Digital Commons Network^™

Genetic Diversity Of Cd14 Promoter Gene Polymorphism (Rs2569190) Is Associated With Regulation Of Malaria Parasitemia And Susceptibility To Plasmodium Falciparum Infection., Olusola Ojurongbe, Roland I. Funwei, Tara J. Snyder, Najihah Aziz, Yi Li, Catherine O. Falade, Bolaji N. Thomas

Articles

CD14 is a multifunctional receptor expressed on many cell types and has been shown to mediate immune response resulting in the activation of an inflammatory cascade, with polymorphism of its promoter (rs2569190) found to be associated with susceptibility to several diseases. In malaria infection, the CD14 gene demonstrated a pathogenic profile in regulating experimental cerebral malaria, with reports of elevated levels of soluble CD14 in serum of patients but no definitive conclusion. We present a detailed analysis of genetic diversity of CD14 promoter gene (snp −159 C/T; rs2519190) polymorphism between a malaria-infected group and uninfected controls and its association with …

Dietary Phytochemicals As Inhibitors Of Primary Amine Oxidase, Padraig Shanahan, Jeffrey O'Sullivan, Keith F. Tipton, Gemma Kinsella, Barry J. Ryan, Gary T. Henehan

Articles

Phytochemicals such as methylxanthines, catechins and polyphenols show health benefits in a range of diseases although their mechanism of action is not fully understood. Primary Amine Oxidase (PrAO) is widely recognised as a therapeutic drug target for the treatment of inflammatory, vascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Previous work in our laboratories showed that caffeine inhibited bovine PrAO activity with a Ki of 1.0mM. In the present study we examined a range of methylxanthines and catechins as inhibitors of bovine PrAO. The methylxanthines tested were caffeine, paraxanthine, theophylline, theobromine and 7-methylxanthine. Of these, only theobromine was an inhibitor with an IC50 of …

Constructing An International Community, Monica Hakimi

Articles

What unites states and other global actors around a shared governance project? How does the group—what I will call an “international community”—coalesce and stay engaged in the enterprise? A frequent assumption is that an international community is cemented by its members’ commonalities and depleted by their intractable disagreements. This article critiques that assumption and presents, as an alternative, a theory that accounts for the combined integration and discord that actually characterize most global governance associations. I argue that conflict, especially conflict that manifests in law, is not necessarily corrosive to an international community. To the contrary, it often is a …

Mary O’Donnell’S 1992 Debut Retains Its Awesome Word Power 25 Years On The Light Makers Was A Compelling, Beautifully Written Tale Of Relationship Breakdown, Eamon Maher

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In 1992, I remember reading Mary O’Donnell’s debut novel, The Light Makers, with a mixture of awe and excitement: awe that a novel could be this well-written, excitement at what I perceived to be the advent of a significant new voice in Irish fiction. Two other novels followed in the 1990s – Virgin and the Boy (1996) and The Elysium Testament (1999) – that failed to capture the public imagination in the same way. They are both good novels, but they are not nearly as compelling as The Light Makers. We had to wait 15 more years for …

Reply On The Work Of International Law, Monica Hakimi

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"In the Article, I distill and then criticize a prominent view about the role of international law in the global order. The view—what I call the “cooperation thesis”—is that international law serves to foster a particular kind of cooperation, specifically to help the participants achieve their common aims and curb their disputes. Lawyers who subscribe to this view of course appreciate that international law is, like all law, often contentious in operation. But they posit that, unless such conflict is overcome, it detracts from cooperation and evinces the limits of international law. That view is wrong. It incorrectly assumes that …

Modernization Of The Columbia River Treaty: An Opportunity For Idaho, Barbara Cosens

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No abstract provided.

Confirmation Bias, Patrick Barry

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Supreme Court confirmation hearings are vapid. Supreme Court confirmation hearings are pointless. Supreme Court confirmation hearings are harmful to a citizenry already cynical about government. Sentiments like these have been around for decades and are bound to resurface each time a new nomination is made. This essay, however, takes a different view. It argues that Supreme Court confirmation hearings are a valuable form of cultural expression, one that provides a unique record of as the theater critic Martin Esslin might say, a nation thinking about itself in public.

Business Tax Burdens And Tax Reform, James R. Hines Jr.

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Tax reforms affect economic performance by changing incentives for business formation, expansion, and operation. The United States has the highest corporate tax rate among OECD countries in 2017, and despite offering significant additional deductions, exclusions, and tax credits, imposes the heaviest tax burdens. This paper offers a new measure of corporate tax burdens based on information in tax expenditure budgets; this measure implies that the burden of U.S. corporate taxation in 2017 is equivalent to that produced by a corporate tax rate between 31.2-34.6% without additional deductions, exclusions, or tax credits. Efficient design of a business tax system encourages activities …

Equality After Brexit: Evaluating British Contributions To Eu Antidiscrimination Law, Julie C. Suk

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The article examines the significant contributions of the United Kingdom to the development of EU antidiscrimination law, particularly through its involvement in key cases and the opinions of British Advocates General. It highlights how Brexit may impact the future evolution of these legal principles within the EU.

The Radical Majoritarianism Of Rule 23(B)(2), Myriam E. Gilles, Gary Friedman

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One often reads that, “because of the group nature of the harm alleged and the broad character of the relief sought,” Rule 23(b)(2) classes are necessarily “homogenous and cohesive group[s] with few conflicting interests.” But that truism is debatable; at minimum, it begs the question of what counts as a “conflicting interest.” After all, class members often have conflicting positions with respect to the outcome of litigation — especially in significant injunctive-relief complex, structural reform cases of the type that Rule 23(b)(2) addresses. For example, it may be the case that a minority within an injunctive class would prefer to …

The Words Under The Words, Patrick Barry

Articles

The words lawyers choose can change the decisions people make. Psychologists call the mechanics of this change “framing.” They’ve found, for example, that more people will decide to have a surgery if they are told that the “survival rate is 90%” than if they are told that the “mortality rate is 10%” — even though a survival rate of 90% is exactly the same as a mortality rate of 10%. They’ve also found that having to pay a “surcharge” for using a credit card rankles people (especially people in the credit card lobby) more than if they were simply told …

Evaluation Of The Antimicrobial Activities Of Ultrasonicated Spinach Leaf Extracts Using Rapd Markers And Electron Microscopy, Ammar Badran Altemimi, Naoufal Lakhssassi, Amer Abughazaleh, David Lightfoot

Articles

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) leaves represent an important dietary source of nutrients, antioxidants, and antimicrobials. As such, spinach leaves play an important role in health and have been used in the treatment of human diseases since ancient times. Here the aims were to optimize the extraction methods for recovering antimicrobial substances of spinach leaves, determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of the antimicrobial substances against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and finally, evaluate the effects of spinach leaves’ antimicrobials on bacterial DNA using central composite face centered methods (CCFC). The effect of the extracts on both Gram positive and …

Stock Market Futurism, Merritt Fox, Gabriel Rauterberg

Articles

The U.S. stock market is undergoing extraordinary upheaval. The approval of the application of the Investors Exchange (IEX) to become the nation's newest stock exchange, including its famous "speed bump," was one of the SEC's most controversial decisions in decades. Other exchanges have proposed a raft of new innovations in its wake. This evolving equity market is a critical piece of national infrastructure, but the regulatory scheme for its institutions is increasingly frayed. In particular, current regulation draws sharp distinctions among different kinds of markets for trading stocks, treating stock exchanges as self-regulatory organizations immune from private civil litigation, while …

An Evaluation Of The Efficiency Of Compartmented Alginate Fibres Encapsulating Rejuvenator As Asphalt Pavement Healing System, Amir Tabakovic, Luke Schuyffel, Aleksandar Karac, Erik Schlangen

Articles

This paper explores the potential methods for evaluating a healing system for asphalt pavements. The healing system under investigation involves compartmented calcium-alginate fibres encapsulating an asphalt binder healing agent (rejuvenator). This system presents a novel method of incorporating rejuvenators into asphalt pavement mixtures. The compartmented fibres are used to distribute the rejuvenator throughout the pavement mixture, thereby overcoming some of the problems associated with alternate asphalt pavement healing methods, i.e., spherical capsules and hollow fibres. The asphalt healing efficiency methods to be evaluated in this paper include: (i) standard test methods for asphalt pavements, such as the Indirect Tensile Strength …

A Unified Cfd Based Approach To A Variety Of Condensation Processes In A Viscous Turbulent Wet Steam Flow, Alexander S. Liberson, Steven H. Hesler

Articles

A family of quasi linear mathematical models is presented and calculations made for viscous turbulent wet steam flow with a variety of condensation phenomena. These models can be applied to the analysis of equilibrium condensation, homogeneous (spontaneous) condensation, heterogeneous condensation on extraneous particles, and condensation of charged dispersed phase moving in an electrostatic field. The unified model is represented by coupled systems of gas dynamic equations for viscous turbulent two-phase flow, kinetic and electro-kinetic equations tracing out combined processes of size and charge growth, and electromagnetic field equations described an electric field with an account of self- induced in-part by …

In Re Akhbar Beirut & Al Amin, Monica Hakimi

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On August 29, 2016, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (Tribunal) sentenced a corporate media enterprise and one of its employees for contemptuously interfering with the Tribunal's proceedings in Ayyash, a prosecution concerning the February 2005 terrorist attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The contempt decision is significant for two reasons: (1) it adopts an expansive definition of the crime of contempt to restrict a journalist's freedom of expression; and (2) it is the first international judicial decision to hold a corporate entity criminally responsible.

The Dubious Empirical And Legal Foundations Of Wellness Programs, Adrianna Mcintyre, Nicholas Bagley, Austin Frakt, Aaron Carroll

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The article offers information on the dubious empirical and legal foundations of workplace wellness programs in the U.S. Topics discussed include enactment of Affordable Care Act for expanding the scope of incentives availas; analysis of financial incentives offered to the employees for encouraging their participation in wellness programs; and targeting incentives specifically toward individuals diagnosed with chronic diseases.

Magnetic Field Sensor Based On A Combination Of A Microfiber Coupler Covered With Magnetic Fluid And A Sagnac Loop, Fangfang Wei, Arun Mallik, Dejun Liu, Qiang Wu, Gang-Ding Peng, Gerald Farrell, Yuliya Semenova

Articles

This paper proposes a novel magnetic field sensor based on a microfiber coupler (MFC) combined with a magnetic fluid (MF) in a Sagnac loop formed from a polarization maintaining fiber (PMF). Thanks to the small (~2.6μm) waist diameter of the MFC, the resulting interference is strongly influenced by the presence of the MF and this leads to the desirable high sensitivity of the structure to the applied magnetic field. The maximum magnetic field sensitivities of −100pm/mT and −488pm/mT have been experimentally demonstrated with the PMF lengths of 75cm and 20cm respectively in the range of magnetic field strengths from 0 …

Festival Heterotopias: Spatial And Temporal Transformations In Two Small-Scale Settlements, Bernadette Quinn, Linda Wilks

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This paper reports the findings of research undertaken at two festivals which take place in small-scale settlements: one in a village set in rural western Ireland, the other in a small coastal town set within a largely rural Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in southern England. It uses Foucault’s concept of heterotopia as an analytical tool to further understandings of how the spatial and temporal interruptions caused by festivals temporarily transform the prevailing social order. The findings attest to the manner in which festivals juxtapose several incompatible spaces, creating a diverse array of social alterations in consequence, and highlight the …

Rest In Peace, Rule 505, Wendy Gerwick Couture

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After 37 years in existence,1 the Rule 505 exemption from registration has been repealed, effective May 22, 2017. This essay reviews the evolution of Rule 505 over its lifetime; examines Rule 505’s role within Regulation D and analyzes why that role eventually became obsolete; and argues that Rule 505 leaves behind a legacy that should continue to inform policy discussions about exemptions from registration.

Forfeitures And The Eighth Amendment: A Practical Approach To The Excessive Fines Clause As A Check On Government Seizures, David Pimentel

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No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy On The Side, Kenneth M. Ayotte, Anthony Casey, David A. Skeel Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Experimentally Testing The Effectiveness Of Human Rights Treaties, Adam S. Chilton

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No abstract provided.

Indigenous Autonomy In Colombia: State-Building Processes And Multiculturalism, Pablo Rueda-Saiz

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This article shows a novel facet in the complex relation between multiculturalism, the state and the market. Contrary to conventional theories in political science, sociology and anthropology, it shows that it is not just the success, but also the failure of the state and the market to commoditise nature and turn it into property that can actually help to foster ethnic identity. While state-driven market incentives to expand the agricultural frontier in Colombia during the 1960s and 1970s failed, they did help to foster differentiated indigenous identities and organisations, which converged around the revival of long-forgotten nineteenth century indigenous laws …

Regime Change In 1950s Ireland: The New Export-Oriented Foreign Investment Strategy, Frank Barry, Clare O'Mahony

Articles

The new export-oriented foreign direct investment (FDI) regime of the 1950s was an interparty government initiative that facilitated the later Whitaker and Lemass-led dismantling of protectionist trade barriers. The potential opposition of protectionist-era industry to the new regime was defused by confining the new tax relief to profits derived solely from exports, by allocating new industrial grants only to firms that ‘would not compete in the home market with existing firms’, and by retaining the Control of Manufactures Acts of the 1930s that imposed restrictions on foreign ownership. The fact that the US had overtaken the UK as the major …

Churches' Lobbying And Campaigning: A Proposed Statutory Safe Harbor For Internal Church Communications, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

President Trump, reiterating the position he took during the presidential campaign, has recently reaffirmed his pledge to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment,” the provision of the Internal Revenue Code which prohibits tax-exempt institutions from participating in political campaigns. The Code also bars tax-exempt institutions, including churches, from substantial lobbying activities.

Rather than the blanket repeal of the Johnson Amendment proposed by President Trump, I argue for a statutory safe harbor for the internal communications of churches. This limited safe harbor would protect in-house church discussions from both Section 501(c)(3)’s ban on substantial lobbying and from that …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, July 2017, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

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In this section: • Trump Administration Takes Steps to Implement Bilateral Agreement with Australia Regarding Refugees • Trump Administration Criticizes NATO Members for Failing to Meet Defense Spending Guideline; United States Joins Other NATO Members in Supporting Montenegro’s Membership in the Organization • President Trump Issues Executive Orders Suspending Refugee Program and Barring Entry by Individuals from Specified Countries • Trump Administration Maintains Nuclear Deal with Iran, Despite Persistent Skepticism • United States Strikes Syrian Government Airbase in Response to Chemical Weapons Attacks by Syrian Forces; Two Additional Strikes on Syrian Government Forces Justified by Defense of Troops Rationale • …

Formulation, Characterisation And Stability Assessment Of A Food Derived 1 Tripeptide, Leucine-Lysine-Proline Loaded Chitosan Nanoparticles, Minna Khalid Danish, Giuliana Vozza, Hugh Byrne, Jesus Maria Frias, Sinead Ryan

Articles

The chicken or fish derived tripeptide, Leucine-Lysine-Proline (LKP), inhibits the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme and may be used as an alternative treatment for pre-hypertension. However, it has low permeation across the small intestine. The formulation of LKP into a nanoparticle (NP) has the potential to address this issue. LKP-loaded NPs were produced using an ionotropic gelation technique, using chitosan (CL113). Following optimisation of unloaded NPs, a mixture amount design was constructed using variable concentration of CL113 and tripolyphosphate at a fixed LKP concentration. Resultant particle sizes ranged from 120-271 nm, zeta potential values from 29-37 mV and polydispersity values from 0.3-0.6. …

Regime Change In 1950s Ireland: The New Export-Oriented Foreign Investment Strategy, Frank Barry, Clare O'Mahony

Articles

The new export-oriented foreign direct investment (FDI) regime of the 1950s was an interparty government initiative that facilitated the later Whitaker and Lemass-led dismantling of protectionist trade barriers. The potential opposition of protectionist-era industry to the new regime was defused by confining the new tax relief to profits derived solely from exports, by allocating new industrial grants only to firms that ‘would not compete in the home market with existing firms’, and by retaining the Control of Manufactures Acts of the 1930s that imposed restrictions on foreign ownership. The fact that the US had overtaken the UK as the major …

Antifungal Potential Of Copper(Ii), Manganese(Ii) And Silver(I) 1,10-Phenanthroline Chelates Against Multidrug-Resistant Fungal Species Forming The Candida Haemulonii Complex: Impact On The Planktonic And Biofilm Lifestyles, Rafael M. Gandra, Pauraic Mc Carron, Mariana F. Fernandes, Lívia S. Ramos, Thaís P. Mello, Ana Carolina Aor, Marta H. Branquinha, Malachy Mccann, Michael Devereux, André L. S. Santos

Articles

Candida haemulonii, Candida haemulonii var. vulnera and Candida duobushaemulonii, which form the C. haemulonii complex, are emerging etiologic agents of fungal infections known to be resistant to the most commonly used antifungals. The well-established anti-Candida potential ofmetal complexes containing 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) ligands encouraged us to evaluate different copper(II), manganese(II), and silver(I) phen chelates for their ability to inhibit planktonic growth and biofilm of C. haemulonii species complex. Two novel coordination complexes, {[Cu(3,6,9-tdda)(phen)2].3H2O.EtOH}n and [Ag2(3,6,9-tdda)(phen)4].EtOH (3,6,9-tddaH2 = 3,6,9-trioxaundecanedioic acid), were synthesized in a similar fashion to the other, previously documented, sixteen copper(II), manganese(II), and silver(I) chelates employed herein. Three isolates of …