Stepification

Multistep tests pervade the law to the point that they appear to be a fundamental feature of legal reasoning. Famous doctrines such as Chevron or qualified immunity take this form, as do more obscure doctrinal formulas. But surprisingly, these doctrinal formulations as a class are relatively new. The reality is that the intellectual moment that gave rise to Chevron was one in which multiple older doctrines that relied on multifactor balancing were replaced by new tests formulated as multistep inquiries in which each step was a discrete inquiry. This Article provides the first historical and normative account of this phenomenon—which I refer to as “stepification.” It charts both the rise of the new multistep tests as well as the intellectual climate that gave birth to these formulations, offering a theory of why courts chose to reorganize the law in this way at the time they did. Additionally, it argues that there are transsubstantive normative advantages and disadvantages to this mode of organizing doctrine, and it offers an accounting of the implications of historical stepification. In doing so, this Article aims to shed light on a historical phenomenon and on trends in modern legal disputes (such as recent cases over partisan gerrymandering and the future of Auer) that illustrate the work that stepification continues to do within our legal culture

Incidental Finding of Benign Multicystic Peritoneal Mesothelioma: A Case Report

Introduction: Benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma represents a rare benign variant of peritoneal mesothelioma, with fewer than 150 cases reported to date. Malignant transformation may occur. We present a patient with an incidental finding of an intra-abdominal mass consistent with benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma.Case presentation: A 51 year-old male presented to the ED with traumatic injuries. During workup, calcified cystic lesions in the pelvis were incidentally noted. Final pathology favored a diagnosis of benign multicystic mesothelioma of the peritoneum. Follow-up imaging obtained three months post-operatively revealed no evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease.Conclusion: Multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma has been identified as a distinct subtype of peritoneal mesothelioma, with long-term survival achievable through the use of cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC. Although prognosis is relatively favorable, recurrence rates are high, with low potential for malignant transformation. Post-operative surveillance with routine imaging is warranted

Development of a Microfluidic Platform to Enable the Study of Drug Effects on Caenorhabditis Elegans Embryos

With advancements in microscopy and imaging, the research devoted to developing systems has increased. In particular, model systems like the embryo of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) are under scrutiny due to their known cell lineage, their inexpensiveness, and the ease of growing them. Despite these advantages, a higher throughput method of isolation, permeabilization, and imaging for the purpose of future drug studies has not been developed. Although many studies have solved each of these tasks individually, they have not aimed to integrate them. The goal of this thesis, then, was to develop methods and procedures to accomplish all three goals within the same system. Using a newly designed microfluidic device and procedures like dissection and RNAi plate feeding, a system has successfully been developed. Preliminary drug experiments with the tumor suppressant drug actinomycin D were carried primarily to confirm the validity of the device, but also demonstrate the potential for the designed methods and procedures

Stepification

Multistep tests pervade the law to the point that they appear to be a fundamental feature of legal reasoning. Famous doctrines such as Chevron or qualified immunity take this form, as do more obscure doctrinal formulas. But surprisingly, these doctrinal formulations as a class are relatively new. The reality is that the intellectual moment that gave rise to Chevron was one in which multiple older doctrines that relied on multifactor balancing were replaced by new tests formulated as multistep inquiries in which each step was a discrete inquiry. This Article provides the first historical and normative account of this phenomenon—which I refer to as “stepification.” It charts both the rise of the new multistep tests as well as the intellectual climate that gave birth to these formulations, offering a theory of why courts chose to reorganize the law in this way at the time they did. Additionally, it argues that there are transsubstantive normative advantages and disadvantages to this mode of organizing doctrine, and it offers an accounting of the implications of historical stepification. In doing so, this Article aims to shed light on a historical phenomenon and on trends in modern legal disputes (such as recent cases over partisan gerrymandering and the future of Auer) that illustrate the work that stepification continues to do within our legal culture

Nuclear reactions induced in tantalum by protons.

Nuclear reactions induced by energetic particles in complex nuclei are chiefly spallation or fission. Spallation is a phenomenon in which nucleons or clusters of nucleons are chipped off from the target nucleus. When a division of the target nucleus into two or more roughly comparable masses occurs, it is called a fission reaction. A study of the spallation or fission reactions helps in understanding the mechanisms which guide a nuclear reaction process. The present study is concerned with the nuclear reactions of tantalum with protons in the energy range 10-90 Mev. In this energy region, it is understood that a predominant compound nucleus mechanism (1) at low energies gradually merges into a Serber mechanism (2) at high energies