Eighth Amendment Meanings from the ABA’s Moratorium Resolution

Bilionis argues that the American Bar Association\u27s moratorium resolution on capital punishment doesn\u27t challenge the capacity of the Eighth Amendment

Comment on Ferejohn’s “Judicializing Politics, Politicizing Law”

Munger comments on John Ferejohn\u27s recent article in which Ferejohn examines some key issues raised by the exercise of legislative power by the judicial branch. Ferejohn claims that Americans have chosen to accept the judicialization of politics, leaving the courts the option of exercising power inappropriately. Munger argues that while the courts do have power, they forebear from exercising it for long periods of time

Private Equity Firms as Gatekeepers

Notwithstanding the considerable attention private equity receives, there continues to be substantial confusion about what private equity does and whether this creates value. Calls for more aggressive regulation of the industry reflect a skeptical view of private equity as—at best—a zero-sum game, in which profits are generated only at the expense of other constituencies. The standard defense of private equity points to its corporate governance advantages as a source of value. This Article identifies an overlooked and increasingly important way in which private equity creates value: private equity firms act as gatekeepers in the debt markets. As repeat players, private equity firms use their reputations with creditors to mitigate the problems of borrower adverse selection and moral hazard in the companies that they manage, thereby reducing creditors’ costs of lending to these companies. Private equity-owned companies are thus able to borrow money on more favorable terms than standalone companies, all else being equal. By acting as gatekeepers, private equity firms render the debt markets more efficient and provide their portfolio companies with an increasingly valuable borrowing advantage. Ironically, then, debt may well be private equity’s greatest asset

Cost-Benefit Analysis, Static Efficiency and the Goals of Environmental Law

Measurement of plane wave acoustic transmission properties, so called two-port data, of flow duct components is important in many applications. It is an important tool for instance in the development of mufflers for IC-engines. Measurement of two-port data is difficult when the flow velocity in the measurement duct is high because of the flow noise contamination of the measured pressure signals. The plane wave acoustic two-port is a 2x2 matrix containing 4 complex quantities at each frequency. To experimentally determine these unknowns the acoustic state variables on the inlet and outlet side must be measured for two independent test cases. The two independent test cases can be created by: changing the acoustic load on the outlet side leading to the so-called two-load technique or by using one acoustic source on the inlet side and one acoustic source on the outlet side leading to the so-called two-source technique. In the latter case the independent test cases are created by first using the source on the inlet side and then the source on the outlet side. As pointed out by Åbom it is also possible to run both sources simultaneously to create more than two independent test cases. This over-determination could be used to improve the measurement results for instance if the data is contaminated by flow-noise. In this paper over-determination is tested by applying up to 5 different test cases. This procedure has been applied to a single orifice test object.QC 20120531</p

ACOUSTIC SOURCE DATA FOR MEDIUM SPEED IC-ENGINES

Knowledge of the acoustic source characteristics of internal combustion engines (IC-engines) is of great importance when designing the exhaust duct system and its components to withstand the resulting dynamic loads and to reduce the exhaust noise emission. Number of studies has been published earlier on the low frequency in-duct exhaust noise of high speed engines. The goal of the present study is to investigate the medium speed IC-engine acoustic source characteristics numerically and experimentally not only in the low frequency -plane wave range but also in the high frequency range. The low frequency acoustic source characteristics were predicted by simulating the acoustic multi-load measurements using a one-dimensional process simulation code. The engine model used in the one-dimensional process simulations was validated with measurements. In this study, it is shown that the low frequency in-duct exhaust noise of a medium speed IC-engine can be predicted quite accurately by using a onedimensional process simulation code. The high frequency source data is estimated by averaging the measured acoustic pressures with different methods. According to this study, using the simple cross spectra averaging method instead of two microphone method to estimate the induct downstream acoustic power of medium speed IC-engine exhaust noise seems promising. The simulation of the high frequency exhaust noise is beyond this study

Supreme Court Update

Like many other mega cities of developing countries, noise pollution in Dhaka city of Bangladeshis a big concern. Here noise is produced from different sources like traffic, loudspeaker,people gathering etc. To mitigate the noise pollution in Dhaka city, the governmentof Bangladesh has recently passed a new ordinance and has modified the existing traffic controlrules. However, the condition did not improve as much as expected. Exposure to highlevel noise may cause severe stress on the auditory and nervous system of the city dwellers,particularly the children. The extreme effects e.g. deafness and mental breakdown are alsooccasionally reported. This paper reports the level of noise pollution in Dhaka city. For thispurpose noise levels have been measured at ten major locations of the city from 8 AM to 10PM during the working days. The data have been analyzed to calculate various noise parameterssuch as Leq, and Lnp. It is observed that at all the locations, the level of noise remains farabove the acceptable limit for all the time. Comparison of present results with the existingprevious results shows that noise level in the Dhaka city is increasing day by day. The papersuggests that urgent measures should be taken into consideration to control the level of noisepollution in the city and vulnerable institutions like kinder gardens, schools and hospitalsshould be located far away from the road side.QC 20120424</p

Soviet-Polish relations, 1919-1921

The Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 was a direct consequence of the ideological objectives pursued by the belligerents. Ideology shaped the political agenda and the diametrically opposed war aims of both states, and was implemented through the foreign policy, diplomatic negotiation and military engagements pursued. This proved to be the principal obstacle to the establishment of cordial relations. As western democracy and Russian Marxism battled it out, war was inevitable. Externally, the Paris Peace Conference provided the necessary conditions for the resumption of traditional Russian-Polish hostilities, whilst the Allied States consistently demonstrated their absolute inability to directly influence either the development, or outcome, of the conflict. Redressing the balance of historiography, this thesis includes a greater examination of the conflict from the perspective of the Soviet regime. This firmly controlled the Russian decision-making process. By charting the war, it becomes clear that both states deliberately pursued a dual offensive: traditional diplomatic negotiation and military campaign as conditions dictated. However, in addition, Soviet Russia developed a unique and innovative, revolutionary, agit-prop, diplomatic medium. This enabled adept Soviet diplomats to win the majority of diplomatic battles during the conflict, although often negotiating from a militarily weak position. Nevertheless, the regime ultimately failed in its objective: to ignite socialist revolution in western Europe. The mistaken Soviet decision in July 1920 to cross the ethnographic border to forcefully sovietise Poland, in opposition to Marxist doctrine, irreversibly altered the complexion of the war and proved its pivotal turning point. This culminated politically with the short-lived establishment of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee in Białystok, and militarily, with the decisive defeat of the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw. It is now certain that the Red Army offensive into Poland in July 1920 aimed not only at the sovietisation of Poland, but at spreading the socialist revolution to Western Europe and overthrowing the Versailles settlement. The European revolutionary upsurge had largely extinguished during the previous year and in August 1920, Communist ideology ultimately failed to inspire the vast majority of the Polish population. Thus, by utilising the Soviet military to secure its war aims, Lenin and the Politburo inadvertently signed the death-warrant of socialist revolution in Poland at the beginning of the twentieth century.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Négociations internationales: le vrai enjeu de Doha

Quand les règles sont claires, l’hémisphère Sud a toutes ses chances contre l’hémisphère Nord. On le voit bien dans la coupe du monde de rugby. C’est aussi le cas dans le cycle de négociations commerciales multilatérales de Doha. Malgré les pressions du Nord, certains pays du Sud y sont en position de négocier avec âpreté. Oui, les États-Unis vont devoir baisser le plafond de leurs subventions agricoles. Oui, l’Europe va devoir baisser le plafond de ses droits de douane agricoles. Oui, en échange, les pays émergents vont ouvrir leurs marchés plus largement. Même s’il reste à discuter de la taille exacte des concessions de chacun, il est entendu que chacun devra en faire

Nonlinear source characterisation techniques for IC-engines

A source characterization model for IC-engines, which can take weakly nonlinear source properties into account, is developed in the paper. It is based on so called polyharmonic distortion modeling, used for nonlinear characterization of microwave systems. Comparisons are made with the results from linear source models and another previously published weakly nonlinear source model. The results show that the new nonlinear impedance matrix model gives improvements in the prediction of sound pressure levels in the exhaust system.QC 20140512</p

Acoustic characterisation of perforates using non-linear system identification techniques

This paper discusses the use of nonlinear system identification techniques for determination of linear acoustic impedance and non-linear acoustic properties of perforates and other facing sheets used in aircraft engine liners.QC 20141028</p