A Collacon on Collacon

Mellen and I were exploring the depths of logology one day, when she suddenly stopped short, and uttered a single word, collacon. \u27Collacon?\u27 My dear Mellen --- ? That, she replied, is your challenge

Thomson Beta-Testing WebPlus Optimized Internet Search Engine

In this NewsBreak, the author shares his recent searching experiences using Westlaw WebPlus Legal and Thomson-Scientific WebPlus, both in the beta stage. The Thomson Corporation is expanding the beta testing of its WebPlus Internet search engine. Initially released in very limited markets in August, WebPlus is now available to users of Thomson-West’s Westlaw and Thomson-Scientific’s Web of Science information services. Thomson expects to roll out WebPlus among all its product lines, Health, Financial, Science, and Legal, with “walk-up” editions available free on the Web through Thomson products like Findlaw.com. The goal of WebPlus, according to Barbara McGivern, Vice President of Product Management for Thomson Web, is a search product that provides results that are optimized for each particular user group

The Ragfish, Icosteus aenigmaticus Lockington, 1880: A Synthesis of Historical and Recent Records From the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea

Knowledge of the distribution and biology of the ragfish, Icosteus aenigmaticus, an aberrant deepwater perciform of the North Pacific Ocean, has increased slowly since the first description of the species in the 1880’s which was based on specimens retrieved from a fish monger’s table in San Francisco, Calif. As a historically rare, and subjectively unattractive appearing noncommercial species, ichthyologists have only studied ragfish from specimens caught and donated by fishermen or by the general public. Since 1958, I have accumulated catch records of >825 ragfish. Specimens were primarily from commercial fishermen and research personnel trawling for bottom and demersal species on the continental shelves of the eastern North Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and the western Pacific Ocean, as well as from gillnet fisheries for Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus spp., in the north central Pacific Ocean. Available records came from four separate sources: 1) historical data based primarily on published and unpublished literature (1876–1990), 2) ragfish delivered fresh to Humboldt State University or records available from the California Department of Fish and Game of ragfish caught in northern California and southern Oregon bottom trawl fisheries (1950–99), 3) incidental catches of ragfish observed and recorded by scientific observers of the commercial fisheries of the eastern Pacific Ocean and catches in National Marine Fisheries Service trawl surveys studying these fisheries from 1976 to 1999, and 4) Japanese government research on nearshore fisheries of the northwestern Pacific Ocean (1950–99). Limited data on individual ragfish allowed mainly qualitative analysis, although some quantitative analysis could be made with ragfish data from northern California and southern Oregon. This paper includes a history of taxonomic and common names of the ragfish, types of fishing gear and other techniques recovering ragfish, a chronology of range extensions into the North Pacific and Bering Sea, reproductive biology of ragfish caught by trawl fisheries off northern California and southern Oregon, and topics dealing with early, juvenile, and adult life history, including age and growth, food habits, and ecology. Recommendations for future study are proposed, especially on the life history of juvenile ragfish (5–30 cm FL) which remains enigmatic

Valeo IP to Shut Down September 2

On June 29, 2005, Valeo IP (www.valeoip.com), an online copyright licensing service, announced on its Website and to its employees that it is shutting down it operations effective September 2, 2005. The move comes after a volatile spring which saw the company engaged in a bitter lawsuit with former partner DataDepth (www.datadepth.com) and the abrupt departure of its President. The departure of Valeo IP leaves a gap in the growing, but confusing business of licensing digital content. Both the growth and the confusion come from the increasing awareness of the need to manage copyrights and use of digital content, with uncertainty as to how copyright law applies to digital content

Geometry of vector bundle extensions and applications to a generalised theta divisor

Let E and F be vector bundles over a complex projective smooth curve X, and suppose that 0 -> E -> W -> F -> 0 is a nontrivial extension. Let G be a subbundle of F, and D an effective divisor on X. We give a criterion for the subsheaf G(-D) \subset F to lift to W, in terms of the geometry of a scroll in the extension space \PP H^1 (X, Hom(F, E)). We use this criterion to describe the tangent cone to the generalised theta divisor on the moduli space of semistable bundles of rank r and slope g-1 over X, at a stable point. This gives a generalisation of a case of the Riemann-Kempf singularity theorem for line bundles over X. In the same vein, we generalise the geometric Riemann-Roch theorem to vector bundles of slope g-1 and arbitrary rank.Comment: Main theorem slightly weakened; statement and proof significantly more compac

Putting Academic Fair Use to the Test

The Fair Use Doctrine is one of the most important, complex and misunderstood elements of copyright law. It was born out of the principle that copyright law needs to balance the rights of authors and creators to reap a benefit from their creations with the public’s right to continue to develop new knowledge on the foundation of these creations. It is intended to function by allowing the use of existing creative works without the need to obtain permission or pay royalties, but only for certain purposes that have been identified as serving the public good. The complexity of the Fair Use Doctrine is that it is both very broad and quite narrow. The doctrine itself can be found at Title 17, Section 107 of the United States Code. The parties involved in a fair use case will measure and weigh many elements. However, if these parties can’t agree as to whether a use is fair, lawsuits may be filed and it becomes up to the court to decide. While no one wants to be sued, there is some benefit in that the court decisions which the four factors help to further narrow the scope of the fair use test and help subsequent users determine if fair use may apply to their proposed use

Administrative Due Process Hearing Requirements and the Federal Maritime Commission

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has contributed much to the field of administrative law. In a very recent case, Marine Space Enclosures, Inc. v. FMC, that court dealt with the constitutional principle of due process as it applies to the holding of hearings before administrative agencies. Specifically, the court considered the question of when a hearing must be held in certain cases before the Federal Maritime Commission and what type of hearing suffices in law. The importance of these issues generally, and particularly to the Federal Maritime Commission, indicates that an analysis of the issues considered by the court is needed at this time

Legal Trends (Part I): Patenting the Internet

Virtually every window of time can be identified by its technological advances. The industrial revolution of the 1800's gave way to the transportation revolution of the early 20th century. The development of synthetics such as nylon and plastics were followed by an electronics revolution built on transistors and early computers. The silicon chip lead to personal computers and chip-driven devices as the 20th century wound down. But these technological changes pale to that which the Internet has brought to the information industry. After 500 years of building on print technologies, the Internet has restructured this industry in a way that is unmatched by other fields of endeavor. The transformation brought on by the Internet, occurring over a fraction of the industry’s life-cycle, has been nothing short of–to use the cliche–revolutionary. All of these technological transformations operate within a number of legal structures. One of the most critical of these structures, yet often least understood, is patent law. In this article, the author explores and explains the complexities involved in determining patentability for Internet-related technologies, such as e-mail, web browsing, TCP/IP software and e-commerce, and in particular, federated searching by WebFeat