A Stacked Deck: Racial Minorities and the New American Political Economy

The 1960s brought the promise of a new era of social justice for all Americans. Indeed, the overturning of official, state-sanctioned racial structures was a watershed in national life. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, the earlier momentum of the civil rights period dissipated as the end of the postwar economic expansion ushered in a crisis of American culture and polity. Symbolic racism emerged as a powerful political and ideological instrument to buttress resistance to racial and ethnic equality. During the 1980s, a Reagan administration antagonistic to the aspirations of minorities and the working classes in general was able to impose an array of policies (and a discourse) on the nation which polarized ethnic groups and classes even more rigidly. In Reaganism, one sees the congruence and power of symbolic racism and class-targeted economic policy, the capacity of elite forces to carry out economic restructuring at the cost of minority equality. What the post-civil rights period has largely done is to stack the American deck against African Americans and Hispanics

[Review of] Susan A. Glenn. Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation

In this meticulously researched and highly readable work, Susan A. Glenn examines the experiences of a particular group of Jewish immigrants, European-born daughters who, early in this century, went to work in the American garment industry. The author is attempting here no less than to make sense of the intersecting linkages between eastern European Jewish culture, the immigration experience, working class life, the labor movement, and gender identity

Diversity and Dynamics of Indigenous \u3cem\u3eRhizobium japonicum\u3c/em\u3e Populations

A simple method, based upon the separation of cellular proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, has been devised for distinguishing between isolates of Rhizobium japonicum. Eleven laboratory strains, previously classified into five serogroups, were analyzed by gel electrophoresis. Groups determined subjectively according to protein patterns matched the serogroups, with one exception. Most strains within serogroups could be distinguished from one another. For studying the ecology of Rhizobium, an important advantage of this technique compared with serology or phage typing is that it discriminates among previously unencountered indigenous bacterial isolates as well as among known laboratory strains. SDS-gels were used to analyze the Rhizobium population of 500 nodules, sampled throughout the growing season, from soybeans at two different Wisconsin localities. Although the soybeans had been inoculated with laboratory strains of R. japonicum, indigenous R. japonicum predominated. At one location, 19 indigenous gel types were distinguished and classified mainly into four groups. At the other location, 18 gel types, falling mainly into three groups, were detected. The predominance of a particular group varied, in some cases dramatically, depending upon the time and depth of nodule formation

\u3cem\u3eRhizobium leguminosarum\u3c/em\u3e CFN42 Lipopolysaccharide Antigenic Changes Induced by Environmental Conditions

Four monoclonal antibodies were raised against the lipopolysaccharide of Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. phaseoli CFN42 grown in tryptone and yeast extract. Two of these antibodies reacted relatively weakly with the lipopolysaccharide of bacteroids of this strain isolated from bean nodules. Growth ex planta of strain CFN42 at low pH, high temperature, low phosphate, or low oxygen concentration also eliminated binding of one or both of these antibodies. Lipopolysaccharide mobility on gel electrophoresis and reaction with other monoclonal antibodies and polyclonal antiserum indicated that the antigenic changes detected by these two antibodies did not represent major changes in lipopolysaccharide structure. The antigenic changes at low pH were dependent on growth of the bacteria but were independent of nitrogen and carbon sources and the rich or minimal quality of the medium. The Sym plasmid of this strain was not required for the changes induced ex planta. Analysis of bacterial mutants inferred to have truncated O-polysaccharides indicated that part, but not all, of the lipopolysaccharide O-polysaccharide portion was required for binding of these two antibodies. In addition, this analysis suggested that O-polysaccharide structures more distal to lipid A than the epitopes themselves were required for the modifications at low pH that prevented antibody binding. Two mutants were antigenically abnormal, even though they had abundant lipopolysaccharides of apparently normal size. One of these two mutants was constitutively unreactive toward three of the antibodies but indistinguishable from the wild type in symbiotic behavior. The other, whose bacteroids retained an epitope normally greatly diminished in bacteroids, was somewhat impaired in nodulation frequency and nodule development

Soil Properties and their Influence on Grassland Production under Low Input and Organic Farming Conditions

End of project reportThis project set out to identify soil properties that most influence grassland production under low mineral nitrogen input conditions. Sixteen farms were selected in Counties Limerick and Clare and the soil sampled. Soil physical and chemical characteristics and soil biological aspects involved in the carbon and nitrogen cycles were studied in the laboratory. Nutrient additions to farms as well as the nature of grazing by livestock (numbers, types of grazing animals, grazing practices), grassland management, and production from the farms were recorded

Roles of Predicted Glycosyltransferases in the Biosynthesis of the Rhizobium etli CE3 O Antigen

The Rhizobium etli CE3 O antigen is a fixed-length heteropolymer. The genetic regions required for its synthesis have been identified, and the nucleotide sequences are known. The structure of the O antigen has been determined, but the roles of specific genes in synthesizing this structure are relatively unclear. Within the known O-antigen genetic clusters of this strain, nine open reading frames (ORFs) were found to contain a conserved glycosyltransferase domain. Each ORF was mutated, and the resulting mutant lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was analyzed. Tricine SDS-PAGE revealed stepwise truncations of the O antigen that were consistent with differences in mutant LPS sugar compositions and reactivity with O-antigen-specific monoclonal antibodies. Based on these results and current theories of O-antigen synthesis, specific roles were deduced for each of the nine glycosyltransferases, and a model for biosynthesis of the R. etli CE3 O antigen was proposed. In this model, O-antigen biosynthesis is initiated with the addition of N-acetyl-quinovosamine-phosphate (QuiNAc-P) to bactoprenol-phosphate by glycosyltransferase WreU. Glycosyltransferases WreG, WreE, WreS, and WreT would each act once to attach mannose, fucose, a second fucose, and 3-O-methyl-6-deoxytalose (3OMe6dTal), respectively. WreH would then catalyze the addition of methyl glucuronate (MeGlcA) to complete the first instance of the O-antigen repeat unit. Four subsequent repeats of this unit composed of fucose, 3OMe6dTal, and MeGlcA would be assembled by a cycle of reactions catalyzed by two additional glycosyltransferases, WreM and WreL, along with WreH. Finally, the O antigen would be capped by attachment of di- or tri-O-methylated fucose as catalyzed by glycosyltransferase WreB