Recently, a series of lawsuits were filed in Korea claiming tort liability against tobacco companies. The Supreme Court has already issued decisions in some cases, while others are still pending. The primary issue in these cases is whether the epidemiological evidence submitted by the plaintiffs clearly proves the causal relationship between smoking and disease as required by civil law. Proving...

In 1837, Dirichlet proved that there are infinitely many primes in any arithmetic progression in which the terms do not all share a common factor. Presentations of Dirichlet’s proof over the next century show a very gradual transition to a modern perspective, whereby certain functions that appear in the proof assume the status of ordinary mathematical objects. In prior work [3, 4] we studied th...

In this project, we are experimentally testing the importance of burdens of proof in determining the validity of a patent in litigation. The genesis of these experiments is the Supreme Court decision in Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Limited P'ship, 131 S. Ct. 2238 (2011). In i4i, the Court rejected Microsoft's claim that a jury need only be persuaded by a preponderance of the evidence to find a patent...

Francesco Redi (1626-1697) was a scientist and writer of highest level. He spent his career at Medicean Court, where he developed a profound literary and philological knowledge, but specialising in the life sciences. Redi brought together erudition and a genuine experimental spirit, being the first to apply the experimental method to the life sciences. It was above all during the reign of Ferdi...

The importance of maintenance has escalated significantly by the increasing of automation in manufacturing process. This condition switches traditional maintenance perspective of inevitable cost into the business competitive driver. Consequently, maintenance strategy and operation decision needs to be synchronized to business and manufacturing concerns. This paper shows the development of conce...

The architecture of a software-intensive system is the composition of architectural design decisions. These decisions are an important part of Architectural Knowledge (AK). Failure to document architectural design decisions can lead to AK vaporization and higher maintenance costs. To reduce AK vaporization, we propose to apply the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to make tacit knowledge about arc...

There is perhaps no other sector that reflects the fractured nature of civil society in the United States more than public education. Despite a Supreme Court decision calling for schools to be racially integrated, public schools across the United States remain largely segregated with respect to the race and class make-up of their student populations (Orfield and Eaton 1996). Public schools are ...

Nearly a decade after the Federal Circuit decision in State Street, patents on computerimplemented methods of doing business have become commonplace. To date, there is little evidence of any effect on the rate of innovation or R&D among firms in financial services. Indeed, measuring such effects presents difficult problems for researchers. We do know that some of these patents are successfully ...

Techniques for controlling California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) include trapping, shooting, acute toxicants, anticoagulants, and fumigants. These techniques are described and compared and the available information on their efficacy and economics is discussed. This kind of analysis is essential if growers are to make logical decisions regarding the various control options.

Behavioral science data included in an amicus brief has been introduced into a recent Supreme Court decision (Thompson v. Oklahoma) involving the juvenile death penalty. However, a close examination of the data fails to provide support for either the pro- or antijuvenile death penalty position.