This thesis is an attempt to find out what makes right and wrong.

Property rights are crucial in shaping foreign investment and its socio‐economic outcomes. Their allocation, protection and regulation influence the way the risks, costs and benefits of an investment are shared. For investors, the protection of property rights is a tool to shelter their business interests from arbitrary host state interference. For local people affected by an investment project, it may offer an avenue to secure their livelihoods, through providing safeguards against arbitrary land takings. Tensions may arise between different sets of property rights, as host state regulation to strengthen local resource rights may raise project costs and interfere with investors’ rights ‐ for example, under the international‐law regulatory taking doctrine, or “stabilization clauses” in investor‐state contracts. While there are vast literatures about the international law on foreign investment, the human right to property, and national law on investment, land and natural resources in Africa, this study analyses in an integrated way how the different sets of property rights involved in an investment project are legally protected under applicable law, whether national, international or “transnational”. The study explores whether the property rights of foreign investors and affected local people tend to enjoy differentiated legal protection; and, if so, whether the legal protection of “stronger” property rights may constrain efforts to strengthen “weaker” ones. This research question has both theoretical and practical implications. Differences in the strength of legal protection may affect negotiating power. Weak legal protection and negotiating power make local resource users vulnerable to arbitrary dispossession of their lands. From a theoretical standpoint, linking legal analysis to an analysis of negotiating power in foreign investment projects can provide insights on the relationship between law and power ‐ in a globalised world, does the law serve more powerful interests, can it be used to empower disadvantaged groups, or is it rather irrelevant?.

LL.M. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The right ventricle (RV) of the heart is clearly an extremely important component of cardiovascular function and physiology. The RV is affected in many cardiovascular disease processes, including pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), congenital heart disease, and left ventricular failure. In PAH, the performance of the RV is the strongest predictor of morbidity and mortality. Several advances in PAH therapies have occurred over the past decade, including the use of phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors, endothelin receptor antagonists (ETRAs), and experimental metabolic modulators (Dichloroacetate-DCA). Most therapies for PAH are focused on decreasing RV afterload by vasodilation of the pulmonary vasculature, though there is a surprising lack of focus on direct effects of therapies on the RV. In PAH, the RV compensates to the increase in afterload by hypertrophy, this hypertrophic defense mechanism eventual falls short and the RV progresses to failure and patient death. The specific aims of our investigations are to assess the effects of PAH therapies on RV in normal and hypertrophied states, as seen in PAH. We utilize human RV samples attained from cardiac surgical procedures to perform in-vitro analysis of protein and mRNA expression of the targets of PAH therapies. We also use a rat model of PAH and subsequent RV hypertrophy to verify human data and to also perform applied physiology experiments to isolate ex-vivo effects of PAH therapies on the RV. The experiments and data gathered in this thesis represent the insight into the importance of the RV in PAH therapies and how these therapies directly mediate the state of inotropy of the RV. A conclusion of greater importance is the better understanding of RV-specific changes in gene expression when the RV undergoes hypertrophy. By demonstrating the up-regulation of protein expression in RVH we are able to potentially tailor therapies to only improve performance of the diseased RV, while sparing the LV if it is otherwise normal. This is a true shift in paradigm as all current cardiac therapeutics effect both right and left ventricle. / Experimental Medicine

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Illegitimate child is commonly referred to as ¡§bastard,¡¨ which contains the implication of discrimination and original sin from social viewpoint. As far as law is concerned, private law doesn¡¦t provide protection for the rights of illegitimate children, whose mothers are therefore forced to file for compulsory recognition without considering consensus and depreciation to ensure their rights, and this is exactly the canker that ¡§Martial Presumption System,¡¨ which is worth further exploration. As for research method, historical method, comparative method, and citation analysis method and so on are adopted herein so as to cover domestic traditional system as well as foreign system. Furthermore, domestic scholars¡¦ articles on relevant issues are herein analyzed to seek protection for children on Constitution. Laws concerning illegitimate children falls into the category of private Law, for the aspects of relatives and inheritance are relate to legislative system and compulsory regulations which are beyond the governing of private autonomy. Additionally, the regulations of citizen¡¦s basic rights are not stipulated in detail and specifically on Constitution and must be supplemented by Civil Law. Nevertheless, in the respect of illegitimate children¡¦ rights, Civil Law obviously fails to reinforce the regulations of basic rights provided on Constitution. Therefore, it¡¦s a necessity to have it discussed at equal level of Constitution. This essay then focus on protection for children on Constitution and therefore adopts human dignity, personality right, family right, equity, property right, and litigation right recorded on Constitution to build the principal structure and study the protection for the rights of ¡§illegitimate¡¨ children on Constitution. Classifying children into legitimate children and illegitimate children will not only cause confusions in Civil Law system, but convert law into a means to discriminate illegitimate children and then result in public rights impracticable in law. As a result, amendment drafts are proposed herein, taking the abolishment of martial presumption system as the main idea that enables children whether whose parents got married or not to enjoy equal rights with the assistance of children¡¦s rights protection to enable Taiwan¡¦s parent-child relationship to compete with advanced nations.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, School of Business, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis--Paris, 1937. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Lund. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-277).