Understanding the Scope of Business Law Clinics: Perspectives from the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States

The impetus for the emergence of business law clinics across jurisdictions is remarkably similar: commercially orientated education and development of students combined with a reconceptualised social justice agenda which embraces entrepreneurial activity in all forms. Business law clinics face the challenge of balancing the interests of students and clients,of service provision versus learning environment, within a distinctly entrepreneurial environment. To achieve this, we must enter into a dialogue and embrace a common mission. This article addresses the gap in the literature with a comparative analysis of the Business and Commercial Law Clinic at Northumbria Law School, England; The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya Legal Clinic for Start-Ups at Radzyner Law School, Israel; and BrooklynLaw Incubator & Policy Clinic at Brooklyn Law School, United States. We posit that business law clinics should be valued for their rich educational experience, the important assistance they provide and the wider benefits they bestow on teaching institutions

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Modelling vibro-acoustic coupling in flexible micro-perforated plates by a patch-impedance approach

This study proposes a Finite Element (FE)-based efficient numerical model of the vibro-acoustic coupling in flexible micro-perforated plates (f-MPPs) where each perforation is described as an imposed impedance boundary condition (uniform impedance patch) on the plate. This approach opens the possibility of predicting the influence of perforation distribution on the acoustic performance of f-MPP. Micro perforated plates have been a topic of interest as a promising sound absorber in a wide range of applications, from room acoustics to combustion systems. One great advantage of these plates is that it gives the designer the freedom of choice on material in production. Depending on the material and the dimensions, the acoustical modes of the medium can couple with the structural modes of the plate. This coupling changes the number of absorption peaks, frequency and amplitude of the Helmholtz resonance of the system, therefore the coupling becomes an extra parameter in the design process. Current analytical models superpose the mechanical impedance of the plate with the acoustic impedance of the perforations to compute this coupling. This approach works fairly well for plates with uniform perforation distribution. This study proposes a numerical method which assumes perforations as discrete impedance patches on the flexible plate so that they can be considered separately. The method couples the solution of the Helmholtz equation in air with shell plate theory to model the vibro-acoustic effects and the impedance patches are represented as imposed transfer impedance boundary conditions. The assessment of the method is performed in terms of comparing the calculated absorption coefficient values from the simulations of several test cases, fundamental theories and measurement results from the literature. The simulation results agree both with these theoretical limits and measurement results. The use of the method is illustrated by considering an example of the influence of modification of the spatial distribution of perforations on the sound absorption of a membrane.status: publishe

Non-linear acoustic transfer impedance of micro-perforated plates with circular orifices

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. A practical description of the transitional behavior of micro-perforated plates (MPPs) is provided between the linear and strongly non-linear regimes. Micro-perforated plates are efficient sound absorbers whose application areas vary from room acoustics to duct acoustics. Although there are accurate models for the linear and strongly non-linear acoustic behavior of MPPs, the transition from one to another has not been a focus of interest so far. A series of measurements are performed with MPP samples for various excitation amplitudes. The deviation from the linear impedance is found to be a function of excitation amplitude and oscillating viscous boundary layer thickness, expressed in terms of the Strouhal number and the Shear number. Typical for MPPs is a Shear number of order unity, implying that the viscous boundary layer thickness is in the order of the perforation radius. Using the measurement data, expressions are proposed for calculating the non-linear acoustic resistance and reactance for circular perforations with sharp square edges. Some additional data is provided for the higher Shear number range. The behavior at low amplitudes for high Shear numbers deviates strongly from the typical MPP behavior. This is due to local vortex shedding at the sharp edges of the perforation.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Non-linear acoustic transfer impedance of micro-perforated plates with circular orifices journaltitle: Journal of Sound and Vibration articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2015.12.022 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Effect of orifice geometry on the non-linear acoustic resistance of perforated plates in the transition regime

With this study, we provide a global link between linear and non-linear acoustic resistance of a perforation as a function of orifice geometry and Strouhal number. High amplitudes of acoustic pressure induce flow separation at the edges of the orifices. This is a non-linear mechanism increasing the acoustic resistance of a perforation. Quasi-static models have been used to predict the acoustic resistance in the non-linear regime, yet the linear to non-linear transition has been out of focus so far. We carry out open-end impedance measurements in a semi-anechoic room with four different samples. These samples are selected to have different orifice geometries and edge profiles, so that the conclusions would be general. The most prominent result of this study is that the change in the non-linear resistance can be expressed as a function of the Strouhal number only, if the resistance is corrected for the vena-contracta factor which can be deduced from steady flow measurements.Book subtitle: MAJOR CHALLENGES IN ACOUSTICS, NOISE AND VIBRATION RESEARCH, 2015status: publishe

Numerical estimation of the absorption coefficient of flexible micro-perforated plates in an impedance tube

In this study, we numerically model a vibro-acoustic system consisting of a flexible micro-perforated plate (f-MPP) and an acoustic medium. Combined with a back-cavity, micro-perforated plates are considered as a promising noise control technology due to their tunable, wide-band sound absorption characteristics and robust performance. An MPP consists of a plate with uniformly distributed perforations whose diameters are in the order of a millimeter. These perforations are small enough to dissipate the acoustic perturbations due to the viscous effects caused by the presence of the Stokes layers. When the plate is rigid, the sound dissipation mechanism for a specific frequency bandwidth is determined by the perforation diameter, plate thickness, plate porosity and the back cavity depth. Yet, when the plate is flexible, additional absorption peaks, which cannot be determined by the parameters mentioned before, are observed in the measurements. This phenomenon is due to the vibro-acoustic coupling of the flexible plate and the acoustic medium. To model the vibro-acoustic system numerically, we couple two 3D cylindrical acoustic mediums, i.e. incident and back cavity regions, with a flexible plate consisting of shell elements. The perforations are separately located on the plate as independent transfer admittance elements with impedance values obtained from existing models. The system is disturbed with a plane wave excitation and the assessment of the model is done by comparing the calculated absorption coefficient with the experiment results from the literature. In the future, we plan to investigate the effect of perforation positions with the help of the model built in this study.status: publishe

Vibro-acoustic response of flexible Micro-Perforated Plates: impact of the boundary condition at the perforation walls

This paper investigates the vibro-acoustic behavior of flexible micro-perforated plates through a finite element method approach, in which each single orifice can be modeled independently. The role of the vibrations on the local orifice impedance values is included in the numerical model and analyzed for the case of PVC perforated plates with different orifice sizes. Two expressions for the modified local orifice impedance are compared, depending on the extension of the correction to the attached mass of air at the orifice ends or not. The effect on the global plate absorption properties is quantified. It is found that accounting for the orifice impedance alteration through the structural motion is more important for larger orifice diameters and at low frequency. This effect is nevertheless rather limited for the investigated micro-perforated plates and can be neglected in first instance.status: publishe