Use of the Concept of the "Corporation": A Choice Between Colloquialism or Distortion

The choice facing anthropologists wishing to use the concept of corporateness has been to use either a model unique to the law of property in Western societies or a looser definition which does not justify replacement of traditional terms. This paper suggests that alternative models may be more appropriate where it is necessary to depict arrangements involving group tenure .     

Control of (Multi)Drug Resistance and Tuberculosis Incidence over 23 Years in the Context of a Well-Supported Tuberculosis Programme in Rural Malawi

Background

The rise in tuberculosis (TB) incidence following generalized HIV epidemics can overwhelm TB control programmes in resource-limited settings, sometimes accompanied by rising rates of drug resistance. This has led to claims that DOTS-based TB control has failed in such settings. However, few studies have described the effect of a sustained and well-supported DOTS programme on TB incidence and drug resistance over a long period. We present long-term trends in incidence and drug resistance in rural Malawi.

Methods

Karonga District in northern Malawi has an adult HIV prevalence of ∼10%. A research group, the Karonga Prevention Study, collaborates with the National Tuberculosis Programme to support core TB control activities. Bacteriological, demographic and clinical (including HIV status) information from all patients starting TB treatment in the District have been recorded since 1988. During that period isolates from each culture-positive TB patient were exported for drug sensitivity testing. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been widely available since 2005.

Results

Incidence of new smear-positive adult TB peaked at 124/100,000/year in the mid-90s, but has since fallen to 87/100,000/year. Drug sensitivity information was available for 95% (3132/3307) of all culture-positive cases. Initial resistance to isoniazid was around 6% with no evidence of an increase. Fewer than 1% of episodes involved a multi-drug resistant strain.

Discussion

In this setting with a generalised HIV epidemic and medium TB burden, a well-supported DOTS programme enhanced by routine culture and drug sensitivity testing may well have reduced TB incidence and maintained drug resistance at low levels.     

The uniquely human capacity to throw evolved from a non-throwing primate: an evolutionary dissociation between action and perception

Humans are uniquely endowed with the ability to engage in accurate, high-momentum throwing. Underlying this ability is a unique morphological adaptation that enables the characteristic rotation of the arm and pelvis. What is unknown is whether the psychological mechanisms that accompany the act of throwing are also uniquely human. Here we explore this problem by asking whether free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), which lack both the morphological and neural structures to throw, nonetheless recognize the functional properties of throwing. Rhesus not only understand that human throwing represents a threat, but that some aspects of a throwing event are more relevant than others; specifically, rhesus are sensitive to the kinematics, direction and speed of the rotating arm, the direction of the thrower's eye gaze and the object thrown. These results suggest that the capacity to throw did not coevolve with psychological mechanisms that accompany throwing; rather, this capacity may have built upon pre-existing perceptual processes. These results are consistent with a growing body of work showing that non-human animals often exhibit perceptual competencies that do not show up in their motor responses, suggesting evolutionary dissociations between the systems of perception that provide understanding of the world and those that mediate action on the world.     

Impregnated bednets and the dose-severity relationship in malaria

The finding that insecticide-impregnated bednets decrease symptomatic malaria and death more than infection has been interpreted as providing evidence that dose influences seventy o f disease in malaria. The complications o f this argument in areas where much o f the population has a background parasitaemia have already been considered. In this article, Judith Glynn, Jo Lines and David Bradley explore whether or not the results of impregnated bednet trials can help to determine the existence of a dose-severity relationship for malaria.     

Phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance studies of bioenergetics in wild-type and adenosinetriphosphatase(1-) Escherichia coli cells

By use of 31P NMR, the transmembrane pH gradient (delta pH) and the intracellular levels of phosphorylated metabolites were measured in aerobic suspensions of wild-type Escherichia coli cells in the presence and absence of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) inhibitor dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCCD); the same parameters were also determined in E. coli mutants deficient in ATPase activity under both anaerobic and aerobic conditions. A method is described by which dense suspensions of E. coli cells (approximately 3 X 10(11) cells/mL) were oxygenated so that steady-state O2 levels in the suspensions were far greater than the Km for O2 consumption. Under these conditions, in wild-type MRE600 cells, the intracellular concentrations of PI, NTP, and NDP were measured to be 3.0 +/- 1.5, 8 +/- 1, and 1.2 +/- 1 mM, respectively, while the intracellular pH was approximately 7.5 over the external pH range studied (6 to approximately 7.0). Upon treatment with DCCD, the intracellular NTP level was drastically reduced and intracellular Pi concentration increased in respiring wild-type cells; in the same cells, however, DCCD did not affect the intracellular pH and the delta pH. During respiration in the presence of lactate, ATPase- cells established a delta pH but failed to synthesize any detectable levels of NTP. Conversely, ATPase- cells accumulated high levels of NTP but did not generate a delta pH during glycolysis under anaerobic conditions. These results are in complete agreement with the generally accepted chemiosmotic hypothesis. 31P NMR data on intact ATPase- NR70 cells were in agreement with the previously proposed [Rosen, B. P., Brey, R., & Hasan, S. (1978) J. Bacteriol. 134, 1030] existence of a proton leak in this strain which is sealed by DCCD or by spontaneous mutation into strain NR71. However, the NMR data also indicated that other major differences exist between NR71 and NR70 cells.     

A Phylogenomic Perspective on the Radiation of Ray-Finned Fishes Based upon Targeted Sequencing of Ultraconserved Elements (UCEs)

Ray-finned fishes constitute the dominant radiation of vertebrates with over 32,000 species. Although molecular phylogenetics has begun to disentangle major evolutionary relationships within this vast section of the Tree of Life, there is no widely available approach for efficiently collecting phylogenomic data within fishes, leaving much of the enormous potential of massively parallel sequencing technologies for resolving major radiations in ray-finned fishes unrealized. Here, we provide a genomic perspective on longstanding questions regarding the diversification of major groups of ray-finned fishes through targeted enrichment of ultraconserved nuclear DNA elements (UCEs) and their flanking sequence. Our workflow efficiently and economically generates data sets that are orders of magnitude larger than those produced by traditional approaches and is well-suited to working with museum specimens. Analysis of the UCE data set recovers a well-supported phylogeny at both shallow and deep time-scales that supports a monophyletic relationship between Amia and Lepisosteus (Holostei) and reveals elopomorphs and then osteoglossomorphs to be the earliest diverging teleost lineages. Our approach additionally reveals that sequence capture of UCE regions and their flanking sequence offers enormous potential for resolving phylogenetic relationships within ray-finned fishes.     

Placental failure and impaired vasculogenesis result in embryonic lethality for neuropathy target esterase-deficient mice

Age-dependent neurodegeneration resulting from widespread apoptosis of neurons and glia characterize the Drosophila Swiss Cheese (SWS) mutant. Neuropathy target esterase (NTE), the vertebrate homologue of SWS, reacts with organophosphates which initiate a syndrome of axonal degeneration. NTE is expressed in neurons and a variety of nonneuronal cell types in adults and fetal mice. To investigate the physiological functions of NTE, we inactivated its gene by targeted mutagenesis in embryonic stem cells. Heterozygous NTE(+/-) mice displayed a 50% reduction in NTE activity but underwent normal organ development. Complete inactivation of the NTE gene resulted in embryonic lethality, which became evident after gastrulation at embryonic day 9 postcoitum (E9). As early as E7.5, mutant embryos revealed growth retardation which did not reflect impaired cell proliferation but rather resulted from failed placental development; as a consequence, massive apoptosis within the developing embryo preceded its resorption. Histological analysis indicated that NTE is essential for the formation of the labyrinth layer and survival and differentiation of secondary giant cells. Additionally, impairment of vasculogenesis in the yolk sacs and embryos of null mutant conceptuses suggested that NTE is also required for normal blood vessel development.