Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Global Role (global + role)
Selected AbstractsDollar Dominance, Euro Aspirations: Recipe for Discord?JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2009BENJAMIN J. COHEN After nearly a century of dominance of the international monetary system, has the US dollar finally met its match in the euro? When Europe's economic and monetary union (EMU) came into existence in 1999, many observers predicted that the euro would soon join America's greenback at the peak of global finance. Achievements, however, have fallen short of aspiration. After an initial spurt of enthusiasm, international use of the euro actually appears now to be levelling off, even stalling, and so far seems confined largely to a limited range of market sectors and regions. The euro has successfully attained a place second only to the greenback , but it remains, and is likely to remain, a quite distant second without a determined effort by EMU authorities to promote their money's global role. The temptation will surely be great. In practical terms, it is difficult to imagine that EMU authorities will refrain entirely from trying to promote a greater role for the euro. But that, in turn, could turn out to be a recipe for discord with the United States, which has never made any secret of its commitment to preserving the greenback's worldwide dominance. A struggle for monetary leadership could become a source of sustained tensions in US,European relations. Fortunately, however, there seems relatively little risk of a destabilizing escalation into outright geopolitical conflict. [source] The RNA binding protein CsrA controls cyclic di-GMP metabolism by directly regulating the expression of GGDEF proteinsMOLECULAR MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Kristina Jonas Summary The carbon storage regulator CsrA is an RNA binding protein that controls carbon metabolism, biofilm formation and motility in various eubacteria. Nevertheless, in Escherichia coli only five target mRNAs have been shown to be directly regulated by CsrA at the post-transcriptional level. Here we identified two new direct targets for CsrA, ycdT and ydeH, both of which encode proteins with GGDEF domains. A csrA mutation caused mRNA levels of ycdT and ydeH to increase more than 10-fold. RNA mobility shift assays confirmed the direct and specific binding of CsrA to the mRNA leaders of ydeH and ycdT. Overexpression of ycdT and ydeH resulted in a more than 20-fold increase in the cellular concentration of the second messenger cyclic di-GMP (c-di-GMP), implying that both proteins possess diguanylate cyclase activity. Phenotypic characterization revealed that both proteins are involved in the regulation of motility in a c-di-GMP-dependent manner. CsrA was also found to regulate the expression of five additional GGDEF/EAL proteins and a csrA mutation led to modestly increased cellular levels of c-di-GMP. All together, these data demonstrate a global role for CsrA in the regulation of c-di-GMP metabolism by regulating the expression of GGDEF proteins at the post-transcriptional level. [source] Control of chloroplast redox by the IMMUTANS terminal oxidasePHYSIOLOGIA PLANTARUM, Issue 1 2004Maneesha R. Aluru Variegation mutants offer excellent opportunities to study interactions between the nucleus-cytoplasm, the chloroplast, and the mitochondrion. Variegation in the immutans (im) mutant of Arabidopsis is induced by a nuclear recessive gene and the extent of variegation can be modulated by light and temperature. Whereas the green sectors have morphologically normal chloroplasts, the white sectors are devoid of pigments and accumulate a colourless carotenoid, phytoene. The green sectors are hypothesized to arise from cells that have avoided irreversible photooxidative damage whereas the white sectors originate from cells that are photooxidized. Cloning of the IMMUTANS (IM) gene has revealed that IMMUTANS (IM) is a plastid homologue of the mitochondrial alternative oxidase. This finding suggested a model in which IM functions as a redox component of the phytoene desaturation pathway, which requires phytoene desaturase activity. Consistent with this idea, IM has quinol oxidase activity in vitro. Recent studies have revealed that IM plays a more global role in plastid metabolism. For example, it appears to be the elusive terminal oxidase of chlororespiration and also functions as a light stress protein. [source] Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush: Faith, Foreign Policy, and an Evangelical Presidential StylePRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2006D. JASON BERGGREN In this article, we argue that Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush share a distinctive approach to politics and governing: an "evangelical" style of presidential leadership. Though they differed in terms of party and ideology, we claim, using examples from their foreign policies, that the evangelical faith of Carter and Bush provided them with a particular vision of the presidency and the global role of the United States. Richard Neustadt argued that aptitude for politics is the most essential attribute for contemporary presidential success and that the evangelical approach will inevitably lead to political failure. From our analysis of the Carter and Bush approaches to foreign policy, we conclude, however, that in certain circumstances, the evangelical style can contribute to successful presidential leadership and is worthy of further serious study by presidential scholars. [source] Growth responses of African savanna trees implicate atmospheric [CO2] as a driver of past and current changes in savanna tree coverAUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2010BARNEY S. KGOPE Abstract Atmospheric CO2 has more than doubled since the last glacial maximum (LGM) and could double again within this century, largely due to anthropogenic activity. It has been suggested that low [CO2] contributed to reduced tree cover in savanna and grassland biomes at LGM, and that increasing [CO2] over the last century promoted increases in woody plants in these ecosystems over the past few decades. Despite the implications of this idea for understanding global carbon cycle dynamics and key global role of the savanna biome, there are still very few experimental studies quantifying the effects of CO2 on tree growth and demography in savannas and grasslands. In this paper we present photosynthetic, growth and carbon allocation responses of African savanna trees (Acacia karroo and Acacia nilotica) and a C4 grass, Themeda triandra, exposed to a gradient of CO2 concentrations from 180 (typical of LGM) to 1000 µmol mol,1 in open-top chambers in a glasshouse as a first empirical test of this idea. Photosynthesis, total stem length, total stem diameter, shoot dry weight and root dry weight of the acacias increased significantly across the CO2 gradient, saturating at higher CO2 concentrations. After clipping to simulate fire, plants showed an even greater response in total stem length, total stem diameter and shoot dry weight, signalling the importance of re-sprouting following disturbances such as fire or herbivory in savanna systems. Root starch (per unit root mass and total root starch per plant) increased steeply along the CO2 gradient, explaining the re-sprouting response. In contrast to the strong response of tree seedlings to the CO2 gradient, grass productivity showed little variation, even at low CO2 concentrations. These results suggest that CO2 has significant direct effects on tree recruitment in grassy ecosystems, influencing the ability of trees to recover from fire damage and herbivory. Fire and herbivore regimes that were effective in controlling tree increases in grassy ecosystems could thus be much less effective in a CO2 -rich world, but field-based tests are needed to confirm this suggestion. [source] Emergence of protein kinase CK2 as a key target in cancer therapyBIOFACTORS, Issue 3 2010Janeen H. Trembley Abstract Protein kinase CK2, a protein serine/threonine kinase, plays a global role in activities related to cell growth, cell death, and cell survival. CK2 has a large number of potential substrates localized in diverse locations in the cell including, for example, NF-,B as an important downstream target of the kinase. In addition to its involvement in cell growth and proliferation it is also a potent suppressor of apoptosis, raising its key importance in cancer cell phenotype. CK2 interacts with diverse pathways which illustrates the breadth of its impact on the cellular machinery of both cell growth and cell death giving it the status of a "master regulator" in the cell. With respect to cancer, CK2 has been found to be dysregulated in all cancers examined demonstrating increased protein expression levels and nuclear localization in cancer cells compared with their normal counterparts. We originally proposed CK2 as a potentially important target for cancer therapy. Given the ubiquitous and essential for cell survival nature of the kinase, an important consideration would be to target it specifically in cancer cells while sparing normal cells. Towards that end, our design of a tenascin based sub-50 nm (i.e., less than 50 nm size) nanocapsule in which an anti-CK2 therapeutic agent can be packaged is highly promising because this formulation can specifically deliver the cargo intracellularly to the cancer cells in vivo. Thus, appropriate strategies to target CK2 especially by molecular approaches may lead to a highly feasible and effective approach to eradication of a given cancer. [source] | |||||||||||||