Cross-Border Data Flows, the GDPR, and Data Governance

Today, cross-border data flows are an important component of international trade and an element of digital service models. However, they are impeded by restrictions on cross-border personal data transfers and data localization legislation. This Article focuses primarily on these complexities and on the impact of the new European Union (“EU”) legislation on personal data protection—the GDPR. First, this Article introduces its discussion of these flows by placing them in their economic and geopolitical setting, including a discussion of the results of a lack of international harmonization of law in the area. In this framework, rule overlap and rival standards are relevant. Once this situation is established, this Article turns to an analysis of the legal measures that have filled the gap left by the lack of international regulation and the failure to harmonize law: extraterritorial laws in the European Union (regional legislation) and the United States (state legislation); and data localization laws in China and Russia. Specific provisions restricting cross-border personal data transfers are detailed under EU legislation, as are the international agreements that have been invaluable in allowing flows between the United States and the European Union to continue—first the Safe Harbor, and now the Privacy Shield. Finally, in this context, the role of data governance is investigated, both in the context of data controllers’ accountability for the actions of other actors in global supply chains under EU law and under the Privacy Shield. Thus, this Article goes beyond the law itself, to place requirements in the context of the globalized business world of data flows, and to suggest ways that companies may improve their compliance position worldwide

Spectroscopy of Polarons, Bipolarons, and Excitons in Semiconducting Polymers

Organic electronics are an exciting alternative to traditional inorganic electronics. Compared to inorganic materials, organic electronics are lightweight, flexible, solution-processable, and inexpensive, and are made with non-toxic earth-abundant elements. Semiconducting polymers, discovered in the 1970s, are promising materials for use in organic electronics; the materials are easily tunable through organic synthesis, and their promise allowed researchers to earn the Nobel Prize for their discovery in 2000. Semiconducting polymers have potential applications in LEDs, solar cells, electrochromics, and thermoelectrics. Like the case with inorganic semiconductors, doping of organic semiconductors produces a charge (usually a positive charge) on the polymer. If the charge is mobile, the material’s electrical conductivity is enhanced. The belief in the literature is that initially, at low dopant concentrations, trapped polarons (singly charged cation radicals) form, which can be Coulombically-bound to the dopant counterion. As the concentration increases, the Coulomb wells of the dopants overlap and create mobile free polarons. As the dopant concentration increases further, polarons become too crowded on the polymer chains and can pair up to form doubly-charged bipolarons instead. My thesis work investigates polarons and bipolarons in conjugated polymers to better understand the nature and formation of these charge carriers.The work presented in this thesis is the first use of ultrafast spectroscopy to understand and identify the electronic structure of the doped species on conjugated polymers. The first chapter in my thesis introduces semiconducting polymers and their applications, as well as the techniques I used to study them. The second chapter in my thesis demonstrates that ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy can be used to distinguish the roles of free carriers and carriers that are Coulomb bound to the dopant counterions. The work presented in Chapter 2 also refutes one model of polaron energy levels, the band-bending model, based upon the transitions observed in the ultrafast transient absorption experiments. The final chapter of my thesis applies the ultrafast spectroscopy techniques developed in Chapter 2 to rule out the formation of polarons in a novel doped polymer system and to show that in this novel polymer, doping produces solely bipolarons instead of single polarons. We argue based on quantum chemistry calculations that it is the particular chemical structure of the polymer that produces this unusual behavior. Overall, my thesis work has made great strides in identifying and understanding the charge carrier(s) present in doped polymer systems

GABAergic compensation in connexin36 knock-out mice evident during low-magnesium seizure-like event activity

Gap junctions within the cerebral cortex may facilitate cortical seizure formation by their ability to synchronize electrical activity. To investigate this, one option is to compare wild-type (WT) animals with those lacking the gene for connexin36 (Cx36 KO); the protein that forms neuronal gap junctions between cortical inhibitory cells. However, genetically modified knock-out animals may exhibit compensatory effects; with the risk that observed differences between WT and Cx36 KO animals could be erroneously attributed to Cx36 gap junction effects. In this study we investigated the effect of GABAA-receptor modulation (augmentation with 16 μM etomidate and blockade with 100 μM picrotoxin) on low-magnesium seizure-like events (SLEs) in mouse cortical slices. In WT slices, picrotoxin enhanced both the amplitude (49% increase, p = 0.0006) and frequency (37% increase, p = 0.005) of SLEs; etomidate also enhanced SLE amplitude (18% increase, p = 0.003) but reduced event frequency (25% decrease, p < 0.0001). In Cx36 KO slices, the frequency effects of etomidate and picrotoxin were preserved, but the amplitude responses were abolished. Pre-treatment with the gap junction blocker mefloquin in WT slices did not significantly alter the drug responses, indicating that the reduction in amplitude seen in the Cx36 KO mice was not primarily mediated by their lack of interneuronal gap junctions, but was rather due to pre-existing compensatory changes in these animals. Conclusions from studies comparing seizure characteristics between WT and Cx36 KO mice must be viewed with a degree of caution because of the possible confounding effect of compensatory neurophysiological changes in the genetically modified animals

EU GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION SANCTIONS IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE

EU GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION SANCTIONS IN THEORY AND IN PRACTIC

Connexin36 knockout mice display increased sensitivity to pentylenetetrazol-induced seizure-like behaviors

Large-scale synchronous firing of neurons during seizures is modulated by electrotonic coupling between neurons via gap junctions. To explore roles for connexin36 (Cx36) gap junctions in seizures, we examined the seizure threshold of connexin36 knockout (Cx36KO) mice using a pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) model

Educating Future Nursing Scientists: Recommendations for Integrating Omics Content in PhD Programs

Preparing the next generation of nursing scientists to conduct high-impact, competitive, sustainable, innovative, and interdisciplinary programs of research requires that the curricula for PhD programs keep pace with emerging areas of knowledge and health care/biomedical science. A field of inquiry that holds great potential to influence our understanding of the underlying biology and mechanisms of health and disease is omics. For the purpose of this article, omics refers to genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, exposomics, microbiomics, and metabolomics. Traditionally, most PhD programs in schools of nursing do not incorporate this content into their core curricula. As part of the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science\u27s Idea Festival for Nursing Science Education, a work group charged with addressing omics preparation for the next generation of nursing scientists was convened. The purpose of this article is to describe key findings and recommendations from the work group that unanimously and enthusiastically support the incorporation of omics content into the curricula of PhD programs in nursing. The work group also calls to action faculty in schools of nursing to develop strategies to enable students needing immersion in omics science and methods to execute their research goals

Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the IPCC ensemble of global coupled model simulations

Temperature and precipitation extremes and their potential future changes are evaluated in an ensemble of global coupled climate models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) diagnostic exercise for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Climate extremes are expressed in terms of 20-yr return values of annual extremes of near-surface temperature and 24-h precipitation amounts. The simulated changes in extremes are documented for years 2046–65 and 2081–2100 relative to 1981–2000 in experiments with the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) B1, A1B, and A2 emission scenarios. Overall, the climate models simulate present-day warm extremes reasonably well on the global scale, as compared to estimates from reanalyses. The model discrepancies in simulating cold extremes are generally larger than those for warm extremes, especially in sea ice–covered areas. Simulated present-day precipita-tion extremes are plausible in the extratropics, but uncertainties in extreme precipitation in the Tropics are very large, both in the models and the available observationally based datasets. Changes in warm extremes generally follow changes in the mean summertime temperature. Cold ex-tremes warm faster than warm extremes by about 30%–40%, globally averaged. The excessive warming of cold extremes is generally confined to regions where snow and sea ice retreat with global warming. With th

A Transient Sub-Eddington Black Hole X-ray Binary Candidate in the Dust Lanes of Centaurus A

We report the discovery of a bright X-ray transient, CXOU J132527.6-430023, in the nearby early-type galaxy NGC 5128. The source was first detected over the course of five Chandra observations in 2007, reaching an unabsorbed outburst luminosity of 1-2*10^38 erg/s in the 0.5-7.0 keV band before returning to quiescence. Such luminosities are possible for both stellar-mass black hole and neutron star X-ray binary transients. Here, we attempt to characterize the nature of the compact object. No counterpart has been detected in the optical or radio sky, but the proximity of the source to the dust lanes allows for the possibility of an obscured companion. The brightness of the source after a >100 fold increase in X-ray flux makes it either the first confirmed transient non-ULX black hole system in outburst to be subject to detailed spectral modeling outside the Local Group, or a bright (>10^38 erg/s) transient neutron star X-ray binary, which are very rare. Such a large increase in flux would appear to lend weight to the view that this is a black hole transient. X-ray spectral fitting of an absorbed power law yielded unphysical photon indices, while the parameters of the best-fit absorbed disc blackbody model are typical of an accreting ~10 Msol black hole in the thermally dominant state.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap