The Canon Wars

Canons are taking their turn down the academic runway in ways that no one would have foretold just a decade ago. Affection for canons of construction has taken center stage in recent Supreme Court cases and in constitutional theory. Harvard Dean John Manning and originalists Will Baude and Stephen Sachs have all suggested that principles of “ordinary interpretation” including canons should inform constitutional interpretation. Given this newfound enthusiasm for canons, and their convergence in both constitutional and statutory law, it is not surprising that we now have two competing book-length treatments of the canons—one by Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner, Reading Law, and the other by Yale Law Professor William N. Eskridge, Interpreting Law. Both volumes purport to provide ways to use canons to read statutes and the Constitution. In this Review of Interpreting Law, we argue that this contemporary convergence on canons raises some significant interpretive questions about judicial power and the very idea of a canon

Symmetry breaking by quantum coherence in single electron attachment

Quantum coherence-induced effects in atomic and molecular systems are the basis of several proposals for laser-based control of chemical reactions. So far, these rely on coherent photon beams inducing coherent reaction pathways that may interfere with one another, in order to achieve the desired outcome. This concept has been successfully exploited for removing the inversion symmetry in the dissociation of homonuclear diatomic molecules, but it remains to be seen if such quantum coherent effects can also be generated by interaction of incoherent electrons with such molecules. Here we show that resonant electron attachment to H2 and the subsequent dissociation into H (n=2) + H− is asymmetric about the inter-nuclear axis, while the asymmetry in D2 is far less pronounced. We explain this observation as due to attachment of a single electron resulting in a coherent superposition of two resonances of opposite parity. In addition to exemplifying a new quantum coherent process, our observation of coherent quantum dynamics involves the active participation of all three electrons and two nuclei, which could provide new tools for studying electron correlations as a means to control chemical processes and demonstrates the role of coherent effects in electron induced chemistry

X-ray photoemission study of NiS_{2-x}Se_x (x = 0.0 - 1.2)

Electronic structure of NiS_{2-x}Se_x system has been investigated for various compositions (x) using x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. An analysis of the core level as well as the valence band spectra of NiS_2 in conjunction with many-body cluster calculations provides a quantitative description of the electronic structure of this compound. With increasing Se content, the on-site Coulomb correlation strength (U) does not change, while the band width W of the system increases, driving the system from a covalent insulating state to a pd-metallic state.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, To appear in Phys. Rev. B, 200

Dissociative Electron Attachment Cross Sections for H₂ and D₂

New measurements of the absolute cross sections for dissociative electron attachment (DEA) in molecular hydrogen and deuterium are presented which resolve previous ambiguities and provide a test bed for theory. The experimental methodology is based upon a momentum imaging time-of-flight spectrometer that allowed us to eliminate any contributions due to electronically excited metastable neutrals and ultraviolet light while ensuring detection of all the ions. The isotope effect in the DEA process in the two molecules is found to be considerably larger than previously observed. More importantly, it is found to manifest in the polar dissociation process (also known as ion pair production) as well

ADZ: Analysis of the World Wide Web

The hardware and architecture approach to Smalltalk is defined not only by the refinement of architecture, but also by the important need for red-black trees [13]. After years of confirmed research into web browsers, we prove the under- standing of robots, which embodies the essential principles of interactive cryptography. In this paper we use amphibious communication to dis- confirm that suffix trees and systems can interact to answer this issue

Integrated nutrient management and LCC based nitrogen management on soil fertility and yield of rice (Oryza Sativa L.)

The experiment was conducted at lowland series of wet lands, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Farm, Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines. The rice variety PSBRc 82 was raised during wet season (June – October), and the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with four replications. There were eleven treatments viz., control, recommended NPK fertilizer, -N, -P, -K, LCC 3, LCC 4, LCC 5, 100% N as fresh rice straw, 50% N through rice straw compost and 50% N as poultry manure and 50% N as combined organic manures (RSC + PM). The P and K were applied to all the treatments except -P and –K treatments, respectively. The fertilizer N @ 90 kg ha-1, P2O5 @ 40 kg ha-1 and K2O @ 60 kg ha-1 were applied in the form of urea, super phosphate and muriate of potash respectively. The application of N at 90 kg level as 50% through RSC + 50% N as PM registered higher available N, P and K contents of soil during different growth stages as compared to the other treatment combinations including recommended NPK fertilizers. The growth and yield attributes were also found to be improved by the above treatment resulting in more grain and straw yield. With regard to N management, LCC 4 and 5 based N applications recorded higher grain yield as a result of higher soil available nutrients during the critical growth stages.Srinivasagam Krishnakumar and Stephan Haefel

Longstanding Agency Interpretations

How much deference—or what kind—should courts give to longstanding agency interpretations of statutes? Surprisingly, courts and scholars lack a coherent answer to this question. Legal scholars long have assumed that longstanding agency statutory interpretations are treated with heightened deference on judicial review, and federal courts sometimes have made statements suggesting that this is the case. But in practice, federal court review of longstanding agency interpretations—at both the U.S. Supreme Court and courts of appeals—turns out to be surprisingly erratic. Reviewing courts sometimes note the longevity of an agency’s statutory interpretation as a plus factor in their deference analysis but at other times completely ignore or dismiss an agency interpretation’s longevity. Moreover, judicial rhetoric about the relevance of longevity in the review of agency statutory interpretations is inconsistent from case to case. What makes this doctrinal incoherence particularly remarkable is that courts usually care much more about the predictability of statutory interpretations and about upsetting settled institutional practices. In fact, in two analogous contexts—judicial interpretations of statutes and historical executive branch practice in the constitutional arena—courts accord strong precedential effect, or a presumption of correctness, to established legal constructions. This Article provides the first detailed study of federal court treatment of longstanding agency statutory interpretations, illuminating doctrinal inconsistencies and examining longevity-related factors that both favor and disfavor deference. The Article also compares federal courts’ chaotic treatment of longstanding agency statutory interpretations with the precedential effect that courts give to longstanding judicial interpretations of statutes and the historical “gloss” effect that courts give to past executive practice in constitutional interpretation. Ultimately, the Article argues that longstanding agency interpretations of statutes are at least as deserving of heightened judicial deference and that, at a minimum, federal courts’ disparate treatment of such interpretations—without acknowledging or justifying the distinction—is troubling. The Article advocates that longstanding agency interpretations should be entitled to precedential effect by reviewing courts and outlines how such an approach might work

The Sherlock Holmes Canon

Many of the Supreme Court’s statutory interpretation cases infer meaning from Congress’s failure to comment in the legislative record. Colorfully referred to as the “dog that did not bark” canon, after a Sherlock Holmes story involving a watchdog that failed to bark while a racehorse was being stolen, the interpretive presumption holds as follows: if a statutory interpretation would significantly change the existing legal landscape, Congress can be expected to comment on that change in the legislative record; thus, a lack of congressional comment regarding a significant change can be taken as evidence that Congress did not intend that interpretation. Failure to comment arguments typically arise when the Supreme Court considers the meaning of a statutory provision that has been amended and an interpretation is advanced that arguably would change the status quo. Surprisingly, this canine canon of construction has received little theoretical attention — and what little attention it has received has tended to be positive, assuming that the canon leads courts to follow congressional intent. But there are several practical and theoretical problems with the assumptions underlying the canon. This essay examines how courts employ the Sherlock Holmes canon in practice and explores the canon’s normative and theoretical implications in detail. Ultimately, it argues that the Sherlock Holmes canon should be invoked only in rare cases, when there is special reason for courts to expect or require Congress to comment on a change in the law