Write This Down: A Model Market-Share Liability Statute

The 1980s featured a remarkable series of lawsuits: the DES cases. The women who brought these cases had been harmed by a drug—DES—that their mothers had taken while the future plaintiffs were in utero. Hundreds of companies manufactured DES, each unit of DES sold was chemically identical, and the harmed women were generally unable to identify the manufacturer who had filled their mothers’ prescriptions. Many of the plaintiffs could not prove causation as to a specific manufacturer and so could not bring traditional tort suits. To provide relief, some courts forged ahead with a new tort theory: market-share liability. Under this theory, plaintiffs who were harmed by a fungible product and unable to identify the manufacturer who produced the unit that harmed them could sue all manufacturers of the product and collect from each of them according to their market share. But not every court recognized this new theory. And among the courts that did, disagreement emerged as to doctrinal determinations and mechanical considerations. This Note is the first survey of both the legal and practical questions surrounding claims based on market-share liability, from whether a prospective plaintiff qualifies for such a cause of action to determining the relevant market to pleading requirements. It asserts that market-share liability furthers the purposes of tort and products-liability law, critiques existing state statutory schemes, and proposes a model statute for state legislatures to consider

The mechanisms of stress corrosion of the titanium alloy Ti 8-1-1 exposed to salt environments at elevated temperatures Final report

Mechanisms of slat stress corrosion cracking of titanium alloys at high temperature

On the scaling spectrum of the Anderson impurity model

We consider the universal scaling behaviour of the Kondo resonance in the strong coupling limit of the symmetric Anderson impurity model, using a recently developed local moment approach. The resultant scaling spectrum is obtained in closed form, and is dominated by long tails that in contrast to previous work are found to exhibit a slow logarithmic decay rather than power-law form, crossing over to characteristic Fermi liquid behaviour on the lowest energy scales. The resultant theory, while naturally approximate, is found to give very good agreement for essentially all frequencies with numerical renormalization group calculations of both the single-particle scaling spectrum and the self-energy.Comment: 16 pages, 4 embedded figure

Cloud cover typing from environmental satellite imagery. Discriminating cloud structure with Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT)

The use of two dimensional Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) subjected to pattern recognition technology for the identification and classification of low altitude stratus cloud structure from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imagery was examined. The development of a scene independent pattern recognition methodology, unconstrained by conventional cloud morphological classifications was emphasized. A technique for extracting cloud shape, direction, and size attributes from GOES visual imagery was developed. These attributes were combined with two statistical attributes (cloud mean brightness, cloud standard deviation), and interrogated using unsupervised clustering amd maximum likelihood classification techniques. Results indicate that: (1) the key cloud discrimination attributes are mean brightness, direction, shape, and minimum size; (2) cloud structure can be differentiated at given pixel scales; (3) cloud type may be identifiable at coarser scales; (4) there are positive indications of scene independence which would permit development of a cloud signature bank; (5) edge enhancement of GOES imagery does not appreciably improve cloud classification over the use of raw data; and (6) the GOES imagery must be apodized before generation of FFTs

Temporal Trends in the Geochemistry and Petrology of the 1980 Mount St. Helens Pyroclastic Flow Deposits

Petrographic and geochemical analyses were performed on pumice from the May 18, June 12, July 22, August 7, and October 16-18 pyroclastic flow deposits. The pumice is dacitic and contains, in order of decreasing abundance, the minerals plagioclase An30-57, hypersthene, hornblende, magnetite-illmenite, ± augite, ± apatite, in a groundmass of highly vesiculated glass and plagioclase microlites. Vesiculation occurred over a period of about one second, but at times during the eruption probably within a zone in the vent rather than at the atmosphere-magma interface. An increase with time in the crystal to glass ratio indicates continued cooling of the magma. Resorption or recrystallization of hornblende in younger flows indicates degassing by loss of H2O. Barring new intrusion of magma, these textural trends suggest that less explosive eruptions might be expected in the future. Using inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy, elemental oxide abundances were determined for Si, Al, Ti, Fe, Mn, Ca, Mg, K, Na, and P; and trace element abundances were determined for Ba, Cr, Cu, La, Nb, Sc, Sr, V, Y, Zn, and Zr. Temporal trends in major and minor element abundances show that Si02 decreases, while FeO (total), CaO, MgO, Ti02, and MnO increase. Temporal trends in trace element abundances show an increase in Cr, Cu, Sc, and V with a decrease in Ba. These trends are toward a more andesitic composition. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that orogenic calk-alkaline rocks are formed by a subcrustal two stage melting process

Creating Educational Experiences through the Objects Children Bring to School

The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence is framed, without visible theory, in language embedding the value of children’s experiences. In association with a policy encouraging practitioners to develop healthy home/school links, early childhood practitioners develop pedagogical practices in support of this curricular language of experience. One aspect coming into focus is children’s experiences in general rather than only those which take place within institutional walls. One way children introduce their out-of-school experiences into classrooms is by voluntarily bringing treasured objects from home to early childhood setting doors. By jointly engaging with John Dewey’s view that worthwhile educational experiences are developed through interactions and continuities, the pedagogic practices of twelve early childhood practitioners and the view that each child-initiated object episode could be viewed as part of a child’s experience this research aims to better understand practitioners’ development of educational experiences through their responses to the objects forty children voluntarily brought to school. In support of this aim three research questions focused on 1) what objects children brought? 2) what practitioners said and did with the objects? and 3) what practice similarities and differences were visible across two consecutive age groups: 3-5 year olds in a nursery (preschool) and 5-7 year olds in a composite Primary 1/2 class (formal schooling)? During an eight month period in 2009 data were collected by classroom observations, collection of photographic images and practitioner interviews in a government-funded, denominational, early childhood setting in a Scottish village school. Data were analysed for the physical and social properties of children’s objects, practitioner’s pedagogic practices when engaging with the brought-in objects and similarities and differences in object-related classroom behaviours as epitomised in the relationships in each classroom. The findings were that practitioners made use of three main pedagogical practices when engaging with children’s brought-in objects: transforming objects into educational resources, shaping in-school object experiences and building a range of relationships around these objects. While the broad patterns of practice used in both classrooms were similar the details of practice showed underlying framings of children and their futures were different in each classroom. It is argued that what Dewey’s views offer, in the context of these findings, is a theoretical framing of experience that opens new possibilities for practitioner’s individual and group reflections on their current practices and collaborative practice development. His is one of the languages of experience available as practitioners and policy makers around the world grapple with educational questions

Exploring Cycloaddition Reactions for the Synthesis of Novel Organic Compounds, Including Microwave Promotion

The work presented here focuses on using the Diels‐Alder reaction as the first step in “catch‐and‐release” strategies for isolating useful organic compounds, especially from natural product extracts. The purpose is to discover better isolation methods than those currently available. The proposed method uses a dienophile attached to a polymeric resin, allowing separation of the adduct from the filtrate by simply rinsing the polymer‐bound adduct with solvents to remove extraneous compounds. Different dienophiles were tested, including 4‐phenyl‐1,2,4‐triazoline‐3,5‐dione, dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate, and diphenyl acetylene. These were reacted with the furan ring of salvinorin A, an extract obtained from a natural product, which acted as the diene. These were tested to find dienophiles that could either potentially be fixed to a polymeric resin or provide some insight as to what conditions salvinorin A might react under. These were reacted in a microwave instrument and characterized with thin layer chromatography and infrared spectrometry. Initial results suggest new Diels‐Alder adducts based on the salvinorin A skeleton, and one reaction that proceeds without heat. Finally, one polymer‐bound dienophile, diethy diazodicarboxylate, was reacted with salvinorin A to produce a polymer‐bound Diels‐Alder adduct

Exploring Cycloaddition Reactions for the Synthesis of Novel Organic Compounds, Including Microwave Promotion

The work presented here focuses on using the Diels‐Alder reaction as the first step in “catch‐and‐release” strategies for isolating useful organic compounds, especially from natural product extracts. The purpose is to discover better isolation methods than those currently available. The proposed method uses a dienophile attached to a polymeric resin, allowing separation of the adduct from the filtrate by simply rinsing the polymer‐bound adduct with solvents to remove extraneous compounds. Different dienophiles were tested, including 4‐phenyl‐1,2,4‐triazoline‐3,5‐dione, dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate, and diphenyl acetylene. These were reacted with the furan ring of salvinorin A, an extract obtained from a natural product, which acted as the diene. These were tested to find dienophiles that could either potentially be fixed to a polymeric resin or provide some insight as to what conditions salvinorin A might react under. These were reacted in a microwave instrument and characterized with thin layer chromatography and infrared spectrometry. Initial results suggest new Diels‐Alder adducts based on the salvinorin A skeleton, and one reaction that proceeds without heat. Finally, one polymer‐bound dienophile, diethy diazodicarboxylate, was reacted with salvinorin A to produce a polymer‐bound Diels‐Alder adduct