强制拆迁、财产权保护与地方宪政构建

近年来,在全国不少地方出现了以侵占农民宅基地和强拆民房为主要标志的拆村并居、强制农民上楼的运动,掀起了对农民权益的新一轮掠夺,引发了不少自焚抗争现象。农民被迫自焚,充分体现了地方权力的滥用与失控。在中央以行政手段制止地方滥用权力的同时,自焚抗争现象也对学界提出了如何加强地方宪政建设的理论课题。加强地方宪政建设,将地方权力纳入宪政框架和法治轨道,是坚持以人为本的科学发展观、保障农民基本权利和自由、实现国家长治久安的重大任务。     

我国城市房屋拆迁制度的法律透视

我国的城市房屋拆迁工作 ,在立法上缺乏对拆迁性质的划分 ,另有拆迁范围未涉及土地使用权等问题 ,在实际操作中亦有较多考虑人口因素 ,安置房质量较差等问题。     

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM: USING MEDIATION TO RESOLVE PARENTING DISPUTES IN THE WAKE OF NATURAL DISASTERS

Hurricane Katrina not only tore apart communities along the Gulf Coast, it displaced hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country. Included in the massive numbers of displaced families were children from divorced, separated, or unmarried parents. As a result, many children have since relocated far away from one of their parents without court permission, causing an influx of parenting disputes among the unmarried parents. Litigation concerning parenting disputes that follow natural disasters is not only expensive, but is emotionally taxing on both parents and children and floods the already drained court system. This Note discusses alternative ways in which parenting disputes can be resolved following natural disasters. It explains how children are affected by relocating away from one of their parents and how those effects are comounded by natural disasters. Further, it explains how alternative dispute resolution methods help alleviate the effects of parenting disputes, specifically relocation disputes, on children. Finally, this Note proposes that all parents should be mandated to mediate any parenting disputes following natural disasters.     

城市房屋拆迁纠纷解决途径的法律思考

对城市房屋拆迁中发生的纠纷,究竟是作为民事案件还是作为行政案件来受理?对这一问题,不管是在法律规定上,还是在司法实践中都存在一些差异和混乱。笔者认为应当作为民事案件受理,并提出解决拆迁纠纷的思路及方案,以期与同仁探讨。     

Dead weight: Validation of mass regression equations on experimentally burned skeletal remains to assess skeleton completeness

In very fragmentary remains, the thorough inventory of skeletal elements is often impossible to accomplish. Mass has been used instead to assess the completeness of the skeleton. Two different mass-based methods of assessing skeleton completeness were tested on a sample of experimentally burned skeletons with the objective of determining which of them is more reliable. The first method was based on a simple comparison of the mass of each individual skeleton with previously published mass references. The second method was based on mass linear regressions from individual bones to estimate complete skeleton mass. The clavicle, humerus, femur, patella, metacarpal, metatarsal and tarsal bones were used. The sample was composed of 20 experimentally burned skeletons from 10 males and 10 females with ages-at-death between 68 and 90 years old. Results demonstrated that the regression approach is more objective and more reliable than the reference comparison approach even though not all bones provided satisfactory estimations of the complete skeleton mass. The femur, humerus and patella provided the best performances among the individual bones. The estimations based on the latter had root mean squared errors (RMSE) smaller than 300 g. Results demonstrated that the regression approach is quite promising although the patella was the only reasonable predictor expected to survive sufficiently intact to a burning event at high temperatures. The mass comparison approach has the advantage of not depending on the preservation of individual bones. Whenever bones are intact though, the application of mass regressions should be preferentially used because it is less subjective.