A ascensão de aspectos do common law no sistema processual civil brasileiro: uma crítica à aplicação da jurisprudência e à doutrina dos precedentes judiciais

Pós-graduação em Direito - FCHS

Mesh Generation for Isogeometric Analysis with T-spline

[EN]The application of the Isogeometric Analysis (IA) with T-splines [1] demands a partition of the parametric space, C, in a tiling containing T-junctions denominated T-mesh. The T-splines are used both for the geometric modelization of the physical domain, D, and the basis of the numerical approximation. They have the advantage over the NURBS of allowing local refinement. In this work we propose a procedure to construct T-spline representations of complex domains in order to be applied to the resolution of elliptic PDE with IA. In precedent works [2, 3] we accomplished this task by using a tetrahedral parametrization…

Le politiche giudiziarie inglesi degli anni 2000: mutamento di paradigma e rafforzamento dell'incisività politica dei giudici

The Ph.D. dissertation analyses the reasons for which political actors (governments, legislatures and political parties) decide consciously to give away a source of power by increasing the political significance of the courts. It focuses on a single case of particular significance: the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 in the United Kingdom. This Act has deeply changed the governance and the organization of the English judicial system, has provided a much clearer separation of powers and a stronger independence of the judiciary from the executive and the legislative. What’s more, this strengthening of the judicial independence has been decided in a period in which the political role of the English judges was evidently increasing. I argue that the reform can be interpreted as a «paradigm shift» (Hall 1993), that has changed the way in which the judicial power is considered. The most diffused conceptions in the sub-system of the English judicial policies are shifted, and a new paradigm has become dominant. The new paradigm includes: (i) stronger separation of powers, (ii) collective (as well as individual) conception of the independence of the judiciary, (iii) reduction of the political accountability of the judges, (iv) formalization of the guarantees of judicial independence, (v) principle-driven (instead of pragmatic) approach to the reforms, and (vi) transformation of a non-codified constitution in a codified one. Judicialization through political decisions represent an important, but not fully explored, field of research. The literature, in particular, has focused on factors unable to explain the English case: the competitiveness of the party system (Ramseyer 1994), the political uncertainty at the time of constitutional design (Ginsburg 2003), the cultural divisions within the polity (Hirschl 2004), federal institutions and division of powers (Shapiro 2002). All these contributes link the decision to enhance the political relevance of the judges to some kind of diffusion of political power. In the contemporary England, characterized by a relative high concentration of power in the government, the reasons for such a reform should be located elsewhere. I argue that the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 can be interpreted as a result of three different kinds of reasons: (i) the social and demographical transformations of the English judiciary, which have made inefficient most of the precedent mechanism of governance, (ii) the role played by the judges in the policy process and (iii) the cognitive and normative influences originated from the European context, as a consequence of the membership of the United Kingdom to the European Union and the Council of Europe. My thesis is that only a full analysis of all these three aspects can explain the decision to reform the judicial system and the content of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Only the cultural influences come from the European legal complex, above all, can explain the paradigm shift previously described.

Immunevasion des murinen Cytomegalovirus: Regulatoren der MHC-Klasse-I vermittelten Antigenpräsentation

Zu den Immunevasionsmechanismen des murinen Cytomegalovirus, die sich im Laufe der Koevolution von Virus und Wirt entwickelt haben, gehört die Interferenz von drei viralen Regulatoren mit der Antigenpräsentation über MHC-Klasse-I-Moleküle, wodurch die Aktivierung von zytotoxischen CD8 T-Zellen beeinflusst wird: Während m152/gp40 peptidbeladene MHC-Klasse-I-Komplexe im cis-Golgi-Kompartiment akkumuliert, führt m06/gp48 diese Komplexe der lysosomalen Degradation zu. Im Gegensatz dazu vermittelt m04/gp34 deren Transport an die Zelloberfläche, wurde in der Literatur bisher aber trotzdem als Inhibitor der CD8 T-Zellaktivierung beschrieben. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war es, den Einfluss dieser viralen Proteine auf die Peptidpräsentation bzw. die T-Zellaktivierung zu untersuchen. Dazu wurde ein Set von Viren verwendet, das neben mCMV-WT aus mCMV-Deletionsmutanten besteht, die jedes der regulatorischen Proteine einzeln bzw. in allen möglichen Kombinationen exprimieren, einschließlich einer Mutante, die keines der Proteine besitzt. Entgegen der bisher gültigen Annahme konnte in der vorliegenden Arbeit gezeigt werden, dass m04/gp34 die Antigenpräsentation nicht inhibiert. Wird es allein exprimiert, bleibt die T-Zellaktivierung unbeeinflusst. Wird es zusammen mit m152/gp40 exprimiert, stellt es die T-Zellaktivierung wieder her, indem es den herunter regulierenden Effekt von m152/gp40 antagonisiert. Dieser positiv regulierende Effekt von m04/gp34 wird wiederum durch m06/gp48 aufgehoben. Es konnte ebenfalls gezeigt werden, wie die verschiedenen Effekte dieser Virusproteine in vivo das Überleben im infizierten Wirt steuern. So wird im adoptiven Transfermodell die Infektion mit der Deletionsmutante, die m152/gp40 alleine exprimiert, schlechter kontrolliert als die Infektion mit der m152/gp40 und m04/gp34 exprimierenden Mutante. Dieser die CD8 T-Zellkontrolle verbessernde Effekt von m04/gp34 wird durch m06/gp48 wieder aufgehoben. Dass ein viraler Erreger nicht nur negative Regulatoren der Antigenpräsentation exprimiert, sondern auch einen positiven Regulator, der den Effekt eines negativen Regulators wieder aufhebt, ist in der Literatur beispiellos. Durch differentielle Expression dieser Regulatoren eröffnet sich damit dem Virus die Möglichkeit, die Antigenpräsentation gezielt zu modulieren.

Interpreting Judgements using Knowledge Representation Methods and Computational Models of Argument

The goal of the present research is to define a Semantic Web framework for precedent modelling, by using knowledge extracted from text, metadata, and rules, while maintaining a strong text-to-knowledge morphism between legal text and legal concepts, in order to fill the gap between legal document and its semantics. The framework is composed of four different models that make use of standard languages from the Semantic Web stack of technologies: a document metadata structure, modelling the main parts of a judgement, and creating a bridge between a text and its semantic annotations of legal concepts; a legal core ontology, modelling abstract legal concepts and institutions contained in a rule of law; a legal domain ontology, modelling the main legal concepts in a specific domain concerned by case-law; an argumentation system, modelling the structure of argumentation. The input to the framework includes metadata associated with judicial concepts, and an ontology library representing the structure of case-law. The research relies on the previous efforts of the community in the field of legal knowledge representation and rule interchange for applications in the legal domain, in order to apply the theory to a set of real legal documents, stressing the OWL axioms definitions as much as possible in order to enable them to provide a semantically powerful representation of the legal document and a solid ground for an argumentation system using a defeasible subset of predicate logics. It appears that some new features of OWL2 unlock useful reasoning features for legal knowledge, especially if combined with defeasible rules and argumentation schemes. The main task is thus to formalize legal concepts and argumentation patterns contained in a judgement, with the following requirement: to check, validate and reuse the discourse of a judge - and the argumentation he produces - as expressed by the judicial text.

Characterization of integrated Bragg gratings in silicon-on-insulator

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) is rapidly emerging as a very promising material platform for integrated photonics. As it combines the potential for optoelectronic integration with the low-cost and large volume manufacturing capabilities and they are already accumulate a huge amount of applications in areas like sensing, quantum optics, optical telecommunications and metrology. One of the main limitations of current technology is that waveguide propagation losses are still much higher than in standard glass-based platform because of many reasons such as bends, surface roughness and the very strong optical confinement provided by SOI. Such high loss prevents the fabrication of efficient optical resonators and complex devices severely limiting the current potential of the SOI platform. The project in the first part deals with the simple waveguides loss problem and trying to link that with the polarization problem and the loss based on Fabry-Perot Technique. The second part of the thesis deals with the Bragg Grating characterization from again the point of view of the polarization effect which leads to a better stop-band use filters. To a better comprehension a brief review on the basics of the SOI and the integrated Bragg grating ends up with the fabrication techniques and some of its applications will be presented in both parts, until the end of both the third and the fourth chapters to some results which hopefully make its precedent explanations easier to deal with.

Synthesis of novel ribose-based thioimidate n-oxides

This work is based on the study of new synthetic paths to obtain thioimidate N-oxides (TINOs) from D-ribose and to study their reactivity with the purpose to obtain ketonitrones. TINOs, aren’t well known molecules, but these enantiomerically pure backbones could be valuable intermediates in the synthesis of novel ketonitrones which are key intermediates in the synthesis of iminosugars. TINOs were discovered from the study of glucoraphanin, a particular glucosinolate, that unexpectedly cyclized into a TINO after desulfatation, by a spontaneous intramolecular Michael addition. The first part of this work was to synthetize the TINO 3 from D-ribose 1. The key step was the desilylative cyclisation of a suitably functionalized thiohydroximate 2. Based on precedent work developed in the laboratory, we could obtain the thiohydroximate from D-ribose. We then focused our studies on the cyclisation step trying to find the suitable substituents that could give the TINO in good yield by desilylative cyclisation. The second part of the project is to obtain ketonitrones 4 by palladiumcatalyzed coupling reaction.

Not in the Legends

In writing “Not in the Legends”, one of the images and concepts which constantly returned was that of pilgrimage. I began to write these poems while studying abroad in London, after having passed the previous semester in France and travelling around Europe. There was something in the repetition of sightseeing— walking six miles in Luxembourg to see the grave of General Patton, taking photographs of the apartment where Sylvia Plath ended her life, bowing before the bones of saints, searching through Père Lachaise for the grave of Théodore Gericault— which struck me as numinous and morbid. At the same time, I came to love living abroad and I grew discontent with both remaining and returning. I wanted the opportunity to live everywhere all the time and not have to choose between home and away. Returning from abroad, I turned my attention to the landscape of my native country. I found in the New England pilgrims a narrative of people who had left their home in search of growth and freedom. In these journeys I began to appreciate the significance of place and tried to understand what it meant to move from one place to another, how one chose a home, and why people searched for meaning in specific locations. The processes of moving from student to worker and from childhood to adulthood have weighed on me. I began to see these transitions towards maturity as travels to a different land. Memory and nostalgia are their own types of pilgrimage in their attempts to return to lost places, as is the reading of literature. These pilgrimages, real and metaphorical, form the thematic core of the collection. I read the work of many poets who came before me, returning to the places where the Canon was forged. Those poets have a large presence in the work I produced. I wondered how I, as a young poet, could earn my own place in the tradition and sought models in much the same way a painter studies the brushstrokes of a master. In the process, I have tried to uncover what it means to be a poet. Is it something like being a saint? Is it something like being a colonist? Or is to be the one who goes in search of saints and colonists? In trying to measure my own life and work based on the precedent, I have questioned what role era and generation have on the formation of identity. I focused my reading heavily on the early years of English poetry, trying to find the essence of the time when the language first achieved the transcendence of verse. In following the development of English poetry through Coleridge, John Berryman, and Allison Titus, I have explored the progression of those basic virtues in changing contexts. Those bearings, applied to my modern context, helped to shape the poetry I produced. Many of the poems in “Not in the Legends” are based on my own personal experience. In my recollections I have tried to interrogate nostalgia rather than falling into mere reminiscence. Rather than allowing myself poems of love and longing, I have tried to find the meaning of those emotions. A dominant conflict exists between adventure and comfort which mirrors the central engagement with the nature of being “here” or “there”. It is found in scenes of domesticity and wilderness as I attempt to understand my own simultaneous desire for both. For example, in “Canned Mangoes…” the intrusion of nature, even in a context as innocuous as a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh, unravels ordinary comforts of the domestic sphere. The character of “The Boy” from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot proved such an interesting subject for me because he is one who can transcend the normal boundaries of time and place. The title suggests connections to both place and time. “Legends” features the dual meaning of both myths and the keys to maps. To propose something “Not in the Legends” is to find something which has no precedent in our histories and our geographies, something beyond our field of knowledge and wholly new. One possible interpretation I devised was that each new generation lives a novel existence, the future being the true locus of that which is beyond our understanding. The title comes from Keats’ “Hyperion, a Fragment”, and details the aftermath of the Titanomachy. The Titans, having fallen to the Olympians, are a representation of the passing of one generation for the next. Their dejection is expressed by Saturn, who laments: Not in my own sad breast, Which is its own great judge and searcher out, Can I find reason why ye should be thus: Not in the legends of the first of days… (129-132) The emotions of the conquered Titans are unique and without antecedent. They are experiencing feelings which surpass all others in history. In this, they are the equivalent of the poet who feels that his or her own sufferings are special. In contrast are Whitman’s lines from “Song of Myself” which serve as an epigraph to this collection. He contends for a sense of continuity across time, a realization that youth, age, pleasure, and suffering have always existed and will always exist. Whitman finds consolation in this unity, accepting that kinship with past generations is more important that his own individuality. These opposing views offer two methods of presenting the self in history. The instinct of poetry suggests election. The poet writes because he feels his experiences are special, or because he believes he can serve as a synecdoche for everyone. I have fought this instinct by trying to contextualize myself in history. These poems serve as an attempt at prosopography with my own narrative a piece of the whole. Because the earth abides forever, our new stories get printed over the locations of the old and every place becomes a palimpsest of lives and acts. In this collection I have tried to untangle some of those layers, especially my own, to better understand the sprawling legend of history.

An integrated nano-scale approach to profile miRNAs in limited clinical samples

Profiling miRNA expression in cells that directly contribute to human disease pathogenesis is likely to aid the discovery of novel drug targets and biomarkers. However, tissue heterogeneity and the limited amount of human diseased tissue available for research purposes present fundamental difficulties that often constrain the scope and potential of such studies. We established a flow cytometry-based method for isolating pure populations of pathogenic T cells from bronchial biopsy samples of asthma patients, and optimized a high-throughput nano-scale qRT-PCR method capable of accurately measuring 96 miRNAs in as little as 100 cells. Comparison of circulating and airway T cells from healthy and asthmatic subjects revealed asthma-associated and tissue-specific miRNA expression patterns. These results establish the feasibility and utility of investigating miRNA expression in small populations of cells involved in asthma pathogenesis, and set a precedent for application of our nano-scale approach in other human diseases. The microarray data from this study (Figure 7) has been submitted to the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO; http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo) under accession no. GSE31030.

The Constitutional-Judicial Control of the Legislative and Executive Powers in Central and Eastern European Countries

This project looked at the nature, contents, methods, means and legal and political effects of the influence that constitutional courts exercise upon the legislative and executive powers in the newly established democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. The basic hypothesis was that these courts work to provide a limitation of political power within the framework of the principal constitutional values and that they force the legislature and executive to exercise their powers and duties in strict accordance with the constitution. Following a study of the documentary sources, including primarily the relevant constitutional and statutory provisions and decisions of constitutional courts, Mr. Cvetkovski prepared a questionnaire on various aspects of the topics researched and sent it to the respective constitutional courts. A series of direct interviews with court officials in six of the ten countries then served to clarify a large number of questions relating to differences in procedures etc. that arose from the questionnaires. As a final stage, the findings were compared with those described in recent publications on constitutional control in general and in Central and Eastern Europe in particular. The study began by considering the constitutional and political environment of the constitutional courts' activities in controlling legislative and executive powers, which in all countries studied are based on the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers. All courts are separate bodies with special status in terms of constitutional law and are independent of other political and judicial institutions. The range of matters within their jurisdiction is set by the constitution of the country in question but in all cases can be exercised only with the framework of procedural rules. This gives considerable significance to the question of who sets these rules and different countries have dealt with it in different ways. In some there is a special constitutional law with the same legal force as the constitution itself (Croatia), the majority of countries allow for regulation by an ordinary law, Macedonia gives the court the autonomy to create and change its own rules of procedure, while in Hungary the parliament fixes the rules on procedure at the suggestion of the constitutional court. The question of the appointment of constitutional judges was also considered and of the mechanisms for ensuring their impartiality and immunity. In the area of the courts' scope for providing normative control, considerable differences were found between the different countries. In some cases the courts' jurisdiction is limited to the normative acts of the respective parliaments, and there is generally no provision for challenging unconstitutional omissions by legislation and the executive. There are, however, some situations in which they may indirectly evaluate the constitutionality of legislative omissions, as when the constitution contains provision for a time limit on enacting legislation, when the parliament has made an omission in drafting a law which violates the constitutional provisions, or when a law grants favours to certain groups while excluding others, thereby violating the equal protection clause of the constitution. The control of constitutionality of normative acts can be either preventive or repressive, depending on whether it is implemented before or after the promulgation of the law or other enactment being challenged. In most countries in the region the constitutional courts provide only repressive control, although in Hungary and Poland the courts are competent to perform both preventive and repressive norm control, while in Romania the court's jurisdiction is limited to preventive norm control. Most countries are wary of vesting constitutional courts with preventive norm control because of the danger of their becoming too involved in the day-to-day political debate, but Mr. Cvetkovski points out certain advantages of such control. If combined with a short time limit it can provide early clarification of a constitutional issue, secondly it avoids the problems arising if a law that has been in force for some years is declared to be unconstitutional, and thirdly it may help preserve the prestige of the legislation. Its disadvantages include the difficulty of ascertaining the actual and potential consequences of a norm without the empirical experience of the administration and enforcement of the law, the desirability of a certain distance from the day-to-day arguments surrounding the political process of legislation, the possible effects of changing social and economic conditions, and the danger of placing obstacles in the way of rapid reactions to acute situations. In the case of repressive norm control, this can be either abstract or concrete. The former is initiated by the supreme state organs in order to protect abstract constitutional order and the latter is initiated by ordinary courts, administrative authorities or by individuals. Constitutional courts cannot directly oblige the legislature and executive to pass a new law and this remains a matter of legislative and executive political responsibility. In the case of Poland, the parliament even has the power to dismiss a constitutional court decision by a special majority of votes, which means that the last word lies with the legislature. As the current constitutions of Central and Eastern European countries are newly adopted and differ significantly from the previous ones, the courts' interpretative functions should ensure a degree of unification in the application of the constitution. Some countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Russia) provide for the constitutional courts' decisions to have a binding role on the constitutions. While their decisions inevitably have an influence on the actions of public bodies, they do not set criteria for political behaviour, which depends rather on the overall political culture and traditions of the society. All constitutions except that of Belarus, provide for the courts to have jurisdiction over conflicts arising from the distribution of responsibilities between different organs and levels in the country, as well for impeachment procedures against the head of state, and for determining the constitutionality of political parties (except in Belarus, Hungary, Russia and Slovakia). All the constitutions studied guarantee individual rights and freedoms and most courts have jurisdiction over complaints of violation of these rights by the constitution. All courts also have some jurisdiction over international agreements and treaties, either directly (Belarus, Bulgaria and Hungary) before the treaty is ratified, or indirectly (Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Yugoslavia). In each country the question of who may initiate proceedings of norm control is of central importance and is usually regulated by the constitution itself. There are three main possibilities: statutory organs, normal courts and private individuals and the limitations on each of these is discussed in the report. Most courts are limited in their rights to institute ex officio a full-scale review of a point of law, and such rights as they do have rarely been used. In most countries courts' decisions do not have any binding force but must be approved by parliament or impose on parliament the obligation to bring the relevant law into conformity within a certain period. As a result, the courts' position is generally weaker than in other countries in Europe, with parliament remaining the supreme body. In the case of preventive norm control a finding of unconstitutionality may act to suspend the law and or to refer it back to the legislature, where in countries such as Romania it may even be overturned by a two-thirds majority. In repressive norm control a finding of unconstitutionality generally serves to take the relevant law out of legal force from the day of publication of the decision or from another date fixed by the court. If the law is annulled retrospectively this may or may not bring decisions of criminal courts under review, depending on the provisions laid down in the relevant constitution. In cases relating to conflicts of competencies the courts' decisions tend to be declaratory and so have a binding effect inter partes. In the case of a review of an individual act, decisions generally become effective primarily inter partes but is the individual act has been based on an unconstitutional generally binding normative act of the legislature or executive, the findings has quasi-legal effect as it automatically initiates special proceedings in which the law or other regulation is to be annulled or abrogated with effect erga omnes. This wards off further application of the law and thus further violations of individual constitutional rights, but also discourages further constitutional complaints against the same law. Thus the success of one individual's complaint extends to everyone else whose rights have equally been or might have been violated by the respective law. As the body whose act is repealed is obliged to adopt another act and in doing so is bound by the legal position of the constitutional court on the violation of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights of the complainant, in this situation the decision of the constitutional court has the force of a precedent.

Stability of soft tissue profile after mandibular setback in sagittal split osteotomies: a longitudinal and long-term follow-up study

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to conduct a long-term prospective follow-up on the stability of soft tissues after bilateral sagittal split osteotomy (BSSO) with rigid internal fixation to set back the mandible. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventeen consecutive patients (6 females, 11 males) were re-examined 12.7 years (T5) after surgery. The precedent follow-ups included: before surgery (T1), 5 days (T2) after surgery, 6.6 months (T3) after surgery, and 14.4 months after (T4) surgery. Lateral cephalograms were traced by hand, digitized, and evaluated with the Dentofacial Planner program (Dentofacial Software, Toronto, Canada). The x-axis for the system of coordinates ran through Sella (point 0) and the line NSL -7 degrees. RESULTS: The net effect of the soft tissue chin (soft tissue pogonion) was 79% of the setback at pogonion. At the lower lip (labrale inferior) it was 100% of the setback at lower incisor position. Point B' followed point B to 99%. Labrale inferior and menton' also showed a significant backward, as well as a downward, movement (T5 to T2). Gender correlated significantly (P = .004) with the anterior displacement of point B' and pogonion' (P = .012). The soft tissue relapse 12.7 years after BSSO setback surgery at point B' was 3% and 13% at pogonion'. CONCLUSION: Among the reasons for 3-dimensional long-term soft tissue changes of shape, the surgical technique, the normal process of human aging, the initial growth direction, and remodeling processes must be considered. Growth direction positively influenced the long-term outcome of setback surgery in female compared with male patients because further posterior movement of the mandibular soft tissue occurred.

UsedSoft and the Big Bang Theory: Is the e-Exhaustion Meteor about to Strike?

Since the UsedSoft ruling of the CJEU in 2012, there has been the distinct feeling that – like the big bang - UsedSoft signals the start of a new beginning. As we enter this brave new world, the Copyright Directive will be read anew: misalignments in the treatment of physical and digital content will be resolved; accessibility and affordability for consumers will be heightened; and lock-in will be reduced as e-exhaustion takes hold. With UsedSoft as a precedent, the Court can do nothing but keep expanding its own ruling. For big bang theorists, it is only a matter of time until the digital first sale meteor strikes non-software downloads also. This paper looks at whether the UsedSoft ruling could indeed be the beginning of a wider doctrine of e-exhaustion, or if it is simply a one-shot comet restrained by provisions of the Computer Program Directive on which it was based. Fighting the latter corner, we have the strict word of the law; in the UsedSoft ruling, the Court appears to willingly bypass the international legal framework of the WCT. As far as expansion goes, the Copyright Directive was conceived specifically to implement the WCT, thus the legislative intent is clear. The Court would not, surely, invoke its modicum of creativity there also... With perhaps undue haste in a digital market of many unknowns, it seems this might well be the case. Provoking the big bang theory of e-exhaustion, the UsedSoft ruling can be read as distinctly purposive, but rather than having copyright norms in mind, the standard for the Court is the same free movement rules that underpin the exhaustion doctrine in the physical world. With an endowed sense of principled equivalence, the Court clearly wishes the tangible and intangible rules to be aligned. Against the backdrop of the European internal market, perhaps few legislative instruments would staunchly stand in its way. With firm objectives in mind, the UsedSoft ruling could be a rather disruptive meteor indeed.

Recommended Nomenclature for the Sapphirine and Surinamite Groups (Sapphirine Supergroup)

Minerals isostructural with sapphirine-1A, sapphirine-2M, and surinamite are closely related chain silicates that pose nomenclature problems because of the large number of sites and potential constituents, including several (Be, B, As, Sb) that are rare or absent in other chain silicates. Our recommended nomenclature for the sapphirine group (formerly-aenigmatite group) makes extensive use of precedent, but applies the rules to all known natural compositions, with flexibility to allow for yet undiscovered compositions such as those reported in synthetic materials. These minerals are part of a polysomatic series composed of pyroxene or pyroxene-like and spinel modules, and thus we recommend that the sapphirine supergroup should encompass the polysomatic series. The first level in the classification is based on polysome, i.e. each group within the supergroup Corresponds to a single polysome. At the second level, the sapphirine group is divided into subgroups according to the occupancy of the two largest M sites, namely, sapphirine (Mg), aenigmatite (Na), and rhonite (Ca). Classification at the third level is based on the occupancy of the smallest M site with most shared edges, M7, at which the dominant cation is most often Ti (aenigmatite, rhonite, makarochkinite), Fe(3+) (wilkinsonite, dorrite, hogtuvaite) or Al (sapphirine, khmaralite); much less common is Cr (krinovite) and Sb (welshite). At the fourth level, the two most polymerized T sites are considered together, e.g. ordering of Be at these sites distinguishes hogtuvaite, makarochkinite and khmaralite. Classification at the fifth level is based on X(Mg) = Mg/(Mg + Fe(2+)) at the M sites (excluding the two largest and M7). In principle, this criterion could be expanded to include other divalent cations at these sites, e.g. Mn. To date, most minerals have been found to be either Mg-dominant (X(mg) > 0.5), or Fe(2+)-dominant (X(Mg) < 0.5), at these M sites. However, X(mg) ranges from 1.00 to 0.03 in material described as rhonite, i.e. there are two species present, one Mg-dominant, the other Fe(2+)-dominant. Three other potentially new species are a Mg-dominant analogue of wilkinsonite, rhonite in the Allende meteorite, which is distinguished front rhonite and dorrite in that Mg rather than Ti or FC(3+) is dominant at M7, and an Al-dominant analogue of sapphirine, in which Al > Si at the two most polymerized T sites vs. Al < Si in sapphirine. Further splitting of the supergroup based on occupancies other than those specified above is not recommended.

Legal Change and the Social Value of Lawsuits

This paper integrates the literatures on the social value of lawsuits, the evolution of the law, and judicial preferences to evaluate the hypothesis that the law evolves toward efficiency. The setting is a simple accident model with costly litigation where the efficient law minimizes the sum of accident plus litigation costs. In the steady state equilibrium, the distribution of legal rules is not necessarily efficient but instead depends on a combination of selective litigation, judicial bias, and precedent.

Beyond Racial Precedents: Loving v. Virginia as an Appropriate Legal Model and Strategy for Same-Sex Marriage Litigation

This thesis explores how LGBT marriage activists and lawyers have employed a racial interpretation of due process and equal protection in recent same-sex marriage litigation. Special attention is paid to the Supreme Court's opinion in Loving v. Virginia, the landmark case that declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. By exploring the use of racial precedent in same-sex marriage litigation and its treatment in state court cases, this thesis critiques the racial interpretation of due process and equal protection that became the basis for LGBT marriage briefs and litigation, and attempts to answer the question of whether a racial interpretation of due process and equal protection is an appropriate model for same-sex marriage litigation both constitutionally and strategically. The existing scholarly literature fails to explore how this issue has been treated in case briefs, which are very important elements in any legal proceeding. I will argue that through an analysis of recent state court briefs in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Loving acts as logical precedent for the legalization of same-sex marriage. I also find, more significantly, that although this racial interpretation of due process and equal protection represented by Loving can be seen as an appropriate model for same-sex marriage litigation constitutionally, questions remain about its strategic effectiveness, as LGBT lawyers have moved away from race in some arguments in these briefs. Indeed, a racial interpretation of Due Process and Equal Protection doctrine imposes certain limits on same-sex marriage litigation, of which we are warned by some Critical Race theorists, Latino Critical Legal theorists, and other scholars. In order to fully incorporate a discussion of race into the argument for legalizing same-sex marriage, the dangers posed by the black/white binary of race relations must first be overcome.