PRECEDENT AND NATIONALISM IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

This article employs literature on federalism to explore the ways in which national Canadian interest groups develop federative structures in order to conduct advocacy work within Québec. It first identifies institutional reasons for the development of federalist structures for Canadian groups, and it then explores asymmetries between the treatment of Québec chapters of these groups and of chapters elsewhere in Canada. Drawing on interviews with the political directors of groups active at the national level in Canada, this article shows that the degree to which groups grant power to their provincial or Québec subunits varies according to the benefits sought by groups.     

MINDING THE BUSINESS OF THE SUPREME COURT: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EFFECTS OF THE JUDGES' BILL OF 1925*

Twice at least in the Court's first too centuries it has found itself inundated with litigation that has outstripped its abilities to process it. Congress has from time to time had to make adjustments in the Supreme Court's jurisdiction so that the court could cope with its caseload. These “reforms” are potentially quite, important., yet few scholars have studied the effects, intended and unintended, of them. This paper reviews and criticize the scholarship on the effects of one especially interesting reform, the Judges' Bill of 1925, Along the way I offer a number of suggestions ore offered on how social scientists might in the future go about studying the effects of judical-reform.     

FACTORS AFFECTING THE VIABILITY OF THERMOLUMINESCENCE DATING OF GLASS

The aim of this study is to achieve a better understanding of some of the factors that limit the thermoluminescence (TL) dating of glass. Using a‘model system’(lithium-disilicate samples having different levels of crystallinity from 0 to 100%), we show, first, that the TL of glass is reproducible only if the glass is not heated above its temperature glass transition and second, that there is a clear connection between the TL sensitivity and the degree of crvstallinity of the sample. We conclude that thermoluminescence is not a general dating method for archaeological glass, but it can be applied to particular glass samples that haue specified characteristics.     

“全球的地方感”理论述评与广州案例解读

关于地方文化意义的研究在西方人文地理学研究中占据着重要的地位.全球化背景下,地方的意义正在被全球性力量中和与消解.在这种断裂之下,原有的对于“地方性”的想象反而在认同形成的过程中被不断加强.本土社会力图在一个“时空压缩”的“超空间”时代中,保存其自身基于地方意义的身份认同.哈维认为,一切基于地方意义形成的认同都是反动与禁锢的.他提出,应从资本运作的角度出发,理解地方差异的形成,从而理解地方建构中的社会关系与权力关系的建构.但马西则在批判哈维理论的基础上提出了全球(进步)的地方感理论,指出应从多样的社会建构出发,理解地方性的形成过程.马西认为,地方的本质特点包括:开放以及与外界密切的社会联系;地方本身是一个过程,认同在不断的再建构过程中;地方内部具有其认同的多样性;进步的地方感并不否认地方性的存在等.基于马西的进步地方感理论,研究通过对广州关于移民以及粤语传承问题讨论中出现的话语进行的文本分析,指出广州本地社会在上述讨论的过程中,其少部分话语已经呈现出进步地方感所批判的禁锢性,因此需要在重新认识地方的过程中加以修正.     

JURY DECISION MAKING MODELS AND THE SUPREME COURT: THE JURY CASES FROM WILLIAMS v. FLORIDA TO BALLEW v. GEORGIA*

This article analyzes recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases relating to the size and unanimity of juries as an example of the use (and abuse) of social science by the Court in the realm of policy analysis. The four cases reviewed “cast an unflattering light on the U.S. Supreme Court's ability to integrate social science findings into public law.”     

THE POLITICS OF COURT REFORM:d IN A NUTSHELL

State court reform is proceeding at an ever-quickening pace. A major theme is centralized state judicial leadership and management in court organization and funding, and improved methods for the selection and discipline of judges. Trends in court reform, groups supporting and opposing change and a brief evaluation of some court reform efforts are examined. Court reform is viewed as a political process.     

EVALUATION OF THE SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF EXISTING RC BUILDINGS: II. A CASE STUDY FOR REGULAR AND IRREGULAR BUILDINGS

The results of a parametric study are presented, concerned with the evaluation of the structural overstrength, the global ductility and the available behaviour factor of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings designed and constructed according to past generations of earthquake resistant design codes in Greece. For the estimation of these parameters, various failure criteria are incorporated in a methodology established to predict the failure mode of such buildings under planar response, as described in detail in a companion publication. A collection of 85 typical building forms is considered. The influence of various parameters is examined, such as the geometry of the structure (number of storeys, bay width etc.), the vertical irregularity, the contribution of the perimeter frame masonry infill walls, the period of construction, the design code and the seismic zone coefficient. The results from inelastic pushover analyses indicate that existing RC buildings exhibit higher overstrength than their contemporary counterparts, but with much reduced ductility capacity. The presence of perimeter infill walls increases considerably their stiffness and lateral resistance, while further reducing their ductility. Fully infilled frames exhibit generally good behaviour, while structures with an open floor exhibit the worst performance by creating a soft storey. Shear failure becomes critical in the buildings with partial height infills. It is also critical for buildings with isolated shear wall cores at the elevator shaft. Out of five different forms of irregularity considered in this study, buildings with column discontinuities in the ground storey exhibit the worst performance. Furthermore, buildings located in the higher seismicity zone are more vulnerable, since the increase of their lateral resistance and ductility capacity is disproportional to the increase in seismic demand.     

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF OFFICE RENT AND AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES: A CASE STUDY OF TORONTO*

ABSTRACT. An equilibrium model of office location is applied and tested in the Toronto metropolitan area. The model focuses on the role of communication among firms which is the driving force behind the spatial agglomeration of office firms. The model calculates the equilibrium floor rent in each district, given the existing building stock. The performance of the model is tested in terms of the goodness of fit between observed and estimated office rent in each district. By using the model, we estimate the value of agglomeration economies which is defined as changes in productivities caused by increases in the number of office firms. It is shown that the agglomeration economies in the office sector are much larger than those in manufacturing, and the external effects of agglomeration are considerably large.