Just Another Kid with a Gun? United States v. Michael R.: Reviewing the Youth Handgun Safety Act Under the United States v. Lopez Commerce Clause Analysis

The Lopez decision prompted many defendants, charged under a wide variety of federal statutes, to attack those statutes as unconstitutional under the new commercial activity test. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed one such challenge in United States v. Michael R. Section II of this note discusses Michael R.\u27s facts and procedural history. Section III outlines the history of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, with an emphasis on the recent change in the Supreme Court\u27s review of Congress\u27 use of the commerce power under Lopez. In addition, Section III details the legislative history of the Youth Handgun Safety Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(x), the law under which Michael R. was prosecuted and which Congress intended to be an exercise of the commerce power. Section IV analyzes the Ninth Circuit\u27s reasoning in Michael R. Section V critiques this reasoning in light of the Supreme Court\u27s holding in Lopez, and prior Commerce Clause history, and finds that Michael R. further substantiates the theory that the judiciary is not the branch of government that should define the limits of federalism. Finally, Section VI concludes that despite its initial fanfare as either revolutionary or reactionary, subsequent cases, such as Michael R., indicate that Lopez does not represent a new era of Commerce Clause review

Just Another Kid with a Gun? United States v. Michael R.: Reviewing the Youth Handgun Safety Act Under the United States v. Lopez Commerce Clause Analysis

The Lopez decision prompted many defendants, charged under a wide variety of federal statutes, to attack those statutes as unconstitutional under the new commercial activity test. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed one such challenge in United States v. Michael R. Section II of this note discusses Michael R.\u27s facts and procedural history. Section III outlines the history of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, with an emphasis on the recent change in the Supreme Court\u27s review of Congress\u27 use of the commerce power under Lopez. In addition, Section III details the legislative history of the Youth Handgun Safety Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(x), the law under which Michael R. was prosecuted and which Congress intended to be an exercise of the commerce power. Section IV analyzes the Ninth Circuit\u27s reasoning in Michael R. Section V critiques this reasoning in light of the Supreme Court\u27s holding in Lopez, and prior Commerce Clause history, and finds that Michael R. further substantiates the theory that the judiciary is not the branch of government that should define the limits of federalism. Finally, Section VI concludes that despite its initial fanfare as either revolutionary or reactionary, subsequent cases, such as Michael R., indicate that Lopez does not represent a new era of Commerce Clause review

GPCALMA: A Tool For Mammography With A GRID-Connected Distributed Database

The GPCALMA (Grid Platform for Computer Assisted Library for MAmmography) collaboration involves several departments of physics, INFN sections, and italian hospitals. The aim of this collaboration is developing a tool that can help radiologists in early detection of breast cancer. GPCALMA has built a large distributed database of digitised mammographic images (about 5500 images corresponding to 1650 patients) and developed a CAD (Computer Aided Detection) software which is integrated in a station that can also be used for acquire new images, as archive and to perform statistical analysis. The images are completely described: pathological ones have a consistent characterization with radiologist's diagnosis and histological data, non pathological ones correspond to patients with a follow up at least three years. The distributed database is realized throught the connection of all the hospitals and research centers in GRID tecnology. In each hospital local patients digital images are stored in the local database. Using GRID connection, GPCALMA will allow each node to work on distributed database data as well as local database data. Using its database the GPCALMA tools perform several analysis. A texture analysis, i.e. an automated classification on adipose, dense or glandular texture, can be provided by the system. GPCALMA software also allows classification of pathological features, in particular massive lesions analysis and microcalcification clusters analysis. The performance of the GPCALMA system will be presented in terms of the ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curves. The results of GPCALMA system as "second reader" will also be presented.Comment: 6 pages, Proceedings of the Seventh Mexican Symposium on Medical Physics 2003, Vol. 682/1, pp. 67-72, Mexico City, Mexic

Newtonian, Post Newtonian and Parameterized Post Newtonian limits of f(R, G) gravity

We discuss in detail the weak field limit of f(R,G) gravity taking into account analytic functions of the Ricci scalar R and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant G. Specifically, we develop, in metric formalism, the Newtonian, Post Newtonian and Parameterized Post Newtonian limits starting from general f(R, G) Lagrangian. The special cases of f(R) and f(G) gravities are considered. In the case of the Newtonian limit of f(R, G) gravity, a general solution in terms of Green's functions is achieved.Comment: 26 page

Editorial: Security and privacy in Internet of Things

J. M. de Fuentes, L. Gonzalez-Manzano and P. Peris-Lopez have been partially supported by MINECO grants TIN2013-46469-R and TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R, and CAM grant S2013/ICE-3095

R2log⁡RR^2\log R quantum corrections and the inflationary observables

We study a model of inflation with terms quadratic and logarithmic in the Ricci scalar, where the gravitational action is $f(R)=R+\alpha R^2+\beta R^2 \ln R$. These terms are expected to arise from one loop corrections involving matter fields in curved space-time. The spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor to scalar ratio yield $10^{-4}\lesssim r\lesssim0.03$ and $0.94\lesssim n_s \lesssim 0.99$. i.e. $r$ is an order of magnitude bigger or smaller than the original Starobinsky model which predicted $r\sim 10^{-3}$. Further enhancement of $r$ gives a scale invariant $n_s\sim 1$ or higher. Other inflationary observables are $d n_s/d\ln k \gtrsim -5.2 \times 10^{-4},\, \mu \lesssim 2.1 \times 10^{-8} ,\, y \lesssim 2.6 \times 10^{-9}$. Despite the enhancement in $r$, if the recent BICEP2 measurement stands, this model is disfavoured.Comment: LaTeX, 9+1 pages, 5 figure

New Mexico Water Stake in the Colorado River

Presenter: Estevan R. Lopez, Interstate Stream Commission, New Mexico. 2 pages

Neutrino Mass Effects in a Minimally Extended Supersymmetric Standard Model

We consider an extension of the supersymmetric standard model which includes singlet Higgs superfield representations (in three generations) to generate neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism. The resulting theory may then exhibit R-parity violation in the couplings of the singlets, inducing $R$-parity violating effective interactions among the standard model superfields, as well as inducing decay of the lightest neutralino, which otherwise would compose a stable LSP. We compute the rates for the resulting neutralino decays, depending on the particular superpotential couplings responsible for the violation of R-parity. We compare to astrophysical constraints on the decay of massive particles.Comment: 12 pages, plain LATEX, 3 non-LATEX figures available in hardcopy on request; one reference corrected; Alberta-THY-2/94, UMN-TH-1237/9