A Countervailing Constitutional Argument against Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 2010: The right to Confidence and Republican Government

I challenge the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v FEC by providing a countervailing argument that the constitutional right to republican government is not being met. I draw on republican democratic theory to define the role of the state, as well as the instutition of voting. I analyze public opinion data to reveal that the government is not responsive to the needs of the people. The data conflicts with many notions of republican theory. I juxtapose this conflict with the majority opinion to further expose flaws in the decision. Finally, I discuss deliberative principles that should have been considered to ensure that republican government ideals were being met rather than violated by the Court.No embarg

Bureaucratic Responsiveness to LGBT Americans

Marriage rights were extended to same‐sex couples in the United States in 2015. However, anecdotes of bureaucratic noncompliance (in the form of bias or denial of license issuance) raise the possibility that de jure marriage equality has not led to equality in practice. We investigate this by conducting a nationwide audit experiment of local‐level marriage license–granting officials in the United States. These officials vary in the constituencies they serve, as well as how they are selected, allowing us to evaluate long‐standing hypotheses about bureaucratic responsiveness. Overall, we find no evidence of systematic discrimination against same‐sex couples—regardless of responsiveness measure, institutions, ideology, or prior state legal history. We find, however, that among same‐sex couples, officials tended to be more responsive to lesbian couples. In contrast to evidence in other areas of service provision, such as policing and federal assistance programs, we find bureaucrats tasked with provision of marriage services show little evidence of discrimination.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156168/3/ajps12493_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156168/2/ajps12493-sup-0001-SuppMat.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156168/1/ajps12493.pd

Conjugated linoleic acid rich vegetable oil production using heterogeneous catalysis

The invention is directed to CLA-rich vegetable oil production from linoleic rich oils by heterogeneous catalysis. The process produces conjugated PUFA in triglyceride form, preferably at least 20% CLA-rich, by isomerization of a non-conjugated PUFA in vegetable oils using a heterogeneous transition metal catalyst promoted by an organic acid and/or thiol-containing compound. The heterogeneous catalysis isomerization process can use steam/vacuum distillation, hydrogenation unit and/or deodorization to produce CLA-rich soy oil. After processing, any catalyst residue may be removed by filtration, beaching, deodorizing, adsorbents or centrifugation to obtain high quality, CLA-rich oils

Spatio-temporal patterns in the Diel Vertical Migration of the Copepod Metridia lucens in the Northeast Atlantic derived from the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey

The archived data set collected over a 45-yr period (1948-1992) by Continuous Plankton Recorders (CPRs) towed in near-surface waters was used to investigate the diel vertical migration of the copepod Metridia lucens in the northeast Atlantic (47-63?N and 10-30?W). Although the CPR sampling intensity was uniform during the day and the night, M. lucens was caught predominantly in samples collected at night, consistent with a normal diel vertical migration pattern involving movement from greater depth during the day to shallower depths at night. The length of time spent near the surface varied seasonally and was closely correlated (r2 = 0.80) with seasonal change in length of night. The residual variation in length of time spent at the surface was nonrandom, with more time being spent at the surface in spring before the onset of the spring bloom, and less time being spent at the surface in autumn, than that predicted from the length of night at these periods. The timing of this enhanced near-surface occupation in spring varied with latitude, occurring a mean of 3.4 d later per degree of latitude

The adsorption of chiral metallized AZO dyes on natural fibers

Thesis (B.S.) in Liberal Arts and Sciences -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.Bibliography: leaf 17.Microfiche of typescript. [Urbana, Ill.]: Photographic Services, University of Illinois, U of I Library, [1988]. 1 microfiche (23 frames): negative

What is the evidence base for integrating health and environmental approaches into the school context to nurture healthy and environmentally aware young people? A systematic scoping review of global evidence

This scoping review collates empirical and grey literature that examines how schools are acting to nurture healthier and more environmentally aware young people through integrated approaches. Over the last twenty years, integration has been increasing within school contexts. Approaches include teaching and learning, physical environmental adaptations, developing ecologically focused policy, and reorienting wider school culture. We noted a developing discourse around what constitutes evidence in this emerging interdisciplinary field. Developing a better understanding of integrated approaches, and an evidence base of what works and how, could inform interdisciplinary collaboration and enable a clearer message to be communicated to stakeholders about how the school context can nurture healthier and more environmentally aware young people.PostprintPeer reviewe

Conjugated linoleic acid rich vegetable oil production from linoleic rich oils by heterogeneous catalysis

A heterogeneous catalytic vacuum distillation process is used under high temperature conditions to isomerize linoleic acid in triacylglyceride vegetable oils to CLA to produce CLA-rich oils. After processing, the catalyst may be removed by filtration or centrifugation to obtain high quality, CLA-rich oils. The CLA-rich oils may then serve as a potent and bioactive nutraceutical and can be incorporated into various food products, such as a CLA-rich dressing, margarine or chips

Contrasting arbuscular mycorrhizal communities colonizing different host plants show a similar response to a soil phosphorus concentration gradient

High soil phosphorus (P) concentration is frequently shown to reduce root colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, but the influence of P on the diversity of colonizing AM fungi is uncertain. We used terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) of 18S rDNA and cloning to assess diversity of AM fungi colonizing maize (Zea mays), soybean (Glycene max) and field violet (Viola arvensis) at three time points in one season along a P gradient of 10–280 mg l−1 in the field. Percentage AM colonization changed between sampling time points but was not reduced by high soil P except in maize. There was no significant difference in AM diversity between sampling time points. Diversity was reduced at concentrations of P > 25 mg l−1, particularly in maize and soybean. Both cloning and T-RFLP indicated differences between AM communities in the different host species. Host species was more important than soil P in determining the AM community, except at the highest P concentration. Our results show that the impact of soil P on the diversity of AM fungi colonizing plants was broadly similar, despite the fact that different plants contained different communities. However, subtle differences in the response of the AM community in each host were evident

Atlantis Program allows EU, US students to focus on biorenewable resources

EU-US Atlantis is an umbrella program for a variety of inno­ vative educational opportunities for students and faculty to study and conduct research abroad and for curriculum development. The Integral Valorization of Bio-Production (IVBP) program, funded for 2008-2012, provides financial assistance for US students to study in Europe and for EU students to study in the United States

Mind the Gap: Tightening the Mass-Richness Relation with Magnitude Gaps

We investigate the potential to improve optical tracers of cluster mass by exploiting measurements of the magnitude gap, m12, defined as the difference between the r-band absolute magnitude of the two brightest cluster members. We find that in a mock sample of galaxy groups and clusters constructed from the Bolshoi simulation, the scatter about the mass-richness relation decreases by 15-20% when magnitude gap information is included. A similar trend is evident in a volume-limited, spectroscopic sample of galaxy groups observed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that SDSS groups with small magnitude gaps are richer than large-gap groups at fixed values of the one-dimensional velocity dispersion among group members sigma_v, which we use as a mass proxy. We demonstrate explicitly that m12 contains information about cluster mass that supplements the information provided by group richness and the luminosity of the brightest cluster galaxy, L_bcg. In so doing, we show that the luminosities of the members of a group with richness N are inconsistent with the distribution of luminosities that results from N random draws from the global galaxy luminosity function. As the cosmological constraining power of galaxy clusters is limited by the precision in cluster mass determination, our findings suggest a new way to improve the cosmological constraints derived from galaxy clusters.Comment: references adde