They Were Meant for Each Other: Professor Edward Cooper and the Rules Enabling Act

This introduction to the essays in this Symposium illuminates Professor Ed Cooper\u27s years as Reporter to the Civil Rules Committee by first briefly describing those who preceded him in the position and his own background. We then describe some of Ed Cooper\u27s many contributions to the Civil Rules Committee, the Federal Rules, rulemaking, and civil procedure by examining the present state of the Rules Committees\u27 work under the Rules Enabling Act. We conclude that after almost eighty years of experience under that Act, it is working well in large part because of the sound leadership provided by Ed Cooper over his twenty years as Reporter. It was during these years that the Committee developed an approach to rulemaking that was at once transparent and empirical, with multiple opportunities for participation by members of the public, the bench, the academy, and the bar; with many informal opportunities for consultation with members of Congress and the Executive Branch; and with an understanding by the Committee of its role in relation to the courts, Congress, and the Executive. Two episodes of recent rulemaking and related activity are described as examples of how well the Rules Enabling Act is working, in large part because of the very flexibility and discretion the Act has provided since 1934. One of those episodes occurred when Judge Anthony Scirica chaired the Standing Committee and then- Judge David Levi chaired the Civil Rules Committee. The other occurred when Judge Lee Rosenthal and Judge Mark Kravitz were the chairs of the Standing and Civil Rules Committees, respectively. Both episodes provide a basis for optimism about the future. And they make clear Ed Cooper\u27s continued steady role in supporting and cultivating the robust good health of the rulemaking process and the institutional values it protects

Stereotactic guidance for navigated percutaneous sacroiliac joint fusion.

Arthrodesis of the sacroiliac joint (SIJ) for surgical treatment of SIJ dysfunction has regained interest among spine specialists. Current techniques described in the literature most often utilize intraoperative fluoroscopy to aid in implant placement; however, image guidance for SIJ fusion may allow for minimally invasive percutaneous instrumentation with more precise implant placement. In the following cases, we performed percutaneous stereotactic navigated sacroiliac instrumentation using O-arm® multidimensional surgical imaging with StealthStation® navigation (Medtronic, Inc. Minneapolis, MN). Patients were positioned prone and an image-guidance reference frame was placed contralateral to the surgical site. O-arm® integrated with StealthStation® allowed immediate auto-registration. The skin incision was planned with an image-guidance probe. An image-guided awl, drill and tap were utilized to choose a starting point and trajectory. Threaded titanium cage(s) packed with autograft and/or allograft were then placed. O-arm® image-guidance allowed for implant placement in the SIJ with a small skin incision. However, we could not track the cage depth position with our current system, and in one patient, the SIJ cage had to be revised secondary to the anterior breach of sacrum

Structures of falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 bound to small molecule inhibitors: implications for substrate specificity.

Falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 are critical hemoglobinases of Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent human malaria parasite. We have determined the 2.9 A crystal structure of falcipain-2 in complex with the epoxysuccinate E64 and the 2.5 A crystal structure of falcipain-3 in complex with the aldehyde leupeptin. These complexes represent the first crystal structures of plasmodial cysteine proteases with small molecule inhibitors and the first reported crystal structure of falcipain-3. Our structural analyses indicate that the relative shape and flexibility of the S2 pocket are affected by a number of discrete amino acid substitutions. The cumulative effect of subtle differences, including those at "gatekeeper" positions, may explain the observed kinetic differences between these two closely related enzymes

The California Legacy Survey IV. Lonely, Poor, and Eccentric: A Comparison Between Solitary and Neighborly Gas Giants

We compare systems with single giant planets to systems with multiple giant planets using a catalog of planets from a high-precision radial velocity survey of FGKM stars. Our comparison focuses on orbital properties, planet masses, and host star properties. We use hierarchical methods to model the orbital eccentricity distributions of giant singles and giant multis, and find that the distributions are distinct. The multiple giant planets typically have moderate eccentricities and their eccentricity distribution extends to $e=0.47$ (90th percentile), while the single giant planets have a pile-up of nearly circular orbits and a long tail that extends to $e=0.77$. We determine that stellar hosts of multiple giants are distinctly more metal-rich than hosts of solitary giants, with respective mean metallicities $0.228\pm0.027$ vs. $0.129\pm0.019$ dex. We measure the distinct occurrence distributions of single and multiple giants with respect to orbital separation, and find that single gas giants have a $\sim$2.3$\sigma$ significant hot ($a<0.06$) Jupiter pile-up not seen among multi giant systems. We find that the median mass (\msini ) of giants in multiples is nearly double that of single giants (1.71 \mjup vs. 0.92 \mjup ). We find that giant planets in the same system have correlated masses, analogous to the `peas in a pod' effect seen among less massive planets

A Search For Pulsations in the Optical Light Curve of the Nova ASASSN-17hx

We present high-speed optical observations of the nova ASASSN-17hx, taken both immediately after its discovery and close to its first peak in brightness, to search for second–minute pulsations associated with the convective eddy turnover timescale within the nova envelope. We do not detect any periodic signal with greater than 3σ significance. Through injection and recovery, we rule out periodic signals of fractional amplitude >7.08 × 10^(−4) on timescales of 2 s and fractional amplitude >1.06 × 10^(−3) on timescales of 10 minutes. Additional observations of novae are planned to further constrain ongoing simulations of the launch and propagation of nova winds

Research practices that can prevent an inflation of false-positive rates

Recent studies have indicated that research practices in psychology may be susceptible to factors that increase false-positive rates, raising concerns about the possible prevalence of false-positive findings. The present article discusses several practices that may run counter to the inflation of false-positive rates. Taking these practices into account would lead to a more balanced view on the false-positive issue. Specifically, we argue that an inflation of false-positive rates would diminish, sometimes to a substantial degree, when researchers (a) have explicit a priori theoretical hypotheses, (b) include multiple replication studies in a single paper, and (c) collect additional data based on observed results. We report findings from simulation studies and statistical evidence that support these arguments. Being aware of these preventive factors allows researchers not to overestimate the pervasiveness of false-positives in psychology and to gauge the susceptibility of a paper to possible false-positives in practical and fair ways

Dynamical Packing in the Habitable Zone: The Case of Beta CVn

Uncovering the occurrence rate of terrestrial planets within the habitable zone (HZ) of their host stars has been a particular focus of exoplanetary science in recent years. The statistics of these occurrence rates have largely been derived from transiting planet discoveries, and have uncovered numerous HZ planets in compact systems around M-dwarf host stars. Here we explore the width of the HZ as a function of spectral type, and the dynamical constraints on the number of stable orbits within the HZ for a given star. We show that, although the Hill radius for a given planetary mass increases with larger semimajor axis, the width of the HZ for earlier-type stars allows for more terrestrial planets in the HZ than late-type stars. In general, dynamical constraints allow ~6 HZ Earth-mass planets for stellar masses ≳0.7M⊙, depending on the presence of farther out giant planets. As an example, we consider the case of Beta CVn, a nearby bright solar-type star. We present 20 yr of radial velocities (RV) from the Keck/High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) and Automated Planet Finder (APF) instruments and conduct an injection-recovery analysis of planetary signatures in the data. Our analysis of these RV data rule out planets more massive than Saturn within 10 au of the star. These system properties are used to calculate the potential dynamical packing of terrestrial planets in the HZ and show that such nearby stellar targets could be particularly lucrative for HZ planet detection by direct imaging exoplanet missions