The Political and Judicial Life of Metadata: Digital Rights Ireland and the Trail of the Data Retention Directive. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security No. 65, May 2014

This paper examines the challenges facing the EU regarding data retention, particularly in the aftermath of the judgment Digital Rights Ireland by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of April 2014, which found the Data Retention Directive 2002/58 to be invalid. It first offers a brief historical account of the Data Retention Directive and then moves to a detailed assessment of what the judgment means for determining the lawfulness of data retention from the perspective of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: what is wrong with the Data Retention Directive and how would it need to be changed to comply with the right to respect for privacy? The paper also looks at the responses to the judgment from the European institutions and elsewhere, and presents a set of policy suggestions to the European institutions on the way forward. It is argued here that one of the main issues underlying the Digital Rights Ireland judgment has been the role of fundamental rights in the EU legal order, and in particular the extent to which the retention of metadata for law enforcement purposes is consistent with EU citizens’ right to respect for privacy and to data protection. The paper offers three main recommendations to EU policy-makers: first, to give priority to a full and independent evaluation of the value of the data retention directive; second, to assess the judgment’s implications for other large EU information systems and proposals that provide for the mass collection of metadata from innocent persons, in the EU; and third, to adopt without delay the proposal for Directive COM(2012)10 dealing with data protection in the fields of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

The Dano case – Or time for the UK to digest realities about the balance of competences between the EU and national levels. CEPS Commentary, 14 November 2014

The European Court of Justice's new judgment on the Dano case should be reverberating around the UK. In Michael Emerson's view, it shows how national competences can be deftly used to control for 'benefit tourism' without challenging EU law, and that the Court is not acting as the agent of 'EU competence creep', as alleged in the Eurosceptic's stereotype.

The Standard of Proof in EC Merger Control-Conclusions from the Sony BMG Saga. IES WORKING PAPER 4/2008

One of the most important developments in EC competition policy during 2006 was the Court of First Instance’s (CFI) Impala v. Commission judgment annulling the European Commission’s approval of the merger between the music units of Sony and Bertelsmann. It harshly criticized the Commission’s Decision because it found that the evidence relied on was not capable of substantiating the conclusion. This was the first time that a merger decision was annulled for not meeting the requisite legal standard for authorizing the merger. Consequently, the CFI raised fundamental questions about the standard of proof incumbent on the Commission in its merger review procedures. On July 10, 2008, the European Court of Justice overturned Impala, yet it did not resolve the fundamental question underlying the judicial review of the Sony BMG Decision; does the Commission have the necessary resources and expertise to meet the Community Court’s standard of proof? This paper addresses the wider implications of the Sony BMG saga for the Commission’s future handling of complex merger investigations. It argues that the Commission may have set itself an impossible precedent in the second approval of the merger. While the Commission has made a substantial attempt to meet the high standard of proof imposed by the Community Courts, it is doubtful that it will be able to jump the fence again in a similar fashion under normal procedural circumstances.

An Exercise in Legal Honesty: Re-writing the Court of Justice and the Bundesverfassungsgericht. IHS Political Science Series No. 136, February 2014

At a time of crisis – a true state of emergency – both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the German Federal Constitutional Court have failed the rule of law in Europe. Worse still, in their evaluation of the ersatz crisis law, which has been developed in response to financial and sovereign debt crises, both courts have undermined constitutionality throughout Europe. Each jurisdiction has been implicated within the techocratisation of democratic process. Each Court has contributed to an incremental process of the undermining of the political subjectivity of European Citizens. The results are depressing for lawyers who are still attached to notions of constitutionality. Yet, we must also ask whether the Courts could have acted otherwise. Given the original flaws in the construction of Economic and Monetary Union, as well as the politically pre-emptive constraints imposed by global financial markets, each Court might thus be argued to have been forced to suspend immediate legality in a longer term effort to secure the character of the legal jurisdiction as a whole. Crisis can and does defeat the law. Nevertheless, what continues to disturb is the failure of law in Europe to open up any perspective for a return to normal constitutionality post crisis, as well as its apparent inability to give proper and honest consideration to the hardship now being experienced by millions of Europeans within crisis. This contribution accordingly seeks to reimagine each Judgment in a language of legal honesty. Above all, this contribution seeks to suggest a new form of post-national constitutional language; a language which takes as its primary function, proper protection of democratic process against the ever encroaching powers of a post-national executive power. This contribution forms a part of an on-going effort to identify a new basis for the legitimacy of European Law, conducted jointly and severally with Christian Joerges, University of Bremen and Hertie School of Government, Berlin. Differences do remain in our theoretical positions; hence this individual essay. Nevertheless, the congruence between pluralist and conflict of law approaches to the topic are also readily apparent. See, for example, Everson & Joerges (2013).

Enhancing financial stability in developing Asia. Bruegel Working Paper 2015/10, October 2015

This paper outlines guidelines for policymakers pursuing financial stability in developing Asia. It aims at supporting Asian policymakers’ judgment by providing policy views and recommendations that are based on the analysis of the recent sequence of events in the United States and Europe and of earlier crisis episodes, including those in Asia during the 1990s

The specificity of emotion inferences as a function of emotional contextual support

Research on emotion inferences has shown that readers include a representation of the main character's emotional state in their mental representations of the text. We examined the specificity of emotion representations as a function of the emotion content of short narratives, in terms of the quantity and quality of emotion components included in the narratives, based on the GRID instrument (Fontaine et al., 2013). In a self-paced reading task, target sentences that only moderately matched the emotional context were read faster than target sentences that strongly matched the emotional context of the narratives. In a “makes sense” judgment task, we showed that this result was not driven by a mapping difficulty and, in a memory task, we provided some evidence that these effects reflected integration processes. We suggest that readers can integrate specific emotions into their mental representations, but only if provided with the appropriate emotional contextual support.

Gestão de risco: a importância da resiliência em eventos indesejáveis

Atualmente, ferramentas e dados estatísticos são muito utilizados para avaliar as condições perigosas enquanto, por outro lado, as pessoas usam o julgamento para perceber o risco, que tem como base a cultura do risco. A percepção do risco muda conforme o ambiente no qual a pessoa está imersa, e se diferencia conforme a cultura. O objetivo desta pesquisa é conhecer qual o papel dos diversos atores envolvidos na gestão de riscos e como a resiliência ajuda nos eventos indesejáveis. Foram investigados onze eventos indesejáveis, com dez entrevistados em seis organizações, com o objetivo de identificar e analisar como a gestão de risco, a resiliência e a percepção do risco interagem. A análise multifacetada reforçou a importância dos aspectos de resiliência para uma gestão de risco eficaz. A participação dos possíveis envolvidos no evento, desde o contexto da gestão, reforçado pelo controle compartilhado, identificação das habilidades individuais não prescritas, incentivo à cooperação entre esses atores, comunicação eficaz e simplificação dos processos são aspectos integradores a uma gestão de risco. Como oportunidade de investigação futura, a pesquisa reforça a necessidade de analisar aspectos da cultura organizacional abrangendo as ciências sociais: antropologia, sociologia, psicodinâmica do trabalho, sociologia da ética e cultura país como agente consciente e experimentador da realidade.

Gestionnaire de vie privée : un cadre pour la protection de la vie privée dans les interactions entre apprenants

L’évolution continue des besoins d’apprentissage vers plus d’efficacité et plus de personnalisation a favorisé l’émergence de nouveaux outils et dimensions dont l’objectif est de rendre l’apprentissage accessible à tout le monde et adapté aux contextes technologiques et sociaux. Cette évolution a donné naissance à ce que l’on appelle l'apprentissage social en ligne mettant l'accent sur l’interaction entre les apprenants. La considération de l’interaction a apporté de nombreux avantages pour l’apprenant, à savoir établir des connexions, échanger des expériences personnelles et bénéficier d’une assistance lui permettant d’améliorer son apprentissage. Cependant, la quantité d'informations personnelles que les apprenants divulguent parfois lors de ces interactions, mène, à des conséquences souvent désastreuses en matière de vie privée comme la cyberintimidation, le vol d’identité, etc. Malgré les préoccupations soulevées, la vie privée en tant que droit individuel représente une situation idéale, difficilement reconnaissable dans le contexte social d’aujourd’hui. En effet, on est passé d'une conceptualisation de la vie privée comme étant un noyau des données sensibles à protéger des pénétrations extérieures à une nouvelle vision centrée sur la négociation de la divulgation de ces données. L’enjeu pour les environnements sociaux d’apprentissage consiste donc à garantir un niveau maximal d’interaction pour les apprenants tout en préservant leurs vies privées. Au meilleur de nos connaissances, la plupart des innovations dans ces environnements ont porté sur l'élaboration des techniques d’interaction, sans aucune considération pour la vie privée, un élément portant nécessaire afin de créer un environnement favorable à l’apprentissage. Dans ce travail, nous proposons un cadre de vie privée que nous avons appelé « gestionnaire de vie privée». Plus précisément, ce gestionnaire se charge de gérer la protection des données personnelles et de la vie privée de l’apprenant durant ses interactions avec ses co-apprenants. En s’appuyant sur l’idée que l’interaction permet d’accéder à l’aide en ligne, nous analysons l’interaction comme une activité cognitive impliquant des facteurs contextuels, d’autres apprenants, et des aspects socio-émotionnels. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est donc de revoir les processus d’entraide entre les apprenants en mettant en oeuvre des outils nécessaires pour trouver un compromis entre l’interaction et la protection de la vie privée. ii Ceci a été effectué selon trois niveaux : le premier étant de considérer des aspects contextuels et sociaux de l’interaction telle que la confiance entre les apprenants et les émotions qui ont initié le besoin d’interagir. Le deuxième niveau de protection consiste à estimer les risques de cette divulgation et faciliter la décision de protection de la vie privée. Le troisième niveau de protection consiste à détecter toute divulgation de données personnelles en utilisant des techniques d’apprentissage machine et d’analyse sémantique.

Mise à l’essai d’une séquence d’apprentissage intégrant des chansons comme source primaire pour développer la compétence 2 : interpréter la réalité sociale à l’aide de la méthode historique

Ce mémoire a pour objet la mise à l’essai d’une séquence d’apprentissage intégrant des chansons comme sources primaires pour développer la compétence 2– interpréter la réalité sociale à l’aide de la méthode historique. Le ministère de l’Éducation du Québec et les écrits scientifiques (Côté, 2008; LENOIR et SAUVÉ, 2010; Turner-Bisset, 2001) s’attendent à ce que l’élève terminant ses études secondaires raisonne à partir de faits tirés des sources qui lui sont accessibles, notamment des sources primaires. Or, on constate trois lacunes dans la pratique enseignante : le petit nombre de sources travaillées, l’inégalité de leurs interprétations et la faiblesse de leurs critiques (Byrom, 2005; Pickles, 2010; Watson, 1998). Aussi, peu de cas utilisent la chanson comme source primaire. La séquence d’apprentissages sur la Deuxième Guerre mondiale que l’enseignante française Sylvaine Moreau (2012) a rendue disponible sur Internet a donc servi de point de départ à cette mise à l’essai afin de comprendre ce qu’il en est. Comme il y a un aller-retour régulier prévu entre l’adaptation du matériel pédagogique au contexte scolaire québécois et les observations en classe c’est la recherche-développement qui semble l’approche la plus efficace (Artigue, 1989; Harvey et Loiselle, 2009). Quatre enseignants montréalais ont accepté une entrevue avec l’auteure de cette recherche. Ils ont adapté le matériel au contexte scolaire, ils ont été observés en classe et les réponses écrites des élèves ont été analysées grâce, notamment, au programme N’Vivo. En explorant les données qualitatives recueillies, on constate le petit nombre de sources travaillées puisque les réponses ne reprennent que ce qui a été vu en classe, priorisant même certains types de sources. La faiblesse des critiques est criante puisque des étapes jugées « inutiles » par certains élèves sont laissées incomplètes. Finalement, l’auteure remarque l’inégalité des interprétations liée à une barrière de niveau de langue. Les métaphores et le vocabulaire de certaines chansons semblent un défi.

Perceived importance of zones surrounding a vehicle and learning to use a convex mirror effectively. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Passenger vehicle, light truck and van convex mirror optimization and evaluation studies. Volume 1: convex mirror optimization. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Passenger vehicle, light truck and van convex mirror optimization and evaluation studies. Volume 2: evaluation of alternative mirror configurations. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

The Wheatley manuscript : a collection of Middle English verse and prose contained in a ms. now in the British museum. Add. mss. 39574 /

Fifteenth century manuscript named in honor of Dr. H.B. Wheatley.

Why people drink and drive: the bases of drinking-and-driving decisions. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Drinking-driving attitudes, knowledge and behavior: an analysis of the first four telephone surveys of the Fairfax Alcohol Safety Action Project. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.