Defining the Social Dimension of Triple Bottom Line for the Australian Dairy Industry: Challenges, Priorities and Opportunities

Understanding the social impact the dairy industry has on employees and local communities is part of Dairy Australia’s commitment to the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework, which emphasises that businesses have social, environmental and economic impacts and responsibilities. This social impact assessment project, currently underway, aims to identify and quantify the social value of the dairy industry, whilst proactively identifying areas for improvements. Through an online survey for employees and a random postal survey of 15,000 dairy community residents, the project investigates how Australians perceive the Dairy Industry, as well as their wellbeing, quality of life, community involvement and work experiences. This paper provides an overview of the study, outlining why developing quantifiable indicators for the social dimension of TBL that are designed to be as rigorous as current financial reporting is a business priority. Examples of how the findings will contribute to the identification and management of issues, measures of industry sustainability and future strategy are discussed

The ‘Art’ of Copyright: A Practitioner’s Perspective

This is the 31st Manges lecture, and I am honored to be the first private practitioner to deliver it. Copyright law is rich in its constitutional and legislative heritage, in its doctrinal underpinnings, and in its interplay with other important legal and social regimes and norms. This complex heritage has been honored—and its contours provocatively discussed—by prior Manges lecturers spanning the federal judiciary, members of Congress, three Registers of Copyright, numerous scholars in the field—including Bob Gorman, and international copyright experts, among others. An important dimension of this copyright matrix not yet explored in this setting is the central role practicing attorneys have played in the continuing evolution of copyright law. Whereas the pace of legislative change in copyright law is glacial, its evolution via court decision and evolving commercial practice is continual. And it is the practicing bar: who are confronted with myriad real world, time sensitive applications of this body of law; who create the factual records and who brief and argue the legal issues that undergird judicial decisions in the field; who negotiate complex license agreements in reliance on understandings of copyright law with broad consequences for the dissemination of works of creative expression; and who, like Horace Manges, represent the spectrum of affected parties and industries in the halls of Congress, before the Copyright Office, Justice Department, Office of the Solicitor General, and other relevant federal agencies on all matters relating to copyright. Not limited to copyright, those of us in private practice tend to take our cases— and usually our clients—as we find them. In my own experience, applied to the copyright sphere, this intellectual flexibility has had enormous advantages. I say this because, to be effective counselors and advocates, copyright practitioners need fully to appreciate the balancing act that is copyright law. *This is a transcript of the 31st Annual Horace S. Manges Lecture delivered by R. Bruce Rich on March 26, 2018. Mr. Rich is a senior partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and currently co-heads the firm’s Intellectual Property/Media practice

A Consent Theory of Unconscionability: An Empirical Study of Law in Action

This Article provides the findings of an empirical study of 187 court cases in which the issue of the unconscionability of a contract or a contract term was addressed by the courts. The cases were drawn from two time periods. The first set of cases can be viewed as the first generation of Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.)-style unconscionability cases from 1968-1980. The second generation of unconscionability cases were from the time period of 1991-2003. The two groups of cases allow us to not only analyze a series of questions and factors, but also to make intergenerational or longitudinal observations. The analysis is directed at answering four questions: (1) What are the standards used by courts in making unconscionability decisions?, (2) What type of evidence is considered by courts in making their decisions?, (3) What are the operative facts or factors that are most predictive of unconscionability decisions?, and (4) How do these findings inform us on the doctrine of unconscionability both as to its reflection in the law (expressed doctrine) and in application (law in fact)

Doppler echocardiography assessment of impaired left ventricular filling in patients with right ventricular pressure overload due to primary pulmonary hypertension

In patients with primary pulmonary hypertension, competition between the right and left ventricles for the limited pericardial space results in distortion of left ventricular geometry reflected in displacement of the ventricular septum toward the left ventricular cavity. Left ventricular shape is most dramatically deranged at end-systole and early diastole, suggesting the possibility that the distribution of left ventricular diastolic filling might be altered. To investigate this hypothesis, nine patients with primary pulmonary hypertension and nine normal individuals were studied with echocardiographic techniques. Left ventricular isovolumic relaxation time was significantly prolonged in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension by comparison with normal individuals (129 ± 36 versus 53 ± 9 ms, p < 0.005) and the fraction of the transmitral flow velocity integral occurring in the first half of diastole was significantly less than in normal individuals (38 ± 14% versus 70 ± 9%, p < 0.005). Measurement of fractional changes in short-axis left ventricular cavity area similarly demonstrated that in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension fractional early diastolic cavity expansion (32 ± 11%) was significantly less than in normal individuals (78 ± 9%, p < 0.005).In patients with primary pulmonary hypertension, the ventricular septum was abnormally flattened toward the left ventricular cavity at end-systole (normalized septal curvature 0.04 ± 0.19) and remained that way throughout early diastolic filling but returned toward normal at end-diastole (normalized septal curvature 0.68 ± 0.19, p < 0.005). Thus, in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension end-systolic and early diastolic deformation of the left ventricle by septal flattening toward the left ventricular cavity is associated with relative underfilling of the left ventricle in early diastole and redistribution of left ventricular filling into late diastole. The reliance on late diastolic filling and atrial systole to maintain left ventricular preload in primary pulmonary hypertension may have important implications for the use of vasodilators in this disease

Using Mulches in Utah Landscapes and Gardens

This publication discusses the use of mulches in Utah landscapes including benefits and application information