Cross-Border Securitization: Without Law, But Not Lawless

The Article discusses two puzzles posed by cross-border securitization. First, why do the innovators in this area give away their creations through publications and other means rather than attempt to extract licensing fees by registering copyrights, patents, and trade names? The Article shows that innovators benefit from giving away their innovations through fees of the first clients or future clients to a greater extent than through licensing fees. Second, how can securitization markets develop under fragmented and unpredictable laws? The Article argues that cross-border securitization is flourishing under a law merchant, which is later incorporated into domestic laws. In fact, innovations and standardization of law are developing in tandem and the same professionals that innovate are those that work on standardization of the law. The Article concludes that cross-border securitization serves as a case study of legal change from the bottom up, rather than from the top down

Impact of the 2015 U.S. Dollar Rise on Export Prices and on the Agricultural Industry

U.S. export prices experienced a major decline in 2015, as evidenced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) export price index. Prices for U.S. exports, published in dollar terms, decreased 6.6 percent in 2015, the largest calendar-year decline since the index was first published in 1983. However, the large decline in the U.S. dollar export price index did not tell the entire story. When measured in foreign currency terms, export prices were actually higher because of the strong dollar. The value of the dollar strengthened against the euro, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and Canadian dollar. Continued slow global economic and trade growth dampened demand for U.S. exports and influenced U.S. export price trends. The meeting of the strong dollar and lackluster demand for U.S. exports was particularly challenging for the U.S. agricultural industry. This Beyond the Numbers article analyzes what impact the strengthening dollar had on certain agricultural commodities

No Radial Excitations in Low Energy QCD. I. Diquarks and Classification of Mesons

We propose a new schematic model for mesons in which the building blocks are quarks and flavor-antisymmetric diquarks. The outcome is a new classification of the entire meson spectrum into quark-antiquark and diquark-antidiquark states which does not give rise to a radial quantum number: all mesons which have so far been believed to be radially excited are orbitally excited diquark-antidiquark states; similarly, there are no radially excited baryons. Further, mesons that were previously viewed as "exotic" are no longer exotic as they are now naturally integrated into the classification as diquark-antidiquark states. The classification also leads to the introduction of isorons (iso-hadrons), which are analogs of atomic isotopes, and their magic quantum numbers, which are analogs of the magic numbers of the nuclear shell model. The magic quantum numbers of isorons match the quantum numbers expected for low-lying glueballs in lattice QCD. We observe that interquark forces in mesons behave substantially differently from those in baryons: qualitatively, they are color-magnetic in mesons but color-electrostatic in baryons. We comment on potential models and the hydrogen atom. The implications of our results for confinement, asymptotic freedom, and a new set of relations between two fundamental properties of hadrons - their size and their energy - are discussed in our companion paper [arXiv:0910.2231].Comment: 40 pages, references added, minor revisions, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

US Economic Competitiveness At Risk: A Midwest Call to Action on Immigration Reform

For too long the Midwest has waited for Washington to produce meaningful reform of the nation's immigration laws. Bills have come and gone through the years, but often end in political gridlock. The Midwestern economy needs high-skilled, educated workers with long-term visas to create the companies and innovations that will power it in the future. Midwestern businesses need low-skilled immigrants with visas to sustain their industries. Midwestern schools insist that their students get the legal status that will lead to higher education and jobs. Midwestern farms seek a legal way to hire the seasonal help they need. Throughout the Midwest, cities and towns cope imaginatively with the social and economic challenges of immigration. Yet there is only so much the region can do until the federal government acts.That time has come. As economic recovery proceeds and political alignments shift, our region's leaders are thinking strategically about long-term economic competitiveness and the role played by immigrants at all levels. Midwest leaders want to ensure sustainable growth, jobs, population stability, and quality of life. Immigrants are an essential ingredient for this future. America's heartland can wait no longer.A diverse and bipartisan group of civic and business leaders, aware of the urgency of immigration reform and frustrated with delays, began convening in December 2011 to produce this report. Their priority was to state what the region needs from immigration reform to ensure its economic competitiveness. If 53 Republican and Democratic leaders -- drawn from companies, law enforcement, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, foundations, advocacy groups, and communities of faith -- from the 12-state Midwest can support these recommendations, then surely our representatives in Washington can act on them

Teaching Quality Improvement in a Pediatric Residency Program

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires residents to demonstrate competence in practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI) and systems-based practice (SBP), two competencies dependent on the principles and practice of quality improvement (QI). In addition, pediatric residents at VCUHS are required to complete a QI project during their residency. We judged the pediatric residents to be sub-par in achieving these competencies as demonstrated by the quality of projects submitted during the last academic year, and set out to improve the QI education they receive by designing a longitudinal curriculum integrating both didactic (using lectures and on-line modules provided through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement) and experiential learning (by having residents develop their own QI projects). In the Fall of 2017, we added a structured PBLI experience to this curriculum through the residents’ primary group clinical practice in order to provide a hands-on learning opportunity. Each resident practice group was tasked with design, implementation, and analysis of a QI project based on the groups’ practice data. We reasoned that the learning acquired through participation in a structured QI experience, through the group practice, will enhance their understanding of QI principles and therefore improve their completion of personal projects. Implementation and data gathering is currently on-going

On modality in Georgian sign language (GESL)

Modality is one of the most fascinating and complex areas of language studies. This paper illustrates the types of modal constructions in Georgian Sign language (GESL), including negative forms. GESL shows modality semantics with a combination of manual and facial signs. Modals in GESL can occur in the pre-verbal, clause-final, or clause-initial positions, as in many other sign languages (SLs). GESL modal constructions show the specific tense-related negation strategy. Modal constructions in this language often use combinations of modal signs with an equal value