Digital Commons Network^™

Using Document Indexers For Faceted Search In Dataspaces, Hsun-Ming Lee, Jaymeen Shah, Ju Long

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Efficient information retrieval is essential to enrich user experience when searching for documents in dataspaces. With the continued growth in the volume and complexity of documents, the efficient information retrieval for searches has become increasingly challenging. To improve users’ search experience, faceted search combines direct keyword search methods with faceted browsing using a predefined set of categories (facets). This paper studies a faceted search approach that integrates dynamic facets generation with search. To further enhance the faceted search, alternative indexers based on pre-defined ontology for data repositories within dataspaces are evaluated in terms of execution time and data size. Experimental …

The Slow Evolution Of Second Amendment Law, Joan H. Miller

Seattle University Law Review Online

Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left twenty children and six adults dead, a public movement ensued. The movement demanded that gun violence be addressed as a public health issue. While the movement led to successful gun control reform in a few states, it was unable to gain any traction in the federal government and had the opposite effect in others states where firearms became easier to own, carry, and conceal. Joan Miller provides an update on changes in the Second Amendment law that have occurred since her Article, The Second Amendment Goes to College, was published in …

The Uncertain Trumpet: Disaster Communications And The Law, Russell V. Randle, Jeffery Reinhardt

Seattle University Law Review Online

Planning for the next disaster is not just a task for first responders. A catastrophic disaster can affect a wide range of industries, such as banking, telecommunications, education, and zoning; and lawyers play a critical role in reducing loss and minimizing liability. By drawing from lessons learned during previous disasters, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and environmental catastrophes, Randle and Reinhardt explain the steps lawyers should take to help organizations anticipate problems and create plans to minimize damages.

This Article illustrates how lawyers can help organizations remain in control by maintaining critical communications through multiple system modalities; using those systems …

Around Campus

DePaul Magazine

Articles: DePaul President Testifies Before Congress on Keeping College Accessible; Illinois Supreme Court Justice Burke Shares Insights With Law Students; DePaul University Library Enhances Its Online Heritage Collection; In Memoriam: Victor "Vic" Cacciatore (1930-2013); Celebrations Commemorate New Theatre School Building; New Home for the College of Education; 2013 Women's Soccer Team Makes History; Blue Demons Triumph in Historic Track and Field Performance; Women's Basketball Coach Doug Bruno Named Coach of the Year; Blue Demons Softball Awaits Home Opener; Two Chances to Watch Women's Tennis; DePaul Hosts Prestigious British Studies Conference; Conference Explores the Implications of Crowdfunding in Real Estate

Service For Learning, Service For Life: Depaul's Vincentian Mission In Action

DePaul Magazine

Through the thousands of alumni and students who are putting their education to work in service to others through service learning, volunteerism, and social welfare careers, DePaul University's Vincentian mission is being realized. In addition, the university is creating research partnerships to help service organizations develop effective strategies to combat such stubborn problems as poverty and homelessness.

Mixing It Up With Peter Mokran, Sound Engineer

DePaul Magazine

Peter Mokran (MUS '90) is one of the music industry's most sought-after sound mixers, engineers and producers because he understands what it takes to make a great record. He didn't realize there was a career in mixing, but he learned his craft at the DePaul School of Music sound recording technology program.

Depaul Alumnus Tarell Mccraney Awarded Macarthur Fellowship

DePaul Magazine

In fall 2013, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (THE ’03) was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—the so-called genius grant. At only 33, McCraney has already made a substantial mark. He is an ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, a resident playwright at New Dramatists in New York, and a member of Teo Castellanos D-Projects in his native Miami. Formerly an International Writer in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), he is now an associate artist working on “Antony and Cleopatra,” an RSC coproduction with New York’s Public Theatre and Miami’s Gable Stage.

Calendar Of Events/All For Depaul

DePaul Magazine

Calendar of events for alumni for March through June 2014; All for DePaul alumni giving event is explained.

Legacy Of Shaping Dreams

DePaul Magazine

Bella Itkin-Konrath (MFA '43), an instructor at DePaul's Theatre School for 47 years, used a planned gift make a bequest to the school to help fund the new Theatre School building. The "Dr. Bella" Itkin-Konrath Rehearsal Studio was named in her honor.

Looking Back: Community Service, 1996

DePaul Magazine

Photo of two master's of education students tutoring children from the Joseph Kellman Corporate Community Elementary School, a Chicago Public Schools magnet school in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.

Table Of Mimetic Influences Related To Steve Charnovitz, “What The World Trade Organization Learned From The Ilo,” In Adelle Blackett & Anne Trebilcock Eds., Research Handbook On Transnational Labour Law (Edward Elgar, Forthcoming 2015), Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This table shows how the features of the ILO complaint procedures originating in 1919 became a model for the dispute settlement procedures written into the Charter of the International Trade Organization (ITO) in 1948 and the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the World Trade Organization.

Gifts, Hospitality & The Government Contractor, Jessica Tillipman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The government procurement process demands the highest commitment to ethical and unbiased conduct. To ensure that the individuals involved in the procurement process adhere to these standards, government entities in nearly all jurisdictions around the world have enacted codes of conduct, ethical restrictions, and anti-corruption laws designed to protect the integrity of government and ensure that government officials act impartially and do not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. To further these goals, most jurisdictions have enacted restrictions on the gifts and hospitality that government officials may accept from individuals and organizations that sell goods and services …

Duty To Rescue? Exploring Legal Analysis Through The Lens Of Photojournalists’ Storytelling Dilemmas, Iselin Magdalene Gambert

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In depicting scenes of tragedy, what happens when photojournalists become the story? Do photojournalists have a duty to rescue those they photograph? Should they? This article will use a series of iconic images – and the stories of the photojournalists behind the camera – to illustrate how exploring these questions can be a provocative vehicle through which to engage new law students in legal writing and analysis. The article focuses on an exercise that centers around a fictional “Duty to Rescue” statute modeled after European statutes of the same kind. The exercise is anchored by four images – three still …

Green Subsidies And The Wto, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper provides a detailed explanation how the law of the World Trade Organization regulates environmental subsidies with a focus on renewable energy subsidies. The paper begins by discussing the economic justifications for such subsidies and the criticisms of them and then gives examples of different categories of subsidies. Next the paper provides an overview of the relevant WTO rules and caselaw, including the recent Canada-Renewable Energy case. The paper also makes specific recommendations for how WTO law can be improved, and discusses the existing literature discussing reform proposals. The study further finds that because of a lack of clarity …

Informing The Debate About Sexual Assault In The Military Services: Is The Department Of Defense Its Own Worst Enemy?, Lisa M. Schenck

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In 2013, the Department of Defense (DoD) published its Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, reflecting an increase in the number of sexual assaults on military personnel (extrapolated from survey responses) from 19,000 in FY 2011 to 26,000 in FY 2012. The report also provided that in FY 2012, 302 sexual assault courts-martial occurred with only 238 military personnel convicted of sexual assaults committed on military victims, resulting in an alleged conviction rate of less than 1%. Using inflammatory language and misleading statistics, some attacked the prosecution and conviction rates in the military services. …

Probate Law Meets The Digital Age, Naomi R. Cahn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article explores the impact of federal law on a state fiduciary’s management of digital assets. It focuses on the lessons from the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), initially enacted in 1986 as one part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Although Congress designed the SCA to respond to concerns that Internet privacy posed new dilemmas with respect to application of the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections, the drafters did not explicitly consider how the SCA might affect property management and distribution. The resulting uncertainty affects anyone with an email account.

While existing trusts and estates laws could legitimately be interpreted to …

Prizes! Innovating, Risk Shifting, And Avoiding Contracts And Grants, Steven L. Schooner, Nathaniel E. Castellano

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This short piece introduces prizes (or prize contests), which have become the darling of the Obama administration. Public managers increasingly find prizes more attractive than the more conventional and heavily regulated vehicles that they replace, contracts and grants. The paper explains some of the advantages of this increasingly popular approach and signals a cautionary note, particularly to contestants. Unfortunately, the government has not yet provided a straightforward means for contestants to obtain meaningful review if and when disputes arise. Accordingly, the authors suggest that, while shifting risk to the private sector is fair game, contest-sponsoring agencies should respect the private …

(E)Racing Trayvon Martin, Cynthia Lee

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In this essay, Cynthia Lee celebrates the 25th anniversary of Critical Race Theory (CRT) by writing about the pitfalls of the ideal of colorblindness. She starts by analyzing Devon Carbado's seminal article on CRT and the Fourth Amendment, (E)Racing the Fourth Amendment. She focuses on Carbado's critique of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's embrace of colorblindness in Florida v. Bostick, the case in which the Supreme Court modified the test for a seizure of the person. Lee uses Carbado's article as a springboard for critiquing the embrace of colorblindness by legal decision-makers involved in George Zimmerman's 2013 murder trial. Zimmerman …

Narrow Banking As A Structural Remedy For The Problem Of Systemic Risk: A Comment On Professor Schwarcz's Ring-Fencing, Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In a recent article, Professor Steven Schwarcz describes the concept of "ring-fencing" as a "potential regulatory solution to problems in banking, finance, public utilities, and insurance." Ring-fencing has gained particular prominence in recent years as a strategy for limiting the systemic risk of large financial conglomerates (also known as "universal banks"). Professor Schwarcz’s article describes several ring-fencing plans that have been adopted or proposed in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

This Comment argues that "narrow banking" is a highly promising ring-fencing remedy for the risks created by universal banks. As the Comment explains, narrow banking …

Why Who Does What Matters: Governmental Design, Agency Performance, The Cfpb And Ppaca, William E. Kovacic

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

How should the federal government be organized – and who (i.e., which departments, agencies, bureaus, and commissions) should do what? The issue is not new: President James Madison addressedgovernmental organization in his 1812 State of the Union Address, and in the last century, it is the rare President that does not propose to reorganize some part of the federal government. Indeed, on numerous occasions during the past century, virtually every part of the federal government has been repeatedly reorganized and reconfigured. In previous work, we examined the dynamics that influencethe assignment of regulatory duties to an agency, how those dynamics …

Musical Work Copyright For The Era Of Digital Sound Technology: Looking Beyond Composition And Performance, Robert Brauneis

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

For over 150 years, federal copyright law in the United States reflected and reinforced the model ofmusic as a two-stage art of composition and performance. Copyright protected scores, the stable, visually perceptible result of the deliberative activity of composition. It did not protect performances, theevanescent, unrepeatable, purely aural realizations of scores. Even as protection was extended tomusical sound recordings, copyright law has maintained a strong distinction between composition andperformance. In the last several decades, however, developments in sound technologies and their uses by musicians and listeners have substantially undermined that distinction. Written notation often no longer figures in any stage …

Merger Control Procedures And Institutions: A Comparison Of The Eu And Us Practice, William E. Kovacic

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The objective of this paper is to discuss and compare the role that different constituencies play in US andEU procedures for merger control. We describe the main constituencies (both internal and external) involved in merger control in both jurisdictions and discuss how a typical merger case would be handled under these procedures. At each stage, we consider how the procedure unfolds, which parties are involved, and how they can affect the procedure. Our discussion reveals a very different ecology. EU andUS procedures differ in terms of their basic design and in terms of the procedures that are naturally associated with …

"The Evolution Of Employment Discrimination Law: Changed Doctrine For Changed Social Conditions ", Michael Selmi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Times change, and when they do, the law must as well. Much of the most important employment discrimination case law was established in the 1970s during an era when discrimination was both overt and pervasive. Moving forward forty years, discrimination has receded dramatically and is no longer seen as a default explanation for workplace decisions or statistical imbalances in a workforce. At the same time, the discrimination that remains is more complex, more subtle in nature and more difficult to identify. This article explores how the Supreme Court has navigated the declining but more complex nature of employment discrimination. In …

Contemporary Trusts And Estates - An Experiential Approach, Naomi R. Cahn, Jerome Borison, Susan N. Gary, Paula A. Monopoli

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In this essay in a special issue dedicated to teaching trusts and estates, the co-authors of Contemporary Trusts & Estates: An Experiential Approach (2d. ed. Aspen 2014) reflect on how the teaching of trusts and estates can integrate policy, practice, doctrine, and centuries of tradition. They describe the genesis of their problem-based casebook and the influence of the Carnegie Report on their choice of pedagogic framework. Each of the co-authors embraced the fundamental principles advocated by the Carnegie Report, which counsels that legal education should integrate "theoretical and practical legal knowledge and professional identity." This essay goes on to outline …

Look Up And Around: Musings On Mentors, Role Models, And Professionalism, Steven L. Schooner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In response to NCMA's request that its Board of Advisors explain how we ended up as leaders in contract management, this article offers a rather simple over-arching suggestion for successful professionals andfuture leaders: look up and around. The article encourages readers to identify mentors, embrace the strengths of their role models, and open themselves up to learn from others, evolve, and grow. The article discusses, among other things, education, networking, professional development (and, of course, writing),and the power of optimism.

A Holistic Look At Agency Enforcement, Robert L. Glicksman, David L. Markell

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The law review literature has long-recognized that effective enforcement is an essential component of effective regulation. Yet much of the literature focuses on one aspect of the enforcement challenge or another. For example, the underlying theory about optimal levels of enforcement has received considerable attention, as have topics such as the relative merits of using deterrence-based versus cooperation-based approaches and the use of citizen suits.

The purpose of this article is to fill a gap in the law review literature by considering agencies’ enforcementand compliance promotion function holistically. In doing so, the article approaches the challenge from an “inside-out” perspective, …

The Trans Panic Defense: Masculinity, Heteronormativity, And The Murder Of Transgender Women, Cynthia Lee, Peter Kar Yu Kwan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

When a heterosexual man is charged with murdering a transgender woman with whom he has been sexually intimate, an increasingly common defense strategy is to assert what has been called the trans panic defense. The defendant claiming trans panic will say that his discovery that the victim was biologically male (when he thought the victim was biologically female) provoked him into a heat of passion and caused him to lose his self-control. If the jury finds that the defendant was actually and reasonably provoked, it can acquit him of murder and find him guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary …

Indiana Journal Of Law And Social Equality, Michael Selmi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay reviews the Obama Administration’s civil rights record during its first Administration, with a particular focus on theCivil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). The review finds that although the Obama Administration has generally been supportive of progressive causes, particularly in the Supreme Court and among issues relating to gay men and lesbians, its enforcement activities have generally been quite limited. On a quantitative basis, the Obama Administration’s civil rights enforcement typically fall at the same or below levels of the prior BushAdministration, and with a few exceptions (mortgage discrimination and …

Second Amendment, Constitutional Dysfunction Or Necessary Safeguard?, Robert J. Cottrol

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Essay was delivered at the Boston University School of Law Symposium titled “America’s Political Dysfunction: Constitutional Connections, Causes, and Cures.” The Essay challenges the assumption that the Second Amendment historically has provided a barrier to a desirable policy result: radical gun control or gun prohibition. It also challenges the assumption that such a policy is indeed desirable. The Essay traces the history of judicial engagement with the Second Amendment, including the Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncement recognizing the right to bear arms as an individual right in Heller and McDonald, and lower federal courts’ subsequent application of this right. …

In The Civic Republic: Crime, The Inner City, And The Democracy Of Arms—Being A Disquisition On The Revival Of The Militia At Large, Robert J. Cottrol, Raymond T. Diamond

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article examines the modern utility of the Second Amendment’s guarantee of “the right to keep and bear arms” in light of the phenomenon of modern crime, particularly black-on-black violence in urban America. Although many advocates of gun control have argued that crime in modern cities is a reason for modifying or severely truncating the right to have arms, the Authors argue that the right to have arms and the Second Amendment’s notion of a universal militia can be the basis of a new partnership between police and citizens in urban America. This new partnership can, if properly developed, be …