287 research outputs found
Japanese Commercial Transactions and Sanctions Revisited: Sumitomo v. UFJ
In this Essay I examine Haleyâs claim that we see more regulatory continuity than change in Japan, testing it against a case study of the failed banking merger between Sumitomo and UFJ financial groups (as they were then known) in 2004
Contract Societies: Japan and the United States Contrasted
This translation of an original Japanese language work by Michida ShinichirĆ contrasts the differences between the understanding of contractual obligations in the United States and in Japan. The translation cites specific differences between each country\u27s statutes and case law, as well as distinct cultural factors that are important when considering respective understandings of contract in these societies. Translator\u27s Introductory Note: This translation is intended to give readers an introduction to Japanese contract law theory and its operation in that society. Professor ShinichirĆ Michida was writing for a general audience in Japan, not simply for those with legal training. One of his aims was to debunk the myth that the Japanese have no sense of contractâa theory that had been popularly accepted within Japan, as well as in the United States. The value of this extract for foreign lawyers is that it demonstrates the interplay of codes, statutes, cases and scholarly writing in a civil law system like Japan\u27s. As this extract shows, the major role of legal scholars in civil law countries is to synthesize reported cases and statutes by interpreting the underlying policy of code or statute provisions. Instead of criticizing and attacking court decisions and their underlying policy motives, however, Japanese commentators commonly affirm decisions and explain their reasoning in applying legal theory. The scholar\u27s role in a civil law system is to generate legal theory, rather than to force its adoption by practitioners
Symposium: The Future of Law and Development, Part V
There are enough questions on the table to get us going, so Iâll focus on responding to some of them. First, to an issue raised by Salil Mehra and Tom Ginsburg, I generally follow the approach taken by Trubek and Santos in The New Law and Economic Development. Their approach defines the field (âdoctrineâ) of Law and Development to encompass the activities of legal assistance providers, as well as the ideas about law, and about development economics, that animate their work. There are different strategies for studying the providersâ activities, and Terence Halliday and Bruce Carruthersâs research for their book, Bankrupt, provides an outstanding example of the detailed sociological work some Law and Development scholars undertake. But the academic enterprise doesnât really seem separable from the activities of the providers. We could discuss the pros and cons of that dependence, but I do not think we can avoid it. The institutional players in the field rise and fall in importance over time, the ideologies concerning law and economics that animate their work change over time, the external environment affecting the institutions changes over time, and this complex, dynamic stew provides the academic core of Law and Development. The academic field is not merely the sum of the projects, as Tamanaha appears set to argue, but is instead the study of those projects in their political, historical, and ideological contexts. The problem this background poses for the scholar is that he or she must first figure out a level of engagement with the institutional players that will allow the scholar to understand what is actually going on inside them, and in their relations with national governments, while leaving the scholar free to provide serious academic analysis and critique. I sometimes joke that Law and Development is a field where those who know donât talk, and those who talk donât know, but it is actually a serious problem for a scholarly field
Trends in Appendicitis Among Pregnant Women, the Risk for Cardiac Arrest, and MaternalâFetal Mortality
Background: Appendicitis is the most common extra-uterine surgical emergency requiring immediate intervention during pregnancy. However, risks for mortality and morbidity among pregnant women with appendicitis remain poorly understood. This study was conducted to determine the temporal trends of appendicitis in pregnant women, and to calculate the risk of maternalâfetal mortality and near-miss marker (i.e., cardiac arrest) among pregnant women in general, and by race/ethnicity. Methods: We conducted this retrospective study using data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2015. Joinpoint regression was used to estimate and describe temporal changes in the rates of all and acute appendicitis during the 14-year study period. We also estimated the risk of cardiac arrest, maternal, and fetal mortality among mothers of various racial/ethnic groups with a diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Within each group, patients without acute appendicitis were the referent category. Results and conclusions: Out of the 58 million pregnancy hospitalizations during the study period, 63,145 cases (10.74 per 10,000 hospitalizations) were for acute appendicitis. There was a 5% decline (95% CI: â 5.1, â 5.0) in the rate of appendicitis hospitalizations over the period of the study. After adjusting for covariates, pregnant mothers with acute appendicitis had increased likelihood when compared to those without acute appendicitis to suffer fetal loss (OR: 2.05, 95% CI: 1.85â2.28) and nearly fivefold increase for inpatient maternal death. In conclusion, appendicitis during pregnancy remains an important cause of in-hospital maternalâfetal mortality overall and regardless of race/ethnicity
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DNA methylation changes in African American women with a history of preterm birth from the InterGEN study
Background
Preterm birth (<â37âweeksâ gestation) is a common outcome of pregnancy that has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease for women later in life. Little is known about the physiologic mechanisms underlying this risk. To date, no studies have evaluated if differences in DNA methylation (DNAm) among women who experience preterm birth are short-term or if they persist and are associated with subsequent cardiovascular sequelae or other health disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine long-term epigenetic effects of preterm birth in African American mothers (nâ=â182) from the InterGEN Study (2014â2019). In this study, we determine if differences in DNAm exist between women who reported a preterm birth in the last 3â5âyears compared to those who had full-term births by using two different approaches: epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) and genome-wide co-methylation analyses.
Results
Though no significant CpG sites were identified using the EWAS approach, we did identify significant modules of co-methylation associated with preterm birth. Co-methylation analyses showed correlations with preterm birth in gene ontology and KEGG pathways. Functional annotation analysis revealed enrichment for pathways related to central nervous system and sensory perception. No association was observed between DNAm age and preterm birth, though larger samples are needed to confirm this further.
Conclusions
We identified differentially methylated gene networks associated with preterm birth in African American women 3â5âyears after birth, including pathways related to neurogenesis and sensory processing. More research is needed to understand better these associations and replicate them in an independent cohort. Further study should be done in this area to elucidate mechanisms linking preterm birth and later epigenomic changes that may contribute to the development of health disorders and maternal mood and well-being
POTs: Protective Optimization Technologies
Algorithmic fairness aims to address the economic, moral, social, and
political impact that digital systems have on populations through solutions
that can be applied by service providers. Fairness frameworks do so, in part,
by mapping these problems to a narrow definition and assuming the service
providers can be trusted to deploy countermeasures. Not surprisingly, these
decisions limit fairness frameworks' ability to capture a variety of harms
caused by systems.
We characterize fairness limitations using concepts from requirements
engineering and from social sciences. We show that the focus on algorithms'
inputs and outputs misses harms that arise from systems interacting with the
world; that the focus on bias and discrimination omits broader harms on
populations and their environments; and that relying on service providers
excludes scenarios where they are not cooperative or intentionally adversarial.
We propose Protective Optimization Technologies (POTs). POTs provide means
for affected parties to address the negative impacts of systems in the
environment, expanding avenues for political contestation. POTs intervene from
outside the system, do not require service providers to cooperate, and can
serve to correct, shift, or expose harms that systems impose on populations and
their environments. We illustrate the potential and limitations of POTs in two
case studies: countering road congestion caused by traffic-beating
applications, and recalibrating credit scoring for loan applicants.Comment: Appears in Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
(FAT* 2020). Bogdan Kulynych and Rebekah Overdorf contributed equally to this
work. Version v1/v2 by Seda G\"urses, Rebekah Overdorf, and Ero Balsa was
presented at HotPETS 2018 and at PiMLAI 201
Recipes for spin-based quantum computing
Technological growth in the electronics industry has historically been
measured by the number of transistors that can be crammed onto a single
microchip. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end; spectacular
growth in the number of transistors on a chip requires spectacular reduction of
the transistor size. For electrons in semiconductors, the laws of quantum
mechanics take over at the nanometre scale, and the conventional wisdom for
progress (transistor cramming) must be abandoned. This realization has
stimulated extensive research on ways to exploit the spin (in addition to the
orbital) degree of freedom of the electron, giving birth to the field of
spintronics. Perhaps the most ambitious goal of spintronics is to realize
complete control over the quantum mechanical nature of the relevant spins. This
prospect has motivated a race to design and build a spintronic device capable
of complete control over its quantum mechanical state, and ultimately,
performing computations: a quantum computer.
In this tutorial we summarize past and very recent developments which point
the way to spin-based quantum computing in the solid-state. After introducing a
set of basic requirements for any quantum computer proposal, we offer a brief
summary of some of the many theoretical proposals for solid-state quantum
computers. We then focus on the Loss-DiVincenzo proposal for quantum computing
with the spins of electrons confined to quantum dots. There are many obstacles
to building such a quantum device. We address these, and survey recent
theoretical, and then experimental progress in the field. To conclude the
tutorial, we list some as-yet unrealized experiments, which would be crucial
for the development of a quantum-dot quantum computer.Comment: 45 pages, 12 figures (low-res in preprint, high-res in journal)
tutorial review for Nanotechnology; v2: references added and updated, final
version to appear in journa
Acoustic sequences in non-human animals: a tutorial review and prospectus.
Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, made up of multiple distinct acoustic units. Apart from the well-known example of birdsong, other animals such as insects, amphibians, and mammals (including bats, rodents, primates, and cetaceans) also generate complex acoustic sequences. Occasionally, such as with birdsong, the adaptive role of these sequences seems clear (e.g. mate attraction and territorial defence). More often however, researchers have only begun to characterise - let alone understand - the significance and meaning of acoustic sequences. Hypotheses abound, but there is little agreement as to how sequences should be defined and analysed. Our review aims to outline suitable methods for testing these hypotheses, and to describe the major limitations to our current and near-future knowledge on questions of acoustic sequences. This review and prospectus is the result of a collaborative effort between 43 scientists from the fields of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution, signal processing, machine learning, quantitative linguistics, and information theory, who gathered for a 2013 workshop entitled, 'Analysing vocal sequences in animals'. Our goal is to present not just a review of the state of the art, but to propose a methodological framework that summarises what we suggest are the best practices for research in this field, across taxa and across disciplines. We also provide a tutorial-style introduction to some of the most promising algorithmic approaches for analysing sequences. We divide our review into three sections: identifying the distinct units of an acoustic sequence, describing the different ways that information can be contained within a sequence, and analysing the structure of that sequence. Each of these sections is further subdivided to address the key questions and approaches in that area. We propose a uniform, systematic, and comprehensive approach to studying sequences, with the goal of clarifying research terms used in different fields, and facilitating collaboration and comparative studies. Allowing greater interdisciplinary collaboration will facilitate the investigation of many important questions in the evolution of communication and sociality.This review was developed at an investigative workshop, âAnalyzing Animal Vocal Communication Sequencesâ that took place on October 21â23 2013 in Knoxville, Tennessee, sponsored by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). NIMBioS is an Institute sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture through NSF Awards #EF-0832858 and #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In addition to the authors, Vincent Janik participated in the workshop. D.T.B.âs research is currently supported by NSF DEB-1119660. M.A.B.âs research is currently supported by NSF IOS-0842759 and NIH R01DC009582. M.A.R.âs research is supported by ONR N0001411IP20086 and NOPP (ONR/BOEM) N00014-11-1-0697. S.L.DeR.âs research is supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. R.F.-i-C.âs research was supported by the grant BASMATI (TIN2011-27479-C04-03) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. E.C.G.âs research is currently supported by a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship. E.E.V.âs research is supported by CONACYT, Mexico, award number I010/214/2012.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/brv.1216
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