Virginia’s Physician-Only Law for First Trimester Abortion: Maintaining the Unduly Burdensome Law Under Falls Church Medical Center, LLC v. Oliver and Its Subsequent Amendment

This Comment seeks to critique the Falls Church Medical Center’s holding that Virginia’s first-trimester physician-only law is not an undue burden on the right to abortion. Part I is an overview of the physician-only law, discussing the historical roots of the law, the impacts of the law on access to first-trimester abortion, related laws in other jurisdictions, and a survey of research conducted on the overall safety and effectiveness of APCs as abortion providers. Part II is an overview of the Falls Church Medical Center’s three decisions. Part III is an undue burden analysis of the physician-only law, which shows, in light of the lack of health benefits of the physician-only law and the substantial burden to access it creates, the law should be found unconstitutional. Part IV analyzes the physician-only law as amended to include licensed nurse practitioners. Part V looks to Virginia’s scope of practice laws for APCs as an assurance that only medically trained persons with education, knowledge, and experience to provide first-trimester abortions will provide these abortions

A Comparative Analysis of Networks of Workstations and Massively Parallel Processors for Signal Processing

The traditional approach to parallel processing has been to use Massively Parallel Processors (MPPs). An alternative design is commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) workstations connected to high-speed networks. These networks of workstations (NOWs) typically have faster processors, heterogeneous environments, and most importantly, offer a lower per node cost. This thesis compares the performance of MPPs and NOWs for the two-dimensional fast Fourier transform (2-D FFT). Three original, high-performance, portable 2-D FFTs have been implemented: the vector-radix, row-column and pipeline. The performance of these algorithms was measured on the Intel Paragon, IBM SP2 and the AFIT NOW, which consists of 6 Sun Ultra workstations connected via the Myrinet switch. Three important conclusions have been made. First, the pipeline was the best algorithm on all platforms by approximately 30%. Second, the NOW was nearly equal to the SP2 in runtime, while the Paragon did not outperform a single Ultra workstation. As a result, NOWs are a competitive platform for this application. Finally, only limited speedup was achieved on the SP2 (2.9) with 32 processors, and AFIT NOW (1.9) with 5 processors. It appears that the changing communication-to-computation ratio has made the 2-D FFT a less viable candidate for parallelization, given its high communication overhead

Pope Francis and Joseph Selling: A new approach to mercy in Catholic sexual ethics

Since the Apostolic Exhortation of Amoris Laetitia in May 2016 and Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera in November 2016, Pope Francis has stirred a new discussion on mercy and the role of mercy in certain matters of sexual ethics including divorced, remarried, and cohabiting couples. During the same year, moral theologian Joseph A. Selling published a revolutionary book which provides a new vision of virtues and examines how people consider and arrive at ethical judgements. This article examines Pope Francis’s understanding of mercy using Selling’s method of the “virtuous trapezium” as a way to actively illustrate Pope Francis’s new approach to matters concerning Catholic sexuality. In matters of human sexuality, the Catholic moral tradition has focused for years on an act-centered morality, but Selling’s method instead considers the goals of ethical living before making an ethical judgment. This article contributes to the current discussion in theological ethics concerning Pope Francis’s recent pronouncements on mercy and Catholic sexual ethics, as well as brings into conversation Selling’s new method and approach to understanding virtue

Kinesin Light Chains Are Essential for Axonal Transport in Drosophila

Kinesin is a heterotetramer composed of two 115-kD heavy chains and two 58-kD light chains. The microtubule motor activity of kinesin is performed by the heavy chains, but the functions of the light chains are poorly understood. Mutations were generated in the Drosophila gene Kinesin light chain (Klc), and the phenotypic consequences of loss of Klc function were analyzed at the behavioral and cellular levels. Loss of Klc function results in progressive lethargy, crawling defects, and paralysis followed by death at the end of the second larval instar. Klc mutant axons contain large aggregates of membranous organelles in segmental nerve axons. These aggregates, or organelle jams (Hurd, D.D., and W.M. Saxton. 1996. Genetics. 144: 1075-1085), contain synaptic vesicle precursors as well as organelles that may be transported by kinesin, kinesin-like protein 68D, and cytoplasmic dynein, thus providing evidence that the loss of Klc function blocks multiple pathways of axonal transport. The similarity of the Klc and Khc ((Saxton et al. Cell 64:1093-1102; Hurd, D.D., and W.M. Saxton. 1996. Genetics 144: 1075-1085) mutant phenotypes indicates that KLC is essential for kinesin function, perhaps by tethering KHC to intracellular cargos or by activating the kinesin motor

Introduction

"Die Disputation stellt in mündlicher und schriftlicher Form ein Leitmedium des spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Universitätsbetriebes dar. Sie gestaltete von der Etablierung der scholastischen Universität bis zur methodischen und ideologischen Umformung des universitären Lehrbetriebes um 1800 Wissensvermittlung, Forschungsmethoden und nicht zuletzt Selbstdarstellung der gelehrten Welt maßgeblich mit.[...] Gerade weil sie Leitmedium ist, verdient die Disputation mit ihren Paratexten [...] auch in ihrer formalen Eigenart, als literarisches Phänomen, betrachtet zu werden. [...] Neben der Lateinsprachigkeit lassen sich zwei Merkmale nennen, welche – mit der angemahnten Vorsicht genossen – die Disputation am deutlichsten von anderen Aufführungs- und Textformen abheben: Die Vergabe von drei Sprecherrollen (Präses, Respondent, Opponent) und der formal offene Schluss. Über die Elemente, welche den Zeitgenossen als prototypisch erschienen, gibt die Untersuchung von [...] literarischen Adaptationen wichtigen Aufschluss. Umgekehrt wird die Disputation als literarisches Mittel bevorzugt dazu genutzt, um Figurenhandlung und die Reflexion darüber erzähllogisch auseinander, aber trotzdem in erzählzeitlicher Nähe zu halten und sie schließlich in verschiedenen Formen der mise-en-abîme zu verschränken.[...] Die Form selbst und die Art ihrer Anwendung sind geeignet, diskursive Macht oder gar Gewalt auszuüben. Bei aller Vorsicht lassen sich für die Zeitspanne von 1200 bis 1800 einige Tendenzen vermuten: Die Entwicklung scheint von einer mehrstimmigen Disputation zum Respondentenmonolog zu verlaufen." (S. 1, 13 f., 16)'The oral and written disputation is a leading medium of late medieval and early modern university life. From the establishment of the scholastic university to the methodological and ideological transformation of university teaching around 1800, it played a decisive role in shaping the transfer of knowledge, research methods and, last but not least, the self-projection of the learned world[...] Precisely because it is the leading medium, the disputation with its paratexts [...] also deserves to be considered in its formal characteristics, as a literary phenomenon. [...] In addition to its latinity, two features can be mentioned which - taken with the caution urged - most clearly distinguish the disputation from other forms of performance and text: The distribution of three speaker roles (praeses, respondent, opponent) and the formally open ending. The study of [...] literary adaptations provides important information about the elements that seemed prototypical to contemporaries. Conversely, the disputation as a literary device is preferably used to keep the plot of the characters and the reflection on it apart in terms of narrative logic, but nevertheless close to the narration time, and finally to interweave them in various forms of mise-en-abîme.[...] The form itself and the way it is used are capable of exercising discursive power or even violence. With all due caution, some tendencies can be surmised for the period from 1200 to 1800: The development seems to have moved from a polyphonic disputation to a monologue of the respondent.' (translated from pp. 1, 13 f., 16)'La disputatio orale ou écrite est l'un des principaux média de la vie universitaire de la fin du Moyen Âge jusqu'à la révolution. De la création de l'université scolastique à la transformation méthodologique et idéologique de l'enseignement universitaire vers 1800, elle a joué un rôle décisif dans le transfert des connaissances, dans les méthodes de recherche et notamment dans l'autoreprésentation du monde savant [...] Précisément parce qu'elle est le médium préféré, la disputatio avec ses paratextes [...] mérite d'être considérée aussi dans ses caractéristiques formelles, comme un phénomène littéraire. [...] Outre l'utilisation de la langue latine, on peut mentionner deux caractéristiques qui - prises avec la prudence recommandée - distinguent le plus clairement la disputatio des autres formes de représentation et de texte : L'attribution de trois rôles de locuteur (praeses, respondens, opponens) et la fin formellement ouverte. L'étude des [...] adaptations littéraires fournit des informations importantes sur les éléments qui semblaient prototypiques aux contemporains. À l'inverse, la disputatio comme dispositif littéraire est utilisée de préférence pour maintenir l'action du personnage et la réflexion sur celle-ci à distance logique, mais néanmoins dans une proximité du temps du récit, et enfin pour les entrecroiser en de différentes mises-en-abîme [...] La forme elle-même et la manière dont elle est utilisée sont capables d'exercer un pouvoir discursif ou même de la violence discursive [...]. Avec toute précaution nécessaire, on peut supposer certaines tendances pour la période de 1200 à 1800 : Une disputatio polyphonique semble avoir évolué vers un monologue du respondens'. (traduit des pp. 1, 13 et suivantes, 16