Doing Good with a Slice of Pi: Ideas for Using the Raspberry Pi as a Low Cost Information Platform in Libraries

In the last decade, librarians have been under pressure to cut costs at every level. These cuts often occur in acquisitions, while other areas such as technology demand fiscal expansion just to meet user demand. In the last few years, University of Cambridge computer science researchers have developed a credit card-sized computer, affectionately known as the Raspberry Pi. Intended to serve as an educational platform for children learning Python programming, the project has far exceeded its original scope. At $35, this small computer can now serve as a creative solution in various areas of librarianship

Creating a Father-Friendly Library: An Examination of the Importance of Fatherhood Support in Today\u27s Library Service Model

Research shows the importance of fathers being present in the lives of children.The absence of support for fathers, perpetuates a long standing generational decline in the viability of men as a whole. This work seeks to introduce librarians to the possibilities of libraries offering support for dads. With library use among males being very low, this is also an opportunity for libraries to serve those who are often forgotten. This paper illustrates how the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) offers a path to help dads and explains how the NFI and libraries can partner through the creation of programs

Wrongful Convictions, Constitutional Remedies, and \u3ci\u3eNelson v. Colorado\u3c/i\u3e

The end result in Nelson will satisfy nearly everyone’s sense of basic justice, at least insofar as the monetary refund is concerned. Still, the case is interesting not for its outcome but because the Court’s analysis touches on, but fails to fully engage with, subtle and difficult questions of constitutional law. This Article examines three important aspects of the case—outside of the procedural due process balancing question—that receive little, if any, attention in the Court’s opinion. Part I shows that the Court’s procedural due process analysis skips over the logical first step and doctrinally harder question of whether Nelson had a constitutionally protected property interest once Colorado took the money pursuant to her conviction. On this point, Justice Ginsburg seems to set aside the Court’s previously settled doctrine about the nature and source of property protected by the Due Process Clause. Instead, the Court opts for an ad hoc definition of property, perhaps because application of the settled doctrine may have allowed Colorado to keep the money, a result which seven Justices very much wanted to avoid. Part II argues that the Court could have and should have taken a different analytical pathway toward the outcome it reached. In particular, Part II describes a rationale for reversal that would have resulted in return of the money without sowing confusion in Fourteenth Amendment doctrine. This analysis hinges on the rules governing Supreme Court review of state court judgments. Ordinarily, the Court will not examine the state law grounds for a state court’s decision in such cases. An exception to this rule exists, however, for cases in which the relied-upon state law undermines federal rights and lacks fair support in prior state law. The Supreme Court could readily have found that the Colorado court’s interpretation of the Exoneration Act met the requirements of this exception, thus allowing the Court to reverse the lower court’s judgment without relying upon a new and controversial notion of the meaning of property. Part III turns to the Court’s distinction between deprivations of property and liberty. Nelson holds that “[t]o comport with due process, a State may not impose anything more than minimal procedures on the refund of exactions dependent upon a conviction subsequently invalidated.” Some of Justice Ginsburg’s reasoning strongly suggests that there is no due process right to obtain redress for the lost liberty. Yet the Fourteenth Amendment seems to draw no such distinction between liberty and property. It guarantees “due process” when the state deprives a person of “life, liberty, or property.” Part III asks whether there are grounds upon which a backward-looking money-damages remedy can be justified for the deprivation of property alone, or whether the liberty/property distinction is simply an arbitrary one

The mechanics of Arabidopsis seed germination

Germination is defined as the protrusion of the embryonic radicle through the seed coat layers (endosperm and testa). As the radicle elongates, the testa ruptures, followed by rupture of the endosperm. Arabidopsis seeds exhibit a two-step germination process with sequential rupture of the testa and endosperm. We are interested in exploring the physical process of germination. Whilst much effort has previously been placed on genetic networks, a mathematical approach for furthering the understanding of the physical/mechanical properties of germination has not yet been described. The Mathematics in Plant Sciences Study Group helped us to develop a better understanding of the problem. Several different mathematical models were generated for radicle growth and endosperm stretching. These models were developed on multiscale dimensions – looking at the organ, tissue and cellular levels. The outcomes of the study group have heightened our interest in the mechanical aspects of germination, and we are currently progressing with a grant proposal – a collaboration between the Schools of Biosciences and Engineering at the University of Nottingham, and a group from the Department of Biology at the University of Freiburg, Germany

How Can a Heavy Higgs Boson be Consistent with the Precision Electroweak Measurements?

The fit of precision electroweak data to the Minimal Standard Model currently gives an upper limit on the Higgs boson mass of 170 GeV at 95% confidence. Nevertheless, it is often said that the Higgs boson could be much heavier in more general models. In this paper, we critically review models that have been proposed in the literature that allow a heavy Higgs boson consistent with the precision electroweak constraints. All have unusual features, and all can be distinguished from the Minimal Standard Model either by improved precision measurements or by other signatures accessible to next-generation colliders.Comment: 25 pages, 5 eps figures. Source contains html and jar files which make Fig. 1 active. v.3: final corrections and added reference

Out-of-home care by state and place: higher placement rates for children in some remote rural places

This fact sheet examines out-of-home placement rates for children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. The data finds that children in remote rural areas have overall higher rates of out-of-home placements. It also provides data on placement rates by rural or urban status to help inform policy makers as they discuss the child welfare system

Indicators for managing human centred manufacturing

Establishing indicators for managing human factors (HF) aspects in the design of production systems remains a challenge. We address the problem in two dimensions – firstly, what aspects of HF are to be considered, and secondly, where in the development process HF is to be measured. In these dimensions a large number of HF metrics are possible in the perceptual, cognitive, physical and psychosocial domains of HF. The relevance of these measures to injury, productivity, quality and organizational strategy continue to be poorly understood. From this perspective we make propositions on the need for: 1) strategic HF metrics selection, 2) metrics application throughout the development process, 3) predictive ‘virtual’ HF metrics approaches, 4) metrics based design guidelines, 5) connecting metrics with design choices and strategies, 6) integrating HF metrics within existing approaches, 7) continuous improvement of the metrics system, and 8) the need to evaluate metrics system quality

Punitive Damages for Constitutional Torts

Critics complain that punitive damages often serve no good purpose. Whatever the merit of this charge as a general proposition, it is not universally valid across the range of tort suits. This article examines the issues raised by punitive damages for constitutional torts and takes issue with the general failure of commentators on punitive damages to recognize differences between constitutional tort and common law torts. I shall argue that constitutional tort is one area where punitive damage awards are essential to the effective enforcement of our rights. Constitutional tort is a special domain, in which the policy issues that bear on ordinary tort liability have little importance. Here punitive damages play a role that is significantly different from their functions in general tort law. Far from heeding the cries of those who seek restrictions on punitive damages, the Supreme Court should take steps to make them more readily available in constitutional tort suits