Context and Trivia

My academic mantra, writes Professor James C. Foster in the Introduction to BONG HiTS 4 JESUS: A Perfect Constitutional Storm in Alaska\u27s Capital, which examines the history and development of the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Morse v. Frederick, [is] context, context, context (p. 2). Foster, a political scientist at Oregon State University, argues that it is necessary to approach constitutional law by situating the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s ... doctrinal work within surrounding historical context, shorn of which doctrine is reduced to arid legal rules lacking meaning and significance (p. 1). He seeks to do so in BONG HiTS 4 JESUS by incorporating interviews with and discussion about the parties, some bystanders, and various judges and lawyers who worked on the case throughout its multiyear history. Among his subjects are Douglas Mertz, who represented Juneau high school senior Joseph Frederick from the federal district court in Alaska all the way to the Supreme Court; David Crosby, Principal Deborah Morse\u27s initial attorney; former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, who, as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, took up Morse\u27s case after the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against her; Mary Becker, the former president of the Juneau-Douglas school board; and retired teacher Clay Good, the former president of the Juneau Education Association (the teachers\u27 union) who took the famous picture showing Frederick and other students hoisting the BONG HiTS 4 JESUS banner. Foster also traces the litigation from the moment in January of 2002 when the students in Juneau held up their cryptic sign through the district court proceedings, the decision by the Ninth Circuit, the reversal by the Supreme Court, and ultimately the settlement in November of 2008 after a second round of oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit. Explicitly striving to emulate a veritable pantheon of academic role models, including, among others, the sociologist Alan F. Westin, legal scholars Michael Dorf and Peter Irons, historian Richard Polenberg, and, [his] muse (p. 3), the famed anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Foster consciously draws upon what he refers to as a rich variety of legal, political science, anthropological, and literary materials (p. 3). His goal, he explains, is to make sense of the origins and consequences of the perfect constitutional storm that engulfed Joseph Frederick, Deborah Morse, and the other \u27natives\u27 whose stories shape this book (p. 3)

Context and Trivia

My academic mantra, writes Professor James C. Foster in the Introduction to BONG HiTS 4 JESUS: A Perfect Constitutional Storm in Alaska\u27s Capital, which examines the history and development of the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Morse v. Frederick, [is] context, context, context (p. 2). Foster, a political scientist at Oregon State University, argues that it is necessary to approach constitutional law by situating the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s ... doctrinal work within surrounding historical context, shorn of which doctrine is reduced to arid legal rules lacking meaning and significance (p. 1). He seeks to do so in BONG HiTS 4 JESUS by incorporating interviews with and discussion about the parties, some bystanders, and various judges and lawyers who worked on the case throughout its multiyear history. Among his subjects are Douglas Mertz, who represented Juneau high school senior Joseph Frederick from the federal district court in Alaska all the way to the Supreme Court; David Crosby, Principal Deborah Morse\u27s initial attorney; former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, who, as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, took up Morse\u27s case after the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against her; Mary Becker, the former president of the Juneau-Douglas school board; and retired teacher Clay Good, the former president of the Juneau Education Association (the teachers\u27 union) who took the famous picture showing Frederick and other students hoisting the BONG HiTS 4 JESUS banner. Foster also traces the litigation from the moment in January of 2002 when the students in Juneau held up their cryptic sign through the district court proceedings, the decision by the Ninth Circuit, the reversal by the Supreme Court, and ultimately the settlement in November of 2008 after a second round of oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit. Explicitly striving to emulate a veritable pantheon of academic role models, including, among others, the sociologist Alan F. Westin, legal scholars Michael Dorf and Peter Irons, historian Richard Polenberg, and, [his] muse (p. 3), the famed anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Foster consciously draws upon what he refers to as a rich variety of legal, political science, anthropological, and literary materials (p. 3). His goal, he explains, is to make sense of the origins and consequences of the perfect constitutional storm that engulfed Joseph Frederick, Deborah Morse, and the other \u27natives\u27 whose stories shape this book (p. 3)

Boletín oficial de la provincia de León: Número 99 - 1978 abril 29

Copia digital. Valladolid : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 2011-201

Influence of chemical disorder on atomic structure in high-entropy diborides

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed on a set of high-entropy metal diborides composed of five equimolar transition metals in the layered hexagonal AlB2 structure. Atomic structure data was explored and related to that of experimentally synthesized bulk samples of this new class of ultra-high temperature ceramics. Charge disorder and lattice distortions of the relaxed structures were measured and compared between compositions. Interactions between near-neighbor atom pairs were analyzed to explore the effects of constituent elements on the local atomic structure. The high-entropy compositions allow for the incorporation of Mo into the AlB2 structure where it is typically not stable, as well as allowing for Cr concentrations well above the low solubility limit in conventional early transition metal diborides. The presence of these group six elements in certain compositions creates large lattice distortions within a stable single phase structure. Atom pair interactions were further explored by the introduction of vacancies in the structure. Vacancy formation energies were calculated by DFT methods for lattice sites with varying chemical coordination. Preferential vacancy configurations were examined as well as possible effects of atom pair interactions on short-range ordering of elements. Unexpected diffusion behavior observed in high temperature oxidation experiments was explored as it relates to vacancy configurations and vacancy mediated self-diffusion in high-entropy diborides. This work is supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research MURI program (grant No. N00014-15- 1-2863)

GIV/Girdin is a central hub for profibrogenic signalling networks during liver fibrosis.

Progressive liver fibrosis is characterized by the deposition of collagen by activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs). Activation of HSCs is a multiple receptor-driven process in which profibrotic signals are enhanced and antifibrotic pathways are suppressed. Here we report the discovery of a signalling platform comprising G protein subunit, Gαi and GIV, its guanine exchange factor (GEF), which serves as a central hub within the fibrogenic signalling network initiated by diverse classes of receptors. GIV is expressed in the liver after fibrogenic injury and is required for HSC activation. Once expressed, GIV enhances the profibrotic (PI3K-Akt-FoxO1 and TGFβ-SMAD) and inhibits the antifibrotic (cAMP-PKA-pCREB) pathways to skew the signalling network in favour of fibrosis, all via activation of Gαi. We also provide evidence that GIV may serve as a biomarker for progression of fibrosis after liver injury and a therapeutic target for arresting and/or reversing HSC activation during liver fibrosis

Designing self-assembling kinetics with differentiable statistical physics models

The inverse problem of designing component interactions to target emergent structure is fundamental to numerous applications in biotechnology, materials science, and statistical physics. Equally important is the inverse problem of designing emergent kinetics, but this has received considerably less attention. Using recent advances in automatic differentiation, we show how kinetic pathways can be precisely designed by directly differentiating through statistical physics models, namely free energy calculations and molecular dynamics simulations. We consider two systems that are crucial to our understanding of structural self-assembly: bulk crystallization and small nanoclusters. In each case, we are able to assemble precise dynamical features. Using gradient information, we manipulate interactions among constituent particles to tune the rate at which these systems yield specific structures of interest. Moreover, we use this approach to learn nontrivial features about the high-dimensional design space, allowing us to accurately predict when multiple kinetic features can be simultaneously and independently controlled. These results provide a concrete and generalizable foundation for studying nonstructural self-assembly, including kinetic properties as well as other complex emergent properties, in a vast array of systems

Influence of mass and charge disorder on the phonon thermal conductivity of some high entropy ceramics by molecular dynamics simulation

We are exploring how the interplay between mass and charge disorder affects the thermal conductivity of high entropy ceramics that have potential use as ultra-high temperature materials and their oxides. Recent experiments by our team, for example, have shown that the thermal conductivity of the entropy stabilized oxide (Mg0.1Co0.1Ni0.1Cu0.1Zn0.1)O0.5, termed J14, is reduced by the addition of a sixth cation Sc, Sn, Cr, Ge or Sb in an equi-molar proportion. Classical phonon transport theory cannot account for this reduction based on mass scattering alone. Therefore we have been using molecular dynamics simulations to gain a better insight of the combined effects of disorder in mass and in electrostatic interactions on phonon-mediated thermal conductivity for these systems. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Where there is no doctor: can volunteer community health workers in rural Uganda provide integrated community case management?

Introduction: Integrated community case management (iCCM) involves assessment and treatment of common childhood illnesses by community health workers (CHWs). Evaluation of a new Ugandan iCCM program is needed.Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess if iCCM by lay volunteer CHWs is feasible and if iCCM would increase proportions of children treated for fever, pneumonia, and diarrhoea in rural Uganda.Methods: This pre/post study used a quasi-experimental design and non-intervention comparison community. CHWs were selected, trained, and equipped to assess and treat children under five years with signs of the three illnesses. Evaluation included CHW-patient encounter record review plus analysis of pre/post household surveys.Results: 196 iCCM-trained CHWs reported 6,276 sick child assessments (45% fever, 46% pneumonia, 9% diarrhoea). 93% of cases were managed according to algorithm recommendations. Absolute proportions of children receiving treatment significantly increased post-intervention: antimalarial for fever (+24% intervention versus +4% control) and oral rehydration salts/zinc for diarrhoea (+14% intervention versus +1% control).Conclusion: In our limited-resource, rural Ugandan setting, iCCM involving lay CHWs was feasible and significantly increased the proportion of young children treated for malaria and diarrhoea.Keywords: Uganda; maternal health; child health; community health worker; integrated community case managemen