The Electronic Document Retention System Ate My Homework: Gross Negligence and the Rebuttable Presumption of Prejudice within the Doctrine of Spoliation in Federal Courts

(Excerpt) This Note argues against imposing such a rebuttable presumption where the spoliating party acted with gross negligence. Part I provides a general background of the doctrine of spoliation and its application to electronic information. Part II examines the three different approaches taken by the federal circuits to whether gross negligence should trigger a rebuttable presumption that the spoliated evidence was prejudicial to the spoliating party. Finally, Part III argues that courts should not allow gross negligence to trigger a rebuttable presumption that the spoliated evidence was prejudicial to the spoliating party

Presynaptic adenosine receptor-mediated regulation of diverse thalamocortical short-term plasticity in the mouse whisker pathway

Short-term synaptic plasticity (STP) sets the sensitivity of a synapse to incoming activity and determines the temporal patterns that it best transmits. In “driver” thalamocortical (TC) synaptic populations, STP is dominated by depression during stimulation from rest. However, during ongoing stimulation, lemniscal TC connections onto layer 4 neurons in mouse barrel cortex express variable STP. Each synapse responds to input trains with a distinct pattern of depression or facilitation around its mean steady-state response. As a result, in common with other synaptic populations, lemniscal TC synapses express diverse rather than uniform dynamics, allowing for a rich representation of temporally varying stimuli. Here, we show that this STP diversity is regulated presynaptically. Presynaptic adenosine receptors of the A1R type, but not kainate receptors (KARs), modulate STP behavior. Blocking the receptors does not eliminate diversity, indicating that diversity is related to heterogeneous expression of multiple mechanisms in the pathway from presynaptic calcium influx to neurotransmitter release

Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Educational Attainment and Cognitive Competence

The current study used portions of an archival longitudinal data set, collected in upstate New York. This study put a new lens on this archival data, by exploring it in terms of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs. The study focused on the area of ACEs known as household dysfunction, which are extremely common in the United States, as well as other countries world wide. The aim of this study, was to explore the correlations between ACEs in the area of household dysfunction, and outcomes related to academic success. This study included two hypotheses, and used a multiple hierarchal regression to examine the predictive relationships of ACEs with the outcome measures of Educational Attainment, and self reported Cognitive Competence.M.S

Enantioselective cyclization of symmetric diesters

Two important facets that are found in many biologically active compounds and complex natural products are chirality and heterocyclic motifs, in particular lactones and lactams. Biologically active compounds found in nature often need to be synthesized due to the fact that only a minute amount of the active molecule is produced. In the research described herein, an asymmetric methodology known as desymmetrization is utilized to produce enantioenriched compounds that can be used as building blocks in the synthesis of biologically active natural products. We have developed an efficient synthesis of enantioenriched ?-and d-lactones via an enantioselective desymmetrization. In this process, racemic diesters in the presence of a chiral Brønsted acid selectively undergo cyclization to yield enantioenriched ?- and d-lactones. The methodology is also expanded to include the synthesis of spirocyclic molecules. The desymmetrization is highly selective and the products formed contain an all-carbon quaternary stereocenter that would be difficult to install using other methodologies

Organization of sensory feature selectivity in the whisker system

Our sensory receptors are faced with an onslaught of different environmental inputs. Each sensory event or encounter with an object involves a distinct combination of physical energy sources impinging upon receptors. In the rodent whisker system, each primary afferent neuron located in the trigeminal ganglion innervates and responds to a single whisker and encodes a distinct set of physical stimulus properties – features – corresponding to changes in whisker angle and shape and the consequent forces acting on the whisker follicle. Here we review the nature of the features encoded by successive stages of processing along the whisker pathway. At each stage different neurons respond to distinct features, such that the population as a whole represents diverse properties. Different neuronal types also have distinct feature selectivity. Thus, neurons at the same stage of processing and responding to the same whisker nevertheless play different roles in representing objects contacted by the whisker. This diversity, combined with the precise timing and high reliability of responses, enables populations at each stage to represent a wide range of stimuli. Cortical neurons respond to more complex stimulus properties – such as correlated motion across whiskers – than those at early subcortical stages. Temporal integration along the pathway is comparatively weak: neurons up to barrel cortex are sensitive mainly to fast (tens of milliseconds) fluctuations in whisker motion. The topographic organization of whisker sensitivity is paralleled by systematic organization of neuronal selectivity to certain other physical features, but selectivity to touch and to dynamic stimulus properties is distributed in “salt-and-pepper” fashion

Mechanisms underlying a thalamocortical transformation during active tactile sensation

During active somatosensation, neural signals expected from movement of the sensors are suppressed in the cortex, whereas information related to touch is enhanced. This tactile suppression underlies low-noise encoding of relevant tactile features and the brain’s ability to make fine tactile discriminations. Layer (L) 4 excitatory neurons in the barrel cortex, the major target of the somatosensory thalamus (VPM), respond to touch, but have low spike rates and low sensitivity to the movement of whiskers. Most neurons in VPM respond to touch and also show an increase in spike rate with whisker movement. Therefore, signals related to self-movement are suppressed in L4. Fast-spiking (FS) interneurons in L4 show similar dynamics to VPM neurons. Stimulation of halorhodopsin in FS interneurons causes a reduction in FS neuron activity and an increase in L4 excitatory neuron activity. This decrease of activity of L4 FS neurons contradicts the "paradoxical effect" predicted in networks stabilized by inhibition and in strongly-coupled networks. To explain these observations, we constructed a model of the L4 circuit, with connectivity constrained by in vitro measurements. The model explores the various synaptic conductance strengths for which L4 FS neurons actively suppress baseline and movement-related activity in layer 4 excitatory neurons. Feedforward inhibition, in concert with recurrent intracortical circuitry, produces tactile suppression. Synaptic delays in feedforward inhibition allow transmission of temporally brief volleys of activity associated with touch. Our model provides a mechanistic explanation of a behavior-related computation implemented by the thalamocortical circuit

Stimulus Dependence of Barrel Cortex Directional Selectivity

Neurons throughout the rat vibrissa somatosensory pathway are sensitive to the angular direction of whisker movement. Could this sensitivity help rats discriminate stimuli? Here we use a simple computational model of cortical neurons to analyze the robustness of directional selectivity. In the model, directional preference emerges from tuning of synaptic conductance amplitude and latency, as in recent experimental findings. We find that directional selectivity during stimulation with random deflection sequences is strongly dependent on the mean deflection frequency: Selectivity is weakened at high frequencies even when each individual deflection evokes strong directional tuning. This variability of directional selectivity is due to generic properties of synaptic integration by the neuronal membrane, and is therefore likely to hold under very general physiological conditions. Our results suggest that directional selectivity depends on stimulus context. It may participate in tasks involving brief whisker contact, such as detection of object position, but is likely to be weakened in tasks involving sustained whisker exploration (e.g., texture discrimination)

The Tillamook County Coastal Futures Project : Exploring alternative scenarios for Tillamook County’s coastline

This report assesses climate change impacts and associated community and ecosystem vulnerability. It was compiled by a group of Oregon State University researchers and students, outreach specialists, and coastal community members in Tillamook County, Oregon (OR). Through sustained engagement with the Tillamook County Coastal Futures Knowledge to Action Network (TCCF KTAN), a suite of alternative scenarios for exploring adaptation strategies for reducing vulnerability to coastal hazards based on a variety of drivers of change was developed. These alternative scenarios were explored using Envision, a spatially explicit multi-agent modeling platform supporting scenario-based planning to examine interactions between the coupled human and natural coastal system. At its foundation is the identification of key stakeholder desires and outcomes for the future of the coastal shore (e.g., access to the beach, resilient infrastructure, etc.). These self-expressed outcomes are the orienting principle of this KTAN driven process. Probabilistic simulations of extreme total water levels, long-term coastal change, and storm-induced dune erosion along the shoreline allowed the group to represent the variable impacts of SLR, wave climate, and the El Niño Southern Oscillation in a range of climate change scenarios through the end of the century. Additionally, researchers explored a range of alternative futures related to policy decisions and socioeconomic trends using input from KTAN participants. The impact of both policy scenarios and climate change scenarios on a range of participant defined metrics were quantified. In some scenarios, model results suggest severe reductions in beach accessibility (one metric highly valued by the TCCF KTAN) by the end of century, due to the cumulative placement of riprap backshore protection structures. Flooding and erosion to coastal buildings and infrastructure also increases on a variety of scales depending on the types of policies implemented. In general, human decisions introduced greater variability and uncertainty to the impacts to the landscape by coastal hazards than climate change uncertainty

Unbalanced synaptic inhibition can create intensity-tuned auditory cortex neurons

Intensity-tuned auditory cortex neurons may be formed by intensity-tuned synaptic excitation. Synaptic inhibition has also been shown to enhance, and possibly even create intensity-tuned neurons. Here we show, using in vivo whole cell recordings in pentobarbital-anesthetized rats, that some intensity-tuned neurons are indeed created solely through disproportionally large inhibition at high intensities, without any intensity-tuned excitation. Since inhibition is essentially cortical in origin, these neurons provide examples of auditory feature-selectivity arising de novo at the cortex.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Asymmetric Excitatory Synaptic Dynamics Underlie Interaural Time Difference Processing in the Auditory System

In order to localize sounds in the environment, the auditory system detects and encodes differences in signals between each ear. The exquisite sensitivity of auditory brain stem neurons to the differences in rise time of the excitation signals from the two ears allows for neuronal encoding of microsecond interaural time differences