The Real Debate over the Senate’s Role in the Confirmation Process

The five Supreme Court nominations between 2005 and 2010 brought renewed attention to the Senate’s role in the confirmation process. This Note explores the debate over the Senate’s proper role in that process. First, this Note summarizes and clarifies the two traditional views of the Senate’s role, classifying them as the assertive view and the deferential view, and offers a new framework for understanding these views. This Note then traces the traditional arguments made by proponents of these views. It first examines the historical arguments, both from original understanding and historical practice; it then turns to pragmatic arguments about which view better accomplishes the purposes of the Senate’s participation in the confirmation process. Neither the historical arguments nor the pragmatic arguments resolve the issue of which approach to the confirmation process is better. By recounting these arguments, however, this Note reveals the underlying—and unspoken—difference between adherents of the assertive view and adherents of the deferential view: their conceptions of the relationship between law and politics differ widely. Adherents of the assertive view can fall on either end of a spectrum in understanding the relationship between law and politics. For some adherents of the assertive view, law is completely distinct from politics, so they believe senators should carefully ensure that judicial nominees understand this distinction and should vote only for those nominees who do and will respect it. For other adherents of the assertive view, law and politics are two sides of the same coin, so they think senators should aggressively inquire into the views of judicial nominees and should vote only for those nominees whose views comport with their own. Either way, the assertive view results in the same role for the Senate in the confirmation process. Adherents of the deferential view, by contrast, fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, believing that law is underdetermined and is shaped, but not totally controlled, by politics. Adherents of this view make certain that nominees have reasonable legal views, but they are more willing to vote to confirm nominees whose views differ from their own. This Note brings this important difference to the forefront in hopes of promoting more meaningful discussions about the Senate’s role in the confirmation process

The Real Debate over the Senate’s Role in the Confirmation Process

The five Supreme Court nominations between 2005 and 2010 brought renewed attention to the Senate’s role in the confirmation process. This Note explores the debate over the Senate’s proper role in that process. First, this Note summarizes and clarifies the two traditional views of the Senate’s role, classifying them as the assertive view and the deferential view, and offers a new framework for understanding these views. This Note then traces the traditional arguments made by proponents of these views. It first examines the historical arguments, both from original understanding and historical practice; it then turns to pragmatic arguments about which view better accomplishes the purposes of the Senate’s participation in the confirmation process. Neither the historical arguments nor the pragmatic arguments resolve the issue of which approach to the confirmation process is better. By recounting these arguments, however, this Note reveals the underlying—and unspoken—difference between adherents of the assertive view and adherents of the deferential view: their conceptions of the relationship between law and politics differ widely. Adherents of the assertive view can fall on either end of a spectrum in understanding the relationship between law and politics. For some adherents of the assertive view, law is completely distinct from politics, so they believe senators should carefully ensure that judicial nominees understand this distinction and should vote only for those nominees who do and will respect it. For other adherents of the assertive view, law and politics are two sides of the same coin, so they think senators should aggressively inquire into the views of judicial nominees and should vote only for those nominees whose views comport with their own. Either way, the assertive view results in the same role for the Senate in the confirmation process. Adherents of the deferential view, by contrast, fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, believing that law is underdetermined and is shaped, but not totally controlled, by politics. Adherents of this view make certain that nominees have reasonable legal views, but they are more willing to vote to confirm nominees whose views differ from their own. This Note brings this important difference to the forefront in hopes of promoting more meaningful discussions about the Senate’s role in the confirmation process

END-USER GAINS FROM INPUT CHARACTERISTICS IMPROVEMENT

Production Economics,

COMPARING END-USE VALUES FOR NORTH DAKOTA HARD RED SPRING WHEAT VARIETIES

Markets for agricultural products may be inefficient when signals do not adequately reflect product characteristics important to market participants. Although preferences can be explicitly stated through price premiums or characteristic values can be determined via hedonic methods, the problem is compounded when product quality information is costly to obtain. Bundling of quality traits by variety can serve to signal product quality. A procedure is developed in this paper to derive the value of different varieties in meeting buyer demands. An application to the hard red spring market wheat both validates the ability of the procedure to distinguish among varieties, as well as provides empirical support to the existence of Akerlof's lemon market in the release of wheat varieties.Agricultural markets, product quality, distance functions, wheat, Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

Compact Realizations of Embedded Filters in Organic Substrates

Making communication devices smaller, lighter, and cheaper has been the driving force behind the development of new technologies which have made the cellular phones and wireless networks we now take for granted possible. The frequent emphasis on miniaturization particularly has required the development of a variety of new approaches to creating communications circuits. One such technology that has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years is passives that are embedded into the package of communications integrated circuits. Using these devices reduces the amount of surface area required to implement a communications device, in addition to potentially improving performance and making them cost less. One area of application which is immediately obvious is the RF filtering which is required in communication devices. The primary contribution of the present work is to establish a procedure for using such embedded passives to implement RF filters. While a large body of work has been previously devoted to the modeling and creation of individual embedded passives, the challenge of combining them into functional networks for use in communications system has not yet been the subject of a significant amount of academic analysis. By consolidating the knowledge gained by previous work concerning the modeling and optimization of embedded passives, the present work attempts to formulate an optimized procedure for creating embedded passive filter networks. The present work presents the design and implementation of LC ladder filters for microwave frequencies using passives embedded in an organic substrate provided by Intel Corporation. The work presents an efficient and accurate methodology for the design and implementation of such filters in a limited footprint area, with an emphasis on creating a straightforward, fast design procedure. For both embedded passive inductors and capacitors a parameterized three dimensional model suitable for use in a fullwave solver has been developed. An exhaustive documentation of the simulation parameters used to simulate these structures is provided in order to assist others in repeating the work presented here. In order to create embedded filters, libraries spanning the design space of both embedded inductors and capacitors have been formed. Inductors with different numbers of turns, trace widths, trace spacing, and inner diameters have been simulated from 1 to 10 GHz and analyzed to obtain the inductance, self resonant frequency, Q, and parasitic effects. Capacitors with plate areas ranging from a minimum size up to 1 mm are also simulated and empirical formulas for their capacitance, resistance and inductance are provided. Based on this, a design methodology is proposed and documented. The design methodology includes compensation for the coupling effects that exist between embedded passives placed in close proximity to one another. Based on the simulated coupling effects suggestions for layout are made. A design procedure developed in this work has been applied to a three pole and five pole low pass filters. The filters\u27 characteristics show an excellent agreement the response of the LC ladder filter. Finally the work presents a study of some the effects of manufacturing tolerances on filter construction. Based on the preliminary findings of the investigation the most detrimental effects are determined and further work to explore these issues is suggested

Lysenko Lives?

When Trofim D. Lysenko took control of biology in the Soviet Union, The New York Times explained it would be “just as if we had to accept Republican or Democratic dictation in scientific reasoning, depending upon which of the two major parties happens to be in power” (New York Times 1948: E6). It was 1948 -- the year of the Berlin Airlift, communist coup in Czechoslovakia, founding of Israel and launch of the Marshall Plan; the start of the Cold War. At a session of the Lenin AllUnion Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow Lysenko declared genetics was a fascist science practiced by worshippers of Wall Street. The “gene theory” had provided the rationale for racism, colonization and the exploitation of the working class. With the words--“The Central Committee of the Party has examined my report and approved it”-- Lysenko launched a purge of genetics that would be terme

Towards a Strategy-Balanced Measure of Business Performance: Conceptualization and Empirical Examination With the Market Orientation Construct

Although previous research has theoretically asserted and provided partial empirical support for a positive relationship between an organization\u27s market orientation and business performance, few studies have demonstrated this relationship using a broader conceptualization of business performance that extends beyond market-based and financial measures. This dissertation conceptualizes and develops valid measurements of key dimensions of a business performance construct—termed strategy-balanced measure of business performance (SBMBP)—and empirically tests this construct with the market orientation construct. To fully capture the financial and operational domain of business performance, the SBMBP construct is developed through a multidisciplinary literature review, in-depth telephone interviews, and industry and academic pretests. The sample methodology involves mailing questionnaires to marketing executives at business units predominantly in the manufacturing industry. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to test the hypothesized and alternative measurement models of business performance, six first-order indicators of business performance—financial, customer value, market, internal business process, employee, and new growth performance—are developed. These indicators form the foundation to develop the second-order SBMBP construct. An evaluation of the measurement properties indicates that all operational measures of business performance satisfy the criteria for unidimensionality, reliability, and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Results of a series of ordinary least squares regressions show that market orientation is positively related to each of the six first-order indicators of business performance, the second-order SBMBP construct, and each of the five unidimensional measures of business performance borrowed from previous research. The control variables for market growth and business size are also positively related to all measures of business performance. High levels of market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity increase the strength of the relationship between market orientation and most measures of business performance. The major contribution of this dissertation is the development of a creative and balanced perspective for measuring business performance that incorporates indicators of financial performance and indicators of operational performance, which are the drivers of future financial performance. It sheds new light on how managers can measure their organization\u27s business performance and determine the adequacy of market orientation as a source of long-term competitive advantage