The purpose of this study is to explain the development of real estate registration in Bohemia and Moravia from the very beginning belonging to the 11th century to the last stage of development prior to the current arrangements. Thanks to this study should be easier to understand the current treatment of real estate cadastre in all its complexity. Thus, including the principles and tools from which it is based. The whole historical development is no less interesting areas, where the development of real estate registration, always reflect the current major historical events. Some events can interfere with the subject more and some less, but this issue, which is intersecting virtually the entire period of Czech Statehood, can't be investigate without the knowledge of the historical circumstances specific to each developmental period. This study is divided into two chapters. The first chapter deals with public books, which are instruments in which they were written ownership rights to real property for the purpose of ensuring and strengthening the rights of the owner against foreign interference in its ownership. This was for most of its existence almost purely private instrument, but eventually during the Communist regime was associated with the real estate cadastre. This chapter is divided into five...

As digital evidence grows in both volume and importance in criminal and civil courts, judges need to fairly and justly evaluate the merits of the offered evidence. To do so, judges need a general understanding of the underlying technologies and applications from which digital evidence is derived. Due to the relative newness of the computer forensics field, there have been few studies on the use of digital forensic evidence and none about judges' relationship with digital evidence. This study addressed judges' awareness, knowledge, and perceptions of digital evidence, using grounded theory methods. The interaction of judges with digital evidence has a social aspect that makes a study of this relationship well suited to grounded theory. This study gathered data via a written survey distributed to judges in the American Bar Association and National Judicial College, followed by interviews with judges from Massachusetts and Vermont. The results indicated that judges generally recognize the importance of evidence derived from digital sources, although they are not necessarily aware of all such sources. They believe that digital evidence needs to be authenticated just like any type of evidence and that it is the role of attorneys rather than of judges to mount challenges to that evidence, as appropriate. Judges are appropriately wary of digital evidence, recognizing how easy it is to alter or misinterpret such evidence. Less technically aware judges appear even more wary of digital evidence than their more knowledgeable peers. Judges recognize that they need additional training in computer and Internet technology as the computer forensics process and digital evidence, citing a lack of availability of such training. This training would enable judges to better understand the arguments presented by lawyers, testimony offered by technical witnesses, and judicial opinions forming the basis of decisional law. A framework for such training is provided in this report. This study is the first in the U.S. to analyze judges and digital forensics, thus opening up a new avenue of research. It is the second time that grounded theory has been employed in a digital forensics study, demonstrating the applicability of that methodology to this discipline.

Several forensic sciences, especially of the pattern-matching kind, are increasingly seen to lack the scientific foundation needed to justify continuing admission as trial evidence. Indeed, several have been abolished in the recent past. A likely next candidate for elimination is bitemark identification. A number of DNA exonerations have occurred in recent years for individuals convicted based on erroneous bitemark identifications. Intense scientific and legal scrutiny has resulted. An important National Academies review found little scientific support for the field. The Texas Forensic Science Commission recently recommended a moratorium on the admission of bitemark expert testimony. The California Supreme Court has a case before it that could start a national dismantling of forensic odontology. This article describes the (legal) basis for the rise of bitemark identification and the (scientific) basis for its impending fall. The article explains the general logic of forensic identification, the claims of bitemark identification, and reviews relevant empirical research on bitemark identification-highlighting both the lack of research and the lack of support provided by what research does exist. The rise and possible fall of bitemark identification evidence has broader implications-highlighting the weak scientific culture of forensic science and the law's difficulty in evaluating and responding to unreliable and unscientific evidence.

LL.M. (Law of Contract) / The parol evidence rule encompasses those rules that regulate the admissibility of extrinsic evidence. The parol evidence rule only comes into play when the court has to interpret a written contract and one of the parties argue that the contract or any specific clause does not reflect the common intention between the parties. The court will then follow a two prong approach in interpreting the contract. The court will firstly utilise the rules of interpretation, including the common law principles regarding presumptions. If this does not clarify the disputed clauses of the contract, the court will then rule on whether extrinsic evidence is permissible and consider such extrinsic evidence in an attempt to determine the common intention of the parties. The rules applicable to the admissibility of extrinsic evidence in the South African law of contract developed from a strict formalistic approach as applied in the Delmas Milling v Du Plessis case to an approach where any extrinsic evidence may be admitted, as long as it is admissible in terms of the rules of evidence and it falls within the category of what Harms DP stated in the KPMG Chartered Accountants (SA) v Securefin Ltd case as “context” or “factual matrix”. The KPMG Chartered Accountants (SA) v Securefin Ltd case finally brought the law applicable to the parol evidence rule in the South African law of contract on par with its American and English counterparts.

This doctoral thesis aims to explore the underlying rationale of the (by modern standards) wide use of character evidence in the courts of classical Athens. Linking divergent areas of social sciences such as law, history, psychology and social anthropology, this interdisciplinary quest examines under a socio-political prism the question of legal relevance in Athenian forensic rhetoric. Specifically, I am concerned with an in-depth analysis of the surviving court speeches placed in their context in order to reveal the function of the Athenian courts and the fundamental nature of Athenian law. I explore the utmost aims of the first democratic system of justice and give a verdict as to its orientation towards the attainment of key notions such as the rule of law, equity and fairness, or social stability through utilitarian dispute resolution. My claim is that, although ancient and modern definitions of such ideals are in essence incomparable, the Athenians achieved the rule of law in their own terms through the strict application of legal justice in their courts. In such a legal system, no ‘aberrations’ or irrelevant ‘extra-legal’ arguments may carry significant weight. Central for my argument is the homogeneous approach to (legal and quasi-legal) argumentation from Homer to the orators, in a period covering more than four centuries. Close analysis of the dispute-resolution passages in ancient Greek literature exposes the striking similarities with the rhetoric of litigants in the Athenian courts. Therefore, instead of isolating (in time and space) the sphere of the Athenian courts of the mid-5th to the late-4th centuries, my holistic approach discloses the need for an all-embracing interpretation of the wide use of character evidence in every aspect of argumentation. I argue that the explanation for this practice is to be found (on a subjective level) in the Greek ideas of ‘character’ and ‘personality’, the inductive method of reasoning, and (on an objective level) in the social, political and institutional structures of the ancient Greek polis. Thus, a new exegesis to the question of legal relevance for the Greeks emerges.

Information literacy (IL) is recognized as the overall critical literacy for the 21st Century. Although large amounts of digital information are available, there is concern within higher education that students lack the competencies to assess and analyse sources in terms of relevance to their courses. Information literacy skills are of critical importance in teaching medical students to engage with evidence-based medicine (EBM), often within a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. Information practices that underpin academic and professional life should be embedded into the learning experience of the subject, and not taught extraneously in isolated silos. Attitudes of teaching staff at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand towards embedding evidence-based information literacy skills into the Graduate Entry Medical Programme 1 and 2 curriculum were examined. Existing integration of IL skills into the curriculum was shown to be limited, and not as high as perceived by educators. Five barriers against the integration of IL skills, and six opportunities for embedding information literacy, were identified in the curriculum. Awareness of evidence-based practice was found to be high, and collaborative teaching of IL skills with librarians was accepted by a large majority of educators. Dynamic Purposeful Learning (DPL) was proposed as a constructivist framework into which collaborative teaching of IL skills could be placed. DPL draws on active and collaborative learning, as well as cognitive scaffolding and apprenticeship, and is suited to PBL in the context of medical education.

Sometimes it feels as though everybody has an opinion on how you should bring up your child – and no two people seem to agree on how it should be done for the best! Parenting with Reason cuts through the masses of confusing and often contradictory advice about parenting by providing hard evidence to back up the tough decisions all parents face. Unlike many self-help guides to parenting which are based on the opinion of one author, this book is based on many findings from scientific research, giving you a trustworthy, ‘evidence-based’ guide to help see your way through parenting dilemmas. Written by a clinical psychologist, a developmental psychologist and a doctor of family medicine, the book looks at pressing questions such as: 'What should I do when my child acts up?', 'How can I get my baby to sleep through the night?' and 'How do I begin to toilet-train my child?' The authors, who are also parents themselves, debunk common myths about parenting, such as the notion that a healthy baby needs to be able to breastfeed at will throughout the night, or the idea that children who are adopted need specialized counselling. They also cover issues such as how children might be affected by seeing violence on television, how a parent’s psychological health can affect their child, what the scientific evidence is for and against circumcision, and how divorce and adoption affect a child’s development. The end of each chapter gives you 'The Bottom Line', a handy summary of the key points of each issue. This book is ideal for new or prospective parents, and paediatricians, family health providers and anyone who works with children and their parents will also find the book’s objective, scientific approach useful in their work. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1208/thumbnail.jpg

Several factors that influence the rate of human decomposition have been described in the literature, including temperature, access by insects, humidity and rainfall1. These environmental factors, as well as purge fluid released during decomposition2, can interact with evidence deposited on the clothing of a deceased individual. The present research assessed how these combined factors affect the detection and identification of blood and semen evidence, as well as subsequent DNA analysis. A 35-45 pound (lb) feeder pig (post-mortem interval (PMI) < 3 hours) was placed on a grassy area within the Boston University Outdoor Research Facility for a period of 22 days or 364.3 accumulated degree days (ADD) during late spring, with the temperature averaging 16.5 oC. Aliquots of 30 μl of either human blood or semen were pipetted onto 1 inch by 1 inch sections of a 95% cotton t-shirt. Twenty-two samples of each type were placed on top of and underneath the pig, as well as a similarly weighted bag of sand (control). One bloodstain and one semen stain were collected each day for a period of 22 days from each location, yielding 8 samples per day. Each sample was analyzed within 30 hours of collection. The blood samples beneath the control showed that environmental factors influenced the results of testing. Rain caused dilution and diffusion of the bloodstains and the color of the stains changed from red-brown to green-yellow. Kastle-Meyer (KM) testing was positive for all samples and ABAcard® HemaTrace® testing was positive for 14 of 22 samples, with the negative results occurring during days 12 - 21. Two stains that were negative at 10 minutes turned positive shortly thereafter, suggesting that a longer development time may be required for compromised samples. The blood samples placed beneath the pig yielded positive KM results on all 22 days and positive HemaTrace® results through day 10. All bloodstains placed on top of the pig and control yielded positive KM and HemaTrace® results. The blood samples from on top of the pig and control yielded full short tandem repeat (STR) profiles for each of the four days of testing (days 1, 8, 13 and 20). The blood samples from beneath the pig and control yielded full profiles on day 1 only. The three subsequent days of testing yielded a maximum of three alleles per sample, with the majority of samples failing to provide any profile at all. Semen samples from beneath the control began to show a decrease in fluorescence using an alternate light source (ALS) by day 3, and some areas of fluorescence occurred in a different location, indicating that the soluble components had diffused outward from the original region of deposition (ORD). Results for acid phosphatase (AP) and ABAcard® p-30 were mostly positive through day 16. By day 17, the ORD no longer fluoresced or yielded positive AP or p-30 results. With the exception of day 10, sperm were identified on all samples. Semen results from beneath the pig showed that even on day 1, the ORD was only weakly fluorescent and by day 4, fluorescent regions began appearing outside of the ORD. These outlying regions of fluorescence yielded positive results with AP Spot and p-30 testing, but showed few or no spermatozoa when examined microscopically. As the days passed, the ORD were no longer fluorescent and AP mapping and p-30 testing yielded negative results; however, spermatozoa could still be identified in almost all of the ORD through day 22. Semen samples collected from on top of the control showed that semen stains retained fluorescence and tested positive for AP, spermatozoa and p-30 through 22 days of testing. Semen samples collected from on top of the pig yielded similar results until day 16, when the fluorescence began to fade and AP testing did not yield traditional color changes associated with a positive result. By day 18, fluorescence was no longer visible with an ALS at 450 nm or 495 nm, however, UV light yielded positive fluorescence when used during days 19-21. Spermatozoa and p-30 were identified on samples saturated with products of decomposition, even when presumptive screening techniques were negative (450-495 nm) or showed an altered appearance (AP). Semen samples from within the ORD yielded full 16 loci profiles from beneath the pig and both on top of and beneath the control on each of the four days of testing. The samples collected from on top of the pig yielded full profiles on days 1, 6 and 14 and partial profiles on day 20. Samples from beneath the pig on days 6 and 14, which had positive presumptive results outside of the ORD, were also amplified, but failed to yield a profile.

This thesis sets out to explore, describe, quantify, and visualise uncertainty in a cultural informatics context, with a focus on archaeological reconstructions. For quite some time, archaeologists and heritage experts have been criticising the often toorealistic appearance of three-dimensional reconstructions. They have been highlighting one of the unique features of archaeology: the information we have on our heritage will always be incomplete. This incompleteness should be reflected in digitised reconstructions of the past. This criticism is the driving force behind this thesis. The research examines archaeological theory and inferential process and provides insight into computer visualisation. It describes how these two areas, of archaeology and computer graphics, have formed a useful, but often tumultuous, relationship through the years. By examining the uncertainty background of disciplines such as GIS, medicine, and law, the thesis postulates that archaeological visualisation, in order to mature, must move towards archaeological knowledge visualisation. Three sequential areas are proposed through this thesis for the initial exploration of archaeological uncertainty: identification, quantification and modelling. The main contributions of the thesis lie in those three areas. Firstly, through the innovative design, distribution, and analysis of a questionnaire, the thesis identifies the importance of uncertainty in archaeological interpretation and discovers potential preferences among different evidence types. Secondly, the thesis uniquely analyses and evaluates, in relation to archaeological uncertainty, three different belief quantification models. The varying ways that these mathematical models work, are also evaluated through simulated experiments. Comparison of results indicates significant convergence between the models. Thirdly, a novel approach to archaeological uncertainty and evidence conflict visualisation is presented, influenced by information visualisation schemes. Lastly, suggestions for future semantic extensions to this research are presented through the design and development of new plugins to a search engine.

Analytical survey of the above ground evidence has been undertaken on twelve areas of prehistoric fields in southern Britain. In all cases at least two phases were noted, one directly overlying the other; in ten of these areas the earlier phase comprised an extensive rectilinear grid and the later smaller areas of aggregated fields. The earlier field systems could be externally bounded and left little land unenclosed for open grazing and timber production, movement was only allowed along high ridges. It is suggested that the earliest of these fields date to the beginning of the 2nd millennium, on both sides of the Channel, where they were regarded as symbolic of status within a period of visible ostentatious possessions. The majority were created in the middle centuries of that period, possibly as a reaction to perceived land pressure. No settlements could be identified as coeval with these fields. The later fields represent a major contraction of enclosed land and their design is more suited to stock, rather than arable, production. Larger areas around the fields were marked by linear ditch systems or by cross ridge dykes. Settlements were frequently, and presumably deliberately, placed over the boundaries of the earlier fields, possibly in an act of incorporation; these settlements tend to date to the two centuries on either side of 1000BC, and it is likely, though not certain, that the later fields were contemporary with these settlements. The production of stock as evidence of wealth led to feasting, as exemplified by midden sites, and to a raiding culture within which aggression is more likely, but warfare not proven. The point is made that, with no structure visible at excavation across lynchets, analytical survey is the best method of recording phase differences. Also, given the lack of below ground evidence these sites, though widespread, are a diminishing resource and protection of the best examples is highly desirable.