Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Common Law Roadmap for State Courts

Part I examines the development of the law legalizing passively hastening death and how this development relied significantly on distinguishing passively hastening death from actively hastening death. Part II subjects the arguments used to legitimate passively hastening death to a traditional criminal law analysis and demonstrates their weaknesses which were simple to conceal when there was little enthusiasm for, and discussion of, the legalization of actively hastening death. The central role of consent in legitimating passively hastening death is analyzed in Part III. Although passively hastening death technically satisfies all of the elements of the crimes of assisted suicide and homicide, it is not illegal because it is legitimated by consent – consent of a competent patient or consent of the surrogate of an incompetent patient. Consent is the mechanism for implementing the fundamental principle. This analysis is applied to actively hastening death in Part IV. Because there is no legally significant distinction between actively and passively hastening death, consent legitimates actively hastening death just as it does passively hastening death. Nonetheless, Part V explores other reasons why actively hastening death ought to be prohibited and concludes that any arguments of any substance that can be made against actively hastening death can be equally applied to passively hastening death and should, therefore, be rejected in the latter as they are in the former. Safeguards must be established to prevent abuse of actively hastening death just as they have for passively hastening death

A Monte Carlo approach to mean-square approximation

Monte Carlo algorithm for mean square approximation

A comparison of lyman alpha and HeI lambda 10830 line structure and variations in early-type star atmospheres

Fabry-Perot interferometric profiles for fifty of the early-type stars including supergiants, eclipsing binaries, Bp and Ap stars, Be and shell stars, and variable stars have been obtained. Results for beta Persei (Algol) just before primary and secondary eclipses show strong emission profiles lasting about 0.1 phase. An absorption line was seen during secondary eclipse. Bright supergiant stars (O9-A2) show time-variable, complicated absorption/emission profiles similar to those obtained for the Be/shell stars

New approaches to some methodological problems of meteor science

Several low cost approaches to continuous radioscatter monitoring of the incoming meteor flux are described. Preliminary experiments were attempted using standard time frequency stations WWVH and CHU (on frequencies near 15 MHz) during nighttime hours. Around-the-clock monitoring using the international standard aeronautical beacon frequency of 75 MHz was also attempted. The techniques are simple and can be managed routinely by amateur astronomers with relatively little technical expertise. Time series analysis can now be performed using relatively inexpensive microcomputers. Several algorithmic approaches to the analysis of meteor rates are discussed. Methods of obtaining optimal filter predictions of future meteor flux are also discussed

Analysis of chlorophyll fluorescence reveals stage specific patterns of chloroplast-containing cells during Arabidopsis embryogenesis

http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-97602010000100012&lng=es&nrm=isoThe basic body plan of a plant is established early in embryogenesis when cells differentiate, giving rise to the apical and basal regions of the embryo. Using chlorophyll fluorescence as a marker for chloroplasts, we have detected specific patterns of chloroplast-containing cells at specific stages of embryogenesis. Non-randomly distributed chloroplast-containing cells are seen as early as the globular stage of embryogenesis in Arabidopsis. In the heart stage of embryogenesis, chloroplast containing cells are detected in epidermal cells as well as a central region of the heart stage embryo, forming a triangular septum of chloroplast-containing cells that divides the embryo into three equal sectors. Torpedo stage embryos have chloroplast-containing epidermal cells and a central band of chloroplast-containing cells in the cortex layer, just below the shoot apical meristem. In the walking-stick stage of embryogenesis, chloroplasts are present in the epidermal, cortex and endodermal cells. The chloroplasts appear reduced or absent from the provascular and columella cells of walking-stick stage embryos. These results suggest that there is a tight regulation of plastid differentiation during embryogenesis that generates specific patterns of chloroplast-containing cells in specific cell layers at specific stages of embryogenesis

A comparison of lyman alpha and He lambda 10830 line structures and variations in early-type star atmospheres

Line profiles were first obtained at maximum velocity separation of the spectroscopic binary Spica (alpha Vir), and then high resolution spectrophotometric images of selected features in the 1.1 micron spectrum of Comet Kohoutek were obtained in order to gain insight into the structures and variations in early-type star atmospheres