From Railroads to Sand Dunes: An Examination of the Offsetting Doctrine in Partial Takings

Called “shadowy at best,” the offsetting doctrine in partial takings has confused “even trained legal minds” and generated inconsistent decision after inconsistent decision. The offsetting doctrine allows certain benefits, termed special, to offset condemnation awards, while general benefits may not be offset. Courts blindly adhere to the doctrine despite its underpinnings rooted in eighteenth-century public policy, which was based on concerns of overly speculative valuation and arguably erroneous fairness, as well as incorrect interpretations of Takings Clause jurisprudence. Such adherence dramatically increases the cost of financing a takings project. In the face of blind adherence to the doctrine, municipalities are forced to balance the needs of their citizens against the needs of eighteenth-century courts, often resulting in the failure of municipalities to engage in takings for the public benefit. This Note argues that new public policy concerns warrant rejection of the doctrine in favor of a rule that allows all nonspeculative benefits to offset a condemnation award. This rule would take into account modern advances in evidence, promote fairness, simplify the judicial process, and allow municipalities to respond to twentieth-century problems while landowners receive just compensation for taken land

Influence of Temperature on the Physiology and Virulence of the Insect Pathogen Serratia sp. Strain SCBI

The physiology of a newly recognized Serratia species, termed South African Caenorhabditis briggsae Isolate (SCBI), which is both a nematode mutualist and an insect pathogen, was investigated and compared to that of Serratia marcescens Db11, a broad-host-range pathogen. The two Serratia strains had comparable levels of virulence for Manduca sexta and similar cytotoxic activity patterns, but motility and lipase and hemolytic activities differed significantly between them

Molecular Characterization of Protease Activity in Serratia sp. Strain SCBI and Its Importance in Cytotoxicity and Virulence

A newly recognized Serratia species, termed South African Caenorhabditis briggsae isolate (SCBI), is both a mutualist of the nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae KT0001 and a pathogen of lepidopteran insects. Serratia sp. strain SCBI displays high proteolytic activity, and because secreted proteases are known virulence factors for many pathogens, the purpose of this study was to identify genes essential for extracellular protease activity in Serratia sp. strain SCBI and to determine what role proteases play in insect pathogenesis and cytotoxicity. A bank of 2,100 transposon mutants was generated, and six SCBI mutants with defective proteolytic activity were identified. These mutants were also defective in cytotoxicity. The mutants were found defective in genes encoding the following proteins: alkaline metalloprotease secretion protein AprE, a BglB family transcriptional antiterminator, an inosine/xanthosine triphosphatase, GidA, a methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein, and a PIN domain protein. Gene expression analysis on these six mutants showed significant downregulation in mRNA levels of several different types of predicted protease genes. In addition, transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis provided insight into how inactivation of AprE, GidA, and a PIN domain protein influences motility and virulence, as well as protease activity. Using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) to further characterize expression of predicted protease genes in wild-type Serratia sp. SCBI, the highest mRNA levels for the alkaline metalloprotease genes (termed prtA1 to prtA4) occurred following the death of an insect host, while two serine protease and two metalloprotease genes had their highest mRNA levels during active infection. Overall, these results indicate that proteolytic activity is essential for cytotoxicity in Serratia sp. SCBI and that its regulation appears to be highly complex

GMF: A Model Migration Case for the Transformation Tool Contest

Using a real-life evolution taken from the Graphical Modeling Framework, we invite submissions to explore ways in which model transformation and migration tools can be used to migrate models in response to metamodel adaptation.Comment: In Proceedings TTC 2011, arXiv:1111.440

"Weak Quantum Chaos" and its resistor network modeling

Weakly chaotic or weakly interacting systems have a wide regime where the common random matrix theory modeling does not apply. As an example we consider cold atoms in a nearly integrable optical billiard with displaceable wall ("piston"). The motion is completely chaotic but with small Lyapunov exponent. The Hamiltonian matrix does not look like one taken from a Gaussian ensemble, but rather it is very sparse and textured. This can be characterized by parameters $s$ and $g$ that reflect the percentage of large elements, and their connectivity, respectively. For $g$ we use a resistor network calculation that has a direct relation to the semi-linear response characteristics of the system, hence leading to a novel prediction regarding the rate of heating of cold atoms in optical billiards with vibrating walls.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, improved PRE accepted versio

Less than perfect quantum wavefunctions in momentum-space: How phi(p) senses disturbances in the force

We develop a systematic approach to determine the large |p| behavior of the momentum-space wavefunction, phi(p), of a one-dimensional quantum system for wich the position-space wavefunction, psi(x), has a discontinuous derivative at any order. We find that if the k-th derivative of the potential energy function has a discontinuity, there is a corresponding discontinuity in psi^{(k+2)}(x) at the same point. This discontinuity leads directly to a power-law tail in the momentum-space wavefunction proportional to 1/p^{k+3}. A number of familiar pedagogical examples are examined in this context, leading to a general derivation of the result.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Am. J. Phy