Digital Commons Network^™

Can Law Students Disrupt The Market For High-Priced Textbooks?, Jane K. Winn

Articles

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance legal education through technological innovation and collaboration. With its eLangdell Press project, CALI publishes American law school textbooks in open access, royalty-free form, offering faculty authors compensation equivalent to what most law school textbook authors would earn in royalties from a traditional full-price publisher.

I am writing a new sales textbook and “agreements supplement” based on contemporary business practice that I will publish in open access form with CALI’s eLangdell Press. Relatively few other American legal academics publish in open access form, however, suggesting …

Reforming Copyright Interpretation, Zahr K. Said

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This Article describes two dimensions of largely unacknowledged and unconstrained realms of interpretive complexity that judges face. First, judges make decisions about sources of interpretive authority somewhere on an axis, one end of which would vest interpretive authority entirely in the text and the other entirely in the context, around or beyond the text. This Article terms this spectrum of judicial decision-making the Text/Context axis. Second, judges must decide what interpretive mode to use in approaching the text, and here they make decisions somewhere along an axis where one end represents analysis or exegesis of the works and the other …

Creators, Innovators, And Appropriation Mechanisms, Sean M. O'Connor

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Now that Congress’s House Judiciary Committee has undertaken a review of current copyright law, and the Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, has called for the “Next Great Copyright Act,” sides are being drawn by various interest groups. Perhaps following the pitting of information technology firms against bio-chem and pharma firms in the patent reform battles leading to the America Invents Act, some interest groups want to divide the copyright reform debates into “innovators” and “creators.” Much of this seems driven by large tech firms such as Google, along with advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) who are …

The Imaginary Trademark Parody Crisis (And The Real One), William Mcgeveran

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In the two decades since the Supreme Court protected a crude rap spoof from copyright liability in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., courts have grown to understand the great value of parodic expression in trademark cases as well. Today, plausible claims of parody almost always prevail over trademark rights in judicial rulings. This Article demonstrates that it is simply wrong to suggest, as commentators often do, that we face a crisis in the results of trademark parody cases. That distortion is harmful because it distracts reform efforts and it lends credence to overbroad assertions of trademarks against parody and other …

Leak Prosecutions And The First Amendment: New Developments And A Closer Look At The Feasibility Of Protecting Leakers, Heidi Kitrosser

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This Article revisits the free speech protections that leakers are due in light of recent commentaries and events. Among other things, the Article critiques arguments to the effect that the Obama Administration's uptick in leak prosecutions does not threaten the system of free speech because plenty of classified information still makes its way into newspapers and the absolute number of leaker prosecutions remains very low. Such positions overlook the slanted impact that prosecutions and investigations are likely to have-and reportedly have had-on the speech marketplace. The Article also explains that even though the increase in prosecutions and other recent developments, …

Default Localism, Or: How Many Laboratories Does It Take To Make A Movement, Kathleen Claussen

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No abstract provided.

What We Like, Annie Brett, A. Michael Froomkin

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No abstract provided.

The Rit Sdn Testbed And Geni, Bruce Hartpence

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Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an innovative approach to network construction, configuration and monitoring. While it is relatively new (most of the ground work was completed in Stanford circa 2008) it is transforming our thinking regarding communication architectures. SDN leverages several other technologies such as virtualization and integrates virtual and traditional networks. It is critical that researchers in the communication and networking spaces understand, utilize and finally experiment with SDN based topologies, whether they be local testbeds or remote general computing facilities. RIT does not possess many non-production switches or routers capable of communicating via OpenFlow, the devices must be …

The Contribution Of Phonological Knowledge, Memory, And Language Background To Reading Comprehension In Deaf Populations, Elizabeth A. Hirshorn, Matthew W G Dye, Peter Hauser, Ted R. Supalla

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While reading is challenging for many deaf individuals, some become proficient readers. Little is known about the component processes that support reading comprehension in these individuals. Speech-based phonological knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension in hearing individuals, yet its role in deaf readers is controversial. This could reflect the highly varied language backgrounds among deaf readers as well as the difficulty of disentangling the relative contribution of phonological versus orthographic knowledge of spoken language, in our case ‘English,’ in this population. Here we assessed the impact of language experience on reading comprehension in deaf readers by …

Communication: Analytic Continuation Of The Virial Series Through The Critical Point Using Parametric Approximants, Nathaniel S. Barlow, Andrew J. Schultz, Steven J. Weinstein, David A. Kofke

Articles

The mathematical structure imposed by the thermodynamic critical point motivates an approximant that synthesizes two theoretically sound equations of state: the parametric and the virial. The former is constructed to describe the critical region, incorporating all scaling laws; the latter is an expansion about zero density, developed from molecular considerations. The approximant is shown to yield an equation of state capable of accurately describing properties over a large portion of the thermodynamic parameter space, far greater than that covered by each treatment alone.

The Uncertain Effects Of Senate Confirmation Delays In The Agencies, Nina A. Mendelson

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As Professor Anne O’Connell has effectively documented, the delay in Senate confirmations has resulted in many vacant offices in the most senior levels of agencies, with potentially harmful consequences to agency implementation of statutory programs. This symposium contribution considers some of those consequences, as well as whether confirmation delays could conceivably have benefits for agencies. I note that confirmation delays are focused in the middle layer of political appointments—at the assistant secretary level, rather than at the cabinet head—so that formal functions and political oversight are unlikely to be halted altogether. Further, regulatory policy making and even agenda setting can …

Ecological Perspectives And Children’S Use Of The Internet: Exploring Micro To Macro Level Analysis, Brian O'Neill

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Age-old debates on children’s encounters with media technologies reveal a long, fractured and contentious tradition within communication and media studies. Despite the fact there have been studies of e ects of media use by children since the earliest days of broadcasting, the subject remains under-theorised, poorly represented in the literature and not widely understood in media policy debates. Old debates have intensi ed in relation to the study of children and the internet. Pitted between alarmist accounts of risks, excessive use and harmful e ects on the one hand and the many accounts about „digital natives” and the transformational power …

Visqol: An Objective Speech Quality Model, Andrew Hines, J. Skoglund, A. C. Kokaram, N. Harte

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This paper presents an objective speech quality model, ViSQOL, the Virtual Speech Quality Objective Listener. It is a signal-based, full-reference, intrusive metric that models human speech quality perception using a spectro-temporal measure of similarity between a reference and a test speech signal. The metric has been particularly designed to be robust for quality issues associated with Voice over IP (VoIP) transmission. This paper describes the algorithm and compares the quality predictions with the ITU-T standard metrics PESQ and POLQA for common problems in VoIP: clock drift, associated time warping, and playout delays. The results indicate that ViSQOL and POLQA significantly …

Knowledge Sharing In Organisations: A Bayesian Analysis Of The Role Of Reciprocity And Formal Structure, Alberto Caimo, Alessandro Lomi

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We examine the conditions under which knowledge embedded in advice relations is likely to reach across intraorganizational boundaries and be shared between distant organizational members. We emphasize boundary-crossing relations because activities of knowledge transfer and sharing across subunit boundaries are systematically related to desirable organizational outcomes. Our main objective is to understand how organizational and social processes interact to sustain the transfer of knowledge carried by advice relations. Using original fieldwork and data that we have collected on members of the top management team in a multiunit industrial group, we show that knowledge embedded in task advice relations is unlikely …

Thinking Outside The Box: Promoting Learning Through Emotional And Social Skills Development, Aiden Carthy, Sinead Mcgilloway

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The European Qualifications Framework provides a useful insight into the kinds of outcomes and abiliti es that are promotedacross the EU. However, beyond arguably vague references to concepts such as ‘integrity’ and ‘autonomy’, this frameworkmakes no reference to the development of students’social and emotional competencies. Based on initial research findings inan Irish context, and when considered against the backdrop of a convincing literature on the importance of emotionalintelligence in academic attainment, there would appear to be considerable scope to modify this framework in order to accommodate more specific reference to the development of emotional and social skills. This paper addresses …

Recklessness As A State Of Mind In 10(B) Cases: The Civil-Criminal Dialectic, Patricia S. Abril, Ann M. Olazabal

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No abstract provided.

Clear And Simple Deportation Rules For Crimes: Why We Need Them And Why It's Hard To Get Them, Rebecca Sharpless

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In Padilla v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court held that defense attorneys have a Sixth Amendment duty to advise noncitizen clients of the "clear" immigration consequences of a proposed plea agreement. This Article argues that the Court's reference to clarity denotes predictability, not simplicity, and that defense attorneys must advise their clients of predictable immigration consequences, even if they are difficult to ascertain. The scope of this duty has broadened as the U.S. Supreme Court has made the crime-related deportation rules more determinate, although many rules remain complex. A legislative move to a regime of simple deportation rules would …

Very Compact Open-Slot Antenna For Wireless Communication Systems, Frances J. Harackiewicz, Ali Al-Azza, Hemachandra Reddy Gorla

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A new very compact open slot antenna for wireless communication systems application has been designed and fabricated. With antenna overall dimension of 9.2 × 9.8 mm², the proposed design can be used in many modern communication devices with size constraints. Experimental measurements have also been performed to validate the performance of the proposed antenna. The measured results show that the antenna provides a wide bandwidth of 48% (5–8.17 GHz) with an average size reduction of about 88% with respect to a conventional microstrip patch antenna.

Dual Trident Uwb Planar Antenna With Band Notch For Wlan, Hemachandra Reddy Gorla, Frances J. Harackiewicz

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In this paper, a compact microstrip fed ultra-wideband antenna with a band notch characteristic is presented. The proposed antenna consists of two tridents and two uneven split ring resonators. The overall size of the antenna is 26 mm × 24 mm × 1.53 mm. By adding the uneven split ring resonators to the dual trident ultra-wideband antenna, a band notch of 5.05 GHz to 5.9 GHz is achieved. The band notch is adjusted by the size and the split locations of the resonators. CST microwave studios software was used to simulate the design. The measured |S11| (dB) pass band and …

Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutionary Strategy Optimization Of Patch Antenna For Wireless Communication, Ali Al-Azza, Frances J. Harackiewicz, Hemachandra Reddy Gorla

Articles

Covariance matrix adaptation evolutionary strategy algorithm is applied to optimize a dielectric loaded microstrip patch antenna. The optimization process performance is enhanced by not considering the symmetrical factor of the antenna structure. The antenna is optimized to work for IEEE 802.11a WLAN 5-6 GHz band. Experimental measurements have also been performed to validate the performance of the proposed antenna.

Teaching The Skilled International Lawyer, Kenneth M. Rosen

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No abstract provided.

The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

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This Essay provides a solution to the conundrum of statements made by very young children and offered against an accused in a criminal prosecution. Currently prevailing doctrine allows one of three basic outcomes. First, in some cases the child testifies at trial. But this is not always feasible, and when it is, cross-examination is a poor method for determining the truth. Second, evidence of the child's statement may be excluded, which denies the adjudicative process of potentially valuable information. Third, the evidence may be admitted without the child testifying at trial, which leaves the accused with no practical ability to …

Factors Affecting The Academic Performance Of Optometry Students In Mozambique., James Loughman, Kajal Shah, Kovin Naidoo, Luigi Bilotto

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Purpose. The Mozambique Eyecare Project is a higher education partnership for the development, implementation, and evaluation of a model of optometry training at UniLu´ rio in Mozambique. There are many composite elements to the development of sustainable eye health structures, and appropriate education for eye health workers remains a key determinant of successful eye care development. However, from the first intake of 16 students, only 9 students graduated from the program, whereas only 6 graduated from the second intake of 24 students. This low graduation rate is attributable to a combination of substandard academic performance and student dropout. The aim …

Characteristics Of Attorneys Representing Children In Child Welfare Cases, Britany Orlebeke, Andrew Zinn, Xiaomeng Zhou, Donald N. Duquette

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Every day in state and local courts throughout the United States, judges are called upon to decide who should have the responsibility for the immediate and long-term care of neglected and abused children. Federal recognition of the right to independent advocacy for children subject to these proceedings originates with the 1974 Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). As a condition of receiving federal funds for child abuse prevention services through CAPTA, states must provide for the appointment of an appropriately trained guardian ad litem (GAL) for every child whose case results in a judicial proceeding. A guardian ad …

Ethics For Media Lawyers: The Lessons Of Ferguson, Leonard M. Niehoff

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Ferguson, Missouri, has a population of roughly 21,000 people. Thirty cities in Missouri have larger populations. The Edward Jones Dome, where the St. Louis Rams play football, seats three times as many people. Most of us had never heard of Ferguson prior to August 9, 2014, when a police oficer named Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. But, to paraphrase the grim observation of Ambrose Bierce, war is how Americans learn geography. So, as violence and vandalism erupted on its streets, the nation turned its attention toward Ferguson and labored to understand the place, …

A Class Of High-Order Runge-Kutta-Chebyshev Stability Polynomials, Stephen O'Sullivan

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The analytic form of a new class of factorized Runge-Kutta-Chebyshev (FRKC) stability polynomials of arbitrary order N is presented. Roots of FRKC stability polynomials of degree L = MN are used to construct explicit schemes comprising L forward Euler stages with internal stability ensured through a sequencing algorithm which limits the internal amplification factors to ~ L². The associated stability domain scales as M² along the real axis. Marginally stable real-valued points on the interior of the stability domain are removed via a prescribed damping procedure. By construction, FRKC schemes meet all linear order conditions; for nonlinear …

Fifty Years After The Passage Of Title Vii: Is It Time For The Government To Use The Bully Pulpit To Enact A Status-Blind Harassment Statute, Marcia Narine

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No abstract provided.

The Right To Be Forgotten: Who Decides What The World Forgets, Patricia S. Abril, Jacqueline D. Lipton

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In May 2014, the Court of Justice for the European Union ("CJEU") surprised the global cyberlaw community by holding that search engines like Google are "controllers" of the processing of personal data under the European Union Data Protection Directive. This means that they are obliged in some circumstances to remove links from search results that pertain to information that infringes on an individual's rights under the Directive. This obligation has come to be referred to as an aspect of a digital right to be forgotten." The search results in question related to a mortgage sale of property in a bankruptcy …

Postgraduate Researchers Who Teach: How Can National Policy And The Structured Phd Centralise This Forgotten Tribe And Celebrate Their Skills In Tackling Some Of The Current Challenges In Irish Higher Education?, Barry Ryan

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Some of the current challenges faced by Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) include financial constraints imposed by the economic downturn, the requirement to ‘teach more with less’, and the use of the knowledge based economy to drive economic stabilisation and recovery. HEIs have adopted a number of approaches to address these drivers of change including centralising the postgraduate research student who teaches. The role of these postgraduate research students is one that is not often highlighted within the fabric of the HEI; however, these transient researchers play two key roles: full-time researchers and novice educators. Centralising and celebrating the research skills …

Remote Risk Assessment: A Case Study Using Scope Software, Maria Chiara Leva, Farzad Naghdali, Noral Balfe, Marko Gerbec, Micaela De Michela

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A thorough risk assessment requires input from experts in both safety analyses and the system under analysis. The cost of collecting together the required expertise for a short risk assessment may mean that for some small and medium enterprises (SME), the risk assessment is not deemed worthwhile or is completed using a generic form. This is despite the possible safety and performance benefits that can be identified via a thorough risk assessment. This paper presents a case study of a risk assessment on a rare periodic inspection & maintenance procedure planned by a LPG storage and distribution company in Slovenia. …