Stolen Profits: Civil Shoplifting Demands and the Misuse of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25–21,194

I. Introduction II. Background ... A. Civil Shoplifting Statutes Generally ... 1. General Authority and Amount Recoverable ... 2. Civil Demand Letters ... 3. Collection of Damages and Penalties Under Civil Shoplifting Statutes ... B. An Overview of Nebraska’s Civil Shoplifting Statute ... 1. The Origins of Nebraska’s Civil Shoplifting Statute ... 2. The Statute as Amended ... 3. Limits on Pre-Litigation Demands Under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25–21,194 ... a. General Loss-Prevention Costs ... b. Anticipated Litigation Expenses III. Advising the Client ... A. Pay the Demand ... B. Ignore the Demand ... 1. Defending a Claim ... 2. Liability for Attorney’s Fees ... 3. Impact on Credit Rating ... C. Affirmative Legal Challenges ... 1. Federal Challenges ... a. Fair Debt Collections Practices Act … b. Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act ... 2. Nebraska Consumer Protection Act ... a. Standing to Sue Under the NCPA ... b. Unfair or Deceptive Business Practice ... c. Trade or Commerce ... d. Affecting Public Interest ... 3. Declaratory Judgment IV. A Call to Action ... A. Legislative Repeal ... B. Legislative Amendment ... C. Education and Enforcement V. Conclusio

Stolen Profits: Civil Shoplifting Demands and the Misuse of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25–21,194

I. Introduction II. Background ... A. Civil Shoplifting Statutes Generally ... 1. General Authority and Amount Recoverable ... 2. Civil Demand Letters ... 3. Collection of Damages and Penalties Under Civil Shoplifting Statutes ... B. An Overview of Nebraska’s Civil Shoplifting Statute ... 1. The Origins of Nebraska’s Civil Shoplifting Statute ... 2. The Statute as Amended ... 3. Limits on Pre-Litigation Demands Under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25–21,194 ... a. General Loss-Prevention Costs ... b. Anticipated Litigation Expenses III. Advising the Client ... A. Pay the Demand ... B. Ignore the Demand ... 1. Defending a Claim ... 2. Liability for Attorney’s Fees ... 3. Impact on Credit Rating ... C. Affirmative Legal Challenges ... 1. Federal Challenges ... a. Fair Debt Collections Practices Act … b. Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act ... 2. Nebraska Consumer Protection Act ... a. Standing to Sue Under the NCPA ... b. Unfair or Deceptive Business Practice ... c. Trade or Commerce ... d. Affecting Public Interest ... 3. Declaratory Judgment IV. A Call to Action ... A. Legislative Repeal ... B. Legislative Amendment ... C. Education and Enforcement V. Conclusio

Obstáculos comunes para el retorno: los rohinyá y los sursudaneses

Las barreras comunes al retorno en los casos de los refugiados rohinyá y de los desplazados internos sursudaneses suscitan serias dudas acerca de cuál sería la forma de garantizar su carácter voluntario y seguridad

What's Good for the Goose is Bad for the Gander: Negative Political Advertising, Partisanship, and Turnout

types: ArticleThis study examines citizens’ perceptions of fairness and legitimacy in political advertising. Using focus groups, an original national survey, and data on election 2000, as well as drawing on results from a replication of the national survey in 2004, we characterize political ads from the citizen's perspective. We then turn to the impact of “negative” advertising on voter turnout. Like several studies, we find circumstances under which turnout can be increased by negative ad criticisms. However, we show that this general result is only part of the story. Drawing on research in political psychology, we suggest that voters are “motivated processors” of advertising claims; as such, they evaluate the fairness of an ad according to their partisan predispositions. We show that when partisans perceive the criticisms of their own party's candidate to be fair, they are less likely to say they will vote. As a result, we find that negative advertising not only may affect the total turnout in an election but also has an important and varying impact on the composition of the electorate

An Integrated Approach to Preempt Cheating on Asynchronous, Objective, Online Assessments in Graduate Business Classes

Cheating, left untended, erodes the validity of evaluation and, ultimately, corrupts the legitimacy of a course. We profile an approach to manage, with an eye toward preempting, cheating on asynchronous, objective, online quizzes. This approach taps various technological and social solutions to academic dishonesty, integrating them into a technology-centered, socially-sensitive pedagogy. The resulting design engages a battery of technology tools, within a social context moderated by the testing effect, to minimize the practicality, productivity, and hence, students’ propensity to cheat. Operationally, we used the Canvas LMS to generate a differentiated series of objective quizzes from question banks holding several hundred potential items. We assess cross-sectional data from 178 MBA students spanning eight online-only classes. The results support the effectiveness of an integrated blend of technology tools and social methods to encourage students’ consciousness of the resulting uselessness of cheating. We review the implications of the results to test anxiety, student engagement, learning effectiveness, and workflow efficiency

Lattice Anharmonicity in Defect-Free Pd Nanowhiskers

We have investigated anharmonic behavior of Pd by applying systematic nanoscale tensile testing to near defect-free nanowhiskers offering a large range of elastic strain. We measured size-dependent deviations from bulk elastic behavior in nanowhiskers with diameters as small as ∼30  nm. In addition to size-dependent variations in Young’s modulus in the small strain limit, we measured nonlinear elasticity at strains above ∼1%. Both phenomena are attributed to higher-order elasticity in the bulklike core upon being biased from its equilibrium configuration due to the role of surface stresses in small volumes. Quantification of the size-dependent second- and third-order elastic moduli allows for calculation of intrinsic material nonlinearity parameters, e.g., δ. Comparison of the size-independent values of δ in our nanowhiskers with studies on bulk fcc metals lends further insight into the role of length scales on both elastic and plastic mechanical behavior

Teaching Presence in Asynchronous Online Classes: It’s Not Just a Façade

The expanding scale and scope of online education options, both in terms of design and delivery, creates significant questions that increasingly warrant research attention. This empirical study investigates students’ perceptions and evaluative judgments of a number of methods of setting and sustaining Instructor Presence in an online asynchronous course. Based on factor analysis of our data, we propose refining the idea of Instructor Presence in terms of stylistic versus substantive methods. Tests of student survey data indicate that, while students see value in both types of Instructor Presence, they perceive significantly greater benefit from substantive relative to stylistic methods.