Crossed Signals in a Wireless World: The Seventh Circuit’s Misapplication of the Complete Preemption Doctrine

As the number of wireless telephone users continues to proliferate, so does the number of lawsuits against wireless service providers. While consumers seek to utilize various consumer-friendly state law causes of action, the wireless industry continues to push for a uniform federal regulatory regime. Ambiguous language in the Federal Communications Act of 1934 ( FCA ) and disagreement among the federal circuits has led to much confusion over whether state law claims affecting wireless rates and market entry are removable to federal court by way of complete preemption. This iBrief argues that FCA\u27s preemption power is limited by its savings clause, failure to establish a comprehensive regulatory scheme, and provision of a significant role for state regulation. Accordingly, the Seventh Circuit erred in Bastien v. AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. when it concluded that the FCA completely preempts certain state law claims against wireless service providers and thereby requires their removal to federal court

When the Public Does Not Have a Right to Know: How the California Public Records Act Is Deterring Bioscience Research and Development

Many bioscience firms collaborate with public research universities to conduct innovative research through sponsored research agreements. Companies sponsoring this research usually require strict confidentiality from their academic partners in order to protect sensitive information that, if revealed, could put them at a competitive disadvantage and threaten their ability to obtain future patents. Yet, ambiguous disclosure requirements in the California Public Records Act preclude California\u27s public research universities from guaranteeing that proprietary information provided in connection with sponsored research agreements will remain confidential. Entering into such agreements with public universities in California is therefore a risky proposition for the sponsors. This iBrief argues that unless this is corrected, many of these public/private partnerships, which often lead to significant advances in science and medicine, may be deterred

Assessing Consistency and Fairness in Sentencing: A Comparative Study in Three States

Summarizes a study of sentencing guidelines in Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia comparing levels of predictability and judicial discretion under different guideline systems, effectiveness in limiting discriminatory disparities, and lessons learned

Technological Inequality in Education

This paper investigates the technological divide: that gulf that develops between rich and poor school-age children, and how they gain access to and utilize either effectively or not the wealth of information technology promises to provide. Inequality of educational opportunity has existed since the very first schools in the United States, when men like Horace Mann tried to level the information playing field with the common school and common library

Multigraded Cayley-Chow forms

We introduce a theory of multigraded Cayley-Chow forms associated to subvarieties of products of projective spaces. Two new phenomena arise: first, the construction turns out to require certain inequalities on the dimensions of projections; and second, in positive characteristic the multigraded Cayley-Chow forms can have higher multiplicities. The theory also provides a natural framework for understanding multifocal tensors in computer vision.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur

Making Continuous Improvement a Reality: Achieving High Performance in the Ottawa County, Michigan, Circuit and Probate Courts

Today, a well-functioning court is expected to resolve large volumes of work in a fair and orderly way within demanding time frames. The overall goal is quality administration in all phases of court operations, yet achieving this goal in practice means navigating the shoals of tight budgets, workplace politics, and the heavy press of daily business. Courts are under enormous stress these days, and as a result it should come as no surprise that too many courts are infected with pessimistic court leadership. Winston Churchill is often reported to have said, “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”1 A high-performance court makes the effort to reject pessimism as it looks to improve its administrative practices, even in tough times. To seize the opportunity for continuous improvement and rally support throughout the court, though, takes coordinated planning and follow-through. The bottom line is that court leaders need to work together at organizational change. In two recent articles in Court Review, we emphasized the necessity of judicial involvement and commitment if administrative improvement is to take hold and thrive. One point was that developing shared, court-wide agreement among judges on how court personnel should work together requires accepting two primary responsibilities: the role each judge has in making decisions and the administrative role judges have in making the system work. Judges benefit from orderly and stable court administration because it helps enhance preparation of all parties, augments the understanding of outstanding issues, and clarifies future procedural events necessary to bring final resolution. However, in any courthouse, making effective administrative practices a reality is a team effort; it requires conscious effort to organize work processes in a way that clarifies and engages the joint contributions of judges and court staff.

The detection of acute risk of self-injury project:Protocol for an ecological momentary assessment study among individuals seeking treatment

Background:Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a major mental health concern. Despite increased research efforts on establishing the prevalence and correlates of the presence and severity of NSSI, we still lack basic knowledge of the course, predictors, and relationship of NSSI with other self-damaging behaviors in daily life. Such information will be helpful for better informing mental health professionals and allocating treatment resources. The DAILY (Detection of Acute rIsk of seLf-injurY) project will address these gaps among individuals seeking treatment.Objective: This protocol paper presents the DAILY project's aims, design, and materials used. The primary objectives are to advance understanding of (1) the short-term course and contexts of elevated risk for NSSI thoughts, urges, and behavior; (2) the transition from NSSI thoughts and urges to NSSI behavior; and (3) the association of NSSI with disordered eating, substance use, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. A secondary aim is to evaluate the perspectives of individuals seeking treatment and mental health professionals regarding the feasibility, scope, and utility of digital self-monitoring and interventions that target NSSI in daily life.Methods: The DAILY project is funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (Belgium). Data collection involves 3 phases: a baseline assessment (phase 1), 28 days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) followed by a clinical session and feedback survey (phase 2), and 2 follow-up surveys and an optional interview (phase 3). The EMA protocol consists of regular EMA surveys (6 times per day), additional burst EMA surveys spaced at a higher frequency when experiencing intense NSSI urges (3 surveys within 30 minutes), and event registrations of NSSI behavior. The primary outcomes are NSSI thoughts, NSSI urges, self-efficacy to resist NSSI, and NSSI behavior, with disordered eating (restrictive eating, binge eating, and purging), substance use (binge drinking and smoking cannabis), and suicidal thoughts and behaviors surveyed as secondary outcomes. The assessed predictors include emotions, cognitions, contextual information, and social appraisals.Results: We will recruit approximately 120 individuals seeking treatment aged 15 to 39 years from mental health services across the Flanders region of Belgium. Recruitment began in June 2021 and data collection is anticipated to conclude in August 2023.Conclusions: The findings of the DAILY project will provide a detailed characterization of the short-term course and patterns of risk for NSSI and advance understanding of how, why, and when NSSI and other self-damaging behaviors unfold among individuals seeking treatment. This will inform clinical practice and provide the scientific building blocks for novel intervention approaches outside of the therapy room that support people who self-injure in real time

Understanding Suicide Risk Within the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Framework: Insights, Challenges, and Future Research Considerations

Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide. Prior research has focused primarily on sociodemographic and psychiatric risk factors with little improvement in the prediction or prevention of suicidal behavior over time. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) may be an especially useful framework for advancing research in this area. This paper provides a brief and broad overview of research on suicidal behavior relating to each of the RDoC domains—highlighting the RDoC construct(s) where research has focused, construct(s) where research is lacking, and suggestions for future research directions. We also discuss major challenges for suicide research within the RDoC framework, including the intersection of RDoC domains, interaction of domains with the environment, incorporation of developmental stage, integration of distal and proximal processes, and inclusion of suicide-specific constructs. We conclude by underscoring important considerations for future research aimed at using the RDoC framework to study suicidal behavior and other forms of psychopathology.Psycholog

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of Ad5FGF-4 gene therapy and its effect on myocardial perfusion in patients with stable angina

AbstractObjectivesThe primary objective of this study was to determine whether intracoronary administration of the adenoviral gene for fibroblast growth factor (Ad5FGF-4) can improve myocardial perfusion compared with placebo.BackgroundAnimal studies and observational clinical studies have shown improvement in perfusion of the ischemic myocardium using genes encoding angiogenic growth factors; however, randomized, double-blind data in humans are lacking.MethodsWe performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of intracoronary injection of 1010adenoviral particles containing a gene encoding fibroblast growth factor (Ad5FGF-4) to determine the effect on myocardial perfusion. Fifty-two patients with stable angina and reversible ischemia comprising >9% of the left ventricle on adenosine single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging were randomized to gene therapy (n = 35) or placebo (n = 17). Clinical follow-up was performed, and 51 (98%) patients underwent a second adenosine SPECT scan after 8 weeks.ResultsOverall (n = 52), the mean total perfusion defect size at baseline was 32.4% of the left ventricle, with 20% reversible ischemia and 12.5% scar. At eight weeks, Ad5FGF-4 injection resulted in a significant reduction of ischemic defect size (4.2% absolute, 21% relative; p < 0.001) and placebo-treated patients had no improvement (p = 0.32). Although the change in reversible perfusion defect size between Ad5FGF-4 and placebo was not significant (4.2% vs. 1.6%, p = 0.14), when a single outlier was excluded a significant difference was observed (4.2% vs. 0.8%, p < 0.05). Ad5FGF-4 was well tolerated and did not result in any permanent adverse sequelae.ConclusionsIntracoronary injection of Ad5FGF-4 showed an encouraging trend for improved myocardial perfusion; however, further studies of therapeutic angiogenesis with Ad5FGF-4 will be necessary

A comparison of affective-cognitive states in daily life between emerging adults with and without past-year non-suicidal self-injury

Although the literature suggests trait-like differences in affective and cognitive vulnerabilities between individuals with and without a history of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), little is known about how these dispositional differences are experienced in the natural environment. The present study compares the intensity, inertia, interaction, and variability of affective (negative and positive affect) and cognitive states (rumination, self-criticism) in the everyday lives of individuals who do and do not engage in NSSI. Using experience sampling methodology (ESM), 60 emerging adults (ages=18-22 years) with and without past-year NSSI (equally distributed) completed eight questionnaires per day for 12 days (in total, 96 questionnaires per participant), resulting in 4,587 assessments (median compliance=83.3%; IQR=71.9-91.7). In a dynamic structural equation modeling framework, dynamic parameters (i.e., mean intensity, carryover effects, spillover effects, and within-person variability) were evaluated using multilevel vector autoregressive models. Emerging adults who engage in NSSI experience higher intensity and greater variability of negative affect, rumination, and self-criticism, whereas lower intensity and greater variability of positive affect. In addition, past-year NSSI predicted stronger affective-cognitive interactions over time, with stronger spillover effects of negative and positive affect on subsequent rumination and self-criticism in individuals who engage in NSSI. Depressive symptoms and trait levels of emotion dysregulation and self-criticism partially negated these differences. Our findings provide evidence that emerging adults who self-injure experience more negative affective-cognitive states in daily life and point to the potential relevance of boosting positive emotions to buffer negative cognitions