Free and Happy Bonds: Loving v. Virginia's Nineteenth-Century Precedent on Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness

Loving v. Virginia declares that marriage contributes to the pursuit of happiness. It supports this claim by citing 19^th century precedent, precedent which itself drew upon a longstanding view of marriage and happiness's pursuit. This article examines that view in state and federal opinions from the decades surrounding 14^th Amendment ratification. The courts saw marriage as fulfilling the human need for community, thereby aiding in the private happiness of those marrying and the public happiness of the political society. Marriage supported private happiness by forming a bond that provided for physical, material, and emotional needs. Courts sought to aid these goals while also protecting spouses' rights. Marriage supported public happiness through creating and educating future citizens as well as cultivating virtuous habits among those married—goals which the courts also sought to protect. The article concludes by discussing the continuity and discontinuity between these 19^th century cases, Loving, and Obergefell.     

Coordinated Strategic Voting in the 2008 Federal Election

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's new citizenship guide, Discover Canada, received significant coverage in the national media and among popular bloggers when it was released in late 2009. Among the more controversial responses were allegations that the guide served a partisan political purpose. It was “an incremental step in the rebranding of Canada into a conservative country, full of people more inclined to vote Conservative.” This paper investigates the veracity of this claim by documenting the historical evolution of Canada's citizenship guides. It finds that while Discover Canada departs notably from its immediate, Liberal-sponsored, predecessors, it is not so different from the initial documentation produced under the Liberal governments of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. To suggest that the new guide has fundamentally altered the national image is therefore a profound exaggeration.     

Peculiarities of sedimentation conditions in the oxbow lakes of Dubysa River (Lithuania)

Abundant wood remains and buried trees have been found in the western part of Lithuania near Zakeli?kiai and Lyduv?nai on Dubysa River (a tributary of Nemunas River) where deposits are rich in organic remnants and buried soils. In Zakeli?kiai and Skiru?iai sections of Dubysa River oxbow sediments were investigated by various methods (dendrochronological, carbonate, granulometric, pollen and mollusc fauna analysis). In addition, these sections were dated using the radiocarbon method. Samples were collected from deposits of Dubysa River outcrops. The studied oxbow lakes have existed for more than 5 thousand years (from ca. 4300 BC to 1000 AD). During this period organic rich deposits with trees and branches were formed in the oxbow lake. This indicates that at the end of Atlantic, during Subboreal and in the early Subatlantic periods there was a forest growing that contained mainly oaks which were falling down into an oxbow lake and later were covered by sandy and silty deposits. The granulometry of alluvial deposits, as well as the mixture of medium-grained sand and silt show different stages of Dubysa River palaeochannel formation: riverbed and oxbow lakes. Three climate warming cycles were revealed according to carbonate analysis data in all investigated sections. The rheophile thermophilous Holocene age molluscs species Bithynia tentaculata L., Unio cf. crassus Philipsson, Pisidium amnicum (Müller), Theodoxus fluviatilis (Linnaeus) have been found. The pollen composition and sequences have been divided into five local pollen assemblage zones (LPAZ) and described according to pollen spectra in each zone. In this way it is possible restore palaeoclimatic coherent evolution, trends and cyclical change.     

Optimal Spectral Acceleration-based Intensity Measure for Seismic Collapse Assessment of P-Delta Vulnerable Frame Structures

This study proposes an “optimal” spectral acceleration-based intensity measure (IM) to assess the collapse capacity of highly inelastic frame structures vulnerable to the P-delta effect. The IM is derived from the geometric mean of the spectral pseudo-acceleration over a certain period interval. The lower bound period of the averaging interval is related to the mode in which 95% of the effective modal mass is exceeded. The upper bound period is 1.6 times the fundamental period. This IM provides minimum, or close to the minimum, dispersion for frames with different fundamental periods of vibration, or number of stories.     

Disease outbreaks and health governance in the Asia-Pacific: Australia's role in the region

The revised International Health Regulations (IHR) entered into force on 15 June 2007. In accordance with this new international treaty, every member state of the World Health Organization has been given five years in which to review their existing health systems and structures, and where necessary, improve their capacity for the detection, reporting, assessment of, and response to public health emergencies of international concern. Of course, for developed countries, it is unlikely that establishing and maintaining these core capabilities will be difficult. For many less developed countries, however, the revised IHR obligations pose a challenge on a number of fronts. This article explores some of the challenges that less developed countries face in meeting their new IHR obligations prior to discussing the role that the Australian government can play in assisting its Asia-Pacific neighbours achieve these measures.