Digital Commons Network^™

Regulatory Takings And "Judicial Supremacy", J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The thesis of this Article is that the Court of Federal Claims and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have become exposed to this classic critique of constitutional decision-making through the recent expansions of the regulatory takings doctrine. Though the chief agent for this expansion has been the Supreme Court, these lower courts have made their own prominent contributions to broadening regulatory takings, and they are far more vulnerable to political reprisals. Like the Due Process Clause in the gilded age, the Takings Clause today can easily be and has been seen as an avenue for inappropriate judicial …

Race, Class And Criminal Prosecutions: The Supreme Court’S Role In Targeting Minorities, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In No Equal Justice, I examine the ways in which race and class disparities have an effect at each stage of the criminal justice system. Much of the disparity concerns discriminatory police practices. My argument is that the Supreme Court, and our society, have constructed a set of rules that virtually ensure there will be racially disparate prosecution of the criminal law by the police. The way the Court has done that, I suggest, is by creating pockets of discretion that police can use without having to identify any objective, individualized basis for suspicion. When the police are free to …

Foreword: Law, Psychology, And The Emotions, Heidi Li Feldman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Given that law is made by and for people, the relatively little attention lawyers, judges, and legal scholars have paid to human psychology is surprising. Too often, legal writers have either presupposed or borrowed impoverished conceptions of human nature, erecting legal theories for people presumptively possessed of the requisite nature, regardless of the psychology of the actual persons who make and live under the law. Even when they do attend to human nature, legal scholars tend to ignore the centrality of emotions, dispositions, fantasies, and wishes to human psychology. The articles in this Symposium are united by their authors' resistance …

Prudence, Benevolence, And Negligence: Virtue Ethics And Tort Law, Heidi Li Feldman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Tort law assesses negligence according to the conduct of a reasonable person of ordinary prudence who acts with due care for the safety of others. This standard assigns three traits to the person whose conduct sets the bar for measuring negligence: reasonableness, ordinary prudence, and due care for the safety of others. Yet contemporary tort scholars have almost exclusively examined only one of these attributes, reasonableness, and have wholly neglected to carefully examine the other elements key to the negligence standard: prudence and due care for the safety of others. It is mistaken to reduce negligence to reasonableness or to …

Examined Lives: Informational Privacy And The Subject As Object, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the United States, proposals for informational privacy have proved enormously controversial. On a political level, such proposals threaten powerful data processing interests. On a theoretical level, data processors and other data privacy opponents argue that imposing restrictions on the collection, use, and exchange of personal data would ignore established understandings of property, limit individual freedom of choice, violate principles of rational information use, and infringe data processors' freedom of speech. In this article, Professor Julie Cohen explores these theoretical challenges to informational privacy protection. She concludes that categorical arguments from property, choice, truth, and speech lack weight, and mask …

A Schooling On Their Implications For Software Engineering [Trends], Ann K. Miller

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A discussion is presented on trends in software engineering. This can be done by simply extrapolating some of the popular, current trends. And, in fact, we examine a few of these obvious indicators. However, software engineering has had new approaches that are more revolutionary than evolutionary. In particular, we try to discern trends in software engineering based on trends in delivered software systems.

A Greener Shade Of Crimson: Law And The Environment Alumni Forum, Richard J. Lazarus

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

With the few minutes that I have, I want to respond to or elaborate on some of what was said and speak more directly about the development of the Environmental Law Program. Then I cannot resist commenting on some things which have not been said, but should be . . . In developing a program, one does not need to have gobs and gobs of environmental law courses. You need a core set of courses. You need a minimum of four courses - a minimum - taught by permanent faculty. You need an environmental law survey class. You need a …

Control Of Statcom With Energy Storage Device, Chen Shen, Zhiping Yang, Stan Atcitty, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the control method of a STATCOM with an energy storage device is discussed. To determine the switching level control, UPWM (unique pulse width modulation) and SPWM (sinusoidal pulse width modulation) methods are compared. A linearized model of a STATCOM with a battery is set up to derive monitoring level control strategies. All the control methods are verified by the PSCAD/EMTDC software package.

Deconstructing Section 11: Public Offering Liability In A Continuous Disclosure Environment, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article is an effort to rethink civil liability in capital-raising transactions by large capitalization issuers. After a brief digression about who should set liability standards, the article then addresses two related questions. The first deals with a natural question: Should not the primary regulatory effort for large issuers be to assure continuous disclosure in the secondary marketplace, given the far larger volume of such trading in that market compared to that in primary transactions? Second, if we have developed a satisfactory regime of disclosure responsibilities for this setting, what more, if anything, in terms of liability protection, is needed …

Taking Myths Seriously: An Essay For Lawyers, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The specific idea I want to explore has to do with the motivational power of myths and illusions on a personal level. To take a mundane example, people are often told to "believe in themselves." The underlying idea seems to be that high self confidence is an important motivator, especially in competitive settings like school, sports, business and the professions. This is not the idle talk of family and friends; millions of dollars are spent each year by people and their employers on motivational books and programs that offer endless variations on this simple theme in an effort to bolster …

“Environmental Racism! That’S What It Is.”, Richard J. Lazarus

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, Professor Lazarus discusses former NAACP director the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis's characterization of U.S. environmental policy as "environmental racism." He first justifies this provocative topic choice and then suggests that Chavis's allegation has transformed environmental law. Professor Lazarus next discusses the details of this transformation, arguing that Rev. Chavis has essentially reshaped the way environmental law and justice are conceived. He offers examples of various environmental programs and social and political effects traceable to Chavis's environmental racism comment. Finally, the conclusion provides some of the author's ruminations about the future of environmental law and policy.

When Winning Isn’T Everything: The Lawyer As Problem Solver, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Today I want to address the question of what the modern lawyer needs to know and what the modern lawyer must know how to do to be good at what he or she does, to be helpful to clients, to lead a fulfilling life, and hopefully, to leave the world a better place than he or she first found it. I went to law school to work on that illusive jurisprudential concept - justice. On the outside walls of the Edward Bennett Williams Library where I work in Washington, DC, is a quote, which we attribute to a former Georgetown …

Globalization And Federalism In A Post-Printz World, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article uses the recent Supreme Court decision in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council as the vehicle for examining the way in which the U.S. constitutional law of federalism might be responding to globalization. Part II develops the argument that globalization as such has no strong implications for domestic constitutional law. The remainder of the Article examines the U.S. constitutional response to the aspect of globalization revealed in Crosby, and argues that the Court's decision in Crosby is in tension with its other federalism decisions. But, the Article argues, that tension arises not from the fact that Crosby arises …

Copyright As A Model For Free Speech Law: What Copyright Has In Common With Anti-Pornography Laws, Campaign Finance Reform, And Telecommunications Regulation, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Copyright raises real and troubling free speech issues, and standard responses to those concerns are inadequate. This Article aims to put copyright in the context of other free speech doctrine. Acknowledging the link between copyright and free speech can help determine the proper contours of a copyright regime that both allows and limits property rights in expression, skewing the content of speech toward change.

Fourier Based Three Phase Power Metering System, Scott C. Smith, M. J. Devaney

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The increased application of higher frequency nonlinear loads, such as electronic fluorescent ballasts and higher speed adjustable drives, has resulted in the need to monitor the higher power system harmonics which were largely ignored in earlier power monitors. Addressing this need requires a meter with substantially higher sample rate and greater computational power. This paper describes a zero-blind, three-phase, three-element power meter that samples three voltages and four currents at 256 points per cycle. The instrument relies on the FFT to compute real and reactive power at each harmonic and reports total real, reactive, and distortion power on each phase. …

Death Is No Parenthesis| Stories, Traver Kauffman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Herbert Wechsler And The Criminal Law: A Brief Tribute, Harold Edgar

Faculty Scholarship

The great English architect Christopher Wren is buried in his most famous church, St. Paul's London. The inscription on his memorial stone concludes with the words: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

That instruction serves well those who would appraise and honor Herbert Wechsler's contributions to American criminal law. When he joined the Columbia Law School faculty in 1933, this school did not teach criminal law and much of the profession thought the topic was not worth studying.' What fabulous good fortune it was that Herb thought otherwise. Throughout a long and …

Simple Ensemble-Averaging Model Based On Generalized Regression Neural Network In Financial Forecasting Problems, Cihan H. Dagli, Parinya Disorntetiwat

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Introduces an ensemble-averaging model based on a GRNN (generalized regression neural network) for financial forecasting. The model trains all input individually using GRNNs and uses a simple ensemble-averaging committee machine to improve the accuracy performance. In a financial problem, there are many different factors that can effect the asset price movement at different times. An experiment is implemented in two different data sets, S&P 500 index and currency exchange rate. The predictive abilities of the model are evaluated on the basis of root mean squared error, standard deviation and percent direction correctness. The study shows a promising result of the …

Analysis Of Intangible Factors In Waste Minimization Projects, Halvard E. Nystrom, William Ralph Kehr

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Continual population growth and rising standards of living that accelerate the consumption of limited resources, are forcing society to encourage conservation of these resources. These resources not only include raw material, but also the areas to dispose of the wastes. As a result, communities are driving industries towards waste minimization by limiting waste generation and landfill availability. Firms'' environmentally friendly strategies can gain competitive advantage by leading in environmental practices. This advantage emanates from the reduction of risk of environmental regulatory overreaction, as well as improved asset utilization and landfill utilization. However, these intangible benefits are difficult to identify and …

Exercising Real Unit Operational Options Under Price Uncertainty, Chung-Li Tseng

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we use the real options framework to value the operation flexibility of a power plant. The power plant operation is formulated as a multi-stage stochastic problem. We assume that there are hourly spot markets for both electricity and the fuel used by the generator, and that their prices follow some Ito processes. At each hour, the power plant operator must decide whether or not to run the unit so as to maximize expected profit. However, the unit operation is subject to decision lead times and minimum uptime and downtime constraints, so the commitment decision must take into …

Strategy Planning For Technological Discontinuities In A Changing Regulatory Environment, William Ralph Kehr, Halvard E. Nystrom

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper describes an approach to the analysis of publicly available financial data for individual industries. These methods enable the analyst to assess past practices and the historical rate of technological diffusion during the transition period of discontinuous technological change. This assessment can provide a basis of comparison for current changes in their industry. These methods are applied to small rural telephone companies during the period of 1960 to 1996. Annual data is presented detailing the change from aerial distribution cable to buried cable by the roughly 600 rural telephone companies financed through loans from the Rural Utilities Services, a …

Law In A Shrinking World: The Interaction Of Science And Technology With International Law, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Internet Is Changing The Public International Legal System, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"Bright Line," "Substantial Participation," Or Something Else: Who Is A Primary Violator Under Rule 10b-5?, Rodney D. Chrisman

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Development Of A Speed Monitoring Program For Indiana, Darren L. Jorgenson, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

From the passage of the National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) of 55 mph in 1974 through its repeal in 1995 speed monitoring programs have been mandated by the federal government. The speed-monitoring program was primarily intended to provide reliable data to be included as a part of the State’s annual certification in order to be approved for Federal Aid highway projects. The repeal of the NMSL in 1995 not only authorized states to set their own speed limits, it also allowed states to develop their own speed monitoring programs. The goal of this research is to provide the framework for …

Examination Of Post-Tensioned Steel Bridges In Indiana, Hung-I Wu, Mark D. Bowman

JTRP Technical Reports

The purpose of the research study is to conduct an investigation to understand the performance of a relatively new type of bridge construction that involves prestressed (post-tensioned) steel-concrete composite bridge members. Strictly speaking, the technical and economical advantages of this type of structure have been understood for several decades. However, the application of this concept to practice is still very limited due to difficulties associated with the post-tensioning anchorage. The study was thus intended to explore the mechanical behavior of such construction. Both the short-term and long-term bridge performance were evaluated in this study.

The investigation included experimental as well …

Utilizing Gis Technology To Improve Indot Pavement Friction Data Management And Distribution, Karen Zhu

JTRP Technical Reports

Pavement friction condition provides an important parameter in selecting highway rehabilitation and maintenance projects. The Research Division of Indiana Department of Transportation has been conducting annual pavement friction testing on the Indiana highway network. Due to the large amount of data accumulated, an efficient system is in demand for data management. In this project, we developed a computer program that constitutes an integrated system for friction data management and distribution. In the developed system, database technology was utilized for data storage and organization; networking technology was utilized for real-time data distribution; geographic information systems (GIS) technology as well as computer …

Optimal Design Of Freeway Incident Response Systems, Raktim Pal, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

Several states have introduced service patrol programs to curb the growing adverse impacts of freeway incidents. An efficient patrol program configuration design is needed to ensure appropriate resource allocation. This research seeks to devise a scheme for determining optimally such system characteristics as hours of operation, fleet and crew sizes, dispatching policies, areas of operation, and routing patterns, so that the efficacy of the program is maximized. The interaction of randomly occurring incidents with time-varying traffic adds to the complexity of the problem. The problem is solved using dynamic simulation approaches combined with optimization techniques to incorporate the non-linear impact …

Optical Imaging Method For Bridge Painting Maintenance And Inspection, Luh M. Chang, Yasser Abdelrazig, Po-Han Chen

JTRP Technical Reports

The term "quality" is defined as the conformance to predetermined requirements or specifications. These requirements may be set in terms of the end result required or as a detailed description of how work should be executed. Recently, there has been increasing interest in quality assurance in the construction industry. Quality assurance includes design and planning, sampling, inspection, testing, and assessment to ensure that end products perform according to specifications. This research proposes a new quality assessment model for highway steel bridges and more specifically for coating rust assessment. The research proposes a hybrid model using image processing and neural networks …

Performance Of Bridge Decks And Girders With Lightweight Aggregate Concrete, J. A. Ramirez, J. Olek, Eric Joseph Rolle, Brian J. Manlone

JTRP Technical Reports

Structural lightweight concrete is a very versatile material and Haydite and Minergy lightweight aggregates can be utilized in the mixture development of concrete for use in girders and decks in bridges. More widespread use of lightweight aggregates (LWA) would result in savings in construction cost due to considerable dead load reduction. The materials phase of this research study evaluated the fresh concrete properties (slump, unit weight, and air content), the mechanical properties of hardened concrete (compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, static and dynamic modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s Ratio, and temperature development), and durability related parameters (air void distribution, freeze-thaw …