Mandatory Reassignment As a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Americans With Disabilities Act Turns “Nondiscrimination into Discrimination”

This note directly addresses one of the most pertinent and core civil rights issues—employment rights of individuals with disabilities—and proposes a unique contribution to current scholarship. The problem lies in the interpretation of the Americans With Disabilities Act’s provision that suggests that reassignment “may” be a reasonable accommodation, which is defined as any accommodation required for an employee with a disability to equalize success and opportunity in the workplace. The word “may” in the provision creates confusion over whether reassignment is always reasonable. Hence, circuit courts are divided on the issue of whether mandatory reassignment is always a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. Some circuit courts endorse the “best-qualified applicant” approach that proposes that disabled employees are required to compete in the application process and should not be given priority over more qualified applicants due to their disability status. However, other circuit courts and the EEOC endorse the proposition that reassignment is always mandatory, regardless of the disabled employee being the most qualified. Consequently, the split is widening, and employers are left with little guidance on how to comply with the ADA regarding employee reassignment. This note argues that the best way to appease all circuit courts and the EEOC’s guidance is through a two-prong test addressing: (1) the qualification of the applicant; and (2) a cost-benefit analysis that will outline some of the factors that the Supreme Court should consider. The Court should use this two-prong test because it will bind all the circuit courts to one interpretation and illuminate the compliance issues for employers while taking into consideration the rights owed to employees with disabilities under the ADA. Additionally, the two-prong test will preserve the goals of businesses while simultaneously safeguarding individuals with disabilities. In order for employers to comply with the ADA, there must be a unifying standard to interpret ambiguous components of the statute, specifically, whether reassignment as a reasonable accommodation is always mandatory or not

A Redneck Head on a Nazi Body:Subversive Ludo-Narrative Strategies in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

This article argues that Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, a AAA First-Person Shooter, is not only politically themed, but presents in itself a critical engagement with the politics of its genre and its player base. Developed at the height of #Gamergate, the game is interpreted as a response to reactionary discourses about gender and ability in both mainstream games and the hardcore gamer community. The New Colossus replaces affirmation of masculine empowerment with intersectional ambiguities, foregrounding discourses of feminism and disability. To provoke its players without completely alienating them, the game employs strategies of carnivalesque aesthetics—especially ambivalence and grotesque excess. Analyzing the game in the light of Bakhtinian theory shows how The New Colossus reappropriates genre conventions pertaining to able-bodiedness and masculinity and how it “resolves„ these issue by grafting the player character’s head on a vat-grown Nazi supersoldier-body. The breaches of genre conventions on the narrative level are supported by intentionally awkward and punishing mechanics, resulting in a ludo-narrative aesthetic of defamiliarization commensurate to a grotesque story about subversion and revolt. Echoing the ritualistic cycle of death and rebirth at the heart of carnivalesque aesthetics, The New Colossus is nothing short of an ideological re-invention of the genre

Mill Seat Landfill Bioreactor Renewable Green Power (NY)

The project was implemented at the Mill Seat landfill located in the Town of Bergen, Monroe County, New York. The landfill was previously equipped with a landfill gas collection system to collect methane gas produced by the bioreactor landfill and transport it to a central location for end use. A landfill gas to energy facility was also previously constructed at the site, which utilized generator engines, designed to be powered with landfill methane gas, to produce electricity, to be utilized on site and to be sold to the utility grid. The landfill gas generation rate at the site had exceeded the capacity of the existing generators, and the excess landfill gas was therefore being burned at a candlestick flare for destruction. The funded project consisted of the procurement and installation of two (2) additional 800 KW Caterpillar 3516 generator engines, generator sets, switchgear and ancillary equipment

BEAMing and Droplet Digital PCR Analysis of Mutant IDH1 mRNA in Glioma Patient Serum and Cerebrospinal Fluid Extracellular Vesicles

Development of biofluid-based molecular diagnostic tests for cancer is an important step towards tumor characterization and real-time monitoring in a minimally invasive fashion. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are released from tumor cells into body fluids and can provide a powerful platform for tumor biomarkers because they carry tumor proteins and nucleic acids. Detecting rare point mutations in the background of wild-type sequences in biofluids such as blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) remains a major challenge. Techniques such as BEAMing (beads, emulsion, amplification, magnetics) PCR and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) are substantially more sensitive than many other assays for mutant sequence detection. Here, we describe a novel approach that combines biofluid EV RNA and BEAMing RT-PCR (EV-BEAMing), as well droplet digital PCR to interrogate mutations from glioma tumors. EVs from CSF of patients with glioma were shown to contain mutant IDH1 transcripts, and we were able to reliably detect and quantify mutant and wild-type IDH1 RNA transcripts in CSF of patients with gliomas. EV-BEAMing and EV-ddPCR represent a valuable new strategy for cancer diagnostics, which can be applied to a variety of biofluids and neoplasms

Pharmacologic Targeting of Bacterial -Glucuronidase Alleviates Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug-Induced Enteropathy in Mice

Small intestinal mucosal injury is a frequent adverse effect caused by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). The underlying mechanisms are not completely understood, but topical (luminal) effects have been implicated. Many carboxylic acid-containing NSAIDs, including diclofenac (DCF), are metabolized to acyl glucuronides (AGs), and/or ether glucuronides after ring hydroxylation, and exported into the biliary tree. In the gut, these conjugates are cleaved by bacterial β-glucuronidase, releasing the potentially harmful aglycone. We first confirmed that DCF-AG was an excellent substrate for purified Escherichia coli β-d-glucuronidase. Using a previously characterized novel bacteria-specific β-glucuronidase inhibitor (Inhibitor-1), we then found that the enzymatic hydrolysis of DCF-AG in vitro was inhibited concentration dependently (IC50 ∼164 nM). We next hypothesized that pharmacologic inhibition of bacterial β-glucuronidase would reduce exposure of enterocytes to the aglycone and, as a result, alleviate enteropathy. C57BL/6J mice were administered an ulcerogenic dose of DCF (60 mg/kg i.p.) with or without oral pretreatment with Inhibitor-1 (10 μg per mouse, b.i.d.). Whereas DCF alone caused the formation of numerous large ulcers in the distal parts of the small intestine and increased (2-fold) the intestinal permeability to fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran, Inhibitor-1 cotreatment significantly alleviated mucosal injury and reduced all parameters of enteropathy. Pharmacokinetic profiling of DCF plasma levels in mice revealed that Inhibitor-1 coadministration did not significantly alter the Cmax, half-life, or area under the plasma concentration versus time curve of DCF. Thus, highly selective pharmacologic targeting of luminal bacterial β-d-glucuronidase by a novel class of small-molecule inhibitors protects against DCF-induced enteropathy without altering systemic drug exposure

Arqueología cultural de los videojuegos. Entre discursos nostálgicos, experiencia del gamer e innovación tecnológica

In this paper, it is presented a videogames history as an innovation beyond a form of entertainment, offering reasons why it is important to know and investigate its history in relation to their social and cultural contexts. Marking the importance that users have when creating video games through their experience, questioning masculinity constructed in the first era of videogames and no or less participation of the female gender in the early decades. The social and cultural context in which those games were born is basic to understanding the spread and gained popularity in the ‘80s and especially in the ‘90s. The objective of this study is to identify communication strategies and information about the videogame before the arrival of the Internet and how information was shared in the Spanish context. In the first part we introduce the theoretical and methodological framework in which this research is based through the concept of cultural archeology. In the second part we present stories built by users to analyze the experiences of the game and how to share it, using the concepts of playformance and playworld. To finish questioning the identity of the gamer as a male subject, young white and upper middle class.En este trabajo, se presentara una historia de los videojuegos como una innovación más allá de una forma de entretenimiento, ofreciendo razones acerca de por qué es importante conocer e investigar su historia en relación a sus contextos sociales y culturales. Haciendo énfasis en la importancia que los usuarios tienen a la hora de crear videojuegos a través de su experiencia, cuestionando la masculinidad construida en los primeros videojuegos y la ausencia, o menor participación, del género femenino en las primeras décadas. El contexto social y cultural en que nacieron aquellos videojuegos es básico para entender la difusión y la popularidad que obtuvieron en los años ‘80 y sobre todo, en los ‘90. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar las estrategias de comunicación y de información respecto a los videojuegos antes de la llegada de Internet, en especial la forma y el cómo se compartía esta información en el contexto español. En la primera parte introducimos el marco teórico y metodológico en que se basa esta investigación a través del concepto de arqueología cultural. En la segunda parte presentamos los relatos construidos por los usuarios para analizar las experiencias del juego y la forma de compartirlo, utilizando los conceptos de playformance y playworld. Para finalizar cuestionando la identidad del gamer como sujeto masculino, blanco y joven de clase media-alta