Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship in Search of a Paradigm

A “mature” science, according to Thomas Kuhn, can afford to be uncritical. It has finally answered to its practitioners\u27 satisfaction the fundamental, foundational questions of their field. It finally rests (“for a time,” at least) on an established scientific achievement that epitomizes the accomplished, collective wisdom of an age and defines the terms, conditions, directions, and limits of further refining research. With this “paradigm” in place, researchers are spared the incessant and distracting reexamination of first principles, the extravagant costs of intellectual retooling; they can proceed with confidence, effectiveness, and efficiency to do what they do best: articulating and specifying the received paradigm in more depth and detail, extending and applying it to new areas of interest. Because a paradigm “provides rules that tell the practitioner of a mature specialty what both the world and his science are like,” the practitioner “can concentrate with assurance upon the esoteric problems that these rules and existing knowledge define for him.” Postmodern legal theory appropriates and assimilates Kuhn\u27s insights in ways and to an extent that have not, I think, yet been fully recognized. In describing the development of legal scholarship in Kuhnian terms, I am thus merely elaborating assumptions integral to contemporary intellectual discourse. In particular, interdisciplinary legal scholarship regularly proceeds on the assumption that it possesses a stable, accepted, and uncontroversial paradigm for further research-in other words, that it constitutes a “mature science.” But beneath the institutional trappings of interdisciplinary legal scholarship I detect not a scholarly tradition that has finally resolved to general acclaim all its basic, foundational, methodological problems, but rather one that has never really confronted them. As a result, the attempt to apply the supposed paradigm of interdisciplinary legal scholarship to its subject matter reveals significant “anomalies” in the application. In what follows I shall first analyze and discuss these anomalies and then consider in some detail a specific example of contemporary interdisciplinary legal scholarship

Augmenting Agent Platforms to Facilitate Conversation Reasoning

Within Multi Agent Systems, communication by means of Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) has a key role to play in the co-operation, co-ordination and knowledge-sharing between agents. Despite this, complex reasoning about agent messaging, and specifically about conversations between agents, tends not to have widespread support amongst general-purpose agent programming languages. ACRE (Agent Communication Reasoning Engine) aims to complement the existing logical reasoning capabilities of agent programming languages with the capability of reasoning about complex interaction protocols in order to facilitate conversations between agents. This paper outlines the aims of the ACRE project and gives details of the functioning of a prototype implementation within the Agent Factory multi agent framework

Induction of endothelial cell proliferation by recombinant and microparticle-tissue factor involves β1-integrin and extracellular signal regulated kinase activation

Objective: Increased levels of circulating tissue factor (TF) in the form of microparticles increase the risk of thrombosis. However, any direct influence of microparticle-associated TF on vascular endothelial cell proliferation is not known. In this study, the influence of recombinant and microparticle- associated TF on endothelial cell proliferation and mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling mechanisms was examined. Methods and Results: Incubation of human coronary artery endothelial cells with lipidated recombinant full-length TF, or TF-containing microparticles (50 to 200 pmol/L TF), increased the rate of cell proliferation and induced phosphorylation of extracellular signal regulated kinase 1 in a TF-dependent manner. Inhibition of extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 using PD98059 or extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 antisense oligonucleotides or inhibition of c-Jun N-terminal kinase reduced recombinant TF-mediated cell proliferation. PD98059 also reduced cell proliferation in response to TF-containing microparticles. Inclusion of FVIIa (5 nmol/L) and FXa (10 nmol/L) or preincubation of cells with an inhibitory anti-FVIIa antibody had no additional influence on TF-mediated cell proliferation. However, preincubation of exogenous TF with a β1-integrin peptide (amino acids 579 to 799) reduced TF-mediated proliferation. Conclusion: High concentrations of recombinant or microparticle-associated TF stimulate endothelial cell proliferation through activation of the extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 pathway, mediated through a novel mechanism requiring the interaction of exogenous TF with cell surface β1-integrin and independent of FVIIa. © 2010 American Heart Association, Inc

Filamin-A is required for the incorporation of tissue factor into cell-derived microvesicles

We previously reported that the incorporation of tissue factor (TF) into cell-derived microvesicles (MVs) is regulated by the phosphorylation of the cytoplasmic domain of TF. Since the cytoskeletal protein filamin-A is known to bind to the cytoplasmic domain of TF in a phosphorylation-dependent manner, the involvement of filamin-A in the incorporation of TF into MVs was examined. Endothelial cells were transfected to express TF, whereas MDA-MB-231 cells were used to examine endogenously expressed TF. MV release was induced by activating protease-activated receptor-2 (PAR2). Partial suppression of filamin-A expression using two different filamin-A siRNA sequences resulted in significant reductions in the incorporation of TF antigen into MVs as determined by TF-ELISA and western blot analysis, and was reflected in reduced thrombin-generation and FXa-generation capacities of these MVs. Deletion of the cytoplasmic domain of TF also resulted in reduced incorporation of TF into MVs, whereas the suppression of filamin-A expression had no additional effect on the incorporation of truncated TF into MVs. Partial suppression of filamin-A expression had no effect on the number and size distribution of the released MVs. However, >90 % suppression of filamin-A expression resulted in increased MV release, possibly as a result of increased instability of the plasma membrane and underlying cytoskeleton. In conclusion, the presence of filamin-A appears to be essential for the incorporation of TF into MVs following PAR2 activation, but is not required for the process of MV formation and release following PAR2 activation

Terms of Endearment and Articles of Impeachment

It is a long-established principle that presidential impeachment is an appropriate remedy only for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” of a public nature (with the possible exception of private crimes so heinous that the President “cannot be permitted to remain at large”). The crux of this Essay\u27s argument is that the President\u27s affair with Monica Lewinsky was a private matter that was not rendered “public” simply because Mr. Clinton lied about it. With its vote against removing the President, the Senate seemed to agree

Social Worker and Teacher Perceptions of the Achievement Gap in Minnesota

Narrowing the achievement gap has become an increasing issue in Minnesota. The purpose of this research project was to explore the attitudes of school social workers and teachers to see if there were any significant differences in the perception of the professionals who work with children directly affected by the gap. Using quantitative data analysis, 51 respondents, including 13 licensed social workers and 38 licensed teachers, were surveyed electronically, via Qualtrics, a survey creation and distribution website. All of the questions were created based on findings in the research. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings indicated that race and experience did not affect attitudes toward the achievement gap. However, the research did find significance in social workers being unanimous in believing African American students were treated differently. While a greater number of teachers were surveyed, the findings did evoke implications for further research