Admiralty Jurisdiction, Unification, and the American Law Institute

In light of the rationale behind the establishment of the admiralty jurisdiction, it seems to me constitutionally and statutorily illogical to say that a case is within the admiralty jurisdiction, concurrent though it may be, and yet subject to the substantive whims of fifty jurisdictions. Further, the inquiry which the existence of these exceptions requires sometimes leads the courts to the kind of unhappy convolutions typified by Fireman\u27s Fund American Insurance Company v. Boston Harbor Marina, Inc., which held that an exculpatory contract for winter storage and repair - in a terrene hangar - was within the admiralty jurisdiction and was not one of those transactions which are matters of special concern to the states, or reveal significant differences reflecting deep-dyed local practice, preference, and public policy

Geographic Variation in Wood Properties of Pinus Tecunumanii

Wood properties of Pinus tecunumanii were studied on 108 trees collected from four different departments of Guatemala (Baja Verapaz, Zacapa, Totonicapán, and El Quiché). Unextracted and extracted specific gravities were calculated from 108 Cores (one per tree) of 4.5 mm diameter. The specific gravity varied from 0.51 to 0.56 with a weak decreasing trend from east to west. Most of the extractives were found in the core segment closest to the pith. Tracheid measurements were recorded on 11-mm cores from Baja Verapaz and Zacapa with tracheid length, cell-wall thickness, lumen width, and tracheid diameter being recorded. With the exception of tracheid length, all the measured cell characteristics showed highly statistical differences between locations and among trees. Most of the variation was within and between trees. Tracheid diameter and lumen width were highly correlated. The wood of the Tecun Umán pine showed extreme variability, especially in tracheid dimensions. Overall, however, the wood of this species is quite usable for both solid wood and pulp products

Development of a 4-DoF Active Upper Limb Orthosis

In this paper, the designs and manufacturing process of a powered upper limb orthosis are presented. The orthosis is an exoskeleton worn on one arm by the user and fixed to the trunk. The orthosis’ architecture, design, and manufacturing process are presented and discussed. Estimations of the ranges of movement related to daily living activities are presented. The preliminary tests to verify the functionality of the design show encouraging results

A procedure for the fatigue life prediction of straight fibers pneumatic muscles

Different from the McKibben pneumatic muscle actuator, the straight fibers one is made of an elastomeric tube closed at the two ends by two heads that ensure a mechanical and pneumatic seal. High stiffness threads are placed longitudinally into the wall of the tube while external rings are placed at some sections of it to limit the radial expansion of the tube. The inner pressure in the tube causes shortening of the actuator. The working mode of the muscle actuator requires a series of critical repeated contractions and extensions that cause it to rupture. The fatigue life duration of a pneumatic muscle is often lower than traditional pneumatic actuators. The paper presents a procedure for the fatigue life prediction of a straight-fibers muscle based on experimental tests directly carried out with the muscles instead of with specimens of the silicone rubber material which the muscle is made of. The proposed procedure was experimentally validated. Although the procedure is based on fatigue life duration data for silicone rubber, it can be extended to all straight-fibers muscles once the fatigue life duration data of any material considered for the muscles is known

Environmental Relationships in Forests of Early 20th Century Coos County, Oregon, Based on Timber Cruise Data

Timber cruise data can provide useful information not available elsewhere. Measurements of timber volume (timber cruises) from the early 20th century for Coos County, Oregon, were used to assess the degree to which tree species distribution and timber volume varied with edaphic and climatic factors. The study area has diverse geology in a moderate maritime climate, and represents an area of forest transition between the Coast Range and the Klamath Mountains. Species distribution was determined from 629 cruised 1-mil (2.59 km(2)) sections, and timber volume from 252 sections of old-growth forest. Most forests were dominated by Douglas-fir (Pseudotsriga menziesii); Sitka spruce (Picea siichensis), although least frequent, had the second-most timber volume. All six commercial conifer species differed substantially in distribution in relation to geography and to environment. Both distribution and volume of grand fir (Abies grcrndis) varied with geologic unit and general soil type: Sitka spruce, with soil and maximal summer temperature (- sign); Douglas-fir, with temperature (+) and summer precipitation (+); western hemlock (71-uga heierophylla), with precipitation (+); PortOrford-cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), with precipitation (-); and western redcedar (Thuja plicata), with no factor. Importance of Douglas-fir and hemlock increased on geologic units with sediments from inland plutonic sources, which reduced importance of Port-Orford-cedar. Some species varied significantly among soil units within a geological formation, and vice-versa. When choosing which species to plant, these cruise data can supplement or replace guidelines based on plant associations

Switching the focus from product function to business profit: Introducing business model LCA

Recent years have seen much interest in business models as vehicles towards sustainability (cf. Boons & L\ufcdeke-Freund 2013). However, conventional LCA with its product focus fails to capture the environmental impacts of a business model. Here, a novel LCA methodology for assessing the environmental performance of business models is presented, Business Model LCA. The methodological innovation is underpinned by an understanding of differences between product and business: While a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need, it will by itself will not make money — a business is an arrangement of people, processes and tools around a product to enable it to make money. From a business perspective, the product is a means to an end. To reflect this relationship, BM-LCA centres its analysis on the business. A key innovation is made to the functional unit (defined as ‘profit per time unit’). From this follows the coupling of the business system with its monetary flows to the product system with its material and energy flows. To achieve this, a conventional mapping of the product’s technical system is complemented with an actor mapping. Their coupling is made via a set of equations describing socio-material interactions in the form of product-related economic exchanges of the business organisation. BM-LCA was developed through a case study comparing two business models (a sales model and a rental model) of a sustainability-dedicated company in the garment sector. The BM-LCA study produced useful and novel insights and the method enables analysis of economic decoupling in business practice. BM-LCA is also compared to other LCA approaches used for similar aims and discussed with regard to its usefulness to business model innovation for sustainability. In conclusion, BM-LCA represents an important contribution to environmental business analysis and opens up a new avenue of research where LCA and business scholars can collaborate