Digital Commons Network^™

A Survey And Analysis Of The American Public's Perceptions And Knowledge About Antibiotic Resistance, Rebecca R. Carter, Jiayang Sun, Robin L.P. Jump

Faculty Scholarship

Background. Little is known about the American public's perceptions or knowledge about antibiotic-resistant bacteria or antibiotic misuse. We hypothesized that although many people recognize antibiotic resistance as a problem, they may not understand the relationship between antibiotic consumption and selection of resistant bacteria. Methods. We developed and tested a survey asking respondents about their perceptions and knowledge regarding appropriate antibiotic use. Respondents were recruited with the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. The survey, carefully designed to assess a crowd-sourced population, asked respondents to explain "antibiotic resistance" in their own words. Subsequent questions were multiple choice. Results. Of 215 respondents, the …

Serratia Fonticola, Pathogen Or Bystander? A Case Series And Review Of The Literature, Roberto Viau, Robin L.P. Jump

Faculty Scholarship

Serratia fonticola is an unusual human pathogen, previously described primarily as causing skin and soft tissue infections following trauma. There is little information in the literature about its treatment or susceptibilities. We describe the case of a 67-year-old male with paraplegia who developed urosepsis due to S. fonticola. Blood and urine cultures obtained prior to the initiation of antimicrobials both grew S. fonticola. The patient completed a 15-day course of antimicrobials and had an uneventful recovery.We reviewed 17 other patients with clinical cultures positive for S. fonticola. Of these, 11 isolates were from the genitourinary system, most often as part …

Time To Empower Tribal Authorities, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Effect Of A 72 Hour Stroke Care Bundle On Early Outcomes After Acute Stroke: A Non Randomised Controlled Study, Martha Sajatovic, Anthony J. Furlan

Faculty Scholarship

Background Integrated care pathways (ICP) in stroke management are increasingly being implemented to improve outcomes of acute stroke patients. We evaluated the effect of implementing a 72 hour stroke care bundle on early outcomes among patients admitted within seven days post stroke to the national referral hospital in Uganda. Methods In a one year non-randomised controlled study, 127 stroke patients who had ‘usual care’ (control group) were compared to 127 stroke patients who received selected elements from an ICP (intervention group). Patients were consecutively enrolled (controls first, intervention group second) into each group over 5 month periods and followed to …

Two Views Of First Amendment Thought Privacy, Adam J. Kolber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Precedent In Statutory Interpretation, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bullying And Opportunism In Trademark And Right-Of-Publicity Law, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers, scholars, and even Congress have lately expressed concern about so-called “trademark bullies” — trademark holders that assert tenuous legal claims against vulnerable defendants, who often capitulate rather than incurring the expense and uncertainty of litigation. At the same time, we’ve witnessed right-of-publicity claims for acts that never would have raised an eyebrow a few decades ago. Complaints about bullying and overreaching are largely anecdotal rather than empirical, so it’s hard to gauge the extent of the behavior and to measure its costs. But the fact that it has attracted so much attention suggests a perception, at least, that some …

Early Filing And Functional Claiming, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

A major problem in the patent system is that many patents claim far more than the patentee actually invented. In his perceptive article, Ready for Patenting, Mark Lemley argues that this overclaiming is caused in part by legal doctrines that encourage inventors to file a patent application as early as possible, often before — or even instead of — building their invention. Patents issued from early-filed applications, Lemley argues, tend to be overly broad because the applicant does not yet know how the invention actually works.

This response essay, part of the Boston University Law Review’s symposium on Notice Failure …

Sufficiently Safeguarded?: Competency Evaluations Of Mentally Ill Respondents In Removal Proceedings, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I examine the current regime for making mental competency determinations of mentally ill and incompetent noncitizen respondents in immigration court. In its present iteration, mental competency determinations in immigration court are made by immigration judges, most commonly without the benefit of any mental health evaluation or expertise. In reflecting on the protections and processes in place in the criminal justice system, and on interviews with removal defense practitioners at ten different sites across the United States, I conclude that the role of the immigration judge in mental competency determinations must be changed in order to protect the …

Vaccines And Airline Travel: A Federal Role To Protect The Public Health, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores two ways in which airline travel is an important vector for the spread of infectious disease, and argues that airlines have market-based and liability-based reasons to require that passengers be vaccinated. Going further, the Article explores whether the federal government has the legal and constitutional authority — especially under the Commerce Clause — to encourage or mandate that airlines implement such a vaccine screen. By disrupting the spread of disease at key network nodes where individuals interact and then connect with other geographic regions, and by creating another incentive for adult vaccination, an airline vaccine screen could …

How Cosmopolitan Are International Law Professors?, Ryan Scoville, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers an empirical answer to a question of interest among scholars of comparative international law: why do American views about international law appear at times to differ from those of other countries? The authors contend that part of the answer lies in legal education. Conducting a survey of the educational and professional backgrounds of nearly 150 legal academics, the authors reveal evidence that professors of international law in the United States often lack significant foreign legal experience, particularly outside of the West. Sociological research suggests that this tendency leads professors to teach international law from predominantly nationalistic and …

Reviving The Dead Hand After Repeal Of The Rule Against Perpetuities, Sergio Pareja

Faculty Scholarship

This blog post summarizes a recent article by Reid Kress Weisbord, Trust Term Extension, 67 Fla. L. Rev. 73 (2015).

Modrall Sperling Interviews Kevin Washburn About Indian Law And Returning To New Mexico, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

Reflections on Service as Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, the State of Indian Law in 2016, and Returning Home to New Mexico

Montana Standard Interviews Barbara Creel On The Violence Against Women Act And Double Standards, Barbara L. Creel

Faculty Scholarship

Barbara Creel, Southwest Indian Law Clinic Director Professor at the University of New Mexico, agreed with Babcock that the case was not about tribal sovereignty.

Yet she said the case reveals inequities in the criminal justice system of tribes created when Congress told them how to structure their governments under the Indian Reorganization Act but did not provide sufficient funding or additional legal protections to make those systems function as intended.

Additionally, in a brief she and colleagues filed to the court, Creel argues that the Violence Against Women Act creates a discriminatory double standard.

Supreme Court Brief Interviews Creel, Barbara L. Creel

Faculty Scholarship

If tribal courts provided competent counsel to indigent Indian defendants, Creel said, "Then I would say, 'Prosecute all day long.' But [federal prosecutors] are trying to short-circuit that. They're saying because we have this epidemic, let's make it easier for everyone involved. That's against constitutional values and tribal values."

Creel asks the justices to hold that all persons facing incarceration must have the same protections in place. "That wouldn't apply the Constitution to tribes but it would disallow federal prosecutors from using uncounseled convictions."

Flint Drinking Water Contamination: Frames Of Reference, Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

Presentation given at Harvard Law School on Flint, Michigan, lead toxicity and what we can do as a matter of law.

Founding-Era Translation Of The U.S. Constitution, Christina Mulligan, Michael Douma, Hans Lind, Brian Quinn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Framework Of Surface And Ground Water In Oklahoma And Texas: Perspectives For Oil And Gas Development, Jessica Foster, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Chapter Extract:

Advancements in drilling techniques have broadened possibilities for producing hydrocarbons; but the innovations of unconventional drilling have exacerbated existing threats that the oil and gas industry have posed to water resources while creating new challenges. In today's industry, conventional methods of drilling for free-flowing crude oil are playing a secondary role to unconventional oil and gas production capable of bringing hydrocarbons trapped in tight or previously inaccessible geologic formations. Compared to conventional production, unconventional methods use much greater amounts of water in chemical-laden processes that can impact the availability and purity of freshwater resources in concentrated localities where …

Vat Fraud Mutation, Part 3: 'Pull' Missing Trader Fraud And Deutsche Bank, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

CO2 MTIC fraud is an exceedingly fast moving, quickly mutating fraud. Litigation has moved rapidly from the UK to Germany. The litigation line stretches from Dosanjh’s £39m (€41,039,261) fraud in the first three months of 2009 to CITIBank’s £9,893,821 fraud in July 2009, and then jumps to Germany with Deutsche Bank’s €220,000,000 fraud from September 2009 through February 2010. This cross-border fraud has met cross-border enforcement. HMRC directly participated in German enforcement by identifying fraud chains in the UK that completed German carousels and funneled CO2 permits back to Germany after passing through the UK.

This part looks at the …

Brief For Barbara L. Creel And The Tribal Defender Network, Us V. Bryant, Barbara L. Creel, John Lavelle

Faculty Scholarship

Although Congress intended to protect women in Indian Country from domestic abuse, they condoned the use of prior “uncounseled” tribal court convictions to charge and convict an Indian as a federal habitual domestic violence offender.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote Bryant, denigrates Indian people’s civil rights, citing the need to protect Native women from domestic violence. But Department of Justice statistics show most domestic violence perpetrators in Indian country are non-Indians, and the Bryant decision leaves intact their constitutional rights, including the right to appointed counsel.

Multiple Anti-Epileptic Drug Use In Children With Epilepsy In Mulago Hospital, Uganda: A Cross Ectional Study, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Seizures in up to one third of children with epilepsy may not be controlled by the first anti-epileptic drug (AED). In this study, we describe multiple AED usage in children attending a referral clinic in Uganda, the factors associated with multiple AED use and seizure control in affected patients. Methods: One hundred thirty nine patients attending Mulago hospital paediatric neurology clinic with epilepsy and who had been on AEDs for ≥6months were consecutively enrolled from July to December 2013 to reach the calculated sample size. With consent, the history and physical examination were repeated and the neurophysiologic and imaging …

A Tale Of Three Markets: Comparing The Renewable Energy Experiences Of California, Texas, And Germany, Felix Mormann, Dan Reicher, Victor Hanna

Faculty Scholarship

The Obama administration has repeatedly identified the large-scale build-out of clean, renewable energy infrastructure as a key priority of the United States. The President’s calls for a cleaner energy economy are often accompanied by references to other industrialized countries such as Germany, hailed by many as a leader in renewable energy deployment. Indeed, the share of renewables in Germany’s electricity generation mix is twice that of the United States, and the ambitious “Energiewende” commits the country to meeting 80% of its electricity needs with renewables by 2050. While some praise the German renewables experience as successful proof of concept, others …

U.S. Restores Millions Of Acres To Native Americans, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

The Obama Administration has restored nearly 2 million acres to tribal ownership in a variety of different ways.

The Youngest Patent Validity Proceeding: Evaluating Post-Grant Review, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

Of the three major ex post patent validity challenge mechanisms that the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act put into place, the third is beginning to show signs of use. Post-grant review is an administrative proceeding of remarkable breadth as compared both to inter partes review and to the transition program for covered business method patents. Thus far, however, patent challengers have made very limited use of post-grant reviews: in the nearly three years since the procedure became available, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has received only about two dozen petitions for post-grant review. By contrast, the number of …

The Structured Writing Group: A Different Writing Center?, Brian N. Larson, Christopher Soper

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the objectives, development, and some preliminary results of a program the authors led at the University of Minnesota Law School in academic year 2014-15. They wanted the “Structured Writing Group” (SWG) project to achieve some outcomes traditionally associated with writing centers: first, improving the student writing process by facilitating collaboration with a writing expert; and second, exposing students to additional audiences for their writing. We added a third goal of improving the experience and performance of multilingual students in the legal writing program.

The Rise And Fall Of Plausibility Pleading?, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and its 2009 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal unleashed a torrent of scholarly reaction. Commentators charged these decisions with adopting a new pleading regime, "plausibility pleading," that upended the notice-pleading approach that had long prevailed in federal court. Whether a complaint could survive a motion to dismiss — it was argued — now depends on whether the court found the complaint plausible, allowing courts to second-guess a complaint's allegations without any opportunity for discovery or consideration of actual evidence. Lower courts began to cite Twombly and Iqbal at a …

Uncounseled Convictions A Threat To Indians, John P. Lavelle

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court is now poised to address whether a tribal court conviction that did not give the Indian defendant representation by a lawyer can be used to increase the sentence when the Indian is later prosecuted on a federal domestic assault charge.

Cedar Mesa Proposal Good For All, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

A coalition of tribes, led by the Hopi and the Navajo, and including the Utes of Colorado and Utah and several of New Mexico’s pueblos have asked President Obama to use the Antiquities Act to declare this landscape a national monument to be protected alongside other nearby national treasures, such as Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.

A Nursing Approach To Self-Management Education For Individuals With Mental Illness And Diabetes, Edna Fuentes-Casiano, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Patients with serious mental illness (SMI) and diabetes often seek care in primary care settings and have worse health outcomes than patients who have either illness alone. Individual, provider, and system-level barriers present challenges to addressing both psychiatric and medical comorbidities. This article describes the feasibility, acceptability, and implementation of Targeted Training and Illness Management (TTIM), a self-management intervention delivered by trained nurse educators and peer educators to groups of individuals with SMI and diabetes to improve self-management of both diseases. TTIM is intended to be delivered in a primary care setting. Findings are intended to support the future development …

The Candidate Cluster And Protocluster Catalog (Ccpc) Of Spectroscopically Identified Structures Spanning 2.74 < Z < 3.71, J. R. Franck, Stacy S. Mcgaugh

Faculty Scholarship

We developed a search methodology to identify galaxy protoclusters at z > 2.74 and implemented it on a sample of ∼14,000 galaxies with previously measured redshifts. The results of this search are recorded in the Candidate Cluster and Protocluster Catalog (CCPC). The catalog contains 12 clusters that are highly significant overdensities (δgal > 7), 6 of which were previously known. We also identify another 31 candidate protoclusters (including four previously identified structures) of lower overdensities. CCPC systems vary over a wide range of physical sizes and shapes, from small, compact groups to large, extended, and filamentary collections of galaxies. This variety persists …