Too Much And Too Little: A Bankruptcy Balancing Act

This is a case of too much and too little. It represents one court\u27s attempt to deal with problems created by too much Congressional guidance in one area of the Bankruptcy Code and too little guidance in another. In 1994, Congress revised 11 U.S.C. § 106, adding a provision declaring that when a state files a claim in a bankruptcy proceeding, it has waived its sovereign immunity as to that claim.2 Two years later, the United States Supreme Court,.in Seminole Tribe v. Florida,3 limited Congress\u27s power to expand Article I judicial powers to the Eleventh Amendment . The In re Rose court had to determine if Congress went too far when it enacted 11 U.S.C. § 106(b). The court also had to deal with too little guidance from Congress: a debtor seeking to discharge student loans within seven years after they first came due\u27 must prove that repaying the loans would create an undue hardship. 6 Courts have struggled with defining this term, but the growing trend is to adopt the Brunner test for undue hardship.7 This case illustrates the amorphous nature of this test and how it can be used to discharge student loans

Selective Laser Melting of Porous Structures

Within the Center of Smart Interfaces “Understanding and Designing Fluid Boundaries”, a German Excellence Initiative, the Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools examines the manufacturing of porous structures by using selective laser melting (SLM). In this paper two different strategies are presented in order to obtain porosity: One strategy is to manufacture geometrically defined lattice structures. SLM allows here complex geometries that cannot be manufactured by conventional technologies to be built. The second approach is to manufacture geometrically undefined porosity by a specific modification of exposure parameters. The SLM generated porous structures are investigated with respect to the heat and mass transfer. The research focus is to increase the efficiency of spraycooling effects and the manipulation of the Leidenfrost point.Mechanical Engineerin

Safety Of \u3ci\u3eBrucella Abortus\u3c/i\u3e Strain Rb51 In Black Bears

In two studies conducted from October 1999 to March 2000 and December 2000 to April 2001, adult black bears (Ursus americanus) were orally inoculated with 1.4–3.1X1010 colony-forming units (CFU) of Brucella abortus strain RB51 (SRB51, n=12) or 2 ml of 0.15 M NaCl solution (saline, n=11). We did not detect a difference (P\u3e0.05) in antibody titers to SRB51 in serum obtained before vaccination, at 8 wk after vaccination, or at necropsy at 21 or 23 wk after vaccination between SRB51-vaccinated and nonvaccinated bears. The SRB51 vaccine strain was recovered from tissues obtained at necropsy from one of six SRB51-vaccinated bears in study 1, but none of the six SRB51-vaccinated bears in study 2. Vaccination of black bears with SRB51 did not appear to influence (P\u3e0.05) reproductive performance

Are serial CA 19-9 kinetics helpful in predicting survival in patients with advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer treated with gemcitabine and cisplatin?

Background: Serial kinetics of serum CA 19-9 levels have been reported to reflect response and survival in patients with pancreatic cancer undergoing surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. We prospectively studied serial kinetics of serum CA 19-9 levels of patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease treated with gemcitabine and cisplatin. Patients and Methods: Enrolled in the study were 87 patients (female/male = 26/61; stage III/IV disease = 24/63). Patients received gemcitabine 1,000 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8, and 15 plus cisplatin 50 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 15, every 4 weeks. Serum samples were collected at the onset of chemotherapy and before the start of a new treatment cycle (day 28). Results: 77 of 87 patients (88.5%) with initially elevated CA 19-9 levels were included for evaluation. According to imaging criteria, 4 (5.2%) achieved a complete remission and 11 (14.3%) achieved partial remission, yielding an overall response rate of 19.5%. 43 (55.8%) patients were CA 19-9 responders, defined by greater than or equal to50% decrease in CA 19-9 serum levels within 2 months after treatment initiation. Except for one, all patients who had responded by imaging criteria (n = 14) fulfilled the criterion of a CA 19-9 responder. Despite being characterized as non-responders by CT-imaging criteria (stable/progressive disease), 29 patients were classified as CA 19-9 responders (positive predictive value 32.5%). Independent of the response evaluation by CT, CA 19-9 responders survived significantly longer than CA 19-9 non-responders (295 d; 95% CI: 285-445 vs. 174 d; 95% CI: 134-198; p = 0.022). Conclusion: CA 19-9 kinetics in serum serve as an early and reliable indicator of response and help to predict survival in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer receiving effective treatment with gemcitabine and cisplatin

Driven Rydberg atoms reveal quartic level repulsion

The dynamics of Rydberg states of a hydrogen atom subject simultaneously to uniform static electric field and two microwave fields with commensurate frequencies is considered in the range of small fields amplitudes. In the certain range of the parameters of the system the classical secular motion of the electronic ellipse reveals chaotic behavior. Quantum mechanically, when the fine structure of the atom is taken into account, the energy level statistics obey predictions appropriate for the symplectic Gaussian random matrix ensemble.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Progress on the developments of an advanced aqueous amine-based post combustion CO 2 capture utilizing BASF’s OASE® blue technology

Presented at the 2015 Carbon Management Technology Conference Sugarland, Texas; November 18, 2015.U.S. Department of Energy Award Number DE-FE0026588Ope

Stress-induced impairment in goal-directed instrumental behaviour is moderated by baseline working memory

Acute stress has been found to impair goal-directed instrumental behaviour, a cognitively flexible behaviour that requires cognitive control. The current study aimed to investigate the role of individual differences in baseline and stress-induced changes in working memory (WM) on the shift to less goal-directed responding under stress. To this end, 112 healthy participants performed an instrumental learning task. In phase 1, participants learned instrumental actions that were associated with two different food rewards. In phase 2, one of these food rewards was devalued by eating until satiety. Before the extinction test in phase 3, participants were subjected to the Maastricht Acute Stress Test or a no-stress control procedure. Results showed that the effect of stress on instrumental behaviour is modulated by baseline, but not stress-induced changes in WM capacity. Specifically, only at low baseline WM capacity did stress induce a shift to less goal-directed behaviour. These findings highlight that our cognitive resources are limited and for those who already have limited resources at baseline taking into account motivational value is impaired under stress. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Inc.