299 research outputs found
Extreme TeV Blazars and Lower Limits on Intergalactic Magnetic Fields
The intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) in cosmic voids can be indirectly
probed through its effect on electromagnetic cascades initiated by a source of
TeV gamma rays, such as blazars, a subclass of active galactic nuclei. Blazars
that are sufficiently luminous at TeV energies, "extreme TeV blazars", can
produce detectable levels of secondary radiation from inverse Compton
scattering of the electrons in the cascade, provided that the IGMF is not too
large. We reveiw recent work in the literature which utilizes this idea to
derive constraints on the IGMF for three TeV-detected blazars-1ES 0229+200, 1ES
1218+304, and RGB J0710+591, and we also investigate four other hard-spectrum
TeV blazars in the same framework. Through a recently developed detailed 3D
particle tracking Monte Carlo simulation code, incorporating all major effects
of QED and cosmological expansion, we research effects of major uncertainties
such as the spectral properties of the source, uncertainty in the intensity of
the UV - far IR extragalactic background light (EBL), under-sampled Very High
Energy (VHE; energy > 100 GeV) coverage, past history of gamma-ray emission,
source vs. observer geometry, and jet AGN Doppler factor. The implications of
these effects on the recently reported lower limits of the IGMF are thoroughly
examined to conclude that presently available data are compatible with a zero
IGMF hypothesis.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102
Corporate Governance Regulation through Nonprosecution
Over the last decade, federal corporate criminal enforcement policy has undergone a significant transformation. Firms that commit crimes are no longer simply required to pay fines. Instead, prosecutors and firms enter into pretrial diversion agreements (PDAs). Prosecutors regularly use PDAs to impose mandates on firms, creating new duties that alter firms’ internal operations or governance structures. DOJ policy favors the use of such mandates for any firm with a deficient compliance program at the time of the crime. This Article evaluates PDA mandates to determine when and how prosecutors should use them to deter corporate crime. We find that the current DOJ policy on mandates is misguided and that mandates should be imposed more selectively. Specifically, mandates are appropriate only if a firm is plagued by policing agency costs—in that the firm’s managers did not act to deter or report wrongdoing because they benefited personally from tolerating wrongdoing or from deficient corporate policing. Moreover, only mandates that are properly designed to reduce policing agency costs are appropriate. The policing agency cost justification for mandates that we develop calls into question both the extent to which mandates are used and the type of mandates that are imposed by prosecutors
“I Have a [Fair Use] Dream”: Historic Copyrighted Works and the Recognition of Meaningful Rights for the Public
Dr. Martin Luther King wrote and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech more than fifty years ago. When he obtained copyright protection on the speech in 1963, Dr. King (and later his estate) would have expected the copyright to last a maximum of fifty-six years. That fifty-six-year copyright has become a ninety-five-year copyright, thanks to lengthy duration extensions enacted by Congress in the mid-1970s and late 1990s. As a result, the copyright on the “I Have a Dream” speech will not expire until the end of 2058. Because the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. and its affili- ates have closely guarded the speech in a copyright enforcement and li- censing sense, the public seldom sees more than snippets of one of the most highly regarded speeches in history. Greater public exposure to the full speech would serve important purposes of the sort recognized by Congress in the fair use section of the Copyright Act. However, those interested in borrowing from or otherwise using the speech have tended to drop their plans or have obtained a costly license from the King Estate or one of the affiliated entities—even when the users may had have a plausible right under the fair use doctrine to borrow from or use the speech without ob- taining a license. With the copyright on the speech not expiring until the end of 2058, there is a danger that the snippets-only nature of the pub- lic’s exposure to the speech will remain the status quo for more than another four decades. Infringement cases that have not been settled by the parties have yielded judicial rulings on whether the “I Have a Dream” speech was properly copyrighted, but no case has been litigated extensively enough to permit a court to address the defendant’s fair use defense. This Article proposes a fair use analysis appropriate for use by courts in the event that a user of the “I Have a Dream” speech departs from the usual tendency to obtain a license in order to avoid litigation and, instead, rests its fate on the fair use doctrine. The proposed analysis gives a suitably expansive scope to the fair use doctrine for cases dealing with uses of the speech or similarly historic works, given the important public purposes that could be served by many such uses. The Article also develops a test for use in determining whether a work is sufficiently historic, for purposes of the fair use analysis proposed here
Corporate Compliance and the Antitrust Agencies’ Bi-Modal Penalties
Calkins discusses individual compared with entity penalties as tools for encouraging corporate law compliance and comments on the relationship between monetary payments as compensation and deterrence
Limits of Behavioral Decision Theory in Legal Analysis: The Case of Liquidated Damages
Discontent with the apparent tunnel vision of economic analysis of law\u27s rational choice theory, legal scholars recently have turned with enthusiasm to behavioral decision theory (BDT) to enrich their understanding of how people make decisions and of the law\u27s effect on human behavior. This article, for the first time, evaluates BDT\u27s potential contribution to legal analysis by focusing on a single, important legal paradox: Despite contract law\u27s freedom of contract paradigm, courts actively and enthusiastically police agreed damages provisions. Although the article finds an important place in legal analysis for this new discipline, the article raises and discusses several obstacles to BDT\u27s effectiveness
VERITAS Observations of High-Frequency-Peaked BL Lac Objects
Here we present highlights from VERITAS observations of high-frequency-peaked
BL Lac objects (HBLs). We discuss the key science motivations for observing
these sources -- including performing multiwavelength campaigns critical to
understanding the emission mechanisms at work in HBLs, constraining the
intensity and spectra shape of the extragalactic background light, and placing
limits on the strength of the intergalactic magnetic field.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102
The Law of Corporate Investigations and the Global Expansion of Corporate Criminal Enforcement
The United States model of corporate crime control, developed over the last two decades, couples a broad rule of corporate criminal liability with a practice of reducing sanctions, and often withholding conviction, for firms that assist enforcement authorities by detecting, reporting, and helping prove criminal violations. This model, while subject to skepticism and critiques, has attracted interest among reformers in overseas nations that have sought to increase the frequency and size of their enforcement actions. In both the U.S. and abroad, insufficient attention has been paid to how laws controlling the conduct of corporate investigations are critical to regimes of corporate criminal liability and public enforcement. Doctrines governing self-incrimination, employee rights, data privacy, and legal privilege, among other areas, largely determine the relative powers of governments and corporations to collect and use evidence of business crime, and thus the incentives of enforcers to offer settlements that reward firms for private efforts to both prevent and disclose employee misconduct. This Article demonstrates the central role that the law controlling corporate investigations plays in determining the effects of corporate criminal liability and enforcement policies. It argues that discussions underway in Europe and elsewhere about expanding both corporate criminal liability and settlement policies—as well as conversations about changes to the U.S. system—must account for the effects of differences in investigative law if effective incentives for reducing corporate crime are, as they should be, a principal goal
Whistleblowers and Rogues: An Urgent Call for an Affirmative Defense to Corporate Criminal Liability
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