The Citizen as Founder: Public Participation in Constitutional Approval

Public involvement in constitution making is increasingly considered to be essential for the legitimacy and effectiveness of the process. It is also becoming more widespread, spurred on by constitutional advisors and the international community. Yet we have remarkably little empirical evidence of the impact of participation on outcomes. This essay examines hypotheses on the effect of one aspect of public participation in the constitution-making process—ratification— and surveys available evidence. We find some limited support for the optimistic view about the impact of ratification on legitimacy, conflict, and constitutional endurance.Governmen

Reflections on Teaching in a Catholic High School: A Qualitative Case Study

This qualitative study participates in this ongoing scholarly conversation regarding the value of Catholic schools in the life ministry of the Catholic Church. By examining the understanding that lay teachers have of their responsibility to the Catholic identity and the faith formation of students in Catholic schools as articulated in the literature of leadership of the Catholic Church, this study examines some of the ways that lay teachers help maintain the Catholic identity of the school and how these teachers engage in the religious mission of Catholic schools. This qualitative study was purposely designed to engage and invite the 58 Catholic high school teachers of two Diocesan Catholic high schools in southwestern Pennsylvania to express their inner thoughts, feelings, and ideas regarding the various aspects of their ministry . By documenting the reflections and insights of these Catholic high school teachers this study brings to light some of the ways that they experience and understand their vocation of ministry within the complex educational practice of teaching within the unique setting of a Catholic high school. Self-reflecting essays and audio-recorded data from two focus groups were analyzed with a particular focus on identifying the various aspects of the spiritual life of these lay teachers. The data is presented in the form of a journal organized around four spiritual dimensions: The Call, The Mission, The Community, and The Spirit. Each dimension is introduced and concluded with a scriptural or inspirational quote identified by the teachers as being significant to their life as a teacher in a Catholic school. The journal forms a rich description of the ways the spiritual life of a lay Catholic high school teacher manifests itself in the ministry of teaching. Its four dimensions serve as a basic model of the spiritual life and ministry of a lay Catholic high school teacher

Noncommutative geometry and nonabelian Berry phase in the wave-packet dynamics of Bloch electrons

Motivated by a recent proposal on the possibility of observing a monopole in the band structure, and by an increasing interest on the role of Berry phase in spintronics, we studied the adiabatic motion of a wave packet of Bloch functions, under a perturbation varying slowly and incommensurately to the lattice structure. We show using only the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics that its effective wave-packet dynamics is conveniently described by a set of equations of motion (EOM) for a semiclassical particle coupled to a nonabelian gauge field associated with a geometric Berry phase. Our EOM can be viewed as a generalization of the standard Ehrenfest's theorem, and their derivation was asymptotically exact in the framework of linear response theory. Our analysis is entirely based on the concept of local Bloch bands, a good starting point for describing the adiabatic motion of a wave packet. One of the advantages of our approach is that the various types of gauge fields were classified into two categories by their different physical origin: (i) projection onto specific bands, (ii) time-dependent local Bloch basis. Using those gauge fields, we write our EOM in a covariant form, whereas the gauge-invariant field strength stems from the noncommutativity of covariant derivatives along different axes of the reciprocal parameter space. The degeneracy of Bloch bands makes the gauge fields nonabelian. We applied our formalism to the analyses on various types of Hall and polarization currents. We highlighted their behavior under time reversal (T) and space inversion (I). The concept of parity polarization current was also introduced. Together with charge/spin Hall/polarization currents, this type of orbital current is expected to be a potential probe for detecting and controling Berry phase.Comment: 39 pages. Typos corrected in the revised versio

School/University Partnerships in Reading/Language Arts: Working Toward Collaborative Inquiry

Efforts and initiatives to improve the education of our teachers are currently underway. The Holmes group reports Tomorrow\u27s Teachers (1986), Tomorrow\u27s Schools (1990), and the soon to be released Tomorrow\u27s Schools of Education (in press) provide principles to assist schools and universities as they work together to improve the education of our students. In the Association of Teacher Educator\u27s (ATE) annual survey of critical issues in teacher education, Buttery, Haberman, and Houston (1990) state that teacher education will not be im proved until the conditions of practice in the schools are improved. It is essential that reform in schools and teacher education evolve together

THE ASSOCIATION OF SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS IN INTRONIC REGIONS OF ISLET CELL AUTOANTIGEN 1 AND TYPE 1 DIABETES MELLITUS

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a multifactorial autoimmune disease caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Further knowledge and understanding about the genes which play a role in type 1 diabetes has a clear public health significance in that it will aid in the prediction, treatment and a possible cure. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease with a lengthy preclinical course, which eventually results in pancreatic beta cell destruction and inability of the body to produce insulin hormone. Type 1 diabetic patients generally require exogenous insulin to survive. Several genetic loci have been proposed to be linked to type 1 diabetes; however, the HLA and VNTR regions are currently believed to account for the majority of genetic risk, contributing to about 42% and 10% of an individual's risk to develop type 1 diabetes, respectively. This study focuses on the candidate gene Islet Cell Autoantigen 1 (ICA1), which codes for the protein ICA69. This protein product is expressed in the islets of Langerhans, the neuroendocrine system and in the thymic medulla; this last location is an area of the body known to play a major role in immunologic tolerance. Preliminary studies in the NOD and B6 mouse models suggest that a SNP within the promoter region of Ica1 affects transcription and may account for altered expression in the thymus. Our current study aimed to determine whether single nucleotide polymorphisms within intronic regions of the human ICA1 gene differed between a diabetic case population and non-diabetic controls. It was hypothesized that SNPs within the ICA1 gene differ between cases and controls and play a role in the onset of type 1 diabetes. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was applied for DNA amplification and the pyrosequencing technique was used to genotype all samples. At SNP location rs2058519 there was a clear genotypic difference between the cases and controls (p= .0003). These results suggest that genetic variation at this specific SNP location in the ICA1 may be associated with type 1 diabetes susceptibility. The ultimate goal of this study is to determine whether our candidate gene ICA1 appears to play a role in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes

Observational evidence for gravitationally trapped massive axion(-like) particles

Unexpected astrophysical observations can be explained by gravitationally captured massive particles, which are produced inside the Sun or other Stars and are accumulated over cosmic times. Their radiative decay in solar outer space would give rise to a `self-irradiation' of the whole star, providing the time-independent component of the corona heating source. In analogy with the Sun-irradiated Earth atmosphere, the temperature and density gradient in the corona - chromosphere transition region is suggestive for an omnipresent irradiation of the Sun. The same scenario fits other astrophysical X-ray observations. The radiative decay of a population of such elusive particles mimics a hot gas. X-ray observatories, with an unrivalled sensitivity below ~10 keV, can search for such particles. The elongation angle relative to the Sun is the relevant new parameter.Comment: 35 pages, LaTeX, 9 figures. Accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Polypeptide-grafted macroporous polyHIPE by surface-initiated N-Carboxyanhydride (NCA) polymerization as a platform for bioconjugation

A new class of functional macroporous monoliths from polymerized high internal phase emulsion (polyHIPE) with tunable surface functional groups was developed by direct polypeptide surface grafting. In the first step, amino-functional polyHIPEs were obtained by the addition of 4-vinylbenzyl or 4-vinylbenzylphthalimide to the styrenic emulsion and thermal radical polymerization. The obtained monoliths present the expected open-cell morphology and a high surface area. The incorporated amino group was successfully utilized to initiate the ring-opening polymer- ization of benzyl-L-glutamate N-carboxyanhydride (BLG NCA) and benzyloxycarbonyl-L-lysine (Lys(Z)) NCA, which resulted in a dense homogeneous coating of polypeptides throughout the internal polyHIPE surfaces as confirmed by SEM and FTIR analysis. The amount of polypeptide grafted to the polyHIPE surfaces could be modulated by varying the initial ratio of amino acid NCA to amino-functional polyHIPE. Subsequent removal of the polypeptide protecting groups yielded highly functional polyHIPE-g-poly(glutamic acid) and polyHIPE-g- poly(lysine). Both types of polypeptide-grafted monoliths responded to pH by changes in their hydrohilicity. The possibility to use the high density of function (−COOH or −NH2) for secondary reaction was demonstrated by the successful bioconjugation of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and fluorescein isocyanate (FITC) on the polymer 3D-scaffold surface. The amount of eGFP and FITC conjugated to the polypeptide-grafted polyHIPE was significantly higher than to the amino- functional polyHIPE, signifying the advantage of polypeptide grafting to achieve highly functional polyHIPEs

Drilling and coring methods that minimize the disturbance of cuttings, core, and rock formation in the unsaturated zone, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

A drilling-and-casing method (Odex 115 system) utilizing air as a drilling fluid was used successfully to drill through various rock types within the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This paper describes this method and the equipment used to rapidly penetrate bouldery alluvial-colluvial deposits, poorly consolidated bedded and nonwelded tuff, and fractured, densely welded tuff to depths of about 130 meters. A comparison of water-content and water-potential data from drill cuttings with similar measurements on rock cores indicates that drill cuttings were only slightly disturbed for several of the rock types penetrated. Coring, sampling, and handling methods were devised to obtain minimally disturbed drive core from bouldery alluvial-colluvial deposits. Bulk-density values obtained from bulk samples dug from nearby trenches were compared to bulk-density values obtained from drive core to determine the effects of drive coring on the porosity of the core. Rotary coring methods utilizing a triple-tube core barrel and air as the drilling fluid were used to obtain core from welded and nonwelded tuff. Results indicate that the disturbance of the water content of the core was minimal. Water-content distributions in alluvium-colluvium were determined before drilling occurred by drive-core methods. After drilling, water-content distributions were determined by nuclear-logging methods. A comparison of the water-content distributions made before and after drilling indicates that Odex 115 drilling minimally disturbs the water content of the formation rock. 10 refs., 12 figs., 4 tabs

Poly(glutamic acid) poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels prepared by photoinduced polymerization: Synthesis, characterization, and preliminary release studies of protein drugs

A class of new biodegradable hydrogels based on poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate-graft-poly(glutamic acid) and poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate was synthesized by photoinduced polymerization. Because all the polymeric constituents were highly hydrophilic, crosslinking could be performed in aqueous solutions. This type of crosslinked hydrogel was prepared by modifying a select number of acidic side-groups on poly(glutamic acid) with poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate. These modified chains were then crosslinked in the presence of poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate under a photoinduced polymerization at a wavelength of 365 nm. Swelling experiments were conducted to study the crosslinking density, pH-responsive behavior, and degradation of the hydrogel. Results showed that the degree of swelling of this type of hydrogels increased as the crosslinker concentration (or density) was reduced. Because of the presence of acidic side chains on poly(glutamic acid), swelling behavior was found to be pH-responsive, increasing at high pH in response to the increase in the amount of ionized acidic side chains. The degradation rate of these hydrogels also varied with pH. More rapid degradation was observed under stronger alkaline conditions because of the hydrolysis of the ester bonds between the crosslinker and the polymer backbone. Practically useful degradation rates could be achieved for such hydrogels under physiological conditions. Drug release rates from these hydrogels were found to be proportional to the protein molecular weight and the crosslinker density; increasing at lower protein molecular weight or crosslinker density. The preliminary findings presented in this article suggest that this class of biodegradable hydrogels could be an attractive avenue for drug delivery applications. The specific photoinduced crosslinking chemistry used would permit hydrogels to be synthesized in existence of the entrapped macromolecular drugs including peptides, proteins, and cells. In addition, the rapid feature of this polymerization procedure along with the ability to perform hydrogel synthesis and drug loading in an aqueous environment would offer great advantages in retaining drug activity during hydrogel synthesis. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res 62: 14–21, 2002Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34426/1/10219_ftp.pd