Digital Commons Network^™

The Northwest Passage In The Arctic : A Brief Assessment Of The Relevant Marine Transportation System And Current Availability Of Search And Rescue Services, Rebecca Sheehan, Dimitrios Dalaklis, Anastasia Christodoulou, Megan Drewniak, Peter Raneri, Angelos Dalaklis

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Discrete Fourier Transform - A Practical Approach, David Dorran

Articles

These notes on the Discrete Fourier Transform include numerous practical examples that make use of audio signals.

Machine Learning Augmented Near-Infrared Spectroscopy: In Vivo Follow-Up Of Cartilage Defects, J. K. Sarin, N. C.R. Te Moller, A. Mohammadi, M. Prakash, J. Torniainen, H. Brommer, E. Nippolainen, R. Shaikh, J. T.A. Mäkelä, R. K. Korhonen, P. R. Van Weeren, I. O. Afara, J. Töyräs

Articles

Objective: To assess the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for in vivo arthroscopic monitoring of cartilage defects. Method: Sharp and blunt cartilage grooves were induced in the radiocarpal and intercarpal joints of Shetland ponies and monitored at baseline (0 weeks) and at three follow-up timepoints (11, 23, and 39 weeks) by measuring near-infrared spectra in vivo at and around the grooves. The animals were sacrificed after 39 weeks and the joints were harvested. Spectra were reacquired ex vivo to ensure reliability of in vivo measurements and for reference analyses. Additionally, cartilage thickness and instantaneous modulus were determined via computed tomography …

Emerging Avenues Immunotherapy For The Management Of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma, Steven G. Gray

Articles

Background: The role of immunotherapy in cancer is now well-established, and therapeutic options such as checkpoint inhibitors are increasingly being approved in many cancers such as non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare orphan disease associated with prior exposure to asbestos, with a dismal prognosis. Evidence from clinical trials of checkpoint inhibitors in this rare disease, suggest that such therapies may play a role as a treatment option for a proportion of patients with this cancer. Main text: While the majority of studies currently focus on the established checkpoint inhibitors (CTLA4 and PD1/ PDL1), there …

An Assessment Of Contamination Fingerprinting Techniques For Determining The Impact Of Domestic Wastewater Treatment Systems On Private Well Supplies, Chris Fennell, Bruce Misstear, David O'Connell, Donata Dubber, Patrice Behan, Martin Danaher, Mary Moloney, Laurence Gill

Articles

Private wells in Ireland and elsewhere have been shown to be prone to microbial contamination with the main suspected sources being practices associated with agriculture and domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTS). While the microbial quality of private well water is commonly assessed using faecal indicator bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, such organisms are not usually source-specific, and hence cannot definitively conclude the exact origin of the contamination. This research assessed a range of different chemical contamination fingerprinting techniques (ionic ratios, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, fluorescent whitening compounds, faecal sterol profiles and pharmaceuticals) as to their use to apportion contamination of private …

In Silico And In Vitro Screening For Potential Anticancer Candidates Targeting Gpr120, Ajay Pal, James Curtin, Gemma K. Kinsella

Articles

The G-protein coupled receptor - GPR120 has recently been implicated as a novel target for colorectal cancer (CRC) and other cancer managements. In this study, a homology model of GPR120S (short isoform) was generated to identify potential anti-cancer compounds targeting the GPR120 receptor using a combined in silico docking-based virtual screening (DBVS), structure-activity relationships (SAR) and in vitro screening approach. SPECS database of synthetic chemical compounds (~350,000) was screened using the developed GPR120S model to identify molecules binding to the orthosteric binding pocket followed by an AutoDock SMINA rigid-flexible docking protocol. The best 13 hit molecules were then tested in …

Seaweed Polysaccharide In Food Contact Materials (Active Packaging, Intelligent Packaging, Edible Films, And Coatings), Kalpani Perera, Shubham Sharma, Dileswar Pradhan, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

Food contact materials (FCMs) are materials that come in contact with food products such as food packaging which play a significant role in food quality and safety. Plastic, which is a major food packaging material, harms the ecosystem, wildlife, and the environment. As a result, numerous researches have been in progress on alternative polymers, which have similar properties as plastic but are also environmentally friendly (biodegradable). In recent years, the utilization of seaweed polysaccharides has piqued interest due to their biodegradability, non-toxicity, antioxidant capabilities, and excellent film formation ability. However, it has a number of drawbacks such as low tensile …

Fruits And Vegetables In The Management Of Underlying Conditions For Covid-19 High-Risk Groups, Nora Moreb, Ahmed Albandary, Swarna Jaiswal, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

: SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, which is the cause of the current pandemic with 107,411,561 infections and 2,351,195 death worldwide so far. There are multiple symptoms that are linked with the infection of COVID-19 such as coughing, shortness of breath, congestion together with fatigue, fever, loss of taste or smell, headaches, diarrhea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. The lack of or early stage of development of a cure for COVID-19 illness, there is need for insuring the best possible position of health to be able to fight the virus naturally through a robust immune system to limit …

Salmonella, Food Safety And Food Handling Practices, Olugbenga Ehuwa, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

: Salmonellosis is the second most reported gastrointestinal disorder in the EU resulting from the consumption of Salmonella-contaminated foods. Symptoms include gastroenteritis, abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhoea, fever, myalgia, headache, nausea and vomiting. In 2018, Salmonella accounted for more than half of the numbers of foodborne outbreak illnesses reported in the EU. Salmonella contamination is mostly associated with produce such as poultry, cattle and their feeds but other products such as dried foods, infant formula, fruit and vegetable products and pets have become important. Efforts aimed at controlling Salmonella are being made. For example, legislation and measures put in place reduced …

Plasma-Treated Water Affects Listeria Monocytogenes Vitality And Biofilm Structure, Oliver Handorf, Viktoria Isabella Pauker, Thomas Weihe, Uta Schnabel, Eric Freund, Sander Bekeschus, Katharina Riedel, Jörg Ehlbeck

Articles

Plasma-generated compounds (PGCs) such as plasma-processed air (PPA) or plasma-treated water (PTW) offer an increasingly important alternative for the treatment of microorganisms in hard-to-reach areas found in several industrial applications including the food industry. To this end, we studied the antimicrobial capacity of plasma-treated water on the vitality and biolm formation of Listeria monocytogenes, a common food spoilage microorganism. Using a microwave plasma (MidiPLexc), 10 ml of deionized water was treated for 100 s, 300 s and 900 s (pretreatment time) and the bacterial biolm was subsequently exposed to the PTW for 1 min, 3 min and 5 min (posttreatment …

Cold Plasma For Insect Pest Control: Tribolium Castaneum Mortality And Defense Mechanisms In Response To Treatment, Dana Ziuzina, Robin Van Cleynenbreugel, Paula Bourke

Articles

The insecticidal properties and mechanisms of high-voltage air-based atmospheric cold plasma using a contained dielectric barrier discharge reactor were investigated against Tribolium castaneum as an important bio-contaminant in stored grains spoilage. The mortality of 95.0%–100% for preadult stages can be achieved within seconds of treatment, but longer plasma exposure (5 min) is required to kill adult insects. Cold plasma treatment reduces both the respiration rate and the weight of insects and affects the levels of oxidative stress markers in adult populations. Sufficient toxicity is achievable through plasma process control in air to address the range of insect lifecycle stages that …

Plasma-Treated Water Affects Listeria Monocytogenes Vitality And Biofilm Structure, Oliver Handorf

Articles

Plasma-generated compounds (PGCs) such as plasma-processed air (PPA) or plasma-treated water (PTW) offer an increasingly important alternative for the control of microorganisms in hard-to-reach areas found in several industrial applications including the food industry. To this end, we studied the antimicrobial capacity of PTW on the vitality and biofilm formation of Listeria monocytogenes, a common foodborne pathogen.

Food Contact Surfaces: Challenges, Legislation And Solutions, Shubham Sharma, Amit Jaiswal, Brendan Duffy, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

Food contact surfaces (FCSs) include all surfaces that may come in contact with the food during production, processing, and packaging. Food processing industries encounter several challenges due to its microbial interaction with the FCSs, such as cross-contamination of pathogenic microorganisms or allergens in food, formation of biofilm, biodeterioration of food contact surface leads to food with reduced shelf-life and quality. A legal EU framework provides the fundamental postulates for the safety and inertness of all Food Contact Materials (FCMs). Legislations have an important role in providing regulatory guidance on the quality assurance systems and verifying their implementation as a means …

Courts Beyond Judging, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

Across all fifty states, a woefully understudied institution of government is responsible for a broad range of administrative, legislative, law enforcement, and judicial functions. That important institution is the state courts. While the literature has examined the federal courts and federal judges from innumerable angles, study of the state courts as institutions of state government — and not merely as sources of doctrine and resolvers of disputes — has languished. This Article remedies that oversight by drawing attention for the first time to the wide array of roles state courts serve, and by evaluating the suitability of both the allocation …

The Issue Class Revolution, Myriam E. Gilles, Gary Friedman

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In 2013, four Supreme Court Justices dissented from the decision in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, which established heightened requirements for the certification of damages class actions. In a seemingly offhanded footnote, these dissenters observed that district courts could avoid the individualized inquiries that increasingly doom damages classes by certifying a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(c)(4) on liability issues only and "leaving individual damages calculations to subsequent proceedings." The dissenters were onto something big. In fact, the issue class and follow-on damages model has broad potential to restore the efficacy of aggregate litigation across several substantive areas …

Stripped Of Funds, Stripped Of Rights: A Critique Of Guardianship As A Remedy For Elder Financial Harm, Rebekah Diller, Leslie Salzman

Articles

There is a growing consensus in the United States and abroad recognizing the right to “legal capacity”—the right to make legally binding decisions for oneself—as a basic human right. Despite this recognition, adult guardianship—the state court procedure by which a person is declared incapacitated and stripped of decision-making rights—remains a widely used tool, particularly for older adults who have suffered financial exploitation or loss. For this population, guardianship is considered an unpleasant yet necessary remedy to address their financial harms. But what if the cure does not really work as intended, while other, less intrusive means could prevent and redress …

Entitlement To Punishment, Kyron J. Huigens

Articles

This Article advances the idea of entitlement to punishment as the core of a normative theory of legal punishment's moral justification. It presents an alternative to normative theories of punishment premised on desert or public welfare; that is, to retributivism and consequentialism. The argument relies on H.L.A. Hart's theory of criminal law as a "choosing system," his theory of legal rules, and his theory of rights. It posits the advancement of positive freedom as a morally justifying function of legal punishment.

An entitlement to punishment is a unique, distinctive legal relation. We impose punishment when an offender initiates an ordered …

Bio-Binder—Innovative Asphalt Technology, Amir Tabakovic

Articles

The global road network spans 16.3 million km [1], of which 5 million km is in the EU. These road networks fulfil major economic and social goals by facilitating the movement of goods and people throughout the EU, and are therefore of the utmost importance to the economic and social life of the EU [2]. National governments invest heavily in their road networks, e.g., in 2014, EUR 53.33 billion was invested in the development and maintenance of the EU road network [3]. Each year, the world produces 1.6 trillion tonnes of asphalt [4], of which 218 million tonnes is produced …

A Review Of Bleeding Risk With Impella-Supported High-Risk Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, George W. Vetrovec, Amir Kaki, Thom G. Dahle

Articles

Complex, high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention (HR-PCI) is increasingly being performed, often with mechanical circulatory support (MCS), though to date, there are limited randomised data on the efficacy of MCS for HR-PCI. The majority of MCS is provided by intra-aortic balloon pumps, but increasingly Impella® (Abiomed, Danvers, MA, USA) heart pumps are being used. While the Impella pumps provide greater increases in cardiac output, these devices require large bore access, which has been associated with an increased risk of bleeding and vascular complications. Decisions regarding the use of Impella are often based on risk–benefit considerations, with Impella-related bleeding risk being a …

Labor Redemption In Work Law, Andrew Elmore

Articles

People with criminal records are not a protected class under Title VII, and many employers fear that hiring people with criminal records invites negligent hiring liability. Ban the Box privacy laws delay but may not deter overbroad criminal background checks. This Article challenges this standard account by shifting focus to the state in imposing arbitrary barriers to work. I expose a dignity interest in the removal of these unnecessary barriers, or "labor redemption." I find foundations of labor redemption in successful constitutional challenges to denials of public employment and occupational licenses. Labor redemption is also, increasingly, a statutory right, in …

Feigned Consensus: Usurping The Law In Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma Prosecutions, Keith A. Findley, D. Michael Risinger, Patrick D. Barnes, Julie A. Mack, David A. Moran, Barry C. Scheck, Thomas L. Bohan

Articles

Few medico-legal matters have generated as much controversy--both in the medical literature and in the courtroom--as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), now known more broadly as Abusive Head Trauma (AHT). The controversies are of enormous significance in the law because child abuse pediatricians claim, on the basis of a few non-specific medical findings supported by a weak and methodologically flawed research base, to be able to “diagnose” child abuse, and thereby to provide all of the evidence necessary to satisfy all of the legal elements for criminal prosecution (or removal of children from their parents). It is a matter, therefore, in …

Safety Of Vitamin D2 Mushroom Powder As A Novel Food Pursuant To Regulation (Eu) 2015/2283, John Kearney, Dominique Turck, Jacqueline Castenmiller, Stefaan De Henauw

Articles

Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens (NDA) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on vitamin D2 mushroom powder as a novel food (NF) pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. The NF is an ingredient produced from Agaricus bisporus mushrooms that have been exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light to induce the conversion of provitamin D2 (ergosterol) to vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol). The NF contains concentrations of vitamin D provided by vitamin D2 in the ranges of 1,000–1,300 lg/g. The information provided on the manufacturing process, composition and specifications of the NF …

Riluzole Attenuates Glutamatergic Tone And Cognitive Decline In Aβpp/Ps1 Mice., Kevin N Hascup, Caleigh A Findley, Jesse Britz, Nahayo Esperant-Hilaire, Sarah O Broderick, Kristin Delfino, Shelley Tischkau, Andrzej Bartke, Erin R Hascup

Articles

We have previously demonstrated hippocampal hyperglutamatergic signaling occurs prior to plaque accumulation in AβPP/PS1 mice. Here, we evaluate 2-Amino-6-(trifluoromethoxy) benzothiazole (riluzole) as an early intervention strategy for Alzheimer's disease (AD), aimed at restoring glutamate neurotransmission prior to substantial Beta amyloid (Aβ) plaque accumulation and cognitive decline. Male AβPP/PS1 mice, a model of progressive cerebral amyloidosis, were treated with riluzole from 2-6 months of age. Morris water maze, in vivo electrochemistry, and immunofluorescence were performed to assess cognition, glutamatergic neurotransmission, and pathology, respectively, at 12 months. Four months of prodromal riluzole treatment in AβPP/PS1 mice resulted in long-lasting procognitive effects and …

Comparing Variable Importance In Prediction Of Silence Behaviours Between Random Forest And Conditional Inference Forest Models., Stephen Barrett Dr, Geraldine Gray Dr, Colm Mcguinness Dr, Michael Knoll Dr.

Articles

This paper explores variable importance metrics of Conditional Inference Trees (CIT) and classical Classification And Regression Trees (CART) based Random Forests. The paper compares both algorithms variable importance rankings and highlights why CIT should be used when dealing with data with different levels of aggregation. The models analysed explored the role of cultural factors at individual and societal level when predicting Organisational Silence behaviours.

Investigation Of Surrogate Biomarkers Associated With Macular Pigment Status In A Group Of Older Irish Adults, Grainne Scanlon, John S. Butler, Daniel Mccartney, Ekaterina Lostutova, Rose Anne Kenny, James Loughman

Articles

SIGNIFICANCE: Macular pigment (MP) confers potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects at the macula; however, its optical density in the eye is not routinely measured in clinical practice.

PURPOSE: This study explored a range of surrogate biomarkers including anthropometric, clinical, and plasma measures that may be associated with lower MP optical density (MPOD).

METHODS: Two thousand five hundred ninety-four subjects completed a full MP assessment as part of wave 1 of The Irish Longitudinal Study of Aging. Macular pigment optical density was measured using customized heterochromatic flicker photometry. Clinical (blood pressure), plasma (lipoproteins, inflammatory markers), and anthropometric (waist, hip, height, weight) …

Against Fascism: Toward A Latcritical Legal Genealogy, Elizabeth M. Iglesias

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No abstract provided.

Symposium: The California Consumer Privacy Act, Margot Kaminski, Jacob Snow, Felix T. Wu, Justin Hughes

Articles

This symposium discussion of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review focuses on the newly enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (CPPA), a statute signed into state law by then-Governor Jerry Brown on June 28, 2018 and effective as of January 1, 2020. The panel was held on February 20, 2020.

The panelists discuss how businesses are responding to the new law and obstacles for consumers to make effective use of the law’s protections and rights. Most importantly, the panelists grapple with questions courts are likely to have to address, including the definition of personal information under the CCPA, the application …

Exploration Of The Neisseria Resistome Reveals Resistance Mechanisms In Commensals That May Be Acquired By N. Gonorrhoeae Through Horizontal Gene Transfer, Michael A. Fiore, Jordan C. Raisman, Narayan H. Wong, André O. Hudson, Crista B. Wadsworth

Articles

Nonpathogenic Neisseria transfer mutations encoding antibiotic resistance to their pathogenic relative Neisseria gonorrhoeae. However, the resistance genotypes and subsequent phenotypes of nonpathogens within the genus have been described infrequently. Here, we characterize the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of a panel of Neisseria (n = 26)—including several commensal species—to a suite of diverse antibiotics. We furthermore use whole genome sequencing and the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database Resistance Gene Identifier (RGI) platform to predict putative resistance-encoding mutations. Resistant isolates to all tested antimicrobials including penicillin (n = 5/26), ceftriaxone (n = 2/26), cefixime (n = 3/26), tetracycline (n = 10/26), azithromycin (n …

Nicholas C. Howson's Tribute To Professor William P. Alford, Nicholas C. Howson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Simulation Of Internet Of Things Water Management For Efficient Rice Irrigation In Rwanda, Peace Bamurigire, Anthony Vodacek, Andras Valko, Said Rutabayiro Ngoga

Articles

The central role of water access for agriculture is a clear challenge anywhere in the world and particularly in areas with significant seasonal variation in rainfall such as in Eastern and Central Africa. The combination of modern sensor technologies, the Internet, and advanced irrigation equipment combined in an Internet of Things (IoT) approach allow a relatively precise control of agricultural irrigation and creating the opportunity for high efficiency of water use for agricultural demands. This IoT approach can thereby increase the resilience of agricultural systems in the face of complex demands for water use. Most previous works on agricultural IoT …