American Legal argumentation: The Law and Literature/rhetoric movement

This essay discusses the most recent manifestations of the debate of the law and literature movement. The essay traces the evolution of the Law and Literature schools and identifies some of their adherents and conclusions, shows how these schools have influenced the conceptual development and teaching of American law, presents connections between the Critical Legal Studies and Law and Economics movements in the U.S., and raises questions about the Law and Literature movement.     

China's Marriage Law: A Model for Family Responsibilities and Relationships

China's Marriage Law of 1981 is presented with a brief commentary. The law encompasses the responsibilities of spouses, parents, children, grandparents, and siblings to one another. The new law is contrasted with the 1950 Marriage Law, which prohibited such feudal practices of former times as arranged marriages and child betrothals. The 1981 law is concerned with equality and the lawful needs of women, children, and the aged. Family planning is encouraged. Divorce is made easier to obtain. Adoptees and stepchildren are provided for. The law provides a legislative model for personal relationships.     

Skilled Observation and Change Blindness: A Comparison of Law Enforcement and Student Samples

Some evidence suggests that expertise and observational skills training can reduce attentional errors, such as change blindness. Laypeople typically assume that law enforcement officers possess acute observational skills, but no research to date has compared law enforcement and lay samples on their susceptibility to change blindness. In the present study, student and law enforcement samples completed a change blindness task and attempted to identify the target(s) from four line‐ups. Law enforcement officers and students were equally susceptible to change blindness regarding the switch in the target's identity, but students were more likely than officers to detect changes in the target's clothing. Students also performed better on the line‐up task, overall, than officers. Additionally, whereas students' confidence was positively correlated with identification accuracy under some circumstances, officers' confidence was either uncorrelated or negatively correlated with accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest some factors accounting for law enforcement officers' relatively poor performance on these tasks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consulting scientist and engineer liability: A survey of relevant law

This paper is a survey of the law in the United States which is applicable to consulting scientists and engineers. Based on the body of law which has developed for the construction industry and professional “advice-givers” such as attorneys, medical doctors and accountants, the paper reviews professional responsibilities in the areas of Common Law Torts. Common Law Contracts, certain U.S. Federal and State Statutes and the protection of sensitive information.     

The logistics of choice

The generalized matching law (GML) is reconstructed as a logistic regression equation that privileges no particular value of the sensitivity parameter, a. That value will often approach 1 due to the feedback that drives switching that is intrinsic to most concurrent schedules. A model of that feedback reproduced some features of concurrent data. The GML is a law only in the strained sense that any equation that maps data is a law. The machine under the hood of matching is in all likelihood the very law that was displaced by the Matching Law. It is now time to return the Law of Effect to centrality in our science.     

Conversion to Islam in relation to divorce in Malaysian family law

Malaysia is a multi-religious country that recognizes two types of family law based upon the Law Reform Marriage and Divorce Act 1976 and the Islamic Family Law. The former administers the marriage matters of non-Muslims, and the latter deals with Muslim family affairs. This paper aims to elucidate the matter of the conversion of a non-Muslim spouse to Islam in connection with an application to dissolve a marriage in Malaysia. When both the husband and wife have solemnized and registered their marriage under the Law Reform Marriage and Divorce Act but one of the parties subsequently converts to Islam, Section 51 of the Law Reform Marriage and Divorce Act contains a provision for the dissolution of the marriage. On the other hand, the Islamic Family Law also has certain provisions to be applied in the case of conversion. As a consequence of the conversion, neither party to the marriage continues to be bound by the same family law provision. Thus there arise several issues to be identified and clarified, such as who has the right to file the divorce petition, which court has the jurisdiction to adjudicate the petition, and whether there is any conflict of interest between the parties in the process of dissolving their marriage. This paper attempts to highlight and discuss the issue of conversion, by making a comparative study between the provisions in the Law Reform Marriage and Divorce Act and the Islamic Family Law.     

论医患关系的法律属性

医事法（又称卫生法）究竟是属于民法的调整范畴还是属于行政法的范畴,国内学术界争议很大。从医学科学与医疗行为的本质特征看,医患关系并不具备民事法律关系所必须具备的主体平等、双方自愿及等价有偿互惠互利三大特征中的任何一个特征。同时也不存在行政主体与行政相对人的关系。为此,首次提出医事法既不调整横向的民事法律关系,也不调整纵向的行政法律关系,而是调整斜向的医事法律关系的一门独立的法律体系的理论。     

医患关系的本质属性及其立法取向

考察医患关系的本质属性,结合国家医疗事业的公益性、医疗立法的宗旨和发展趋势,得出如下结论：医患关系本质平等,医事法属平权法。医事法律关系本质平等,是一种民事法律关系,现行医患关系立法体系下医患关系的某些特征,不能反映医事法律关系的本质属性。     

Therapeutic jurisprudence and changing conceptions of legal scholarship

This article traces changes in the nature of legal scholarship and illustrates how therapeutic jurisprudence reflects changing conceptions of the law and legal scholarship. It argues that therapeutic jurisprudence may be regarded as a mental health law counterpart to ?New Public Law,”? and shows that questions asked by therapeutic jurisprudence scholars parallel closely those asked by public law scholars.     

试论《管子》对法的渊源的探索

《管子》作为“齐法家”思想的重要著作,其中的法家思想融进了当时多家学说对法的认识,反映了齐国变法时期的政治实践以及战国时期法律思想发展的特点,在我国法律思想发展史上具有重要的历史地位。它对法的渊源的探索,开辟了思想融合的趋势,这种思想上的包容精神影响了我国后世许多重要文化和国家治理思想的形成。     

Pigeon reaction time, Hick’s law, and intelligence

Pigeons' choice reaction times (RTs) increased as a linear function of log2 number of potential target stimuli (Experiments 1-3), as would be predicted by Hick's law. The values of intercepts and slopes decreased with training (Experiments 2 and 3) and with differential reinforcement of short RTs under percentile reinforcement contingencies (Experiment 3). RT functions obtained from human subjects were also consistent with Hick's law, but slopes for pigeons were significantly lower than those for humans (Experiments 4 and 5). These results extend the generality of Hick's law to pigeons but are inconsistent with Jensen's claim that the parameters of the Hick function are related to intelligence.     

犹太教在当代北美的表现

犹太教的本质体现为对上帝的信仰和对其律法的遵从。由于对上帝的信仰只是被视为是犹太教的前提,犹太教一向不注重对上帝本质的论述,因此,对其律法的遵从便成为犹太教事实上的主体。在日常生活中是否践行律法是犹太教有别于其他一神信仰的主要标准,也是判断一个犹太人是否守教的主要标准。当今北美犹太人在践行犹太律法中表现出的"多样性"突出体现了犹太教这一"自由"解读律法以及在自身内容上添加新思维的传统。了解犹太教在当代北美的新表现有助于认识犹太教在当代的发展趋势。     

Using Response Accuracy and Latency Scores from an Artificial Language Test to Predict Grades in a Spanish Language Course

This study investigated whether scores of item response accuracy (AC) and item response latencies (RLs) from a computer based artificial language test (ALT) uniquely predicted grades in a Spanish language course at a U.S. law enforcement training academy. As expected, ALT–RLs added to the prediction of course grades provided by ALT–AC. This finding held even after controlling for scores on a logical reasoning test. Results are discussed in terms of the potential benefits of using RLs to predict performance in training.     

LAW NECESSITARIANISM AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INTUITIVE

The counter-intuitive implications of law necessitarianism pose a far more serious threat than its proponents recognize. Law necessitarians are committed to scientific essentialism, the thesis that there are metaphysically necessary truths which can be known only a posteriori. The most frequently cited arguments for this position rely on modal intuitions. Rejection of intuition thus threatens to undermine it. I consider ways in which law necessitarians might try to defend scientific essentialism without invoking intuition. I then consider ways in which law necessitarians who accept the general reliability of intuition might try to explain away the intuitions which conflict with their theory.     

Application of the Generalized Matching Law for Description of Student Behavior in the Classroom

Matching law and theory have applied implications for classroom instruction and student behavior. The Generalized Matching Law (GML) is examined in this exploratory study to assess its utility for quantitatively describing student behavior in the classroom. Data were collected using computer-based observational software. Time-lag sequential analysis was used to identify specific teacher behaviors following specific student behaviors as estimates of reinforcement. Derived rates of student and teacher behaviors were analyzed in a linear regression of the natural logarithmic form of the GML. On average, the GML described over 70% of the variance in two students' behavior in a first-grade regular education classroom. Discussion addresses the potential utility of the GML for observation and intervention in the classroom.     

Étude de la représentation sociale du droit chez des enseignants,des juristes et des collégiens de classe de troisième : un préalable à l’éducation civique,juridique et sociale au lycée

For a few years civic education has been present at all the levels of the school. Legal and social civic education in college particularly takes support on legal contents. This teaching is entrusted to the teachers but the intervention of professionals of the law to support the teaching action is necessary. The study of the social representations of the “Law” of three populations, the pupils of third class, the teachers and the lawyers, shows however that those represent the social object “Law” differently. Consequently the communication between these groups could be proved to be unfruitful.     

The law of categorical judgment (corrected) extended: a note on Rosner and Kochanski (2009)

Rosner and Kochanski (2009) noticed an inconsistency in the mathematical statement of the Law of Categorical Judgment and derived "the valid equation, the Law of Categorical Judgment (Corrected)" (p. 125). The purpose of this comment is to point out that the law can be corrected in many different ways, leading to substantially different equations. The different versions have different consequences for the predicted distributions of the responses and, hence, for fitting real data. Some of these consequences are unexpected and sometimes undesirable. Researchers should be aware of the different possibilities as they may lead to pronouncedly different accounts of given data.     

The effect of exercise on the selective performance of an instrumental response

Dogs were used to condition two instrumental reactions—bending of the left or of the right forepaw respectively. In the experimental situation a dish containing food was presented to the dog at a distance but could be drawn close and retained by lifting the forepaw to which (left or right) a lever had been attached. If both paws were simultaneously attached to levers, the dog had to choose between two reactions. Preliminary trials showed a right paw preference in spite of the equal effectiveness (food reinforcement) of the left paw. The aim of this experiment was to alter this right paw preference by a paradigm of differential practice with left paw dominance. The plan was to have ten training sessions followed by one test with choice. According to the probabilities, P_left = 0.8, P_right = 0.2, a random table was used to determine the order of the right-left paw attachments to the levers during training. In all, 1,000 training sessions and 100 tests with choice were carried out in each of three dogs. According to the training program, in every 100 training sessions the left paw had to perform the reaction a total of 80 times and 20 times by the right paw. An absolute alteration in paw preference occurred P_lelt = 1.0) even though both forepaws were equally effective in obtaining food reinforcement on the test trials. The present results indicate that not only the Law of Effect but Exercise is also important in instrumental conditioning.     

Piéron's Law holds during stroop conflict: insights into the architecture of decision making

Piéron's Law describes the relationship between stimulus intensity and reaction time. Previously (Stafford & Gurney, 2004), we have shown that Piéron's Law is a necessary consequence of rise-to-threshold decision making and thus will arise from optimal simple decision-making algorithms (e.g., Bogacz, Brown, Moehlis, Holmes, & Cohen, 2006). Here, we manipulate the color saturation of a Stroop stimulus. Our results show that Piéron's Law holds for color intensity and color-naming reaction time, extending the domain of this law, in line with our suggestion of the generality of the processes that can give rise to Piéron's Law. In addition, we find that Stroop condition does not interact with the effect of color saturation; Stroop interference and facilitation remain constant at all levels of color saturation. An analysis demonstrates that this result cannot be accounted for by single-stage decision-making algorithms which combine all the evidence pertaining to a decision into a common metric. This shows that human decision making is not information-optimal and suggests that the generalization of current models of simple perceptual decision making to more complex decisions is not straightforward.     

《管子》与汉初法制重构

《管予》渊源于齐文化,法制思想以礼、法并重为特色,齐用之而为东方大国;秦用商、韩之法迅速强大并统一六国,但秦法严苛激进,任法而废礼,致秦二世而亡。汉承秦之弊,在历史与现实中寻求适合自己发展的道路,于偶然,也是必然中选择了礼法并重的《管子》法制思想作为治国方略,史称黄老政治,使国家逐步实现了稳定与繁荣,并开创了二千多年的秦汉制度。