Search

Informed by the experiential-racism theoretical approach, which maintains that racism must be analyzed as a process that is manifested in multiple relations and situations in everyday life, interviews with 50 male and female black police officers in a southern state are drawn upon to analyze the impact race has on policing. Accounts demonstrate in considerable detail a shared perception of the continuing attitudinal and institutional dimensions of racism that impedes full participation in law enforcement agencies. Training, evaluation, discipline, assignment and promotion are discussed as processes within police agencies felt to be impacted by race. The conclusion is promoted that racism is persistent in agencies to the extent that white officers disproportionately occupy positions of authority with unfettered subjective discretion and to the extent there are few black officers relative to white officers. As an exploratory examination of the shared experiences and perceptions of black officers, findings should be further tested empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the effect of adsorption on the biodegradation of nitrilotriacetate (NTA) by Chelatobacter heintzii. Solution degradation of NTA; Desorption of NTA from gibbsite; Desorption-degradation of NTA at pH and pH 6; Desorption-degradation of NTA with equal molar copper (Co) at pH 7; Location of the Co.

Focuses on the disposal of nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) in soil and subsurface environments. Influence of aqueous geochemistry on NTA degradation; Materials and methods used.

Discusses use of bioreclamation of organochlorine-contaminated soil and groundwater. Description of organohalogens; Limitations of bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons; Limited oxygen concentration in presence of extra biodegradable organic carbon; Potential for anaerobic treatment of organic contaminants; Improvements in technology brought about by increasing field experience.

Examines the persistence of resource island patterns in a shrub-steppe site following wildfire. Influence of Artemisia Tridentata on the chemistry and microbiological activity of the soil where it grows; Comparison between abutting burned and unburned sites; Analysis of the two soil samples for biological and chemical properties.

Presents a study which purified and characterized the ethylene diamine tetra-acetic (EDTA) monooxygenase. Discussion on the usage synthetic chelating agents; Information on diethylenetriaminepentaacetate and nitrilotriacetate; Methodology used to conduct the study; Results of the study.

This research examines the differential effects of imprisonment on the inmate's family-the hidden familial costs of imprisonment. Lengthy interviews were conducted with adult members of inmates' families in a sample drawn from a maximum security prison, and 46 of these are analyzed here. Problems with income, employment and child care were severe, pervasive, and subject to only minor changes over time. These affected spouses more than other family members. Deterioration of relationships with family and friends were also noted by many, showing a greater tendency for adjustment over time. Some of the strongest perceived effects of imprisonment on the family members were emotional, including problems of expressing and dealing with feelings, and problems of experiencing enjoyment in life. Social ties complicate the punitive consequences of incarceration, which stands in tension with a system of justice that is oriented to the individual rule violator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect's series Child Abuse and Neglect Research: Projects and Publications was examined using content analysis to ascertain the status of research approaches in child maltreatment. A review of the literature revealed critical evaluations of the state of research and suggested four areas of weakness in the purported child maltreatment research literature. The four criticisms were borne out; the strongest case could be made that much of what is reported as "research" and "studies of . . ." did not meet traditional standards of scientific inquiry. Based on the findings from the abstracts studied here, we urge higher standards in child maltreatment research to provide the best basis for developing programs which mean to have positive effects on the lives of affected children and families. The time has come to recognize the false promises made by the child maltreatment literature and move forward to build a body of knowledge which can survive rigorous scientific scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the relationship between adolescent motherhood and reported child maltreatment. The concept of "adolescent mother" is expanded to all mothers with one child born during adolescence-irrespective of the mother's age during the reported maltreatment. This study compared the groupings of "adolescent mothers" to all other reported mothers, using age at birth of the first child and age at reported maltreatment as discriminators. These three groups of mothers were compared on a variety of demographic and dynamic variables including whether the mothers lived with a male. This ex post facto study found the youngest mothers, living alone, to be subject to extreme poverty, often being a member of a minority group, and more commonly neglecting than physically abusive. All three groups of women followed a common path to maltreatment. A live-in male was found to have little effect. Implications and recommendations for further study are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If climate change causes the semi-arid shrub-steppe to become hotter and drier it may affect soil C and N cycling and precipitate changes in soil processes and microbial and plant community structure. This study was conducted, using an elevation gradient as an analog of climate change, to analyze climatic influence on soil microbial activity and soil properties. We collected soil from under cryptogamic crust and bunchgrass plants at 25 sites over a 500 m elevation transect in a shrub-steppe ecosystem located in eastern Washington State of the US. The samples were analyzed for several chemical and microbiological attributes including pH, microbial biomass and nitrification potential and the data grouped into five climate sites for statistical analysis. Soil pH decreased over the transect with higher pH values in the grass soil than the crust. In contrast soil electrical conductivity (EC) increased with increasing elevation as did both ammonium and nitrate. Ammonium and EC were greater in the crust soil than the grass soil but nitrate concentration was the same under both plant covers. Both total C and N amounts increased with elevation as did nitrification potential. Due to high sample spatial variability microbial biomass, respiration and N mineralization showed non-significant trends over the 500 m elevation transect. Using these measured gradient relationships the increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation that is expected in this shrub-steppe ecosystem over the next 100 years would eventually cause the pH to increase and the EC to decrease. Plants would become more sparse, nitrification potential would decrease and ammonium would increase. Total C, N and microbial biomass concentrations would begin decreasing and may shift the controlling factors of the ecosystem to abiotic factors. The changes in the cycling of N and to some extent C due to climate change could alter the microbial and plant community structure and function of this ecosystem and cause it to move in the direction of desertification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Fungi and bacteria govern most of the transformations and ensuing long-term storage of organic C in soils. We assessed the relative contributions of these two groups of organisms to the microbial biomass and activity of soils from five different ecosystems with treatments hypothesized to enhance soil C sequestration: (1) desert (an elevation gradient allowed comparison of soil developed in a cooler, moister climate with soil developed in a warmer, drier climate), (2) restored tallgrass prairie (land reverted to native prairie in 1979 and neighboring land farmed to row crops for ∼100 year), (3,4) two forest types (Douglas fir and loblolly pine, unfertilized control and N-fertilized plots), and (5) agricultural land (conventional- and no-till management systems). The selective inhibition technique, using captan (fungicide) and oxytetracycline hydrochloride (bactericide), was used to determine the activities (respiration) of fungi and bacteria in each of these soils and substrate-induced respiration was used to measure total active soil microbial biomass C. Phospholipid fatty acid analysis was used to determine the composition of the soil microbial biomass and determine if the activities and structure of the microbial communities were related. Differences in fungal-to-bacterial (F:B) activities between treatments at a site were greatest at the prairie sites. The restored prairie had the highest F:B (13.5) and high total C (49.9 g C kg−1 soil); neighboring soil farmed to corn had an F:B of 0.85 and total C of 36.0 g C kg−1 soil. Within the pairs of study soils, those that were tilled had lower fungal activities and stored C than those that were managed to native or no-till systems. In all pairs of soils, soils that had higher absolute fungal activities also had more total soil C and when two extreme cases were removed fungal activity was correlated with total soil C (R2=0.85). Thus, in this small set of diverse soils, increased fungal activities, more than F:B ratios, were associated with increased soil C. Practices that involved invasive land management decreased fungal activity and stored soil C compared to similar soils that were less intrusively managed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Presents information on reverse transcriptase inhibition of the PCR. Details on the instances when this was observed to be; Identification of the results of an experiment conducted; Indication of the process.

EDTA, a common chelating agent, is becoming a major organic pollutant in the form of metal-EDTA complexes in surface waters, partly due to its recalcitrance to biodegradation. Even an EDTA-degrading bacterium, BNC1, does not degrade stable metal-EDTA complexes. In the present study, an ABC-type transporter was identified for possible uptake of EDTA because the transporter genes and the EDTA monooxygenase gene were expressed from a single operon in BNC1. The ABC-type transporter had a periplasmic-binding protein (EppA) that should confer the substrate specificity for the transporter; therefore, EppA was produced in Escherichia coli, purified, and characterized. EppA was shown to bind free EDTA with a dissociation constant as low as 25 nM by using isothermal titration calorimetry. When unstable metal-EDTA complexes, e.g., (Mg-EDTA)2, were added to the EppA solution, binding was also observed. However, experimental data and theoretical analysis supported EppA binding only of free EDTA. When stable metal-EDTA complexes, e.g., (Cu-EDTA)2, were titrated into the EppA solution, no binding was observed. Since EDTA monooxygenase in the cytoplasm uses some of the stable metal-EDTA complexes as substrates, we suggest that the lack of EppA binding and EDTA uptake are responsible for the failure of BNC1 cells to degrade the stable complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]