Some Kind of Judge: Henry Friendly and the Law of Federal Courts

Uberfans of the federal judiciary owe a lot to David Dorsen. His illuminating biography of Judge Henry Friendly is a fitting tribute to the contributions of a jurist that many consider to be among the finest judges never to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judicial biography is a difficult genre to do well, and most authors choose to focus on Supreme Court justices. But Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era is an excellent source of information on Friendly’s life and, far more important, his views on the law and his relationships with some of the most fascinating figures in twentieth-century legal history. Dorsen not only provides a detailed study of Friendly’s life and career but he also uses the biography as a vehicle to explore the ways judges decide cases, the work of intermediate appellate courts, and Friendly’s particular influence across many legal fields (p. 2). Dorsen devotes much of the book to demonstrating that Friendly was a “great” judge along a number of dimensions: his intelligence, productivity, professional accomplishments, approach to legal questions, and influence on the law (pp. 2–3). Dorsen contends that the “influence of a circuit judge on the development of federal law depends largely on whether other federal judges view his work as worth emulating. On that criterion, as well as others, Friendly demands attention” (p. 2). Part I of this Notice briefly summarizes Dorsen’s work, recounting the key facts of Friendly’s life, his approach to judging, and those areas of the law most affected by Friendly’s ideas. It concludes that Dorsen has indeed demonstrated Friendly’s “greatness” to a certain degree. Part II explores Dorsen’s notion of influence on the law by examining Friendly’s impact on an area of law in which he was widely considered expert: federal jurisdiction. It expands Dorsen’s conception of influence to include not only the extent to which subsequent judges have emulated Friendly but also the extent to which Friendly was a clear and forceful expounder of ideas that shaped the terms of the debate on issues of federal jurisdiction, even if his vision did not ultimately carry the day. Moreover, the relevant evaluators of influence should include Congress and academics in addition to other judges

Cyberattacks and the Covert Action Statute: Toward a Domestic Legal Framework for Offensive Cyberoperations

Cyberattacks are capable of penetrating and disabling vital national infrastructure, causing catastrophic economic harms, and approximating the effects of war, all from remote locations and without the use of conventional weapons. They can be nearly impossible to attribute definitively to their sources and require relatively few resources to launch. The United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks but also uniquely capable of carrying out cyberattacks of its own. To do so effectively, the United States requires a legal regime that is well suited to cyberattacks\u27 unique attributes and that preserves executive discretion while inducing the executive branch to coordinate with Congress. The trouble is that it is unclear which domestic legal framework should govern these attacks. The military and intelligence communities have disputed which of their respective legal regimes should control. The choice between these frameworks raises important issues about the policy benefits of the executive branch keeping Congress informed regarding cyberattacks that it conducts. It also raises constitutional questions about the branches\u27 respective roles in warmaking when the chosen course of conduct blurs the line between an intelligence operation and an act of war. This Note argues that, in the absence of an independent congressional authorization to use force against a target, the covert action statute, which demands written reports from the president to the congressional intelligence committees in advance of operations, should presumptively govern, and that the president should issue an executive order to that effect

On the covariance of the Dirac-Born-Infeld-Myers action

A covariant version of the non-abelian Dirac-Born-Infeld-Myers action is presented. The non-abelian degrees of freedom are incorporated by adjoining to the (bosonic) worldvolume of the brane a number of anticommuting fermionic directions corresponding to boundary fermions in the string picture. The proposed action treats these variables as classical but can be given a matrix interpretation if a suitable quantisation prescription is adopted. After gauge-fixing and quantisation of the fermions, the action is shown to be in agreement with the Myers action derived from T-duality. It is also shown that the requirement of covariance in the above sense leads to a modified WZ term which also agrees with the one proposed by Myers.Comment: 18 pages. Minor alterations to the text; references adde

Primordial magnetic field and spectral distortion of cosmic background radiation

The role played by a primordial magnetic field during the pre-recombination epoch is analysed through the cyclotron radiation (due to the free electrons) it might produce in the primordial plasma. We discuss the constraint implied by the measurement or lack thereof COBE on this primordial field.Comment: to appear in International Journal of Mod. Phy

Renormalization of Boundary Fermions and World-Volume Potentials on D-branes

We consider a sigma model formulation of open string theory with boundary fermions carrying Chan-Paton charges at the string ends. This formalism is particularly suitable for studying world-volume potentials on D-branes. We perform explicit two-loop sigma model computations of the potential T-dual to the non-abelian Born-Infeld action. We also discuss the world-volume couplings of NS fluxes which are responsible for Myers' dielectric effect.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Исследование пластифицирующих свойств некоторых производных карбазола

During the assembly of customized miniaturized solid-state lasers, robot based operations can significantly reduce cycle times and improve performance and quality. Automation of the resistance soldering technique for optical components based on planar technology described in the previous work of Dolkemeyer et. al can be self-optimized to compensate component and process tolerances, cope with different element geometries and therefore reduce planning efforts and facilitate the operator's work.solder pads. Planar adjustment of an optical element and exemplary resistance measurement during soldering process For the automation of the soldering process itself the modification of the system's electrical resistance is measured since this value can be calculated by evaluating the process parameters without supplementary equipment. In addition, it can be used as a documented quality control. The increase of the resistance at the solder's melting point is related to the length of the molten zone and is always continuous even if current and voltage are discontinuous. Presented are the technique for planar adjustment and current results of the automation and self-optimization process

Decay Modes of Intersecting Fluxbranes

Just as the single fluxbrane is quantum mechanically unstable to the nucleation of a locally charged spherical brane, so intersecting fluxbranes are unstable to various decay modes. Each individual element of the intersection can decay via the nucleation of a spherical brane, but uncharged spheres can also be nucleated in the region of intersection. For special values of the fluxes, however, intersecting fluxbranes are supersymmetric, and so are expected to be stable. We explicitly consider the instanton describing the decay modes of the two--element intersection (an F5-brane in the string theory context), and show that in dimensions greater than four the action for the decay mode of the supersymmetric intersection diverges. This observation allows us to show that stable intersecting fluxbranes should also exist in type 0A string theory.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. References adde

An Exact String Theory Model of Closed Time-Like Curves and Cosmological Singularities

We study an exact model of string theory propagating in a space-time containing regions with closed time-like curves (CTCs) separated from a finite cosmological region bounded by a Big Bang and a Big Crunch. The model is an non-trivial embedding of the Taub-NUT geometry into heterotic string theory with a full conformal field theory (CFT) definition, discovered over a decade ago as a heterotic coset model. Having a CFT definition makes this an excellent laboratory for the study of the stringy fate of CTCs, the Taub cosmology, and the Milne/Misner-type chronology horizon which separates them. In an effort to uncover the role of stringy corrections to such geometries, we calculate the complete set of alpha' corrections to the geometry. We observe that the key features of Taub-NUT persist in the exact theory, together with the emergence of a region of space with Euclidean signature bounded by time-like curvature singularities. Although such remarks are premature, their persistence in the exact geometry is suggestive that string theory theory is able to make physical sense of the Milne/Misner singularities and the CTCs, despite their pathological character in General Relativity. This may also support the possibility that CTCs may be viable in some physical situations, and may be a natural ingredient in pre-Big-Bang cosmological scenarios.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figures. V2: discussion of computation of metric refined, references adde