Does \u3cem\u3eLewis v. Casey\u3c/em\u3e Spell the End to Court-Ordered Improvement of Prison Law Libraries?

The Supreme Court\u27s decision in Lewis v. Casey raises the bar for advocates seeking court-ordered improvements in prison law libraries. Whether it dooms all such efforts to failure may well depend on the willingness of trial courts to take into account the realities of prisoners\u27 pro se litigation

A Law Librarian\u27s Guide to Unpublished Judicial Opinions

Mr. Gerken provides readers with an overview of the rules and practice related to the nonpublication of judicial decisions. Using a question-and-answer format, he offers a convenient reference source for librarians to consult when responding to patron inquiries about unpublished opinions. A selective annotated bibliography of articles on the subject is included

Advanced thermoplastic resins, phase 1

Eight thermoplastic polyimide resin systems were evaluated as composite matrix materials. Two resins were selected for more extensive mechanical testing and both were versions of LaRC-TPI (Langley Research Center - Thermoplastic Polyimide). One resin was made with LaRC-TPI and contained 2 weight percent of a di(amic acid) dopant as a melt flow aid. The second system was a 1:1 slurry of semicrystalline LaRC-TPI powder in a polyimidesulfone resin diglyme solution. The LaRC-TPI powder melts during processing and increases the melt flow of the resin. Testing included dynamic mechanical analysis, tension and compression testing, and compression-after-impact testing. The test results demonstrated that the LaRC-TPI resins have very good properties compared to other thermoplastics, and that they are promising matrix materials for advanced composite structures

Behavioral and Imaging Studies of Infant Artificial Grammar Learning

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigms have proven to be productive and useful to investigate how young infants break into the grammar of their native language(s). The question of when infants first show the ability to learn abstract grammatical rules has been central to theoretical debates about the innate vs. learned nature of grammar. The presence of this ability early in development, that is, before considerable experience with language, has been argued to provide evidence for a biologically endowed ability to acquire language. Artificial grammar learning tasks also allow infant populations to be readily compared with adults and non-human animals. Artificial grammar learning paradigms with infants have been used to investigate a number of linguistic phenomena and learning tasks, from word segmentation to phonotactics and morphosyntax. In this review, we focus on AGL studies testing infants\u2019 ability to learn grammatical/structural properties of language. Specifically, we discuss the results of AGL studies focusing on repetition-based regularities, the categorization of functors, adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies, and word order. We discuss the implications of the results for a general theory of language acquisition, and we outline some of the open questions and challenges