The Bar Exam Taught Me Something! Or How Bar Prep Advice Helps Me Manage Life in Lockdown

There’s a refrain from most law school graduates: law school taught me nothing about the practice of law and the bar exam didn’t test any of the skills that will make me a good lawyer. But what about the other things you learned in the process

Microscopia confocale nella valutazione del trattamento con Ciclosporina topica nella Sindrome di Sjogren primitiva.

Negli ultimi anni l'efficacia della Ciclosporina topica nel trattamento del dry eye in pazienti affetti da Sindrome di Sjogren primaria è stata dimostrata mediante numerosi trials clinicibasati su test di funzionalità lacrimale utilizzati di routine nell'esame delle disfunzioni della superficie oculare. Con questo studio ci siamo prefissati di indagare i cambiamenti morfologici corneali indotti dalla ciclosporina topica all'1,2% in un gruppo di pazienti affetti da Sindrome di Sjogren primaria (pSS). Abbiamo incluso nel nostro studio pazienti che erano stati sottoposti a microscopia confocale (CSLM) in entrambi gli occhi durante la prima visita presso il nostro centro e dopo sei mesi di trattamento con ciclosporina topica. Le immagini del CSLM sono state esaminate da un unico operatore che ha valutato parametri quali l'integrità dell'epitelio basale, la pachimetria, l'attivazione cheratocitaria, la densità,tortuosità e reflettività del plesso nervoso sub-basale. Questi parametri sono inoltre stati raffrontati ai dati demografici, clinici e sierologici dei pazienti ed in particolare ai test di routine utilizzati nella valutazione del dry eye quali test di Shirmer I, test di captazione con verde di Lissamina (LGS) e BUT basali e dopo 6 mesi di trattamento con CsA. Sono stati riscontrati degli incrementi statisticamente significativi all'esame con LSCM in integrità dell'epitelio basale (p<0.001), pachimetria (p<0.006), attivazione cheratocitaria (p<0.001), densità delle cellule epiteliali superficiali (p=0.006) e basali (p=0.017), densità(p=0.01), tortuosità (p=0.02) e reflettività (p=0.005) delle fibre nervose corneali sub-basali. In conclusione il trattamento con CsA topica all'1,2% di pazienti affetti da pSS ha dimostrato un miglioramento statisticamente significativo dei parametri morfologici corneali esaminati con CSLM

Jones v. Davis and the Critical Issue of Time in California’s Capital Punishment System

This Note argues that the Ninth Circuit should have affirmed the district court’s holding, thus invalidating California’s capital punishment system for three main reasons. First, citizens are losing confidence in the death penalty, which undermines its deterrent effect. Second, capital punishment is a critical issue for the State, and Californians and death row inmates alike must look to the judiciary for relief. Third, the Ninth Circuit avoided the constitutional issue of California’s capital punishment system by relying on Teague v. Lane. In doing so, the court deepened the problems the Defendant and the district court sought to alleviate

Competition as Policy Reform: The Use of Vigorous Antitrust Enforcement, Market-Governance Rules, and Incentives in Health Care

In health care, the increase in market concentration on both the insurer side and the provider side has led to insurers and providers acquiring market power. Insurers and providers, in turn, have used that market power to charge higher prices to employers providing employees with medical care without corresponding increases in the quality of that care. Responding more generally to the increase in market concentration in many industries in the United States with a range of inimical effects for the nation’s economy, the Obama Administration suggested a range of policy solutions that this article groups under the term “Competition as Policy Reform.” These solutions included the use of vigorous antitrust enforcement to restore competition, the use of market incentives to stimulate existing competition, and the promulgation of market-governance rules to jumpstart new competition. This article explores in detail whether and how competition as policy reform can be instituted in health care. It first discusses what vigorous antitrust enforcement can and cannot do to combat the use of market power by health care actors in more concentrated markets. Recognizing that the enforcement of antitrust law can, at best, restore the status quo ante in terms of competition in a market victimized by anti-competitive conduct, this article also explores two other solutions: (1) the use of market incentives to stimulate competition and (2) the promulgation of market-governance rules to jumpstart competition. This article finds that competition as policy reform can be instituted in health care as an alternative to other proposed policy solutions, such as applying the regulated utility model. Ultimately, it also finds that the individual states—as laboratories for experimentation in our federalist system—can play a key role in the endeavor to use competition as policy reform in health care

Irredentismi storiografici: il caso del Trentino tra Ottocento e Novecento

Come ovunque in Europa, anche nel Trentino (che faceva parte dell’impero asburgico) la ricerca storica fece importanti progressi, tra il 1880 circa e la prima guerra mondiale, soprattutto grazie alla pubblicazione di numerose riviste. Non mancò un apporto importante degli storici tedeschi e tirolesi, soprattutto sul piano archivistico e diplomatistico. Le ricerche degli studiosi trentini e italiani furono complessivamente di livello qualitativo inferiore, segnate da provincialismo e da qualche debolezza di metodo, e condizionate talvolta, anche se non in modo esclusivo, dalle posizioni irredentistiche e nazionalistiche di alcuni intellettuali. Queste posizioni prevalsero nell’immediato dopoguerra, anche se il metodo critico acquisito nei decenni precedenti rimase un patrimonio condiviso

Due verbali del consiglio maggiore del comune di Verona in età scaligera (giugno e settembre 1367)

Sono pubblicati i verbali di due sedute del consiglio maggiore del comune di Verona, riunito nel giugno e settembre 1367. I verbali comprendono l’elenco nominativo dei consiglieri (867 e 742 rispettivamente). Nella prima parte del saggio sono fornite le informazioni archivistiche e diplomatistiche necessarie. I medesimi documenti sono studiati, dal punto di vista della storia sociale e politica, nel saggio dello stesso autore Il consiglio maggiore del comune di Verona nel 1367, in Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance: the Legacy of Benjamin Kohl, a cura di M. Knapton, J.E. Law, A. Smith ()

Allevamento, transumanza, lanificio: tracce dall'alto e dal pieno Medioevo veneto

All the research on the Venetoâs medieval sheep farm are based on few evidences, provided mostly by written documentation (available just for the Veronese territory). Furthermore, the existence of mountain pasture on the Lessini, the possession of tools for the sheep shearing, inventories of possessions (including animals), archeozoological data (thanks to recent excavations) help to build a picture of the Veneto farming situation for the late Middle Ages. More problematic is, however, the reconstruction of the âmanufacturing processâ before the 12th and 13th centuries. For the late Medieval ages the availability of documentation allowed, and still allows, more exhaustive researches on the Venetian Mainland sheep farm. These studies demonstrate a strong evolution of the wool mill, that became at this time a manufacture of international standards. Despite that, it is difficult to interrelate information regarding the antique era and High Medieval Ages with those present for the following centuries, even if some elements of continuity are present and may suggest some kind of continuity. These elements of permanence may be found in a wide use of sedentary farming since the antique era to the Early Modern Ages (as demonstrated by some recent research for the Padua territory). Therefore, the sheep farm is characterised not only by transhumance, but even by sedentary raised herds

Deriving the respiratory sinus arrhythmia from the heartbeat time series using Empirical Mode Decomposition

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a well-known phenomenon whose characteristics are of great clinical relevance in pathophysiologic investigations. In particular, respiration is a powerful modulator of HRV contributing to the oscillations at highest frequency. Like almost all natural phenomena, HRV is the result of many nonlinearly interacting processes; therefore any linear analysis has the potential risk of underestimating, or even missing, a great amount of information content. Recently the technique of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) has been proposed as a new tool for the analysis of nonlinear and nonstationary data. We applied EMD analysis to decompose the heartbeat intervals series, derived from one electrocardiographic (ECG) signal of 13 subjects, into their components in order to identify the modes associated with breathing. After each decomposition the mode showing the highest frequency and the corresponding respiratory signal were Hilbert transformed and the instantaneous phases extracted were then compared. The results obtained indicate a synchronization of order 1:1 between the two series proving the existence of phase and frequency coupling between the component associated with breathing and the respiratory signal itself in all subjects.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Will be published on "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals

Extraction and preliminary characterization of microsomal (Mg2+ + K+)-ATPase activity of grapevine roots

The microsomal fraction extracted from grapevine roots obtained from woody cuttings possesses Mg2+-dependent, monovalent cation-stimulated ATPase activity. Addition of BSA, PVPP, choline-CI, ethanolamine, glycerol-1-P besides EDTA and DTT to the homogenizing medium as preservative compounds was required in order to achieve a successful isolation.When microsomes were extracted according to HODGES and LEONARD (1974) by homogenizing root tissue in the presence of EDTA and DTT, the enzyme activity exhibited inhibition by Mg2+ only partially relieved by K+, and properties of acid phosphatase rather than ATPase.Cation-stimulated ATPase of microsomes protected during homogenization was further characterized and it showed optimum activity at pH 7.0 in the presence of Mg2+ plus K+ . It was specific as a triphosphatase and Mg2+, rather than other divalent cations, was preferred as a cofactor. As monovalent stimulating cation, only NH4+ could substitute for K+ with equivalent efficiency. The kinetics of K+ stimulation showed a biphasic pattern.Biochemical bases of ion uptake by grapevine seem to be similar to those clarified for annual plants