Same Difference: Inter-State Legal Citation and the Supreme Court‘s Use of Foreign Law

We must never forget that it is a Constitution for the United States of America that we are expounding.“ With these words, Justice Antonin Scalia registered his disapproval for an increasingly prominent practice: the Supreme Court‘s citation of non-American law. He is not alone; over the past decade, the Court‘s use of foreign and international materials has proven deeply controversial, attracting both ardent support and scathing criticism. Yet, although the Court‘s glimpses abroad have proven polarizing, America has seen a similar practice flourish without controversy for centuries. Since the Founding, America‘s state court systems—each with its own judicial system and constitutional law—have cited each other when interpreting their state constitutions. That two seemingly comparable techniques have drawn such dramatically different reactions logically suggests the question: if one practice is so widely accepted, what justifies rejecting the other? Addressing this question, in this analysis I argue that there is, in fact, justification for treating these practices differently, but that such justification is limited to concerns drawn from the practical difficulties each method presents

Sherman\u27s Missing Supplement : Prosecutorial Capacity, Agency Incentives, and the False Dawn of Antitrust Federalism

When the Sherman Act passed in 1890, it was widely expected that it would operate primarily as a supplement to vigorous state-level antitrust enforcement of state antitrust statutes. This did not happen. Instead, confounding the predictions of Congress, the academy, and the trusts themselves, state antitrust enforcement overwhelmingly failed to take root in the years between 1890 and the First World War. To date, many scholars have noted this legal-historical anomaly. None, however, have rigorously or correctly explained what caused it. This Article does. Using historical and empirical research, this Article establishes that the best explanation for the early failure of state antitrust enforcement was prosecutorial incapacity: state attorneys general and local prosecutors simply lacked the incentives and resources to prosecute antitrust cases. Along the way, the Article also offers a rigorous rejection of each main alternative explanation proposed for the early failure of state antitrust enforcement, including those based on doctrinal constraints, state-statutory texts, and contemporary politics. Finally, the Article closes by suggesting implications this historical insight might have for the cutting-edge issues facing today’s state antitrust enforcers, from local efforts to control healthcare costs to multistate actions against Silicon Valley behemoths like Apple and Amazon

Sherman\u27s Missing Supplement : Prosecutorial Capacity, Agency Incentives, and the False Dawn of Antitrust Federalism

When the Sherman Act passed in 1890, it was widely expected that it would operate primarily as a supplement to vigorous state-level antitrust enforcement of state antitrust statutes. This did not happen. Instead, confounding the predictions of Congress, the academy, and the trusts themselves, state antitrust enforcement overwhelmingly failed to take root in the years between 1890 and the First World War. To date, many scholars have noted this legal-historical anomaly. None, however, have rigorously or correctly explained what caused it. This Article does. Using historical and empirical research, this Article establishes that the best explanation for the early failure of state antitrust enforcement was prosecutorial incapacity: state attorneys general and local prosecutors simply lacked the incentives and resources to prosecute antitrust cases. Along the way, the Article also offers a rigorous rejection of each main alternative explanation proposed for the early failure of state antitrust enforcement, including those based on doctrinal constraints, state-statutory texts, and contemporary politics. Finally, the Article closes by suggesting implications this historical insight might have for the cutting-edge issues facing today’s state antitrust enforcers, from local efforts to control healthcare costs to multistate actions against Silicon Valley behemoths like Apple and Amazon

Dopamine-induced dissociation of BOLD and neural activity in macaque visual cortex

Neuromodulators determine how neural circuits process information during cognitive states such as wakefulness, attention, learning, and memory [1]. fMRI can provide insight into their function and dynamics, but their exact effect on BOLD responses remains unclear [2, 3 and 4], limiting our ability to interpret the effects of changes in behavioral state using fMRI. Here, we investigated the effects of dopamine (DA) injections on neural responses and haemodynamic signals in macaque primary visual cortex (V1) using fMRI (7T) and intracortical electrophysiology. Aside from DA’s involvement in diseases such as Parkinson’s and schizophrenia, it also plays a role in visual perception [5, 6, 7 and 8]. We mimicked DAergic neuromodulation by systemic injection of L-DOPA and Carbidopa (LDC) or by local application of DA in V1 and found that systemic application of LDC increased the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and amplitude of the visually evoked neural responses in V1. However, visually induced BOLD responses decreased, whereas cerebral blood flow (CBF) responses increased. This dissociation of BOLD and CBF suggests that dopamine increases energy metabolism by a disproportionate amount relative to the CBF response, causing the reduced BOLD response. Local application of DA in V1 had no effect on neural activity, suggesting that the dopaminergic effects are mediated by long-range interactions. The combination of BOLD-based and CBF-based fMRI can provide a signature of dopaminergic neuromodulation, indicating that the application of multimodal methods can improve our ability to distinguish sensory processing from neuromodulatory effects

Like Uber, but for Local Government Law: The Future of Local Regulation of the Sharing Economy

In the past five years, sharing economy firms like Uber, Zipcar, Airbnb and TaskRabbit have generated both huge market valuations and fierce regulatory contests in America\u27s cities. Incumbent firms in the taxi, hotel, and other industries, as well as consumer protection, labor, and neighborhood activists, have pushed for regulations stifling or banning new sharing economy entrants. Sharing firms have fought back, using their popularity with consumers and novel political strategies, lobbying for freedom to operate as broadly as possible without government interference. But to date, both participants and observers of these sharing wars have relied on an unstated assumption: if the sharing firms win these fights, their future will be largely free from government regulation. Local governments will either shut sharing down, or they will leave it alon

Like Uber, but for Local Government Law: The Future of Local Regulation of the Sharing Economy

In the past five years, sharing economy firms like Uber, Zipcar, Airbnb and TaskRabbit have generated both huge market valuations and fierce regulatory contests in America\u27s cities. Incumbent firms in the taxi, hotel, and other industries, as well as consumer protection, labor, and neighborhood activists, have pushed for regulations stifling or banning new sharing economy entrants. Sharing firms have fought back, using their popularity with consumers and novel political strategies, lobbying for freedom to operate as broadly as possible without government interference. But to date, both participants and observers of these sharing wars have relied on an unstated assumption: if the sharing firms win these fights, their future will be largely free from government regulation. Local governments will either shut sharing down, or they will leave it alon

DLCSS: Dynamic Longest Common Subsequences

Autonomous driving is a key technology towards a brighter, more sustainable future. To enable such a future, it is necessary to utilize autonomous vehicles in shared mobility models. However, to evaluate, whether two or more route requests have the potential for a shared ride, is a compute-intensive task, if done by rerouting. In this work, we propose the Dynamic Longest Common Subsequences algorithm for fast and cost-efficient comparison of two routes for their compatibility, dynamically only incorporating parts of the routes which are suited for a shared trip. Based on this, one can also estimate, how many autonomous vehicles might be necessary to fulfill the local mobility demands. This can help providers to estimate the necessary fleet sizes, policymakers to better understand mobility patterns and cities to scale necessary infrastructure