Contraceptive Sabotage

This Article responds to the alarm recently sounded by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists over “birth control sabotage”—the “active interference [by one partner] with [the other] partner’s contraceptive methods in an attempt to promote pregnancy.” Currently, sabotage is not a crime, and existing categories of criminal offenses fail to capture the essence of the injury it does to victims. This Article argues that sabotage should be a separate crime—but only when perpetrated against those partners who can and do get pregnant as a result of having sabotaged sex. Using the principle of self-possession—understood as a person’s basic right to self-ownership—this Article argues that women have a self-possessory interest in maintaining their reproductive capacity in its non-pregnant state during and after having sex to the extent they seek to establish with the use or planned use of contraception. Sabotage by sexual partners—typically male—violates this interest and merits criminal punishment. This Article proposes statutory language to criminalize sabotage that should be added to the revision of the Model Penal Code currently underway. Not only would this addition likely survive any Equal Protection challenge, it would arguably serve to strengthen the existing constitutional right to non-procreative sex by setting meaningful limits on one partner’s ability to interfere unilaterally with the other partner’s contraceptive decisions

Consumer Rights Screening Tool for Domestic Violence Advocates and Lawyers

The information is this document is intended for use by advocates and attorneys working with survivors of domestic violence in understanding the common types of consumer problems faced by the survivors. The document provides an overview of the common consumer issues faced by survivors and offers solid guidance on how advocates and attorneys can identify these issues when working the survivors. The report begins with an overview of the role of economic abuse in cases of domestic violence. This is followed by a brief look at common consumer issues faced by survivors that include managing household income and expenses, credit reporting, debt collection, foreclosure and eviction, utility access, credit cards and high cost credit, student loan debt, and auto access and ownership. The next section of the report provides information for advocates and attorneys to use in identifying their clients’ consumer needs. This is followed by a list of general and issue-specific screening questions that can be asked of the survivors to provide adequate background information to assist domestic violence advocates and attorneys. Information on additional resources for assisting survivors is also included at the end of the document

Small Dollar Loans, Big Problems: How States Protect Consumers From Abuses and How the Federal Government Can Help

Across America, drivers pass twice as many payday loan storefronts as Starbucks coffee shops.2 In twenty-nine states, there are more payday lender stores than McDonald’s restaurants.3 Numerous research studies warn of the dangers associated with payday loans, including significantly higher rates of bankruptcies, evictions, utility shut-offs, and involuntary bank account closures.4 Many states have recognized the dangers posed by payday and other types of small-dollar loans with predatory features, prompting them to adopt laws to combat the abusive nature of these loans. These laws, however, offer consumers varying degrees of protection. Historically, states have used their police powers to protect consumers from predatory lending. This Article discusses the extent to which each state’s current laws protect consumers from lending abuses associated with four common small-dollar loans: payday loans, auto-title loans, six-month installment loans, and one-year installment loans.5 Specifically, this Article highlights the findings from the 2010 Small Dollar Loan Products Scorecard (Scorecard), which updated the original 2008 Scorecard. 6 Both the 2008 and 2010 Scorecard grade state laws based on the maximum annual percentage rate (APR) they allow for the four typical small-dollar loan products listed above. Since the 2008 Scorecard, there has been significant state legislative activity across the country related to small-dollar loans. Only a handful of states, however, have enacted new measures that adequately protect consumers. This Article provides policy recommendations to guide ongoing reform efforts. The Article highlights three key points. First, states should continue their longstanding good fight on behalf of American families against abusive, small dollar lending, but they need help. Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which President Obama established when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law on July 21, 2010, should join the battle.7 Second, the states and Congress should focus their reform efforts on enacting an across-the-board usury cap of 36% APR on all small-dollar loans. Third, the states, CFPB, and Congress should impose several restrictions on high-cost (over 36% APR), small-dollar lending to help curb its abusive nature. In this Article, Part II describes the methodology used by the 2010 Scorecard. Part III reports the major changes that have occurred in the two years since the Scorecard’s original 2008 publication. Finally, Part IV proposes several policy recommendations, at the state and federal level, with the focus in the latter category on opportunities for action by the newly created CFPB

A Novel Technique for Distributed Measuring of Strain in the Vadose Zone

Characterizing water content and pressure changes in the vadose zone is important to understanding a variety of geologic processes, ranging from storage and drainage, to evapotranspiration, and recharge. Changes in water content, or pressure, cause strain in the solid porous medium of the vadose zone, and it is possible that measuring those strains could be used as a characterization tool. The Coherence-length-gated Microwave Photonics Interferometry (CMPI) technique measures strain at high resolution along many intervals defined by pairs of reflectors distributed along an optical fiber. This technique has recently been developed at Clemson University, and it appears to have the spatial and temporal resolution to characterize strains that are expected to occur with hydrologic changes in the vadose zone. However, the technique has never been used to measure strain in porous media, so its capabilities remain uncertain. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the ability of using CMPI to measure strain changes in the vadose zone. The research approach consists of conducting laboratory tests using a column filled with sand that is subjected to changes in water content and pressure. An optical fiber with CMPI reflectors was laminated in a high-surface-area ribbon and deployed along the axis of the column. The column was made from 8-inch, Schedule 40 PVC pipe (75 cm tall, 20 cm inner diameter) and filled with medium-grained sand (K = 2.5x10-6 m/s, porosity = 0.28, Coefficient of Uniformity = 2, van Genuchten (n = 4.34, = 0.00039 m-1, θs = 0.28, and θr = 0.08), Young’s Modulus = 18 –30MPa). Five pressure and four temperature sensors were inserted through the wall of the column. The optical fiber strain measurements include five reflectors spaced 10 cm apart in a ribbon on the inside, and 5 addition reflectors on the outside along the axis of the column. Strain measurements are made between pairs of reflectors. The reflectors are created in 250-micron-diameter acrylate-coated single mode Corning SMF28e+ optical fiber using a femtosecond laser. The optical fiber was laminated between two pieces of polyester film creating a large surface area to transfer strain from the porous media to the optical fiber. The experiments were conducted by filling the column from the bottom or infiltrating water from the top. The water was allowed to equilibrate to room temperature prior to each test in order to limit thermoelastic strain. Five injection tests with a rate of 250 ml/min and three infiltration tests at varying rates were conducted, and the results show patterns of strain and pressure are generally similar. Hydrologic conditions define three zones based on the pressure magnitude and distribution. 1.) Ambient Zone where the pressure heads are quasi-static, and the pressure gradient is roughly unity (head gradient of zero). This is the uppermost zone and is characterized by negative pressures. The pressure head gradient is approximately 1. 2.) Transition Zone where the pressures increase from ambient to zero, are changing relatively rapidly and the pressure gradient is relatively steep (pressure head gradients of 2). The Transition zone is 10 to 15 cm thick. 3.) Positive Pressure Zone where the pressure is positive, the rate of change is slower than in the transition zone and the gradient is flatter (pressure head gradient 1.1 to 1.2). This is the lowest zone in the column. Injection of water causes the pressure to increase and the three pressure zones to move upward. The Transition zone moves at a rate of approximately 2x10-4 +/- 0.5x10-4 m/s, according to analyses of pressure profiles. This is the same as the ratio of the volumetric flux (5.4x10-5 m/s) and the porosity (0.28). Strain signals in the range of 10s of were observed with a noise level of generally less than 0.1 (signal to noise ratio of greater than 100) during injection and drainage. The strain generally increases during injection and decreases during drainage. The strain rate, and how the strain relates to changes in pore pressure varies considerably, however. These changes are repeatable and were used to define four stages in the strain time series during filling and four stages during draining. An additional three stages were identified in the time series of tests that involved filling the column until water ponded on the surface of the sand. The spatial and temporal distributions of strain caused by injection depend on the location of the moving pressure zones. The locations of the different pressure zones were determined from pressure profiles at different times and these data were transferred to strain time series. This shows that the pressure zones occur in consistent locations relative to the strain sensor during the different stages, which indicates that the changing pore pressure is controlling the strain. This was expected, but how the pressure controls the strain was unexpected. In some locations, the strain increases with increasing pressure, which is consistent with Hooke’s Law. In other locations, however, the strain is unchanged or decreases when the pore pressure increases. It is inferred that this is a result of stress transfer, where an increase in stress in one location causes a decrease in stress in another location to maintain equilibrium. An interesting effect occurs when the upper surface of the sand becomes saturated. Significant compression (several 10s of ) occurs as the pressure and saturation increase at the upper surface. Compression occurs throughout the column, but the effect is greatest at the top of the column. The rate of compression is fastest slightly before ponding occurs, but it slows markedly and nearly stops when water starts to accumulate at the surface (ponding). This effect reverses when the surface of the sand is drained, resulting in tension throughout the column. The compression caused by this effect can be as large or larger than the tensile strain that accumulated during filling. This effect was unexpected because increasing pressure is normally associated with tensile strain. Nevertheless, this effect was observed consistently in all tests where the pressure changes at the upper surface, including tests where water was injected from below or infiltrated from above. This effect behaves as if the pore pressure at the upper surface of the sand exerts a normal force on the boundary (increasing pore pressure exerts a downward compression on the boundary). Results of the laboratory experiments indicate that CMPI can measure strain caused by fluid pressure changes in the vadose zone with a signal to noise ratio of 100 or more. Injection and drainage cause a strain signal that is complex, but repeatable. The magnitudes of the strain signal are consistent with magnitudes that are expected based on poroelastic calculations using independently measured properties of the sand. The strain signal can be explained with a conceptual model that recognizes three basic effects: 1.) strain in proportion to pressure change (Hooke’s Law); 2.) strain independent of local pressure change due to stress transfer; 3.) strain caused by a load applied at the ground surface that is proportional to the pressure change. These results indicate that the CMPI technique with an optical fiber laminated in a polyester ribbon generates data that represent the strain distribution during hydrologic processes of imbibition and drainage in variably saturated sand. This suggests that distributed strain measurements using CMPI could be a viable approach for evaluating processes in the vadose zone, laying the groundwork for future field implementation

Perceptions of Saudi male and female postgraduate students regarding the impact of social networking sites and apps on their academic life: A study of Umm Al-Qura university – makkah

This paper outlines a study exploring the perceptions of Saudi male and female postgraduate students regarding the impact of using Social Networking Sites and Apps (SNSAs) on their academic engagement and academic relationships. While research on SNSA use within the higher education environment does exist, mixed gender research has often presented challenges in Saudi Arabia, due to the educational segregation. A mixed methods approach was used to collect data through surveys, individual interviews and focus groups involving 313 male and 293 female postgraduate students at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) in Makkah. Findings illustrated that both males and females engaged with SNSAs at a moderate level of use for academic purposes, and they perceived more positive than negative impacts associated with the academic use of SNSAs. Correlational analysis demonstrated a large positive correlation between academic engagement and academic relationships. Gender differences were not extensive however, the quantitative analysis highlighted more prominent involvement with SNSAs by females which is interesting, in light of social restrictions experienced by females in Saudi society

The Wages of Crying Life: What States Must Do to Protect Children After the Fall of Roe

In the post-Roe world, can a state rationally claim that the value of human life justifies the imposition of abortion bans but does not demand that a state protect the vulnerable young who are “born human beings”—commonly called “minors” or “children”—and are entitled to protection under a state’s laws? This essay advances the claim that it cannot. This essay asks that those who say they are “Pro-life” in politics and law demonstrate that they protect vulnerable life beyond the abortion context, and that they do so in the most minimal fashion: through a demonstrated commitment to protecting the basic welfare of the most vulnerable children. The proposed “wage for crying life” (a play on John Hart Ely’s famous phrase) is a set of remedies for the sake of rationality and for other obvious public ends to be paid by multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders, both public and private, must participate in measuring and meeting basic standards for ensuring the protection of children from child abuse and neglect in a jurisdiction before that jurisdiction may rationally ban abortion. Using the authors’ home state of New Hampshire as a case study, this essay offers an initial application of the proposed broad framework to show how one state’s record of permitting massive child abuse prevents it from rationally claiming the “Pro-Life” status it claims its abortion ban achieves

Assessing molecular outflows and turbulence in the protostellar cluster Serpens South

Molecular outflows driven by protostellar cluster members likely impact their surroundings and contribute to turbulence, affecting subsequent star formation. The very young Serpens South cluster consists of a particularly high density and fraction of protostars, yielding a relevant case study for protostellar outflows and their impact on the cluster environment. We combined CO $J=1-0$ observations of this region using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) and the Institut de Radioastronomie Millim\'{e}trique (IRAM) 30 m single dish telescope. The combined map allows us to probe CO outflows within the central, most active region at size scales of 0.01 pc to 0.8 pc. We account for effects of line opacity and excitation temperature variations by incorporating $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO data for the $J=1-0$ and $J=3-2$ transitions (using Atacama Pathfinder Experiment and Caltech Submillimeter Observatory observations for the higher CO transitions), and we calculate mass, momentum, and energy of the molecular outflows in this region. The outflow mass loss rate, force, and luminosity, compared with diagnostics of turbulence and gravity, suggest that outflows drive a sufficient amount of energy to sustain turbulence, but not enough energy to substantially counter the gravitational potential energy and disrupt the clump. Further, we compare Serpens South with the slightly more evolved cluster NGC 1333, and we propose an empirical scenario for outflow-cluster interaction at different evolutionary stages.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

IV.3. Bioreactors in tissue engineering.

IV.3. Bioreactors in tissue engineering