Workforce Training Programs

EconomicDevelopment__Workforce_Training_Program.pdf: 28 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Project Dandelion

Project Dandelion, a project of Neighborhood Legal Services, brings together community and legal support for families and individuals receiving public assistance, helping them to attain economic self-sufficiency through legal advocacy, training, peer group support, publications, volunteer opportunities, and legal information

Dominion: Examining the Subject of Power in Tolkien

The discussion of power and one’s use of it in literature is far from a novel one. This is especially so regarding how one uses power to rule others. Two notable and conflicting ways to rule are using one’s power over the ruled, to keep control of them, and using one’s power for the ruled, by helping and supporting them. The clash between these two can be seen as early as the first book of the Jewish and Christian bibles, wherein God gives humans “dominion over…all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” asking them to “replenish the earth, and subdue it” (King James Bible, Genesis 1:26, 28). By asking humankind to both subdue and replenish, God is asking them to use both the previously noted ways to rule: to dominate and to aid. This naturally creates a conflict about how to balance these techniques in order to rule correctly. This disagreement between these two is seen elsewhere in literature, and no more so than in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional universe

Reclaiming Academia from Post-academia

Post-academic science, driven as it is by commercialisation and market forces, is fundamentally at odds with core academic principles. Publicly-funded academics have an obligation to carry out science for the public good, a responsibility which is incompatible with the entrepreneurial ethos increasingly expected of university research by funding agencies

Localization in Buffalo

EconomicDevelopment__Localization_in_Buffalo.pdf: 11 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Deceptively Simple: Framing, Intuition, and Judicial Gatekeeping of Forensic Feature-Comparison Methods Evidence

This Article explains how courts have skirted the reliability problem of FCM evidence and argues that judges perceive the question of FCM evidence to be a simple problem that cross-examination can solve. Relying on insights from cognitive science to help explain the resistance of the courts to FCM evidence challenges, the Article urges courts to recognize the complexity of FCM evidence and refocus on the danger such evidence poses for continued wrongful conviction. By framing the admissibility of FCM evidence as an “easy” question, courts are relying on heuristics—that is, shortcuts—to solve complex problems. As this Article explains, using heuristics can lead to more error-prone decisions, as such shortcuts are vulnerable to various cognitive biases and systemic fallacies. In both reasoning and language, courts exhibit biased-affected decision-making. Part I of the Article briefly reviews the NRC report and the PCAST report while Part II discusses cases addressing FCM evidence. The cognitive science that may explain the courts’ consistent approaches to the evidence is considered in Part III. Part III then applies these concepts to judicial decision-making related to FCM evidence—a complicated problem in need of greater analysis

Seeing Voices: Potential Neuroscience Contributions to a Reconstruction of Legal Insanity

Part I of this Article explains the insanity defense in the United States. Next, Part II discusses some of the brain-based research about mental illness, focusing on schizophrenia research. Then, Part III looks at traumatic brain injury and the relationship among injury, cognition, and behavior. Finally, Part IV explains how a new neuroscience-informed standard might better inform our moral decision making about legal insanity

Our Museum Special Initiative: An Evaluation

Our Museum: Communities and Museums as Active Partners was a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Special Initiative 2012 – 2016. The overall aim was to influence the museum and gallery sector to:* Place community needs, values and active collaboration at the core of museum and gallery work* Involve communities and individuals in decision-making processes* Ensure that museums and galleries play an effective role in developing community skills and the skills of staff in working with communitiesThis was to be done through facilitation of organisational change in specific museums and galleries already committed to active partnership with communities.Our Museum offered a collaborative learning process through which institutions and communities shared experiences and learned from each other as critical friends. Our Museum took place at a difficult and challenging time for both museums and their community partners. Financial austerity led to major cutbacks in public sector expenditure; a search for new business models; growing competition for funding; and organisational uncertainty and staff volatility. At the same time, the debate at the heart of Our Museum widened and intensified: what should the purpose of longestablished cultural institutions be in the 21st century; how do they maintain relevance and resonance in the contemporary world; how can they best serve their communities; can they, and should they, promote cultural democracy