Digital Commons Network^™

Hybrid Energy Governance, Hari M. Osofsky, Hannah J. Wiseman

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This Article develops a novel theory of energy governance and uses it to assess how institutional innovation can help meet critical challenges. Energy law is substantively complex and deeply fragmented. Each energy sector - including fuel extraction and pipelines, electricity generation and transmission, and transportation - has its own legal regime and federalism approach; confusion often exists at moments of crisis about how much authority federal, state, and local regulators have in these areas. The complexity and fragmentation of energy law are particularly problematic because the energy system faces major transitions due to emerging technology, more unpredictable and extreme weather …

The Geography Of Solving Global Environmental Problems: Reflections On Polycentric Efforts To Address Climate Change, Hari M. Osofsky

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This essay considers how we might fit local efforts to address climate change, especially those by very small, suburban cities, within models for solving "global problems." While acknowledging the need for more action on climate change at international, national, and state levels, and regional ones in between, this essay explores how different types of cities, as they participate in multilevel networks, can provide models for action and complement efforts to address climate change through the treaty regime. Using a diverse group of suburbs in the Twin Cities metropolitan region making innovative climate change and sustainability efforts as a case example, …

Comparative Law And Economics Of Standard-Essential Patents And Frand Royalties, Thomas F. Cotter

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Standard setting organizations often require their members to declare which of their patents are essential to the practice of a prospective standard, and to agree to license any such standard-essential patents (SEPs) on "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory" (FRAND) terms. Among the issues that have arisen in recent disputes involving FRAND-encumbered SEPs are (1) whether a FRAND commitment creates a binding contract for the benefit of third parties, obligating the SEP owner to forgo the right to seek injunctive relief for the infringement of the SEP; (2) whether the law of remedies, or other principles of generally applicable civil law such …

Guestworkers In Postwar America: A New History, Kunal Parker

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No abstract provided.

Machiavellianism In Healthcare Explored: Differences In Aspiring Managers And Patient Care Professionals, Sandra Collins

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Complex economic factors require healthcare professionals to have multiple skills. Although controversial, some characteristics associated with Machiavellianism may be needed in order to maintain organizational solvency. A study was conducted to determine the differences between aspiring healthcare managers and patient care professionals regarding the Machiavellian tendencies. The results of the study indicate a significant mix of Machiavellian traits exist within both groups which need to be both cultivated and controlled. Efforts should be made to increase some Machiavellian tendencies such as risk-risk taking and creative while extinguishing counterproductive traits that lead to unethical decision making.

Bringing A World Of Light To Technology And Judicial Ethics, David Hricik

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The Luddites thought that by smashing machines in early 19th Century England, they could eliminate the threat that those machines presented to them. Of course, they were wrong. As was the case during the Luddites’ time, technology continues to march inexorably onward in today’s society. As a result, those within the legal community—judges in particular—have no choice but to begin using technology. Although judges are currently using technology, they sometimes do so without understanding what they are doing.

Already, today’s “new-fangled” contraptions have ensnared judges. Perhaps the most widely known example is Judge Kozinski of the United States Court of …

A Strange Kind Of Identity Theft: How Competing Definitions Of "Indian" May Deny Individual Identity, Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne

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To the extent we think about it all, most of us believe what our parents tell us about where we came from-about who our grandparents are, who our ancestors were, our ethnic background, our family histories. My own family story includes claims to Scottish, Irish, French, and English ancestry. It also includes the Cherokee great-grandmother so popular in American genealogical stories. I have not undertaken an extensive genealogical search to more accurately pinpoint the threads of my ancestral quilt; I have simply accepted the family lore without much thought to whether it was verifiable.

My family's claimed link to the …

Memento Mori: Deaths And Wills, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

Death. The mere mention of the word sends a shiver down the spine or provokes a nervous giggle. Modern reactions to death range from avoidance, as shown by the abundance of death euphemisms, to fascination, as shown by the number of movies and television shows centered on death, including Twilight's vampires and The Walking Dead's zombies. Estate planning is the legal environment in which a person con.fronts his or her mortality and participates in the formulation of his or her legacy. Contextualizing the experience as a memento mori experience promotes the function of the estate planning process, specifically …

A Linearised Singularly Perturbed Convection-Diffusion Problem With An Interior Layer, Eugene O'Riordan, Jason Quinn

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A linear time dependent singularly perturbed convection-diffusion problem is examined. The convective coefficient contains an interior layer (with a hyperbolic tangent profile), which in turn induces an interior layer in the solution. A numerical method consisting of a monotone finite difference operator and a piecewise-uniform Shishkin mesh is constructed and analysed. Neglecting logarithmic factors, first order parameter uniform convergence is established.

Delayed Rejection Algorithm To Estimate Bayesian Social Networks, Alberto Caimo, Antonietta Mira

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Statistical social network analysis has become a very active and fertile area of research in the recent past. Recent developments in Bayesian computational methods have been successfully applied to estimate social network models. The Delayed rejection (DR) strategy is a modification of the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithms that reduces the variance of the resulting Markov chain Monte Carlo estimators and allows partial adaptation of the proposal distribution. In this paper we show how the DR strategy can be exploited to estimate dyadic independence social network models leading to an average 40% variance reduction relative to the competing MH algorithm, confirming that …

H-Index For Quantifying The Fractal Or Scaling Structure Of Geographic Features, Bin Jiang, Junjun Yin

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Although geographic features, such as mountains and coastlines, are fractal, some studies have claimed that the fractal property is not universal. This claim, which is dubious, is mainly attributed to the strict definition of fractal dimension as a measure or index for characterizing the complexity of fractals. In this article, we propose an alternative, ht-index, to quantify the fractal or scaling structure of geographic features. A geographic feature has ht-index (h) if the pattern of far more small things than large ones recurs (h – 1) times at different scales. The higher the ht-index, the more complex …

Fatigue Life Prediction Of Magnetorheological Elastomers Subjected To Dynamic Equi-Biaxial Cyclic Loadin, Yanfen Zhou, Stephen Jerrams, Tony Betts, Lin Chen

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Prediction of fatigue life is of great significance in ensuring that dynamically loaded rubber components exhibit safety and reliability in service. In this text, the dynamic equi-biaxial fatigue behaviour of magnetorheological elastomer (MREs) using a bubble inflation method is described. Wöhler (S-N) curves for both isotropic and anisotropic MREs were produced by subjecting the compounds to cycling over a range of stress amplitudes (σ_a) between 0.75 MPa and 1.4 MPa. Changes in physical properties, including variation in stress-strain relations and complex modulus (E*) during the fatigue process were analysed. It was found that the complex modulus of MRE …

Phenomenology And Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy, The Methodologies And Using Hermeneutic Phenomenology To Investigate Lecturers' Experiences Of Curriculum Design, Arthur Sloan, Brian Bowe

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This article investigates the philosophy of phenomenology, continuing to examine and describe it as a methodology. There are different methods of phenomenology, divided by their different perspectives of what phenomenology is: largely grouped into the two types of descriptive and interpretive phenomenology. The focal methodology is hermeneutic phenomenology – one type of phenomenological methodology among interpretive phenomenological methodologies. The context for phenomenology and the location of hermeneutic phenomenology is explained through its historic antecedents. When using phenomenology as a methodology there are criteria for data gathering and data analysis and examples of these are cited in this paper. Also in …

Experimental Study And Analysis Of A Polymer Fiber Bragg Grating Embedded In A Composite Material, Ginu Rajan, Manjusha Ramakrishnan, Yuliya Semenova, Eliathamby Ambikairajah, Gerald Farrell, Gang-Ding Peng

Articles

The characteristics of polymer fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in composite materials are studied in this paper and are compared with characteristics of their silica counterparts. A polymer FBG of 10 mm length which exhibits a peak reflected wavelength circa 1530 nm is fabricated and characterized for this purpose. A silica FBG with a peak reflected wavelength circa 1553 nm is also embedded in the composite material for a comparison study. The fabricated composite material sample with embedded sensors is subjected to temperature and strain changes and the corresponding effects on the embedded polymer and silica FBGs are studied. The …

A Numerical Method For A Nonlinear Singularly Perturbed Interior Layer Problem Using An Approximate Layer Location, Jason Quinn

Articles

A class of nonlinear singularly perturbed interior layer problems is examined in this paper. Solutions exhibit an interior layer at an a priori unknown location. A numerical method is presented that uses a piecewise uniform mesh refined around approximations to the first two terms of the asymptotic expansion of the interior layer location. The first term in the expansion is used exactly in the construction of the approximation which restricts the range of problem data considered. The method is shown to converge point-wise to the true solution with a first order convergence rate (overlooking a logarithmic factor) for sufficiently small …

Bergm: Bayesian Exponential Random Graphs In R, Alberto Caimo, Nial Friel

Articles

In this paper we describe the main featuress of the Bergm package for the open-source R software which provides a comprehensive framework for Bayesian analysis for exponential random graph models: tools for parameter estimation, model selection and goodness-of-fit diagnostics. We illustrate the capabilities of this package describing the algorithms through a tutorial analysis of three network datasets.

New Insights On Free Energies And Saint-Venant’S Principle In Viscoelasticity, L. Diseri, G. Gentili, John Murrough Golden

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This work was conceived in 1999 and brought near completion by 2003. Giorgio Gentili was deeply involved in this research until his untimely death. He is greatly missed. Work pressures on the other authors forced a postponement of research on this topic, originally envisaged as lasting a few months but in the event it turned out to be nearly ten years. We now dedicate this work to the memory of Giorgio and to his Family.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: The Interconnection Problem In Financial Markets And Financial Regulation, A European (Banking) Union Perspective, Caroline Bradley

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No abstract provided.

Compelled Disclosures, Caroline Mala Corbin

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Courts have faced a wave of compelled disclosure cases recently. By government mandate, tobacco manufacturers must include graphic warnings on their cigarette packages, doctors must show and describe ultrasound images of fetuses to women seeking to abort them, and crisis pregnancy centers must disclose that they do not provide contraception or abortion services. Although applying the same compelled speech doctrine to similar issues, appeals courts have reached very different results in challenges to these laws. Drawing from First Amendment theory, this Article first identifies why compelled disclosures undermine free speech values. It then applies those insights to the specific examples …

Reflections On The Indictment Of Sitting Heads Of State And Government And Its Consequences For Peace And Stability And Reconciliation In Africa, Charles Chernor Jalloh

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In these remarks, the author considers the most recent challenge to the application of international criminal justice in Africa: Kenya's controversial November 2013 proposal to amend the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to temporarily exempt from prosecution sitting presidents accused of involvement with international crimes. He examines several legal and practical reasons why such a proposal is untenable. Instead, citing the principle of complementarity and urging the principled use of judicial and prosecutorial discretion, he contends that much of the African Union's current concerns about the Kenya Situation can be addressed within the confines of existing Rome Law. …

The Erie-Ness Of The Rules, Sergio J. Campos

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No abstract provided.

Emotional Compelled Disclosures, Caroline Mala Corbin

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics - A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Scott L. Rogers

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Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation-an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation's Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …

The Role Of Mindfulness In The Ongoing Evolution Of Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Representing Entities: The Value Of Teaching Students How To Draft Board Resolutions And Other Similar Documentation, Joan Mcleod Heminway, Marcia Narine

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No abstract provided.

Mitigating The Impacts Of The Renewable Energy Gold Rush, Amy Wilson Morris, Jessica Owley

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No abstract provided.

Cultivating Professional Identity & Creating Community: A Tale Of Two Innovations, Jan L. Jacobowitz

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No abstract provided.

Symbolic Politics For Disempowered Communities: State Environmental Justice Policies, Tonya Lewis, Jessica Owley

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No abstract provided.

I Am/I Am Not: On Angela Harris's Race And Essentialism In Feminist Legal Theory, Mary Anne Franks

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In 1990, Angela Harris wrote an article that interrogated the limitations of feminist legal theory. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the insights and challenges Harris offered in Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory continue to reverberate. The influence of her ideas can be seen in the fractured and passionate conversations about gender, race, and solidarity occurring both inside and outside of academia. In recent years, we have witnessed an explosion of debate of these topics in social media forums such as Twitter and Facebook. Far from being trivial, the intensity and persistence of these conversations suggest a …

Beyond Tax Credits: Smarter Tax Policy For A Cleaner, More Democratic Energy Future, Felix Mormann

Articles

Solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies have the potential to mitigate climate change, secure America's energy independence, and create millions of green jobs. In the absence of a price on carbon emissions, however, these long-term benefits will not be realized without near-term policy support for renewable energy. This Article assesses the efficiency of federal tax incentives for renewables and proposes policy reform to promote renewable energy more cost-effectively through capital markets and crowdfunding.

Federal support for renewable energy today comes primarily in the form of accelerated depreciation and, critically, tax credits. Empirical evidence reveals that only a fraction of …