Apparatus for use in the production of ribbon-shaped crystals from a silicon melt

A susceptor for facilitating induction heating of silicon melt is described. The susceptor comprises a pair of susceptor halves of a thickness less than two skin depths, each being the mirror image of the other, disposed in mutually opposed, electrically insulated relation. The crucible comprises a quartz body supported by the graphite susceptor, whereby the R-F coil is electrically coupled with the melt

Pandemic Influenza: Ethics, Law, and the Public\u27s Health

Highly pathogenic Influenza (HPAI) has captured the close attention of policy makers who regard pandemic influenza as a national security threat. Although the prevalence is currently very low, recent evidence that the 1918 pandemic was caused by an avian influenza virus lends credence to the theory that current outbreaks could have pandemic potential. If the threat becomes a reality, massive loss of life and economic disruption would ensue. Therapeutic countermeasures (e.g., vaccines and antiviral medications) and public health interventions (e.g., infection control, social separation, and quarantine) form the two principal strategies for prevention and response, both of which present formidable legal and ethical challenges that have yet to receive sufficient attention. In part II, we examine the major medical countermeasures being being considered as an intervention for an influenza pandemic. In this section, we will evaluate the known effectiveness of these interventions and analyze the ethical claims relating to distributive justice in the allocation of scarce resources. In part III, we will discuss public health interventions, exploring the hard tradeoffs between population health on the one hand and personal (e.g., autonomy, privacy, and liberty) and economic (e.g., trade, tourism, and business) interests on the other. This section will focus on the ethical and human rights issues inherent in population-based interventions. Pandemics can be deeply socially divisive, and the political response to these issues not only impacts public health preparedness, but also reflects profoundly on the kind of society we aspire to be

Means for growing ribbon crystals without subjecting the crystals to thermal shock-induced strains

A susceptor particularly suited for use in growing a ribbon crystal employing edge defined film fed growth techniques is described. The susceptor includes a die through which a melt is drawn for forming a crystal ribbon. This is combined with a coolant delivery system characterized by a pair of jets for directing a stream of fluid coolant along a path extended to impinge on the susceptor in close proximity with the die in nonincident relation with the crystal being grown

General Interaction Expertise: a Multi-view Approach to Sampling in Usability Testing of Consumer Products

Non

Workplace Wellness Programs: Empirical Doubt, Legal Ambiguity, and Conceptual Confusion

Federal laws that protect workers from insurance discrimination and infringement of health privacy include exceptions for wellness programs that are “voluntary” and “reasonably designed” to improve health. Initially, these exceptions were intended to give employers the flexibility to create innovative wellness programs that would appeal to workers, increase productivity, and protect the workforce from preventable health conditions. Yet a detailed look at the scientific literature reveals that wellness program efficacy is quite disputed, and even highly touted examples of program success have been shown to be unreliable. Meanwhile, the latest administrative regulations on wellness programs were vacated by a district court in January 2019, leaving the legal scope of wellness programs in flux. The U.S. District Court of Connecticut now has a case before it that could start a national overhaul of these programs. In this Article, we give a scientific and legal overview of wellness programs and explain why wellness programs are a source of ethical controversy. Given the unsteady evidence on wellness programs’ benefits and their real potential risks, we argue that more should be done to regulate their scope and design. A robust interpretation of the relevant statutes would help protect workers in the face of indecisive evidence. To this end, we conclude with an attempt to resolve the widespread disagreement over the terms “voluntary” and “reasonable design” with the goal of providing courts and regulators with a more workable framework to apply

Prisons and Pandemics

This Article focuses on how to balance public health, public safety, and incarcerated people’s legal rights when implementing a program for early release from confinement. Ethical, epidemiological, and legal arguments all point to a need for an immediate reduction in the incarcerated population. However, this leaves open several points of reasonable disagreement about how to manage early release. These include how to set priorities for processing and releasing individuals across the country. For example, officials could prioritize screening individuals who are housed in facilities that have been hit hard by infection; or by screening individuals who have a safe place to quarantine post-release; or individuals who are being held for violations of parole, lower level and nonviolent crimes, or prior to their trials; or individuals who are most vulnerable to coronavirus; or individuals who have already served most of their sentences; and so on. This Article discusses how to set priorities for safely and quickly returning incarcerated individuals to their communities during a life-threatening outbreak. In Part II, we establish why incarcerated people are especially vulnerable during a public health emergency. For a variety of reasons, incarcerated people are more likely than the general public to acquire and to experience negative outcomes from infectious diseases, putting their health and the health of surrounding communities at risk. In Part III, we discuss the pandemic response taken by federal and state prisons and local jails and explain why it has had little success. For the most part, releases have been slow and discretionary, meaning that whether an individual is released is “like the luck of the draw” because there are “wardens in certain prisons that will get right on it, and some that won’t release a soul.” We also outline some of the recommendations proposed by bodies like the ACLU and members of Congress. Careful consideration of these different plans for releasing incarcerated people from confinement is important in order to prepare for COVID-19 in the coming months and to look toward future pandemics. In Part IV, we summarize the moral, practical, and legal arguments for making the health of incarcerated people a priority during a pandemic. These arguments rely on the ethical principle that we are morally required to protect individuals who have been deprived of the liberty to protect themselves; empirical evidence indicating that high infection rates within correctional facilities have serious public health consequences for surrounding communities; and legal precedent that suggests that incarcerated people have a right to protection from infectious diseases. Taking these arguments together, it is reasonable to support a substantial reduction in jail and prison populations, irrespective of one’s general views about the ethics and purpose of mass incarceration. In Part V, we delve into the details of how to release incarcerated people. There have been several general recommendations outlining broad guidelines for doing so. However, the ethical priorities that underlie these different recommendations have not been made explicit and have not been considered together. In this Part, we identify the various ethical considerations relevant to early release, and we argue that five factors should be given special priority. These are (1) risk of recidivism for a violent offense, (2) presumption of innocence for the accused, (3) risk of mortality from coronavirus, (4) proportion of sentence served, and (5) responsibilities to third parties