Imprisonment and the Right to Freedom of Movement

Government’s use of imprisonment raises distinctive moral issues. Even if government has broad authority to make and to enforce law, government may not be entitled to use imprisonment as a punishment for all the criminal laws it is entitled to make. Indeed, there may be some serious crimes that it is wrong to punish with imprisonment, even if the conditions of imprisonment are humane and even if no adequate alternative punishments are available

Law and the Entitlement to Coerce

A long tradition in political and legal philosophy regards coercion as central to the very idea of law. Some historical figures, such as Hobbes, Locke, and Austin took the position that there can be no law without a coercive sanction. Many philosophers of law, most famously H.L.A. Hart, have called this view into question.1 Nonetheless, many political and legal philosophers continue to believe that law is necessarily connected with coercion in a subtler way. Whenever government is entitled to make a law that imposes a direct requirement on conduct, it is entitled to use coercion to enforce this requirment. Some endorse this position explicitly.2 Others commit themselves to it when they argue against certain kinds of laws or legal arrangements by claiming that coercive enforcement of those laws would be law only if it has some sort of justification for enforcing law coercively. The view that the entitlement to make law necessarily comes with an entitlement to coerce is challenged rarely, if ever. Nonetheless, this view is mistaken

Judicial Democracy

Many scholars believe that it is procedurally undemocratic for the judiciary to have an active role in shaping the law. These scholars believe either that such practices as judicial review and creative statutory interpretation are unjustified, or that they are justified only because they improve the law substantively. This Article argues instead that the judiciary can play an important procedurally democratic role in the development of the law. Majority rule by legislatures is not the only defining feature of democracy; rather, a government is democratic to the extent to which it provides egalitarian forms of political participation. One such form of participation can be the opportunity to influence the law through the courts, either directly by participating in a case or indirectly by advocating litigation. Arguing from several examples, this Article shows that judicial decision-making allows different voices to be heard that may not necessarily have influence or power in majoritarian legislative structures or popular initiatives. Giving citizens the opportunity to change, to preserve, and to obtain authoritative clarification of the law through the courts can thus make a government procedurally more democratic

Responsive Government and Duties of Conscience

Many political philosophers have defended the importance of enabling citizens to participate in law-making. Some argue that widespread citizen participation makes the law making process more likely to produce just law.1 Others argue that government must enable citizens to participate in law-making for law to be legitimate or to have legitimate authority.2 Still others argue that government must give citizens an equal share of political power in order to express equal respect for them.3 I will not dispute any of these arguments, but I believe they need to be supplemented, in part because they do not fully capture the reasons that enabling citizen participation matters morally, in part because they do not completely explain what democratic governments owe to citizens with minority political views. I claim that citizens need genuine opportunities to participate in law-making for another reason: they need to be able to satisfy individual duties of conscience

Exploitation, Deontological Constraints, and Shareholder Theory

One of the central controversies in normative business ethics is the question whether transactions and economic relationships can be wrongfully exploitative despite being mutually beneficial and consensual. This article argues that anyone who accepts a shareholder theory of business ethics should accept deontological constraints on mutually beneficial, consensual exploitation

Domestic Water Demand in Utah

Multiple regression and frequency analysis of average month, peak month, peak day, and instantaneous water use by various water supply systems in Utah and Colorado are used to develop water demand functions. The research objective was to predict water demand as a function of a small number of independent variables for which data were easily obtainable and thereby provide an attractive method for use by consulting engineers inf uture planning studies. The independent variables in landscaped area and accounts for use of supplementary ditch or pressure irrigation systems. The demand functions were developed with data from a sample of 14 systems varying in size from very small low density rural systems to Salt Lake City\u27s water system. The correlation coefficients (R^2) vary from 0.80 to 0.95. The demand fucntions were validated by comparing calculated to measured water use for more than 40 other Utah systems. Instantaneous demands are determined for any desired recurrence interval as a function of number of connections. The demand functions are presented both at best fit (expected value) levels for average month, peak month, and peak day and at recommended design levels for the same time durations. The design levels were calculated by adding to expected values an increment which was based upon standard deviation of the samples. Instanataneous demand peaks which can be expecte donce in about 30 years in Utah systems are under 2 gpm per connection for lines serving more than 50 families, 3 gpm for lines serving 10 families, and 5 gpm for lines serving 4 connections

A Chronicle of the Kentucky Transportation Research Program

The basis for the Kentucky Transportation Research Program (KTRP) was established more than 45 years ago and some of the current staff members have over 35 years experience in transportation research. Over the years, principal investigators have developed expertise in major areas of transportation and have made significant contributions in highway safety, pavement design and performance, embankment analyses, fatigue detection in bridges, noise abatement, traffic control and operations, voidless concrete, pavement texture and skid resistance, structural design and analyses of culverts, traffic forecasting, and numerous other areas. The Transportation Research Building houses several fully equipped laboratories. Special effort was made to provide flexibility and versatility in the arrangement of fixtures in the various laboratories. Computer services are available through the University of Kentucky and a full-time programming staff capable of summarizing, analyzing, and plotting data is available to all researchers. The Program also maintains a collection of current periodicals and publications from other transportation research organizations. Appreciable acceptance of study findings and resultant implementation of study recommendations has led to significant benefit-cost ratios for many studies undertaken by the unit. Values derived from research have been demonstrated routinely

Performance Survey of Reinforced Concrete Pipe Culverts

Methods of installation and design criteria have tended to restrict the usefulness of rigid pipe culverts. With the increased mileage of highways which meet high standards, there has been an increase in the number of pipe culverts installed under high fills. This, of course, has accented the need for criteria for the proper design and installation of rigid pipe to obtain the maximum utilization of the pipe strength and to minimize the possible steelements that may occur in the road surface near the pipe installation or in the flow line of the pipe culvert. In order to provide for an efficient utilization of rigid pipe, the Department of Highways issued Standard Drawings and Amendments No. 15 and 16 to the 1956 Edition of Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Construction specifying the bedding details and strength of pipe required for the various heights of fill. These standards were developed from the criteria set by the Bureau of Public Roads· The BPR criteria had been developed in co-operation with the American Concrete Pipe Association and was an attempt to bring together and simplify the prevailing methods of computing the necessary pipe strengths for the various classes of bedding commonly in use. Included in the Kentucky Standards was a provision permitting the use of the imperfect trench type of construction. Kentucky is, thus, one of thirteen states which permits this type of bedding, or a modification thereof. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the design and construction criteria, the Bureau of Public Roads has requested that a number of reinforced concrete pipe installations be selected for periodic inspections. The data reported herein are a summary of the design and construction data for the pipes selected for study and a report of the condition of the pipes as observed during the first field inspection

A parametric shell analysis of the shuttle 51-L SRB AFT field joint

Following the Shuttle 51-L accident, an investigation was conducted to determine the cause of the failure. Investigators at the Langley Research Center focused attention on the structural behavior of the field joints with O-ring seals in the steel solid rocket booster (SRB) cases. The shell-of-revolution computer program BOSOR4 was used to model the aft field joint of the solid rocket booster case. The shell model consisted of the SRB wall and joint geometry present during the Shuttle 51-L flight. A parametric study of the joint was performed on the geometry, including joint clearances, contact between the joint components, and on the loads, induced and applied. In addition combinations of geometry and loads were evaluated. The analytical results from the parametric study showed that contact between the joint components was a primary contributor to allowing hot gases to blow by the O-rings. Based upon understanding the original joint behavior, various proposed joint modifications are shown and analyzed in order to provide additional insight and information. Finally, experimental results from a hydro-static pressurization of a test rocket booster case to study joint motion are presented and verified analytically

Protecting Children from Overexposure to Lead in Candy and Protecting Children by Lowering the Blood Lead “Level of Concern” Standard

The American Public Health Association: Recognizing that in April 2004, the Orange County Register in an investigative report, published for the first time information that the state of California had been testing for lead in candies for decades but had not informed the public about the high lead levels in many candies, candy wrappers and seasonings (sold as a snack item and consumed as candy) imported from Mexico, the Philippines and other countries