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There has long been a consensus among scholars and union-side practitioners that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is under-enforced. As a result, employers often treat violations of the NLRA as a cost of doing business rather than a serious violation of a federal statute. Calls for reform have historically tended to propose legislative amendments to the NLRA to constrain employer conduct and impose greater consequences for discrimination violations. However, little attention has been given to improving the flawed legal test by which such discrimination is analyzed, Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083 (1980), enforced 662 F.2d 899 (1st Cir. 1981), cert. denied 455 U.S. 989 (1982). In this article, we propose a new causation test that better addresses how adjudicators should weigh the evidence that Congress and jurists have deemed relevant for evaluating discrimination claims. Our test lightens the initial burden to establish a showing of discrimination, formalizes the employer's defense burden, and then provides a rebuttal burden for the discriminatee. This is no radical departure from historical precedent. Rather, we argue that the original Wright Line decision itself contained hints of our test, but that adjudicators and practitioners alike have whittled Wright Line to an oversimplified shell at best and an ambiguous, complex inquiry at worst. Our test better fulfills the NLRA's objective of promoting collective bargaining in the private sector by encouraging a deeper inquiry in NLRA cases' pre-litigation investigative stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Polypositional postmortem contrast coronarography and pathomorphological analysis were used to study 400 cases of atherosclerotic, postinfarction, arrhythmogenic, and hypertensive heart. High incidence of sudden cardiac death was established in patients with coronary artery ectasia in atherosclerotic heart. In most cases, ectasias were observed in the anterior interventricular branch of the left coronary artery with dominant localization in the second and forth segments. Correlation was found between the maximum incidence of ectasia in the anterior interventricular branch of the left coronary artery and their maximal length, diameter, and bag-shaped appearance. We determined characteristic alterations in cardiac angioarchitectonics reflecting segmentary location of ectasia reflecting inadequacy of coronary circulation and myocardial ischemia leading to ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heparan sulfate (HS) has been shown to be involved in left–right asymmetry formation, including the process of dextral heart looping during embryonic development. The structural features of HS required in this process, however, have not been explored. In this study, we examined the structure of HS from the heart-forming regions (or heart fields) of Hamburger and Hamilton stage 5–9 chick embryos. No significant differences were found in HS to chondroitin sulfate (CS) ratio, HS chain length, or [35S] sulfate incorporation at HS disaccharide level between the left and the right heart fields. Compared to other parts of the embryo, however, lower ratio of HS to CS, shorter HS chain length, and higher [35S] sulfate incorporation at 6-O position of the glucosamine residue in the HS chains were observed in the heart-forming regions. Moreover, HS from the left and the right heart fields exhibit differential cleavage by heparanase, an endo-β-d- glucuronidase that cleaves specific sequences within the HS chain. In embryo culture, microinjection of the active human heparanase enzyme into the right but not the left pericardial cavity at stage 7–8+ resulted in reversed heart looping in a dose-dependent manner. Heart reversal following microinjection of heparin or heparin derivatives suggests the involvement of N- and 6-O-sulfation but not 2-O-sulfation in the heart looping process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The composition of Jupiter and the primordial distribution of the heavy elements are determined by its formation history. As a result, in order to constrain the primordial internal structure of Jupiter, the growth of the core and the deposition and settling of accreted planetesimals must be followed in detail. In this paper we determine the distribution of the heavy elements in proto-Jupiter and determine the mass and composition of the core. We find that while the outer envelope of proto-Jupiter is typically convective and has a homogeneous composition, the innermost regions have compositional gradients. In addition, the existence of heavy elements in the envelope leads to much higher internal temperatures (several times 104 K) than in the case of a hydrogen–helium envelope. The derived core mass depends on the actual definition of the core: if the core is defined as the region in which the heavy-element mass fraction is above some limit (say, 0.5), then it can be much more massive (∼15 ) and more extended (10% of the planet’s radius) than in the case where the core is just the region with 100% heavy elements. In the former case Jupiter’s core also consists of hydrogen and helium. Our results should be taken into account when constructing internal structure models of Jupiter and when interpreting the upcoming data from the Juno (NASA) mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]