Personal Jurisdiction Over Alien Corporate Parents and Affiliates in Antitrust Actions: A Plea for Perspicuity

The purpose of this Comment is to read the entrails of judicial conceptions which have been sacrificed for reasons of public policy. Antitrust law provides a fertile source of cases which consider these problems. Almost since the passage of the Sherman Act, alien corporations have been sued when acts committed abroad have adversely affected U.S. plaintiffs. The extraterritorial application of antitrust law is well established. In most antitrust cases against corporations, a single sixty-year-old statute governs venue and service of process. There is nevertheless little agreement on its meaning. After a brief review of the historical background, this Comment will consider present problems and trends in the case law. Misconceived corporate law and intricate federal jurisdiction questions have needlessly complicated the issues. International Shoe and state long-arm statutes provide straightforward solutions

Improving Photometric Calibration of Meteor Video Camera Systems

Current optical observations of meteors are commonly limited by systematic uncertainties in photometric calibration at the level of approximately 0.5 mag or higher. Future improvements to meteor ablation models, luminous efficiency models, or emission spectra will hinge on new camera systems and techniques that significantly reduce calibration uncertainties and can reliably perform absolute photometric measurements of meteors. In this talk we discuss the algorithms and tests that NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) has developed to better calibrate photometric measurements for the existing All-Sky and Wide-Field video camera networks as well as for a newly deployed four-camera system for measuring meteor colors in Johnson-Cousins BV RI filters. In particular we will emphasize how the MEO has been able to address two long-standing concerns with the traditional procedure, discussed in more detail below

NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office's Response to Three Significant Bolide Events Over North America

Being the only U.S. Government entity charged with monitoring the meteor environment, the Meteoroid Environment Office has deployed a network of all sky and wide field meteor cameras, along with the appropriate software tools to quickly analyze data from these systems. However, the coverage of this network is still quite limited, forcing the incorporation of data from other cameras posted to the internet in analyzing many of the fireballs reported by the public and media. A procedure has been developed that determines the analysis process for a given fireball event based on the types and amount of data available. The differences between these analysis process will be explained and outlined by looking at three bolide events, all of which were large enough to produce meteorites. The first example is an ideal event - a bright meteor that occurred over NASA's All Sky Camera Network on August 2, 2014. With clear video of the event from various angles, a high-accuracy trajectory, beginning and end heights, orbit and approximate brightness/size of the event are able to be found very quickly using custom software. The bolide had the potential to have dropped meteorites, so dark flight analysis and modeling was performed, allowing potential fall locations to be mapped as a function of meteorite mass. The second case study was a bright bolide that occurred November 3, 2014 over West Virginia. This was just north of the NASA southeastern all-sky network, and just south of the Ohio-Pennsylvania network. This case study showcases the MEO's ability to use social media and various internet sources to locate videos of the event from obscure sources (including the Washington Monument) for anything that will permit a determination of a basic trajectory and fireball light curve The third case study will highlight the ability to use doppler weather radar in helping locate meteorites, which enable a definitive classification of the impactor. The input data and analysis steps differ for each case study, but the goals remain the same - a trajectory, orbit, and mass estimate for the bolide within hours of the event, and, for events with a high probability of producing meteorites, a location of the strewn field within a day

Evaluation of two nutrient input methods of HSPF: monthly data block and manual time series

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Hydroscience and Engineering, Philadelphia, PA, September 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1860/732Use of AGCHEM modules within Hydrological Simulation Program Fortran (HSPF) requires extensive efforts of time series data preparation. In this research, two nutrient input methods, Monthly Data Block and Manual Time Series, were compared and evaluated with a developed St. Louis Bay watershed water quality model. The results indicated that HSPF responded to nutrient input very well and there was much difference in the generated nutrient loadings between these two methods. The Monthly Data Block method is easier to use but it misrepresents nutrient distribution, cannot preserve intended mass balance, and cannot simulate field fertilization practice. Monthly Data Block approach is suitable to provide nutrient inputs from atmospheric deposition. Manual Time Series method is more accurate and flexible to input nutrient from any sources, but is very time-consuming, especially for long time simulation. The users should understand the characteristics of model functions to ensure the correct input of boundary loading since correct input of nutrient boundary loadings has strong impacts on in-stream nutrient modeling

When the Sky Falls: Performing Initial Assessments of Bright Atmospheric Events

The 2013 Chelyabinsk super bolide was the first "significant" impact event to occur in the age of social media and 24 hour news. Scientists, used to taking many days or weeks to analyze fireball events, were hard pressed to meet the immediate demands (within hours) for answers from the media, general public, and government officials. Fulfilling these requests forced many researchers to exploit information available from various Internet sources - videos were downloaded from sites like Youtube, geolocated via Google Street View, and quickly analyzed with improvised software; Twitter and Facebook were scoured for eyewitness accounts of the fireball and reports of meteorites. These data, combined with infrasound analyses, enabled a fairly accurate description of the Chelyabinsk event to be formed within a few hours; in particular, any relationship to 2012 DA14 (which passed near Earth later that same day) was eliminated. Results of these analyses were quickly disseminated to members of the NEO community for press conferences and media interviews. Despite a few minor glitches, the rapid initial assessment of Chelyabinsk was a triumph, permitting the timely conveyance of accurate information to the public and the incorporation of social media into fireball analyses. Beginning in 2008, the NASA Meteoroid Environments Office, working in cooperation with Western's Meteor Physics Group, developed processes and software that permit quick characterization - mass, trajectory, and orbital properties - of fireball events. These tools include automated monitoring of Twitter to establish the time of events (the first tweet is usually no more than a few seconds after the fireball), mining of Youtube and all sky camera web archives to locate videos suitable for analyses, use of Google Earth and Street View to geolocate the video locations, and software to determine the fireball trajectory and object orbital parameters, including generation of animations suitable for popular media and presentations. This presentation will give a short description of the characterization procedure and show applications of the tools, which have become vital to answering the question of "What was that bright light in the sky?" in the post-Chelyabinsk, 24/7 news world

Large Meteoroid Impact on the Moon 17 March 2013

NASA's routine monitoring of lunar impact flashes has recorded nearly 300 impacts since 2006. On 17 March 2013 the brightest event to date was observed in two 0.35m telescopes at the Marshall Space Flight Center. With a peak red magnitude brighter than 4.3 and an impact flash visible for over 1 second, the impact kinetic energy was equivalent to nearly 5 tons of TNT. A possible association with a meteor shower observed in the Earth's atmosphere will be described. Corresponding crater dimensions and observability of the impact crater by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also be discussed

Arsenic in Soils and Forages from Poultry Litter-Amended Pastures

In regions of concentrated poultry production, poultry litter (PL) that contains significant quantities of trace elements is commonly surface-applied to pastures at high levels over multiple years. This study examined the effect of long-term applications of PL on soil concentrations of arsenic (As), copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), and the uptake of these elements by bermuda grass grown on Cecil (well-drained) and Sedgefield (somewhat poorly-drained) soils. The results showed that concentrations of As, Cu, and Zn in soils that had received surface-applied PL over a 14-year period were significantly greater than untreated soil at 0–2.5 and 2.5–7.5 cm depths. However, the levels were well below the USEPA loading limits established for municipal biosolids. Arsenic fractionation showed that concentrations of all As fractions were significantly greater in PL-amended soils compared to untreated soils at 0–2.5 and 2.5–7.5 cm depths. The residual fraction was the predominant form of As in all soils. The water-soluble and NaHCO3-associated As were only 2% of the total As. Significant differences were found in concentrations of these trace elements and phosphorus (P) in forage from PL-amended soils compared to that in untreated plots. The concentrations of Cu, Zn, As, and P were significantly greater in forage from Sedgefield amended soil compared to Cecil soil, but were in all cases below levels of environmental concern

Laboratory Study of Fatigue Characteristics of HMA Surface Mixtures Containing Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP)

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) has been used in the construction of asphalt pavements since the 1930’s. Conversely the use of RAP in load carrying layers has always been a sensitive issue due to the uniformity and rheological properties of the blended asphalt mixtures. Typically the inclusion of RAP will blend the long-term aged asphalt binder in the RAP with the fresh asphalt binder resulting in a stiffer mixture. Generally rutting will less likely be a problem with the inclusion of RAP. However, the fatigue crack resistance of the HMA mixtures containing RAP has been a key interest to designers and engineers. This thesis presents the results of a laboratory study, in which the laboratory fatigue characteristics of asphalt mixtures containing RAP were evaluated. A typical surface mixture meeting the state of Tennessee “D” mix criteria was evaluated at 0, 10, 20 and 30 percent of screened RAP materials. Two types of aggregates (limestone and gravel) and two types of binder (PG 64-22 and PG 76-22) were used for this study. Fatigue characteristics were evaluated through indirect tensile strength, semi-circular bending and beam fatigue tests. The results from this study indicated that laboratory long-term aging and the inclusion of RAP generally increased the stiffness and laboratory fatigue resistance for the mixtures studied. For the mixtures studied, the inclusion of 30 percent RAP for both binder types significantly changed the fatigue characteristics as compared to 0, 10 and 20 percent RAP. Increasing the percentage of RAP increased the fatigue resistance, however at higher percentages of RAP the mixture becomes stiffer and some fatigue characteristics are compromised by adding RAP. Based on the workability and performance in the lab, 20 percent RAP would be recommended for use in Tennessee surface mixtures. Field validations are recommended to compare laboratory performance to field performance to verify the optimum percentage of RAP to be used during pavement construction

Normie Buehring

Following the 1987 No-Till Conference name change, Mississippi hosted the first newly named Southern Conservation Tillage Conference, the aptly chosen theme of which was “Conservation Farming: A Focus on a Better Future. ” The 1988 theme provides a segue to the 1995 theme, “Conservation Farming: A Focus on Water Quality. ” Coupling the terms of conservation farming and water quality captures the essence of the Conference’s long-standing commitment to promote the study and use of farming practices aimed at achieving viable agricultural productivity and conservation of soil and water resources. A brief trip back to the future serves as a reminder of the recognition by ancient farming societies of the value of conservation farming practices, a concept which is now a rapidly developing arena for the potential application of recent technologies, such as satellite-assisted farm management based on sitespecific soil properties. The timeless appeal of conservation farming can be attributed, in the main, to its amenability to the application of principles of scientific inquiry. This has permitted an ever-improving understanding of the relation of underlying natural processes to agricultural production, and positive or negative changes in the status of soil and water resources. From this foundation has sprung the potential for reduced economic requirements and optimization of desired outcomes in farm productivity and environmental quality