News-Source Privilege in Libel Cases: A Critical Analysis

This comment first examines the recent cases in which a libel plaintiff was impeded by the use of a qualified privilege from obtaining the identity of news sources behind an allegedly defamatory story. It next discusses the historical development of the constitutional news-source privilege and concludes that neither traditional first amendment press clause doctrine nor the United States Supreme Court\u27s decision in Branzburg v. Hayes is authority for such a privilege. This comment then points out that courts which nonetheless recognize a constitutional news-source privilege in civil cases have given the same protection to all sources, regardless of the publication\u27s news-gathering value, at the expense of libel plaintiffs. These courts, in reaching their decisions, also have rarely considered the need or expectation of the source for confidentiality. This comment endorses source protection as necessary under certain circumstances. It proposes, however, that such protection be based on Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or its equivalent in a given jurisdiction. Rule 26(c), a discovery rule, gives a court discretion to protect parties and other persons from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. The use of a court\u27s discretionary power will, unlike the use of the qualified constitutional privilege, give the court more flexibility in determining when the need of libel plaintiffs to know the source of reports damaging to their reputations outweighs the need to protect the confidentiality of news sources

THE TAXONOMIC STATUS OF THE WYOMING TOAD, BUFO BAXTERI PORTER

The population of toads in southeastern Wyoming named Bufo hemiophrys baxteri by Porter in 1968 is presumed to be extinct in nature, except perhaps for released, captive-bred specimens. It is sufficiently distinct in several respects, and sufficiently isolated geographically from its nearest rela- tive, B. h. hemiophrys, that it should be regarded as a distinct species, forming a superspecies group with B. hemiophrys

Orbitofrontal epilepsy: Electroclinical analysis of surgical cases and literature review

Clinical and electrographic data were reviewed on 2 of our patients with orbitofrontal epilepsy who were seizure free at 5-year follow-up, and on 2 similar patients from the literature. One of our patients was lesional, and the other was nonlesional. Interictal EEG discharges were lateralized to the side of invasively recorded orbitofrontal seizures in the nonlesional case. In this case, no clinical manifestations occurred until the orbitofrontal discharge had spread to the opposite orbitofrontal and both mesial temporal areas. Unresponsiveness or arrest of activity were the initial manifestations of complex partial seizures in both cases. The 2 cases from the literature with long-term seizure-free follow-up had little impairment of awareness and displayed vigorous motor automatisms. Interictal epileptiform activity was bifrontally synchronous in 1 case. Ipsilateral frontotemporal discharges were seen in both. Invasive ictal epileptiform activity appeared maximal in the ipsilateral orbitofrontal region in both patients. No consistent electrographic or clinical pattern characterized these 4 cases. Seizures of orbitofrontal origin may be characterized by either unresponsiveness associated with oroalimentary automatisms or limited alteration of awareness and associated with vigorous motor automatisms. Invasive monitoring of the orbitofrontal cortex should be considered in nonlesional cases with complex partial seizures that show nonlocalizing ictal patterns and interictal frontal or frontotemporal epileptiform discharges. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Computation of aircraft component flow fields at transonic Mach numbers using a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes algorithm

A computer analysis was developed for calculating steady (or unsteady) three-dimensional aircraft component flow fields. This algorithm, called ENS3D, can compute the flow field for the following configurations: diffuser duct/thrust nozzle, isolated wing, isolated fuselage, wing/fuselage with or without integrated inlet and exhaust, nacelle/inlet, nacelle (fuselage) afterbody/exhaust jet, complete transport engine installation, and multicomponent configurations using zonal grid generation technique. Solutions can be obtained for subsonic, transonic, or hypersonic freestream speeds. The algorithm can solve either the Euler equations for inviscid flow, the thin shear layer Navier-Stokes equations for viscous flow, or the full Navier-Stokes equations for viscous flow. The flow field solution is determined on a body-fitted computational grid. A fully-implicit alternating direction implicit method is employed for the solution of the finite difference equations. For viscous computations, either a two layer eddy-viscosity turbulence model or the k-epsilon two equation transport model can be used to achieve mathematical closure

Beef Reproductive Technology Adoption- Impact of Production Risk and Capitals

Agriculture, Beef, Artificial insemination, Estrus synchronization, Social capital, Production risk, Technology adoption, Farm Management,

Cow-Calf Producer Interest in Retained Ownership

The beef industry’s share of domestic meat demand continues to decline, as increasing vertical coordination in pork and poultry contribute to these industries’ ability to offer convenient, consistent, and less expensive products. For such vertical coordination to be effective, incentives must be properly aligned so that those responsible for making the most important investments for system profitability are appropriately compensated. This study demonstrates that cow-calf producers who invest in quality registered cattle and those who are interested in incorporating feedlot and carcass data into herd management decisions are also more interested in retained ownership.beef cattle, property rights theory, retained ownership, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Q13,

A multiscale biophysical platform for charting design-specific interactions of nanoparticles with model cellular membranes

In this thesis, we outline the development of a multiscale physics-based platform for exploring and ultimately predicting the design-specific interaction of ~1-10 nm particles with model cellular membranes. Nanoparticles (NP) are ever-present in foods and beverages, cosmetics, packaging, cooking products, fertilizers, pesticides, and novel pharmaceuticals, and pose significant challenges related to their increased consumer, occupational, and environmental exposure and their unique bioactivity relative to small molecules and large colloids. Thanks to rapidly advancing fabrication and characterization techniques, NPs are highly tunable in physicochemical properties such as size, surface chemistry, shape, elasticity, roughness, and crystallinity. Currently, however, the influence of these NP design parameters is highly underdeveloped, and difficult to reproducibly demonstrate in in vivo, in vitro, and even model experiments. Specifically, NP interactions with and passive transport across cellular membranes play a significant role in pharmacological and consumer product performance (biodistribution) as well as adverse outcome pathways in toxicology. We thus focus on the fundamental problem of design-specific interactions between NPs and cellular membranes, modeled to a first approximation as lipid bilayers.To provide accurate, efficient, and robust predictions for a range of NP designs, we construct a first-of-its kind, multiscale physics-based platform linking detailed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, continuum mechanical theory, and multi-compartment modeling. Using this platform, we examine the two most influential design parameters--size and surface chemistry--and through two main case studies: (1) the membrane permeability of sub-nanometer particles and (2) the thermodynamic stability of larger-scale, ~1-10 nm particle-membrane interactions. Within (1), we first simulate the NP-membrane interactions and transport in full detail to test the validity of Overton's Rule, a longstanding structure-property relationship, and the inhomogeneous solubility-diffusion (ISD) model, a microscopic mechanistic continuum model for transport. We show that Overton's Rule is overly simplified for describing transport across a fluctuating lipid bilayer membrane, yet that ISD model holds for small enough particles. Within this range of particles where the solubility-diffusion mechanism holds, we directly link the impact of particle chemistry in the MD simulations to transient (time-dependent) transport outcomes in the macroscopic multi-compartmental models. This allows us to both compare with and evaluate models used in experimental permeability assays and close the orders of magnitude gap between simulation-predicted and experimentally-calculated permeabilities. We also leverage our platform to construct improved structure-property relationships for the steady-state membrane permeability and structure-kinetic relationships, accounting for a wider range of particle chemistries and highlighting the imperative of time in dictating the design rules for membrane permeation.Within case study (2), we probe larger NP-membrane interactions that implicate macroscopic membrane deformations and restructuring. Using the molecular simulations, we map out in particle size and chemistry space the putative NP-membrane interaction configurations, some of which resemble and agree with small-scale solubility-diffusion theory or large-scale membrane elastic theory (e.g. for lipid bilayer or monolayer wrapping of the NP) in stability limits and free energies and some of which require closer examination in the simulation to explain the thermodynamics. We also discover an entirely novel mechanism of interaction for ~4 nm, rough crystalline hydrophobic particles that we call "asymmetric leaflet hopping," wherein the particle preferentially inserts in one bilayer leaflet, forming a pre-pore in the membrane and inducing large-scale membrane curvature, and flips to the other leaflet over extended time scales.We conclude with preliminary phenomenologies to outline the phase behavior of ~1-10 nm particles of varying chemistry, as well as other areas where our platform shows great promise. By accounting for a vast range of NP designs, natural lipid diversity (lipidomics), and variable compartmental size, boundary layer, and transient conditions, this platform has the potential to more intuitively and effectively inform systems-level physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models for NP biodistribution predictions, as well as structure-activity relationships for direct predictions of product efficacy and toxicity. The end result of this multiscale platform is that we can directly link a NP's microscopic physicochemical properties to its macroscopic outcomes in a dynamic biodistribution setting

WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY FOR VALUE ADDED BRED HEIFER CHARACTERISTICS

Livestock Production/Industries,

Sod-Busting and Sage Grouse: Estimating Historical Impacts and Planning for the Future

A conservation strategy for Greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in the Great Plains, where conversion of native rangeland to cropland is an accelerating agent of land use change, must anticipate impacts of future sod-busting on populations. We use resource selection functions (RSF) to estimate the scale and magnitude of the effect of sod-busting on the distribution of sage-grouse leks in the Great Plains Management Zone and estimate impacts of future cropland expansion. Active leks were used to develop a distribution envelope based on topographic and climatic variables from which random pseudo-absences were drawn to fit a used-available RSF. Models with proportion cropland at scales from 800 m to 8.5 km were compared using AICc to determine the most supported scale at which cropland influences lek occurrence. Finally, we develop a buildout scenario based on a cropland suitability model to estimate potential impacts of future sod-busting on known leks. Negative effects of cropland on lek occurrence were evident at all scales tested. The 6.4 km scale was most supported, and impacts were severe, with the relative probability of lek occurrence falling by 50% when about 20 percent of the landscape within 6.4 km was in cropland. These results, which highlight the large scale and magnitude of impacts of cropland on sage grouse populations, are needed to evaluate the potential contribution of conservation easements and land-use policy to local and range-wide sage-grouse conservation goals. Population-level benefits of targeted conservation implementation are explored