Hospitals, Physicians, and Health Insurers: Guarding Against Implied Agreements in the Health Care Context

This Article discusses and explores the importance of the federal antitrust laws to the health care industry in the provider network context and then suggests guidelines for avoiding antitrust liability

Clearing the Smoke From the Right to Bear Arms and the Second Amendment

Despite raging battles in Congress, in the press and in state legislatures over gun control, the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, the very source of every U.S. citizen\u27s right to possess firearms, is one of the most ignored and overlooked parts of the American Bill of Rights. Much of what has been said about the Second Amendment is hostile to the very rights so plainly guaranteed in that provision. Law school constitutional law classes frequently study the First Amendment, close their eyes to the Second and move immediately on to study the Fourth Amendment. Some have speculated that the leftist political leanings of many in the American legal academy are in large part responsible for this sorry state of affairs

Potential Antocompetitive Effects of Most Favored Nation Contract Clauses in Managed Care and Health Insurance Contracts

Most favored nation contract clauses used in health care contracts have been repeatedly challenged under both federal and state antitrust laws. While none of these challenges to date has succeeded, the legal status of these clauses is clearly still evolving

Distant Galaxy Clusters Identified From Optical Background Fluctuations

We present the first high redshift (0.3 < z < 1.1) galaxy clusters found by systematically identifying optical low surface brightness fluctuations in the background sky. Using spectra obtained with the Keck telescope and I-band images from the Palomar 1.5m telescope, we conclude that at least eight of the ten candidates examined are high redshift galaxy clusters. The identification of such clusters from low surface brightness fluctuations provides a complementary alternative to classic selection methods based on overdensities of resolved galaxies, and enables us to search efficiently for rich high redshift clusters over large areas of the sky. The detections described here are the first in a survey that covers a total of nearly 140 sq. degrees of the sky and should yield, if these preliminary results are representative, over 300 such clusters.Comment: Submitted to ApJ

Expression and Circular Dichroism Studies of the Extracellular Domain of the alpha Subunit of the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor

To provide material suitable for structural studies of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, we have expressed and purified the NH2-terminal extracellular domain of the mouse muscle alpha subunit. Several constructs were initially investigated using Xenopus oocytes as a convenient small scale expression system. A fusion protein (alpha210GPI) consisting of the 210 NH2-terminal amino acids of the alpha subunit and a glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchorage sequence conferred surface alpha-bungarotoxin binding in oocytes. Coexpression of alpha210GPI with an analogous construct made from the delta subunit showed no evidence of heterodimer formation. The alpha210GPI protein was chosen for large scale expression in transfected Chinese hamster ovary cells. The alpha210GPI protein was cleaved from these cells and purified on an immunoaffinity column. Gel and column chromatography show that the purified protein is processed as expected and exists as a monomer. The purified protein also retains the two distinct, conformation-specific binding sites expected for the correctly folded alpha subunit. Circular dichroism studies of alpha210GPI suggest that this region of the receptor includes considerable beta-sheet secondary structure, with a small proportion of alpha-helix