Digital Commons Network^™

Managing The Risks Of Shale Gas Development Using Innovative Legal And Regulatory Approaches, Nathan D. Richardson, Sheila Olmstead

Faculty Publications

Booming production of oil and gas from shale, enabled by hydraulic fracturing technology, has led to tension between hoped-for economic benefits and feared environmental and other costs, with great associated controversy. Study of how policy can best react to these challenges and how it can balance risk and reward has focused on prescriptive regulatory responses and, to a somewhat lesser extent, voluntary industry best practices. While there is undoubtedly room for improved regulation, innovative tools are relatively understudied. The liability system predates environmental regulation yet still plays an important — and in some senses predominant — role. Changes to that …

The Contractual Foundation Of Family-Business Law, Benjamin Means

Faculty Publications

Most U.S. businesses are family owned, and yet the law governing business organizations does not account adequately for family relationships. Nor have legal scholars paid sufficient attention to family businesses. Instead, legal scholars operate within a contractarian model of business organization law, which holds that a firm is comprised of a nexus of contracts among economically rational actors. Intimate relationships appear irrelevant except insofar as they affect contractual choices. Indeed, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as family-business law.

This Article lays the foundation for a law of family business by expanding the contractarian model: a firm includes not …

Comparing The Clean Air Act And A Carbon Price, Nathan D. Richardson, Arthur Fraas

Faculty Publications

Over the last half-decade, a variety of federal legislative proposals for limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been put forward, most of which would set a price on carbon. As of early 2013, the one politically plausible policy appears to be a carbon tax, passed as part of a larger fiscal reform package. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has begun regulating GHG emissions from a variety of sources using its authority under the Clean Air Act. It may be necessary to choose between these two policies, however. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that failed in 2009 would have preempted much …

Banning Lawns, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recognizing their role in sustainability efforts, many local governments are enacting climate change plans, mandatory green building ordinances, and sustainable procurement policies. But thus far, local governments have largely ignored one of the most pervasive threats to sustainability — lawns. This Article examines the trend toward sustainability mandates by considering the implications of a ban on lawns, the single largest irrigated crop in the United States.

Green yards are deeply seated in the American ethos of the sanctity of the single-family home. However, this psychological attachment to lawns results in significant environmental harms: conventional turfgrass is a non-native monocrop that …

Citizen Science: The Law And Ethics Of Public Access To Medical Big Data, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Patient-related medical information is becoming increasingly available on the Internet, spurred by government open data policies and private sector data sharing initiatives. Websites such as HealthData.gov, GenBank, and PatientsLikeMe allow members of the public to access a wealth of health information. As the medical information terrain quickly changes, the legal system must not lag behind. This Article provides a base on which to build a coherent data policy. It canvasses emergent data troves and wrestles with their legal and ethical ramifications.

Publicly accessible medical data have the potential to yield numerous benefits, including scientific discoveries, cost savings, the development of …

Did The Sixteenth Amendment Ever Matter? Does It Matter Today?, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This article, prepared for a symposium on the centennial of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, argues that the Amendment was legally and politically necessary in 1913, if there was going to be a modern income tax, and that it remains significant today. The Amendment provides that “taxes on incomes” need not be apportioned among the states on the basis of population, as would otherwise be required for direct taxes. An apportioned income tax would be an absurdity, and, if there were no Amendment, Congress could not enact an unapportioned tax on income from property, the sort of tax that …

Adventist Concepts Of Discipleship And Nonconformity, Denis Fortin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Frequent Family Dinners Protect Our Children, Duane C. Mcbride, Alina M. Baltazar, Gary L. Hopkins, Kathryn Conopio

Faculty Publications

Frequent family dinners have multiple benefits to children and teens that aid in positive youth development.

A Theme Analysis Of Experiences Reported By Adult Children Of Alcoholics In Online Support Forums, Marie Haverfield, Jennifer Theiss

Faculty Publications

Growing up with an alcoholic parent can have a lasting effect on children and contribute to a variety of challenging outcomes in adulthood. This study identified the various experiences that adult children of alcoholics (ACoA) discuss with their peers in online support groups. Trained coders conducted a thematic analysis of 504 message board posts collected over a period of 60 days from three different online support groups to identify issues that children of alcoholics face in adulthood. Seven themes emerged from the analysis: (a) empowerment through support, (b) interference of parent in adulthood, (c) connection to inner child and need …

A New Framework For Assessing Clinical Data Transparency Initiatives, Erika Lietzan

Faculty Publications

Biopharmaceutical companies submit vast amounts of clinical data and analysis to support approval of their medicines, expecting the information to be kept confidential, as has been the practice of regulators around the world for decades. Over the last ten years, however, pressure has been mounting for regulators or industry to release this information. Legal scholars have generally taken the view that no relevant doctrines or bodies of law preclude the release of this material and that public policy considerations compel its release. This article argues that the scholarship to date has overlooked key considerations: the special issues presented by operation …

A Theory Of Civil Liability, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Robert Bork's Forgotten Role In The Transaction Cost Revolution, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The last few decades have witnessed a scientific revolution in the field of industrial organization in the form of transaction cost economics (TCE). This revolution has radically altered economists’ understanding and interpretation of both partial and complete economic integration. Not surprisingly, this sea change has substantially influenced antitrust law and policy, impelling the Supreme Court to reverse or greatly modify various precedents.

This essay supplements the received historiography of the TCE revolution. It contends that Robert Bork played a hitherto underappreciated role in that revolution. In particular, the essay contends that in 1966, before the official onset of the transaction …

The Anthropology Of Plague: Insights From Bioarcheological Analyses Of Epidemic Cemeteries, Sharon Dewitte

Faculty Publications

Most research on historic plague has relied on documentary evidence, but recently researchers have examined the remains of plague victims to produce a deeper understanding of the disease. Bioarcheological analysis allows the skeletal remains of epidemic victims to bear witness to the contexts of their deaths. This is important for our understanding of the experiences of the vast majority of people who lived in the past, who are not typically included in the historical record. This paper summarizes bioarcheological research on plague, primarily investigations of the Black Death in London (1349–50), emphasizing what anthropology uniquely contributes to plague studies.

Chronic Exposure To A Low Dose Of Ingested Petroleum Disrupts Corticosterone Receptor Signalling In A Tissue-Specific Manner In The House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus), Christine R. Lattin, L. Michael Romero

Faculty Publications

© The Author 2014. Stress-induced concentrations of glucocorticoid hormones (including corticosterone, CORT) can be suppressed by chronic exposure to a low dose of ingested petroleum. However, endocrine-disrupting chemicals could interfere with CORT signalling beyond the disruption of hormone titres, including effects on receptors in different target tissues. In this study, we examined the effects of 6 weeks of exposure to a petroleum-laced diet (1% oil weight:food weight) on tissue mass and intracellular CORT receptors in liver, fat, muscle and kidney (metabolic tissues), spleen (an immune tissue) and testes (a reproductive tissue). In the laboratory, male house sparrows were fed either …

Role Of Adipose Tissue In The Pathogenesis And Treatment Of Metabolic Syndrome, David Sanchez-Infantes, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014. Adipocytes are highly specialized cells that play a major role in energy homeostasis in vertebrate organisms. Excess adipocyte size or number is a hallmark of obesity, which is currently a global epidemic. Obesity is not only the primary disease of fat cells, but also a major risk factor for the development of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome (MetS). Today, adipocytes and adipose tissue are no longer considered passive participants in metabolic pathways. In addition to storing lipid, adipocytes are highly insulin sensitive cells that have important endocrine functions. Altering any …

Natural Selection Canalizes Expression Variation Of Environmentally Induced Plasticity-Enabling Genes, Joseph R. Shaw, Thomas H. Hampton, Benjamin L. King, Andrew Whitehead, Fernando Galvez, Robert H. Gross, Nathan Keith, Emily Notch, Dawoon Jung, Stephen P. Glaholt, Celia Y. Chen, John K. Colbourne, Bruce A. Stanton

Faculty Publications

© 2014 The Author. Many organisms survive fluctuating and extreme environmental conditions by manifesting multiple distinct phenotypes during adulthood by means of developmental processes that enable phenotypic plasticity. We report on the discovery of putative plasticity-enabling genes that are involved in transforming the gill of the euryhaline teleost fish, Fundulus heteroclitus, from its freshwater to its seawater gill-type, a process that alters both morphology and function. Gene expression that normally enables osmotic plasticity is inhibited by arsenic. Gene sets defined by antagonistic interactions between arsenic and salinity show reduced transcriptional variation among individual fish, suggesting unusually accurate and precise regulatory …

Combustion By-Products And Their Health Effects - Combustion Engineering And Global Health In The 21st Century: Issues And Challenges, Slawo Lomnicki, Brian Gullett, Tobias Stöger, Ian Kennedy, Jim Diaz, Tammy R. Dugas, Kurt Varner, Danielle J. Carlin, Barry Dellinger, Stephania A. Cormier

Faculty Publications

The 13th International Congress on Combustion By-Products and their Health Effects was held in New Orleans, Louisiana from May 15 to 18, 2013. The congress, sponsored by the Superfund Research Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and National Science Foundation, brought together international academic and government researchers, engineers, scientists, and policymakers. With industrial growth, increased power needs and generation and coal consumption and their concomitant emissions, pernicious health effects associated with exposures to these emissions are on the rise. This congress provides a unique platform for interdisciplinary exchange and discussion of these topics. The formation, conversion, control, and health …

Limited Type I Interferons And Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells During Neonatal Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection Permit Immunopathogenesis Upon Reinfection, Stephania A. Cormier, Bishwas Shrestha, Jordy Saravia, Greg I. Lee, Li Shen, John P. Devincenzo, Young In Kim, Dahui You

Faculty Publications

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the number one cause of bronchiolitis in infants, yet no vaccines are available because of a lack of knowledge of the infant immune system. Using a neonatal mouse model, we previously revealed that mice initially infected with RSV as neonates develop Th2-biased immunopathophysiologies during reinfection, and we demonstrated a role for enhanced interleukin-4 receptor α (IL-4Rα) expression on T helper cells in these responses. Here we show that RSV infection in neonates induced limited type I interferon (IFN) and plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) responses. IFN alpha (IFN-α) treatment or adoptive transfer of adult pDCs …

Deficiency Of The Two-Pore-Domain Potassium Channel Trek-1 Promotes Hyperoxia-Induced Lung Injury, Andreas Schwingshackl, Bin Teng, Patrudu Makena, Manik Ghosh, Scott E. Sinclair, Charlean Luellen, Louisa Balasz, Cynthia Rovnaghi, Robert M. Bryan, Eric E. Lloyd, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, Jordy S. Saravia, Stephania A. Cormier, Christopher M. Waters

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2014 by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Objectives: We previously reported the expression of the twoporedomain K+ channel TREK-1 in lung epithelial cells and proposed a role for this channel in the regulation of alveolar epithelial cytokine secretion. In this study, we focused on investigating the role of TREK-1 in vivo in the development of hyperoxia-induced lung injury. Design: Laboratory animal experiments. Setting: University research laboratory. Subjects: Wild-type and TREK-1-deficient mice. Interventions: Mice were anesthetized and exposed to 1) room air, no mechanical ventilation, 2) 95% hyperoxia for 24 hours, and 3) …

Relative Importance Of Host Environment, Transmission Potential And Host Phylogeny To The Structure Of Parasite Metacommunities, Tad Dallas, Steven J. Presley

Faculty Publications

Identification of mechanisms that shape parasite community and metacommunity structures have important implications to host health, disease transmission, and the understanding of community assembly in general. Using a long-term dataset on parasites from desert rodents, we examined the relative contributions of host traits that represent important aspects of parasite environment, transmission probability between host species, and host phylogeny to the structure of a parasite metacommunity as well as for taxonomically restricted parasite metacommunities (coccidians, ectoparasites and helminths). This was done using a combination of metacommunity analysis and variance partitioning based on canonical correspondence analysis. Coccidian and ectoparasite metacommunities did not …

Nitrate Enrichment Alters A Daphnia-Microparasite Interaction Through Multiple Pathways, Tad Dallas, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

© 2013 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Nutrient pollution has the potential to alter many ecological interactions, including host-parasite relationships. One of the largest sources of nutrient pollution comes from anthropogenic alteration of the nitrogen (N) cycle, specifically the increased rate of nitrate (NO3 -N) deposition to aquatic environments, potentially altering host-parasite relationships. This study aimed to assess the mechanisms through which nitrate may impact host-pathogen relationships using a fungal pathogen (Metschnikowia bicuspidata) parasitic to crustacean zooplankton (Daphnia dentifera) as a tractable model system. First, the influence of nitrate on host population dynamics …

Iron And Zinc Binding Activity Of Escherichia Coli Topoisomerase I Homolog Yrdd, Zishuo Cheng, Guoqiang Tan, Wu Wang, Xiaolu Su, Aaron P. Landry, Jianxin Lu, Huangen Ding

Faculty Publications

YrdD, a homolog of the C-terminal zinc-binding region of Escherichia coli topoisomerase I, is highly conserved among proteobacteria and enterobacteria. However, the function of YrdD remains elusive. Here we report that YrdD purified from E. coli cells grown in LB media contains both zinc and iron. Supplement of exogenous zinc in the medium abolishes the iron binding of YrdD in E. coli cells, indicating that iron and zinc may compete for the same metal binding sites in the protein. While the zinc-bound YrdD is able to bind single-stranded (ss) DNA and protect ssDNA from the DNase I digestion in vitro, …

Sexual Differences Of Imprinted Genes' Expression Levels, Mohammad Faisal, Hana Kim, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

In mammals, genomic imprinting has evolved as a dosage-controlling mechanism for a subset of genes that play critical roles in their unusual reproduction scheme involving viviparity and placentation. As such, many imprinted genes are highly expressed in sex-specific reproductive organs. In the current study, we sought to test whether imprinted genes are differentially expressed between the two sexes. According to the results, the expression levels of the following genes differ between the two sexes of mice: Peg3, Zim1, Igf2, H19 and Zac1. The expression levels of these imprinted genes are usually greater in males than in females. This bias is …

Urban Microbiomes And Urban Ecology: How Do Microbes In The Built Environment Affect Human Sustainability In Cities?, Gary M. King

Faculty Publications

© 2014, The Microbiological Society of Korea and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Humans increasingly occupy cities. Globally, about 50% of the total human population lives in urban environments, and in spite of some trends for deurbanization, the transition from rural to urban life is expected to accelerate in the future, especially in developing nations and regions. The Republic of Korea, for example, has witnessed a dramatic rise in its urban population, which now accounts for nearly 90% of all residents; the increase from about 29% in 1955 has been attributed to multiple factors, but has clearly been driven by extraordinary growth …

Optimized Inhibitors Of Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Improve In Vitro Target Residence Time And In Vivo Efficacy, Kin Sing Stephen Lee, Jun Yan Liu, Karen M. Wagner, Svetlana Pakhomova, Hua Dong, Christophe Morisseau, Samuel H. Fu, Jun Yang, Peng Wang, Arzu Ulu, Christina A. Mate, Long V. Nguyen, Sung Hee Hwang, Matthew L. Edin, Alexandria A. Mara, Heike Wulff, Marcia E. Newcomer, Darryl C. Zeldin, Bruce D. Hammock

Faculty Publications

Diabetes is affecting the life of millions of people. A large proportion of diabetic patients suffer from severe complications such as neuropathic pain, and current treatments for these complications have deleterious side effects. Thus, alternate therapeutic strategies are needed. Recently, the elevation of epoxy-fatty acids through inhibition of soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) was shown to reduce diabetic neuropathic pain in rodents. In this report, we describe a series of newly synthesized sEH inhibitors with at least 5-fold higher potency and doubled residence time inside both the human and rodent sEH enzyme than previously reported inhibitors. These inhibitors also have better …

Ruminant Self-Medication Against Gastrointestinal Nematodes: Evidence, Mechanism, And Origins Ẫ†, Juan J. Villalba, James Miller, Eugene D. Ungar, Serge Y. Landau, John Glendinning

Faculty Publications

Gastrointestinal helminths challenge ruminants in ways that reduce their fitness. In turn, ruminants have evolved physiological and behavioral adaptations that counteract this challenge. Ruminants display anorexia and avoidance behaviors, which tend to reduce the incidence of parasitism. In addition, ruminants appear to learn to self-medicate against gastrointestinal parasites by increasing consumption of plant secondary compounds with antiparasitic actions. This selective feeding improves health and fitness. Here, we review the evidence for self-medication in ruminants, propose a hypothesis to explain self-medicative behaviors (based on post-ingestive consequences), and discuss mechanisms (e.g., enhanced neophilia, social transmission) that may underlie the ontogeny and spread …

Quantification Of Cellular Protein Expression And Molecular Features Of Group 3 Lea Proteins From Embryos Of Artemia Franciscana, Leaf C. Boswell, Daniel S. Moore, Steven C. Hand

Faculty Publications

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are highly hydrophilic, low complexity proteins whose expression has been correlated with desiccation tolerance in anhydrobiotic organisms. Here, we report the identification of three new mitochondrial LEA proteins in anhydrobiotic embryos of Artemia franciscana, AfrLEA3m-47, AfrLEA3m-43, and AfrLEA3m-29. These new isoforms are recognized by antibody raised against recombinant AfrLEA3m, the original mitochondrial-targeted LEA protein previously reported from these embryos; mass spectrometry confirms all four proteins share sequence similarity. The corresponding messenger RNA (mRNA) species for the four proteins are readily amplified from total complementary DNA (cDNA) prepared from embryos. cDNA sequences of the four mRNAs …

Modulation Of Vacuolar Ph Is Required For Replication Of Edwardsiella Ictaluri In Channel Catfish Macrophages, Wes A. Baumgartner, Lidiya Dubytska, Matthew L. Rogge, Peter J. Mottram, Ronald L. Thune

Faculty Publications

Previous in vitro work demonstrated that Edwardsiella ictaluri produces an acid-activated urease that can modulate environmental pH through the production of ammonia from urea. Additional work revealed that expression of the E. ictaluri type III secretion system (T3SS) is upregulated by acidic pH. Both the urease and the T3SS were previously shown to be essential to intracellular replication. In this work, fluorescence microscopy with LysoTracker Red DND-99 (LTR) indicated that E. ictaluri-containing vacuoles (ECV) became acidified following ingestion by head kidney-derived macrophages (HKDM). In vivo ratiometric imaging demonstrated a lowered ECV pH, which fell to as low as pH 4 …

Kif3a Promotes Proliferation And Invasion Via Wnt Signaling In Advanced Prostate Cancer, Zun Liu, Ryan E. Rebowe, Zemin Wang, Yingchun Li, Zehua Wang, John S. Depaolo, Jianhui Guo, Chiping Qian, Wanguo Liu

Faculty Publications

Aberrant activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is a critical event in advanced prostate cancer, but the genetic alterations that activate theWnt signaling pathway in many other cancers are rarely observed in prostate cancer. Other molecular mechanisms that regulate the Wnt signaling pathway in prostate cancer remain to be identified. Here, it is demonstrated that KIF3a, a subunit of kinesin-II motor protein, functions as an agonist of the Wnt signaling pathway in prostate cancer. KIF3a is upregulated in the majority of human prostate cancer cell lines and primary tumor biopsies. The expression levels of KIF3a correlate with a higher Gleason …

Temperature-Dependent Development, Cold Tolerance, And Potential Distribution Of Cricotopus Lebetis (Diptera: Chironomidae), A Tip Miner Of Hydrilla Verticillata (Hydrocharitaceae), Karen N. Stratman, William A. Overholt, James P. Cuda, A. Mukherjee, R. Diaz, Michael D. Netherland, Patrick C. Wilson

Faculty Publications

© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Entomological Society of America. A chironomid midge, Cricotopus lebetis (Sublette) (Diptera: Chironomidae), was discovered attacking the apical meristems of Hydrilla verticillata (L.f. Royle) in Crystal River, Citrus Co., Florida in 1992. The larvae mine the stems of H. verticillata and cause basal branching and stunting of the plant. Temperature-dependent development, cold tolerance, and the potential distribution of the midge were investigated. The results of the temperature-dependent development study showed that optimal temperatures for larval development were between 20 and 30°C, and these data were used to construct …