Digital Commons Network^™

Processing Thinprep Cervical Cytological Samples For Raman Spectroscopic Analysis, Franck Bonnier, Damien Traynor, Padraig Kearney, Colin Clarke, Peter Knief, Cara Martin, John J. O'Leary, Hugh J. Byrne, Fiona Lyng

Articles

Raman microspectroscopy has been proven to be a promising technique for diagnosis and early detection of pathologies. The data collected delivers a chemical fingerprint allowing the identification of specific biomarkers indicating the presence of abnormalities. Label free, fast and cost effective, Raman spectroscopy has already been proposed as the new generation of diagnostic tool with a strong potential but has not emerged in the medical field as yet. Notably, it is crucial to improve and adapt the protocols used to reach suitable reproducibility for screening large cohorts of patients. In this study, it is demonstrated that the variability existing in …

Exosomes Are Involved In Mediating Radiation Induced Bystander Signaling In Human Keratinocyte Cells, K. Kumar Jella, S. Rani, L. O'Driscoll, B. Mcclean, H. J. Byrne, F. M. Lyng

Articles

There is much evidence supporting the existence of bystander effects in cells that were never exposed to radiation. Directly irradiated cells and bystander cells can communicate with each other using gap junctional intercellular communication or by releasing soluble factors into the surrounding medium. Exosomes and microvesicles are also known to mediate communication between cells. The main aim of this study is to establish whether exosomes and microvesicles are involved in radiation induced bystander signaling. Human keratinocytes, HaCaT cells, were irradiated (0.005, 0.05 and 0.5 Gy) using γ rays produced from a cobalt 60 teletherapy unit. After irradiation, the cells were …

Cell Survival And Dna Damage In Normal Prostate Cells Irradiated Out-Of-Field, L. Shields, I. Vega-Carrascal, S. Singleton, F. M. Lyng, B. Mcclean

Articles

Interest in out-of-field radiation dose has been increasing with the introduction of new techniques, such as volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). These new techniques offer superior conformity of high-dose regions to the target compared to conventional techniques, however more normal tissue is exposed to low-dose radiation with VMAT. There is a potential increase in radiobiological effectiveness associated with lower energy photons delivered during VMAT as normal cells are exposed to a temporal change in incident photon energy spectrum. During VMAT deliveries, normal cells can be exposed to the primary radiation beam, as well as to transmission and scatter radiation. The …

Epoxy Resin Monomers With Reduced Skin Sensitizing Potency, Niamh F. O'Boyle, Ida B. Niklasson, Ali R. Tehrani-Bagda, Tamara Delaine, Krister Holmberg, Kristina Luthman, Ann-Therese Karlberg

Articles

Epoxy resin monomers, including diglycidyl ethers of bisphenol A and F (DGEBA and DGEBF), are extensively used as building blocks for thermosetting polymers. However, they are known to cause widespread contact allergy. This research describes a number of alternative epoxy resin monomers, designed with the aim of reducing the skin sensitizing potency whilst maintaining the ability to form thermosetting polymers. The compounds were designed, synthesized, assessed for skin sensitizing potency using the in vivo murine local lymph node assay, and tested for technical applicability using thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. All the novel epoxy resin monomers had decreased skin …

Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, voting rights activists proposed a variety of legislative responses. Some proposals sought to move beyond measures that targeted voting discrimination based on race or ethnicity. They instead sought to eliminate certain problematic practices that place too great a burden on voting generally. Responses like these are universalist, because rather than seeking to protect any particular group against discrimination, they formally provide uniform protections to everyone. As Bruce Ackerman shows, voting rights activists confronted a similar set of questions—and at least some of them opted for a universalist approach—during the campaign …

Increased Expression Of Phosphorylated Fadd In Anaplastic Large Cell And Other T-Cell Lymphomas, Suketu Patel, Derek Murphy, Eugenia Haralambieva, Zainalabideen A. Abdulla, Kah Keng Wong, Hong Chen, Edith Gould, Giovanna Roncador, Chris S.R. Hatton, Amanda P. Anderson, Alison H. Banham, Karen Pulford

Articles

FAS-associated protein with death domain (FADD) is a major adaptor protein involved in extrinsic apoptosis, embryogenesis, and lymphocyte homeostasis. Although abnormalities of the FADD/death receptor apoptotic pathways have been established in tumorigenesis, fewer studies have analyzed the expression and role of phosphorylated FADD (pFADD). Our identification of FADD as a lymphoma-associated autoantigen in T-cell lymphoma patients raises the possibility that pFADD, with its correlation with cell cycle, may possess role(s) in human T-cell lymphoma development. This immunohistochemical study investigated pFADD protein expression in a range of normal tissues and lymphomas, particularly T-cell lymphomas that require improved therapies. Whereas pFADD was …

Graduate Teaching Assistants; Critical Colleagues Or Casual Components In The Undergraduate Learning Laboratory? An Exploration Of The Role Of The Postgraduate Teacher In The Sciences., Barry Ryan

Articles

Laboratory training is key to many science subjects and those that teach the practical laboratory skills maintain a pivotal role in undergraduate science training. Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are regularly used in higher education institutes to teach these practical lab skills. The GTA can be involved in both laboratory teaching and assessing all levels of undergraduates. This varied and challenging role requires support from the institute and if appropriately provided the learning experience can be rewarding not only for the undergraduate, but also for the GTA. In this review, the critical role of the laboratory GTA will be examined, their …

New Inhibitors Of The Fvb2 Subunit From Mammalian Kv1 Potassium Channels, Barry Ryan, Gary Henehan, Alka Kumari, Oliver Dolly

Articles

The role of the redox state of KVB2 subunits in the modulation of Kv1 potassium channels has been well documented over the past few years. It has been suggested that a molecule that binds to or inhibits the aldo-keto reductase activity of KVB2 might affect the modulation of channel properties. Previous studies of possible modulators of channel activity have shown that cortisone and some related compounds are able to physically dissociate the channel components by binding to a site at the interface between � and � subunits. Herein, we describe some new inhibitors of rat brain KVB2, identified using an …

Gay Rights, Equal Protection, And The Classification-Framing Quandary, Peter Nicolas

Articles

Commentators and lower courts will speculate for some time on the actual holding and potential sweep of the Supreme Court's decision in Windsor v. United States [699 F.3d 169, 175 (2d Cir. 2012), aff'd, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013)], as well as how the Court might have resolved Perry v. Brown [671 F.3d 1052, 1063 (9th Cir. 2012), vacated and remanded sub nom. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013)] on the merits.

Of at least equal and perhaps greater importance, however, is a subtle yet critical unresolved threshold question lurking in the background of these two decisions, …

Straddling The Columbia: A Constitutional Law Professor's Musings On Circumventing Washington State's Criminal Prohibition On Compensated Surrogacy, Peter Nicolas

Articles

In this Article, I recount—through both the prisms of an intended parent and a constitutional law scholar—my successful efforts to become a parent via compensated surrogacy and egg donation. Part I of this Article provides a narrative of my experience in becoming a parent via compensated surrogacy, and the various state and federal legal roadblocks and deterrents that I encountered along the way, including Washington State's criminal prohibition on compensated surrogacy as well as federal guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of sperm by gay donors in the process of in vitro fertilization.

Part …

The Long-Term Tort: In Search Of A New Causation Framework For Natural Resources Damages, Sanne H. Knudsen

Articles

Recent scientific evidence is proving that toxic releases have long-term, unintended, and harmful consequences for the marine environment. Though a new paradigm is emerging in the scientific literature--one demonstrating that long-term impacts from oil spills are more significant than previously thought--legal scholars, regulators, and courts have yet to consider the law's ability to remedy long-term ecological harms.

While scholars have exhaustively debated causation questions related to latent injuries for toxic torts, they have overlooked the equally important and conceptually similar causation problems of long-term damages in the natural resource context. Likewise, only a few courts have considered the standards of …

Digital Market Manipulation, Ryan Calo

Articles

In 1999, Jon Hanson and Douglas Kysar coined the term “market manipulation” to describe how companies exploit the cognitive limitations of consumers. For example, everything costs $9.99 because consumers see the price as closer to $9 than $10. Although widely cited by academics, the concept of market manipulation has had only a modest impact on consumer protection law.

This Article demonstrates that the concept of market manipulation is descriptively and theoretically incomplete, and updates the framework of the theory to account for the realities of a marketplace that is mediated by technology. Today’s companies fastidiously study consumers and, increasingly, personalize …

Effect Of Substrate Choice And Tissue Type On Tissue Preparation For Spectral Histopathology By Raman Microspectroscopy, Hugh Byrne, Leanne M. Fullwood, Dave Griffiths, Katherine Ashton, Timothy Dawson, Robert W. Lea, Charles Davis, Franck Bonnier, Matthew J. Baker

Articles

Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive, non-invasive, rapid and economical technique which has the potential to be an excellent method for the diagnosis of cancer and understanding disease progression through retrospective studies of archived tissue samples. Historically, biobanks are generally comprised of formalin fixed paraffin preserved tissue and as a result these specimens are often used in spectroscopic research. Tissue in this state has to be dewaxed prior to Raman analysis to reduce paraffin contributions in the spectra. However, although the procedures are derived from histopathological clinical practice, the efficacy of the dewaxing procedures that are currently employed is questionable. Ineffective …

Size Dependent Translocation And Fetal Accumulation Of Gold Nanoparticles From Maternal Blood In The Rat, Manuela Semmler-Behnke, Jens Lipka, Alexander Wenk, Martin Schaeffer, Furong Tian, Gunter Schmid, Gunter Oberdorster, Wolfgang Kreyling

Articles

There is evidence that nanoparticles (NP) cross epithelial and endothelial body barriers. We hypothesized that gold (Au) NP, once in the blood circulation of pregnant rats, will cross the placental barrier during pregnancy size-dependently and accumulate in the fetal organism by 1. transcellular transport across the hemochorial placenta, 2. transcellular transport across amniotic membranes 3. transport through ~20 nm wide transtrophoblastic channels in a size dependent manner. The three AuNP sizes used to test this hypothesis are either well below, or of similar size or well above the diameters of the transtrophoblastic channels.

Photonic Crystal Fiber Half-Taper Probe Based Refractometer, Pengfei Wang, Ming Ding, Lin Bo, Chunying Guan, Yuliya Semenova, Weimin Sun, Libo Yuan, Gilberto Brambilla, Gerald Farrell

Articles

A compact singlemode - photonic crystal fibre - singlemode fibre tip (SPST) refractive index sensor is demonstrated in this paper. A CO₂ laser cleaving technique is utilsed to provide a clean-cut fibre tip which is then coated by a layer of gold to increase reflection. An average sensitivity of 39.1 nm/RIU and a resolvable index change of 2.56×10^-4 are obtained experimentally with a ~3.2 µm diameter SPST. The temperature dependence of this fiber optic sensor probe is presented. The proposed SPST refractometer is also significantly less sensitive to temperature and an experimental demonstration of this reduced sensitivity is …

Holographic Sensors: Three-Dimensional Analyte-Sensitive Nanostructures And Their Applications, Ali K. Yetisen, Izabela Naydenova, Fernando Da Cruz Vasconcellos, Jeffrey Blyth, Christopher R. R. Lowe

Articles

Holographic sensors are analytical devices that systematically diffract narrow-band light in the ultraviolet to near-infrared range for application in the detection and quantification of analytes and/or physical parameters. They can be functionalized with analyte-responsive materials to construct highly sensitive optical sensors for use in testing, where a visual readout, fast turnaround time, and reversibility are needed. Holography allows fabrication of disposable sensors that are lightweight for miniaturization and multiplexing purposes.3 Holographic sensors offer three capabilities on a single analytical device: (i) label-free analyte-responsive polymer, (ii) real-time, reversible quantification of the external stimuli, and (iii) three-dimensional visual image display.

Ethnic Variation In Breastfeeding And Complementary Feeding In The Republic Of Ireland, Patricia Castro, Richard Layte, John Kearney

Articles

Early nutrition plays a pivotal role in long-term health. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life, with the gradual introduction of solids after this period. However, studies in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) have shown poor compliance with guidelines. The ROI continues to have one of the lowest breastfeeding rates worldwide. Our objective was to analyse differences in breastfeeding and complimentary feeding behaviours between Irish and non-Irish mothers residing in the ROI, as well as the role of acculturation on these behaviours, using the national longitudinal study, Growing Up in Ireland (GUI). …

Pilot Data On Brain-To-Blood Efflux Of B-Amyloid Peptides In Man, Steve Meaney, Maura Heverin, Ingemar Bjorkhem,, Dorotea Religa, John Wahren, Ulf Diczfalusy

Articles

• Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and affects nearly 40,000 individuals in Ireland. • The b-amyloid peptide (Ab) plays a key role in the pathogenesis of the AD and the presence of Ab plaques in the brain is diagnostic. •The hypothesis posits that Ab deposition is a critical factor in the disease process and that production and clearance of Ab are key drivers of the disease1. •Flux of Ab from the brain is believed to contribute to the overall level of Ab within in brain2 and antibody mediated brain-to-blood efflux has been observed in animal …

Disability, Repressive Regimes, And Health Disparity: Assessing Country Conditions In North Korea, Jae-Chun Won, Janet E. Lord, Michael Ashley Stein, Yosung Song

Articles

This article examines the potential of international human rights standards to account for heightened risk and vulnerability to human rights abuses for persons with disabilities in politically repressive environments. We offer a preliminary assessment of whether and how a disability-cognizant accounting of human rights in repressive regimes can lead to a more credible and comprehensive understanding of disability in such contexts. In so doing, we make the case for a more thorough and thoughtful application of international disability rights standards to better inform human rights investigations, transitional justice approaches, and international criminal law proceedings. To illustrate this methodology, we analyze …

The Democratic Life Of The Union: Toward Equal Voting Participation For Europeans With Disabilities, Janos Fiala-Butora, Michael Ashley Stein, Janet E. Lord

Articles

This Article puts forward preliminary legal scholarship on equal political participation by persons with disabilities and what international human rights law requires for its attainment. The goal is to provoke an informed dialogue on the neglected but fundamental human right to enfranchisement by persons with disabilities while also acknowledging that a complete and just resolution requires further information and reflection. The Article argues that the fundamental right to vote cannot be curtailed on the basis of an alleged lack of capacity. Disenfranchisement based on individual assessment unjustly excludes a certain number of voting-capable individuals. Since all those affected are persons …

Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward H. Kennedy

Articles

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …

Immutability And Innateness Arguments About Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Rights, Edward Stein

Articles

A popular and intuitively plausible argument for the rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGB people) focuses on the claim that sexual orientations are inborn and/or unchangeable. This argument draws on three sources: ethical, scientific, and legal. The scientific source is the widely held observation that people generally (and LGB people particularly) do not choose their sexual orientation. This observation is buttressed by claims about the causes and character of human sexuality. The ethical source is the general intuition that people should not be punished for something that they did not choose. Together, these ethical and scientific beliefs lead …

The Trials Of Clinical Education, Jonathan H. Oberman, Ekow N. Yankah

Articles

No abstract provided.

Screening Out Innovation: The Merits Of Meritless Litigation, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

Courts and legislatures often conflate merit-less and frivolous cases when balancing the desire to keep courthouse doors open to novel or unlikely claims against the concern that entertaining ultimately unsuccessful litigation will prove too costly for courts and defendants. Recently, significant procedural and substantive barriers to civil litigation have been informed by judicial and legislative assumptions about the costs of entertaining merit-less and frivolous litigation. The prevailing wisdom is that eliminating merit-less and frivolous claims as early in a case’s trajectory as possible will focus scarce resources on the truly meritorious cases, thereby ensuring that available remedies are properly distributed …

Effects Of Clergy Reporting Laws On Child Maltreatment Report Rates, Frank E. Vandervort, Vincent J. Palusci

Articles

Child maltreatment (CM) reporting laws and policies have an important role in the identification, treatment, and prevention of CM in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [US DHHS], 2012). Abuse by a member of the clergy “is not only a personal and emotional betrayal, but [also] a spiritual betrayal, with secrecy amplified by the unprecedented and systemic cover-up committed by the Church hierarchy” (Coyne, 2011, p. 15). Recent controversies have resulted in the consideration of changes in mandated U.S. reporting laws that include increasing requirements for clergy and extension to additional professions (Freeh, Sporkin, & Sullivan, …

Development Of A Novel Functional Soup Rich In Bioactive Sulforaphane Using Broccoli (Brassica Oleracea L. Ssp. Italica) Florets And Byproducts., Laura Alvarez Jubete, Juan Valverde, Kate Kehoe, Kim Reilly, Dilip K. Rai, Catherine Barry-Ryan

Articles

Broccoli florets are rich in health-promoting compounds such as glucoraphanin, the precursor of the bioactive compound sulforaphane. In addition, broccoli byproducts such as broccoli stalk also contain health promoting compounds and represent attractive ingredients in the development of functional foods. The bioconversion of glucosinolates into bioactive isothiocyanates is affected by many factors including heat and therefore cooking of Brassicas such as broccoli may result in significant loss of sulforaphane production. The aim of this study was to develop a suitable food system as a vehicle for the delivery of sulforaphane in the human diet in adequate quantities. To this end, …

Hamiltonian Approach To The Modeling Of Internal Geophysical Waves With Vorticity, Alan Compelli

Articles

We examine a simplified model of internal geophysical waves in a rotational 2-dimensional water-wave system, under the influence of Coriolis forces and with gravitationally induced waves. The system consists of a lower medium, bound underneath by an impermeable flat bed, and an upper lid. The 2 media have a free common interface. Both media have constant density and constant (non-zero) vorticity. By examining the governing equations of the system we calculate the Hamiltonian of the system in terms of its conjugate variables and perform a variable transformation to show that it has canonical Hamiltonian structure. We then linearize the system, …

Bacterial Inactivation By High Voltage Atmospheric Cold Plasma: Influence Of Process Parameters And Effects On Cell Leakage And Dna, Lu Han, Sonal Patil, Kevin M. Keener, Patrick J. Cullen, Paula Bourke

Articles

Aims: This study investigated a range of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) process parameters for bacterial inactivation with further investigation of selected parameters on cell membrane integrity and DNA damage. The effects of high voltage levels, mode of exposure, gas mixture and treatment time against Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes were examined.

Methods and Results: 10⁸ CFU ml^-1 E. coli ATCC 25922, E. coli NCTC 12900 and L. monocytogenes NCTC11994 were ACP treated in 10ml phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Working gas mixtures used were; Air (gas mix 1), 90% N₂+10% O₂ (gas mix 2) and 65% …

Diagnostics Of An O2–He Rf Atmospheric Plasma Discharge By Spectral Emission, Vladimir Milosavljevic, Mick Donegan, Patrick J. Cullen, Denis Dowling

Articles

In this paper optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is used as a Diagnostic technique for the measurement of atomic and molecular spectral emissions generated using a helium rf industrial atmospheric plasma jet system. The OES of neutral atomic spectral lines and molecular bands are investigated over a range of plasma process parameters.
/="/">Wavelength resolve optical emission profiles suggest that the emission of helium’s spectral lines shows that the high energy electrons have a larger influence than helium metastables on the overall spectral emission. Furthermore, the experimental data indicates that the use of high helium flow rates, in any confined open …

Zein Film: Effects Of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Atmospheric Cold Plasma, Shashi Pankaj, Carmen Bueno-Ferrer, N. Misra, Paula Bourke, Patrick J. Cullen

Articles

Dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric plasma is a novel non-thermal technology for the food and packaging industry. The effects of dielectric barrier discharge plasma on the surface, structural, thermal and moisture sorption properties of edible zein films have been examined. Plasma treatment increased the surface roughness and equillibrium moisture content of the zein film in a direct relationship with the applied voltage level. No significant difference in the thermal stability of the zein film is also observed after plasma treatment. Dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatments of zein film lead to a change in the protein conformation which is confirmed by X-ray …