Some sporadic translation planes of order 11211^2

In \cite{PK}, the authors constructed a translation plane $\Pi$ of order $11^2$ arising from replacement of a sporadic chain $F'$ of reguli in a regular spread $F$ of $PG(3,11)$. They also showed that two more non isomorphic translation planes, called  $\Pi_1$ and $\Pi_{13}$, arise respectively by derivation and double derivation in $F\setminus F'$ which correspond to a further replacement of a regulus with its opposite regulus and a pair of reguli with their opposite reguli, respectively.  In \cite{AL}, the authors proved that the translation complement of $\Pi$ contains a subgroup isomorphic to \SL(2,5). Here, the full collineation group of each of the planes $\Pi$, $\Pi_1$ and $\Pi_{13}$ is determined

A Vague, Overconfident, and Malleable Approach to Constitutional Law

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court overturned a century-old firearms licensing scheme that required people seeking concealed carry permits to demonstrate that they had a special need for self-defense. The Court did so by applying a “historical tradition” approach to determine the scope of Second Amendment protection. Under this approach, where the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, a law restricting that conduct must be consistent with “the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” At first glance, the historical tradition approach may seem objective and easier than an empirical analysis of gun restrictions and their impacts. These first impressions are mistaken. In fact, the historical tradition approach presents significant challenges for attorneys and judges—challenges that the Bruen Court minimizes. And, through its vague and virtually nonexistent guidance on drawing historical analogies, the Court leaves numerous avenues for judges and justices to inject their preferences as they weigh historical evidence and determine whether sufficient evidence exists to establish a historical tradition. Indeed, within the Bruen opinion itself there are multiple examples of shoddy historical analysis and inconsistent approaches to historic evidence, all aiming to achieve a desired result. In light of the complexity and malleability of the historical tradition approach, the Court will likely continue to twist this approach to achieve its desired ends—a phenomenon that will likely be magnified in the lower courts and in future decisions in Second Amendment and other constitutional cases

A Vague, Overconfident, and Malleable Approach to Constitutional Law

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court overturned a century-old firearms licensing scheme that required people seeking concealed carry permits to demonstrate that they had a special need for self-defense. The Court did so by applying a “historical tradition” approach to determine the scope of Second Amendment protection. Under this approach, where the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, a law restricting that conduct must be consistent with “the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” At first glance, the historical tradition approach may seem objective and easier than an empirical analysis of gun restrictions and their impacts. These first impressions are mistaken. In fact, the historical tradition approach presents significant challenges for attorneys and judges—challenges that the Bruen Court minimizes. And, through its vague and virtually nonexistent guidance on drawing historical analogies, the Court leaves numerous avenues for judges and justices to inject their preferences as they weigh historical evidence and determine whether sufficient evidence exists to establish a historical tradition. Indeed, within the Bruen opinion itself there are multiple examples of shoddy historical analysis and inconsistent approaches to historic evidence, all aiming to achieve a desired result. In light of the complexity and malleability of the historical tradition approach, the Court will likely continue to twist this approach to achieve its desired ends—a phenomenon that will likely be magnified in the lower courts and in future decisions in Second Amendment and other constitutional cases

Uncertainty propagation for flood forecasting in the Alps: different views and impacts from MAP D-PHASE

D-PHASE was a Forecast Demonstration Project of theWorldWeather Research Programme (WWRP) related to the Mesoscale Alpine Programme (MAP). Its goal was to demonstrate the reliability and quality of operational forecasting of orographically influenced (determined) precipitation in the Alps and its consequences on the distribution of run-off characteristics. A special focus was, of course, on heavy-precipitation events. The D-PHASE Operations Period (DOP) ran from June to November 2007, during which an end-to-end forecasting system was operated covering many individual catchments in the Alps, with their water authorities, civil protection organizations or other end users. The forecasting system’s core piece was a Visualization Platform where precipitation and flood warnings from some 30 atmospheric and 7 hydrological models (both deterministic and probabilistic) and corresponding model fields were displayed in uniform and comparable formats. Also, meteograms, nowcasting information and end user communication was made available to all the forecasters, users and end users. D-PHASE information was assessed and used by some 50 different groups ranging from atmospheric forecasters to civil protection authorities or water management bodies. In the present contribution, D-PHASE is briefly presented along with its outstanding scientific results and, in particular, the lessons learnt with respect to uncertainty propagation. A focus is thereby on the transfer of ensemble prediction information into the hydrological community and its use with respect to other aspects of societal impact. Objective verification of forecast quality is contrasted to subjective quality assessments during the project (end user workshops, questionnaires) and some general conclusions concerning forecast demonstration projects are drawn

Polynomials in finite geometry

Postprint (published version

Medicaid Prescription Drug Coverage: State Efforts to Control Costs

This paper provides a brief summary of the Medicaid prescription drug benefit. It explains the mechanisms being used by states to control their prescription drug spending within the Medicaid program. The paper also highlights some of the concerns that have been expressed with these mechanisms and the litigation that has been initiated in several states as a result of these efforts. It takes a closer look at three states with cost containment strategies that have been the focus of increased scrutiny

Revisiting the Original Congressional Debates About the Second Amendment

Many scholars and courts have written about the historical background of the Second Amendment, either to emphasize its connection to state level citizen militias or to argue that the Amendment protects an individual right to own and carry guns for self-defense. While many authors have mentioned the original congressional debates about the Second Amendment, the literature is missing a thorough, point-by-point analysis of those debates, situating each statement in Congress within the context of the speaker’s background and political stances on issues overlapping with the right to keep and bear arms. This Article attempts to fill this gap by providing a methodical discussion of each comment or argument made in Congress when the Second Amendment was under consideration. This discussion addresses how each of the congressmen’s comments connect to public statements made by the same members of Congress in the months that followed on related topics: taxation and public debt related to militias, the supply of available firearms and their legal status as private or public property, the institution of slavery, westward expansion, and especially the complications for each of these issues posed by the Quakers, who became the center of attention during the debates about the Second Amendment. These original congressional debates have taken on more importance following the Supreme Court’s recent holding that courts should decide Second Amendment challenges based on historical evidence from the years immediately preceding and following ratification. While this Article does not take a position on current litigation over modern firearm regulations, the discussion here can offer courts and commentators new insights into the original public meaning of the Second Amendment

Citizenship education north and south: learning and progression (CENSLP) - final project report

Understanding our subjects and the nature of subject knowledge and progression in learning are essential aspects of initial teacher education (ITE) but, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, as in most areas, models of Citizenship Education (CE) are heavily dependent on the official definitions of citizenship developed by curriculum officials, with varying levels of political control and teacher consultation. Whilst there are networks of teachers bringing together CE teachers (for example the Five Nations network funded by the Gordon Cook Foundation) there has been little work developed by teachers to identify a comprehensive model of what it is that CE teachers actually do in the classroom and what young people do (and should) learn in the subject. We believe this makes CE particularly vulnerable to political influence and that it can become a repository for wider social policy concerns. Whilst there is always a need to identify a form of CE that suits the context in which it is being taught, this must be balanced by a more informed sense of what the core of the subject entails and how young people actually learn citizenship. In other comparable subjects there have been teacher-led initiatives in the past such as the Humanities Curriculum Project (Stenhouse, 1983), and project CHATA (Lee & Ashby, 1987), which identify key concepts, skills, questions and areas of factual knowledge that together comprise the ‘subject lens’ that young people can apply to think about the world from a particular perspective. This project begins to develop such a model for CE, focusing on what is distinctive about seeing the world as a citizen, and thus developing a clear model for how teachers structure their teaching and how young people learn in CE. This will facilitate a discussion about attainment and progression within the subject as a school subject, and help to further distinguish CE from citizenship, as a political construct. This small project, supported by SCOTENS, set out to generate a working model to underpin a larger scale research project, and as such it has allowed us to pilot a methodology and yield some initial working models for conceptual and skills progression. Whilst we do not claim to have discovered a universal model of progression in conceptual learning, we hope to have illustrated the value of thinking seriously about subject knowledge in CE and the complexities involved in asking students to use abstract concepts to think about citizenship