Labor and Commercial Arbitration: The Court’s Misguided Merger

In the 2011 case, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts state contract laws that interfere with the goals of the Act, including the defense that an arbitration agreement is unconscionable. This decision was hardly surprising despite its significant effect on consumers and employees. Since the 1980s the Court has continually expanded the FAA, the statute governing commercial arbitration. The Court has justified this expansion by comparing the FAA to section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, a comparable statute requiring courts to defer to labor arbitration where parties agree to arbitrate their disputes. Yet, labor arbitration is distinctly different from commercial arbitration. Labor arbitration supports the collective bargaining process, whereas commercial arbitration is simply a substitute for litigation. Despite the differences, the Court in the last two decades has conflated labor arbitration and commercial arbitration. This conflation is troubling because labor arbitration may become a substitute for litigation, rather than a tool to support the collective bargaining process. This shift reflects a sharp departure from the original purposes of labor arbitration

A Fair Hanging: Ethics in Editorial Cartooning

More than any other type of journalist, the editorial cartoonist is free to say what he thinks in a very pointed way, but this freedom has to be balanced against other values

When good bugs go bad: Epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance profiles of Corynebacterium striatum, an emerging multidrug-resistant, opportunistic pathogen

ABSTRACT Infections with Corynebacterium striatum have been described in the literature over the last 2 decades, with the majority being bacteremia, central line infections, and occasionally, endocarditis. In recent years, the frequency of C. striatum infections appears to be increasing; a factor likely contributing to this is the increased ease and accuracy of the identification of Corynebacterium spp., including C. striatum , from clinical cultures. The objective of this study was to retrospectively characterize C. striatum isolates recovered from specimens submitted as part of routine patient care at a 1,250-bed, tertiary-care academic medical center. Multiple strain types were recovered, as demonstrated by repetitive-sequence-based PCR. Most of the strains of C. striatum characterized were resistant to antimicrobials commonly used to treat Gram-positive organisms, such as penicillin, ceftriaxone, meropenem, clindamycin, and tetracycline. The MIC 50 for ceftaroline was &gt;32 μg/ml. Although there are no interpretive criteria for susceptibility with telavancin, it appeared to have potent in vitro efficacy against this species, with MIC 50 and MIC 90 values of 0.064 and 0.125 μg/ml, respectively. Finally, as previously reported in case studies, we demonstrated rapid in vitro development of daptomycin resistance in 100% of the isolates tested ( n = 50), indicating that caution should be exhibited when using daptomycin for the treatment of C. striatum infections. C. striatum is an emerging, multidrug-resistant pathogen that can be associated with a variety of infection types. </jats:p

The Sex and Race Specific Relationship between Anthropometry and Body Fat Composition Determined from Computed Tomography: Evidence from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

BackgroundFew studies have investigated the relationship of anthropometric measurements with computed tomography (CT) body fat composition, and even fewer determined if these relationships differ by sex and race.MethodsCT scans from 1,851 participants in the population based Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis were assessed for visceral and subcutaneous fat areas by semi-automated segmentation of body compartments. Regression models were used to investigate relationships for anthropometry with visceral and subcutaneous fat separately by sex and race/ethnicity.ResultsParticipants were 50% female, 41% Caucasian, 13% Asian, 21% African American, and 25% Hispanic. For visceral fat, the positive relationship with weight (p = 0.028), waist circumference (p&lt;0.001), waist to hip ratio (p&lt;0.001), and waist to height ratio (p = 0.05) differed by sex, with a steeper slope for men. That is, across the range of these anthropometric measures the rise in visceral fat is faster for men than for women. Additionally, there were differences by race/ethnicity in the relationship with height (p&lt;0.001), weight (p&lt;0.001), waist circumference (p&lt;0.001), hip circumference (p = 0.006), and waist to hip ratio (p = 0.001) with the Hispanic group having shallower slopes. For subcutaneous fat, interaction by sex was found for all anthropometric indices at p&lt;0.05, but not for race/ethnicity.ConclusionThe relationship between anthropometry and underlying adiposity differs by sex and race/ethnicity. When anthropometry is used as a proxy for visceral fat in research, sex-specific models should be used

Effect of alendronate on post-traumatic osteoarthritis induced by anterior cruciate ligament rupture in mice.

IntroductionPrevious studies in animal models of osteoarthritis suggest that alendronate (ALN) has antiresorptive and chondroprotective effects, and can reduce osteophyte formation. However, these studies used non-physiologic injury methods, and did not investigate early time points during which bone is rapidly remodeled prior to cartilage degeneration. The current study utilized a non-invasive model of knee injury in mice to investigate the effect of ALN treatment on subchondral bone changes, articular cartilage degeneration, and osteophyte formation following injury.MethodsNon-invasive knee injury via tibial compression overload or sham injury was performed on a total of 90 mice. Mice were treated with twice weekly subcutaneous injections of low-dose ALN (40&nbsp;μg/kg/dose), high-dose ALN (1,000&nbsp;μg/kg/dose), or vehicle, starting immediately after injury until sacrifice at 7, 14 or 56&nbsp;days. Trabecular bone of the femoral epiphysis, subchondral cortical bone, and osteophyte volume were quantified using micro-computed tomography (μCT). Whole-joint histology was performed at all time points to analyze articular cartilage and joint degeneration. Blood was collected at sacrifice, and serum was analyzed for biomarkers of bone formation and resorption.ResultsμCT analysis revealed significant loss of trabecular bone from the femoral epiphysis 7 and 14&nbsp;days post-injury, which was effectively prevented by high-dose ALN treatment. High-dose ALN treatment was also able to reduce subchondral bone thickening 56&nbsp;days post-injury, and was able to partially preserve articular cartilage 14&nbsp;days post-injury. However, ALN treatment was not able to reduce osteophyte formation at 56&nbsp;days post-injury, nor was it able to prevent articular cartilage and joint degeneration at this time point. Analysis of serum biomarkers revealed an increase in bone resorption at 7 and 14&nbsp;days post-injury, with no change in bone formation at any time points.ConclusionsHigh-dose ALN treatment was able to prevent early trabecular bone loss and cartilage degeneration following non-invasive knee injury, but was not able to mitigate long-term joint degeneration. These data contribute to understanding the effect of bisphosphonates on the development of osteoarthritis, and may support the use of anti-resorptive drugs to prevent joint degeneration following injury, although further investigation is warranted

PKSB1740-517: An ALMA view of the cold gas feeding a distant interacting young radio galaxy

Cold neutral gas is a key ingredient for growing the stellar and central black hole mass in galaxies throughout cosmic history. We have used the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) to detect a rare example of redshifted $^{12}$CO(2-1) absorption in PKS B1740-517, a young ($t \sim 1.6 \times 10^{3}$ yr) and luminous ($L_{\rm 5 GHz} \sim 6.6 \times 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$ ) radio galaxy at $z = 0.44$ that is undergoing a tidal interaction with at least one lower-mass companion. The coincident HI 21-cm and molecular absorption have very similar line profiles and reveal a reservoir of cold gas ($M_{\rm gas} \sim 10^{7} - 10^{8}$ M$_{\odot}$), likely distributed in a disc or ring within a few kiloparsecs of the nucleus. A separate HI component is kinematically distinct and has a very narrow line width ($\Delta{v}_{\rm FWHM} \lesssim 5$ km s$^{-1}$), consistent with a single diffuse cloud of cold ($T_{\rm k} \sim 100$ K) atomic gas. The $^{12}$CO(2-1) absorption is not associated with this component, which suggests that the cloud is either much smaller than 100 pc along our sight-line and/or located in low-metallicity gas that was possibly tidally stripped from the companion. We argue that the gas reservoir in PKS B1740-517 may have accreted onto the host galaxy $\sim$50 Myr before the young radio AGN was triggered, but has only recently reached the nucleus. This is consistent with the paradigm that powerful luminous radio galaxies are triggered by minor mergers and interactions with low-mass satellites and represent a brief, possibly recurrent, active phase in the life cycle of massive early type galaxies.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Re-branding the leper colony: Challenges of changing culture and managing difficult people: Working paper series--09-10

Anika, a new manager, is confronted by a dysfunctional organizational culture characterized by employee disrespect, insubordination, and low performance. Her charge is to "to turn the place around". The case takes place in a service organization, a testing range run by the US Department of Defense. The staff is a combination of federal and contract employees who test clients' high-tech systems in a sometimes dangerous, desert environment. In addition, there are three vignettes that give a portrait of dysfunctional individual behaviors. Frequently, the response students want to make is "I'd just fire the guy." Unfortunately, it is not so simple

Productivity patterns in the Equatorial Pacific over the last 30,000 years

The equatorial Pacific traverses a number of productivity regimes, from the highly productive coastal upwelling along Peru to the near gyre-like productivity lows along the international dateline, making it an ideal target for investigating how biogeochemical systems respond to changing oceanographic conditions over time. However, conflicting reconstructions of productivity during periods of rapid climate change, like the last deglaciation, render the spatiotemporal response of equatorial Pacific productivity ambiguous. In this study, surface productivity since the last glacial period (30,000 years ago) is reconstructed from seven cores near the Line Islands, central equatorial Pacific, and integrated with productivity records from across the equatorial Pacific. Three coherent deglacial patterns in productivity are identified: (1) a monotonic glacial-Holocene increase in productivity, primarily along the Equator, associated with increasing nutrient concentrations over time; (2) a deglacial peak in productivity ~15,000 years ago due to transient entrainment of nutrient rich southern-sourced deep waters; and (3) possible precessional cycles in productivity in the eastern equatorial Pacific that may be related to Intertropical Convergence Zone migration and potential interactions with El Niño–Southern Oscillation dynamics. These findings suggest that productivity was generally lower during the glacial period, a trend observed zonally across the equatorial Pacific, while deglacial peaks in productivity may be prominent only in the east