Reality Check: A Modest Modification to Rationalize Rule 803 Hearsay Exceptions

The Federal Rules of Evidence (or “the Rules”) identify hearsay that is admissible, notwithstanding the classic hearsay prohibition, by delineating categories of hearsay statements that may be admitted into evidence. For example, “dying declarations” of now-unavailable declarants may be admitted in homicide prosecutions or civil cases. “Excited utterances” relating to a startling event also may be admitted for their truth. The purported justification for admitting certain categories of hearsay rests upon the inherent reliability of human statements uttered in certain contexts, as well as litigants’ need for crucial evidence to build cases

Reality Check: A Modest Modification to Rationalize Rule 803 Hearsay Exceptions

The Federal Rules of Evidence (or “the Rules”) identify hearsay that is admissible, notwithstanding the classic hearsay prohibition, by delineating categories of hearsay statements that may be admitted into evidence. For example, “dying declarations” of now-unavailable declarants may be admitted in homicide prosecutions or civil cases. “Excited utterances” relating to a startling event also may be admitted for their truth. The purported justification for admitting certain categories of hearsay rests upon the inherent reliability of human statements uttered in certain contexts, as well as litigants’ need for crucial evidence to build cases

Adopting Children with Down Syndrome: A qualitative study of family experiences

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively investigate and compare the family beliefs, values, and perceptions of parenting of families who have adopted children with Down syndrome (DS) to parents who have biological children with DS. Participants in the study included 27 parents of biological children with DS and six parents of adopted children with DS. Participants were interviewed through a digital survey that was distributed through Qualtrics Online Survey Software. Quantitative analysis placed the participants into groups and qualitative analysis was used to identify beliefs, values, and perceptions. Results showed that while both adoptive and biological parents indicated that support services have played an important role in raising their child with DS, 100% of adoptive parents indicated a desire for the creation of additional services/programs to better serve their child with DS and only 63% of biological parents indicated the same desire. There were no significant differences in level of stress seen between the two groups, joys and benefits added to family life, or challenges faced by families. While participants from both groups reported similar values and beliefs that have contributed to their parenting decisions, themes found in motivation differed between biological and adoptive parents

Integrability and Disorder in Mesoscopic Systems: Application to Orbital Magnetism

We present a semiclassical theory of weak disorder effects in small structures and apply it to the magnetic response of non-interacting electrons confined in integrable geometries. We discuss the various averaging procedures describing different experimental situations in terms of one- and two-particle Green functions. We demonstrate that the anomalously large zero-field susceptibility characteristic of clean integrable structures is only weakly suppressed by disorder. This damping depends on the ratio of the typical size of the structure with the two characteristic length scales describing the disorder (elastic mean-free-path and correlation length of the potential) in a power-law form for the experimentally relevant parameter region. We establish the comparison with the available experimental data and we extend the study of the interplay between disorder and integrability to finite magnetic fields.Comment: 38 pages, Latex, 7 Postscript figures, 1 table, to appear in Jour. Math. Physics 199

Low speed, long term tracking electric drive system has zero backlash

Electric drive system provides low speed, long term tracking of targets that move at a sidereal rate. It utilizes eddy-current energized actuators that are free from radio frequency interference generation and a solid state feedback amplifier with provisions for antibacklash biasing

Reversible motion drive system Patent

Drive system for parabolic tracking antenna with reversible motion and minimal backlas

Comment on "Density of States and Critical Behavior of the Coulomb Glass"

In a recent numerical investigation of the Coulomb glass, Surer et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 067205 (2009)] concluded that their simulation results are consistent with the Efros Shklovskii prediction for the density of states in the three-dimensional case. Here, we show that this statement has no relevance concerning the problem of the asymptotic behavior in the Coulomb gap since it is based on unjustified assumptions. Moreover, for the random-displacement Coulomb glass model, we demonstrate that a part of the density of states data by Surer et al. erroneously exhibit a broad gap. This is related to the staggered occupation being instable contrary to their findings.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letters, 1 page, 1 figur