Tailoring Copyright to Protect Artists: Why the United States Needs More Elasticity In Its Protection for Fashion Designs

For as long as copyright protection has existed in the United States, protection has never expressly extended to fashion designs because copyright law categorizes fashion designs as “useful articles” that do not receive any protection. In the eighteenth century, this policy perhaps made sense—most clothing was generic, non-decorative, and required little creativity for many of the everyday garments people wore. Clothing in the eighteenth century was commonly made up of useful articles that served very little purpose outside of their utility. However, in today’s society, fashion has transformed into an industry that prizes creativity, ingenuity, innovation, and something more than just utility. Copyright laws have not developed alongside the fashion industry. As a result, almost no fashion designs can receive copyright protection, and other areas of intellectual property law provide little to no protection, especially for smaller, less-established designers. This lack of protection has very real and sometimes very detrimental effects on designers who have the misfortune of a third party stealing their work and reproducing it at low cost. The current hierarchy in the fashion industry favors the well-established designer with the ability to reproduce a stolen design en masse and sell to the world, while the small, independent designer enjoys no recognition and is generally unable to collect for what almost anyone would agree is a morally wrong act

Inexperienced Investors and Bubbles

We use mutual fund manager data from the technology bubble to examine the hypothesis that inexperienced investors play a role in the formation of asset price bubbles. Using age as a proxy for managers' investment experience, we find that around the peak of the technology bubble, mutual funds run by younger managers are more heavily invested in technology stocks, relative to their style benchmarks, than their older colleagues. Furthermore, young managers, but not old managers, exhibit trend-chasing behavior in their technology stock investments. As a result, young managers increase their technology holdings during the run-up, and decrease them during the downturn. Both results are in line with the behavior of inexperienced investors in experimental asset markets. The economic significance of young managers' actions is amplified by large inflows into their funds prior to the peak in technology stock prices.

Methodological Issues in Court Research: Pretrial Release Decisions for Federal Defendants

Combining elements of “response as outcome” studies and “response as process” studies overcomes deficiencies resulting from methodological bifurcation, improves our understanding of court outcomes, and leads to theoretical transformation. Using observational and in-depth interview data to inform hypotheses and to create contextual variables, we develop and test models of the pretrial release decision for federal defendants. These models suggest that the emphasis in outcome research on defendants\u27 ascribed status characteristics has been exaggerated. It is asserted that too little attention has been devoted to processual factors, including labeling, and to jurisdictional and organizational factors determining court outcomes

Methodological Issues in Court Research: Pretrial Release Decisions for Federal Defendants

Combining elements of “response as outcome” studies and “response as process” studies overcomes deficiencies resulting from methodological bifurcation, improves our understanding of court outcomes, and leads to theoretical transformation. Using observational and in-depth interview data to inform hypotheses and to create contextual variables, we develop and test models of the pretrial release decision for federal defendants. These models suggest that the emphasis in outcome research on defendants\u27 ascribed status characteristics has been exaggerated. It is asserted that too little attention has been devoted to processual factors, including labeling, and to jurisdictional and organizational factors determining court outcomes

Linux Cluster in Theory and Practice: A Novel Approach in Teaching Cluster Computing Based on the Intel Atom Platform

AbstractCurrent trends and studies on future architectures show, that the complexity of parallel computer systems is increasing steadily. Hence, the industry requires skilled employees, who have in addition to the theoretical fundamentals, practical experiences in the design and administration of such systems. However, investigations have shown, that practical approaches are still missing in current curricula, especially in these areas. For this reason, the chair of Computer Architecture at the faculty of Computer Science at the Technische Universiẗat Dresden, developed and introduced the course “Linux Cluster in Theory and Practice” (LCTP). The main objectives of this course are to provide background knowledge about the design and administration of large-scale parallel computer systems and the practical implementation on the available hardware. In addition, students learn how to solve problems in a structured approach and as part of a team. This paper analyzes the current variety of courses in the area of parallel computing systems, describes the structure and implementation of LCTP and provides first conclusions and an outlook on possible further developments

Criminal Law and Procedure

This Article surveys recent developments in criminal procedure and law in Virginia. Because of space limitations, the authors have limited their discussion to the most significant published appellate decisions and legislation

Base Neutralizing Capacity of Agricultural Soils in a Quaternary Landscape of North-East Germany and Its Relationship to Best Management Practices in Lime Requirement Determination

Despite being a natural soil-forming process, soil acidification is a major agronomic challenge under humid climate conditions, as soil acidity influences several yield-relevant soil properties. It can be counterbalanced by the regular application of agricultural lime to maintain or re-establish soil fertility and to optimize plant growth and yield. To avoid underdose as well as overdose, lime rates need to be calculated carefully. The lime rate should be determined by the optimum soil pH (target pH) and the response of the soil to lime, which is described by the base neutralizing capacity (BNC). Several methods exist to determine the lime requirement (LR) to raise the soil pH to its optimum. They range from extremely time-consuming equilibration methods, which mimic the natural processes in the soil, to quick tests, which rely on some approximations and are designed to provide farmers with timely and cost-efficient data. Due to the higher analytical efforts, only limited information is available on the real BNC of particular soils. In the present paper, we report the BNC of 420 topsoil samples from Central Europe (north-east Germany), developed on sediments from the last ice age 10,000 years ago under Holocene conditions. These soils are predominantly sandy and low in humus, but they exhibit a huge spatial variability in soil properties on a small scale. The BNC was determined by adding various concentrations of Ca(OH)2 and fitting an exponential model to derive a titration curve for each sample. The coefficients of the BNC titration curve were well correlated with soil properties affecting soil acidity and pH buffer capacity, i.e., pH, soil texture and soil organic matter (SOM). From the BNC model, the LRs (LRBNC) were derived and compared with LRVDLUFA based on the standard protocol in Germany as established by the Association of German Agricultural Analytic and Research Institutes (VDLUFA). The LRBNC and LRVDLUFA correlated well but the LRVDLUFA were generally by approximately one order of magnitude higher. This is partly due to the VDLUFA concept to recommend a maintenance or conservation liming, even though the pH value is in the optimum range, to keep it there until the next lime application during the following rotation. Furthermore, the VDLUFA method was primarily developed from field experiments where natural soil acidification and management practices depressed the effect of lime treatment. The BNC method, on the other hand, is solely based on laboratory analysis with standardized soil samples. This indicates the demand for further research to develop a sound scientific algorithm that complements LRBNC with realistic values of annual Ca2+ removal and acidification by natural processes and N fertilization

Brexit writings and the war of position over migration, 'race' and class

This timely series of interventions scrutinises the centrality of race and migration to the 2016 Brexit campaign, vote and its aftermath. It brings together five individual pieces, with an accompanying introduction, which interrogate different facets of how race, migration and Brexit interconnect: an examination of the so called 'left behinds' and the fundamental intersections between geography, race and class at the heart of Brexit motivations and contexts; an exploration of arguably parallel and similarly complex developments in the US with the rise of populism and support for Donald Trump; an analysis of the role of whiteness in the experiences of East European nationals in the UK in the face of increased anti-foreigner sentiment and uncertainty about future status; a discussion of intergenerational differences in outlooks on race and immigration and the sidelining of different people and places in Brexit debates; and a studied critique of prevailing tropes about Brexit which create divisive classed and raced categories and seek to oversimplify broader understandings of race, class and migration. Taken together these articles, all arguing for the need to eschew easy answers and superficial narratives, offer important and opportune insights into what Brexit tells us about race and migration in contemporary UK

Guidelines for precise lime management based on high-resolution soil pH, texture and SOM maps generated from proximal soil sensing data

Soil acidification is caused by natural paedogenetic processes and anthropogenic impacts but can be counteracted by regular lime application. Although sensors and applicators for variable-rate liming (VRL) exist, there are no established strategies for using these tools or helping to implement VRL in practice. Therefore, this study aimed to provide guidelines for site-specific liming based on proximal soil sensing. First, high-resolution soil maps of the liming-relevant indicators (pH, soil texture and soil organic matter content) were generated using on-the-go sensors. The soil acidity was predicted by two ion-selective antimony electrodes (RMSEpH: 0.37); the soil texture was predicted by a combination of apparent electrical resistivity measurements and natural soil-borne gamma emissions (RMSEclay: 0.046 kg kg−1); and the soil organic matter (SOM) status was predicted by a combination of red (660 nm) and near-infrared (NIR, 970 nm) optical reflection measurements (RMSESOM: 6.4 g kg−1). Second, to address the high within-field soil variability (pH varied by 2.9 units, clay content by 0.44 kg kg−1 and SOM by 5.5 g kg−1), a well-established empirical lime recommendation algorithm that represents the best management practices for liming in Germany was adapted, and the lime requirements (LRs) were determined. The generated workflow was applied to a 25.6 ha test field in north-eastern Germany, and the variable LR was compared to the conventional uniform LR. The comparison showed that under the uniform liming approach, 63% of the field would be over-fertilized by approximately 12 t of lime, 6% would receive approximately 6 t too little lime and 31% would still be adequately limed. © 2020, The Author(s)