1,424 research outputs found

    Spin-State Equilibrium in LuCoO3

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    204-20

    The Scientific Impossibility of Plausibility

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    This interdisciplinary Article employs a scientific approach to euthanize any suggestion that plausibility pleading is empirically supportable. In the Twombly and Iqbal decisions in 2007 and 2009, the Supreme Court replaced the liberal notice pleading standard of Conley v. Gibson with a heightened requirement that pleadings must be plausible to survive a motion to dismiss. Unlike previous scholarship, I address plausibility in light of a broader defect plaguing all legal theory; courts are not required to defend their hypotheses or legal theories in the same empirical manner as scientists. For example, lower courts and practitioners alike are forced to assume and accept the existence of the plausibility standard simply because it was conjured by the Supreme Court. Admittedly, a scientific perspective may limit development of the law, but it ensures that judges, scholars, and legal practitioners are practicing a body of law which at least partly reflects the reality and limitations of our physical universe. This Article demonstrates plausibility pleading is devoid of any connection to that reality. The Article begins with a brief analysis of what the language of Iqbal and Twombly claims plausibility pleading is, followed by a careful examination of the additional subtext in the decisions which explains what plausibility is not. I demonstrate that the most conspicuous and important aspect of this subtext is the significant judicial effort the Twombly Court expended to emphasize the consistency of its decision with the 2002 Swierkiewicz decision, in which a unanimous Supreme Court reaffirmed the previously existing motion to dismiss standard. Next, in accord with the Article’s unique approach, I examine the actual pleadings in the Swierkiewicz case. Therein, the analysis of the pleadings reveals the absolute falsity of the Supreme Court’s claim that Twombly is consistent with Swierkiewicz. I explain how the motion to dismiss in Swierkiewicz expressly argued for the application of the identical plausibility standard adopted in Twombly and Iqbal, and I further explain how this is the same standard the Court unanimously rejected seven years prior in Swierkiewicz as being beyond its power to implement. Using an analogy to Bayesian mathematical theory, the Article demonstrates, despite the Supreme Court’s claim to the contrary, that the plausibility analysis is a probability analysis. I argue this probability analysis is abhorrent to the constitutionally mandated division of labor between judge and jury in the civil system, and it represents a radical, normative shift in established pleading standards. The Article next applies modern neuroscientific research discussing limits on human beings’ ability to empathize, and it specifically discusses the existence of a genetic predisposition to bias against phenotypically distinct individuals. I explain how this research dispels the scholarly suggestion that plausibility and its encouragement of “judicial experience and common sense” is a waypoint to a laudable, empathy based, utopian judicial state. Additionally, the Article demonstrates the first step in determining plausibility—the separation of law from fact is widely acknowledged, including by the Supreme Court itself—is as an impossible feat. Further, the Article reveals how markedly similar plausibility is to a constitutionally prohibited credibility analysis. Finally, the Article suggests plausibility analysis is a nonsensical amalgam of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8, 9(b), 11 and 12. I demonstrate any pleading deemed not plausible pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) also violates Rule 11. Further, I show that the pleading standard of Rule 8 is now indistinguishable from and possibly higher than Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard

    Effect of Y substitution on the structural and magnetic properties of Dy1-xYxCo5 compounds

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    Structural and magnetization studies were carried out on Dy1-xYxCo5 [x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1] compounds which crystallize in the hexagonal CaCu5-type structure. Lattice parameters and unit-cell volume increase with Y concentration. Large thermomagnetic irreversibility between the field-cooled and the zero-field cooled magnetization data has been observed in all the compounds, which has been attributed to the domain wall pinning effect. Temperature dependence of magnetization data shows that except DyCo5 and YCo5, all the compounds show spin reorientation transitions in the range of 5-300 K. The spin reorientation temperature decreases from 266 K for x=0.2 to 100 K for x=0.8. Powder x-ray diffractograms of the magnetically aligned samples show that DyCo5 has planar anisotropy at room temperature whereas all the other compounds possess axial anisotropy. The spin reorientation transition has been attributed to a change in the easy magnetization direction from the ab-plane to the c-axis, as the temperature is increased. The anisotropy field and the first order anisotropy constant are found to be quite high in all the compounds except DyCo5. The magnetic properties have been explained by taking into account the variations in contributions arising from the rare earth and transition metal sublattices.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

    Allocative Efficiency of Resource use on Beekeeping in Chitwan District of Nepal

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    Agriculture is facing with increasing pollinators decline all over the world affecting the functioning of regulatory and production service of pollination in adverse manner. Study on ways to conserve pollinating agents like bee is crucial in modern intensive agriculture. In this context a study was conducted to estimate the productivity and resource use efficiency of bee keeping in Chitwan district of Nepal. The study used data collected from randomly selected 48 bee keepers using face to face interview technique in the year 2014. Descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, benefit cost analysis and multiple regression analysis using Cob-Douglas form were employed to achieve study objectives. It was found that farmers were rearing honey bee on an average of about 34 hives per farm with annual productivity of bee products equivalent to 36 Kg honey per hive. Gross margin of beekeeping in the research area was found to be NRs. 3111.55 per hive with undiscounted benefit cost ratio of 1.71. Human labour use, expenditure on sugar, drugs and comb foundation and; migration cost were significantly contributing to the productivity of beekeeping and were required to increase their use by 39%, 34% and 74%, respectively to achieve optimum profit. It was suggested to increase the level of all variable inputs through loan, subsidy and insurance to promote beekeeping enterprise in the study area for ensuring optimum profit to farmers and conservation of the most important agent of pollination

    Оптимизация нормированной переходной функции линейной цепи, описываемой характеристическим уравнением 4-го порядка

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    Определение параметров усилительной схемы, обеспечивающих наилучшую форму переходной характеристики, является одной из наиболее сложных задач усилительной техники. При наличии нескольких варьируемых параметров, т. е. при характеристических уравнениях выше второй степени, задача значительно усложняется и случайным варьированием или машинным перебором сочетаний параметров решить ее чрезвычайно трудно. С целью значительного сокращения усилий и времени, затрачиваемых на решение подобных задач, разработаны алгоритм и методика определения с помощью цифровых ЭВМ оптимальных значений коэффициентов коррекции переходных функций линейных целей, описываемых характеристическими уравнениями 2-й и 4-й степеней, при заданных значениях первого и второго выбросов. Приведены графики, иллюстрирующие ре­зультаты вычислений

    Модифицирование матриксов из поли-L-молочной кислоты импульсным сильноточным электронным пучком

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    We describe the synthesis, characterisation and surface-modification of magnetic narroparticles and a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel, followed by the assembly and characterisation of magnetic nanoparticles on the microgel. To facilitate this deposition, the surface of the microgel is first modified via the layer-by-layer assembly of polyelectrolytes. One advantage of this concept is that it allows an independent optimization and fine tuning of the magnetic and thermoresponsive properties of individual components (nanoparticles and microgels) before assembling them so that the hybrid core-shell structure retains all the individual properties. The,decisive parameter when exploiting the thermoresponsive and magnetic properties in such hybrid core-shell structures is the amount of heat transfer from the magnetic core onto the thermosensitive (loaded) microgel (for the subsequent heat-triggered release of drugs). Inductive heat study reveals that the heat generated by the magnetic narroparticles is sufficient to cause the collapse of the microgel above its volume phase transition temperature. Successful confinement of positively and negatively charged magnetic nanoparticles between polyelectrolyte layers is achieved using the layer-by-layer deposition onto the microgel. Dynamic light scattering measurements show (i) the presence of each layer successfully deposited, (ii) the preservation of thermoresponsivity in the coated microgel, and (iii) that the magnetic nanoparticles do not get detached during the phase transition of the microgel. Electrophoresis measurements confirm charge reversal at every stage of layering of polycations, polyanions and magnetic nanoparticles. This unique combination of thermoresponsivity and magnetism opens up novel perspectives towards remotely controlled drug carriers. (c) 200

    Law School Rankings and the Impossibility of Anti-Racism

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    This Article uses the U.S. News law school rankings to illustrate how powerful, invisible, and stubborn systemic racism is. This Article does not level allegations of intentionally blameworthy conduct at U.S. News, or any person or entity. More broadly, this Article does not address conscious and deliberate racism, or the examples of this type of racism with which America’s history is replete. Nor is this Article attempting to undervalue the significant impact of deliberately racist actions in American history on the economic disparity between white people and people of color. Instead, I make an untrue assumption: All Americans of every phenotype are anti-racist. This assumption is akin to those made in the context of a summary judgment motion. In other words, a summary judgment movant often assumes the other side’s facts are true, even when they are not, solely to eliminate factual disputes for the purpose of the motion. The movant then contends even if the facts are as the opponent states they are, the movant’s position is still valid, and the movant’s thesis of the litigation prevails. Even if every American were consciously anti-racist and consciously desired to achieve a racially equitable society, unconscious mechanisms resulting in system justification prevent such a realization. In the context of legal education, the U.S. News rankings catalyze and illustrate these system justifying mechanisms. Without understanding these system justifying mechanisms and the conditions mitigating their operation, an anti-racist America is unattainable. Part I of this Article briefly discusses the rankings methodology. Part II of this Article defines racism and systemic racism, and introduces system justification theory as the mechanism by which racism and systemic racism operate. Part III explains invisible, powerful system justification occurs via unconscious mechanisms among anti-racist Americans, including people of color, reinforcing the white dominant status quo in society. This occurs even though these system justifying actions are often contrary to sincere and conscious individual desires for anti-racism and equality. Part III also provides opportunities to contextualize the operation of system justification. Once that context is created, Part IV carefully and precisely explains how the rankings invoke, utilize, and rely on systemic racism, and why we experience no dissonance about this, even if we are anti-racists. Finally, Part V illustrates why systemic racism based on system justification is so stubborn. System justification is a global phenomenon that automates the creation of in-groups and out-groups. In America, race and whiteness is the distinction between the in-groups and out-groups. However, there are other countries where whiteness is not a distinguishing factor between in-groups and out-groups in the existing societal hierarchies. Therefore, more powerful forces, other than just race, must be at play in perpetuating inequitable social hierarchies. Most disturbingly, Part V explains why, after the reader becomes aware of how the rankings are infected with systemic racism, we will do nothing to change the system, and the anti-racists among us will likely have a clear conscience about continuing to rely on racist metrics
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