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Crippling America, Health Care Fraud Incentives, Colby Goetsch

Honors Program Theses

Clearly an imbalance is occurring in the system as health care fraud claims reach new bounds. There are many types of health care fraud, but the most general analysis involves the submission of claims that never occurred for reimbursement. This thesis will analyze the incentives acting upon different groups affected by the specific act of health care fraud of submitting fraudulent claims, and also possible solutions to change these incentives into the public's best interest. An analysis of the incentives given to the key players in this game will hopefully show where legislators can focus to improve the current state …

Human Genetics Studies: The Case For Group Rights, Laura S. Underkuffler

Faculty Scholarship

With the importance of genetic information has come bitter battles over its control. In these battles, some principles have emerged that are beyond dispute. The ability of individuals to control the disposition and genetic testing of their own biological materials is (as a matter of theory, at least) beyond question. No one would argue today that an individual could be subject to genetic testing for studies against her will, or that biological samples obtained from individuals under specified conditions could be simply deemed "free" of such conditions by researchers. Although difficult problems remain in the interpretation of research agreements, the …

Promoting And Establishing The Recovery Of Endangered Species On Private Lands: A Case Study Of The Gopher Tortoise (Duke Law, Student Paper Series), Blake Hudson

Faculty Scholarship

Important species are increasingly becoming endangered on private lands largely left unregulated by federal and state laws. The gopher tortoise is one such species. The tortoise is a keystone species, meaning that upon its existence numerous other species exist. Despite its importance, tortoise populations have declined by 80% - partly due to development pressures, but primarily due to forest management practices which have reduced the longleaf pine ecosystem upon which it depends. This article focus on legal and policy issues associated with both development and forest management. Because private forest management practices are the primary cause of tortoise decline, the …

Rebuilding Illinois Brick: A Functionalist Approach To The Indirect Purchaser Rule, Barak D. Richman, Christopher R. Murray

Faculty Scholarship

The landmark case of Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, which denied standing to indirect purchasers to sue antitrust violators, has been subjected to steady and widespread criticism since it was decided in 1977. Despite three decades of dissatisfaction, however, debate over indirect purchaser standing has failed to generate satisfying solutions that meet the objectives of antitrust law and reflect its underlying principles. We attribute the lack of creative alternatives to an undue emphasis on legal formalism, fostered both by the Supreme Court's elaboration of the indirect purchaser rule and the doctrine's failure to recognize the pervasiveness of multilayer supply chains. …

Mertonianism Unbound?: Imagining Free, Decentralized Access To Most Cultural And Scientific Material, James Boyle

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Richard Lillich Memorial Lecture: Nurturing A Transnational System Of Innovaton, Jerome H. Reichman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Doha Round’S Public Health Legacy: Strategies For The Production And Diffusion Of Patented Medicines Under The Amended Trips Provisions, Jerome H. Reichman, Frederick M. Abbott

Faculty Scholarship

This entry into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement in 1995 transformed the international intellectual property system. The harmonization of basic intellectual property standards has operated to protect investment in innovation, limiting risks from unjustified 'free riding.' Yet these same harmonized IP standards sharply curtailed the traditional capacity of suppliers of public goods, such as health care and nutrition, to address the priority needs of less affluent members of society, particularly in (but not limited to) developing countries. In the Doha Declaration, the Waiver Decision of 30 August 2003 and the Article 31bis Protocol of Amendment, stakeholders …

The Theory And Practice Of Tax Reform, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

Reviewing, President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, Simple, Fair, and Pro-Growth: Proposals to Fix America's Tax System (2005).By The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. 2005. Available at: http://www.taxreformpanel.gov/final-report/

Eliminating Fear Through Recreating Community In Rwanda: The Role Of The Gacaca Courts, Christine M. Venter

Journal Articles

This article describes the institution of the Gacaca Courts in Rwanda, which were set up to try people charged with participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The author examines the options available to the Rwandan government in seeding to prosecute people charged with crimes related to the genocide, and concludes that, while flawed, the gacaca courts were the best option available. The article explores how the courts were developed based on the participatory and restorative ideals of African indigenous legal systems, and how these courts provide an opportunity for some form of "truth telling" in post-genocide Rwanda.

Our Structural Constitution: Religious Freedom And Church Autonomy (A Response To Mark Chopko, "Constitutional Reflections On The Parish: An Entity In The Fabric Of The Church."), Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

From the Article

The freedom and autonomy of the Church, for which Mark Chopko has been such an able advocate, are not easily separated from both the history and the health of political freedom under constitutionally limited government. In our political tradition, the challenge has always been to find the limiting principle that would check the encroachments of civil power and preserve these immunities.

Law And Order Without Coercion, G. Marcus Cole

Journal Articles

Much of the contemporary discussion regarding law and public policy focuses on how government ought to address important issues. From global warming to technological innovation to corporate finance, voters and policy-makers alike share the belief that the tools of government ought to be brought to bear on all of the important matters of our times.

Virtually no attention is given public policy debates, however, to the question of whether government ought to address these important issues. In fact, the larger and more complex the issue, the more policy-makers and opinion leaders assume that government provides the only mechanism for addressing …

The Public Choice Of Driving Competence Regulations, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and classify each state's driver's licensing laws and then test whether the licensing laws affect the percentages of over-64 persons licensed and the proportion of older drivers involved in accidents to determine an optimal level of driving.

Design and Methods: This paper evaluates state driving rules, obtained from laws, regulations, and driver's manuals, tests, based upon Department of Transportation data, whether the type of laws affects driving and accident rates for those over 64 and suggests a uniform scheme combining self-reporting of driving problems, on-the-road tests of drivers who fall below …

On Professors And Poor People - A Jurisprudential Memoir, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

This article describes the origin and sources of the author's jurisprudential doctrine, and his adoption of liberation theology as a way of reconciling Sociological Jurisprudence with the philosophy of history. It argues that the pursuit of justice is eschatologically validated even though its historical fruition is problematical. It goes on to discuss the working out in legal practice of the liberationists' call for a preferential option for the poor.

From Family To Individual And Back Again, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Loving v. Virginia has been thought of in many ways: as an important step toward full equality for African-Americans, as, more generally, a statement about the suspect classification of race, as a declaration about the fundamental nature of marriage, and as a critical addition to the construction of the right to privacy (as well as, of course, exemplified in the validation of the Lovings' own marriage).

In my contribution to the first Loving symposium, I wrote about the increasing tendency of the Supreme Court, following the 1967 decision, to treat the rights of intimacy as belonging to the individual adults …

The Gift Of Milner Ball, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

My friend and teacher Milner Ball speaks of the law as "systemic injustice." I find that a bit harsh and tend instead toward a way of looking at injustice that comes from the equally melancholy reflections of Robert E. Rodes, Jr., also my friend—my colleague, too—and also my teacher (in two senses, including the I-once-paid-tuition sense). Bob Rodes has noticed injustice as much as Milner has, but Bob, who tends to be an Erastian, would say it is not the law that is the source of injustice; it is not even the "system"; it is lawyers who are the source …

On Lawyers And Moral Discernment, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

Drawing on Jacques Maritain's doctrine of Knowledge through Connaturality, and on other authors including David Hume and Edmond Cahn, this article argues that judgments of right and wrong are arrived at primarily through immediate discernment, and only secondarily through the application of general principles. It is possible, therefore, for lawyers and clients to arrive at agreement on how to handle their cases, even though they do not agree on the general principles that apply.

Grounds Of Law And Legal Theory: A Response, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Linking theses of Plato, Wittgenstein and Weber, section I argues that identification of central cases and settling of focal meanings depend upon the theorist's purpose(s) and, in the case of theory about human affairs - theory adequately attentive to the four irreducible orders in which human persons live and act - upon the purposes for which we intelligibly and intelligently act. Among these purposes, primacy (centrality) is to be accorded (by acknowledgement, not fiat) to purposes which are, as best the theorist can judge, reasonable and fit to be adopted by anyone, the theorist included. Section II defends the reasonableness …

"Technical" Defenses: Ethics, Morals, And The Lawyer As Friend, Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Journal Articles

This essay examines the question of lawyer-client counseling on the issue of raising "technical" defenses, such as statutes of limitations. The authors challenge the prevailing notion of American lawyers that technical defenses raise no moral issue worthy of dialogue between lawyers and clients. Looking at the history of legal ethics and modern treatment in European law, they suggest that questions of limitations do raise moral issues. They go on to explore how those moral issues ought to be discussed and decided between lawyers and clients, using the framework of lawyers as godfathers, hired guns, gurus, and friends that they laid …

Finding Room For State Class Actions In A Post-Cafa World: The Case Of The Counterclaim Class Action, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

In this Article, I wish to suggest one place in which state courts can continue to have an impact on class-action practice: the adjudication of counterclaim class actions. A counterclaim class action arises when a non-class complaint is filed by a plaintiff against a defendant, who turns around and asserts against the plaintiff, on behalf of a class of similarly situated individuals, a counterclaim for relief. In Part II, I explain the factual, jurisdictional, and legal dynamics of such state-court counterclaim class actions. In Part III, I argue that counterclaim class actions, when filed in state court, are not removable …

Grasping Smoke: Enforcing The Ban On Political Activity By Charities, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

The rule that charities are not allowed to intervene in political campaigns has now been in place for over fifty years. Despite uncertainty about the exact reasons for Congress' enactment of it, skepticism by some about its validity for both constitutional and public policy reasons, and continued confusion about its exact parameters, this rule has survived virtually unchanged for all of those years. Yet while overall noncompliance with the income tax laws has drawn significant scholarly attention, few scholars have focused on violations of this prohibition and the IRS' attempts to enforce it.
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Neuroimaging And The "Complexity" Of Capital Punishment, O. Carter Snead

Journal Articles

The growing use of brain imaging technology to explore the causes of morally, socially, and legally relevant behavior is the subject of much discussion and controversy in both scholarly and popular circles. From the efforts of cognitive neuroscientists in the courtroom and the public square, the contours of a project to transform capital sentencing both in principle and in practice have emerged. In the short term, these scientists seek to play a role in the process of capital sentencing by serving as mitigation experts for defendants, invoking neuroimaging research on the roots of criminal violence to support their arguments. Over …

Sustained Il-6/Stat-3 Signaling In Cholangiocarcinoma Cells Due To Socs-3 Epigenetic Silencing., Hajime Isomoto, Justin L. Mott, Shogo Kobayashi, Nathan W. Werneburg, Steve F. Bronk, Serge Haan, Gregory J. Gores

Journal Articles: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Interleukin 6 (IL-6)-mediated signal transducers and activators of transcription 3 (STAT-3) phosphorylation (activation) is aberrantly sustained in cholangiocarcinoma cells resulting in enhanced myeloid cell leukemia 1 (Mcl-1) expression and resistance to apoptosis. Because suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS) controls the IL-6/STAT-3 signaling pathway by a classic feedback loop, the aims of this study were to examine SOCS-3 regulation in human cholangiocarcinoma.

METHODS: SOCS-3 expression was assessed in human cholangiocarcinoma tissue and the Mz-ChA-1 and CCLP1 human cholangiocarcinoma cell lines.

RESULTS: An inverse correlation was observed between phospho-STAT-3 and SOCS-3 protein expression in cholangiocarcinoma. In those cancers …

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (Snps) Distinguish Indian-Origin And Chinese-Origin Rhesus Macaques (Macaca Mulatta), Betsy Ferguson, Summer L. Street, Hollis Wright, Carlo Pearson, Yibing Jia, Shaun L. Thompson, Patrick Allibone, Christopher J. Dubay, Eliot Spindel, Robert B. Norgren

Journal Articles: Genetics, Cell Biology & Anatomy

BACKGROUND: Rhesus macaques serve a critical role in the study of human biomedical research. While both Indian and Chinese rhesus macaques are commonly used, genetic differences between these two subspecies affect aspects of their behavior and physiology, including response to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can play an important role in both establishing ancestry and in identifying genes involved in complex diseases. We sequenced the 3' end of rhesus macaque genes in an effort to identify gene-based SNPs that could distinguish between Indian and Chinese rhesus macaques and aid in association analysis.

RESULTS: We surveyed the …

Intercenter Reliability And Validity Of The Rhesus Macaque Genechip, Fenghai Duan, Eliot R. Spindel, Yu-Hua Li, Robert B. Norgren

Journal Articles: Genetics, Cell Biology & Anatomy

BACKGROUND: The non-human primate (NHP) research community has been intensely interested in obtaining whole-genome expression arrays for their work. Recently, novel approaches were used to generate the DNA sequence information for a rhesus GeneChip. To test the reliability of the rhesus GeneChip across different centers, RNA was isolated from five sources: cerebral cortex, pancreas, thymus, testis, and an immortalized fibroblast cell line. Aliquots of this RNA were sent to each of three centers: Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Oregon National Primate Research Center and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Each center labeled the samples and hybridized them with two …

Factors Regulating Arteriolar Tone During Microvascular Growth, Julie Balch Samora

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Growth of the arteriolar network is accompanied by progressive changes in pressure and flow, and in the metabolic environment to which the arterioles are exposed. This dissertation was carried out to investigate the extent to which mechanisms involved in local blood flow regulation may also change during this growth. We isolated gracilis muscle arterioles from weanling (age 25-26 days) and juvenile (44-66 days) rats, and studied the responsiveness of these vessels to both myogenic and endothelium-dependent stimuli. Overall arteriolar responses to the endothelium-dependent agonists acetylcholine (ACh), A23187, VEGF and simvastatin were not different between age groups. Responses of juvenile arterioles …

Combine Gas Deliverability Equation For Reservoir And Well, Hassan Daffalla Eljack

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A new model has been developed by combining the gas reservoir deliverability equation for a reservoir and the well flow equation.;An existing computer program was modified to determine gas production from reservoir against constant wellhead pressure.;Upon completion, a unique, simple, and user friendly model was developed, that will allow the user to predict the performance of the gas reservoir against a constant wellhead pressure.;The new model was used to generate and introduce a new set of production decline type curves, which can be utilized to forecast gas production rates under constant wellhead pressure condition.;The impact of the well tubing length …

Food And Environment As Predictors Of Obesity In Rural West Virginia, Leah W. Gecheo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Objective. The objective of this study was to determine the best predictors of childhood obesity in rural West Virginia. This investigation was inspired by the fact that the rate of obesity occurrence in West Virginia is relatively higher than that in the entire nation.;Method. Subjects used were Head Start children participating in food and nutrition program (FNP) in Mercer and McDowell counties in rural West Virginia. The average age was 52 months both Caucasians and African Americans. Study was conducted using USDA validated questionnaires that focused on the diet, feeding attitudes, beliefs and practices. Children's weights and heights were measured …

De Novo Asymmetric Synthesis Of Digitoxin Based Carbohydrate Libraries, Wenjun Xin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The enantioselective syntheses of digitoxigen 2,6-dideoxy-beta-L-ribo-hexopyranoside, its analogues and digitoxin monosaccharide analogues have been achieved. Key to this approach is the iterative application of the palladium-catalyzed glycosylation reaction, reductive 1,3-transposition and diastereoselective dihydroxylation. Anticancer tests showed that these analogues have even better anticancer activities.

"For Men And Measures" : The Life And Legacy Of Civil Rights Pioneer J.R. Clifford, Connie Park Rice

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In an era historian Rayford W. Logan described as “the nadir of black history,” African Americans confronted growing discrimination, disfranchisement, segregation, and frequent acts of violence, including lynching in the decades before and after 1900. It was an era in which a nation, and its people, violated the basic principles of American democracy. Yet despite the difficulties facing black Americans in those decades, J.R. Clifford, West Virginia’s first black editor and practicing attorney, made significant strides in raising the condition and status of not only black West Virginians, but African Americans across the nation, as a result of his quest …

International Delegations And Administrative Law, Kristina Daugirdas

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.