Untangling the Nuisance Knot

Commentators have long characterized the law of nuisance as a muddled and confusing doctrine, limited to deciding a few landuse disputes not already resolved by zoning. In 1992, interest in the doctrine was renewed when the U.S. Supreme Court in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council declared nuisance the key to the difficult question of when legislation amounted to an uncompensated taking of real property. It has thus become important to understand both the nuisance doctrine and the confusion surrounding its application. In this article, the author locates the source of the confusion in three problems stemming from the strict liability standard by which landuse disputes were originally governed in the English common law of nuisance. First, the application of nuisance doctrine to the landuse disputes inevitably accompanying the economic transformation of American society from agriculture to industry called for a modification, though not an abandonment, of strict liability. Second, bench and bar tangled over whether the remnants of strict liability in nuisance could moderate some of the negligence doctrines that weighed most heavily on tort plaintiffs. Third, attempts by the drafters of the Restatement (First and Second) of Torts to rationalize the doctrine with a single rule applicable to the law of both accidents and landuse disputes failed. Understanding these three forces may help both judge and practitioner discover a principled understanding of this newly-relevant area of law as they use nuisance to assess takings claims under Lucas

Q: Why Is This Course Different from All Other Courses? A: Maybe It\u27s Not

The authors’ claim is to a unique recognition of (1) “the interplay of common law, statutory and constitutional regimes,”(2) “the growing significance of non-land forms of property,” (3) “the emergence of environmental values,” and (4) “the central importance of public policy analysis to resolution of complex social problems.” This is certainly an approach that can benefit the first-year Property teacher whose course is set in a semester that may also contain courses focusing on positive law, like Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, or Criminal Procedure, as mine does

Restricting HIV-1 pathways for escape using rationally designed anti–HIV-1 antibodies

Recently identified broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that potently neutralize most HIV-1 strains are key to potential antibody-based therapeutic approaches to combat HIV/AIDS in the absence of an effective vaccine. Increasing bNAb potencies and resistance to common routes of HIV-1 escape through mutation would facilitate their use as therapeutics. We previously used structure-based design to create the bNAb NIH45-46G54W, which exhibits superior potency and/or breadth compared with other bNAbs. We report new, more effective NIH45-46^(G54W) variants designed using analyses of the NIH45-46–gp120 complex structure and sequences of NIH45-46^(G54W)–resistant HIV-1 strains. One variant, 45-46m2, neutralizes 96% of HIV-1 strains in a cross-clade panel and viruses isolated from an HIV-infected individual that are resistant to all other known bNAbs, making it the single most broad and potent anti–HIV-1 antibody to date. A description of its mechanism is presented based on a 45-46m2–gp120 crystal structure. A second variant, 45-46m7, designed to thwart HIV-1 resistance to NIH45-46G54W arising from mutations in a gp120 consensus sequence, targets a common route of HIV-1 escape. In combination, 45-46m2 and 45-46m7 reduce the possible routes for the evolution of fit viral escape mutants in HIV-1_(YU-2)–infected humanized mice, with viremic control exhibited when a third antibody, 10–1074, was added to the combination

Factors affecting the activity of cyclopropane synthetase in Lactobacillus plantarum

This investigation concerned determining certain factors which affect the activity of cyclopropane synthetase in L. plantarum. In vitro experiments showed the enzme to be sensitive to ionic strength and subject to product inhibition by S-adenosylhomocysteine nucleusidase, which relieves this inhibition by degrading SAH to adenine and ribosylhomocysteine

A new anode material for oxygen evolution in molten oxide electrolysis

Molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) is an electrometallurgical technique that enables the direct production of metal in the liquid state from oxide feedstock and compared with traditional methods of extractive metallurgy offers both a substantial simplification of the process and a significant reduction in energy consumption. MOE is also considered a promising route for mitigation of CO[subscript 2] emissions in steelmaking, production of metals free of carbon, and generation of oxygen for extra-terrestrial exploration. Until now, MOE has been demonstrated using anode materials that are consumable (graphite for use with ferro-alloys and titanium) or unaffordable for terrestrial applications (iridium for use with iron). To enable metal production without process carbon, MOE requires an anode material that resists depletion while sustaining oxygen evolution. The challenges for iron production are threefold. First, the process temperature is in excess of 1,538 degrees Celsius. Second, under anodic polarization most metals inevitably corrode in such conditions. Third, iron oxide undergoes spontaneous reduction on contact with most refractory metals and even carbon. Here we show that anodes comprising chromium-based alloys exhibit limited consumption during iron extraction and oxygen evolution by MOE. The anode stability is due to the formation of an electronically conductive solid solution of chromium(iii) and aluminium oxides in the corundum structure. These findings make practicable larger-scale evaluation of MOE for the production of steel, and potentially provide a key material component enabling mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions while producing metal of superior metallurgical quality.American Iron and Steel Institut

‘New and important careers’: how women excelled at the BBC, 1923–1939

From its beginnings in 1923, the BBC employed a sizeable female workforce. The majority were in support roles as typists, secretaries and clerks but, during the 1920s and 1930s, a significant number held important posts. As a modern industry, the BBC took a largely progressive approach towards the ‘career women’ on its staff, many of whom were in jobs that were developed specifically for the new medium of broadcasting. Women worked as drama producers, advertising representatives and Children’s Hour Organisers. They were talent spotters, press officers and documentary makers. Three women attained Director status while others held significant administrative positions. This article considers in what ways it was the modernity and novelty of broadcasting, combined with changing employment possibilities and attitudes towards women evident after the First World War, that combined to create the conditions in which they could excel