书写、传播成本与作者的独立身份——著作权制度产生之前作品传播略考

通过考察各主要文明的发展历程发现,书写、传播成本在相当程度上决定了作者的身份是否独立,而身份独立则是思想自由的前提.一种文明要想长存,必须降低书写、传播成本,赋予作者独立的身份,使之能够凭借自己的创作而收获财富.著作权制度就是以法律的形式保障了这种独立身份.     

Predicting Serial Killers' Home Base Using a Decision Support System

The effectiveness of a geographical decision support tool (Dragnet) forlocating the base of serial offenders was compared across 570 modelscomprised of a range of negative exponential functions, buffer zonecomponents, and normalization parameters. The models were applied to thebody disposal locations within each series for 70 U.S. serial killers. Twonormalization parameters were compared for all functions. The test ofeffectiveness was a specifically defined measure of search cost. Whenapplied to the Dragnet predictions it was found that the specially developednormalization parameter (QRange) produced the optimal search costs. Theoptimal search cost was also found to be for a function that did not includeany buffer zone. The optimal, average search cost across the whole samplewas 11% of the defined search area. Fifty-one percent of the offendersresided in the first 5% of the search area, with 87% in the first 25%. Allresided in the total defined search area. These results support thepotential for operational tools using such procedures as well ascontributing to our understanding of criminal's geographicalbehavior. The applicability to other forms of serial crime is considered.     

关于工会企事业转变经济发展方式的思考

经济增长方式问题一直是我国经济理论界的研究热点之一,也是各级政府关注的焦点。党的十七大报告首次提出"转变经济发展方式",比过去的转变经济增长方式提出了更高更宽的要求。目前我国整体经济发展水平和质量不高,促进经济增长方式由粗放型向集约型转变,从单纯追求经济增长向经济可持续发展转变,已经成为我国市场主体生存发展的当务之急。在日益激烈的市场竞争形势下,如何抓住有利时机,及时转变经济发展方式,提高经济发展质量,是当前工会企事业所面临的一个重要命题。     

可登记财产利益的交易自由——从两岸民事法制的观点看物权法定原则松绑的界线

刻意把债法和物法放在对立面的传统民法典体例,形成了许多似是而非的逻辑,把财产法的释义学弄得没有必要的复杂。因此在检讨物权法定原则的立法政策之前,有必要再一次厘清限制物权的"关系权"本质。至于法定还是自由,比较有说服力的讨论恐怕也只有成本一效益的分析,这部分同样需要对一些很基本的观念先有共识,才不至于沦为各说各话。本文即接续过去两度提出的经济分析观点,参考后来的一些文章,再作一点补充。我国台湾地区的立法者已经采取了行动,在不动产所有权上交易者已经可以依其需要自由建立对世性的财产关系。大陆因为土地迄未开放私有,使得这个问题的讨论变得格外复杂,必须从社会主义市场经济体制的语境,重新检视物权的性质,并验证自由化的成本效益。本文也尝试在极有限的信息基础上,作一些最初步的探讨。     

论我国注射死刑的平等适用

目前,我国在执行注射死刑时存在不能完全平等适用的问题。这种不平等适用体现为不同身份的死刑犯适用不平等、不同地区的死刑犯适用不平等、不同罪行的死刑犯适用不平等等方面。注射死刑不平等适用违反了法律面前人人平等原则,引起社会的诸多质疑。而注射死刑未平等适用的原因较为复杂,既因立法上存在漏洞,又受到注射成本过高,地方司法机关推动力度不够,民众报应观念较强等因素制约。     

The Economic Cost of March 11: Measuring the Direct Economic Cost of the Terrorist Attack on March 11, 2004 in Madrid

This article attempts to measure the direct costs that the terrorist attacks of 3/11 had on the economy of the region of Madrid. The evaluation has been made applying conservative criteria, and the results obtained have to be considered as minimum. The result indicates that the terrorist attacks caused a loss of nearly 212 million euros to the regional economy of Madrid, equivalent to 0.16 percent of the regional GDP (0.03 of the national GDP). This confirms that the immediate economic dimension of a terrorist attack such as the one of 3/11—apart from human catastrophic consequences—is relatively low.     

Absolute and limited war: The possibility of foreign‐imposed regime change

This paper examines the relationship between foreign imposed regime change and war participation. The oppertunity and willingness of an opponent to impose a new regime on a war participant affects the likelihood that such a change will occur. Results from a logistic regression model suggest that (1) winning or losing the war, (2) the amount of war costs the participant endures, (3) the power of the participant relative to its opponent, (4) the amount of war costs the opponent endures, (5) the occurrence of a domestic regime change during the war, and (6) the difference between the authority structures of the war participant and its opponent all have a significant and sizable impact on the probability that a war participant endures a foreign imposed regime change. The first three variables measure the opponent's opportunity to force a regime change, while the last three measure its willingness. I suggest that these results increase our ability to evaluate the likely consequences of a war, and may have important implications for our understanding of the decision to enter and terminate a war.     

Analysing the economic justification for the reforms to social welfare and family law legal aid

The Ministry of Justice plans on saving £450 million per annum from the legal aid budget through reforms contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.Over 60% of these savings will be found by removing whole areas of law and types of problem from the scope of legal aid support. One of the principal justifications for these reforms is the economic imperative; reducing legal aid expenditure is necessary to meet the Government's fiscal targets. This article examined whether these reforms will generate the substantial savings identified in the Government's impact assessment, or whether these costs will be passed on to other areas of government. Data from the Civil and Social Justice Survey were used to model the behavioural responses of people no longer eligible for legal aid under the scope changes. Economic costs were estimated for these responses where they will be incurred by the state, although many of these costs are likely to be underestimates. Many costs could not be estimated including, inter alia, the cost of increased criminality where people seek redress outside of the justice system. The analysis focused on family and social welfare law, which together represent 82% of the proposed savings from the scope reforms. Based upon this analysis, the Government is unlikely to save more than 40% of its prediction. At the same time, these minimal savings could generate inequality of access to justice and overburden an already struggling alternative advice sector. A significant uptake in funded mediation within family law is predicted.     

A Cautionary Tale: Council Amalgamation in Tasmania and the Deloitte Access Economics Report

Contemporary Australian public policy has come to rely increasingly on technical reports produced by commercial consultants in contrast to the traditional approach, which employed disinterested public servants to generate the specialist information required to inform decision makers. This approach is fraught with problems, not least the fact that ‘hired guns’ have strong incentives to create the ‘answers’ sought by their employers. By way of a ‘cautionary tale’, this paper examines the empirical evidence adduced in favour of radical amalgamation of Tasmanian local authorities in Local Government Structural Reform in Tasmania, produced by Deloitte Access Economics (DAE) (2011), and commissioned by the Property Council of Tasmania. In particular, the paper provides a critical analysis of the econometric modelling undertaken in the DAE (2011) Report. We find that if the DAE model is re‐estimated – employing alternative functional forms – then the empirical evidence in support of Tasmania council merges evaporates.     

Digital identity,privacy and the right to identity in the United States of America

This article analyses digital identity as an emergent legal concept in the United States of America, as a consequence of the move to place all federal government services on-line. The features and functions of digital identity and its legal nature are examined, and the consequences are considered.