Digital Commons Network^™

Payroll Tax Compliance And Blockchain, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Ville Viitasaari

Faculty Scholarship

Bitcoin is an application that runs on blockchain technology. Blockchain is a foundational technology that is bringing in the second era of the Internet – the era where value can be transferred, rather than just information.

Blockchain is developing along a four-stage path similar to that which TCP/IP took. Both are foundational technologies. TCP/IP brought the Internet, and eventually brought significant (transformational) technological changes in business like Amazon.com and Skype. These are changes that could not have been forecast at the beginning of the Internet age.

Blockchain is an immutable distributed ledger. It replaces the inefficient use of multiple centralized …

Protein Footprinting Comes Of Age: Mass Spectrometry For Biophysical Structure Assessment, Liwen Wang, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Protein footprinting mediated by mass spectrometry has evolved over the last 30 years from proof of concept to commonplace biophysics tool, with unique capabilities for assessing structure and dynamics of purified proteins in physiological states in solution. This review outlines the history and current capabilities of two major methods of protein footprinting: reversible hydrogen-deuterium exchange (HDX) and hydroxyl radical footprinting (HRF), an irreversible covalent labeling approach. Technological advances in both approaches now permit high-resolution assessments of protein structure including secondary and tertiary structure stability mediated by backbone interactions (measured via HDX) and solvent accessibility of side chains (measured via HRF). …

Constitutional Challenges And Regulatory Opportunities For State Climate Policy Innovation, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores constitutional limits and regulatory openings for innovative state policies to mitigate climate change by promoting climate-friendly, renewable energy. In the absence of a comprehensive federal policy approach to climate change and clean energy, more and more states are stepping in to fill the policy void. Already, nearly thirty states have adopted renewable portfolio standards that create markets for solar, wind, and other clean electricity. To help populate these markets, a few pioneering states have recently started using feed-in tariffs that offer eligible generators above-market rates for their clean, renewable power.

But renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, and …

We've Got Letters, Maryam Ahranjani

Faculty Scholarship

Three curriculum guides supporting Washington Post Newspaper in Education (NIE) Program.

From Me to You

This guide focuses on the places from which news is reported — by the letters. Activities and illustrations urge writing the first thank you notes and other letters of appreciation. “Ageless love letters” give an example of how media can use letters on special dates and holidays. This article and the Dodson letter can also be used to discuss how historians and social scientists can use letters to understand the social mores, illnesses and associations of time periods.

Letters Take Many Forms

We begin this …

Why Do Psychiatric Patients Stop Antipsychotic Medication? A Systematic Review Of Reasons For Nonadherence To Medication In Patients With Serious Nental Illness, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Antipsychotic medication reduces the severity of serious mental illness (SMI) and improves patient outcomes only when medicines were taken as prescribed. Nonadherence to the treatment of SMI increases the risk of relapse and hospitalization and reduces the quality of life. It is necessary to understand the factors influencing nonadherence to medication in order to identify appropriate interventions. This systematic review assessed the published evidence on modifiable reasons for nonadherence to antipsychotic medication in patients with SMI. Methods: Articles published between January 1, 2005, and September 10, 2015, were searched on MEDLINE through PubMed. Abstracts were independently screened by 2 …

Bail Nullification, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dissemination And Implementation Science Training Needs: Insights From Practitioners And Researchers, Kurt C. Stange

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction Dissemination and implementation research training has great potential to improve the impact and reach of health-related research; however, research training needs from the end user perspective are unknown. This paper identifies and prioritizes dissemination and implementation research training needs. Methods A diverse sample of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers was invited to participate in Concept Mapping in 2014–2015. Phase 1 (Brainstorming) gathered participants’ responses to the prompt: To improve the impact of research evidence in practice and policy settings, a skill in which researchers need more training is… The resulting statement list was edited and included subsequent phases. Phase 2 …

Antitrust As Disruptive Innovation In Health Care: Can Limiting State Action Immunity Help Save A Trillion Dollars?, William M. Sage, David A. Hyman

Faculty Scholarship

On February 25, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC that state licensing boards controlled by market participants are subject to federal antitrust law unless they are “actively supervised” by the state itself. The ruling may sound narrow and technical, but the significance of the case can be inferred from the number and prominence of the amici curiae who lined up to support the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (“North Carolina Board”)—first when the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) internal enforcement action was appealed to the United States Court …

Some Thoughts On "Healthism" And Employee Benefits In The Age Of Trump, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

I look forward to the publication of HEALTHISM: HEALTH STATUS DISCRIMINATION AND THE LAW (hereinafter Healthism), by Jessica L. Roberts of the University of Houston Law Center and Elizabeth Weeks Leonard of the University of Georgia Law School.

On November 4, 2016, at the invitation of Professors Roberts and Weeks, I participated in a conference in which the discussants commented on Roberts and Weeks' forthcoming book and shared thoughts about the relevance of that work to various related fields. What follows here is somewhat different than those comments-although the general themes are the sameand is so in part because, four …

The Field Of Invention, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

Federal courts can ill afford to ignore, assume, or improvise a pervasively important administrative power that the Patent Office exercises regularly and effectively: technology classification. This agency-court asymmetry has persisted for decades but has now become unmanageably problematic for two related reasons. First, Supreme Court guidance, patent reform legislation, and academic commentary have all broadly rejected long-standing patent exceptionalism in administrative law, while making the Patent Office a major substitute for federal courts in resolving patent disputes. Still, patent doctrine has been slow to correct, particularly in judicial deference to agency action. Second, criticisms of the patent system are highly …

Was Cleburne An Accident?, William Araiza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rise Of The Digital Regulator, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

The administrative state is leveraging algorithms to influence individuals’ private decisions. Agencies have begun to write rules to shape for-profit websites such as Expedia and have launched their own online tools such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mortgage calculator. These digital intermediaries aim to guide people toward better schools, healthier food, and more savings. But enthusiasm for this regulatory paradigm rests on two questionable assumptions. First, digital intermediaries effectively police consumer markets. Second, they require minimal government involvement. Instead, some for-profit online advisers such as travel websites have become what many mortgage brokers were before the 2008 financial crisis. …

The Stream Of Violence: A New Approach To Domestic Violence Personal Jurisdiction, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

There is a split among state courts about whether personal jurisdiction over an alleged domestic violence perpetrator is required in order to obtain a civil protection order preventing the defendant from contacting the victim. Some courts have held that such orders interfere with the defendant’s liberty interests, and therefore the Due Process Clause requires personal jurisdiction for the issuance of such orders. Other courts have held that personal jurisdiction is not required because such protection orders are analogous to custody and divorce orders, which, under the “status exception,” courts have historically entered without establishing personal jurisdiction over the other party. …

Re-Envisioning Professional Education, Kimberly Austin, Elizabeth Chu, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

In the dynamic, hyper-connected, and unpredictable 21st century, workplace and career paradigms are rapidly changing. The professions are no exception. Technology has routinized and increased access to the expertise that traditionally set professionals apart from other workers, leading some to forecast professions’ demise. Even if, as we suspect, new forms of complexity and needs for expertise continue to outrun technology, professionals’ lives and careers will diverge dramatically from past norms. In the world we anticipate, the number of theories, diagnoses, and strategies among which each professional — alone or in teams — must make informed and workable judgments will increase …

Testing Three Pathways To Substance Use And Delinquency Among Low-Income African American Adolescents, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Objective Mounting literature suggests that parental monitoring, risky peer norms, and future orientation correlate with illicit drug use and delinquency. However, few studies have investigated these constructs simultaneously in a single statistical model with low income African American youth. This study examined parental monitoring, peer norms and future orientation as primary pathways to drug use and delinquent behaviors in a large sample of African American urban adolescents. Methods A path model tested direct paths from peer norms, parental monitoring, and future orientation to drug use and delinquency outcomes after adjusting for potential confounders such as age, socioeconomic, and sexual orientation …

Effects Of An Amylopectin And Chromium Complex On The Anabolic Response To A Suboptimal Dose Of Whey Protein, T. N. Ziegenfuss, H. L. Lopez, A. Kedia, S. M. Habowski, J. E. Sandrock, B. Raub, Chad M. Kerksick, A. A. Ferrando

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Previous research has demonstrated the permissive effect of insulin on muscle protein kinetics, and the enhanced insulin sensitizing effect of chromium. In the presence of adequate whole protein and/or essential amino acids (EAA), insulin has a stimulatory effect on muscle protein synthesis, whereas in conditions of lower blood EAA concentrations, insulin has an inhibitory effect on protein breakdown. In this study, we determined the effect of an amylopectin/chromium (ACr) complex on changes in plasma concentrations of EAA, insulin, glucose, and the fractional rate of muscle protein synthesis (FSR).

Methods

Using a double-blind, cross-over design, ten subjects (six men, four …

The Investment-Related Aspects Of Intellectual Property Rights, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

From the debate among presidential candidates on whether the United States should ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement to the arbitrations Philip Morris and Eli Lilly have sought through the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, the investment-related aspects of intellectual property rights have recently garnered considerable policy, scholarly and media attention.

This growing attention, to some extent, has brought back memories about the time when the WTO TRIPS Agreement began to transform intellectual property law and policy by redirecting our focus to the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. Whether the recent developments on the investment front represent yet another …

Populist Property Law, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

Property scholars think of property law as consisting of a small number of highly technical forms created a long time ago by "experts, i.e., legislatures and courts, which are hardly accessible to non-lawyers. This Article explores a new idea: the possibility that ordinary people, with little or no legal training, can become active participants in the creation of property law, directly intervening in the development of new property forms. The Article tells the story of two nineteenth-century American social movements that represented the "little guys " - workers and farmers - who used their 'folk legal" imagination to develop new …

Impact Of Tigecycline Versus Other Antibiotics On The Fecal Metabolome And On Colonization Resistance To Clostridium Difficile In Mice, Robin L.P. Jump, David Kraft, Kelly Hurless, Alex Polinkovsky, Curtis J. Donskey

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The glycylcycline antibiotic tigecycline may have a relatively low propensity to promote Clostridium difficile infection in part because it causes less disruption of the indigenous intestinal microbiota than other broad-spectrum antibiotics. We used a mouse model to compare the effects of tigecycline versus other commonly used antibiotics on colonization resistance to C. difficile and on the metabolic functions of the intestinal microbiota. Methods: To assess in vivo colonization resistance to C. difficile, mice were challenged with oral C. difficile spores 1, 7, or 12 days after completion of 3 days of treatment with subcutaneous saline, tigecycline, ceftriaxone, piperacillin-tazobactam, or …

Structural Basis Of Ligand Interaction With Atypical Chemokine Receptor 3, Liwen Wang, Sichun Yang, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Chemokines drive cell migration through their interactions with seven-transmembrane (7TM) chemokine receptors on cell surfaces. The atypical chemokine receptor 3 (ACKR3) binds chemokines CXCL11 and CXCL12 and signals exclusively through β-arrestin-mediated pathways, without activating canonical G-protein signalling. This receptor is upregulated in numerous cancers making it a potential drug target. Here we collected over 100 distinct structural probes from radiolytic footprinting, disulfide trapping, and mutagenesis to map the structures of ACKR3:CXCL12 and ACKR3:small-molecule complexes, including dynamic regions that proved unresolvable by X-ray crystallography in homologous receptors. The data are integrated with molecular modelling to produce complete and cohesive experimentally driven …

Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial To Assess The Safety And Effectiveness Of A Novel Dual-Action Oral Topical Formulation Against Upper Respiratory Infections, Pranab K. Mukherjee, Frank Esper, Ken Buchheit, Karen Arters, Ina Adkins, Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, Robert A. Salata

Faculty Scholarship

BACKGROUND: Current prevention options for upper respiratory infections (URIs) are not optimal. We conducted a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled pilot clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ARMS-Iâ„¢ (currently marketed as Halo™) in the prevention of URIs. METHODS: ARMS-I is patented novel formulation for the prevention and treatment of influenza, comprising a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent (cetylpyridinium chloride, CPC) and components (glycerin and xanthan gum) that form a barrier on the host mucosa, thus preventing viral contact and invasion. Healthy adults (18—45 years of age) were randomized into ARMS-I or placebo group (50 subjects each). The drug was sprayed intra-orally …

Online Dispute Resolution: Stinky, Repugnant, Or Drab?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward A Fourth Law Of Robotics: Preserving Attribution, Responsibility, And Explainability In An Algorithmic Society, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Automated Public Sphere, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Professionalism: Reappraising Occupational Licensure And Competition Policy, Sandeep Vaheesan, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Obergefell, Fisher, And The Inversion Of Tiers, Maxwell Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

In striking the ban on same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court avoided tiers of scrutiny, thus declining to apply rational basis in a non-deferential manner as it had in other cases involving sexual orientation. In oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas, the Court signaled its growing discomfort with the Grutter v. Bollinger strict scrutiny doctrine, which affords a level of institutional deference in tension with narrow tailoring and least restrictive means. And although the Court claims to apply intermediate scrutiny in gender-based equal protection cases, the cases devolve de facto applications of strict …

The Conundrum Of Voluntary Intoxication And Sex, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Federal Housing Administration And African-American Homeownership, David Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Communities Can Do To Rein In Payday Lending: Strategies For Successful Local Ordinance Campaigns Through A Texas Lens, Nathalie Martin, Robert Mayer

Faculty Scholarship

Because New Mexico has one of the highest consumer usage rates and highest concentrations of payday and title loan shops in the nation,2 we thought it would be an ideal place to measure the public’s knowledge of and interest in these ubiquitous loans. We also measured knowledge of interest rate caps in the context of credit cards, as a point of comparison. Our data are consistent with that of previous studies showing that the general public overwhelmingly supports interest rate caps both in general and for certain types of loans. More uniquely, we also found that many consumers are unaware …

New Strategies For Reducing Transportation Emissions And Preparing For Climate Impacts, Gabriel Pacyniak, Kathryn Zyla, Vicki Arroyo

Faculty Scholarship

The transportation sector is becoming the largest source of greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions in the United States. The Obama Administration put in place federal vehicle and fuel standards that are significantly reducing emissions. However, these regulations will be insufficient to put the United States on track to achieve needed reductions needed long-term. This is especially true if the 2025 standards announced by the Obama Administration are rolled back by the new Trump Administration. Because current federal standards alone will not attain ambitious climate goals and may be rolled back, state and local activity is essential to make progress towards meeting …