Standards of Proof in Section 274B of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

On November 6, 1986, President Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), proclaiming it to be the most difficult legislative undertaking in the previous three Congresses. The Act\u27s controversial centerpiece provides for sanctions against employers who knowingly hire, recruit, or refer for a fee undocumented aliens. While these sanctions were heralded as the most comprehensive reform in immigration law in over thirty years, opposition to them in Congress and among civil rights organizations was strong. These groups feared that employers seeking to avoid sanctions would discriminate in employment against Hispanics, Asians, and other ethnically or racially identifiable minorities, whether or not these individuals were United States citizens or nationals, properly admitted aliens, or undocumented workers awaiting permanent residency under the IRCA\u27s amnesty provisions. In order to assuage this fear and directly confront the threat of discrimination, Congress included within the Act section 274B,\u27 which protects employees against employers who discriminate on the basis of national origin or alienage. This section commonly is referred to as the Act\u27s anti-discrimination provision. Each month dozens of complaints alleging violations of section 274B are filed. The status of the overwhelming majority of these complaints is uncertain. Most of the uncertainty concerns the standard of proof necessary to establish a violation of the anti-discrimination provision. Upon signing the Act into law, President Reagan issued a statement declaring that Congress intended that only intentional discrimination would constitute a violation of section 274B. The provision\u27s author, Representative Barney Frank, immediately protested,calling the President\u27s interpretation intellectually dishonest, mean spirited and inaccurate. According to Representative Frank, Congress intended that both intentional and unintentional discrimination would constitute a violation of section 274B. In the midst of this continuing controversy, others questioned the necessity of section 274B, convinced that existing law was adequate to protect aliens threatened with employment discrimination. These individuals believe that section 274B is burdensome and, therefore, call for its repeal. The status of complaints filed under section 274B will depend in large measure on the substantive theories of anti-discrimination law that the plaintiff is required to satisfy. The objective of this Note, there-fore, is to determine the intended theory of liability and corresponding standard of proof required to show a violation of section 274B. President Reagan determined that the theory is disparate treatment, while the bill\u27s author determined that the theory is disparate impact. In order to assess the relative merits of each position, this Note will analyze section 274B in the context of its legislative history along with its relationship to other anti-discrimination laws. More specifically, Part II describes the coverage of section 274B. Part III discusses the frame-work of Title VII, section 703(a), of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (TitleVII),8 and Title 42, section 1981, of the United States Code. Title VII is examined because it provides the theoretical model on which section 274B is based. Section 1981 is examined because it is possible that it renders section 274B redundant by protecting those individuals already adequately covered by section 274B. Part IV extends the discussion of Title VII by considering its various theories of liability. Unlike most statutes, Title VII permits plaintiffs to proceed essentially under one of three theories--each theory containing a different burden of proof standard. These differing standards turn on whether the plaintiff is required to prove discriminatory intent, or simply the existence of a discriminatory impact from an allegedly nondiscriminatory practice.Part V compares the advantages and disadvantages of requiring a plain-tiff to prove either discriminatory intent or discriminatory impact. Part VI reviews the President\u27s position that only intentional discrimination is prohibited by section 274B. Following this discussion, Part VII considers the legislative history of the Act\u27s anti-discrimination provision.Part VII asserts that the President\u27s reading of the provision is misguided and not anchored in the Act\u27s legislative history. This Note concludes in Part VIII with a brief consideration of the future of litigation under section 274B

An Approach to Selection of Variety and Planting Date in Corn Silage Production

The major purpose of this study is to make additional information available to the farm manager to improve the decision-making process relating to corn silage production. This study is primarily concerned with factors that influence planting date and variety selection. With-in the framework of decision theory analysis, a Bayesian approach is employed to calculate the best time to plant and the best variety to plant. The approach is used both with and without the possible occurrence of harmful spring frosts. The seventy growing degree day method is employed as a criterion for planting date selection. The planting dates are matched with four different season length corn varieties to formulate the courses of action available to the farm manager. The states of nature that may confront a grower are the degrees of damage associated with various frost intensities

Flow Resistance and Design Guidelines for Embankment Stepped Chutes

Recently the design flows of many dams have been re-evaluated, resulting in spills often larger than the original ones. In many cases, occurrence of revised flows would result in dam overtopping because of insufficient storage and spillway capacity of reservoirs. Embankment dams whilst common are more likely to fail than other dam types when overtopped in an uncontrolled manner because of breaching or complete erosion of the downstream face of the embankment. Despite the catastrophic effects of dam failure, dam overtopping constitutes still most identified collapses. Stepped chutes with moderate slopes represent a convenient embankment overtopping protection because of its large energy dissipation potential and its compatibility with recent construction methods (RCC, rip-rap gabions). New experimental flow resistance results are presented herein to help designers to predict accurately energy dissipation on moderate slope stepped chutes. Some recent advances in design guidelines are also discussed

Experimental Study of Turbulence Manipulation in Stepped Spillways: Implications on Flow Resistance in Skimming Flows

Current expertise in air-water turbulent flows on stepped chutes is limited to laboratory experiments at low to moderate Reynolds numbers on flat horizontal steps. In this study, highly turbulent air-water flows skimming down a large-size stepped chute were systematically investigated with a 22 degree slope. Turbulence manipulation was conducted using vanes or longitudinal ribs to enhance interactions between skimming flows and cavity recirculating regions. Systematic experiments were performed with seven configurations. The results demonstrated the strong influence of vanes on the air-water flow. An increase in flow resistance was observed consistently with maximum flow resistance achieved with vanes placed in a zigzag pattern

STIM map: detection map for exoplanets imaging beyond asymptotic Gaussian residual speckle noise

Direct imaging of exoplanets is a challenging task as it requires to reach a high contrast at very close separation to the star. Today, the main limitation in the high-contrast images is the quasi-static speckles that are created by residual instrumental aberrations. They have the same angular size as planetary companions and are often brighter, hence hindering our capability to detect exoplanets. Dedicated observation strategies and signal processing techniques are necessary to disentangle these speckles from planetary signals. The output of these methods is a detection map in which the value of each pixel is related to a probability of presence of a planetary signal. The detection map found in the literature relies on the assumption that the residual noise is Gaussian. However, this is known to lead to higher false positive rates, especially close to the star. In this paper, we re-visit the notion of detection map by analyzing the speckle noise distribution, namely the Modified Rician distribution. We use non-asymptotic analysis of the sum of random variables to show that the tail of the distribution of the residual noise decays as an exponential distribution, hence explaining the high false detection rate obtained with the Gaussian assumption. From this analysis, we introduce a novel time domain detection map and we demonstrate its capabilities and the relevance of our approach through experiments on real data. We also provide an empirical rule to determine detection threshold providing a good trade off between true positive and false positive rates for exoplanet detection

Turbulence and Cavity Recirculation in Air-Water Skimming Flows on a Stepped Spillway. Reply

The authors acknowledge the discussion. In the present study, 1.6mm thick aluminum triangular vanes were used, although a number of 6mm thick perspex vanes were also tested. The experimental observations showed no effect of vane thickness on the flow patterns and properties. They did not support the Discussers’ argument. The authors however disagree with the Discusser’s comment on the rate of energy dissipation on stepped spillways and a so-called "most efficient solution" for practical applications. In terms of energy dissipation, the current expertise is restricted to rectangular, prismatic stepped chutes with horizontal steps, constant step height and constant bed slope, as shown in most earlier studies. Recently, detailed air-water flow results on stepped chutes showed systematically lower turbulence levels and larger turbulent length and time scales in comparison between 2:1 Froude similar experiments in laboratory flumes, as well as a smaller number of entrained bubbles and comparatively larger bubble sizes (Chanson and Gonzalez 2005, Chanson 2008). These findings have direct implications on the design of stepped spillway because reduced turbulence levels in laboratory flumes must imply a reduced rate of turbulent dissipation, particularly on long channels. Simply small-size models are likely to underestimate the rate of energy dissipation of prototype stepped spillways for similar flow conditions. The current understanding of energy dissipation on stepped spillway is clearly incomplete and the concept of the most efficient design is therefore an utopia

Physical Modelling and Scale Effects of Air-Water Flows on Stepped Spillways

During the last three decades, the introduction of new construction materials (e.g. RCC (Roller Compacted Concrete), strengthened gabions) has increased the interest for stepped channels and spillways. However stepped chute hydraulics is not simple, because of different flow regimes and importantly because of very-strong interactions between entrained air and turbulence. In this study, new air-water flow measurements were conducted in two large-size stepped chute facilities with two step heights in each facility to study experimental distortion caused by scale effects and the soundness of result extrapolation to prototypes. Experimental data included distributions of air concentration, air-water flow velocity, bubble frequency, bubble chord length and air-water flow turbulence intensity. For a Froude similitude, the results implied that scale effects were observed in both facilities, although the geometric scaling ratio was only Lr=2 in each case. The selection of the criterion for scale effects is a critical issue. For example, major differences (i.e. scale effects) were observed in terms of bubble chord sizes and turbulence levels although little scale effects were seen in terms of void fraction and velocity distributions. Overall the findings emphasize that physical modelling of stepped chutes based upon a Froude similitude is more sensitive to scale effects than classical smooth-invert chute studies, and this is consistent with basic dimensional analysis developed herein

Effects of Turbulence Manipulation in Skimming Flows: An Experimental Study

Current expertise in air-water flow properties in turbulent flows is limited to low to moderate Reynolds numbers and a few types of surfaces (roughness). Highly turbulent air-water flows cascading down a large-size stepped spillway model were systematically investigated with a 22o slope. Several stepped configurations were tested and turbulence manipulation was conducted to enhance interactions between skimming flows and cavity recirculating regions. Systematic experiments were performed with 3 new configurations to complement an initial study [6] with another three configurations. Turbulence modifiers (vanes or longitudinal ribs) were observed to have a strong influence on the air-water flow properties, with wakes or low-speed streaks observed above each vane

Hydraulic Design of Stepped Spillways and Downstream Energy Dissipators for Embankment Dams

In recent years, the design flows of many dams were re-evaluated, often resulting in discharges larger than the original design. In many cases, the occurrence of the revised flows could result in dam overtopping because of insufficient storage and spillway capacity. An experimental study was conducted herein to gain a better understanding of the flow properties in stepped chutes with slopes typical of embankment dams. The work was based upon a Froude similitude in large-size experimental facilities. A total of 10 configurations were tested including smooth steps, steps equipped with devices to enhance energy dissipation and rough steps. The present results yield a new design procedure. The design method includes some key issues not foreseen in prior studies : e.g., gradually varied flow, type of flow regime, flow resistance. It is believed that the outcomes are valid for a wide range of chute geometry and flow conditions typical of embankment chutes

Flow Characteristics of Skimming Flows in Stepped Channels

Ohtsu et al. must be congratulated for their systematic study of skimming flows on stepped channels with different slopes and step heights. Their experimental data provide a solid database that might lead to better and improved design criteria. Important outcomes include some estimate of friction factors for skimming flows and a design flow chart for stepped canals. Despite these outstanding results, the writers would like to comment constructively on further design criteria for skimming flows, and to provide additional flow resistance results and a discussion on the physical processes. It is hoped that the present contribution will add to safer stepped chute design. The writers would like to point out that the energy dissipation performances of stepped canals with moderate slopes are far from being totally understood and further experimental research is needed