From Accession to Exemption: A Brief History of the Development of Alaska Property Exemption Laws

This Article examines the historical development of Alaska\u27s debtor protections from their beginnings in the period of initial federal administration to the present. The current Alaska statutes protecting certain property of debtors from their creditors descended from policies first enacted by Congress. Although federal authority began in 1867 with the area\u27s acquisition from Russia, Congress did not provide for governmental administration in Alaska until 1884, which act also provided Alaska its first debtor protection statutes. Extension of the federal Homestead Act to Alaska in 1898 brought the first protections for settlers\u27 homesteads from their creditors. By 1912 and the creation of the territorial government, Congress had set the basic structure of debtor protection in Alaska. Unlike those states which insisted historically on placing certain debtor protections within their constitutions, public policy in Alaska has deemed statutory structures adequate to protect a debtor\u27s interests

‘The Military Mirror of Kai’: Swordsmanship and a Medieval Text in Early Modern Japan

Swordsmanship emerged as a new field of knowledge in early modern Japan (1600–1868), a time of relative peace. During the most violent periods of Japanese history, the latter half of the medieval period (1185–1600), samurai conducted warfare mostly on horseback, using the bow and arrow, or by leading massive armies filled with soldiers who used pikes, halberds, and even firearms. In this paper, I will trace the origins of early modern swordsmanship to the late 16th century during the transition between the medieval and early modern periods, when teachers of swordsmanship and their sword ‘styles’ first appeared in texts. Of these texts I will focus on ‘The Military Mirror of Kai’, purportedly written during the late 16th century, and a widely-read text among samurai of the early modern period. A mix of fact and fiction, the ‘Mirror’ became a source of fantasy and inspiration for samurai and non-samurai alike. It is also the earliest source of writing about swordsmanship, which was influenced by, and grew alongside, other medieval cultural arts such as Noh theater and tea ceremony

The Dhāraṇī of Mahāvyutpatti #748: Origin and Formation

This paper aims to identify the sources of a list of twelve dhāraṇīs included in Rubric 748 of the Mahāvyutpatti. It produces evidence connecting this group with three similar dhāraṇī enumerations transmittted in the Ratnamegha, Tathāgataguṇajñānācintyaviṣayāvatāranirdeśa and Tathāgatamahākaruṇānirdeśa. The exposition of the Tathāgatamahākaruṇānirdeśa is particularly valuable since it preserves one of the earliest and most detailed discussions of dhāraṇī practice in Mahāyāna sūtras. The Ratnamegha is closest to the Mahāvyutpatti and thus the most likely source for its list

Emasculated Men: The Perception and Treatment of Shell-Shocked Soldiers During World War I

World War I differed from wars of the past in a variety of ways. Thus, it created a host of modern medical and psychological problems for soldiers, military leaders, and physicians to overcome such as shell shock. Since shell shock was a relatively new phenomenon in warfare, the medical and military communities were uncertain about how to interpret its appearance and decrease its occurrence in their armed forces. As a result, shell shock fell victim to several social constructs of the time. One of the main societal factors that fueled the negative stigmatization of shell-shocked soldiers during the war was militarized masculinity. Using a variety of primary sources including military recruitment posters, medical journals, and other military and medical records, this paper aims to contribute to the current historiographical literature on the period by focusing exclusively on how societal perceptions of masculinity ultimately influenced the American and British military’s attitudes towards shell-shocked soldiers and determined the types of treatments used by medical practitioners to relieve soldiers of their debilitating and “effeminate” symptoms

Claiming Barth for ethics: The last two decades

is is the author's PDF version of an article published in Ecclesiology© 2010. The definitive version is available at www.ingentaconnect.com.This article discusses various studies of Karl Barth's ethics written since 1990

Crossing the Line: An Analysis of Problems with Classifying Recidivist Misdemeanor Offenses as Felonies

Alaska is in the minority of states that apply felony charges based on a defendant\u27s history of misdemeanor violations. This approach to the challenges of criminal recidivism, however, creates both constitutional and prudential problems. While Alaska enjoys considerable latitude in its sentencing policies, this form of misdemeanor reclassification raises concerns about proportionality under the Eighth Amendment, double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment, and poses dilemmas for participants in the pleabargaining process. This Note examines these problems and proposes a graduated approach to sentencing enhancement. By increasing punishment gradually and preventing recidivist misdemeanants from crossing the misdemeanor-felony border as quickly, Alaska could secure the benefits of recidivism statutes while avoiding the constitutional and prudential concerns present in existing law

Harold Jeffreys's Theory of Probability Revisited

Published exactly seventy years ago, Jeffreys's Theory of Probability (1939) has had a unique impact on the Bayesian community and is now considered to be one of the main classics in Bayesian Statistics as well as the initiator of the objective Bayes school. In particular, its advances on the derivation of noninformative priors as well as on the scaling of Bayes factors have had a lasting impact on the field. However, the book reflects the characteristics of the time, especially in terms of mathematical rigor. In this paper we point out the fundamental aspects of this reference work, especially the thorough coverage of testing problems and the construction of both estimation and testing noninformative priors based on functional divergences. Our major aim here is to help modern readers in navigating in this difficult text and in concentrating on passages that are still relevant today.Comment: This paper commented in: [arXiv:1001.2967], [arXiv:1001.2968], [arXiv:1001.2970], [arXiv:1001.2975], [arXiv:1001.2985], [arXiv:1001.3073]. Rejoinder in [arXiv:0909.1008]. Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS284 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org