Scuffed Chucks: Converse\u27s Scuffle, the Federal Circuit\u27s Overstep, and the Court\u27s Stance on Trademark Infringement

The multi-billion-dollar footwear industry accounts for an enormous portion of the United States economy. Among the top brands, an iconic pair of shoes is the Converse All-Star Chuck Taylor. The rubber shoe company generated a global revenue of nearly $2 billion in 2019 alone. The consistent popularity of the Chuck Taylors over the last decades has prompted many copycats to try to mimic the company’s leading look. The Federal Circuit recently ruled in a trademark infringement case, Converse Inc. v. International Trade Commission. The case followed Converse’s complaint against various footwear products, including brands such as Sketchers and New Balance, for the importation and sale of shoes that infringe on its trademark––its classic All-Star shoes design. The Federal Circuit rejected the International Trade Commission’s balancing test for finding secondary meaning and reversed the International Trade Commission’s holding. In doing so, the Federal Circuit gave its own set of factors for the balancing test for the first time, amidst the numerous tests developed by circuit courts over the years. Although there should be uniformity across the circuit courts in finding secondary meaning, the Federal Circuit’s test should not be followed. The Federal Circuit’s ruling comes with implications that can affect the apparel industry and possible resolutions for future controversy. Instead, this Comment proposes a new multi-factor test after exploring the differences between the Federal Circuit’s test and the various circuit courts’ tests

UNDERSTANDING HOW A BLEND OF SCAFFOLDING INSTRUCTIONS FACILITATE CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Much attention has focused on linguistic scaffolding in language learning, little is known how a blend of scaffoldinginstructions facilitate Chinese language teaching in Putonghua-Medium-of-instruction (PMI) classroom encompassing linguistic, cognitive, cultural, affective and social (LCCAS) aspects. Lessons of a secondary school teacher who attended a professional development workshop were observed. The findings indicate that the use of different scaffolding instructions tailored to the needs of studentsenable students to achieve Chinese Language and Putonghua learning through scaffolding in various aspects: (1) provision of linguistic scaffolding to students to adapt Putonghua instruction, (2) foster cognitive development by association of students’ academic background knowledge with meaningful instruction, (3) connect the cultural and historical understandings of learners with the texts, (4) develop positive attitudes towards a switch of PMI from mother tongue to arouse the learning motivation of learners, and (5) stimulation of peer interaction and cooperation. Quantitative studies and cross-case qualitative studies examining this new conceptual framework on teachers’ scaffolding are suggested for future studies.&nbsp

Prediction of cognitive decline for enrichment of Alzheimer's disease clinical trials

A key issue to Alzheimer's disease clinical trial failures is poor participant selection. Participants have heterogeneous cognitive trajectories and many do not decline during trials, which reduces a study's power to detect treatment effects. Trials need enrichment strategies to enroll individuals who will decline. We developed machine learning models to predict cognitive trajectories in participants with early Alzheimer's disease (n=1342) and presymptomatic individuals (n=756) over 24 and 48 months respectively. Baseline magnetic resonance imaging, cognitive tests, demographics, and APOE genotype were used to classify decliners, measured by an increase in CDR-Sum of Boxes, and non-decliners with up to 79% area under the curve (cross-validated and out-of-sample). Using these prognostic models to recruit enriched cohorts of decliners can reduce required sample sizes by as much as 51%, while maintaining the same detection power, and thus may improve trial quality, derisk endpoint failures, and accelerate therapeutic development in Alzheimer's disease.Comment: 11 pages, 3 main figures, 3 main tables, supplementary material (3 tables, 2 figures), incorporated feedback from reviewers in the introduction and discussio

Japanese Rationale of the Nanking Massacre

After days of countless shelling of the city from the Japanese, Generalissimo Chiang and other military leaders retreated from Nanking, leaving their soldiers defenseless. On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army entered the city and within weeks, around 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were not only killed but tortured and raped. No one was spared from the harsh treatment of the Japanese, including the elderly, young children, and pregnant women. Many, including Iris Chang, author of the acclaimed book The Rape of Nanking: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, claim that these actions were solely planned out and systematic. For example, Chang begins her narrative by quoting a command sent directly to the Japanese 66th Battalion that she stated to be a catalyst for the event: “...To comply with others from brigade commanding headquarters, all prisoners of war are to be executed.” However, the rationale behind these actions are unfortunately not as simple as mere commands from the very top of the Japanese forces. As such, the systemic ideas and issues of Shinto, cultural language, Bushido, and Japanese military practices will be emphasized. International political and economic relationships between will also be explored, as well as General Chiang Kai-Shek’s military strategies that lead to the events witnessed at Nanking during the cold, winter months in the year of 1937

Designing of X-ray beams to assess mineral loss in dehydrated fruits – radiology readiness during climate change

Key minerals such as iron, manganese and copper are necessary for optimal health and vitality of human beings. These minerals are within the biomolecules of food, particularly in fruits and are not detectable without destroying their natural biochemical roles. A compilation was done on average mineral compositions for multiple apple varieties from USDA and academic horticulture research labs to design the x-ray beams in the low energy ranges in our mammography system that provide “soft” x-rays for imaging light-weight atoms. In this project homemade external filters like Aluminum sheets, Iodine and Gadolinium contrast media were developed to modify low energy X-rays for more dedicated detection of each of these minerals. The absorption patterns and utility of such modified x-ray beams were analyzed. Differentiation between the imaging of iron and other minerals was challenging but a common distribution pattern from the core to the cortex of the apples was observed for all varieties of apples tested

Dissecting the sharp response of a canonical developmental enhancer reveals multiple sources of cooperativity.

Developmental enhancers integrate graded concentrations of transcription factors (TFs) to create sharp gene expression boundaries. Here we examine the hunchback P2 (HbP2) enhancer which drives a sharp expression pattern in the Drosophila blastoderm embryo in response to the transcriptional activator Bicoid (Bcd). We systematically interrogate cis and trans factors that influence the shape and position of expression driven by HbP2, and find that the prevailing model, based on pairwise cooperative binding of Bcd to HbP2 is not adequate. We demonstrate that other proteins, such as pioneer factors, Mediator and histone modifiers influence the shape and position of the HbP2 expression pattern. Comparing our results to theory reveals how higher-order cooperativity and energy expenditure impact boundary location and sharpness. Our results emphasize that the bacterial view of transcription regulation, where pairwise interactions between regulatory proteins dominate, must be reexamined in animals, where multiple molecular mechanisms collaborate to shape the gene regulatory function

Attributionally More Complex People Show Less Punitiveness and Racism

Based on past findings that attributionally more complex people make less fundamental attribution error, it was hypothesized that they would show less punitiveness and racism. In a study of 102 undergraduates, this hypothesis received robust support. The effect of attributional complexity was significant in 2 different punitiveness measures, a rehabilitation support measure, and 2 different racism measures. Also, this effect still held when demographic variables, crime victimization history, and need for cognition were statistically controlled. Moreover, attributional complexity mediated the effect of need for cognition and gender on punitiveness and racism. Theoretical implications are discussed