Does The (Largely Unknown) Administrative Law Process Protect Or Abuse Citizens Rights?

Administrative law consists generally of the rules, orders, and decisions of federal, state, and local government agencies established to perform a specific function.The Administrative Procedure Act, other legislation, and court decisions have established administrative agencies as a large power base, largely insulated from electoral accountability, at both the federal and state levels.Most citizens are unaware of the extent of such power, and of the extent such power can be exercised with minimal transparency. This paper reviews and evaluates the federal administrative law process, examines differing practices followed in various states and foreign countries, and suggests potential changes to make the process more accountable and transparent, and to preserve better the rights of parties to both procedural and substantive due process

Illegal Immigration: A World-Class Solution

Theproblem of illegal or undocumented immigrants has become a large one in the UnitedStates, and the intensity of emotions involved make finding a solution moredifficult.  The extreme polarization divideseven those who are otherwise of the same or similar political persuasion.  This paper reviews the legal issues involvedat each point in the process of dealing with undocumented or illegalimmigrants, examines workable solutions in place in other countries to identifyalternatives, analyzes those alternative solutions, and proposes what theauthors believe to be a practical and reasonable approach to addressing theproblem

Revisiting rho 1 Cancri e: A New Mass Determination Of The Transiting super-Earth

We present a mass determination for the transiting super-Earth rho 1 Cancri e based on nearly 700 precise radial velocity (RV) measurements. This extensive RV data set consists of data collected by the McDonald Observatory planet search and published data from Lick and Keck observatories (Fischer et al. 2008). We obtained 212 RV measurements with the Tull Coude Spectrograph at the Harlan J. Smith 2.7 m Telescope and combined them with a new Doppler reduction of the 131 spectra that we have taken in 2003-2004 with the High-Resolution-Spectrograph (HRS) at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) for the original discovery of rho 1 Cancri e. Using this large data set we obtain a 5-planet Keplerian orbital solution for the system and measure an RV semi-amplitude of K = 6.29 +/- 0.21 m/s for rho 1 Cnc e and determine a mass of 8.37 +/- 0.38 M_Earth. The uncertainty in mass is thus less than 5%. This planet was previously found to transit its parent star (Winn et al. 2011, Demory et al. 2011), which allowed them to estimate its radius. Combined with the latest radius estimate from Gillon et al. (2012), we obtain a mean density of rho = 4.50 +/- 0.20 g/cm^3. The location of rho 1 Cnc e in the mass-radius diagram suggests that the planet contains a significant amount of volitales, possibly a water-rich envelope surrounding a rocky core.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (the 300+ RV measurements will be published as online tables or can be obtained from the author

Beyond the Classroom: Mentoring in the CIS Academic Community

Elliot Soloway, noted author and teacher, recently observed in a presentation at ACM\u2797 in San Jose, that human interaction and nurturing are as much a part of the educational process as is the discipline knowledge. He went on to state that no use of technology can replace this human element. Although the classroom is the traditional instructional forum for issues such as professional ethics, responsibility to society, and the need for a life-long learning, a more individualized approach to learning is recognized as providing a higher degree of success. How can educators provide a more individualized approach to learning without sacrificing classroom content? One answer is Mentoring. Several years ago, our university established a mentoring program for certain high-risk students. The School of Computer and Information Science (CIS) embraced the mentoring concept and extended it to involve CIS majors for in-class and out-of-class activities. In this paper we describe the mentoring process as it occurs in our CIS community

Rapid assessment of tissue nitrogen in cultivated Gracilaria gracilis (Rhodophyta) and Ulva lactuca (Chlorophyta)

Tissue nitrogen content and thallus colour were quantified using a rapid assessment method based on the Pantone® matt uncoated formula guide for raft-cultivated Gracilaria gracilis Steentoft Irvine et Farnham at Saldanha Bay and tank-cultivated Ulva lactuca Linnaeus at Jacobsbaai in 2001 – 2002. A relationship between thallus colour and tissue nitrogen, as well as a transition between green-yellows and yellow-browns that occurs between 0.8 – 1.3 mg N per g tissue (Pantone® colours 460U – 455U) for Gracilaria were found, with the green-yellow colour indicating nitrogen-starved material and the yellow-browns indicating nitrogen-replete material. For Ulva a transition between green and yellow-green occurred at a tissue nitrogen content of between 1.5 – 1.7 mg N per g tissue (Pantone® colours 585U and 583U). This relationship can be used by seaweed farmers for cultivation management as a quick guide to determine nutritional status of the seaweeds, and as an indication of protein content when the seaweeds are used as feeds.Web of Scienc

Aluminum and Phosphorus Separation: Application to Preparation of Target from Brain Tissue for \u3csup\u3e26\u3c/sup\u3eAl Determination by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Acid digested brain containing 4 mg added 27Al was ashed at 1000°C to prepare an Al2O3 target for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis of 26Al. A glass-like material usually resulted which was thought to be aluminum (Al) oxyphosphate. The separation of Al and phosphate was investigated. Al, but not phosphate, was bound by a cation exchange resin (AG 50-X8). Hydrofluoric acid eluted the Al from the resin. Removal of phosphate from acid digested brain by this method produced an amorphous material after ashing that was easier to recover from the porcelain crucible and had a higher AMS beam current. This procedure to separate Al from phosphate may have utility in other applications