Experimental and Analytical Study of Balanced-Diaphragm Fuel Distributors for Gas-Turbine Engines

A method of distributing fuel equally to a plurality of spray nozzles in a gas-turbine engine by means of balanced-diaphragm fuel distributors is presented. The experimental performance of three of eight possible distributor arrangements are discussed. An analysis of all eight arrangements is included. Criterions are given for choosing a fuel-distributor arrangement to meet specific fuel-system requirements of fuel-distribution accuracy, spray-nozzle pressure variations, and fuel-system pressures. Data obtained with a model of one distributor arrangement indicated a maximum deviation from perfect distribution of 3.3 percent for a 44 to 1 range (19.5 to 862 lb/hr) of fuel-flow rates. The maximum distributor pressure drop was 125 pounds per square inch. The method used to obtain the required wide range of flow control in the distributor valves consisted in varying the length of a constant-area flow path

Constitutional Problems in Maine During the Civil War

This article discusses the constitutional issues faced by state judiciaries due to the federal Dred Scott Decision, the Fugitive Slave Act and states’ personal freedom laws

Chief Justice John Appleton

The article is a biographic essay of John Appleton, Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court

Frustrated Glory: John Francis Appleton and Black Soldiers in The Civil War

This article is a review of the life and military of John Francis Appleton who commanded on the first African-American brigades the Union Army during the Civil War

The Tradition of Sustantive Judicial Review: A Case Study of Continuity in Constitutional Jurisprudence

Until the 1970s, scholars routinely asserted that courts in the late nineteenth century initiated a radical reinterpretation of due process of law in their attempt to stem an onrushing tide of legislation designed to regulate business activity. This protection-of-business theory of due process development originated with the efforts of socialist and progressive commentators of the early twentieth century to discredit what they saw as a “revolutionary” transformation of due process from a term of “nominal significance in American constitutional law” into a bulwark of property. Progressive intellectuals assailed the judiciary in similar terms. Yale University president Arthur T. Hadley, an expert in railroad law and economics, declared that judicial construction of the Fourteenth Amendment had given corporations “large powers and privileges” and placed them beyond popular control. The protection-of-business thesis enjoyed a long reign, although the rather crude class-conflict interpretation of some of the early critics gave way to more subtle analyses. Since the late 1960s, historians have challenged the protection-of-business theory. By the 1990s, the revisionist interpretation had become so common, complained one skeptical scholar, that it had replaced the traditional view. A single study of this sort has its own problem of selectivity, of course, and therefore must be suggestive rather than conclusive. However, Maine is an appropriate jurisdiction with which to start. Maine\u27s major metropolis was Portland, which in the middle of the century aspired to rival Boston as a commercial center. Although the grandiose dreams of John A. Poor and other boosters never came to fruition, Portland did become a major regional trading center after the completion, with the aid of municipal credit, of the Grand Trunk railway system in the 1850s. In the 1890s Portland also became the hub of a booming tourist business. The hotel, convention, and retail trades flourished with the influx of summer visitors. At the same time, Portland superseded Lewiston as Maine\u27s chief manufacturing city; industrial expositions and other forms of promotion helped continue a modest growth in light industry into the twentieth century. Maine\u27s state and local governments reflected national trends in the ups and downs of business promotion, especially in the subsidization of railroads after the Civil War. Between 1830 and 1889, the state legislature enacted seventy-seven special laws authorizing local governmental aid to railroads; forty-three were passed in the years 1866-1873. Challenges to governmental attempts to foster industry after the Civil War led the Maine court to issue several classic laissez-faire opinions, and during the Progressive era, the court had to deal with labor and environmental laws and the regulation of utility rates. Maine is therefore constitutionally, territorially, demographically, and economically an excellent subject for a case study of substantive judicial review

Attempted DNA extraction from a Rancho La Brea Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi): prospects for ancient DNA from asphalt deposits.

Fossil-bearing asphalt deposits are an understudied and potentially significant source of ancient DNA. Previous attempts to extract DNA from skeletons preserved at the Rancho La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, California, have proven unsuccessful, but it is unclear whether this is due to a lack of endogenous DNA, or if the problem is caused by asphalt-mediated inhibition. In an attempt to test these hypotheses, a recently recovered Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) skeleton with an unusual pattern of asphalt impregnation was studied. Ultimately, none of the bone samples tested successfully amplified M. columbi DNA. Our work suggests that reagents typically used to remove asphalt from ancient samples also inhibit DNA extraction. Ultimately, we conclude that the probability of recovering ancient DNA from fossils in asphalt deposits is strongly (perhaps fatally) hindered by the organic compounds that permeate the bones and that at the Rancho La Brea tar pits, environmental conditions might not have been ideal for the general preservation of genetic material