A Privatization Solution to the Legitimacy of Prepetition Waivers of the Automatic Stay

Section I of this article reviews the historical notions of the automatic stay prior to and under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 (the “Act”) as well as the legislative history of § 362 of the Bankruptcy Code of 1978 (the “Code”). Section II focuses on the arguments for and against upholding the validity of agreements which waive the protections of the automatic stay. Specifically, this section analyzes recent court decisions in this area and attempts to discern differences between permissible and impermissible waivers. Section III reviews the enforcability of other prepetition agreements. In Section IV, we introduce our hypothesis, based fundamentally on economic principles, that notwithstanding recent judicial decisions to the contrary, debtors should be permitted to waive their rights to an automatic stay where such a waiver effectuates a privatization between one debtor and one creditor of the common pool problem. Returning to more practical issues, Section V concludes by discussing concerns regarding waivers and by advising parties on how best to proceed when drafting such provisions

A Privatization Solution to the Legitimacy of Prepetition Waivers of the Automatic Stay

Section I of this article reviews the historical notions of the automatic stay prior to and under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 (the “Act”) as well as the legislative history of § 362 of the Bankruptcy Code of 1978 (the “Code”). Section II focuses on the arguments for and against upholding the validity of agreements which waive the protections of the automatic stay. Specifically, this section analyzes recent court decisions in this area and attempts to discern differences between permissible and impermissible waivers. Section III reviews the enforcability of other prepetition agreements. In Section IV, we introduce our hypothesis, based fundamentally on economic principles, that notwithstanding recent judicial decisions to the contrary, debtors should be permitted to waive their rights to an automatic stay where such a waiver effectuates a privatization between one debtor and one creditor of the common pool problem. Returning to more practical issues, Section V concludes by discussing concerns regarding waivers and by advising parties on how best to proceed when drafting such provisions

TRL Assessment of Solar Sail Technology Development Following the 20-Meter System Ground Demonstrator Hardware Testing

The NASA In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) Projects Office has been sponsoring 2 separate, independent system design and development hardware demonstration activities during 2002-2005. ATK Space Systems of Goleta, CA was the prime contractor for one development team and L'Garde, Inc. of Tustin, CA was the prime contractor for the other development team. The goal of these activities was to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of solar sail propulsion from 3 towards 6 by the year 2006. Component and subsystem fabrication and testing were completed successfully, including the ground deployment of 10-meter and 20-meter ground demonstration hardware systems under vacuum conditions. The deployment and structural testing of the 20-meter solar sail systems was conducted in the 30 meter diameter Space Power Facility thermal-vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Plum Brook in April though August, 2005. This paper will present the results of the TRL assessment following the solar sail technology development activities associated with the design, development, analysis and testing of the 20-meter system ground demonstrators. Descriptions of the system designs for both the ATK and L'Garde systems will be presented. Changes, additions and evolution of the system designs will be highlighted. A description of the modeling and analyses activities performed by both teams, as well as testing conducted to raise the TRL of solar sail technology will be presented. A summary of the results of model correlation activities will be presented. Finally, technology gaps identified during the assessment and gap closure plans will be presented, along with "lessons learned", subsequent planning activities and validation flight opportunities for solar sail propulsion technology

An Investigation of Magneto-Optical Effects

We exhibit the effects of Faraday rotation on the direction of the transverse component of the magnetic field in a simple, symmetric sunspot. A set of 35 polarization filtergrams of NOAA active region 4662 (June 9, 1985) were obtained with the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) vector magnetograph. These filtergrams measured the Stokes I, Q, U, and V intensities averaged over the instrument's filter bandpass (0.0125 nm) for wavelengths from 0.017 nm in the red wing to 0.017 nm in the blue wing of the Lambda525.22 nm spectral line in steps of 0.001 nm. These data were used to derive the azimuth phi of the vector field as a function of wavelength over the field of view of the sunspot. We interpret the observed variations of this azimuth with wavelength as the effects of Faraday rotation and verify this interpretation by comparing these variations with those predicted from magneto-optical theory. In the theoretical calculations we use the line-profile parameters and magnetic field strength derived in previous work by Balasubramaniam and West (Astrophys. J 382, p. 699, 1991)

Mercury Sample Return using Solar Sails

A conventional Mercury sample return mission requires significant launch mass due to the large deltav required for the outbound and return trips, and the large mass of a planetary lander and ascent vehicle. Solar sailing can be used to reduce lander mass allocation by delivering the lander to a low, thermally safe orbit close to the terminator. Propellant mass is not an issue for solar sails so a sample can be returned relatively easily, without resorting to lengthy, multiple gravity assists. The initial Mercury sample return studies reported here were conducted under ESA contract ESTEC/16534/02/NL/NR, PI Colin McInnes, Technical Officer Peter Falkner. Updated solar sail capabilities were developed under the Ground System Demonstration program, funded by the NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) Program

Fertilizing Pasture and Hayland

Guide to fertilizing pasture and hayland discusses fertilization for forage production, established grass-legume mixtures, new seedings, and seed production

Aged riverine particulate organic carbon in four UK catchments

The riverine transport of particulate organic matter (POM) is a significant flux in the carbon cycle, and affects macronutrients and contaminants. We used radiocarbon to characterise POM in 9 rivers of four UK catchments (Avon, Conwy, Dee, Ribble) over a one-year period. High-discharge samples were collected on three or four occasions at each site. Suspended particulate matter (SPM) was obtained by centrifugation, and the samples were analysed for carbon isotopes. Concentrations of SPM and SPM organic carbon (OC) contents were also determined, and were found to have a significant negative correlation. For the 7 rivers draining predominantly rural catchments, PO14C values, expressed as percent modern carbon absolute (pMC), varied little among samplings at each site, and there was no significant difference in the average values among the sites. The overall average PO14C value for all 7 sites of 91.2 pMC corresponded to an average age of 680 14C years, but this value arises from the mixing of differently-aged components, and therefore significant amounts of organic matter older than the average value are present in the samples. Although topsoil erosion is probably the major source of the riverine POM, the average PO14C value is appreciably lower than topsoil values (which are typically 100 pMC). This is most likely explained by inputs of older subsoil OC from bank erosion, or the preferential loss of high-14C topsoil organic matter by mineralisation during riverine transport. The significantly lower average PO14C of samples from the River Calder (76.6 pMC), can be ascribed to components containing little or no radiocarbon, derived either from industrial sources or historical coal mining, and this effect is also seen in the River Ribble, downstream of its confluence with the Calder. At the global scale, the results significantly expand available information for PO14C in rivers draining catchments with low erosion rates

TRL Assessment of Solar Sail Technology Development Following the 20-Meter System Ground Demonstrator Hardware Testing

The NASA In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) Projects Office has been sponsoring 2 separate, independent system design and development hardware demonstration activities during 2002-2005. ATK Space Systems of Goleta, CA was the prime contractor for one development team and L'Garde, Inc. of Tustin, CA was the prime contractor for the other development team. The goal of these activities was to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of solar sail propulsion from 3 towards 6 by the year 2006. Component and subsystem fabrication and testing were completed successfully, including the ground deployment of 10-meter and 20-meter ground demonstration hardware systems under vacuum conditions. The deployment and structural testing of the 20-meter solar sail systems was conducted in the 30 meter diameter Space Power Facility thermal-vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Plum Brook in April though August, 2005. This paper will present the results of the TRL assessment following the solar sail technology development activities associated with the design, development, analysis and testing of the 20-meter system ground demonstrators. Descriptions of the system designs for both the ATK and L'Garde systems will be presented. Changes, additions and evolution of the system designs will be highlighted. A description of the modeling and analyses activities performed by both teams, as well as testing conducted to raise the TRL of solar sail technology will be presented. A summary of the results of model correlation activities will be presented. Finally, technology gaps identified during the assessment and gap closure plans will be presented, along with "lessons learned", subsequent planning activities and validation flight opportunities for solar sail propulsion technology

NanoSail-D

The "NanoSail-D" mission is currently scheduled for launch onboard a Falcon-1 Launch Vehicle in the early June 2008 timeframe. The NanoSail-D spacecraft will consist of a solar sail subsystem stowed in a 2U volume and a 1U spacecraft bus, provided by Ames Research Center. The primary objectives of the NanoSail-D technology demonstration mission are to fabricate, stow and deploy on-orbit a solar sail and perform a de-orbit maneuver to demonstrate a potential orbital debris mitigation technology. The NanoSail-D mission is being developed through a collaborative effort between the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the NASA Ames Research Center Small Spacecraft Office. Details of the NanoSail-D system will be presented, including: 1) design details of the solar sail reflective membrane quadrants, gossamer booms, deployment system and passive attitude control system, 2) design analysis results including structural, thermal, environmental, orbital debris and safety, and 3) test results including deployment, ascent venting, launch vibration and PPOD integration verification

The asymptotic diffusion limit of a linear discontinuous discretization of a two-dimensional linear transport equation

Consider a linear transport problem, and let the mean free path and the absorption cross section be of size [epsilon]. It is well known that one obtains a diffusion problem as [epsilon] tends to zero. We discretize the transport problem on a fixed mesh, independent of [epsilon], consider again the limit [epsilon] --> 0 and ask whether one obtains an accurate discretization of the continuous diffusion problem. The answer is known to be affirmative for the linear discontinuous Galerkin finite element discretization in one space dimension. In this paper, we ask whether the same result holds in two space dimensions. We consider a linear discontinuous discretization based on rectangular meshes. Our main result is that the asymptotic limit of this discrete problem is not a discretization of the asymptotic limit of the continuous problem and thus that the discretization will be inaccurate in the asymptotic regime under consideration. We also propose a modified scheme which has the correct asymptotic behavior for spatially periodic problems, although not always for problems with boundaries. We present numerical results confirming our formal asymptotic analysis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30231/1/0000625.pd