Neutralizing the Stratagem of “Snap Removal”: A Proposed Amendment to the Judicial Code

The “Removal Jurisdiction Clarification Act” is a narrowly tailored legislative proposal designed to resolve a widespread conflict in the federal district courts over the proper interpretation of the statutory “forum-defendant” rule. The forum-defendant rule prohibits removal of a diversity case “if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the [forum state].” 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2) (emphasis added). Some courts, following the “plain language” of the statute, hold that defendants can avoid the constraints of the rule by removing diversity cases to federal court when a citizen of the forum state has been joined as a defendant but has not yet been served. This stratagem has been referred to as “snap removal.” Other courts reject the stratagem. They take a “purposive” approach, typically reasoning that following the plain language “produces a result that is at clear odds with congressional intent.” Resolution of the conflict can come only from Congress. The preferable resolution is to neutralize the stratagem of snap removal by requiring district courts to remand cases to the appropriate state court if, after removal, the plaintiff timely serves one or more forum defendants and a timely motion to remand follows. That is the approach taken by the proposed legislation. The legislation also would confirm that the forum-defendant rule is not jurisdictional, endorsing the position taken by all but one of the circuits that have considered the question

Investigating prior parameter distributions in the inverse modelling of water distribution hydraulic models

PublishedJournal Article© 2014 Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved. Inverse modelling concentrates on estimating water distribution system (WDS) model parameters that are not directly measurable, e.g. pipe roughness coefficients, which can, therefore, only be estimated by indirect approaches, i.e. inverse modelling. Estimation of the parameter and predictive uncertainty of WDS models is an essential part of the inverse modelling process. Recently, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulations have gained in popularity in uncertainty analyses due to their effective and efficient exploration of posterior parameter probability density functions (pdf). A Bayesian framework is used to infer prior parameter information via a likelihood function to plausible ranges of posterior parameter pdf. Improved parameter and predictive uncertainty are achieved through the incorporation of prior pdf of parameter values and the use of a generalized likelihood function. We used three prior information sampling schemes to infer the pipe roughness coefficients of WDS models. A hypothetical case study and a real-world WDS case study were used to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of a particular selection of a prior information pdf. The results obtained show that the level of parameter identifiability (i.e. sensitivity) is an important property for prior pdf selection.We are obliged to Jasper A. Vrugt and Cajo ter Braak for providing the code of the DREAM(ZS) algorithm and graphical post-processing software

Beyond Tryptophan Synthase: Identification of Genes That Contribute to Chlamydia trachomatis Survival during Gamma Interferon-Induced Persistence and Reactivation

Chlamydia trachomatis can enter a viable but nonculturable state in vitro termed persistence. A common feature of C. trachomatis persistence models is that reticulate bodies fail to divide and make few infectious progeny until the persistence-inducing stressor is removed. One model of persistence that has relevance to human disease involves tryptophan limitation mediated by the host enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, which converts l-tryptophan to N-formylkynurenine. Genital C. trachomatis strains can counter tryptophan limitation because they encode a tryptophan-synthesizing enzyme. Tryptophan synthase is the only enzyme that has been confirmed to play a role in interferon gamma (IFN-γ)-induced persistence, although profound changes in chlamydial physiology and gene expression occur in the presence of persistence-inducing stressors. Thus, we screened a population of mutagenized C. trachomatis strains for mutants that failed to reactivate from IFN-γ-induced persistence. Six mutants were identified, and the mutations linked to the persistence phenotype in three of these were successfully mapped. One mutant had a missense mutation in tryptophan synthase; however, this mutant behaved differently from previously described synthase null mutants. Two hypothetical genes of unknown function, ctl0225 and ctl0694, were also identified and may be involved in amino acid transport and DNA damage repair, respectively. Our results indicate that C. trachomatis utilizes functionally diverse genes to mediate survival during and reactivation from persistence in HeLa cells

Non-Newtonian and flow pulsatility effects in simulation models of a stented intracranial aneurysm

Permission to redistribute provided by publishers.Three models of different stent designs implanted in a cerebral aneurysm, originating from the Virtual Intracranial Stenting Challenge'07, are meshed and the flow characteristics simulated using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software in order to investigate the effects of non-Newtonian viscosity and pulsatile flow. Conventional mass inflow and wall shear stress (WSS) output are used as a means of comparing the cfd simulations. In addition, a WSS distribution is presented, which clearly discriminates in favour of the stent design identified by other groups. It is concluded that non-Newtonian and pulsatile effects are important to include in order to avoid underestimating wss, to understand dynamic flow effects, and to discriminate more effectively between stent designs. © Authors 2011

Roughening of the (1+1) interfaces in two-component surface growth with an admixture of random deposition

We simulate competitive two-component growth on a one dimensional substrate of $L$ sites. One component is a Poisson-type deposition that generates Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) correlations. The other is random deposition (RD). We derive the universal scaling function of the interface width for this model and show that the RD admixture acts as a dilatation mechanism to the fundamental time and height scales, but leaves the KPZ correlations intact. This observation is generalized to other growth models. It is shown that the flat-substrate initial condition is responsible for the existence of an early non-scaling phase in the interface evolution. The length of this initial phase is a non-universal parameter, but its presence is universal. In application to parallel and distributed computations, the important consequence of the derived scaling is the existence of the upper bound for the desynchronization in a conservative update algorithm for parallel discrete-event simulations. It is shown that such algorithms are generally scalable in a ring communication topology.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures, 77 reference

Trends in Drug Utilization, Glycemic Control, and Rates of Severe Hypoglycemia, 2006-2013.

ObjectiveTo examine temporal trends in utilization of glucose-lowering medications, glycemic control, and rate of severe hypoglycemia among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM).Research design and methodsUsing claims data from 1.66 million privately insured and Medicare Advantage patients with T2DM from 2006 to 2013, we estimated the annual 1) age- and sex-standardized proportion of patients who filled each class of agents; 2) age-, sex-, race-, and region-standardized proportion with hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) <6%, 6 to <7%, 7 to <8%, 8 to <9%, ≥9%; and 3) age- and sex-standardized rate of severe hypoglycemia among those using medications. Proportions were calculated overall and stratified by age-group (18-44, 45-64, 65-74, and ≥75 years) and number of chronic comorbidities (zero, one, and two or more).ResultsFrom 2006 to 2013, use increased for metformin (from 47.6 to 53.5%), dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors (0.5 to 14.9%), and insulin (17.1 to 23.0%) but declined for sulfonylureas (38.8 to 30.8%) and thiazolidinediones (28.5 to 5.6%; all P < 0.001). The proportion of patients with HbA1c <7% declined (from 56.4 to 54.2%; P < 0.001) and with HbA1c ≥9% increased (9.9 to 12.2%; P < 0.001). Glycemic control varied by age and was poor among 23.3% of the youngest and 6.3% of the oldest patients in 2013. The overall rate of severe hypoglycemia remained the same (1.3 per 100 person-years; P = 0.72), declined modestly among the oldest patients (from 2.9 to 2.3; P < 0.001), and remained high among those with two or more comorbidities (3.2 to 3.5; P = 0.36).ConclusionsDuring the recent 8-year period, the use of glucose-lowering drugs has changed dramatically among patients with T2DM. Overall glycemic control has not improved and remains poor among nearly a quarter of the youngest patients. The overall rate of severe hypoglycemia remains largely unchanged

Neuroprotection in a Novel Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis

The authors acknowledge the support of the Barts and the London Charity, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, USA, notably the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research, and the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 092539 to ZA). The siRNA was provided by Quark Pharmaceuticals. The funders and Quark Pharmaceuticals had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript