Beware of a Naive Perspective: A Prebuttal to Possible U.S. Supreme Court Rulings in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Part 2)

Many believe that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts will provide the swing vote in the court's decision in Shaun McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (McCutcheon), a case challenging the constitutionality of caps on the total amount of campaign contributions an individual may make to candidates, political parties, and political action committees. Based on his comments during oral arguments, some have speculated that Roberts will vote to strike down limits on aggregate contributions to candidates but will support maintaining limits on contributions to parties and political action committees (PACs).We illustrated in Part 1 of this two-part series that eliminating limits on aggregate contributions to candidates while leaving other aggregate limits intact would enable joint fundraising committees (JFCs) operated by party leaders and elected officials to solicit contributions as large as $2.5 million from a single donor. This report shows that a supposed middle ground that permitted unlimited aggregate contributions to candidates but retained caps on contributions to parties would also likely end up eroding the integrity of limits on contributions to parties.Under a scenario in which only caps on total contributions to candidates were struck down, the party leaders and elected officials who administer joint fundraising committees would likely end up soliciting checks of more than$2.5 million from major donors. The vast majority of these contributions would be distributed to candidates in increments of $5,200 per recipient. However, because candidates could transfer their share of contributions received from JFCs to party committees, leaders of JFCs, would likely pressure candidates, the majority of whom are running in uncompetitive races, to redirect that money to back party committees.Using conservative estimates about the number of major donors that would contribute$2.5 million to a joint fundraising committee if the court eliminated caps on total contributions to candidates, and data on the number of competitive and non-competitive congressional races in recent election cycles, we estimate that eliminating the aggregate limit on contributions to candidates could enable candidates to transfer more than $74 million to the national party committees combined. Each donor would effectively be contributing the equivalent of more than$1.8 million to party committees, or more than 24 times the legal limit

Beware of a Naive Perspective: A Prebuttal to Possible U.S. Supreme Court Rulings in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Part 1)

In October 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Shaun McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that challenges federal limits on the grand total an individual can contribute to federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). In Part 1 of this two-part series, we examine several options available to the court and how potential outcomes could transform how candidates and parties can raise money

Medial-lateral loading and wear in TKA

Pre-clinical wear testing of Total Knee Arthroplasty has traditionally been carried out in a physical experiment [Fisher, 2002]. Recent computational models have been shown to have sufficient accuracy to be considered alongside these experiments [Knight, 2007]. These computational models use a relationship of wear volume proportional to the product of contact pressure, sliding distance and cross shear [Maxian, 1996]. Instrumented knees have recently shown that medial-lateral (ML) loads may be of similar magnitudes to that of the anterior-posterior (AP) load. The AP load is known to have a significant effect on the kinematics of the total knee replacement and so it is reasonable to assume that application of an ML load may have a similar degree of influence on kinematics. The effect of the ML load is hypothesised to increase the cross shear and hence the wear rate. At present, the ISO standard for testing TKA contains no provision for a ML load

Smart labs and social practice: social tools for pervasive laboratory workspaces: a position paper

The emergence of pervasive and ubiquitous computing stimulates a view of future work environments where sharing of information, data and knowledge is easy and commonplace, particularly in highly interactive settings. Much of the work in this area focuses on tool development to support activities such as data collection, data recording and sharing, and so on. We are interested in this kind of technical development, which is both challenging and essential for science communities. But we are also interested in a broader interpretation of knowledge sharing and the human/social side of tools we develop to support this. We are keen to know more about how groups of different kinds of scientists can make their work understandable and shareable with each other in a multidisciplinary setting. This is a complex task because boundaries and barriers can emerge between disciplines engendered by differences in discourses and practices, which may not easily translate into other discipline areas. In the worst case, there may be some hostility between disciplines, or at least doubt and scepticism. Nevertheless, sharing approaches to research, research expertise, data and methods across disciplines can be a very fruitful exercise, and encouragement to engage in this activity is particularly pertinent in the digital era. Issues of privacy and security are also key aspects – knowing when and how to release data or information to other groups is crucial to providing a safe environment for people to work, and there are several sensitivities to be explored here. In this paper we describe an evolving situation that captures many of these issues, which we aim to track longitudinally

Work and autonomy : case studies of clerical work.

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Investigation of a Tunable 3-D Patterned Illumination Design Implementation for Structured Illumination Microscopy

This thesis proposes methods to investigate a novel tunable incoherent 3D patterned illumination suitable for Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM). A Matlab simulation was designed for the novel tunable illumination in a single and double slit configuration. An experimental setup of the single and double slit configurations was designed and used to acquire experimental data, which was compared with simulation predictions. The comparison aims to scrutinize the lateral and axial frequencies of the sinusoidal illiumination pattern and to determine the accuracy of the simulation with real world optics parameters. The simulation result provides a model of the the 3D patterned illumination, which is necessary for future use in a SIM setup. An accurate model of the illumination pattern will facilitate designing the forward and inverse SIM imaging models in a different study. The novel incoherent tunable illumination design will theoretically produce better super resolution and optical sectioning capability than current SIM setups that rely on coherent illumination