Digital Commons Network^™

Winter Habitat Use By Juvenile Greater Sage-Grouse On Parker Mountain, Utah: Implications For Sagebrush Management, Danny Caudill, Terry A. Messmer, Brent Bibles, Michael R. Guttery

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter, sage-grouse) are entirely dependent on sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) for food and cover during winter. Loss or fragmentation of important wintering areas could have a disproportionate affect on population size. We radio-marked and monitored 91 juvenile sage-grouse in south-central Utah from 2008 to 2010. Thirty-four individuals survived to winter (January to March) and were used to evaluate winter habitat use. Resource use was calculated using kernel density estimation of radio-marked individuals and compared to available habitat using a G-test. We found that juvenile sage-grouse used winter habitats characterized by 0 to 5% slopes …

Response Of A Small Population Of Greater Sage-Grouse To Tree Removal: Implications Of Limiting Factors, S. Nicole Frey, Rachel Curtis, Kevin Heaton

Human–Wildlife Interactions

In Utah, greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter, sage-grouse) range has been reduced to 50% of what is considered historical availability due to habitat degradation and loss. In an effort to improve sage-grouse habitat in southern Utah, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducted a tree-removal treatment in 2005. We conducted a study to determine if (a) the tree-removal treatment was effective at creating new sage-grouse habitat, and (b) if characteristics of used habitat were similar to those reported in previous literature. The treatment resulted in increased abundance of grasses and forbs. Additionally, shrub percentage cover and height …

Livestock Predation By Common Leopard In Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, India: Human-Wildlife Conflicts And Conservation Issues, Chandra Prakash Kala, Kishor Kumar Kothari

Human–Wildlife Interactions

We investigate livestock predation by the common leopard (Panthera pardus) and emerging conflicts between this species, local people, and wildlife authorities at the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Himalayan region of India. We scrutinized secondary data that were collected by wildlife authorities; we also conducted informal interviews of villagers living within sanctuary, and wildlife staff to understand various human–leopard conflicts. Leopard density was approximately 0.33/km2 in the sanctuary. Leopards killed 1,763 domestic animals, about 90% of which were cattle, during a 14-year period. Within the sanctuary, leopards killed 1 person and injured 9 others. This high depredation rate …

Vitals Rates And Seasonal Movements Of Two Isolated Greater Sage-Grouse Populations In Utah's West Desert, Jason D. Robinson, Terry A. Messmer

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Declines in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter, sage-grouse) populations in Utah over the last century parallel range-wide trends. However, little is known about the ecology of sage-grouse populations that inhabit Utah’s naturally fragmented habitats. Utah’s West Desert sage-grouse populations occupy sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) habitats that are geographically separated by the Great Salt Lake, and largely confined to the Sheeprock and Deep Creek watersheds. From 2005 to 2006, we monitored sage-grouse that were radio-collared in each watershed to determine the factors affecting the vital rates in these isolated populations. Livestock grazing by domestic cattle was the dominate land use, …

Roadblocks To Remedies: Recently Developed Barriers To Relief For Aliens Injured By U.S. Officials, Contrary To The Founders' Intent, Gwynne L. Skinner

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Peer Review Across The Curriculum, Patricia G. Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In 2007, two very influential institutes published reports that challenged legal educators to reconsider how they design courses, deliver instruction, assess their students’ learning and explore new ways to prepare students for the profession of law. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published its report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (“Carnegie Report”), and the Clinical Legal Education Association published its study, Best Practices for Legal Education (“Best Practices Report”) (collectively, the “Reports”). Both Reports came to the same conclusion: law schools must devote more attention and resources to helping students develop the professional skills …

Rights And Wrongs In The Debate Over Single-Sex Schooling, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In September 2011 an article entitled The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling appeared in the journal Science. Unlike articles typically published in peer-reviewed journals, the primary intent in this case was not to inform the scholarly community but rather to accomplish larger political and legal ends. Co-authored by eight prominent psychologists and neuroscientists, it immediately made the front pages of national newspapers and soon took the international media by storm. From the United Kingdom to Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, it gave rise to a global debate about the pros and cons of single-sex schooling.

As directly …

Antitrust Law And Economic Theory: Finding A Balance, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

Over the past forty years, the federal courts have relied more and more on economic theory to inform their antitrust analyses. Economic theory has indeed provided guidance with respect to antitrust issues and assisted the courts in reaching rational outcomes. At the same time, infusion of economic evidence into antitrust cases has made these cases more complex, lengthier, more expensive to litigate, and less predictable.

This Article argues that courts need to restore the balance between facts and economic theory in undertaking antitrust analysis. The problem is not that judges and juries cannot reach good outcomes in antitrust cases, but …

Introduction Of Chief Justice Roberts, At The Robert H. Jackson Center, May 17, 2013, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

A backdrop to this event is an ongoing, if entirely friendly, War Between the States … or at least between two States.

As a boy, Robert H. Jackson and family moved from the state of his birth to a second state, where he completed grade school and high school and then embarked on life. Our honored guest, John G. Roberts, Jr., did the same thing in his boyhood. In Jackson’s case, following his birth and early boyhood on the family farm in Spring Creek Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania, the move was to Frewsburg, New York, and then to Jamestown—Pennsylvania …

Remarks At The Naming Ceremony, Robert H. Jackson United States Courthouse, Buffalo, New York, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Thank you, Chief Judge Skretny, for that generous introduction. Thank you and congratulations, for vision and dedicated efforts, to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand; Representative Higgins; Chief Judge Skretny and Judge Arcara; Chief Judge Katzmann; Chief Judge Preska; all of their judicial and court colleagues; Administrator Pease; Mayor Brown and city officials; Buffalo law, business and civic leaders; and the people—all of the lucky “Jacksonland” people—of the Western District of New York.

As has been noted, young Robert H. Jackson’s life path ran right through this site. Born in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania, Jackson grew up there and then in Chautauqua …

Setting Attorneys' Fees In Securities Class Actions: An Empirical Assessment, Lynn A. Baker, Michael A. Perino, Charles Silver

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In 1995, Congress overrode President Bill Clinton's veto and enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA"), a key purpose of which was to put securities class actions under the control of institutional investors with large financial stakes in the outcome of the litigation. The theory behind this policy, set out in a famous article by Professors Elliot Weiss and John Beckerman, was simple: self-interest should encourage investors with large stakes to run class actions in ways that maximize recoveries for all investors. These investors should naturally want to hire good lawyers, incentivize them properly, monitor their actions, and …

Ethical Concerns When Settlement Includes An Agreement About Expungement, Christine Lazaro

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

When a customer makes a complaint against his or her broker, oftentimes that complaint is reported on the broker’s public record and made available to the public through the BrokerCheck system provided by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) established BrokerCheck in 1998 to provide the public with information about the professional background, business practices, and conduct of brokers and brokerage firms.

Understandably, brokers generally attempt to keep as clean a record as possible because potential clients may use BrokerCheck to decide whether to invest with a particular broker. To remove a …

Law Student Laptop Use During Class For Non-Class Purposes: Temptation V. Incentives, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

When the creators of the children’s television show Sesame Street wished to know whether preschoolers would actually watch it, their head of research, Ed Palmer, set up a room with a television monitor showing segments from the show. On a nearby screen, Palmer projected slides of various images; the slides changed every seven-and-a-half seconds. Then he brought small children in and waited to see if the children focused on the Sesame Street segments or the still pictures. Only segments that elicited attention from many preschoolers ended up on the air. As a result, the producers discarded segments that they …

Learning Contracts Through Current Events: Lawrence Cunningham’S Contracts In The Real World: Stories Of Popular Contracts And Why They Matter, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In his recent book published by Cambridge University Press, Professor Lawrence Cunningham explores the nuances of contract law through current events. His decision to use the contracts of modern-day singers, actors, and entertainers to illustrate contract law principles is an inspired choice that will appeal to today’s law students. The book guides the reader down the well-trodden path of classic contract doctrines and applies those classics in modern, celebrity-laden contexts. In this regard, the book reads like an updated version of Marvin Chirelstein’s classic contracts primer— an easy-to-read and clearly written commentary. Cunningham’s version adds rollicking celebrity stories to …

Confidentiality: The Illusion And The Reality— Affirmative Steps For Lawyers And Mediators To Help Safeguard Their Mediation Communications, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Confidentiality is one promise of mediation that is increasingly broken, even though judges, lawyers and mediators frequently extol the sacredness of mediation confidentiality as a primary benefit for considering mediation as a settlement forum. We observe that legal challenges to any aspect of the mediation have caused judges to scrutinize mediation communications in a way that renders mediation confidentiality vulnerable at a minimum and violated at the worst. We are finding it a chronic challenge to decipher the precise and appropriate boundaries of mediation confidentiality. Moreover, we are increasingly discomforted to see that even unsuccessful legal challenges to mediation …

Cyber Commodification, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Last year, the Huffington Post blog found itself involved in a contentious legal dispute with its unpaid bloggers about the commodification of its content. The Huffington Post features many posts that are straight-ahead news reports; other posts have featured more ideological content aimed at a liberal audience. Leading up to the 2008 election, many Huffington Post bloggers wrote accounts critical of then-President George W. Bush, specifically his administration’s treatment of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, while others wrote to assist fellow Democratic voters become more familiar with the primary candidates. Regardless of one’s personal political leanings, the website attracted a …

What Sally Soprano Teaches Lawyers About Hitting The Right Ethical Note In Adr Advocacy, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Paradoxically, when lawyers opt to mediate or arbitrate, lawyers may still wind up selecting, shaping and advocating in these dispute resolution processes to resemble the very litigation process they have sought to avoid. After all, litigation likely comports with the lawyer’s own conflict style, comfort level and concepts of justice. As a consequence of this litigation bias, we see that the metaphorical doors of a multi-door courthouse that once offered a menu of dispute resolution choices are increasingly leading us back to one choice: a variation of the litigation door. Even though the Model Rules of Professional Conduct confirm …

Data Mining And Machine Learning Techniques For Extracting Patterns In Students’ Evaluations Of Instructors, Ernest Fokoue, Necla Gündüz

Articles

No abstract provided.

Modern Multivariate Methods For Accurate Dialect Classification, Ernest Fokoue, Zichen Ma

Articles

We perform discriminant analysis together with principal component analysis on dialect and accent recognition. Since the data matrix exhibits high dimension low sample size feature, we calculate the principal components and the score matrix based on the dual space. Given the transformed score matrix, linear discriminant model does not fit the data well, while quadratic discriminant model, the superior model comparing to LDA, may fail sometimes when large number of principal components are required. Using the Gaussian radial basis function kernel, we calculate the kernel matrix and perform LDA directly on it. Comparing the LDA-PCA method, the in-sample prediction error …

Speaker Gender Recognition Via Mfccs And Svms, Ernest Fokoue, Zichen Ma

Articles

An algorithm involving MFCCs and SVMs is provided to perform speaker gender recognition. For each signal, the mean vector of MFCCs matrix is used as an input vector in the SVM algorithm. A sample of 246 signals, containing 124 female voice and 122 male voice, is analyzed based on this algorithm. With only the first 13 MFCCs, the average prediction error is as low as 7% in a cross-validation of size 500. It is shown that this error drops down below 1% as the number of MFCCs increases to 27. Also, the RBF kernel is compared with polynomial kernel and …

A Taxonomy Of Massive Data For Optimal Predictive Machine Learning And Data Mining, Ernest Fokoue

Articles

No abstract provided.

Model For Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Packaging Design, Lorrie Frear, Alex Lobos, Sandra Turner

Articles

This paper explores a studio course in packaging design within Rochester Institute of Technology, which touches on three key elements: First, the course is designed as an interdisciplinary studio comprised of fourth year and graduate students in graphic design, industrial design and packaging science, allowing them to refine skills in their own disciplines while expanding their breadth in other methods of thinking. This model, commonly called “T-shape” profile, is crucial in today’s professional practice (Design Council 2006). Second, the course involves a Fortune 500 company sponsor, who challenges students to develop packaging solutions in an internal design competition. While collaborations …

Reflections Of A First-Time Expert Witness, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On January 2, 2013, I testified as an expert witness at a sentencing hearing in federal district court. It was my first time being qualified as an expert, and my only time testifying in court in any capacity. A couple of months earlier, I had been contacted by an Assistant Federal Public Defender (AFPD) who asked if I’d be interested in being retained as an expert. She was handling the sentencing of a man convicted of child pornography possession, receipt, and transportation, and had read my work criticizing the development of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines provisions for these offenses. …

Taking Note: On Copyrighting Students’ Lecture Notes, Matthew M. Pagett

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

An essential element of individual property is the legal right to exclude others from enjoying it. If the property is private, the right of exclusion may be absolute; if the property is affected with a public interest, the right of exclusion is qualified. But the fact that a product of the mind has cost its producer money and labor, and has a value for which others are willing to pay, is not sufficient to ensure to it this legal attribute of property. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions— knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas— …

Exposing Latent Patent Infringement, Bryan Blumenkopf

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Consider the following canonical patent infringement scenario. A

[1] plaintiff owns a patent with one or more claims to the patent’s underlying technology. Under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), this plaintiff has the rights to manufacture, sell, use, or import the technology delineated by those claims.1 The defendant manufactures, sells, uses, or imports what appears to be the same technology. Because the claim language is not entirely clear, a judge construes the exact meaning of the claims in a preliminary hearing.2 Assuming that the patent is upheld as valid, a jury then determines whether the defendant’s device meets the limitations of …

Local Rules, Standing Orders, And Model Protocols: Where The Rubber Meets The (E-Discovery) Road, Thomas Y. Allman

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

[District Courts], impatient with the failure of the national system to solve pressing, indeed urgent, procedural problems, utilize local rules in an effort to shape pragmatic solutions . . . . [as] one route to procedural change.

Information Governance: It’S A Duty And It’S Smart Business, Charles R. Ragan

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

A scant generation ago (twenty-five years), the World Wide Web—“an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing” —was largely a laboratory phenomenon. In 1994, the Clinton Administration urged world leaders to develop a global information superhighway, and the Information Age raced upon us. Now, Facebook has more than one billion accounts and most of us are constantly deluged by volumes of electronic information through e-mail, texts, social media, the Internet, cable systems, and others.

No Implied Effect: The ‘Safe’ Fcc Cell Phone Radiation Standard And Tort Immunity By Implied Conflict Preemption, Sean M. Sherman

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Cell phones emit low-level radiation. Constantly.

Not-So-Open Access To Legal Scholarship: Balancing Stakeholder Interests With Copyright Principles, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Last February, John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued a new policy designed to increase open access to federally-financed research. The memorandum, covering federal agencies with annual expenditures in excess of $100 million for scientific research and development, requires, inter alia, that: (1) agencies develop “clear and coordinated policies” to make federally- funded studies freely available to the public within one year of publication, and (2) researchers account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally-funded scientific research. In addition, the policy requires data from publicly-funded research to be stored for …

Disclosure As Distribution, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

This brief response to the work of Professors Omri Ben-Shahr and Carl Schneider on mandated disclosure regimes investigates the normative criteria underlying their claim that those regimes are failures. Specifically, it unpacks the pieces of those authors' implicit cost-benefit analysis, revealing inherently normative judgments about desert and responsibility at the core of their (or any) critique of disclosure regimes. Disclosure regimes may aim to improve human decisionmaking behaviors, but those behaviors are influenced in non-deterministic ways by cognitive capacities that are heterogeneously distributed among subjects of the regimes. Accordingly, any claim regarding the normative desirability of disclosure regimes (or any …