Quantifying protein folding pathways

A deep understanding of the proteins folding dynamics can be get quantifying folding landscape by calculating how the number of microscopic configurations (entropy) varies with the energy of the chain, Ω=Ω(E). Because of the incredibly large number of microstates available to a protein, direct enumeration of Ω(E) is not possible on realistic computer simulations. An estimate of Ω(E) can be obtained by use of a combination of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. By combining different definitions of entropy that are valid for a system whose probability for occupying a state is given by the canonical Boltzmann probability, computers allow the determination of Ω(E). ^ The energy landscapes of two similar, but not identical model proteins were studied. One protein contains no kinetic tracks. Results show a smooth funnel for the folding landscape. That allows the contour determination of the folding funnel. Also it was presented results for the folding landscape for a modified protein with kinetic traps. Final results show that the computational approach is able to distinguish and explore regions of the folding landscape that are due to kinetic traps from the native state folding funnel.^

Action Plan to Conserve the Native Plants of Florida

In this document, a strategy aimed at conserving the native flora of Florida is presented. The strategy is developed in a four-step sequence. Following the Introduction (Part I), The Florida Native Plant Resource (Part II) describes the resource and the threats to it. That section includes a brief description of the vegetation of Florida prior to the demographic explosion of the last century, a report on the current status of plants in the state, and discussion of some factors responsible for the evident and continuing decline in the quality and quantity of the vegetation resource. In Part III (The Florida Plant Conservation Process), an explicit goal for plant conservation in Florida is expressed, a model describing the plant conservation process is presented, and activities included with each component of the model are examined and evaluated for the state as a whole. Finally, in Part IV (Recommendations To Improve The Process), changes are presented that we believe would help create a more effective plant conservation environment in Florida.

The Rise of Native Voices Against Natural Resource Extraction in Latin America [Student's Paper Series]

Latin America, a region rich in both energy resources and native heritage, faces a rising politico-social confrontation that has been growing for over two decades. While resources like oil and gas are exploited to enhance the state’s economic growth, indigenous groups feel threatened because the operations related to this exploitation are infringing on their homelands. Furthermore, they believe that the potential resource wealth found in these environmentally-sensitive regions is provoking an “intrusion” in their ancestral territory of either government agencies or corporations allowed by governmental decree. Indigenous groups, which have achieved greater political voice over the past decade, are protesting against government violations. These protests have reached the media and received international attention, leading the discourse on topics such as civil and human rights violations. When this happens, the State finds itself “between a rock and a hard place”: In a debate between indigenous groups’ rights and economic sustainability.

The Modern State and the Re-Creation of the Indigenous Other: The Case of the Authentic Sámi in Sweden and the White Man’s Indian in the United States of America.

The present study comparatively examined the socio-political and economic transformation of the indigenous Sámi in Sweden and the Indian American in the United States of America occurring first as a consequence of colonization and later as a product of interaction with the modern territorial and industrial state, from approximately 1500 to 1900. The first colonial encounters of the Europeans with these autochthonous populations ultimately created an imagery of the exotic Other and of the noble savage. Despite these disparaging representations, the cross-cultural settings in which these interactions took place also produced the hybrid communities and syncretic life that allowed levels of cultural accommodation, autonomous space, and indigenous agency to emerge. By the nineteenth century, however, the modern territorial and industrial state rearranges the dynamics and reaches of power across a redefined territorial sovereign space, consequently, remapping belongingness and identity. In this context, the status of indigenous peoples, as in the case of Sámi and of Indian Americans, began to change at par with industrialization and with modernity. At this point in time, indigenous populations became a hindrance to be dealt with the legal re-codification of Indigenousness into a vacuumed limbo of disenfranchisement. It is, thus, the modern territorial and industrial state that re-creates the exotic into an indigenous Other. The present research showed how the initial interaction between indigenous and Europeans changed with the emergence of the modern state, demonstrating that the nineteenth century, with its fundamental impulses of industrialism and modernity, not only excluded and marginalized indigenous populations because they were considered unfit to join modern society, it also re-conceptualized indigenous identity into a constructed authenticity.

The modern state and the re-creation of the indigenous other: The case of the authentic Sami in Sweden and the white man's Indian in the United States of America

The present study comparatively examined the socio-political and economic transformation of the indigenous Sámi in Sweden and the Indian American in the United States of America occurring first as a consequence of colonization and later as a product of interaction with the modern territorial and industrial state, from approximately 1500 to 1900. ^ The first colonial encounters of the Europeans with these autochthonous populations ultimately created an imagery of the exotic Other and of the noble savage. Despite these disparaging representations, the cross-cultural settings in which these interactions took place also produced the hybrid communities and syncretic life that allowed levels of cultural accommodation, autonomous space, and indigenous agency to emerge. By the nineteenth century, however, the modern territorial and industrial state rearranges the dynamics and reaches of power across a redefined territorial sovereign space, consequently, remapping belongingness and identity. In this context, the status of indigenous peoples, as in the case of Sámi and of Indian Americans, began to change at par with industrialization and with modernity. At this point in time, indigenous populations became a hindrance to be dealt with the legal re-codification of Indigenousness into a vacuumed limbo of disenfranchisement. It is, thus, the modern territorial and industrial state that re-creates the exotic into an indigenous Other. ^ The present research showed how the initial interaction between indigenous and Europeans changed with the emergence of the modern state, demonstrating that the nineteenth century, with its fundamental impulses of industrialism and modernity, not only excluded and marginalized indigenous populations because they were considered unfit to join modern society, it also re-conceptualized indigenous identity into a constructed authenticity.^