A strategy for achieving manufacturing statistical process control within a highly complex aerospace environment

This paper presents a strategy to achieve process control and overcome the previously mentioned industry constraints by changing the company focus to the process as opposed to the product. The strategy strives to achieve process control by identifying and controlling the process parameters that influence process capability followed by the implementation of a process control framework that marries statistical methods with lean business process and change management principles. The reliability of the proposed strategy is appraised using case study methodology in a state of the art manufacturing facility on Multi-axis CNC machine tools

From Premodern Christianity to the Postmodern Jury

Reviewing: James Q. Whitman, The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial (Yale University Press 2016); Dennis Hale, The Jury in America: Triumph and Decline (University Press of Kansas 2016)

Investigating tRNA Release from the Bacterial Ribosome

Translation of mRNA into proteins is integral in all living organisms, and takes place on the ribosome. In recent years, the X-ray crystal structures of biologically relevant ribosome complexes came into light, and the advance of kinetic studies was soon to follow, leading to a better understanding of the general ribosomal mechanism. However, there still remains some ambiguity in certain ribosome functions. Ribosomal protein L1 initially became relevant in the early 1980s when it was determined that ribosomes lacking L1 showed a decreased capacity for in vitro protein synthesis. Later, it was shown that the L1-stalk is a highly mobile region of the ribosome, and that it may be involved in the release of deacylated-tRNA from the exit-site, after translocation. By using a fluorescently labeled L1 reconstituted ribosome as an E-site probe we were able to study the release of deacylated-tRNA from translocating ribosomes in a time-resolved manner. The movement of the L1-stalk with relation to the deacylated-tRNA was measured using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) measurements between labeled L1 and labeled tRNAs (L/t FRET). Further, the movement of deacylated-tRNA with relation to the P-site tRNA was measured using fluorescently labeled tRNAs (t/t FRET), and the release of deacylated-tRNA was measured using changes in anisotropy. We demonstrate that the deacylated-tRNA can be released from the ribosome via three possible different pathways, depending on the conditions. Further, in Chapter V, we begin to demystify the interaction that the E-site region of the ribosome has with deacylated-tRNAs in solution, and demonstrate the changes on deacylated-tRNA release when excess tRNAs are present. The optimization of the creation of a viable E-site probe will prove to be important for future studies in both kinetic work and single molecule work when focusing on tRNA interaction with the E-site of the ribosome

Provocation Manslaughter as Partial Justification and Partial Excuse

The partial defense of provocation provides that a person who kills in the heat of passion brought on by legally adequate provocation is guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. The defense traces back to the twelfth century and exists today, in some form, in almost every U.S. state and other common law jurisdictions. But long history and wide application have not produced agreement on the rationale for the doctrine. To the contrary, the search for a coherent and satisfying rationale remains among the main occupations of criminal lawtheorists. The dominant scholarly view holds that provocation is best explained and defended as a partial excuse on the grounds that the killer’s inflamed emotional state so compromised his ability to conform his conduct to the demands of reason and law as to render him substantially less blameworthy for his conduct. In contrast, a small minority of scholars have maintained, without significant argumentative support, that provocation is best understood as a partial justification on the ground that the provoked killing is lesswrongful than is an unprovoked killing, ceteris paribus. Recently, other commentators have argued that provocation mitigation is neither partial excuse nor partial justification. Against all of these familiar positions, we argue that partial excuse and partial justification are necessary and sufficient conditions for provocation manslaughter. In our view, an intentional killing deserves to be punished and labeled as manslaughter rather than murder only when, because of provocation, this particular killing is significantly less wrongful than the standard intentional killing and when, because of the actor’s partial lack of control, he is less blameworthy for committing an act that remains all-things-considered wrongful. In elaborating and defending our account, we rebut the oft-repeated but rarely challenged propositions that justification and excuse, even in partial forms, are mutually exclusive, and that the very notion of partial justification is incoherent. We also draw forth implications for how the sentencing ranges for murder and manslaughter should be related

Taking Voluntariness Seriously

Courts and commentators commonly claim that criminal law contains a voluntary act requirement. Despite the ubiquity of this assertion, there is remarkably little agreement on what the voluntary act requirement entails. This lack of uniformity is particularly problematic because, for some crimes, whether a defendant is guilty or innocent will turn on which conception of voluntariness is applied. In this Article, we critique the various conceptions of the voluntary act requirement, and propose an alternative set of principles for applying the notion that person is only criminally culpable for crimes committed voluntarily. First, culpability requires that the actus reus as a whole (rather than merely one element of the actus reus) be voluntary. Second, the voluntariness requirement is an affirmative element of every offense, with the prosecution bearing the burden of proving voluntariness. Third, the Constitution requires that voluntariness is a necessary condition of criminal liability. These principles resolve the inconsistent understandings of the voluntariness requirement and ensure that criminal liability is limited to those defendants who are responsible for prohibited activity