Evans v. Jeff D. : Putting Private Attorneys General On Waiver

Prior to the Supreme Court\u27s 1986 decision in Evans v. Jeff D.,fervent debate centered on the practice of simultaneously negotiating settlement on the merits and the award of attorney\u27s fees in civil rights cases. Reasonable attorney\u27s fees for prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights cases are provided at the discretion of the court under section 1988 of the Civil Rights Attorney\u27s Fees Award Act of 1976\u27 (the Fees Act).Sparked largely by the Third Circuit\u27s rejection of the practice of simultaneous negotiations in Prandini v. National Tea Co., wide commentary on the practice soon followed the Fees Act\u27s passage. Critics of simultaneous negotiations suggest that it creates a conflict of interest between a plaintiff\u27s interest in relief on the merits and his attorney\u27s interest in obtaining fees. Proponents of the practice maintain that judicial policy favors settlement of disputes.\u27 They contend that since attorney\u27s fees in civil rights cases may exceed relief on the merits, bifurcating the process impedes settlement because the defendant cannot fix his total obligation with certainty. Two versions of the simultaneous negotiation problem have been identified. The version at issue in Prandini is referred to in the literature affectionately as the sweetheart deal. The sweetheart deal arguably preys upon the baser instincts of both the plaintiff\u27s and defendant\u27s counsel. In the sweetheart situation the defendant pack-ages a settlement offer with a relatively large award for attorney\u27s fees in hopes that opposing counsel will encourage his client to accept disproportionately meager substantive relief. In this manner, the defend-ant leverages the potential conflict between opposing counsel and his client to the defendant\u27s net benefit. Recently, however, the extortion deal has been contested more hotly than the sweetheart deal. The extortion version of the simultaneous negotiation problem occurs when a settlement offer is conditioned upon a waiver of attorney\u27s fees altogether. This extortion deal is the type of simultaneous negotiation problem at issue in Jeff D

Direct measurement of diurnal polar motion by ring laser gyroscopes

We report the first direct measurements of the very small effect of forced diurnal polar motion, successfully observed on three of our large ring lasers, which now measure the instantaneous direction of Earth's rotation axis to a precision of 1 part in 10^8 when averaged over a time interval of several hours. Ring laser gyroscopes provide a new viable technique for directly and continuously measuring the position of the instantaneous rotation axis of the Earth and the amplitudes of the Oppolzer modes. In contrast, the space geodetic techniques (VLBI, SLR, GPS, etc.) contain no information about the position of the instantaneous axis of rotation of the Earth, but are sensitive to the complete transformation matrix between the Earth-fixed and inertial reference frame. Further improvements of gyroscopes will provide a powerful new tool for studying the Earth's interior.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, agu2001.cl

Supporting the emotional needs of young people in care: a qualitative study of foster carer perspectives

Young people who have been removed from their family home and placed in care have often experienced maltreatment and there is well-developed evidence of poor psychological outcomes. Once in care, foster carers often become the adult who provides day-to-day support, yet we know little about how they provide this support or the challenges to and facilitators of promoting better quality carer-child relationships. The aim of this study was to understand how carers support the emotional needs of the young people in their care and their views on barriers and opportunities for support. Participants were 21 UK foster carers, recruited from a local authority in England. They were predominantly female (86%), aged 42-65 years old and ranged from those who were relatively new to the profession (<12 months' experience) to those with over 30 years of experience as a carer. We ran three qualitative focus groups to gather in-depth information about their views on supporting their foster children's emotional well-being. Participants also completed short questionnaires about their training experiences and sense of competence. Only half of the sample strongly endorsed feeling competent in managing the emotional needs of their foster children. While all had completed extensive training, especially on attachment, diagnosis-specific training for mental health problems (eg, trauma-related distress, depression) was less common. Thematic analysis showed consistent themes around the significant barriers carers faced navigating social care and mental health systems, and mixed views around the best way to support young people, particularly those with complex mental health needs and in relation to reminders of their early experiences. Findings have important implications for practice and policy around carer training and support, as well as for how services support the mental health needs of young people in care

Entanglement requirements for implementing bipartite unitary operations

We prove, using a new method based on map-state duality, lower bounds on entanglement resources needed to deterministically implement a bipartite unitary using separable (SEP) operations, which include LOCC (local operations and classical communication) as a particular case. It is known that the Schmidt rank of an entangled pure state resource cannot be less than the Schmidt rank of the unitary. We prove that if these ranks are equal the resource must be uniformly (maximally) entangled: equal nonzero Schmidt coefficients. Higher rank resources can have less entanglement: we have found numerical examples of Schmidt rank 2 unitaries which can be deterministically implemented, by either SEP or LOCC, using an entangled resource of two qutrits with less than one ebit of entanglement.Comment: 7 pages Revte

A novel virus genome discovered in an extreme environment suggests recombination between unrelated groups of RNA and DNA viruses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Viruses are known to be the most abundant organisms on earth, yet little is known about their collective origin and evolutionary history. With exceptionally high rates of genetic mutation and mosaicism, it is not currently possible to resolve deep evolutionary histories of the known major virus groups. Metagenomics offers a potential means of establishing a more comprehensive view of viral evolution as vast amounts of new sequence data becomes available for comparative analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Bioinformatic analysis of viral metagenomic sequences derived from a hot, acidic lake revealed a circular, putatively single-stranded DNA virus encoding a major capsid protein similar to those found only in single-stranded RNA viruses. The presence and circular configuration of the complete virus genome was confirmed by inverse PCR amplification from native DNA extracted from lake sediment. The virus genome appears to be the result of a RNA-DNA recombination event between two ostensibly unrelated virus groups. Environmental sequence databases were examined for homologous genes arranged in similar configurations and three similar putative virus genomes from marine environments were identified. This result indicates the existence of a widespread but previously undetected group of viruses.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This unique viral genome carries implications for theories of virus emergence and evolution, as no mechanism for interviral RNA-DNA recombination has yet been identified, and only scant evidence exists that genetic exchange occurs between such distinct virus lineages.</p> <p>Reviewers</p> <p>This article was reviewed by EK, MK (nominated by PF) and AM. For the full reviews, please go to the Reviewers' comments section.</p

Dry liberation of fungus spores by raindrops

RESP-501

Two insects injurious to the strawberry

Caption title.Also continuously numbered from the previous Bulletin (p. 189-210) on upper outside corner.The strawberry false-worm : Harpiphorus maculatus, Nort. -- The common strawberry leaf-roller : Phoxopteris comptana, Frohl

The "sting" in the apple

Cover title

The chinch bug : Blissus leucopterus, Say.

Cover title.Also continuously numbered from previous Bulletin (p. 118-142) on upper outside corner