On Historical Contextualisation: Some Critical Socio-Legal Reflections

This article examines the relationship of historico-legal studies to the wider context of socio-legal studies. It issues a challenge to rethink the nature and role of legal history in the light of socio-legal theory and the extent to which it out to be used by legal scholars. The discussion explores the benefits to socio-legal studies of interdisciplinarity. It suggests that historical reconstructions that contextualise the law should be properly acknowledged as a subgenre at least of the socio-legal movement, not simply perceived as an add-on methodology

A Framework for delivering legal research skills training online via a Virtual Learning Environment to be implemented at the School of Oriental and African Studies

This research project aimed generally to investigate the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to deliver legal research skills training at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Legal research skills are an increasingly important part of students’ studies. It is vital that law graduates are equipped with the necessary skills to research a legal problem adequately to become a competent legal practitioner. As SOAS law students study not only English and EU law, but also the laws of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, they need to be able to develop research skills that enable them to find relevant regional material effectively, accurately and successfully. However, a number of problems have come to light at SOAS which have initiated a change in the way legal research skills training is currently delivered – including the issue of student retention, high numbers of international students, diversity of students’ backgrounds and skills, and their different information needs. Thus, an investigation was undertaken into how SOAS can use the capabilities of a VLE to help change the current approach to legal research skills training. A questionnaire was delivered to all law students currently studying at SOAS to discover their specific information needs relating to legal research skills. Additionally, an evaluation policy was constructed using previous research and the experience of other institutions, to evaluate two existing legal research skills programmes available in the UK and Australia. The results of this evaluation and questionnaire help to inform the construction of the framework. The results provided a general framework for the delivery of legal research skills training to undergraduate students at SOAS. By including the more generic skills as well as specific legal research skills, this framework has a wider application and can, therefore, be used, compared and adapted for further research by other institutions

The interface between technological protection measures and the exemptions to copyright under article 6 paragraph 4 of the Infosoc Directive and section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with particular respect to the implementation of article 6 paragraph 4 in the national laws of Greece, UK, Norway. : -

The interface between technological protection measures and the exemptions to copyright under article 6 paragraph 4 of the Infosoc Directive and section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with particular respect to the implementation of article 6 paragraph 4 in the national laws of Greece, UK, Norway

Regulering van IP-adressen (en andere mogelijke identifiers)

2De bescherming van fundamentele rechten in een integrerend Europ

Суб’єктний склад відносин у мережі Інтернет

Природа діяльності в кіберпросторі, утвореному зв’язком віддалених комп’ютерів, диктує необхідність виділення суб’єктів цих суспільних відносин. При визначенні суб’єктного складу відносин, що виникають у мережі Інтернет, слід враховувати, що цифровий простір є технологічним середовищем, яке складає всесвітню комп’ютерну мережу, що завдяки інфраструктурам телекомунікацій з’єднує велику кількість осіб з різноманітністю культур, мов та професій

Attack of the killer acronyms: The Future of IT Law

The paper discusses the reliance of internet technology law on acronyms, and its deeper socio-legal impact. It suggests that this resonantes for the future of research, teaching, and practice within information technology law

Technology transfer, open source and developing countries

No description supplie

The Digital Divide: It's the Content Stupid

The article examines the notion of the digital divide, not purely from physical access to the Internet, but from availability to online content. It focusses particularly on concerns held by developing countries, and of intellectual property and copyright

The challenge of emergence of virtual property to the traditional legal theory and the corresponding solutions

The emergence and popularity of virtual property has challenged traditional legal theory, especially property and intellectual property theory. Due to the predisposition for a desire of ownership, and the desire for security and certainty in investment, virtual property users should acquire new specific legal protection for their virtual property. This thesis argues that it is needed to establish an independent virtual property theory which could clarify the legal status of virtual property, the types of virtual property right and the allocation of ownership of virtual property in the virtual world. The majority of the current virtual property theories tend to confuse different types of code and content in virtual worlds, equating the underlying software (the building blocks of virtual worlds) and the user generated content (virtual assets). In this sense, this thesis proposes to construct a notion of virtual property through layer theory. The layer theory divides virtual property into three layers, namely infrastructure layer (1), abstraction layer (2) and content layer (3), based on distinguishing between codes which constitute a platform of the virtual world and codes which consist of the user generated content. The infrastructure layer (1) contains the internet service provides’ ISPs’ codes which constitute the platform of the virtual world. This level of virtual property could be considered as the fundamental basis of the operation of the virtual world. At the abstraction layer (2) sits the unique computer code which comprise of the unique items which designed by ISPs but have not transmitted to users in the virtual world. The content layer (3) are the virtual items which are closely relevant to specific individual due to their personal investment and arrangements. Virtual items that sit at the infrastructure layer (1) and abstraction layer (2) should be categorised as ISPs’ virtual property and should be protected as computer software or artistic works created by writing program under current copyright framework. The programmers’ employed by the ISPs are the author of both categorises of virtual property and the ISPs are the first owner of both types of virtual property. However once virtual property combines users’ skill, labour, personal information and other types of investment and arrangement, the added part then should be categorised as users’ virtual property and the ownership should be granted to ordinary users. Theoretically, this thesis defines virtual property as a piece of property which relies on the internet environment provided by ISPs and reflects both the legal relationship between users and ISPs and the relationship between users and others. This thesis also divides virtual property into three categories, the virtual property users get from ISPs directly without further reproduction and creation, the virtual property that contains users’ private information, and the virtual property enrich users’ originality and reproduction which even have not reach the requirement of copyright. Compared with the traditional property right model, taking the complex relationships reflected by virtual property, this thesis argues that virtual property rights granted to users should be a twofold virtual property right. The twofold virtual property rights system adopts what I term ‘restrained-exclusive property rights’ or ‘fundamental property rights’ to describe the ‘rights’ users can claim to regulate the relationship and conflict between them and ISPs, meanwhile ‘relative-exclusive property rights’ or ‘external property rights’ are used to describe owners’ property interests to prevent the infringement from other users. The twofold virtual property rights system will help courts to recognise the exclusive aspect of users’ virtual property right, clarify the property interest over users’ private information, and identify the originality in users’ virtual property. From the legislative perspective, this thesis suggests that virtual property should be explicitly stipulated in the current copyright framework in the UK due to the characteristic of the virtual property. As the ‘Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988’ (CDPA) states in s.1 that copyright is a property right. On the other hand, based on the virtual property theory proposed by this thesis, virtual property that sit at the infrastructure layer (1) and abstraction layer (2) should be protected as computer software or artistic works. Therefore, this thesis suggests that users’ virtual property should be regulated by an independent statute entitled ‘The Virtual Property Statute’ which will complement the current CDPA 1988

Effectiveness of multifractal analysis for online signature verification

Orientador: Lee Luan LingDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: A verificação de identidades de forma confiável é cada vez mais necessária em nossa sociedade amplamente interconectada. Nesse contexto, a verificação biométrica é uma proposta alternativa, e mais segura, aos métodos tradicionalmente utilizados, como senhas e cartões. A análise multifractal, por sua vez, tem sido usada com sucesso em diversas aplicações de processamento de sinais, além disso, diversos estudos mostram a presença de características multifractais em processos naturais. Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar os sinais referentes às assinaturas dinâmicas, provenientes de equipamentos como PDAs e tablet-pcs, sob o prisma da teoria multifractal. É estudada a capacidade de discriminação da característica multifractal na detecção de falsificações de assinaturas, tanto quando usadas isoladamente quanto em conjunto com características tradicionais, num contexto de fusão de informação, com resultados equivalentes ao estado da arte deste tema. Além disso, é realizada uma quantificação, através da teoria da informação, desta capacidade discriminatória. Por fim, é apresentada uma aplicação alternativa da informação multifractal no contexto da biometria: a análise de qualidade das amostrasAbstract: Reliable identity verification is an increasing necessity in our largely networked society. On this topic, biometric verification is a safer alternative to the traditional methods, such as passwords and ID cards. On the other hand, multifractal analysis has been successfully used in a wide range of signal processing applications; moreover, many works show the occurrence of multifractal traits on biological processes. This work aims at analyzing dynamic signature signals collected through devices such as PDAs and tablet-pcs, from a multifractal perspective. A study of the multifractal features discriminative capabilities on signature forgery detection is realized on two scenarios: when it is the unique feature used by the system, and in tandem with traditional features on an information fusion scheme; with results as good as those found in the state of the art of this area. Furthermore, an information theoretic quantification of the discrimination capability is realized. Finally, an alternative application for such features is presented: the evaluation of samples qualityMestradoTelecomunicações e TelemáticaMestre em Engenharia Elétric