This study investigates the knowledge that legal practitioners use to solve authentic practical legal problems in naturalistic settings. The study examines the declarative and procedural knowledge that practitioners use in that context and whether experienced practitioners use knowledge organised in encapsulated and script form (Boshuizen & Schmidt, 1992; Schmidt, Norman, & Boshuizen, 1990) to enable ‘expert’ performance. The purpose of the study is to provide an empirically-based understanding of the knowledge used in solving real-life practical legal problems, for the information of the providers of practical legal training in Australia and other common law countries. The providers of that training use assumptions about that knowledge and how it is acquired, which do not always rest on coherent theoretical or empirically-derived foundations. The study uses the lawyering literature to identify the knowledge such literature considers is required to solve practical legal problems in lawyer and client interview settings. The study also examines the assumptions about the nature of that knowledge, and how it is acquired, which are apparent in the approaches of the providers of practical legal training. The limitations of those assumptions are identified from a cognitive perspective. The study examines cognitive conceptions of the knowledge used in problem solving in particular fields and how that knowledge becomes proceduralised and organised into structures called chunks and schemas. A particular examination is made of cognitive theories developed in the field of medical problem solving, which use the concepts of ‘encapsulations’ and ‘illness scripts’ to explain ‘expert’ performance in diagnosing disease in clinical settings. This analysis is used to synthesise the prediction that experienced legal practitioners may develop and use structures similar to encapsulations and illness scripts in problem solving. This prediction is based on the similarities between the way medical practitioners and legal practitioners are educated and trained, and are taught to solve problems using a hypotheticodeductive method (or a domain variant in the case of law), and on the similarities between clinical settings and lawyer and client interview settings. The study also examines theories that explain human problem solving by reference to a metaphorical ‘problem space’, and synthesises the prediction that practical legal problem solving can be explained by a problem space theory that was developed to accommodate complex, ill-defined problems. That theory uses the concepts of a problem zone to reflect the ill-defined nature of the problem as presented to the problem solver, a search and construction zone to reflect the phenomenon that the problem solver will have to construct operators to use to solve the problem, and a satisficing zone to reflect the phenomenon that there will be no single unambiguous solution to the problem (Middleton, 1998). The study uses the lawyering literature to identify the characteristics of practical legal problems in a lawyer and client interview setting. The cognitive literature is used to identify the cognitive conceptions that correspond to those characteristics. It is argued that these problems are complex, ill-defined problems that have to be found by the problem solver using weak problem solving strategies such as problem decomposition, attribute identification and means-ends analysis (Simon, 1973; Dillon, 1982; Newell, 1980). Based on these predictions two research questions are developed as follows: How do legal practitioners find and construct practical legal problems? Are there differences in the knowledge that experienced legal practitioners use and that which novice practitioners use? Do those differences reflect differences in the individual practitioner’s underlying knowledge and how that knowledge is organised? These questions are investigated in four case studies. Two of these studies involve experienced legal practitioners and two involve novices. These studies reveal that all the subjects used similar general problem solving strategies to find and construct problems. The subjects all constructed a series of problems rather than one large problem. The subjects did not all find and construct the same problems and some subjects’ constructions of problems changed as new information came to light. Most subjects did not finish the construction of problems at the interview. The processes that the subjects use to construct problems can be explained by Middleton’s (1998) problem space model, although this study suggests that model needs to be modified to accommodate the on-going emergent character of practical legal problems as they occur in lawyer and client interview settings. The investigation revealed qualitative differences between the problem attributes and moves that the experienced subjects identified and those that the novices identified. In summary, the experienced subjects identified attributes and moves that were more detailed, more directly related to the ‘facts’ and more concrete than those that the novices identified. Both the experienced subjects and the novices appeared to rely on recognition (Newell & Simon, 1972) to identify problem attributes and moves rather than on any apparent step-by-step legal analysis and reasoning process. This study suggests that the superior performance of the experienced subjects may be explained by their use of knowledge in encapsulated and script form, as predicted. The study discusses the implications of its findings for practical legal training courses as a need to provide students with general problem solving knowledge, provide them with the knowledge that they will need to recognise problems in specific areas of practice, to help them start to develop knowledge in encapsulated and script form, and to develop an understanding of the limits of institutional training in developing professional expertise.

The subject of developed theme is xenotransplantation as future alternative to allotransplantation. because of its an experimental nature and being unrecognized as therapy method, xenotransplantation causes ethical and legal problems, which must be solved before the clinical trials start. Variuos sources of information and reports of councils on bioethics are used to examine the ethical issues raised by xenotransplantation. The other part of work is based on overlooking and analysis of World health organization, council of Europe and European Union laws concerning xenotransplantation, which help to reveal the legal problems. The situation in Lithuania is presented.

Background: Current national prevalence estimates of DSM-5 diagnosed substance use disorders (SUDs) among adults with justice system involvement are lacking. Methods: This study drew from NESARC-III data (n = 36,309; 2012–2013), a nationally representative U.S. sample, to examine current and lifetime alcohol use disorder (AUD) and drug use disorder (DUD) diagnoses among adults reporting current or prior drug-related, alcohol-related, and general legal problems. Results: Adults reporting current alcohol-related legal problems were 22 times more likely to have a current AUD diagnosis (AOR = 22.0, 95% CI = 12.1; 40.1) and 15 times more likely to have had a lifetime AUD diagnosis (AOR = 15.2, 95% CI = 7.5; 30.9) than adults without alcohol-related legal problems. Adults with lifetime drug-related legal problems were 3–5 times more likely to have a current (AOR = 2.6, 95% CI = 2.1; 3.2) and lifetime (AOR = 5.1, 95% CI = 4.3; 6.1) DUD diagnosis, with stimulant use disorder being the most prevalent (AOR = 5.4, 95% CI = 4.5; 6.5). Adults with general legal problems were around 3 times more likely to have a current AUD (AOR = 3.2, 95% CI = 2.6; 4.0) or DUD (AOR = 3.5, 95% CI = 2.8; 4.4). Women with any type of legal problem were more likely to have SUD diagnoses than men. Conclusions: SUD diagnoses are prevalent among adults reporting legal problems, particularly those involving alcohol. There is a continued need for community-based addiction prevention and intervention efforts, especially for women with justice system involvement.

The Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is often described as fragmented, highly complex and risk-oriented with major challenges due to the high level of conflicts and low level of productivity. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is claimed to be the future of the AEC industry and is a way to address these issues. A BIM model can be used in all the phases of a facility's life cycle and can result in better quality at lower cost and reduced time-consumption. However, there are not just benefits with BIM but also risks and problems, which can be hard to manage and prevent the adoption of BIM. Several of the risks and problems are connected to legal issues.  This thesis consists of a qualitative research study that explores the current situation of the legal challenges with BIM, which companies are facing in their construction projects in the Swedish AEC industry. The study intends to develop an understanding of the legal problems that hinders the adoption of BIM and how these problems can be minimized. Semi-structured interviews were held with ten respondents in different companies in Sweden to get an understanding of the legal issues with BIM in their construction projects. The result of the interviews showed that the major legal issue with BIM is the capability to define the model as a legal act and rank the model higher than drawings in a contract. In addition, it was found that the difficulty to review that the model is sufficiently correct and reliable is also something that companies see as a hinder for the full adoption of BIM. Therefore, companies still often prefer to have the drawings as a legal act rather than models. / Arkitektur-, ingenjörs- och byggindustrin beskrivs ofta som splittrad, mycket komplex och riskorienterad med stora utmaningar på grund av mycket konflikter och låg produktivitet. Det hävdas att byggnadsinformationsmodellering (BIM) är industrins framtid och ett sätt att ta itu med dessa problem. En BIM-modell kan användas i alla faser av en anläggnings livscykel och kan resultera i bättre kvalitet till en lägre kostnad och minskad tidsåtgång. Dock finns det inte bara fördelar med BIM utan även risker och problem som kan vara svåra att hantera och som förhindrar införandet av BIM. Flera av riskerna och problemen är kopplade till juridiska frågor. Detta examensarbete består av en kvalitativ forskningsstudie som undersöker den nuvarande situationen för de juridiska utmaningarna med BIM som företagen står inför i sina byggprojekt i den svenska byggindustrin. Studien avser att utveckla en förståelse för de juridiska problem som förhindrar införandet av BIM och hur dessa problem kan minimeras. Halvstrukturerade intervjuer hölls med tio respondenter i olika företag i Sverige för att få en förståelse för de juridiska problemen med BIM i byggprojekt. Resultatet av intervjuerna visade att det stora juridiska problemet med BIM är svårigheten med att definiera modellen som en juridisk handling och rangordna modellen högre än ritningar i ett kontrakt. Dessutom fann man att svårigheten med att granska att en modell är tillräckligt korrekt och tillförlitlig är något som företag ser som ett hinder för BIM:s fullständiga införande. Därför föredrar de flesta företag att fortfarande ha ritningarna som juridisk handling och inte modellerna.

Latinx population is growing rapidly, however, they are falling behind in educational attainment. In Tennessee, 17% of Latinx adults have earned an associate degree or higher, compared to 32% of all adults. This study focuses on improving Latinx students' access to STEM higher education in the Northeast Tennessee region. A survey was conducted among Latinx students who identified legal, financial and social challenges as barriers in their journey to higher education in STEM fields. An innovative collective impact model is proposed as a solution for this socially complex problem. Early data shows positive effects of the initiative.