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In The Colorado River Ecosystem v. State of Colorado, plaintiff asked a federal district court to find that the Colorado River ecosystem is a legal person, arguing that, “[t]he dominance of a culture that defines nature as property enables its destruction.” Plaintiff’s principal claim rested on the assumption that legal personality could do something for the river that a system of property cannot. In making its case, plaintiff relied on the emergence of what it called a “new kind of environmental law,” pointing to examples where nature had been extended elements of personhood by courts and legislatures in India, New Zealand, Ecuador and Colombia. In this essay, we evaluate the basic strategy of claiming personhood for the Colorado River and other natural objects as a way to advance environmental goals in the legal domain. We explore the normative foundation of the claim — elements of nature are legal persons — and the work personhood is being asked to do by plaintiff and other environmental activists. We identify three possibilities: procedural, substantive and rhetorical. Of those, we suggest plaintiff’s strongest case is rhetorical. But we say this not only because it will likely be difficult to convince a judge to extend standing or substantive rights to a natural object, but because we are unconvinced that personhood would achieve the ends desired by plaintiff and other rights of nature advocates. We contrast the rights of nature movement cases with strategies used by plaintiffs in another case, Juliana v. the US, and conclude that existing legal tools rooted in the law of property offer a more certain, and therefore more promising, pathway to achieving many of the goals articulated by rights of nature advocates in the United States.

Two experiments investigated how well bilinguals utilize long-standing semantic associations to encode and retrieve semantic clusters in verbal episodic memory. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 128) studied and recalled word and picture sets. Word recall was equivalent in L1 and L2, picture recall was better in L1 than in L2, and the picture superiority effect was stronger in L1 than in L2. Semantic clustering in word and picture recall was equivalent in L1 and L2. In Experiment 2, Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 128) and English-speaking monolinguals (N = 128) studied and recalled word sequences that contained semantically related pairs. Data were analyzed using a multinomial processing tree approach, the pair-clustering model. Cluster formation was more likely for semantically organized than for randomly ordered word sequences. Probabilities of cluster formation, cluster retrieval, and retrieval of unclustered items did not differ across languages or language groups. Language proficiency has little if any impact on the utilization of long-standing semantic associations, which are language-general.

The finer spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions of current and planned sensors are rendering increasingly-high data rates which, coupled with limited on-board storage, downlink bandwidth and receiving ground station availability, make high-throughput, high-performance data-reduction techniques essential in forthcoming missions. On this paper we describe an algorithm well suited to high-dimensional data as those produced by multispectral and hyperspectral sensors, both highly relevant in a broad range of Earth Observation activities with the latter becoming increasingly available and delivering the highest data rates. The performance of parallel implementations of the algorithm on multi-core and GPU architectures is also evaluated.

Probably less familiar and perhaps less intuitive than theories based on liberty and utility, or welfare, is a third strand of property thought. This line of thinking about property steers away from the social contract-based individual rights of libertarianism as well as an emphasis on aggregate social utility or welfare which seemingly sacrifices concern for the individual. Instead, it focuses our attention on the ways in which property contributes to development of the self, or personality. This chapter will examine the personality theory in both its classical and modern iterations. We begin with a brief and necessarily truncated account of Georg W. F. Hegel’s theory, commonly considered the source of property theories that stress property’s role in self-realization. We then turn to a modern variation of the personality theory, Margaret Jane Radin’s “personhood” theory. Radin’s theory owes certain elements to Hegel, but her theory differs from the classical personality in several important respects. Finally, we will evaluate both versions of the personality theory, identifying some problems and discussing ways in which Hegel’s and Radin’s theories make valuable contributions to understanding property as a concept and as an institution.

No single person has had more of an impact on property thought in the English-speaking world than John Locke. Among contemporary theorists, however, Locke’s influence is felt most directly among property rights libertarians. This is somewhat ironic, because these libertarians are able to rely on Locke only by excising from his theory several of its foundational elements. In this chapter, we will describe the outlines of Locke’s theory and explore some of the debates over its cogency and meaning. LOCKE’S CONTEXT Locke’s theory of property is laid out in his Two Treatises of Government , with the bulk of the relatively brief discussion appearing in the fifth chapter of the second treatise. (There are, as we will see, important elements of his discussion in the first treatise as well.) In thinking about Locke’s theory, it is helpful to understand something about the debates in which he likely understood himself to be participating. Although the Two Treatises was not published until 1689, in the immediate aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, most commentators agree that the work was actually written several years earlier, between roughly 1679 and 1682, during the Exclusion Crisis, in which the Whigs, led by the First Earl of Shaftesbury (Locke’s patron), attempted to prevent the Catholic James, Duke of York, from inheriting the throne.

In Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., the Supreme Court, held (among other things) (1) that patent owners have an absolute right not to practice their patent and (2) that even these non practicing patent owners are entitled to the liberal use of injunctive relief against infringers. Both of these holdings have been very important to the viability of patent assertion entities, or so-called "patent trolls." In eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC, the Supreme Court softened the injunction rule. In this essay, we argue that Congress or the Court should also reconsider Continental Paper Bag’s endorsement of a robust right not to use, not because patents are not property but because the considerations at work within both property and patent law do not support recognizing such an absolute right not to use patents. The Court's endorsement in Continental Paper Bag of a robust right not to use patents was based on an overly simplistic analogy to tangible property, which the Court characterized as recognizing "the privilege of any owner of property to use or not use it, without question of motive." The Court's reasoning was flawed in two respects. First, the law of tangible property distinguishes among nonusers, penalizing owners whose derelict nonuse interferes with other owners’ use of their own property or induces others to waste time or effort appropriating the unused property. With respect to these derelict nonusers, the law employs numerous doctrines, such as nuisance, abandonment, adverse possession, and permissive waste, to ensure that owners' decision not to use their property does not inflict harm on others. Second, beyond its poor understanding of the law of nonuse as it relates to tangible property, the Court in Continental Paper Bag failed to consider the ways in which the reasons for recognizing a right not to use might differ in the contexts of patent and tangible property. Although the same basic considerations are at play in both contexts -- efficiency, autonomy, and personhood -- the implications of nonuse differ in the patent context because of information's nonrivalrous nature and because of the particularly powerful way that patent law constrains the freedom of nonowners. Taking these factors into account suggests that the normative case for recognizing a robust right not to use a patent is weaker than in the domain of tangible property. This is especially true when nonusing owners attempt to enforce their patents against independent inventors. As a consequence, in cases brought against independent inventors, we suggest making patent remedies contingent on a patent owner’s efforts to disseminate their inventions. Recognition of such an obligation to use in patents would significantly reduce the threats posed by so-called patent trolls and the high tech patent wars.

The novel instruments of the COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) Earth Observation programme, offer an opportunity to explore at various resolutions the information content of X-band signal backscattered with different polarizations. In spite of their potential to render additional information about an area of interest, speckle noise and artifacts make X-band acquisitions difficult to interpret. This is a motivating scenario to explore what (semi-)automatic procedures might be able to offer. This paper is first attempt to process CSK Stripmap PingPong data using two well-known artificial neural network techniques: the supervised backpropagation multilayer perceptron and the unsupervised self-organizing map.

Pirarubicin (PIRA) has been shown to have improved potency with less cardiac toxicity in several phase I and II clinical trials in Japan and Europe. Since Adriamycin (DXR) remains one of the most potent drugs in treatment of gynecologic cancers, this derivative has the potential to become an important chemotherapeutic agent. In this study, we compared the performance of these two drugs against a panel of 10 gynecologic cancer cell lines. The ATP chemosensitivity assays were used to determine dose-response curves. Flow cytometry was used to study cell kinetic response to both drugs. Using an IC50 value of 0.2 micrograms/ml as a cutoff for drug sensitivity, 4 cell lines, ECC1, HEC1B, BG1, and SKOV3, were considered resistant to DXR. By comparing IC50s, PIRA was 3.4 +/- 0.4 times more potent than DXR (P = 0.05). The other 6 cell lines, AN3, AE7, HEC1A, CAOV3, SKUT1B, and ME180, were considered sensitive to DXR. In this group of cell lines, PIRA was 1.6 +/- 0.3 times more potent than DXR (P = 0.5). Both PIRA and DXR elicited a spectrum of cell kinetics. By comparing the magnitude of G2 blocks at 0.1 micrograms/ml, PIRA was approximately 2-5 times more potent than DXR in SKUT1B, HEC1A, and BG1 cell lines. PIRA also displayed a reverse dose-response pattern of G2 block so that at high dose, cell cycle kinetics would mirror those of untreated controls. This observation supports the presence of a resistant tumor subpopulation and the concept of tumor heterogeneity.

The common law of property supposedly empowers owners of chattels freely and unilaterally to abandon them by manifesting the clear intent to do so, typically by renouncing possession of the object in a way that communicates the intent to forego any future claim to it. In contrast, the law has also traditionally prohibited the abandonment of possessory interests in land. On the rare occasion it is even discussed, this disparate treatment is usually treated as a puzzle that needs to be explained. In this essay, I argue that this way of framing the question misunderstands the structure of abandonment law. Viewed through the lens of land, the (prospective) right to abandon any form of tangible property, even chattels, is an illusion. This is because the legal prohibition of abandoning land, when coupled with the law of trespass, dramatically qualifies the unilateral right to abandon any property (even chattels) almost to the point of insignificance. On this view, the common law’s treatment of land is not an anomalous restriction within a legal regime that otherwise empowers owners freely to abandon their property. Instead, the inability to abandon land forms the foundation of a complex system that, among other things, regulates and directs the disposition of unwanted chattels by requiring those seeking to sever their bonds of ownership with chattels to do so in cooperation with others. Observing how rule prohibiting the abandonment of land undermines the usual understanding of the scope of the common law right unilaterally to abandon chattels does not definitively resolve the puzzle of why the common law restricts the right to abandon land. It merely reframes the question. Instead of asking why the common law treats land differently from chattels, the more appropriate question is why the common law expresses such suspicion of abandonment. A fuller explanation of this reframed question points towards the connections between the common law of property and a conception of property in land that views the institution of landownership as a social practice suffused with obligation and duty.

The relationship between individuals and communities — all manner of communities, but especially the state — is a central preoccupation of property theory. Even though the relationship between individuals and community stands at the conceptual center of property theory, the theories of community underlying discussions of property are frequently left implicit. The dominant approaches to property in Anglophone scholarship, utilitarian and classical liberal theories, treat communities as agglomerations of individuals. Moreover, they eschew substantive accounts of justice, favoring what Charles Taylor has called "procedural" conceptions. In this Article, we offer an ontological conception of community that views the individual and community as mutually dependent. In contrast with the two competing theories we describe, we favor a substantive conception of justice built around the notion of human flourishing. Although we are reluctant to embrace any particular label for our view, it is broadly Aristotelian in its framework. Once we have sketched the outlines of our theory, we will describe how our ontological theory might operate, using State v. Shack and a prominent South African property case as our central examples.

The debate over the proper role of religion in public life has raged on for decades and shows little signs of slowing down. Proponents of restrictive accounts of public reason have proceeded under the assumption that religious and deep moral disagreement constitutes a threat to social stability that must be tamed. In contrast to this "scary story" linking pluralism with the threat of instability, there exists within political theory a competing, "happy story" according to which pluralism affirmatively contributes to stability by creating incentives for groups to moderate their demands. Whether the scary story or happy story is a more accurate reflection of our reality is a difficult empirical question, but one that ought to matter a great deal to discussions of public reason. Acting as if the scary story were true when the happy story is in fact operating will lead proponents of public reason to stifle the healthful effects of robust pluralism, degrading the quality of public deliberation and ultimately undermining stability. In other words, if the happy story turns out to be the right one, restrictive accounts of public reason may turn out to be counterproductive, hastening the very deliberative and social harms they aim to forestall.

Theories of property presuppose conceptions of community, and of the individual's relationship to community. In contrast to the dominant theories of community at work within most Anglo-American property theorizing, which view community obligations as fundamentally instrumental and contractual, we propose in this paper a theory that views the relationship between the individual and community as constitutive and substantive. Human beings' dependence on others to flourish imposes on political communities and their individual members a shared obligation to foster and contribute to the creation and maintenance of those structures necessary for that flourishing. This obligation in turn qualifies individual rights of property, empowering, and, under the right circumstances, compelling the state to take from some in order to safeguard access to needed resources for others.

The incidence and prognostic significance of positive intraperitoneal cytology taken during a radical hysterectomy was reviewed. A prospective study looking at intraperitoneal cytology was conducted by using 400 consecutive radical hysterectomies from January 1988 through June 1996. All selected patients had peritoneal washings performed prior to a radical hysterectomy with pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy. A single pathologist reviewed all cytological and histologic specimens. A total of 400 patients were included in the study. Only 7 of 400 (1.8%) had positive intraperitoneal cytology. Four had squamous cell cancer and 3 had adenocarcinoma. Five had stage IB cervical cancer and the remainder were stage IIA. Three had positive nodes. Six of 7 had tumor size greater than 3 cm. Three of 7 had >50% invasion and 2 of 7 had lymphovascular space invasion. No other risk factors were present in these specimens. Six of 7 recurred within 18 months of surgery. Recurrences were local or retroperitoneal; none were upper abdomen or intraperitoneal. The incidence of positive peritoneal cytology during radical hysterectomy is 1.8%. The cost of these cytology specimens did not offer an advantage to the current surgical–pathological factors used to determine prognosis and adjuvant therapy.

Much of the popular outcry against the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. New London can be understood in terms of the public's commitment to the conception of the home as a castle. This familiar metaphor is typically viewed as aligned with libertarian conceptions of property and of the right to exclude. Taken to its logical conclusion, the metaphor's connotation of an owner's "absolute dominion" would seem to rule out the exercise of eminent domain altogether. A different understanding of the castle metaphor is possible, however, one rooted in notions of the dignity of home ownership. While such a dignitary understanding of the home as the castle remains true to the intuitions underlying the metaphor, it yields a far more flexible stance towards eminent domain.

Justice Stevens has sometimes been caricatured as the Supreme Court Justice who hates religion, but an exploration of the cases in which Justice Stevens has voted in favor of religious claimants reveals that, rather than being moved by a reflexive hostility toward religion, Justice Stevens appears to respect religion as a powerful motivator of human action, though one that is largely able to look out for its own interests in the political process. Notwithstanding my rejection of the common view of Justice Stevens as hostile to religion, I argue in this paper that there are substantial problems with his actual approach. First, Justice Stevens has a tendency to treat religion as no more valuable than other valuable categories of expressive activity, a tendency that brings him into agreement with a great deal of recent scholarly commentary on the Religion Clauses. The protection he would afford religious practice is therefore largely coextensive with the protection afforded to expressive conduct more generally under the First Amendment, thereby rendering the Free Exercise Clause superfluous. Second, I argue that Justice Stevens places too much faith in the ability of legislatures to look out for the interests of minority religious groups, ignoring the important role that courts play in highlighting for legislatures the situations in which minority religions appear to be suffering disproportionately under generally applicable regulations. Accordingly, I propose a different approach, one that builds on Justice Stevens's views but that adequately acknowledges the unique value of religion in the lives of believers.

Recurrent vulvar cancer occurs in an average of 24% of cases after primary treatment after surgery with or without radiation. The relatively few primary vulvar cancers, combined with the low proportion of recurrences, has made it difficult to perform randomized studies to document the most appropriate therapeutic modalities. Most reports are small retrospective studies and anecdotal reviews that have emphasized the importance of surgery and have led to new approaches with respect to chemoradiation. Traditionally, the most accepted treatment of vulvar cancer has been and continues to be surgery. Recently, radiation and chemotherapy have been combined with very encouraging results. The therapeutic modality used depends on the location and extent of the recurrence. Most recurrences occur locally near the original resection margins or at the ipsilateral inguinal or pelvic lymph nodes. Lateralized local vulvar recurrences treated with a wide radical local excision with inguinal lymphadectomy results in an excellent cure rate of 70%. With a central pelvic recurrence with antecedent radiotherapy involving the urethra, upper vagina, and rectum, total pelvic exenteration is indicated in a select group of patients with curative intent. Radiotherapy or chemoradiation concomitantly with wide radical local excision of an advanced vulvar has proven successful in avoiding an exenteration, with improved survival and less morbidity. Prospective and retrospective studies have shown excellent results using radiation or chemoradiation with wide radical local excision in patients with locally advanced disease in whom adequate resection margins are difficult to achieve (with a central lesion requiring exenteration) or with debilitating medical conditions that preclude surgery. In these patients, chemoradiation has shown favorable results when used before a wide local resection. In patients with advanced local disease, external beam and interstitial radiation has been used for palliative and curative intent with encouraging results. Regional recurrences to the inguinal and pelvic lymph nodes have been shown to have a poor prognosis with a high mortality rate. We recommend that inguinal recurrences without prior radiation therapy undergo excision followed by radiotherapy with chemosensitization. In patients with previous radiation to the inguinal lymph nodes, we try to avoid any excisional procedures because of the high rate of complications. We offer these patients brachytherapy for palliation. With pelvic recurrences, we recommended chemoradiation as the treatment modality. In the subset of patients with distant metastasis, chemotherapy may be offered; however, few studies have been performed to advocate any single combination. The literature supports the use of 5-fluorouracil or cisplatin as single agents or in combination to have sensitivity against squamous cells. There are few studies revealing improvement in 5-year survival, thus these patients may benefit from recruitment into research protocols.

Background. Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are rare in the gynecological population and have a high risk for local and distant failures. Multimodal management of a patient with MPNST of the vulva and review of the literature are outlined. Case. A 34-year-old woman presented with a complaint of a rapidly increasing pelvic mass, pain, and difficulty ambulating. A disfiguring 20 × 20-cm vulvar mass was identified and a recurrent MPNST diagnosed. Therapy included external-beam radiation, anterior pelvic exenteration with pelvic reconstruction, and adjuvant chemotherapy without complication. Conclusion. It is recommended that for malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors of the vulva, complete surgical resection be performed with adjuvant radiation and chemotherapy in selected cases.

BACKGROUND Cancer cell growth is an energy-related process supported by an increased glucose metabolism. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of GLUT-1 with response to chemotherapy and outcome in patients with ovarian carcinoma. METHODS Histologic sections of formalin fixed, paraffin embedded specimens from 113 primary ovarian carcinomas were stained for GLUT-1 by using polyclonal GLUT-1 antibody (Dako Co., Carpinteria, CA) and the labeled streptavidin biotin procedure. Intensity of GLUT-1 staining was compared with disease free survival (DFS), chemotherapy response, and other clinicopathologic characteristics. RESULTS GLUT-1 cytoplasmic membrane staining was observed in 89 of 104 (85.6%) malignant tumors. Poorly differentiated tumors showed a trend to overexpress the GLUT-1 protein compared with the more differentiated counterparts (27.6% vs. 8.7%; P = 0.08). Patients who experienced a complete clinical response to chemotherapy were more frequently GLUT-1 positive than GLUT-1 negative (80% vs. 51.5%; P = 0.036). In multivariate analysis of advanced stage disease, residual tumor (P = 0.0001) and high GLUT-1 expression levels (P = 0.028) were the only independent variables that maintained a significant association with response to chemotherapy (P = 0.0001; chi-square = 38.13). In the subgroup of Stage III–IV (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics patients showing a complete clinical response, GLUT-1 overexpression was associated with a shorter DFS. The median time to progression was 30 months in GLUT-1 strongly positive cases (> 50% of cancer cells positive) versus 60 months in GLUT-1 weakly positive cases (≤ 50% of cancer cells positive; P = 0.024). CONCLUSIONS GLUT-1 status is an independent prognostic factor of response to chemotherapy in advanced stage ovarian carcinoma. Moreover, patients overexpressing GLUT-1 show a significantly shorter DFS. These results suggest that the assessment of GLUT-1 status may provide clinically useful prognostic information in patients with ovarian carcinoma. Cancer 2001;92:1144–50. © 2001 American Cancer Society.

From 1965 to 1995, at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center, 1223 patients with stage IA2, IB, or IIA cervical cancer have undergone a radical hysterectomy. The charts of these patients were reviewed retrospectively for pathology reports showing positive or close surgical margins. Fifty-one of these cases had final pathology results interpreted as close vaginal margins (CVM), which we define as tumor less than or equal to 0.5 cm from the vaginal margins of resection. All slides of blocks with close vaginal margins were found and reviewed by a single pathologist. Twenty-eight (54.9%) had parametrial involvement or positive lymph nodes and received adjuvant radiation therapy (RT). Of the remaining 23 cases, only 6 had other high risk factors, tumor greater than 4 cm, poorly differentiated, greater than 50% invasion, or lymphovascular space involvement. Sixteen of 23 received radiation. The 5-year survival was significantly greater with RT, 81.3%, than without RT, 28.6% (P < 0.05). The recurrence rate was also decreased from 85.7 to 12.5% (P < 0.01). Although present in less than 2% of radical hysterectomy specimens, CVM without other high risk factors may be an important prognostic variable that should be considered when making adjuvant therapy decisions.

The objective of this article is to determine the safety and effectiveness of transvaginal sacrospinous ligament fixation as part of the management of pelvic support defects in a residency program.A retrospective chart review of patients undergoing sacrospinous ligament fixation at the Division of Gynecology, Jackson Memorial Hospital, University of Miami School of Medicine, between July 1990 and December 1995, was performed. Patients with vaginal vault prolapse and uterine prolapse with documented preoperative evaluation were included in this study. Data were obtained using a detailed predetermined flow sheet.A total of 160 patients was included in the study. All patients underwent right sacrospinous ligament fixation, anterior and posterior colporrhaphy, and perineorrhaphy. In addition, 31 (19%) underwent enterocele repair, 5 (3%) underwent trachelectomy, and 9 (6%) underwent Burch procedure. Complications included fever 13 (8.1%), urinary tract infection 16 (10%), blood loss requiring transfusion 7 (4.3%), sciatic neuralgia 2 (1.2%), and rectovaginal fistula 2 (1.2%). The mean follow-up was 40 months (range 18 to 78 months). The success of the operation was gauged by recurrence. Ninety-four percent of the patients had no evidence of vaginal vault prolapse on follow-up, and 85% had no recurrence of any pelvic support defect. Eleven of the 24 patients with recurrence underwent repeat surgery, whereas 13 opted for conservative management with pessaries.Transvaginal unilateral sacrospinous ligament fixation is a safe and successful operation for the treatment of pelvic support defect and should be an essential component in the training of gynecologic residents.

Spontaneous bilateral ectopic pregnancy is a rare event and difficult to diagnose preoperatively.A unique case occurred of bilateral ectopic pregnancy involving the left fallopian tube and right cornu, or interstitial segment.This case demonstrates the difficulty in diagnosing heterotopic pregnancies and in particular those pregnancies with an interstitial component and also demonstrates the limits of ultrasound and laparoscopy in making such a diagnosis.