Haptoglobin subtyping by isoelectric focusing in ultrathin-layer polyacrylamide gels. Population genetic data for Hanover and Lower Saxony

This report describes a method for subtyping haptoglobin by means of isoelectric focusing in 0.2-mm ultrathin-layer polyacrylamide gels. Haptoglobin (Hp) is purified by ion-exchange chromatography and reduced. The well-known advantages of ultrathin-layer gels combine high isoelectrophoretic resolution of the Hp subtypes with less demands for time and material and make sequential visualization by fixation and protein staining possible. The distribution of the Hp subtypes in 1500 unrelated adults from Hanover and Lower Saxony is presented. Allelic frequencies are calculated to be: Hp*2FF = 0.0030; *2FS = 0.5620; *2SS = 0.0290; *1F = 0.1537; *1S = 0.2523. Segregation analysis for 68 matings shows an autosomal codominant mode of transmission in all cases. For the population investigated the chance of isolated paternity exclusion with the subtyped Hp system amounts to 33.91%.     

Exchange on Eurasianism

Sol Dollinger and Genora Johnson Dollinger. NOT AUTOMATIC: WOMEN AND THE LEFT IN THE FORGING OF THE AUTO WORKERS UNION. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.     

Der Übergang von der GesbR zur OG gemäß § 8 Abs 3 UGB

Der Rechtsformwechsel zwischen der Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts und den Personenhandels- sowie den eingetragenen Erwerbsgesellschaften war wegen der unterschiedlichen Eigentumsstruktur schon nach altem Recht nicht unproblematisch, wenngleich eine hM und Rsp hier einen identit?tswahrenden Rechtsformwechsel ebenso anerkannt hatten, wie er etwa im Verh?ltnis unter den Personenhandels- und Erwerbsgesellschaften von vornherein au?er Zweifel stand. Das UGB hat die Problematik in dreifacher Weise versch?rft: Zum einen wird den eingetragenen Personengesellschaften nun ausdrücklich die Rechtsf?higkeit zuerkannt, zum Zweiten der zwangsweise Rechtsformwechsel jetzt an einen klaren und relativ niedrigen Schwellenwert geknüpft, drittens schlie?lich der spezielle Fall des übergangs von der Vorgesellschaft zur OG eigens geregelt, wobei aber die gesetzessprachliche Aussage zu den hier einschl?gigen F?llen uneinheitlich und unpr?zise ist.     

Marianne Weber and her circle

An expanded version of his English introduction to Marianne Weber’s biography of Max Weber was published in the Transaction edition. A companion piece on “émile Durkheim and the Principles of 1789: The Issue of Gender Equality,” appears in Telos.     

Personhood,property rights,and the permissibility of abortion

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the tactic of granting a fetus the legal status of a person will not, contrary to the expectations of opponents of abortion, provide grounds for a general prohibition on abortions. I begin by examining two arguments, one moral (J. J. Thomson's ‘A Defense of Abortion’) and the other legal (D. Regan's ‘Rewriting Roe v. Wade’), which grant the assumption that a fetus is a person and yet argue to the conclusion that abortion is permissible. However, both Thomson and Regan rely on the so-called bad samaritan principle. This principle states that a person has a right to refuse to give aid. Their reliance on this principle creates problems, both in the moral and the legal contexts, since the bad samaritan principle is intended to apply to passive refusals to aid; abortion, however, does not look like any such passive denial of aid, and so it does not seem like the sort of action covered by the bad samaritan principle. In defense of the positions outlined by Thomson and Regan, I argue that the apparent asymmetry between abortion and the usual type of case covered by the bad samaritan principle is only apparent and not a genuine problem for their analyses. I conclude with a defense of the morality of the bad samaritan principle.