Allowing Intervention by Non-Settling PRPS: Not the Environmentally Correct Decision, But One That Is Unavoidable?

Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Environmental Protection Agency may enter into an agreement either to finance the cleanup of hazardous waste sites or to limit the liability of certain parties that may be responsible for the damage at the site in question. These agreements, referred to as consent decrees, generally contain provisions that protect the signing polluters from contribution claims brought by non-settling parties. This Case Note addresses whether non-settling parties should be able to move to intervene in a consent decree under a statutory right of contribution. On this issue, the courts are split. One line of reasoning holds that a non-settling party may not intervene because such an action would interfere with congressional intent. The converse line of reasoning holds that a non-settling party may intervene to protect its claim of contribution. The Case Note examines United States v. Union Electric, a leading case recently decided by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that a party may intervene to protect a contribution claim. United States v. Alcan Aluminum, Inc., a leading case from the Third Circuit holding to the contrary, is also discussed. The author concludes that the ruling of Union Electric has a more logical analysis and that the denial of intervention to non-settling parties is an incorrect interpretation of the present law

Development of a synthetic bone and tissue model to simulate overmatch military ballistic head injury

A synthetic bone and tissue head model was built using sequential experiments and tested against impacts with 7.62 x 39 mm MSC ammunition. The key experiment in this series was a forensic reconstruction of two military head injury gunshot wounds. One of the models produced a good representation of the incident. The other was less accurate but did produce a good representation of tangential gunshot wounds. Further work assessed the model against a contact gunshot injury with 5.56 x 45 mm ammunition and looked at the effects of intermediate glass and transparent thermoplastic targets on the wounds produced by 7.62 x 39 mm impacts. Strengths and weaknesses of the model are discussed and further work suggested.Royal Centre for Defence Medicin

Inversion of stellar statistics equation for the Galactic Bulge

A method based on Lucy (1974, AJ 79, 745) iterative algorithm is developed to invert the equation of stellar statistics for the Galactic bulge and is then applied to the K-band star counts from the Two-Micron Galactic Survey in a number of off-plane regions (10 deg.>|b|>2 deg., |l|<15 deg.). The top end of the K-band luminosity function is derived and the morphology of the stellar density function is fitted to triaxial ellipsoids, assuming a non-variable luminosity function within the bulge. The results, which have already been outlined by Lopez-Corredoira et al.(1997, MNRAS 292, L15), are shown in this paper with a full explanation of the steps of the inversion: the luminosity function shows a sharp decrease brighter than M_K=-8.0 mag when compared with the disc population; the bulge fits triaxial ellipsoids with the major axis in the Galactic plane at an angle with the line of sight to the Galactic centre of 12 deg. in the first quadrant; the axial ratios are 1:0.54:0.33, and the distance of the Sun from the centre of the triaxial ellipsoid is 7860 pc. The major-minor axial ratio of the ellipsoids is found not to be constant. However, the interpretation of this is controversial. An eccentricity of the true density-ellipsoid gradient and a population gradient are two possible explanations. The best fit for the stellar density, for 1300 pc<t<3000 pc, are calculated for both cases, assuming an ellipsoidal distribution with constant axial ratios, and when K_z is allowed to vary. From these, the total number of bulge stars is ~ 3 10^{10} or ~ 4 10^{10}, respectively.Comment: 19 pages, 23 figures, accepted in MNRA

A pilot study examining garment severance damage caused by a trained sharp-weapon user

The pilot study summarized in this paper aimed to raise awareness of a gap that exists in the forensic textile science literature about damage caused to clothing by trained sharp-weapon users. A male trained in the Filipino martial arts discipline of Eskrima performed attack techniques on a physical model of a male torso covered with a 97% cotton/3% elastane knitted T-shirt, that is, a garment commonly worn by males. Fabric severance appearance created by three different, but commonly available, knives was evaluated. High-speed video was used to capture each attack. After each attack the resulting damage to the garment was assessed. This pilot study highlighted differences in severances associated with weapon selection, that is, not all knives resulted in similar patterns of textile damage. In addition, a mixture of stab and slash severances were observed. The findings demonstrated the possible misinterpretation of textile damage under these circumstances compared to damage patterns reported in the existing forensic textile science literature for more commonly occurring knife attacks (i.e. stabbings)