Digital Commons Network^™

Frequency And Predictors Of False Conviction: Why We Know So Little, And New Data On Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien

Articles

In the first part of this article, we address the problems inherent in studying wrongful convictions: our pervasive ignorance and the extreme difficulty of obtaining the data that we need to answer even basic questions. The main reason that we know so little about false convictions is that, by definition, they are hidden from view. As a result, it is nearly impossible to gather reliable data on the characteristics or even the frequency of false convictions. In addition, we have very limited data on criminal investigations and prosecutions in general, so even if we could somehow obtain data on cases …

International Standards For Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond The Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide, Monica Hakimi

Articles

Although sometimes described as war, the fight against transnational jihadi groups (referred to for shorthand as the "fight against terrorism") largely takes place away from any recognizable battlefield. Terrorism suspects are captured in houses, on street comers, and at border crossings around the globe. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the high-level Qaeda operative who planned the September 11 attacks, was captured by the Pakistani government in a residence in Pakistan. Abu Omar, a radical Muslim imam, was apparently abducted by U.S. and Italian agents off the streets of Milan. And Abu Baker Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for …

Optimisation Of Steamer Jet-Injection To Extend The Shelf Life Of Fresh-Cut Lettuce, Daniel Rico, Ana Belen Martin-Diana, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Gary Henehan, J. Barat, Jesus Maria Frias

Articles

Optimisation of short time blanching (steaming) was investigated using response surface methodology by analysing quality and microbial and nutritional markers over the shelflife of packaged fresh-cut lettuce. Steamer treatment time (5–10 s) and storage (1–10 days) were used as independent factors in order to optimise the process. Longer treatments (>10 s) were not feasible because of extensive damage caused to lettuce tissue. Significantly (p < 0.05) higher values of luminosity (L*), greenness (−a*) and sensory panel scores (fresh appearance, general acceptability and absence of browning) were obtained with samples treated for longer times with the steamer. Activity of browning-related enzymes present in photosynthetic tissue decreased in all the cases, however, longer treatment time (7.5–10 s) was needed with vascular tissues to reduce to similar activity values. These differences could be explained by the variation in tissue thickness. The longest steam treatment (10 s) reduced and maintained significantly (p < 0.05) lower mesophilic load than shorter treatments (5–8.5 s). However, significant (p < 0.05) decreases in vitamin C and carotenoids were observed in samples treated with longer treatments. Steamer treatment of 10 s could be considered the optimum time for maintaining the shelflife (mainly texture and browning) of fresh-cut lettuce for 7–10 days in optimum conditions.

Antioxidant Activity Of Spice Extracts And Phenolics In Comparison To Synthetic Antioxidants, M. Hossain, N. Brunton, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Ana Belen Martin-Diana, M. Wilkinson

Articles

The antioxidant capacity of 30 spices used frequently in ready meals and a selection of key compounds from spices were investigated in the current study using ferric reducing antioxidant properties (FRAP), 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylebenzothiaziline-6-sulfonate) (ABTS) and microsomal lipid peroxidation (MLP) assays. Antioxidant capacities of the spice extracts were compared to 5 popular synthetic antioxidants [buylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), tert-butylated hydroquinone (TBHQ), propyl gallate (PG) and octyl gallate (OG)]. Results showed that clove extracts had the highest antioxidant capacity as measured by FRAP, ABTS and MLP assays. Extracts from garlic powder were the lowest ranked of all the spices examined. Synthetic …

Comparative In Vitro Cytotoxicity Study Of Silver Nanoparticle On Two Mammalian Cell Lines, Gordon Chambers, Sanchali Mukherjee, Alan Casey, Niall Ó Claonadh

Articles

In this study the cytotoxic effect of commercially available silver (Ag) nanoparticle was evaluated using human dermal and cervical cancer cell lines. Prior to the cellular studies a full particle size characterisation was carried out using Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Transmission Electron Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy in distilled water and cell culture media. The Zeta Potential (ZP)associated with the Ag nanoparticle was also determined in order to assess its stability in the solutions and its possible interaction with the media. The DLS and ZP study have suggested interaction of Ag nanoparticles with the media, which can lead to secondary …

Relevance For Food Safety Of Applications Of Nanotechnology In The Food And Feed Industry, Iona Pratt, Catherine Adley, Gordon Chambers, Wayne Anderson

Articles

The application of nanotechnology in the food and feed industry offers many potential benefits for both consumers and manufacturers.The ultrafine dimensions of nanoparticles, and consequently their very large surface area, enable them to function more effectively than conventional macro-scale structures in many applications. Nanotechnology is however a relatively new area of science and the benefits and risks associated with its use in the food and feed industry are not fully understood at this time.This brings with it new challenges in ensuring the safety of food and feed that has been produced with the aid of nanotechnology. This report provides an …

Prevention Of Staphylococcus Epidermidis Biofilm Formation Using A Low-Temperature Processed Silver-Doped Phenyltriethoxysilane Sol–Gel Coating, Niall Stobie, Brendan Duffy, Declan Mccormack, John Colreavy, Martha Hidalgo, Patrick Mchale, Steven Hinder

Articles

Sol–gel coatings which elute bioactive silver ions are presented as a potential solution to the problem of biofilm formation on indwelling surfaces. There is evidence that high-temperature processing of such materials can lead to diffusion of silver away from the coating surface, reducing the amount of available silver. In this study, we report the biofilm inhibition of a Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm using a low-temperature processed silver-doped phenyltriethoxysilane sol–gel coating. The incorporation of a silver salt into a sol–gel matrix resulted in an initial high release of silver in de-ionised water and physiological buffered saline (PBS), followed by a lower sustained …

A Coupled Fluid-Structure Model Of A Therapeutic Ultrasound Angioplasty Wire Waveguide, Graham Gavin, Finbar Dolan, M.S. Hashmi, Garrett Mcguinness

Articles

Ultrasonic longitudinal displacements, delivered to the distal tips of small diameter wire waveguides, have been shown to be capable of disrupting complicated atherosclerotic plaques during vascular interventions. These ultrasonic displacements can disrupt plaques by direct contact ablation but also by pressure waves, associated cavitation and acoustic streaming developed in the surrounding blood and tissue cavities. The pressure waves developed within the arterial lumen appear to play a major role but are complex to predict as they are determined by the distal tip output of the wire waveguide (both displacement and frequency), the geometric features of the waveguide tip and the …

Chromosomal Microdeletions And Genes' Functions: A Cluster Of Chromosomal Microdeletions And The Deleted Genes' Functions, David Tilstra Md, Kevin Martens, Inge Heulens, Sandra Meulemans

Articles

Hypotonia-cystinuria syndrome (HCS) is a recessive disorder caused by microdeletions of SLC3A1 and PREPL on chromosome 2p21. Patients present with generalized hypotonia at birth, failure to thrive, growth retardation and cystinuria type I. While the initially described HCS families live in small regions in Belgium and France, we have now identified HCS alleles in patients and carriers from the Netherlands, Italy, Canada and United States of America. Surprisingly, among the nine deletions detected in those patients, only one novel deletion was found. Furthermore, one previously described deletion was found six times, another twice. Finally, we have investigated the frequency of …

Pparα Is A Key Regulator Of Hepatic Fgf21, Thomas Lundasen, Mary Hunt, Lisa-Marie Nilsson, Sabysashi Sanyal, Bo Angelin, Stefan Alexson, Mats Rudling

Articles

The metabolic regulator fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) has antidiabetic properties in animal models of diabetes and obesity. Using quantitative RT-PCR, we here show that the hepatic gene expression of FGF21 is regulated by the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARalpha). Fasting or treatment of mice with the PPARalpha agonist Wy-14,643 induced FGF21 mRNA by 10-fold and 8-fold, respectively. In contrast, FGF21 mRNA was low in PPARalpha deficient mice, and fasting or treatment with Wy-14,643 did not induce FGF21. Obese ob/ob mice, known to have increased PPARalpha levels, displayed 12-fold increased hepatic FGF21 mRNA levels. The potential importance of PPARalpha for …

Extending And Measuring The Quality Of Fresh-Cut Fruit And Vegetables: A Review, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Ana Belen Martin-Diana, Daniel Rico, J. Barat

Articles

The market sales of ready-to-use fresh vegetables have grown rapidly in recent decades as a result of changes in consumer attitudes, especially consumption of fresh-cut lettuce and carrot due to their use in prepared salads. Chlorine solutions have been widely used to sanitise fruit and vegetables in the fresh-cut industry. However, the association of chlorine with the possible formation of carcinogenic chlorinated compounds in water has called into question the use of chlorine in food processing. There is a real need to find alternatives for preservation of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables in order to improve the efficacy of washing treatments. …

Evaluation Of The Idi-Mrsa Assay On The Smartcycler Real-Time Pcr Platform For Rapid Detection Of Mrsa From Screening Specimens, Celine Herra, A. S. Rossney, M. Fitzgibbon, P. Morgan, B. O’Connell

Articles

Rapid accurate detection is a prerequisite for the successful control of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The IDI-MRSA real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was designed to provide rapid results from nasal specimens collected in Stuart’s liquid transport medium. This study has evaluated the IDI-MRSA kit for use in a clinical laboratory by investigating the following parameters: (1) limits of detection (LoD), (2) performance with Amies’ gel-based transport medium, (3) ability to detect strains of MRSA in a collection representative of MRSA in Ireland since 1974 (n 113) and (4) performance in a clinical trial with swabs from nose, throat and …

Suction Feeding Mechanics, Performance, And Diversity In Fishes, Peter Wainwright, Andrew Carroll, David Collar

Articles

Despite almost 50 years of research on the functional morphology and biomechanics of suction feeding, no consensus has emerged on how to characterize suction-feeding performance, or its morphological basis. We argue that this lack of unity in the literature is due to an unusually indirect and complex linkage between the muscle contractions that power suction feeding, the skeletal movements that underlie buccal expansion, the sharp drop in buccal suction pressure that occurs during expansion, the flow of water that enters the mouth to eliminate the pressure gradient, and the forces that are ultimately exerted on the prey by this flow. …

The Acyl-Coa Thioesterase I (Acot1) Is Regulated By The Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Alpha And Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 4 Alpha Via A Distal Response Element In The Promotor., Bikesh Dongol, Yatrik Shah, Insook Kim, Frank J. Gonzalez, Mary Hunt

Articles

The cytosolic acyl-CoA thioesterase I (Acot1) is an enzyme that hydrolyzes longchain acyl-CoAs of C12-C20-CoA in chain-length, to the free fatty acid and coenzyme A. Acot1 was previously shown to be strongly upregulated at mRNA and protein level in rodents by fibrates. In this study, we show that Acot1 mRNA levels were increased 90-fold in liver by treatment with Wy-14,643 and that Acot1 mRNA is also increased 15-fold in the liver of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4a) knockout animals. Our study identified a direct repeat 1 (DR1) located in the Acot1 gene promotor in mouse, which binds the peroxisome …

John Milton: Complete Poems And Major Prose, Richard A. Posner

Articles

No abstract provided.

Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Richard A. Posner, Jillisa Brittan

Articles

No abstract provided.

Hepatitis B Virus Resistance To Adefovir In A Nucleotide Naive Patient With Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection, B Laoi, Celine M. Herra, S. Norris, B. Crowley

Articles

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Economic Cost Minimization And Biological Invasion Damage Control Using The Awq Criterion, Gregory Deangelo, Amitrajeet Batabyal, Seshavadhani Kumar

Articles

DeAngelo et al. (2006) have recently used the AWS criterion in a M/G/1 queuing model to show that there is no necessary tension between economic cost minimization and inspection stringency in non-native species management. In this paper, we use an alternate cost criterion (AWQ criterion) to investigate the generality of this central result in DeAngelo et al. (2006). Our theoretical analysis shows that there is no unambiguous answer to this question. Therefore, we use numerical methods and our numerical analysis leads to two findings. First, for many values of the model parameters that describe the strictness of inspections, there is …

Essay: On The Divergent American Reactions To Terrorism And Climate Change, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

Two of the most important sources of catastrophic risk are terrorism and climate change. The United States has responded aggressively to the risk of terrorism while doing very little about the risk of climate change. For the United States alone, the cost of the Iraq War is in excess of the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol. The divergence presents a puzzle; it also raises more general questions about both risk perception and the public demand for legislation. The best explanation for the divergence emphasizes bounded rationality. Americans believe that aggressive steps to reduce the risk of terrorism promise to …

Exciting Initiatives In Environment And Natural Resources Law At The University Of Idaho College Of Law, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

Articles

No abstract provided.

Exciting Initiatives In Environment And Natural Resources Law At The University Of Idaho College Of Law, Barbara Cosens

Articles

No abstract provided.

E-Mail To Rebecca, Dale Goble

Articles

No abstract provided.

What Are Slugs Good For?: Ecosystem Services And The Conservation Of Biodiversity, Dale Goble

Articles

No abstract provided.

Spirobicyclic Diamines. Part 3: Synthesis And Metal Complexation Of Proline-Derived [4,4]-Spirodiamines., Fintan Kelleher, Sinead Kelly, Vickie Mckee

Articles

The syntheses of racemic and homochiral [4.4]-spirolactams, starting from L-proline, in good yields are described. Reduction of the lactam carbonyl group of spirolactams, containing chiral substituents on the lactam nitrogen, with lithium aluminium hydride, gives a series of homochiral [4.4]-spirodiamines. The crystal structure of one of these spirodiamines on complexation with zinc chloride was obtained. Interestingly it showed a hydrogen-bonded dimeric structure, where the monomers are diastereoisomeric diamines.

Synthesis And Characterisation Of Tetra-Tetrazole Macrocycles, Andrew Bond, Adrienne Fleming, Fintan Kelleher, John Mcginley, Vipa Prajapati, Signe Skovsgaard

Articles

The syntheses of tetra-tetrazole macrocycles, containing two bis-tetrazole units linked by a variety of alkyl chain lengths from four to eight carbons, are described. The crystal structures of three of these derivatives are reported, and the molecular conformation in the solid state is compared to that of one previously reported tetra-tetrazole macrocycle and to other bis- and tris(tetrazole)benzene structures. The macrocycle conformation is influenced by the length of the alkyl chain linker, the relative orientation of the tetrazole rings on the benzene ring, and by intermolecular interactions. In the macrocycles based on 1,2-bis(tetrazole)benzene, the adjacent tetrazole rings on the benzene …

Population Study Of The Variation In Monochromatic Aberrations Of The Normal Human Eye Over The Central Visual Field, Matthew Sheehan, Alexander Goncharov, Veronica O'Dwyer, Vincent Toal, Christopher Dainty

Articles

Abstract

We present data analysis for ocular aberrations of 60 normal eyes measured with a Hartmann-Shack (HS) wavefront sensor (WFS). Aberration measurements were made on-axis and at 5 degree field angles in the nasal, inferior, temporal and superior semi-meridians. Particular attention is given to aberration distributions and possible strategies for aberration correction are discussed. A versatile HS WFS was designed and constructed with features of simultaneous pupil centre determination, off-axis capability, real-time data displays, and efficient lenslet sampling orientation. The subject alignment is achieved by the use of a parallel channel that is recombined with the sensing channel to simultaneously …

Modulation Of Radiation Responses By Pre-Exposure To Irradiated Cell Conditioned Medium, Paula Maguire, Carmel Mothersill, B. Mcclean, C. Seymour, Fiona Lyng

Articles

The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposure of HPV-G cells to irradiated cell conditioned medium (ICCM) could induce an adaptive response if the cells were subsequently challenged with a higher ICCM dose. Clonogenic survival and major steps in the cascade leading to apoptosis, such as calcium influx and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, were examined to determine whether these events could be modified by giving a priming dose of ICCM before the challenge dose. Clonogenic survival data indicated an ICCMinduced adaptive response in HPV-G cells ‘‘primed’’ with 5 mGy or 0.5 Gy ICCM for 24 h and …

Growth Substrate Induced Functional Changes Elucidated By Ftir And Raman Spectroscopy In In-Vitro Cultured Human Keratinocytes., Aidan Meade, Fiona Lyng, Peter Knief, Hugh Byrne

Articles

Non-invasive measurements of cellular function in in-vitro cultured cell lines using vibrational spectroscopy require the use of spectroscopic substrates such as quartz, ZnSe and MirrIR etc. These substrates are generally dissimilar to the original in-vivo extracellular environment of a given cell line and are often tolerated poorly by cultured cell lines resulting in morphological and functional changes in the cell. The present study demonstrates various correlations between vibrational spectroscopic analyses and biochemical analyses in the evaluation of the interaction of a normal human epithelial keratinocyte cell line (HaCaT) with MirrIR and quartz substrates coated with fibronectin, laminin and gelatin. The …

Bringing Deference Back (But For How Long?), Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

For most of the past decade, the Supreme Court seemed to be gradually eroding the deference accorded to administrative agencies. In Christensen v. Harris County and United States v. Mead Corp. the Court refused to accord Chevron deference to agencies' interpretations of statutes when the agencies adopted those interpretations through informal procedures. The trend appeared to continue when the Court refused to accord Chevron deference to tobacco regulations adopted by the Food and Drug Administration in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. or to controlled substance regulations adopted by the Attorney General in Gonzales v. Oregon. In addition, …

On The Divergent American Reactions To Terrorism And Climate Change, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

Two of the most important sources of catastrophic risk are terrorism and climate change. The United States has responded aggressively to the risk of terrorism while doing very little about the risk of climate change. For the United States alone, the cost of the Iraq War is in excess of the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol. The divergence presents a puzzle; it also raises more general questions about both risk perception and the public demand for legislation. The best explanation for the divergence emphasizes bounded rationality. Americans believe that aggressive steps to reduce the risk of terrorism promise to …