Facing the Fear: A Free Market Approach for Economic Expression

Commentators differ on whether a diminished constitutional status for profit-driven speech is consistent with free speech theory. Most recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission largely embraced an unfettered marketplace approach for political speech financed by corporate treasuries. Given the harm a free market approach is said to have produced in the economic realm, is this approach useful for structuring the constitutional protection economic expression receives? This article discusses the placement of economic expression within First Amendment theory and contends that restrictions on economic speech should be aimed at combating deceptive economic activities while overall regulatory goals should focus on requirements that enrich the supply of accurate and timely information

Nowhere to Go? Examining Facility Acceptance Levels for Serving Individuals Using Medications for Opioid Used Disorder

Medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) are associated with better overall outcomes for individuals managing their OUD. While much attention has focused on expanding access to these medications, this study aimed to gain further clarity on how facility-level characteristics may be contributing to availability of complementary recovery-oriented and/or recovery support services for individuals diagnosed with OUD. We created a census of 410 facilities located within a Midwestern metropolitan area that provided services aligning with the substance use disorder (SUD) continuum of care between September 2017 and March 2018. Among facilities serving individuals with opioid-related needs (N = 360), we triangulated five sources of data to measure facility-reported acceptance for individuals who are using medications for OUD. We also obtained facility rationale for their acceptance level (N = 89). We used multinomial logistic regression to identify facility-level factors associated with acceptance for medication use, and we used content analysis to identify categories of common rationales. Compared to moderate acceptance facilities, zero and low acceptance facilities were more likely to provide recovery support services or less likely to provide more than one type of SUD service. In contrast, high acceptance facilities were more likely than moderate acceptance facilities to focus primarily on mental health needs or provide multiple types of SUD services. Qualitative feedback suggests that the factors contributing to these relationships are complex and varied, providing multiple points for intervention at a facility level to increase service availability for individuals using medications for OUD. We address implications for policy and practice, highlighting the need to build an infrastructure that promotes availability of complementary recovery-oriented and recovery support service for individuals once they are prescribed medications for OUD

Genome-Wide Local Ancestry Approach Identifies Genes and Variants Associated with Chemotherapeutic Susceptibility in African Americans

Chemotherapeutic agents are used in the treatment of many cancers, yet variable resistance and toxicities among individuals limit successful outcomes. Several studies have indicated outcome differences associated with ancestry among patients with various cancer types. Using both traditional SNP-based and newly developed gene-based genome-wide approaches, we investigated the genetics of chemotherapeutic susceptibility in lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from 83 African Americans, a population for which there is a disparity in the number of genome-wide studies performed. To account for population structure in this admixed population, we incorporated local ancestry information into our association model. We tested over 2 million SNPs and identified 325, 176, 240, and 190 SNPs that were suggestively associated with cytarabine-, 5′-deoxyfluorouridine (5′-DFUR)-, carboplatin-, and cisplatin-induced cytotoxicity, respectively (p≤10−4). Importantly, some of these variants are found only in populations of African descent. We also show that cisplatin-susceptibility SNPs are enriched for carboplatin-susceptibility SNPs. Using a gene-based genome-wide association approach, we identified 26, 11, 20, and 41 suggestive candidate genes for association with cytarabine-, 5′-DFUR-, carboplatin-, and cisplatin-induced cytotoxicity, respectively (p≤10−3). Fourteen of these genes showed evidence of association with their respective chemotherapeutic phenotypes in the Yoruba from Ibadan, Nigeria (p<0.05), including TP53I11, COPS5 and GAS8, which are known to be involved in tumorigenesis. Although our results require further study, we have identified variants and genes associated with chemotherapeutic susceptibility in African Americans by using an approach that incorporates local ancestry information

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio