A Comparative Study: Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals under the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act & An Overview of Assistance Animal Laws of Select States, April 18, 2010

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Fair Housing Act (FHA) prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability and govern the use of service or emotional support animals in places where pets may not be permitted. However, courts have been struggling with how to define and treat animals that qualify for protection under each law. This has created confusion as to what rights and duties are owed disabled persons and the animals that live with or accompany them. This essay attempts to clarify these two federal laws with regard to service or emotional support animals and the differing parties‘ rights and interests. It also includes an overview of select state laws that govern assistance animals of all types and our recommendations for enhancing the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

Unlike PAHs from Exxon Valdez crude oil, PAHs from Gulf of Alaska coals are not readily bioavailable.

In the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, spatially and temporally spill-correlated biological effects consistent with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure were observed. Some works have proposed that confounding sources from local source rocks, prominently coals, are the provenance of the PAHs. Representative coal deposits along the southeast Alaskan coast (Kulthieth Formation) were sampled and fully characterized chemically and geologically. The coals have variable but high total organic carbon content technically classifying as coals and coaly shale, and highly varying PAH contents. Even for coals with high PAH content (approximately 4000 ppm total PAHs), a PAH-sensitive bacterial biosensor demonstrates nondetectable bioavailability as quantified, based on naphthalene as a test calibrant. These results are consistent with studies indicating that materials such as coals strongly diminish the bioavailability of hydrophobic organic compounds and support previous work suggesting that hydrocarbons associated with the regional background in northern Gulf of Alaska marine sediments are not appreciably bioavailable.

In situ and genetic characterization of Gossypium barbadense populations from the states of Pará and Amapá, Brazil

The objective of this work was to characterize the populations of Gossypium barbadense in the states of Amapá and Pará, Brazil. In situ characterization was conducted through interviews with the owners of the plants and environmental observations. Leaf or petal tissue as well as seed samples were collected for genetic characterization by single sequence repeats markers and for storage in germplasm banks, respectively. The plants were maintained in dooryards and used mainly for medical purposes. The genetic analysis showed no heterozygous plants at the loci tested (f = 1), indicating that reproduction occurs mainly through selfing. The total genetic diversity was high (He = 0.39); and a high level of differentiation was observed between cotton plants from the two states (F ST = 0.36). Conventional methods of in situ maintenance of G. barbadense populations are not applicable. The conservation of the genetic variability of populations present in the two states could be achieved through germplasm collection and establishing of ex situ seed banks.

Letter health consultation : Northwest States Portland Cement Company site, site, Mason City, Iowa EPA facility ID: IAD98053431 (2008)

This letter has been prepared as a consultation to EPA regarding the third five year review of the Northwestern States Portland Cement Company Site, located North of Mason City, Iowa in Cerro Gordo County to provide an evaluation of the public health status of the site.

Iowa's Mississippi River Trail Plan, 2003

The Mississippi River Trail (MRT) is a world-class bicycle trail that will follow the Mississippi River all the way from its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. The trail is partially completed; much of it is still in the planning and development stages. When complete, the MRT will Link over 2,000 miles of recreational trails through 10 states, including 280 miles in Iowa. Designated as a National Millennium Trail, the MRT will preserve natural environments along the river, stimulate economic growth in river communities, and provide bicyclists access to a variety of landscapes, history, and culture. The Iowa Department of Transportation commissioned the Center for Transportation Research and Education at Iowa State University to develop a plan for a safe, economically beneficial, and scenic MRT route through Iowa. This report presents the MRT plan for Iowa. It is organized in the following chapters: Executive Summary; (1) Introduction - vision statement and objectives; (2) Iowa MRT Minimum Design Standards; (3) Iowa MRT Route Analysis; (4) Recommended Improvement Plan; (5) MRT Implementation; and (6) Estimated Benefits and Impacts of the Iowa MRT. Additional information is provided in the following appendices: (A) GIS Analysis for the MRT; (B) Iowa MRT Maps; (C) Public Input; (D) Public Comments; and (E) References.

Small-scale non-industrial private forest ownership in the United States : rationale and implications for forest management

Abstract

Ebola Information for West Africans Living in the United States, November 14, 2014

West Africans in the United States may face negative responses from people in their community because of the current Ebola outbreak. People may say bad things about you, or try to stop you or your family from everyday activities like work, school, shopping, or spending time with friends. This is known as stigma. Stigma mostly occurs because of fear—people fear Ebola and the disease is linked with a specific region of the world. You are not more at risk for Ebola because of your specific race or country of origin.

From rifting to passive margin - The examples of the Red Sea, Central Atlantic and Alpine Tethys

Evolution of the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez and the Central Atlantic rift systems shows that an initial, transtensive rifting phase, affecting a broad area around the future zone of crustal separation, was followed by a pre-oceanic rifting phase during which extensional strain was concentrated on the axial rift zone. This caused lateral graben systems to become inactive and they evolved into rift-rim basins. The transtensive phase of diffuse crustal extension is recognized in many intra-continental rifts. If controlling stress systems relax, these rifts abort and develop into palaeorifts. If controlling stress systems persist, transtensive rift systems can enter the pre-oceanic rifting stage, during which the rift zone narrows and becomes asymmetric as a consequence of simple-shear deformation at shallow crustal levels and pure shear deformation at lower crustal and mantle-lithospheric levels. Preceding crustal separation, extensional denudation of the lithospheric mantle is possible. Progressive lithospheric attenuation entails updoming of the asthenosphere and thermal doming of the rift shoulders. Their uplift provides a major clastic source for the rift basins and the lateral rift-rim basins. Their stratigraphic record provides a sensitive tool for dating the rift shoulder uplift. Asymmetric rifting leads to the formation of asymmetric continental margins, corresponding in a simple-shear model to an upper plate and a conjugate lower plate margin, as seen in the Central Atlantic passive margins of the United States and Morocco. This rifting model can be successfully applied to the analysis of the Alpine Tethys palaeo-margins (such as Rif and the Western Alps).

Mycelial compatibility and aggressiveness of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum isolates from Brazil and the United States

The objective of this work was to evaluate the genetic diversity among Sclerotinia sclerotiorum isolates from Brazil and the USA, assess their aggressiveness variability, and verify the existence of an isolate-cultivar interaction. Isolate variability was determined by mycelial compatibility grouping (MCG), and isolate aggressiveness by cut-stem inoculations of soybean cultivars. Two experiments for MCGs and two for aggressiveness were conducted with two sets of isolates. The first set included nine isolates from the same soybean field in Brazil and nine from the Midwest region of the USA. The second set included 16 isolates from several regions of Brazil and one from the USA. In the first set, 18 isolates formed 12 different MCGs. In the second set, 81% of the isolates from Brazil grouped into a single MCG. No common MCGs were observed among isolates from Brazil and the USA. The isolates showed aggressiveness differences in the first set, but not in the second. Although aggressiveness differed in the first set, soybean cultivars and isolates did not interact significantly. Cultivar rank remained the same, regardless of the genetic diversity, aggressiveness difference, and region or country of origin of the isolate. Results from screening of soybean cultivars, performed by the cut-stem method in the USA, can be used as reference for researchers in Brazil.

Quantum transport phenomena and shallow impurity states in CdSb

This work is dedicated to investigation of the energy spectrum of one of the most anisotropic narrow-gap semiconductors, CdSb. At the beginning of the present studies even the model of its energy band structure was not clear. Measurements of galvanomagnetic effects in wide temperature range (1.6 - 300 K) and in magnetic fields up to 30 T were chosen for clarifying of the energy spectrum in the intentionally undoped CdSb single crystals and doped with shallow impurities (In, Ag). Detection of the Shubnikov - de Haas oscillations allowed estimating the fundamental energy spectrum parameters. The shapes of the Fermi surfaces of electrons (sphere) and holes (ellipsoid), the number of the equivalent extremums for valence band (2) and their positions in the Brillouin zone were determined for the first time in this work. Also anisotropy coefficients, components of the tensor of effective masses of carriers, effective masses of density of states, nonparabolicity of the conduction and valence bands, g-factor and its anisotropy for n- and p-CdSb were estimated for the first time during these studies. All the results obtained are compared with the cyclotron resonance data and the corresponding theoretical calculations for p-CdSb. This is basic information for the analyses of the complex transport properties of CdSb and for working out the energy spectrum model of the shallow energy levels of defects and impurities in this semiconductor. It was found out existence of different mechanisms of hopping conductivity in the presence of metal - insulator transition induced by magnetic field in n- and p-CdSb. Quite unusual feature opened in CdSb is that different types of hopping conductivity may take place in the same crystal depending on temperature, magnetic field or even orientation of crystal in magnetic field. Transport properties of undoped p-CdSb samples show that the anisotropy of the resistivity in weak and strong magnetic fields is determined completely by the anisotropy of the effective mass of the holes. Temperature and magnetic field dependence of the Hall coefficient and magnetoresistance is attributed to presence of two groups of holes with different concentrations and mobilities. The analysis demonstrates that below Tcr ~ 20 K and down to ~ 6 - 7 K the low-mobile carriers are itinerant holes with energy E2 ≈ 6 meV. The high-mobile carriers, at all temperatures T < Tcr, are holes activated thermally from a deeper acceptor band to itinerant states of a shallower acceptor band with energy E1 ≈ 3 meV. Analysis of temperature dependences of mobilities confirms the existence of the heavy-hole band or a non-equivalent maximum and two equivalent maxima of the light-hole valence band. Galvanomagnetic effects in n-CdSb reveal the existence of two groups of carriers. These are the electrons of a single minimum in isotropic conduction band and the itinerant electrons of the narrow impurity band, having at low temperatures the energies above the bottom of the conduction band. It is found that above this impurity band exists second impurity band of only localized states and the energy of both impurity bands depend on temperature so that they sink into the band gap when temperature is increased. The bands are splitted by the spin, and in strong magnetic fields the energy difference between them decreases and redistribution of the electrons between the two impurity bands takes place. Mobility of the conduction band carriers demonstrates that scattering in n-CdSb at low temperatures is strongly anisotropic. This is because of domination from scattering on the neutral impurity centers and increasing of the contribution to mobility from scattering by acoustic phonons when temperature increases. Metallic conductivity in zero or weak magnetic field is changed to activated conductivity with increasing of magnetic field. This exhibits a metal-insulator transition (MIT) induced by the magnetic field due to shift of the Fermi level from the interval of extended states to that of the localized states of the electron spectrum near the edge of the conduction band. The Mott variablerange hopping conductivity is observed in the low- and high-field intervals on the insulating side of the MIT. The results yield information about the density of states, the localization radius of the resonant impurity band with completely localized states and about the donor band. In high magnetic fields this band is separated from the conduction band and lies below the resonant impurity bands.

Plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 and plasminogen activator inhibitor 2 in various disease states.

The association of increased PA-inhibitor (PAI) activity and of PAI-1 and PAI-2 antigen levels with different pathological conditions was studied in a collective of over 300 patients. PAI-1 and PAI-2 levels were measured by specific radioimmunoassays. A good correlation was observed of PAI activity with PAI-1 antigen (r = 0.718; p less than 0.0001) but not with PAI-2 (r = 0.070; n.s.). Both in the controls and in the patients, PAI activity and PAI-1 antigen showed an extremely large range of values. PAI activity ranged from 0.5 to 68 U/ml and PAI-1 antigen from 6 to 600 ng/ml. Increased PAI activity and PAI-1 antigen was observed in patients with malignant tumors, cardiovascular or thromboembolic disease, in the postoperative phase, with hepatic insufficiency, after trauma and after extracorporeal circulation. The large spectrum of disease states with increased PAI activity and PAI-1 antigen reinforces previous suggestions that PAI-1 is an acute phase reactant. After extracorporeal circulation, PAI activity and PAI-1 concentrations strongly increased within one hour, remained elevated for at least one week and returned to preoperation values within 7 days. PAI-2 values ranged from below detection limit (15 ng/ml), observed in half of the plasmas, to 485 ng/ml in a pregnant woman. High values of PAI-2 were only observed in pregnancy.

Scandinavian companies of banking, retailing and hotel sectors investing into the Baltic States-developing service sector

Diplomityö tehtiin Lappeenrannan yliopistossa päätavoitteenaan selvittää tärkeimmät motiivit, jotka ovat saaneet pohjoismaiset palvelualan yrityksetinvestoimaan Baltian maiden kehittyvillä markkinoilla. Pohjoismaiset yritykset ovat olleet aiemmin aktiivisia hyödyntämään Baltian maiden työvoimaa tuotantosektorilla. Suomalaiset yritykset ovat investoineet aiemmin telekommunikaatio- sekävaatetussektoreihin, mutta nykyisin investointien pääpaino on siirtynyt palvelualalle. Pankkisektori on erittäin kehittynyt pohjoismaissa ja ruotsalaiset yritykset ovat onnistuneet myös Baltiassa siirtyen markkinoille yksityistämisen tuomien mahdollisuuksien avulla. Nykyisin näillä yrityksillä on vahva jalansija Virossa sekä ovat etabloituneet myös Latviaan ja Liettuaan. Suomalaiset pankkialan yritykset ovat olleet vaatimattomampia tällä sektorilla. Vähittäiskauppiaat ovat vasta kansainvälistymisprosessinsa alkutaipaleella. Suomalaiset yritykset ovat laajentuneet Viroon ja tehneet yhteistyötä ruotsalaisten yritysten kanssa. Hotellisektorilla suomalaiset ja ruotsalaiset ovat edenneet rauhallisesti, mutta norjalainen ketju, Reval Hotel, on laajentunut kaikkiin Baltian maihin. Hotellisektorilla on luvassa kasvua lähivuosina. Kilpailutilanne on kiristynyt kaikilla palvelualan sektoreilla sekä paikallisten yritysten kasvun että ulkomaisten investoijien myötä. Elinolojen paraneminen vaikuttaa myös kilpailutilanteeseen kiristävästi, sillä se luo mahdollisuuksia yrityksille laajentua. Tämä diplomityö selvittäätilannetta valittujen yritysten kannalta niiden kansainvälistymisen alkutaipaleella.

European Union Eastern Enlargement - Expectations and Experiences of Doing Business in the New Member States

This publication deals with various aspects of European Union enlargement effects faced by the companies from EU15 and especially from Finland when doing business in the ten transitional economies which joined European Union in 2004 and 2007