9150 research outputs found
Sort by
How the Evolving Relationship Between the American Government and Academic Publishers Has Shaped Test Development.
No full text
Non-Practicing Entities & Patent Reform
Get PDFThe patent system is designed to promote innovation and supply a blueprint for innovative minds to improve upon, but the behavior of some patent owners is contrary to these principles. Non-practicing entities obtain patent rights, and rather than produce the product claimed in the patent, they assert their exclusionary rights broadly and aggressively against businesses producing similar products in order to induce settlement or licensing payments. These assertions account for a significant percentage of infringement claims and threaten a potentially innocent business with expensive litigation. The actions of these entities have a substantial effect on the patent system and have been the motivation behind reform and recent Supreme Court decisions. Each of the three branches of government has significant influence over the patent system, and each has the potential to promote change to reduce the impact of non-practicing entities on the United States patent system and on the United States economy
Dying to Be Fresh and Clean? Toxicants in Personal Care Products, the Impact on Cancer Risk, and Epigenetic Damage
Get PDFThe FDA does not conduct pre-market review of chemicals contained in cosmetics—which encompasses not only makeup but also numerous personal care products including shampoo, lotion, perfume, aftershave, and shaving cream. Every day, consumers use cosmetic products that contain a variety of synthetic ingredients, none of which the FDA has approved for safety but each of which are being ingested, absorbed, and inhaled into our bodies and accumulating in our tissue. Many of these products contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (“EDCs”), which emerging research links to an increased risk of cancer as well as immune and neurological dysfunction. This Article examines how the current risk-based regulatory system enables manufacturers to market products containing toxicants that cause preventable cancer while promising product safety. In addition to increasing cancer risk, EDCs have the potential to induce both epigenetic marks and transgenerational epigenetic damage, increasing the risk of cancer and widespread adverse health consequences for future generations never exposed to the toxicant. This Article asserts that we have an ethical duty to enact precautionary regulations governing cosmetics that would protect the integrity of the human genome against preventable, environmentally mediated damag
Scripted Stereotypes In Reality TV
Get PDFDiversity, or lack thereof, has always been an issue in both television and film for years. But another great issue that ties in with the lack of diversity is misrepresentation, or a substantial presence of stereotypes in media. While stereotypes often are commonplace in scripted television and film, the possibility of stereotypes appearing in a program that claims to be based on reality seems unfitting. It is commonly known that reality television is not completely “unscripted” and is actually molded by producers and editors. While reality television should not consist of stereotypes, they have curiously made their way onto the screen and into our homes. Through content analysis this thesis focuses on Latina/Hispanic-American and Asian-American contestants on ABCs’ The Bachelor and whether they present stereotypes typically found in scripted programming
CISG Article 79: Exemption of Performance, and Adaptation of Contract Through Interpretation of Reasonableness－Full of Sound And Fury, but Signifying Something
Get PDFArticle 79 of the CISG provides that “[a] party is not liable for a failure to perform any of his obligations” if the party has encountered a certain impediment defined therein. It was once depicted as “the Convention’s least successful part of the half-century of work.” It has been thirty years since the CISG took effect. However, the interpretation of Article 79 is as old and unsuccessful as ever. For one thing, it has long been interpreted against our intuition, not to exempt a party from specific performance claims. For another, the controversy has long continued unsettled over whether a party could be exempted in the so-called “hardship” cases. Lastly, where an event fundamentally alters the equilibrium of the contract because of the increased cost of performance, judges’ power to adapt the contract is urgently desired, but no reasonable basis in provisions of the CISG has been suggested.
This article demonstrates that (1) Article 79 as a rule exempts a party from specific performance claims, (2) the so-called “hardship” cases are within the ambit of Article 79, and that (3) judges can adapt contracts through what this author terms a “reasonable expectation test.
How Should Congress Respond to McDonnell?
Get PDFDiscussion of question of whether McDonnell was essentially right or wrong. Should Congress act to change the McDonnell rule? Should the Supreme Court reconsider it? What would be an alternative or a better way, if there is one, to approach the question of public corruption prosecution
United States Human Trafficking Task Force
Get PDFHuman Trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar industry which is both a domestic and foreign issue for the United States government. The purpose of this paper is to address the issues such as: lack of a centralized task force, lack of funding and an introduction of a new method of investigation which utilizes intelligence to fight human trafficking. The results found through research and interviews with federal agents have shown that a federal task force utilizing federal, state, and local law enforcement along with nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) and government would have a positive, profound effect against human trafficking. It is recommended that law enforcement fight human trafficking by collecting evidence via intelligence gathering methods and then disseminate the information to the appropriate agencies. This would enable law enforcement to track human trafficking trends as they cycle through the country. With a centralized task force, member agencies would be able to easily access the intelligence databases and communicate with one another. Since human trafficking is a covert crime which moves quickly with high stakes, communication and collaboration are extremely important in order to fight it
Accurate Economics to Protect Endangered Species and their Critical Habitats
Get PDFFederal agencies currently use a methodology that finds negligible benefits of protecting critical habitat for endangered species, despite the prime real estate that is often involved. The Endangered Species Act already calls for economic analysis, but agencies currently treat it as a meaningless hoop to jump through. Agencies justify this hollow exercise by pointing to the difficulty in quantifying the increment of added protection that comes with critical habitat designation. However, the increment of added protection for critical habitat can be measured using methods already employed by agencies in other environmental analyses. Although the central benefits of critical habitat are improvements to the condition of listed species, accurate economic analysis should also consider the broad benefits of ecosystem services that flow from protected areas to human populations. I propose that agencies use a methodology that weighs the estimated burdens on regulated parties against the estimated benefits of designating lands as critical habitat. My proposed—more accurate—analysis can lead to more effective implementation of the Endangered Species Act by allowing agencies to target limited resources to projects that offer high net conservation benefits. I use a recent cost-benefit analysis for loggerhead turtles to demonstrate that the benefits of conserving habitat include increased protection of the species as well as a larger flow of ecosystem services amounting to at least 0 estimate that federal agencies have arrived at. Accurate economic analysis provides useful information to agencies and the public in a way that can improve discussions that are often one-sided because of an emphasis on regulatory costs with little discussion of regulatory benefits