Equality Before the Law and the Social Contract: When Will the United States Finally Guarantee Its People the Equality Before the Law that the Social Contract Demands?

Most European and several countries elsewhere in the world have recognized a right to counsel in many or most civil cases for as long as decades or even centuries - and many of these countries are willing to spend, proportionately, anywhere from three to twelve times as much of their national income as the U.S. currently does on the provision of counsel to their lower income populations in civil cases. This Article examines how courts around the world have interpreted the constitutional provisions emanating from the theory that underpins the right to equality before the law and why these decisions are relevant to courts in the U.S. The Article then describes how nations that have the right as a matter of statutory or constitutional law have implemented it. This leads to discussion of a draft generic state statute that would apply some of the lessons learned from the foreign experience to the American context. Finally, the Article considers the likelihood that American jurisdictions will adopt the right and make the level of financial commitment that so many other nations already have made

KSC's work flow assistant

The work flow assistant (WFA) is an advanced technology project under the shuttle processing data management system (SPDMS) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It will be utilized for short range scheduling, controlling work flow on the floor, and providing near real-time status for all major space transportation systems (STS) work centers at KSC. It will increase personnel and STS safety and improve productivity through deeper active scheduling that includes tracking and correlation of STS and ground support equipment (GSE) configuration and work. It will also provide greater accessibility to this data. WFA defines a standards concept for scheduling data which permits both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) scheduling tools and WFA developed applications to be reused. WFA will utilize industry standard languages and workstations to achieve a scalable, adaptable, and portable architecture which may be used at other sites

Complexity models in design

Complexity is a widely used term; it has many formal and informal meanings. Several formal models of complexity can be applied to designs and design processes. The aim of the paper is to examine the relation between complexity and design. This argument runs in two ways. First designing provides insights into how to respond to complex systems – how to manage, plan and control them. Second, the overwhelming complexity of many design projects lead us to examine how better understanding of complexity science can lead to improved designs and processes. This is the focus of this paper. We start with an outline of some observations on where complexity arises in design, followed by a brief discussion of the development of scientific and formal conceptions of complexity. We indicate how these can help in understanding design processes and improving designs

Modern Prescription Theory and Application: Realistic Expectations for Speech Recognition With Hearing Aids

A major decision at the time of hearing aid fitting and dispensing is the amount of amplification to provide listeners (both adult and pediatric populations) for the appropriate compensation of sensorineural hearing impairment across a range of frequencies (e.g., 160?10000?Hz) and input levels (e.g., 50?75?dB sound pressure level). This article describes modern prescription theory for hearing aids within the context of a risk versus return trade-off and efficient frontier analyses. The expected return of amplification recommendations (i.e., generic prescriptions such as National Acoustic Laboratories?Non-Linear 2, NAL-NL2, and Desired Sensation Level Multiple Input/Output, DSL m[i/o]) for the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) and high-frequency audibility were traded against a potential risk (i.e., loudness). The modeled performance of each prescription was compared one with another and with the efficient frontier of normal hearing sensitivity (i.e., a reference point for the most return with the least risk). For the pediatric population, NAL-NL2 was more efficient for SII, while DSL m[i/o] was more efficient for high-frequency audibility. For the adult population, NAL-NL2 was more efficient for SII, while the two prescriptions were similar with regard to high-frequency audibility. In terms of absolute return (i.e., not considering the risk of loudness), however, DSL m[i/o] prescribed more outright high-frequency audibility than NAL-NL2 for either aged population, particularly, as hearing loss increased. Given the principles and demonstrated accuracy of desensitization (reduced utility of audibility with increasing hearing loss) observed at the group level, additional high-frequency audibility beyond that of NAL-NL2 is not expected to make further contributions to speech intelligibility (recognition) for the average listener

Lifting the “American Exceptionalism” Curtain: Options and Lessons from Abroad

Contrary to its public rhetoric promising “justice for all” and “equal justice under law,” access to civil justice in the United States is “exceptional” only in a negative sense. The Rule of Law Index ranks our nation next to last among the world’s thirty-one “richest” countries. A major reason for this is that most of our fellow industrial democracies have a right to counsel in civil cases and invest from three times to ten times more than the United States on civil legal aid. Beyond these differences, the United States has much to learn from research and other developments in foreign countries. Studies in England about how poor and moderate income deal with their justiciable problems suggest that unmet “effective demand” for lawyer services is substantially less than unmet “legal needs” recorded in legal needs studies—because even with a right to counsel many people instead resolved their problems in other ways. A study in Canada found that those in the upper income quartile spent 167 times more than those in the bottom quartile resolving their legal problems, even though their problems often were less disruptive than those the bottom quartile confronted. A survey of past and present innovations covers the following: (1) Belgium’s problematic system that encourages individual lawyers to provide as much representation as they can while at the same time limiting what the government will pay out for the total amount of legal services rendered each year; (2) Dutch “lokets,”a nationwide network of offices where people can receive advice and brief assistance from a paralegal staff; (3) Dutch “Rechtwijzer 1.0 and 2.0,” online dispute assistance and online dispute resolution; (4) English “McKenzie friends” which allows nonlawyers to accompany unrepresented litigants to the courtroom and render limited assistance; and (5) partially subsidized lawyers for the lower middle classes and legal expense insurance for the middle classes found in several European countries