Davis v. United States: Retroactivity and the Good-Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule

This report covers the legal causes and implications of Davis v. United States. The Supreme Court will consider whether evidence that was seized in violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights is admissible at trial because the police seized the evidence in good-faith reliance on then-controlling case law

Trade Promotion Authority and the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement

This report looks at the effects of the Korean Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) on side agreements via the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Judicial Discipline Process: An Overview

The first part of this report covers the process for handling complaints against federal judges and judicial discipline, which was enacted on November 2, 2002 as the Judicial Improvements Act of 2002. The second part of this report covers two impeachments during the 111th Congress, those of Judge Samuel B. Kent and Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr

The International Criminal Court (ICC): Jurisdiction, Extradition, and U.S. Policy

This report focuses on the process by which the Office of the Prosecutor investigates allegations of war crimes and second on U.S policy towards the International Criminal Court (ICC) and how the court might assert jurisdiction over U.S. nationals

Geoengineering: Governance and Technology Policy

This report is intended as a primer on the policy issues, science, and governance of geoengineering technologies. The report will first set the policy parameters under which geoengineering technologies may be considered. It will then describe selected technologies in detail and discuss their status. The third section provides a discussion of possible approaches to governmental involvement in, and oversight of, geoengineering, including a summary of domestic and international instruments and institutions that may affect geoengineering projects

Dietary Omega Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Intake and Patient‐Reported Outcomes in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: The Michigan Lupus Epidemiology and Surveillance Program

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155937/1/acr23925_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155937/2/acr23925.pd

Public views of the uk media and government reaction to the 2009 swine flu pandemic

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The first cases of influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu) were confirmed in the UK on 27th April 2009, after a novel virus first identified in Mexico rapidly evolved into a pandemic. The swine flu outbreak was the first pandemic in more than 40 years and for many, their first encounter with a major influenza outbreak. This study examines public understandings of the pandemic, exploring how people deciphered the threat and perceived they could control the risks.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Purposive sampling was used to recruit seventy three people (61 women and 12 men) to take part in 14 focus group discussions around the time of the second wave in swine flu cases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>These discussions showed that there was little evidence of the public over-reacting, that people believed the threat of contracting swine flu was inevitable, and that they assessed their own self-efficacy for protecting against it to be low. Respondents assessed a greater risk to their health from the vaccine than from the disease. Such findings could have led to apathy about following the UK Governments recommended health protective behaviours, and a sub-optimal level of vaccine uptake. More generally, people were confused about the difference between seasonal influenza and swine flu and their vaccines.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This research suggests a gap in public understandings which could hinder attempts to communicate about novel flu viruses in the future. There was general support for the government's handling of the pandemic, although its public awareness campaign was deemed ineffectual as few people changed their current hand hygiene practices. There was less support for the media who were deemed to have over-reported the swine flu pandemic.</p

Localization of type 1 diabetes susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome 6 is associated with susceptibility to more common diseases than any other region of the human genome, including almost all disorders classified as autoimmune. In type 1 diabetes the major genetic susceptibility determinants have been mapped to the MHC class II genes HLA-DQB1 and HLA-DRB1 (refs 1-3), but these genes cannot completely explain the association between type 1 diabetes and the MHC region. Owing to the region's extreme gene density, the multiplicity of disease-associated alleles, strong associations between alleles, limited genotyping capability, and inadequate statistical approaches and sample sizes, which, and how many, loci within the MHC determine susceptibility remains unclear. Here, in several large type 1 diabetes data sets, we analyse a combined total of 1,729 polymorphisms, and apply statistical methods - recursive partitioning and regression - to pinpoint disease susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A (risk ratios >1.5; Pcombined = 2.01 × 10-19 and 2.35 × 10-13, respectively) in addition to the established associations of the MHC class II genes. Other loci with smaller and/or rarer effects might also be involved, but to find these, future searches must take into account both the HLA class II and class I genes and use even larger samples. Taken together with previous studies, we conclude that MHC-class-I-mediated events, principally involving HLA-B*39, contribute to the aetiology of type 1 diabetes. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group