6,663 research outputs found

    From Gladiators to Problem-Solvers: Connecting Conversations About Women, the Academy, and the Legal Profession

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    The UHF band between 470-790 MHz, currently occupied by digital ter- restrial TV (DTT) distribution in Europe, is widely regarded as a premium spectrum band for providing mobile coverage. With the exponential increase in wireless data traffic in recent years, there has been growing interests in gaining access to this spectrum band for wireless broadband services. The secondary access in TV White Space is considered as one cost-effective way to reuse the spectrum unoccupied by the primary DTT network. On the other hand, the declining influence of DTT and the converging trends of video con- sumption on TV and mobile platforms are new incentives for the regulator to reconsider the optimal utilization of the UHF broadcast band. The proposal to re-farm the UHF band for a converged content distribution network was born under theses circumstances. This thesis intends to develop a methodology for evaluating the technical performance of these options for utilizing UHF broadcast band and quantify- ing their gains in terms of achievable extra capacity and spectrum savings. For the secondary access in TV white space, our study indicates a considerable po- tential for low power secondary, which is mostly limited by the adjacent chan- nel interference generated from the densely deployed secondary devices due to the cumulative effect of multichannel interference. On the other hand, this potential does not translate directly into capacity for a WiFi-like secondary system based on CSMA/CA protocol, as the network congestion and self- interference within the secondary system has a greater impact on the network throughput than the primary interference constraint. Our study on the cellular content distribution network reveals more po- tential benefits for re-farming the UHF broadcast band and reallocating it for a converged platform. This platform is based on cellular infrastructure and can provide TV service with the same level of quality requirement as DTT by delivering the video content via either broadcast or unicast as the situa- tion dictates. We have developed a resource manage framework to minimize its spectrum requirement for providing TV service and identified a significant amount of spectrum that can be reused by the converged platform to provide extra mobile broadband capacity in urban and sparsely populated rural areas. Overall, we have arrived at the conclusion that the concept of cellular con- tent distribution in a re-farmed UHF band shows a more promising prospect than the secondary access in TV white space in the long run. Nevertheless, low power secondary is still considered as a flexible and low-cost way to exploit the underutilized spectrum in the short term, despite its uncertainty in future availability. On the other hand, the re-farming of UHF broadcast band is a long and difficult regulation process with substantial opposition from the in- cumbent.The results from this study could serve as input for future regulatory decisions on the UHF band allocation and cost-benefit analysis for deploying new systems to access this spectrum band. QC 20140609EU FP7 QUASAREU FP7 METI

    From Gladiators to Problem-Solvers: Connecting Conversations About Women, the Academy, and the Legal Profession

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    Dissatisfaction permeates the public and professional discourse about lawyers and legal education. Diverse communities within and outside the profession are engaged in multiple conversations critiquing legal education and the profession itself. These conversations, though linked in subject matter and orientation, often proceed on separate tracks. One set of conversations explicitly focuses on women and people of color, centering on their marginalization and underrepresentation in positions of power. Those concerned about race and gender exclusion often participate in separate communities of discourse. Indeed, the symposium that spawned this article framed the inquiry about higher education in terms of gender. This exclusive focus on gender created a recurring tension in writing this article that stems from the incompleteness of gender as a critical framework. This tension, resolved unsatisfactorily by focusing on gender but continually noting the relevance of the analysis to race and class, exemplifies the failure of existing inquiry to bridge the concerns of women and people of color about law, legal education, and the legal profession. A second conversation questions the appropriateness of the values and goals of the prevailing legal educational mission. Some critics charge that traditional legal education trains lawyers to focus on the short-term, purely economic interests of those in power at the expense of thorough analysis and clients’ long term interests, and without regard to the impact on third parties and the community. Other critics focus on legal education’s preoccupation with rigorous, analytical reasoning and its failure to prepare future lawyers to meet the multifaceted, transactional nature of legal practice. Yet another conversation critiques the prevailing model of legal professionalism perpetuated by the traditional law school curriculum. These critiques are both instrumental, in their questioning whether the model of the legal profession embraced by law schools adequately prepares lawyers and the legal profession to deal effectively with the challenges of the twenty-first century workplace, and normative, in their examining whether reigning models of legal professionalism are morally and ethically justifiable. This article suggests that these conversations are related, indeed, interdependent. It builds from the critique of the gladiator model as a dominant, organizing framework of legal education and lawyers’ roles to find a synergy between the goals of those seeking to include women and those seeking to revitalize the profession to meet the demands of the twenty-first century. It explores the outlines of a problem-solving orientation to lawyering and legal education that has potential to address and create a dynamic between the concerns of women and the need to reclaim the soul of the legal profession. A move from gladiator to problem-solver may brighten both the future of the legal profession and the future of women and other underrepresented groups in the legal profession

    XMM-Newton observations of SNR 1987A. II. The still increasing X-ray light curve and the properties of Fe K lines

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    Aims. We report on the recent observations of the supernova remnant SNR 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud with XMM-Newton. Carefully monitoring the evolution of the X-ray light curve allows to probe the complex circumstellar medium structure observed around the supernova progenitor star. Methods. We analyse all XMM-Newton observations of SNR 1987A from January 2007 to December 2011, using data from the EPIC-pn camera. Spectra from all epochs are extracted and analysed in a homogeneous way. Using a multi-shock model to fit the spectra across the 0.2-10 keV band we measure soft and hard X-ray fluxes with high accuracy. In the hard X-ray band we examine the presence and properties of Fe K ines. Our findings are interpreted in the framework of a hydrodynamics-based model. Results. The soft X-ray flux of SNR 1987A continuously increased in the recent years. Although the light curve shows a mild flattening, there is no sudden break as reported in an earlier work, a picture echoed by a revision of the Chandra light curve. We therefore conclude that material in the equatorial ring and out-of-plane HII regions are still being swept-up. We estimate the thickness of the equatorial ring to be at least 4.5x10^16 cm (0.0146 pc). This lower limit will increase as long as the soft X-ray flux has not reached a turn-over. We detect a broad Fe K line in all spectra from 2007 to 2011. The widths and centroid energies of the lines indicate the presence of a collection of iron ionisation stages. Thermal emission from the hydrodynamic model does not reproduce the low-energy part of the line (6.4-6.5 keV), suggesting that fluorescence from neutral and/or low ionisation Fe might be present.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

    Law Schools, Leadership, and Change

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    Law schools train many of the nation’s leaders. As Professor Fred Rodell observed, “it is the lawyers who run our civilization for us – our governments, our business, our private lives.” The legal profession was already closely linked to leadership at the founding of the country, when lawyers constituted almost half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and more than half of the members of the Constitutional Convention. Lawyers now bear major responsibility for leading the institutions that structure the governance, education, and day-to-day lives of the polity. Ten percent of the CEOs of the top fifty companies are lawyers. Lawyers serve as presidents of colleges and universities. Many practicing lawyers also play key leadership roles in the organizations where they work, on boards of directors, and in their communities

    Legacy and Future of Corrections Litigation

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    This Article attempts to provide a framework for assessing the legacy and future of public interest advocacy in one particular area – corrections. It documents a shift from a test case to an implementation model of advocacy, and urges the development of effective remedial strategies as a method of linking litigation to a broader strategy of correctional advocacy. I have chosen to focus on this particular institutional context for several reasons. On a pragmatic level, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, which for the last twenty years has been the primary source of funding for corrections litigation by private, nonprofit organizations, asked me to study the future of corrections litigation and the potential role of various organizations involved in corrections litigation to better inform the Foundation\u27s decisions concerning its involvement in corrections litigation. On a policy level, the area of corrections presents one of the most important policy issues facing our state and local governments. In many states it represents the single largest budget item, and the continued trend toward incarceration takes place at the expense of education, social services, and rebuilding the infrastructure of our cities. The dramatic overrepresentation of people of color in correctional institutions underscores the relationship of correctional policy to more basic social policies of the 1980s and the importance of corrections in developing an effective strategy for reversing the deterioration of urban communities. On a more theoretical level, it is my view that the potential and role of litigation varies in different organizational settings, and that it is a mistake to ignore these organizational differences in assessing and planning the future role of litigation. The legal standards defining the scope of judicial reform activity are more favorable to successful litigation in some contexts than others. The availability of plaintiffs willing to sue and lawyers willing to represent them varies across subject areas. The demands of litigation and the concomitant expertise and resources needed to handle advocacy also differ among subject areas. The organizational dynamics contributing to the problems targeted by litigation and strategies for altering them may differ. Perhaps the most significant difference involves the political context surrounding the institutions subject to litigation and the potential for mobilizing other forms of effective advocacy. Too often, scholars and advocates ignore th6se differences and offer overarching generalizations about litigation\u27s impact and potential. It is my hope that this study\u27s focus on public interest advocacy in the corrections context will help identify themes and variations in public interest advocacy and contribute to the development of strategies of public interest advocacy that can build on common experience and yet respond to the particular demands of each institutional context

    Resolving the Remedial Dilemma: Strategies of Judicial Intervention in Prisons

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    During the last several decades, courts have undertaken to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations in a variety of public and private institutions. Once a court determines that an institutional pattern or practice violates the law, it must face the challenge of structuring a process that will lead to the elimination of the illegal conditions or practices. Whether this judicial activity is called ordinary or extraordinary, the remedial process in institutional reform litigation may lead the trial court to engage in a range of roles beyond those usually required to resolve a traditional private dispute. Courts involved in institutional reform litigation face a serious remedial dilemma. They are constitutionally compelled to develop a remedy for conditions and practices that violate a plaintiff\u27s rights. However, courts cannot rely entirely on the defendants to eliminate these unconstitutional conditions because in many instances the responsible parties either cannot or will not take the steps necessary to do so. At the same time, courts must depend on those with ongoing responsibility for the institution to achieve compliance with the law. Courts lack the administrative capacity to alter basic institutional practices directly and are constrained by both a limited constitutional mandate and a narrow vision of their role. The controversy over institutional reform litigation swirls around this remedial dilemma. The debate is often framed in terms of whether courts should be involved at all in cases requiring institutional reform. Advocates of an expansive judicial role tend to emphasize the courts\u27 duty to intervene in the face of serious constitutional violations, without critically assessing the various forms that intervention may take or their potential impact on the target institution or the judiciary. Critics emphasize the limitations of judicially managed change without addressing the failure of the responsible officials to comply with the law and the absence of any realistic alternative means to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations. This Article shifts the focus of the debate from whether courts should intervene to how they should structure the remedial process to avoid, or at least minimize, the negative consequences of the remedial dilemma described above.8 Several factors justify reframing the inquiry in this manner

    Resolving the Remedial Dilemma: Strategies of Judicial Intervention in Prisons

    Get PDF
    During the last several decades, courts have undertaken to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations in a variety of public and private institutions. Once a court determines that an institutional pattern or practice violates the law, it must face the challenge of structuring a process that will lead to the elimination of the illegal conditions or practices. Whether this judicial activity is called ordinary or extraordinary, the remedial process in institutional reform litigation may lead the trial court to engage in a range of roles beyond those usually required to resolve a traditional private dispute. Courts involved in institutional reform litigation face a serious remedial dilemma. They are constitutionally compelled to develop a remedy for conditions and practices that violate a plaintiff\u27s rights. However, courts cannot rely entirely on the defendants to eliminate these unconstitutional conditions because in many instances the responsible parties either cannot or will not take the steps necessary to do so. At the same time, courts must depend on those with ongoing responsibility for the institution to achieve compliance with the law. Courts lack the administrative capacity to alter basic institutional practices directly and are constrained by both a limited constitutional mandate and a narrow vision of their role. The controversy over institutional reform litigation swirls around this remedial dilemma. The debate is often framed in terms of whether courts should be involved at all in cases requiring institutional reform. Advocates of an expansive judicial role tend to emphasize the courts\u27 duty to intervene in the face of serious constitutional violations, without critically assessing the various forms that intervention may take or their potential impact on the target institution or the judiciary. Critics emphasize the limitations of judicially managed change without addressing the failure of the responsible officials to comply with the law and the absence of any realistic alternative means to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations. This Article shifts the focus of the debate from whether courts should intervene to how they should structure the remedial process to avoid, or at least minimize, the negative consequences of the remedial dilemma described above.8 Several factors justify reframing the inquiry in this manner

    Introduction

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    The theme of the first Symposium issue, Rethinking Law in the Twenty-First Century Workplace, addresses a fundamental challenge facing the field of labor and employment law. Existing regulatory regimes in this area are ill-equipped to address the demands of the increasingly dynamic, unstable, and technologically-driven workplace. This Symposium brought together a diverse and creative group of scholars, public policy thinkers, and activists to discuss new frameworks for participation, inclusion, evaluation, and legal regulation in the workplace. These participants represented a variety of disciplines, including law, psychology, organizational theory, sociology, and public policy. Each of the participants brought to the table a critical perspective on the dominant frameworks for governing, regulating, and transforming the workplace
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