Clean Slate Research Articles

Antitrust and Rebates: A Study in Analogies

Cases involving rebates (both loyalty and bundled) present a unique opportunity to observe the development of antitrust law. With little direct precedent to rely upon, courts have sought to analyze the antitrust implications of rebate schemes through analogies to other, better known, types of conduct. These efforts provide profound insight not only into the antitrust analysis of rebates, but also into the means by which antitrust law is developed. The development of antitrust law has largely followed (or lagged) economic inquiry into competitive practices. For instance, in Leegin the Supreme Court abandoned the per se rule for minimum resale price maintenance after noting that “respected authorities in the economics literature suggest the per se rule is inappropriate, and there is now widespread agreement that resale price maintenance can have procompetitive effects.” Similarly, in State Oil, after chronicling the development of the antitrust treatment of vertical restraints, the Court concluded “that there is insufficient economic justification for per se invalidation of vertical maximum price fixing.” Rebates are different. The Court has never considered this type of conduct. Nor, in fact, have many lower courts. There is no established framework of analysis for conduct involving rebates. There is no long line of cases. There is no “great weight of scholarly opinion” presenting a consensus view. While we have LePage’s and PeaceHealth, the antitrust analysis for rebate schemes therefore starts with a relatively clean slate. We are thus afforded an opportunity to witness the development of a new body of antitrust law and to examine the means by which it comes about.

A European approach to a clean slate design for the future internet

The paper discusses a research program for a clean slate design of a “Future Internet” undertaken by Bell Labs in cooperation with a consortium of major European operators, manufacturers, and academia. The research cooperation explores innovative solutions in architectural design, virtualization, and generic connectivity in order to create a future “network of information.” We describe high-level goals and identify technical requirements and the expected business opportunities of this initiative. A basic idea for a new networking concept—the “generic path”—is outlined as an example of how to realize this in the future.

Vocational education: A clean slate for disengaged students?

Students’ social psychological adjustment to school is an important determinant of achievement growth as well as school continuation and post-secondary educational attainment. Yet many students begin high school with low levels of efficacy and self-worth, and low levels of identification with and liking of school. In this study, we investigate the hypothesis that vocational education in high school provides disengaged students with an educational clean slate, leading to a recovery of engagement for at-risk students. Using propensity score models, we assess the relationship between vocational course taking and changes in effort, extracurricular participation, sense of belonging, interest in school, attitudes toward school and teachers, educational expectations, career aspirations, locus of control, and self-concept with the NELS:88 database.

History of Playing-related Pain in 330 University Freshman Music Students

To understand what factors may contribute to the problems experienced by conservatory/music school students, we surveyed incoming freshman music students about their history of playing-related pain from four consecutive entering classes at a midwestern university school of music. A total of 330 students (46% male, 54% female) participated in the study and completed a 22-item questionnaire. Seventy-nine percent of students reported a history of playing-related pain. Pain frequency varied by instrument class, ranging from 61% among voice students to 100% for percussionists, but for strings, keyboards, woodwinds, and brass players, it was consistently 84 to 87%. There was no significant association between frequency of pain history and gender (76% for males vs 81% for females), years of instrument study, participation in regular exercise, or occurrence of performance anxiety. Although this study was unable to identify factors linked to playing-related pain, it does indicate that in a population of incoming freshmen, who are young people presumably in otherwise good health and with a “clean slate,” the majority had already encountered music-induced pain as high school students or younger.

The Irish Schoolboy Novel

The Irish Schoolboy Novel Ciaran O'Neill (bio) Some men never recover from education. Oliver St. John Gogarty1 In his 1965 autobiography, Vive Moi! Seán O'Faoláin recalled a Sunday morning ritual from his childhood in Cork City. His father, a member of the local Royal Irish Constabulary, would lead Seán and his brothers to Wellington Barracks, where they would join the loyal citizens of Edwardian Cork in saluting the church parade of the local British Army regiment. O'Faoláin remembered a connection he once had made, listening faithfully to "God Save the King" at his father's knee: When the drums rolled and the brass shook the air I could hear the sabre clash, the hoofbeats, the rifle fire of all the adventure books I had read—Mainly Henty's: The Dash for Khartoum, With Kitchener in the Soudan, One of the Twenty-eighth, Under Drake's Flag.2 [End Page 147] O'Faoláin was not alone among Irish writers in his exposure to G.A. Henty's many empire adventure stories.3 Generations of Irish boys and girls had by then sat enthralled, reading of the exploits of well-mannered wanderers fresh from public schools, as they colonize and civilize out among the farthest reaches of the British Empire. These adventure stories were the lineal descendants of the "schoolboy novel," a genre that owes its existence to the phenomenal popularity of an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, based on life at the famous English public school in Rugby. The passing of progressive legislation in the 1870s, the Forster Education Act of 1870 in Britain, and the Intermediate Education Act of 1878 in Ireland helped create over one million new places in schools across Britain and Ireland.4 An increasingly literate youth audience, in turn, was targeted by cheap periodicals, such as The Boy's Own Paper (1879–1967). By the close of the nineteenth century, this genre was firmly established and its formula had altered to reflect the expansionist rhetoric of British society, allowing offshoots based on young adulthood and imperial adventure, such as those contained in the Henty novels of Seán O'Faoláin's youth. For Irish nationalists of the revival period, such as Padraic Pearse and Douglas Hyde, the consumption of these distilled tales of imperial power by Irish youths was at best corrupting and at worst invidious and anti-Irish. Ireland has its own set of much neglected schoolboy novels. Aside from James Joyce's seminal work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), few have received any critical attention, due in many cases to small print runs. This article is an attempt to rescue the Irish schoolboy novel from its relative obscurity. Although the quality of some of the novels may well be debatable, they nevertheless provide us with a rare and valuable glimpse at the reality of school life for Irish boys in the nineteenth century. The Irish form of this popular genre experienced three main phases from its birth in 1895 to its decline (along with that of the English schoolboy novel) in the 1930s. The earliest of the schoolboy novels, written while Ireland [End Page 148] was united with Britain, all reveal a distinct British cultural influence, the infamous "West Briton" tendency.5 In contrast, those written in the first decade of the Irish Free State mark the emergence of Cúchulainn as an important icon of heroic boyhood that provided an apparently ultra-Irish alternative to Tom Brown and his public school politesse. Finally, toward the end of what is considered the heyday of the schoolboy novel, a more critical and radical form emerged in the 1930s, hugely influenced by Joyce's A Portrait and best understood in relation to the Bildungsroman tradition in Ireland. All schoolboy novels are essentially novels of youth, of childhood, and of personal growth—providing authors with something of an ideological clean slate on which to forge a new national identity. As the Irish novels were published in a period often referred to as the "birth" of modern Ireland, it is possible to see them as a forgotten record of...

Design and engineering of an O2 transport protein

The principles of natural protein engineering are obscured by overlapping functions and complexity accumulated through natural selection and evolution. Completely artificial proteins offer a clean slate on which to define and test these protein engineering principles, while recreating and extending natural functions. We introduce this method here with the first design of an oxygen transport protein, akin to human neuroglobin. Beginning with a simple and unnatural helix-forming sequence with just three different amino acids, we assemble a four helix bundle, position histidines to bis-his ligate hemes, and exploit helical rotation and glutamate burial on heme binding to introduce distal histidine strain and facilitate O2 binding. For stable oxygen binding without heme oxidation, water is excluded by simple packing of the protein interior and loops that reduce helical-interface mobility. O2 affinities and exchange timescales match natural globins with distal histidines with the remarkable exception that O2 binds tighter than CO.

Starting with a clean slate: An analysis of member identification with a new sports team

Soccer in Australia underwent a series of changes following a Federal Government inquiry into its future. A report into the Structure, Governance and Management of Soccer in Australia (2003) recommended a process of structural change, aimed at repositioning and re-branding soccer as association football. The restructure yielded the replacement of the National Soccer League with the A-League, five new Australian teams and a concerted attempt to separate soccer from its ethnic ties in the antipodes. This paper examines member identification in relation to a specific A-League club’s members. Using the Sports Spectator Identity Scale (Wann & Branscombe, 1993) to measure sport fan identity in a new team context, a survey of club members of Sydney FC (n = 510), was undertaken. Survey findings indicated that members of Sydney FC reported relatively strong team identification in the first year of the new competition, with some nuanced differences based on age and income. The SSIS demonstrated a good level of fit in relation to a new sports team, although it is evident that rivalries and identification with a new team need time to develop fully.

Island Colonization: The Origin and Development of Island Communities

The theory of island biogeography revolutionized the study of island colonization and extinction. Since its inception in the 1960?s, it has allowed scientists and historians alike to understand reasons for patterns of species distributions on islands, as well as assisting conservation managers to model extinction risk of species populations on isolated islands. Volcanic islands represent a ?tabula rasa?, or clean slate for the study of island biogeography, as invariably, resultant volcanic activity decimates almost all observable life. As such, they form the ideal study unit for examining colonization of islands. The Krakatua eruption of 1883 is such an example, with the resultant blasts scouring the Krakatua islands of almost all life, thus allowing scientists to track the colonisation and successional stages that followed. Another example is Surtsey Island, which emerged from the sea 40 km south of Iceland in 1963. It represented a unique opportunity to examine colonization of a previously non-existent and thus uninhabited island. Given that there are many influences and avenues governing the origin and colonization of life on islands, Island Colonization: The Origin and Development of Island Communities, edited by Tim New, represents an important book compiling information on this topic.

Testing, testing

The beginning of each new academic year can feel like a clean slate. It is literally a tabula rasa in each classroom, poised for the chalk marks of a new year of knowledge, learning and, increasingly, testing. Last year's exam hangover has almost been slept off. But not quite.

Building the Capacity of First Year Social Work Students: Experiences from a South African Tertiary Education Institution

While futures are indeed created, they are not typically created on a clean slate. It is hard for nations to leave their pasts behind (Varshney cited by Mangcu, 2004:3). The authors extend a special thank you to Ms. Tessa Hochfeld, Lecturer; Social Work, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, whose creativity, enthusiasm and commitment made it possible to offer and sustain the Building Capacity Program over a two year period; and who continues to champion the cause of academic redress in the classroom. ABSTRACT. A three part Building Capacity Program developed for social work students in a South African tertiary education institution is described. The primary purpose of the Program was to build the capacity of social work students considered to be at risk of not completing their studies. The Program is located within the socio‐political context of South Africa, and the interplay between education and social welfare in meeting the goals of national development. The content and structure of the Program are outlined and its contribution toward educational redress at tertiary level is explored.

Righting the course? Humanitarian intervention, the war on terror and the future of Afghanistan

The US-led post 9/11 ‘intervention’ in Afghanistan was, by definition, not a humanitarian intervention. The intervention in Afghanistan was defined as an act of self-defence by the US and it was one of the first steps in the ‘war on terror’ by the US and its allies: it had no intention or clear strategies for long-term stabilization, state-building or development. The US-led international coalition failed to ‘find’ Al-Qaeda in the short term and new arguments had to be made to justify continued international presence. The initial agenda was quickly blurred by a mismatch of intentions including those of long-term stabilization and state-building. The ideas developed through the Bonn Agreement (2001–5) and continued through the Afghanistan Compact (2006–10) have focused on building a centrally governed state (sometimes defined as democratic) that has a monopoly on the use of force. Their shortcomings are already well-documented: the urgency of the Bonn Conference and of the adoption of the Bonn Agreement ostensibly meant trading expediency and stability for accountability and a clean slate, which is not to say that there were no good intentions at Bonn from stakeholders, but that Afghans and the international community put power-sharing before progress. The choices made at Bonn may have contributed to the culture of impunity and the entrenched poverty that is gripping Afghanistan today. This article responds to the claims that state-building and all that goes with it are not the responsibility of the ‘international community’ by addressing the accountability and humanitarian paradoxes. The question remains, however, about who should be responsible for reform and politically accountable in the aftermath of non-humanitarian (and indeed even humanitarian) interventions?

Tabula Rasa: Pitfalls and Possibilities with Clean Slate Initiatives

If an IT system is so so hopelessly and fundamentally flawed that there's no practical way to address its deficiencies one by one, a clean slate initiative might be the only way out of the swamp. The key is to make sure the drivers are sound, the process is retrospective, the solution is robust, and expectations are realistic.

A Spatial Decision Support System Combining GIS and OR Tools to Optimize District Boundaries and Bus Routes for a Suburban School District

This paper describes a GIS-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) developed to optimize school district boundaries and bus routes in a large suburban school district, Sweet Home Central Schools. This school district is one of the three in the suburb Amherst (population 110,000) of the City of Buffalo, New York State, USA. The school district prompted the study as a result of demographic changes that have affected enrollment distribution among its four elementary schools as well as a recent construction project affecting traffic flow into and out of the school bus depot. In consultation with the school district officials two approaches are developed as part of the SDSS: a clean slate and a community approach. The clean slate approach focuses on minimizing transport costs, while the community approach focuses on the least disruption to the people in the community and balancing socio-economic and diversity issues. Scenarios for both approaches are developed based on current enrollment data.

My First Job: The Transition from Residency to Employment—What the Employer and Employee Should Know

The transition from completion of a radiology training program to permanent employment can often be a difficult one for the new employee. Gone is the comfort level of the structured residency or fellowship program, and the new employee is now faced with issues that were previously unidentified. The new employee begins with a "clean slate"; the reputation and accomplishments employees attained as students are now insignificant, and they once again have to prove their worth. The comfort level of having senior residents, fellows, and attendings to confirm their interpretations and bolster their confidence is now absent. The scheduled workday, regardless of workload, has changed. New employees are expected to dive in and carry their weight while accomplishing their daily tasks in a timely and efficient manor, all while maintaining a balance between their professional and personal lives. Finally, new employees must learn to tackle and conquer these obstacles within their first 90 to 100 days, a timeframe often seen as the "make or break" period that clarifies whether the new hire will continue on to partnership. This article addresses the issues often harrying the newly employed radiologist. It is hoped that these observations will provide a "wake-up" call to the future first-time employees and provide insight for the established radiologist with regard to the difficulty of this transition period.

Development of Next-Generation U.S. Infrastructure Systems

Although most of the problems of aging infrastructure systems are well understood in technical terms, the planning and organizational framework for addressing them is fractured among many well-insulated institutions and political jurisdictions with little inclination and few incentives to collaborate or coordinate services. This paper proposes that the government needs to begin its work addressing infrastructure management with a whole perspective, a clean slate of assumptions about next best steps, a diverse and inclusive set of participants, and the readiness to embrace disruptive ideas and confront tough tradeoffs in order to protect the long-term integrity of public services. A dedicated infrastructure campaign should successfully communicate a broad and compelling vision, sound investment principles and strategies, and clear evidence of shared commitment by all levels of government, the private sector and the general public. The concept of sustainability could serve as an effective organizing principle to guide large-scale infrastructure system design and development decisions.

From concept to production

It's easy to start with a clean slate. Building a house on an empty lot is a straightforward process, but restoring an old home that is in need of various repairs can be a complex problem with no clear path from start to finish. If the plumbing is in need of repair, you wouldn’t start by putting in your faucets and then ripping out all of the pipes including the fixtures you just installed. Your vision for your home is subject to various processes and procedures, which exist to ensure that you’re not wasting money or causing harm to your house.

Business Income (Article 7 OECD MC)

The 2006 OECD Report on attribution of profits to permanent establishments states that its recommendation was not constrained by either the original intent or by the historical practice and interpretation of Article 7. Moreover, the Report recommends a redrafting of both the Article itself and the Commentary. Given this, it seems appropriate to begin by asking: If we were working on a clean slate, what would be the best way to tax MNEs at source in the light of 21st century business practices? The beginning point has to be that a modern MNE does not operate as if its constituent units, either subsidiaries or branches, deal with each other as if they were separate enterprises. Instead, a modern MNE is generally a single, unified enterprise, managed from a central location by managers who are responsible to their shareholders for the results of the MNE as a whole.

State Succession and Commercial Obligations by Tai-Heng Cheng

State Succession and Commercial Obligations, by Tai-Heng Cheng. Published by Transnational Publishers (2006). A prominent international law professor was discussing the topic of state succession at a conference and expressing deep scepticism about self-determination as a vehicle to justify nationalist and independence movements. He noted that there are approximately 5,000 different ethnic groups but just under 200 states and that Westphalian norms provide much needed stability to pursue various other goals. He argued that any attempt to create separate statehood for each ethnic group ultimately would lead to international chaos. When he finished speaking, someone in the back of the room replied, with genuine sincerity, ‘Well, maybe it is time we try chaos’.1 Such remarks belie a serious lack of reflection about the difficulties of state succession. Indeed, one could say that this lack of seriousness is not limited to naive questioners in the audience. I would hazard that most international law professors do not think deeply about state succession either. We possess an adequate understanding of the distinctions embodied in various territorial successions, including cession, secession, unification, dissolution, reversion and decolonisation. We appreciate that a change in government does not constitute a succession of state, but struggle to offer an international law response to the fundamental internal changes at work when a state undergoes a radical change in personality, say from a dictatorship to a democracy. We understand the merits and demerits of the ‘clean slate’ doctrine, but do not tease out the commercial ramifications. In short, we perceive state succession through the superficial lens of decolonisation without any serious attempt to harmonise competing concerns of order and self-determination. This is despite the fact that in the past two decades we have witnessed a succession revolution. Political implosions, negotiated territorial transfers, velvet revolutions and convulsive wars have generated a wide variety of state successions. Simply mention the Soviet Union, East Timor, …

Internet clean-slate design

Many believe that it is impossible to resolve the challenges facing today's Internet without rethinking the fundamental assumptions and design decisions underlying its current architecture. Therefore, a major research effort has been initiated on the topic of Clean Slate Design of the Internet's architecture. In this paper we first give an overview of the challenges that a future Internet has to address and then discuss approaches for finding possible solutions, including Clean Slate Design. Next, we discuss how such solutions can be evaluated and how they can be retrofitted into the current Internet. Then, we briefly outline the upcoming research activities both in Europe and the U. S. Finally, we end with a perspective on how network and service operators may benefit from such an initiative.

Between Pragmatism and Theory

AbstractFor the last three decades, Italian architecture has been characterised by an extreme polarisation. At one end of the spectrum have been the neo‐conservators, who are subsumed by Italy's history, and at the other end the avant‐garde for whom innovation is the Holy Grail and the present is a clean slate. Francesco Proto outlines the current potential for steering a middle course that will afford a greater eclecticism, enabling a natural balance between pragmatism and theory. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.