Non-Pecuniary Damages in the Louisiana Civil Code Article 1928: Originality in the Early Nineteenth Century and Its Projected Use in Further Codification Endeavors

This presentation provides a complete guide that helps the readers understand the importance of art.1928 of the Civil Code of Louisiana of the year 1825. Article 1928, in its third paragraph, is the cornerstone for the recovery of non-pecuniary damages in the state of Louisiana. As to achieve the objective of guiding the reader, the presentation contains: a historical background of the legal system of Louisiana (from the purchase to France until present days); a definition of non-pecuniary damages; an analysis of the applications the Louisiana Supreme Court made of non-pecuniary damages (between the years 1825 to 1870); and a description of the influence that art.1928 had in other codification projects, both in Louisiana and abroad. Throughout the presentation, references are done to the French and Spanish influences on the region. To ignore these important influences would avoid a realistic approach to the study. In addition, a brief description of the case law reporting in Antebellum Louisiana is developed. The description will surely help future research activities, by explaining the sources of case law reporting in the region. At the end of the presentation, a list of references, a table of cases and an index of names and personalities, are enclosed. These are useful quick-reference tools when reading through the presentation

Star formation in Chamaeleon I and III: a molecular line study of the starless core population

The Chamaeleon clouds are excellent targets for low-mass star formation studies. Cha I and II are actively forming stars while Cha III shows no sign of ongoing star formation. We aim to determine the driving factors that have led to the very different levels of star formation activity in Cha I and III and examine the dynamical state and possible evolution of the starless cores within them. Observations were performed in various molecular transitions with APEX and Mopra. Five cores are gravitationally bound in Cha I and one in Cha III. The infall signature is seen toward 8-17 cores in Cha I and 2-5 cores in Cha III, which leads to a range of 13-28% of the cores in Cha I and 10-25% of the cores in Cha III that are contracting and may become prestellar. Future dynamical interactions between the cores will not be dynamically significant in either Cha I or III, but the subregion Cha I North may experience collisions between cores within ~0.7 Myr. Turbulence dissipation in the cores of both clouds is seen in the high-density tracers N2H+ 1-0 and HC3N 10-9. Evidence of depletion in the Cha I core interiors is seen in the abundance distributions of C17O, C18O, and C34S. Both contraction and static chemical models indicate that the HC3N to N2H+ abundance ratio is a good evolutionary indicator in the prestellar phase for both gravitationally bound and unbound cores. In the framework of these models, we find that the cores in Cha III and the southern part of Cha I are in a similar evolutionary stage and are less chemically evolved than the central region of Cha I. The measured HC3N/N2H+ abundance ratio and the evidence for contraction motions seen towards the Cha III starless cores suggest that Cha III is younger than Cha I Centre and that some of its cores may form stars in the future. The cores in Cha I South may on the other hand be transient structures. (abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. The resolution of Figure 2 has been degraded and the abstract in the metadata has been shortened to fit within the limits set by arXi

Student Engagement: A Study of the Relationship between Teacher Credibility and Student Self-Efficacy

Given the current economic and subsequent employment uncertainty, people are returning to college to update their skills and acquire the credentials they need to be competitive in today\u27s workforce. As a result, faculty must be prepared to facilitate the learning process for an ever-changing and more diverse student body. The purpose of this research is to further the extant body of research in the area of effective student engagement. The variables being used to represent credibility are competence, goodwill and trustworthiness. They were measured using McCroskey and Teven\u27s (1999) Source Credibility Questionnaire. The data for this study were provided by students attending a community college located in the metropolitan area of a Midwestern city. Using competence, trustworthiness and goodwill as the antecedents to represent instructor credibility, this research tests the relationship between instructor credibility and student self-efficacy. Conducting a study of this type will provide faculty and administrators looking for new approaches to teacher leadership with data to help them enhance student engagement and increase their rate of persistence to graduation

Comparing traditional geomechanical and remote sensing techniques for rock mass characterization

Analysis of the stability conditions of rock masses starts from detailed geo-structural surveys based on a systematic and quantitative description of the systems of discontinuities. Traditionally, these surveys are performed by implementing the classical geomechanical systems, available in the scientific literature since several decades, through the use of simple tools such as the geological compass to measure dip and dip direction directly on the discontinuity systems, and to fully describe their more significant physical characteristics (length, spacing, roughness, persistence, aperture, filling, termination, etc.). In several cases, this can be difficult because the discontinuities, or even the rock face, cannot be easily accessible. To have a complete survey, very often the involvement of geologists climbers is required, but in many situations this work is not easy to carry out, and in any case it does not cover the whole rock front. Today, to solve these problems, traditional geomechanical surveying is implemented by innovative remote techniques using, individually or in combination, instruments such as terrestrial laser scanners and unmanned aerial vehicles to build a point cloud. This latter permits to extract very accurate data on discontinuities for stability analyses, based on areal and non-point observations. In addition, the point cloud allows to map sub-vertical walls in their entirety in much shorter times than traditional surveying. At this regard, two rock slopes were detected in the Sorrento Peninsula (Campania, southern Italy) with techniques that include traditional mapping, dictated by the guidelines of the International Society for Rock Mechanics, and the remote survey, through laser scanning and drone photogrammetry. The data obtained were processed automatically and manually through the Dips, CloudCompare and Discontinuity Set Extractor softwares. In the present contribution we highlight the limits and advantages of the main data collection and the processing techniques, and provide an evaluation of the software packages currently available for the analysis and evaluation of discontinuities, in order to obtain a better characterization of the rock mass

The evolutionary state of the southern dense core Cha-MMS1

Aims: Our goal is to set constraints on the evolutionary state of the dense core Cha-MMS1 in the Chamaeleon I molecular cloud. Methods: We analyze molecular line observations carried out with the new submillimeter telescope APEX. We look for outflow signatures around the dense core and probe its chemical structure, which we compare to predictions of models of gas-phase chemistry. We also use the public database of the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) to compare Cha-MMS1 with the two Class 0 protostars IRAM 04191 and L1521F, which are at the same distance. Results: We measure a large deuterium fractionation for N2H+ (11 +/- 3 %), intermediate between the prestellar core L1544 and the very young Class 0 protostar L1521F. It is larger than for HCO+ (2.5 +/- 0.9 %), which is probably the result of depletion removing HCO+ from the high-density inner region. Our CO(3-2) map reveals the presence of a bipolar outflow driven by the Class I protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 but we do not find evidence for an outflow powered by Cha-MMS1. We also report the detection of Cha-MMS1 at 24, 70 and 160 microns by the instrument MIPS of the SST, at a level nearly an order of magnitude lower than IRAM 04191 and L1521F. Conclusions: Cha-MMS1 appears to have already formed a compact object, either the first hydrostatic core at the very end of the prestellar phase, or an extremely young protostar that has not yet powered any outflow, at the very beginning of the Class 0 accretion phase.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics as a letter, to appear in the special issue on the APEX first result

Sinkhole genesis and evolution in Apulia, and their interrelations with the anthropogenic environment

Sinkhole development occurs in many areas of the world where soluble rocks crop out. Sinkholes are generally the surface expression of the presence of caves and other groundwater flow conduits in carbonate rocks, which are solutionally enlarged secondary permeability features. Their formation may be either natural or caused by man's activities. In both cases, heavy consequences have to be registered on the anthropogenic environment and related infrastructures. Knowledge of the mechanism of formation of this subtle geohazard is therefore necessary to planners and decision makers for performing the most appropriate and suitable programs of land use and development. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> The Apulia region of southern Italy is characterized for most of its extension by carbonate rocks, which makes it one of the most remarkable example of karst in the Mediterranean Basin. Based on analysis of literature and in situ surveys, including caving explorations, we have identified in Apulia three main types of possible mechanisms for sinkhole formation: 1) collapse of a chamber in a natural cave or in man-made cavities; 2) slow and gradual enlargement of doline through dissolution; 3) settlement and internal erosion of filling deposits of pre-existing dolines. Since sinkhole formation very often affects directly the human settlements in Apulia, and have recently produced severe damage, some considerations are eventually presented as regards the interrelationships between sinkholes and the anthropogenic environment

ALMA 690 GHz observations of IRAS 16293-2422B: Infall in a highly optically-thick disk

We present sensitive, high angular resolution ($\sim$ 0.2 arcsec) submillimeter continuum and line observations of IRAS 16293-2422B made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). The 0.45 mm continuum observations reveal a single and very compact source associated with IRAS 16293-2422B. This submillimeter source has a deconvolved angular size of about 400 {\it milli-arcseconds} (50 AU), and does not show any inner structure inside of this diameter. The H$^{13}$CN, HC$^{15}$N, and CH$_{3}$OH line emission regions are about twice as large as the continuum emission and reveal a pronounced inner depression or "hole" with a size comparable to that estimated for the submillimeter continuum. We suggest that the presence of this inner depression and the fact that we do not see inner structure (or a flat structure) in the continuum is produced by very optically thick dust located in the innermost parts of IRAS 16293-2422B. All three lines also show pronounced inverse P-Cygni profiles with infall and dispersion velocities larger than those recently reported from observations at lower frequencies, suggesting that we are detecting faster, and more turbulent gas located closer to the central object. Finally, we report a small east-west velocity gradient in IRAS 16293-2422B that suggests that its disk plane is likely located very close to the plane of the sky.Comment: Accepted to ApJ

TIMASSS : The IRAS16293-2422 Millimeter And Submillimeter Spectral Survey: Tentative Detection of Deuterated Methyl Formate (DCOOCH3)

High deuterium fractionation is observed in various types of environment such as prestellar cores, hot cores and hot corinos. It has proven to be an efficient probe to study the physical and chemical conditions of these environments. The study of the deuteration of different molecules helps us to understand their formation. This is especially interesting for complex molecules such as methanol and bigger molecules for which it may allow to differentiate between gas-phase and solid-state formation pathways. Methanol exhibits a high deuterium fractionation in hot corinos. Since CH3OH is thought to be a precursor of methyl formate we expect that deuterated methyl formate is produced in such environments. We have searched for the singly-deuterated isotopologue of methyl formate, DCOOCH3, in IRAS 16293-2422, a hot corino well-known for its high degree of methanol deuteration. We have used the IRAM/JCMT unbiased spectral survey of IRAS 16293-2422 which allows us to search for the DCOOCH3 rotational transitions within the survey spectral range (80-280 GHz, 328-366 GHz). The expected emission of deuterated methyl formate is modelled at LTE and compared with the observations.} We have tentatively detected DCOOCH3 in the protostar IRAS 16293-2422. We assign eight lines detected in the IRAM survey to DCOOCH3. Three of these lines are affected by blending problems and one line is affected by calibration uncertainties, nevertheless the LTE emission model is compatible with the observations. A simple LTE modelling of the two cores in IRAS 16293-2422, based on a previous interferometric study of HCOOCH3, allows us to estimate the amount of DCOOCH3 in IRAS 16293-2422. Adopting an excitation temperature of 100 K and a source size of 2\arcsec and 1\farcs5 for the A and B cores, respectively, we find that N(A,DCOOCH3) = N(B,DCOOCH3) ~ 6.10^14 /cm2. The derived deuterium fractionation is ~ 15%, consistent with values for other deuterated species in this source and much greater than that expected from the deuterium cosmic abundance. DCOOCH3, if its tentative detection is confirmed, should now be considered in theoretical models that study complex molecule formation and their deuteration mechanisms. Experimental work is also needed to investigate the different chemical routes leading to the formation of deuterated methyl formate