The design and evaluation of a sonically enhanced tool palette

This paper describes an experiment to investigate the effectiveness of adding sound to tool palettes. Palettes have usability problems because users need to see the information they present, but they are often outside the area of visual focus. We used nonspeech sounds called earcons to indicate the current tool and when tool changes occurred so that users could tell what tool they were in wherever they were looking. Results showed a significant reduction in the number of tasks performed with the wrong tool. Therefore, users knew what the current tool was and did not try to perform tasks with the wrong one. All of this was not at the expense of making the tool palettes any more annoying to use

Choosing to adjust : UK and Swedish expatriates in Sweden and the UK

School of Managemen

Sonically enhanced interface toolkit

This paper describes an on-going research project investigating the design of a user-interface toolkit composed of sonically enhanced widgets. The motivation for this work is the same that motivated the creation of graphical interface toolkits, which was to simplify their construction, allowing designers who are not experts to create such interfaces; to ensure the sonically enhanced widgets are effective and improve usability; and to ensure the widgets use sound in a clear and consistent way across the interface

Rule-Based Dispute Resolution in International Trade Law

Why does the United States ever prefer to settle disputes under a system of rules rather than a system of negotiations? Powerful states are advantaged by negotiation-based approaches to settling disagreements because they have the resources to resolve individual disputes on favorable terms. By contrast, rule-based dispute resolution advantages weak states as a means to hold powerful states to the terms of their agreements. Then why did the United States want a rule-based system to settle international disputes in the WTO? To answer this question, we have to understand domestic politics as well as international politics. International constraints, particularly international courts, can influence bargaining at the national level by reallocating bargaining power among members of the government. This work addresses both the puzzle of the United States\u27 preference for rule-based dispute resolution and the broader implications for international law

Sound in the interface to a mobile computer

No abstract available

Enforcing the FCPA: International Resonance and Domestic Strategy

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), which bans corporations from offering bribes to foreign government officials, was enacted during the Watergate era’s crackdown on political corruption but remained only weakly enforced for its first two decades. American industry argued that the law created an uneven playing field in global commerce, which made robust enforcement politically unpopular. This Article documents how the executive branch strategically under- enforced the FCPA, while Congress and the President pushed for an international agreement that would bind other countries to rules similar to those of the United States. The Article establishes that U.S. officials ramped up enforcement only after the United States successfully concluded the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) Anti-Bribery Convention in 1997, twenty years after the enactment of the FCPA. Afterward, U.S. officials, desiring to maintain industry support for the FCPA, prosecuted both foreign and domestic corporations, thereby minimizing the statute’s competitive costs for American companies. This Article argues that the OECD Convention was critical to the dramatic expansion of FCPA enforcement because it allowed American prosecutors to adopt an “international-competition neutral” enforcement strategy, investigating domestic corporations and their foreign rivals alike. The existence of the treaty was decisive because it established anti-bribery as a binding legal principle and legitimized U.S. prosecutions of foreign corporations. Today, seven of the ten highest FCPA penalties have been against foreign corporations. This Article advocates, on a theoretical level, for a reevaluation of the multidirectional relationship between international and domestic law in transnational issue areas, such as foreign bribery. National laws are most often viewed as self-contained legal rules that develop or decline based on domestic officials’ policy decisions. The evolution of the FCPA, however, demonstrates that some statutes may require “international resonance” to be meaningfully enforced: a domestic statute can create pressure for national leaders to conclude an international agreement, and then that agreement provides the means for the national law to develop into a robust national policy. As this Article establishes, the OECD Convention owed its existence to the FCPA and, in turn, the FCPA owes much of its development and strength to the OECD Convention. A greater appreciation for international resonance’s feedback mechanisms is essential to understanding national enforcement of a wide range of transnational commercial, financial, and environmental statutes

India's security partnership with Singapore

In recent years, India and Singapore have developed a strong bilateral security and economic partnership that has assumed a central position in India's strategic engagement in Southeast Asia. Having sought strategic engagement with India for many decades, Singapore has now successfully positioned itself as India's leading political partner and economic gateway to the region. At the same time, India and Singapore have actively pursued close defence ties, including frequent joint training and the assumption of an active maritime security role by India in Southeast Asia. The recent decision by India to allow the Singapore air force and army to operate long term training facilities on Indian territory represents a significant development in Indian strategic practice and may presage a more permanent Indian security presence in East Asia. This article will examine these developments and consider to what extent the emergent security relationship between India and Singapore should be seen as a desire to balance China's growing economic and political dominance of the region and to what extent it reflects a ‘natural’ strategic sphere for India stretching from Aden to Singapore and beyond into East Asia

The Domestic and International Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention

International corruption law is a growing, if understudied, area of international economic law. This Article examines two aspects of governments\u27 enforcement of the OECD\u27s Anti-Bribery Convention. The first aspect is the member state\u27s efforts to enforce its own national legislation prohibiting foreign corruption within its territory and with regards to its nationals doing business abroad. The OECD Treaty\u27s obligation concerning member states\u27 enforcement of their own national legislation is somewhat ambiguous. While the obligation to pass particular national legislation is quite clear and specific, the treaty does not specify what resources that a state must dedicate to internally enforcing these laws. As a result, states may have robust anti-corruption laws on the books but fail to enforce them in a meaningful way. This is more than an abstract concern. As of 2013, less than half of the states party to the OECD Treaty had successfully prosecuted a private actor for foreign corruption. This Article also discusses a second aspect of enforcement: how these internal enforcement ambiguities hamper state-to-state efforts to enforce the agreement. States cannot easily identify whether other states are breaching the treaty\u27s obligations when the internal enforcement obligations are opaque. This complicates international efforts to pressure other states to increase their compliance through retaliation or reciprocity. This Article concludes by discussing enforcement alternatives, namely the continued rigorous American enforcement of anti-corruption policies against private actors, even for activities having minimal territorial ties

Culture : the international dimension.

School of Managemen

Stepping Stone or Stumbling Block: Incrementalism and National Climate Change Legislation

This Article examines the effects of incremental domestic legislation on international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change is a global public good, which, ultimately, only an international agreement can provide. The common presumption (justified or not) is that national legislation is a step forward to an international agreement. This Article analyzes how national legislation can create a demand for international action but can also preempt or frustrate international efforts. The crucial issue, which has been largely ignored thus far, is how incremental steps at the domestic level alter international negotiations. This paper identifies four mechanisms that support the intuitive idea that national legislation will have positive effects: (1) allocating economic resources, (2) providing leadership in international negotiations, (3) creating a demand for a uniform standard, and (4) cultivating public opinion. This Article demonstrates that, on closer examination, each of these mechanisms could hinder international efforts to create a comprehensive agreement. This is by no means an argument against all efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions at the national level. Instead, this Article calls for a more careful analysis the dynamic political impact of domestic proposals