In statistics, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) is a form of regression analysis introduced by Jerome H. Friedman in 1991. It is a non-parametric regression technique and can be seen as an extension of linear models that automatically models nonlinearities and interactions between variables.

The term "MARS" is trademarked and licensed to Salford Systems. In order to avoid trademark infringements, many open-source implementations of MARS are called "Earth".

The basics

This section introduces MARS using a few examples.  We start with a set of data: a matrix of input variables x, and a vector of the observed responses y, with a response for each row in x. For example, the data could be:

Here there is only one independent variable, so the x matrix is just a single column. Given these measurements, we would like to build a model which predicts the expected y for a given x.

A linear model for the above data is

The hat on the  indicates that  is estimated from the data.  The figure on the right shows a plot of this function:
a line giving the predicted  versus x, with the original values of y shown as red dots.

The data at the extremes of x indicates that  the relationship between y and x may be non-linear (look at the red dots relative to the regression line at low and high values of x).  We thus turn to MARS to automatically build a model taking into account non-linearities.  MARS software constructs a model from the given x and y as follows

The figure on the right shows a plot of this function: the predicted  versus x, with the original values of y once again shown as red dots.  The predicted response is now a better fit to the original y values.

MARS has automatically produced a kink in the predicted y to take into account non-linearity. The kink is produced by hinge functions. The hinge functions are the expressions starting with  (where  is  if , else ). Hinge functions are described in more detail below.

In this simple example, we can easily see from the plot that y has a non-linear relationship with x (and might perhaps guess that y varies with the square of x). However, in general there will be multiple independent variables, and the relationship between y and these variables will be unclear and not easily visible by plotting. We can use MARS to discover that non-linear relationship.

An example MARS expression with multiple variables is

This expression models air pollution (the ozone level) as a function of the temperature and a few other variables. Note that the last term in the formula (on the last line) incorporates an interaction between  and .

The figure on the right plots the predicted  as  and  vary, with the other variables fixed at their median values. The figure shows that wind does not affect the ozone level unless visibility is low. We see that MARS can build quite flexible regression surfaces by combining hinge functions.

To obtain the above expression, the MARS model building procedure automatically selects which variables to use (some variables are important, others not), the positions of the kinks in the hinge functions, and how the hinge functions are combined.

The MARS model

MARS builds models of the form

The model is a weighted sum of basis functions
.
Each  is a constant coefficient.
For example, each line in the formula for ozone above is one basis function
multiplied by its coefficient.

Each basis function  takes one of the following three forms:

1) a constant 1. There is just one such term, the intercept.
In the ozone formula above, the intercept term is 5.2.

2) a hinge function. A hinge function has the form   or  . MARS automatically selects variables and values of those variables for knots of the hinge functions. Examples of such basis functions can be seen in the middle three lines of the ozone formula.

3) a product of two or more hinge functions.
These basis functions can model interaction between two or more variables.
An example is the last line of the ozone formula.

Hinge functions

A key part of MARS models are hinge functions taking the form

or

where  is a constant, called the knot.
The figure on the right shows a mirrored pair of hinge functions with a knot at 3.1.

A hinge function is zero for part of its range, so  can be used to partition the data into disjoint regions, each of which can be treated independently. Thus for example a mirrored pair of hinge functions in the expression

creates the piecewise linear graph shown for the simple MARS model in the previous section.

One might assume that only piecewise linear functions can be formed from hinge functions, but hinge functions can be multiplied together to form non-linear functions.

Hinge functions are also called ramp, hockey stick, or rectifier functions. Instead of the  notation used in this article, hinge functions are often represented by  where  means take the positive part.

The model building process

MARS builds a model in two phases:
the forward and the backward pass.
This two-stage approach is the same as that used by
recursive partitioning trees.

The forward pass

MARS starts with a model which consists of just the intercept term
(which is the mean of the response values).

MARS then repeatedly adds basis function in pairs to the model. At each step it finds the pair of basis functions that gives the maximum reduction in sum-of-squares residual error (it is a greedy algorithm). The two basis functions in the pair are identical except that a different side of a mirrored hinge function is used for each function. Each new basis function consists of a term already in the model (which could perhaps be the intercept term) multiplied by a new hinge function. A hinge function is defined by a variable and a knot, so to add a new basis function, MARS must search over all combinations of the following:

1) existing terms (called parent terms in this context)

2) all variables (to select one for the new basis function)

3) all values of each variable (for the knot of the new hinge function).

To calculate the coefficient of each term, MARS applies a linear regression over the terms.

This process of adding terms continues until the change in residual error is too small to continue or until the maximum number of terms is reached. The maximum number of terms is specified by the user before model building starts.

The search at each step is usually done in a brute-force fashion, but a key aspect of MARS is that because of the nature of hinge functions, the search can be done quickly using a fast least-squares update technique. Brute-force search can be sped up by using a heuristic that reduces the number of parent terms considered at each step ("Fast MARS").

The backward pass

The forward pass usually overfits the model. To build a model with better generalization ability, the backward pass prunes the model, deleting the least effective term at each step until it finds the best submodel. Model subsets are compared using the Generalized cross validation (GCV) criterion described below.

The backward pass has an advantage over the forward pass: at any step it can choose any term to delete, whereas the forward pass at each step can only see the next pair of terms.

The forward pass adds terms in pairs, but the backward pass typically discards one side of the pair and so terms are often not seen in pairs in the final model. A paired hinge can be seen in the equation for  in the first MARS example above; there are no complete pairs retained in the ozone example.

Generalized cross validation

The backward pass compares the performance of different models using Generalized Cross-Validation (GCV), a minor variant on the Akaike information criterion that approximates the leave-one-out cross-validation score in the special case where errors are Gaussian, or where the squared error loss function is used. GCV was introduced by Craven and Wahba and extended by Friedman for MARS; lower values of GCV indicate better models. The formula for the GCV is

 GCV = RSS / (N · (1 − (effective number of parameters) / N)2)

where RSS is the residual sum-of-squares measured on the training data and N is the number of observations (the number of rows in the x matrix).

The effective number of parameters is defined as

 (effective number of parameters) = (number of mars terms) + (penalty) · ((number of Mars terms) − 1 ) / 2

where penalty is typically 2 (giving results equivalent to the Akaike information criterion) but can be increased by the user if they so desire.

Note that

 (number of Mars terms − 1 ) / 2

is the number of hinge-function knots, so the formula penalizes the addition of knots. Thus the GCV formula adjusts (i.e. increases) the training RSS to penalize more complex models. We penalize flexibility because models that are too flexible will model the specific realization of noise in the data instead of just the systematic structure of the data.

Constraints

One constraint has already been mentioned: the user
can specify the maximum number of terms in the forward pass.

A further constraint can be placed on the forward pass
by specifying a maximum allowable degree of interaction.
Typically only one or two degrees of interaction are allowed,
but higher degrees can be used when the data warrants it.
The maximum degree of interaction in the first MARS example
above is one (i.e. no interactions or an additive model);
in the ozone example it is two.

Other constraints on the forward pass are possible.
For example, the user can specify that interactions are allowed
only for certain input variables.
Such constraints could make sense because of knowledge
of the process that generated the data.

Pros and cons

No regression modeling technique is best for all situations.
The guidelines below are intended to give an idea of the pros and cons of MARS,
but there will be exceptions to the guidelines.
It is useful to compare MARS to recursive partitioning and this is done below.
(Recursive partitioning is also commonly called regression trees,
decision trees, or CART;
see the recursive partitioning article for details).

MARS models are more flexible than linear regression models.
MARS models are simple to understand and interpret. Compare the equation for ozone concentration above to, say, the innards of a trained neural network or a random forest.
MARS can handle both continuous and categorical data. MARS tends to be better than recursive partitioning for numeric data because hinges are more appropriate for numeric variables than the piecewise constant segmentation used by recursive partitioning.
Building MARS models often requires little or no data preparation. The hinge functions automatically partition the input data, so the effect of outliers is contained. In this respect MARS is similar to recursive partitioning which also partitions the data into disjoint regions, although using a different method.
MARS (like recursive partitioning) does automatic variable selection (meaning it includes important variables in the model and excludes unimportant ones). However, there can be some arbitrariness in the selection, especially when there are correlated predictors, and this can affect interpretability.
MARS models tend to have a good bias-variance trade-off. The models are flexible enough to model non-linearity and variable interactions (thus MARS models have fairly low bias), yet the constrained form of MARS basis functions prevents too much flexibility (thus MARS models have fairly low variance).
MARS is suitable for handling large datasets, and implementations run very quickly. However, recursive partitioning can be faster than MARS.
With MARS models, as with any non-parametric regression, parameter confidence intervals and other checks on the model cannot be calculated directly (unlike linear regression models). Cross-validation and related techniques must be used for validating the model instead.
The earth, mda, and polspline implementations do not allow missing values in predictors, but free implementations of regression trees (such as rpart and party) do allow missing values using a technique called surrogate splits.
MARS models can make predictions very quickly, as they only require evaluating a linear function of the predictors.
The resulting fitted function is continuous, unlike recursive partitioning, which can give a more realistic model in some situations. (However, the model is not smooth or differentiable).

Extensions and related concepts
 Generalized linear models (GLMs) can be incorporated into MARS models by applying a link function after the MARS model is built. Thus, for example, MARS models can incorporate logistic regression to predict probabilities.
 Non-linear regression is used when the underlying form of the function is known and regression is used only to estimate the parameters of that function. MARS, on the other hand, estimates the functions themselves, albeit with severe constraints on the nature of the functions. (These constraints are necessary because discovering a model from the data is an inverse problem that is not well-posed without constraints on the model.)
 Recursive partitioning (commonly called CART). MARS can be seen as a generalization of recursive partitioning that allows for continuous models, which can provide a better fit for numerical data.
 Generalized additive models. Unlike MARS, GAMs fit smooth loess or polynomial splines rather than hinge functions, and they do not automatically model variable interactions. The smoother fit and lack of regression terms reduces variance when compared to MARS, but ignoring variable interactions can worsen the bias.
 TSMARS. Time Series Mars is the term used when MARS models are applied in a time series context. Typically in this set up the predictors are the lagged time series values resulting in autoregressive spline models. These models and extensions to include moving average spline models are described in "Univariate Time Series Modelling and Forecasting using TSMARS: A study of threshold time series autoregressive, seasonal and moving average models using TSMARS".
 Bayesian MARS (BMARS) uses the same model form, but builds the model using a Bayesian approach. It may arrive at different optimal MARS models because the model building approach is different. The result of BMARS is typically an ensemble of posterior samples of MARS models, which allows for probabilistic prediction.

See also
 Linear regression
 Local regression
 Rational function modeling
 Segmented regression
 Spline interpolation
 Spline regression

References

Further reading
 Hastie T., Tibshirani R., and Friedman J.H. (2009) The Elements of Statistical Learning, 2nd edition. Springer,  (has a section on MARS)
 Faraway J. (2005) Extending the Linear Model with R, CRC,  (has an example using MARS with R)
 Heping Zhang and Burton H. Singer (2010) Recursive Partitioning and Applications, 2nd edition. Springer,  (has a chapter on MARS and discusses some tweaks to the algorithm)
 Denison D.G.T., Holmes C.C., Mallick B.K., and Smith A.F.M. (2004) Bayesian Methods for Nonlinear Classification and Regression, Wiley,
 Berk R.A. (2008) Statistical learning from a regression perspective, Springer,

External links

Several free and commercial software packages are available for fitting MARS-type models.

 Free software
 R packages:
 earth function in the earth package
 mars function in the mda package
 polymars function in the polspline package.  Not Friedman's MARS.
 bass function in the BASS package for Bayesian MARS.
 Matlab code:
 ARESLab: Adaptive Regression Splines toolbox for Matlab
 Code from the book Bayesian Methods for Nonlinear Classification and Regression for Bayesian MARS.
 Python
 Earth – Multivariate adaptive regression splines
 py-earth
 pyBASS for Bayesian MARS.

 Commercial software
 MARS from Salford Systems. Based on Friedman's implementation.
 STATISTICA Data Miner from StatSoft
 ADAPTIVEREG from SAS.

Nonparametric regression
Machine learning

Multivariate adaptive regression spline


Philip, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (31 May 1468 – 13 November 1500) was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Köthen.

He was the only son of Albert VI, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, by his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Günther II, Count of Mansfeld.

Life
In 1475, after the death of his father, the six-year-old Philip inherited the principality of Anhalt-Köthen as "Mitherr" (co-ruler) with his cousins Magnus, Adolph II, and Waldemar VI according to the terms of the succession contract signed in 1471 between Adolph I, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen and George I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

Philip never married or had children, and his branch of the Anhalt-Köthen line became extinct with him.

Eight years after his death (in 1508), his cousins and successors Magnus and Adolph II renounced their rule in favor of Waldemar VI, who died shortly afterwards. Waldemar's only surviving son, Wolfgang, was the last ruler of the old principality of Anhalt-Köthen.

Princes of Anhalt-Köthen
1468 births
1500 deaths

Philip, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen


Character encoding detection, charset detection, or code page detection is the process of heuristically guessing the character encoding of a series of bytes that represent text. The technique is recognised to be unreliable and is only used when specific metadata, such as a HTTP  header is either not available, or is assumed to be untrustworthy.

This algorithm usually involves statistical analysis of byte patterns, like frequency distribution of trigraphs of various languages encoded in each code page that will be detected; such statistical analysis can also be used to perform language detection. This process is not foolproof because it depends on statistical data.

In general, incorrect charset detection leads to mojibake.

One of the few cases where charset detection works reliably is detecting UTF-8. This is due to the large percentage of invalid byte sequences in UTF-8, so that text in any other encoding that uses bytes with the high bit set is extremely unlikely to pass a UTF-8 validity test. However, badly written charset detection routines do not run the reliable UTF-8 test first, and may decide that UTF-8 is some other encoding. For example, it was common that web sites in UTF-8 containing the name of the German city München were shown as , due to the code deciding it was an ISO-8859 encoding before (or without) even testing to see if it was UTF-8.

UTF-16 is fairly reliable to detect due to the high number of newlines (U+000A) and spaces (U+0020) that should be found when dividing the data into 16-bit words, and large numbers of NUL bytes all at even or odd locations. Common characters must be checked for, relying on a test to see that the text is valid UTF-16 fails: the Windows operating system would mis-detect the phrase "Bush hid the facts" (without a newline) in ASCII as Chinese UTF-16LE, since all the byte pairs matched assigned Unicode characters in UTF-16LE.

Charset detection is particularly unreliable in Europe, in an environment of mixed ISO-8859 encodings. These are closely related eight-bit encodings that share an overlap in their lower half with ASCII and all arrangements of bytes are valid. There is no technical way to tell these encodings apart and recognizing them relies on identifying language features, such as letter frequencies or spellings.

Due to the unreliability of heuristic detection, it is better to properly label datasets with the correct encoding. See Character encodings in HTML#Specifying the document's character encoding. Even though UTF-8 and UTF-16 are easy to detect, some systems require UTF encodings to explicitly label the document with a prefixed byte order mark (BOM).

See also
 International Components for Unicode - A library that can perform charset detection.
 Language identification
 Content sniffing
 Browser sniffing, a similar heuristic technique for determining the capabilities of a web browser, before serving content to it.

References

External links
 IMultiLanguage2::DetectInputCodepage
 API reference for ICU charset detection
 Reference for cpdetector charset detection
 Mozilla Charset Detectors
 Java port of Mozilla Charset Detectors
 Delphi/Pascal port of Mozilla Charset Detectors
 uchardet, C++ fork of Mozilla Charset Detectors; includes Bash command-line tool
 C# port of Mozilla Charset Detectors
 HEBCI, a technique for detecting the character set used in form submissions
 Frequency distributions of English trigraphs

Character encoding

Charset detection


The Harts River () is a northern tributary of the Vaal River, which in turn is the largest tributary of the Orange River (also known as the Gariep River, the largest river in South Africa). Its source is in the North West Province, but the greater part of its basin is located in the Northern Cape Province, which it enters a few kilometers downstream from the Taung Dam.

The Harts forms a natural boundary for the Ghaap Plateau, located between the Harts River and the Kuruman Hills.

Course
It rises near Lichtenburg on the far southwestern slopes of the Witwatersrand and flows for 320 km (about 200 miles) in a southwesterly direction, mostly through very flat areas of the North West and Northern Cape Provinces before flowing into the Vaal River about 100 km above the confluence of that river with the Orange River.

The Little Harts River which rises near Coligny joins the Great Harts River, which rises near Lichtenburg, to form the main river.  Near Taung, the Dry Harts River, a seasonal river with its headwaters in the Vryburg area, also joins it. The river is characterised by highly intermittent runoff, but is regulated to optimise water usage. At Taung the Tswana referred to the Harts River as the Noka (meaning River) Kolong.

Further downstream, the town of Schweizer-Reneke (founded in October 1888) lies on the banks of the river. Wenzel Dam, just north of the town on the river, has been developed into a holiday resort.

Around 1850, a dam was built in the river next to Dikgatlong, but it was washed away during a flood in 1856.

Near the confluence of the Harts and Vaal Rivers at Delportshoop a major irrigation system, the Vaal-Harts Scheme was set up in 1933 as part of the national reconstruction effort after the Depression. Here water drawn from both the Vaal and the Harts rivers provide water to intensively irrigate numerous smallholdings through a system of canals in an otherwise dry area of the country, supporting towns such as Jan Kempdorp and Hartswater.

Around the northern part of the Scheme lie the settlements of Pampierstad, Motsweding, Mokgareng, Manthestad and Taung, all with mostly Tswana speaking residents.  Taung became famous after the discovery of the skull of the so-called Taung Child in a lime quarry 14 km west of the town.  The quarry is not in use anymore and is now the Taung Heritage Site and open to the public.  To the west of the town, the Taung Dam was built in the Harts River. Upstream of the dam some rock engravings can be seen.

History
On 31 March 1902, during the final months of the Second Boer War, the Battle of Harts River, also known as "Battle of Boschbult", was fought between the Boers and the British forces near the confluence of the Harts River and the Brak Spruit, one of its dry tributaries. The battle was a British defeat and was also the second bloodiest day of that war for the Canadian forces, who fought on the British side.

Mining
Alluvial diamond mining still occurs in ancient river beds within the Harts River catchment area.  The Newlands Mine is located some 60 km northwest of Kimberley on the river. It is currently being mined at a rate of 3000 tonnes per month by the company Dwyka Diamonds Limited.  Noble Minerals, in cooperation with the local Ba-Ga-Maidi tribe has set up an operation to exploit the alluvial diamonds within 20 square kilometres of diamantiferous gravels of the river system, near Taung.

Protected areas
Most of the fish found in the Harts River are introduced species, except in the area of Barberspan, where indigenous species can be found. It was declared a nature reserve in 1949.

Near the towns of Sannieshof and Delareyville, the river is connected to Barberspan (26°35' S 25°35' E), which lies partially inside the Barberspan Nature Reserve and is a Ramsar wetland site. The pan is 11 km long and 3.5 km wide, and it is named either after Frederick Hugh Barber FRGS, who hunted along the Harts River in 1875, or after the barbel (baber in the Afrikaans language), a species of catfish found in South African rivers.

In 1913, Jan Christiaan Smuts, who owned a farm near the southern end of the pan, provided the labour and his foreman, Mr M. S. Basson, supervised the digging of a channel which diverted water from the Harts River into the pan, which lies about 9 m lower than the river. The area is so flat that the Harts River now pushes enough water into Barberspan during the rainy season to last through the dry winter months, where previously the pan used to dry up during the dry season. This was ecologically important, since the pan now became a large perennial water body in an area of otherwise seasonal pans and vleis. It became an oasis for birds (especially water fowl) which use it for feeding, drinking, roosting, moulting and breeding. Up to 20,000 birds of more than 320 species can be seen at the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary, making it a popular birding spot, probably the finest in South Africa. Seven endangered bird species and two endangered mammal species occur here. Barberspan also supports a rich plankton community. (Ramsar, 1994).

Barberspan is also the venue for off-road vehicle rallies, like the Barberspan 500.
There is a hotel, self-catering accommodation and camping facilities on the site.

See also
 Department of Water Affairs (South Africa)
 List of rivers of South Africa

References

External links
 North West Parks & Tourism Board Honorary Officer Association Photo Album
 South African Birding - Birding Spots - Barbers Pan and environs
North West Provincial Government - Water Resources

Vaal River
Rivers of the Northern Cape
Rivers of North West (South African province)

Harts River


Te Whiti, formerly Te Whiti o Tu in the nineteenth century, is a rural community in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand's North Island.  Its status has been under dispute and threatened in the twentieth century, and Land Information New Zealand acknowledges Te Whiti solely as a homestead.  Its full former name means "the place of crossing" in the Māori language, reflecting its location near a natural crossing of the Ruamahanga River where it is met by the Waingawa River. The Ruamahunga River runs north and west of the locality and is also met by the Tauweru River that flows across the south of Te Whiti.  In relation to major Wairarapa centres, Te Whiti is south of Masterton and east of Carterton, while nearby communities include Te Whanga to the east and Gladstone and Longbush to the south.  The Maungaraki Range is also nearby.

Te Whiti is one of the oldest settled locations in the Wairarapa, established prior to Masterton by Hugh McKenzie in the early 1850s.  A primary school was located in Te Whiti until it was closed in 1968 and students sent to Gladstone; the school buildings remained for use by community groups until 2000.

References

Populated places in the Wellington Region
Masterton District
Wairarapa

Te Whiti, New Zealand


Co-Ed Fight Song is the official fight song of the University of Hawaii.

The melody to the "Co-Ed Fight Song" comes from a march entitled "Co-Ed" by J.S. Zamecnik, originally published in 1914 with the cover declaration: "Respectfully Dedicated to the College Girls." The original lyrics, by J.R. Shannon, began: "Here's to the girl in college / And to her charming ways; / Here's to the girl of knowledge, / Pride of our student days."

No one can recall when the lyrics to the Hawaii version of the song were composed, but they may very well date back before 1972.

The last line of the "Co-Ed Fight Song" was revised in 2007 to make the song fitting for both men and women athletes. The lyrics were changed from "Here's to each valiant son" to "Here's to each valiant one."

Lyrics

Co-Ed Fight Song

Here's to our dear Hawai'i.
Here's to our Green and White.
Here's to our Alma Mater.
Here's to the team with fight.
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Here's to old warriors calling.
Here's to old battles won.
Here's to Hawai'i's victory.
Here's to each valiant one.

External links
UH Manoa fight song lyrics updated

University of Hawaiʻi

Co-Ed Fight Song


In the United States, judicial review is the legal power of a court to determine if a statute, treaty, or administrative regulation contradicts or violates the provisions of existing law, a State Constitution, or ultimately the United States Constitution. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define the power of judicial review, the authority for judicial review in the United States has been inferred from the structure, provisions, and history of the Constitution.

Two landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court served to confirm the inferred constitutional authority for judicial review in the United States. In 1796, Hylton v. United States was the first case decided by the Supreme Court involving a direct challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress, the Carriage Act of 1794 which imposed a "carriage tax". The Court performed judicial review of the plaintiff's claim that the carriage tax was unconstitutional. After review, the Supreme Court decided the Carriage Act was constitutional. In 1803, Marbury v. Madison was the first Supreme Court case where the Court asserted its authority to strike down a law as unconstitutional. At the end of his opinion in this decision, Chief Justice John Marshall maintained that the Supreme Court's responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of their sworn oath of office to uphold the Constitution as instructed in Article Six of the Constitution.

, the United States Supreme Court has held 176 Acts of the U.S. Congress unconstitutional. In the period 1960–2019, the Supreme Court has held 483 laws unconstitutional in whole or in part.

Judicial review before the Constitution

Hamilton wrote, in Federalist 78:But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of particular citizens' private rights, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them...The first American decision to recognize the principle of judicial review was Bayard v. Singleton, decided in 1787 by the Supreme Court of North Carolina's predecessor. The North Carolina court and its counterparts in other states treated state constitutions as statements of governing law to be interpreted and applied by judges.

These courts reasoned that because their state constitution was the fundamental law of the state, they must apply the state constitution rather than an act of the legislature that was inconsistent with the state constitution. These state court cases involving judicial review were reported in the press and produced public discussion and comment.  Notable state cases involving judicial review include Commonwealth v. Caton (Virginia, 1782), Rutgers v. Waddington (New York, 1784), Trevett v. Weeden (Rhode Island, 1786).  Scholar Larry Kramer agreed with Justice Iredell that any judge who enforces an unconstitutional law becomes complicit in the unconstitutionality and that they themselves become lawbreakers.

At least seven of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, including Alexander Hamilton, John Blair Jr. George Wythe, and Edmund Randolph, had personal experience with judicial review because they had been lawyers or judges in these state court cases involving judicial review. Other delegates referred to some of these state court cases during the debates at the Constitutional Convention. The concept of judicial review therefore was familiar to the framers and to the public before the Constitutional Convention.

Some historians argue that Dr. Bonham's Case was influential in the development of judicial review in the United States.

Provisions of the Constitution

The text of the Constitution does not contain a specific reference to the power of judicial review. Rather, the power to declare laws unconstitutional has been deemed an implied power, derived from Article III and Article VI.

The provisions relating to the federal judicial power in Article III state:

The Supremacy Clause of Article VI states:

The power of judicial review has been implied from these provisions based on the following reasoning. It is the inherent duty of the courts to determine the applicable law in any given case. The Supremacy Clause says "[t]his Constitution" is the "supreme law of the land." The Constitution therefore is the fundamental law of the United States. Federal statutes are the law of the land only when they are "made in pursuance" of the Constitution. State constitutions and statutes are valid only if they are consistent with the Constitution. Any law contrary to the Constitution is void. The federal judicial power extends to all cases "arising under this Constitution." As part of their inherent duty to determine the law, the federal courts have the duty to interpret and apply the Constitution and to decide whether a federal or state statute conflicts with the Constitution. All judges are bound to follow the Constitution. If there is a conflict, the federal courts have a duty to follow the Constitution and to treat the conflicting statute as unenforceable. The Supreme Court has final appellate jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution, so the Supreme Court has the ultimate authority to decide whether statutes are consistent with the Constitution.

Statements by the framers of the Constitution regarding judicial review

Constitutional Convention

During the debates at the Constitutional Convention, the Founding Fathers made a number of references to the concept of judicial review. The greatest number of these references occurred during the discussion of the proposal known as the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan included a "council of revision" that would have examined proposed new federal laws and would have accepted or rejected them, similar to today's presidential veto. The "council of revision" would have included the president along with some federal judges. Several delegates objected to the inclusion of federal judges on the council of revision. They argued the federal judiciary, through its power to declare laws unconstitutional, already had the opportunity to protect against legislative encroachment, and the judiciary did not need a second way to negate laws by participating in the council of revision. For example, Elbridge Gerry said federal judges "would have a sufficient check against encroachments on their own department by their exposition of the laws, which involved a power of deciding on their constitutionality. In some states the judges had actually set aside laws, as being against the constitution. This was done too with general approbation." Luther Martin said: "[A]s to the constitutionality of laws, that point will come before the judges in their official character. In this character they have a negative on the laws. Join them with the executive in the revision, and they will have a double negative." These and other similar comments by the delegates indicated that the federal courts would have the power of judicial review.

Other delegates argued that if federal judges were involved in the law-making process through participation on the council of revision, their objectivity as judges in later deciding on the constitutionality of those laws could be impaired. These comments indicated a belief that the federal courts would have the power to declare laws unconstitutional.

At several other points in the debates at the Constitutional Convention, delegates made comments indicating their belief that under the Constitution, federal judges would have the power of judicial review. For example, James Madison said: "A law violating a constitution established by the people themselves, would be considered by the Judges as null & void." George Mason said that federal judges "could declare an unconstitutional law void." However, Mason added that the power of judicial review is not a general power to strike down all laws, but only ones that are unconstitutional:

But with regard to every law however unjust, oppressive or pernicious, which did not come plainly under this description, they would be under the necessity as Judges to give it a free course.

In all, fifteen delegates from nine states made comments regarding the power of the federal courts to review the constitutionality of laws. All but two of them supported the idea that the federal courts would have the power of judicial review. Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not speak about judicial review during the Convention, but did speak about it before or after the Convention. Including these additional comments by Convention delegates, scholars have found that twenty-five or twenty-six of the Convention delegates made comments indicating support for judicial review, while three to six delegates opposed judicial review. One review of the debates and voting records of the convention counted as many as forty delegates who supported judicial review, with four or five opposed.

In their comments relating to judicial review, the framers indicated that the power of judges to declare laws unconstitutional was part of the system of separation of powers. The framers stated that the courts' power to declare laws unconstitutional would provide a check on the legislature, protecting against excessive exercise of legislative power.

State ratification debates

Judicial review was discussed in at least seven of the thirteen state ratifying conventions, and was mentioned by almost two dozen delegates. In each of these conventions, delegates asserted that the proposed Constitution would allow the courts to exercise judicial review. There is no record of any delegate to a state ratifying convention who indicated that the federal courts would not have the power of judicial review.

For example, James Wilson asserted in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention that federal judges would exercise judicial review: "If a law should be made inconsistent with those powers vested by this instrument in Congress, the judges, as a consequence of their independence, and the particular powers of government being defined, will declare such law to be null and void. For the power of the Constitution predominates. Anything, therefore, that shall be enacted by Congress contrary thereto will not have the force of law."

In the Connecticut ratifying convention, Oliver Ellsworth likewise described judicial review as a feature of the Constitution: "This Constitution defines the extent of the powers of the general government. If the general legislature should at any time overleap their limits, the judicial department is a constitutional check. If the United States go beyond their powers, if they make a law which the Constitution does not authorize, it is void; and the judicial power, the national judges, who, to secure their impartiality, are to be made independent, will declare it to be void."

During the ratification process, supporters and opponents of ratification published pamphlets, essays, and speeches debating various aspects of the Constitution. Publications by over a dozen authors in at least twelve of the thirteen states asserted that under the Constitution, the federal courts would have the power of judicial review. There is no record of any opponent to the Constitution who claimed that the Constitution did not involve a power of judicial review.

After reviewing the statements made by the founders, one scholar concluded: "The evidence from the Constitutional Convention and from the state ratification conventions is overwhelming that the original public meaning of the term 'judicial power' [in Article III] included the power to nullify unconstitutional laws."

The Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers, which were published in 1787–1788 to promote ratification of the Constitution, made several references to the power of judicial review. The most extensive discussion of judicial review was in Federalist No. 78, written by Alexander Hamilton, which clearly explained that the federal courts would have the power of judicial review. Hamilton stated that under the Constitution, the federal judiciary would have the power to declare laws unconstitutional. Hamilton asserted that this was appropriate because it would protect the people against abuse of power by Congress:

In Federalist No. 80, Hamilton rejected the idea that the power to decide the constitutionality of an act of Congress should lie with each of the states: "The mere necessity of uniformity in the interpretation of the national laws, decides the question. Thirteen independent courts of final jurisdiction over the same causes, arising upon the same laws, is a hydra in government, from which nothing but contradiction and confusion can proceed." Consistent with the need for uniformity in interpretation of the Constitution, Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 82 that the Supreme Court has authority to hear appeals from the state courts in cases relating to the Constitution.

The arguments against ratification by the Anti-Federalists agreed that the federal courts would have the power of judicial review, though the Anti-Federalists viewed this negatively. Robert Yates, writing under the pseudonym "Brutus", stated:

Judicial review between the adoption of the Constitution and Marbury

Judiciary Act of 1789
The first Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing the lower federal courts and specifying the details of federal court jurisdiction. Section 25 of the Judiciary Act provided for the Supreme Court to hear appeals from state courts when the state court decided that a federal statute was invalid, or when the state court upheld a state statute against a claim that the state statute was repugnant to the Constitution. This provision gave the Supreme Court the power to review state court decisions involving the constitutionality of both federal statutes and state statutes. The Judiciary Act thereby incorporated the concept of judicial review.

Court decisions from 1788 to 1803
Between the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 and the decision in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, judicial review was employed in both the federal and state courts. A detailed analysis has identified thirty-one state or federal cases during this time in which statutes were struck down as unconstitutional, and seven additional cases in which statutes were upheld but at least one judge concluded the statute was unconstitutional. The author of this analysis, Professor William Treanor, concluded: "The sheer number of these decisions not only belies the notion that the institution of judicial review was created by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury, it also reflects widespread acceptance and application of the doctrine."

Several other cases involving judicial review issues reached the Supreme Court before the issue was definitively decided in Marbury in 1803.

In Hayburn's Case, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 408 (1792), federal circuit courts held an act of Congress unconstitutional for the first time. Three federal circuit courts found that Congress had violated the Constitution by passing an act requiring circuit court judges to decide pension applications, subject to the review of the Secretary of War. These circuit courts found that this was not a proper judicial function under Article III. These three decisions were appealed to the Supreme Court, but the appeals became moot when Congress repealed the statute while the appeals were pending.

In an unreported Supreme Court decision in 1794, United States v. Yale Todd, the Supreme Court reversed a pension that was awarded under the same pension act that had been at issue in Hayburn's Case. The Court apparently decided that the act designating judges to decide pensions was not constitutional because this was not a proper judicial function. This apparently was the first Supreme Court case to find an act of Congress unconstitutional. However, there was not an official report of the case and it was not used as a precedent.

Hylton v. United States, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 171 (1796), was the first case decided by the Supreme Court that involved a challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress. It was argued that a federal tax on carriages violated the constitutional provision regarding "direct" taxes. The Supreme Court upheld the tax, finding it was constitutional. Although the Supreme Court did not strike down the act in question, the Court engaged in the process of judicial review by considering the constitutionality of the tax. The case was widely publicized at the time, and observers understood that the Court was testing the constitutionality of an act of Congress. Because it found the statute valid, the Court did not have to assert that it had the power to declare a statute unconstitutional.

In Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796), the Supreme Court for the first time struck down a state statute. The Court reviewed a Virginia statute regarding pre-Revolutionary war debts and found that it was inconsistent with the peace treaty between the United States and Great Britain. Relying on the Supremacy Clause, the Court found the Virginia statute invalid.

In Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 378 (1798), the Supreme Court found that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because of the jurisdiction limitations of the Eleventh Amendment. This holding could be viewed as an implicit finding that the Judiciary Act of 1789, which would have allowed the Court jurisdiction, was unconstitutional in part. However, the Court did not provide any reasoning for its conclusion and did not say that it was finding the statute unconstitutional.

In Cooper v. Telfair, 4 U.S. (4 Dall.) 14 (1800), Justice Chase stated: "It is indeed a general opinion—it is expressly admitted by all this bar and some of the judges have, individually in the circuits decided, that the Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress to be unconstitutional, and therefore invalid, but there is no adjudication of the Supreme Court itself upon the point."

Responses to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

In 1798, the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures passed a series of resolutions asserting that the states have the power to determine whether acts of Congress are constitutional. In response, ten states passed their own resolutions disapproving the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Six of these states took the position that the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional lies in the federal courts, not in the state legislatures. For example, Vermont's resolution stated: "It belongs not to state legislatures to decide on the constitutionality of laws made by the general government; this power being exclusively vested in the judiciary courts of the Union."

Thus, five years before Marbury v. Madison, a number of state legislatures stated their understanding that under the Constitution, the federal courts possess the power of judicial review.

Marbury v. Madison

Marbury was the first Supreme Court decision to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court.

The case arose when William Marbury filed a lawsuit seeking an order (a "writ of mandamus") requiring the Secretary of State, James Madison, to deliver to Marbury a commission appointing him as a justice of the peace. Marbury filed his case directly in the Supreme Court, invoking the Court's original jurisdiction, rather than filing in a lower court.

The constitutional issue involved the question of whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to hear the case. The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in cases involving writs of mandamus. So, under the Judiciary Act, the Supreme Court would have had jurisdiction to hear Marbury's case. However, the Constitution describes the cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, and does not include mandamus cases. The Judiciary Act therefore attempted to give the Supreme Court jurisdiction that was not "warranted by the Constitution."

Marshall's opinion stated that in the Constitution, the people established a government of limited powers: "The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written." The limits established in the Constitution would be meaningless "if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained." Marshall observed that the Constitution is "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation", and that it cannot be altered by an ordinary act of the legislature. Therefore, "an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void."

Marshall then discussed the role of the courts, which is at the heart of the doctrine of judicial review. It would be an "absurdity", said Marshall, to require the courts to apply a law that is void. Rather, it is the inherent duty of the courts to interpret and apply the Constitution, and to determine whether there is a conflict between a statute and the Constitution:

Marshall stated that the courts are authorized by the provisions of the Constitution itself to "look into" the Constitution, that is, to interpret and apply it, and that they have the duty to refuse to enforce any laws that are contrary to the Constitution. Specifically, Article III provides that the federal judicial power "is extended to all cases arising under the Constitution." Article VI requires judges to take an oath "to support this Constitution." Article VI also states that only laws "made in pursuance of the Constitution" are the law of the land. Marshall concluded: "Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument."

Marbury long has been regarded as the seminal case with respect to the doctrine of judicial review. Some scholars have suggested that Marshall's opinion in Marbury essentially created judicial review. In his book The Least Dangerous Branch, Professor Alexander Bickel wrote:

Other scholars view this as an overstatement, and argue that Marbury was decided in a context in which judicial review already was a familiar concept. These scholars point to the facts showing that judicial review was acknowledged by the Constitution's framers, was explained in the Federalist Papers and in the ratification debates, and was used by both state and federal courts for more than twenty years before Marbury, including the Supreme Court in Hylton v. United States. One scholar concluded: "[B]efore Marbury, judicial review had gained wide support."

Judicial review after Marbury

Marbury was the point at which the Supreme Court adopted a monitoring role over government actions. After the Court exercised its power of judicial review in Marbury, it avoided striking down a federal statute during the next fifty years. The court would not do so again until Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857).

However, the Supreme Court did exercise judicial review in other contexts. In particular, the Court struck down a number of state statutes that were contrary to the Constitution. The first case in which the Supreme Court struck down a state statute as unconstitutional was Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87 (1810).

In a few cases, state courts took the position that their judgments were final and were not subject to review by the Supreme Court. They argued that the Constitution did not give the Supreme Court the authority to review state court decisions. They asserted that the Judiciary Act of 1789, which provided that the Supreme Court could hear certain appeals from state courts, was unconstitutional. In effect, these state courts were asserting that the principle of judicial review did not extend to allow federal review of state court decisions. This would have left the states free to adopt their own interpretations of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court rejected this argument. In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304 (1816), the Court held that under Article III, the federal courts have jurisdiction to hear all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction in all such cases, whether those cases are filed in state or federal courts. The Court issued another decision to the same effect in the context of a criminal case, Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264 (1821). It is now well established that the Supreme Court may review decisions of state courts that involve federal law.

The Supreme Court also has reviewed actions of the federal executive branch to determine whether those actions were authorized by acts of Congress or were beyond the authority granted by Congress.

Judicial review is now well established as a cornerstone of constitutional law. As of September 2017, the United States Supreme Court had held unconstitutional portions or the entirety of some 182 Acts of the U.S. Congress, the most recently in the Supreme Court's June 2017 Matal v. Tam and 2019 Iancu v. Brunetti decisions striking down a portion of July 1946's Lanham Act as they infringe on Freedom of Speech.

Criticism of judicial review

Although judicial review has now become an established part of constitutional law in the United States, there are some who disagree with the doctrine.

One of the first critics of judicial review was Richard Dobbs Spaight, a signer of the Constitution.  In a correspondence with Supreme Court Justice James Iredell, Spaight wrote of his disapproval of the doctrine:

At the Constitutional Convention, neither proponents nor opponents of judicial review disputed that any government based on a written constitution requires some mechanism to prevent laws that violate that constitution from being made and enforced. Otherwise, the document would be meaningless, and the legislature, with the power to enact any laws whatsoever, would be the supreme arm of government (the British doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty). The delegates at the Convention differed with respect to the question of whether Congress or the judiciary should make determinations regarding constitutionality of statutes. Hamilton addressed this in Federalist No. 78, in which he explained the reasons that the federal judiciary has the role of reviewing the constitutionality of statutes:

Since the adoption of the Constitution, some have argued that the power of judicial review gives the courts the ability to impose their own views of the law, without an adequate check from any other branch of government. Robert Yates, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from New York, argued during the ratification process in the Anti-Federalist Papers that the courts would use the power of judicial review loosely to impose their views about the "spirit" of the Constitution:

In 1820, Thomas Jefferson expressed his opposition to the doctrine of judicial review:

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln touched upon the same subject, during his first inaugural address:

Lincoln was alluding here to the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Court had struck down a federal statute for the first time since Marbury v. Madison. Lincoln did more than argue against the finality of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution.  On June 19, 1862, the 37th Congress enacted, and Lincoln signed, Act CXI of 1862 which explicitly overturned both holdings of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress      assembled, That from and after the passage of this act there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing, or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

It has been argued that the judiciary is not the only branch of government that may interpret the meaning of the Constitution. Article VI requires federal and state officeholders to be bound "by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution." It has been argued that such officials may follow their own interpretations of the Constitution, at least until those interpretations have been tested in court.

Some have argued that judicial review exclusively by the federal courts is unconstitutional<ref name="Crosskey">See W.W. Crosskey, Politics and the Constitution in the History of the United States (Chicago: 1953), chs. 27–29, with which compare Hart, Book Review, 67 Harv. L. Rev. 1456 (1954). A brief review of the debate on the subject is Westin, "Introduction: Charles Beard and American Debate over Judicial Review, 1790–1961", in: C. Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution (Englewood Cliffs: 1962 reissue of 1938 ed.), 1–34, and bibliography at 133–149. See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/article3/annotation13.html#f576</ref> based on two arguments. First, the power of judicial review is not delegated to the federal courts in the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states (or to the people) those powers not delegated to the federal government. The second argument is that the states alone have the power to ratify changes to the "supreme law" (the U.S. Constitution), and each state's understanding of the language of the amendment therefore becomes germane to its implementation and effect, making it necessary that the states play some role in interpreting its meaning. Under this theory, allowing only federal courts to definitively conduct judicial review of federal law allows the national government to interpret its own restrictions as it sees fit, with no meaningful input from the ratifying, that is, validating power.

Standard of review

In the United States, unconstitutionality is the only ground for a federal court to strike down a federal statute. Justice Washington, speaking for the Marshall Court, put it this way in an 1829 case:

If a state statute conflicts with a valid federal statute, then courts may strike down the state statute as an unstatutable violation of the Supremacy Clause. But a federal court may not strike down a statute absent a violation of federal law or of the federal Constitution.

Moreover, a suspicion or possibility of unconstitutionality is not enough for American courts to strike down a statute. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 78 that the standard of review should be "irreconcilable variance" with the Constitution. Anti-federalists agreed that courts would be unable to strike down federal statutes absent a conflict with the Constitution. For example, Robert Yates, writing under the pseudonym "Brutus", asserted that "the courts of the general government [will] be under obligation to observe the laws made by the general legislature not repugnant to the constitution."

These principles—that federal statutes can only be struck down for unconstitutionality and that the unconstitutionality must be clear—were very common views at the time of the framing of the Constitution. For example, George Mason explained during the constitutional convention that judges "could declare an unconstitutional law void. But with regard to every law, however unjust, oppressive or pernicious, which did not come plainly under this description, they would be under the necessity as Judges to give it a free course."

For a number of years, the courts were relatively deferential to Congress. Justice Washington put it this way, in an 1827 case: "It is but a decent respect to the wisdom, integrity, and patriotism of the legislative body, by which any law is passed, to presume in favor of its validity, until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

Although judges usually adhered to this principle that a statute could only be deemed unconstitutional in case of a clear contradiction until the twentieth century, this presumption of constitutionality weakened somewhat during the twentieth century, as exemplified by the Supreme Court's famous footnote four in United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938), which suggested that statutes may be subjected to closer scrutiny in certain types of cases. Nevertheless, the federal courts have not departed from the principle that courts may only strike down statutes for unconstitutionality.

Of course, the practical implication of this principle is that a court cannot strike down a statute, even if it recognizes that the statute is obviously poorly drafted, irrational, or arises from legislators' corrupt motives, unless the flaw in the statute rises to the level of a clear constitutional violation. In 2008, Justice John Paul Stevens reaffirmed this point in a concurring opinion: "[A]s I recall my esteemed former colleague, Thurgood Marshall, remarking on numerous occasions: 'The Constitution does not prohibit legislatures from enacting stupid laws.'"

In the federal system, courts may only decide actual cases or controversies; it is not possible to request the federal courts to review a law without at least one party having legal standing to engage in a lawsuit. This principle means that courts sometimes do not exercise their power of review, even when a law is seemingly unconstitutional, for want of jurisdiction. In some state courts, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, legislation may be referred in certain circumstances by the legislature or by the executive for an advisory ruling on its constitutionality prior to its enactment (or enforcement).

The U.S. Supreme Court seeks to avoid reviewing the Constitutionality of an act where the case before it could be decided on other grounds, an attitude and practice exemplifying judicial restraint. Justice Brandeis framed it thus (citations omitted):

Laws limiting judicial review

Although the Supreme Court continues to review the constitutionality of statutes, Congress and the states retain some power to influence what cases come before the Court. For example, the Constitution at Article III, Section 2, gives Congress power to make exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction. The Supreme Court has historically acknowledged that its appellate jurisdiction is defined by Congress, and thus Congress may have power to make some legislative or executive actions unreviewable. This is known as jurisdiction stripping.

Another way for Congress to limit judicial review was tried in January 1868, when a bill was proposed requiring a two-thirds majority of the Court in order to deem any Act of Congress unconstitutional. The bill was approved by the House, 116 to 39. That measure died in the Senate, partly because the bill was unclear about how the bill's own constitutionality would be decided.

Many other bills have been proposed in Congress that would require a supermajority in order for the justices to exercise judicial review. During the early years of the United States, a two-thirds majority was necessary for the Supreme Court to exercise judicial review; because the Court then consisted of six members, a simple majority and a two-thirds majority both required four votes. Currently, the constitutions of two states require a supermajority of supreme court justices in order to exercise judicial review: Nebraska (five out of seven justices) and North Dakota (four out of five justices).

Administrative review
The procedure for judicial review of federal administrative regulation in the United States is set forth by the Administrative Procedure Act although the courts have ruled such as in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents'' that a person may bring a case on the grounds of an implied cause of action when no statutory procedure exists.

Notes

Further reading

Legal history of the United States
Federal judiciary of the United States
United States
Article Three of the United States Constitution
Article Six of the United States Constitution

Judicial review in the United States


Akanda National Park (French: Parc national d'Akanda) is one of 13 National Parks in Gabon set up in 2002 by President Omar Bongo after a two-year study by the DFC, WCS and WWF.  The 13 national parks are designed to represent the biodiversity of the country and encourage tourism. Akanda National Park is located in the northeast of the country, near Libreville,  with coastline along the Mondah and Corisco bays.

The national park is composed chiefly of mangrove and tidal beach habitats. Gabon has only 2.5% of the total mangrove swamp in Africa, but Akanda together with the nearby Pongara National Park comprise 25% of the total protected mangrove in the continent. They play an important role in the ecosystem and help stabilise the coastline around Libreville. Human encroachment from both building and crop planting are a threat to both parks.

Both of the bays are rich in marine life, and Corisco bay provides an important feeding area for turtles. Akanda is internationally important as a site for migratory birds and is home to the largest populations of such birds in Gabon. It is an IUCN Critical Site.

References

Virtual Tour of the National Parks

National parks of Gabon
Protected areas established in 2002
2002 establishments in Gabon
Ramsar sites in Gabon

Akanda National Park


The W63 was the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's entry into a brief competition between Livermore and Los Alamos to design a warhead for the Army's Lance tactical surface to surface missile.

In July 1964 both Livermore Labs and Los Alamos started developing competing warheads for the Lance. The Los Alamos design, the W64, was canceled in September 1964 in favor of Livermore's W63. In November 1966 W63 was canceled in favor of the W70.

References
 Hansen, Chuck, "Swords of Armageddon" (CD-ROM & download available). PDF. 2,600 pages, Sunnyvale, California, Chucklea Publications, 1995, 2007.  (2nd Ed.)

External links
 U.S. Nuclear Warheads, 1945-2009

Nuclear warheads of the United States

W63 (nuclear warhead)


Fucsia is a type of ceiling pendant lamp. It was designed by the architect Achille Castiglioni.

The  prototype was  presented in 1996, and put into production by Flos. The decision to create a suspension lamp with multiple light points is linked to the typology of chandeliers of the past and draws inspiration from a chandelier with multiple light points designed by father Giannino Castiglioni for his home in Lierna on Lake Como in 1925.

Suspension lamp suitable for solving the problem of uniform direct and diffused lighting on various surface dimensions.

The lamp body has design characteristics and dimensions such as to allow, in addition to the use of the single, multiple solutions.

References

Other websites
 Fucsia, Fondazione Achille Castiglioni

Design
Lamps

Fucsia (Castiglioni)


Vicki Golden (born July 28, 1992 in San Diego, California) is an American professional Freestyle Motocross rider and the first female team member of Metal mulisha, Since beginning her career in 2000 Golden has won three consecutive gold medals in Women's Moto X Racing at the X Games. She is also the first woman to compete in a freestyle Moto X competition, earning the bronze medal in the best whip category. She currently rides a Suzuki 450/250 motocross bike.

Early career
Golden began racing at the age of seven after seeing her brother and father racing. Golden had to race with the boys because there wasn't enough girls to create a separate race class. Golden's career took off at age 16 when raced the Loretta Lynn's Amateur Motocross National Championships in Tennessee where she won the Women's Amateur National Champion title. In the same year she also earned her AMA/WMX Pro License.

Career Highlights
2008 -     Loretta Lynn's AMA Women's Amateur Champion

2009 -     TransWorld Motocross Magazine's Female Motocross Rookie of the Year

2011 -     Won the gold medal in the Women's Moto X Racing  in the Summer X Games

2011 -    First Female to break top 10 in AMA Arena Cross Lites Main

2011 -    First female to qualify for AMA Arena Cross Premier class night show

2012 -    Won her second gold medal in the Women's Moto X Racing in the Summer X Games

2012 -    Third consecutive gold medal in the Women's Moto X Racing in the Summer X Games
won bronze for Moto X Best Whip

2014 -    First woman to complete Ricky Carmichael's Road to Supercross

2014 -  Nominated for  an ESPY Award in 2014 for  Best Female Action Sports Athlete

2015 -  First woman in Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, to qualify for the "Fast 40″ – the riders that transition to the night program from time qualifying – which she did for the 2015 finale.

References

Motorcycle racers from San Diego
American motorcycle racers
Female motorcycle racers
1992 births
Freestyle motocross riders
Living people
American sportswomen
21st-century American women

Vicki Golden


Braden v. United States, 365 U.S. 431 (1961), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the conviction of the petitioner, Carl Braden, based on his refusal to answer questions posed to him by the House Un-American Activities Committee, did not violate his First Amendment rights and was constitutional.

Background
The House Un-American Activities Committee (also called HUAC) was a committee within the United States House of Representatives dedicated to identifying agents of Fascism or Communism, ideologies deemed "un-American". With the end of World War II and the rise of the Cold War, HUAC, now a standing committee, became more narrowly focused on Communist activities. While HUAC was a political asset to some of its members, its activities were highly controversial, to the point where former President Harry S. Truman called it the "most un-American thing in the country today" in 1959. By 1975 it would be disbanded.

Despite the controversy, the HUAC was still very active in 1961, when it was investigating allegations of "Communist infiltration into basic industries in the South and Communist Party propaganda activities in the South". Among the witnesses called in this investigation was Carl Braden. However, when Braden was questioned by the committee, he refused to answer, based on his assertion that the questions were not relevant to the committee, and that the questions also violated his First Amendment rights. He was then convicted under 2 U.S.C. § 192, which makes it a misdemeanor offence to refuse to answer "pertinent" questions posed by the committee.

Opinion of the Court
Braden's conviction was sustained and held that the conviction was based on his refusal to answer questions posed to him by the HUAC and did not violate his First Amendment rights and was therefore constitutional.

See also
 Wilkinson v. United States, 365 U.S. 399 (1961)

References

External links

United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court
1961 in United States case law

Braden v. United States


The fifth generation Ford Thunderbird is a large personal luxury car series, produced by Ford for the 1967–1971 model years.

This fifth generation saw the second major change of direction for the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird had fundamentally remained the same in concept through 1966, although the design had been revised twice. The debut of the Ford Mustang in early 1964, and subsequent introduction of the larger, more upmarket Mercury Cougar, to compete with the similarly larger Dodge Charger – Chrysler's more upscale answer to Ford and G.M.'s pony cars – began to erode the Thunderbird sales and drove it to still get larger, with Ford even introducing four-door Thunderbird Landaus.

In fact, for 1969 the Continental Mark III  was launched as a two-door only personal luxury coupé, that was based directly on the four-door,  wheelbase Thunderbird chassis, and from that point until the end of 1976, Ford Thunderbirds and Continental Marks were related cars. They would share commonality again later from 1984–1998.

History

For 1967 the Thunderbird would be a larger car, moving it closer to Lincoln as the company chose to emphasize the "luxury" part of the "personal luxury car" designation. Ford decided to abandon the Thunderbird's typical unibody construction for this larger car, turning to a body-on-frame method with sophisticated rubber mountings between the two to improve noise/vibration characteristics and reduce weight by a small margin. An overhead console (that first appeared on the previous years Town Landau) containing illuminated indicators for emergency flasher use, low-fuel warning, door-ajar and seat-belt reminder light returned in a revised format. The listed retail price of the two-door Landau coupe was US$4,704 ($ in  dollars ).

The convertible, increasingly a slow seller, was dropped in favor of a four-door model that was 2.5 in (6.3 cm) stretched, featuring suicide doors, a signature feature of the Lincoln Continental four-door sedans of that era. It remained in the lineup through 1971 but never generated substantial sales. New for 1969, the Continental Mark III coupe was built on the same four-door chassis.

The 1967 design was radically different from what came before. Ford's stylists delivered a radical shape that in many ways anticipated the styling trends of the next five years. A gaping wide "fishmouth" front grille that incorporated hidden headlights was the most obvious new feature. The look was clearly influenced by the air intakes on jet fighters such as the F-100 Super Sabre, and was enhanced by the flush-fitting front bumper incorporating the bottom "lip" of the "mouth".

The sides were the barrel-like "fuselage" style that was very popular during this period. The belt line kicked up "coke-bottle" style after the rear windows, again a styling trait that would prove ubiquitous. Large C-pillars (and a small "formal" rear window on the 4-door) meant poor rear visibility but this was inline with the fashion of the time. The taillights spanned the full width of the car, and featured, as in previous Thunderbird models, sequential turn signals.

In contrast to the radically different exterior the new interior carried over nearly all of the themes established by the previous generation; most notably a dash panel with separately housed instruments along with a downward sweeping/integrated center console and a wraparound rear seat/"lounge".

The 1968 Thunderbird saw the introduction of the new 385 series big-block "Thunder Jet" 4V (4 barrel carburetor)  V8 engines. Like many Ford engines of the time, they were conservatively rated at  (SAE gross). The new engine made the cars some of the quickest and fastest Thunderbirds ever produced, despite their larger size and increased curb weight. 1968 and 1969 model years saw minor trim changes respectively.

For the 1970 model year, the Thunderbird was stylistically updated with the addition of a large, bird's beak-style projection out of its grille. Offered in 2- or 4-door models, all 1970-1971 Thunderbirds had prominent angular lines on the hood leading to a jutting tip, that also formed the center of the grill work, that was not a too thinly disguised bird beak. Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen, a former GM executive now President of Ford, is said to be responsible for this dramatic change. As with the 1967-69 models, the 1970-71 models had sequential turn signals incorporated into the full panel tail lights at the rear of the car.

In 1971, Neiman Marcus offered "his and hers" Thunderbirds in its catalog, with telephones, tape recorders and other niceties. They retailed for US$25,000 for the pair ($ in  dollars ).

Production totals

References

005
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
1970s cars
Coupés
Convertibles
Motor vehicles manufactured in the United States
Cars introduced in 1967
Personal luxury cars

Ford Thunderbird (fifth generation)


The Ngozumpa glacier, below the sixth highest mountain in the world Cho Oyu in Nepal, at , is the longest glacier in the Himalayas. Ngozumpa Glacier is a large persistent body of ice. It flows slowly due to stresses induced by its weight.

Ngozumpa Spillway lake

The Nepali Himalayas have been warming significantly over recent decades. Ngozumpa glacier is showing signs of shrinking and thinning, producing melt water. Some of this water pools on the surface where an enormous lake is growing. This lake, called Spillway, has the potential to be about  long,  wide and  deep. In the future this might be a threat to the Sherpa villages down the valley.

See also
 Gokyo Lakes

References

Glaciers of Nepal
Glaciers of the Himalayas

Ngozumpa glacier


AMFJ is a power noise musician from Reykjavík, Iceland. The outfit has one member, Aðalsteinn Jörundsson, whose initials are the basis of the project name. He debuted on the electronic/noise scene with a performance at Reykjavík's Organ bar on 30 July 2008 performing alongside Krakkbot, Auxpan and Oberdada von Brutal. Since then, AMFJ has performed at many of the venues of Reykjavík music scene. A typical AMFJ show is filled with feedback loops, mixed with loud, beat oriented playbacks and heavily sound-altered vocals. In addition to regular performances, AMFJ has appeared at the first annual Réttir music festival in Reykjavík  and performed an off-venue gig at Eistnaflug 2009, a long running metal festival that runs every July in Neskaupstaður, in eastern Iceland.

AMFJ's inaugural cassette, Itemhljóð & Veinan, has been released on FALK, an artist run label/art society in May 2009. The offering has received media attention for its medium, the often considered obsolete cassette tape. Adding to the oddity of the release is the extensive hexadecimal labelling system used to document the manufactured cassettes. Several of the cassettes feature hidden tracks (another oddity for a cassette) that were spontaneously created and mixed by AMFJ during the manufacturing process.

Itemhljóð & Veinan has been critically acclaimed, with one review in the Reykjavík Grapevine stating: "There's a point where art-music becomes almost transcendentally self-indulgent and that is the point at which it also becomes magnificent."

References

External links

 https://web.archive.org/web/20081219070035/http://www.gogoyoko.com/#/artist/amfj#/artist/amfj

Icelandic musicians
Musicians from Reykjavík
Icelandic artists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)

AMFJ