The Federal Preemption Question - A Federal Question - An Analysis of Federal Jurisdiction over Supremacy Clause Issues

This Article focuses on the issue of simplicity and predictability in analyzing federal question jurisdiction and recommends making federal court jurisdiction, in the area of federal preemption, consistent with logic. Federal question jurisdiction should be based on the source of the controlling substantive law. This approach is more logical, and therefore easier to understand. It is also more certain and therefore more predictable since it bases jurisdiction on the more realistic standard of governing law, rather than on speculation as to which party is the aggressor. This Article is not a recommendation to expand federal court jurisdiction; it is a recommendation that federal question jurisdiction, at least in the area of federal preemption, function as a procedural doctrine. It is hoped that the result would be a reduction in procedural litigation. Although the Supreme Court has recently addressed this issue in Franchise Tax Board v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, it has not resolved the difficulties involved in its pleading analysis. The Franchise Tax Board decision looked at the jurisdictional issue in the context of a state declaratory judgment action that had been removed to federal court. A critical analysis of the decision will be made after exploring the development of the existing doctrine

RCRA Citizen Suits and State Courts: Jurisdictional Trap after Davis v. Sun Oil Company

This article discusses the problems of splitting a cause of action between state and federal courts when both a RCRA citizen suit and common law claims could be made. The author addresses this issue through analyzing the history of Davis v. Sun Oil Company. The issue of whether or not there was concurrent federal and state court jurisdiction over RCRA citizen suits was never decided before Davis v. Sun Oil Company. The Sixth Circuit held that RCRA did not grant exclusive federal court jurisdiction. Davis lost the benefit of the federal statute and now any property owner seeking relief for environmental contamination on the property must be alert to the prohibition against splitting the cause of action. The Davis case leads to the conclusion that a landowner can no longer wait to bring a RCRA action in federal court in case the state court action fails to rectify the contamination problem

The Federal Preemption Question - A Federal Question - An Analysis of Federal Jurisdiction over Supremacy Clause Issues

This Article focuses on the issue of simplicity and predictability in analyzing federal question jurisdiction and recommends making federal court jurisdiction, in the area of federal preemption, consistent with logic. Federal question jurisdiction should be based on the source of the controlling substantive law. This approach is more logical, and therefore easier to understand. It is also more certain and therefore more predictable since it bases jurisdiction on the more realistic standard of governing law, rather than on speculation as to which party is the aggressor. This Article is not a recommendation to expand federal court jurisdiction; it is a recommendation that federal question jurisdiction, at least in the area of federal preemption, function as a procedural doctrine. It is hoped that the result would be a reduction in procedural litigation. Although the Supreme Court has recently addressed this issue in Franchise Tax Board v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, it has not resolved the difficulties involved in its pleading analysis. The Franchise Tax Board decision looked at the jurisdictional issue in the context of a state declaratory judgment action that had been removed to federal court. A critical analysis of the decision will be made after exploring the development of the existing doctrine

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

Differential patterns of activity and functional connectivity in emotion processing neural circuitry to angry and happy faces in adolescents with and without suicide attempt

Background - Neural substrates of emotion dysregulation in adolescent suicide attempters remain unexamined. Method - We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural activity to neutral, mild or intense (i.e. 0%, 50% or 100% intensity) emotion face morphs in two separate emotion-processing runs (angry and happy) in three adolescent groups: (1) history of suicide attempt and depression (ATT, n = 14); (2) history of depression alone (NAT, n = 15); and (3) healthy controls (HC, n = 15). Post-hoc analyses were conducted on interactions from 3 group × 3 condition (intensities) whole-brain analyses (p < 0.05, corrected) for each emotion run. Results - To 50% intensity angry faces, ATT showed significantly greater activity than NAT in anterior cingulate gyral–dorsolateral prefrontal cortical attentional control circuitry, primary sensory and temporal cortices; and significantly greater activity than HC in the primary sensory cortex, while NAT had significantly lower activity than HC in the anterior cingulate gyrus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. To neutral faces during the angry emotion-processing run, ATT had significantly lower activity than NAT in the fusiform gyrus. ATT also showed significantly lower activity than HC to 100% intensity happy faces in the primary sensory cortex, and to neutral faces in the happy run in the anterior cingulate and left medial frontal gyri (all p < 0.006,corrected). Psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed significantly reduced anterior cingulate gyral–insula functional connectivity to 50% intensity angry faces in ATT v. NAT or HC. Conclusions - Elevated activity in attention control circuitry, and reduced anterior cingulate gyral–insula functional connectivity, to 50% intensity angry faces in ATT than other groups suggest that ATT may show inefficient recruitment of attentional control neural circuitry when regulating attention to mild intensity angry faces, which may represent a potential biological marker for suicide risk