Implied Certification under the False Claims Act

The False Claims Act prohibits fraud by government contractors, including a contractor\u27s false certification of compliance with the contract, statutes or regulations. In the early 1990s, some courts began holding that the act of requesting payment from the government implicitly represents such compliance for the purposes the FCA. Circuits are today split on the implied certification doctrine. This Article provides a theory of implied certification, suggests how the circuit split should be resolved and describes how contracting agencies should write contracts in light of the existing rule. There are good reasons for the implied certification rule: it is an information-forcing majoritarian default; it affirms the special ethical obligations of government contractors; and it addresses agency lassitude in drafting and monitoring performance. But implied certification also has its costs. Most importantly, it lowers the bar to frivolous qui tam actions and threatens to impose FCA liability for violations better addressed by more discretionary and nuanced regulatory responses. This Article recommends a narrow implied certification rule: the fact that a contract, statute or regulation conditions either participation in or payment for a contract on compliance with it should create a prima facie case that a claim for payment represents such compliance, shifting the burden to the defendant to show that FCA liability would interfere with other regulatory monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. The Article also recommends that contracting agencies pay more attention to the FCA when drafting contracts. They can approximate first-best results by requiring express certification of compliance with those duties for which FCA liability makes sense, and contracting-out of implied certification for those duties that are better enforced in other ways. In addition to these practical suggestions, the Article draws some general lessons about the contractual duties to cooperate, interpretive defaults in contract and tort, and the special ethical obligations of government contractors

The International Law Exception to the Act of State Doctrine: Redressing Human Rights Abuses in Papua New Guinea

In Sarei v. Rio Tinto, the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of Papua New Guinea residents’ alleged human rights violations and environmental tort claims under customary international law and the Alien Tort Claims Act. The Ninth Circuit decided that jus cogens norms precluded application of the Act of State Doctrine. The United States Supreme Court in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino decided that U.S. courts could apply the Act of State Doctrine, absent an unambiguous and controlling international rule of law, to avoid judging foreign sovereigns’ acts within their own territories. This comment argues that crystallized legal norms that meet Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain’s standard, but have not yet attained jus cogens status, also cannot be barred by the doctrine because they constitute an unambiguous rule of law. Furthermore, courts violate separation of powers principles when they choose not to resolve properly presented claims on the merits because judicial resolution potentially could interfere with the political branches’ conduct of foreign relations. The courts do not impermissibly interfere in foreign relations when they apply international law, whether treaty provisions or customary norms, created by the political branches. If judicial resolution is not preferred, the political branches may exercise their constitutional powers to conclude an international agreement that resolves the litigants’ claims. Courts further considering Papua New Guinea residents’ claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act should not apply the Act of State Doctrine where crystallized legal norms exist, because doing so would be contrary to the logic of Sabbatino

Reducing inventory by simplifying forecasting and using point of sale data

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 69).This thesis assesses the value to vendors of using point of sale data to predict what retailers will order from them. In particular, we look at how The Gillette Company can use point of sale data generated by two of their customers, (Wal-Mart and Target), to predict the orders of all of Gillette's customers combined. The thesis also examines the impact on forecasts of shortening and simplifying the demand planning process. By improving the forecast of orders from their customers, vendors like Gillette can reduce safety stock inventory which is held as protection against unpredictable demand.by Atul Agarwal [and] Gregory Douglas Barton Holt.M.Eng.in Logistic

Carrier-free 8-azidoadenosine 5′-[γ-32P]triphosphate

AbstractWe found 8-azidoadenosine 5′-diphosphate to be a phosphoryl acceptor in the enzymatic conversion of 1,3-diphosphoglyceric acid to 3-phosphoglycerate. This has allowed us to synthesize in a single-step procedure carrier-free 8-azidoadenosine 5′-[γ-32P]triphosphate, requiring no further purification of the end product. The synthesized 8-azidoadenosine 5′-[γ-32P]triphosphate has been characterized and shown to meet all the criteria for a specific photoreactive ATP analogue

Modeling age-related changes in muscle-tendon dynamics during cyclical contractions in the rat gastrocnemius

Efficient muscle-tendon performance during cyclical tasks is dependent on both active and passive mechanical tissue properties. Here we examine whether age-related changes in the properties of muscle-tendon units (MTUs) compromise their ability to do work and utilize elastic energy storage. We empirically quantified passive and active properties of the medial gastrocnemius muscle and material properties of the Achilles tendon in young (∼6 mo) and old (∼32 mo) rats. We then used these properties in computer simulations of a Hill-type muscle model operating in series with a Hookean spring. The modeled MTU was driven through sinusoidal length changes and activated at a phase that optimized muscle-tendon tuning to assess the relative contributions of active and passive elements to the force and work in each cycle. In physiologically realistic simulations where young and old MTUs started at similar passive forces and developed similar active forces, the capacity of old MTUs to store elastic energy and produce positive work was compromised. These results suggest that the observed increase in the metabolic cost of locomotion with aging may be in part due to the recruitment of additional muscles to compensate for the reduced work at the primary MTU. Furthermore, the age-related increases in passive stiffness coupled with a reduced active force capacity in the muscle can lead to shifts in the force-length and force-velocity operating range that may significantly impact mechanical and metabolic performance. Our study emphasizes the importance of the interplay between muscle and tendon mechanical properties in shaping MTU performance during cyclical contractions

A GPS Receiver for Lunar Missions

Beginning with the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in October of 2008, NASA will once again begin its quest to land humans on the Moon. This effort will require the development of new spacecraft which will safely transport people from the Earth to the Moon and back again, as well as robotic probes tagged with science, re-supply, and communication duties. In addition to the next-generation spacecraft currently under construction, including the Orion capsule, NASA is also investigating and developing cutting edge navigation sensors which will allow for autonomous state estimation in low Earth orbit (LEO) and cislunar space. Such instruments could provide an extra layer of redundancy in avionics systems and reduce the reliance on support and on the Deep Space Network (DSN). One such sensor is the weak-signal Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver "Navigator" being developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). At the heart of the Navigator is a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based acquisition engine. This engine allows for the rapid acquisition/reacquisition of strong GPS signals, enabling the receiver to quickly recover from outages due to blocked satellites or atmospheric entry. Additionally, the acquisition algorithm provides significantly lower sensitivities than a conventional space-based GPS receiver, permitting it to acquire satellites well above the GPS constellation. This paper assesses the performance of the Navigator receiver based upon three of the major flight regimes of a manned lunar mission: Earth ascent, cislunar navigation, and entry. Representative trajectories for each of these segments were provided by NASA. The Navigator receiver was connected to a Spirent GPS signal generator, to allow for the collection of real-time, hardware-in-the-loop results for each phase of the flight. For each of the flight segments, the Navigator was tested on its ability to acquire and track GPS satellites under the dynamical environment unique to that trajectory