Moore v. Texas: Balancing Medical Advancements With Judicial Stability

In Moore v. Texas, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Eighth Amendment requires States to adhere to a particular organization’s most recent clinical definition of intellectual disability in determining whether a person is exempt from the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia and Hall v. Florida. Generally, the Supreme Court has carved away at the death penalty with each new case it takes. This commentary argues that the Supreme Court should not continue that trend in this case and should find for Texas because the state’s intellectual disability determination is consistent with the Eighth Amendment under Atkins and Hall. Further, because the medical field is so fluid, requiring states to constantly change their frameworks will cause judicial instability and uncertainty in the adjudication of death penalty cases

Outer Space: The Final Frontier or the Final Battlefield?

Current law concerning the militarization and weaponization of outer space is inadequate for present times. The increased implementation of “dual-use” space technologies poses obstacles for the demilitarization of space. This paper examines how far the militarization of space should be taken and also whether weapons of any kind should be placed in space. Further steps must be taken in international space law to attempt to keep the militarization and weaponization of space under control in order to promote and maintain a free outer space for research and exploration

Haro 11, Pox 186, and VCC 1313: The Enigmatic Behavior of HI Non-Emitters

We present neutral hydrogen (HI) observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope of the galaxies Haro 11, Pox 186, and VCC 1313. 24 hours of deep spectral line observation at the 21 cm line were obtained from the program 17B-287 of Haro 11, the primary galaxy studied in this capstone, and 176 and 203 respective minutes of archival VLA data at the 21 cm line were obtained from the program AS0832 of Pox 186 and VCC 1313, the secondary and tertiary sources of study for this capstone. Haro 11 is one of a very small number of local dwarf galaxies to be both a Lyα and LyC emitter. While it harbors ongoing aggressive star formation (with sources reporting up to 32.8 M☉ yr-1), the neutral hydrogen gas in the system has been notoriously difficult to detect. Previous interferometric observations have resulted in non-detections, while a deep Green Bank Telescope (GBT) spectrum reveals a weak spectral line. Our emission result is a non-detection, while our absorption result is a detection, confirming the results of similar, previously conducted absorption work. Past interferometric research has additionally resulted in HI non-detections for both Pox 186 and VCC 1313. Our results from archival data are also two HI non-detections, confirming the results of past research. For all three systems, given their aggressive star formation rates, these HI non-detection results are surprising. The behavior of these systems remains highly enigmatic

Fossil fuels, global warming and democracy: a report from a scene of the collision

What happens to democracy when the fossil fuel industry collides with global warming? Introduction Democracy is caught in a collision between two forces: the need to respond to global warming by cutting carbon emissions, and the demands of the fossil fuel industry to increase carbon use and production. This is a slow motion collision that will take decades to conclude, though its ending seems inevitable: coal, and then oil and natural gas, will be replaced by more sustainable energy sources, but only after great damage to the environment. In this paper I explore the question, What happens to democracy when the fossil fuel industry collides with global warming? This collision is already making its marks on democratic practices. The fossil fuel industry is using every tool it can to preserve its wealth and power by pressuring governments, political parties, universities, regulators, courts, and voters. It is a process of tough, aggressive, and sophisticated politics that ultimately depends on denying the evidence that global warming poses a danger that needs to be urgently confronted. Without a theoretical framework to focus this inquiry, it could easily produce little more than a list of anecdotes about politics and influence. The value of good theory is that it reveals the patterns in the evidence, showing how the disparate pieces are connected to one another, and to larger historical, social, and economic factors. In this paper, I drew theory from (among others) Valerie Bunce, Timothy Mitchell, and most importantly Terry Lynn Karl. I use the work of these scholars to focus on the Canadian province of Alberta. Alberta provides an example of what can happen to democracy in places where fossil fuel production predominates. From time-to-time I link the paper to Australia, which depends even more than Canada on mineral extraction, and which is on the burning edge of global warming. This paper should be read as a warning to people everywhere who are concerned about fossil fuel dependence, global warming, and democracy. Those who value democracy must ask, Can democracy as we know it survive global warming

A distributable APSE

A distributed Ada program library is a key element in a distributed Ada Program Support Environment (APSE). To implement this successfully, the program library universe as defined by the Ada Reference Manual must be broken up into independently manageable pieces. This in turn requires the support of a distributed database system, as well as a mechanism for identifying compilation units, linkable subprograms, and Ada types in a decentralized way, to avoid falling victim to the bottlenecks of a global database and/or global unique-identifier manager. It was found that the ability to decentralize Ada program library activity is a major advantage in the management of large Ada programs. Currently, there are 18 resource-catalog revision sets, each in its own Host Interface (HIF) partition, plus 18 partitions for testing each of these, plus 11 partitions for the top-level compiler/linker/program library manager components. Compiling and other development work can proceed in parallel in each of these partitions, without suffering the performance bottlenecks of global locks or global unique-identifier generation

Early experience with Check 21

This article looks at some of the early developments since the Check 21 law became effective and some of the remaining barriers to a more efficient and electronic check clearing system.

David Taft and Danny Taft in a Piano Recital

This is the program for the piano recital of David Taft and Danny Taft. This recital took place on April 24, 1964, at First Baptist Church in Malvern, Arkansas