Litigation Holds: Past, Present, and Future Directions

Electronically Stored Information (ESI) first became a serious litigation issue in the late 1990s, and the first attempts to determine best practices did not occur until the early 2000s. As best practices developed, the litigation hold to prevent routine destruction of documents and to preserve documents relevant to litigation came into existence. The duty to preserve ESI is triggered when litigation is reasonably anticipated. All information that relates to potential litigation must be preserved from the time it becomes reasonably apparent that litigation is possible until the expiration of the statute of limitations. If steps are not taken to properly collect, preserve, and produce such information for the discovery phase of litigation, the fear is that justice may be perverted. In addition electronically stored information destroyed negligently or intentionally may well be lost forever and result in the litigant being sanctioned. For the first seven years of the new e-discovery rules, litigants who failed to preserve data received severe sanctions for spoliation of evidence. Recent cases and proposed new rules have reversed the decade-long trend of stringent standards requiring litigation holds leaving the state of the law in flux in spite of the fact that accepted best practices do recommend high standards for litigation holds. This paper reviews this conflict in the law and offers recommendations for future directions

Qualcomm v. Broadcom: Implications for Electronic Discovery

Electronic discovery has been the source of difficult challenges for courts, lawyers, and litigants from the beginning. The methods, document formats, and scope of electronic discovery have all contributed to the difficulties encountered. The seminal case in the United States that underscores the nature of the difficulties and challenges facing lawyers and courts in electronic discovery is Qualcomm v. Broadcom. While the case has been cited as an example of the ethical issues facing lawyers who do not follow the rules of discovery, the lessons go well beyond ethical issues. All major common law countries, including Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, and the United States have recently updated their rules of civil procedure regarding the electronic discovery process in order to facilitate the electronic discovery process. The authors offer five key lessons to be drawn from this case including the importance of efficiently managing electronic discovery, the importance of the meet-and-confer discovery conference, the importance of retaining an electronic discovery expert, the importance of being proactive in the discovery process, and recognizing the limitations of relying entirely on key word searches

Entanglement trapping in a non-stationary structured reservoir

We study a single two-level atom interacting with a reservoir of modes defined by a reservoir structure function with a frequency gap. Using the pseudomodes technique, we derive the main features of a trapping state formed in the weak coupling regime. Utilising different entanglement measures we show that strong correlations and entanglement between the atom and the modes are in existence when this state is formed. Furthermore, an unexpected feature for the reservoir is revealed. In the long time limit and for weak coupling the reservoir spectrum is not constant in time.Comment: 10 pages, 16 figure

Zubulake: The Catalyst for Change in eDiscovery

Common law countries have been struggling with electronic data in regard to their discovery rules from the first digital document. All major common law countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and the United States have recently changed their rules of discovery in an attempt to make sense of all this data and determine what, when and how data should be disclosed by parties in litigation. Case law in these countries has been defining the responsibilities of potential parties and attorneys to prepare for litigation that might happen. The case that was the catalyst of change was the 2003 United States case Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, LLC. Prior to this case judges and attorneys were trying to determine how to deal with electronic data that was becoming more voluminous. In this case, the court made a series of five pretrial orders concerning disputes over electronic discovery issues. These orders included defining accessible and inaccessible data, analyzing cost-shifting, and litigants’ duties to preserve electronic documents and consequences for failure to have an appropriate retention and deletion policy. This paper reviews the key aspects of the Zubulake case and examines the impact of the case on corporate record retention policies. This case was an important harbinger regarding how the discovery rules needed to be changed or redefined to accommodate the electronic data world

Conceptualizing the Academic Event: Blending Theory, Practice and Public Relations

This paper describes the conceptualization, design and execution of a unique academic event that serves several audiences. The business theory planning, aspects of public relations, and meetings as a communication medium is used describe the event. Also addressed is the evolution and design of this academic event that provides the structure for industry to industry; industry to student; student to industry; university to industry; industry to university; student to potential employer and employer to university interaction

Cognitive Fusion Mediates the Relationship between Dispositional Mindfulness and Negative Affects: A Study in a Sample of Spanish Children and Adolescent School Students

Nowadays, mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have experienced a remarkable development of studies among childhood and adolescent interventions. For this reason, dispositional mindfulness (DM) measures for children and adolescents have been developed to determine the e ectiveness of MBI at this age stage. However, little is known about how key elements of DM (for example, cognitive de/fusion or experiential avoidance that both confirm psychological inflexibility) are involved in the mechanisms of the children and adolescents’ mental health outcomes. This research examined the mediating e ect of cognitive fusion between DM and anxiety and other negative emotional states in a sample of 318 Spanish primary-school students (aged between 8 and 16 years, M = 11.24, SD = 2.19, 50.8% males). Participants completed the AFQ-Y (Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for youth), which is a measure of psychological inflexibility that encompasses cognitive defusion and experiential avoidance; CAMM (DM for children and adolescents), PANAS-N (positive and negative a ect measure for children, Spanish version of PANASC), and STAIC (an anxiety measure for children). The study accomplished ethical standards. As MBI relevant literature has suggested, cognitive defusion was a significant mediator betweenDMand symptoms of both negative emotions and anxiety in children and adolescents. However, experiential avoidance did not show any significant mediating relationship. Probably, an improvement of the assessment of experiential avoidance is needed. MBI programs for children and adolescents may include more activities for reducing e ects of the cognitive defusion on their emotional distress

The Effects of Reactive Oxygen Species on Internodal Myelin Structure, and Role of Plasmalogen Phospholipids as Endogenous Antioxidants

Thesis advisor: Daniel A. KirschnerReactive oxygen species (ROS) are implicated in a range of degenerative conditions, including aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Myelin is a lipid-rich multilamellar assembly that facilitates rapid nerve conduction in higher animals, and may be intrinsically vulnerable to oxidative damage given the high energetic demands and low antioxidant capacity of myelinating cells. To determine whether ROS can cause structural damage to internodal myelin, whole mouse sciatic and optic nerves were incubated ex vivo with a previously-characterized copper (Cu)/hydrogen peroxide (HP)/o-phenanthroline (OP)-based hydroxyl radical-generating system followed by quantitative determination of myelin packing by x-ray diffraction. Exposure to Cu/OP/HP-mediated ROS caused irreversible myelin decompaction in both sciatic and optic nerves. The addition of the hydroxyl radical scavenger, sodium formate, to the ROS-producing incubation solution significantly prevented sciatic nerve myelin decompaction, implicating hydroxyl radical species in causing the damage. Furthermore, Cu/OP/HP-mediated decompaction could be prevented by the addition of EDTA, which can compete with OP for Cu binding and sequester the metal within the bulk solution. These findings suggest that Cu/OP/HP-dependent myelin decompaction is caused by OP-mediated membrane-targeted hydroxyl radical production. Myelin membranes are particularly enriched in plasmalogen phospholipids, which have been linked to antioxidant activity; this enrichment may constitute an endogenous ROS-defense mechanism that protects ROS-vulnerable myelin tissue from damage. Intriguingly, it was found that sciatic nerve myelin from plasmalogen deficient (Pex7 KO) mice was significantly more susceptible to ROS-mediated decompaction than that from WT mice, supporting the role of plasmalogens as endogenous antioxidants.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2009.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Biology

Evaluation of a smartphone app for forest sample plot measurements

We evaluated a smartphone app (TRESTIMA(TM)) for forest sample plot measurements. The app interprets imagery collected from the sample plots using the camera in the smartphone and then estimates forest inventory attributes, including species-specific basal areas (G) as well as the diameter (D-gM) and height (H-gM) of basal area median trees. The estimates from the smartphone app were compared to forest inventory attributes derived from tree-wise measurements using calipers and a Vertex height measurement device. The data consist of 2169 measured trees from 25 sample plots (32 m x 32 m), dominated by Scots pine and Norway spruce from southern Finland. The root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) in the basal area varied from 19.7% to 29.3% and the biases from 11.4% to 18.4% depending on the number of images per sample plot and image shooting location. D-gM measurement bias varied from -1.4% to 3.1% and RMSE from 5.2% to 11.6% depending on the tree species. Respectively, H-gM bias varied from 5.0% to 8.3% and RMSE 10.0% to 13.6%. In general, four images captured toward the center of the plot provided more accurate results than four images captured away from the plot center. Increasing the number of captured images per plot to the analyses yielded only marginal improvement to the results.Peer reviewe

Local in time master equations with memory effects: Applicability and interpretation

Non-Markovian local in time master equations give a relatively simple way to describe the dynamics of open quantum systems with memory effects. Despite their simple form, there are still many misunderstandings related to the physical applicability and interpretation of these equations. Here we clarify these issues both in the case of quantum and classical master equations. We further introduce the concept of a classical non-Markov chain signified through negative jump rates in the chain configuration.Comment: Special issue on loss of coherence and memory effects in quantum dynamics, J. Phys. B., to appea