Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

When Private Property Rights Collide With Growth Management Legislation, Steve P. Calandrillo, Chryssa V. Deliganis, Andrea Woods

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Over the past century, ever-expanding urban and suburban growth in the United States has offered a clear sign of America’s economic vitality, but it has not come without unique challenges of its own. Indeed, efforts to promulgate “smart growth” legislation as an antidote to suburban “sprawl” have proliferated in the past three decades, but it is time we ask ourselves whether their benefits outweigh their unintended consequences. States and local governments that once enthusiastically touted such legislation are beginning to confront unforeseen obstacles–and litigation–that raise the need for immediate reform.

This Article explores the impact of growth management acts on …

The Lost "Art" Of The Patent System, Sean M. O'Connor

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Patent systems emerged in the early modern period of the West to incentivize development and dissemination of skills-based artisanal innovations. This approach appears to have been adopted by the Framers in drafting the Intellectual Property Clause.

Only later, in the Industrial Revolution, did ‘‘science’’ and ‘‘technology’’ begin to displace ‘‘art’’ as the perceived object of the U.S. patent system. This was in large part because of the emergence of the concept of ‘‘technology’’ itself as science-based innovation in artisanal and mechanized production.

The loss of an ‘‘art’’-based concept of the patent system is arguably causing some of the confusion over …

Spatial Brightness, Horizontal Illuminance And Mean Room Surface Exitance In A Lighting Booth, James Duff, Kevin Kelly, C. Cuttle

Articles

This paper presents a pilot study that has investigated the suitability of mean room surface exitance as a predictor of spatial brightness and compared these results with how horizontal illuminance predicts spatial brightness under the same conditions. The experiment took a group of 26 participants and, using a scaled booth, exposed each participant to three levels of mean room surface exitance, each delivered with three different light distributions and three different surface reflectances, resulting in a total of 27 light scenes. Results demonstrated that, under the range of conditions to which participants were exposed, a systematic relationship existed between mean …

Trailmaking Test Performance Contributes To Subjective Judgment Of Visual Efficiency In Older Adults, Annalisa Setti, James Loughman, George Savva, Rose Anne Kenny

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Introduction.

The determinant factors that influence self-reported quality of vision have yet to be fully elucidated. This study evaluated a range of contextual information, established psychophysical tests, and in particular, a series of cognitive tests as potentially novel determinant factors.

Materials &Methods. Community dwelling adults (aged 50+) recruited to Wave 1 of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, excluding those registered blind, participated in this study (N = 5,021). Self-reports of vision were analysed in relation to visual acuity and contrast sensitivity, ocular pathology, visual (Choice Response Time task; TrailMaking Test) and global cognition. Contextual factors such as having visited …

Development Of A Methodology For Assessing Safety & Operational Reporting Within Safety Critical Industries, Maria Chiara Leva, Ewan Douglas, Sam Cromie

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Develop a best-practice model based on literature and industrial experience

• Industrial Case Studies to allow a cross industrial comparison

• Develop a suite of techniques that can be used cross-industry to assess the effectiveness of a reporting system

• Propose a theoretical framework for the effective implementation of risk and hazard reporting as an input for safety management

Using Sequential Mixed Methods In Enterprise Policy Evaluation. Special Mixed Methods Edition., Anthony Paul Buckley

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How might policy instruments contribute to indigenous firm growth and how can the effects of these instruments be evaluated at both firm and policy level? This paper illustrates how a mixed methods research design and data analysis strategy can pragmatically address the research questions outlined above. The advantages and challenges of employing quantitative research methods (what happened?) followed by confirmatory qualitative research methods (how and why did it happen?) in a multiphase sequential explanatory design is explored. The data analysis strategy is firstly to analyse the data generated from a ‘before and after’ quasi-experiment (with statistical controls), then data from …

Why Instrumentalism Matters, Kyron Huigens

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No abstract provided.

Contract Remedies In Action: Specific Performance, Yonathan A. Arbel

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How is a right to specific performance of a contract used by parties Despite longstanding scholarly interest in the topic this question has been largely left unexplored This Article presents a qualitative study of parties and attorneys involved in specific performance litigation It investigates how parties choose between remedies whether they negotiate after judgment for specific performance if specific performance is implemented and the difficulties involved in its implementationbrbrThe findings reveal important theoretical oversights and challenges to prevailing law In practice many plaintiffs opt out of specific performance This is puzzling as expectation damages are notoriously under compensatory relative to …

Brain Science And The Theory Of Juvenile Mens Rea, Jenny E. Carroll

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The law has long recognized the distinction between adults and children A legally designated age determines who can vote exercise reproductive rights voluntarily discontinue their education buy alcohol or tobacco marry drive a car or obtain a tattoo The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld such agebased restrictions most recently constructing an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that bars the application of certain penalties to juvenile offenders and a Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that contemplates an adolescentbased standard of reasonableness for the Miranda v Arizona custody analysis In the cases of Roper v Simmons Graham v Florida Miller v Alabama and JDB v North …

Economics, Eq, And Finance: The Next Frontier In Legal Education, Pamela Bucy Pierson

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No abstract provided.

How To Be A Star Performer In The Legal World Jobs, Pamela Bucy Pierson

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No abstract provided.

Through The Lens Of Innovation, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

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The legal system constantly follows the footsteps of innovation and attempts to discourage its migration overseas. Yet, present legal rules that inform and explain entrepreneurial circumstances lack a core understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship. By its nature, law imposes order. It provides rules, remedies, and classifications that direct behavior in a consistent manner. Entrepreneurship turns on the contrary. It entails making creative judgments about the unknown. It involves adapting to disarray. It thrives on deviation as opposed to traditional causation. This Article argues that these differences matter. It demonstrates that current laws lock entrepreneurs into inefficient legal routes. Through …

Why Instrumentalism Matters, Kyron J. Huigens

Articles

Alon Harel argues that the acts of a public official acting with "fidelity of deference," are "necessary," "non-contingent," "intrinsic," "constitutive," integrative," "expressive," or "inherent" features of legal punishment. Accordingly, he calls his argument "noninstrumental." This can be taken as an argument for logical necessity, definition, extension, or modest or immodest conceptual necessity. Only the last interpretation fits Harel's text, but such an argument fails because instrumentality is necessarily present in any event in the natural world, including punishment. Harel does not say which aspects of natural instrumentality he means to exclude from his argument, or how, or why.

Facing Terror Together: Public Agents And Civic Worth, Ekow N. Yankah

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No abstract provided.

Corporate Religious Liberty, Caroline Mala Corbin

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No abstract provided.

Intentional Discrimination In Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, Caroline Mala Corbin

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In Town of Greece, New York v. Galloway, the Supreme Court upheld a legislative prayer practice with overwhelmingly Christian prayers in part because the Court concluded that the exclusion of all other religions was unintentional. This requirement-that a religiously disparate impact must be intentional before it amounts to an establishment violation-is new for Establishment Clause doctrine. An intent requirement, however, is not new for equal protection or free exercise claims. This Essay explores the increased symmetry between the Establishment Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. It argues that many of the critiques of the intentional …

Regulating Mass Surveillance As Privacy Pollution: Learning From Environmental Impact Statements, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

Encroachments on privacy through mass surveillance greatly resemble the pollution crisis in that they can be understood as imposing an externality on the surveilled. This Article argues that this resemblance also suggests a solution: requiring those conducting mass surveillance in and through public spaces to disclose their plans publicly via an updated form of environmental impact statement, thus requiring an impact analysis and triggering a more informed public conversation about privacy. The Article first explains how mass surveillance is polluting public privacy and surveys the limited and inadequate doctrinal tools available to respond to mass surveillance technologies. Then, it provides …

Teaching Emotional Intelligence To Law Students: Three Keys To Mastery, William S. Blatt

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics And The Cultivation Of Concentration, Scott L. Rogers, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Deterring Both Spur-Of-The-Moment And Carefully Planned Corporate Crimes, Robert Eli Rosen

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No abstract provided.

Trial Court Budgets, The Enforcer's Dilemma, And The Rule Of Law, Scott Baker, Anup Malani

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No abstract provided.

Guarding The Subjective Premium: Condemnation Risk Discounts In The Housing Market, Sebastien Gay, Nadia Nasser-Ghodsi

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No abstract provided.

Is Federalization Of Charity Law All Bad? What States Can Learn From The Internal Revenue Code, Melanie B. Leslie

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No abstract provided.

Can The Use Of Online Learning And Reflective Journals Improve Students’ Performance And Engage Them In Independent Learning For A Practically Taught “Timber Jointing Module, Jennifer Byrne

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The Technological University Dublin is one of the largest multi-level higher education providers in Ireland. The Institute’s traditional mission has always been focused on teaching and learning in the field of advanced technical vocational education and training (TVET), and one of its agendas is to foster and encourage changes in teaching practice and methodology in order to enhance the student learning experience.

This research concerned the performance levels of first year students of the Timber Product Technology (TPT) programme. I wanted to investigate whether the use of independent online learning and reflective journals would encourage these students to continue their …

The Negotiated Structural Constitution, Aziz Huq

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No abstract provided.

Nurturing Play-Makers & Active Investigative Agents: Schwartz Tag, Good Video Games And Futures Of Jewish Learning, Owen Gottlieb

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How can an experiential approach to education, in combination with a games-based orientation, help us reach often-elusive educational goals? In many ways the study of games and game design bring us back to tenets of education that we have long known, including the benefits of self-directed learning and project-based work. Games-based design and learning may provide a way to shift the discussion from “What should an educated Jew know?” to “How does a learner develop a taste for Jewish learning and living?”

Symbolic Misery And Aesthetics- Bernard Stiegler, Noel Fitzpatrick

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In this article I will deal with the development of a theory of aesthetics within the work of the French contemporary philosopher Bernard Stiegler with particular reference to his concept of symbolic misery. Rather than give an extensive account of Bernard Stiegler’s aesthetics this article will focus on some key concepts mobilized in the definition and analysis of symbolic misery. Firstly, I will argue that Stiegler’s understanding of the aesthetic comes from an expanded notion of aesthesis, where the political and the aesthetic are mobilized together. In this regard I will interrogate some key concepts in his work Symbolic Misery …

Peer Teaching In The Food Chemistry Laboratory: Student-Produced Experiments, Peer And Audio Feedback And Integration Of Employability, Julie Dunne

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This paper describes the author’s experience over the last several years of implementing an alternative Food Chemistry laboratory practical for a group of third-year BSc Nutraceuticals students. The initial main objectives were to prepare students for the more independent final-year research project; to incorporate innovative approaches to feedback; and to integrate key employability skills into the curriculum. These were achieved through building the skills required to ultimately allow students working in groups to research, design and run a laboratory for their class. The first year of the project involved innovative approaches to feedback, including weekly feedback sessions, report checklists and …