bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Antioxidants: elixirs of life or media hype?
Authors: Gutteridge John M C , Halliwell Barry
Published: November 2023

The first organisms to evolve on the Earth were anaerobes: there was initially little or no O2 intheatmosphere. As the O2 content rose, some organisms adapted by evolving antioxidant defence systems to protect themselves against the toxic effects of O2 (see Chapter 1). The term ‘ antioxidant’ is widely used in newspapers, magazines, and the scientific literature, but it is rarely defined. Often it is used to refer only to antioxidants than can scavenge radicals, such as superoxide dismutase, vitamin E, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Let us explore this further.
Antioxidant vitamins and nutrients
Authors: Gutteridge John M C , Halliwell Barry
Published: November 2023

Antioxidant defences rely heavily on vitamins and minerals from the diet (see Table 1). Indeed, research in Jamaica has shown that the problems suffered by children with kwashiorkor, a disease caused by lack of suitable dietary protein, arise not only from the deficiency in protein itself, but also from inadequate levels of antioxidants (including caeruloplasmin, tocopherols, and GSH) and from failure to make enough albumin, or sufficient transferrin to ensure safe binding of iron in the plasma.

Would people in ‘ advanced’ countries gain any benefit from consuming ‘supplements’ of these nutrients, in addition to those absorbed from the diet? The companies that manufacture ‘ vitamin E’, ‘vitamin C’, ‘fl-carotene’, ‘selenium’, ‘multivitamin tablets’, and SOD capsules (with or without added catalase) would like us to think so. This is a multi-million dollar business in the USA and is growing to a similar size in other parts of the world. Some claims are unlikely to be true. SOD and catalase are proteins— in the gut, they will be digested by enzymes into amino acids and peptides. Little, if any, will be absorbed intact. No more will be absorbed from SOD/ catalase tablets than from uncooked foodstuffs (most of which contain these enzymes). Some of the other claims deserve careful attention, however.
Confidentiality
Authors: Green Stephen A , Bloch Sidney
Published: November 2023

Preserving the secrets of patients has its provenance in Ancient Greece. The Oath of Hippocrates makes this duty explicit What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about In modern times, the psychiatrist’s assurance to his patients that whatever transpires between them will remain confidential, is a hallmark of the therapeutic relationship.
Preoperative assessment: language
Authors: Rutten Geert–Jan , Roux Franck–Emmanuel
Published: November 2023

Brain surgery aims at optimal treatment of a lesion with minimal damage to healthy brain tissue, in order to spare the patient from any (new) neurological deficit. This not only requires a priori knowledge about the nature, location, and extent of the lesion and neighbouring anatomical structures (e.g. the vascular architecture) but also about the location of functionally important brain structures (i.e. the (sub)cortical areas that are indispensable or ‘critical’ for normal sensorimotor or cognitive function). Despite the importance of both these structural and functional aspects in resective brain surgery, routine and easily applicable clinical techniques only exist for identification and localization of the structural lesion. Nowadays, information from structural neuroimaging techniques such as CT or MRI is a prerequisite for any brain surgical intervention. In clear contrast, in the majority of these procedures, localization of function still relies on models that were developed over a century ago. These models are predominantly based on the results of post-mortem studies of brainlesioned patients with neurological deficits, and strongly link specific functions to specific anatomical landmarks and cortical topography. For language, this resulted in the formulation of the classical model that describes the language system as composed primarily of two cortical regions in the left hemisphere: the areas of Broca and Wernicke. Although no clear anatomical definition of these areas exists, they are usually defined, as respectively, the posterior part of the left inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior part of the left perisylvian region. However, over the years, it has been recognized that potential language cortex is much larger than previously thought, whereas language areas themselves can be much smaller and highly variable in both extent and location. Clinicians and researchers have gradually come to realize that, for individual patients, the classical language model has little predictive value. Contrary to the general clinical assumption that is formulated in the Broca–Wernicke model, there seems no simple one-to-one relationship between structure and function. This holds true, in particular, for neurosurgical patients, where brain lesions may have changed structural or functional brain topography. A better understanding of the cerebral representation of language function is clearly needed in order to predict and explain the effects of brain surgery more accurately.
An introduction to the immune system and cancer
Authors: Midgley Rachel
Published: November 2023

Immunology as a science celebrated its bicentenary just before the dawn of the new millennium. In 1796 Jenner reported his finding that inoculation of a young man, James Phipps, with pus obtained from a cowpox lesion (or vaccinia from the latin term ‘vacca’ meaning cow) resulted in protection against human smallpox, a frequently fatal disease. This was the first documented evidence for the effectiveness of ‘vaccination’. Despite Jenner’s firm evidence, the resistance of the Church to his methods meant that smallpox vaccination did not become routine until the twentieth century.
The clinical development of biologic therapies
Authors: Kerr David
Published: November 2023

In contrast to what you will read elsewhere in this book, I do not want to say here that cancer is a disease of cells: it is not. For our purposes, cancer is a disease of people. It is the potential to extend and save human lives that drives our interest in cancer and at some point in our research we are bound to attempt to translate interesting developments in our biological understanding into real therapies for people with cancer.
Proteins, peptides, and DNA vaccines for cancer
Authors: Choudhury Aniruddha , Mellstedt Håkan
Published: November 2023

The concept of vaccinating patients against their cancers has advanced over time (as outlined in Chapter 2). What started out as hypotheses, was succeeded with empirical studies and observations in the laboratory and dinic, and currently represents an established scientific discipline with constantly expanding frontiers. Approaches to cancer vaccination can be broadly grouped into two categories:(1) approaches that rely on the whole tumour ceJl or fractions derived from it as the source of immunogen; and(2) approaches that utilise a synthetic immunogen that immunologically mimics a molecule associated with the tumour cell. Such a molecule is called a tumour-associated antigen(s) (TAA).
Acquired brain injury
Authors: McGrath Joanna Collicutt
Published: November 2023

This book is about the rehabilitation of people who have acquired brain injury (ABI) in adulthood. It is therefore important to begin by clarifying the specific health conditions that are included within this broad term. As noted in the last chapter, the focus of the book is on acute onset, non-progressive, cerebral events that arise in the context of previously normal brain function. The major associated health conditions are closed head injury, stroke, subarachnoid haemorrhage, cerebral hypoxia, and cerebral infections. These health conditions can be of varying degrees of severity, but the most significant ethical problems are associated with severe conditions.
The Dynamical Perspective
Authors: Culicover Peter W , Nowak Andrzej
Published: November 2023

The central problem addressed by this book is how a mind/brain can come to incorporate knowledge of a system as complex as a human language in a relatively brief period of time through exposure to the sounds of a language paired with contexts of their utterance. This problem has been the concern of much of modern linguistics. Our particular focus is to consider it from the perspective of the language learner, taking as our guide Occam’s Razor. We will ask, what is the minimal formal machinery and prior knowledge that a mind/brain must have access to in order to learn a lan guage? Our approach situates us within the general rubric of ‘minimalism’, although many of our basic assumptions distinguish us from a number of other minimalist proposals (see Chapter 7).
Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory
Authors: Culicover Peter W , Nowak Andrzej
Published: November 2023

Chapter 1 touched upon the notion that there is an intimate relationship between linguistic theory and the theory of language acquisition. Here we explore a number of facets of this idea that will play a central role in the account of language acquisition that we develop in this book. The central thesis of this chapter is that current formal grammatical descriptions of adult language do not offer the proper vocabulary for describing the course of language acquisition. If this is so it leaves us with a problem; either there is a discontinuity between the mechanism that accounts for language acquisition and the representation of language in the adult, or the formal grammatical descriptions offered by current theory are only indirectly associated with the language acquisition mechanism. We chose the latter option, preserving the widely accepted view (and the minimalist view) that there is a strong continuity between what is going on in the language learner and what ends up in the mind of the adult speaker.
Governing Spaniards, 1943–73
Authors: Vincent Mary
Published: November 2023

During the 1940s the Franco regime consolidated its military victory. The nature of this victory made it clear that the power of the ‘New State’ rested on violence and death, yet the completeness of that victory paradoxically created the possibility of later consolidating the regime. For the regime’s longevity cannot be explained by repression: wholesale killing had been abandoned by 1943 and the Falange was a junior partner well before the war in Europe was concluded.
Joining Europe, 1973–2002
Authors: Vincent Mary
Published: November 2023

By 1973, the death knell was sounding for Francoist Spain. España, una grande, libre continued to reverberate through the official insignia of the regime, but much of Spain shared the opinion of the traveller in the jungle who swam unharmed through a crocodile-infested river, chanting ‘Spain, One, Great, and Free’—a claim the crocodiles couldn’t possibly swallow.
Industry and the Urban Economy
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens presented a graphic picture of a northern industrial town as he imagined it in the early 1850s: It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ... It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building ... where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a melancholy state of madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another ... to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
Free Trade and Protectionism
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

‘What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August 1914!’, exclaimed Keynes from the very different world of the 1920s: The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages. [He] could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference.
Capital Exports
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

IN 1930, Keynes was in little doubt that international capital flows were harmful to British welfare: I believe that laissez faire in foreign lending is utterly incompatible with our existing wages policy. For if individuals are entirely free to lend their savings without discrimination in whatever quarter of the world they obtain the greatest reward ... the proportion of the joint product which we award to labour as compared with the proportion which we award to capital cannot be greater here than it is in other parts of the world ... relatively to its efficiency .. .. Either we shall be in a state of chronic disequilibrium ... or we shall have to force down wages in England until capital gets the same proportion of the product as in Germany.
Rebuilding the International Economic Order?
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

All of us have seen the great economic tragedy of our time. We saw the worldwide depression of the 1930s. We saw currency disorders develop and spread ... In their wake, we saw unemployment and wretchedness ... We saw their victims fall prey, in places, to demagogues and dictators. We saw bewilderment and bitterness become the breeders of fascism, and, finally, of war. (Henry Morgenthau, United States Secretary of the Treasury, 1944) These reflections on the collapse of the international economy opened the Bretton Woods conference, where representatives of forty-four countries came together to rebuild the world’s monetary system. The guiding ambition was to prevent a recurrence of ‘beggar my neighbour’ devaluations and a retreat into trade blocs. The Americans wished to reinstate monetary stability and multilateral trade— and their immense economic power at the end of the war allowed them to set the agenda.
Births and Marriages
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

When Malthus published his Essay on Population in 1797, fears of over-population and demographic disaster were causing alarm. By the 1830s, concern had receded: the people had not slumped into complete misery, and agriculture could sustain a much larger population without famine. Nevertheless, trade unionists still saw a solution to low wages in the encouragement of emigration, helping to reduce competition for jobs and increase their bargaining position. The Malthusian League, created in 1877, offered another approach: the encouragement of birth control. These neo-Malthusians insisted that no other solution to poverty was possible or desirable.
Death and Disease
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

In 1861, Prince Albert died at the age of 42— popularly thought to be a victim of typhoid. Not even the most influential members of British society were immune from an early death caused by pollution and infectious disease. His widow, Queen Victoria, continued to mourn until her own demise in 1901, and death and its rituals were central to Victorian culture. Novels, poems, biographies, and pictures featured countless death scenes, watched over by family members. An elaborate ritual ensued: a vigil and last visit; the draping of windows; the wearing of mourning clothes and jewellery; the use of black-bordered writing paper; a funeral procession, followed by interment and frequent visits to the grave. Only the monarch could go to the elaborate extremes of the Albert memorial, but many of her subjects did their best with stained glass windows and memorial plaques.
From the Poor Law to the Welfare State
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: November 2023

All societies experience social risks and attempt to resolve them in a variety of ways. Death is a universal experience. Employment varies across the seasons and trade cycle. Work itself poses risks of accident and disease. Child bearing was risky, with high levels of maternal mortality; and infancy was extremely dangerous. Husbands might become widowers with young children; wives could be widowed and left to support the family; children faced growing up in single-parent families or as orphans. Self-employed professionals or traders experienced business failure or illness which could lead to genteel poverty or worse. The risks were myriad and ever present.
Stare Decisis
Authors: Cross Rupert , Harris J W
Published: November 2023

According to the preliminary statement of the English doctrine of precedent in Chapter I, a court is bound to follow any case decided by a court above it, and appellate courts (other than the House of Lords) are bound by their previous decisions. What is meant by saying that a court is ‘bound to follow a case’ or ‘bound by a decision’? In this context, according to orthodox theory, ‘case’ and ‘decision’ mean ratio decidendi. In other contexts they may respectively mean a particular piece of litigation, and the judgment or order of court by which that litigation is determined. ‘Judgment’ is also a word of many meanings. It may signify a court order as when we say that A got judgment for £100, it may signify everything said by a judge with regard to the grounds for making an order (the entirety of his opinion including statements of fact and obiter dicta), or it may be used synonymously with ratio decidendi. The fact that words such as ‘case’, ‘judgment’, or ‘decision’ may all be used to mean the ratio decidendi of a case sometimes leads to the confusion of ratio decidendi with res judicata, i.e. the confusion between the effect of a decision from the point of view of subsequent litigation involving different parties, and its effect on the parties to the dispute. They are generally estopped from raising the same issue at a later date.
Precedent and Judicial Reasoning
Authors: Cross Rupert , Harris J W
Published: November 2023

This chapter begins with a consideration of the extent to which judicial reasoning about law may be properly described as either ‘deductive’ or ‘inductive’. The question is probably less significant than the frequency with which it is raised suggests, but the discussion makes it possible to bring into relief certain features of English case-law which have a bearing on the application of precedent. The rest of the chapter is primarily concerned with reasoning by analogy. A few remarks were made on this topic in Chapter I, and it is now proposed to consider this feature of the English doctrine of precedent in greater detail. The subject is an important one because it is principally by means of such reasoning that the judges have developed a coherent body of law. Having ascertained the ratio decidendi of a previous case, and having, where necessary, interpreted that case in the light of other decisions, they must decide whether to apply it to the facts before them.
The Future
Authors: Cross Rupert , Harris J W
Published: November 2023

Precedent rules are based on the practice of the judges. The basic rules set out on page 6 seem firmly established. In particular, the rule that intermediate appellate courts are generally bound by their own decisions has not been questioned since the decision of the House of Lords in Davis v. Johnson. Nevertheless, the view has been expressed in the Privy Council that opinions of the supreme tribunal on such a question cannot constitute the ratio decidendi of any case and are not therefore strictly binding. One cannot rule out the possibility that, at some future date, a full court of the Court of Appeal will decide to abrogate or modify the rule in Young v. Bristol Aeroplane Co. Ltd. What the reaction of the House of Lords would be to such a move, and what the final upshot, must remain matters of mere conjecture. All one can say is that most commentators believe that such a step would be desirable, but it is judicial practice which counts. However, precedent rules, like other features of judicial practice, are the subject of constant incremental evolution. We have seen how existing exceptions to stare decisis have been recently widened. Future developments may throw light on many of the unsettled questions mentioned in Chapter IV. In particular, it is to be hoped that a definite rule will emerge as to whether the Court of Appeal is bound by decisions of two-judge courts, as to the scope and applicability of the per incuriam exception, and as to whether there is or is not a general exception of obsolescence.
Public Law and Political Theory
Authors: Loughlin Martin
Published: November 2023

The study of public law in the UK has been hampered for many years by an inadequate appreciation among scholars and students of the importance of understanding the different political theories which underpin different models of public law. This short and highly readable work offers students a straightforward introduction to the relationship between public law and political theory and helps them to comprehend the rich literature on both subjects.
Contemporary Thought in Public Law
Authors: Loughlin Martin
Published: November 2023

The existence during the inter-war period of the normativist and functionalist styles of public law has been generally recognized. It has even been accepted that the adversaries—Hewart and Allen on one side and Robson and Jennings on the other—may ‘be grouped together as exponents of a particular type of political thought’.
The Welfare State, Social Security, and Social Citizenship Rights
Authors: Harris Neville
Published: November 2023

Analysis of social security law is often concerned with the detail of individual entitlement in specific circumstances and with the mechanisms for challenging decisions. Continuing legal analysis of this nature is indeed essential given the high level of complexity and, at times, obscurity, which characterises the present law, and which is in part the result of its frequent and often piecemeal amendment. There is, moreover, a need for a practical focus, as social security law impacts so directly on the lives of those in need of welfare benefits. I however, when exploring an area of the law such as this where legislation is an instrument of government social policy, a degree of abstraction is necessary in order to understand the nature of the rules under consideration and to appreciate their overall effects.
Social Security Prior to Beveridge
Authors: Harris Neville
Published: November 2023

This is the first of three chapters tracing the historical development of the social security system. It is important for anyone attempting to make sense of the present social security system and its elaborate legislative and institutional framework to understand the evolution of the major areas of social security provision and be familiar with the key landmarks-primarily the major policy initiatives and pieces of legislation-along the way. In analyzing these developments it is particularly necessary to take account of the political context in which they have taken place, particularly (as in Chapters 4 and 5) the Labour Party’s social democratic welfare state programmes of the immediate post-war period and the emergence and domination of the ‘New Right’ Conservative ideology which embraced the rationalisation of welfare in the 1980s and much of the 1990s.
Social Security and Housing
Authors: Raiiilly Simon
Published: November 2023

It has long been government housing policy to ensure that everyone has a decent home at a price that they can afford.To this end, government expenditure has included subsidies to providers to help keep their costs down, and to consumers through tax relief (which has only been available to owners) and housing assistance paid within social security. The tremendous variation in housing costs between and within regions has meant that it has always been difficult to devise a national social security scheme that is both affordable to the nation and which also ensures that housing is affordable to individual households. The present arrangements include means-tested housing benefit to assist with rent charges (currently paid to some 4.5 million people), and means-tested council tax benefit for assistance with council tax (of which there are over 5 million recipients/ Both are administered by local authorities (though the financial and legal framework is determined by central government). By contrast, assistance with mortgage costs is via the means-tested benefits income support and JSA, which are administered by the Benefits Agency. This chapter examines the legal provisions for all three types of housing assistance, in the light of cur rent policy issues and concerns.
The Character of Unit Trust Relationships
Authors: Sin Kam Fan
Published: November 2023

The foregoing chapter has argued that the trust cannot, but the contract can, explain the tripartite relationships found in the unit trust; that the unit trust has its genesis in the contract; and that the trust is simply part of the contract creating the unit trust. The conclusions that follow must be that the parties’ rights and liabilities fall primarily within the domain of contract law and that, insofar as a trust relationship has been created by the unit trust contract between particular parties, trust law also operates.
Introduction
Authors: Sanders Anselm Kamperman
Published: November 2023

This book focuses on competition law concerning issues of intellectual prop erty and related intangibles. The subject matter discussed in the book comprises formally recognized forms of property, such as copyright, patent, and trade mark, but it predominantly focuses on all related forms of, commonly termed, quasi-property rights and interests or badges of trade. The term ‘badge of trade’ is therefore applied to all the subject material that does not enjoy formal recognition as an intangible of intellectual property.
Applying the General Principle in Particular Circumstances
Authors: Sanders Anselm Kamperman
Published: November 2023

In the previous Chapter we saw the legal basis of unfair competition law in all its guises. We identified the problems associated with pre-emption and described the rationale behind a general provision against unfair competition. In this Chapter the diverging attitudes towards and views on the justification for decisions in cases of unfair competition will be discussed. The steps that are taken in a judicial process to go from a general norm to the specific implementation of a general rule on a particular set of facts will be covered. Property theories and policy considerations are at the heart of the establishment of a legal rule in unfair competition cases. The questions asked in this Chapter are whether these criteria are sufficiently objective to legitimize a decision, how this decision-making process works, and whether there are sufficient grounds to move beyond the universal norm that leads to tortious liability for the creation of confusion or avoidable confusion in the market-place.
Shaping a New Action of Malign Competition
Authors: Sanders Anselm Kamperman
Published: November 2023

This Chapter explores the possibility of shaping a novel action based on the existing principle of unjust enrichment. Because the principle of unjust enrichment will feature extensively in the latter part of the book and because the recognition of the principle has been fraught with difficulty in the common law systems, the Roman antecedents of the action based on it, its development and theoretical justification will be covered first. Then the development of the doctrine in English law will be described. From section 3 onward the place of the doctrine of unjust enrichment in unfair competi tion law is discussed. The practice of justification by means of property theories of protection in unfair competition cases beyond the recognized categories of tortious liability is finally abandoned and the possibility for a novel approach emerges.
Cognizance in Malign Competition
Authors: Sanders Anselm Kamperman
Published: November 2023

With the doctrine of unjust enrichment as a feasible alternative for tortious liability, the action for malign competition hinges on the level of cognizance the defendant posesses, so that a truly innocent market participant is not faced with unexpected claims. For this purpose a detailed proposal for a general tort of malcompetitive copying will be described in order to show the weaknesses that prevail in a system in which the application of the doc trine of unjust enrichment is modified to protect market participants against unexpected claims. To this end proprietary claims by means of tags are relied on to shift the basis of liability from unjust enrichment back to tort.
Cognizance in Intellectual Property Law
Authors: Sanders Anselm Kamperman
Published: November 2023

In this Chapter English copyright cases that involve the use of constructive knowledge criteria are discussed. The reason is that English law involving the constructive trust is marred by the need to establish fraud. This Chapter serves to demonstrate that principles of constructive knowledge are applied in intellectual property law without the need to establish fraud. As such it strengthens the case for the use of constructive knowledge criteria without fraud. It also serves to bridge the gap that otherwise exists between trust law and intellectual property law.
Constructive Fiduciaries?
Authors: Smith Lionel
Published: November 2023

Fiduciaries breach their trust with unfortunate regularity. When this hap pens, equity provides a range of legal responses. Moreover, recourse may be available not only against the fiduciary himself, but against those who assisted him. On the other hand, losses are often incurred, through mistake or fraud, without the presence of any fiduciary relationship. The interesting thing is that the litigation arising out of such acts is often framed in terms of fiduciary law. The goals of this Chapter are (i) to examine why this happens; (ii) to assess the continued usefulness of this kind of reasoning; and (iii) to explore whether the law is capable of effectively assisting the victims of fraud and mistake without resort to the fictional discovery of fiduciary relationships.As a starting point, take the typical facts of Bank Tejaratv. Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (CI) Ltd.2 The plaintiff was the Iranian state bank. One of its customers, an Iranian company called Acier, had in the past imported steel into .Iran. Acier approached Tejarat to set up a letter of credit for the purchase by Acier of 4,600 tonnes of steel sheets. The letter of credit was opened by Tejarat in the amount of DM 5m, Tejarat taking 35 per cent of this amount up front from Acier. The letter was in favour of CAK (Import/Export) Ltd (‘CAK’), a Jersey company. A few weeks later, CAK sent to Tejarat’s London branch the shipping documents to show that the steel was on the way to Iran. Tejarat then authorised payment on the letter of credit, which was made to CAK via a German bank. Of course, the shipping documents were forged.
A Law Unto Itself
Authors: Susskind Richard
Published: November 2023

The law is at the heart of our personal and social lives, it is the lifeblood of the commercial world and it is central also to our national security. Without law, life in modern Western countries would be unimaginable. It is the most important and pervasive social and political institution in all democracies of today and is the linchpin for all political movements, whether supporting the social engineering of the left or enabling the invisible economic hand of the right. It establishes in all aspects of our lives what we are required to do, what we are prohibited from doing and what we are permitted to do. It guides our conduct and also sets a moral and societal standard against which we can judge the behaviour and activities of others.
Leading Applications
Authors: Susskind Richard
Published: November 2023

Let us now turn to how IT can be used in law. While so far I have mentioned applications only in passing, my purpose in this chapter is to make six leading applications of technology the primary focus of discussion. In my view, these six are, for the foreseeable future, the most significant for lawyers and users of legal information services.
The Reregulation of British Broadcasting
Authors: Cave Martin , Williamson Peter
Published: November 2023

Almost everywhere broadcasting is a highly regulated industry. Despite the growth of international, satellite-based broadcasting firms, in most countries the bulk of decisions determining the system of television and radio broadcasting are made by government. Control over the structure of broadcasting is usually exercised by the national government, although the implementation of regulatory functions, such as allocation of broadcasting licences, is often undertaken by an independent regulatory agency. Either the public sector provides broadcasting services directly, or it regulates the number, type, and conduct of companies in the industry. There is, however, no universal model for the structure, regulation, and operation of broadcasting. The degree to which television and radio broadcasting is centralized/ decentralized, commercial/ noncommercial, and regulated/unregulated differs among countries, the outcomes being a product of the historical, ideological, and political forces in each national setting.
Information Asymmetries and Product-Quality Regulation
Authors: Ireland Norman
Published: November 2023

In this chapter our concern will be for the consumer buying goods and services in the private sector. The focus will be on the case where the consumer has to complete the transaction (or at least contract to coplete the transaction) before finding out the exact quality of what he is buying. Such goods or services are usually referred to as experience goods, and the typical case of interest is when the seller knows the true quality of the product while the buyer only observes this after purchase. Thus the seller has more information than the buyer at the moment of contract: there is asymmetric information. The extent of asymmetric information varies across markets. At one extreme the market for, say, sugar has reasonably full information: the product is fairly homogeneous (although even here in a highly monopolized market there are a number of different brands and varieties, for example, of brown sugar), and is bought regularly. At the other extreme there are markets for second-hand cars, package holidays, financial services, and home improvements. In these latter cases each transaction is of a product which can be of a very different quality from others which are available at the same time. They are essentially ‘one-off’ transactions. Also the consumer may have little experience to guide him in assessing the quality offered. In the large middle ground between these extremes, are all the products available in your local shops, which can be examined, but not usually used, prior to purchase. We will find it helpful to distinguish between ‘repeated-market’ products and ‘one-off’ products. In the former the seller needs to sell the product regularly to the same or different consumers. Institutions such as the Consumers’ Association, via its publications, will increase buyers’ information, and reputations will be developed. In a pure ‘one-off’ sale no dynamic effects are involved.
The Development of Telecommunications Policy in the UK, 1981–1991
Authors: Beesley Michael , Laidlaw Bruce
Published: November 2023

In this paper, we seek to show how the telecommunications market in the United Kingdom has been progressively opened over the ten years from 1981. By analysing the development of the regulatory framework over a decade we hope, first, to show that further substantial modification is still required and, more important, to indicate what kind of reforms are needed. During this period, a principal aim of the government’s policy has been to promote effective competition in the provision of telecommunication services. We focus on competition in voice telephony, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the market, measured by revenues.
British Rail: Competition on the Network
Authors: Starkie David
Published: November 2023

During the early part of the 1980s a number of the non-core assets of British Rail (BR) were sold to the private sector. There were proposals, too, to dispose of specific railway lines such as that between Fenchurch Street and Southend in south Essex. However, it is arguable whether the simple transfer of assets to the private sector serves the objective most strongly canvassed by those promoting privatization. This objective is increased efficiency in the supply of services.
Privatization in the UK: Internal Organization and Productive Efficiency
Authors: Bishop Matthew , Thompson David
Published: November 2023

Over the last decade the programme of privatization in the UK has changed both the shape and the nature of the public-enterprise sector. Whilst the motivations and objectives of these policies have been both multiple and shifting over time, a central concern has related to the efficiency of public enterprises. Outlining his objectives for the (then) new policy, Treasury Minister John Moore said in 1983 that ‘our main objective is to promote competition and improve efficiency’.
Shareholder Wealth Effects of UK Take-overs: Implications for Merger Policy
Authors: Franks* Julian , Harris† Robert
Published: November 2023

This chapter has three objectives. First, it discusses concerns about the aggregate level of merger activity, and how institutional changes might provide more effective alternatives to take-overs as a way of remedying managerial failure. Second, it estimates the costs to shareholders arising from referrals of proposed mergers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, hereafter referred to as the Commission. Third, it offers an overview of UK merger activity and the role of the Commission in takeovers. In the empirical section, a sample of mergers from the period 1965-85 is examined in order to answer three questions. First, what costs do shareholders bear when a bid is referred to the Commission and is subsequently permitted to proceed? Second, does the rejection of a merger by the Commission involve the loss of a bid premium which shareholders would have realized in a successful merger? Third, do bids which fail because of management and shareholder discretion perform better or worse than bids which fail as a result of rejection by the Commission?
European Capital Markets and Corporate Control
Authors: Franks* Julian , Mayer† Colin
Published: November 2023

This chapter is about capital markets and corporate control. It is concerned with the way in which capital markets _exert control over the management and operations of firms. Corporate control is generally associated with take-overs. In the UK and the US take-overs are regarded as a central function of stock markets. The take-over process acts as a discipline on firms allowing control to be transferred from inefficient to efficient management and encouraging a convergence of interests between management and shareholders. Elsewhere in Europe, less emphasis is placed on the role of take-overs in changing corporate control. Stock markets are often much smaller and their role is not perceived as being one of disciplining management. Instead, banks, families, and sometimes the State have controlling shareholdings that impede the take-over process. There are therefore different methods of changing corporate control in Europe.
Free Trade in Companies: Does Nationality Matter?
Authors: Hannah* Leslie
Published: November 2023

It is government policy to welcome . . . investment and in normal cases the nationality of the new owners (foreign or British) is immaterial. However there could be exceptional cases where foreign ownership might affect the public interest-for example in relation to a sector of strategic importance or in cases where the nationality of the owner might affect export prospects. Office of Fair Trading, Mergers: A  Guide to Procedures under the Fair Trading Act 1973. Only this much is certain, all ... nations have a character, and that character, when once taken, is, I do not say unchangeable ... but the least changeable thing in this ever varying and changeful world.
A Capital-Asset Pricing Model with Time-varying Covariances
Authors: Bollerslev Tim , Engle Robert F , Wooldridge Jeffrey M
Published: November 2023

The capital-asset pricing model provides a theoretical structure for the pricing of assets with uncertain returns. The premium to induce risk averse investors to bear risk is proportional to the nondiversifiable risk, which is measured by the covariance of the asset return with the market portfolio return. In this paper a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic process is estimated for returns to bills, bonds, and stocks where the expected return is proportional to the conditional covariance of each return with that of a fully diversified or market portfolio. It is found that the conditional covariances are quite variable over time and are a significant determinant of the time-varying risk premia. The implied betas are also time-varying and forecastable. However, there is evidence that other variables including innovations in consumption should also be considered in the investor’s information set when estimating the conditional distribution of returns.
Computers, ‘Bugs’, and the Sociology of Mathematical Proof
Authors: Mackenzie Donald
Published: November 2023

By getting ”inside technology“, social science can greatly improve understanding about the social shaping of both technical artefacts and of technical knowledge. This helps to raise policy issues that merit more public attention, like the validation of safety-critical systems whose failure could endanger lives. The development of such a ”sociology of technical knowledge“ can draw on work in the sociology of scientific knowledge dating back to the early 1970s. Until then, sociologists had largely been concerned with the analysis of political, religious, and philosophical belief systems.
Revolution in the Office? Implications for Women’s Paid Work
Authors: Webster Juliet
Published: November 2023

The growing use of large mainframe data processing systems in the 1950s and 1960s started public debates about the expected impact of computer-based technologies on levels of employment and patterns of work organization. Many of the themes of these early ‘automation debates’ have subsequently recurred. One side of the debate stresses the technology’s potential to eliminate the repetitious tasks characteristic of many jobs, thereby freeing people to develop new skills and abilities. The other side highlights fears that computers could cause mass unemployment and an increasing intensification of work and enslavement to machines for those remaining in jobs.
The Cultural Dimension of Communication Technology and Policy: The Experience of Satellite Television in Europe
Authors: Collins Richard
Published: November 2023

Satellite broadcasting is an important element in international information and communication infrastructures, which also encompass many other new media services and ICT networks like the Internet. Satellite technology is particularly significant because it lowers the costs of distributing television signals over a wide geographical area, which facilitates the transnationalization of television. It also makes available radio frequencies that were previously unusable for broadcasting over more conventional terrestrial systems.
The Strategic Value of Policy Research in the Information Economy
Authors: Melody William H
Published: November 2023

Major public policy decisions influence the course of development of the B economy and of society, promoting some avenues while constraining others. They provide direction and guidance for day-to-day decisions by organizations and individuals operating within their ambit, which in aggregate have pervasive effects that ripple throughout society.
Telecommunication Infrastructures and Regional Development
Authors: Gillespie Andrew , Cornford James
Published: November 2023

During the 1980s, after long and heated debates, the USA, the UK, Japan, and New Zealand opened their long-distance trunk telephone markets to various forms of competition which reduced the monopoly power of their public telephone operators (PTOs). By the mid-1990s, virtually all OECD countries had introduced competitive markets for customer premises equipment (CPE), such as telephones and automatic exchanges. A growing number had also permitted competition for network equipment, mobile communications, and packet-switched data services. However, most OECD countries still retained their PTO monopolies on the infrastructure facilities for providing basic services over the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Telecommunication Infrastructure Competition: The Costs of Delay
Authors: Baer Walter S
Published: November 2023

During the 1980s, after long and heated debates, the USA, the UK, Japan, and New Zealand opened their long-distance trunk telephone markets to various forms of competition which reduced the monopoly power of their public telephone operators (PTOs). By the mid-1990s, virtually all OECD countries had introduced competitive markets for customer premises equipment (CPE), such as telephones and automatic exchanges. A growing number had also permitted competition for network equipment, mobile communications, and packet-switched data services. However, most OECD countries still retained their PTO monopolies on the infrastructure facilities for providing basic services over the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Innovation in Telecommunication Regulation: Realizing National Policy Goals in a Global Marketplace
Authors: Mansell Robin
Published: November 2023

Some people are beguiled by the myth that digital information processing technologies are impelling communication networks towards a future in which competition flourishes to the benefit of all users. However, the problems of transforming technical innovations into commercially viable services are complicated by the fact that there is generally an uneven distribution of the benefits. As markets are imperfect, there is a need for public policy intervention to complement the pressure to increase competition in infrastructure and services. This is necessary to handle the mix of voice, data, and video capabilities, which many refer to as ‘telematics’, that has been a dominant force since the 1980s.
An Introduction To The Economics Of Information
Authors: Macho-Stadler Ines , Perez-Castrillo J David , Watt Richard
Published: November 2023

This is a graduate textbook on the theory of contracting under asymmetric information, a key part of modern microeconomic theory. It examines the characteristics of optimal contracts when one party has certain relevant knowledge that the other party does not. The various problems are presented in the same framework to allow easy comparison of the different results. The authors indicate substantial real-world applications, and exercises for students (with solutions) are provided at the end of each chapter.