Nanotechnology and the US national innovation system: continuity and change

A substantial literature on nanotechnology innovation and commercial development has characterized several elements of these phenomena as constituting new developments in the US national innovation system. Among these elements are the (asserted) “post-academic” nature of US universities’ involvement with nanotechnology R&D, and federal funding of nanotechnology R&D on goals related to economic competitiveness. This paper challenges the “novelty” of these elements, while suggesting that other elements of nanotechnology R&D, including the extensive patenting of the results of nanotechnology-related research and the emphasis within many university-industry collaborations on patent-based channels for “technology transfer,” may indeed be new and raise questions for the long-term efficiency and innovative performance of nanotechnology-related R&D.     

Bäuerliche Hofübergabe unter Lebenden und (anerbenrechtliche) Nachtragserbteilung

In JBl 2010, 487–495, wurde dargelegt, dass der anerbenrechtliche Nachtragsanspruch der weichenden Geschwister (Miterben) gegen den Hofübernehmer sich nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht beurteilt, dass also bei Wegfall der Rechtfertigung für den begünstigten übernahmspreis wegen gewinnsüchtiger Ver?u?erung des Hofes (oder von Hofliegenschaften) durch den übernehmer der Mehrerl?s auf die Miterben (weichenden Geschwister) nach dem Hofübergeber aufzuteilen ist. Der Nachtragsanspruch geh?rt also noch zum begrifflichen Umfang und Inhalt des nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht zu bestimmenden begünstigten übernahmspreises (Wohlbestehenswertes). Die Fristen für den Nachtragsanspruch sind nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht auf folgende Weise zu formulieren: Die Ver?u?erung des Hofes (oder von Hofliegenschaften) muss in die mit etwa 15 Jahren zu bestimmende Frist ab Hofübergabe an den Hofübernehmer fallen, die mit der Hofübergabe zu laufen beginnt. Dieser Anspruch kann nur nach Tod des Hofübergebers geltend gemacht werden, bei einer Frist für die gerichtliche Geltendmachung von 3 Jahren ab erfolgter Ver?u?erung (Einverleibung) durch den Hofübernehmer.     

From Safety to Danger: Constructions of Crime in a Women’s Magazine

This study examines how the print media constructs signifiers of safety and danger for women. We analyze 155 news articles regarding crime and criminal justice from 1970 to 1990 in Chatelaine magazine, a Canadian women’s periodical. Both content and textual analyses are deployed to evaluate the media representations of crime and their role in facilitating images of fear and safety. We show that the meanings associated with women’s danger and safety in news narratives are socially constructed through claims, sources, content and culture. We find that news reporting did not initially incorporate signifiers of fear. However, crime messages increasingly included images of fear in the later reporting period. We argue that the transformations surrounding these images and texts are influenced by the rise in neoliberal thought in the 1980s. Our results indicate that ideological struggles external to the media are crucial to the representation of crime, which ultimately influence signifiers of danger and safety for women.     

Youth justice conferencing and indigenous over-representation in the Queensland juvenile justice system: a micro-simulation case study

Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice, and legislated conferencing schemes are operating in all Australian states and territories. While there is some variation in the terms used to describe restorative justice conferences (e.g., family group conferencing, family conferencing, or youth justice conferencing), there is much more consistency in how the conferencing process is managed across Australian jurisdictions. In Queensland youth justice conferencing is a process that brings together an offender, the victim and their supporters to discuss the harm caused by the offending behaviour and provide the young person with an opportunity to take responsibility for his or her behaviour and make amends. This paper begins by briefly sketching the development of restorative justice conferencing in Queensland and describes the Juvenile Justice Simulation Model (JJSM), a micro-simulation model developed for criminal justice policy analysis in Queensland, Australia. We use this micro-simulation model to conduct an experimental exploration of the effects that youth justice conferencing has on system-wide outcomes for indigenous young people. The model simulates the impact of interventions up until 2011 on the number of finalised youth justice court appearances. Our results indicate that youth justice conferencing is unlikely to reduce the over-representation of indigenous young people in the juvenile justice system. The simulations demonstrated that, by the 2011, youth justice conferencing would result in a 12.5% decrease in finalised court appearances. Unfortunately, this decrease was more apparent for non-indigenous young people (13.7% decrease in court appearances) than for indigenous young people, who had a 10.5% decrease in court appearances. This differential impact of conferencing is due to the different court appearance profiles between indigenous and non-indigenous young offenders, with indigenous young people initiating offending at an earlier age and offending more frequently than non-indigenous young offenders.