Multiple-Party Accounts: Does Virginia\u27s New Law Correspond with the Expectations of the Average Depositor?

There are literally thousands of joint savings and checking accounts throughout Virginia in which the bank signature card provides that either party during their joint lives or the survivor may withdraw funds without limit from the account. The Virginia Supreme Court forthrightly recognized the problems of such accounts in the landmark case of King v. Merryman, stating, For more than half a century, the courts of this country have struggled to discover whether a joing deposit bank account with an extended right of survivorship ...is a gift, a trust, a contract, or joint tenancy, or a testamentary disposition. In an attempt to bring order to this area confused by judicial decisions, public misconceptions and a muddle of statutory provisions, the 1979 Virginia General Assembly enacted the Multiple Party Accounts Act which became effective on July 1, 1980

Termination of Parental Rights-An Analysis of Virginia\u27s Statute

The act of terminating parental rights-the total and permanent severance of the parent-child relationship-is an example of extreme intervention by the state in an individual\u27s private interests. It involves the complex interrelations of a trilogy: the parents\u27 natural rights, the child\u27s personal interests, and the state\u27s interest in the welfare of its citizens

The Problem of Water in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands: A Cultural Ecological Study

The island of St. Thomas has been home for many cultures over the past thirty-five hundred years, and each society has left its mark on the landscape. This study illustrates the changing relationships between culture and the island environment. It is an attempt to understand how a specific environmental problem has evolved, how a water shortage has come to exist in a relatively wet climatic zone

The Effect of Songwriting on Identity Formation After a Diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that causes manic and depressive symptoms and is characterized by mood episodes that could last for days to months. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder has various social, emotional, and practical consequences. Among the impacts of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder on individuals are self-concept and social identity. The discovery of a mental illness can cause one to struggle with accepting who they were before the illness and who they have become after being diagnosed with the disorder. The conflict can cause individuals to lose their identity and self-image. When this happens, they may require treatment to aid in rehabilitation and self-acceptance. Music therapy has been a commonly used form of treatment with people who have mental illnesses. Songwriting allows individuals to express their feelings and emotions and reflect on their past, present and future. In the end, the diagnosis and process of songwriting work towards reconciling their image and identity. The focus of further research should be on the specific areas of impact of songwriting in bipolar disorder patients and how the intervention promotes self-acceptance, self-esteem, and identity development at the individual and society level

A Thermodynamic Interpretation of Time for Superstring Rolling Tachyons

Rolling tachyon backgrounds, arising from open strings on unstable branes in bosonic string theory, can be related to a simple statistical mechanical model - Coulomb gas of point charges in two dimensions confined to a circle, the Dyson gas. In this letter we describe a statistical system that is dual to non-BPS branes in superstring theory. We argue that even though the concept of time is absent in the statistical dual sitting at equilibrium, the notion of time can emerge at the large number of particles $N \to \infty$ limit.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, v2: reference added, v3: minor clarification, version to appear in journa

Developing reflective practice in distance teacher education programs

Among the many challenges that teacher education programs face is fostering reflective practice in the future teachers. The difficulty is increased in distance education programs where face-to-face contact between students and teachers is missing. This paper presents the results of an analysis of the perceptions of reflective teaching, tools for reflection, and self-evaluation of reflective practices from in-service teachers enrolled in the distance BA and MA in English language teaching at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. Although subjects were able to describe reflective practice and its importance, they recognized that these practices are usually limited to activities undertaken as students, and once the course requirements have been completed, they were no longer practiced