Use of Discretion in Independent Migrant Selection: A Study of Canadian Immigration Law, Policy and Practice

Canadian immigration law has traditionally relied upon broad grants of discretionary authority as a tool for immigrant application processing. Such authority has had two facets--a procedural aspect allowing for flexibility in methods and processes for handling applications, and a substantive aspect relating to actual decision making. This thesis examines such discretion in the particular context of the Independent category of migration that is provided for under the current Immigration Act and Regulations. This thesis argues that discretionary power has recently been significantly affected by two evolving trends. Hampered by fiscal constraints, the bureaucracy has sought to reduce usage of positive substantive discretion which, by its very nature, is a resource intensive processing tool. Conversely, since negative substantive discretion retains some functional benefits, not much official disdain has been focused upon it. Meanwhile, procedural discretion has been enhanced because of the resource savings it has delivered up. The courts, on the other hand, have worked to restrict negative substantive discretion while simultaneously guarding the fullness of its positive variant. These dual purposes are rooted in a traditional mistrust of discretionary authority and a modern trend to favour rights

Witness and Lawyer in the Roman courts. Linguistic strategies of evasiveness and intimidation in Roman trial debates

The Roman lawsuits were characterized by the simultaneous presence of a great variety of linguistic registers and forms of interaction, not only the so-called orationes perpetuae pronounced by defence and prosecution counsel, which we know from the edited versions of Cicero’s speeches. Lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, witnesses interacted with one another in different occasions during the trial: from the formulae pronounced during the phase in iure, when the charges were laid to the praetor, to the confrontations during the trial debate. The article is devoted to the analysis of evidence describing such extemporaneous confrontation as has come down to us, between judges and lawyers and between witnesses and lawyers. The evidence we can draw on is in the form of anecdotes and digressional materials transmitted in rhetorical writings and Cicero, but there is important evidence also in surviving records from proceedings in Greek and Latin from Late antiquity, most importantly a series of trial records preserved by the anti-Donatist literature between fourth and fifth century.I processi romani erano caratterizzati dalla compresenza di una grande varietà di registri linguistici, non soltanto le cosiddette orationes perpetuae dell’accusa e della difesa, a noi note nelle versioni, spesso ritoccate, delle orazioni ciceroniane conservate. Avvocati, giudici, imputati, testimoni interagivano in situazioni e fasi comunicative diverse, che andavano dalla formularità delle procedure istruttorie, in iure, alla maggiore spontaneità delle discussioni e dei contraddittori in larga parte estemporanei della fase giudiziale. L’articolo si dedica alla ricostruzione di alcune testimonianze relative allo scambio estemporaneo tra giudici e avvocati e all’analisi di quanto è noto sull’interrogatorio dei testimoni, utilizzando sia la documentazione aneddotica tramandata dalla trattatistica retorica e da Cicerone sia alcuni superstiti verbali giudiziari tardo antichi in greco e latino, in particolare quelli, poco noti al di fuori degli studi storici specifici, relativi ad alcuni processi a margine della lotta tra cattolici e donatisti tra IV e V secolo

Multivalued logic systems for technical applications

Velmi často je vyžadováno, aby automatizovaná zařízení byla jistým způsobem "inteligentní", tedy aby jejich řídicí systémy uměly emulovat rozhodovací proces. Tato diplomová práce poskytuje obecný formální popis vícehodnotových logických systémů schopných zmíněné emulace a jejich souvislost s teorií fuzzy množin. Jsou uvedeny způsoby vytváření matematických modelů založených na lingvistických datech. Dále se práce zabývá znalostními bázemi a jejich vlastnostmi. Součástí této práce je také počítačový program sloužící k tvorbě slovních modelů.Automated devices are very often required to exhibit some kind of an intelligent behaviour, which means that their control systems must be able to emulate the reasoning process. This diploma thesis provides a general formal description of multivalued logic systems capable of such an emulation and their connection with the fuzzy set theory. Ways of constructing mathematical models based on linguistic data are described. Also, knowledge bases and their properties are discussed. A computer program serving as a linguistic model development tool is a part of this thesis.