Digital Commons Network^™

Piercing The Confidentiality Veil: Physician Testimony In International Criminal Trials Against Perpetrators Of Torture, David Weissbrodt, Ferhat Pekin, Amelia Wilson

Articles

Physician-patient confidentiality is a notion deeply rooted in most medical traditions throughout the world. 2 Many nations have codified patient protections and rights with statutes that emphasize the inviolability of this confidence. 3 Physicians are prohibited, except in limited circumstances, to reveal any confi-dential information or communication. 4 Violating confiden-tiality often exposes the physician to professional, civil, and sometimes criminal sanctions. 5 Confidentiality is designed to protect the patient's most intimate information as well as foster a candid relationship between physician and patient to facilitate successful diagnosis and treatment. 6 And yet despite the raison d'etre of confidentiality laws and …

Challenging Delaware's Desirability As A Haven For Incorporation, Philip S. Garon, Michael A. Stanchfield, John H. Matheson

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Whether a "race to the bottom" or a "race to the top," the competition among many states to encourage businesses to incorporate in their states has wide-ranging consequences for those businesses. Those consequences include the allocation of rights, powers, duties, and liabilities among corporate directors, officers, and shareholders. Despite the tendency to analyze this competition as a multi-state contest, empirical research shows that the "race" is actually a vast number of individual races between just two states at a time: the state in which the would-be corporation's principal office will be located and Delaware. Attorneys and their clients are regularly …

The Future Of The Legal Profession, Robert Stein

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It is a pleasure to be with you this evening and share some thoughts with you. Sandy and I are delighted to see so many wonderful friends here. I hope we have an opportunity to greet each of you before the evening is over. I include my wife, Sandy, in our network of friends because she has been my partner throughout my association with the Law School - during the time I was a student, then a faculty member, and eventually as Dean - and so many friends here tonight are friends of both of ours. I'd like to ask …

Continuing The Path To Excellence: University Of Minnesota Law School Dean Alex M. Johnson, Jr., Edward S. Adams

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Alex M. Johnson, Jr., the ninth dean of the University of Minnesota Law School, served with honor and distinction from 2002 to 2006. He leaves a legacy of achievement consistent with the tireless drive, ambitious goal setting, and adaptation to change that marked his career before ascending to the position of Dean at the Law School. Receiving his early education in the public schools of Los Angeles, Mr. Johnson began his undergraduate education at Princeton University and then transferred to Claremont College in 1973. He remained in Los Angeles for law school, earning his law degree at the University of …

Convergence, Culture And Contract Law In China, John H. Matheson

Articles

At the height of the Industrial Revolution, Britain was called "the Workshop of the World." 1 That title surely belongs to the People's Republic of China (PRC) 2 today. For example, China already is the world's fastest-growing large economy and the second largest holder of foreign-exchange reserves. 3 Furthermore, China is now the world's largest producer of coal, steel, and cement. 4 It is the second largest consumer of energy and the third largest importer of oil. 5 China's exports to the United States have grown by 1600% over the past fifteen years, and U.S. exports to China have grown …

Goliath Has The Slingshot: Public Benefit And Private Enforcement Of Minnesota Consumer Protection Laws, Prentiss Cox

Articles

The phrase "consumer protection case" may conjure up a used-car buyer trying to get recompense for a vehicle that turned out to be less than promised, or an elderly homeowner victimized by predatory lending tactics trying to maintain possession of her home. In August 2000, the private right of action to enforce Minnesota consumer protection laws was held to be something entirely different. After the Minnesota Supreme Court's decision in Ly v. Nystrom, 1 a business complaining about a competitor's advertising is more likely to have available a private right of action to enforce these laws than either the frustrated …

Juveniles' Competence To Exercise Miranda Rights: An Empirical Study Of Policy And Practice, Barry C. Feld

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The United States Supreme Court has decided more cases involving the interrogation of juveniles than any other aspect of juvenile justice administration. 1 Although it has cautioned trial judges to be especially sensitive to the effects of youthfulness and immaturity on a defendant's ability to waive or to invoke her Miranda rights and to make voluntary statements, the Court has not mandated any special procedural protections for immature suspects. Instead, it endorsed the adult waiver standard - "knowing, intelligent, and voluntary" under the "totality of the circumstances" - to gauge the validity of a juvenile's waiver of Miranda rights. 2

Land Use And Housing Policies To Reduce Concentrated Poverty And Racial Segregation, Myron Orfield

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No abstract provided.

The Regulatory Void Of Contingent Work, Stephen F. Befort

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No abstract provided.

Political Violence And Gender In Times Of Transition, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

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At the heart of transitional justice discourse is an ongoing conversation about accountability for human rights violations that occur in a context of regime repression or violent conflict. That accountability dialogue has generally been preoccupied with attempts to define the forms of political violence that should be addressed by various formal and informal mechanisms, such as trials and other truth-seeking processes. This Article will examine the multiple ways in which transitional justice processes have conceptualized political violence, and how that maps onto a gendered understanding of violence experiences and accountability mechanisms in a transitional context.

When Quitting Is Fitting: The Need For A Reformulated Sexual Harassment/Constructive Discharge Standard In The Wake Of Pennsylvania State Police V. Suders, Stephen F. Befort, Sarah J. Gorajski

Articles

The legal landscape with respect to constructive discharges resulting from sexually harassing conduct has been mired in confusion for the past two decades. Courts generally have applied a multi-step analysis that requires plaintiffs to establish both the existence of severe or pervasive sexual harassment as well as additional aggravating factors warranting an employee's resignation. The courts, however, have had a difficult time in defining the contours of the separate harassment and constructive discharge tests. The Supreme Court has weighed in on several occasions, but rather than opt for clarity, the Court has created new tests and new terminology that have …

The Role Of Status Quo Bias And Bayesian Learning In The Creation Of New Legal Rights, Francesco Parisi, Robert L. Scharff

Articles

We consider the role of status quo bias and Bayesian learning on the creation of new legal rights utilizing a model of legal evolution in which judges have limited discretion to create new precedent based on personal values, but, in the long run, are constrained by efficiency criteria. Our model demonstrates that status quo bias may effectively transform an ex ante inefficient rule into an ex post efficient rule. Because these legal rights are internalized over time through a process of Bayesian learning, new precedent is vulnerable to reversal until the new right has been sufficiently recognized and accepted.

Using Court Records For Research, Teaching, And Policymaking: The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, Margo Schlanger, Denise Lieberman

Articles

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is, wisely, planning the future of its enormous collection of relatively recent court records. The pertinent regulation, a “records disposition schedule” first issued in 1995 by the Judicial Conference of the United States in consultation with NARA, commits the Archives to keeping, permanently, all case files dated 1969 or earlier; all case files dated 1970 or later in which a trial was held, and “any civil case file which NARA has determined in consultation with court officials to have historical value.” Other files may be destroyed 20 years after they enter the federal …

Liability, Regulation And Policy In Surgical Innovation: The Cutting Edge Of Research And Therapy, Anna C. Mastroianni

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This article examines the implications of the foregoing competing claims from a U.S. legal perspective, focusing particularly on how the legal system addresses patient safety concerns and autonomous decision-making of surgeons in the context of surgical innovation. The lack of oversight and the risks borne by patients during surgeons' development and subsequent refinement of a novel procedure must be balanced with the need to encourage medical progress through the development of improved techniques designed to benefit the health of current and future patients. This article argues that current reliance on the medical malpractice system and the federal regulatory system of …

The Use Of Mtas To Control Commercialization Of Stem Cell Diagnostics And Therapeutics, Sean O'Connor

Articles

The recent focus on patents as a hindrance to stem cell research may turn out to be a red herring. The real culprits are material transfer agreements (MTAs), which govern the transfer of cell lines and other biological materials. The MTA’s primary purpose in life sciences research is to set contractual rights and obligations between parties where one party transfers biological materials to the other. For example, MTAs often focus on the physical handling, use, and distribution of the materials by the recipient, ensuring that the recipient complies with regulations for research involving humans or animals.

Although these interests are …

Unanimously Wrong, Dale Carpenter

Articles

The Supreme Court was unanimously wrong in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Though rare, it's not the first time the Court has been unanimously wrong. Its most notorious such decisions have come, like FAIR, in cases where the Court conspicuously failed even to appreciate the importance of the constitutional freedoms under attack from legislative majorities. In these cases, the Court's very rhetoric exposed its myopic vision in ways that now seem embarrassing. Does FAIR, so obviously correct to so many people right now, await the same ignominy decades away? FAIR was wrong in tone, a dismissive vox populi, adopted by a Court …

Extraordinary Rendition And The Torture Convention, David Weissbrodt, Amy Bergquist

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Extraordinary Rendition and the Convention Against Torture examines the U.S. policy of abducting terror suspects abroad and transferring them to third countries where they are likely to be subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The article notes that extraordinary rendition has evolved from a process by which persons were brought to the U.S. to stand trial, into a means of incapacitating suspects while keeping them out of reach of the U.S. legal system. Part I of this Article describes the Convention Against Torture and its provisions, and then examines the scope of the prohibition on torture under U.S. …

China's Acquisitions Abroad - Global Ambitions, Domestic Effects, Nicholas C. Howson

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In the past year or so, the world has observed with seeming trepidation what appears to be a new phenomenon-China's "stepping out" into the world economy. The move, labeled the "Going Out Strategy" by Chinese policy makers, sees China acting in the world not just as a trader of commodities and raw materials, or the provider of inexpensively-produced consumer goods for every corner of the globe, but as a driven and sophisticated acquirer of foreign assets and the equity interests in the legal entities that control such assets. The New Yorker magazine, ever topical and appropriately humorous, highlighted this attention …

Xbrl: Origins, Implementation And Acceptance, Phillip Kloeden

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A brief overview of the origins of modern accounting are examined with it’s genesis in the Italian Renaissance. During this time period, trade and commerce expanded and new methods for tracking and recording transactions became necessary. Double entry bookkeeping was first documented by Luca Pacioli in 1458. Innovative Italian merchants and scholars of this time period have become known as the fathers of modern accounting. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is currently the revolutionizing concept in the modern accounting world. Originally, known as Extensible Financial Reporting Markup Language (XFRML) in 1998, it was a prototype language created by the early …

The Economics Of Open Access Law Publishing, Jessica D. Litman

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The conventional model of scholarly publishing uses the copyright system as a lever to induce commercial publishers and printers to disseminate the results of scholarly research. Recently, we have seen a number of high-profile experiments seeking to use one of a variety of forms of open access scholarly publishing to develop an alternative model. Critics have not quarreled with the goals of open access publishing; instead, they've attacked the viability of the open access business model. If we are examining the economics of open access publishing, we shouldn't limit ourselves to the question whether open access journals have fielded a …

Guidance Documents And Regulatory Beneficiaries, Nina A. Mendelson

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Federal agencies rely heavily on guidance documents, and their volume is massive. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently catalogued over 2000 and 1600 such documents, respectively, issued between 1996 and 1999. These documents can range from routine matters, such as how employees should maintain correspondence files, to broad policies on program standards, implementation, and enforcement. Documents in the latter category include Education Department policies on Title IX implementation, Environmental Protection Agency policies on hazardous waste cleanup, the Food and Drug Administration's policies on food safety and broadcast advertising of pharmaceuticals, and many more.Although these …

Junking The Junk Science Law: Reforming The Information Quality Act, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

In addition, the law contributes to the ossification of rulemaking agencies; encourages agencies to make decisions informally through guidance documents and policies rather than rules; and encourages agencies to avoid using electronic dialogues and disseminating information to the public. This Article examines the problems created by the IQA suggests repeal of the law or some reforms to address those problems.

Part II of this Article examines the shift in environmental policymaking from command and control regulation to information disclosure programs and economic based programs. It also examines the strengths limitations of information disclosure programs. Part III reviews the and the …

A Chloride Selective Calix[4]Arene Optical Sensor Combining Urea Functionality With Pyrene Excimer Transduction, Benjamin Schazmann, Dermot Diamond

Articles

A neutral 2-site chloride selective compound has been developed (3), based on a 1,3- alternate tetrasubstituted calix[4]arene providing a preorganised supramolecular scaffold. The resultant supramolecular cavity is amongst the first to combine urea functional groups bridged with single methylene spacers to pyrene moieties. It combines a naturally and synthetically proven H-bonding system with the elegant ratiometric fluorescent signalling properties of an intramolecular pyrene excimer system, triggered by conformational changes upon anion coordination. The excimer emission of 3 is quenched, with a simultaneous rise in the monomer emission solely by the chloride anion amongst a wide variety of anions tested. 3 …

Classifying E-Algebras Over Dedekind Domains, Brendan Goldsmith, R. Gobel

Articles

An R-algebra A is said to be a generalized E-algebra if A is isomorphic to the algebra EndR(A). Generalized E-algebras have been extensively investigated. In this work they are classified ‘modulo cotorsion-free modules’ when the underlying ring R is a Dedekind domain.

A Comparative Test Of Brillouin Amplification And Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplification For The Generation Of Millimeter Waves With Low Phase Noise Properties, Markus Junker, Max Ammann, Andreas Schwarzbacher, Jens Klinger, Kai-Utwe Lauterback, Thomas Schneider

Articles

Measurements of phase noise of a 40-GHz carrier signal are presented. The carrier is generated by the amplification of harmonics due to stimulated Brillouin scattering. An analogy to a generation of millimeter waves by an erbium-doped fiber instead of the Brillouin amplifier is investigated and discussed. In our setup, both show a comparable behavior in respect to their noise characteristics.

Quarter-Wave Metal Plate Solar Antenna, S. Shynu, Max Ammann, Brian Norton

Articles

A novel design of a quarter-wave shorted trapezoidal metal plate solar antenna using high efficiency polycrystalline silicon solar cells is presented. Using the DC conductive parts of the cell as RF antenna elements as well as choosing the radiating element to be a small base trapezoid, better coupling between the the feed and shorting plates is ensured and 40.3% size reduction compared to a conventional shorted quarter-wave patch is obtained. The trapezoidal radiating element covers merely 2.7% of the total available illumination area of the solar cell, leaving its efficiency essentially unaffected. The proposed design strategy has been verified by …

Compact Concentric Annular-Ring Patch Antenna For Triple Frequency Operation, Xiulong Bao, Max Ammann

Articles

A novel single-layer, single-feed concentric annular-ring microstrip patch antenna providing triple-frequency operation is proposed and experimentally studied. This is achieved by embedding a small circular patch into a dual stub-loaded concentric annular-ring structure and by employing a cross-slot in the ground plane. The proposed technique can provide triple-band operation and reduce the antenna size by over 50% compared to the conventional annular-ring patch antenna for a given frequency. Experimental results show the proposed antenna to have impedance bandwidths of 6.38, 6.30 and 35% for the three bands, at 1.17, 1.428 and 1.9 GHz, respectively. The proposed structure is capable of …

From L-Shaped Planar Monopoles To A Novel Folded Antenna With Wide Bandwidth, Giuseppe Ruvio, Max Ammann

Articles

A novel folded monopole antenna is investigated numerically and experimentally. The proposed antenna comprises a short folded monopole suitably shaped at the base with two vertical grounding probes. This small antenna is shown to have a fractional impedance bandwidth up to 125% (1.6 GHz to 7.5 GHz) for a 10 dB return loss. An interesting compromise between impedance bandwidth and pattern control is found by tuning a double side bevel at the base of the monopole, the position of the feeding point and its distance from the ground plane. Measurements and simulations are in good agreement and show a dramatic …

All-Fiber Multimode-Interference-Based-Refractometer Sensor:Proposal And Design, Qian Wang, Gerald Farrell

Articles

A novel all-fiber refractometer sensor is proposed, which is based on multimode interference in the multimode fiber core section sandwiched between two single-mode fibers. A wide-angle beam propagation method in the cylindrical coordinate is employed as the modeling tool for simulation and design of the proposed refractometer sensor. The design for a refractometer is presented that shows that the refractometer would have an estimated resolution of 5.4×10−5 for refractive indices from 1.33 to 1.45 and of 3.3×10−5 for refractive indices from 1.38 to 1.45 through the choice of an appropriate length of the multimode fiber core section.

Analysis Of Strain And Intermixing In Single-Layer Ge/Si Quantum Dots Using Polarized Raman Spectroscopy, Anna Baranov, A. V. Federov, Tatiana Perova, R. A. Moore, V. Yam, D. Bouchier, V. Le Thanh, Kevin Berwick

Articles

The built-in strain and composition of as-grown and Si-capped single layers of Ge∕Si dots grown at various temperatures (460–800 °C) are studied by a comparative analysis of the Ge-Ge and Si-Ge modes in the polarized Raman spectra of the dots. A pronounced reduction of the strain and Ge content in the dots after deposition of the cap layer at low temperatures is observed, indicating that strain-induced Si diffusion from the cap layer is occurring. For large dots grown at 700–800 °C the observations are in agreement with a model of the Ge∕Si dot consisting of a Si-rich boundary region and …