IMS Health v. Sorrell – Implications for Federal Regulation of Pharmaceutical Marketing?

ABSTRACT In an era of increased scrutiny of laws regulating corporate speech, state and federal regulators must balance regulation of the prescription drug market with the budgetary and public health needs. One area of contention is the use of prescriber data for pharmaceutical marketing. Claiming a need to protect physician privacy and the state budget, Vermont limited access to this data. Pharmaceutical companies and data processors filed suit, claiming a violation of their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court recently heard the case. The outcome could have broad implications not only for states’ ability to protect privacy but also for FDA’s restrictions on pharmaceutical marketing. If the Supreme Court chooses to invalidate Vermont’s law, FDA’s regulation of off-label promotion could be ripe for a judicial challenge

The Effect of Sports Franchises on Property Values: The Role of Owners versus Renters

This paper estimates the public benefits to homeowners in cities with NFL franchises by examining housing prices rather than housing rents. In contrast to Carlino and Coulson (2004) we find that the presence of an NFL franchise has no effect on housing prices in a city. Furthermore, we also test whether the presence and size of the subsidy to the team affects values and find that higher subsidies for NFL stadium construction lead to lower house prices. This suggests that the benefits that homeowners receive from the presence of a team are negated by the increased tax burden due to the subsidies paid to the franchises.impact analysis, stadiums, football, mega-event, tourism

Motivating and maintaining desistance from crime: male Aboriginal serial offenders' experience of 'going good'

Aboriginal people are over represented in prison in Australia, being 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous people. Repeat offenders make up a high proportion of the Aboriginal prison population, yet most repeat offenders eventually cease offending or desist from crime. Why do they stop? The process of desistance is complex, non-linear and varies between individuals. North American and British studies report the role of structure and, more latterly, cognition and agency in desistance and re-formation of offender identities. Few of these studies examine the context, particularly the cultural context, of desisters and desistance. This thesis uses anthropological and ethnographic approaches to present and analyse the life narratives of Aboriginal men from north-western New South Wales who have been repeat offenders and are now ‘going good’ (i.e. have ceased offending). Concepts of agency (and its temporal orientations), cultural schemas and figured worlds are applied. The stories of the early lives of participants and the views of community members paint the backdrop of offence, desistance, identity formation and re-formation. The agentic role of the motivating cultural schemas of fatherhood, life partnership, committed kin and respected man are found to operate in the initiation of desistance as men consider ontological security and extricate themselves from the figured world of repeat offender. The interplay of contingency and capacity is critical in the maintenance of desistance, with shortfalls in the individual’s capacity sometimes being bolstered by spousal and family support. The thesis examines the role and interaction of Aboriginal and offender identity in desistance and maps the repeated expression of the underlying value of ‘looking after’ family and kin, and in this context the role of post-release occupation in desistance is critically examined. Continuity of aspects of identity are discovered to be critical in achieving desistance and paradoxically, achieving continuity often involves innovation in relationships with kin and/or in expression of the moral value of ‘looking after’ or ‘caring for’ (kin)

Elastic, Viscous, and Mass Load Effects on Poststroke Muscle Recruitment and Co-contraction During Reaching: A Pilot Study

Background: Resistive exercise after stroke can improve strength (force-generating capacity) without increasing spasticity (velocity-dependent hypertonicity). However, the effect of resistive load type on muscle activation and co-contraction after stroke is not clear. Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of load type (elastic, viscous, or mass) on muscle activation and co-contraction during resisted forward reaching in the paretic and nonparetic arms after stroke. Design: This investigation was a single-session, mixed repeated-measures pilot study. Methods: Twenty participants (10 with hemiplegia and 10 without neurologic involvement) reached forward with each arm against equivalent elastic, viscous, and mass loads. Normalized shoulder and elbow electromyography impulses were analyzed to determine agonist muscle recruitment and agonist-antagonist muscle co-contraction. Results: Muscle activation and co-contraction levels were significantly higher on virtually all outcome measures for the paretic and nonparetic arms of the participants with stroke than for the matched control participants. Only the nonparetic shoulder responded to load type with similar activation levels but variable co-contraction responses relative to those of the control shoulder. Elastic and viscous loads were associated with strong activation; mass and viscous loads were associated with minimal co-contraction. Limitations: A reasonable, but limited, range of loads was available. Conclusions: Motor control deficits were evident in both the paretic and the nonparetic arms after stroke when forward reaching was resisted with viscous, elastic, or mass loads. The paretic arm responded with higher muscle activation and co-contraction levels across all load conditions than the matched control arm. Smaller increases in muscle activation and co-contraction levels that varied with load type were observed in the nonparetic arm. On the basis of the response of the nonparetic arm, this study provides preliminary evidence suggesting that viscous loads elicited strong muscle activation with minimal co-contraction. Further intervention studies are needed to determine whether viscous loads are preferable for poststroke resistive exercise programs

Is Your Smartphone Conversation Private? The StingRay Device’s Impact on Privacy in States

“Where are you” is a common question to receive on your cellphone, but it is up to you whether or not to respond with an answer. No longer does this question need to be asked due to advancements in surveillance technology. When pinpointing a criminal suspect, the question can be answered by local and state agencies, without the person of interest knowing, by using a StingRay device. The main question to be asked is does the conduct of locating a criminal suspect’s exact location without a warrant, violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. Some states have laws addressing the answer, and others do not. This Comment will investigate the impact of the StingRay device on an individual’s Fourth Amendment right and how state and local law enforcement will know whether they require a warrant when using the device. Part I explains how the U.S. Supreme Court has adapted to the changes in technology regarding privacy rights, as well as how some states have dealt with this issue. Part II analyzes how smartphones in public and private areas should not factor into the analysis of whether a warrant is valid. Part III proposes how state legislatures and judges can help protect the privacy rights of the citizens of their states. Part IV concludes that, with regard to smartphones, there is always a reasonable expectation of privacy, which requires a valid warrant before any government intrusion. This Comment advocates that the state legislatures that lack legislation specifically addressing the StingRay device should adopt one, as it would strike a more equitable balance between individual privacy rights and the government’s interests in enforcing its laws

There’s a gendered elephant in the room : Canadian mayors online

Le système politique canadien monogenre (Tremblay et Everitt, 2020) a créé une philosophie politique où les hommes sont perçus comment étant l'option par défaut et les femmes, exceptionnelles (Trimble, 2017). En effet, il existe toujours au Canada une croyance répandue selon laquelle les hommes seraient de meilleurs leaders politiques que les femmes (Chen et al., 2023). Ceci est un exemple parmi tant d’autres de l’existence de rôles genrés dans la société canadienne où la présence des femmes au sein d’institutions politiques demeure incongruente (Schneider et Bos, 2019). La science politique canadienne a également longtemps ignoré la participation politique des femmes, car Brodie (1977) et Vickers (1978) ont mené certaines des premières études empiriques sur la candidature et l'élection des femmes à divers paliers gouvernementaux. Depuis ces études, le genre est demeuré un concept complexe et peu étudié (Vickers, 2016), comme en témoigne le débat sur l’accessibilité de la politique municipale aux femmes. Afin de combler ces lacunes, cette thèse se concentre sur les maire.sse.s canadien.ne.s, avec un intérêt particulier pour le genre, autant au niveau de la variation dans l’utilisation active d’une page Facebook, d’un compte Twitter et d’un compte Instagram, de leurs motivations à utiliser ces plateformes, que de leur performance visuelle genrée numérique. Des données primaires révèlent un écart positif entre les maires et les mairesses au niveau de l’utilisation active des médias sociaux hors d’une campagne électorale. Des entretiens semi-dirigés auprès de maire.sse.s qui utilisent activement ces trois plateformes démontrent que le genre continue de jouer un rôle important en politique, notamment au niveau des motivations des maire.sse.s à utiliser les médias sociaux et des barrières genrées limitant la participation des femmes. Certaines mairesses ont partagé, lors de ces entrevues, avoir vécu du harcèlement en ligne, reçu des commentaires indésirés au sujet de leur apparence ou de leur mode de vie, ainsi que de devoir gérer une plus grande charge mentale. De plus, les résultats d’une analyse de contenu de leurs publications numériques visuelles suggèrent un plus haut niveau d’interactivité numérique chez les mairesses, et tandis qu’elles ont tendance à préférer une performance genrée congruente, mixte, voire d’évitement, les maires – qui démontrent également des performances mixtes – semblent pouvoir explorer des performances congruentes et incongruentes plus librement. À la lumière de ces résultats, il est recommandé que les praticien.ne.s, tels que les politicien.ne.s et les médias, adoptent un langage non genré, développent et intègrent une étiquette numérique pour réduire le gender trolling et visent à changer la philosophie politique, notamment par le biais d'opportunités de formation visant un accès égal et inclusif aux rôles politiques. Enfin, la science politique canadienne gagnerait à sortir des sentiers battus pour s'intéresser à la charge mentale vécue par les politiciennes, à la conception socialement construite et genrée d'une carrière politique et à s'efforcer de maintenir des données accessibles, fiables et à jour sur l'ensemble des acteurs politiques à l’échelle municipale. Pour faire suite aux propos de Collier (2022) sur l’absence de recherche sur la violence genrée en science politique canadienne, une discipline qui prétend se concentrer sur le pouvoir (780) se doit d’enfin confronter l’éléphant genré dans la pièce.Canada’s mono-gendered political system (Tremblay and Everitt, 2020) has created a political ethos where men continue to be seen as the default option, and women as exceptional (Trimble, 2017). Indeed, there continues to be a widespread belief in Canada that men are “naturally better” leaders than women (Chen et al., 2023), which echoes constructed social roles which label women politicians as incongruent (Schneider and Bos, 2019). Canadian political science research itself has long ignored women’s political participation, as Brodie (1977) and Vickers (1978) conducted some of the first empirical studies on women’s candidacy and election in various levels of government. Since these seminal works, gender has remained a complex and under-researched concept (Vickers, 2016). Such gaps are evident in the existence of a debate on the accessibility of politics to women, especially regarding municipal politics. In order to fill these gaps, this dissertation focuses on Canadian mayors through a gender lens by examining the gendered variation in mayors’ active use of a Facebook page, Twitter account and Instagram account, their motivations to use social media and their digital political gender performance. Using primary data, results show a positive gender gap in mayors’ active use of social media outside of an electoral campaign. Semi-structured interviews with digitally active mayors demonstrate that gender continues to play an important role in politics, as much in relation to mayors’ motivations to use social media to gendered barriers limiting women’s participation. Women mayors shared experiences of gender trolling online, unsolicited comments on their appearance or lifestyle, as well as a greater mental load. A content analysis of their visual social media publications shows a greater level of digital interactivity among women mayors, and while women mayors tend to gravitate toward congruent, mixed gendered performances and avoidance strategies, men mayors – who also display mixed performances of their gender – more freely explore congruent and incongruent approaches to gendered stereotypes. In light of these findings, it is recommended that practitioners, such as legislatures and news media, adopt gender-neutral language, develop and integrate a digital etiquette to reduce gender-trolling and aim to change our political ethos, namely through political training opportunities aimed toward hegemonic men, rather than blame women for their underrepresentation. Finally, Canadian political science would gain to stray from the beaten path to focus on the mental load experienced by women politicians, the socially constructed and gendered conception of a political career and to strive to maintain accessible, reliable and current data on all Canadian local political actors. To echo Collier’s (2022) call to action on gender-based violence research in Canadian political science, for a discipline that claims to center itself on power (780), it has long skirted the gendered elephant in the room