Copyright Damages and Statistics

This paper discusses the statistical issues that arise in conducting an economic damages analysis in the context of a litigation matter involving copyrights. Calculating damages in copyright cases turns out to be a natural application for econometric modelling methods. Surprisingly, elementary statistical issues can be a source of significant debate between the experts in such matters. In this paper, we present a case study and illustrate how issues such as interpretation of p -values and what "rejection of the null hypothesis" really "means" in such matters.     

论天人合一与生态环境──台湾八八水灾的省思

人类向来就不是自然大千世界的主宰者。2009年,八八水灾重创台湾,省思缘由,是天灾也是人祸。如果无法从灾难中记取教训,灾难永远无法停止。古代人智慧结晶＂天人合一＂,是人类与大地永续经营的天然法则。从＂心＂做起,净化人心,建立人类的环保心灵,方是终止灾难的关键。万物是人类生存的主体,懂得疼惜,才能久远。处处留心皆学问,花开花落尽禅机,万物静观皆自得,一切莫名的感动与行动都是生命的活泉。     

违约损害赔偿制度的比较法研究

英关普通法和大陆民法法系在违约救济措施上存在较大的差异。英美法院选择判决损害赔偿,充分发挥金钱的弥补作用;而大陆法系国家更多地是判令违约方实际履行。在司法实践中对违约损害赔偿的归类上,英美法系和大陆法系采纳的标准不同,但基本上可以划分为实际损害和期待利益的丧失两类。在对违约损害赔偿的目的、违约损害赔偿适用的限制上,两大法系在立法及司法上表现出极大的趋同倾向。     

缺陷产品召回制度应实行惩罚性赔偿

惩罚性赔偿不应仅适用于欺诈性的消费关系：在缺陷产品召回制度中，对于主观上有严重的过错、行为具有反社会性和道德上的可责难性并已造成实际损害的经营者也应实行惩罚性赔偿。这样做，可以有效地遏制系统性产品缺陷的恶意制造者，维护公众安全；也有利于建立以人为本、诚实信用、和谐发展的社会经济秩序。全面保护消费者的合法权益；同时，有助于我国尽快顺应世界经济贸易发展的潮流，提高产品的国际竞争力。     

Lysine and Price Fixing: How Long? How Severe?

In October 1996 the Archer Daniels Midland Company(ADM) pleaded guilty to criminal price fixing withrespect to sales of lysine and agreed to pay a $70million fine. Earlier, in August 1996 two Japaneseproducers and a Korean producer of lysine had agreedto plead guilty to criminal price fixing charges. Andearlier still, in July 1996 ADM and the two Japanesecompanies settled the civil suits filed by some harmedbuyers by agreeing to pay a sum of $45 million.It is this last event that serves as the focus forthis paper. The adequacy of the settlement amount wasa major area of dispute. Connor (1996, 1997, 1998)has claimed that the trebled damages to lysinepurchasers were an order of magnitude larger. Crucialto Connor's conclusions are his assumptions as to thetime period during which the conspiracy had an effecton prices and the but for price that otherwise wouldhave prevailed in the absence of the conspiracy. Thispaper will argue that Connor substantiallyover-estimated the period of the conspiracy andunder-estimated the but-for price.     

Discourse and practice of participatory flood risk management in Belfast,UK

The introduction of the Floods Directive signals a move from flood protection towards flood risk management in the European Union. Public participation is highlighted in the Floods Directive as being instrumental to effective implementation of this new approach. This study utilised document analysis, non-participant observation, a questionnaire survey, and interviews to evaluate the discourse and practice of participation in the implementation of the Floods Directive in Belfast, United Kingdom. Flood risk management processes in Belfast are found to be high on participatory rhetoric but low on meaningful engagement. The participatory process is lacking in transparency, does not encourage the active participation of interested parties and has not been clearly communicated to key publics. Opportunities to increase meaningful public participation in the process remain underutilised, and the establishment of local flood forums has provided little opportunity for meaningful engagement. Some actions of governance agencies could be best characterised as facilitating the responsibilisation of risk and are designed to manage risk to agencies rather than address flooding issues.     

Quantitative micro-scale flood risk assessment in a section of the Trotuș River,Romania

This paper focuses on the estimation of direct damages caused by three flood scenarios with different return periods in the section Făgetul de Sus – Ghimeş – Palanca Pass of Trotuș River, with the aim of highlighting the need of improved land use plans. The damage for three land use classes (residential building, infrastructure and agriculture) were estimated using the damage curves developed by the European Joint Research Centre (JRC) as well as site specific maximum damage values. The data were processed with the help of the ArcMap 10.2 software and FloodRisk tool from QGIS software. Furthermore, the flood risk was assessed using the damage – probability curves, which associates the damage with the corresponding frequency of occurrence. This method was identified and adapted to the characteristics of the study area in order to develop a methodology of flood risk assessment that is answering the question: does the lack of land use plans increase the vulnerability and the flood damage? The results showed that the greatest damages are registered for the residential building land use class for a flood probability of 0.001. In this case the damages reach up to 60% on the scale range of deterioration factor, the total damage value being 2 million euros. For the same hazard probability the total registered damage value for roads is 7500 euro, for railways is around 12,000 euro, while for agriculture is around 84,000 euro. These results highlight the need of protection measures and land use plans development and implementation. Regarding the protection measures we consider that the egalitarianism would be the concept that should be applied in the study area and also an improved cooperation between government, specialized agencies and local authorities at local level would lead to a more efficient flood risk management process. The proposed methodology can be applied for micro-scale analysis, providing quantitative results regarding the flood damage and flood risk assessment. It includes a detailed vulnerability analysis of the elements-at-risk with the aim of developing a more comprehensive approach of flood risk assessment.