The Story of the Gary, Indiana Crucifix

In the spring of 1955, the Knights of Columbus erected an enormous crucifix in a public park in Gary, Indiana. Incensed by this flagrant constitutional violation, Harrison J. Mellman, a bright, well-liked, but still green local lawyer, began making plans to challenge the towering structure in court. Today, more than half a century later, the edifice remains, undisturbed, in its original spot. And so begins, and ends, a most unusual tale

Distilled Sensing: Adaptive Sampling for Sparse Detection and Estimation

Adaptive sampling results in dramatic improvements in the recovery of sparse signals in white Gaussian noise. A sequential adaptive sampling-and-refinement procedure called Distilled Sensing (DS) is proposed and analyzed. DS is a form of multi-stage experimental design and testing. Because of the adaptive nature of the data collection, DS can detect and localize far weaker signals than possible from non-adaptive measurements. In particular, reliable detection and localization (support estimation) using non-adaptive samples is possible only if the signal amplitudes grow logarithmically with the problem dimension. Here it is shown that using adaptive sampling, reliable detection is possible provided the amplitude exceeds a constant, and localization is possible when the amplitude exceeds any arbitrarily slowly growing function of the dimension.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures. Revision includes minor clarifications, along with more illustrative experimental results (cf. Figure 2

The Sailor, the Prostitute, the Pimp, and the Judge: Chasing Down the Loose Ends of Koistinen v. American Export Lines, Inc.

Koistinen v. American Export Lines, Inc. is a case all admiralty law professors love to teach and all law students love to read

Florida\u27s Cruises to Nowhere Industry: Current Status and Future Prospects

Obtaining Reliable Information about the cruises to nowhere CTN industry in Florida always has been difficult

Aboitiz & Co. v. Price: Some Lingering Questions

Over the years, I have worked with many excellent editors. But Larry Reilly, whose career this issue of the Journal celebrates, was by far my favorite. Larry was more than just an editor to me. He also was a good friend and a valued mentor, and I therefore am delighted to have this opportunity to write apiece in his honor