Guilt and the origins of modern law

Tracing the history of legal concepts from the decline of European feudalism to the Reformation, this paper examines ways in which the concept of guilt shaped the first evolution of modern law, and it claims that the early revolutionary junctures in the construction of the law were centred around specific and distinctive conceptions of guilt. It argues that, through the history of medieval and early-modern European society, the law learned positively to abstract and account for itself through internally formative exchanges over the subject of guilt, and changes in law's observation of guilt reflected a growing refinement in law's societal sensibility, in its inclusivity, in its patterns of imputation and in its positive powers of self-legitimation. Guilt formed the term around which the law enacted the necessary stages of its social adaptation and produced constructs to underwrite the requirement for general, abstracted and positively inclusive law that constitutes modern society. The ultimate result of guilt's evolution as a legal figure became visible in the fact that the law progressively intensified its positivity and inclusivity, and it amplified the legal and normative resources that it permitted modern societies to store, utilize and reproduce

A Sociology of Transnational Constitutions

This book examines the social processes that lead to the evolution of legal norms with global constitutional standing in contemporary society. It makes an important contribution to the sociology of constitutional law, post-legal national legal processes and human rights law. This title is also available as Open Access

The Role of Service Managers in Redeveloping Oregon Digital

Oregon Digital is a cultural heritage digital library that emphasizes the history of Oregon and, in particular, the histories of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, the two entities that built the platform. Originally released in 2014, Oregon Digital is currently being upgraded to the latest version of the Samvera community's Hyrax release, a process that is also including a major refresh of look and functionality, and revisioning of how information professionals and technologists collaborate. In this presentation, the project’s two Service Managers - a digital scholarship librarian from the UO and an archivist from OSU - share their personal stories about assuming the role of Service Manager, and provide an overview of how the 2018 Oregon Digital development initiative has progressed. The presentation specifically focuses on how the Service Manager role has been shaped; where UO and OSU service management overlaps (and diverges); and how user stories and advocacy have played a major role in digital repository interactive experiences. The presenters will also cover blockers to progress and lessons learned along the way, while concluding with thoughts on the future of Oregon Digital community management and outreach within the context of special collections and university archives, and digital scholarship services and programming

A New and Improved Oregon Digital

An overview of the Oregon Digital 2 development process as prepared for the annual meeting of the Northwest Archivists, held online

Global Constitutionalism and Democracy: the Case of Colombia

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: registration 2020-07-08, online 2020-07-29, pub-electronic 2020-07-29, pub-print 2020-09Publication status: PublishedFunder: H2020 European Research Council; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010663; Grant(s): Advanced Grant 323656 – STCAbstract: Focusing on the case of Colombia, this article sets out a sociological examination of constitutions marked by strong, activist judiciaries, by entrenched systems of human rights protection, and by emphatic implementation of global human rights law. Contra standard critiques of this constitutional model, it argues that such constitutions need to be seen as creating a new pattern of democracy, which is often distinctively adapted to structures in societies in which the typical patterns of legitimation and subject formation required for democratic government were obstructed. In polities with such constitutions, legal institutions and norm setters have at times assumed the status of functional equivalents for more typical democratically mandated actors and institutions. In such polities, further, global law assumes essential importance as it creates new sources of normative authorization for legislation and stimulates new lines of articulation between government and society. The article concludes that analysis of such polities, exemplified by Colombia, shows that the common categories of democratic-constitutional analysis are no longer always adequate for understanding current tendencies in democratic formation, and they can easily undermine democracy itself

Is communications a strategic activity in UK Education?

This qualitative exploratory paper investigates whether communications/public relations is regarded by opinion formers in UK education as a strategic business activity or a tactical marketing tool. It is based upon depth interviews with 16 senior managers with strategic roles in UK higher or further education, or Government bodies, conducted between June and September 2004. The findings seem to suggest that communications/PR is ideally seen by leaders as a strategic function, but that there are limitations to this vision becoming a reality. The research goes on to offer initial conclusions on some of the issues surrounding perception, resource, and implementation of strategic communications/PR in UK education, with implications for practitioners considered

Evaluating the effectiveness of a low fidelity, easily available simulator to teach basic arthroscopy skills to novice learners: a prospective cohort study

Background: Arthroscopy proficiency is key to being a competent orthopaedic surgeon and acquiring arthroscopic skills takes years of exposure and diligent practice. However, today’s graduating consultants have had considerably less time in operating theatre than their senior colleagues at the same point of their careers. Objectives: To evaluate whether: (1) Students could improve their arthroscopic technique using a low fidelity arthroscopic training tool (2) students enjoyed the use of the simulator (3) If certain demographics correlate to performance on the simulator. Methods: Medical students who have no previous training in arthroscopy were included. A combined left- and right-handed timed run with a low-fidelity arthroscopic triangulation simulator was recorded before and after 40-minutes of practice. Results: 84 participants took part with an average improvement of was 66.8%. Students felt that their arthroscopic skills increased on average by 36.4%. 73 of the 84 participants gave the maximum score of 5 when asked if they enjoyed the session and 74 participants gave the maximum score of 5 as to whether they would be interested in participating in further sessions. Factors such as biological sex, video game play and sports were found to be statistically significant to performance. Conclusions: This study showed a statistically significant improvement in students’ arthroscopic performance with a low-fidelity arthroscopic simulator. Students found the experience useful with the vast majority indicating interest in completing further training sessions to help improve practical surgical skills. Video gamers, sports players and males were found to have a correlation with performance on the simulator

Local contributions to beta-diversity in urban pond networks: implications for biodiversity conservation and management

Aim: An understanding of how biotic communities are spatially organised is necessary to identify and prioritize habitats within landscape-scale biodiversity conservation. Local Contribution to Beta diversity (LCBD) identifies individual habitats that make a significant contribution to beta-diversity and may have important practical implications, particularly for conservation of habitat networks. In this study, we develop and apply a conservation prioritisation approach based on LCBD of aquatic invertebrate communities from 132 ponds.Location: Five urban settlements in England: Halton, Loughborough, Stockport, Birmingham, Huddersfield. Methods: We partition LCBD into richness difference (nestedness: RichDiffLCBD) and species replacement (turnover: ReplLCBD) and identify key environmental variables driving LCBD. We examine LCBD at two scales relevant to conservation planning: within urban settlements and nationally across England. Results: Significant differences in LCBD values were recorded among the five settlements. In four of the five urban settlements studied, pond sites with the greatest LCBD values typically showed high replacement values. Significant LCBD sites, and sites with high taxonomic diversity together supported more of the regional species pool (70%-97%) than sites with high taxonomic diversity alone (54% to 94%) or what could be protected by the random selection of sites. LCBD was significantly associated with vegetation shading, surface area, altitude and macrophyte cover. Main conclusions: Conservation prioritisation that incorporates LCBD and sites with high taxonomic diversity improves the effectiveness of conservation actions within pond habitat networks, ensures site supporting high biodiversity are protected, and provides a method to define a spatial network of protected sites. Identifying new, effective conservation approaches, particularly in urban areas where resources may be scarce and conflicts regarding land use exist, is essential to ensure biodiversity is fully supported and detrimental anthropogenic effects are reduced