Digital Commons Network^™

When Do Facts Persuade? Some Thoughts On The Market For “Empirical Legal Studies”, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Significance Of Altitude And Posting Density On Lidar-Derived Elevation Accuracy On Hazardous Waste Sites, María J. García-Quijano, John R. Jensen, Michael E. Hodgson, Brian C. Hadley, John B. Gladden, Lewis A. Lapine

Faculty Publications

This research evaluated the vertical accuracy of two lidar-derived elevation datasets acquired from two different altitudes over a clay-capped hazardous waste site located on the Savannah River Site (SRS), South Carolina, using the same Optech ALTM 2050 lidar sensor and Cessna 337 platform. Both missions provided adequate elevation estimates (low-altitude RMSEz ≈ 6 cm; high-altitude RMSEz ≈ 14 cm.) A quantitative comparison was performed to determine how decreasing platform altitude and increasing lidar posting density affected the vertical elevation accuracy. Higher posting densities did not significantly improve the vertical accuracy of lidar-derived elevation data. Conversely, acquiring the lidar-derived elevation data …

Developing A New Curriculum In Sport Security Management, Stacey A. Hall, Rosalie Ward, Trey Cunningham, Lou Marciani

Faculty Publications

High profile sporting events in the United States have been identified by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as potential terrorist targets (Lipton, 2005). However, there has been an identified lack of training and education for key personnel responsible for sport security operations (Cunningham, 2007). Recognizing the demand and need for a specialized area in sport event security management, the University of Southern Mississippi School of Human Performance and Recreation developed an emphasis area in sports event security management as part of the Master of Science in Sport Management program. The sport security emphasis area includes three graduate level courses …

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And Ethical Corporate Climates: What The Media Reports; What The General Public Knows, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The question for participants in the Securities Regulation Section’s program at the 2008 AALS Annual Meeting was whether recent securities regulation reforms hit their mark. I focus in this essay on The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX or the Act), the most important legislative reform of securities markets in recent decades. Enacted to assuage public outrage about corporate greed and malfeasance ignited by media reports describing debacles at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco and other companies in 2001 and 2002 (the Corporate Scandals), SOX represented a legislative and political response to public resentment of what some considered a morally impaired …

The Case For "Thinking Like A Filmaker": Using Lars Von Trier's Dogville As A Model For Writing A Statement Of Facts, Elyse Pepper

Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article introduces movies as a persuasive medium. Part II examines the value of movies as teaching tools in the law school context. Part III breaks down the movie Dogville and demonstrates how it might be used to create two Statements of Facts in a fictionalized criminal case. Part IV recaps the lessons learned from using a film as a model for fact writing.

Working (With) Workers: Implementing Theory, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The topic of this symposium issue sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) is the role of the labor and employment law professor as a public intellectual. Despite the baggage accompanying the phrase "public intellectual," the symposium topic is an important one, for the term carries more meaning than a mere "talking head" or "media figure" can express. To make theoretical ideas more accessible to others, to connect theory and practice, to explain academic or scholarly ideas in a way that the public can understand—these ideas resonate with my philosophy of the law professor's role. In fact, …

Persuasion In A Familiar Activity: The Parallels Between Resume Writing And Brief Writing, Patricia Grande Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)
/="/">To succeed in drafting a “winning” brief, you must approach it like you approach any other persuasive piece of writing in everyday life. A résumé is one such type of writing.Although many writers might not realize that composing a résumé is an exercise in persuasion, it is. The résumé’s purpose is simple: to persuade the employer to hire the applicant. Thus, a good résumé will be tailored to the needs of the employer. To achieve this goal, writers of successful résumés will carefully consider the employer throughout the planning, drafting, and revising processes. They will step into the …

A Tale Of Two Networks: Terrorism, Transnational Law, And Network Theory, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Talk of networks and "network theory" has become almost ubiquitous in the field of counterterrorism. Terrorist organizations are networks. Terrorists have been empowered by the Internet, ethnic diasporas, and cell phones—networks all. Many of the putative targets of terrorists—electrical grids, oil pipelines, and transportation systems, to name a few—are themselves networks. And, perhaps less often mentioned, terrorists are increasingly hampered by national and international laws that foster cooperation and coordination among states—a network of laws.

From "smart mobs" to "net wars," from narco-trafficking to the Internet, network theory has provided insights into decentralized social organizations and their coordinated action. Both …

In Whose "Best Interests"? – An International And Comparative Assessment Of Us Rules On Sentencing Of Juveniles, Jelani Jefferson Exum, John W. Head

Faculty Publications

According to numerous sources, both at the international level and within the USA, legal standards governing the treatment of children (commonly defined as persons under 18 years old)—including their treatment at the hands of the judicial system—should reflect an assessment of "the best interests of the child". An explicit announcement of this principle at the international level appears in the Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC"), which nearly all countries in the world have adopted. Article 37 of the CRC elaborates on the "best interests" principle, by prescribing six key standards national juvenile justice systems are to follow …

Jury Trial Innovations Across America: What We Are Teaching And Learning From Each Other, Gregory E. Mize, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Between 2004 and 2006 the National Center for State Courts conducted three related studies of jury practices in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Combined, the studies make up the State-of-the-States Sur­vey of Jury Improvement Efforts, a first-ever effort to survey the entire field of jury issues and practices from state and local jury reform and improvement efforts to in-court use of tools aimed at improving juror comprehension and participation-including note-taking, juror questions and providing jurors with written instructions. The resulting data sets are available in full online, allowing users to review their own states' practices in comparison …

Web-Scale Workflow: Integrating Distributed Services, M. Brian Blake, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

Modular applications, components, and services are all ways of describing the product of an organization's efforts to embody its capabilities in autonomous software modules. In fact, the integration of services using well-established workflow paradigms could amplify an organization's capabilities with the creation of a full-blown, inter-organizational system of systems. This is the essence of Web-scale workflows. Considering the recent popularity and acceptance of service-oriented technologies, the application of such distributed systems is only limited by imagination, but it's also important to understand existing research challenges and their implications to various Web-scale workflow domains.

Reconstituting Japanese Law: International Norms And Domestic Litigation, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

This paper examines a number of lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in Japan’s private sector. Since Japan does not have a law banning private acts of racial discrimination, victims of racial discrimination invoke international human rights law to buttress their claims for compensation. I argue that Japanese judges are, by and large, receptive to these international law claims, but that the system for adjudicating racial discrimination disputes is inadequate. Specifically, a law that bans private acts of racial discrimination would put Japan in line with recently emergent global norms of equality.

Planning And Deployment Of Dynamic Web Technologies For Supporting E-Business, John A. Hines

Faculty Publications

More and more, internal applications are being moved from legacy systems into a more flexible Webbased environment. The issue concerning World Wide Web technologies is important to today’s businesses. Decision making in this area is complex and needs to consider carefully the characteristics and needs of the entities employing these technologies. It has furthermore become clear that the Internet, in particular the World Wide Web, is playing an increasingly larger role in how people communicate. Through this research, technologies used to serve dynamic Web content are compared. This comparison includes performance as well as cost issues, the things that professionals …

Privacy And Funeral Protests, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This article examines the free speech implications of funeral protest statutes. Enacted in response to the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members protest at funerals to spread their antigay message, such statutes restrict a broad array of peaceful expressive activity. This Article focuses on the states’ interest underlying these statutes - protecting mourners’ right to be free from unwanted intrusions while at funeral services. Few would argue against protecting funeral services from intrusive protests. These statutes, however, go far beyond that notion and protect mourners from offensive, rather than intrusive, protests. As such, they do not conceive of privacy as protection …

Prosecuting Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

The Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court will soon have its first opportunity to revise the Rome Statute and activate the latent crime of aggression, which awaits a definition of its elements and conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The working group charged with drafting a provision is scheduled to complete its task by 2008 or 2009, one year before the International Criminal Court’s first review conference.

Beginning with a history of the crime meant to put the current negotiations in the context of past initiatives, this article sets out the status of the negotiations and begins …

Consenting Adults? Why Women Who Submit To Supervisory Sexual Harassment Are Faring Better In Court Than Those Who Say No…And Why They Shouldn’T, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

Today, as a sexual harassment plaintiff who failed to report harassment before bringing suit, you likely will fare better under the law if you submitted to your harasser and engaged in relations with him, than you would if you had passively resisted until you were driven out of your employment. This Article examines the law’s illogical preference for plaintiffs who acquiesced to the propositions of their supervisors over those who resisted harassment but nonetheless failed to report it. It explores the roots of such a preference in society, as well as its consequences. Ultimately, this Article asks critical questions that …

Durability Of Perfluorosulfonic Acid And Hydrocarbon Membranes: Effect Of Humidity And Temperature, Vijay A. Sethuraman, John W. Weidner, Andrew T. Haug, Lesia V. Protsailo

Faculty Publications

The effect of humidity on the chemical stability of two types of membranes [i.e., perfluorosulfonic acid type (PFSA, Nafion 112) and biphenyl sulfone hydrocarbon type, (BPSH-35)] was studied by subjecting the membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) to open-circuit voltage (OCV) decay and potential cycling tests at elevated temperatures and low inlet-gas relative humidities. The BPSH-35 membranes showed poor chemical stability in ex situ Fenton tests compared to that of Nafion membranes. However, under fuel cell conditions, BPSH-35 MEAs outperformed Nafion 112 MEAs in both the OCV decay and potential cycling tests. For both membranes, (i) at a given temperature, …

Rational Choice, Reputation, And Human Rights Treaties, Alex Geisinger, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Policing: Ensuring Stakeholder Collaboration In The Federal Reform Of Local Law Enforcement Agencies, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Title 42 U.S. C. § 14141 authorizes the United States Department of Justice ("DOJ") to seek injunctive relief against local law enforcement agencies to eliminate a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct by these agencies. Rather than initiate lawsuits to reform these agencies, DOJ's current strategy is to negotiate reforms using a process that involves only DOJ representatives, municipality officials, and police management officials. While there are many benefits of negotiating the reforms, the current process excludes important stakeholders directly impacted by the reforms, including community members, who are the consumers of police services, and the rank-and-file police officers, whom …

Self-Policing In A Targeted Enforcement Regime, Sarah L. Stafford

Faculty Publications

This paper adds to the debate over whether self-policing can increase environmental protection by considering an issue that has been ignored in previous models—that self-policing may influence future enforcement. The model combines self-policing with targeted enforcement and allows for both deliberate and inadvertent violations. As expected, rewarding self-policers with more lenient future enforcement increases auditing, remediation, and disclosure of inadvertent violations. Self-policing can also serve as a complement to deliberate compliance and can thus further increase environmental performance. However, under reasonable conditions, self-policing can be a substitute for deliberate compliance and could therefore be detrimental to environmental protection.

The Domestic Incorporation Of Human Rights Law And The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities, Janet E. Lord, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

This Article reviews the processes by which domestic-level transposition of international human rights norms may occur as a consequence of human rights treaty ratification, or other means of incorporation. Specifically, we consider the transformative vision of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD or Convention) as a vehicle for fostering national-level disability law and policy changes. In doing so, we outline the challenges and opportunities presented by this new phase in disability rights advocacy, and we draw conclusions that bear generally upon human rights practice and scholarship. We contend that the role of human rights in domestic …

Disabling Prejudice, Michael E. Waterstone, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

When All Eyes Are Watching: Trial Characteristics And Practices In Notorious Trials, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

In part because of their relative scarcity and the uniqueness of each new notorious trial, it is difficult to generalize the effects of trial notori­ety. However, a recent study by the National Center for State Courts Center for Jury Studies reveals infor­mation about the prevalence of notorious trials and their impact on trial procedures and practices. The State-of-the-States Survey of Jury Improvement Efforts collected trial reports from nearly 12,000 jury trials conducted in state and federal courts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The vast majority of trials took place between 2002 and 2006.

In the survey, …

A Survey Of Worm Detection And Containment, Pele Li, M. Salour, Xiao Su

Faculty Publications

Self-duplicating, self-propagating malicious codes known as computer worms spread themselves without any human interaction and launch the most destructive attacks against computer networks. At the same time, being fully automated makes their behavior repetitious and predictable. This article presents a survey and comparison of Internet worm detection and containment schemes. We first identify worm characteristics through their behavior, and then classify worm detection algorithms based on the parameters used in the algorithms. Furthermore, we analyze and compare different detection algorithms with reference to the worm characteristics by identifying the type of worms that can and cannot be detected by these …

Assessing The Professional Development Needs Of Public Health Educators In Light Of Changing Competencies, A. R. Demers, Edward M. Mamary

Faculty Publications

Introduction Because of the need for a well-trained public health workforce, professional competencies have been recently revised by the Institute of Medicine and the National Health Educator Competencies Update Project. This study compared the self-identified training needs of public health educators with the updated competencies and assessed employer support for continuing education. Methods A convenience sample of public health educators was recruited from an e-mail list of San Jose State University master of public health alumni. Respondents completed a Web-based survey that elicited information on emerging trends in public health education, training needs, and employer support for continuing education. Results …

School Libraries Serving Rural Communities In China: The Evergreen Model, Geoffrey Liu

Faculty Publications

This article presents a case study of Evergreen school libraries in the northwestern region of China, with a focus on their innovative approaches to community services and strategies of reaching out to local town residents and villagers. The data gathered for the case study included patron/school librarian interviews, observation of brainstorming by school librarians and principals, and analysis of library use data gathered from project schools. In view of known issues identified from existing literature, this study attempts to identify factors that potentially contribute to a school library's success or failure in serving its local community.

School Library Media Preparation Program Review: Perspectives Of Two Stakeholder Groups, Donna M. Shannon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Credibility On The Internet: Shifting From Authority To Reliability, R. David Lankes

Faculty Publications

Purpose – This paper seeks to understand how users determine credibility in the internet environment from a conceptual level and the implications of these new methods of credibility determination on internet tools (primarily software) and services.

Design/methodology/approach – The author first examines the underlying reasons for increased dependence on the internet for information, using electronic commerce as a starting point. The central concept of “information self-sufficiency” is introduced and then examined through the lens of the internet and conversation theory.

Findings – The author finds that users are shifting from more traditional “authority” methods of credibility determination, where users cede …

Trouble Counting Votes - Comparing Voting Mechanisms In The United States And Selected Other Countries, Frank Emmert, Christopher Page, Antony Page

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Micronutrient Fortification On Nutritional And Other Properties Of Nixtamal Tortillas, K. E. Burton, Frost M. Steele, Laura K. Jefferies, Oscar A. Pike, Michael L. Dunn

Faculty Publications

Nixtamalization is the process of steeping dried corn in hot water with calcium hydroxide (lime) with subsequent removal of all or most of the pericarp through washing. The resulting product is called nixtamal. Approximately 60% of corn tortillas in Mexico are produced from nixtamal, with the remainder prepared from nixtamalized corn flour. Nixtamal was fortified with micronutrient premix containing iron, zinc, folic acid, niacin, riboflavin, and thiamin. Premix composition followed a proposed Mexican regulation for corn flour fortification, adjusted for moisture. Effects of premix on masa adhesiveness, hardness, and pH, as well as tortilla sensory properties, stretchability, rollability, and color …