills upgrading programs and municipal integration policies. The specific target groups of these measures included immigrants (both economic and resettled refugees) as well as residents.This proejct has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004714

Synergistic recruitment of UbcH7~Ub and phosphorylated Ubl domain triggers parkin activation

The E3 ligase parkin ubiquitinates outer mitochondrial membrane proteins during oxidative stress and is linked to early-onset Parkinson’s disease. Parkin is autoinhibited but is activated by the kinase PINK1 that phosphorylates ubiquitin leading to parkin recruitment, and stimulates phosphorylation of parkin’s N-terminal ubiquitin-like (pUbl) domain. How these events alter the structure of parkin to allow recruitment of an E2~Ub conjugate and enhanced ubiquitination is an unresolved question. We present a model of an E2~Ub conjugate bound to the phosphoubiquitin-loaded C-terminus of parkin, derived from NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments. We show the UbcH7~Ub conjugate binds in the open state whereby conjugated ubiquitin binds to the RING1/IBR interface. Further, NMR and mass spectrometry experiments indicate the RING0/RING2 interface is re-modelled, remote from the E2 binding site, and this alters the reactivity of the RING2(Rcat) catalytic cysteine, needed for ubiquitin transfer. Our experiments provide evidence that parkin phosphorylation and E2~Ub recruitment act synergistically to enhance a weak interaction of the pUbl domain with the RING0 domain and rearrange the location of the RING2(Rcat) domain to drive parkin activity