Judicial Recusal and Expanding Notions of Due Process

The merits of judicial elections have been litigated in journals around the country. In light of the recent Supreme Court decisions in White and Caperton, this debate will only intensify. Rather than revisit the arguments for and against electing judges, this Article argues that applying the Mathews v. Eldridge test in cases where a litigant’s due process is threatened by an elected judge—a possibility that the Court initially dismissed in White against Justice Ginsburg’s protests, and then took head on in Caperton—will balance First Amendment rights that judicial elections breed against the rights of the litigants that the Constitution protects. This test would also be mindful of the larger concern voiced by the Caperton dissent: that Caperton motions will undermine the integrity of the judiciary. In sum, the flexibility and elegance of the test in this context is also made timely in light of the uncertainty raised by the Court’s expansive rulings in the areas of judicial elections, due process protection, and First Amendment rights. Lower courts should be relieved that they would not need to break new ground to apply Mathews in this context. And Chief Justice’s prediction that the Court will have to revisit Caperton to measure the “extremeness” of the facts in future cases may not come true after all

Judicial Recusal & Expanding Notions of Due Process

The merits of judicial elections have been litigated in journals around the country. In light of the recent Supreme Court decisions in White and Caperton, this debate will only intensify. Rather than revisit the arguments for and against electing judges, this Article argues that applying the Mathews v. Eldridge test in cases where a litigant’s due process is threatened by an elected judge—a possibility that the Court initially dismissed in White against Justice Ginsburg’s protests, and then took head on in Caperton—will balance First Amendment rights that judicial elections breed against the rights of the litigants that the Constitution protects. This test would also be mindful of the larger concern voiced by the Caperton dissent: that Caperton motions will undermine the integrity of the judiciary. In sum, the flexibility and elegance of the test in this context is also made timely in light of the uncertainty raised by the Court’s expansive rulings in the areas of judicial elections, due process protection, and First Amendment rights. Lower courts should be relieved that they would not need to break new ground to apply Mathews in this context. And Chief Justice’s prediction that the Court will have to revisit Caperton to measure the “extremeness” of the facts in future cases may not come true after all

Judicial Recusal & Expanding Notions of Due Process

The merits of judicial elections have been litigated in journals around the country. In light of the recent Supreme Court decisions in White and Caperton, this debate will only intensify. Rather than revisit the arguments for and against electing judges, this Article argues that applying the Mathews v. Eldridge test in cases where a litigant’s due process is threatened by an elected judge—a possibility that the Court initially dismissed in White against Justice Ginsburg’s protests, and then took head on in Caperton—will balance First Amendment rights that judicial elections breed against the rights of the litigants that the Constitution protects. This test would also be mindful of the larger concern voiced by the Caperton dissent: that Caperton motions will undermine the integrity of the judiciary. In sum, the flexibility and elegance of the test in this context is also made timely in light of the uncertainty raised by the Court’s expansive rulings in the areas of judicial elections, due process protection, and First Amendment rights. Lower courts should be relieved that they would not need to break new ground to apply Mathews in this context. And Chief Justice’s prediction that the Court will have to revisit Caperton to measure the “extremeness” of the facts in future cases may not come true after all

Applied Dynamics In School And Practice

Mechanical engineering, mechanical engineering technology, and related educational programs are not addressing in a sufficient way the principles associated with applying analytical investigations in solving actual engineering problems. Because of this, graduates do not have the adequate skills required to use the methods of applied dynamics in the process of analyzing mechanical systems. These methods allow one to obtain an understanding of the role of the parameters of a system and to carry out a purposeful control of the values of these parameters with the goal to achieve the desired performance. Engineering and engineering technology programs pay very little attention to addressing these steps. It should be stressed that these programs do not offer a universal straightforward methodology of solving linear differential equations of motion that allow revealing all important interrelationships between the aspects of the engineering problem. It is difficult to formulate the reasons why there is such a low interest in applying the analytical approach in order to reveal the interrelationships between decisive aspects of the operational process of an engineering system in order to achieve the desired goal. Actually, there is almost a complete silence with regard to this issue. Hence, we assume that the first reason could be that there is no recognition of the existence of such a problem. In other words, there is no need to apply these analytical methods since these methods are not beneficial. We do not believe that the engineering community supports this reason. It is not a matter of demonstrating factual data that show how many times the theory was helpful. Without the support of the theory we cannot justifiably evaluate the results of our solutions. If we agree that there is problem, then why are there no publications that would stimulate discussions leading toward a solution of the problem? Here is the second reason. Until now, engineering programs do not present the straightforward universal theoretically sound methodologies for solving the second order linear differential equations that are vital for mechanical and electrical engineering. Without any suggestions of how to solve this problem, it did not make much sense to begin a discussion. In our opinion, this is why we have silence with the regard to this problem. However, it is well known that Laplace Transforms allow solving any linear differential equation of motion. It is justifiable to assume that the main reason why the Laplace Transform methodology is not adopted by learning environments consists in the absence of the majority of tables of Laplace Transform Pairs that are needed for solving differential equations of motion as well as differential equations describing electrical circuits. However, the situation is changed. Current publications comprise the adequate tables that are needed for solving linear differential equations of motion associated with all common mechanical engineering problems. Practicing engineers and students need assistance in acquiring the knowledge of composing differential equations of motion. They need certain training in solving these equations using Laplace Transform methodology. Several recommendations are proposed on how to expedite the implementation in academia and in industry of the methods of applied dynamics in solving common mechanical engineering problems

Evolution of histone 2A for chromatin compaction in eukaryotes.

During eukaryotic evolution, genome size has increased disproportionately to nuclear volume, necessitating greater degrees of chromatin compaction in higher eukaryotes, which have evolved several mechanisms for genome compaction. However, it is unknown whether histones themselves have evolved to regulate chromatin compaction. Analysis of histone sequences from 160 eukaryotes revealed that the H2A N-terminus has systematically acquired arginines as genomes expanded. Insertion of arginines into their evolutionarily conserved position in H2A of a small-genome organism increased linear compaction by as much as 40%, while their absence markedly diminished compaction in cells with large genomes. This effect was recapitulated in vitro with nucleosomal arrays using unmodified histones, indicating that the H2A N-terminus directly modulates the chromatin fiber likely through intra- and inter-nucleosomal arginine-DNA contacts to enable tighter nucleosomal packing. Our findings reveal a novel evolutionary mechanism for regulation of chromatin compaction and may explain the frequent mutations of the H2A N-terminus in cancer

Short-range surface plasmonics: localized electron emission dynamics from a 60-nm spot on an atomically flat single-crystalline gold surface

We experimentally and theoretically visualize the propagation of short-range surface plasmon polaritons using atomically flat single-crystalline gold platelets on silicon substrates. We study their excitation and subfemtosecond dynamics via normal-incidence two-photon photoemission electron microscopy. By milling a plasmonic disk and grating structure into a single-crystalline gold platelet, we observe nanofocusing of the short-range surface plasmon polariton. Localized two-photon ultrafast electron emission from a spot with a smallest dimension of 60 nm is observed. Our novel approach opens the door toward reproducible plasmonic nanofocusing devices, which do not degrade upon high light intensity or heating due to the atomically flat surface without any tips, protrusions, or holes. Our nanofoci could also be used as local emitters for ultrafast electron bunches in time-resolved electron microscopes

Bivalent-Like Chromatin Markers Are Predictive for Transcription Start Site Distribution in Human

Deep sequencing of 5′ capped transcripts has revealed a variety of transcription initiation patterns, from narrow, focused promoters to wide, broad promoters. Attempts have already been made to model empirically classified patterns, but virtually no quantitative models for transcription initiation have been reported. Even though both genetic and epigenetic elements have been associated with such patterns, the organization of regulatory elements is largely unknown. Here, linear regression models were derived from a pool of regulatory elements, including genomic DNA features, nucleosome organization, and histone modifications, to predict the distribution of transcription start sites (TSS). Importantly, models including both active and repressive histone modification markers, e.g. H3K4me3 and H4K20me1, were consistently found to be much more predictive than models with only single-type histone modification markers, indicating the possibility of “bivalent-like” epigenetic control of transcription initiation. The nucleosome positions are proposed to be coded in the active component of such bivalent-like histone modification markers. Finally, we demonstrated that models trained on one cell type could successfully predict TSS distribution in other cell types, suggesting that these models may have a broader application range