Digital Commons Network^™

The Indian Child Welfare Act: A Brief Overview To Contextualize Current Controversies., Frank E. E. Vandervort

Articles

Congress passed and the president signed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) into federal law in 1978. Because the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to make law regarding Indian tribes, ICWA’s provisions are mandatory, unlike other federal child welfare legislation such as the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which are voluntary. State authorities handling any case involving an “Indian child” must comply with ICWA.

Seaweeds As Nutraceuticals For Health And Nutrition, Emer Shannon, Nissreen Abu-Ghannam

Articles

Throughout human history, seaweeds have been used as food, folk remedies, dyes, and as mineral-rich fertilisers. Seaweeds as nutraceuticals or functional foods with dietary benefits beyond their fundamental macronutrient content are now a major research and industrial development concept. The occurrence of dietary and lifestyle related diseases, notably type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, and metabolic syndrome has become a health epidemic in developed countries. Global epidemiological studies have shown that countries where seaweed is consumed on a regular basis have significantly fewer instances of obesity and dietary-related disease. This review outlines recent developments in seaweed applications for human health from …

Cold Atmospheric Plasma Induces Accumulation Of Lysosomes And Caspase-Independent Cell Death In U373mg Glioblastoma Multiforme Cells, Gillian Conway, Zhonglei He, Ana L. Hutanu, George P. Cribaro, Eline Manaloto, Alan Casey, Damien Traynor, Vladimir Milosavljevic, Orla Howe, Carlos Barcia, James T. Murray, Patrick J. Cullen, James Curtin

Articles

Room temperature Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) has shown promising efficacy for the treatment of cancer but the exact mechanisms of action remain unclear. Both apoptosis and necrosis have been implicated as the mode of cell death in various cancer cells. We have previously demonstrated a caspase-independent mechanism of cell death in p53-mutated glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells exposed to plasma. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in caspase-independent cell death induced by plasma treatment. We demonstrate that plasma induces rapid cell death in GBM cells, independent of caspases. Accumulation of vesicles was observed in plasma …

Association Of Total Zinc Intake With Myopia In U.S. Children And Adolescents, Niamh Burke, John Butler, Daniel Ian Flitcroft, Daniel Mccartney, James Loughman

Articles

Significance: This present study advances our knowledge on the role of lifestyle factors in myopia (short-sightedness), specifically dietary factors. It has been suggested in previous studies that lower zinc status is associated with myopia; however, this article shows no relationship between dietary zinc intake and myopia in U.S. adolescents. Purpose: It has been suggested that low zinc levels may contribute to the development of myopia. The aim of the present study is to examine, for the first time in a Western population, the association of total dietary and supplement zinc intake with myopia. Methods: A total of 1095 children/adolescents aged …

Medical Ai And Contextual Bias, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Articles

Artificial intelligence will transform medicine. One particularly attractive possibility is the democratization of medical expertise. If black-box medical algorithms can be trained to match the performance of high-level human experts — to identify malignancies as well as trained radiologists, to diagnose diabetic retinopathy as well as board-certified ophthalmologists, or to recommend tumor-specific courses of treatment as well as top-ranked oncologists — then those algorithms could be deployed in medical settings where human experts are not available, and patients could benefit. But there is a problem with this vision. Privacy law, malpractice, insurance reimbursement, and FDA approval standards all encourage developers …

Runge–Kutta–Gegenbauer Explicit Methods For Advection-Diffusion Problems, Stephen O'Sullivan

Articles

In this paper, Runge-Kutta-Gegenbauer (RKG) stability polynomials of arbitrarily high order of accuracy are introduced in closed form. The stability domain of RKG polynomials extends in the the real direction with the square of polynomial degree, and in the imaginary direction as an increasing function of Gegenbauer parameter. Consequently, the polynomials are naturally suited to the construction of high order stabilized Runge-Kutta (SRK) explicit methods for systems of PDEs of mixed hyperbolic-parabolic type.

We present SRK methods composed of L ordered forward Euler stages, with complex-valued stepsizes derived from the roots of RKG stability polynomials of degree $L$. Internal stability …

How The Boogeyman Saved Brett Kavanaugh, Cathren Page

Articles

We love to hate these boogeymen. When the societal narrative creates these invisible boogeymen, people can pour their rage against sexual abuse into these faceless antagonists. At the same time, the enraged survivors and protectors avoid conflicts with family, neighbors, colleagues, and social acquaintances who might actually commit or enable sexual abuse. We can dodge sticky questions regarding how a churchgoer, a judge, or an Ivy Leaguer could have committed a heinous act. The survivors can avoid all the victim-blaming backlash, threats of violence, and invalidation that accompanies reporting a sexual offense. Moreover, having less power on their own, survivors …

Pharmaceutical Industry Funding To Patient-Advocacy Organization: A Cross-National Comparison Of Disclosure Codes And Regulation, Laura Karas, Robin Feldman, Bai Ge, So Yeon Kang, Gerard F. Anderson

Articles

Transparency has become one of the primary themes in health care reform efforts in the United States and across the world. In the face of exorbitant drug prices, high levels of patient cost-sharing, and pharmaceutical expenditures that consume a growing proportion of public sector budgets, much attention has been drawn to the pharmaceutical industry. Congressional investigations, academic publications, and news articles have endeavored to reveal the extent of drug and device industry influence on health care actors. In response, several nations, including the United States, have passed legislation mandating disclosure of drug company payments to physicians. In the United States, …

The Nucleosome Position-Encoding Ww/Ss Sequence Pattern Is Depleted In Mammalian Genes Relative To Other Eukaryotes, Gregory M. Wright, Feng Cui

Articles

Nucleosomal DNA sequences generally follow a well-known pattern with ∼10-bp periodic WW (where W is A or T) dinucleotides that oscillate in phase with each other and out of phase with SS (where S is G or C) dinucleotides. However, nucleosomes with other DNA patterns have not been systematically analyzed. Here, we focus on an opposite pattern, namely anti-WW/SS pattern, in which WW dinucleotides preferentially occur at DNA sites that bend into major grooves and SS (where S is G or C) dinucleotides are often found at sites that bend into minor grooves. Nucleosomes with the anti-WW/SS pattern are widespread …

Retrieval Of Salt Marsh Above-Ground Biomass From High-Spatial Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery Using Prosail, Rehman S. Eon, Sarah Goldsmith, Charles M. Bachmann, Anna Christina Tyler, Christopher S. Lapszynski, Greg P. Badura, David T. Osgood, Ryan Brett

Articles

Salt marsh vegetation density varies considerably on short spatial scales, complicating attempts to evaluate plant characteristics using airborne remote sensing approaches. In this study, we used a mast-mounted hyperspectral imaging system to obtain cm-scale imagery of a salt marsh chronosequence on Hog Island, VA, where the morphology and biomass of the dominant plant species, Spartina alterniflora, varies widely. The high-resolution hyperspectral imagery allowed the detailed delineation of variations in above-ground biomass, which we retrieved from the imagery using the PROSAIL radiative transfer model. The retrieved biomass estimates correlated well with contemporaneously collected in situ biomass ground truth data ( R2=0.73 …

Social Clustering In Epidemic Spread On Coevolving Networks, Hsuan-Wei Lee, Nishant Malik, Feng Shi, Peter J. Mucha

Articles

Even though transitivity is a central structural feature of social networks, its influence on epidemic spread on coevolving networks has remained relatively unexplored. Here we introduce and study an adaptive susceptible- infected-susceptible (SIS) epidemic model wherein the infection and network coevolve with nontrivial proba- bility to close triangles during edge rewiring, leading to substantial reinforcement of network transitivity. This model provides an opportunity to study the role of transitivity in altering the SIS dynamics on a coevolving network. Using numerical simulations and approximate master equations (AMEs), we identify and examine a rich set of dynamical features in the model. In …

Bodies In Dependence: A Foucauldian Genealogy Of The Americans With Disabilities Acts, Michael E. Skyer

Articles

The Americans with Disabilities Acts (ADA) of 1990 and 2008 are laws imagined as enacting two goals: enhancing civil rights and reducing sociopolitical discrimination for Americans with disabilities; however, findings from this study strongly contrast with popular assumptions about the ADA. Key findings show how the ADA legitimizes governmental control of disability through discourse to consolidate economic power. The study employs the genealogical method, derived from Foucault, which is used to identify destructive and productive operations of power and identify ambiguities in discursive regimes. The ADA constructs a discursive category of "disability," the results of which are contradictory and problematic, …

Cwa In-Lieu Fee Mitigation: Project And Programmatic Risks, Erin Okuno, Rebecca Kihslinger, Royal C. Gardner, Christina Libre

Articles

No abstract provided.

Opting Into Device Regulation In The Face Of Uncertain Patentability, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

This article examines the intersection of patent law, FDA regulation, and Medicare coverage in a particularly promising field of biomedical innovation: genetic diagnostic testing. First, I will discuss current clinical uses of genetic testing and directions for further research, with a focus on cancer, the field in which genetic testing has had the greatest impact to date. Second, I will turn to patent law and address two recent Supreme Court decisions that called into question the patentability of many of the most important advances in genetic testing. Third, I will step outside patent law to take a broader view of …

The Statistical Optimisation Of Recombinant Β-Glucosidase Production Through A Two-Stage, Multi-Model, Design Of Experiments Approach, Albert Uhoraningoga, Gemma K. Kinsella, Jesus Maria Frias, Gary T. Henehan, Barry J. Ryan

Articles

β-glucosidases are a class of enzyme that are widely distributed in the living world, with examples noted in plants, fungi, animals and bacteria. They offer both hydrolysis and synthesis capacity for a wide range of biotechnological processes. However, the availability of native, or the production of recombinant β-glucosidases, is currently a bottleneck in the widespread industrial application of this enzyme. In this present work, the production of recombinant β-glucosidase from Streptomyces griseus was optimised using a Design of Experiments strategy, comprising a two-stage, multi-model design. Three screening models were comparatively employed: Fractional Factorial, Plackett-Burman and Definitive Screening Design. Four variables …

Dignity And Civility, Reconsidered, Leah Litman

Articles

People often talk about the Chief Justice, Justice Kagan, and Justice Breyer as the institutionalists on the modern Supreme Court. And that’s true, they are. Those Justices care about the Court as an institution and the Court’s reputation. They do not want people to look at the Court as a set of politicians in robes; and they do not want people to see judges as having ideological or partisan agendas. That is how they think of themselves, and they are willing to make compromises to maintain that image of the Court, and to set aside their personal beliefs in order …

Grants, Nicholson Price Ii

Articles

Innovation is a primary source of economic growth and is accordingly the target of substantial academic and government attention. Grants are a key tool in the government’s arsenal to promote innovation, but legal academic studies of that arsenal have given them short shrift. Although patents, prizes, and regulator-enforced exclusivity are each the subject of substantial literature, grants are typically addressed briefly, if at all. According to the conventional story, grants may be the only feasible tool to drive basic research, as opposed to applied research, but they are a blunt tool for that task. Three critiques of grants underlie this …

An Analysis Of Altitude, Citizen Science And A Convolutional Neural Network Feedback Loop On Object Detection In Unmanned Aerial Systems, Connor Bowley, Marshall Mattingly, Andrew Barnas, Susan Ellis-Felege, Travis Desell

Articles

Using automated processes to detect wildlife in uncontrolled outdoor imagery in the field of wildlife ecology is a challenging task. In imagery provided by Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), this is especially true where individuals are small and visually similar to background substrates. To address these challenges, this work presents an automated feedback loop which can operate on large scale imagery, such as UAS generated orthomosaics, to train convo- lutional neural networks (CNNs) with extremely unbalanced class sizes. This feedback loop was used to help train CNNs using imagery classified by both expert biologists and citizen scientists at the Wildlife@home project. …

Representation Of Caṇḍālas In The Jātakas, Chandrabhan P. Yadav

Articles

Excerpt:

"Out of 547 Jātaka stories, eight describe the caṇḍālas.1 Out of these eight stories, half contain passing references about this social class, but at least four are stories where the protagonists themselves are caṇḍālas. In those four stories which are centred around this class, three are comparatively longer stories, including the famous Mātaṅga-Jātaka (No. 497). These are probably the most elaborate descriptions of this social group from the early historic period. Since the Mātaṅga-Jātaka is more elaborate and complex than the other stories and needs to be discussed separately, I will only discuss the rest of the seven stories …

Pka, Caspase 1 And Hsp40 Induced Apoptosis Under Fungi Starvation, Tobiloba Sojinrin, Kangze Liu, Daxiang Cui, James Curtin, Furong Tian

Articles

To investigate the influence of starvation on the biochemical response of Aspergillus niger. The biochemical impact of starvation was determined by morphological observation, immunofluorescent analysis, High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and western blot over 8 days. Results showed that starvation can inhibit fungi survival rate in a time-dependent manner. A. niger exhibited active responses to starvation such as secretion of some 40 kDa proteins to manage changes in water balance. Conidiophores disintegrated from lack of nutrient. The immunofluorescent analysis demonstrated elevated ROS accumulation in starved cells (PA. niger growth by inducing cell apoptosis.

Analysis Of Human Mitochondrial Dna Content By Southern Blotting And Nonradioactive Probe Hybridization., Joel H Wheeler, Carolyn K J Young, Matthew J Young

Articles

A single cell can contain several thousand copies of the mitochondrial DNA genome or mtDNA. Tools for assessing mtDNA content are necessary for clinical and toxicological research, as mtDNA depletion is linked to genetic disease and drug toxicity. For instance, mtDNA depletion syndromes are typically fatal childhood disorders that are characterized by severe declines in mtDNA content in affected tissues. Mitochondrial toxicity and mtDNA depletion have also been reported in human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients treated with certain nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Further, cell culture studies have demonstrated that exposure to oxidative stress stimulates mtDNA degradation. Here we outline a Southern …

Interactions Between Diet, Physical Activity, And The Sociocultural Environment For Older Adult Health In The Urban Subarctic., Britteny M. Howell

Articles

No abstract provided.

Gne: A Deep Learning Framework For Gene Network Inference By Aggregating Biological Information, Kishan Kc, Rui Li, Feng Cui, Qi Yu, Anne R. Haake

Articles

BACKGROUND: The topological landscape of gene interaction networks provides a rich source of information for inferring functional patterns of genes or proteins. However, it is still a challenging task to aggregate heterogeneous biological information such as gene expression and gene interactions to achieve more accurate inference for prediction and discovery of new gene interactions. In particular, how to generate a unified vector representation to integrate diverse input data is a key challenge addressed here. RESULTS: We propose a scalable and robust deep learning framework to learn embedded representations to unify known gene interactions and gene expression for gene interaction predictions. …

Deploying Mindfulness To Gain Cognitive Advantage: Considerations For Military Effectiveness And Well-Being, Amishi P. Jha, Scott L. Rogers, Eric Schoomaker, Edward Cardon

Articles

Mindfulness involves paying attention to present moment experience without discursive commentary or emotional reactivity. Mindfulness training (MT) programs aim to promote this mental mode via introduction to specific mindfulness exercises, related in-class discussion, and ongoing engagement in mindfulness exercises. MT is being increasingly offered to high-demand, high-stress military/uniformed and civilian cohorts with a wide array of reported benefits. Herein, we begin by discussing recent theoretical models regarding MT’s mechanisms of action from a cognitive training/cognitive neuroscience perspective, which propose that MT engages and strengthens three key processes [e.g., 1]. These are: 1) attentional orienting, which is the ability to select …

Patents, Property, And Prospectivity, Jonathan Masur, Adam Mortara

Articles

No abstract provided.

Norming In Administrative Law, Jonathan Masur, Eric A. Posner

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No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Detection Capability Of Pulsed Wave Duplex Doppler Of Low Grade Stenosis Using Ultrasound Contrast Agent Microbubbles – An In-Vitro Study, Jacinta Browne, Deirdre King, Andrew J. Fagan, Deepa Chari, Carmel Moran

Articles

Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate whether clinically used ultrasonic contrast agents improved the accuracy of spectral Doppler ultrasound in the detection of low grade (< 50%) renal artery stenosis. Low grade stenoses in the renal artery are notoriously difficult to reliably detect using Doppler ultrasound due to difficulties such as overlying fat and bowel gas.

Methods: A range of anatomically-realistic renal artery phantoms with varying low degrees of stenosis (0, 30 and 50%) were constructed and peak velocity data was measured from within the pre-stenotic and mid-stenotic regions in each phantom, for both unenhanced and contrast-enhanced spectral Doppler data acquisitions. The effect of a 20mm overlying fat layer on the ultrasound beam distortion and phase aberration, and hence on the measured peak velocity data, was also …

An Examination Of Students' Perceptions Of The Kekulé Resonance Representation Using A Perceptual Learning Theory Lens, Thomas Kim, Leslie Kate Wright, Kathryn Miller

Articles

Students in chemistry often demonstrate difficulty with the principle of resonance. Despite many attempts to mitigate this difficulty, there have been few attempts to examine the root cause of these issues. In this study, students were assessed for their perception of Kekulé structures based on perceptual learning theory, which is grounded in cognitive mechanisms of visual perception. The data from this assessment shows that students are perceiving inappropriate clues from this representation, which infers that the image itself might be an impediment to learning about resonance. Employment of a metarepresentational competence approach was used to address these misperceptions.

Magnetic Field Patterning Of Nickel Nanowire Film Realized By Printed Precursor Inks, Chaitanya G. Mahajan, Ahmed A. Alfadhel, Mark Irving, Bruce Kahn, David A. Borkholder, Scott A. Williams, Denis Cormier

Articles

This paper demonstrates an easily prepared novel material and approach to producing aligned nickel (Ni) nanowires having unique and customizable structures on a variety of substrates for electronic and magnetic applications. This is a new approach to producing printed metallic Ni structures from precursor materials, and it provides a novel technique for nanowire formation during reduction. This homogeneous solution can be printed in ambient conditions, and it forms aligned elemental Ni nanowires over large areas upon heating in the presence of a magnetic field. The use of templates or subsequent purification are not required. This technique is very flexible, and …

Effect Of Fermentation On Enhancing The Nutraceutical Properties Of Arthrospira Platensis (Spirulina), Elena Demarcocastro, Emer Shannon, Nissreen Abu-Ghannam

Articles

Abstract:Arthrospira platensis(spirulina), a filamentous fresh-water planktonic cyanobacterium,possesses diverse biological activities and a unique nutritional profile, due to its high contentof valuable nutrients. This study aimed to further improve the bioactive profile of spirulina, byfermenting it with the lactic acid bacteriumLactobacillus plantarum.In vitrocomparison of thetotal phenolic content (TPC), C-phycocyanin, free methionine, DPPH radical scavenging capacity,ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) and proteinfragmentation via SDS-PAGE in untreated versus 12 to 72 h fermented spirulina is reported here.After 36 h fermentation, TPC was enhanced by 112%, FRAP by 85% and ORAC by 36%. After 24 h,the DPPH radical scavenging …