Linear Enamel Hypoplasia And Its Relation To Socioeconomic Class In The 19th Century United States

Linear hypoplasia of the dental enamel has long been used as an indicator of physical stress during the tooth year of formation. Enamel hypoplasia present in adult teeth can indicate that the individual experienced growth disturbances during childhood to late adolescence. Through the use of human remains of known origin, age, sex, and socioeconomic background, one can compare childhood stressors according to difference of demographic grouping. This study examines the frequencies of growth disruptions among ethnic and socioeconomic groups of the United States throughout the 20th century. If there are differences in frequencies, do we see this difference increase or diminish in more recent samples? Does ethnicity and social status have physical effects on human development within the same population? I expect to find that more disadvantaged socioeconomic and demographic groups within a population are more likely to exhibit enamel defects as a result of higher stress. I also expect to see a decrease in the frequencies of these defects in more recent populations as socioeconomic differences diminish

Copyright and Freedom of Expression: Saving Free Speech from Advancing Legislation

The Supreme Court has expressly recognized the possibility of a First Amendment defense to copyright infringement claims, but it has never actually found such a defense to apply to a case before it. And nearly every year, Congress enacts or attempts to enact more legislation that restricts speech under the banner of the copyright clause. The problem is that the natural right of free speech is being depleted by the legislatively granted right of intellectual property, putting both individual liberty and the public good at risk. Congress and the courts both must begin to acknowledge that in the common law country of the United States, natural rights such as free speech should take rank over congressionally granted rights. Scholars have been trying to call attention to this conflict since the Copyright Act became effective, but it is important to focus on the very basis of the conflict: the difference in theories of intellectual property law between common law and civil countries. This article approaches this subject with a comprehensive, yet concise, method. It walks the reader through several stages of the development of current copyright law, taking a very close look at fair use doctrine, the problems of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and how other advancements in Congressional legislation are historically framed by our Constitution. Next, it examines the historical purposes of these two conflicting Constitutional clauses. And ultimately, the article provides recommendations for courts, developed from viewing these problems through a lens of natural law theory

Essays on health insurance

Uninsured individuals receive fewer health care services for at least three reasons: higher prices, responsibility for the entire bill, and potential provider reductions for concern of non-payment. This study isolates differences in service levels between insured and uninsured individuals that are attributed to different effective prices; the uninsured pay the bill without a contribution from an insurance company. I capitalize on Maryland\u27s highly regulated health care system, where prices are set by the state, are uniform across all patients, and hospitals are compensated for free care and bad debt, to isolate the difference in quantity demanded by the uninsured. While the Oregon study compares Medicaid individuals and their low-income uninsured counterparts, this paper considers income variation among the uninsured, quantifies the difference in demand in an environment with uniform prices, and evaluates health outcomes in light of these reductions. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition estimates uninsured individuals receive 8.4% fewer services after accounting for differences in characteristics. Compared to insured patients, the uninsured are 74% as likely to be readmitted. This difference in service level and readmission rates is larger for patients residing in low-income zip codes and smaller in wealthy zip codes. This suggests that income is a substantial constraint for uninsured patients, and as this constraint relaxes, more services are demanded. For illnesses with a high risk of mortality, both services demanded and readmission rates are not statistically different for insured and uninsured individuals. Mortality rates are similar for insured and uninsured individuals living in the bottom 75\% of average income by zip code. Differences in the top 25% seem to be attributable to small numbers of uninsured individuals. While this paper analyses Maryland, it provides insight into demand for insured individuals with high-deductible plans country wide. Prior to meeting their deductible, these insured patients face similar conditions to uninsured patients in Maryland — they have access to negotiated rates but are solely paying the bill. Hospital Insurance bargaining: In addition to risk-sharing, U.S. health insurance companies negotiate rates for services with hospitals. The price of service can vary depending on which entity, if any, is insuring the patient. Insurers (and possibly their customers) benefit from negotiating through lower prices, while hospitals benefit through higher patient volume. Using Massachusetts\u27 Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) data, we use hospital and insurer characteristics to estimate negotiated prices specific to hospital-insurer pairs. We investigate the relationship between two important quantities: (i) the charged amount that hospitals bill for their services, and (ii) the amount that hospitals are paid for insured patients. These numbers differ because the former is a function only of the services provided and the hospital\u27s \u27\u27chargemaster\u27\u27 prices, while the latter is the result of negotiation. We find that payments for privately insured patients are on average 38\% of charges when payments are made on a fee-for-service basis. However this ratio varies greatly by hospital and insurer. Compared to community hospitals without an emergency room, academic medical centers are compensated 15% more for their services, and hospitals with an emergency room are compensated 7% more than those without

Copyright and Freedom of Expression: Saving Free Speech from Advancing Legislation

The Supreme Court has expressly recognized the possibility of a First Amendment defense to copyright infringement claims, but it has never actually found such a defense to apply to a case before it. And nearly every year, Congress enacts or attempts to enact more legislation that restricts speech under the banner of the copyright clause. The problem is that the natural right of free speech is being depleted by the legislatively granted right of intellectual property, putting both individual liberty and the public good at risk. Congress and the courts both must begin to acknowledge that in the common law country of the United States, natural rights such as free speech should take rank over congressionally granted rights. Scholars have been trying to call attention to this conflict since the Copyright Act became effective, but it is important to focus on the very basis of the conflict: the difference in theories of intellectual property law between common law and civil countries. This article approaches this subject with a comprehensive, yet concise, method. It walks the reader through several stages of the development of current copyright law, taking a very close look at fair use doctrine, the problems of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and how other advancements in Congressional legislation are historically framed by our Constitution. Next, it examines the historical purposes of these two conflicting Constitutional clauses. And ultimately, the article provides recommendations for courts, developed from viewing these problems through a lens of natural law theory

Transition Metal-Catalyzed Non-Directed C-H Functionalization of Arenes and Alkanes.

The development of novel methods to convert chemical feedstocks is desirable, as it holds the potential for valorization. These chemicals are primarily hydrocarbons and therefore, the key for their functionalization lies in C-H functionalization reactions, which are traditionally challenging. Using homogeneous transition metal complexes to facilitate C–H bond activation and functionalization is a promising method for C-H functionalization. This thesis describes the development of methods and mechanistic analysis of C-H functionalization of alkanes and arenes, both of which are the primary components of chemical feedstocks. Chapter 1 describes in detail the challenges in C-H activation and functionalization, as well as the relevant history and precedent for the work detailed herein. Chapter 2 details the development of palladium/pyridine-based catalyst systems that are highly active for the C-H oxygenation of benzene and other simple arenes. An iodine(III) oxidant or the inexpensive potassium persulfate oxidant is used. Chapter 3 investigates the mechanism of the palladium/pyridine catalyzed conversion of benzene to phenyl acetate using the iodine(III) oxidant. Detailed mechanistic and kinetic analyses were used to determine that the active catalyst in solution is a dimer with one pyridine ligated per palladium. The mechanism by which this precatalyst enters into the catalytic cycle and functionalized benzene was elucidated using kinetic analysis. In Chapter 4, a catalyst system was developed for the site selective C-H oxygenation of simple arenes. Using an acridine/palladium catalyst with a sterically bulky iodine(III) ligand, high site selectivities are obtained, favoring functionalization at the least sterically hindered C-H bond. Chapters 2-4 detail the accomplishments regarding arene C-H functionalization. However, alkanes are another abundant feedstock available whose functionalization has proved more challenging. In this context, one of the most challenging substrates is methane. In Chapter 5, the borylation of methane using Ir and Rh catalysts is explored. Methane is converted to a methyl boronic ester using a diboron reagent, and the activities and selectivities of the Rh and the Ir catalysts are compared.PHDChemistryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116781/1/amkcook_1.pd

Enamel Hypoplasia and Its Relation to Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status in the 19th Century United States

Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) is a condition of tooth enamel characterized by linear bands in tooth enamel that result from metabolic stress during the childhood years of enamel formation. The presence of LEH has frequently been used in biological anthropology as a marker of stress experienced during childhood. This paper uses a biocultural approach to investigate the occurrence and severity of LEH defects on the teeth of African American and European American adult male remains in the Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection. The Terry Collection consists of low socioeconomic status individuals whose remains were unclaimed at St. Louis morgues and hospitals, and thus available for inclusion in a research collection. For this research, teeth of individuals born during the Reconstruction (1865-1877) and Early Jim Crow (1877-1900) years were examined and scored for the presence and width of LEH defects. I hypothesized that I) the rate of individuals with evidence of LEH would be high in this sample due to the low socioeconomic status of individuals comprising the collection; and that the occurrence of LEH would be similar for European Americans during both time periods, but increase for African Americans born during Early Jim Crow as a result of state sanctioned racial discrimination. Results support a high prevalence of LEH for both ethnicities and time eras with a 95% rate of occurrence. Additionally, wider LEH lesions in the African American sample indicate that prolonged stress episodes increased significantly for African Americans during Early Jim Crow, but not for European Americans. These data suggest that, while the total population experienced substantial metabolic stress during childhood, African Americans males born during the Jim Crow years experienced more prolonged periods of stress as a result of race-based discrimination

Be Fruitful and Multiply: Fertility and Tradeoffs in Latter-Day Saints

In humans, there are evolutionary trade-offs between energy allocated to reproduction and embodied capital (investing in extended development). We see selection toward early and frequent reproduction over embodied capital in the predominantly Latter-Day Saints (LDS) culture of Utah. We hypothesize that encouragement toward reproduction in LDS individuals has tradeoffs with embodied capital compared to non-LDS individuals. We collected data through an anonymous online survey (Qualtrics) distributed to a stratified random sample of LDS and non-LDS college students and recent graduates of Utah State University in Logan, UT (n=45) and Texas A&M in College Station, Texas (n=17) . We include questions on marital status, religion, sexual behavior, reproductive goals, and college grades. Current results suggest that LDS students are much less likely to be sexually active when unmarried compared to non-LDS students (14% compared to 44%). Non-LDS students in both samples are 65% more likely to have used birth control methods compared to sexually active LDS students. The percentage of participants that wanted children in the future differed according to affiliation with the LDS church X 2 (12, N=58)=31.95, p These results suggest differences in embodied capital priorities between LDS and non-LDS students. This study applies evolutionary theory to cultural behaviors specific to the LDS faith, including previously untested ideas that are relevant to biological anthropology. Here we show connections between religion, reproduction, and evolutionary fitness in a subset of American culture

The Impact of Hurricane Matthew on School Attendance: An Analysis from Rural Haiti

This study identifies the impact of Hurricane Matthew on school attendance in an agricultural community in rural Haiti. We conducted a survey of parents whose children attended a rural school prior to Hurricane Matthew to determine the mechanism by which hurricanes impact school attendance. We determined the marginal effect of family size and school enrollment using a probit model. Parents identified two primary causes for their children leaving school: a loss of income—through crop damage and livestock deaths—and requiring the children’s labor on the family farm. In our sample 96 children, 46% of the children enrolled in school, stopped attending because of the hurricane. No parent reported that their child(ren) left school because of illness or injury. Families with more children in school before the storm were 5% (p \u3c 0.001) more likely to have a child remain in school. Families with some children not attending school before the hurricane were 7.6% (p \u3c 0.001) more likely to leave school after the storm. The survey and probit model both suggest that an income constraint caused children to leave school. There is limited empirical evidence that students leave school to provide labor on family farms, and no evidence they leave school because of illness or injury

Conjoined first (atlas) and second (axis) cervical vertebrae in an eastern wapiti (Cervus canadensis canadensis) from the Angel Site (1000-1400 CE, Indiana, USA)

Atlantoaxial abnormalities are rarely documented among wild animals. Many defects of segmentation in the spine are hereditary in domestic species and humans. Here, we present a block vertebra in an eastern wapiti (Cervus canadensis canadensis) from the Angel Site (12Vg1) in southern Indiana (USA) dating to 1000–1400 CE. Diagnosis used macroscopic and radiographic examination. Evidence of inflammatory response and eburnation point to functional compromise. Recorded pathologies of this nature are underrepresented in the past and present. We suggest this specimen from an adult wapiti species represents a female as this condition would have been more debilitating in an antlered stag limiting the possibility of living well into adulthood

Living Knowledge Production: Indigenous Approaches and Intersections in Higher Education

As educators and practitioners reflect on the relatively young lifespan of the United States higher education system, it is important to take this opportunity to explore and rethink our country’s systems of knowledge production. Currently many of the approaches within the United States rely heavily on Western European epistemologies. Through exploration of narrative and its influence on indigenous epistemologies, we hope to challenge and expand the Western emphasis on the empirical way of knowing. We will learn from the epistemologies of three indigenous communities: Hawaii, New Zealand, and the continental United States. We will examine the creation of worldviews, knowledge production, and the philosophy of Aloha