Constitutional Law - Separation of Church and State - Bible Reading in the Public Schools

Plaintiffs, as parents of children in the public school system, sought to enjoin and have declared unconstitutional the practice of reading aloud to students each day ten verses of the Holy Bible as required by a Pennsylvania statute. The plaintiffs contended that this practice constituted an establishment of religion and a prohibition of the free exercise thereof and was therefore a violation of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. By a three-judge district court, held, for plaintiffs. The statute violated the United States Constitution because the Bible is essentially a religious book and the compulsory practice of reading from it to students as part of morning devotions amounts to a promotion of religious instruction by the state. Schempp v. School District of Abington Township, (E.D. Pa. 1959) 177 F. Supp. 398

Compositional modulation and ordering in semiconductors

Journal ArticleThe science of materials as a specific discipline is a relatively modern development. Within this rather modern field, the study of semiconductor materials is an even more recent development. Modern textbooks on materials science focus primarily on the properties of metals and second on the properties of ceramics, reflecting the commercial importance of these materials 50 years ago when the transistor was demonstrated using germanium

Diversification and Adaptive Capacity across Scales in an Emerging Post-Frontier Landscape of the Usumacinta Valley, Chiapas, Mexico

This study investigates impacts and implications of recent landscape change in rural Mexico, through a case study in the Usumacinta Valley of eastern Chiapas. It addresses types of livelihood diversification strategies associated with changing land cover from 1984–2013, and the processes and roles that vary by actors and their scales of influence. After widespread forest loss and the expansion of extensive cattle ranching during the twentieth century, the region has exhibited several new economic and livelihood strategies in recent decades. Results from a combination of satellite imagery analysis and individual interviews from a wide range of land use decision makers demonstrate the dynamism of this landscape. The introduction of new crops, including teak, rubber and oil palm, as well as off-farm work, continue to shape the social and physical landscape and differentially impact the adaptive capacities of residents. Results indicate that small landholders often need to incorporate more crops into their agricultural portfolio and increase off-farm activities, leading to an atomization of livelihood strategies. By contrast, large landholders are able to pursue more specialized and lucrative agricultural opportunities

The Effects of Subanaesthetic Doses of Isoflurane and Enflurane on the Auditory Evoked Response and Two Tests of Psychometric Performance

We investigated the effects of subanaesthetic doses of isoflurane and enflurane on the auditory evoked response, and two tests of psychoraotor performance, the choice reaction time and tracking task. The use of subanaesthetic doses of isoflurane has been used for dental sedation. Thirty fasting volunteers (mean age 24y) had scalp electrodes placed at vertex and both mastoids. Fifteen were randomly allocated to receive doses of isoflurane of inspired concentrations (0, 0.31, 0.5, 0.75%), placebo or enflurane (0, 0.17, 0.42, 0.6%) and 15 received isoflurane (0, 0.2, 0.31, 0.4%) or placebo. At each step change in volatile agent concentration 20min were allowed for equilibration. The reclining volunteers received the gases through a Hudson mask connected to a Bain circuit (flow > 10lmin-1), delivering 30% oxygen in air. Basic physiological variables, heart rate, arterial pressure, axillary temperature, and oxygen saturation were monitored throughout each 2.5h experiment. End-tidal concentrations of carbon dioxide could not be practically measured in these conscious volunteers. Control baseline brainstem, and long latency recordings were made before introducing the volatile agents or placebo. A probability of p s 0.05 was considered significant. The basic physiological variables remained within normal ranges throughout each experiment. The brainstem auditory evoked responses (BSAER) latencies and amplitudes did not change significantly for either drug compared with the placebo, except for the wave V latency which increased significantly at 0.5% isoflurane and 0.42% enflurane. The N100 latency of the long-latency auditory evoked responses (LLAER) increased significantly from the placebo at 0.3, 0.4, 0.5% isoflurane and enflurane 0.42%. The N100 amplitude differed significantly from the placebo at 0.2, 0.3, 0.5% isoflurane and 0.6% enflurane. The N100 latency seems to produce a graded response to isoflurane which might be useful in automatic control of anaesthesia, providing the waveforms can be reliably identified automatically. The two tests of psychometric function were affected by the drugs. Mean reaction times and tracking times increased. The variability of the above two measures increased as measured by the coefficients of variation

Transmission of pillar-based photonic crystal waveguides in InP technology

Waveguides based on line defects in pillar photonic crystals have been fabricated in InP/InGaAsP/InP technology. Transmission measurements of different line defects are reported. The results can be explained by comparison with two-dimensional band diagram simulations. The losses increase substantially at mode crossings and in the slow light regime. The agreement with the band diagrams implies a good control on the dimensions of the fabricated features, which is an important step in the actual application of these devices in photonic integrated circuit

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Competency to Stand Trial

Mental unsoundness in a person accused of a crime raises two distinct legal questions. One is the question of the individual\u27s responsibility for his behavior and the other is the question of the individual\u27s competency to enter into the legal procedures of trial or punishment. In recent years considerable attention has been given to matters of responsibility, but relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of incompetency and especially to the consequences of incompetency proceedings. In order to analyze and evaluate the operations of the Michigan law in the area of incompetency to stand trial, two psychiatrists joined two law students to conduct field research at Ionia State Hospital to which all persons found incompetent to stand trial are committed. This comment reports and analyzes the results of this field research. Attention is given also to the merits of alternative procedures for the commitment and treatment of incompetents

Charge and spin distributions in GaMnAs/GaAs Ferromagnetic Multilayers

A self-consistent electronic structure calculation based on the Luttinger-Kohn model is performed on GaMnAs/GaAs multilayers. The Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor layers are assumed to be metallic and ferromagnetic. The high Mn concentration (considered as 5% in our calculation) makes it possible to assume the density of magnetic moments as a continuous distribution, when treating the magnetic interaction between holes and the localized moment on the Mn(++) sites. Our calculation shows the distribution of heavy holes and light holes in the structure. A strong spin-polarization is observed, and the charge is concentrated mostly on the GaMnAs layers, due to heavy and light holes with their total angular momentum aligned anti-parallel to the average magnetization. The charge and spin distributions are analyzed in terms of their dependence on the number of multilayers, the widths of the GaMnAs and GaAs layers, and the width of lateral GaAs layers at the borders of the structure.Comment: 12 pages,7 figure

Mental health in UK Biobank - development, implementation and results from an online questionnaire completed by 157 366 participants: a reanalysis

Background UK Biobank is a well-characterised cohort of over 500 000 participants including genetics, environmental data and imaging. An online mental health questionnaire was designed for UK Biobank participants to expand its potential. Aims Describe the development, implementation and results of this questionnaire. Method An expert working group designed the questionnaire, using established measures where possible, and consulting a patient group. Operational criteria were agreed for defining likely disorder and risk states, including lifetime depression, mania/hypomania, generalised anxiety disorder, unusual experiences and self-harm, and current post-traumatic stress and hazardous/harmful alcohol use. Results A total of 157 366 completed online questionnaires were available by August 2017. Participants were aged 45–82 (53% were ≥65 years) and 57% women. Comparison of self-reported diagnosed mental disorder with a contemporary study shows a similar prevalence, despite respondents being of higher average socioeconomic status. Lifetime depression was a common finding, with 24% (37 434) of participants meeting criteria and current hazardous/harmful alcohol use criteria were met by 21% (32 602), whereas other criteria were met by less than 8% of the participants. There was extensive comorbidity among the syndromes. Mental disorders were associated with a high neuroticism score, adverse life events and long-term illness; addiction and bipolar affective disorder in particular were associated with measures of deprivation. Conclusions The UK Biobank questionnaire represents a very large mental health survey in itself, and the results presented here show high face validity, although caution is needed because of selection bias. Built into UK Biobank, these data intersect with other health data to offer unparalleled potential for crosscutting biomedical research involving mental health