A Mind of Metal and Wheels : Agrarian Ruralism in Joss Whedon\u27s \u3cem\u3eFirefly\u3c/em\u3e and J.R.R Tolkien\u27s \u3cem\u3eThe Lord of The Rings\u3c/em\u3e

Both Joss Whedon\u27s Firefly and J.R.R Tolkien\u27s The Lord of The Rings present settings that are just as much influenced by the environments in which they occur as they are by the characters who act within those environments. For J.R.R. Tolkien, it was his lived experience of having grown up in a changing England that influenced his depiction of the world, while Joss Whedon\u27s Firefly revisits and readapts the American mythos of the Western and the cowboy and re-appropriates it to science fiction, placing the action in the far future and in space where humanity is once again exploring and settling new frontiers. In these stories, modernity and the advancement of technology and industry serve as a foil to the protagonists who live in bucolic agrarian rural zones. For Whedon, the threat manifests as the Alliance, a seemingly Orwellian government that rules from central worlds filled with vast cityscapes and seeks to impose its will upon the more agrarian outer worlds, who want to be free. With Tolkien, it is the ever industrializing Isengard and Mordor which serve as an existential threat to the peoples of Middle-earth. In both works, the rural and agrarian lifestyle is associated with freedom, peace, and goodness. In contrast, the modern and industrial is associated with tyranny, oppression, and the world\u27s despoilment. Through examining the two texts with an ecocritical lens, one can see how cultural biases are reflected, constructed, and reconstructed through the vehicle of popular culture across the 20th and 21st centuries

Corporate Gatekeeper in Ethical Perspective, The

The fallout from the financial crisis continues to inform the development of corporate and securities law, and the new regulatory landscape for economic activity within the United States is beginning to take form. This evolutionary process, however, has been anything but stable or certain. As might be expected, in concert with such momentous change in law and policy, recriminations for and associated investigations of past activity continue to affect competent regulators as well as market participants. Nevertheless, while many of the underlying causes of the financial crisis are now better understood by both policy makers and scholars, the question remains – given where we were, where do we go from here? While a definitive answer to such a question remains elusive, an additional perspective on the ethical issues of relevance to corporate and securities law may be helpful in considering the possible alternatives. In particular, the ethical rules of corporate gatekeepers in conflicts of interest scenarios are worthy of further consideration and discussion. This article presents the argument that cases involving conflicts of interest in the corporate and securities law space may be viewed as primarily calling into question the ethical rules of the corporate gatekeeper. In support of such an argument, this article sets forth a framework for conflicts of interest scenarios that takes into account four categories of legal rules – activity rules, disclosure rules, liability rules and ethical rules. In adopting such a framework, this article will elaborate on an ethical perspective will be elaborated to address the ongoing development of corporate and securities law. Further, this article proposes further analysis in relation to disclosure rules on conflicts of interest policies for Compensation Committees as mandated by Section 952 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This article is the second in a series that explores the intersection of corporate law and legal ethics. Specifically, the present discussion concerns the foundations in doctrine and theory that may apply to issues of conflicts of interest within the ambit of corporate and securities law. Accordingly, the subject matter for discussion includes both rules of the professions – or first order ethical rules – and rules as may be prescribed by the competent authority – that is, second-order ethical rules

Returning to First Principles of Privilege Law: Focusing on the Facts in Internal Corporate Investigations

This is the published version

A modular, programmable measurement system for physiological and spaceflight applications

The NASA-Ames Sensors 2000! Program has developed a small, compact, modular, programmable, sensor signal conditioning and measurement system, initially targeted for Life Sciences Spaceflight Programs. The system consists of a twelve-slot, multi-layer, distributed function backplane, a digital microcontroller/memory subsystem, conditioned and isolated power supplies, and six application-specific, physiological signal conditioners. Each signal condition is capable of being programmed for gains, offsets, calibration and operate modes, and, in some cases, selectable outputs and functional modes. Presently, the system has the capability for measuring ECG, EMG, EEG, Temperature, Respiration, Pressure, Force, and Acceleration parameters, in physiological ranges. The measurement system makes heavy use of surface-mount packaging technology, resulting in plug in modules sized 125x55 mm. The complete 12-slot system is contained within a volume of 220x150x70mm. The system's capabilities extend well beyond the specific objectives of NASA programs. Indeed, the potential commercial uses of the technology are virtually limitless. In addition to applications in medical and biomedical sensing, the system might also be used in process control situations, in clinical or research environments, in general instrumentation systems, factory processing, or any other applications where high quality measurements are required

Doing Deals in Japan: An Analysis of Recent Trends & Developments for the U.S. Practitioner

This article examines the process which is currently being played out in Japan by: (i) analyzing the recent changes in Japanese law of relevance to M&A deals, (ii) discussing some recent contested deals in Japan that may shed some light on current market practices, and (iii) providing an overview of the key issues that a U.S. practitioner will likely face when working on a Japanese deal…A good starting point in better understanding the remarkable changes in the Japanese M&A markets is to review the recent amendments to Japanese law, certain policy initiatives by the functional regulators, and other guidelines issued by Japanese government agencies… In concert with the changes in Japanese law, we have seen an increase in the number of contested deals in Japan in recent years…[T]he challenge for the U.S. practitioner is to boil down the complexity of Japanese M&A to a list of key issues that should be reviewed in any transaction which involves Japanese entities…[W]e have set forth some of the main issues under Japanese law and U.S. securities laws that have often come into play in Japanese deals…The current Japanese M&A market presents opportunities for U.S. companies and their advisors that are arguably the most promising in recent history…[G]iven the challenges posed by the opportunities in the Japanese M&A market, the importance of well informed and considered decision-making will be essential in order to ensure that U.S. companies compete and succeed in doing Japanese deals

Entanglement Sharing and Decoherence in the Spin-Bath

The monogamous nature of entanglement has been illustrated by the derivation of entanglement sharing inequalities - bounds on the amount of entanglement that can be shared amongst the various parts of a multipartite system. Motivated by recent studies of decoherence, we demonstrate an interesting manifestation of this phenomena that arises in system-environment models where there exists interactions between the modes or subsystems of the environment. We investigate this phenomena in the spin-bath environment, constructing an entanglement sharing inequality bounding the entanglement between a central spin and the environment in terms of the pairwise entanglement between individual bath spins. The relation of this result to decoherence will be illustrated using simplified system-bath models of decoherence.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure v2: 6 pages 2 figures, additional example and reference

Behavioral Use Licensing for Responsible AI

Scientific research and development relies on the sharing of ideas and artifacts. With the growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) for many different applications, the sharing of code, data, and models is important to ensure the ability to replicate methods and the democratization of scientific knowledge. Many high-profile journals and conferences expect code to be submitted and released with papers. Furthermore, developers often want to release code and models to encourage development of technology that leverages their frameworks and services. However, AI algorithms are becoming increasingly powerful and generalized. Ultimately, the context in which an algorithm is applied can be far removed from that which the developers had intended. A number of organizations have expressed concerns about inappropriate or irresponsible use of AI and have proposed AI ethical guidelines and responsible AI initiatives. While such guidelines are useful and help shape policy, they are not easily enforceable. Governments have taken note of the risks associated with certain types of AI applications and have passed legislation. While these are enforceable, they require prolonged scientific and political deliberation. In this paper we advocate the use of licensing to enable legally enforceable behavioral use conditions on software and data. We argue that licenses serve as a useful tool for enforcement in situations where it is difficult or time-consuming to legislate AI usage. Furthermore, by using such licenses, AI developers provide a signal to the AI community, as well as governmental bodies, that they are taking responsibility for their technologies and are encouraging responsible use by downstream users

Relativistic Diskoseismology. I. Analytical Results for 'Gravity Modes'

We generalize previous calculations to a fully relativistic treatment of adiabatic oscillations which are trapped in the inner regions of accretion disks by non-Newtonian gravitational effects of a black hole. We employ the Kerr geometry within the scalar potential formalism of Ipser and Lindblom, neglecting the gravitational field of the disk. This approach treats perturbations of arbitrary stationary, axisymmetric, perfect fluid models. It is applied here to thin accretion disks. Approximate analytic eigenfunctions and eigenfrequencies are obtained for the most robust and observable class of modes, which corresponds roughly to the gravity (internal) oscillations of stars. The dependence of the oscillation frequencies on the mass and angular momentum of the black hole is exhibited. These trapped modes do not exist in Newtonian gravity, and thus provide a signature and probe of the strong-field structure of black holes. Our predictions are relevant to observations which could detect modulation of the X-ray luminosity from stellar mass black holes in our galaxy and the UV and optical luminosity from supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures, uses style file aaspp4.sty, prepared with the AAS LATEX macros v4.0, significant revision of earlier submission to include modes with axial index m>