First Amendment Protection of Artistic Entertainment: Toward Reasonable Municipal Regulation of Video Games

This Note proposes that video game software, the driving force of all video game entertainment, is an artistic creation of a video game designer. Because the United States Supreme Court repeatedly has recognized that artistic expression and entertainment are forms of expression that the first amendment protects, video game software deserves first amendment protection. Video game software is the heart and soul of the video game, and first amendment protection, therefore, also should blanket the game itself. Accordingly, free speech liberties give video game manufacturers, distributors, and operators a fundamental right to purvey the protected expression; and the public a fundamental right of access to video games. In establishing the foundation for this argument, part H of this Note surveys the various methods of regulating video games through licensing and zoning. Part HI discusses limitations on municipal police power regulation and the challenges that parties have brought against municipal video game ordinances. Freedom of speech constraints on municipal regulation and the recent freedom of speech challenges to New York City video game ordinances receive particular emphasis. Part IV argues that video games are artistic entertainment deserving first amendment protection. This argument presents empirical evidence which demonstrates that video game software is an artistic expression.Part IV also discusses the fundamental values that the first amendment serves and free speech cases in the entertainment, offensive speech, and obscenity areas which justify first amendment protection of artistic expression. Finally, part IV analyzes first amendment precedent in the area of artistic entertainment and the antiquated requirement that entertainment must communicate ideas or information to receive first amendment protection. It concludes that protection of video games is a logical and warranted step in first amendment doctrine. Part V summarizes this Note\u27s conclusions and briefly discusses the implications of first amendment analysis on municipal licensing and zoning regulation of commercial video game entertainment

Large-Scale Advanced Prop-Fan (LAP) blade design

This report covers the design analysis of a very thin, highly swept, propeller blade to be used in the Large-Scale Advanced Prop-Fan (LAP) test program. The report includes: design requirements and goals, a description of the blade configuration which meets requirements, a description of the analytical methods utilized/developed to demonstrate compliance with the requirements, and the results of these analyses. The methods described include: finite element modeling, predicted aerodynamic loads and their application to the blade, steady state and vibratory response analyses, blade resonant frequencies and mode shapes, bird impact analysis, and predictions of stalled and unstalled flutter phenomena. Summarized results include deflections, retention loads, stress/strength comparisons, foreign object damage resistance, resonant frequencies and critical speed margins, resonant vibratory mode shapes, calculated boundaries of stalled and unstalled flutter, and aerodynamic and acoustic performance calculations

Phytochrome A mediates blue-light enhancement of second-positive phototropism in Arabidopsis

Hypocotyl phototropism of etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings is primarily mediated by the blue-light receptor kinase phototropin 1 (phot1). Phot1-mediated curvature to continuous unilateral blue light irradiation (0.5 µmol m-2 s-1) is enhanced by overhead pre-treatment with red light (20 µmol m-2 s-1 for 15 min) through the action of phytochrome (phyA). Here, we show that pre-treatment with blue light is equally as effective in eliciting phototropic enhancement and is dependent on phyA. Although blue pre-treatment was sufficient to activate early phot1 signalling events, phot1 autophosphorylation in vivo was not found to be saturated, as assessed by subsequently measuring phot1 kinase activity in vitro. However, enhancement effects to red and blue pre-treatment were not observed at higher intensities of phototropic stimulation (10 µmol m-2 s-1). Phototropic enhancement to red and blue pre-treatments to 0.5 µmol m-2 s-1 unilateral blue light irradiation was also lacking in transgenic Arabidopsis where PHOT1 expression was restricted to the epidermis. Together, these findings indicate that phyA-mediated effects on phot1 signalling are restricted to low intensities of phototropic stimulation and originate from tissues other than the epidermis

On mixing and transport at a sheared density interface

Mixing and transport of a stratifying scalar are investigated at a density interface imbedded in a turbulent shear flow. Steady-state interfacial shear flows are generated in a laboratory water channel for layer Richardson numbers, Ri, between about 1 and 10. The flow field is made optically homogeneous, enabling the use of laser-induced fluorescence with photodiode array imaging to measure the concentration field at high resolution. False-colour images of the concentration field provide valuable insight into interfacial dynamics: when the local mean shear Richardson number, Ri_s, is less than about 0.40–0.45, interfacial mixing appears to be dominated by Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instabilities; when Ri_s is somewhat larger than this, interfacial mixing appears to be dominated by shear-driven wave breaking. In both cases, vertical transport of mixed fluid from the interfacial region into adjacent turbulent layers is accomplished by large-scale turbulent eddies which impinge on the interface and scour fluid from its outer edges. Motivated by the experimental findings, a model for interfacial mixing and entrainment is developed. A local equilibrium is assumed in which the rate of loss of interfacial fluid by eddy scouring is balanced by the rate of production (local mixing) by interfacial instabilities and molecular diffusion. When a single layer is turbulent and entraining, the model results are as follows: in the molecular-diffusion-dominated regime, δ/h ~ Pe^(−1/2) and E ~ Ri^(−1)Pe^(−1/2); in the wave-breaking-dominated regime, δ/h ~ Ri^(−1/2) and E ~ Ri^(−3/2); and in the K–H-dominated regime, δ/h ~ Ri^(−1) and E ~ Ri^(−2), where δ is the interface thickness, h is the boundary-layer thickness, Pe is the Péclet number, and E is the normalized entrainment velocity. In all three regimes, the maximum concentration anomaly, Γ_m ~ Ri^(−1). When both layers are turbulent and entraining, E and δ depend on combinations of parameters from both layers