Acknowledgements as a Window into Legal Academia

Legal scholarship in the United States is an oddity—an institution built on student editorship, a lack of peer review, and a dramatically high proportion of solo authorship. It is often argued that this makes legal scholarship fundamentally different from scholarship in other fields, which is largely peer-reviewed by academics. We use acknowledgments in biographical footnotes from law review articles to probe the nature of legal knowledge co-production and de facto peer review in the legal literature. Using a survey and a textual analysis of about thirty thousand law review articles from 2008 to 2017, we examined the nature of knowledge co-production and peer review in U.S. legal academia. Our results are consistent with the idea that substantial peer-review-like vetting occurs in the field; we also found evidence that both authors and editors use the information in acknowledgment footnotes as a factor in article selection or submission. We found that the characteristics of acknowledgment footnotes in articles in high-ranking law reviews differ dramatically from those in low-ranking law reviews in ways that are not simply due to differences in quality. Further, there are problematic gender differences in who is being acknowledged. We propose some modest changes to current practices that would help maximize transparency and minimize bias in legal scholarly networks and law review article selection

Experimental and simulation study results for video landmark acquisition and tracking technology

A synopsis of related Earth observation technology is provided and includes surface-feature tracking, generic feature classification and landmark identification, and navigation by multicolor correlation. With the advent of the Space Shuttle era, the NASA role takes on new significance in that one can now conceive of dedicated Earth resources missions. Space Shuttle also provides a unique test bed for evaluating advanced sensor technology like that described in this report. As a result of this type of rationale, the FILE OSTA-1 Shuttle experiment, which grew out of the Video Landmark Acquisition and Tracking (VILAT) activity, was developed and is described in this report along with the relevant tradeoffs. In addition, a synopsis of FILE computer simulation activity is included. This synopsis relates to future required capabilities such as landmark registration, reacquisition, and tracking

Hierarchy, Race & Gender in Legal Scholarly Networks

A potent myth of legal academic scholarship is that it is mostly meritocratic and mostly solitary. Reality is more complicated. In this Article, we plumb the networks of knowledge co-production in legal academia by analyzing the star footnotes that appear at the beginning of most law review articles. Acknowledgments paint a rich picture of both the currency of scholarly credit and the relationships among scholars. Building on others’ prior work characterizing the potent impact of hierarchy, race, and gender in legal academia more generally, we examine the patterns of scholarly networks and probe the effects of those factors. The landscape we illustrate is depressingly unsurprising in basic contours but awash in details. Hierarchy, race, and gender all have substantial effects on who gets acknowledged and how, what networks of knowledge co-production get formed, and who is helped on their path through the legal academic world

Hierarchy, Race & Gender in Legal Scholarly Networks

A potent myth of legal academic scholarship is that it is mostly meritocratic and that it is mostly solitary. Reality is more complicated. In this Article, we plumb the networks of knowledge co-production in legal academia by analyzing the star footnotes that appear at the beginning of most law review articles. Acknowledgements paint a rich picture of both the currency of scholarly credit and the relationships among scholars. Building on others’ prior work characterizing the potent impact of hierarchy, race, and gender in legal academia more generally, we examine the patterns of scholarly networks and probe the effects of those factors. The landscape we illustrate is depressingly unsurprising in basic contours but awash in details. Hierarchy, race, and gender all have substantial impacts on who gets acknowledged and how, what networks of knowledge co-production get formed, and who is helped on their path through the legal academic world

Study and simulation results for video landmark acquisition and tracking technology (Vilat-2)

The results of several investigations and hardware developments which supported new technology for Earth feature recognition and classification are described. Data analysis techniques and procedures were developed for processing the Feature Identification and Location Experiment (FILE) data. This experiment was flown in November 1981, on the second Shuttle flight and a second instrument, designed for aircraft flights, was flown over the United States in 1981. Ground tests were performed to provide the basis for designing a more advanced version (four spectral bands) of the FILE which would be capable of classifying clouds and snow (and possibly ice) as distinct features, in addition to the features classified in the Shuttle experiment (two spectral bands). The Shuttle instrument classifies water, bare land, vegetation, and clouds/snow/ice (grouped)

Eosinophilia in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus

The prevalence and significance of peripheral blood eosinophilia in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were evaluated. Fifteen of 119 consecutive patients had absolute eosinophil counts of > 450/mm3. During a mean follow-up period of 419 days eosinophilia could be identified as secondary to a parasitic infection in only one patient. Correlation with disease stage showed a higher rate of advanced disease in patients with absolute eosinophilia. In a multivariate regression analysis, only low CD4+ cell counts, not the CDC disease stage or the use of antiretroviral therapy or primary prophylaxis, contributed significantly to the prevalence of eosinophilia. It is concluded that expen-sive laboratory investigations in asymptomatic patients with advanced-stage HIV disease are neither necessary nor cost effectiv

Promoters for Pd-catalyzed methoxycarbonylation of vinyl acetate

A study on the influence of acidic and non-acidic promoters for Pd(PPh 3)-catalyzed methoxycarbonylation of vinyl acetate was conducted in order to find an efficient protocol for the synthesis of methyl O-acetyl lactate. Besides known promoters also some new catalytic systems were tested. Aluminium triflate is the most active additive

Exposure to Polyfluoroalkyl Chemicals and Cholesterol, Body Weight, and Insulin Resistance in the General U.S. Population

BACKGROUND. Polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFCs) are used commonly in commercial applications and are detected in humans and the environment worldwide. Concern has been raised that they may disrupt lipid and weight regulation. OBJECTIVES. We investigated the relationship between PFC serum concentrations and lipid and weight outcomes in a large publicly available data set. METHODS. We analyzed data from the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for participants 12-80 years of age. Using linear regression to control for covariates, we studied the association between serum concentrations of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) and measures of cholesterol, body size, and insulin resistance. RESULTS. We observed a positive association between concentrations of PFOS, PFOA, and PFNA and total and non-high-density cholesterol. We found the opposite for PFHxS. Those in the highest quartile of PFOS exposure had total cholesterol levels 13.4 mg/dL [95% confidence interval (CI), 3.8-23.0] higher than those in the lowest quartile. For PFOA, PFNA, and PFHxS, effect estimates were 9.8 (95% CI, -0.2 to 19.7), 13.9 (95% CI, 1.9-25.9), and -7.0 (95% CI, -13.2 to -0.8), respectively. A similar pattern emerged when exposures were modeled continuously. We saw little evidence of a consistent association with body size or insulin resistance. CONCLUSIONS. This exploratory cross-sectional study is consistent with other epidemiologic studies in finding a positive association between PFOS and PFOA and cholesterol, despite much lower exposures in NHANES. Results for PFNA and PFHxS are novel, emphasizing the need to study PFCs other than PFOS and PFOA.National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R21ES013724, T32ES014562

Pathophysiology of acute experimental pancreatitis: Lessons from genetically engineered animal models and new molecular approaches

The incidence of acute pancreatitis is growing and worldwide population-based studies report a doubling or tripling since the 1970s. 25% of acute pancreatitis are severe and associated with histological changes of necrotizing pancreatitis. There is still no specific medical treatment for acute pancreatitis. The average mortality resides around 10%. In order to develop new specific medical treatment strategies for acute pancreatitis, a better understanding of the pathophysiology during the onset of acute pancreatitis is necessary. Since it is difficult to study the early acinar events in human pancreatitis, several animal models of acute pancreatitis have been developed. By this, it is hoped that clues into human pathophysiology become possible. In the last decade, while employing molecular biology techniques, a major progress has been made. The genome of the mouse was recently sequenced. Various strategies are possible to prove a causal effect of a single gene or protein, using either gain-of-function (i.e., overexpression of the protein of interest) or loss-of-function studies (i.e., genetic deletion of the gene of interest). The availability of transgenic mouse models and gene deletion studies has clearly increased our knowledge about the pathophysiology of acute pancreatitis and enables us to study and confirm in vitro findings in animal models. In addition, transgenic models with specific genetic deletion or overexpression of genes help in understanding the role of one specific protein in a cascade of inflammatory processes such as pancreatitis where different proteins interact and co-react. This review summarizes the recent progress in this field. Copyright (c) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel