\u3cem\u3eNational League of Cities v. Usery\u3c/em\u3e: Its Implications for the Equal Pay Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act

In National League of Cities v. Usery, the Supreme Court invalidated the application of the FLSA minimum wage and maximum hours provisions to certain essential state government activities as an unconstitutional intrusion on state sovereignty. This article will explore the implications of that decision with respect to the application of the EPA and the ADEA to state and local governments. Part I contains a brief discussion of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Amendments. Part II discusses National League with reference to traditional commerce clause interpretation. Part III analyzes the difficulties of applying the decision, particularly the problem of defining the essential state functions immunized by the tenth amendment from federal regulation. It is suggested that National League should be interpreted as requiring a balancing of the federal interest and the degree of federal intrusion against the state claim to immunity. While Part IV explains the background of the EPA and the ADEA, Part V discusses the effect of the National League decision on the application of the EPA and the ADEA to the states

Chemistry and Apparent Quality of Surface Water and Ground Water Associated with Coal Basins

Personnel of the Arkansas Mining and Mineral Resources Research Institute conducted preliminary investigations on the chemistry and quality of surface and ground water associated with 12 coal-bearing sub-basins in the Arkansas Valley coal field. The coal field is approximately 60 miles long and 33 miles wide but only in 12 areas coal is thick enough and has proper quality to be termed commercial. Both surface and underground sample sites were established in each of the sub-basins with some minor variations in four areas where not all types of sites could be located. Water was collected from 19 surface points and 19 underground points in the established areas. Both field and laboratory analyses were made and elemental contents are reported herein. In the main, the chemistry and water quality suggests that all water is suitable for agricultural and industrial uses. To obtain potable water, treatment must be made to reduce calcium, magnesium, sodium sulfate and iron. The mineral content of the water is due to its contact with coal-bearing zones and, as such, reflects the mineral content of the coal. However, it is recommended that additional studies on the petrography and geochemistry of the coal, overburden and underburden is in order. Also, it is recommended that at least one detailed study be made of one of the coal sub-basins where geologic parameters can be completely established with regard to hydrogeology. This report is an important first step in determining the character and quality of Arkansas coal which must be fully understood to fully utilize this important mineral resource

Applying weighted network measures to microarray distance matrices

In recent work we presented a new approach to the analysis of weighted networks, by providing a straightforward generalization of any network measure defined on unweighted networks. This approach is based on the translation of a weighted network into an ensemble of edges, and is particularly suited to the analysis of fully connected weighted networks. Here we apply our method to several such networks including distance matrices, and show that the clustering coefficient, constructed by using the ensemble approach, provides meaningful insights into the systems studied. In the particular case of two data sets from microarray experiments the clustering coefficient identifies a number of biologically significant genes, outperforming existing identification approaches.Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys.

Modelling time course gene expression data with finite mixtures of linear additive models

Summary: A model class of finite mixtures of linear additive models is presented. The component-specific parameters in the regression models are estimated using regularized likelihood methods. The advantages of the regularization are that (i) the pre-specified maximum degrees of freedom for the splines is less crucial than for unregularized estimation and that (ii) for each component individually a suitable degree of freedom is selected in an automatic way. The performance is evaluated in a simulation study with artificial data as well as on a yeast cell cycle dataset of gene expression levels over time

CALIBRATING LEGAL JUDGMENTS

Objective: to study the notion and essence of legal judgments calibration, the possibilities of using it in the law-enforcement activity; to explore the expenses and advantages of using it.Methods: dialectic approach to the cognition of social phenomena, which enables to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the integrity of objective and subjective factors; it determined the choice of the following research methods: formal-legal, comparative legal, sociological, methods of cognitive psychology and philosophy.Results: In ordinary life, people who assess other people›s judgments typically take into account the other judgments of those they are assessing in order to calibrate the judgment presently being assessed. The restaurant and hotel rating website TripAdvisor is exemplary, because it facilitates calibration by providing access to a rater›s previous ratings. Such information allows a user to see whether a particular rating comes from a rater who is enthusiastic about every place she patronizes, or instead from someone who is incessantly hard to please. And even when less systematized, as in assessing a letter of recommendation or college transcript, calibration by recourse to the decisional history of those whose judgments are being assessed is ubiquitous. Yet despite the ubiquity and utility of such calibration, the legal system seems perversely to reject it. Appellate courts do not openly adjust their standard of review based on the previous judgments of the judge whose decision they are reviewing, nor do judges in reviewing legislative or administrative decisions, magistrates in evaluating search warrant representations, or jurors in assessing witness perception. In most legal domains, calibration by reference to the prior decisions of the reviewee is invisible, either because it does not exist or because reviewing bodies are unwilling to admit using what they in fact know and employ. Scientific novelty: for the first time, the work substantiates that law is reluctant to take account of the past decisions of the individuals and institutions they are reviewing. By looking only at the particular decision under review, and not calibrating the posture of review on the basis of a history of decisions, reviewing courts and other reviewing institutions embody the particularism that is a large part of the American legal tradition.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific and educational activity when viewing the issues of legal judgments calibration

Integrating Culturally-Responsive, Locally Relevant Learning and Citizen Science Through Arctic and Earth SIGNs

To build the capacity to navigate the challenges associated with a changing climate, learning in Arctic communities must not only increase knowledge, but also generate new knowledge as the rapid changes occur. Citizen science, the process whereby citizens (including K-12 students) are involved in science as researchers, presents a possible mechanism to meet this need. However, hypothesis-driven models of citizen science have been criticized for a disconnect between scientific agendas and the priorities and needs of diverse communities. The new education and research program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, entitled Arctic and Earth SIGNs (STEM integrating GLOBE and NASA), provides new opportunities for K-12 students, pre- and in-service teachers and lifelong learners from diverse communities to engage in citizen science learning.NASA under grant award No. NNX16AC52

FMDP Reactor Alternative Summary Report: Volume 2 - CANDU heavy water reactor alternative

The Department of Energy Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (DOE/MD) initiated a detailed analysis activity to evaluate each of ten plutonium disposition alternatives that survived an initial screening process. This document, Volume 2 of a four volume report, summarizes the results of these analyses for the CANDU reactor based plutonium disposition alternative