The Power of Posner: A Study of Prestige and Influence in the Federal Judiciary

Some judges have a disproportionate influence over the American judiciary; existing research has shown Judge Richard Posner is one of those judges. Our goal was to identify and determine how Judge Posner’s influence has changed over time. To measure and track his influence, we collected and compared citation and invocation data from three distinct time frames. While these measurements are imperfect, they can help illustrate the level of influence and prestige Judge Posner enjoys. The existing literature led us to expect Judge Posner’s early citation rates to be low. After several years on the bench, the citation rates for each opinion should rise dramatically. By contrast, Judge Posner’s citation rates are exceptionally high from the outset while more recent opinions actually have lower citation rates

Theorizing "Lay Theories of Media": A Case Study of the Dissent! Network at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit

Drawing on "active audience studies" and recent theories of mediation, the concept of "lay theories of media" is proposed as a means to understand how social movement actors think about and interact with news media as part of the "practice" of activism. The argument is made via a case study of the Dissent! network using data gathered from participant observation in the planning and enactment of protests at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit in Scotland and 30 semi-structured interviews with activists. This article argues that Dissent! activists approached Gleneagles with existing knowledge and experience about news media and demonstrates how these "lay theories" informed their activism. The conclusion stresses the util

Activist Reflexivity and Mediated Violence: Putting the Policing of Nuit Debout in Context

To better understand the historical trajectory of the policing of Nuit Debout, in this article we argue that the reflexive relationship between police and protest tactics is heavily mediated by the presence of the press and by the emergence of digital technologies. Our analysis focuses on three sets of reflexive activist practice: (a) challenging media representations—the adaptations and innovations that respond to dominant media framing of police–protester relations; (b) “sousveillance” and police monitoring—the recording and monitoring of police violence and the public education around the police’s use of force; (c) civic forensics and data aggregation—the gathering, analyzing, and collectivizing of citizen-generated data. Although not intended as a taxonomy, these groups of practices are offered as conceptual lenses for critically examining how activists’ tactical repertoires for protesting police adapt and evolve, building on each other to challenge the representational, legal, and material dimensions of state power as it manifests in police–protester relations

Scaling state of dry two-dimensional froths: universal angle deviations and structure

We characterize the late-time scaling state of dry, coarsening, two-dimensional froths using a detailed, force-based vertex model. We find that the slow evolution of bubbles leads to systematic deviations from 120degree angles at three-fold vertices in the froth, with an amplitude proportional to the vertex speed, v ~ sqrt(t), but with a side-number dependence that is independent of time. We also find that a significant number of T1 side-switching processes occur for macroscopic bubbles in the scaling state, though most bubble annihilations involve four-sided bubbles at microscopic scales.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Solving the Coulomb scattering problem using the complex scaling method

Based on the work of Nuttall and Cohen [Phys. Rev. {\bf 188} (1969) 1542] and Resigno et al{} [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 55} (1997) 4253] we present a rigorous formalism for solving the scattering problem for long-range interactions without using exact asymptotic boundary conditions. The long-range interaction may contain both Coulomb and short-range potentials. The exterior complex scaling method, applied to a specially constructed inhomogeneous Schr\"odinger equation, transforms the scattering problem into a boundary problem with zero boundary conditions. The local and integral representations for the scattering amplitudes have been derived. The formalism is illustrated with numerical examples.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Straitjackets and flak jackets: the BBC, 'boundary work' and the failed 2009 DEC Appeal for Gaza

This article, which is part of larger research project, considers the justification discourse of BBC Executives following the public outrage over the BBC’s decision not to air the 2009 DEC Appeal for Gaza. The BBC’s justification is characterised by a recurrent conceptualisation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as embedded in an ‘ongoing news story’. The article analyses media interviews with BBC Executives together with relevant BBC documentation is applied to consider three affordances used to justify the controversial decision. We argue that the discourse of ‘ongoing news story’ allows the BBC to situate itself as a key agent in the Middle East conflict which necessitates invoking journalistic impartiality to all BBC output; facilitates boundary work between journalism and humanitarianism and thus allowing discourses of impartiality to unfold strictly in journalistic terms. This leads, we argue to the construction of ‘journalistic inviolability’ whereby the pursuit of principled journalism is presented as a greater humanitarian achievement than airing the DEC appeal

Gauge field theories with covariant star-product

A noncommutative gauge theory is developed using a covariant star-product between differential forms defined on a symplectic manifold, considered as the space-time. It is proven that the field strength two-form is gauge covariant and satisfies a deformed Bianchi identity. The noncommutative Yang-Mills action is defined using a gauge covariant metric on the space-time and its gauge invariance is proven up to the second order in the noncommutativity parameter.Comment: Dedicated to Ioan Gottlieb on the occasion of his 80th birthday anniversary. 12 page