Digital Commons Network^™

Being Biblical In A Pluralistic Age

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

One way to define a disciple is “a follower of someone’s words.” In a pluralistic age, there are many words beckoning would-be disciples to particular ways of life, all promising some kind of wellness. These word-ways are ingredients of worldviews, a program or map for orienting oneself in the world. Worldviews answer core questions about human existence, often in the form of a story. This essay argues that contemporary pluralism is the result of abandoning the Bible as our control story, a loss that is as much a failure of what Charles Taylor calls the social imaginary. If this diagnosis …

Exegeting The Bible And The Social Location Of The Gospel Recipients: A Case For Worldview Transformation, Boubakar Sanou

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Social location greatly influences how one reads and interprets Scripture. Therefore, for the Bible to impact the lives of its hearers and contribute to the transformation of their worldview assumptions, its interpretation and application need to be both hermeneutically sound and contextually relevant.

Modern Military Justice: Cases And Materials, Lisa M. Schenck

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This textbook is about the modern military justice system of the United States. It covers court-martial procedures, substantive criminal law, and nonjudicial punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in addition to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which gives federal courts jurisdiction over certain acts committed abroad. The Third Edition includes several recent cases and updates that address the significant changes made in the 2019 Manual for Courts-Martial, the Military Justice Act of 2016, and other recent legislation.

Tax Experimentation, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Random experiments could allow the government to test tax policies before enactment into general law. Such experiments can be revenue-neutral, with the tax authority ensuring ex post that average tax revenues received from taxpayers in the treatment and control groups are equal. Taxpayers might thus volunteer even for experiments that would broaden the tax base, for example by eliminating deductions. Continued participation by taxpayers in such experiments would indicate that the proposed reforms are efficient at least if externalities are disregarded. Non-revenue-neutral experiments raise greater concerns about horizontal inequity, but may be helpful in addressing questions about effects of tax …

Blockchain-Based Insurance, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

To date, the insurance industry's interest in the blockchain has focused largely on the possibility of recording insurance entitlements in a transparent way. While the blockchain may produce significant efficiencies of this sort, it has considerably greater transformative potential. Smart contracts could serve as a substitute for insurance companies, conventionally conceived. Such contracts could perform the function of deciding whether claims should paid, without the need for or possibility of judicial intervention. The blockchain and smart contracts are difficult to regulate, because ownership and decisionmaking can be decentralized. Blockchain-based insurance may successfully provide a means of avoiding expensive regulation and …

Prize And Reward Alternatives To Intellectual Property, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This chapter surveys the literature on alternatives to intellectual property, focusing especially on alternatives to patent law, but with some attention as well to copyright. It does not consider the question whether intellectual property rights are justified, but assumes that absent some form of governmental innovation, inventions and works of authorship might be underproduced relative to the social optimum. The chapter thus considers how institutions besides traditional property rights compare relative to one another and to traditional intellectual property systems. The chapter considers only briefly the possibility that government itself might produce inventions and works of authorship or that government …

The Very Brief History Of Decentralized Blockchain Governance, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

An emergent form of blockchain governance involves the use of formal games that give participants incentives to identify focal resolutions to normative questions. This symposium contribution provides a brief survey of the literature proposing and critiquing the use of such mechanisms, and it evaluates early laboratory and real-world experiments with this approach to decentralized decisionmaking.

Can Global Legal Pluralism Be Both "Global" And "Pluralist"?, Paul Schiff Berman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The scholarly project of global legal pluralism seems to contain a conundrum at its core. How can any theory of law be focused on pluralism and multiplicity and at the same time claim to be a “global” theory? This conundrum helps explain the criticism global legal pluralism receives from committed pluralists on the one hand and from committed international law triumphalists on the other. The pluralists argue that the normative side of global legal pluralism, by emphasizing procedures and institutions that foster dialogue and interaction, is essentially recapitulating

a universalist liberal legality and therefore is not fundamentally pluralist at all. …

Grading Trump's China Trade Strategy, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Although much has been written about the ongoing trade war between China and the United States from 2017 to early 2019, this literature omits detailed examination of the substance of the US trade complaints about China. This article seeks to fill that gap in the literature by unpacking the 20 most prominent complaints that are being levelled by the Trump Administration. The article finds that half of the complaints involve behaviour that is contrary to WTO rules and yet the Trump Administration has lodged only three WTO cases against that behaviour. The Trump Administration justifies this omission on the ground …

The Marketplace Of Ideas Online, Dawn C. Nunziato

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

One hundred years ago, in the 1919 case of Abrams v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. ushered into existence modern First Amendment jurisprudence by introducing the free trade in ideas model of free speech. According to this model, the ultimate good is reached by allowing speakers to engage in the free trade in ideas—free of government intervention in the way of regulation, censorship, or punishment. Ideas must be allowed to compete freely in an unregulated market, and the best ideas will ultimately get accepted by competing with others in this marketplace. As such, government intervention is unnecessary …

Why Is Mississippi The Best State In Which To Be Exonerated? An Empirical Evaluation Of State Statutory And Civil Compensation For The Wrongfully Convicted, Jeffrey Gutman, Lingxiao Sun

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Wrongful conviction has for decades been a subject of academic study, litigation, and policy reform, but its more recent reach into popular culture is reflected in an array of books, documentaries, podcasts, movies, and TV shows. In both non-fiction and fiction, the theme of wrongful conviction marries a traditionally American revulsion of profound injustice with the captivation of the police procedural, dirty cops, forensic evidence, and the relentless fortitude of incarcerated innocents and their heroic lawyers.

The innocence movement lies at this intersection between law and popular imagination. As the attendance at the 2018 Innocence Network Conference attests, the energy …

§ 8:91 Public Records—Forensic Laboratory Reports, Christopher B. Mueller, Laird Kirkpatrick

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article discusses the admissibility of forensic reports under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8) and under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. It analyzes whether they are "testimonial" for the purpose of the Crawford doctrine and when the analyst must be produced to be cross-examined. It also discusses who from the forensic laboratory must be called to admit a forensic report. It discusses the constitutional requirements set forth in Crawford v. Washington, Bullcoming v. New Mexico, and Williams v. Illinois.

Sham Marriage And Privilege, Stephen A. Saltzburg

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

United States v. Fomichev, 899 F.3d 766 (9th Cir. 2018), discusses the effect that a sham marriage has on marital privileges. The court draws a line between the spousal immunity (or spousal witness) privilege and the marital communications privilege.

Nonstationary Panel Models With Latent Group Structures And Cross-Section Dependence, Wenxin Huang, Sainan Jin, Peter C. B. Phillips, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a novel Lasso-based approach to handle unobserved parameter heterogeneity and cross-section dependence in nonstationary panel models. In particular, a penalized principal component (PPC) method is developed to estimate group-specific long-run relationships and unobserved common factors and jointly to identify the unknown group membership. The PPC estimators are shown to be consistent under weakly dependent innovation processes. But they suffer an asymptotically non-negligible bias from correlations between the nonstationary regressors and unobserved stationary common factors and/or the equation errors. To remedy these shortcomings we provide three bias-correction procedures under which the estimators are re-centered about zero as both …

The Manifestations Of Fatigue In Amateur Boxing Performance, Emily C. Dunn

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

A subjective method of judgment, the “Ten Point Must-System” (TPMS), was introduced into amateur boxing in 2013. To be successful, boxers must deliver forceful punches and exert dominance over an opponent. There has been limited research examining the strategies used by boxers to win fights under the TPMS and whether these strategies induce fatigue that is sufficient to significantly affect punch force. The overall objective of the five studies contained in this thesis was to describe, in relation to fatigue, the performance characteristics of male amateur boxers under the TPMS, and improve our understanding of the physical characteristics associated with …

On Factor Models With Random Missing: Em Estimation, Inference, And Cross Validation, Liangjun Su, Ke Miao, Sainan Jin

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider the estimation and inference in approximate factor models with random missing values. We show that with the low rank structure of the common component, we can estimate the factors and factor loadings consistently with the missing values replaced by zeros. We establish the asymptotic distributions of the resulting estimators and those based on the EM algorithm. We also propose a cross validation-based method to determine the number of factors in factor models with or without missing values and justify its consistency. Simulations demonstrate that our cross validation method is robust to fat tails in the error distribution and …

Made In Singapore, Pao-Li Chang, Phuong T. B. Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we characterize the position of Singapore in global value chains and identify Singapore's key upstream and downstream trade partners. We trace how the position of Singapore in global value chains has changed in the past two decades: whether it has moved upstream or downstream, how involved it is in global value chains, how its trend compares with other major Asian exporting countries (China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan), and which key sectors of Singapore play a major role in these global trade networks.

No Human Ever Made A Cathedral Such As This: Scoping The Ecology Of The Carols By Candlelight Effect In Australia’S Open-Air Environments, Robin Ryan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

During Australia’s dry December, traditional and popular forms of caroling shape the sight and sound of the key Christian festival of Christmas. Creative connections between belief, place, and music are characteristically manifest in focused open-air environments of beach, bushland or park. Reasoning from gospel belief that the very first “Christmas carol” emanated from a heavenly host of angels singing to an audience of shepherds in a field, caroling alfresco is an appropriate activity. How, then, do Australian caroling venues become conducive to environmental spheres of sound and influence? While the annual mass Carols by Candlelight concerts televised from Melbourne and …

William Stokes Papers - Accession 882, William Stokes, American Civil War

Manuscript Collection

The William Stokes Papers mainly consist of personal correspondence from William Stokes (1833-1905) to his wife, Eliza Jane Boulware Stokes (1837-1916), during the American Civil War. William Stokes served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War with the 4^th Regiment South Carolina Calvary as Lieutenant Colonel. After the conclusion of the war he would be given the rank of Brigadier General by then Governor Wade Hampton. He was born on October 20, 1833, and died on June 30, 1905. The collection includes pre-Civil War, Civil War, and post-Civil War letters and military orders. Also includes writings by …

Anatomical And Neuromuscular Determinants Of Strength Change In Previously Untrained Men Following Heavy Strength Training, Joanne Trezise, Anthony J. Blazevich

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study examined whether changes in strength following a moderate-duration strength training program were associated with changes in specific combinations of anatomical and neuromuscular variables. 36 men (18–40 y) completed 10 weeks of lower-limb heavy resistance (6-RM) strength training. Measurements included cross-sectional area (CSA), fascicle length (l_f) and fascicle angle (θ_f) from proximal, middle and distal regions of the four quadriceps components; agonist (EMG:M), antagonist (EMG) muscle activities and percent voluntary quadriceps activation (%VA; interpolated twitch technique); patellar tendon moment arm distance; and maximal isometric, concentric and eccentric (60° s^–1) torque. Multiple regression models …

Food-Insecure Household’S Self-Reported Perceptions Of Food Labels, Product Attributes And Consumption Behaviours, Lucy M. Butcher, Maria M. Ryan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Dietary compromises related to food insecurity profoundly undermine health and constitute a serious public health issue, even in developed nations. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of food labelling and product attributes on the purchasing choices of food-insecure households in Australia. An online survey containing 19 food choice and 28 purchasing behaviours questions was completed by 1056 adults responsible for household grocery shopping. The short form of the US Household Food Security Survey Module was used as the food security indicator. Multinomial logistic regression modelling was employed to analyse the survey data. Respondents were classified as …

A Note On The Identification Of The ‘Bankes Tomb’ As Tt 64, Daniele Salvoldi Dr.

Faculty Journal Articles

In 2013, Stefanie Hardekopf argued for the identification of the ‘Bankes Tomb’ with TT 64. Her arguments were convincing, but they lacked the ultimate proof, i.e. the presence of a cartouche of Thutmose IV in archival documents from the Bankes papers referring to the tomb. This short note provides further data, publishing a previously unstudied manuscript indeed holding a copy of the cartouches of Thutmose IV hanging from the neck of a hunter said to belong to the same tomb as the other fragments cut by Bankes. The hunter scene has also been identified among the drawings in the Bankes …

An Analysis Of The Foot In Turnout Using A Dance Specific 3d Multi-Segment Foot Model, Sarah L. Carter, Alan Bryant, Luke S. Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction: Recent three-dimensional (3D) kinematic research has revealed foot abduction is the strongest predictor of standing functional and forced turnout postures. However, it is still unknown how the internal foot joints enable a large degree of foot abduction in turnout. The primary purpose of this study was to use a dance specific multi-segment foot model to determine the lower leg and foot contributions to turnout that female university-level ballets use to accentuate their turnout. Methods: Eighteen female dance students (mean age, 18.8 ± 1.6 years) volunteered for this study. Retro-reflective markers were attached to the dancers' dominant foot. Each dancer …

Environmental Impacts On Behavior And Personality In The Caviomorph Rodent, Octodon Degus, Nicholas Edwin Johnson

Biological Sciences

Environmental factors can have large impacts in shaping the way that animals behave. Biotic elements, such as predators and conspecifics that individuals interact with, are two environmental factors that animals may encounter on a regular basis. Here, we present the results of two studies examining the relationship of these biotic factors to behavior and personality in the degu (Octodon degus), a social rodent species endemic to central Chile. We found that long-term experimental isolation from predators has not impacted behavior, as indicated by an open field test in this species. We also found that social groups in this species do …

The Soft Power Of Dissent: The Impact Of Dissenting Opinions From The Russian Constitutional Court, Alexandra V. Orlova

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article poses a question regarding the importance of judicial dissents emanating from constitutional courts. It examines the power of dissents emanating from the Russian Constitutional Court, given the fact that the Russian government has invested a significant effort in suppressing dissenting voices. The very presence of dissents in the Russian Constitutional Court poses an interesting question regarding their impact on democracy, consensus building, and civil society. This Article argues that while dissents coming from the Russian Constitutional Court may not be binding, they carry a great deal of "soft power." Judicial dissents aid in challenging commonly espoused consensus both …

Artificial Islands And Territory In International Law, Imogen Saunders

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Artificially created islands are a contemporary reality, created and used for military and nonmilitary purposes. Analysis of such islands has largely been limited to their status under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) regime. Their position under general international law, however, remains unclear. In particular, the question of whether artificial islands can constitute sovereign territory remains unanswered. This Article analyzes the concept of territory in international law in the context of artificial islands, and argues that neither the doctrine of territory nor the strictures of UNCLOS prevent artificial islands from constituting territory capable of sovereign …

Us And Eu Efforts To Combat International Money Laundering In The Art Market Are No Masterpiece, Timothy E. Burroughs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Despite the lack of significant, tangible evidence of money laundering through fine art and antiquities dealers, the EU recently passed the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive adding art dealers to the list of businesses obligated to comply with record keeping and due diligence requirements. Shortly thereafter, a similar measure was proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, one-size-fits-all unilateral regulations will fail to protect the fine art and antiquities industry and will place crippling burdens on many art market participants. Instead, soft law agreements, used for most international finance regulation, should be the main tool to establish international standards. This …

The Consumer Imaginary: Labor Rights, Human Rights, And Citizen-Consumers In The Global Supply Chain, Kevin Kolben

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Consumers are increasingly demanding that the goods and services they consume be produced in a way that meets their social expectations. By extension, they are exhibiting greater willingness to pay more at the cash register for products made in good working conditions, and they are willing to punish companies that do not satisfy these expectations. Driving these "citizen-consumers" is what this Article terms the "consumer imaginary," which is defined as the narratives that consumers tell themselves about the people that make their things--people whom consumers will likely never meet, and whose lived experiences are distant from their own. Policymakers have …

In Defense Of Human Rights, Karima Bennoune

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article argues that international human rights law, and the human rights movement more generally, need more defenders than critics in the current international political environment. Groups ranging from academics to governments have taken stances critical of human rights, and this Article seeks to defend the rights framework from some of these while also arguing for the importance of human rights in today's world. Noting that the field of human rights is not beyond criticism, this Article embraces some of those criticisms. However, it suggests that human rights law specialists need to spend at least as much time defending human …

"Human Rights, Responsibilities, And Democracy," Comments On Tasioulas And Moyn Papers: "Symposium On The Future Of International Human Rights Law", Kathryn Sikkink

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a pleasure and a challenge to comment on these two very different Articles, "Saving Human Rights from Human Rights Law," by John Tasioulas, and 'On Human Rights and Majority Politics: Felix Frankfurter's Democratic Theory," by Samuel Moyn. Both are rich, complex, and thought-provoking. To the degree they share any common dimension, it would be their skepticism toward human rights law, and in particular toward the judicialization of human rights law. But the skepticism comes from quite different directions and from their different disciplines. In the case of Tasioulas's paper, the skepticism derives from his belief that legal human …