My Tree Versus Your Solar Collector or Your Well Versus My Septic System? -- Exploring Responses to Beneficial but Conflicting Neighboring Uses of Land

When one neighbor wants to use his land for a lawful purpose, but the neighbor next door wants to do the same so that their beneficial uses conflict, how might these conflicts be resolved? The conventional law of nuisance offers either a rationale based on fault or a general standard of what is “reasonable,” both of which require litigation to apply to a particular context. This Article suggests that resolving conflicts between neighboring beneficial uses of land would be aided by guidelines which might be grounded in some understandable norms to provide such neighbors with a sense that rough justice is being served. Two such norms appear helpful: priority in time and examining which of the two beneficial uses appears to be the more intrusive of the neighboring land. The hope is that such guidelines might facilitate resolution where hard feelings or litigation might otherwise result

CHARACTER AND FITNESS FOR LEADERSHIP: LEARNING INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

CHARACTER AND FITNESS FOR LEADERSHIP: LEARNING INTERPERSONAL SKILL

Designing a Positive Psychology Course for Lawyers

Legal education is slowly beginning to include not only education in critical thinking and legal knowledge, but also education in complementary qualities of personal conduct and early professional formation. Positive psychology, with its emphasis on the evidence-based study of how people can thrive, not just be treated for mental illness or emotional difficulty, can aid these additional educational objectives. This Article examines some of the ongoing pedagogical choices involved in creating a law school course on positive psychology oriented around experiential student learning. Highlighted are a few key insights from the field, including resilience, character strengths, positive values, and enhanced relationships with other people. While only an introduction, this course is designed to help law students become sufficiently grounded in these insights and others from positive psychology to continue their education after law school. Because the course is experimental, the hope is that it will lay the foundation for initiatives by other law professors to make the application of positive psychology more broadly available to law students in general

Taxing Speculative Land Gains: The Vermont Experience

This Article summarizes a much lengthier, two-volume report on the land gains tax in an effort to provide a greater understanding of certain issues involved with the law, especially for legislators who believe their states might benefit from such a measure

Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in the Wild Boar (Sus scrofa): A Comparison of Methods Applicable to Hunter-Harvested Animals

To obtain robust epidemiological information regarding tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife species, appropriate diagnostic methods need to be used. Wild boar (Sus scrofa) recently emerged as a major maintenance host for TB in some European countries. Nevertheless, no data is available to evaluate TB post-mortem diagnostic methods in hunter-harvested wild boar. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Six different diagnostic methods for TB were evaluated in parallel in 167 hunter-harvested wild boar. Compared to bacteriological culture, estimates of sensitivity of histopathology was 77.8%, gross pathology 72.2%, PCR for the MPB70 gene 66.7%, detection of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) in tissue contact smears 55.6% and in histopathology slides 16.7% (estimated specificity was 96.7%, 100%, 100%, 94.4% and 100%, respectively). Combining gross pathology with stained smears in parallel increased estimated sensitivity to 94.4% (94.4% specificity). Four probable bacteriological culture false-negative animals were identified by Discriminant Function Analysis. Recalculating the parameters considering these animals as infected generated estimated values for sensitivity of bacteriology and histopathology of 81.8%, gross pathology 72.7%, PCR for the MPB70 gene 63.6%, detection of AFB in tissue contact smears 54.5% and in histopathology slides 13.6% (estimated specificity was 100% for gross pathology, PCR, bacteriology and detection of AFB in histopathology slides, 96.7% for histopathology and 94.4% for stained smears). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results show that surveys for TB in wild boar based exclusively on gross pathology considerably underestimate prevalence, while combination of tests in parallel much improves sensitivity and negative predictive values. This finding should thus be considered when planning future surveys and game meat inspection schemes. Although bacteriological culture is the reference test for TB diagnosis, it can generate false-negative results and this should be considered when interpreting data.This study was funded by laboratory funds from Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Health Sciences, University of Minho. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript