Digital Commons Network^™

Taking Scale Seriously In Technology Law, Mark P. Mckenna, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Issues of scale—the relationship between the amount of an activity and its associated costs and benefits—permeate discussions around law and technologies. Indeed, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that scale is the reason for most technology regulation.

But it’s not always clear how lawmakers and judges conceptualize “scale” when approaching questions around automated technologies. Scale is often used intuitively, just to mean “more.” But scale is not always just about more—scale can introduce new harms and benefits along different dimensions, not simply costs or efficiencies of greater magnitude.

In this Article, we argue for a more sustained interrogation …

Age-Related Variations Of The Hemodynamic Response Function Spatially Resolved Across Human Cerebral Cortex, Nooshin J Fesharaki, Amanda Taylor, David Ress

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Normal aging leads to regional vascular and neural alterations. Age-related impairments in neurovascular coupling (NVC) affect the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) hemodynamic response function (HRF) measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging, causing changes in both amplitude and temporal dynamics. Previously, global, systematic age-related changes in HRF characteristics were demonstrated, consistent with known microvascular aging effects. In this follow-up study, a standard space was used to compare spatially resolved cortical HRF dynamics between sex-balanced groups of young and older adults. The results showed substantial age-related differences in both HRF amplitude and timing across distinct cortical regions. Nearly twice as much cortical area exhibited …

Using Lotilaner Ophthalmic Solution, 0.25% To Treat Demodex Blepharitis In Patients Who Were Initially Misdiagnosed: A Case Series, Laura M Periman, Richard Lindstrom, Paul Karpecki, Brandon Ayres, Eric Donnenfeld, Marjan Farid, Ian Benjamin Gaddie, Preeya K Gupta, Selina Mcgee, Kelly K Nichols, Stephen Pflugfelder, Christopher E Starr, Nandini Venkateswaran, Elizabeth Yeu, Cecelia Koetting

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Demodex blepharitis (DB) is a chronic ocular inflammation caused by Demodex mite infestation of the eyelid. DB is often misdiagnosed, as some of its clinical findings and patient-reported outcomes overlap with those of other ocular surface diseases. The Demodex Expert Panel on Treatment and Eyelid Health (DEPTH) has reached consensus on the symptomatology, diagnosis, and treatment of DB. Consensus findings from the DEPTH group include that collarettes are pathognomonic for DB and that lotilaner ophthalmic solution, 0.25%, the first and only FDA-approved treatment for DB, should be the first-line treatment for the disease. This case series highlights two instances …

Functional Analysis Of Genes Enriched In Male Reproductive Organs: Validation Via Fertility Assessment Of 14 Knockout Mouse Lines, Kazumasa Takemoto, Katarzyna Kent, Kaori Nozawa, Shingo Tonai, Ahn H Pham, Terumi Fujimoto, Thomas X Garcia, Martin M Matzuk, Masahito Ikawa, Keizo Tokuhiro

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Tissue-restricted gene expression serves as a key indicator of functional importance within specific organs. Despite advances in high-throughput sequencing and genome editing over the past decade, this principle remains the gold standard for identifying candidate genes for functional studies. In reproductive biology, testis-restricted expression is anticipated to indicate genes crucial for gametogenesis, given the conserved features shared between spermatogenesis and oogenesis. Concurrently, rapid evolution of spermatogenesis-related genes is well documented and thought to arise through duplication and subsequent mutation of ubiquitously expressed genes. In this study, we established 14 knockout (KO) mouse lines for male reproductive organ-enriched genes, all of …

Improving Compliance With Safe Sleep Guidelines For Vulnerable Patients In A Community Safety Net Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Andrew Beverstock, Samantha Carlton, Hillary Lee, Thomas Lu, Kelsi Morgan, Ashlee Smith-Patel, Kelli Phillips, Joseph Hagan, Pablo Lohmann, Caraciolo Fernandes, Lisa Owens, Daniela Dinu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objectives: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) often coexists with fetal growth restriction (FGR). The observed-to-expected (O/E) total fetal lung volume (TFLV) is used to assess CDH severity, predict outcomes, and direct fetal interventions. Expected TFLV measurements traditionally rely only on gestation age (GA). This simulation assesses how incorporating weight-adjusted GA norms affects O/E TFLV calculations in patients with isolated CDH and FGR.

Methods: A simulated dataset (n=1,005) utilized published mean fetal weight and TFLV references. Computer-generated variables included observed weights (3rd-10th %ile), O/E TFLV (10-65 %), and percent liver herniation (0-42 %). GA estimates were corrected by weight and used to …

Uncorrected, Janet Freilich, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Faculty Scholarship

In addition to making rules and deciding outcomes, the legal system generates, curates and shares information. When the system gets rules and outcomes wrong, it is obviously a problem, and much effort (and scholarly attention) goes into identifying those mistakes and fixing them. But the system also gets information wrong; a problem mostly overlooked by policymakers and scholars. Those information mistakes matter too: they are prevalent and harmful. We show here that even when the mistakes are widely known and the errors broadly acknowledged, the information very often goes uncorrected. As a result, people make decisions based on bad information …

Assessing The Ecological Drivers Of Wildfire Hazard Mitigation Of Fuels In The California Home Ignition Zone, Christopher David Benterou

Master's Theses

Consecutive years of devastating home losses to wildfire indicate the need for home fuel reduction and construction improvements. Existing research correlates house survival with modifications to the home ignition zone (HIZ) and is required in high fire hazard areas of California (CA). Mitigations, designed to disrupt continuous fuel patterns, (e.g., separating surface and canopy fuels), can also introduce ecological changes that can alter overall code compliance. Previous compliance studies used respondent and agency-generated data, which may lack accuracy. Assessing additional house and ecological features (e.g., canopy cover and construction) would improve prediction of compliance, but these relationships are poorly studied. …

Efficient Preservation Of Old Methane-Derived Organic Carbon In Deep-Sea Surface Sediments, Rui Bao, Yangli Che, Mingzhi Liu, Naiyu Zhang, Yang Zhou, Lihua Dong, Shen Li, Owen A. Sherwood, Min Yu, Zongheng Chen, Shengxiong Yang, Nan Wang, Longhai Zhu, Jiawang Chen, Mutai Bao, Haoshuai Li, Luonan Chen, Weifeng Wu, Haiyue Ma, David J. Burdige

OES Faculty Publications

Methane released from the subseafloor is significantly attenuated during upward migration, yet the preservation of methane-derived organic carbon (OC) in global deep-sea sediments remains poorly understood. Here, we measured carbon isotopes coupled with temperature-ramped analyses on various methane seepage sediments. Our results reveal a correlation between the radiocarbon (¹⁴)C) content in deep-sea surface sediments and sulfate-methane transition depth. Notably, our findings suggest that a substantial amount of (¹⁴)C-depleted OC may originate from deep-seated methane and is efficiently preserved in surface seepage sediments. We propose that the efficient OC preservation is related to microbial-mediated aggregate formation at the seawater-sediment interface, where …

Differences In Sideerophore Production During The Growth Of Phytoplankton In Southern Ocean Incubation Experiments Under High- And Low-Iron Conditions, Randelle M. Bundy, Kristen N. Buck, Bethany D. Jenkins, P. Dreux Chappell, Daniel J. Repeta, Alexa Sterling, Shannon M. Yang, Laura Holland, Léo Mahieu, Laura E. Moore

OES Faculty Publications

Iron is an important micronutrient required by marine microorganisms. The Southern Ocean is an ecosystem where primary production is limited by the availability of iron, but how microorganisms in this region adapt to low-iron conditions or respond to episodic iron inputs is understudied. We tested how external iron additions would impact bacterial production of siderophores during phytoplankton growth using shipboard incubation experiments under a range of iron conditions. Similar heterotrophic bacteria communities and phytoplankton biomass were observed whether iron was added from the continental margin or as inorganic iron. Under both high- and low-iron conditions, the heterotrophic bacteria community remained …

Sox11 Overexpression Restores Embryonic Pro-Growth Transcription In Mature Corticospinal Tract Neurons, Eliazbeth Batsel, Zimei Wang, Elizabeth Otten, Syed Roshan, Rabia Mohammad, Paula Pascual, Darby O'Shea, Jose Rosas, Pantelis Tsoulfas, Murray G. Blackmore

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) display a high capacity for axon growth during early development but lose this ability at a pivotal differentiation stage marked by synaptic maturation, circuit integration, and a profound shift in gene transcription. Once mature, most CNS neurons fail to reverse this transcriptional switch after axon injury, fundamentally constraining their intrinsic capacity for axon regeneration. Here, we show with single-nucleus RNA sequencing that forced expression of the transcription factor Sox11 in mature corticospinal tract (CST) neurons produces large-scale and stable changes in gene expression that are highly enriched for growth-relevant processes, and which strongly …