Recent Cases: Taxation — Intangible Property Tax on Corporate Stock — Status of Corporations Domesticated in Nebraska

An intangible property tax was assessed upon shares of stock held by plaintiff, executor, in four domesticated corporations. Plaintiff, in an action to enjoin the county treasurer from collecting the tax, contended that section 77-706 of the Nebraska Statutes, providing that intangible property taxes should be assessed against the corporation rather than its stockholders, applies to domesticated as well as domestic corporations, and, therefore, the shares should not be taxed to the stockholders. Held: by a divided court, the stock of a domesticated corporation is to be valued for taxation purposes as stock of a foreign corporation under the provisions of section 77-722, therefore the tax is assessed against the individual stockholders. Subsequent to this decision, the Nebraska Legislature amended section 77-706 to provide that the intangible tax on shares of stock in domesticated corporations, as well as that in domestic corporations, should be assessed against the corporation rather than its stockholders. Therefore the future effect of the instant decision is overruled. However, under a Nebraska statute, these stockholders will be liable for the amount of taxes which they should, under the instant ruling, have paid during the last three years

Bills and Notes — Negotiability by Contract Under the Uniform Commercial Code

Negotiability by contract is nothing more than a phrase used to denote an attempt to create the effects of negotiability on non-negotiable contracts. The usual provision found to impart such negotiability is an agreement in an otherwise non-negotiable contract that the obligor will not assert defenses of fraud, duress, mistake, lack of consideration, failure of consideration, or any other defense against a bona fide assignee of the contract. There would seem to be no reason why the attributes of negotiability should not be added to otherwise non-negotiable contracts so long as the parties have clearly expressed their intention that the contract will have such an effect, and that such agreed stipulation is not contrary to any public policy or is in itself illegal. The Existing Law of Negotiability by Contract … Code Provisions in General … Application and Effect of Code Provisions … Conclusion

Low- and High-Relief Leduc Formation Reefs: A Seismic Analysis

Leduc reefs have grown to widely varying heights and aereal extents along the Rimbey-Meadowbrook trend of central Alberta, resulting in significantly different seismic signatures. Three examples considered in this paper include two high-relief or full reefs from the Leduc-Woodbend field, an atoll and a pinnacle, each around 200 m in height but differing greatly in areal extent, about 100 km2 for the atoll and 1 km2 for the pinnacle. The third example, a low-relief or basalt reef from the Morinville field, is about 100 m high and 1 km2 in areal extent. The Leduc-Woodbend and Morinville reefs exhibit quite different seismic signatures. For example, 25 ms of time-structural drape along the top of the Devonian is observed across the Leduc-Woodbend atoll but only 15 ms across the Morinville reef. There is 30 ms of pullup at the Beaverhill Lake level beneath the Leduc- Woodbend atoll, 15 ms for the Morinville reef. Also, it is very difficult to differentiate the Leduc reflection from the Duvernay reflection, with which it merges, on the Morinville (basal-reef) section. In contrast, the Leduc reflection can be correlated readily on the Leduc-Woodbend atoll section; and reflections from the offreef shales (Duvernay and Ireton formations) terminate abruptly against the reef flank. In addition, the amplitude of the underlying Cooking Lake platform reflection varies laterally, depending on the velocity of the overlying formation (Duvernay shale or Leduc reef) and, to a lesser extent, the thickness of the overlying reef. This variation is not as useful in distinguishing between low-relief and high- relief reefs as it is in indicating the presence or absence of reef

Force on a neutral atom near conducting microstructures

We derive the non-retarded energy shift of a neutral atom for two different geometries. For an atom close to a cylindrical wire we find an integral representation for the energy shift, give asymptotic expressions, and interpolate numerically. For an atom close to a semi-infinite halfplane we determine the exact Green's function of the Laplace equation and use it derive the exact energy shift for an arbitrary position of the atom. These results can be used to estimate the energy shift of an atom close to etched microstructures that protrude from substrates.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Assessment of the genetic basis of rosacea by genome-wide association study.

Rosacea is a common, chronic skin disease that is currently incurable. Although environmental factors influence rosacea, the genetic basis of rosacea is not established. In this genome-wide association study, a discovery group of 22,952 individuals (2,618 rosacea cases and 20,334 controls) was analyzed, leading to identification of two significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with rosacea, one of which replicated in a new group of 29,481 individuals (3,205 rosacea cases and 26,262 controls). The confirmed SNP, rs763035 (P=8.0 × 10(-11) discovery group; P=0.00031 replication group), is intergenic between HLA-DRA and BTNL2. Exploratory immunohistochemical analysis of HLA-DRA and BTNL2 expression in papulopustular rosacea lesions from six individuals, including one with the rs763035 variant, revealed staining in the perifollicular inflammatory infiltrate of rosacea for both proteins. In addition, three HLA alleles, all MHC class II proteins, were significantly associated with rosacea in the discovery group and confirmed in the replication group: HLA-DRB1*03:01 (P=1.0 × 10(-8) discovery group; P=4.4 × 10(-6) replication group), HLA-DQB1*02:01 (P=1.3 × 10(-8) discovery group; P=7.2 × 10(-6) replication group), and HLA-DQA1*05:01 (P=1.4 × 10(-8) discovery group; P=7.6 × 10(-6) replication group). Collectively, the gene variants identified in this study support the concept of a genetic component for rosacea, and provide candidate targets for future studies to better understand and treat rosacea

Seismic Signature of a Swan Hills (Frasnian) Reef Reservoir, Snipe Lake, Alberta

Swan Hills formation (Frasnian stage) carbonate buildups of the Beaverhill Lake group are generally of low relief and considerable areal extent and are overlain by and encased within the relatively high-velocity shale of the Waterways formation, which thins but does not drape across the reefs. Consistent with this picture, prereef seismic events are not significantly pulled up beneath the reefs nor are postreef events draped across them. Indeed, the seismic images of these reefs are effectively masked by the high-amplitude reflections from the overlying top of the Beaverhill Lake group and underlying Gilwood member and cannot be distinguished from those of the basin fill. However, it is possible to identify the reefs indirectly on conventionally processed seismic sections because the image of the encompassing Beaverhill Lake/Gilwood interval varies significantly from onreef to offreef positions.One such Swan Hills formation field at Snipe Lake has an areal extent of about 90 km2 and typical reef relief of some 50 m above the platform facies. This reef is shown to be recognizable on three example seismic lines from interference phenomena that vary laterally in association with the lateral variations in thickness of the Swan Hills formation. These phenomena include an offreef peak that is one half-cycle below the Beaverhill Lake reflection trough and that dies out laterally going onreef, a tendency for the amplitude of the Gilwood event to decrease beneath the reef, and thinning of the order of 5 ms of the onreef section relative to the offreef section. Through seismic modeling, these seismic-image characteristics are seen to be predictable geophysical manifestations of the inherent geologic variations

Electromagnetic Momentum in Dispersive Dielectric Media

When the effects of dispersion are included, neither the Abraham nor the Minkowski expression for electromagnetic momentum in a dielectric medium gives the correct recoil momentum for absorbers or emitters of radiation. The total momentum density associated with a field in a dielectric medium has three contributions: (i) the Abraham momentum density of the field, (ii) the momentum density associated with the Abraham force, and (iii) a momentum density arising from the dispersive part of the response of the medium to the field, the latter having a form evidently first derived by D.F. Nelson [Phys. Rev. A 44, 3985 (1991)]. All three contributions are required for momentum conservation in the recoil of an absorber or emitter in a dielectric medium. We consider the momentum exchanged and the force on a polarizable particle (e.g., an atom or a small dielectric sphere) in a host dielectric when a pulse of light is incident upon it, including the dispersion of the dielectric medium as well as a dispersive component in the response of the particle to the field. The force can be greatly increased in slow-light dielectric media.Comment: 9 pages. To be published by Optics Communication

The role of extracellular matrix composition in structure and function of bioengineered skeletal muscle

One of the obstacles to the potential clinical utility of bioengineered skeletal muscle is its limited force generation capacity. Since engineered muscle, unlike most native muscle tissue, is composed of relatively short myofibers, we hypothesized that its force production and transmission would be profoundly influenced by cell-matrix interactions. To test this hypothesis, we systematically varied the matrix protein type (collagen I/fibrin/Matrigel) and concentration in engineered, hydrogel-based neonatal rat skeletal muscle bundles and assessed the resulting tissue structure, generation of contractile force, and intracellular Ca2+ handling. After two weeks of culture, the muscle bundles consisted of highly aligned and cross-striated myofibers and exhibited standard force-length and force-frequency relationships achieving tetanus at 40 Hz. The use of 2 mg/ml fibrin (control) yielded isometric tetanus amplitude of 1.4±0.3 mN as compared to 0.9±0.4 mN measured in collagen I-based bundles. Higher fibrin and Matrigel concentrations synergistically yielded further increase in active force generation to 2.8±0.5 mN without significantly affecting passive mechanical properties, tetanus-to-twitch ratio, and twitch kinetics. Optimized matrix composition yielded significant cellular hypertrophy (protein/DNA ratio=11.4±4.1 vs. 6.5±1.9 μg/μg in control) and a prolonged Ca2+ transient half-width (Ca50=232.8±33.3 vs. 101.7±19.8 ms). The use of growth-factor-reduced Matrigel instead of standard Matrigel did not alter the obtained results suggesting enhanced cell-matrix interactions rather than growth factor supplementation as an underlying cause for the measured increase in contractile force. In summary, biomaterial-based manipulation of cell-matrix interactions represents an important target for improving contractile force generation in engineered skeletal muscle