The Ambitious Modesty of Harry Arthurs\u27 Humane Professionalism

This article revisits Law and Learning, the 1983 Report of the Consultative Committee on Research and Education in Law, chaired by Harry Arthurs. The Arthurs Report set an ambitious agenda which sought, through the reform of legal education and scholarship, the cultivation of a humane professionalism. That it met with limited success reflects a number of systemic problems with legal education, and the Report\u27s own failure to address some critical issues, notably legal pedagogy. Nevertheless, the article argues that in the context of today\u27s increasingly complex, pluralistic, and globalized environment, the law schools need humane professionalism more than ever. It thus concludes with a set of normative assumptions and ecological design principles by which law schools could develop a pedagogy more consistent with that vision

Law, Ethics, and Complexity: Complexity Theory & (and) the Normative Reconstruction of Law

My intention in this paper is a modest one, and a preliminary to more detailed analysis of the relevance of complexity theory to law. Accordingly, this paper presents an argument in three phases: it looks first at the nature of complexity and the philosophical grounds which, I suggest, inform a social theory of complexity; second, it ascribes characteristics which can be seen as constitutive of complexity, and applies those to the field of law, before looking (third) at how an acknowledgment of complexity can assist us in the process of normative reconstruction

The Ambitious Modesty of Harry Arthurs\u27 Humane Professionalism

This article revisits Law and Learning, the 1983 Report of the Consultative Committee on Research and Education in Law, chaired by Harry Arthurs. The Arthurs Report set an ambitious agenda which sought, through the reform of legal education and scholarship, the cultivation of a humane professionalism. That it met with limited success reflects a number of systemic problems with legal education, and the Report\u27s own failure to address some critical issues, notably legal pedagogy. Nevertheless, the article argues that in the context of today\u27s increasingly complex, pluralistic, and globalized environment, the law schools need humane professionalism more than ever. It thus concludes with a set of normative assumptions and ecological design principles by which law schools could develop a pedagogy more consistent with that vision

Law, Ethics, and Complexity: Complexity Theory & (and) the Normative Reconstruction of Law

My intention in this paper is a modest one, and a preliminary to more detailed analysis of the relevance of complexity theory to law. Accordingly, this paper presents an argument in three phases: it looks first at the nature of complexity and the philosophical grounds which, I suggest, inform a social theory of complexity; second, it ascribes characteristics which can be seen as constitutive of complexity, and applies those to the field of law, before looking (third) at how an acknowledgment of complexity can assist us in the process of normative reconstruction

Are professional footballers becoming lighter and more ectomorphic? Implications for talent identification and development

The identification and development of talent is an essential component of modern professional football. The recognition of key physical characteristics of such footballers who successfully progress through talent development programs is of considerable interest to academics and those working in professional football. Using Football Yearbooks, we obtained the height, body mass and ages of all players from the English top-division over the seasons 1973–4, 1983–4, 1993–4, 2003–4 and 2013–4, calculating body-mass index (BMI) (kg/m2) and reciprocal ponderal index (RPI) (cm/kg0.333). The mean squad size increased over these decades from n = 22.4 (1973–4) to n = 27.8 (2013–4). Height also increased linearly by approximately 1.2 cm per decade. Body mass increased in the first four decades, but declined in the final season (2013–4). Regression analysis confirmed inverted “u” shape trends in both body mass and BMI, but a “J” shape trend in RPI, indicating that English top-division professional footballers are getting more angular and ectomorphic. We speculate that this recent decline in BMI and rise in RPI is due to improved quality of pitches and increased work-load required by modern-day players. Defenders were also found to be significantly taller, heavier, older and, assuming BMI is positively associated with lean mass, more muscular than other midfielders or attackers. The only characteristic that consistently differentiated successful with less successful players/teams was age (being younger). Therefore, English professional clubs might be advised to attract young, less muscular, more angular/ectomorphic players as part of their talent identification and development programs to improve their chances of success

A Study of Obscuration in Catadioptric Lenses

In this paper we will examine the effect of obscuration upon the various features we desired to image with a 157nm microstepper utilising a catadioptric lens. We will show the effect the obscuration has upon imaging when using not only conventional illumination and binary masks, but also when using a range of enhancement techniques such as off-axis illumination and phase-shifting masks. We will show how use of a large obscuration, whilst enhancing the signals for the densest features, actually degrades the signal for more isolated features. The level of obscuration must also take into account cross duty-ratio effects, i.e. the distribution of diffraction energy, for phase shifted features of various sizes. In this situation where a small sigma would be used a large level of obscuration can significantly increase biases. The choice of obscuration can have a major effect upon the imaging capabilities of a tool. In future, when the use of catadioptric lenses may be more widespread (for example this may happen at 157nm) it may be desirable to have the option to vary this obscuration dependant upon the pattern being imaged

Spatial variation in the fine-structure constant -- new results from VLT/UVES

(abridged) We present a new analysis of a large sample of quasar absorption-line spectra obtained using UVES (the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph) on the VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile. In the VLT sample (154 absorbers), we find evidence that alpha increases with increasing cosmological distance from Earth. However, as previously shown, the Keck sample (141 absorbers) provided evidence for a smaller alpha in the distant absorption clouds. Upon combining the samples an apparent variation of alpha across the sky emerges which is well represented by an angular dipole model pointing in the direction RA=(17.3 +/- 1.0) hr, dec. = (-61 +/- 10) deg, with amplitude (0.97 +0.22/-0.20) x 10^(-5). The dipole model is required at the 4.1 sigma statistical significance level over a simple monopole model where alpha is the same across the sky (but possibly different to the current laboratory value). The data sets reveal a number of remarkable consistencies: various data cuts are consistent and there is consistency in the overlap region of the Keck and VLT samples. Assuming a dipole-only (i.e. no-monopole) model whose amplitude grows proportionally with `lookback-time distance' (r=ct, where t is the lookback time), the amplitude is (1.1 +/- 0.2) x 10^(-6) GLyr^(-1) and the model is significant at the 4.2 sigma confidence level over the null model [Delta alpha]/alpha = 0). We apply robustness checks and demonstrate that the dipole effect does not originate from a small subset of the absorbers or spectra. We present an analysis of systematic effects, and are unable to identify any single systematic effect which can emulate the observed variation in alpha.Comment: 47 pages, 35 figures. Accepted for publication by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Please see http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~mmurphy/pub.html for an ASCII version of table A1 and the full set of Voigt profile fits for appendix