Naturalization and Naturalization Law: Some Empirical Observations

Ian F. Haney López, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 296. $24.95 (cloth),$17.95 (paper). Fourteen years ago, Robert Gordon noted that scholars associated with the Critical Legal Studies movement pay a lot of attention to history. In fact, wrote Gordon, Critical Legal Studies scholars have probably devoted more pages to historical description - particularly the intellectual history of legal doctrine - than to anything else. Much the same could be said today of the academic movement known as Critical Race Theory. Although Critical Race theorists are concerned above all with alleviating current racial injustice, they devote a good deal of their intellectual energy to examining the past. In the following Book Note, I consider one of the most recent and celebrated historical contributions to Critical Race Theory, Ian Haney López\u27s White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. Unlike other evaluations of White by Law, this Book Note focuses not on Haney López\u27s theoretical objectives, but on one of his central empirical claims. In particular, it examines Haney López\u27s pathbreaking discussion of the role anthropological evidence played in determining the outcome of two Supreme Court decisions of the 1920s: Ozawa v. United States and United States v. Thind. Both decisions clarified the racial requirements for becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen under federal law. I have divided this Book Note into three brief sections. First, I describe the subject of White by Law and explain why Haney López\u27s analysis of Ozawa and Thind forms the foundation on which he constructs his more general historical and normative conclusions. Second, by considering the language of Ozawa and Thind and the jurisprudence of Justice George Sutherland, the author of both decisions, I suggest how that analysis is open to empirical critique. My remarks on Justice Sutherland focus on his consistent wariness toward the use of social science by the Supreme Court, as well as on his drive to consolidate federal authority over international affairs. Finally, I propose an alternative perspective on Ozawa and Thind that I hope might supplement Haney López\u27s trenchant interpretation

Consistent Scenarios for Cosmic-Ray Excesses from Sommerfeld-Enhanced Dark Matter Annihilation

Anomalies in direct and indirect detection have motivated models of dark matter consisting of a multiplet of nearly-degenerate states, coupled by a new GeV-scale interaction. We perform a careful analysis of the thermal freezeout of dark matter annihilation in such a scenario. We compute the range of "boost factors" arising from Sommerfeld enhancement in the local halo for models which produce the correct relic density, and show the effect of including constraints on the saturated enhancement from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We find that boost factors from Sommerfeld enhancement of up to ~800 are possible in the local halo. When the CMB bounds on the saturated enhancement are applied, the maximal boost factor is reduced to ~400 for 1-2 TeV dark matter and sub-GeV force carriers, but remains large enough to explain the observed Fermi and PAMELA electronic signals. We describe regions in the DM mass-boost factor plane where the cosmic ray data is well fit for a range of final states, and show that Sommerfeld enhancement alone is enough to provide the large annihilation cross sections required to fit the data, although for light mediator masses (less than ~200 MeV) there is tension with the CMB constraints in the absence of astrophysical boost factors from substructure. Additionally, we consider the circumstances under which WIMPonium formation is relevant and find for heavy WIMPs (greater than ~2 TeV) and soft-spectrum annihilation channels it can be an important consideration; we find regions with dark matter mass greater than 2.8 TeV that are consistent with the CMB bounds and have ~600-700 present-day boost factors.Comment: Related web application at http://astrometry.fas.harvard.edu/mvogelsb/sommerfeld . v2: added brief clarification regarding propagation parameters, plots now show effect of relaxing CMB bounds. 35 pages in JCAP format, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in JCA

Health Care Safety-Net Programs After The Affordable Care Act

Prior to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health care safety-net programs were the primary source of care for over 44 million uninsured people. While the ACA cut the number of uninsured substantially, about 30 million people remain uninsured, and many millions more are vulnerable to out-of-pocket costs beyond their resources. The need for the safety net remains, even as the distribution and types of need have shifted. This brief reviews the effects of the ACA on the funding and operation of safety-net institutions. It highlights the challenges and opportunities that health care reform presents to safety-net programs, and how they have adapted and evolved to continue to serve our most vulnerable residents

Primary Care Shortages: More Than a Head Count

The existence of a primary care physician shortage, even prior to the ACA, is not universally accepted. A new report by the Institute on Medicine found “no credible evidence” that the nation faces a looming physician shortage in primary care specialties. There is greater consensus about a maldistribution of physicians, in terms of specialty, geography, and practice settings. This new LDI/ Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) research brief reviews the evidence and how the ACA might affect current and future patterns of delivering primary care

Effects of the ACA on Health Care Cost Containment

This brief reviews the evidence on how key ACA provisions have affected the growth of health care costs. Coverage expansions produced a predictable jump in health care spending, amidst a slowdown that began a decade ago. Although we have not returned to the double-digit increases of the past, the authors find little evidence that ACA cost containment provisions produced changes necessary to “bend the cost curve.” Cost control will likely play a prominent role in the next round of health reform and will be critical to sustaining coverage. gains in the long term

Use of primary care electronic medical record database in drug efficacy research on cardiovascular outcomes: comparison of database and randomised controlled trial findings

Objectives To determine whether observational studies that use an electronic medical record database can provide valid results of therapeutic effectiveness and to develop new methods to enhance validity

Sucrose-phosphate synthase phosphatase, a type 2A protein phosphatase, changes its sensitivity towards inhibition by inorganic phosphate in spinach leaves

AbstractThe activity of a type 2A protein phosphatase from spinach leaves was monitored using phosphorylated sucrose-phosphate synthase (SPS) as a substrate. After partial purification the overall activities of sucrose-phosphate synthase phosphatase (SPS-P) recovered from leaves harvested in the dark and in the light did not vary. However, SPS-P preparations from darkened leaves were more strongly inhibited by inorganic phosphate and certain phosphorylated compounds than preparations from illuminated or mannose fed leaves. We conclude, that activation of SPS involves an interconversion of multiple forms of SPS-P activity

Electronic health records: high-quality electronic data for higher-quality clinical research

In the decades prior to the introduction of electronic health records (EHRs), the best source of electronic information to support clinical research was claims data. The use of claims data in research has been criticised for capturing only demographics, diagnoses and procedures recorded for billing purposes that may not fully reflect the patient's condition. Many important details of the patient's clinical status are not recorded. EHRs can overcome many limitations of claims data in research, by capturing a more complete picture of the observations and actions of a clinician recorded when patients are seen. EHRs can provide important details about vital signs, diagnostic test results, social and family history, prescriptions and physical examination findings. As a result, EHRs present a new opportunity to use data collected through the routine operation of a clinical practice to generate and test hypotheses about the relationships among patients, diseases, practice styles, therapeutic modalities and clinical outcomes. This article describes the clinical research information infrastructure at four institutions: the University of Pennsylvania, Regenstrief Institute/Indiana University, Partners Healthcare System and the University of Virginia. We present models for applying EHR data successfully within the clinical research enterprise

Association of snRNA genes with coiled bodies is mediated by nascent snRNA transcripts

AbstractBackground: Coiled bodies are nuclear organelles that are highly enriched in small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) and certain basal transcription factors. Surprisingly, coiled bodies not only contain mature U snRNPs but also associate with specific chromosomal loci, including gene clusters that encode U snRNAs and histone messenger RNAs. The mechanism(s) by which coiled bodies associate with these genes is completely unknown.Results: Using stable cell lines, we show that artificial tandem arrays of human U1 and U2 snRNA genes colocalize with coiled bodies and that the frequency of the colocalization depends directly on the transcriptional activity of the array. Association of the genes with coiled bodies was abolished when the artificial U2 arrays contained promoter mutations that prevent transcription or when RNA polymerase II transcription was globally inhibited by α-amanitin. Remarkably, the association was also abolished when the U2 snRNA coding regions were replaced by heterologous sequences.Conclusions: The requirement for the U2 snRNA coding region indicates that association of snRNA genes with coiled bodies is mediated by the nascent U2 RNA itself, not by DNA or DNA-bound proteins. Our data provide the first evidence that association of genes with a nuclear organelle can be directed by an RNA and suggest an autogenous feedback regulation model

Distinct Retinohypothalamic Innervation Patterns Predict the Developmental Emergence of Species-typical Circadian Phase Preference in Nocturnal Norway Rats and Diurnal Nile Grass Rats

How does the brain develop differently to support nocturnality in some mammals, but diurnality in others? To answer this question, one might look to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is entrained by light via the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT). However, because the SCN is more active during the day in all mammals studied thus far, it alone cannot determine circadian phase preference. In adult Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus), which are nocturnal, the RHT also projects to the ventral subparaventricular zone (vSPVZ), an adjacent region that expresses an in-phase pattern of SCN-vSPVZ neuronal activity. In contrast, in adult Nile grass rats (Arvicanthis niloticus), which are diurnal, an anti-phase pattern of SCN-vSPVZ neuronal activity is expressed. We hypothesized that these species differences result in part from a weak or absent RHT-to-vSPVZ projection in grass rats. Here, using a developmental comparative approach, we assessed species differences in behavior, hypothalamic activity, and RHT anatomy. We report that a robust retina-to-vSPVZ projection develops in Norway rats around the end of the second postnatal week when nocturnal wakefulness and the in-phase pattern of neuronal activity emerge. In grass rats, however, such a projection does not develop and the emergence of the anti-phase pattern during the second postnatal week is accompanied by increased diurnal wakefulness. When considered within the context of previously published reports on RHT projections in a variety of species, the current findings suggest that how and when the retina connects to the hypothalamus differentially shapes brain and behavior to produce animals that occupy opposing temporal niches