An analysis of the Sargasso Sea resource and the consequences for database composition

Background: The environmental sequencing of the Sargasso Sea has introduced a huge new resource of genomic information. Unlike the protein sequences held in the current searchable databases, the Sargasso Sea sequences originate from a single marine environment and have been sequenced from species that are not easily obtainable by laboratory cultivation. The resource also contains very many fragments of whole protein sequences, a side effect of the shotgun sequencing method.These sequences form a significant addendum to the current searchable databases but also present us with some intrinsic difficulties. While it is important to know whether it is possible to assign function to these sequences with the current methods and whether they will increase our capacity to explore sequence space, it is also interesting to know how current bioinformatics techniques will deal with the new sequences in the resource.Results: The Sargasso Sea sequences seem to introduce a bias that decreases the potential of current methods to propose structure and function for new proteins. In particular the high proportion of sequence fragments in the resource seems to result in poor quality multiple alignments.Conclusion: These observations suggest that the new sequences should be used with care, especially if the information is to be used in large scale analyses. On a positive note, the results may just spark improvements in computational and experimental methods to take into account the fragments generated by environmental sequencing techniques

Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony in the Early American Republic

This Article concludes that the new definition of felony adopted in 1829 by the New York revisors reflected their pragmatic approach of choosing a middle path between the common law traditionalists, exemplified by Maryland, and the radical reforms enshrined in Livingston\u27s penal code. Their choice was an expedient one, redefining an outdated term rather than writing it out of the law. Yet underlying their efforts was a belief that punishment was an instrument of moral reformation, a way of returning the convicted felon to the community as a productive citizen. Creating barriers to a convict\u27s reentry into society with continuing civil disabilities would not have been their intention

The Uncertainty of National and Cultural Identity in Salman Rushdie’s East, West and Midnight’s Children

This project involves the examination of two works by Salman Rushdie: a short story collection, East, West and a novel, Midnight’s Children. Looking at these texts through a postcolonial lens, I analyze Rushdie’s writing in terms of its relationship to the academic debates of the period and the historical context that grounds the works. Throughout the paper, I analyze Rushdie’s portrayal of the relationship between culture, nationhood, and identity, while also focusing on different aspects of the works in the project’s two chapters. In the first, I examine the relationship between postcolonialism and magical realism in East, West, and argue that Rushdie uses a unique hybrid of magical realism, satire, and intertextuality to complicate the portrayal of culture in his stories, as he brings into question the use of the East/West binary that dominated scholarly discourse at the time of these texts’ publication. In the project’s second chapter I discuss the relationship between Midnight’s Children and East, West, examining on the portrayal of post-independence India and Rushdie’s critiques of the Indian government at the time. While in the project’s first chapter, stylistic decisions serve as the primary focus of my analysis, in this second part, the relationship between technology and national identity becomes the driving question. Using textual and historical evidence, I demonstrate the extent to which these two texts serve as a statement on the nature of cultural and national identity in the postcolonial era, providing no certain answers but instead raising more questions and illuminating the complexities of global interactions

Lost Laws: What We Can\u27t Find in the U.S. Code

This article looks at the development of the U.S. Code as the primary expression of federal statutory law and at those features which detract from its usefulness in that role. To provide background, some defmitions of terms pertaining to codes are provided, followed by a history of the U.S. Code, a description of appropriations riders as a source of uncodified law, and a look at some of the agencies that create and maintain the Code. The Analysis section discusses particular problems with the current Code. Special attention is paid to enacted law relegated to footnotes and appendices of the Code, and to serially enacted appropriations riders that are never codified at all

Effectiveness of Titanium and Iron Nanoparticles in Treating M. aeruginosa for Harmful Algal Bloom Remediation

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are a growing issue worldwide, posing harm to both aquatic ecosystems and drinking water quality. This issue could be potentially mitigated using nanoparticle (NP) treatment, simultaneously removing cyanobacteria and associated cyanotoxins in HABs. This research seeks to discern the effectiveness of using titanium dioxide and iron (III) oxide NP treatment at removing cyanobacteria via flocculation and sedimentation. Each NP at 25 mg/L and 50 mg/L were used to treat suspended culture of Microcystis aeruginosa, the representative cyanobacteria, up to 72 hours. Cell concentration and morphology in the supernatant were measured via a Coulter counter and light microscopy. The decreasing cell concentration in the supernatant showed that both NP can flocculate M. aeruginosa and allow subsequent sedimentation. High concentration NP treatments were more effective than low concentration NP treatments, removing a higher percentage of cells in the same amount of time

Aristotle\u27s Child: Formation through Genes, Oikos, Polis

The discussion of children in Pol VII and the linking of nature, habit and reason supports our thesis that Aristotle has a composite conception of the child and that it can be reconstituted by way of a linked examination of his analyses in the biology, ethics and politics.The child has his or her beginnings prior to birth and grows from unfinished to finished adulthood through linked phases. Each phase of development has its own telos - the complete human animal nature at birth, the complete ethical character later on, and the cultured, educationally complete person ready for adult life in the polis - and so is differentiated. The teloi need to be maintained as separate and cannot be collapsed because different kinds of change are at issue, namely substantial change in the biology and alteration in the ethics and politics. At the same time, however, continuity is evident in several ways. Each phase is linked with the next as a prerequisite. Each phase maintains a common general formula for the child as unfinished. In each phase the theme of minimizing randomness and maximizing order and intelligibility is evident. And each phase adopts a common explanatory scheme to provide for the order and intelligibility of the child\u27s generation and development, a scheme whereby a prior actuality or actualities provide the potentiality necessary for the appropriate change

Estimates of numbers of White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in Eastern and Southern South Africa : a post-moratorium assessment

A moratorium was placed on fishing for white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in South Africa in 1991 prior to knowing the population status of this species. A mathematical model was developed to estimate the total numbers of white sharks from 1950 to 2050 in the presence of fishing (F = 0.055 year-I) and without fishing (moratorium). The total number of white sharks from Richard's Bay to Struis Bay, South Africa was estimated to be 1,954 (range= 1,855-2,050) for the year 2004. If the moratorium was to be lifted and fishing was to resume, the results of the model indicate that the instantaneous fishing mortality rate F of 0.035 year-l or less allows the population to increase in numbers from 2004 to 2050. A sensitivity analysis determined that the instantaneous natural mortality rate M (tested range=0.070-0.l90 year-I) and the average number of pups per mature pupping female (tested range=4-14 pups) were highly sensitive parameters of the model. The maturity age span (maturity minimum age=13 and 16 years; longevity=23, 36, and 60 years) and timeframe of the female reproductive cycle (two or three years) were the least sensitive parameters of the model