Standing On One Leg: Balancing College Students\u27 Free Speech with Article III Requirements in the Seventh Circuit

First Amendment free speech protections are all the rage across college campuses. Students and administrations have done their best to toe the line and create equitable, safe spaces for students to freely debate and converse about political and controversial topics. Administrations implement policies that aid students in addressing issues of racism, bias, and bigotry on campus, however some students feel as though these policies are a free speech attack. While this may be true, Free Speech, Inc. v. Killeen, a recent Seventh Circuit decision, discussed standing as a procedural roadblock for students who claimed their speech was chilled by administrative policies. The court held that the free speech organization could not establish a particularized injury in fact, and therefore, lacked standing. Through a careful and nuanced analysis, the court further expounded upon what constitutes an injury in fact under current standing doctrine jurisprudence. Claimed injuries are not injuries under the standing doctrine, and must be distinguished from realized injuries, leaving no room for conjecture or hypotheticals. The Seventh Circuit’s position and adherence to nontheoretical, but actual injury, coincides with courts’ understanding of the standing doctrine since the 1970s and illustrates that the standing doctrine must continue to be a threshold question in First Amendment cases

MBNL1 binds GC motifs embedded in pyrimidines to regulate alternative splicing

Muscleblind-like 1 (MBNL1) regulates alternative splicing and is a key player in the disease mechanism of myotonic dystrophy (DM). In DM, MBNL1 becomes sequestered to expanded CUG/CCUG repeat RNAs resulting in splicing defects, which lead to disease symptoms. In order to understand MBNL1’s role in both the disease mechanism of DM and alternative splicing regulation, we sought to identify its RNA-binding motif. A doped SELEX was performed on a known MBNL1-binding site. After five rounds of SELEX, MBNL1 selected pyrimidine-rich RNAs containing YGCY motifs. Insertion of multiple YGCY motifs into a normally MBNL1-independent splicing reporter was sufficient to promote regulation by MBNL1. MBNL1 was also shown to regulate the splicing of exon 22 in the ATP2A1 pre-mRNA, an exon mis-spliced in DM, via YGCY motifs. A search for YGCY motifs in 24 pre-mRNA transcripts that are mis-spliced in DM1 patients revealed an interesting pattern relative to the regulated exon. The intronic regions upstream of exons that are excluded in normal tissues relative to DM1, are enriched in YGCY motifs. Meanwhile, the intronic regions downstream of exons that are included in normal tissues relative to DM1, are enriched in YGCY motifs

Chiral SU(3) Dynamics with Coupled Channels: Inclusion of P-Wave Multipoles

We extend our recent non-perturbative chiral SU(3) coupled channel approach to pion- and photon-induced $\eta$- and $K$-meson production off protons by including all strong and electromagnetic p-wave multipoles. We identify the p-wave amplitudes of the next-to-leading order SU(3) chiral meson-baryon Lagrangian with a coupled channel potential which is iterated to infinite orders in a separable Lippmann-Schwinger equation. Our approach to $\eta$- and $K$-photoproduction introduces no additional free parameters. By adjusting a few finite range parameters and the unknown parameters in the Lagrangian, we are able to simultaneously describe a very large amount of low-energy data. These include the total and differential cross sections of the $\pi$-induced reactions $\pi^- p \to \eta n, K^0 \Lambda, K^0 \Sigma^0, K^+ \Sigma^-$ and $\pi^+ p \to K^+ \Sigma^+$ as well as those of photoproduction $\gamma p \to \eta p, K^+\Lambda, K^+ \Sigma^0, K^0 \Sigma^+$. The polarization observables measured in $\eta$- and $K$-photoproduction are particularly sensitive to interference terms between the s- and p-wave multipoles. The total cross section data are remarkably well reproduced in all channels. There remain, however, some open questions concerning details of angular distributions and polarization observables.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys.

K0-Sigma+ Photoproduction with SAPHIR

Preliminary results of the analysis of the reaction p(gamma,K0)Sigma+ are presented. We show the first measurement of the differential cross section and much improved data for the total cross section than previous data. The data are compared with model predictions from different isobar and quark models that give a good description of p(gamma,K+)Lambda and p(gamma,K+)Sigma0 data in the same energy range. Results of ChPT describe the data adequately at threshold while isobar models that include hadronic form factors reproduce the data at intermediate energies.Comment: 4 pages, Latex2e, 4 postscript figures. Talk given at the International Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics (HYP97), Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, October 13-18, 1997. To be published in Nucl. Phys. A. Revised version due to changes in experimental dat

Evidence for the positive-strangeness pentaquark Θ+\Theta^+ in photoproduction with the SAPHIR detector at ELSA

The positive--strangeness baryon resonance $\Theta^+$ is observed in photoproduction of the $\rm nK^+K^0_s$ final state with the SAPHIR detector at the Bonn ELectron Stretcher Accelerator ELSA. It is seen as a peak in the $\rm nK^+$ invariant mass distribution with a $4.8\sigma$ confidence level. We find a mass $\rm M_{\Theta^+} = 1540\pm 4\pm 2$ MeV and an upper limit of the width $\rm \Gamma_{\Theta^+} < 25$ MeV at 90% c.l. From the absence of a signal in the $\rm pK^+$ invariant mass distribution in $\rm\gamma p\to pK^+K^-$ at the expected strength we conclude that the $\Theta^+$ must be isoscalar.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Multijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA and determination of α_{s}

Multijet production rates in neutral current deep inelastic scattering have been measured in the range of exchanged boson virtualities 10 5 GeV and –1 < η_{LAB}^{jet} < 2.5. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations describe the data well. The value of the strong coupling constant α_{s} (M_{z}), determined from the ratio of the trijet to dijet cross sections, is α_{s} (M_{z}) = 0.1179 ± 0.0013 (stat.)_{-0.0046}^{+0.0028}(exp.)_{-0.0046}^{+0.0028}(th.)

Jet production in charged current deep inelastic e⁺p scatteringat HERA

The production rates and substructure of jets have been studied in charged current deep inelastic e⁺p scattering for Q² > 200 GeV² with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 110.5 pb⁻¹. Inclusive jet cross sections are presented for jets with transverse energies E_{T}^{jet} > 5 GeV. Measurements of the mean subjet multiplicity, 〈n_{sbj}〉, of the inclusive jet sample are presented. Predictions based on parton-shower Monte Carlo models and next-to-leading-order QCD calculations are compared to the measurements. The value of α_{s} (M_{z}), determined from 〈n_{sbj}〉 at y_{cut} = 10⁻² for jets with 25 < E_{T}^{jet} < 119 GeV, is α_{s} (M_{z}) = 0.1202 ± 0.0052 (stat.)_{-0.0019}^{+0.0060} (syst.)_{-0.0053}^{+0.0065} (th.). The mean subjet multiplicity as a function of Q² is found to be consistent with that measured in NC DIS

Optimized reconstitution of membrane proteins into synthetic membranes

Light-driven proton pumps, such as proteorhodopsin, have been proposed as an energy source in the field of synthetic biology. Energy is required to power biochemical reactions within artificially created reaction compartments like proto-or nanocells, which are typically based on either lipid or polymer membranes. The insertion of membrane proteins into these membranes is delicate and quantitative studies comparing these two systems are needed. Here we present a detailed analysis of the formation of proteoliposomes and proteopolymersomes and the requirements for a successful reconstitution of the membrane protein proteorhodopsin. To this end, we apply design of experiments to provide a mathematical framework for the reconstitution process. Mathematical optimization identifies suitable reconstitution conditions for lipid and polymer membranes and the obtained data fits well to the predictions. Altogether, our approach provides experimental and modeling evidence for different reconstitution mechanisms depending on the membrane type which resulted in a surprisingly similar performance