Incrementalism, as opposed to dramatic change, is conventionally lauded in law as the prudent path of change—a path that gives credit to history and precedent. The conventional view, however, pays little attention to interest groups. Step-by-step change poses a serious problem when it rearranges the constellation of supporters and opponents of further moves. The core problem is that once an int...

This paper approaches the problem of finding correspondences between images in which there are large changes in viewpoint, scale and illumination. Recent work has shown that scale-space ‘interest points’ may be found with good repeatability in spite of such changes. Furthermore, the high entropy of the surrounding image regions means that local descriptors are highly discriminative for matching...

India’s patent reforms represent a shift in India’s policy from one of enormous opposition to revising patent laws according to the WTO, to one of compliance with many aspects of TRIPs (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement. Industry and civil society had a strong interest in blocking reforms on IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights), and initially played an important role in preve...

The board of the European Association for Dental Public Health (EADPH) is very grateful that two of the EADPH special interest groups were able to produce position papers in their fields within a relatively short time. Their first article, “Methodological issues in epidemiological studies of periodontitis – how can it be improved,” was prepared by Roos Leroy, Ken Eaton and Amir Savage following...

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Three additions are suggested to the study of interest groups and their role in a democracy. First, different types of interest groups are recognized; in particular, special interest groups, which have a narrow social base, concentrate on limited issues, and benefit mainly their own members, are distinguished from constituencyrepresenting organizations. which have a broad social base, address a...