5,303 research outputs found
The Fourth Amendment Fetches Fido: The Future of Dog Searches
For over thirty-five years, the Supreme Court has grappled with the controversial issue of affirmative action and race preference. Beginning with Justice Lewis Powell’s influential opinion in Bakke v. U. Cal. Davis in 1978, leeway has been permitted for admissions policies that take account of race, as long as it is not given determinative weight so as to exclude consideration of nonminority candidates, or used to set quotas. As the Court has become increasingly conservative, however, its license for race preference has tightened considerably, and it has become receptive to “reverse discrimination” plaintiffs challenging such policies in universities and the workplace.
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) purported to immunize good faith race-conscious university admissions for a period of twenty-five years, but with the retirement of its author, Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court chose to revisit the matter in Fisher v. University of Texas, decided on June 24. While remanding to the lower courts without a definitive ruling on UT’s program, it is the contention of this article that the decision may well seal the fate of race-sensitive decision-making by public actors. Seven justices, over the dissent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sign onto an exacting strict scrutiny standard of review anachronistically borrowed from cases challenging pernicious discrimination motivated by a desire to exclude and subjugate disfavored groups. This “searching” examination, which treats affirmative action in the interest of diversity as inherently suspect and presumptively unlawful, is unjustified legally and unwise as a matter of policy. Implicitly, the Court adopts a paradigm of white male victimhood, which has turned anti-discrimination provisions on their head.
The article also challenges the contention that affirmative action inevitably sacrifices “merit” to preference, by confronting the misconceptions regarding merit, and particularly the glorification of standardized testing
Sensitivity of predicted bioaerosol exposure from open windrow composting facilities to ADMS dispersion model parameters
Bioaerosols are released in elevated quantities from composting facilities and are associated with negative health effects, although dose-response relationships are not well understood, and require improved exposure classification. Dispersion modelling has great potential to improve exposure classification, but has not yet been extensively used or validated in this context. We present a sensitivity analysis of the ADMS dispersion model specific to input parameter ranges relevant to bioaerosol emissions from open windrow composting. This analysis provides an aid for model calibration by prioritising parameter adjustment and targeting independent parameter estimation. Results showed that predicted exposure was most sensitive to the wet and dry deposition modules and the majority of parameters relating to emission source characteristics, including pollutant emission velocity, source geometry and source height. This research improves understanding of the accuracy of model input data required to provide more reliable exposure predictions
Selective Plasma Deposition of Fluorocarbon Films on SAMs
A dry plasma process has been demonstrated to be useful for the selective modification of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiolates. These SAMs are used, during the fabrication of semiconductor electronic devices, as etch masks on gold layers that are destined to be patterned and incorporated into the devices. The selective modification involves the formation of fluorocarbon films that render the SAMs more effective in protecting the masked areas of the gold against etching by a potassium iodide (KI) solution. This modification can be utilized, not only in the fabrication of single electronic devices but also in the fabrication of integrated circuits, microelectromechanical systems, and circuit boards. In the steps that precede the dry plasma process, a silicon mold in the desired pattern is fabricated by standard photolithographic techniques. A stamp is then made by casting polydimethylsiloxane (commonly known as silicone rubber) in the mold. The stamp is coated with an alkanethiol solution, then the stamp is pressed on the gold layer of a device to be fabricated in order to deposit the alkanethiol to form an alkanethiolate SAM in the desired pattern (see figure). Next, the workpiece is exposed to a radio-frequency plasma generated from a mixture of CF4 and H2 gases. After this plasma treatment, the SAM is found to be modified, while the exposed areas of gold remain unchanged. This dry plasma process offers the potential for forming masks superior to those formed in a prior wet etching process. Among the advantages over the wet etching process are greater selectivity, fewer pin holes in the masks, and less nonuniformity of the masks. The fluorocarbon films formed in this way may also be useful as intermediate layers for subsequent fabrication steps and as dielectric layers to be incorporated into finished products
Ariel - Volume 3 Number 6
Editors
Richard J. Bonanno
Robin A. Edwards
Associate Editors
Steven Ager
Tom Williams
Lay-out Editor
Eugenia Miller
Contributing Editors
Paul Bialas
Robert Breckenridge
Lynne Porter
David Jacoby
Mike LeWitt
Terry Burt
Mark Pearlman
Michael Leo
Editors Emeritus
Delvyn C. Case, Jr.
Paul M. Fernhof
Avian cerebellar floccular fossa size is not a proxy for flying ability in birds
Extinct animal behavior has often been inferred from qualitative assessments of relative brain region size in fossil endocranial casts. For instance, flight capability in pterosaurs and early birds has been inferred from the relative size of the cerebellar flocculus, which in life protrudes from the lateral surface of the cerebellum. A primary role of the flocculus is to integrate sensory information about head rotation and translation to stabilize visual gaze via the vestibulo-occular reflex (VOR). Because gaze stabilization is a critical aspect of flight, some authors have suggested that the flocculus is enlarged in flying species. Whether this can be further extended to a floccular expansion in highly maneuverable flying species or floccular reduction in flightless species is unknown. Here, we used micro computed-tomography to reconstruct “virtual” endocranial casts of 60 extant bird species, to extract the same level of anatomical information offered by fossils. Volumes of the floccular fossa and entire brain cavity were measured and these values correlated with four indices of flying behavior. Although a weak positive relationship was found between floccular fossa size and brachial index, no significant relationship was found between floccular fossa size and any other flight mode classification. These findings could be the result of the bony endocranium inaccurately reflecting the size of the neural flocculus, but might also reflect the importance of the flocculus for all modes of locomotion in birds. We therefore conclude that the relative size of the flocculus of endocranial casts is an unreliable predictor of locomotor behavior in extinct birds, and probably also pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs
Multiple origins of extra electron diffractions in fcc metals
Diffuse intensities in the electron diffraction patterns of concentrated
face-centered cubic solid solutions have been widely attributed to chemical
short-range order, although this connection has been recently questioned. This
article explores the many non-ordering origins of commonly reported features
using a combination of experimental electron microscopy and multislice
diffraction simulations, which suggest that diffuse intensities largely
represent thermal and static displacement scattering. A limited number of
observations may reflect additional contributions from planar defects, surface
terminations incommensurate with bulk periodicity, or weaker dynamical effectsComment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Polarization and kinematics in Cygnus A
From optical spectropolarimetry of Cygnus A we conclude that the scattering
medium in the ionization cones in Cygnus A is moving outward at a speed of
170+-34 km/s, and that the required momentum can be supplied by the radiation
pressure of an average quasar. Such a process could produce a structure
resembling the observed ionization cones, which are thought to result from
shadowing by a circumnuclear dust torus. We detect a polarized red wing in the
[O III] emission lines arising from the central kiloparsec of Cygnus A. This
wing is consistent with line emission created close to the boundary of the
broad-line region.Comment: 5 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS letter
Extra electron reflections in concentrated alloys may originate from planar defects, not short-range order
In many concentrated alloys of current interest, the observation of diffuse
superlattice intensities by transmission electron microscopy has been
attributed to the presence of chemical short-range order. This interpretation
is questioned on the basis of crystallographic considerations and theoretical
predictions of ordering. The work of Xiao and Daykin [Ultramicroscopy 53
(1994)], which shows how planar defects can produce the exact set of observed
peaks, is highlighted as an alternative explanation that would impact the
conclusions of a number of recent studies.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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