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Month: August 2017

Smoke-Control Systems

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Smoke-Control System Defined

A smoke-control system can be defined as an engineered system that uses mechanicalfans to produce pressure differences across smoke barriers to inhibit smoke movement. A smoke-control system is used to achieve one or more of the following design objectives:

● Inhibit smoke from entering stairwells, means of egress, areas of refuge, elevator shafts, or similar areas

● Maintain a tenable environment in areas of refuge and means of egress during the time required for evacuation

● Inhibit the migration of smoke from the smoke zone

● Provide conditions outside the fire zone that enable emergency response personnel to conduct search-and-rescue operations and to locate and control the fire

● Contribute to the protection of life and to the reduction of property loss

The document used for the design of smoke-control systems is NFPA 92, Standard for Smoke-Control Systems. It is important that the RDP and owner establish the desired performance characteristics for these systems in

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The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act: A Guide for Judges

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I. Introduction

This guide provides an overview of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA).1 It is intended as a practical introduction for those who have little knowledge of or experience with the statute as interpreted and applied in U.S. courts. The focus is on the basic legal issues faced by U.S. courts in cases arising under the statute.

Following this brief Introduction, the guide discusses the statute’s purpose and scope of application. It reviews the jurisdictional, procedural, and evidentiary questions most likely to arise at the outset of litigation, and it discusses the entities entitled to immunity (in particular the distinctions between a “foreign state,” its “political subdivisions,” and its “agencies and instrumentalities”). It then provides an introductory description of the specific exceptions to immunity as well as the statutory regime applicable to execution of judgments and attachment of assets. The Addendum in Part VII discusses the terrorism exception, which was recently revised by Congress.

The FSIA governs all litigation in both state and federal courts

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ABCs of Head CT Interpretation in the Emergency Department: CT Interpretation Workshop Guide

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I. Course Description: This session will provide medical students with a skill set to improve their ability to interpret Head CTs. To start the session, the physics of CT scanning will be briefly reviewed. We will move quickly into a review of normal neuroanatomy and CT appearance, followed by a detailed review of the role of Head CT in the management of various neurological emergencies. The diagnoses covered will include traumatic injuries, such as epidural and subdural hematoma, skull fracture, and contusion, and non-traumatic conditions such as stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and hydrocephalus. Tools to avoid errors of interpretation will be discussed.

II. Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss the physics that apply to CT scanning, including Hounsfield numbers, windows, and frequent sources of scan artifact such as volume averaging.

2. Describe the CT appearance of normal brain anatomy.

3. Be able to identify the pathologic conditions found on cranial CT commonly encountered in the Emergency Department.

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Flavored Alcoholic Beverages and the Youth Market: Are State Laws Being Violated?

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Background

Flavored Alcoholic Beverages (FABs) (also called alcopops, Ready-To-Drink beverages, or Flavored Malt Beverages) denote a relatively new category in the alcohol market. Developed and distributed mostly by distillers, they are often produced through licensing arrangements with brewers. Many FABs carry distilled spirits’ brand names (e.g., Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Silver, and Skyy Blue). FABs are produced as follows: a liquid is derived from malt and it is filtered to remove most or all taste, odor, and alcohol. “Flavoring” is then added to the liquid, which includes distilled alcohol. Although the beverages contain distilled alcohol (in some cases with most or all brewed alcohol removed) the alcohol industry distributes these products as malt beverages. This classification has three main advantages for distillers that make it easier for them to market alcohol products to underage drinkers. Beer is: (1) advertised on electronic media; (2) taxed at substantially lower tax rates; and (3) available in a greater number of retail locations, particularly those likely to be frequented by underage drinkers.

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The Anatomy of Disgust in Criminal Law

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Abstract

Judgments of and about disgust play a critical role in criminal law. Certain homicides, including homophobic ones, may be graded more severely or less because they are motivated by disgust; certain forms of punishment, including shaming penalties, express public disgust with criminals; and certain sentencing regimes, including those that use the "outrageously or wantonly vile" standard, treat an offender's own appetite for disgust as a ground for capital punishment. Yet disgust has received almost no systematic attention from criminal law theorists. This essay seeks to remedy this inattention by drawing on William Miller's The Anatomy of Disgust (1997). Miller depicts disgust not as an unthinking or instinctive aversion, but rather as a cognitive evaluation that is constructed by, and that reinforces, hierarchic social norms. The centrality of such norms to moral perception explains the ubiquity of disgust judgments in criminal law; dissensus over the content of such norms accounts for the political controversy that disgust

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Legal Rights of Persons’ with Disabilities

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California and Federal Law

This handbook discusses both California and federal laws that protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. California and federal law should be examined together to get a complete picture of the law on a particular topic. In some areas California law provides more legal protection or is more comprehensive; in other areas, federal law is more helpful.

Statutes, Regulations, and Cases

"The law" usually consists of a combination of statutes, regulations, and cases. Statutes are laws passed by legislators either in the state Capitol or in Congress. Statutes are generally fairly short and often do not describe the details of how the law will be enforced or what specifically will constitute a violation of law.

Various government agencies are often charged with developing regulations to carry out the mandates of statutes. These regulations usually describe the "nuts and bolts" of a statute's administration.

Finally, when cases go to court, judges issue opinions which resolve disputes in interpreting statutes and regulations.

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Critical and Analytical Thinking

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What is critical and analytical thinking?

Critical analytical thinking is a key part of university study. Many first year students receive comments such as 'not analytical enough' on their early assignments. You will find that you develop your critical and analytical skills as you go through university. In brief, this means looking very closely at the detail and not taking what you read or hear for granted. Your tutors will expect you to:

•Evaluate how far materials are appropriate, and up-to-date.

•Evaluate how far the evidence or examples used in materials really proves the point that the author claims.

•To weigh up opinions, arguments or solutions against appropriate criteria.

•To think a line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion.

•Check for hidden bias or hidden assumptions.

•Check whether the evidence and argument really support the conclusions.

You will need to do this for materials that you read. For example, when you cite a source of evidence for your own arguments, you will need to be

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Business Coordination and Tax Politics

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Abstract

Business interests groups are crucial actors for tax policy-making, but it is still unclear under which conditions they are more successful than politicians in shaping taxation. This article argues that centralized coordination and high-levels of policy integration make business interest groups more influential in the tax policy-making process. If there is no ideological convergence between agenda-setters and business, highly centralized, and well-integrated business interest groups are more successful in blocking or softening revenue-raising tax reforms, or simply transferring tax burdens to consumers or non-organized citizens. To evaluate this theoretical framework, I have compiled an original data set on business groups and associations for 18 countries in Latin America between 1990 and 2010. This theory uncovers a strong link between the patterns of business coordination and the feasibility of implementing distributive tax policies. This article also contributes to the study of business politics beyond the limited sample of developed countries.

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Labor Contract Negotiations In The Airline Industry

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In the wake of a sizable slump in demand driven by the confluence of economic downturn, terrorism, war, and disease, as well as increased competition from low-cost carriers, many incumbent U.S. airlines have been attempting a fundamental restructuring of their operations. Arguably, a central element in this restructuring involves labor contract negotiations. Yet, even before the events of September 11, 2001, observers perceived strains in the industry’s labor relations system, claiming that contracts were taking longer to negotiate, rank-and-file rejections of tentative agreements were more frequent, and job actions were on the rise. Not surprisingly, then, calls for reform of the Railway Labor Act—the law that has governed airline collective bargaining since 1933 have gained momentum. Recent work has demonstrated that carrier-level differences in the duration of contract negotiations are associated with the quality of the labor management relationship and, consequently, with airline productivity, customer service, and profitability. Although the mechanisms of cause and

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Comparison of Engine Power Correction Factors for Varying Atmospheric Conditions

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Introduction

The atmospheric conditions are known to affect the performance of internal combustion engines. A different engine performance from that specified by the manufacturer can be observed when the engine is working under an atmospheric condition different from that at which the engine data was collected by the manufacturer. The influence of the atmospheric condition on the performance of an engine can especially be observed through variations on the vehicle acceleration time and on fuel consumption. Correction factors are available to predict the power developed by the engine under distinct ambient conditions from the engine power curve obtained in laboratory tests at a standard condition. However, the many correction factors proposed often lead to different results for a same atmospheric condition considered. These non uniform results from correction factors motivates this investigation on which one better predicts the engine performance on the road. Many works which are dedicated to verify the influence of the

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A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis

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THE “MIND-SET” CHALLENGE

Using the analytic techniques contained in this primer will assist analysts in dealing with the perennial problems of intelligence: the complexity of international developments, incomplete and ambiguous information, and the inherent limitations of the human mind. Understanding the intentions and capabilities of adversaries and other foreign actors is challenging, especially when either or both are concealed. Moreover, transnational threats today pose even greater complexity, in that they involve multiple actors including nonstate entities that can adapt and transform themselves faster than those who seek to monitor and contain them. Finally, globalization has increased the diversity of outcomes when complex, interactive systems such as financial flows, regional economies or the international system as a whole are in flux. The first hurdle for analysts is identifying the relevant and diagnostic information from the increasing volume is acquired through open source and clandestine means. Analysts must also pierce the shroud of secrecy and sometimes mdeception that state and nonstate actors use to mislead. A systematic approach that considers a range of alternative

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Tortious Interference: The Limits of Common Law Liability for Newsgathering

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Media lawyers have recently been confronted with a relatively new source of litigation: the tort of intentional interference with contractual relations, which arises out of confidentiality agreements. In this Article, the authors identify the elements of tortious interference with contracts and examine the key issues presented when this tort is applied to newsgathering. The authors then consider a potential defense based on the First Amendment. In light of the public and constitutional interests at stake, the authors conclude that the breach of a confidentiality agreement should not sustain a tortious interference claim when the press is involved in newsgathering activity.

INTRODUCTION

The revelation that CBS had decided not to air an interview with a former tobacco executive on the news magazine program 60 Minutes sent media lawyers across the country scrambling to understand the tort of intentional interference with contractual relations, a little-litigated tort in the media context. This Article addresses some of the many questions raised by the CBS announcement .

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Terror Management Theory: Interplay between Mortality Salience, Death-Thoughts, and Overall Worldview Defense

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This study examines both the generalizability of Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the mechanisms by which individual difference variables work in the TMT model. A plethora of research exists to support TMT, a theory that explains much of human behavior as attempts to buffer the potential for anxiety provoked by being aware of one‟s own inevitable mortality (Pyszczynski et al., 2003). This dissertation investigated the generalizability of Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the mechanisms by which individual difference variables work in the TMT process. In order to do so, an operationalization of the variable “overall worldview” was provided. Participants consisted of 367 college students from the Psychology Department Experimental Subject Pool of a mid-sized Midwestern university. Subjects were quasi-randomly assigned to a 2 (mortality salience vs. control) x 2 (death-thought word stems vs. neutral word stems) between subjects design. Results suggested that humanists defended humanism more in the mortality salience condition than in the dental pain condition.

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Suicide Responsibility of Hospital and Psychiatrist

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SUICIDE IS NOW THE TENTH GREATEST CAUSE of death in the UnitedStates. It has become an increasingly larger factor statistically, because, as other causes of death come under medical control, the prevalence of suicide becomes more noticeable. In the last ten years, at the very minimum, two-hundred thousand (200,000) Americans have killed themselves, and in all likelihood, more Americans have died in the last twenty years at their own hands than were killed in World War II and the Korean War combined. It is also possible that suicides outnumber those killed in automobile accidents as is clearly the case in England.2 Thus the problem of suicide is a prominent public health problem in this country. Physicians and hospitals have an obvious concern, as do the law courts, where actions for wrongful death and negligence may involve suicide as a result of a tortious act. An example of the extremes reached in law was

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The Stock Market Credit and Capital Formation

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1. The various types of borrowers, WILO compete for the limited supply of credit, evoke very different sentiments among critical observers of the economic system.The class of borrowers which is least sympathetically regarded by the critics is that which uses the purchasing power, put at its disposal, on the stock exchange. This is not surprising considering the exchange attitude adopted by a large section of the community towards stock exchanges, towards the business that is transacted thereon, and towards the people who frequent them. In so far as this is the mere expression of the resentment of the general public toward the "easy" and "effortless" gains of traders on the stock exchange, or the contempt of the moralists for "unscrupulous" speculation or even the lack of respect of naive economic politicians for every kind of activity which is unproductive in a technical-physical sense, there is no scientific problem involved.

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A Study Of Lip Movements During Spontaneous Dialog And Its Application To Voice Activity Detection

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This paper presents a quantitative and comprehensive study of the lip movements of a given speaker in different speech / non speech contexts, with a particular focus on silences (i.e., when no sound is produced by the speaker). The aim is to characterize the relationship between “lip activity” and “speech activity”, and then to use visual speech information as a Voice Activity Detector (VAD). To this aim, an original audio-visual corpus was recorded with two speakers involved in a face-to-face spontaneous dialog, although being in separate rooms. Each speaker communicated with the other using a microphone, a camera, a screen, and headphones. This system was used to capture separate audio stimuli for each speaker and to monitor each speaker’s lip movements in synchrony with the recorded sound. A comprehensive analysis was carried out on the lip shapes and lip movements corresponding to either silence sections or non-silence sections (i.e. speech + non-speech audible events). A single visual parameter, defined to characterize the lip movements, was

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