Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation for Economic Security

A report released by Georgetown Law\u27s Workplace Flexibility 2010 and the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) outlining a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. The report describes the need among working Americans for time off from work to address personal illness, to care for a new child, or to care for a loved one with a serious illness. It argues that the need for time off is no longer an issue for individual families or select industries, but a national priority that has major social and economic implications. Family Security Insurance, the national insurance program proposed in the report, would fundamentally reform social policy to address workers\u27 critical needs, and, at the same time, spread the cost fairly, protect the deficit, and keep people working

Is it in the Public Domain?

This Handbook is intended as an educational tool to describe generally when a work created in the United States between January 31, 1923 and December 31, 1977—the range of dates that covers most works that were created under the Copyright Act of 1909 (“1909 Act”) and that may still be protected by copyright—is likely to be protected by copyright today and when it is likely to be in the public domain

Understanding Rights Reversion: When, Why, & How to Regain Copyright and Make Your Book More Available

A guide designed to help authors regain their copyright for previously published books

Does Anyone Read the Fine Print? Testing a Law and Economics Approach toStandard Form Contracts

A cornerstone of the law and economics approach to standard form contracts is the 'informed minority' hypothesis: in competitive markets, a minority of term-conscious buyers is enough to discipline sellers from offering unfavorable boilerplate terms. The informed minority argument is widely invoked to limit intervention in consumer transactions, but there has been little empirical investigation of its validity. We track the Internet browsing behavior of 45,091 households with respect to 66 online software companies to study the extent to which potential buyers access the standard form contract associated with software purchases, the end user license agreement. We find that only one or two out of every thousand retail software shoppers chooses to access the license agreement, and those that do spend too little time, on average, to have read more than a small portion of the license text. The results cast doubt on the relevance of the informed minority mechanism in a specific market where it has been invoked by both theorists and courts and, to the extent that comparison shopping online is relatively cheap and easy, suggest limits to the mechanism more generally

Size-selective fishing gear and life history evolution in the Northeast Arctic cod

Industrial fishing has been identified as a cause for life history changes in many harvested stocks, mainly because of the intense fishing mortality and its size-selectivity. Because these changes are potentially evolutionary, we investigate evolutionarily stable life-histories and yield in an energy-allocation state-dependent model for Northeast Arctic cod Gadus morhua. We focus on the evolutionary effects of size-selective fishing because regulation of gear selectivity may be an efficient management tool. Trawling, which harvests fish above a certain size, leads to early maturation except when fishing is low and confined to mature fish. Gillnets, where small and large fish escape, lead to late maturation for low to moderate harvest rates, but when harvest rates increase maturation age suddenly drops. This is because bell-shaped selectivity has two size-refuges, for fish that are below and above the harvestable size-classes. Depending on the harvest rate it either pays to grow through the harvestable slot and mature above it, or mature small below it. Sustainable yield on the evolutionary time-scale is highest when fishing is done by trawling, but only for a small parameter region. Fishing with gillnets is better able to withstand life-history evolution, and maintains yield over a wider range of fishing intensities

Avoidance of fisheries-induced evolution: management implications for catch selectivity and limit reference points

I examined how the fitness (r) associated with early- and late-maturing genotypes varies with fishing mortality (F) and age-/size-specific probability of capture. Life-history data on Newfoundland's northern Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) allowed for the estimation of r for individuals maturing at 4 and 7 year in the absence of fishing. Catch selectivity data associated with four types of fishing gear (trap, gillnet, handline, otter trawl) were then incorporated to examine how r varied with gear type and with F. The resulting fitness functions were then used to estimate the F above which selection would favour early (4 year) rather than delayed (7 year) maturity. This evolutionarily-sensitive threshold, Fevol, identifies a limit reference point somewhat similar to those used to define overfishing (e.g., Fmsy, F0.1). Over-exploitation of northern cod resulted in fishing mortalities considerably greater than those required to effect evolutionary change. Selection for early maturity is reduced by the dome-shaped selectivities characteristic of fixed gears such as handlines (the greater the leptokurtosis, the lower the probability of a selection response) and enhanced by the knife-edged selectivities of bottom trawls. Strategies to minimize genetic change are consistent with traditional management objectives (e.g., yield maximization, population increase). Compliance with harvest control rules guided by evolutionarily-sensitive limit reference points, which may be achieved by adherence to traditional reference points such as Fmsy and F0.1, should be sufficient to minimize the probability of fisheries-induced evolution for commercially exploited species

Genetic correlations between adults and larvae in a marine fish: potential effects of fishery selection on population replenishment

Correlated genetic responses have been hypothesized as important components of fishery-induced evolution, although predictive data from wild populations have been difficult to obtain. Here, we demonstrate substantial genetic correlations between a trait often subjected to fishery selection (adult body length) and traits that affect survival of larvae (length and swimming performance) in a wild population of a marine fish (bicolor damselfish, Stegastes partitus). Through both genetic covariance and size-dependent maternal effects, selection on adult size may cause a considerable, correlated response in larval traits. To quantify how variation in larval traits may affect survival, we introduce a flexible method that uses information from selection measurements to account for frequency dependence and estimate the relationship between phenotype and relative survival across a broad range of phenotypic values. Using this method, we synthesize studies of selective mortality on larval size for eight species of fish and show that variation in larval size may result in considerable variation in larval survival. We predict that observed rates of fishery selection on adult marine fishes may substantially reduce larval size and survival. The evolution of smaller larvae in response to fishery selection may therefore have substantial consequences for the viability of fished populations

Eco-genetic model to explore fishing-induced ecological and evolutionary effects on growth and maturation schedules

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72524/1/j.1752-4571.2009.00088.x.pd

Getting Back on Track: Policy Solutions to Improve California Rail Transit Projects

UC-ITS-2021-22This report combines a cost baseline analysis with five case studies of California rail projects (four local transit projects and California\u2019s High-Speed Rail project) to identify the causes of high project costs, slow deployment, and overruns/delays beyond initial project estimates. Baselines were developed from an analysis of two prominent transit cost databases, and case studies were developed through review of the historical record and expert interviews. Key findings include lack of transit agency experience and expertise; insufficient cross-agency coordination; costly stakeholder outreach; inefficient procurement and contracting methods; and project overdesign. The report proposes a set of recommendations for transit agencies and state policymakers to overcome these challenges, including the creation of regional project delivery consultant teams, legal authorization and use of alternative contracting methods, and new agency coordination and communication structures