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A Protocol For A Randomised Clinical Trial Of The Effect Of Providing Feedback On Inhaler Technique And Adherence From An Electronic Device In Patients With Poorly Controlled Severe Asthma, Imran Sulaiman, Martin Holmes, Shona D'Arcy, Viliam Rapčan, Desmond Michael Murphy, Gloria Crispino, Isabelle Killane, Rw Costello, Richard B Reilly, Jansen Seheult, Gregory Diette, Elaine Machale, Terence Taylor

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ntroduction In clinical practice, it is difficult to distinguish between patients with refractory asthma from those with poorly controlled asthma, where symptoms persist due to poor adherence, inadequate inhaler technique or comorbid diseases. We designed an audio recording device which, when attached to an inhaler, objectively identifies the time and technique of inhaler use, thereby assessing both aspects of adherence. This study will test the hypothesis that feedback on these two aspects of adherence when passed on to patients improves adherence and helps clinicians distinguish refractory from difficult-to-control asthma. Methods This is a single, blind, prospective, randomised, clinical trial performed …

Bayesian Exponential Random Graph Models With Nodal Random Effects, Stephanie Thiemichen, Nial Friel, Alberto Caimo, Goeran Kauermann

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We extend the well-known and widely used Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) by including nodal random effects to compensate for heterogeneity in the nodes of a network. The Bayesian framework for ERGMs proposed by Caimo and Friel (2011) yields the basis of our modelling algorithm. A central question in network models is the question of model selection and following the Bayesian paradigm we focus on estimating Bayes factors. To do so we develop an approximate but feasible calculation of the Bayes factor which allows one to pursue model selection. Two data examples and a small simulation study illustrate our mixed …

Biofilm Growth Kinetics And Nutrient (N/P) Adsorption In An Urban Lake Using Reclaimed Water: A Quantitative Baseline For Ecological Health Assessment, Tianzhi Wang, Zhenci Wu, Yunkai Li, Mingchao Liang, Zhenhua Wang, Paul Hynds

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Reclaimed wastewater reuse represents an effective method for partial resolution of increasing urban water shortages; however, reclaimed water may be characterized by significant contaminant loading, potentially affecting receiving ecosystem (and potentially human) health. The current study examined biofilm growth and nutrient adsorption in Olympic Lake (Beijing), the largest artificial urban lake in the world supplied exclusively by reclaimed wastewater. Findings indicate that solid particulate, extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) and metal oxide (Al, Fe, Mn) constituent masses adhere to a bacterial growth curve during biofilm formation and growth. Peak values were observed after ≈30 days, arrived at dynamic stability after ≈50days …

A Method To Calculate Adherence To Inhaled Therapy That Reflects The Changes In Clinical Features Of Asthma, Imran Sulaiman, Jansen Seheult, Elaine Machale, Fiona Boland, Susan M. O’Dwyer, Viliam Rapcan, Shona D’Arcy, Breda Cushen, Matshediso Mokoka, Isabelle Killane, Sheila A. Ryder, Richard B. Reilly, Richard W. Costello

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Electronic monitors are considered the gold standard for objectively quantifying adherence to inhaled therapy (1). Most studies using electronic recording devices have reported adherence as the mean adherence, or the mean daily dose, over the study period (2–4). However, this method does not reflect variations in the way that patients use their treatments. For example, the mean adherence is the same whether an individual took the medication according to the prescribed schedule or took all the doses in the first half of a dosing period, leaving none in the second half. Inhaler technique must …

Balancing Judicial Independence And Accountability In A Transitional State: The Case Of Thailand, David Pimentel

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Balancing judicial independence against judicial accountability is a classic problem, but the debate has often taken place without reference to specific legal cultures and traditions, and there is compelling reason to believe that the “right” balance may be different in different societies. Thailand is in transition, so the models of established Western democracies may be ill-suited to the problems and issues of the Thai judiciary. Moreover, independence and accountability are not ends in themselves, but means to the same end: that of fair, impartial, and effective justice. Independence can help, primarily by bolstering the “judicial courage” exercised by judges called …

A Nearly Perfect System For Convicting The Innocent, Albert W. Alschuler

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No abstract provided.

The Sin Of Turning Away From Reality: An Interview With Father Krzysztof Charamsa, David Paternotte, Mary Anne Case, Sarah Bracke

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No abstract provided.

Antibacterial Properties Of F-Doped Zno Visible Light Photocatalyst, Joanna Podporska-Carroll, Adam Myles, Brid Quilty, Declan Mccormack, Rachel Fagan, Steven Hinder, Dionysios Dionysiou, Suresh Pillai

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Nanocrystalline ZnO photocatalysts were prepared by a sol–gel method and modified with fluorine to improve their photocatalytic anti-bacterial activity in visible light. Pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive) were employed to evaluate the antimicrobial properties of synthesized materials. The interaction with biological systems was assessed by analysis of the antibacterial properties of bacteria suspended in 2% (w/w) powder solutions. The F-doping was found to be effective against S. aureus (99.99% antibacterial activity) and E. coli (99.87% antibacterial activity) when irradiated with visible light. Production of reactive oxygen species is one of the major factors that …

Fuel Price Elasticities In The U.S. Combination Trucking Sector, James J. Winebrake, Erin H. Green, Bryan Comer, Chi Li

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This paper estimates fuel price elasticities of combination trucking operations in the United States between 1970 and 2012. We evaluate trucking operations in terms of vehicle miles traveled and fuel consumption for combination trucks. Our explanatory variables include measures of economic activity, energy prices, and indicator variables that account for important regulatory shifts and changes in data collection and reporting in national transportation datasets. Our results suggest that fuel price elasticities in the United States’ trucking sector have shifted from an elastic environment in the 1970s to a relatively inelastic environment today. We discuss the importance of these results for …

Fuel Price Elasticities For Single-Unit Truck Operations In The United States, James J. Winebrake, Erin H. Green, Bryan Comer, Chi Li

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This paper provides fuel price elasticity estimates for single-unit truck activity, where single-unit trucks are defined as vehicles on a single frame with either (1) at least two axles and six tires; or (2) a gross vehicle weight greater than 10,000 lb. Using data from 1980 to 2012, this paper applies first-difference and error correction models and finds that single-unit truck activity is sensitive to certain macroeconomic and infrastructure factors (gross domestic product, lane miles expansion, and housing construction), but is not sensitive to diesel fuel prices. These results suggest that fuel price elasticities of single unit truck activity are …

Tweedie's Compound Poisson Model With Grouped Elastic Net, Wei Qian, Yi Yang, Hui Zou

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Tweedie's Compound Poisson model is a popular method to model data with probability mass at zero and non-negative, highly right-skewed distribution. Motivated by wide applications of the Tweedie model in various fields such as actuarial science, we investigate the grouped elastic net method for the Tweedie model in the context of the generalized linear model. To efficiently compute the estimation coefficients, we devise a two-layer algorithm that embeds the blockwise majorization descent method into an iteratively re-weighted least square strategy. In together with the strong rule, the proposed algorithm is implemented in an easy-to-use R package HDtweedie, and is shown …

Avoiding Decline: Fostering Resilience And Sustainability In Midsize Cities, Barbara Cosens

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Eighty-five percent of United States citizens live in urban areas. However, research surrounding the resilience and sustainability of complex urban systems focuses largely on coastal megacities (>1 million people). Midsize cities differ from their larger counterparts due to tight urban-rural feedbacks with their immediate natural environments that result from heavy reliance and close management of local ecosystem services. They also may be less path-dependent than larger cities due to shorter average connection length among system components, contributing to higher responsiveness among social, infrastructural, and ecological feedbacks. These distinct midsize city features call for a framework that organizes information and …

Presidential Leadership And The Separation Of Powers, Eric A. Posner

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No abstract provided.

Redundant Public-Private Enforcement, Zachary D. Clopton

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No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Access Justice, And Its Application To Mandatory Arbitration, Omri Ben-Shahar

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No abstract provided.

The Grass Is Not Always Greener: Congressional Dysfunction, Executive Action, And Climate Change In Comparative Perspective, Hari Osofsky, Jacqueline Peel

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Partisan climate change politics, paired with a legislative branch that is often deeply divided between two parties, has led to congressional gridlock in the United States. Numerous efforts at passing comprehensive climate change legislation have failed, and little prospect exists for such legislation in the foreseeable future. As a result, executive action under existing federal environmental statutes--often in interaction with litigation--has become the primary mechanism for national-level regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and power plants. Although many observers critique this state of affairs and wish for a legislature more able to act. this essay argues that more …

Sharing Residual Liability: ‘Cheapest Cost Avoider’ Revisited, Emanuela Carbonara, Alice Guerra, Francesco Parisi

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Economic models of tort law evaluate the efficiency of liability rules in terms of care and activity levels. A liability regime is optimal when it creates incentives to maximize the value of risky activities at the net of accident and precaution costs. The allocation of primary and residual liability allows policymakers to induce parties to undertake socially desirable care and activity levels. Traditionally, tort law systems have assigned residual liability either entirely on the tortfeasor or entirely on the victim. In this paper, we unpack the cheapest cost-avoider principle (Calabresi, 1970) to consider the virtues and the limits of loss-sharing …

Effect Of Olive Mill Wastewater Phenolic Extract, Whey Protein Isolate And Xanthan Gum On The Behaviour Of Olive O/W Emulsions Using Response Surface Methodology., Nicola Caporaso, Alessandro Genovese, Roisin Burke, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Raffaele Sacchi

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Spray-dried polyphenols extracted from olive mill wastewater (OMW) were used to formulate 20% olive oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions stabilised with whey protein isolate (WPI) and xanthan gum at pH 7. The effects of olive biophenol extract (0.9-4.4 mM), whey protein isolate (0.13-0.5 %) and xanthan gum (0.06-0.2 %) on the physical stability (creaming index), viscosity, emulsion droplet size and distribution, primary and secondary oxidation products were assessed over accelerated storage of emulsions. Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied for experimental design using three-factor central composite design (CCD) with 3 central points. The effects of OMW phenolics, WPI and xanthan gum were …

Fundamental Rights In A Post-Obergefell World, Peter Nicolas

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In this Article, I identify and critically examine three substantive criticisms raised by the dissents in the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state laws and constitutional provisions barring same-sex couples from marrying within the state or having their out-of-state marriages recognized by the state. First, that the majority improperly framed the right at issue broadly as the right to marriage instead of narrowly as the right to same-sex marriage, conflicting with the Court's holding in Washington v. Glucksberg that in fundamental rights cases the right at issue must be framed narrowly, and in …

Uncertain Futures In Evolving Financial Markets, Anita K. Krug

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Today's publicly offered investment funds, including mutual funds, have ever more diverse investment strategies, as they increasingly invest in financial instruments that, in earlier years, had been the province of only the most sophisticated investors. Although the new landscape of investment possibilities may substantially benefit retail investors, one financial instrument attracting increasing amounts of retail investors' assets is acutely troublesome: the commodity futures contract. Futures originated as a means for farmers and other producers of agricultural commodities to ensure that their products could be sold at reasonable prices. Early on, the goals of futures regulation centered on one particular risk …

Robots As Legal Metaphors, Ryan Calo

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This Article looks at the specific role robots play in the judicial imagination. The law and technology literature is replete with examples of how the metaphors and analogies that courts select for emerging technology can be outcome determinative. Privacy law scholar Professor Daniel Solove argues convincingly, for instance, that George Orwell's Big Brother metaphor has come to dominate, and in ways limit, privacy law and policy in the United States. Even at a more specific, practical level, whether a judge sees email as more like a letter or a postcard will dictate the level of Fourth Amendment protection she is …

Police Stories, Helen A. Anderson

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As lawyers and judges know, the facts, and the stories created with those facts, make the law: “[A] case well stated is more than half argued.” The police narrative is one of the most common narratives in legal writing, simply because there are so many criminal cases, as well as numerous civil cases, involving police. For the most part, these narratives tell the familiar story of the hardworking, careful police officer in a challenging situation with dangerous criminals.

These narratives do much of the work of an appellate argument, just as Chief Justice Robert’s story about Officer Devlin makes the …

Reasons For Counseling Reasonableness In Deploying Covenants-Not-To-Compete In Technology Firms, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

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Some states ban the enforcement of employee covenants-not-to-compete (“non-competes”) but most enforce them to the extent they are reasonable. As such, “reasonableness” provides the touchstone for enforceability analysis. The academic literature commenting on the reasonableness of non-competes is large and growing. Scholars usually direct their comments to judges, legislators, and other scholars.

Rarely do they address practicing lawyers. That omission is particularly unfortunate because practicing lawyers, more than judges, legislators, and scholars, can affect whether non-competes work both fairly and effectively. This Article fills that void by providing reasons, directed to practicing lawyers, for deploying non-competes in a reasonable manner. …

Beyond Severability, Lisa Marshall Manheim

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Severability is a wrecking ball. Even the most cautious use of this doctrine demolishes statutes in contravention of legislative intent and without adequate justification. It does so through the imposition of an artificially restrictive framework: one that requires that courts respond to a statute’s constitutional flaw by disregarding that statute either in whole or in part. In the last few years alone, this framework has flattened the Voting Rights Act, threatened the Bankruptcy Code, and nearly toppled the Affordable Care Act.

Yet courts apply severability reflexively, never demanding justification for its destructive treatment. Scholars, meanwhile, assiduously debate the particulars of …

The Revival Of Climate Change Science In U.S. Courts, William H. Rodgers, Jr., Andrea K. Rodgers

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Science never has been the obstacle to the recognition of climate change. Since Arhennius did his original calculations in 1896, the scientific world was quite aware of the prospect that industrial-age levels of carbon dioxide pollution would result in increasing global temperatures and acidification of the world’s oceans. The brilliant—and striking—graphical display that we know today as the Keeling Curve started in 1957, and year after year it records the relentless upward march of these atmospheric pollutant loadings.

Through the years, necessarily, a vast number of scientific warnings, publications, findings, and predictions would be offered to the public at large, …

Public Enforcement Compensation And Private Rights, Prentiss Cox

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Government enforcement actions have returned tens of billions of dollars to consumers, investors and employees. This “public enforcement compensation” is important to effective civil law enforcement, yet it is poorly understood and increasingly criticized. Recent scholarship asserts that public compensation mimics class action recoveries and raises the same concerns of accountability to recipients of relief. This Article rejects the class action analogy and presents an alternative framework grounded in the law and practice of public enforcement for understanding the relationship between public compensation and private rights. One scholar goes further and contends that state attorneys general violate constitutional due process …

Interpretive Modesty, Heidi Kitrosser

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“New originalism” presents a profound challenge to originalist determinacy – that is, to the notion that original constitutional meanings alone can resolve most constitutional controversies. While new originalists purport to seek out and adhere to original meanings of constitutional provisions, they acknowledge that some original meanings are too thin to fully resolve many constitutional questions. Such acknowledgment stands in sharp tension with traditional claims of originalist determinacy. While new originalism improves on “old originalism” in important ways, the former’s break from determinacy is not clean enough. New originalists are correct that it is neither epistemologically defensible nor normatively preferable to …

Pursuing A Single Mission (Or Something Closer To It) For The Irs, Kristin Hickman

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It is often said that taxes are the lifeblood of government. As the nation’s tax collector, the IRS serves a critical function without which the federal government would cease to function. Yet the IRS is an agency in crisis—mired in scandal, chronically underfunded, overreliant on automation, and failing to provide taxpayers with the support they need to comply with the tax laws and pay their taxes. This Essay argues that a major contributor to the IRS’s woes is Congress’s penchant in recent decades for utilizing the IRS to administer social welfare and regulatory programs that are only tangentially related to …

Electrodeposition Of Mos2 For Charge Storage In Electrochemical Supercapacitors, Daniel Falola, Tomasz Wiltowski, Ian Suni

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Mo sulfide thin films were cathodically electrodeposited onto glassy carbon electrodes (GCE) from aqueous electrolytes containing 10 mM (NH₄)₂MoS₄ and 0.2 M KCl. Film adhesion was adequate only for electrodes pretreated by potential cycling in 1.0 M HNO₃ and 0.1 M NaF to enhance the surface roughness and partially oxidize the GCE. Previous studies report direct cathodic electrodeposition of MoS₂, but energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction suggest that the as-deposited film is closer in stoichiometry to MoS₃, which can be converted to MoS₂ by annealing in Ar …

Archivists And Thespians: A Case Study And Reflections On Context And Authenticity In A Digitization Project, Matthew J. Gorzalski

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During a recent digitization project between archivists and theater faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC), different assumptions and perspectives revealed competing ideas about context and authenticity of primary sources. This article discusses these points of contention by framing them within similar concerns expressed in the archival and humanities literature. It then examines theater literature to understand performance studies research needs and to conceptualize notions of context and authenticity in theater scholarship. The article supports prior assertions that notions of context and authenticity are not absolute but are rooted in the perspectives of different disciplines. It also argues that when …