Displaying the Law: A Cross-disciplinary Learning Experiment Using the Internet and Multimedia Technology

The law is increasingly being displayed to its practitioners and subjects in new forms and through new media. Some of this technological change simply permits easier access to information and faster recording processes. However students are at the forefront of the attempt to provide new ways of representing legal dilemmas, problems and issues. How do students imagine and represent the law? This paper describes an experiment in which undergraduate students from quite different backgrounds examined topical legal issues and presented reports in visual form, choosing between three formats: CD-ROMs, videos and web pages. Participants came from two universities in Victoria; students from Victoria University were multimedia students, students from the University of Melbourne were criminology research methods students. They formed small teams, pooling their skills to carry out research projects on aspects of the law, including busking, football violence and how images of blood should be shown on film or TV. This article reviews the lessons of this collaborative exercise for understandings of the law.     

Smallholder Drip Irrigation in Burkina Faso: The Role of Development Brokers

Smallholder drip irrigation is widely held as a promising technology for water saving, poverty reduction and food security, despite a dearth of evidence of benefits to farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In this article, we document three development programmes promoting drip irrigation in Burkina Faso. Using actor network theory and insights from critical development studies, we show that development brokers play a key role in aligning interests, shaping activities and interpreting project outcomes. They are accountable towards each other rather than to farmers. This means that success is interpreted through development agencies lenses and with the intention of continuing involvement in future projects. Small farmers’ interests and uptake of the technology are of secondary importance.     

How Much Does Having a Bank Account Help the Poor?

Having a bank account is widely regarded as the first step toward financial inclusion of the poor. Funds deposited in a bank account are also observed to lead to higher savings. Exploiting special features of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) of India, our estimates indicate that households that receive NREGS wages through a bank do not appear to spend more on education than other comparable households that receive cash payment. The district level intention to treat specification produces similar results. The findings suggest that the rural poor face constraints in accessing their bank accounts due to financial illiteracy and other problems.     

Meeting the challenge: state revenue raising

Recent trends in state tax revenue reveal that overall reliance of states on taxes have been declining for the last 43 years. Faced with reduction in tax revenues, states have restructured their tax systems to meet public demand for more services. State income taxes are the one type of tax that has risen consistently. What causes state policy makers to rely on this type of tax? This research addresses this question.     

高科技与新的教育革命

现行教育是工业化的一部分,贯彻的是工业明的基本原则,高度的标准化、专业化、集中化和同步化,这在许多方面违背人才成长的规律。高科技的发展和推广必然会引起新的教育革命,对劳动的素质提高了新的要求,并提出了崭新的教学手段,逐步使群体教育转化为个性教育,使刚性教育转化为柔性教育,能更好地培养学生的个性和创造     

从“民主和平论”看民主与和平的关系

“民主和平论”认为 :民主国家间没有或很少发生战争 ,“非民主国家”是战争的根源 ,扩大民主是维护和平的必然要求。“民主和平论”并不符合历史事实 ,它是推行人权外交的新干涉主义的理论基础。民主与和平之间的关系是复杂的 :国际社会的和平不仅需要一国内部的民主 ,更需要国际生活中的民主 ;民主只是影响国际和平众多原因中的一个 ,它对和平的影响是有限的 ;“民主和平论”主张建立的和平本质上是建立在不合理的国际政治、经济旧秩序基础之上的西方国家之间的局部和平 ,世界总体和平的巩固和公正、合理的国际新秩序的建立呼唤新的民主     

A singular case of murder-suicide committed with a homemade firearm

The authors illustrate a peculiar case of murder-suicide committed with a homemade firearm loaded with 12-gauge cartridges (buckshot). The structure and function of this handcrafted firearm were simple but effective: an iron tube did duty as a barrel in this primitive firearm. The cartridges (modified by winding sticky tape around the external surface of the base) were inserted down one end of the tube (serving as the breech). A second iron tube with a larger diameter (so as to be able to run over each of the preloaded barrels) and with a jutting, cone-shaped metal wedge soldered to the base, was used as a rudimental firing pin. After loading the "barrel" with the modified cartridge, the gunman would ram the "firing pin" tube violently down to fire the shot. Autopsy of the woman's body showed the presence of 3 gunshot wounds caused by buckshot, while the man had a single buckshot wound in the head. Subsequent ballistic investigations enabled reconstruction of the event (typical of murder-suicide) and the functioning of the firearm, demonstrating its lethal nature, remarkably easy handling, and simplicity of production.     

Global technological collaboration network: network analysis of international co-inventions

Global innovation networks are emerging as a result of the international division of innovation processes through, among others, international technological collaborations. At the aggregate level, the creation of technological collaboration between countries can be considered as mutually beneficial (or detrimental) and their random distribution is unlikely. Consequently, the dynamics and evolution of the technological collaborations can be expected to fulfil the criteria of a complex network. To study the structure and evolution of the global technological collaboration network, we use patent-based data of international co-inventions and apply the network analysis. In addition, extending the gravity model of international technological collaboration by network measures, we show that a country’s position in the network has very strong impact on the intensity of collaboration with other countries.