The Swedish Insurance Contracts Act 2005 – an overview

On 1 January 2006 a new Insurance Contracts Act (Försäkringsavtalslag (SFS 2005:104)) entered into force in Sweden, replacing the Insurance Contracts Act 1927 and the Consumer Insurance Act 1980. The Act is in many ways a modern and interesting product and merits an introduction in English, in the context of the current process of reform undertaken by the Law Commissions of England & Wales and Scotland as well as in the context of expected European initiatives for insurance contract law refor

Consumer insurance law - reform at last?

Comment by Peter Tyldesley, senior lecturer in the School of Law, University of Bedfordshire, on the prospects of reform in the law governing consumer insurance, following on proposals from the English and Scottish Law Commissions. Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

The Anatomy and Facets of Dynamic Policies

Information flow policies are often dynamic; the security concerns of a program will typically change during execution to reflect security-relevant events. A key challenge is how to best specify, and give proper meaning to, such dynamic policies. A large number of approaches exist that tackle that challenge, each yielding some important, but unconnected, insight. In this work we synthesise existing knowledge on dynamic policies, with an aim to establish a common terminology, best practices, and frameworks for reasoning about them. We introduce the concept of facets to illuminate subtleties in the semantics of policies, and closely examine the anatomy of policies and the expressiveness of policy specification mechanisms. We further explore the relation between dynamic policies and the concept of declassification.Comment: Technical Report of publication under the same name in Computer Security Foundations (CSF) 201

WRC Assessment re PCCS Garment Co. Ltd. (Cambodia): Findings, Recommendations and Status

WRC assessment detailing labor violations in the areas of health and safety, harassment and abuse, and legally-mandated benefits at a PCCS Garment factory in Cambodia

Intellectual Property Law and the Right to Repair

This Article posits that intellectual property law should accommodate consumers’ right to repair their products. In recent years, there has been a growing push towards state legislation that would provide consumers with a “right to repair” their products. Currently, twenty states have pending legislation that would require product manufacturers to make available replacement parts and repair manuals. Unfortunately, though, this legislation has stalled in many of the states. Manufacturers have been lobbying the legislatures to stop the enactment of these repair laws based on different concerns, including how these laws may impinge on their intellectual property rights. Indeed, a right to repair may not be easily reconcilable with the United States’ far-reaching intellectual property rights regime. For example, requiring manufacturers to release repair manuals could implicate a whole host of intellectual property laws, including trade secrets. Similarly, employing measures that undercut a manufacturer’s control of the market for replacement parts might conflict with patent exclusivity. Nonetheless, this Article holds that intellectual property laws should not be used to prevent a right to repair from being fully implemented. In support of this claim, this Article develops a theoretical framework that justifies a right to repair in a manner that is consistent with intellectual property protection. Based on this theoretical foundation, this Article then explores, for the first time, the various intellectual property rules and doctrines that may be implicated in the context of the current repair movement. As part of this analysis, this Article identifies areas where intellectual property rights could prevent repair laws from being fully realized, even if some of the states pass the legislation, and recommends certain reforms that are necessary to accommodate the need for a right to repair and enable it to take hold

Methods, systems, and devices for pairing vagus nerve stimulation with motor therapy in stroke patients

A method of treating motor deficits in a stroke patient, comprising assessing a patient's motor deficits, determining therapeutic goals for the patient, based on the patient's motor deficits, selecting therapeutic tasks based on the therapeutic goals, performing each of the selected therapeutic tasks repetitively, observing the performance of the therapeutic tasks, initiating the stimulation of the vagus nerve manually at approximately a predetermined moment during the performance of the therapeutic tasks, stimulating the vagus nerve of the patient during the performance of the selected therapeutic tasks, and improving the patient's motor deficits.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Methods, systems, and devices for pairing vagus nerve stimulation with motor therapy in stroke patients

A method of treating motor deficits in a stroke patient, comprising assessing a patient's motor deficits, determining therapeutic goals for the patient, based on the patient's motor deficits, selecting therapeutic tasks based on the therapeutic goals, performing each of the selected therapeutic tasks repetitively, observing the performance of the therapeutic tasks, initiating the stimulation of the vagus nerve manually at approximately a predetermined moment during the performance of the therapeutic tasks, stimulating the vagus nerve of the patient during the performance of the selected therapeutic tasks, and improving the patient's motor deficits.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Im-position: Heidegger’s analysis of the essence of modern technology

[Excerpt] "One of Heidegger’s initial moves in “The Question Concerning Technology” is to call attention to the difference between Technik and its essence. When we are looking for the essence of a tree, he notes, we are not looking for something that is itself a tree. So, too, the essence of Technik is “completely and utterly nothing Technisches.” Initially, Heidegger offers no argument for this claim (pragmatists might dispute it), but it has a certain prima facie plausibility. What a bit of know-how is—the essence of Technik as a technique or mechanical art—is arguably not itself necessarily a bit of know-how, any more than what technical equipment is—the essence of Technik as equipment—is itself a piece of equipment."Accepted manuscrip