The Quantified Self Movement: Legal Challenges and Benefits of Personal Biometric Data Tracking

This article explores some of the potential pitfalls associated with collection of detailed individual biometric or health-related information, and demonstrates that current laws and regulations are not well designed to protect users of these devices and apps from unauthorized use or misuse of their data. Health information is among the most sensitive, intimate, and potentially damaging personal information one may possess, and health policymakers have made health information privacy a priority for decades for good reason. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was one of the major health policy legislative achievements of the 1990s. However, HIPAA is of no value for the protection of individually collected biometric data of the sort discussed here

Orbit Maneuver for Responsive Coverage Using Electric Propulsion

The use of continuous electric propulsion to manipulate a satellite’s orbit offers significant potential for enhancing coverage of a target in ways not previously considered. Elliptical orbits utilizing a very low perigee can facilitate access to the surface and atmosphere of the Earth at sub-ionosphere altitudes while counteracting atmospheric drag forces using continuous electric propulsion. Additionally, in-plane and out-of-plane manipulation of both circular and elliptical orbits can allow for passage of a satellite over a target at a given time. Sustained low perigee orbit was modeled with an initial perigee altitude of 100 km and various apogee altitudes to derive a range of apogee altitudes that could sustain the orbit. Operation was demonstrated for current as well as future thruster capabilities. To evaluate opportunities for a scheduled access, circular and various elliptical orbits were modeled using continuous thrust. It was found that electric propulsion was capable of improving potential temporal access of a target to 30% for circular orbits and nearly 70% for elliptical orbits. Only minimal improvements in coverage were found using manipulation of the right ascension of the ascending node. Recommendations include further modeling of low perigee orbits and the effects of atmospheric variation at solar extremes on mission lifetime. Derivation of optimal thrust duration and angle could greatly enhance the performance of the thruster and warrants continued research. Finally, the use of responsive maneuver operationally will require development of a scheduling algorithm to plan passage over a given target at a given time

Mental Status and Criminal Culpability after \u3cem\u3eAtkins v. Virginia\u3c/em\u3e

Symposium theme — Evolving Standards of Decency in 2003: Is the Death Penalty on Life Support

Legal Fictions and Moral Reasoning: Capital Punishment and the Mentally Retarded Defendant After \u3ci\u3ePenry v. Johnson\u3c/i\u3e

The relationship between mental health law and criminal law is disturbing in both its substance and its scope. If it is true that the task of lawyering is that of enabling the client to have his story told, it is certainly true that nowhere are clients\u27 stories more complex than in the intersection between criminal law and mental health law. This Article involves one such intersection: the relationship between mental retardation and capital punishment. Johnny Paul Penry is a convicted rapist and murderer on death row in Texas. He is a survivor of long-term child abuse and organic brain damage who exhibits the intellectual functioning of a seven-year-old child. This article will focus on Penry\u27s case after the first Supreme Court decision in 1989