Shadow writing and participant observation : a study of criminal justice social work around sentencing

The study of decision-making by public officials in administrative settings has been a mainstay of law and society scholarship for decades. The methodological challenges posed by this research agenda are well understood: how can socio-legal researchers get inside the heads of legal decision-makers in order to understand the uses of official discretion? This article describes an ethnographic technique the authors developed to help them penetrate the decision-making practices of criminal justice social workers in writing pre-sentence reports for the courts. This technique, called `shadow writing', involved a particular form of participant observation whereby the researcher mimicked the process of report writing in parallel with the social workers. By comparing these `shadow reports' with the real reports in a training-like setting, the social workers revealed in detail the subtleties of their communicative strategies embedded in particular reports and their sensibilities about report writing more generally

Editor\u27s Preface to the Symposium

It is intended that this symposium be beneficial not only to practicing attorneys dealing with specific problem areas of workmen\u27s compensation, but also to workmen\u27s compensation administrators and progressive state legislators in their efforts to improve the protection afforded both to labor and to industry

How Much Detention Constitutes False Imprisonment

Any intentional unlawful confinement of an individual, without his consent, for any length of time, no matter how short in duration, constitutes false imprisonment. This statement, however, leaves unanswered the question of what constitutes a lawful confinement

Corporation Executive Committees

Soon after it had been determined by the courts that management functions could be delegated by corporation boards of directors, it became a frequent practice in business and nonprofit corporations to delegate these functions to a small, active group of directors, known as the executive committee. Boards of directors cannot be expected to be in session continually, and certainly the affairs of a corporation require constant supervision by some directing body. This paper is particularly concerned with consideration of the extent to which the managerial function of the board of directors can be properly delegated to an executive committee

Corporation Executive Committees

Soon after it had been determined by the courts that management functions could be delegated by corporation boards of directors, it became a frequent practice in business and nonprofit corporations to delegate these functions to a small, active group of directors, known as the executive committee. Boards of directors cannot be expected to be in session continually, and certainly the affairs of a corporation require constant supervision by some directing body. This paper is particularly concerned with consideration of the extent to which the managerial function of the board of directors can be properly delegated to an executive committee

Retransmission of water resources data using the ERTS-1 data collection system

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Phasor analysis of atom diffraction from a rotated material grating

The strength of an atom-surface interaction is determined by studying atom diffraction from a rotated material grating. A phasor diagram is developed to interpret why diffraction orders are never completely suppressed when a complex transmission function due to the van der Waals interaction is present. We also show that atom-surface interactions can produce asymmetric diffraction patterns. Our conceptual discussion is supported by experimental observations with a sodium atom beam.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Co-orbital Oligarchy

We present a systematic examination of the changes in semi-major axis caused by the mutual interactions of a group of massive bodies orbiting a central star in the presence of eccentricity dissipation. For parameters relevant to the oligarchic stage of planet formation, dynamical friction keeps the typical eccentricities small and prevents orbit crossing. Interactions at impact parameters greater than several Hill radii cause the protoplanets to repel each other; if the impact parameter is instead much less than the Hill radius, the protoplanets shift slightly in semi-major axis but remain otherwise unperturbed. If the orbits of two or more protoplanets are separated by less than a Hill radius, they are each pushed towards an equilibrium spacing between their neighbors and can exist as a stable co-orbital system. In the shear-dominated oligarchic phase of planet formation we show that the feeding zones contain several oligarchs instead of only one. Growth of the protoplanets in the oligarchic phase drives the disk to an equilibrium configuration that depends on the mass ratio of protoplanets to planetesimals, $\Sigma/\sigma$. Early in the oligarchic phase, when $\Sigma/\sigma$ is low, the spacing between rows of co-orbital oligarchs are about 5 Hill radii wide, rather than the 10 Hill radii cited in the literature. It is likely that at the end of oligarchy the average number of co-orbital oligarchs is greater than unity. In the outer solar system this raises the disk mass required to form the ice giants. In the inner solar system this lowers the mass of the final oligarchs and requires more giant impacts than previously estimated. This result provides additional evidence that Mars is not an untouched leftover from the oligarchic phase, but must be composed of several oligarchs assembled through giant impacts.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. v2 includes major revisions including additional results motivated by the referee's comment

Language Development and Impairment in Children With Mild to Moderate Sensorineural Hearing Loss.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to examine language development and factors related to language impairments in children with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL). METHOD: Ninety children, aged 8-16 years (46 children with MMHL; 44 aged-matched controls), were administered a battery of standardized language assessments, including measures of phonological processing, receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar, word and nonword reading, and parental report of communication skills. Group differences were examined after controlling for nonverbal ability. RESULTS: Children with MMHL performed as well as controls on receptive vocabulary and word and nonword reading. They also performed within normal limits, albeit significantly worse than controls, on expressive vocabulary, and on receptive and expressive grammar, and worse than both controls and standardized norms on phonological processing and parental report of communication skills. However, there was considerable variation in performance, with 26% showing evidence of clinically significant oral or written language impairments. Poor performance was not linked to severity of hearing loss nor age of diagnosis. Rather, outcomes were related to nonverbal ability, maternal education, and presence/absence of family history of language problems. CONCLUSIONS: Clinically significant language impairments are not an inevitable consequence of MMHL. Risk factors appear to include lower maternal education and family history of language problems, whereas nonverbal ability may constitute a protective factor