Tort Justice Reform

This Article calls for a comprehensive reform of public tort law with respect to law enforcement conduct. It articulates an effective and equitable remedial regime that reconciles the aspirational goals of public tort law with the practical realities of devising payment and disciplinary procedures that are responsive to tort settlements and judgments. This proposed statutory scheme seeks to deter law enforcement misconduct without disincentivizing prudent officers from performing their duties or overburdening them with extensive litigation. Rather than lamenting the dissolution of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics or the insurmountability of qualified immunity, reform advocates should acknowledge that the very distinction between constitutional and common-law torts is arbitrary for purposes of individual officer deterrence and accountability. By examining the relationship between Fourth Amendment excessive force jurisprudence and the common-law torts of assault, battery, and negligence, this Article highlights that the analytical distinction between those legal doctrines imposes an improper demarcation for civil liability. If law enforcement agencies concern themselves solely with the constitutionality of their employees’ conduct, training concentrates on the instant moment in which deadly force is used without substantial reflection on the conduct, including antecedent negligence, that led to the confrontation. At the same time, whether an officer can be held personally accountable should not be based on the intentionality of the conduct; rather, the reprehensibleness of the conduct is a more appropriate benchmark for individual liability. By acknowledging that tort law addresses various types of law enforcement activity that do not necessarily rise to the level of constitutional or criminal infractions, legislative bodies can begin conceptualizing public tort law as an important component of criminal justice reform. But to do so, we need tort justice reform

CIO Perspectives on Their Changing Responsibilities with Outsourcing

This paper summarizes a set of CIO roundtable discussions. IS outsourcing has become an imperative because of changing user perceptions about what IT can deliver and users’ own decision power in the process. The process of outsourcing is part of a major shift in the role of CIOs towards being a business integrator rather than a service provider

The Changing Role of the CIO in the World of Outsourcing: Lessons Learned from a CIO Roundtable

The increasing availability of readymade and supposedly ready to use IT packages is changing the way CIOs manage and the challenges they face. In this article we summarize the opinions of CIOs who attended a roundtable to discuss this issue. The CIOs report a shift in internal client attitude toward IT which, combined with the effects of budgetary cuts, is leading to a shift in the role of the CIO from IT service provider to business integrator. The description of what this sample of the industry actually does regarding outsourcing and what this means for CIOs presents a new picture compared with the current literature on outsourcing

Do Not Call Me Chief Information Officer, But Chief Integration Officer. A Summary of the 2011 Detroit CIO Roundtable

In 2011 a roundtable meeting of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that was organized by the Manufacturing Information systems Center at the School of Business Administration at Wayne State University discussed the emergence of public cloud computing and how this is changing the role of the CIO for medium- and large-sized organizations. The nine CIOs represented a range of manufacturing and service industries in the Greater Detroit area. This article summarizes the key themes of that roundtable, namely, the continuing change in role of the CIO as public cloud computing becomes mainstream. Key among those changes is not as much technological, because private clouds have been around now for quite some time, but rather in the broader and more challenging scope of responsibilities the CIOs now have. The role of the CIO is evolving from providing and supporting information technology and systems toward one largely based on managing the integration of externally acquired standardized hardware, software, and services while retaining quality control and remaining within budget, as well as the need to be more acquainted with the legal side of contracting. This changing set of CIO responsibilities has not made the technical skills any less important, but it has added a host of additional skills that the CIOs and those serving under them now need to master

Influence of Education and Occupation on the Incidence of Alzheimer's Disease

Objective. —Several cross-sectional studies have found an association between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and limited educational experience. It has been difficult to establish whether educational experience is a risk factor for AD because educational attainment can influence performance on diagnostic tests. This study was designed to determine whether limited educational level and occupational attainment are risk factors for incident dementia. Design. —Cohort incidence study. Setting. —General community. Participants. —A total of 593 nondemented individuals aged 60 years or older who were listed in a registry of individuals at risk for dementia in North Manhattan, NY, were identified and followed up. Interventions. —We reexamined subjects 1 to 4 years later with the identical standardized neurological and neuropsychological measures. Main Outcome Measure. —Incident dementia. Results. —We used Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for age and gender, to estimate the relative risk (RR) of incident dementia associated with low educational and occupational attainment. Of the 593 subjects, 106 became demented; all but five of these met research criteria for AD. The risk of dementia was increased in subjects with either low education (RR, 2.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33 to 3.06) or low lifetime occupational attainment (RR, 2.25; 95% CI, 1.32 to 3.84). Risk was greatest for subjects with both low education and low life-time occupational attainment (RR, 2.87; 95% CI, 1.32 to 3.84). Conclusions. —The data suggest that increased educational and occupational attainment may reduce the risk of incident AD, either by decreasing ease of clinical detection of AD or by imparting a reserve that delays the onset of clinical manifestations

Depressed Mood and the Incidence of Alzheimer's Disease in the Elderly Living in the Community

BACKGROUND: It remains unclear whether depression increases the risk for dementia in the elderly. We evaluated the relationship between depressed mood at baseline and the incidence of dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease, in the elderly living in the community. METHODS: A total of 1070 elderly individuals, aged 60 years or older, were identified as part of a registry for dementia in the Washington Heights community of North Manhattan, NY. In a prospective, longitudinal design with follow-up for 1 to 5 years, annual physician evaluation and neuropsychological testing were used to assess levels of cognitive impairment and to diagnose dementia. Depressive symptoms were evaluated with the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Based on clinical considerations and a validity study, a positive score for the depressed mood item was used in statistical analyses. To confirm the results, the total Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score was also evaluated as the "depression" variable. RESULTS: Of the 1070 subjects, 218 met criteria for dementia at baseline evaluation. In the 852 subjects without dementia, depressed mood was more common in individuals with greater cognitive impairment. In a follow-up study of 478 of these subjects without dementia (mean +/- SD, 2.54 +/- 1.12 years of follow-up), the effect of baseline depressed mood on the end- point diagnosis of dementia (93% had possible or probable Alzheimer's disease) was evaluated in a Cox proportional hazards model. Depressed mood at baseline was associated with an increased risk of incident dementia (relative risk, 2.94; 95% confidence interval, 1.76 to 4.91; P .001). This effect remained after adjustment for age, gender, education, language of assessment, Blessed Memory Information and Concentration test scores, and Blessed Functional Activity Scale scores (relative risk, 2.05; 95% confidence interval, 1.16 to 3.62; P .02). Similar results were obtained when the total Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score was used as the depression variable, with the use of the same covariates (relative risk, 1.07 per point interval; 95% confidence interval, 1.02 to 1.11; P .01). CONCLUSIONS: Depressed mood moderately increased the risk of developing dementia, primarily Alzheimer's disease. Whether depressed mood is a very early manifestation of Alzheimer's disease, or increases susceptibility through another mechanism, remains to be determined

Neptune Polar Orbiter with Probes

The giant planets of the outer solar system divide into two distinct classes: the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, which consist mainly of hydrogen and helium; and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, which are believed to contain significant amounts of the heavier elements oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon and sulfur. Detailed comparisons of the internal structures and compositions of the gas giants with those of the ice giants will yield valuable insights into the processes that formed the solar system and, perhaps, other planetary systems. By 2012, Galileo, Cassini and possibly a Jupiter Orbiter mission with microwave radiometers, Juno, in the New Frontiers program, will have yielded significant information on the chemical and physical properties of Jupiter and Saturn. A Neptune Orbiter with Probes (NOP) mission would deliver the corresponding key data for an ice giant planet. Such a mission would ideally study the deep Neptune atmosphere to pressures approaching and possibly exceeding 1000 bars, as well as the rings, Triton, Nereid, and Neptune s other icy satellites. A potential source of power would be nuclear electric propulsion (NEP). Such an ambitious mission requires that a number of technical issues be investigated, however, including: (1) atmospheric entry probe thermal protection system (TPS) design, (2) probe structural design including seals, windows, penetrations and pressure vessel, (3) digital, RF subsystem, and overall communication link design for long term operation in the very extreme environment of Neptune's deep atmosphere, (4) trajectory design allowing probe release on a trajectory to impact Neptune while allowing the spacecraft to achieve a polar orbit of Neptune, (5) and finally the suite of science instruments enabled by the probe technology to explore the depths of the Neptune atmosphere. Another driving factor in the design of the Orbiter and Probes is the necessity to maintain a fully operational flight system during the lengthy transit time from launch through Neptune encounter, and throughout the mission. Following our response to the recent NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for Space Science Vision Missions for mission studies by NASA for implementation in the 2013 or later time frame, our team has been selected to explore the feasibility of such a Neptune mission