Effects of a Dog-Assisted Intervention Assessed by Salivary Cortisol Concentrations in Inmates of a Japanese Prison

Physiological effects of a dog-assisted, stress management and communication training program conducted in a prison were investigated by assessing salivary cortisol concentrations of prison inmates before and after the sessions. The program was conducted with groups of inmates with psychiatric and/or developmental disorders. In the program, male inmates interacted with trained pet dogs and their volunteer handlers. Inmates evaluated their mood states before and after each session by using a questionnaire. Moreover, handlers evaluated the quality of the interaction with inmates after each session. Results indicated that the inmates’ cortisol values in most cases decreased following their participation in the sessions. The inmates who demonstrated stress reduction by decreasing cortisol values were diagnosed only psychiatric disorders, were aware of their mood improvement, and were evaluated by the handlers as having interacted well during the sessions. This indicated the validity of psychiatrists’ diagnoses, inmates’ self-evaluation, and handlers’ evaluation of inmates. Also, inmates who experienced a medium mood without mood changes had decreased cortisol values. It is suggested that these results are useful for predicting and selecting inmates who are expected to obtain effects by participating in the program. Moreover, it is suggested that providing feedback to inmates about changes in their salivary cortisol levels could help them better understand their psychophysical state, which could result in more effective stress management.     

Government & education news

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE details research which attempts to assess what effect electronic delivery of law modules has on actual student assessment performance. The authors reviewed the assessment results of students who had taken both conventionally and electronically delivered modules and compared and contrasted individual student performances in all the modules studied by them in a particular semester. As far as the authors’ researches were able to ascertain this was a relatively unique piece of research as far as legal study is concerned. We found that weaker students (those who might ordinarily fail or scrape a bare pass) were achieving a mark some 10% higher than that achieved in the conventionally delivered modules; pushing those students into the lower second category—the assessment criteria for such classification demanding evidence of deep as opposed to surface learning. However there was little or no difference in the marks achieved by upper second quality students.

The authors acknowledge that many factors affect the quality of assessment performance and that, whilst the article addresses some of the variables, any specific conclusions based on results alone are open to question.

Furthermore, we accept the limitations of a small and narrow statistical sample and that therefore this can only be a survey rather than a controlled experiment.

Nevertheless we believe that as part of the debate on the role of Communication &; Information Technology (C &; IT) it has a useful role to play.

Inevitably an article such as this trespasses on many pedagogical issues deserving debate which goes beyond the objectives of this discussion.     

iCLIC Data Mining and Data Sharing workshop: The present and future of data mining and data sharing in the EU

Held at Southampton University's Highfield campus and hosted by iCLIC, an interdisciplinary core on Law, the Internet and Culture, the Data Mining and Data Sharing workshop brought together attendees and speakers from industry, government, academia and a range of disciplines alike. The workshop comprised two sessions, each with a keynote and an associated panel. The first session was chaired by Eleonora Rosati and dealt with copyright and database rights, data mining and data sharing. The second session, chaired by Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon, focussed on data protection, data mining and data sharing. The following report covers both sessions, associated panel discussions and the subsequent question and answer sessions.     

Voting in the House or Wooing the Voters at Home: Labour MPs and the 2001 General Election Campaign

Part of Labour's strategy for winning a second full term of government at the 2001 general election in the UK involved encouraging its MPs, especially those holding marginal seats, to spend considerable time in their constituencies in the preceding years, contacting voters and promoting the party's cause. Given the size of its majority in 1997, it was able to afford for many MPs to be absent from divisions in the House of Commons. This article looks at the voting records of Labour MPs who stood for re-election in 2001 during the two preceding parliamentary sessions. It reports that backbench MPs representing marginal constituencies were much more likely to be absent from the House during the last session prior to the election. Those absences were also apparently related to their performance at the election: the more often they absented themselves from parliamentary votes in that session (compared to the previous session) the better their performance at the 2001 election relative to national trends.     

HOFSTRA'S FAMILY LAW WITH SKILLS COURSE: IMPLEMENTING FLER (THE FAMILY LAW EDUCATION REFORM PROJECT)

The Family Law Education Reform Project (FLER) Final Report documented that the current doctrinally oriented family law curriculum at most law schools does not adequately prepare students for modern family law practice. FLER recommended that law school courses move from the study of cases to the study of the legal system's effect on families, and integrate the study of alternative dispute resolution and interdisciplinary knowledge. In response, Hofstra Law School has made a comprehensive attempt to implement FLER's curricular recommendations. This article discusses one major innovation – the Family Law with Skills course. Family Law with Skills is the basic course in Hofstra's revised curriculum and is designed to integrate doctrinal teaching with professional skills development. In addition to studying legal doctrine, students are required to engage in structured field observation of family court proceedings; interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and mediation representation exercises in a divorce dispute; direct and cross examination of a social worker in a child protection dispute; and drafting of a surrogacy agreement. The article describes each exercise and discusses its rationale, student reaction to the course, and lessons learned.     

EMPOWERMENT,INNOVATION, AND SERVICE: LAW SCHOOL PROGRAMS PROVIDE ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND INSTILL A COMMITMENT TO SERVE

Law schools around the country seek to fill the legal needs of their communities in ways that are both innovative and mutually beneficial to clients and students. This article describes five pro bono and clinical programs, at the University of Richmond School of Law, The Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, Catholic University Columbus School of Law, the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and Vermont Law School, where law students, under the supervision of law professors or community professionals, provide assistance or legal representation to underserved and often marginalized populations needing help with family law problems, including parents accused of abuse and neglect, youth aging out of foster care, homeless families, survivors of domestic violence, homeless veterans with addiction problems, and female prisoners. To develop their programs, the five law schools from the outset collaborated with partners in the community, and they continue to do so as their programs expand and evolve. In addition to helping and empowering clients, these law schools are providing experiential learning opportunities that are transformative for their students. The authors hope that these programs will be instructive for law schools, other academic institutions, the legal community, and community organizations in developing creative collaborations to ensure better access to justice.     

Global standards and outcomes of a legal education: how rubrics can help to deliver objectivity,transparency, verifiability and consistency

Rubrics may be time-consuming to create but they are superior to the usual method of evaluation: a number scrawled at the bottom of an essay without any context, feed-back or feed-forward. The author has used rubrics at Kuwait International Law School since 2012 and found them useful in at least four ways: they allow students to understand what is expected of them before they attempt a task; they take the “mystery” out of marks; they encourage fairness and promote a culture of trust between student and teacher; and they allow the teacher to engage in post-task meaningful discussions with students – they create “teaching moments”. Grading becomes more transparent and the faculty becomes more accountable to their students. A group of law deans adopted the “Singapore Declaration on Global Standards and Outcomes of a Legal Education” in 2013. This article addresses how the values in that Declaration are directly met by the use of rubrics. Transparency, accountability and authenticity in law teaching are all part of the Declaration: this article argues that rubrics deliver all three. The article addresses the research behind rubrics, the connection between the Singapore Declaration and rubrics and some “lessons learnt” from the author’s teaching experiences.     

Law Schools and Paper Jams

The intranet as a tool for institutional integration has the potential to change Universities and their structures. The means to not only think the unthinkable but actually do it. The Intranet College Information System (ICIS) project at the Law School, Queen's University of Belfast, has demonstrated this to be both possible and acceptable to staff and to students. Technological innovation can be done within a non-technical environment, it can be achieved on a low budget and it can stimulate a new culture, above all it can and should happen now.     

论成年在校大学生对父母的抚养费请求权——兼论《婚姻法司法解释(一)》第20条的缺陷与完善

在司法实践中,对于在校成年大学生起诉父母索要抚养费的相似案件,不同法院的判决往往截然不同。主要原因在于《婚姻法司法解释(一)》第20条对"不能独立生活的子女"的规定存在缺陷。在《婚姻法》相关内容细化之前,有必要通过司法解释作出明确规定,一是明确"父母有给付能力"为成年子女请求父母给付抚养费的前提;二是细化对"不能独立生活的子女"的解释,甄别情况肯定或否定在校成年大学生对父母的抚养费请求权。     

Reviewing the effectiveness of the Oxford tutorial system in teaching an undergraduate qualifying law degree: a discussion of preliminary findings from a pilot study

At undergraduate level the tutorial system at Oxford University has several features that serve to make it almost unique in UK Higher Education. Undergraduates are taught in tutorial groups, typically made up of one to three students, on a weekly basis. Work is usually prepared in advance of these sessions by students and the tutorial is then used as an opportunity for students to receive direct feedback on their work, as well as a platform for further work and tutor-led discussion. The central issue to be explored in this paper, which reports the findings of tutorial observations and interviews involving Oxford University Law students, is the effectiveness of this system of teaching. Supporters of the Oxford tutorial system regard it as more academically challenging and rigorous than other methods of teaching, with its emphasis on developing critical thinking skills and a critical dialogue around feedback. Its detractors, meanwhile, consider it open to potential inconsistency and misuse by tutors. Key findings of this study give more support to the arguments of the former. It will also be demonstrated that there are a number of discipline-specific issues, which make consideration of the tutorial system particularly relevant and enlightening for undergraduate Law students.     

环境资源法调整对象的论战——第二届福州大学“东南法学论坛”综述

为推动具有时代特征的环境法学理论创新,促进环境法学研究和学科建设的发展,福州大学法学院举办了第二届“东南法学论坛”,我国著名的法理学和环境法专家与福州大学法学院百余名教师和研究生,就环境法能否调整人与自然的关系以及能否对主流法理学提出挑战,展开了激烈的辩论和深入的探讨。此文陈述了本届论坛双方的精彩论战。     

Rethinking Property Law modules: putting theory into practice

Property Law modules have a number of deficiencies at present. This article outlines the problems associated with Property Law modules, including the perception that Property Law is a difficult and boring module to study; overemphasis on the historical background of real property; lack of contextualisation; fragmentation of interests in real property; difficulties due to crossovers with other subjects; problems with resources; and issues concerning assessment. These problems should be remedied so that students can enjoy their study of Property Law and gain valuable skills that will enhance their employability. Moreover, given the recommendations contained in the LETR Final Report and recent proposals for changes to legal education from the SRA, this article provides a timely review of one of the Foundations of Legal Knowledge subjects. Accordingly, this article will make several recommendations in order to address the problems identified with Property Law.     

The gap between law student career aspirations and employment opportunities

Most law students in the UK embark upon their degrees hoping to become solicitors or barristers and yet the current legal landscape is in a state of flux. Students are incurring significant costs to try and break into an increasingly competitive market and are concerned that they do not have the skills and experience that many employers expect. With this in mind, Plymouth Law School tracked the aspirations and destinations of its LLB students and graduates over a number of years, exploring factors that encouraged or inhibited them along the path to their careers. This article evaluates the data from our students and considers its relevance to the employability issues highlighted by the LETR.     

Trespass,impasse, collaboration: Doing research on women's rights in India

A developing tenet of feminism is the need to work collaboratively in order to avoid assumptions of universality and embrace differences between women. In this paper, Cossman and Kapur reflect upon their attempts to put this principle into practice in research on women's rights in India. They highlight ethical dilemmas raised by their project which forced them to problematize and challenge many of their initial assumptions about doing feminist research, particularly those of identity politics which give primacy to women's experiences as a claim to truth. The authors affirm the importance of identity and experience, but at the same time acknowledge the limitations of this affirmation for the development of effective methodological and political strategies. Osgoode Hall Law School What I feel is radical is trying to make coalitions with people who are different from you. I feel it is radical to be dealing with race and sex and class and sexual identity all at one time. I think that is really radical because it has never been done before.     

Predicting Lawyer Effectiveness: Broadening the Basis for Law School Admission Decisions

Law school admission decisions are heavily influenced by a student's undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score. These measures, although predictive of first‐year law school grades, make no effort to predict professional competence and, for the most part, they do not. These measures also create adverse impact on applicants from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This article describes the rationale for and process by which we explored new tests to predict lawyer effectiveness rather than law school grades and reports results of a multiyear empirical study involving over 3,000 graduates from Berkeley Law School and Hastings College of the Law. Tests measuring personality constructs, interests, values, and judgment predicted lawyering competency but had little or no adverse impact on underrepresented minority applicants. Combined with the LSAT and UGPA, these broader tests could assess law applicants on the basis both of projected professional effectiveness and academic indicators.     

Dropout in a Treatment Program for Self-referring Wife Abusing Men

Demographic factors and levels of psychological and physical aggression were assessed as predictors of dropout for those who participated in a group treatment program for maritally discordant couples reporting husband to wife physical aggression. In addition, follow-up assessments with dropouts were conducted to obtain clients' reasons for termination. Demographic variables and levels of physical aggression did not predict dropout; however, higher levels of psychological aggression did. The most frequently cited reasons for dropout by participants were treatment-related issues. Specifically, clients reported that the group format did not enable them to address their individual couple issues. Regarding future treatment planning, our findings indicate that in cases where men are severely psychologically abusive, individual sessions may be warranted that precede or are in conjunction with couple sessions. Also, it is as important to target women's psychological aggression as it is to target men's psychological aggression. Finally, our findings indicate that treatment programs should utilize some mechanism that allows for more personalized attention to each couple, such as an individual couples format and/or an individual supplement to the group format.     

《保险法》第二次修改及相关问题概述

2008年8月25日，《保险法》第二次修订的阶段性成果——《中华人民共和国保险法（修订草案）》，已经由十一届全国人大常委会第四次会议进行了初次审议，并向社会公开徵集意见。至此，《保险法》第二次修改工作已经进入最後冲刺阶段。     

Getting the fish to see the water: an investigation into students’ perceptions of learning writing skills in academic modules and in a final year real client legal clinic module

In 2010 Tonya Kowalski described the problems faced by students entering clinic for the first time as a one step backward, two step forward phenomenon. Students appeared initially unable to transfer skills and knowledge learned in earlier academic and other settings to clinic but once they were immersed in clinic their skills development improved rapidly. Clinic is often presented as a “bridge to practice” and delivered as the capstone to more traditional elements of an undergraduate degree. However, even with an integrated approach like that at Northumbria Law School, a seamless transition to the skills required for clinic is challenging and gives rise to a constant review of how best to prepare students. Our research focused on legal writing and used focus groups to find out how students participating in the year four clinic at Northumbria University perceived and adapted their previous experiences of writing for use in the clinical context. It identifies strategies which should be considered for integration into non-clinical modules and in the clinical module itself to facilitate this transition from academic orientated writing to practice orientated writing.     

How to Push an Elephant Through a Straw: Using Wireless Technology in a Web-enhanced Skills Program

The title of this article derives from the expression used by programmers and developers to explain problems of limited network bandwidth connection speeds. The ever-increasing demand by growing numbers of web users for bandwidth-intensive media is outstripping the Internet's capacity to deliver information. In this case, the 'Elephant' is the massive online information system, including text, graphics, audio, and video, and the 'Straw' is the low bandwidth through which only a fixed volume can move. Generally, compression of data is the way to push that elephant through the straw. Included among those users competing for bandwidth are law schools. In the last decade, technology has begun to occupy a more pivotal role in American legal education. As law firms increase their use of technology in response to client demand, they must hire associates who graduate from law school prepared for high-technology law practice. The resulting pressure on law schools to incorporate technology into class materials and instruction has arisen contemporaneously with pressure to increase the teaching of lawyering skills. A tension arises, however, between the obligation of legal educators to expose students to emerging technologies and the additional burdens thereby imposed upon law schools to add lawyering skills to the the existing curriculum without displacing needed doctrinal and analytical instruction. The authors are faculty members and administrators at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Shepard Broad Law Center, which was named "Most Wired Law School" by National Jurist in 1998 and 2001. The centrepiece of legal education at NSU is a high technology Lawyering Skills and Values Program that employs wireless classrooms and web-enhanced education. Delivering a lawyering skills course through technology is not unlike pushing an elephant through a straw. The challenge is to accomplish pedagogical goals without compressing either the curriculum or the social processes of teaching and learning. This article describes and evaluates the authors' practical experiences planning, implementing, and teaching a Lawyering Skills course to first-year students in a wireless classroom environment.     

评《罗马法原论》的学术特色

《罗马法原论》是周教授的心血力作,也是目前国内最为权威的罗马法专著。《原论》以传播罗马法为宗旨,专为中国人而作。其学术特色具体表现在三个方面。其一,经过细致的考订和分析,《原论》所译解之名词术语准确传神,并为学界普遍接受。其二,《原论》博观约取,在对材料的选择考订上,取材愈广,辨析愈精;在对罗马法原理的阐述上,则力求透彻明了,深入浅出。其三,《原论》秉承了周教授一贯坚持的求真务实的学风,勇于并且坚持学术批评,为罗马法的研究树立了典范。