Digital Commons Network^™

Bridging The Ict Gap: A Study Of Uk Online Centres, John Cook, Matt Smith

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An initiative to create about 6,000 UK online centres aims to bridge the gap between those in society who have access to and are able to use information and communication technologies competently, and those who do not. UK online centres can be seen as networked community learning entities, playing an expanding role in formal and informal community-based learning.

The study described below provides a detailed snapshot of what was happening in UK online centres in the first nine months of 2002. The goal was to gain an improved understanding of the social context of the centres, and issues around the …

Should Legal Rules Be Used To Redistribute Income?, David A. Weisbach

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No abstract provided.

The Empirical Side Of Law And Economics, William M. Landes

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No abstract provided.

Property's Uneasy Path And Expanding Future, Saul Levmore

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No abstract provided.

The Shaping Of Chance: Actuarial Models And Criminal Profiling At The Turn Of The Twenty-First Century, Bernard E. Harcourt

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No abstract provided.

The Spatially Averaged Electric Field In The Near Field And Far Field Of A Circular Aperture, Charles Daly, Todd Nuteson, Navalgund Rao

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This paper presents a theoretical and numerical investigation of the spatially averaged electric field in the beam of a circular aperture. The investigation leads to closed-form analytical expressions, based on scalar diffraction theory, which describe the spatially averaged electric field in the Fresnel region of a circular aperture excited by a spatially uniform, harmonic plane wave. The expressions ultimately permit rapid, practical, and efficient prediction of certain routine electromagnetic measurements. Because the expressions are valid in the Fresnel region, they are also valid in the near field, the far field, and the Fraunhofer region of a circular aperture. In fact, …

A Process For Synthesizing Bandlimited Chaotic Waveforms For Digital Signal Transmission, Chance Glenn

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In our development of a chaotic oscillator technology to produce high-quality communication signals, we have found a novel method for limiting the out-of-band spectral power from chaotic oscillators. This development is an important breakthrough that has allowed us to make a major step toward a commercially viable technology.

An Upper Bound For The Representation Number Of Graphs With Fixed Order, Darren Narayan

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A graph has a representation modulo n if there exists an injective map f: {V(G)} -> {0, 1, ... , n @ 1} such that vertices u and v are adjacent if and only if |f(u)@f(v)| is relatively prime to n. The representation number is the smallest n such that G has a representation modulo n. We seek the maximum value for the representation number over graphs of a fixed order. Erdos and Evans provided an upper bound in their proof that every finite graph can be represented modulo some positive integer. In this note we improve this bound and …

On The Equivalences Of The Wheel W5, The Prism P And The Bipyramid B5, Hossein Shahmohamad

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The main results of this paper are the discovery of infinite families of flow equivalent pairs of B5 and W5 amallamorphs and infinite families of chromatically equivalent pairs of P and W*5 homeomorphs, where B5 is K5 with one edge deleted, P is the Prism graph and W5 is the join of K1 and a cycle on 4 vertices. Six families of B5 amallamorphs, with two families having 6 parameters, and 9 families of W5 amallamorphs, with one family having 4 parameters, are discovered. Since B5 and W5 are both planar, all these results obtained can be stated in terms …

Libertarian Paternalism Is Not An Oxymoron, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler

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No abstract provided.

On The Psychology Of Punishment, Cass R. Sunstein

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Are juries rational or irrational? In the context of punitive damage awards, jury decisions suffer from serious problems. Jurors are intuitive retributivists, in a way that produces departures from economic theories of punishment. Their decisions are rooted in outrage, which they cannot easily translate into dollar terms. The result is a degree of unpredictability and incoherence. An understanding of this point casts light on several problems with existing institutions and offers some clues about how those problems might be solved.

Competence, Culpability, And Punishment: Implications Of Atkins For Executing And Sentencing Adolescents, Barry C. Feld

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The Supreme Court has explored the issues of culpability, proportionality, and deserved punishment most fully in the context of capital punishment. In death penalty decisions addressing developmental impairments and culpability, the Court has considered the cases of defendants with mental retardation and older adolescents, and has created an anomalous inconsistency by reaching opposite conclusions about the deserved punishment for each group of defendants. Recently, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Court relied on both empirical and normative justifications to categorically prohibit states from executing defendants with mental retardation. Atkins reasoned that mentally retarded offenders lacked the reasoning, judgment, and impulse control …

Public Welfare And The Role Of The Wto: Reconsidering The Trips Agreement, Ruth Okediji

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No abstract provided.

The Design Of A Business Simulation Using A System-Dynamics-Based Approach, Steven Gold

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Research on business simulation design has been mostly on a sub-system level. Yet the business environment is complex by nature, characterized by interconnected organizational elements with nonlinear feedback loops, and requires a systems approach to be modeled effectively. In this paper a systems-dynamics based interactive model of a business enterprise simulation is developed, consisting of 18 equations. The model draws heavily upon the economic theory of the firm and the expansive body of prior research on the design of business simulations. The focus is on the linkages between the production, cost, revenues, profits and stock market value of the firm. …

Getting Stuck Between Bottom And Top: State Competition For Corporate Charters In The Presence Of Network Effects, Brett Mcdonnell

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For decades, American legal scholars have debated over the implications of allowing corporations to choose in which state they will incorporate, irrespective of where they do business. Until recently the debate has centered almost exclusively on whether the managers who choose where to incorporate have incentive to choose a state whose laws favor managers to the disadvantage of shareholders (the "race to the bottom" thesis) or whether their incentives are to choose states whose laws treat shareholders properly (the "race to the top" thesis). Recently, some scholars have questioned whether the state charter competition process will necessarily lead to an …

Trials And Tribulations: Science In The Law, Susan Haack

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No abstract provided.

Bayh-Dole Reform And The Progress Of Biomedicine, Arti K. Rai, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

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Advances in fundamental biomedical research play an important and growing role in the development of new therapeutic and diagnostic products. Although the development of pharmaceutical end products has long been a proprietary enterprise, biomedical research comes from a very different tradition of open science. Within this tradition, long-standing norms call for relatively unfettered access to fundamental knowledge developed by prior researchers. The tradition of open science has eroded considerably over the past quarter century as proprietary claims have reached farther upstream from end products to cover fundamental discoveries that provide the knowledge base for future product development.

Redistributing Optimally: Of Tax Rules, Legal Rules, And Insurance, Kyle D. Logue, Ronen Avraham

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From the beginning of the law and economics movement, normative legal economists have focused almost exclusively on evaluating the efficiency of alternative legal rules. The distributional consequences of legal rules, therefore, have largely been ignored. It is tempting to conclude that legal economists are hostile or indifferent to concerns of distributional fairness. In fact, however, the discipline of economics has a great deal to say about distributional policy. The normative branch of economics, known as welfare economics, has always been deeply concerned with distributional issues. It is not that welfare economists purport to know a priori the "right" or "optimal" …

Characterization Of The Interaction Of Gamma Cyclodextrin With Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes, Gordon Chambers, Clodagh Carroll, Garrett Farrell, Alan Dalton, Mary Mcnamara, Marc In Het Panhuis, Hugh Byrne

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In this study a number of composite-like samples of ç-cyclodextrin and HiPco carbon nanotubes were prepared. The first sample was prepared by a simple grinding procedure, which has been reported to cut HiPco carbon nanotubes. The other samples were obtained via a refluxing procedure analogous to similar studies on other fullerenes and ç-cyclodextrin. The samples were analyzed using absorption and Raman spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry. The results presented show clear evidence of an intermolecular interaction between ç-cyclodextrin and single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Truth, Truths, "Truth," And "Truths" In The Law, Susan Haack

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No abstract provided.

Inquiry And Advocacy, Fallibilism And Finality: Culture And Inference In Science And The Law, Susan Haack

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No abstract provided.

Taking Educational Caste Seriously: Why Grutter Will Help Very Little From Brown To Grutter: Affirmative Action And Higher Education In The South, Bryan K. Fair

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No abstract provided.

Expert Information And Expert Evidence: A Preliminary Taxonomy, Samuel R. Gross, Jennifer L. Mnookin

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Federal Rule of Evidence 702 speaks in very general terms. It governs every situation in which "scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact," and provides that, in that situation, "a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise . . . .' In 2000, following a trio of Supreme Court cases interpreting Rule 702, the Rule was amended to include a third requirement, in addition to the helpfulness of the testimony and the qualifications of the witness: reliability. Under Rule 702 …

Comparative Study Of Spectral Reflectance Estimation Based On Broad-Band Imaging Systems, Francisco Imai, Lawrence Taplin, Ellen Day

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We have been practicing spectral color estimation for museum artwork imaging and spectral estimation. We have had success using both narrow-band imaging based on a liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) and various broad-band imaging approaches using the same monochromatic digital camera system. Details about our spectral color imaging system description, imaging procedures and the performance of spectral estimation methods used can be found in our previous technical reports.1,2 In previous reports we focused in methods of reconstruction from narrow-band images using LCTF, while we only reported preliminary analyses of reconstruction from wide-band images using six glass filtered images and a …

Aspects Of Land Use In Slash And Burn Agriculture, Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Dug Man Lee

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In this paper we first construct a theoretical model of land use by swidden cultivators when these cultivators can choose whether to grow a cash crop or a food/subsistence crop. Second, we study the land quality accumulation decision faced by shifting cultivators and, in the process, we show how to compute the optimal length of time during which cleared land is to be left fallow. Finally, we investigate the implications that the optimal land quality accumulation decision has for the relative price of the food crop in particular and slash and burn agriculture in general.

Constraints On Cosmic Dynamics, Manasse Mbonye

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Also archived at: arXiv:gr-qc/0309135 v1 30 Sep 2003 Observationally, the universe appears virtually critical. Yet, there is no simple explanation for this state. In this article we advance and explore the premise that the dynamics of the universe always seeks equilibrium conditions. Vacuum-induced cosmic accelerations lead to creation of matter-energy modes at the expense of vacuum energy. Because they gravitate, such modes constitute inertia against cosmic acceleration. On the other extreme, the would-be ultimate phase of local gravitational collapse is checked by a phase transition in the collapsing matter fields leading to a de Sitter-like fluid deep inside the black …

Simulation Of Dynamic Electrochemical Processes, John Cassidy

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This work is designed to introduce electrochemists in a tutorial manner to the basics of modeling of electrochemical systems based primarily on diffusion equations. There is an introduction to analytical and numerical methods with examples taken from typical electrochemical experiments. The Laplace transform is used to derive the Cottrell equation and chronopotentiometry. The response of an electrode to a Gaussian concentration profile is detailed. Laplace’s equation is solved for a simple cell to determine the potential distribution. Discrete methods are employed to calculate the current time behavior following a potential step using the explicit finite difference method. Cyclic voltammetry is …

Assessment Of The Acoustic Properties Of Common Tissue-Mimicking Test Phantoms, Jacinta Browne, K. Ramnarine, A. Watson, P. Hoskins

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Ultrasound (US) test phantoms incorporating tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs) play an important role in the quality control (QC) and performance testing of US equipment. Three commercially available TMMs (ZerdineTM from CIRS Inc.; condensed-milk-based gel from Gammex RMI; urethane-rubber-based from ATS Labs) and a noncommercial agar-based TMM, were investigated. Acoustic properties were measured over the frequency range 2.25 to 15 MHz at a range of ambient temperatures (10 to 35°C). The acoustic velocity of the TMMs remained relatively constant with increasing frequency. Only the agar-based TMM had a linear increase of attenuation with frequency, with the other materials exhibiting nonlinear responses to …

Short-Term Effects Of Ambient Particles On Mortality In The Elderly: Results From 28 Cities In The Aphea2 Project, E. Aga, E. Samoli, G. Touloumi, K. Katsouyanni, H.R. Anderson, E. Cadum, B. Forsberg, Patrick J. Goodman, A. Goren, F. Kotesovec, B. Kriz, M. Macarol-Hiti, S. Medina, A. Paldy, C. Schindler, J. Sunyer, P. Tittanen, B. Wojtyniak, D. Zmirou, J. Schwartz

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ABSTRACT: Within the framework of the APHEA2 (Air Pollution on Health: a European Approach) project, the effects of ambient particles on mortality among persons o65 yrs were investigated. Daily measurements for particles with a 50% cut-off aerodynamic diameter of 10 mm (PM10) and black smoke (BS), as well as the daily number of deaths among persons o65 yrs of age, from 29 European cities, have been collected. Data on other pollutants and meteorological variables, to adjust for confounding effects and data on city characteristics, to investigate potential effect modification, were also recorded. For individual city analysis, generalised additive models extending …

Indirect Evaporative Cooling Potential In Air-Water Systems In Temperate Climates, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

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Recent developments have prompted a review of evaporative cooling technology as an effective means of cooling modern deep plan buildings. Prominent among these developments is the success of high temperature sensible cooling systems, particularly, chilled ceilings, which require a supply of cooling water at 14–18 °C. Crucial to the success of evaporative cooling technology, as a significant means of cooling in modern applications, is the ability to generate cooling water, in an indirect circuit, at a temperature which closely approaches the ambient adiabatic saturation temperature (AST) or wet bulb temperature (WBT). Recent experimental research has demonstrated that it is technically …