Zero gravity crystal growth Final report

Experimental device for growing crystals under zero gravity condition

Black-Box Immigration Federalism

In Immigration Outside the Law, Hiroshi Motomura confronts the three hardest questions in immigration today: what to do about our undocumented population, who should decide, and by what legal process. Motomura’s treatment is characteristically visionary, analytically rich, and eminently fair to competing views. The book’s intellectual arc begins with its title: “Immigration Outside the Law.” As the narrative unfolds, however, Motomura explains that undocumented immigrants are “Americans in waiting,” with moral and legal claims to societal integration

Relative Checks : Towards optimal Control of Administrative Power

Administrative agencies wield a necessary but dangerous power. Some control of that power is constitutionally required and normatively justified. Yet widely discordant views persist concerning the appropriate means of control. Scholars have proposed competing administrative control models that variably place the judiciary, the President, and Congress at the helm. Although these models offer critical insights into the institutional competencies of the respective branches, they tend to understate the limitations of those branches to check administrative power and ultimately marginalize the public interest costs occasioned by second-guessing administrative choice. The “relative checks” paradigm introduced here seeks to improve upon existing models in at least two critical respects. First, it posits the existence of an optimal control point within the shared values of two sometimes competing missions in administrative law: that of promoting the public interest and that of legitimizing administrative power within our constitutional scheme. Next, the paradigm argues that the optimal control ideal can be best realized by tailoring both the source and degree of administrative control to particular types of administrative actions with sensitivity to the institutional competencies of the respective checking bodies. Prescriptively, this framework seeks to apportion control among the respective branches in a way that capitalizes on each branch’s competencies while democratically promoting the public interest. Descriptively, looking through a relative checks lens may also enhance our understanding of existing administrative practices and the academic critiques thereof

Computer Monitoring in the Workplace: Performance Effects and Perceptions

Computer performance monitoring (CPM) has become prevalent in modern day as several work functions are now completed on the computer. Under the framework of social facilitation effect (Zajonc, 1965), it is possible that CPM may affect performance because of the feeling of being evaluated. In addition to its effects on performance, employees’ perceptions of CPM are important to consider when employers are deciding whether or not to implement its use in the workplace. Employees may feel apprehensive about being electronically observed, however CPM can be used to employees’ benefit through its ability to provide accurate and detailed information about their performance, which can be used to inform feedback delivery. Providing specific feedback regarding performance has been shown to improve short-term performance, however this has not been studied in the context of CPM. The present study manipulated the specificity of the feedback provided to determine the effects on performance, as well as perceptions of the use of CPM. Though the results of this study did not replicate the social facilitation effect, those who had experienced computer monitored expressed more favorable perceptions of its use than those who had not. This suggests that exposure to CPM may increase acceptance of its use within the organization. Results are discussed in terms of the benefits of CPM for the organizations as well as employees’ perceptions of its use

Administrative Federalism as Separation of Powers

Federal agencies are key players in our federalist system: they make front-line decisions about the scope of federal policy and whether such policy should preempt state law. How agencies perform these functions, and how they might fulfill them better, are questions at the heart of “administrative federalism.” Some academic proposals for administrative federalism work to enhance states’ ability to participate in federal agency decisionmaking. Other proposals work to protect state autonomy through adjustments to the Supreme Court’s administrative preemption doctrine. As jurists and scholars debate what these proposals entail for federalism, this Article doubles-down with a twist: it examines what these same proposals can do for separation of powers. As uncovered here, adjustments to the administrative system—although made in federalism’s name—will derivatively affect how national law is made and checked along the separation-of-powers dimension. Moreover, as shown here, federalism-inspired proposals for the administrative system may require a tradeoff in constitutional values. Pushed to decide, we might choose federalism over separation of powers, or vice versa. This Article informs that choice by comparing and contrasting what administrative federalism’s major proposals entail for federalism and separation of powers, simultaneously