Get Your FACTAs Straight: The Application of FACTA\u27s Truncation Provision to Online Transactions

(Excerpt) This Note argues that FACTA\u27s truncation provision should apply to online transactions and e-mail receipts as currently written, but recognizes the necessity of limiting the potentially devastating liability that online merchants would face for a technical violation of the provision in a class action lawsuit. Part I of this Note explores FACTA\u27s statutory landscape, paying particular attention to the truncation and statutory damages provisions. Part II analyzes the conflicting viewpoints that have arisen through attempts to apply FACTA\u27s truncation provision to online transactions. Finally, Part III argues that an interpretation of the truncation provision that does not make it applicable to online transaction is an improper interpretation of the provision given FACTA\u27s legislative purpose, its statutory language, and overall public policy concerns. However, in light of the probability that online merchants would be subject to debilitating liability for technical violations of the provision in a class action situation, this Part also proposes that Congress amend the statutory relief provision so as to limit potential class action liability

Civility, Epistemic Injustice, and Criticality: Toward a Praxis of Affective Democratic Friction

Socially-privileged students’ discomfort in the social justice classroom as injustice is dramatically increasing in public discourse, especially as the Anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement thrives. It is in the current climate of Anti-CRT that social justice educators must be vigilant of how classrooms could reproduce the very injustices they seek to problematize. Coupled alongside social justice educators’ fears of job security and violence—physical, emotional, and epistemic—calls for civility that function to mute discomfort about systemic injustices could easily creep into classrooms. I claim civility can function speciously—when appeals to civility falsely claim, even if well-intentioned, to create just, open dialogue. Specious civility acts to conceal reiterations of socially-unjust power relations and, in turn, reify epistemologies of whiteness under the guise of “safe” or “comforting” spaces. I assert that such functions of civility conceal/maintain white students’ resistance to engage with counter testimony, especially testimony that might reveal their complicity in systemic oppressions. Social justice educators, then, must be hyper-cognizant of possible epistemic injustices perpetrated toward socially-marginalized students/testifiers. Building on the work of Miranda Fricker and José Medina, I propose that our evaluations of testimony may be better served by practices of criticality that acknowledge the social, communal aspects of inquiry/critique/reflection. I, then, develop and illustrate a praxis of affective democratic friction, expanding on AnaLouise Keating’s “pedagogies of invitation,” Medina’s “epistemic friction and activism,” and Gloria Anzaldúa’s “spiritual activism,” to propose teaching practices that could incite students to recognize their discomfort, postpone assessment/judgments of testimony, and create opportunities for recognizing the affective happenings causing distress and, in turn, cultivate a relational criticality

Evolution of crystalline electric field effects, superconductivity, and heavy fermion behavior in the specific heat of Pr(Os1−x_{1-x}Rux_x)4_4Sb12_{12}

Specific heat $C(T)$ measurements were made on single crystals of the superconducting filled skutterudite series Pr(Os$_{1-x}$Ru$_x$)$_4$Sb$_{12}$ down to 0.6 K. Crystalline electric field fits in the normal state produced parameters which were in agreement with previous measurements. Bulk superconductivity was observed for all values of the Ru concentration $x$ with transition temperatures consistent with previous experiments, confirming a minimum in $T_{c}$ at $x=0.6$. The $C(T)$ data below $T_{c}$ appear to be more consistent with power law behavior for $x=0$ (PrOs$_4$Sb$_{12}$), and with exponential behavior for $0.05 \leq x \leq 0.2$. An enhanced electronic specific heat coefficient $\gamma$ was observed for $x \leq 0.4$, further supporting $x \simeq 0.6$ as a critical concentration where the physical properties abruptly change. Significant enhancement of $\Delta C/T_{c}$ above the weak coupling value was only observed for $x=0$ and $x=0.05$.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Review B. v2: text added and figures modifie

CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis invalidates a putative cancer dependency targeted in on-going clinical trials

The Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (MELK) has been reported to be a genetic dependency in several cancer types. MELK RNAi and small-molecule inhibitors of MELK block the proliferation of various cancer cell lines, and MELK knockdown has been described as particularly effective against the highly-aggressive basal/triple-negative subtype of breast cancer. Based on these preclinical results, the MELK inhibitor OTS167 is currently being tested as a novel chemotherapy agent in several clinical trials. Here, we report that mutagenizing MELK with CRISPR/Cas9 has no effect on the fitness of basal breast cancer cell lines or cell lines from six other cancer types. Cells that harbor null mutations in MELK exhibit wild-type doubling times, cytokinesis, and anchorage-independent growth. Furthermore, MELK-knockout lines remain sensitive to OTS167, suggesting that this drug blocks cell division through an off-target mechanism. In total, our results undermine the rationale for a series of current clinical trials and provide an experimental approach for the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in preclinical target validation that can be broadly applied

Vortex avalanches in the non-centrosymmetric superconductor Li2Pt3B

We investigated the vortex dynamics in the non-centrosymmetric superconductor Li_2Pt_3B in the temperature range 0.1 K - 2.8 K. Two different logarithmic creep regimes in the decay of the remanent magnetization from the Bean critical state have been observed. In the first regime, the creep rate is extraordinarily small, indicating the existence of a new, very effective pinning mechanism. At a certain time a vortex avalanche occurs that increases the logarithmic creep rate by a factor of about 5 to 10 depending on the temperature. This may indicate that certain barriers against flux motion are present and they can be opened under increased pressure exerted by the vortices. A possible mechanism based on the barrier effect of twin boundaries is briefly discussed