Audit Sampling Methods And Juror Negligence Awards: An Expectation Gap?

Generally accepted auditing standards permit auditors to apply both statistical and nonstatistical sampling techniques in obtaining sufficient, competent evidential matter.  However, several recent studies have shown that statistical sampling procedures have nearly disappeared from practice. Despite this trend and the heightened anxiety about professional liability, no studies to date have directly tested the potential implications of sampling method on jurors verdicts, damage awards, or sample size expectations.  In this study we investigate the effect of sampling method on jurors’ judgments in auditor negligence trials.  Overall, in a case where auditors were alleged to have used an insufficient sample size, the sampling method did not affect the likelihood of a “guilty of negligence” verdict.  However, as predicted, damage awards were significantly higher when nonstatistical sampling was used compared with statistical sampling.  Exploratory analysis revealed that subjects voting “guilty of negligence” would require the auditors to examine over 17% of the population (compared with the 1% examined) in order to change their verdict to “not guilty of negligence.”  These findings have troubling implications for auditors employing sampling techniques

What comes after sovereignty?

This paper addresses the question of sovereignty from a perspective that connects the origins of public international law, with a series of onto-theological assumptions about the nature of place that were decisive in the emergence of modern colonialism. It will argue that insofar as sovereignty depends on some form of transcendence, external or internal, it is and has been ‘’impotent’’ from the very outset. However, contrary to the idea expressed in the well-known tale about the emperor’s new clothes, it is not the case that acknowledgement of this impotence would entail the end of sovereignty. Faced with the truth of its ultimate impotence, the sovereign supplements its role as decider with that of the intrigant. This new figure of sovereignty is embodied in the expert politician who announces the coming catastrophe in order to avert it, or contain it, through the use of ‘’limited’’ but ultimately borderless violence

Non-classical computing: feasible versus infeasible

Physics sets certain limits on what is and is not computable. These limits are very far from having been reached by current technologies. Whilst proposals for hypercomputation are almost certainly infeasible, there are a number of non classical approaches that do hold considerable promise. There are a range of possible architectures that could be implemented on silicon that are distinctly different from the von Neumann model. Beyond this, quantum simulators, which are the quantum equivalent of analogue computers, may be constructable in the near future

Inequality and Uncertainty: Theory and Legal Applications

Welfarism is the principle that social policy should be based solely on individual well-being, with no reference to \u27fairness or rights. The propriety of this approach has recently been the subject of extensive debate within legal scholarship. Rather than contributing (directly) to this debate, we identify and analyze a problem within welfarism that has received far too little attentioncall this the ex ante/ex post problem. The problem arises from the combination of uncertainty-an inevitable feature of real policy choice-and a social preference for equality. If the policymaker is not a utilitarian, but rather has a social welfare function that is equity regarding to some degree, then she faces a critical choice. Should she care about the equalization of expected well-being (the ex ante approach), or should she care about the expected equalization of actual well-being (the ex post approach)? Should she focus on the equality of prospects or the prospects for equality? In this Article, we bring the ex ante/ex post problem to the attention of legal academics, provide novel insight into when and why the problem arises, and highlight legal applications where the problem figures prominently. We ultimately conclude that welfarism requires an ex post approach. This is a counterintuitive conclusion, because the ex post approach can conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority. Indeed, this Article demonstrates that the ex post application of every equity-regarding social welfare function-whatever its particular form-must conflict with ex ante Pareto superiority in specific situations. Among other things, then, this Article shows that legal academics who care about equity must abandon either their commitment to welfarism or their commitment to ex ante Pareto superiorit

Death of Paradox: The Killer Logic beneath the Standards of Proof

The prevailing but contested view of proof standards is that factfinders should determine facts by probabilistic reasoning. Given imperfect evidence, they should ask themselves what they think the chances are that the burdened party would be right if the truth were to become known; they then compare those chances to the applicable standard of proof. I contend that for understanding the standards of proof, the modern versions of logic — in particular, fuzzy logic and belief functions — work better than classical probability. This modern logic suggests that factfinders view evidence of an imprecisely perceived and described reality to form a fuzzy degree of belief in a fact’s existence; they then apply the standard of proof in accordance with the theory of belief functions, by comparing their belief in a fact’s existence to their belief in its negation. This understanding explains how the standard of proof actually works in the law world. It gives a superior mental image of the factfinders’ task, conforms more closely to what we know of people’s cognition, and captures better what the law says its standards are and how it manipulates them. One virtue of this conceptualization is that it is not a radically new view. Another virtue is that it nevertheless manages to resolve some stubborn problems of proof, including the infamous conjunction paradox

Death of Paradox: The Killer Logic Beneath the Standards of Proof

The prevailing but contested view of proof standards is that factfinders should determine facts by probabilistic reasoning. Given imperfect evidence, they should ask themselves what they think the chances are that the burdened party would be right if the truth were to become known; they then compare those chances to the applicable standard of proof. I contend that for understanding the standards of proof, the modern versions of logic — in particular, fuzzy logic and belief functions — work better than classical probability. This modern logic suggests that factfinders view evidence of an imprecisely perceived and described reality to form a fuzzy degree of belief in a fact’s existence; they then apply the standard of proof in accordance with the theory of belief functions, by comparing their belief in a fact’s existence to their belief in its negation. This understanding explains how the standard of proof actually works in the law world. It gives a superior mental image of the factfinders’ task, conforms more closely to what we know of people’s cognition, and captures better what the law says its standards are and how it manipulates them. One virtue of this conceptualization is that it is not a radically new view. Another virtue is that it nevertheless manages to resolve some stubborn problems of proof, including the infamous conjunction paradox

Prognostics and Health Management of Industrial Equipment

ISBN13: 9781466620957Prognostics and health management (PHM) is a field of research and application which aims at making use of past, present and future information on the environmental, operational and usage conditions of an equipment in order to detect its degradation, diagnose its faults, predict and proactively manage its failures. The present paper reviews the state of knowledge on the methods for PHM, placing these in context with the different information and data which may be available for performing the task and identifying the current challenges and open issues which must be addressed for achieving reliable deployment in practice. The focus is predominantly on the prognostic part of PHM, which addresses the prediction of equipment failure occurrence and associated residual useful life (RUL)