Informe de la V Conferencia de Ministros y Jefes de Planificación de América Latina y el Caribe = Report of the Fifth Conference of Ministers and Heads of Planning of Latin America and the Caribbean

Presenta la organizacion y el resumen de las deliberaciones de la reunion que trato sobre la crisis externa y los programas de reactivacion en los anos 80, y el papel del Estado en las politicas economicas y sociales del futuro.

Informe sobre la Primera Reunión de Ministros del Caribe Responsables de Ciencia y Tecnología = Report of the First Meeting of Caribbean Ministers Responsible for Science and Technology

Informe de la primera reunion de ministros del Caribe responsables por la ciencia y la tecnologia, realizada en Kingston, 6-8 abril de 1983. Las discusiones y decisiones se centraron en la necesidad de incrementar la integracion de la ciencia y tecnologia dentro de las estrategias para el desarrollo nacional y regional; y desarrollar un marco de colaboracion regional.

List of Caribbean Ministers of Planning and Heads of Planning Offices

Contiene una lista de ministros de planificacion del Caribe y de directores de las oficinas de planificacion.

Note on Meeting of Council of Ministers of the East Caribbean Common Market

Comentarios sobre la 10a Reunion del Consejo de Ministros del Mercado Comun del Caribe Oriental (MCCO). Incluye en anexos la posicion del MCCO sobre algunos puntos de la agenda

Note on the Tenth Meeting of the CARIFTA Council of Ministers

Comentarios sobre la 10a Reunion del Cosejo de Ministros de CARIFTA. El enfasis estuvo en los siguientes puntos de la agenda: a).la posicion presente y futura de los paises menos desarrollados de CARIFTA en el movimiento de integracion regional; b).la relacion entre los paises de CARIFTA y la Comunidad Economica Europea; c).el Arancel Externo Comun de CARIFTA y d).finalizacion del Esquema para Armonizacion de Incentivos Fiscales a la Industria

Main conclusions of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Council of Ministers Special Session, Montego Bay, 7-10 July 1980

Nota sobre la Reunion Especial del Consejo de Ministros del Grupo ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) sobre cooperacion intra ACP.

Third ordinary meeting of the conference of South American ministers of transport, communications and public works

The third ordinary meeting of the Conference of South American Ministers of Transport, Communications and Public Works was held from 6 to 8 November 1996 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Representatives of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela took part. Representatives of the following organizations were present as observers: the Latin American and Caribbean Federation of National Associations of Cargo Agents, the Latin American Railways Association, the Latin American Association for Automated Highway Transport, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the International Road Federation/German Agency for Technical Cooperation (IRF/GTZ); and other representatives from both the private and public sectors.

The Council of Ministers of the European Union After the Lisbon Treaty

The Treaty of Lisbon has brought remarkable changes and innovations to the European Union. As far as the Council of Ministers of the European Union (“the Council” hereinafter) is concerned, there are two significant innovations: double qualified majority voting and new rotating Presidency scheme, which are considered to make the working of the Council more efficiently, stably and consistently. With the modification relating to other key institutions, the Commission and the European Parliament, and with certain procedures being re-codified, the power of the Council varies accordingly, where the inter-institutional balance counts for more research. As the Council is one of the co-legislatures of the Union, the legislative function of it would be probably influenced, positively or negatively, by the internal innovations and the inter-institutional re-balance. Has the legislative function of the Council been reinforced or not? How could the Council better reach its functional goal designed by the Treaties’ drafter? How to evaluate the Council’s evolution after Lisbon Treaty in the light of European integration? This thesis is attempting to find the answers by analyzing two main internal innovations and inter-institutional re-balance thereinafter.

Enhancement of heterologous expression of alkaline phytase in Pichia pastors

Phytic acid is the major storage form of phosphorus and inositol in seeds and legumes. It forms insoluble phytate salts by chelating with positively charged mineral ions. Non-ruminant animals are not able to digest phytate due to the lack of phytases in their GI tracks, thus the undigested phytate is excreted leading to environmental contamination. Supplementation with phytases in animal feed has proven to be an effective strategy to alleviate nutritional and environmental issues. The unique catalytic and thermal stability properties of alkaline phytase from lily pollen (LlALP) suggest that it has the potential to be useful as a feed supplement. Our goal is to develop a method for the production of substantial amounts of rLlALP for animal feed and structural studies. rLlALP2 has been successfully expressed in the yeast, Pichia pastoris. However, expression yield was modest (8-10 mg/L). Gene copy number has been identified as an important parameter in enhancing protein yields. Multicopy clones were selected using Zeocin-resistance-based vectors and challenging transformants to high Zeocin levels under different conditions. Data indicate that increasing selection pressure led to the generation of clones with amplification of both rLlAlp2 and Zeor genes and the two genes were not equally amplified. Additionally, clones generated by step-wise methods led to clones with greater amplification. The effects of transgene copy number and gene sequence optimization on expression levels of rLlALP2 were examined. The data indicate that increasing the copy number of rLlAlp2 in transformed clones was detrimental to expression level. The use of a sequence-optimized rLlAlp2 (op-rLlAlp2) increased expression yield of the active enzyme by 25-50%, suggesting that transcription and translation efficiency are not major bottlenecks in the production of rLlALP2. Lowering induction temperature to 20 oC led to an increase in enzyme activity of 1.2 to 20-fold, suggesting that protein folding or post-translational processes may be limiting factors for rLlALP2 production. Cumulatively, optimization of copy number, gene sequence optimization and reduced temperature led to increase of rLlALP2 enzyme activity by three-fold (25-30 mg/L). In an effort to simplify the purification process of rLlALP2, extracellular expression of phytase was investigated. Extracellular expression is dependent on the presence of an appropriate secretion signal upstream of the transgene native signal peptide(s) present in the transgene may also influence secretion efficiency. The data suggest that deletion of both N- and C-terminal signal peptides of rLlALP2 enhanced α-mating factor (α-MF)-driven secretion of LlALP2 by four-fold. The secretion signal peptide of chicken egg white lysozyme was ineffective in secretion rLlALP2 in P. pastoris. To enhance rLlALP2 secretion, effectiveness of the strong inducible promoter (PAOX1) was compared with the constitutive promoter (PGAP). The intracellular yield of rLlALP2 was about four-fold greater under the control of PGAP compared to PAOX1 and extracellular expression level of rLlALP2 was around eight-fold (75-100 mg/L) greater. The successful production of active rLlALP2 in P. pastoris will allow us to conduct the animal feed supplementation studies and structural studies.