Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating The Role Of Gold Nanoparticle Shape And Size In Their Toxicities To Fungi, Kangze Liu, Zhonglei He, Hugh Byrne, James Curtin, Furong Tian

Articles

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are increasingly being used in a wide range of applications, and such they are being released in greater quantities into the environment. Consequently, the environmental effects of GNPs, especially toxicities to living organisms, have drawn great attention. However, their toxicological characteristics still remain unclear. Fungi, as the decomposers of the ecosystem, interact directly with the environment and critically control the overall health of the biosphere. Thus, their sensitivity to GNP toxicity is particularly important. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of GNP shape and size in their toxicities to fungi, which could help …

Preserving A Trust, Harry T. Dao, Fredrick E. Vars

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No abstract provided.

Retheorizing Actions For Targeted Hate Speech: A Comment On Professor Brown Comments, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

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No abstract provided.

What The Police Don't Know May Hurt Us: An Argument For Enhanced Legal Training Of Police Officers, Yuri R. Linetsky

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No abstract provided.

Nonmajority Opinions And Biconditional Rules, Adam Steinman

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In Hughes v. United States, the Supreme Court will revisit a thorny question: how to determine the precedential effect of decisions with no majority opinion. For four decades, the clearest instruction from the Court has been the rule from Marks v. United States: the Court's holding is "the position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds." The Marks rule raises particular concerns, however, when it is applied to biconditional rules. Biconditionals are distinctive in that they set a standard that dictates both success and failure for a given issue. More formulaically, they combine an …

Whistleblowing Speech And The First Amendment, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

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Alexander Meiklejohn the iconic First Amendment scholar who expounded the democratic selfgovernment theory of the freedom of speech posited that for democratic selfgovernment to function the voters themselves must possess the information necessary to hold the government accountable Yet the information necessary for the citizenry to render wise electoral verdicts not uncommonly belongs to the government itself and government officials often prove highly reluctant to share information that reflects badly on them and their work The lack of critically important information about the government's performance makes it difficult if not impossible for voters to hold government accountable on Election Day …

The Narrative Of Costs, The Cost Of Narrative, Alexander A. Reinert

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In Judge Victor Marrero’s Article “The Cost of Rules, the Rule of Costs,” he argues that too many lawyers use too many procedural devices to cause too much inefficiency within our civil justice system. His Article helpfully asks us to focus on the role of the lawyer and law firm economics in assessing how to solve waste and abuse in civil litigation. He proposes an array of procedural changes to address these perceived problems. In this response, I argue that Judge Marrero’s assertions about costs are questionable, given relevant empirical evidence. Moreover, although I am confident that there are instances …

The Culture Of Misdemeanor Courts, Jessica A. Roth

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The misdemeanor courts that preside over the majority of criminal cases in the United States represent the “front porch” of our criminal justice system. These courts vary in myriad ways, including size, structure, and method of judicial appointment. Each also has its own culture – i.e., a settled way of doing things that reflects deeper assumptions about the court’s mission and its role in the community – which can assist or impede desired policy reforms. This Article, written for a Symposium issue of the Hofstra Law Review, draws upon the insights of organizational culture theory to explore how leaders can …

The “New” District Court Activism In Criminal Justice Reform, Jessica A. Roth

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Historically, the debate over the judicial role has centered on the constitutional and administrative law decisions of the United States Supreme Court, with an occasional glance at the Federal Courts of Appeals. It has, moreover, been concerned solely with the “in-court” behavior of Article III appellate judges as they carry out their power and duty “to say what the law is” in the context of resolving “cases and controversies.” This Article seeks to deepen the discussion of the appropriate role of Article III judges by broadening it to trial, as well as appellate, judges; and by distinguishing between an Article …

Solitary Troubles, Alexander A. Reinert

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Solitary confinement is one of the most severe forms of punishment that can be inflicted on human beings. In recent years, the use of extreme isolation in our prisons and jails has been questioned by correctional officials, medical experts, and reform advocates alike. Yet for nearly the entirety of American history, judicial regulation of the practice has been extremely limited. This Article explains why judges hesitate to question the use of solitary confinement, while also providing a path forward for greater scrutiny of the practice.

Effect Of High- And Low-Molecular-Weight Hyaluronic-Acid-Functionalized-Az31 Mg And Ti Alloys On Proliferation And Differentiation Of Osteoblast Cells, Sankalp Agarwal, Brendan Duffy, James Curtin, Swarna Jaiswal

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The quality of patient care has increased dramatically in recent years because of the development of lightweight orthopedic metal implants. The success of these orthopedic implants may be compromised by impaired cytocompatibility and osteointegration. Biomimetic surface engineering of metal implants using biomacromolecules including hyaluronic acid (HA) has been used an effective approach to provide conditions favorable for the growth of bone forming cells. To date, there have been limited studies on osteoblasts functions in response to metal substrates modified with the hyaluronic acid of different molecular weight for orthopedic applications. In this study, we evaluated the osteoblasts functions such as …

Countering Untouchability: The Stories Of Mātaṅga, Chandrabhan P. Yadav

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Excerpt:

"In the Jātakas we get description of the Caṇḍālas which is rare as far as traces about this class from the early Indian past is concerned. In around eight stories we get description of the Caṇḍālas.1 Amongst those the Mātaṅ gaJātaka (No.497) is the most important story because of its sheer description which is comparatively more elaborate than the other stories. In this essay I shall not only be examining this particular story to see the everyday lives of the Caṇḍālas in the early historic period, but most importantly, I shall also be exploring those processes through which these …

Selling Attorney's Fees, Anthony J. Sebok

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Attorneys in the United States are under increasing pressure to change and adopt practices commonly found in the world of finance and business. Over the past thirty years, the bar and legal academics have debated what to do; the focus of this debate has been whether to change Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4 to allow partnerships between attorneys and nonlawyers or partnerships owned by nonlawyer shareholders.

One of the reasons attorneys are debating changes to Rule 5.4 is that the practice of law depends on capital, and the old methods for raising capital are no longer sufficient. Rather than …

Scientific Trials--In The Laboratories, Not The Courts, Nicholas Bagley, Aaron E. Carroll, Pieter A. Cohen

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In 2015, one of us published a peer-reviewed study, together with colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, replicating prior research from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) detecting a designer stimulant, β-methylphenylethylamine, in sports, weight loss, and “cognitive function” supplements sold in the United States. The confirmatory study prompted the FDA to take enforcement action against companies selling the stimulant as a dietary ingredient. One of the companies that received an FDA warning letter sued the study’s authors for $200 million in damages for libel, claiming, without supporting scientific evidence, that multiple statements in the article were …

Stock Market Manipulation And Its Regulation, Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, Gabriel Rauterberg

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More than eighty years after federal law first addressed stock market manipulation, the federal courts remain fractured by disagreement and confusion concerning manipulation law's most foundational issues. There remains, for example, a sharp split among the federal circuits concerning manipulation law's central question: Whether trading activity alone can ever be considered illegal manipulation under federal law? Academics have been similarly confused-economists and legal scholars cannot agree on whether manipulation is even possible in principle, let alone on how to properly address it in practice.

Dialog About A New Asylum System, James C. Hathaway

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The mechanisms for implementing the obligations under the Refugee Convention are fiawed in ways that too often lead States to act against their own values and interests, and which produce needless suffering amongst refugees. A five-point plan could revitalize the Refugee Convention. A managed and collectivized approach to the implementation of refugee protection obligations would include planning for refugee movements, embracing common but differentiated State responsibility and international administration of refugee protection.

Fraudulent Conveyances Masquerading As Asset Protection Trusts, James J. White

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Viewed with a dispassionate but slightly skeptical eye, transfers to asset protection trusts are fraudulent conveyances pure and simple. I think so and the evidence points that way.

The asset protection trust is a simulacrum of the well-known and thoroughly conventional mode of holding assets for a “beneficiary” by a “trustee” under the terms of an elaborate document. Trusts, of course, are widely used in estate planning and elsewhere in circumstances where one person, the settlor, wishes to make assets available to another on the settlor’s terms; a parent might use a trust to put aside assets for a minor …

China And Beps, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Haiyan Xu

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This article provides an overview of China’s reaction to the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. From 2013 to 2015, the OECD developed a series of actions designed to address BEPS activities by multinational enterprises, culminating in a final report of 15 action steps. The article reviews and explains China’s reaction to the BEPS project and its actions in detail, with a particular focus on transfer pricing issues. It shows that China has actively participated in both developing and implementing the BEPS project. The article further suggests that in the post-BEPS era, China is expected to implement the …

Expanding The Traditional Role Of Optometry: Current Practice Patterns And Attitudes To Enhanced Glaucoma Services In Ireland, Catriona Barrett, James Loughman

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Purpose: To investigate current diagnostic equipment availability and usage for glaucoma casefinding within community optometric practice, and to explore optometrists’ attitudes towards an enhanced scope of clinical practice. Methods: An anonymous survey was developed, validated, and distributed to all optometrists in Ireland. Results: 199 optometrists (27% of registrants) responded to the survey. 87% had access to the traditional triad of tests necessary to conduct adequate glaucoma case finding. Standard automated perimetry was the most commonly absent (13%) of the three essential screening tests. 64% of respondents indicated that monocular direct ophthalmoscopy was their first choice technique for fundus examination. 47% …

Nutritional Supplementation In The Treatment Of Glaucoma: A Systematic Review, Ekaterina Loskutova, Colm O’Brien, Igor Loskutov, James Loughman

Articles

Current treatment strategies for glaucoma are limited to halting disease progression and do not restore lost visual function. Intraocular pressure is the main risk factor for glaucoma, and intraocular pressure–lowering treatment remains the mainstay of glaucoma treatment, but even successful intraocular pressure reduction does not stop the progression of glaucoma in all patients. We review the literature to determine whether nutritional interventions intended to prevent or delay the progression of glaucoma could prove to be a valuable addition to the mainstay of glaucoma therapy. A total of 33 intervention trials were included in this review, including 21 randomized controlled …

Glaucoma Referral Refinement In Ireland: Managing The Sensitivity-Specificity Paradox In Optometric Practice, Catriona Barrett, O'Brien Colm, James Loughman

Articles

Purpose: Glaucoma referral refinement (GRR) has pr ven a successful demand management strategy for glaucoma suspect cases in the United Kingdom (UK). A GRR clinic was established in Dublin, Ireland to investigate the clinical viability of this pathway outside the UK's National Health Service (NHS) structures, and away from the influence of National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance.

Supraclavicular Subclavian Access For Sapien Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: A Novel Approach, Thom G. Dahle, John Castro, Jacob R. Dutcher, John M. Teskey, Wade Schmidt, Daren Danielson, Daniel Tiede

Articles

BACKGROUND:

Within the trans-subclavian approach, procedural techniques can vary widely, and reported access generally refers to an infraclavicular axillary approach. We describe and report the use of a novel supraclavicular true subclavian approach for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) exclusively for implantation of Sapien 3 valves.

CASE PRESENTATION:

We report our first five consecutive patients undergoing TAVR with a Sapien 3 valve using a standardized subclavian approach at a single center. In-hospital and 30-day complications were reported. The use of this approach resulted in successful implantation in 100% of patients in a safe manner with 0% mortality, stroke, and vascular …

The Efficacy Of Financial Futures As A Hedging Tool In Electricity Markets, Jim Hanly, Lucia Morales, Damien Cassells

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Abstract This paper estimates and applies a risk management strategy for electricity spot exposures using futures hedging. We apply our approach to three of the most actively traded European electricity markets, Nordpool, APXUK and Phelix. We compare both optimal hedging strategies and the hedging effectiveness of these markets for two hedging horizons, weekly and monthly using both Variance and Value at Risk (VaR). Our key finding is that electricity futures can effectively manage risk only for specific time periods when using hedging strategies that have been very successful in financial and other commodity markets. More generally they are ineffective as …

Hong Kong Unrest And Implications For The Hang Seng Index, Lucia Morales, Bernadette Andreosso-O’Callaghan

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With the September 2014 ‘Umbrella Revolution’ in Hong Kong, China faced one of the biggest political challenges since the Tiananmen Square events. Beijing’s proposed electoral reform was perceived as a direct attack to democracy, and the ensuing protest triggered concerns amid local and international investors; the financial sector took the hardest hit, with stocks of companies exposed to the Hong Kong market facing significant losses. Volatility continued to increase to a seven-month high over worries that the student blockade in Hong Kong’s streets could drag on for longer than expected. The econometric-based analysis in this paper looks at the implications …

The Impact Of Brexit On The Stock Markets Of The Greater China Region, Lucia Morales, Jean Monnet

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An examination of Brexit and its initial impact on the main stock markets in the Greater China Region (GCR) was conducted using augmented market models that integrate Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) and implied volatility (VIX). The results do not seem to align with research in the field that has suggested that the EPU index helps to identify if market participants are reacting to political events. The main research findings suggest that Brexit does not appear to have an impact on the performance of market returns in the region and the influence of economic policy uncertainty in the GCR appears to …

Lessons From The Global Financial Crisis–The Case Of Mainland China And Hong Kong, Lucia Morales, Bernadette Andreosso-O’Callaghan

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The analysis of the intertwined reactions of Hong Kong and Mainland China to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis is considered in this study through the lenses of their stock markets. The GARCH-based analysis of stock market performance over the period December 2011–December 2014 shows that trade and equity sectors were the sectors most affected by the global recession; volatility was prevalent on the Shanghai stock market, whereas volatility persistence characterised the Hong Kong stock market. The results also show that the two stock markets recovered quite quickly. Tight controls applied by the financial authorities helped ensure some stability during the …

Jail As Injunction, Russell M. Gold

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No abstract provided.

Adminization: Gatekeeping Consumer Contracts, Yonathan A. Arbel

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Large companies and debt collectors frequently file unmeritorious claims against consumers Recent highprofile actions brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "CFPB" against JP Morgan Citibank and large debt collectors illustrate the breadth and importance of this phenomenon Due to the limited financial power of individuals consumers often do not defend against such baseless claims which results in the entry of millions of default judgments every year To combat this problem policymakers and scholars have explored a variety of courtbased solutions that would make it easier for consumers to defend in court but these prove ineffectualTo solve the problem of …

Trade Fraud: The Wild, New Frontier Of White Collar Crime, Pamela Bucy Pierson, Bejamin Patterson Bucy

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No abstract provided.

A Multi-Country Analysis On Potential Adaptive Mechanisms To Cold And Heat In A Changing Climate, Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera, Francesco Sera, Yuming Guob, Yeonseung Chung, Katherine Arbuthnotta, Shilu Tong Tong, Aurelio Tobias, Micheline De Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho, Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldivai, Patrick J. Goodman, Ariana Zekak, Masahiro Hashizumel, Yasushi Honda, Ho Kim, Martina Ragettlio, Martin Rooslio, Antonella Zanobetti Zanobetti, Joel Schwartz, Ben Armstrong, Antonio Gasparrini

Articles

Background: Temporal variation of temperature-health associations depends on the combination of two pathways: pure adaptation to increasingly warmer temperatures due to climate change, and other attenuation mechanisms due to non-climate factors such as infrastructural changes and improved health care. Disentangling these pathways is critical for assessing climate change impacts and for planning public health and climate policies. We present evidence on this topic by assessing temporal trends in cold- and heat-attributable mortality risks in a multi-country investigation. Methods: Trends in country-specific attributable mortality fractions (AFs) for cold and heat (defined as below/ above minimum mortality temperature, respectively) in 305 locations …