The Role of Dissents in the Formation of Precedent

I argue that dissenting opinions play an important role in the formation of precedent in the context of plurality decisions. Courts typically treat plurality cases as precedential. However, procedures for interpreting and following plurality decisions vary considerably across courts and judges, producing major inconsistencies in the adjudication of cases that are ostensibly governed by the same law. I suggest that, when a majority of judges agrees on legal principle, that principle should have binding effect, even if the judges in principled agreement disagree on result or case outcome. I explain why some courts and most commentators have categorically excluded dissents from the holding category, and why that move is mistaken. First of all, an analysis of the holdings/dicta distinction shows that, in some cases, dissenting views belong on the holding side. Second, if we think that principled decisionmaking is fundamental to the authority and legitimacy of case law, then judicial agreement at the level of rationale or principle merits precedential status, even where those who agree on principle disagree on how a case should come out

Indikatoren für eine bedarfsorientierte Finanzierung frühkindlicher Bildung - Sozialraumdaten als valide Proxies für Einzeleinrichtungen?

The main purpose of the study is to investigate whether regional data are able to finance early childhood education settings according to their need. Against the background of constraints in public resources on the one hand and the challenge to tackle educational inequality on the other hand, the current academic and political discussion regards needs-based resource allocation to be a promising answer to both demands. This requires the indicators used to allocate resources to accurately capture the characteristics that result in a greater financial need of educational institutions with respect to educational inequalities. In this regard, policy makers often face a dilemma between available data on the one hand and the quality of these data on the other hand. A possible solution to this dilemma could be the use of statistical data on the level of city districts as an objective and non-manipulable indicator that is easily at hand. However, the employment of these data is only valid if the districts’ social composition is similar to the composition of the settings in those districts. I employ data on different needs indicators on both levels in one municipality and analyze their correlation. The results indicate that the characteristics of the districts and their respective preschool settings do not match sufficiently to be an adequate indicator in needs-based resource allocation. (DIPF/Orig.)Die Studie untersucht, ob vorliegende Daten der kommunalen Sozialberichterstattung sinnvoll eingesetzt werden können, um Kindertageseinrichtungenbedarfs orientiert zu finanzieren. Vor dem Hintergrund begrenzter öffentlicher Finanzmittel und der Herausforderung, bestehende Bildungsungleichheiten abzubauen, erscheint akademischen und politischen Diskussionen zufolge eine bedarfsorientierte Finanzierung von Bildungseinrichtungen als geeignete Strategie, beide Anforderungen gleichermaßen zu erfüllen. Eine solche Ressourcenallokation erfordert den Einsatz von Indikatoren, die den Mittelbedarf der Einrichtungen hinreichend genau erfassen. Häufig ist die Suche nach Indikatoren durch ein Spannungsverhältnis zwischen einer ausreichenden Datenverfügbarkeit und -qualität gekennzeichnet. Ein möglicher Ausweg könnte die Verwendung von statistischen Daten auf Stadtteilebene sein, die im Rahmen der kommunalen Sozialberichterstattung vorliegen und zugleich objektiv und nicht-manipulativ sind. Dies setzt voraus, dass die in der Sozialraumstatistik berichtete soziale Komposition der Stadtteile ausreichend genau die Komposition in den Einrichtungen widerspiegelt. Um dies zu überprüfen, werden verschiedene Bedarfsindikatoren auf beiden Analyseebenen mit Hilfe von Korrelationsanalysen zueinander in Beziehung gesetzt. Die Ergebnisse verweisen darauf, dass die Eigenschaften der Stadtteile und der in diesen liegenden Kindertageseinrichtungen nicht ausreichend übereinstimmen. (DIPF/Orig.

Capturing nonclassical shocks in nonlinear elastodynamic with a conservative finite volume scheme

For a model of nonlinear elastodynamics, we construct a finite volume scheme which is able to capture nonclassical shocks (also called undercompressive shocks). Those shocks verify an entropy inequality but are not admissible in the sense of Liu. They verify a kinetic relation which describes the jump, and keeps an information on the equilibrium between a vanishing dispersion and a vanishing diffusion. The scheme pre-sented here is by construction exact when the initial data is an isolated nonclassical shock. In general, it does not introduce any diffusion near shocks, and hence nonclas-sical solutions are correctly approximated. The method is fully conservative and does not use any shock-tracking mesh. This approach is tested and validated on several test cases. In particular, as the nonclassical shocks are not diffused at all, it is possible to obtain large time asymptotics

Intrinsic operators from holomorphic function spaces to growth spaces

We determine the boundedness and compactness of a large class of operators, mapping from general Banach spaces of holomorphic functions into a particular type of spaces of functions determined by the growth of the functions, or the growth of the functions derivatives. The results show that the boundedness and compactness of such intrinsic operators depends only on the behaviour on the point evaluation functionals. They also generalize previous similar results about several specific classes of operators, such as the multiplication, composition and integral operators.Comment: 22 pages; the final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00020-017-2361-

"Civil War Cinema in New Deal America"

During the early decades of the 20th century, Hollywood filmmakers both shaped and reflected the popular understanding of the Confederacy, slavery, and Abraham Lincoln.Accepted manuscrip

Bioavailability of pesticides in freshwater sediments

In ecological risk assessment standardized sediment toxicity tests are used to predict the hazard of chemicals for sediment-living organisms. Feeding is a prerequisite in these long-term tests to avoid starvation of test organisms. Therefore, added food particles may act as vectors for the test compound. The importance of food particles as vectors, however, is dependent on several factors, for example, sorption and major uptake routes. In this thesis, laboratory experiments on the importance of pesticide sorption and uptake routes for the bioavailability to the midge Chironomus riparius in sediment toxicity test setups were performed. A feeding selectivity study showed that larvae almost exclusively fed on added food particles, and highly neglected sediment particles. Additionally, experiments on the sorption of the insecticide lindane, showed that food and peat particles (used in artificial sediment) efficiently sorbed lindane (>95% after 48 h). The binding strength of lindane was weak, facilitating particulate uptake. However, the uptake from dissolved lindane was higher than the uptake from particles. From this we concluded that toxicity may be underestimated in spiked-sediment scenarios, where hydrophobic pesticides sorb to the sediment and larvae to a large extent feed on uncontaminated food particles. Conversely, in a spiked-water scenario, the food particles may act as vector, resulting in a facilitated particulate uptake, in addition to the uptake from water. Sediment organic matter affects sorption, and thus bioavailability of pesticides. Pyrethroid toxicity was much higher in artificial sediment than in a natural sediment, indicating the simplicity and shortcomings of using artificial sediments. Interestingly, the sediment quality highly affected bioavailability in spiked-water. For example, C. riparus larvae in sediments with low organic matter content and exposed to spiked-water pyrethroids, showed lower survival, slower development, and increased adult size, than those in sediments with higher organic matter. The pyrethroid deltamethrin, showed an LC50-value (28 d) for C. riparius larvae in artificial sediment of 16 pg/L and 11 µg/kg for water- and sediment exposures, respectively, i.e. toxic effects occurred at concentrations lower than the detection limits for high-tech analytical methods. This thesis contributes to a wider understanding of processes affecting bioavailability in freshwater sediments, and in particular in standardized sediments used in toxicity testing. The understanding of test compound sorption and bioavailability is crucial for sound interpretations of toxicity tests and for the general credibility of such tests