Users' rights to make and test backup copies at DR sites

In this recent case, his Honour Justice McKerracher in the FederalCourt of Australia had to assess the conflicting views of asoftware vendor and its licensee in relation to the licensee'sdecision to make and test unauthorized backup copies of thesoftware at a remote disaster recovery site.     

Beyond opportunism: Intermediary loyalty in regulation and governance

Regulators and other governors rely on intermediaries to set and implement policies and to regulate targets. Existing literatures focus heavily on intermediaries of a single type – Opportunists, motivated solely by self-interest. But intermediaries can also be motivated by different types of loyalty: to leaders (Vassals), to policies (Zealots), or to institutions (Mandarins). While all three types of loyalists are resistant to the traditional problems of opportunism (slacking and capture), each brings pathologies of its own. We explain the behavioral logic of each type of loyalty and analyze the risks and rewards of different intermediary loyalties – both for governors and for the public interest. We illustrate our claims with examples drawn from many different realms of regulation and governance.     

Microcrystalline identification of drugs of abuse: the psychedelic amphetamines

The optical crystallographic or microcrystalline properties of the diliturate derivatives (5-nitrobarbituric acid) of the most used psychedelic amphetamine drugs have been determined. The crystallographic properties, especially the orthographic projection drawings and photomicrography of the crystals and other optical crystallographic data, such as the indices of refraction, extinction angles, and optical orientations serve to characterize and identify this group of drug chemicals. These data can be used with ultraviolet-infrared (UV-IR) spectroscopy, thin-layer chromatography and gas-liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (GLC/MS) data for the identification and confirmation of psychedelic amphetamine drugs.     

Factor similarity of the Conflict Tactics Scales across samples,spouses, and sites: Issues and implications

Wide variations in prevalence estimates of marital aggression point to the absence of a uniform and adequate definition of marital aggression. To focus on the construct validity of Straus' (1979) Conflict Tactics Scales, the most frequently used measure of marital aggression, two studies were conducted. Based on responses to the Conflict Tactics Scales, two consistent factors (viz. Physical and Psychological Aggression) emerged in separate samples of 187 couples seeking therapy for marital problems, and 398 nonclinic couples in beginning marriages. The factor structure was consistent across clinic and nonclinic samples, sex, geographical sites, time, and socioeconomic status. Implications for the measurement of interspousal physical aggression are raised (e.g., mild, moderate, and severe aggression load on the same factor) and appropriate directions for further research on the construct validity of the Conflict Tactics Scales are suggested (e.g., conducting similar factor analyses on aggressive couples).     

Mr. Winterkorn’s Pay: A Typology of Justification Patterns of Income Inequality

This article develops a typology of justification patterns of income inequality by means of analysing the discourse surrounding executive pay in Germany. The case of a public debate about the record salary of the car manufacturer VW’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, in 2012 and 2013, is identified as a rich source for a reconstruction of specific argumentative patterns and their underlying premises. The typology presents five justification patterns, (1) equality of opportunity, (2) desert, (3) procedure of salary determination, (4) harmful consequences of income inequality and (5) need. Further cross-patterns are identified. A key finding is the crucial—but often not explicit—role of factual, definitional or behavioural premises. It is argued that unveiling the structure of justification patterns of income inequality can provide a key tool in scrutinizing as well as in further analysing public debates about income inequality.