Casebook on contract law

The law of contract can be a complex and technical subject, rvt the new edition of Jill Poole's Casebook on Contract provides a clear and well-structured exposition of the principles and rules through a comprehensive selection of case law, addressing all aspects encountered on undergraduate courses. Opening with a chapter of valuable advice and guidance on how to successfully develop and improve the essential skills of case-reading, featuring two worked examples, the coverage in this sixth edition expands to incorporate all recent significant decisions and judgments made by the House of Lords and Court of Appeal such as, Director General of Fair Trading v First National Bank plc, Farley v Skinner, Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge and UCB Corporate Services v Williams. Interesting recent decisions in relation to battle of forms, terms, exemption clauses and misrepresentation are also included. Extracts have been chosen from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the reasoning processes of the court, why decisions are made and how legal principles are developed - enabling cases to be analysed and discussed independently while, taken as a whole, the chapters provide a sound understanding of the modern law of contract. The section on damages for breach of contract has been expanded to reassess Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth in the light of Farley v Skinner, the future of Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd is considered in the light of Johnson v Unisys Ltd and Attorney General v Blake is examined in the light of the decision in Esso Petroleum Co Ltd v Niad Ltd. Succinct author comment focuses the reader on the key elements within the extracts, while thought-provoking questions are posed throughout to develop more in-depth analysis. The logical and clear organization of topics has been further improved to more accurately echo the order adopted within the author's popular textbook and closer crossreferencing to this text has been incorporated to highlight where more detailed discussion of issues arising from the caselaw can be explored. As a result, this new edition can be used both as a traditional casebook and as a companion volume to Poole's Textbook on Contract. This edition is also supported by a new companion web site that offers the benefits of essential updating of key materials, sample questions, lists for key further reading sources and relevant web links, additional relevant cases and materials and guidance on successful exam technique. As with previous editions, Casebook on Contract is an invaluable primary source and an essential study aid for all those following elements of contract law as part of the LLB and CPE, as well as for students from related disciplines such as Accounting and Business.

Exploitation of fibre characteristics in temperature sensing and radio-over-fibre applications

The development of sensing devices is one of the instrumentation fields that has grown rapidly in the last decade. Corresponding to the swift advance in the development of microelectronic sensors, optical fibre sensors are widely investigated because of their advantageous properties over the electronics sensors such as their wavelength multiplexing capability and high sensitivity to temperature, pressure, strain, vibration and acoustic emission. Moreover, optical fibre sensors are more attractive than the electronics sensors as they can perform distributed sensing, in terms of covering a reasonably large area using a single piece of fibre. Apart from being a responsive element in the sensing field, optical fibre possesses good assets in generating, distributing, processing and transmitting signals in the future broadband information network. These assets include wide bandwidth, high capacity and low loss that grant mobility and flexibility for wireless access systems. Among these core technologies, the fibre optic signal processing and transmission of optical and radio frequency signals have been the subjects of study in this thesis. Based on the intrinsic properties of single-mode optical fibre, this thesis aims to exploit the fibre characteristics such as thermal sensitivity, birefringence, dispersion and nonlinearity, in the applications of temperature sensing and radio-over-fibre systems. By exploiting the fibre thermal sensitivity, a fully distributed temperature sensing system consisting of an apodised chirped fibre Bragg grating has been implemented. The proposed system has proven to be efficient in characterising grating and providing the information of temperature variation, location and width of the heat source applied in the area under test.To exploit the fibre birefringence, a fibre delay line filter using a single high-birefringence optical fibre structure has been presented. The proposed filter can be reconfigured and programmed by adjusting the input azimuth of launched light, as well as the strength and direction of the applied coupling, to meet the requirements of signal processing for different purposes in microwave photonic and optical filtering applications. To exploit the fibre dispersion and nonlinearity, experimental investigations have been carried out to study their joint effect in high power double-sideband and single-sideband modulated links with the presence of fibre loss. The experimental results have been theoretically verified based on the in-house implementation of the split-step Fourier method applied to the generalised nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Further simulation study on the inter-modulation distortion in two-tone signal transmission has also been presented so as to show the effect of nonlinearity of one channel on the other. In addition to the experimental work, numerical simulations have also been carried out in all the proposed systems, to ensure that all the aspects concerned are comprehensively investigated.

Acquisition and management of technology in Malaysian companies

This thesis is about the acquisition and diffusion of imported technology. Writers in the field of technology development in developing countries have always recognised that technical progress depends on the diffusion of imported technology and its applications to the provision of products and processes (Rosemberg, 1982). Despite the massive importation of technology by Malaysian companies, little effort has been made to study and understand the diffusion system in local companies. This study analyses: The problems associated with the acquisition of technology, highlighting the technology strategies adopted by the suppliers of technology; the diffusion pattern and key characteristics of the diffusion process; and major factors affecting the diffusion of technology. The policy implications are examined and the framework to manage the diffusion process within the enterprises is suggested. The findings indicated that the diffusion process is not one of passive acceptance but involves systematic efforts to acquire and diffuse the imported technology. A strong system of diffusion in companies had enabled a rapid diffusion of imported technology resulting in higher levels of technical capability. On the other hand, weakness in the company's diffusion system led to limited diffusion and slow technical progress. Characteristics of diffusion system are analysed and discussed extensively. The thesis attempts to develop the idea of `in-house system of diffusion' associated with the acquisition and development of imported technology. It argues for the development ofa stronger theoretical framework on the diffusion and development of technology particularly in countries like Malaysia which relies extensively on the importation of foreign technology.

Addition of PLA2 to CRP enhances sepsis diagnosis

Letter to the Editor refers to: Fredrikke Christie Knudtzen, Stig Lønberg Nielsen, Kim Oren Gradel, Annmarie Touborg Lassen, Hans Jørn Kolmos, Thøger Gorm Jensen, Pernille Just Vinholt, Court Pedersen, Characteristics of patients with community-acquired bacteremia who have low levels of C-reactive protein (≤20 mg/L), Journal of Infection, Volume 68, Issue 2, February 2014, Pages 149-155