The Post-Conviction Claim That Unites Death Row

“. . . [D]eath-penalty cases are different from other criminal cases, due to the obvious finality of the punishment.” Thirty-one executions have taken place in Arkansas since 1990. In February of 2017, Arkansas, uniquely, sought to execute eight inmates in eleven days—the so-called “Arkansas Eight.” All of those death row inmates shared a common postconviction claim: Strickland. Prior to Strickland v. Washington, no Supreme Court jurisprudence made clear what constituted objectively sufficient defense representation pursuant to the Sixth Amendment. But that changed in 1984 when Strickland made clear that the Sixth Amendment included the right of effective assistance of counsel

Functional Outcome in Bipolar Disorder: The Big Picture

Previous research on functional outcome in bipolar disorder (BD) has uncovered various factors that exacerbate psychosocial disability over the course of illness, including genetics, illness severity, stress, anxiety, and cognitive impairment. This paper presents an integrated view of these findings that accounts for the precipitous decline in psychosocial functioning after illness onset. The proposed model highlights a number of reciprocal pathways among previously studied factors that trap people in a powerful cycle of ailing forces. The paper discusses implications to patient care as well as the larger social changes required for shifting the functional trajectory of people with BD from psychosocial decline to growth

Abstract knowledge versus direct experience in processing of binomial expressions

We ask whether word order preferences for binomial expressions of the form A and B (e.g. bread and butter) are driven by abstract linguistic knowledge of ordering constraints referencing the semantic, phonological, and lexical properties of the constituent words, or by prior direct experience with the specific items in questions. Using forced-choice and self-paced reading tasks, we demonstrate that online processing of never-before-seen binomials is influenced by abstract knowledge of ordering constraints, which we estimate with a probabilistic model. In contrast, online processing of highly frequent binomials is primarily driven by direct experience, which we estimate from corpus frequency counts. We propose a trade-off wherein processing of novel expressions relies upon abstract knowledge, while reliance upon direct experience increases with increased exposure to an expression. Our findings support theories of language processing in which both compositional generation and direct, holistic reuse of multi-word expressions play crucial roles.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award NSF0953870)Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Award NICHDR01HD065829

Frequency-(in)dependent Regularization in Language Production and Cultural Transmission

Binomial expressions are more regularized--i.e. their ordering preferences (e.g. “bread and butter” vs. “butter and bread”) are more extreme—-the higher their frequency. Although standard iterated-learning models of language evolution can encode overall regularization biases, the stationary distributions in these standard models do not exhibit a relationship between expression frequency and regularization. We show that introducing a frequency-INdependent regularization bias into the data-generation stage of a 2-Alternative Iterated Learning Model yields frequency-dependent regularization in the stationary distribution. We also show that this model accounts for the distribution of binomial ordering preferences in corpus data

Symposium: Giving Korematsu v. United States A Sober Second Thought

We are elated to present Professor Mark Killenbeck’s thought provoking article, Sober Second Thought? Korematsu Reconsidered. Killenbeck dives into the Korematsu opinion and its history with great care to determine whether it truly “has no place in law under the Constitution” as Chief Justice John Roberts declared in Trump v. Hawaii.1 While Korematsu’s result provides an understandable “impulse to condemn” it, Killenbeck shows us that focusing solely on the case’s result “stands apart from and in stark contrast to its most important place in the constitutional order: articulation of precepts and terminology that provide the foundations for strict scrutiny.

Upper Limb Tensegrity Exoskeleton

Tensegrity structures are composed of stiff rods and elastic cables suspended in a flexible tension network. Their inherent properties have several key advantages when used in assistive medical devices such as supportive braces or rehabilitation exoskeletons: 1) the lightweight and natural compliance reduces the power consumption required to operate the system; 2) the system stiffness and pretension can be individually tuned to accommodate the user’s needs; and 3) the impact-resistant properties can protect users in the event of collisions and falls. This project explores the design space of assistive tensegrity devices to augment human dexterity in the upper limb. Suitable tensegrity configurations were built through rapid prototyping and then characterized by their performance. The work contributes to a new data-driven framework for the long-term goals of the work: advancing the capability of automated tensegrity system design and contributing low-cost, custom tensegrity devices to the next generation of assistive medical devices

The Dual Delivery of Y15 and Metformin in a PLGA Scaffold for the Treatment of Platinum Resistant Ovarian Cancer

Background: Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer mortality among women in the US. High mortality is linked to resistance to platinum compounds. Currently there is no treatment for platinum resistant ovarian cancer (OCpt). Platinum resistance shows increased activity of focal adhesion kinase (FAK). Y15 is a FAK inhibitor and increases OCpt sensitivity to chemotherapy. Metformin induces apoptosis, has no increased cytotoxicity, and works synergistically with Y15 in OCpt cells. Biomaterial scaffolds deliver drugs locally, maximizing drug concentration and bioavailability while minimizing systemic toxicity. PLGA copolymer has excellent biocompatibility, versatility, and a tailorable degradation rate. The objective of this study is to utilize biomaterials as a dual drug delivery system and investigate if the combined delivery of Y15 and Metformin would result in synergistic effects on cell viability. Methods: A mold-less technique combining PLGA and the drugs in tetraglycol were injected into PBS to form a globular scaffold. An MTT assay was used to analyze cell viability in OCpt OVCAR3 cells at an absorbance of 570 nm with a microplate reader. Results: Metformin and Y15 resulted in cell viabilities of 66% and 54%, respectively. When combined, the viability decreased to 23%. In studies with the fabricated PLGA scaffolds, cell viabilities were 74% and 89% for Metformin and Y15. When combined, cell viability decreased significantly to 5%. Conclusions: The delivery of Y15 and Metformin in a biomaterial scaffold can result in a synergistic effect on cell viability and thus, can be a promising approach for the treatment of OCpt

A rapid, inexpensive, and semi-quantitative method for determining pollen tube extension using fluorescence

BACKGROUND: Pollen tubes extend rapidly when pollen grains are incubated in defined media. Tube extension requires many critical functions of plant cells including molecular signaling, cytoskeleton remodeling, secretion, and cell wall synthesis. Consequently, pollen tube growth has been established as a way to conduct primary screens of chemical libraries to identify compounds that perturb key cellular processes in plants. RESULTS: Here we report a simple, inexpensive, rapid and semi-quantitative method for measurement of pollen tube growth in microtiter plates. The method relies on Congo Red binding to pollen tubes and correlates dye fluorescence to tube length. CONCLUSIONS: This method can be used in any laboratory without specialized equipment, and has the potential to enable larger screens as chemical libraries grow and to make chemical screening accessible to researchers building specialized libraries designed to probe pathways in plant biology

Predictors and outcomes of crossover to surgery from physical therapy for meniscal tear and osteoarthritis a randomized trial comparing physical therapy and surgery

BACKGROUND: Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy (APM) combined with physical therapy (PT) have yielded pain relief similar to that provided by PT alone in randomized trials of subjects with a degenerative meniscal tear. However, many patients randomized to PT received APM before assessment of the primary outcome. We sought to identify factors associated with crossing over to APM and to compare pain relief between patients who had crossed over to APM and those who had been randomized to APM. METHODS: We used data from the MeTeOR (Meniscal Tear in Osteoarthritis Research) Trial of APM with PT versus PT alone in subjects ≥45 years old who had mild-to-moderate osteoarthritis and a degenerative meniscal tear. We assessed independent predictors of crossover to APM among those randomized to PT. We also compared pain relief at 6 months among those randomized to PT who crossed over to APM, those who did not cross over, and those originally randomized to APM. RESULTS: One hundred and sixty-four subjects were randomized to and received APM and 177 were randomized to PT, of whom 48 (27%) crossed over to receive APM in the first 140 days after randomization. In multivariate analyses, factors associated with a higher likelihood of crossing over to APM among those who had originally been randomized to PT included a baseline Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) Pain Score of ≥40 (risk ratio [RR] = 1.99; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00, 3.93) and symptom duration of <1 year (RR = 1.74; 95% CI = 0.98, 3.08). Eighty-one percent of subjects who crossed over to APM and 82% of those randomized to APM had an improvement of ≥10 points in their pain score at 6 months, as did 73% of those who were randomized to and received only PT. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects who crossed over to APM had presented with a shorter symptom duration and greater baseline pain than those who did not cross over from PT. Subjects who crossed over had rates of surgical success similar to those of the patients who had been randomized to surgery. Our findings also suggest that an initial course of rigorous PT prior to APM may not compromise surgical outcome. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence