Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Constitutional Law

On February 27, 1998, the Supreme Court of Virginia rendered its decision in Town of Madison v. Ford. The court invalidated a town zoning ordinance which had been enacted in 1972. This extreme result was due to an insufficiency in the town council\u27s minutes at the meeting when the ordinance in question was enacted. The minutes did not state the names of all the members present nor how they voted. The court, therefore, found that the ordinance was enacted in derogation of the provisions of article VII, section 7 of the Constitution of Virginia ( section 7 )

Is the Federal Home Loan Bank system good for banks? a look at evidence on membership, advances and risk

Since the early 1990s, commercial banks have turned to Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) advances to plug the gap between loan and deposit growth. Is this trend worrisome? On the one hand, advances implicitly encourage risk by insulating borrowers from market discipline. On the other, advances give borrowers greater flexibility to managing interest rate and liquidity risk. And access to FHLBank funding encourages members to reshape their balance sheets in ways that could lower credit risk. Using quarterly financial and supervisory data for banks from 1992 to 2000, we assess the effect of FHLBank membership and advances on risk. The evidence suggests liquidity and leverage risks rose modestly, but interest-rate risk declined somewhat. Credit risk and overall failure risk were largely unaffected. Although the evidence suggest FHLBank membership and advances have had, at best, only a modest impact on bank risk, we caution that the 1990s constitute one observation and that moral hazard could be pronounced if leverage ratios revert to historical norms.Government-sponsored enterprises ; Federal home loan banks ; Bank liquidity

Purification and electron cryomicroscopy of coronavirus particles.

Intact, enveloped coronavirus particles vary widely in size and contour, and are thus refractory to study by traditional structural means such as X-ray crystallography. Electron microscopy (EM) overcomes some problems associated with particle variability and has been an important tool for investigating coronavirus ultrastructure. However, EM sample preparation requires that the specimen be dried onto a carbon support film before imaging, collapsing internal particle structure in the case of coronaviruses. Moreover, conventional EM achieves image contrast by immersing the specimen briefly in heavy-metal-containing stain, which reveals some features while obscuring others. Electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) instead employs a porous support film, to which the specimen is adsorbed and flash-frozen. Specimens preserved in vitreous ice over holes in the support film can then be imaged without additional staining. Cryo-EM, coupled with single-particle image analysis techniques, makes it possible to examine the size, structure and arrangement of coronavirus structural components in fully hydrated, native virions. Two virus purification procedures are described

Should the FDIC worry about the FHLB? the impact of Federal Home Loan Bank advances on the Bank Insurance Fund

Does growing commercial-bank reliance on Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) advances increase expected losses to the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF)? Our approach to this question begins by modeling the link between advances and expected losses. We then quantify the effect of advances on default probability with a CAMELS-downgrade model. Finally, we assess the impact on loss-given-default by estimating resolution costs in two scenarios: the liquidation of all banks with failure probabilities above two percent and the liquidation of all banks with advance-to-asset ratios above 15 percent. The evidence points to non-trivial increases in expected losses. The policy implication is that the FDIC should price FHLBank-related exposures.Banks and banking ; Financial institutions ; Deposit insurance

Ecosystem modelling of tropical wetlands

4.1 Background Modelling is essential for enhancing our understanding of the functioning of tropical wetland ecosystems, and for simulating future trajectories and testing for system thresholds. Anthropogenic activities such as drainage and land-use change can be integrated in models and their impacts on fluxes of greenhouse gas concentrations simulated. Models can also be used to test the response of peatlands and mangroves to climate extremes, variability and change, and to estimate reference levels and greenhouse gas emissions scenarios in the framework of climate change mitigation projects such as REDD+. In coastal settings, models are used to explore wetland resilience to sea-level rise. Finally, models can also be developed to support the decision making process by providing policyrelevant information on the consequences and trade-offs of adopting different management and climate scenarios

An electrostatic mechanism for Ca(2+)-mediated regulation of gap junction channels.

Gap junction channels mediate intercellular signalling that is crucial in tissue development, homeostasis and pathologic states such as cardiac arrhythmias, cancer and trauma. To explore the mechanism by which Ca(2+) blocks intercellular communication during tissue injury, we determined the X-ray crystal structures of the human Cx26 gap junction channel with and without bound Ca(2+). The two structures were nearly identical, ruling out both a large-scale structural change and a local steric constriction of the pore. Ca(2+) coordination sites reside at the interfaces between adjacent subunits, near the entrance to the extracellular gap, where local, side chain conformational rearrangements enable Ca(2+)chelation. Computational analysis revealed that Ca(2+)-binding generates a positive electrostatic barrier that substantially inhibits permeation of cations such as K(+) into the pore. Our results provide structural evidence for a unique mechanism of channel regulation: ionic conduction block via an electrostatic barrier rather than steric occlusion of the channel pore

Virus-Like Particles of a Fish Nodavirus Display a Capsid Subunit Domain Organization Different from That of Insect Nodaviruses

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from "http://jvi.asm.org".The structure of recombinant virus-like particles of malabaricus grouper nervous necrosis virus (MGNNV), a fish nodavirus isolated from the grouper Epinephelus malabaricus, was determined by electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) and three-dimensional reconstruction at 23-Å resolution. The cryoEM structure, sequence comparison, and protein fold recognition analysis indicate that the coat protein of MGNNV has two domains resembling those of tomato bushy stunt virus and Norwalk virus, rather than the expected single-domain coat protein of insect nodaviruses. The analysis implies that residues 83 to 216 fold as a β-sandwich which forms the inner shell of the T=3 capsid and residues 217 to 308 form the trimeric surface protrusions observed in the cryoEM map. The structural similarities between fish nodaviruses and members of the tombusvirus and calicivirus groups provide significant new data for understanding the evolution of the nodavirus family

Genomic approaches to research in pulmonary hypertension

Genomics, or the study of genes and their function, is a burgeoning field with many new technologies. In the present review, we explore the application of genomic approaches to the study of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Candidate genes, important to the pathobiology of the disease, have been investigated. Rodent models enable the manipulation of selected genes, either by transgenesis or targeted disruption. Mutational analysis of genes in the transforming growth factor-β family have proven pivotal in both familial and sporadic forms of primary PH. Finally, microarray gene expression analysis is a robust molecular tool to aid in delineating the pathobiology of this disease