The Press as Interest Group: Mainstream Media in the United States Supreme Court

This study explores the influence that news media organizations exert on the United States Supreme Court as parties and amici curiae. The study found, inter alia, that the media succeed more often than not, although by a relatively small margin, with far greater success in content-related than in newsgathering cases. Media organizations have been more successful as parties than as amici, and more successful against state and local government entities than against the federal government

Two Wrongs Mock a Right: Overcoming the Cohen Maledicta That Bar First Amendment Protection for Newsgathering

In Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., Justice Byron R. White wrote that the First Amendment offers no protection from the enforcement of generally applicable laws against newsgatherers and that First Amendment protection applies only to information that has been lawfully acquired. This Article shows that these doctrines are not only false, but have already done serious damage to First Amendment interests. It surveys lower court decisions from around the country to demonstrate the doctrines\u27 pernicious influence, then it evaluates alternative solutions to the problem. The article concludes that the most effective, if least likely, solution would be a rule that tracks the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan actual malice standard, redefined as bad faith or outrageous behavior when applied to newsgathering torts. This article examines these doctrines with a view toward exposing their role in obstructing the natural evolution of a constitutional rule that ensures First Amendment values are taken into account when tort liability for reporters\u27 conduct in gathering news is alleged. Part II discusses what little the Supreme Court has already told us about First Amendment protection for newsgathering and places that in the context of other press clause jurisprudence, including New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell. Part III examines the Cohen case in detail, dissecting and debunking the two major doctrines that now effectively deprive newsgathering of constitutional protection. Part IV reviews the damage those flawed doctrines have already done in trial and appellate courts around the country. And Part V discusses alternative approaches toward a new constitutional rule that might evolve, indeed that might have already evolved, in the absence of the Cohen maledicta. This article concludes that, although the First Amendment confers no immunity upon the press to violate laws of general applicability or to commit tortious or unlawful acts in pursuit of the news, neither do such violations relieve the courts of responsibility to consider the First Amendment values at stake, weigh them against the other societal values represented by the laws in question, and, where appropriate, adjust those laws to accommodate any higher values they may find

Horseshoe-based Bayesian nonparametric estimation of effective population size trajectories

Phylodynamics is an area of population genetics that uses genetic sequence data to estimate past population dynamics. Modern state-of-the-art Bayesian nonparametric methods for recovering population size trajectories of unknown form use either change-point models or Gaussian process priors. Change-point models suffer from computational issues when the number of change-points is unknown and needs to be estimated. Gaussian process-based methods lack local adaptivity and cannot accurately recover trajectories that exhibit features such as abrupt changes in trend or varying levels of smoothness. We propose a novel, locally-adaptive approach to Bayesian nonparametric phylodynamic inference that has the flexibility to accommodate a large class of functional behaviors. Local adaptivity results from modeling the log-transformed effective population size a priori as a horseshoe Markov random field, a recently proposed statistical model that blends together the best properties of the change-point and Gaussian process modeling paradigms. We use simulated data to assess model performance, and find that our proposed method results in reduced bias and increased precision when compared to contemporary methods. We also use our models to reconstruct past changes in genetic diversity of human hepatitis C virus in Egypt and to estimate population size changes of ancient and modern steppe bison. These analyses show that our new method captures features of the population size trajectories that were missed by the state-of-the-art methods.Comment: 36 pages, including supplementary informatio

Strategies Employed by Community-Based Service Providers to Address HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Challenges: A Qualitative Study

Background: HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders and other causes of neurocognitive challenges experienced by people living with HIV (PLWH) persist as public health concerns in developed countries. Consequently, PLWH who experience neurocognitive challenges increasingly require social support and mental health services from community-based providers in the HIV sector. Methods: Thirty-three providers from 22 AIDS service organizations across Ontario, Canada, were interviewed to determine the strategies they used to support PLWH experiencing neurocognitive difficulties. Thematic analysis was conducted to determine key themes from the interview data. Results: Three types of strategies were identified: (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) organizational. Intrapersonal strategies involved learning and staying informed about causes of neurocognitive challenges. Interpersonal strategies included providing practical assistance, information, counseling, and/or referrals to PLWH. Organizational strategies included creating dedicated support groups for PLWH experiencing neurocognitive challenges, partnering with other organizations with services not available within their own organization, and advocating for greater access to services with expertise and experience working with PLWH. Conclusion: Through concerted efforts in the future, it is likely that empirically investigating, developing, and customizing these strategies specifically to address HIV-associated neurocognitive challenges will yield improved social support and mental health outcomes for PLWH

An epitaxial model for heterogeneous nucleation on potent substrates

© The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International 2012In this article, we present an epitaxial model for heterogeneous nucleation on potent substrates. It is proposed that heterogeneous nucleation of the solid phase (S) on a potent substrate (N) occurs by epitaxial growth of a pseudomorphic solid (PS) layer on the substrate surface under a critical undercooling (ΔT ). The PS layer with a coherent PS/N interface mimics the atomic arrangement of the substrate, giving rise to a linear increase of misfit strain energy with layer thickness. At a critical thickness (h ), elastic strain energy reaches a critical level, at which point, misfit dislocations are created to release the elastic strain energy in the PS layer. This converts the strained PS layer to a strainless solid (S), and changes the initial coherent PS/N interface into a semicoherent S/N interface. Beyond this critical thickness, further growth will be strainless, and solidification enters the growth stage. It is shown analytically that the lattice misfit (f) between the solid and the substrate has a strong influence on both h and ΔT ; h decreases; and ΔT increases with increasing lattice misfit. This epitaxial nucleation model will be used to explain qualitatively the generally accepted experimental findings on grain refinement in the literature and to analyze the general approaches to effective grain refinement.EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Liquid Metal Engineerin

Heteroclinic intersections between Invariant Circles of Volume-Preserving Maps

We develop a Melnikov method for volume-preserving maps with codimension one invariant manifolds. The Melnikov function is shown to be related to the flux of the perturbation through the unperturbed invariant surface. As an example, we compute the Melnikov function for a perturbation of a three-dimensional map that has a heteroclinic connection between a pair of invariant circles. The intersection curves of the manifolds are shown to undergo bifurcations in homologyComment: LaTex with 10 eps figure

The effects of two different doses of ultraviolet-A light exposure on nitric oxide metabolites and cardiorespiratory outcomes

Abstract Purpose The present study investigated different doses of ultraviolet-A (UV-A) light on plasma nitric oxide metabolites and cardiorespiratory variables. Methods Ten healthy male participants completed three experimental conditions, 7 days apart. Participants were exposed to no light (CON); 10 J cm2 (15 min) of UV-A light (UVA10) and 20 J cm2 (30 min) of UV-A light (UVA20) in a randomized order. Plasma nitrite [NO2 −] and nitrate [NO3 −] concentrations, blood pressure (BP), and heart rate (HR) were recorded before, immediately after exposure and 30 min post-exposure. Whole body oxygen utilization (V̇ O2), resting metabolic rate (RMR) and skin temperature were recorded continuously. Results None of the measured parameters changed significantly during CON (all P>0.05). V̇ O2 and RMR were significantly reduced immediately after UVA10 (P<0.05) despite no change in plasma [NO2 −] (P>0.05). Immediately after exposure to UVA20, plasma [NO2 −] was higher (P=0.014) and V̇ O2 and RMR tended to be lower compared to baseline (P=0.06). There were no differences in [NO2 −] or V̇ O2 at the 30 min time point in any condition. UV-A exposure did not alter systolic BP, diastolic BP or MAP (all P>0.05). UV-A light did not alter plasma [NO3 −] at any time point (all P>0.05). Conclusions This study demonstrates that a UV-A dose of 20 J cm2 is necessary to increase plasma [NO2 −] although a smaller dose is capable of reducing V̇ O2 and RMR at rest. Exposure to UV-A did not significantly reduce BP in this cohort of healthy adults. These data suggest that exposure to sunlight has a meaningful acute impact on metabolic function

Droplets Transport in a Microfluidic Chip for In Vitro Compartmentalisation

In vitro compartmentalisation is an emerging technology for protein evolution and selection. In this presentation, we will report the development of a microdrop-based microfluidic platform for in vitro enzyme evolution and selection applications. A microfluidic chip has been developed and fabricated using the standard photolithography method in conjunction with electroplating and hot embossing techniques. A cross channel geometry was used to focus liquid flows for droplet generation. To realize on-chip compartmentalised bio-reactions, two droplet generators were fabricated on the same chip. Experiments have been carried out to measure droplet size, generation rate and speed using a photographic technique. Droplet size was found to be decreasing with increasing focusing oil flow rate for a given aqueous phase flow rate. When two droplet generators are used in the same chip, the droplets may be generated asynchronously due to different flow conditions. If the droplets were significantly smaller than channel size, the faster moving droplets could pass the slower moving droplets with little coalescence. If the droplets were of the channel size, the faster moving droplets would break or fuse with the slow droplets. To achieve high rate of droplet fusion, active control should be in place for synchronous generation and fusion