Spurious Legislation and Spurious Mandamus in Florida

The Florida Supreme Court has, in a number of recent cases, issued peremptory writs of mandamus directing the secretary of state to expunge designated wording from the official legislative record, of which he is the constitutional custodian. The author argues that these holdings constitute a clear abuse of this extraordinary writ, most recently as a mere pretext for bringing a constitutional challenge to the validity of a statute within the original jurisdiction of the supreme court. The author also proposes a conceptual framework for dealing with a material variation in wording between a bill as enacted by the legislature and the same bill as it is signed into law by the governor

Spurious Legislation and Spurious Mandamus in Florida

The Florida Supreme Court has, in a number of recent cases, issued peremptory writs of mandamus directing the secretary of state to expunge designated wording from the official legislative record, of which he is the constitutional custodian. The author argues that these holdings constitute a clear abuse of this extraordinary writ, most recently as a mere pretext for bringing a constitutional challenge to the validity of a statute within the original jurisdiction of the supreme court. The author also proposes a conceptual framework for dealing with a material variation in wording between a bill as enacted by the legislature and the same bill as it is signed into law by the governor

Brayton-cycle turbomachinery rolling- element bearing system Second quarterly report, Oct. 2, 1965 - Jan. 2, 1966

Rolling-element bearing lubrication system and turboalternator and turbine compressor rotor for Brayton cycle space power sourc

Old Regrowth Forest Patches as Habitat for the Conservation of Avian Diversity in a Southwest Ohio Landscape

Author Institution: Department of Geography, Miami UniversityLandscape fragmentation and chronic habitat loss are potentially profound obstacles to the protection of mature forest birds in the eastern deciduous forest of the Corn Belt agricultural region. Because of the general absence of large remnant forests, conservation efforts need to better understand the role of very small ‘regrowth’ patches for bird conservation. This study investigated how small old regrowth forests contribute to regional bird diversity and differ in composition in relation to their physical, ecological, and landscape attributes. From May to late June 2009, we measured forest composition and structure, and conducted avian point count surveys in nine regrowth patches, 0.9 - 11.2 ha, embedded in the Miami University Natural Areas, Butler County, Ohio. These small patches conserved 68 percent of the recorded regional birds, including 94 percent of mature forest breeders. Site differences among the nine patches explained the designation of avian community types as primarily upland, floodplain, and transitional between these settings. These findings demonstrate the conservation significance of small, old regrowth patches for mature forest birds and support the conservation of these forests across a range of physical, ecological, and landscape settings

Dry coniferous forests in the Western Oregon Cascades

Pseudotsuga menziesii dominates the forests of the Pacific Northwest. But though it is dominat, Tsuaa heteroohylla or Abies amabilis is usually climax. Many researchers have studied Pseudotsuga on the widespread mesic sites where it is seral, but few have examined the relatively rare ecosystems in which Pseudotsuga or its associate Libocedrus decurrens are the climax species. This is a study of the composition, structure and successional dynamics of climax Pseudo- tsuga and Libocedrus (dry site) forests in the central portion of the Western Cascades in Oregon. The environment of dry site forests is characterized at seven reference stands (five dry sites) using predawn plant moisture stress (Waring and Cleary, 1967) and temperature growth index (Waring et. al., 1972). As expected, the study type is hotter and drier than adjacent Tsuga-climax sites. The data suggest that low moisture availability is more critical to the occurrence of Pseudotsuga-climax habitat than is high temperature. Seventy-three vegetation plots are located throughout the study area, 56 in dry site stands. The location, composition, and soils of five plant communities, including two phases, are described based on this data set. Information from fire scars and tree ages on the vegetation plots indicates these forests burn at irregular intervals that average 100 years. Since initiation of the oldest cohort, most stands have experienced one or more fires which typically kill only a portion of the trees. Stand history and successional processes are investigated on two intensive plots using primarily age structures and fire scars. These stands have each been burned twice by fires that consumed only a portion of the canopy. Regeneration following these fires was slow and continued for a century or more. Height growth of 40 dry site Pseudotsuga is examined and found to start more slowly but continue at a greater rate later in life than Pseudotsgua on mesic sites. These characteristics of dry site ecosystems have several management implications. A shelterwood silvicultural system is recommended on dry sites. The overstory will ameliorate the hot, dry environment and occupy the site during the long regeneration period. This silvicultural system approximates the natural functioning of these systems more closely than clear cutting. Maximum mean annual increment occurs relatively later on dry sites due to the slow, prolonged height growth. Relatively slow reproduction further retards mean annual increment. Thus, if high volume growth is a management goal, rotations must be longer than on mesic sites. Due to relatively linear height growth curves and reverse Jshape diameter distributions on dry sites, McArdle et. al.'s (1961) site index curves and yield tables are not applicable