Functional Intimate Association Analysis: A Doctrinal Shift To Save the Roberts Framework

In Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, the Supreme Court recognized intimate association as one of the two distinct senses of the freedom of association. In doing so, the Court identified two essential functions that justify constitutional protection for the relationships that provide them: intimate relationships cultivate and transmit shared ideals and beliefs, and they provide opportunities for emotional enrichment and self-identification by facilitating the creation of close bonds among members. Then, recognizing that familial relationships often exemplify these functions, the Court identified four aspects of family relationships that would help distinguish intimate from nonintimate associations: size, purpose, selectivity, and seclusion from others. Despite the secondary role of these aspects, subsequent decisions have focused solely on these four characteristics without even mentioning the justifications that originally supported constitutional protection. This factor-based analysis has resulted in unpredictable and inconsistent decisions that threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the entire Roberts framework. Drawing from the original functional justifications, this Note argues that courts must abandon their sole reliance on the Roberts factors and instead adopt a functional analysis that properly appreciates the right’s underlying values and ensures that groups reflecting those values are consistently protected

Die Debatte um den Glorienleib in der Jesuitentheologie; Francesco Suárez, Adam Tanner und Rodrigo Arriaga

Seit den Kirchenvätern war die körperliche Auferstehung ein notwendiger Bestandteil der christlichen Eschatologie. Übereinstimmend hatte die Kirche gelehrt, dass die Seele gemeinsam mit ihrem Körper im Jenseits belohnt oder bestraft werden sollte. Doch welche Gestalt sollte dieser neue Körper annehmen, der zugleich derselbe alte Leib in seiner Essenz und Kontinuität bleiben musste? Wie ihre mittelalterlichen Vorgänger schenkten auch die Jesuiten viele Quästionen ihrer Cursus theologici diesem Sonderfall des Leib-Seele-Problems. Wie war sinnliche Wahrnehmung denkbar, wenn Veränderungen in einem vollkommenen Leib ausgeschlossen waren und zugleich jedes Medium fehlte? Wie ließen sich die in der christlichen Tradition überlieferten Eigenschaften des auferstandenen Körpers, agilitas, claritas, subtilitas und impassbilitas, erklären und mit der zeitgenös-sischen Physik in Einklang bringen? Die Studie wählt Francesco Suárez, Adam Tanner und Rodrigo Arriaga als Beispiele einer ausgreifenden Debatte um den Glorienleib im Jesuitenorden

Comments: Transfusion-Associated Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Blood Bank Liability?

The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) can be contracted via a blood transfusion. A legal question of growing importance in Maryland and across the country is whether a blood bank which supplies AIDS-tainted blood should be liable to a blood transfusee for the contraction of AIDS. Inherent in that question is a balancing of society\u27s need to protect blood banks from liability and the individual\u27s right of recovery. This comment examines that question. The author begins with a historical review of blood bank liability for blood tainted with viruses other than AIDS and then discusses various theories of liability under which a blood bank could be held liable for the transfer of AIDS-tainted blood. The comment concludes with a legislative proposal which would permit individual recovery for tranfusion-associated AIDS without interfering with society\u27s need for an adequate and safe supply of blood

Establishment of a suitable dynamic formula for the construction control of driven piles and its calibration for Load and Resistance Factor Design

Dynamic pile driving formulas have been available for the field prediction of the static bearing capacity of pile foundations for well over 180 years. On account of the immense number of different formulas that have been amassed during this time frame, a review of published literature was performed to identify the most common dynamic pile driving formulas utilized in the United States and their documented reliability. The results of this review indicated that no one dynamic pile driving formula is consistently better than all the rest; however, the Hiley, Janbu, Pacific Coast Uniform Building Code (PCUBC), and Gates formulas were shown to provide, on average, the best predictions of ultimate pile capacity. In contrast, the Engineering News Record (ENR) formula, which has been probably the most widely used dynamic formula within the United States, was shown to be among the worst predictors of pile capacity. For well over 100 years, the Working Stress Design (WSD) approach has been the traditional basis for geotechnical design with regard to settlements or failure conditions. However, considerable effort has been put forth over the past couple of decades in relation to the adoption of the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) approach into geotechnical design. With the goal of producing engineered designs with consistent levels of reliability, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a policy memorandum on June 28, 2000, requiring all new bridges initiated after October 1, 2007, to be designed according to the LRFD approach. Likewise, regionally calibrated LRFD resistance factors have been permitted by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO) to improve the economy of bridge foundation elements. Thus, the bulk of this study focused on the development of regionally calibrated LRFD resistance factors for the construction control of driven pile foundations via a suitable dynamic pile driving formula. Using data from pile load tests performed in the State of Iowa, which was analyzed for reliability and placed in a newly designed relational database management system termed PILOT-IA, the efficiency of seven dynamic pile driving formulas (i.e., the Gates, FHWA Gates, ENR, Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) Modified ENR, Janbu, PCUBC, and Washington DOT (WSDOT) formulas) was investigated. In addition to verifying the poor performance of the ENR formula, it was demonstrated that the efficiency of the Iowa DOT Modified ENR formula, which is presently specified in the Iowa DOT\u27s Standard Specifications for Highway and Bridge Construction manual, is sufficient to allow for its recommended use with steel H-shaped and timber pile foundations driven in any soil type; these two driven pile foundation types were found to be the most commonly used in Iowa via the results of both a state- and county-level survey. More specifically, LRFD resistance factors were calibrated and verified on a pile and soil type basis for the Iowa DOT Modified ENR formula using the first-order, second-moment (FOSM) reliability approach and the findings obtained from nine full-scale field load tests performed throughout the State of Iowa on steel H-shaped piles. For a target probability of failure of 1%, LRFD resistance factors of 0.49, 0.62, and 0.50 have been recommended for use with steel H-shaped piles driven in sand, clay, and mixed soil profiles, respectively, with a factor of 0.35 having been cautiously recommended for use with timber piles driven in any soil type. Finally, a displacement-based signal matching technique was recommended for use with PDA measured data to arrive at prediction correlations for soil quake values, Smith damping factors, and the degree-of-degradation of such parameters with respect to pile penetration depth. Although an insufficient amount of data was analyzed to even begin to develop such correlations, the accuracy, uniqueness, and theoretical basis of the displacement-based signal matching approach over the more commonly employed Case Pile Wave Analysis Program (CAPWAP) approach was demonstrated. Provided the future establishment of such prediction correlations from the increased use of this proposed technique, it was suggested that a one-dimensional pile-soil model could be used in conjunction with a dynamic pile driving formula to design driven pile foundations

Comments: Transfusion-Associated Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Blood Bank Liability?

The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) can be contracted via a blood transfusion. A legal question of growing importance in Maryland and across the country is whether a blood bank which supplies AIDS-tainted blood should be liable to a blood transfusee for the contraction of AIDS. Inherent in that question is a balancing of society\u27s need to protect blood banks from liability and the individual\u27s right of recovery. This comment examines that question. The author begins with a historical review of blood bank liability for blood tainted with viruses other than AIDS and then discusses various theories of liability under which a blood bank could be held liable for the transfer of AIDS-tainted blood. The comment concludes with a legislative proposal which would permit individual recovery for tranfusion-associated AIDS without interfering with society\u27s need for an adequate and safe supply of blood

Prescription for public school finance reform in Texas

In the summer of 1984, Governor Mark White called a special session of the 68th Legislature to address the problems of public education in Texas and to deal with the state's needs for additional revenue. That session followed a decade of fitful attempts at and retreats from substantive reform of the methods of public school finance. In fact, the comprehensive education reform bill that resulted from the session, House Bill 72, was similar in its intent to the comprehensive reform bill of 1975, House Bill 1126. The finance portions of HB 72 have been the subject of controversy since the bill's inception. In January of 1985, the Legislature will be faced with the task of adjusting the hastily passed HB 72. The narrow purpose of this report is to provide a foundation for evaluating the proposed adjustments to HB 72. The larger purpose is to provide a basic understanding of the fundamentals of public school finance. The report will present a normative model against which school finance measures may be evaluated and will use the model to critique education funding measures since 1975. From the model and the critiques, the author will present several recommendations for legislative actionPublic Affair

Die Beweiskraft der Dichtung in der frühneuzeitlichen Debatte um die animalische Intelligenz

Ungefähr in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts ereignet sich im wissenschaftlichen Weltbild ein paradigmatischer Umschwung in der Auffassung über die Intelligenz der Tiere. Die aristotelische Lehrmeinung über die anima sensitiva, die den nicht vernunftbegabten Lebewesen innewohnt, wird durch mechanistische Vorstellungen eines bloß materiellen spiritus und insbesondere durch die cartesianische Philosophie angefochten. In den heiß geführten Debatten der Zeit spielt die Poesie und besonders das Lehrgedicht eine besondere Rolle: es liefert schon seit der Antike exempla der animalischen Verstandesleistungen, die als Beweise für die Beseeltheit der Tiere angeführt werden. Hierbei treffen nicht nur zwei Weltanschauungen, die hylemorphistische und die mechanistische, aufeinander, sondern auch zwei Arten der Beweisführung: die eine konzentriert sich auf die nüchterne Beschreibung der anatomisch-mechanischen Prozesse, die andere erzählt das von menschenähnlichen Emotionen und Motiven geprägte Leben und Handeln der Tiere. Das vorliegende Working Paper verfolgt die Spur dieser Debatte in frühneuzeitlicher Jagd- und Lehrdichtung, die ihre Beweiskraft zur Verteidigung der animalischen Intelligenz aus einer bis in die Antike reichenden Tradition der Tierbeschreibungen schöpft. Es beleuchtet die Bedeutung der ‚alten‘ literarischen Gattung in Bezug auf eine ‚neue‘ wissenschaftliche Problemstellung und verdeutlicht, vor welche Schwierigkeiten die Beschränkung der Wissenschaftssprache auf einen immer unpersönlicheren und sachlicheren Duktus die wissenschaftliche Dichtung stellte