Digital Commons Network^™

Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

How does one win popular support for laws designed specifically to redistribute economic wealth? One can hardly gainsay that this is a – perhaps the – defining issue for domestic policy in the age of President Obama. Even as the recent financial crisis has exposed the need for a reliable social safety net, attempts to respond through the political and legislative arenas have triggered increasingly hostile responses among conservatives, populists, Massachusetts voters, and incipient tea partiers. The puzzle of how to attract and preserve public support for law reform aimed at redistribution – of both income and risk – is …

Family Law Scholarship Goes To Court: Functional Parenthood And The Case Of Debra H. V. Janice R., Suzanne B. Goldberg, Harriet Antczak, Mark Musico

Faculty Scholarship

Family law literature, while diverse in its exploration of contemporary families, also offers important threads of consensus. These strong points of coherence, when brought together with relevant case law, can be a useful means of advancing the academic conversation as well as engaging directly with courts to shape the law's development.

In a field as complex as family law, myriad academic viewpoints on any given issue often make it difficult to imagine scholarly discussion having utility for courts. As we aim to show here, however, amicus briefs can be important vehicles for synthesizing the literature, highlighting basic points of consensus …

Privacy Rights And Public Families, Khiara Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is based on eighteen months of anthropological fieldwork conducted among poor, pregnant women receiving prenatal care provided by the Prenatal Care Assistance Program (“PCAP”) at a large public hospital in New York City. The Prenatal Care Assistance Program (“PCAP”) is a special program within the New York State Medicaid program that provides comprehensive prenatal care services to otherwise uninsured or underinsured women. This Article attempts to accomplish two goals. The first goal is to argue that PCAP’s compelled consultations – with social workers, health educators, nutritionists, and financial officers – function as a gross and substantial intrusion by …

Petals: Proteomic Evaluation And Topological Analysis Of A Mutated Locus' Signaling, Gurkan Bebek, Vishal Patel, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Colon cancer is driven by mutations in a number of genes, the most notorious of which is Apc. Though much of Apc's signaling has been mechanistically identified over the years, it is not always clear which functions or interactions are operative in a particular tumor. This is confounded by the presence of mutations in a number of other putative cancer driver (CAN) genes, which often synergize with mutations in Apc.Computational methods are, thus, required to predict which pathways are likely to be operative when a particular mutation in Apc is observed.Results: We developed a pipeline, PETALS, to predict and …

Should The Patient Conquer?, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

In 1596, Robert Bainbridge carved “The patient shall conquer” into the wall of his cell in the Tower of London. It is highly unlikely that Bainbridge was an early advocate for recipients of medical care, imprisoned perhaps by a cruel sheriff denied his payroll taxes or by a domineering barber refused his fee. But its unintended meaning would immediately provoke sympathy from many health care reformers. As we confront the critical challenges of implementing national health-care reform, however, whether the patient should conquer is a legitimate topic for debate. Does the patient’s conquest risk the collapse of the health-care system …

The Civil Judicial Subsidy, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

American society does not require civil litigants to bear the actual cost of using the court; those costs are borne almost entirely by the taxpayer (i.e., the “civil judicial subsidy”). In this Article I ask: is that right? Or is there a more desirable way to apportion court usage costs between the state and litigants?

I develop an evaluative framework that facilitates analysis of the purpose, contours, and cost of the current judicial subsidy. We subsidize court use because, in theory, there are certain “social positives” associated with public adjudication. To date the unspoken assumption has been that these social …

B-Vitamins And Fatty Acids In The Prevention And Treatment Of Alzheimer's Disease And Dementia: A Systematic Review, Peter J. Whitehouse

Faculty Scholarship

The increasing worldwide prevalence of dementia is a major public health concern. Findings from some epidemiological studies suggest that diet and nutrition may be important modifiable risk factors for development of dementia. In order to evaluate the strength of the available evidence of an association of dietary factors with dementia including Alzheimer's disease (AD), we systematically searched relevant publication databases and hand-searched bibliographies up to end July 2007. We included prospective cohort studies which evaluated the association of nutrient levels with the risk of developing dementia and randomized intervention studies examining the treatment effect of nutrient supplementation on cognitive function. …

Prediction And Testing Of Biological Networks Underlying Intestinal Cancer, Vishal N. Patel, Gurkan Bebek, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Colorectal cancer progresses through an accumulation of somatic mutations, some of which reside in so-called "driver" genes that provide a growth advantage to the tumor. To identify points of intersection between driver gene pathways, we implemented a network analysis framework using protein interactions to predict likely connections - both precedented and novel - between key driver genes in cancer. We applied the framework to find significant connections between two genes, Apc and Cdkn1a (p21), known to be synergistic in tumorigenesis in mouse models. We then assessed the functional coherence of the resulting Apc-Cdkn1a network by engineering in vivo single node …

Structural Characterization Of Hiv Gp41 With The Membrane-Proximal External Region, Wuxian Shi, Jen Bohon, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Human immunodeficiency virus, type 1 (HIV-1) envelope glycoprotein (gp120/gp41) plays a critical role in virus infection and pathogenesis. Three of the six monoclonal antibodies considered to have broadly neutralizing activities (2F5, 4E10, and Z13e1) bind to the membrane-proximal external region (MPER) of gp41. This makes the MPER a desirable template for developing immunogens that can elicit antibodies with properties similar to these monoclonal antibodies, with a long term goal of developing antigens that could serve as novel HIV vaccines. In order to provide a structural basis for rational antigen design, an MPER construct, HR1-54Q, was generated for x-ray crystallographic and …

Transfer Pricing In Business Restructurings – Reasoning From Implausible Assumptions Issue Note 2 – (Oecd, Discussion Draft), Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact

Faculty Scholarship

The OECD’s Center for Tax Policy and Administration roundtable on business restructurings in January 2005 led to a Joint Working Group project later that year on permanent establishments and business restructurings. One of the results was the Discussion Draft on Transfer Pricing Aspects of Business Restructurings that was available for public comment between September 19, 2008 and February 19, 2009.

This paper concerns Issue Note No. 2 in the Discussion Draft – Arm’s Length Compensation for the Restructuring Itself.

Issue Note No. 2 is deeply flawed. It relies on an unproved correlation between structure and performance (profit/loss potential). The Discussion …

Respecting Working Mothers With Infant Children: The Need For Increased Federal Intervention To Develop, Protect, And Support A Breastfeeding Culture In The United States, Heather M. Kolinsky

Faculty Scholarship

The author argues that the benefits of breastfeeding are overwhelming and that more needs to be done to ensure that all women have a viable option to continue breastfeeding upon returning to work, particularly the working poor and minorities. Those least likely to breastfeed are more likely to be part of an at risk population in terms of health. Most significantly, the lack of a cohesive policy in the workplace has had a disparate impact on the most vulnerable populations of breastfeeding mothers and their children. The lack of federal protection and a patchwork of protection in the states have …

The Pleading Problem, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

Federal pleading standards are in crisis. The Supreme Court's recent decisions in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal have the potential to upend civil litigation as we know it. What is urgently needed is a theory of pleading that can bring Twombly and Iqbal into alignment with the text of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and a half-century worth of Supreme Court precedent, while providing a coherent methodology that preserves access to the courts and allows pleadings to continue to play their appropriate role in the adjudicative process. This Article provides that theory. It develops a …

Privacy Paradox 2.0, H. Brian Holland

Faculty Scholarship

As a starting point, this essay offers six basic propositions. First, "the 'privacy paradox' " refers to inconsistencies "between individuals' [asserted] intentions to disclose personal information and [individuals'] actual ... disclosure behaviors." Put simply, we indicate-at a granular level-specific items of personal information that we will not disclose, but we then give away that same data with what appears to be little regard for the risks of doing so and for little in return. Second, the privacy paradox is a wellestablished concept in many fields of the social sciences, even though the precise contours and causes of the paradox are …

Molecular Targets For Diabetes Mellitus-Associated Erectile Dysfunction, Elizabeth Yohannes, Jinsook Chang, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Protein expression profiles in rat corporal smooth muscle tissue were compared between animal models of streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus (STZ-DM) and agematched controls (AMCs) at 1 week and 2 months after induction of hyperglycemia with STZ treatment. At each time point, protein samples from four STZ-DM and four AMC rat corpora tissues were prepared independently and analyzed together across multiple quantitative two-dimensional gels using a pooled internal standard sample to quantify expression changes with statistical confidence. A total of 170 spots were differential expressed among the four experimental groups. A subsequent mass spectrometry analysis of the 170 spots identified a total …

Maternal Investment Influences Expression Of Resource Polymorphism In Amphibians: Implications For The Evolution Of Novel Resource-Use Phenotypes, Ryan A. Martin

Faculty Scholarship

Maternal effects - where an individual's phenotype is influenced by the phenotype or environment of its mother - are taxonomically and ecologically widespread. Yet, their role in the origin of novel, complex traits remains unclear. Here we investigate the role of maternal effects in influencing the induction of a novel resource-use phenotype. Spadefoot toad tadpoles, Spea multiplicata, often deviate from their normal development and produce a morphologically distinctive carnivore-morph phenotype, which specializes on anostracan fairy shrimp. We evaluated whether maternal investment influences expression of this novel phenotype. We found that larger females invested in larger eggs, which, in turn, produced …

An Integrative -Omics Approach To Identify Functional Sub-Networks In Human Colorectal Cancer, Rod K. Nibbe, Mehmet Koyutürk, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

Emerging evidence indicates that gene products implicated in human cancers often cluster together in "hot spots" in protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. Additionally, small sub-networks within PPI networks that demonstrate synergistic differential expression with respect to tumorigenic phenotypes were recently shown to be more accurate classifiers of disease progression when compared to single targets identified by traditional approaches. However, many of these studies rely exclusively on mRNA expression data, a useful but limited measure of cellular activity. Proteomic profiling experiments provide information at the post-translational level, yet they generally screen only a limited fraction of the proteome. Here, we demonstrate that …

From The Greenhouse To The Poorhouse: Carbon Emissions Control And The Rules Of Legislative Joinder, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Pending legislation to address carbon emissions would include large subsidies for existing emitters. These subsidies make little sense economically or politically. Worse, they divert resources needed to address two crucial issues that the proposed legislation largely ignores: the impact of raising carbon costs on low-income people and the massive structural federal deficit. A carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would increase costs substantially not only for transportation but for food and housing. With poverty rising even before the current economic downturn, these price increases’ consequences could be dire. The structural deficit will require deflationary tax increases or spending cuts. Combining carbon …

What Is The Scope Of The Duty To Provide Veterinary Care?, Susan J. Hankin

Faculty Scholarship

State criminal laws prohibiting cruelty to animals -- which includes both abuse and neglect -- have provided the primary means through which our legal system has protected animals. In some states, including Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, these laws include explicit provisions that require owners to provide their animals with veterinary care. In other jurisdictions, such a duty has been implied from more general anti-cruelty language. None of these laws, however, make clear what level of care is required. They also leave unanswered the question of whether the treatment choices of owners who do seek care for an …

Privacy As Product Safety, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

Online social media confound many of our familiar expectaitons about privacy. Contrary to popular myth, users of social software like Facebook do care about privacy, deserve it, and have trouble securing it for themselves. Moreover, traditional database-focused privacy regulations on the Fair Information Practices model, while often worthwhile, fail to engage with the distinctively social aspects of these online services.

Instead, online privacy law should take inspiration from a perhaps surprising quarter: product-safety law. A web site that directs users' personal information in ways they don't expect is a defectively designed product, and many concepts from products liability law could …

First Korematsu And Now Ashcroft V. Iqbal: The Latest Chapter In The Wartime Supreme Court's Disregard For Claims Of Discrimination, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is concerned with shedding light on Iqbal. It will argue that this relatively obscure legal opinion may be one of the most infamous and harmful to American jurisprudence and individual rights of this generation. In particular, it will argue that (1) the Iqbal Court misapplied the traditional pleading standards that govern motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim in finding Iqbal’s particular complaint deficient and, in doing so, functionally and needlessly heightened those standards;19 and (2) the Court erred in finding unremarkable Iqbal’s allegations that the government engaged in blanket racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs …

La Caja De Pandora: Improving Access To Hospice Care Among Hispanic And African-American Patients, Kathy L. Cerminara, Alina M. Perez

Faculty Scholarship

Many patients clinging to hope in the form of potentially curative treatment could benefit from hospice services, but, for the most part, it is not until the patient accepts the finality of his or her condition that the physical, psychological and social benefits of hospice care become accessible to the patient and his or her family. Under current Medicare regulations and other health care payers’ policies, patients must abandon the hope of curative treatment before opting for hospice services. As a result, many terminally ill patients access the services late, sometimes a few hours before death. Scholars have proposed that …

Resistance, “Revolution,” And Reassessment 1981 - 1997, Richard J. Finkmoore

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

High Crimes, Not Misdemeanors: Deterring The Production Of Unsafe Food, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

In the fall of 2008, Minnesota public health officials became alarmed by an unusually high number of illnesses and deaths caused by salmonella poisoning. Federal and state regulators and the news media eventually traced the outbreak back to products supplied by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). Employees shipped batches that tested positive for salmonella from a plant with a leaking roof, mold growing on ceilings and walls, rodent infestation, filthy processing receptacles, and feathers and feces in the air filtration system. Under an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Georgia state inspectors visited the PCA plant nine …

Consumer Protection In Transnational Contexts, Jacques Delisle, Elizabeth Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides an overview of United States consumer protection law in the growing number cases with an international dimension that arise with economic globalization, expanding transnational corporations, worldwide production chains, manufacturing outsourcing and more efficient international communication. U.S. consumer protection law remains primarily state law, including tort and product liability law, contract and warranty law, and general and product-specific consumer protection statutes. (This refers to the private law remedies for consumer goods which are the substantive laws addressed in this article.) There is little treaty-based, constitutional or federal law except for federal regulatory law that largely adopts state law …

Business As Usual: Immigration And The National Security Exception, Shoba S. Wadhia

Faculty Scholarship

Javaid Iqbal is a native and citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim. After moving to the United States, Iqbal worked as a cable television installer on Long Island. Iqbal was one among hundreds of men apprehended and detained by the United States Department of Justice in the weeks that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks. Iqbal was held in a federal prison in Brooklyn, New York called the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), for more than one year. In January 2002, Iqbal was transferred to the maximum security section of the jail known as the Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit (ADMAX …

The Dilemma Of Direct Democracy, Craig M. Burnett, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

The dilemma of direct democracy is that voters may not always be able to make welfare- improving decisions. Lupia’s seminal work has led us to believe that voters can substitute voting cues for substantive policy knowledge. Lupia, however, emphasized that cues were valuable under certain conditions and not others. In what follows, we present three main findings regarding voters and what they know about California’s Proposition 7. First, much like Lupia reported, we show voters who are able to recall endorsements for or against a ballot measure vote similarly to people who recall certain basic facts about the initiative. We …

Welfare As Happiness, John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fau Climate Change Initiative Priority Theme: Research, Engineering, And Adaption To A Change Climate., Leonard Berry, Marguerite Koch, Center For Environmental Studies, Brian Benscoter, Xavier Comas, Donna Devlin, Maria Fadiman, E. Gerstein, Denise L. Herzing, Tobin Hindle, Sarah L. Milton, Anton E. Oleinik, C. Edward Proffitt, Jorge I. Restrepo, Tara L. Root, Jeanette Wyneken,, Zhixiao Xie, Xing-Hai Zhang, Ann-Margaret Esnard, Diana Mitsova, J. Murley, J. Vos, Monica Escaleras, M. Mehallis, Eric H. Shaw, Guillermo John Hardman, Julie Lambert, G. Thomas, Madasamy Arockiasamy, Frederick Bloetscher, G. Carvalho,, Manhar R. Dhanak, George V. Frisk, Evangelos I. Kaisar, Hari Kalva, Daniel E. Meeroff, Jarice Rodriguez, Panagiotis (Pete) D. Scarlatos, Ravi Shankar, Ramesh Teegavarapu, Clifford T. Brown, Francis Mcafee, Patricia Widener, Fraser R. Dalgleish, M. Dennis Hanisak, S. Mcmulloch, Gregory O'Corry-Crowe, Shirley A. Pomponi, John K. Reed, John Scarpa, Joshua Voss, Barry N. Heimlich, R. Alvarez, J. Jolley, A. Edwards, Charles E. Schmidt College Of Science, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, College Of Business, Dorothy F. Schmidt College Of Arts And Letters, College Of Education, College Of Engineering And Computer Science

Faculty Scholarship

Globally, sea level rise has the potential to impact two billion people living along coastlines. In South Florida, sea level rise is already a threat to coastal infrastructure and will continue to require new engineering solutions. Research universities, particularly those with strengths in hydrology, engineering, and ocean sciences, will play a major role in human adaptation to a rapidly changing climate; FAU can be one of these institutions with its current interdisciplinary climate change research. FAU’s premier engineering program provides opportunities to develop and apply new technologies to ascertain climate change impacts and develop solutions to assist in adaptation

Qualitative, Quantitative, And Integrative Conservation, Jamison E. Colburn

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay for a symposium on new directions in environmental law, I reflect back on the last 35 years of Endangered Species Act (ESA) practice and offer several modest reforms. My claim is that conservation has been growing increasingly quantitative and risk-based, much like other fields of regulation, but that big problems lie ahead if this trend continues with the ESA as currently structured. In my view, the quantitative demands of listing species, designing recovery objectives, and designating so-called 'critical habitat' are depleting the resources we have put into the ESA because it is an expression of fundamentally qualitative …

The Future Of The United States Commission On Civil Rights, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

In The Future of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Professors Lisa Crooms and Dawinder Sidhu discuss the potential for expanding the mandate of the Commission. Professor Crooms opens by noting that suggestions to expand the Commission’s mandate to include human rights have been around for decades, and argues that such ideas are still worth adopting. She comments that the Commission would have to engage in extensive fact-finding in order to justify such an expansion. Professor Crooms raises further concerns over manipulation of the appointment process for commissioners, but that such manipulation has not necessarily jeopardized the Commission’s role. Indeed, …