Criminalization Of Juror Misconduct Arising From Social Media Use

This Essay analyzes criminalization as an alternative solution to juror misconduct arising from social media use, where jury instructions fail to prevent such misconduct. Despite the lack of scholarship on the subject, criminalization is far from a radical solution—California enacted legislation in 2011 that sought to criminalize jurors’ improper use of social media. By criminalizing juror misconduct, states can deter misconduct from occurring while also instilling the importance of the jury institution in the public. At the same time, it is important to be cognizant of objections that judges and jurors may raise. This Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I outlines persistent problems that arise from the use of social media as well as several deficiencies of jury instructions. Part II lays out California’s legislative approach, where juror misconduct arising from social media use may be punished as a misdemeanor. Finally, Part III analyzes benefits that arise from criminalization as well as several anticipated objections to the approach

Criminalization Of Juror Misconduct Arising From Social Media Use

This Essay analyzes criminalization as an alternative solution to juror misconduct arising from social media use, where jury instructions fail to prevent such misconduct. Despite the lack of scholarship on the subject, criminalization is far from a radical solution—California enacted legislation in 2011 that sought to criminalize jurors’ improper use of social media. By criminalizing juror misconduct, states can deter misconduct from occurring while also instilling the importance of the jury institution in the public. At the same time, it is important to be cognizant of objections that judges and jurors may raise. This Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I outlines persistent problems that arise from the use of social media as well as several deficiencies of jury instructions. Part II lays out California’s legislative approach, where juror misconduct arising from social media use may be punished as a misdemeanor. Finally, Part III analyzes benefits that arise from criminalization as well as several anticipated objections to the approach

The Shape Shifting Story of Reticulocyte Maturation

The final steps of erythropoiesis involve unique cellular processes including enucleation and reorganization of membrane proteins and the cytoskeleton to produce biconcave erythrocytes. Surprisingly this process is still poorly understood. In vitro erythropoiesis protocols currently produce reticulocytes rather than biconcave erythrocytes. In addition, immortalized lines and iPSC-derived erythroid cell suffer from low enucleation and suboptimal final maturation potential. In light of the increasing prospect to use in vitro produced erythrocytes as (personalized) transfusion products or as therapeutic delivery agents, the mechanisms driving this last step of erythropoiesis are in dire need of resolving. Here we review the elusive last steps of reticulocyte maturation with an emphasis on protein sorting during the defining steps of reticulocyte formation during enucleation and maturation

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening

Criminalization Of Juror Misconduct Arising From Social Media Use

This Essay analyzes criminalization as an alternative solution to juror misconduct arising from social media use, where jury instructions fail to prevent such misconduct. Despite the lack of scholarship on the subject, criminalization is far from a radical solution—California enacted legislation in 2011 that sought to criminalize jurors’ improper use of social media. By criminalizing juror misconduct, states can deter misconduct from occurring while also instilling the importance of the jury institution in the public. At the same time, it is important to be cognizant of objections that judges and jurors may raise. This Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I outlines persistent problems that arise from the use of social media as well as several deficiencies of jury instructions. Part II lays out California’s legislative approach, where juror misconduct arising from social media use may be punished as a misdemeanor. Finally, Part III analyzes benefits that arise from criminalization as well as several anticipated objections to the approach

The bright and DARC side of detection: Role of membrane proteins during erythroid maturation

This thesis aims at elucidating the role of specific membrane proteins crucial during erythroid maturation, niche interactions and erythrocyte functionality. Such knowledge is essential to develop novel therapeutics that regulate erythropoiesis but also to produce cultured erythrocytes for transfusion purposes. In bioreactors as well as within tissue, erythroid cells experience shear stress. We investigated the effects of the mechanosensing cation channel PIEZO1 activation in response to shear stress. PIEZO1 activation activated specific signaling pathways that regulate erythroblasts proliferation and differentiation. In addition PIEZO1-mediated cation influx in erythroblasts also regulates inside-out activation of integrins. Integrins mediate interactions of erythroblasts with the macrophages within the erythroblastic island, thus regulating erythroblast niche interactions. Moreover, we showed that another membrane protein, DARC, mediates interactions between erythroid cells and the bone marrow niche, through binding with SDF-1, the chemokine restricting neutrophil precursors and hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells to the bone marrow. We found that DARC can only bind SDF-1 in immature erythroid cells. Interestingly, Plasmodium vivax uses the membrane protein DARC as the main entry point to invade reticulocytes but not erythrocytes. We found that P.vivax tropism towards in vivo reticulocytes was due to differential DARC epitope exposure. We used this knowledge to optimize an in vitro P.vivax invasion model using in vitro cultured reticulocytes. In conclusion, we showed how expression and signaling of different erythroid membrane proteins have high influence not only on the maturation of the erythroid cell per se but also on the homeostasis of the surrounding environment and pathology