From The Rolling Stones to Elton John: The Music of History

There are no less than three types of historical thought: Traditional, mainstream, and constructional. For traditional historians, history is the practice of reconstructing the past to build a fuller historical narrative. Mainstream history is the common knowledge that the average person carries. Constructional history is a philosophical view that the past is not a single narrative, but several interconnected ones. A central problematic with such constructs of history is that it places limits on understandings of the past, by compartmentalizing and ordering events, thereby introducing biases that interrupt. One possible way to deconstruct such limitations is decentering narratives of history by making interdisciplinary connections. I argue that viewing traditional history through musical expression offers a way to gain a historical understanding with fewer limits. Unlike other disciplines, the making and appreciation of music is not limited to any one socio-economic or cultural group. Anyone, from slave to president seeks expression through sound and lyric, making the music coming from a particular period a commentary on the events of it. Lyrics, for one, can serve as a unique perspective of the past from the view of the previously unheard. Furthermore, traditional and mainstream history has a music of its own by its tempo, cadence, and vibrato. My project studies one particular period in history\u27s music (1962-1972) in which socio-political turmoil coincides with the birth of rock and roll. It is from here that I suggest a view of the music of history so as to re-assess an academic history without limits

Reforming Institutions: The Judicial Function in Bankruptcy and Public Law Litigation

Public law litigation (PLL) is among the most important and controversial types of dispute that courts face. These civil class actions seek to reform public agencies such as police departments, prison systems, and child welfare agencies that have failed to meet basic statutory or constitutional obligations. They are controversial because critics assume that judicial intervention is categorically undemocratic or beyond judicial expertise. This Article reveals flaws in these criticisms by comparing the judicial function in PLL to that in corporate bankruptcy, where the value and legitimacy of judicial intervention are better understood and more accepted. Our comparison shows that judicial intervention in both spheres responds to coordination problems that make individual stakeholder action ineffective, and it explains how courts in both spheres can require and channel major organizational change without administering the organizations themselves or inefficiently constricting the discretion of managers. The comparison takes on greater urgency in light of the Trump administration’s vow to “deconstruct the administrative state,” a promise which, if kept, will likely increase demand for PLL

Courts As Institutional Reformers: Bankruptcy and Public Law Litigation

This article compares two spheres in which courts induce and oversee the restructuring of organizations that fail systematically to comply with their legal obligations: bankruptcy reorganization and public law litigation (civil rights or regulatory suits seeking structural remedies). The analogies between bankruptcy and public law litigation (PLL) have grown stronger in recent years as structural decrees have evolved away from highly specific directives to “framework” decrees designed to induce engagement with stakeholders and make performance transparent. We use the comparison with bankruptcy, where the value and legitimacy of judicial intervention are better understood and more accepted, to address prominent criticisms of PLL. Our comparison shows that judicial intervention in both spheres responds to coordination problems that make individual stakeholder action ineffective, and it explains how courts in both spheres can require and channel major organizational change without administering the organizations themselves or inefficiently constricting the discretion of managers. The comparison takes on greater urgency in light of the Trump Administration’s vow to “deconstruct the administrative state,” a promise which, if kept, will likely increase demand for PLL

Legal Accountability in the Service-Based Welfare State: Lessons from Child Welfare Reform

Current trends intensify the longstanding problem of how the rule-of-law should be institutionalized in the welfare state. Welfare programs are being re-designed to increase their capacities to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and to tailor their responses to diverse clienteles. These developments challenge the understanding of legal accountability developed in the Warren Court era. This Article reports on an emerging model of accountable administration that strives to reconcile programmatic flexibility with rule-of-law values. The model has been developed in the reform of state child protective services systems, but it has potentially broad application to public law. It also has novel implications for such basic rule-of-law issues as the choice between rules and standards, the relation of bureaucratic and judicial control, the proper scope of judicial intervention into dysfunctional public agencies, and the justiciability of positive (or social and economic) rights

Community Woodstove Changeout and Impact on Ambient Concentrations of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Phenolics

A large woodstove changeout program was carried out in Libby, Montana, with the goal of reducing ambient levels of PM2.5. This provided researchers the opportunity to measure ambient concentrations of phenolic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) before, during, and after the changeout of nearly 1200 stoves to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Starting in the heating season of 2004/2005 and ending in the heating season of 2007/2008, 19 compounds were measured every three days using a high-volume polyurethane foam (PUF) sampler followed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis. Some of the organic species with the highest measured concentrations were also signature chemical markers for wood combustion. When comparing the measurements conducted during the heating season of 2004/2005 (prechangeout) to those of the heating season of 2007/2008 (postchangeout), there was a 64% average reduction in the measured concentrations of phenolics and PAHs, while the PM2.5 mass dropped by only 20% over the same time period. The results of this four year sampling program suggest that the Libby woodstove changeout program was successful in reducing overall concentrations of the measured phenolic and PAH compounds

Residential Indoor PM\u3csub\u3e2.5\u3c/sub\u3e in Wood Stove Homes: Follow-up of the Libby Changeout Program

In 2005 through 2008 a small rural mountain valley community engaged in a wood stove changeout program to address concerns of poor ambient air quality. During this program we assessed changes to indoor air quality before and after the introduction of a new, lower emission wood stove. We previously reported a greater than 70% reduction in indoor PM2.5 concentrations in homes following the installation of a new EPA-certified stove within the home. We report here on follow-up of the experiences in these and other homes over three winters of sample collection. In 21 homes, we compared pre-changeout PM2.5 concentrations (mean (sd) = 45.0 (33.0) μg/m3) to multiple post-changeout measures of PM2.5 concentrations using a DustTrak. The mean reduction (and 95% confidence interval) from pre-changeout to post-changeout was −18.5 μg/m3 (−31.9, −5.2), adjusting for ambient PM2.5, ambient temperature, and other factors. Findings across homes and across years were highly variable, and a subset of homes did not experience a reduction in PM2.5 following changeout. Reductions were also observed for organic carbon, elemental carbon, and levoglucosan, but increases were observed for dehydroabietic acid and abietic acid. Despite overall improvements in indoor air quality, the varied response across homes may be due to factors other than the introduction of a new wood stove

Vitamin D Receptor Activation Mitigates the Impact of Uremia on Endothelial Function in the 5/6 Nephrectomized Rats

Endothelial dysfunction increases cardiovascular disease risk in chronic kidney disease (CKD). This study investigates whether VDR activation affects endothelial function in CKD. The 5/6 nephrectomized (NX) rats with experimental chronic renal insufficiency were treated with or without paricalcitol, a VDR activator. Thoracic aortic rings were precontracted with phenylephrine and then treated with acetylcholine or sodium nitroprusside. Uremia significantly affected aortic relaxation (−50.0 ± 7.4% in NX rats versus −96.2 ± 5.3% in SHAM at 30 μM acetylcholine). The endothelial-dependent relaxation was improved to –58.2 ± 6.0%, –77.5 ± 7.3%, and –90.5 ± 4.0% in NX rats treated with paricalcitol at 0.021, 0.042, and 0.083 μg/kg for two weeks, respectively, while paricalcitol at 0.042 μg/kg did not affect blood pressure and heart rate. Parathyroid hormone (PTH) suppression alone did not improve endothelial function since cinacalcet suppressed PTH without affecting endothelial-dependent vasorelaxation. N-omega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester completely abolished the effect of paricalcitol on improving endothelial function. These results demonstrate that VDR activation improves endothelial function in CKD

Dnmt3a regulates emotional behavior and spine plasticity in the nucleus accumbens.

Despite abundant expression of DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) in brain, the regulation and behavioral role of DNA methylation remain poorly understood. We found that Dnmt3a expression was regulated in mouse nucleus accumbens (NAc) by chronic cocaine use and chronic social defeat stress. Moreover, NAc-specific manipulations that block DNA methylation potentiated cocaine reward and exerted antidepressant-like effects, whereas NAc-specific Dnmt3a overexpression attenuated cocaine reward and was pro-depressant. On a cellular level, we found that chronic cocaine use selectively increased thin dendritic spines on NAc neurons and that DNA methylation was both necessary and sufficient to mediate these effects. These data establish the importance of Dnmt3a in the NAc in regulating cellular and behavioral plasticity to emotional stimuli