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With the repealing of Roe v. Wade and the elimination of abortion as a constitutionally guaranteed right, new statutes have been passed all throughout the United States prohibiting abortions, with some states encouraging private citizens to report those who “aid and abet” abortions in the state. These statutes come into direct conflict with medical ethical obligations, which, in turn, damage the patient-physician relationship by instilling in patients a fear that their physician will report their friends and family and bring a lawsuit under those statutes. This Note analyzes the effects of the repealing of Roe v. Wade and considers how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), specifically the Privacy Rule, maintains the patient-physician relationship and allows patients to be candid with their health-care providers without fear that their physician will voluntarily disclose information and bring a lawsuit against them or their friends and family. This Note also briefly considers what expansions of HIPAA or privacy laws in the United States may help garner more protections for those seeking abortions, such as the passing of policies within private health-care organizations to ensure such information is classified as Protected Health Information (PHI) and thus protected under HIPAA.

This article describes the development and testing of a novel, water-cooled, active optic mirror system (called "REAL: Resistive Element Adjustable Length") that combines cooling with applied auxiliary heating, tailored to the spatial distribution of the thermal load generated by the incident beam. This technique is theoretically capable of sub-nanometer surface figure error control even at high power density. Tests conducted in an optical metrology laboratory and at synchrotron X-ray beamlines showed the ability to maintain the mirror profile to the level needed for the next generation storage rings and FEL mirrors.

An ongoing collaboration among four US Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories has demonstrated key technology prototypes and software modeling tools required for new high-coherent flux beamline optical systems. New free electron laser (FEL) and diffraction-limited storage ring (DLSR) light sources demand wavefront preservation from source to sample to achieve and maintain optimal performance. Fine wavefront control was achieved using a novel, roomtemperature cooled mirror system called REAL (resistive element adjustable length) that combines cooling with applied, spatially variable auxiliary heating. Single-grating shearing interferometry (also called Talbot interferometry) and Hartmann wavefront sensors were developed and used for optical characterization and alignment on several beamlines, across a range of photon energies. Demonstrations of non-invasive hard x-ray wavefront sensing were performed using a thin diamond single-crystal as a beamsplitter.

Recent studies suggest that reactions in aqueous microcompartments can occur at significantly different rates than those in the bulk. Most studies have used electrospray to generate a polydisperse source of highly charged microdroplets, leading to multiple confounding factors potentially influencing reaction rates (e.g., evaporation, charge, and size). Thus, the underlying mechanism for the observed enhancement remains unclear. We present a new type of electrodynamic balance-the branched quadrupole trap (BQT)-which can be used to study reactions in microdroplets in a controlled environment. The BQT allows for condensed phase chemical reactions to be initiated by colliding droplets with different reactants and levitating the merged droplet indefinitely. The performance of the BQT is characterized in several ways. Sub-millisecond mixing times as fast as ∼400 μs are measured for low velocity (∼0.1 m/s) collisions of droplets with

A key step in the heterogeneous oxidation of atmospheric aerosols is the reaction of ozone (O3) and hydroxyl radicals (OH) at the gas-particle interface. The formation of reaction products and free radical intermediates and their spatial distribution inside the particle is a sensitive function of the length over which these oxidants diffuse prior to reaction. The reactive-diffusive length of OH and ozone at organic aerosol interfaces is determined by observing the change in the effective uptake coefficient for size-selected model aerosols comprising a reactive core and a thin nanometer-sized (0-12 nm) organic shell. The core and shell materials are selected so that they are immiscible and adopt an assumed core-shell configuration. The results indicate a reactive-diffusive length of 1.4 nm for hydroxyl (OH) radicals in squalane and 1.0 nm for ozone in squalene. Measurements for a purely diffusive system allow for an estimate for diffusion constant (1.6 × 10(-6) cm(2)/s) of ozone in squalane to be determined. The reactive-diffusive length offers a simple first order estimate of how shielding of aerosols by immiscible layers can alter estimates of oxidative lifetimes of aerosols in the atmosphere.

Speciated particle-phase organic nitrates (pONs) were quantified using online chemical ionization MS during June and July of 2013 in rural Alabama as part of the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study. A large fraction of pONs is highly functionalized, possessing between six and eight oxygen atoms within each carbon number group, and is not the common first generation alkyl nitrates previously reported. Using calibrations for isoprene hydroxynitrates and the measured molecular compositions, we estimate that pONs account for 3% and 8% of total submicrometer organic aerosol mass, on average, during the day and night, respectively. Each of the isoprene- and monoterpenes-derived groups exhibited a strong diel trend consistent with the emission patterns of likely biogenic hydrocarbon precursors. An observationally constrained diel box model can replicate the observed pON assuming that pONs (i) are produced in the gas phase and rapidly establish gas-particle equilibrium and (ii) have a short particle-phase lifetime (∼2-4 h). Such dynamic behavior has significant implications for the production and phase partitioning of pONs, organic aerosol mass, and reactive nitrogen speciation in a forested environment.

Speciated particle-phase organic nitrates (pONs) were quantified using online chemical ionization MS during June and July of 2013 in rural Alabama as part of the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study. A large fraction of pONs is highly functionalized, possessing between six and eight oxygen atoms within each carbon number group, and is not the common first generation alkyl nitrates previously reported. Using calibrations for isoprene hydroxynitrates and the measured molecular compositions, we estimate that pONs account for 3% and 8% of total submicrometer organic aerosol mass, on average, during the day and night, respectively. Each of the isoprene- and monoterpenes-derived groups exhibited a strong diel trend consistent with the emission patterns of likely biogenic hydrocarbon precursors. An observationally constrained diel box model can replicate the observed pON assuming that pONs (i) are produced in the gas phase and rapidly establish gas-particle equilibrium and (ii) have a short particle-phase lifetime (∼2-4 h). Such dynamic behavior has significant implications for the production and phase partitioning of pONs, organic aerosol mass, and reactive nitrogen speciation in a forested environment.

The secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mass yields from NO3 oxidation of a series of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), consisting of five monoterpenes and one sesquiterpene (α-pinene, β-pinene, Δ-3-carene, limonene, sabinene, and β-caryophyllene), were investigated in a series of continuous flow experiments in a 10 m(3) indoor Teflon chamber. By making in situ measurements of the nitrate radical and employing a kinetics box model, we generate time-dependent yield curves as a function of reacted BVOC. SOA yields varied dramatically among the different BVOCs, from zero for α-pinene to 38-65% for Δ-3-carene and 86% for β-caryophyllene at mass loading of 10 μg m(-3), suggesting that model mechanisms that treat all NO3 + monoterpene reactions equally will lead to errors in predicted SOA depending on each location's mix of BVOC emissions. In most cases, organonitrate is a dominant component of the aerosol produced, but in the case of α-pinene, little organonitrate and no aerosol is formed.

We report a case of sustained ventricular tachycardia following the initiation of lacosamide as adjunctive epilepsy treatment. A 49-year-old male with intractable frontal lobe seizures experienced severe ventricular tachycardia following the addition of 400 mg lacosamide to his existing regimen of carbamazepine, lamotrigine, clonazepam, and valproate. The tachycardia occurred during a cardiac stress test; stress tests prior to initiation of lacosamide were normal. Conduction defects, including QRS prolongation, persisted during hospitalization until lacosamide was discontinued. The patient had no prior history of cardiac arrhythmia but did possess cardiac risk factors, including hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and low heart rate variability. This case represents one part of a growing body of literature suggesting a link between arrhythmia and use of lacosamide, which enhances slow inactivation of sodium channels in both the brain and the heart. We believe further study may be necessary to assess the safety of lacosamide in epilepsy patients with cardiac risk factors.