Can a Consumer Debtor Voluntarily Dismiss Own Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case?

(Excerpt) Under Section 707(a) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), a court may dismiss a chapter 7 bankruptcy case for cause. Section 707(a) provides a list of examples of conduct that constitutes cause to guide the court in making its determination. A chapter 7 consumer debtor has the right to voluntarily dismiss his own chapter 7 case, however, that right is not absolute. When a consumer debtor seeks to voluntarily dismiss his chapter 7 case he must establish cause for dismissal under section 707(a). The court will determine whether the debtor’s voluntary motion to dismiss should be granted by determining whether dismissal would be in the best interest of all the parties involved. One may think that when a debtor attempts to voluntarily dismiss his own chapter 7 case the court should simply grant the motion, but that is not the case. It is important for the court to determine the reason a debtor would elect to withdraw from bankruptcy after voluntarily filing for such protection by looking at the facts and circumstances of each individual case. This article discusses why the court’s ability to determine whether cause exists for voluntary dismissal of a consumer debtor’s bankruptcy case ensures that individuals cannot enjoy the benefits of bankruptcy without fulfilling their obligations to creditors. Part I of this article discusses the factors set forth in Section 707(a) of the Bankruptcy Code that are considered by the bankruptcy court in determining if cause exists for dismissal of a chapter 7 case. Part II discusses the court’s use of discretion in determining what is in the best interest of the parties as well as the court’s consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case in reaching its conclusion. Part III discusses how “bad faith” is considered a relevant factor by bankruptcy courts when determining whether to dismiss a case

A Ground Based Optical Survey for GPS Solar Panel Arcing

In an attempt to confirm electrostatic discharge induced contamination as responsible for the excess power loss of GPS solar arrays, three GPS satellites were observed at the MMT using a sensitive Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) with the aim of catching the microsecond optical emission of solar panel arcing. One of these satellites (NAVSTAR 48) was concurrently observed with the Arecibo radio telescope in the hopes that coincident optical and radio detections would all but confirm the hypothesis. Unfortunately, owing to ∼ 75% transmission losses, optical arc detections could not be conclusively confirmed or ruled out. Detections above the nominal threshold were present more frequently than expected from random fluctuations, but the lack of coincidence with Arecibo detections and the similar number of detections away from the satellite imply a cause other than arcs, most likely non-Gaussian noise behavior. One of the other satellites, NAVSTAR 65, yielded a promising candidate with a brightness consistent with a fully discharging arc of a Block II-F solar array. However, without external confirmation from satellite telemetry, the detection significance is not sufficient to unambiguously label this event as an arc. If the observations could be repeated with transmission losses of 30% or less, the 50% detection efficiency of arcs would improve from 200-photon arcs to 70-photons or better. This would make the difference between being sensitive to some full discharge arcs or most partial discharge arcs, although requiring substantial redesign of the observing strategy

Navigating a Calculus Course During a Pandemic: A USMA Perspective

In this article we analyze publications written about different teaching modalities and evaluate how each applies to a calculus class during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the positives and negatives of teaching and learning in a virtual, classroom, or HyFlex environment. Although arguments could be made for each environment, especially given different institutional objectives, this work aims to explain why we eventually preferred teaching our Fall 2020 multivariable calculus course in a face-to-face classroom setting at the United States Military Academy at West Point. We also offer measures of performance to compare the current COVID-19 semester with previous semesters. The results support two major conclusions drawn from our decision to teach in-person under in a time constrained environment: learning modality matters in mathematics and this pandemic will influence student-teacher interaction for semesters to come

Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning in Urban Landscapes: Understanding Context, Appearance, Meaning, and Perception

Prior research has documented environmental and economic benefits of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI); literature on GSI social benefits is also becoming more prevalent among scholars around the world. This paper aims to understand whether GSI projects are considered as assets to urban neighborhoods or as projects that might introduce a new set of social concerns. Based on field observations of 238 GSI projects and 50 intercept interviews, we investigate selected social aspects of GSI, such as project context, visual appearance, recreational appeal, meaning, and public perception, in two neighboring US cities—Philadelphia and Camden. Analysis of field data and observation notes revealed that GSI project setting impacted recreational appeal; their appearance was related to maintenance and signage; and their interaction with the public depended on location, land use, and visual/recreational appeal. Most GSI sites with the presence of trash, but the absence of signage were found in potentially disadvantaged areas. According to intercept interviews, many people were not aware of GSI presence in the neighborhood, were not familiar with GSI or its functionality, did not find a way to get access to GSI or interact with them, and were generally concerned about poor design, defective construction, or lack of maintenance. We argue that lack of information and community care/support for GSI can result in social disinvestments in these projects, which can facilitate improper use and maintenance issues, affecting their intended basic environmental functions. Consistent with prior research, we speak to the importance of participatory planning processes in improving community acceptance and interests around GSI planning and installation in urban landscapes

Appendix 4: Search strategies

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review all meta-analyses that included outpatient sub-analyses or network meta-analyses with medications treatment comparisons in order to study the clinical benefits of these deimplemented medications in the outpatient setting

Critical Infrastructure Modeling: An Approach to Characterizing Interdependencies of Complex Networks & Control Systems

Critical infrastructure control systems face many challenges entering the 21st century, including natural disasters, cyber attacks, and terrorist attacks. Revolutionary change is required to solve many existing issues, including gaining greater situational awareness and resiliency through embedding modeling and advanced control algorithms in smart sensors and control devices instead of in a central controller. To support design, testing, and component analysis, a flexible simulation and modeling capability is needed. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory are developing and evaluating such a capability through their CIPRsim modeling and simulation framework

Five-wave resonances in deep water gravity waves : integrability, numerical simulations and experiments

R.I. is partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund, grant KΠ -06H42/2 from 27.11.2020.In this work we consider the problem of finding the simplest arrangement of resonant deep-water gravity waves in one-dimensional propagation, from three perspectives: Theoretical, numerical and experimental. Theoretically this requires using a normal-form Hamiltonian that focuses on 5-wave resonances. The simplest arrangement is based on a triad of wavevectors K1+K2=K3 (satisfying specific ratios) along with their negatives, corresponding to a scenario of encountering wavepackets, amenable to experiments and numerical simulations. The normal-form equations for these encountering waves in resonance are shown to be non-integrable, but they admit an integrable reduction in a symmetric configuration. Numerical simulations of the governing equations in natural variables using pseudospectral methods require the inclusion of up to 6-wave interactions, which imposes a strong dealiasing cut-off in order to properly resolve the evolving waves. We study the resonance numerically by looking at a target mode in the base triad and showing that the energy transfer to this mode is more efficient when the system is close to satisfying the resonant conditions. We first look at encountering plane waves with base frequencies in the range 1.32–2.35 Hz and steepnesses below 0.1, and show that the time evolution of the target mode’s energy is dramatically changed at the resonance. We then look at a scenario that is closer to experiments: Encountering wavepackets in a 400-m long numerical tank, where the interaction time is reduced with respect to the plane-wave case but the resonance is still observed; by mimicking a probe measurement of surface elevation we obtain efficiencies of up to 10% in frequency space after including near-resonant contributions. Finally, we perform preliminary experiments of encountering wavepackets in a 35-m long tank, which seem to show that the resonance exists physically. The measured efficiencies via probe measurements of surface elevation are relatively small, indicating that a finer search is needed along with longer wave flumes with much larger amplitudes and lower frequency waves. A further analysis of phases generated from probe data via the analytic signal approach (using the Hilbert transform) shows a strong triad phase synchronisation at the resonance, thus providing independent experimental evidence of the resonance.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe