Negligence theory

At first blush, the increased risk of harm suit against a drug manufacturer on a negligence theory that pharmacogenomics could have been used to determine the increased risks to a portion of the population appears to be a logical extension of the doctrinal shifts in liability law signaled by Moore. The likelihood of success of this particular lawsuit is in fact small because of the nature of existing medical liability doctrine in Pennsylvania. 

June 21 New %rk becomes the first state to sue gun manufacturers, based on a new state law that declares illegal guns to be a public nuisance. More than 30 cities and counties are already suing gun makers under a negligence theory. 

In order to prevail in a products liability action under a negligence theory, a plaintiff must prove all of the four elements listed and discussed below. Negligence claims are civil actions based on the law of torts. In such actions, the presumption is that the accused party is not liable and the plaintiff has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Preponderance of the evidence is the standard of proof required in ordinary civil actions and refers to proof which leads the finder/trier of fact to find that the existence of the fact is more probable than not. Preponderance of the evidence is a lower standard of proof as compared to the standards of clear and convincing and beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The entropically driven disorder-order transition in hard-sphere fluids was originally discovered in computer simulations [58, 59]. The development of colloidal suspensions behaving as hard spheres (i.e., having negligible Hamaker constants, see Section VI-3) provided the means to experimentally verify the transition. Experimental data on the nucleation of hard-sphere colloidal crystals [60] allows one to extract the hard-sphere solid-liquid interfacial tension, 7 = 0.55 0.02k T/o, where a is the hard-sphere diameter [61]. This value agrees well with that found from density functional theory, 7 = 0.6 0.02k r/a 2 [21] (Section IX-2A). 

Figure B2.5.7 shows the absorption traces of the methyl radical absorption as a fiinction of tune. At the time resolution considered, the appearance of CFt is practically instantaneous. Subsequently, CFl disappears by recombination (equation B2.5.28). At temperatures below 1500 K, the equilibrium concentration of CFt is negligible compared witli (left-hand trace) the recombination is complete. At temperatures above 1500 K (right-hand trace) the equilibrium concentration of CFt is appreciable, and thus the teclmique allows the detennination of botli the equilibrium constant and the recombination rate [54, M]. This experiment resolved a famous controversy on the temperature dependence of the recombination rate of methyl radicals. Wliile standard RRKM theories [, ] predicted an increase of the high-pressure recombination rate coefficient /r (7) by a factor of 10-30 between 300 K and 1400 K, the statistical-adiabatic-chaunel model predicts a...

For gases, pure solids, pure liquids, and nonionic solutes, activity coefficients are approximately unity under most reasonable experimental conditions. For reactions involving only these species, differences between activity and concentration are negligible. Activity coefficients for ionic solutes, however, depend on the ionic composition of the solution. It is possible, using the extended Debye-Htickel theory, to calculate activity coefficients using equation 6.50... 

In the last sentence the word corrected is in quotation marks to emphasize the point that the observation is corrct Rather, we are not in a position to deal with the information it tells us, namely, that these particles do not have negligible dimensions compared to X. Until now we have lacked theory for dealing with this fact. It should be recognized that, by circumventing the... 

Prior to 1960, an injured plaintiff seeking recovery in a products HabiUty action could bring a case under either of two theories. The plaintiff could allege that the product seller was negligent, or that the seller breached a warranty that attended every product sale provided for under the Uniform Sales Act and, later, under Section 2-314 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which stipulated that for a product to be merchantable it must be "reasonably fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used." Each of these theories came with a distinct disadvantage. 

Most theories of droplet combustion assume a spherical, symmetrical droplet surrounded by a spherical flame, for which the radii of the droplet and the flame are denoted by and respectively. The flame is supported by the fuel diffusing from the droplet surface and the oxidant from the outside. The heat produced in the combustion zone ensures evaporation of the droplet and consequently the fuel supply. Other assumptions that further restrict the model include (/) the rate of chemical reaction is much higher than the rate of diffusion and hence the reaction is completed in a flame front of infinitesimal thickness (2) the droplet is made up of pure Hquid fuel (J) the composition of the ambient atmosphere far away from the droplet is constant and does not depend on the combustion process (4) combustion occurs under steady-state conditions (5) the surface temperature of the droplet is close or equal to the boiling point of the Hquid and (6) the effects of radiation, thermodiffusion, and radial pressure changes are negligible. 

Translational energy, which may be directly calculated from the classical kinetic theory of gases since the spacings of these quantized energy levels are so small as to be negligible. The Maxwell-Boltzmann disuibution for die kinetic energies of molecules in a gas, which is based on die assumption diat die velocity specuum is continuous is, in differential form. 

It has been also shown that when a thin polymer film is directly coated onto a substrate with a low modulus ( < 10 MPa), if the contact radius to layer thickness ratio is large (afh> 20), the surface layer will make a negligible contribution to the stiffness of the system and the layered solid system acts as a homogeneous half-space of substrate material while the surface and interfacial properties are governed by those of the layer [32,33]. The extension of the JKR theory to such layered bodies has two important implications. Firstly, hard and opaque materials can be coated on soft and clear substrates which deform more readily by small surface forces. Secondly, viscoelastic materials can be coated on soft elastic substrates, thereby reducing their time-dependent effects. 

Equation (5-69) is an important result. It was first obtained by Marcus " in the context of electron-transfer reactions. Marcus derivation is completely different from the one given here. In electron transfer from one molecule (or ion) to another, no bonds are broken or formed, so the transition state theory does not seem to be applicable. Marcus assumed negligible orbital overlap in the electron-transfer transition state, but he later obtained the same equation for group transfer reactions requiring significant overlap. Many applications have been made to proton transfers and nucleophilic displacements. ... 

In such cases the expression from fii st-order perturbation theory (10.18) yields a result identical to the first derivative of the energy with respect to A. For wave functions which are not completely optimized with respect to all parameters (Cl, MP or CC), the Hellmann-Feynman theorem does not hold, and a first-order property calculated as an expectation value will not be identical to that obtained as an energy derivative. Since the Hellmann-Feynman theorem holds for an exact wave function, the difference between the two values becomes smaller as the quality of an approximate wave function increases however, for practical applications the difference is not negligible. It has been argued that the derivative technique resembles the physical experiment more, and consequently formula (10.21) should be preferred over (10.18). 

The case with k = 0.4 s (open squares) is close to the situation where mass transfer resistance is negligible. These differences are due to mass transfer resistances as we can easily conclude by comparing the separation regions obtained for the cases with k = 0.4 and k = 1 s k If mass transfer resistance is important, the region of complete separation can be significantly reduced from the one obtained by the Equilibrium Theory. For example, for a mass transfer coefficient of k = 0.1 s there is no separation region where extract and raffinate are 99.5 % pure. 

There is a reasonable explanation for this type of deviation. The kinetic theory, which explains the pressure-volume behavior, is based upon the assumption that the particles exert no force on each other. But real molecules do exert force on each other The condensation of every gas on cooling shows that there are always attractive forces. These forces are not very important when the molecules are far apart (that is, at low pressures) but they become noticeable at higher pressures. With this explanation, we see that the kinetic theory is based on an idealized gas—one for which the molecules exert no force on each other whatsoever. Every gas approaches such ideal behavior if the pressure is low enough. Then ihe molecules are, on the average, so far apart that then-attractive forces are negligible. A gas that behaves as though the molecules exert no force on each other is called an ideal gas or a perfect gas. 

In the development of the theory of freezing-points for very dilute solutions (Chap. XI.) it was assumed that both the change of total volume and the heat absorption on further dilution are zero. With solutions of moderate concentration (say up to 5N), neither assumption is true, but we know that the change of volume is always very small, and possibly negligible, whilst the heat absorption is not usually of such small magnitude. It... 

Clearly Fig. 7 must actually have a maximum at high asymmetry since this corresponds to negligible anchor block size and therefore to no adsorption (ct = 0). The lattice theory of Evers et al. predicts this quantitatively [78] and is, on preliminary examination, also able to explain some aspects of these data. From these data, the deviation from power law behavior occurs at a number density of chains where the number of segments in the PVP blocks are insufficient to cover the surface completely, making the idea of a continuous wetting anchor layer untenable. Discontinuous adsorbed layers and surface micelles have been studied theoretically but to date have not been directly observed experimentally [79]. 

The mass transfer is treated as a steady state process and therefore the theory can be applied only if the time taken for the concentration gradients to become established is very small compared with the time of transfer, or if the capacities of the films are negligible. 

Carbon dioxide is absorbed in water from a 25 per cent mixture in nitrogen. How will its absorption rate compare with that from a mixture containing 35 per cent carbon dioxide, 40 per cent hydrogen and 25 per cent nitrogen It may be assumed that the gas-film resistance is controlling, that the partial pressure of carbon dioxide, at the gas-liquid interface is negligible and that the two-lilm theory is applicable, with the gan film thickness the same in the two cases. 

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