A More Global Court? Judicial Transnationalism and the U.S. Supreme Court

For many decades, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars have argued over the validity of different tools in constitutional interpretation, including social science data, public opinion and, most recently, laws and standards of decency from abroad. Although several of those currently on the bench maintain that foreign laws have no place in American constitutional adjudication, the larger universe in which their institution operates has become increasingly transnational since the end of the Cold War. The term judicial transnationalism has been coined to describe this phenomenon, characterized by unprecedented levels of interaction and exchange between foreign courts and legal activists. This project examines these changes, evaluating the extent to which they have resulted in higher levels or new forms of foreign and transnational participation and interest in Supreme Court cases. In doing so, it tests three observations made about the effect of judicial globalization on the Court. First, it has been suggested that because of the increasingly complex and global nature of legal structures, the Court is more likely to hear cases that involve some form of foreign or international law. Second, scholars have noted that the Court is increasingly subject to foreign and international legal arguments put forth by a range of participants in and observers of its judicial process. Third, contemporary justices appear to be increasingly engaged in an ongoing conversation about judicial globalization, having become more vocal in discussing its implications in Court opinions as well as public forums. Although these observations have been widely made by scholars of the Court, they lack empirical support. By analyzing the litigant and amicus briefs filed in all cases from the 1989-1990, 1999-2000, and 2009-2010 dockets, this project attempts to provide this support and determine if there been an increase in the presence of foreign law arguments made in briefs filed to the Supreme Court, what kinds of actors are introducing transnational arguments to the Court, and if contemporary justices are devoting more attention to transnationalism in their opinions, public statements, and professional activities

Targeting the tumor microenvironment in colorectal peritoneal metastases

Peritoneal metastasis (PM) occurs in approximately one in four colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The pathophysiology of colorectal PM remains poorly characterized. Also, the efficacy of current treatment modalities, including surgery and intraperitoneal (IP) delivery of chemotherapy, is limited. Increasingly, therefore, efforts are being developed to unravel the PM cascade and at understanding the PM-associated tumor microenvironment (TME) and peritoneal ecosystem as potential therapeutic targets. Here, we review recent insights in the structure and components of the TME in colorectal PM, and discuss how these may translate into novel therapeutic approaches aimed at re-engineering the metastasis-promoting activity of the stroma

FEM Analysis of Gun Tank Turret

Turret of a battle tank is of complicated geometry with complex loading conditions. Finite element analysis of turret structure is carriedout by using a package program SAP IV for various loadings.Experimental analysis is carried out by strain gauge method on 115th scale model and the results are compared. The suitability of finite element method in this area of stress analysis of tank turrets to assess the design adequacy and opimisation h-comes apparent

On the hydrogen bonding structure at the aqueous interface of ammonium-substituted mica: A molecular dynamics simulation

Molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations were performed for an aqueous film of 3nm thickness adsorbed at the (001) surface of ammonium-substituted muscovite mica. The results provide a detailed picture of the near-surface structure and topological characteristics of the interfacial hydrogen bonding network. The effects of D/H isotopic substitution in N(H/D)4+ on the dynamics and consequently on the convergence of the structural properties have also been explored. Unlike many earlier simulations, a much larger surface area representing 72 crystallographic unit cells was used, which allowed for a more realistic representation of the substrate surface with a more disordered distribution of Al/Si isomorphic substitutions in muscovite. The results clearly demonstrate that under ambient conditions both interfacial ammonium ions and the very first layer of water molecules are H-bonded only to the basal surface of muscovite, but do not form H-bonds with each other. As the distance from the surface increases, the H-bonds donated to the surface by both N(H/D)4+ and H2O are gradually replaced by the H-bonds to the neighboring water molecules, with the ammonia ions experiencing one reorientational transition region, while the H2O molecules experiencing three such distinct consecutive transitions. The hydrated N(H/D)4+ ions adsorb almost exclusively as inner-sphere surface complexes with the preferential coordination to the basal bridging oxygen atoms surrounding the Al/Si substitutions

Compactification of M<SUB>P<SUB>3</SUB></SUB>(0,2) and Poncelet pairs of conics

Let M(0, 2) denote the quasi-projective variety of isomorphism classes of stable rank 2 vector bundles on P3(C) with C1=0 and C2=2 . In this paper we study a natural (irreducible) compactification of M(0, 2) and describe explicitly the sheaves on P3 which occur in the closure of M(0, 2) in the moduli space of semi-stable sheaves on P3 with c1= 0, c2=2 and c3=0

Lifting of Ir{100} reconstruction by CO adsorption: An ab initio study

The adsorption of CO on unreconstructed and reconstructed Ir{100} has been studied, using a combination of density functional theory and thermodynamics, to determine the relative stability of the two phases as a function of CO coverage, temperature and pressure. We obtain good agreement with experimentaldata. At zero temperature, the (1X5) reconstruction becomes less stable than the unreconstructed (1X1) surface when the CO coverage exceeds a critical value of 0.09 ML. The interaction between CO molecules is found to be repulsive on the reconstructed surface, but attractive on the unreconstructed, explaining the experimental observation of high CO coverage on growing (1X1) islands. At all temperatures and pressures, we find only two possible stable states: 0.05 ML CO c(2X2) overlayer on the (1X1) substrate, and the clean (1$\times$5) reconstructed surface.Comment: 31 page