Equal Dignity and Unequal Protection: A Framework for Analyzing Disparate Impact Claims

The Supreme Court has long endorsed the theory of the “colorblind” Equal Protection Clause, viewing it as a mandate of only facial equality. Due to rigid doctrine that limits true protection to only a short, stagnant list of fundamental rights and suspect classifications and that requires proof of discriminatory intent, only the most blatant, purposeful inequality is within constitutional reach. Festering outside of this doctrinal sphere are powerful examples of state actions that impose disparate impacts on marginalized communities, such as the nationwide system of laws that disqualify individuals—disproportionately black men—with felony convictions from the jury pool. However, the door to a new approach for combatting such issues may have recently opened. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court embraced the interconnection between the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses to move beyond the restrictions of current equal protection doctrine and strike down same-sex marriage bans. This “equal dignity” approach embraces a different view of equality protection: antisubordination theory, which focuses on ensuring substantive equality. This Note proposes a framework for applying equal dignity, utilizing the example of felon-juror exclusion to argue that it can serve as a principled approach for addressing disparate impact claims

Dynamics beyond dynamic jam; unfolding the Painlev\'e paradox singularity

This paper analyses in detail the dynamics in a neighbourhood of a G\'enot-Brogliato point, colloquially termed the G-spot, which physically represents so-called dynamic jam in rigid body mechanics with unilateral contact and Coulomb friction. Such singular points arise in planar rigid body problems with slipping point contacts at the intersection between the conditions for onset of lift-off and for the Painlev\'e paradox. The G-spot can be approached in finite time by an open set of initial conditions in a general class of problems. The key question addressed is what happens next. In principle trajectories could, at least instantaneously, lift off, continue in slip, or undergo a so-called impact without collision. Such impacts are non-local in momentum space and depend on properties evaluated away from the G-spot. The results are illustrated on a particular physical example, namely the a frictional impact oscillator first studied by Leine et al. The answer is obtained via an analysis that involves a consistent contact regularisation with a stiffness proportional to $1/\varepsilon^2$. Taking a singular limit as $\varepsilon \to 0$, one finds an inner and an outer asymptotic zone in the neighbourhood of the G-spot. Two distinct cases are found according to whether the contact force becomes infinite or remains finite as the G-spot is approached. In the former case it is argued that there can be no such canards and so an impact without collision must occur. In the latter case, the canard trajectory acts as a dividing surface between trajectories that momentarily lift off and those that do not before taking the impact. The orientation of the initial condition set leading to each eventuality is shown to change each time a certain positive parameter $\beta$ passes through an integer

The Chinese Music Industry: Which Strings do Intellectual Property Rights and Social Norms Play?

This paper examines the impact of formal and informal institutions on the Chinese music industry. Standard utilitarian theory states that property rights are essential for innovation and this research tests the effects that intellectual property rights has on the Chinese music industry by using panel data on the provincial level for the years 1997 to 2011. In order to further investigate the Chinese music industry, social norms are studied by the means of a survey conducted in China as well as in Sweden in order to test for cross-cultural differences. The results show that intellectual property rights protection has a positive effect on music production in China. However, this effect is only significant and positive for coastal regions, and not for non-coastal regions. On the microeconomic level, the results further prove that consumer behavior is affected by perceptions of illegality. Furthermore, the results show that Chinese consumers are more accepting of music piracy and have a lower will to pay for music compared to Swedish. Hence, this study demonstrates the importance of social norms and intellectual property rights when it comes to music production and consumption

Assessment of local food distribution

There is increasing interest in local food, as consumers feel confidence in such food. Local food has good opportunities to fulfil quality aspects/requirements of transparency and traceability in the supply chain due to the possibilities for direct interaction between producers and consumers. However, local food producers often face logistics challenges due to their small scale, decentralisation and integration difficulties with larger supply chains. This necessitates analysis of specific logistics systems in order to identify successful approaches for improving the local food supply chain. Important questions are whether local and small-scale food producers can transport their goods more efficiently and how they can improve distribution and its environmental impact. This thesis examined local food distribution systems to determine how cooperation, optimisation and integration in the supply chain can make the distribution systems of local and small-scale food producers more efficient and to estimate the environmental impact of the transport. The work comprised a producer survey examining marketing channels and impediments to development in local supply chains in Sweden, three case studies on distribution systems of different scales and an analysis of the environmental impact of local food distribution, based on quantification of emissions and energy use. The case studies involved small-scale producers integrating their marketing and distribution into a large retail chain using an electronic trading system; the distribution of local food in and around a city; and a distribution system for municipal units in four municipalities. Based on the results, distribution strategies for local and small-scale food producers and distributors were developed and refined. By mapping distribution systems and impediments to development, optimising routes and estimating emissions, potential improvements in the distribution system were identified. This revealed scope for local and small-scale food producers to improve their distribution and reduce their environmental impact. Cooperation, integration and route optimisation are suitable strategies for producers to adopt in order to make their transport more efficient

Does Competition Increase Economic Efficiency in Swedish County Councils?

The Swedish health care system is to a large extent publicly managed by 21 local county councils. During recent years there has been a movement were local county councils have opted to allow more of the production to be performed by alternative producers (i.e. private firms, cooperatives etc.). The purpose of this paper is thus to study if local county councils who has a large proportion of health care performed by alternative producers are more economically efficient than other county councils. The results indicate that county councils with more alternative caregivers are supplying their services more efficiently.Economic efficiency in health care; Data Envelopment Analysis; Tobit regression

Topology of Vibro-Impact Systems in the Neighborhood of Grazing

The grazing bifurcation is considered for the Newtonian model of vibro-impact systems. A brief review on the conditions, sufficient for existence of a grazing family of periodic solutions, is given. The properties of these periodic solutions are discussed. A plenty of results on the topological structure of attractors of vibro-impact systems is known. However, since the considered system is strongly nonlinear, these attractors may be invisible or, at least, very sensitive to changes of parameters of the system. On the other hand, they are observed in experiments and numerical simulations. We offer (Theorem 2) an approach which allows to explain this contradiction and give a new robust mathematical model of the non-hyperbolic dynamics in the neighborhood of grazing.Comment: Submitted to Physica