Cleveland Hill Union Free School District and Cleveland Hill Education Association

Fact-finding proceeding between Cleveland Hill Union Free School District and Cleveland Hill Education Association. PERB Case No. M 2007-062. Before: Adam Kaufman, Esq. Fact Finde

The Clash of Agricultural Exceptionalism and the First Amendment: A Discussion of Kansas\u27 Ag-Gag Law

Since the Nation’s founding, agricultural production has been treated differently than other industries. This concept, known as “agricultural exceptionalism,” has manifested in many different ways throughout U.S. history. Since the 1990s, one manifestation of agricultural exceptionalism has been the enactment of “Ag-gag laws,” state laws that limit information gathering activities at animal production facilities. Ag-gag laws are frequently criticized by animal welfare advocates and legal scholars for seeking to shield animal production facilities from public scrutiny, a state-sanctioned protection not afforded to other industries

Delzant-type classification of near-symplectic toric 4-manifolds

Delzant's theorem for symplectic toric manifolds says that there is a one-to-one correspondence between certain convex polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and symplectic toric $2n$-manifolds, realized by the image of the moment map. I review proofs of this theorem and the convexity theorem of Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg on which it relies. Then, I describe Honda's results on the local structure of near-symplectic 4-manifolds, and inspired by recent work of Gay-Symington, I describe a generalization of Delzant's theorem to near-symplectic toric 4-manifolds. One interesting feature of the generalization is the failure of convexity, which I discuss in detail. The first three chapters are primarily expository, duplicate material found elsewhere, and may be skipped by anyone familiar with the material, but are included for completeness.Comment: 45 pages, 8 figure

Section 1983: Absolute Immunity for Pretrial Police Testimony

This Note discusses the development of the Supreme Court\u27s approach to section 1983 immunity for trial witnesses. Central to this discussion is an overview of the history of common-law immunities for government officials, the history and purpose of section 1983, and the history of the Supreme Court\u27s section 1983 immunity decisions. The author discusses the current disagreement in the circuits over extending section 1983 immunity to pretrial police testimony. The author also analyzes various possible answers to the question of whether to extend witness immunity under section 1983 to specific pretrial proceedings by applying the current Supreme Court functional categories immunity analysis and the policies for and against extension of absolute immunity to pretrial police testimony. The Note concludes that police officers should enjoy absolute immunity from section 1983 suits that are based solely on their perjured pretrial testimony. However, the author also suggests that a section 1983 plaintiff should be allowed to introduce such testimony as evidence that a police officer initiated a baseless or malicious prosecution against the plaintiff

Neutral reactions involving hydrogen and other minor constituents

Neutral reactions involving hydrogen and other minor chemical elements are reviewe

Structural analyses of engine wall cooling concepts and materials

The severe thermal environments under which hypersonic aircraft such as the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) will operate require cooling of the engine walls, especially in the combustor. A preliminary assessment is made of some candidate materials based on structural analyses for a number of convective cooling configurations. Three materials were studied: graphite/copper and tungsten/copper composite alloys with 50 percent fiber volume fractions and a wrought cobalt-base superalloy, Haynes 188. Anisotropic mechanical and thermal properties for the composites were obtained from a computer code, ICAN, which determines the composite material properties from the individual properties of the fiber and matrix materials. The structural analyses were performed by using the MARC nonlinear finite element code. Heat transfer analyses were conducted to calculate the metal temperature distributions

Constitutive model development for isotropic materials

The objective is to develop a unified constitutive model for finite-element structural analysis of turbine engine hot section components. This effort constitutes a different approach for nonlinear finite-element computer codes which were heretofore based on classical inelastic methods. A unified constitutive theory will avoid the simplifying assumptions of classical theory and should more accurately represent the behavior of superalloy materials under cyclic loading conditions and high temperature environments. Model development will be directed toward isotropic, cast nickel-base alloys used for aircooled turbine blades and vanes. The contractor will select a base material for model development and an alternate material for verification purposes from a list of three alloys specified by NASA. The candidate alloys represent a cross-section of turbine blade and vane materials of interest to both large and small size engine manufacturers. Material stock for the base and alternate materials will be supplied to the Contractor by the government