User community development for the space transportation system/Skylab

The New User Function plan for identifying beneficial uses of space is described. Critical issues such as funding, manpower, and protection of user proprietary rights are discussed along with common barriers which impede the development of a user community. Studies for developing methodologies of identifying new users and uses of the space transportation system are included

Binding potentials for vapour nanobubbles on surfaces using density functional theory

We calculate density profiles of a simple model fluid in contact with a planar surface using density functional theory (DFT), in particular for the case where there is a vapour layer intruding between the wall and the bulk liquid. We apply the method of Hughes et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 142, 074702 (2015)] to calculate the density profiles for varying (specified) amounts of the vapour adsorbed at the wall. This is equivalent to varying the thickness $h$ of the vapour at the surface. From the resulting sequence of density profiles we calculate the thermodynamic grand potential as $h$ is varied and thereby determine the binding potential as a function of $h$. The binding potential obtained via this coarse-graining approach allows us to determine the disjoining pressure in the film and also to predict the shape of vapour nano-bubbles on the surface. Our microscopic DFT based approach captures information from length scales much smaller than some commonly used models in continuum mechanics.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figure

Transnational Science Fiction at the End of the World: Consensus, Conflict and the Politics of Climate Change

This article considers the significance of transnational production, aesthetic, and narrative strategies in recent forms of "apocalyptic" science fiction cinema. As the article explores, a more transnational mode of science fiction offers the opportunity for popular genre cinema to engage with pressing environmental questions, the contexts of climate politics, and particularly the historical and present role of science fiction in confronting, or sometimes avoiding, these issues

Constraints on DD Dimensional Warped Spaces

In order to investigate the phenomenological implications of allowing gauge fields to propagate in warped spaces of more than five dimensions, we consider a toy model of a space warped by the presence of a anisotropic bulk cosmological constant. After solving the Einstein equation, three classes of solutions are found, those in which the additional ($D>5$) dimensions are growing, shrinking or remaining constant. It is found that gauge fields propagating in these spaces have a significantly different Kaluza Klein (KK) mass spectrum and couplings from that of the Randall and Sundrum model. This leads to a greatly reduced lower bound on the KK scale, arising from electroweak constraints, for spaces growing towards the IR brane.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures PASCOS2010 International Symposium proceedin

The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances

America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. We attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, attend different churches, and shop at different stores. This rigid racial segregation results in social, economic, and resource inequality, with White communities of opportunity on the one hand and many communities of color without access to quality schools, jobs, transportation, or health care on the other. Many people view this as an unfortunate fact of life, or as a relic of legal systems long since overturned and beyond the reach of current legal process. But this is not true. On the contrary, the law continues to play a profound role in creating and legitimizing pat-terns of racial segregation all across America. Crime-free housing ordinances are one of the most salient examples of the role law plays in producing and sustaining racial segregation today. They are, in this respect, a critical mechanism for effectuating the new housing segregation. Crime-free housing ordinances are local laws that either encourage or require private landlords to evict or exclude tenants who have had varying levels of contact with the criminal legal system. Though formally race neutral, these laws facilitate racial segregation in a number of significant ways. This is the first article to explain precisely how they do so. The Article contends that crime-free housing ordinances enable racial segregation by importing the racial biases, racial logics, and racial disparities of the criminal legal system in-to private housing markets. While scholars have examined the important role local laws played in effectuating racial inequality, they have not paid attention to crime-free housing ordinances. In addition to foregrounding how crime-free housing ordinances reinforce and perpetuate racially segregated communities, this Article proposes an intervention: a “segregative effects” claim, an underutilized cause of action under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, to challenge this segregative impact. While this intervention would not end the pervasive nature of housing segregation across the United States, it could eliminate at least one of the causes of this persistent problem: a body of law whose formal race neutrality has obscured its racially segregative effects

Moving Beyond Strict Scrutiny: The Need for a More Nuanced Standard of Protection Analysis for K through 12 Integration Programs

In Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit evaluated a race-conscious student assignment program using the affirmative action strict scrutiny framework of Grutter v. Bollinger. Comfort is part of a trend of applying strict scrutiny to race-conscious integration programs that has gained new momentum following the decision in Grutter. Invited by the Supreme Court\u27s seemingly unequivocal language in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, that all racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny, federal district and appellate courts confronted with the question have generally treated the Equal Protection issues raised by voluntary school integration in the tradition of affirmative action, no matter how they ultimately decide the matter on the merits. While Grutter provided significant guidance on the use of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education, the decision did not shed light on the applicability of these standards to K through 12 student assignment programs. While many courts have recognized that important differences between affirmative action in higher education and employment, and race-conscious student assignment programs exist and must be carefully weighed, the courts have largely treated these as differences in degree, not differences in kind. The courts have also largely ignored that the acceptable approach in affirmative action cases is just not feasible for a local school district. Rather than conceding that strict scrutiny is the appropriate constitutional standard when dealing with public primary and secondary schools, this Article endeavors to begin the jurisprudential inquiry anew and concludes that voluntary school integration does not emerge out of the historical or legal fabric of affirmative action in higher education or employment, nor does it analytically fit in the mold there created. Accordingly, courts should not import wholesale the standards of the Supreme Court\u27s affirmative action jurisprudence into the K through 12 arena. This Article explores the implications of the judiciary placing increasing responsibility for addressing the legacy of segregation in the hands of local school boards, while simultaneously making it increasingly difficult for school boards to address these inequalities through non-merit based, race-conscious student assignment policies. The Article also examines Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny as the point of departure in determining the applicable standard for K through 12 integration programs and concludes that courts should view voluntary school integration as an extension of the Court\u27s school desegregation jurisprudence rather than the Court\u27s affirmative action jurisprudence

Moving Beyond Strict Scrutiny: The Need for a More Nuanced Standard of Protection Analysis for K through 12 Integration Programs

In Comfort v. Lynn School Committee, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit evaluated a race-conscious student assignment program using the affirmative action strict scrutiny framework of Grutter v. Bollinger. Comfort is part of a trend of applying strict scrutiny to race-conscious integration programs that has gained new momentum following the decision in Grutter. Invited by the Supreme Court\u27s seemingly unequivocal language in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, that all racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny, federal district and appellate courts confronted with the question have generally treated the Equal Protection issues raised by voluntary school integration in the tradition of affirmative action, no matter how they ultimately decide the matter on the merits. While Grutter provided significant guidance on the use of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education, the decision did not shed light on the applicability of these standards to K through 12 student assignment programs. While many courts have recognized that important differences between affirmative action in higher education and employment, and race-conscious student assignment programs exist and must be carefully weighed, the courts have largely treated these as differences in degree, not differences in kind. The courts have also largely ignored that the acceptable approach in affirmative action cases is just not feasible for a local school district. Rather than conceding that strict scrutiny is the appropriate constitutional standard when dealing with public primary and secondary schools, this Article endeavors to begin the jurisprudential inquiry anew and concludes that voluntary school integration does not emerge out of the historical or legal fabric of affirmative action in higher education or employment, nor does it analytically fit in the mold there created. Accordingly, courts should not import wholesale the standards of the Supreme Court\u27s affirmative action jurisprudence into the K through 12 arena. This Article explores the implications of the judiciary placing increasing responsibility for addressing the legacy of segregation in the hands of local school boards, while simultaneously making it increasingly difficult for school boards to address these inequalities through non-merit based, race-conscious student assignment policies. The Article also examines Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny as the point of departure in determining the applicable standard for K through 12 integration programs and concludes that courts should view voluntary school integration as an extension of the Court\u27s school desegregation jurisprudence rather than the Court\u27s affirmative action jurisprudence