Single-strain-gage force/stiffness buckling prediction techniques on a hat-stiffened panel

Predicting the buckling characteristics of a test panel is necessary to ensure panel integrity during a test program. A single-strain-gage buckling prediction method was developed on a hat-stiffened, monolithic titanium buckling panel. The method is an adaptation of the original force/stiffness method which requires back-to-back gages. The single-gage method was developed because the test panel did not have back-to-back gages. The method was used to predict buckling loads and temperatures under various heating and loading conditions. The results correlated well with a finite element buckling analysis. The single-gage force/stiffness method was a valid real-time and post-test buckling prediction technique

Money Laundering: Business Beware

This Article examines the constitutionality of the Anti-Money Laundering Statutes. Specifically, the Article stresses that the Anti-Money Laundering Statutes, like RICO, are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad when applied to routine business transactions. Accordingly, Part II summarizes the void for vagueness and overbreadth doctrines. Part III sets forth the elements of the Anti-Money Laundering Statutes and then examines these elements under both doctrines. Part IV discusses how the lack of guidelines and, in some cases, the lack of prosecutorial discretion exacerbates the problems of vagueness and overbreadth. The Article concludes with the suggestion that guidelines similar to those adopted for RICO are needed to prevent overzealous prosecutors from applying the Anti-Money Laundering Statutes beyond their intended purpose

How America Tolerates Racism in Jury Selection

This Op-ed by Professor Larry Thompson appeared in the New York Times on October 30, 2015. Professor Thompson discusses the case, Foster v. Chatman, which will be heard by the Supreme Court on November 2, 2015. In this case, the Court will decide whether the exclusion of jurors intended to unconstitutionally influence the jury’s racial make-up in a capital murder case in Georgia

The Responsible Corporation: Its Historical Roots and Continuing Promise

During corporate America’s Gilded Age, satirist Ambrose Bierce defined a corporation as “[a]n ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” One need not accept that definition to recognize that it captures a debate about corporations that has preoccupied America for more than a century: Does a corporation have any responsibility to society? Or, is its only obligation to maximize profits for its shareholders? Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman famously stated that a corporation has “one and only one social responsibility”— “to increase its profits . . . . ” “Few trends,” he wrote, “could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.” “This,” we are told, “is a fundamentally subversive doctrine.

Adrift on a Sea of Uncertainty: Preserving Uniformity in Patent Law Post-Vornado Through Deference to the Federal Circuit

Congress created the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982, and granted that court exclusive appellate jurisdiction over civil actions arising under patent law. Congress\u27s primary goals in creating the Federal Circuit were to produce a more uniform patent jurisprudence and to reduce forum shopping based on favorable patent law. But in the 2002 decision of Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, the Supreme Court held that patent counterclaims alone could not create Federal Circuit jurisdiction. This decision not only overruled the Federal Circuit\u27s longstanding jurisdictional rule, but also opened the door for Regional Circuit Courts of Appeals (RCCOAs) to decide appeals where patent claims appear only as counterclaims. Because RCCOAs generally do not defer to the decisions of coordinate federal courts (what can be termed the rule of no deference), RCCOAs will be able to independently develop patent caselaw - threatening the goals for which the Federal Circuit was created. To date, the scholarly response to Vornado\u27s problems has focused on approaches expanding the Federal Circuit\u27s jurisdiction. Commentators addressing deference to the Federal Circuit\u27s patent precedents have either assumed that deference is impossible or impractical, or have mentioned deference as an option only in passing. No one yet has analyzed in detail the case for deference to the Federal Circuit. This article provides that analysis. It explains why the traditional justifications for the rule of no deference are inapplicable here, why deference to the Federal Circuit serves Congressional intent, and why the reasons for such deference compare favorably to established exceptions to the rule of no deference. The article also suggests a particular scope and level of deference, and explains deference\u27s superiority as a long-term solution over jurisdictional modifications. The article should be particularly useful to practitioners and judges faced with these issues in the short-term, and should facilitate inquiry by legislators and academics into a long-term resolution

“Oversight of the False Claims Act” testimony by Professor Larry D. Thompson before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice

Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law Larry D. Thompson testifies in a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice hearing on “Oversight of the False Claims Act.” The purpose of the hearing was to examine the act’s success and seek ways “to prevent, detect and eliminate false claims costing taxpayer dollars, while ensuring fair and just results.

The State of the Judiciary: A Corporate Perspective

The rule of law depends on highly talented, independent judges who conscientiously strive to ensure that the law is consistently applied in a principled and predictable manner. This Essay addresses two potential threats to judicial independence and the rule of law that we believe warrant special attention at this time. First, inadequate judicial salaries pose a threat to the quality and independence of the judiciary. Judges\u27 real pay has declined substantially over the past generation, even as the compensation of other callings within the legal profession has risen dramatically. This growing disparity in pay has prompted an increasing number of experienced judges to leave the bench and has discouraged many of our most talented and experienced lawyers from accepting judicial nomination. Furthermore, as judicial compensation has declined, judicial appointees have increasingly come to the bench from the public rather than the private sector. This trend likely does not bode well for a balanced judiciary. We believe that judicial compensation should be increased substantially at both the federal and state levels. Second, the central role the jury has come to play in American tort law undermines the consistency and predictability that are the hallmarks of the rule of law. When juries, rather than judges, determine basic issues of liability as opposed to resolving issues of fact, similarly situated litigants may receive widely varying results from different juries. In addition, empirical studies indicate that juries treat corporate defendants differently from similarly situated individual defendants, holding corporations to a higher standard of care and assessing significantly higher damages against corporations when they find liability. The direct and indirect costs of such inconsistent and discriminatory treatment harm not only corporations, but also employees, shareholders, and consumers. Judges can and should play a greater role in resolving liability questions in tort disputes in order to restore clarity, consistency, predictability, and accountability to this area of the law

Preserved Grasshopper Fauna Of Knife Point Glacier, Fremont County, Wyoming, U.S.A.

In 1987 and 1988, samples of preserved insects were extracted from the ice of Knife Point Glacier, Fremont County, Wyoming. The glacier lies at an altitude of 3500 m a.s.l. in the Shoshone National Forest, Wind River Range, and is known to contain preserved insects. Although the glacier has undergone extensive recession in the last 50 yr, some insect deposits are still embedded at 20 to 25 cm below the surface and perhaps much deeper. The frozen deposits appear to consist entirely of grasshoppers. A few, virtually intact, specimens and body parts were in a state of preservation that allowed their identification as Spharagemon campestris McNeill and Melanoplus spretus (Walsh) or M. sanguinipes (F.). The majority of the deposits consisted of partial bodies and isolated parts, including, in order of frequency: mandibles, tibiae, tentoria, femora, wings (primarily tegmina), and cingulae/epiphalli. Deposits from various depths and locations on the glacier were radiocarbon dated at 205 + 65 to 450 + 80 yr BP. Although access to the glacier is quite difficult, the insects are better preserved than any glacial deposit documented in recent history. Thus, the state of preservation and age of the frozen deposits would suggest that additional, intensive sampling may be valuable in obtain- ing information on the ecology of grasshoppers prior to European settlement of North America

Preserved Grasshopper Fauna Of Knife Point Glacier, Fremont County, Wyoming, U.S.A.

In 1987 and 1988, samples of preserved insects were extracted from the ice of Knife Point Glacier, Fremont County, Wyoming. The glacier lies at an altitude of 3500 m a.s.l. in the Shoshone National Forest, Wind River Range, and is known to contain preserved insects. Although the glacier has undergone extensive recession in the last 50 yr, some insect deposits are still embedded at 20 to 25 cm below the surface and perhaps much deeper. The frozen deposits appear to consist entirely of grasshoppers. A few, virtually intact, specimens and body parts were in a state of preservation that allowed their identification as Spharagemon campestris McNeill and Melanoplus spretus (Walsh) or M. sanguinipes (F.). The majority of the deposits consisted of partial bodies and isolated parts, including, in order of frequency: mandibles, tibiae, tentoria, femora, wings (primarily tegmina), and cingulae/epiphalli. Deposits from various depths and locations on the glacier were radiocarbon dated at 205 + 65 to 450 + 80 yr BP. Although access to the glacier is quite difficult, the insects are better preserved than any glacial deposit documented in recent history. Thus, the state of preservation and age of the frozen deposits would suggest that additional, intensive sampling may be valuable in obtain- ing information on the ecology of grasshoppers prior to European settlement of North America