Connecticut\u27s Trail by Lawyer: Contract Disputes and the Attorney Fact-Finder - Beizer v. Goepfert

The rules of professional conduct in most states require attorneys to enter into written agreements with their clients when contracting on a contingent fee basis.2 In so doing, the parties define the existence and limits of their attorney-client relationship. In the present case, an attorney and his client agreed to a ten percent contingent fee; however, the lawyer transferred to a new firm prior to the conclusion of the case.4 Subsequently, the client signed a new, identical agreement provided by the attorney\u27s new firm.5 In the contract, the attorney used the previously agreed-upon fee percentage instead of the standard office rate used by the attorney\u27s new firm.6 After the case settled, the senior partner in the attorney\u27s new firm withheld the settlement from the client and brought suit demanding a larger contingent fee.7 The trial court, relying on a state statute allowing contract disputes of under $15,000 to be referred to a fact-finder, did just that.

An Intraneural Ganglion Cyst causing Foot Drop: A Case Report

A 46 year old male with a past medical history of HTN and chronic pancreatitis presented to clinic with a chief complaint of right leg weakness and numbness/tingling that developed suddenly two months prior to presentation. He denied history of trauma or surgery to the right lower extremity. Physical exam revealed a right foot drop on ambulation with slight circumduction of right leg. Further neurological exam was remarkable for 2/5 muscle strength in right ankle dorsiflexion and eversion, with decreased sensation noted on right foot dorsal surface and lateral calf. EMG demonstrated a right common peroneal mononeuropathy at the knee with demyelinating and axonal features with active denervation. Ultrasound of the right knee showed enlargement of the right common peroneal nerve at the level of the fibular head with a1.1 x 0.5 x 1.6 cm hypoechoic collection in the region of the tibiofibular joint, possibly representing a ganglion cyst from the adjacent joint or an intraneural ganglion cyst. Follow-up MRI re-demonstrated a cystic lesion just medial to the common peroneal nerve and posterior to the proximal tibiofibular joint, which is suspected to arise from the articular branch of the common peroneal nerve. Patient had symptomatic improvement with physical therapy and use of a AFO boot for 2 months. The most common cause of foot drop is a compression peroneal neuropathy, often at the location of the neck of the fibula. In rare instances, the compression can occur due to a ganglion cyst, which is a benign tumor consisting of gelatinous material that is typically asymptomatic. Ganglion cysts compressing the peroneal nerve can be either intraneural or extraneural, with differentiation occurring via imaging. Intraneural ganglion cysts are non-neoplastic mucinous cysts located within the epineurium of a nerve. Although the exact pathogenesis of these cysts are unknown, it has been show in multiple case reports that as these cysts expand within the epineurium, they can cause compression of the adjacent nerve fascicles. Diagnosis is primarily via MRI; although an EMG study may assist in correlating clinical findings by distinguishing the extent of sensory and motor impairment. Treatment guidelines of peroneal intraneural ganglia are controversial. Current first line treatment recommendations endorse surgical removal of the ganglion cyst; however, it may be less invasive and beneficial to start with a conservative approach to minimize unwarranted procedures in patients. Ultimately, successful outcomes are based on early diagnosis and treatment.https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/merf2020caserpt/1092/thumbnail.jp

A simple low-SAR technique for chemical-shift selection with high-field spin-echo imaging

We have discovered a simple and highly robust method for removal of chemical shift artifact in spin-echo MR images, which simultaneously decreases the radiofrequency power deposition (specific absorption rate). The method is demonstrated in spin-echo echo-planar imaging brain images acquired at 7 T, with complete suppression of scalp fat signal. When excitation and refocusing pulses are sufficiently different in duration, and thus also different in the amplitude of their slice-select gradients, a spatial mismatch is produced between the fat slices excited and refocused, with no overlap. Because no additional radiofrequency pulse is used to suppress fat, the specific absorption rate is significantly reduced compared with conventional approaches. This enables greater volume coverage per unit time, well suited for functional and diffusion studies using spin-echo echo-planar imaging. Moreover, the method can be generally applied to any sequence involving slice-selective excitation and at least one slice-selective refocusing pulse at high magnetic field strengths. The method is more efficient than gradient reversal methods and more robust against inhomogeneities of the static (polarizing) field (B0)

Efficient HTTP based I/O on very large datasets for high performance computing with the libdavix library

Remote data access for data analysis in high performance computing is commonly done with specialized data access protocols and storage systems. These protocols are highly optimized for high throughput on very large datasets, multi-streams, high availability, low latency and efficient parallel I/O. The purpose of this paper is to describe how we have adapted a generic protocol, the Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP) to make it a competitive alternative for high performance I/O and data analysis applications in a global computing grid: the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. In this work, we first analyze the design differences between the HTTP protocol and the most common high performance I/O protocols, pointing out the main performance weaknesses of HTTP. Then, we describe in detail how we solved these issues. Our solutions have been implemented in a toolkit called davix, available through several recent Linux distributions. Finally, we describe the results of our benchmarks where we compare the performance of davix against a HPC specific protocol for a data analysis use case.Comment: Presented at: Very large Data Bases (VLDB) 2014, Hangzho

Slowing of axonal regeneration is correlated with increased axonal viscosity during aging

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As we age, the speed of axonal regeneration declines. At the biophysical level, why this occurs is not well understood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To investigate we first measured the rate of axonal elongation of sensory neurons cultured from neonatal and adult rats. We found that neonatal axons grew 40% faster than adult axons (11.5 µm/hour vs. 8.2 µm/hour). To determine how the mechanical properties of axons change during maturation, we used force calibrated towing needles to measure the viscosity (stiffness) and strength of substrate adhesion of neonatal and adult sensory axons. We found no significant difference in the strength of adhesions, but did find that adult axons were 3 times intrinsically stiffer than neonatal axons.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Taken together, our results suggest decreasing axonal stiffness may be part of an effective strategy to accelerate the regeneration of axons in the adult peripheral nervous system.</p

Re-use of spent cell culture medium in pilot scale and rapid preparative purification with membrane chromatography

Riese U, Lütkemeyer D, Heidemann R, Büntemeyer H, Lehmann J. Re-use of spent cell culture medium in pilot scale and rapid preparative purification with membrane chromatography. Journal of Biotechnology. 1994;34(3):247-257.Based on experiments in bench scale, a recycling of spent cell culture medium was performed in a 100-l pilot scale bioreactor. The cell cultivation has been done as a repeated batch procedure after the initial batch in the following four repeated batches spent medium from the previous batch was partially re-used. After microfiltration and ultrafiltration a part of the filtrate was mixed with a concentrate of amino acids and glucose, sterile filtered and subsequently filled back into the bioreactor. Up to 65% of the harvested cell- and product-free spent medium was re-used in each repeated batch. This procedure results in a saving of pure and waste water volume and saving of supplemented proteins as transferrin, insulin and lipoproteins and, therefore, also in a reduction of the production costs. A strongly acidic membrane ion exchanger was evaluated for the ability to purify the monoclonal antibodies from the pilot scale cultivation. Within minutes, gram quantities of product could be purified in a high flux system, especially developed for this purpose, achieving purities of 80%. The capacity of the acidic membrane ion exchanger was found in former investigations to be 1 mg cm -2 with recoveries up to 96%. Final purification was carried out by gel column filtration

Quantum key distribution using non-classical photon number correlations in macroscopic light pulses

We propose a new scheme for quantum key distribution using macroscopic non-classical pulses of light having of the order 10^6 photons per pulse. Sub-shot-noise quantum correlation between the two polarization modes in a pulse gives the necessary sensitivity to eavesdropping that ensures the security of the protocol. We consider pulses of two-mode squeezed light generated by a type-II seeded parametric amplification process. We analyze the security of the system in terms of the effect of an eavesdropper on the bit error rates for the legitimate parties in the key distribution system. We also consider the effects of imperfect detectors and lossy channels on the security of the scheme.Comment: Modifications:added new eavesdropping attack, added more references Submitted to Physical Review A [email protected]