Five Views of Federalism: Converse-1983 in Context

In 1987, I published an overly long article in the Yale Law Journal entitled Of Sovereignty and Federalism. In it, I advanced a converse-1983 model of federalism-a model that highlighted the ways in which state laws can provide remedies when federal officials violate federal constitutional rights. For example, prior to the 1971 landmark of Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Agents, citizens whose Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by federal officers had no clear federal cause of action; but state trespass law often provided a remedy, and enabled citizens to recover when their persons, houses, papers, [or] effects had been unreasonably searched or seized by federal officials. The point, I suggested, was generalizable. State remedies could often protect citizens against unconstitutional behavior by federal officers, just as federal remedies-such as Section 1983-could often protect citizens against unconstitutional behavior by state officials. Rightly understood, federalism should protect citizens and limit government abuse-in contrast to the Supreme Court\u27s regular invocation of Our Federalism to deny citizens full remedies for constitutional wrongs. Concretely, I argued in 1987 that states should adopt converse-1983 statutes that might invoke and invert the language of section 1983 as follows: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of [the United States], subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of [this state] or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the [United States] Constitution, shall be liable to the party injured in an action of law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. The first draft of this overly long 1987 article was even longer still. Early on, I sketched out four competing models of federalism as foils for my own converse-1983 model. Eventually, I decided to omit this entire section for space reasons. I put the out-take in a drawer. And there it sat, collecting dust, until Barry Friedman phoned to invite me to participate in this symposium on Federalism\u27s Future. I fished the out-take from my drawer, dusted it off, and reread it. What I read seemed precisely relevant to federalism\u27s future- especially because of certain post-1987 developments in the Supreme Court that lead me to hope that the Court is moving in directions congenial to converse-1983. In Part I of what follows, I shall present-with only minor emendations-my original out-take from Of Sovereignty and Federalism, contrasting the converse-1983 model with competing conceptions of federalism. In Part II, I shall describe the post-1987 developments in Supreme Court case law that lead me to hope that converse-1983 can indeed play an important role in federalism\u27s future

The Birds of the Highlands of South-West Saudi Arabia and adjacent parts of the Tihama: July 2010

The objective of the survey was to compare habitats and bird life in the Asir region, particularly Jebal Souda and the Raydah escarpment protected area of the Saudi Wildlife Commission, and adjacent regions of the tihama, with those observed in July 1987 (Jennings, et al., 1988). The two surveys were approximately the same length and equal amounts of time were spent in the highlands and on the tihama. A number of walked censuses were carried out during 2010 on Jebal Souda, using the same methodology as walked censuses in 1987, and the results are compared. Broadly speaking the comparison of censuses revealed that in 2010 there were less birds and reduced diversity on the Jebal Souda plateau, compared to 1987. However in the Raydah reserve the estimates of breeding bird populations compiled in the mid 1990s was little changed as far as could be assessed in 2010. The highland region of south-west Saudi Arabia, especially Jebal Souda, has been much developed since the 1987 survey and is now an important internal recreation and resort area. This has lead to a reduction in the region’s importance for terraced agriculture. These changes may be a contributing factor to changes in bird numbers on the plateau. Subsidiary tasks that arose during the 2010 survey were to help locate satellite tagged Bald Ibises Geronticus eremita from Syria which were transiting Saudi Arabia at the time. Secondly to search for the Asir subspecies of the Eurasian Magpie Pica pica asirensis, which is endemic to the south-west Saudi Arabia highlands, and is reported to be in decline. A separate team searching for the Bald Ibis located some individuals and one was found dead. Few Magpies were located and it seems clear that this very scarce bird has declined further in numbers in recent years. A number of interesting records of birds were obtained, especially on the tihama, where two new birds for Saudi Arabia were observed, Black-headed Heron Ardea melanocephala and Painted Snipe Rostratula benghalensis and one species, Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus was found breeding for the first time in the Arabian Peninsula. Some recommendations for the protection and management of the Raydah reserve are presented. A systematic list of all birds seen is provided

Laplace-Beltrami operator for the heat conduction in polymer coating of electronic devices

In this paper we study a model for the heat conduction in a composite having a microscopic structure arranged in a perodic array. We obtain the macroscopic behaviour of the material via an homogenization procedure, providing the equation satisfied by the effective temperature

Observation of the Inverse Cotton-Mouton Effect

We report the observation of the Inverse Cotton-Mouton Effect (ICME) i.e. a magnetization induced in a medium by non resonant linearly polarized light propagating in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. We present a detailed study of the ICME in a TGG crystal showing the dependence of the measured effect on the light intensity, the optical polarization, and on the external magnetic field. We derive a relation between the Cotton-Mouton and Inverse Cotton-Mouton effects that is roughly in agreement with existing experimental data. Our results open the way to applications of the ICME in optical devices

Comment on ``Solidification of a Supercooled Liquid in a Narrow Channel''

Comment on PRL v. 86, p. 5084 (2001) [cond-mat/0101016]. We point out that the authors' simulations are consistent with the known theory of steady-state solutions in this system

Exact results with the J-integral applied to free-boundary flows

We apply the J-integral to free-boundary flows in a channel geometry such as viscous fingering or blob injection in Hele-Shaw cells, void propagation in electromigration, and injection of air bubbles into inviscid liquids. The theory of that and related conservation integrals, developed in elasticity, is outlined in a way that is applicable to fluid mechanics problems. Depending on the boundary conditions, for infinite bubbles in Laplacian fields we are able to use the J-integral to predict finger width if such solutions exist or to predict that there are no solutions. For finite sized bubbles, bounds can sometimes be derived. In the case of Hele-Shaw flows, in which solutions appear as a continuum, finger width cannot be constrained, but we do obtain a new derivation and generalization of Richardson moment conservation. Applications to vortex motion are also outlined briefly.Earth and Planetary SciencesEngineering and Applied Science

Plasmodium falciparum: detection and strain identification of Indian isolates by polymerase chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was employed for detection and strain identification of P. falciparum in a comparative field study of Indian isolates. The primers were selected from highly conserved regions flanking the variable, tandemly repeated regions of highly polymorphic cell surface antigens, major merozoite surface antigen-1 (MSP-1), major surface antigen-2 (MSP-2), circumsporozoite surface antigen (CSP) and ring-infected erythrocyte surface antigen (RESA). Out of the 52 microscopically positive P. falciparum infected field samples, 47 samples were positive by PCR. Variation in the size of the amplified products was observed using MSP-1, MSP-2 specific primers respectively in different field isolates of P. falciparum, but CSP and RESA did not exhibit any variation in size of the amplified product. The multiplex PCR results demonstrated that amplified products from these surface antigens vary in size and there is a specific pattern for each strain and this could be utilized to identify a particular field isolate. One P. falciparum infected field sample detected by the above PCR method was found to be a mixed infection by two different strains. Five microscopically positive P. vivax infeced samples were also analyzed by PCR method using P. falciparum cell surface antigen (MSP-2) specific primers. PCR results showed one P. vivax infected sample was positive when P. falciparum specific primers were used, this could be due to inaccurate and reduced limit of detection of Plasmodial species by microscopic examination