Cells fine‐tune their DNA repair, selecting some regions of the genome in preference to others. In the paradigm case, excision of UV‐induced pyrimidine dimers in mammalian cells, repair is concentrated in transcribed genes, especially in the transcribed strand. This is due both to chromatin structure being looser in transcribing domains, allowing more rapid repair, and to repair enzymes being coupled to RNA polymerases stalled at damage sites; possibly other factors are also involved. Some repair‐defective diseases may involve repair‐transcription coupling: three (...) candidate genes have been suggested.However, preferential excision of pyrimidine dimers is not uniformly linked to transcription. In mammals it varies with species, and with cell differentiation. In Drosophila embryo cells it is absent, and in yeast, the determining factor is nucleosome stability rather than transcription.Repair of other damage departs further from the paradigm, even in some UV‐mimetic lesions. No selectivity is known for repair of the very frequent minor forms of base damage. And the most interesting consequence of selective repair, selective mutagenesis, normally occurs for UV‐induced, but not for spontaneous mutations. The temptation to extrapolate from mammalian UV repair should be resisted. (shrink)

This volume represents a unique survey of the extent to which Islamic law is in fact applied in those parts of East and West Africa which were at one time under British administration. It examines the relevant legislation and case law, much of which has never appeared in any Law Reports; the judges and courts which apply it and the problems to which its application give rise.

In the year of our Lord 1862, Polish painter Jan Matejko finished his first famous work, Stańczyk, fully translated into English as “Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk.”1 The piece was painted in oils and depicts a famous political figure of Renaissance Poland, Stańczyk the court jester. Stańczyk, an influential figure of Polish history who was as much a political philosopher as a funny man, is depicted in this (...) scene sitting alone and apoplectic as a royal party rages on just outside his door. As the illustration implies, he and the partygoers have just received some correspondence that declares the Polish territory of Smolensk has been besieged, and, appallingly.. (shrink)

Continuing the dialogue: postcolonial feminist scholarship and Bourdieu — discourses of culture and points of connection Postcolonial feminist theories provide the analytic tools to address issues of structural inequities in groups that historically have been socially and economically disadvantaged. In this paper we question what value might be added to postcolonial feminist theories on culture by drawing on Bourdieu. Are there points of connection? Like postcolonial feminists, he puts forward a position that aims to unmask oppressive structures. We argue that, (...) while there are points of connection, there are also epistemologic and methodologic differences between postcolonial feminist perspectives and Bourdieu's work. Nonetheless, engagement with different theoretical perspectives carries the promise of new insights — new ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘understanding’ that might enhance a praxis‐oriented theoretical perspective in healthcare delivery. (shrink)

At least since the seminal work of the (US) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1970s, a fundamental distinction between research and practice has underwritten both conceptual work in research ethics and regulations governing research involving human subjects. Notwithstanding its undoubted historical importance, I believe the distinction is problematic because it misrepresents clinical inquiry. In this essay, I aim to clarify the character of clinical inquiry by identifying crucial contextual constraints on (...) justification constitutive of clinical science. This analysis shows that, from an epistemological point of view, clinical research and clinical practice are not sharply distinct but intimately intertwined. This result is important in its own right—an enriched understanding of the epistemology of clinical research is valuable in and of itself. But this result is also important because it has profound implications for the ethics of human subjects research. (shrink)

In this penetrating book J. Kerby Anderson asks just how much we modern Christians can embrace emrging scientific and technological discoveries and still be true to our Lord. Kerby frames biblical answers in the light of Christ's lordship.h.