The WTO: A Train Wreck in Progress?

This article argues that the WTO entrenches an asymmetrical, non-reciprocal trading system that benefits multi-national corporations especially, at the expense of industrial workers, farmers, and a wide range of business enterprises. It argues that the WTO doesn\u27t deserve to survive in its present, unbalanced, and unsustainable form, and that it is doubtful that its voting regime, accumulated asymmetries, and overall rigidity can be overhauled. The author posits that bilateral and regional trade bargaining will become increasingly important and that world market forces are likely to bypass, and perhaps overwhelm, the WTO

Learning from design creativity: translating processes from practice to education

Paper submitted as part of the 2nd International Conference on Design Creativity, Glasgow 2012. This paper is made available with permission of the Design Society, who own the copyright.This paper develops reflections on design creativity as a cross-curriculum tool in mainstream formal education at primary/elementary level. Evidence comes from a contemporary UK case study of a series of workshops whereby architectural design professionals introduced design creativity into mainstream primary teaching and learning situations, developed through the UK Creative Partnerships‘ programme. This programme, which until recently was funded through central government, introduced principles of collaborative creativity through targeted programmes of change and enquiry involving pupils, teachers and creative practitioners. Following the processes of designing and delivering a programme to embed creative exploration through design tasks which focus on the learning environment, the authors, both architectural practitioners and educators, undertake further reflection back to the architectural profession and the societal role of collaborative creative design. We propose a hybrid practice in which architects might swap skills with teachers, pupils, teaching assistants and school management. This process reveals new creative concepts to pupils and staff, and unearths latent abilities within pupils as they work collaboratively to develop and provide design services for the built fabric or spatial use of school spaces

Effects of carbon fibers on consumer products

The potential effects of carbon fibers on consumer products such as dishwashers, microwave ovens, and smoke detectors were investigated. The investigation was divided into two categories to determine the potential faults and hazards that could occur if fibers should enter the electrical circuits of the selected appliances. The categories were a fault analysis and a hazard analysis. Hazards considered were fire, flood, physical harm, explosion, and electrical shock. Electrical shock was found to be a possible occurrence related to carbon fibers. Faults were considered to be any effect on the performance of an appliance which would result in complaint or require service action

FY2017 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Statistical Survey: University of Rhode Island Data

The main document posted here is a report generated from the online subscription service ACRLMetrics. The report contains FY2017 data as submitted by the University of Rhode Island Libraries for the 2017 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Annual Survey. Several files are included as supplemental content, including the data in spreadsheet format, the filled-out survey form as submitted, the blank data worksheet, the survey instructions and definitions, and the trends questionnaire

Doctrines of Waste in a Landscape of Waste

While I do not deny that classic waste cases - conflicts between life tenants and future interest holders over alleged instances of voluntary waste - are less common today than they used to be (but perhaps not as uncommon as some might think), my goals in this article are to reawaken readers to the importance of waste doctrine, to suggest that the great days of waste may not be completely in the past, to recommend some new uses for waste cases as teaching tools, and generally to urge a renewed appreciation for waste - an appreciation that Dale Whitman, for one, never lost. Although I do not deny the urge to review all of the great moments in the development of waste doctrine, in this article I will focus only on what a few leading interpreters (legal academics and other law professionals) say about waste when they talk to each other and comment on two recent clusters of cases where waste doctrines and other closely related rules are currently at play. My primary but not exclusive focus is on voluntary or commissive waste cases because they tend to reveal the most difficult problems and the sharpest conflicts. In the end I hope to show not only that doctrines of waste still matter, but also that they matter especially in what I call lanscapes of waste, that is, in settings in which some kind of dramatic, and relatively sudden physical, environmental or economic transformation has taken place. In other words, I claim that waste doctrine becomes particularly important in moments of radical change when patterns of land use and development are under intense pressure because the physical, environmental, social and economic circumstances affecting the underlying property relationship are changing dramatically. Put simply, we tend to think of waste doctrine as a relatively stable background principle in property law that lends certainty to property relationships and is susceptible to and generative of efficient private ordering. Yet I suggest that in moments of rapid and profound change courts and legislators not only confront difficult questions about waste, but are often tempted to abandon bright line versions of waste doctrine and muddy it in spasms of doctrinal transformation