Strict in Theory, but Accommodating in Fact

As law students quickly learn, the strict-scrutiny test governs challenges under the Equal Protection Clause to the government\u27s use of suspect classifications and infringement on certain fundamental rights. To survive strict scrutiny, the government bears the heavy burden of showing a compelling interest in drawing a suspect classification or infringing on a fundamental right and narrowly tailored means to achieve that interest. Over the years, strict scrutiny has expanded to serve as a bulwark against government intrusions on many fundamental rights and liberties in the United States Constitution - including the right to vote, marry, access the courts, and freedom of speech and association. At times, the United States Supreme Court was so demanding of the government in its application ofstrict scrutiny that no government action seemed capable of meeting its demands. This prompted the Supreme Court justices to counter, in at least eleven individual and majority opinions, that strict scrutiny was not strict in theory, but fatal in fact. So long as the government met its burden - albeit a highly demanding one - the Court would uphold the government action as constitutional. But times have changed Strict scrutiny is strict no more. In its attempt to remedy the perceived rigidity of strict scrutiny, the Supreme Court overcorrected. The pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction. In a recent line of Supreme Court decisions, justices in majority and dissenting opinions have diluted the strict-scrutiny test with a strong dose of deference to the government. Out of these decisions emerges a test that is strict in theory, but accommodating in fact. This Article is an analysis and critique of deferential strict scrutiny. The Article reveals inconsistencies in the Court\u27s use of run-of-the-mill strict scrutiny and deferential strict scrutiny, which have left government actors uncertain about the constitutionality of their conduct and the lower courts in a quandary as to which version of strict scrutiny to apply and when. The Article argues that, if unconstrained, this newly minted version of strict scrutiny - which allows the government to avoid an exacting constitutional inquiry - puts at risk the very liberties that strict scrutiny was designed to protect

The Origins and Limits of Originalism: A Comparative Study

In the debate about originalism in the United States, scholars have devoted scant attention to the question whether the United States stands alone in its fascination with originalism. According to the prevailing view, originalism is distinctively American and the study of comparative originalism is an oxymoron. This Article challenges that conventional view. Drawing on neglected Turkish-language sources, the Article analyzes, as a comparative case study, the use of originalism by the Turkish Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi) to interpret the secularism provisions in the Turkish Constitution. Comparing the Turkish version of originalism to American originalism, the Article sheds light on broader debates in the United States about the origins, functioning, and limits of originalism. This comparative study calls into question the existing theories in the American legal literature about why originalism thrives in certain nations. This Article suggests a new hypothesis that views support for originalism as a cultural, not legal, phenomenon: originalism blossoms in a nation when a political leader associated with the creation or revision of the nation\u27s Constitution develops a cult of personality. The cult-of-personality hypothesis explains why originalism has thrived in nations such as Turkey and the United States, where the nation\u27s founders have developed a strong cult of personality, but has failed to find a strong and sustained following in nations such as Australia, where the founders are held in no special reverence. The Turkish case study is also instructive on the limits of originalism. Critics of originalism in the United States argue that originalism allows the dead hand of the past to rule an evolving society. In response to the critics, originalists note that the legislature has the option of amending the Constitution if its original meaning no longer comports with societal norms. But what if constitutional amendment were not an available option? The Turkish case study suggests that when the legislature lacks a plausible method--however difficult it may be--for amending the Constitution in times evolving societal norms, the continued use of originalism by the judiciary may motivate the legislature to place political constraints on the courts. In Turkey, the Constitutional Court\u27s embrace of originalism but rejection of legislative attempts to amend the Constitution led to the adoption of a court-packing plan in September 2010

Seeking Information Using Search Engines: The Impact of Negation on Judgments

We examine how online searches lead to judgment formation in two contexts where statements are negated differently. In one context, a statement (of the form “if P then Q”) is negated using “not” (as in “if P then not Q”), while in the other context, it is negated using a different term or phrase (as in “if P then R”). We show that online searches to find information about the validity of this statement generate different results in these contexts. Our findings contribute to extant work on online searches by suggesting that when individuals test the validity of a statement using search engines, their searches lead to categorically different results contingent on the search context. From a practical standpoint, we make recommendations to search engine developers and content providers so online searches generate more inclusive results

Improving the Quality of Knowledge Assets: Governance Mechanisms and Their Implications

Knowledge management initiatives are less likely to be successful if knowledge repositories do not provide high-quality knowledge assets. Two mechanisms employed by organizations to ensure knowledge quality are using experts to control or edit users’ contributions (such as in a refereed repository), and using a community of users to review, rate, or edit existing contributions (such as in a community-driven wiki). The goal of this paper is to explore these two mechanisms by drawing upon the concept of societal governance from sociology, identify the conditions under which they are preferable, and discuss their impact on how users contribute to and reuse information from knowledge repositories. Propositions are suggested and implications are discussed

Navigating Workload Compatibility Between a Recommender System and a NoSQL Database: An Interactive Tutorial

In this tutorial, the issue of compatibility between a big data storage technology and an analytic workload is explored using a fictitious streaming company as an example. The tutorial offers an interactive approach to help students understand the importance of considering workload compatibility when adopting new technologies. We provide instructors with two Jupyter Notebooks that analyze the compatibility, a detailed instructor guide on how to execute these notebooks, lessons learned, and appendices containing solutions and explanations. This tutorial provides a valuable resource for instructors teaching courses in database systems, big data, and analytic concepts, helping students develop practical skills to navigate the complexities of big data technologies effectively

Single dose of intra-muscular platelet rich plasma reverses the increase in plasma iron levels in exercise-induced muscle damage: A pilot study

Background Platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy is widely used in enhancing the recovery of skeletal muscle from injury. However, the impact of intramuscular delivery of PRP on hematologic and biochemical responses has not been fully elucidated in exercise-induced muscle damage. The purpose of this investigation the effects of intramuscular delivery of PRP on hematologic and biochemical responses and recovery strategy muscle damage induced by high intensity muscle exercise (exercise-induced muscle damage, EIMD). Methods Moderately active male volunteers participated in this study and were assigned to a control group (control, n = 6) and PRP administration group (PRP, n = 6). The subjects performed exercise with a load of 80% one repetition maximum (1RM) maximal voluntary contraction of the elbow flexors until point of exhaustion of the non-dominant arm was reached. The arms were treated with saline or autologous PRP post-24 h EIMD. Venous blood samples were obtained in the morning to establish a baseline value and 1–4 days post-exercise and were analyzed for serum ferritin, iron, iron binding capacity (IBC), creatinine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). Results The baseline levels of plasma iron, ferritin, IBC, CK, LDH, AST, and ALT were similar in both the control and PRP groups. However, 24-h following exercise a significant increase in these parameters was observed in both groups between 1 and 4 days during the recovery period. Interestingly, PRP administration decreased plasma iron levels compared to the control on the second day post-exercise. Plasma IBC increased in PRP group from Days 2 to 4 post-exercise compared to the control group whilst PRP administration had no effect on plasma ferritin, CK, AST, ALT, or LDH. Conclusion Acute exhaustive exercise increased muscle damage markers, including plasma iron, IBC, and ferritin levels, indicating muscle damage induced by exercise. PRP administration improves inflammation by reversing the increase in the iron levels post-exercise without displaying any myotoxicity and may have a role to play in the recovery of exercise-induced muscle damage

Absolute properties of the binary system BB pegasi

We present ground-based photometry of the low-temperature contact binary BB Peg. We collected all the times of mid-eclipse available in the literature and combined them with those obtained in this study. Analyses of the data indicate a period increase of (3.0 ± 0.1) × 10-8 days yr -1. This period increase of BB Peg can be interpreted in terms of the mass transfer 2.4 × 10-8 M⊙ yr-1 from the less massive to the more massive component. The physical parameters have been determined as Mc = 1.42M⊙, Mh = 0.53 M⊙, Rc = 1.29 R⊙, Rh, = 0.83 R⊙, Lc = 1.86 L⊙, and L h = 0.94 L⊙ through simultaneous solutions of light and of the radial velocity curves. The orbital parameters of the third body, which orbits the contact system in an eccentric orbit, were obtained from the period variation analysis. The system is compared to the similar binaries in the Hertzsprung-Russell and mass-radius diagrams.Ege University Research Fund and TÜBİTAK National Observator

Astronomical Site Selection for Turkey Using GIS Techniques

A site selection of potential observatory locations in Turkey have been carried out by using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) coupled with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and satellite imagery which in turn reduced cost and time and increased the accuracy of the final outcome. The layers of cloud cover, digital elevation model, artificial lights, precipitable water vapor, aerosol optical thickness and wind speed were studied in the GIS system. In conclusion of MCDA, the most suitable regions were found to be located in a strip crossing from southwest to northeast including also a diverted region in southeast of Turkey. These regions are thus our prime candidate locations for future on-site testing. In addition to this major outcome, this study has also been applied to locations of major observatories sites. Since no goal is set for \textit{the best}, the results of this study is limited with a list of positions. Therefore, the list has to be further confirmed with on-site tests. A national funding has been awarded to produce a prototype of an on-site test unit (to measure both astronomical and meteorological parameters) which might be used in this list of locations.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Experimental Astronom

CoDet: Sentence-based containment detection in news corpora

We study a generalized version of the near-duplicate detection problem which concerns whether a document is a subset of another document. In text-based applications, document containment can be observed in exact-duplicates, near-duplicates, or containments, where the first two are special cases of the third. We introduce a novel method, called CoDet, which focuses particularly on this problem, and compare its performance with four well-known near-duplicate detection methods (DSC, full fingerprinting, I-Match, and SimHash) that are adapted to containment detection. Our method is expandable to different domains, and especially suitable for streaming news. Experimental results show that CoDet effectively and efficiently produces remarkable results in detecting containments. © 2011 ACM