Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Comment: Theory And Practice In Dna Fingerprinting, Richard O. Lempert

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Throughout her useful paper on DNA identification, Professor Roeder properly attends to both theory and practice. Thus she acknowledges the theoretical soundness of certain criticisms that have been made of the standard paradigm used to evaluate DNA random match probabilities but argues that in practice these criticisms matter little. I am thinking here of the arguments that those cautioning against overweighing DNA evidence have made regarding the undeniable existence of population substructure and its potential implications for independence assumptions supporting the application of the product rule and for the use of convenience samples, such as data garnered from no more …

The Audio Format War, Derek Cronin

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No abstract provided.

The Future Of Channel Four After The Broadcasting Act 1990, Amanda Dunne

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No abstract provided.

The Suspect Population And Dna Identification, Richard O. Lempert

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Forensic DNA analysis typically proceeds by first determining whether alleles (one of two or more alternative forms of a gene) found in DNA apparently left by the perpetrator of a crime at a crime scene (the "evidence sample") match alleles extracted from a sample of the suspected criminal's blood (the "suspect sample"). If alleles drawn from the two sources match, the next step is to provide information about the probative value of the match by estimating the probability that alleles extracted from the blood of some random individual would have matched the alleles in the evidence sample. Thinking in terms …

Dna, Science And The Law: Two Cheers For The Ceiling Principle, Richard O. Lempert

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The ceiling principle is an intentionally conservative way of estimating the frequency with which individuals who share particular alleles appear in the general population. It establishes frequencies for each allele by taking random samples of 100 individuals from each of 15 to 20 populations and using the largest frequency with which the allele is found in any of these populations or 5 percent, whichever is larger, as an estimate of the allele's frequency in the population of interest. These frequencies are then multiplied to yield an estimate of the likelihood that a randomly selected person would exhibit the same allelic …

The Pavlov-Yerkes Connection: What Was Its Origin?, Randall D. Wight

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Historians of psychology traditionally acknowledge Robert Mearns Yerkes as responsible for introducing the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov to American psychologists. The introduction occurred in a 1909 Psychological Bulletin paper coauthored with Harvard graduate student, Sergius Morgulls. Yet how Yerkes, who did not read Russian and who never personally used Pavlov's conditioning paradigm, came to know and appreciate Pavlov's endeavors is unclear. This paper examines how Yerkes became acquainted with salivary conditioning studies and suggests a reason why the 1909 paper was actually written.

Shackle & Hoist: The Power Of Alternatives, Henry Spira

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Few things in the decades-old horror show of farm animal-suffering have bothered all of us quite so much as shackling and hoisting. It should come as a relief to animal protectionists that the curtain is finally beginning to fall on the last grisly scenes of this archaic practice.

While our ideal remains the non-violent dinner table, the reality is that eating habits lend to change slowly. In terms of the "three Rs" this means that adopting a meatless diet for ethical reasons (Replacement) remains our long-term goal. In the short term our best bet is to also focus on eating …

Animal Rights: The Frontiers Of Compassion, Henry Spira

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No abstract provided.

Of Diagnoses And Discrimination: Discriminatory Nontreatment Of Infants With Hiv Infection, Mary Crossley

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Evidence of physician attitudes favoring the withholding of needed medical treatment from infants infected with HIV compels a reassessment of the applicability and adequacy of existing law in dealing with selective nontreatment. Although we can hope to have learned some lessons from the Baby Doe controversy of the mid-1980s, whether the legislation emerging from that controversy, the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, has ever adequately dealt with the problem of nontreatment remains far from clear. Today, the medical and social characteristics of most infants infected with HIV introduce new variables into our assessment of that legislation. At stake are the …

Annual Report Of The Committee On Libraries, Legal Research And Publications, 1992-1993, Margaret A. Leary

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The committee's work this year focused primarily on a project to microfilm Michigan Supreme Court briefs; Investigating the Court's indexes and files to see whether it would be possible to create a master list of all documents filed with the Court which would be included in the filming project; Cinding vendors who might be able to carry out the microfilming; describing the project to them; and obtaining cost estimates.

The Case Of The Disappearing Briefs: A Study In Preservation Strategy, Margaret A. Leary

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Federal appellate court records and briefs are significant to researchers in many disciplines, but academic law libraries are discarding them. Ms. Leary chronicles the demise of paper holdings in law libraries, the rise of microforms, and the contents and usage of the National Archives and Records Administration's files. She then derives principles for preservation strategies that may apply to other categories of legal material.

Response To Wayne P. Kelley, Margaret A. Leary

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I appreciate Mr. Kelley's comments and his concern about the "fundamental legal responsibility of federal depository libraries to provide free and unrestricted access to depository materials to the general public," or, as stated in 44 U.S.C. § 1911, "Depository libraries shall make Government publications available for the free use of the general public." I write to respond to the statements that "It is impossible to determine exactly what sort of access to depository materials is allowed at the University of Michigan Law Library from the [Snow] article," and "It appears that the ... policy does not meet our requirements."

Portraits Of A Discipline: An Examination Of Introductory Psychology Textbooks In America, Randall D. Wight, Wayne Weiten

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"The time has gone by when any one person could hope to write an adequate textbook of psychology. The science has now so many branches, so many methods, so many fields of application, and such an immense mass of data of observation is now on record, that no one person can hope to have the necessary familiarity with the whole." - An author of an introductory psychology text

"If we compare general psychology textbooks of today with those of from ten to twenty years ago we note an undeniable trend toward amelioration of terminology, simplification of style, and popularization of …

Law Librarianship: A Forum, Bob Berring, Mark Estes, Penny Hazelton, Kathie Price, Joanne Zich

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Law librarianship is a profession that has a proud history and a bright future, yet it is not without its problems and concerns. For this issue of Law Library Lights, we have gathered together a number of luminaries in the field and asked them a number of questions related to the most important issues facing our community: professional image, additional roles, education and training, ethics, minority recruitment, budget crunch, technology, vendors, and the future.

This exchange was published in volume 35, issue number 5, May/June 1992.

Books, Microforms, Computers And Us: Who's Us?, Margaret A. Leary

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The author suggests that in the increasing effort to define, and refine, their identity and image, librarians have recently turned towards computers - and away from books and microforms. The result has been an avoidance of the more important issues facing librarians - such as ownership, accessibility, cost, and preservation of new formats of information - and an ever greater obfuscation of what constitutes the profession of librarianship.

On Integrated Pollution Control, James E. Krier

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Integrated pollution control, or IPC, can be defined for now as an approach to environmental regulation that "seeks particularly to link air, water, and waste programs. Its concern is institutional changes that reduce total risk to the environment from pollutants." 8 This sounds remarkably appealing, which perhaps explains IPC's recurring popularity. As we shall see, it enjoyed a brief celebrity about twenty years ago, and it is once again in vogue-especially within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Is the Agency's recent interest in IPC a good thing? We worry that it is not. First of all, IPC has an …

Exchange Loss Damages And The Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act: The Emperor Hasn't All His Clothes, Ronald A. Brand

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In 1989, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved a new Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act. This Act is designed to change and clarify the law regarding judgments on obligations denominated in a foreign currency. It does so by recognizing that old rules preventing judgment in a foreign currency - developed in times of a strong dollar - are inappropriate. Unfortunately, in seeking fairness for plaintiffs when the U.S. dollar is weak, the Act replaces rigid old rules with stiff new rules that fail to address the basic issue of appropriate damages for exchange rate losses. While the …

A Title Oscillation: Journal Of Comparative Neurology And Psychology, 1904-1910, Randall D. Wight

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From 1904 through 1910, the Journal of Comparative Neurology became the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. This article attempts a reconstruction of the events behind this title oscillation from archival sources.

Telling Tales In Court: Trial Procedure And The Story Model, Richard O. Lempert

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There are three ways in which stories may figure prominently at trials. First, litigants may tell stories to jurors. Not only is there some social science evidence that this happens, but trial lawyers have an instinctive sense that this is what they do. Ask a litigator to describe a current case and she is likely to reply, "Our story is ... " Second, jurors may try to make sense of the evidence they receive by fitting it to some story pattern. If so, the process is likely to feed back on itself. That is, jurors are likely to build a …

Some Caveats Concerning Dna As Criminal Identification Evidence: With Thanks To The Reverend Bayes, Richard O. Lempert

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The conference panel at which this paper was originally presented was structured along the lines of a debate. The three speakers who were supposed to advocate the use of DNA evidence were labeled, as is customary, Proponents. But those who were supposed to take the negative side were not called Opponents. Rather they were labeled Caveators. I do not know who is responsible for this label, but I think it gets things exactly right. To my mind anyone considering DNA as criminal identification evidence should be a Caveator. The promise and utility of DNA analysis in identifying the perpetrators of …

Broadcasting Law And Broadcasting Policy In Ireland, Wolgang Truetzschler

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No abstract provided.

"Political Ambition Can Drive Individuals To Extremes", S. Ray Granade

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The East Coast breeds virulent political enmities. Perhaps they're no worse there than elsewhere, but their legacy there is certainly strong. The current Virginia brouhaha between Charles Robb and Douglas Wilder is reminiscent of one of the earliest, most virulent, and bloodiest political vendettas of American history--that between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.

Both Presidential "wannabes," Governors Robb and Wilder have political strengths of their own and others' making. Wilder aims to hurt Robb politically on a variety of charges; Robb plans the same for Wilder. The feud boils down to who will control Virginia politics, and their weapon is …

History And Psychology: Shall The Twain Ever Meet?, S. Ray Granade, Randall D. Wight

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As all detectives (fictional or real) know, every story contains at least an element of truth, and the most likely is usually the most truthful. Those trying to cover their tracks know or discover to their dismay that interrogators use that principle to their own advantage. Early in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the disguised Huck realizes this simple reality when he first returns to town after his faked death and “pumps” Mrs. Judith Loftus for information: “Somehow it didn’t seem to me that I said it [his name] was Mary before,” Huck relates; “seemed to me I …

Dangerous Liaisons: Seduction And Betrayal In Confidential Press-Source Relations, Lili Levi

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No abstract provided.

Striopachas Na Bhfear I Londain, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

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Gearscéal faoi leads Éireanach ag díol a gcorp ar Cricklewood Broadway.

Hindsight And Causality, David Wasserman, Richard O. Lempert, Reid Hastie

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When people know how an event turned out, they are usually unable to reproduce the judgments they would have made without outcome knowledge. Furthermore, they are unaware of their inability to recapture their pre-outcome state of mind. This tendency to overestimate what they would have known without the outcome knowledge is called "hindsight." An experiment explored the moderating effects of the type of cause to which the outcome was attributed on the magnitude of the hindsight effect. When the outcome was attributed to unforeseeable "chance" factors, such as an unexpected storm or an earthquake, the hindsight effect was virtually eliminated. …

"Bridging The Ravine"; Or, The Joint Library Automation Project Of Henderson State And Ouachita Baptist University, Marilyn Martin, S. Ray Granade, Robert Yehl

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Automating a library is challenging, frustrating and rewarding. It requires detailed, often tedious planning, and enormous amounts of patience. Software glitches, hardware failures, and miscommunication between automation vendors and library staff are common complaints found in the library literature. These problems loom large when any library automates. When two libraries undertake such a project together, problems proliferate. The automation project of Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) and Henderson State University (HSU) Libraries illustrates problems inherent in any automation, some unique to joint endeavors, and others representative of cooperation between a public and a private institution. Above all, it illustrates how a …

"Linus Is Resting": The Joys And Perils Of A Shared Automation Project At Henderson State And Ouachita Baptist Universities, S. Ray Granade

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Automating a library is challenging, frustrating and rewarding. It requires detailed, often tedious planning, and enormous amounts of patience. Software glitches, hardware failures, and miscommunication between automation vendors and library staff are common complaints found in the library literature. These problems loom large when any library automates. When two libraries undertake such a project together, problems proliferate. The automation project of Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) and Henderson State University (HSU) Libraries illustrates problems inherent in any automation, some unique to joint endeavors, and others representative of cooperation between a public and a private institution. Above all, it illustrates how a …

Memorials, Marian Gould Gallagher And Melissa Sue Landers, Penny Hazelton

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No abstract provided.

From The President, Penny A. Hazelton

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A series of From the President columns written by then President of the American Association of Law Libraries Penny A. Hazelton in 1990 and 1991.