What Is a Decision Problem? Designing Alternatives

International audienceThis paper presents a general framework for the design of alternatives in decision problems. The paper addresses both the issue of how to design alternatives within "known decision spaces" and on how to perform the same action within "partially known or unknown decision spaces". The paper aims at providing archetypes for the design of algorithms supporting the generation of alternatives

Legally Defensible vs. Organizationally Sensible: Avoiding Legal-Centric Employment Decision Making

Managers and human resource professionals express grave concern about the increasing influence that the law and lawyers are having on their ability to manage employees effectively. Blame is typically placed on growing governmental regulation of the employment relationship, a “litigation mentality” among workers, and overly aggressive lawyers pursuing selfish interests. Much less common, however, is attention focused on the role that organizational decision makers play in contributing to the perceived problem. This article is intended to help address that limitation by alerting managers to the likelihood that they are unnecessarily contributing to the impact of legal considerations on the management of employees as a result of “legal-centric decision making”, and by providing information and guidance that will assist them in formulating better informed, more strategic responses to employment issues that have potential legal implications. Keys to implementing the strategic approach are identified and discussed, and the approach is illustrated by applying it to a decision that American employers continue to confront: how to respond to the eroding employment at-will doctrine. The analysis strongly suggests that the extent of the law’s negative influence on the management of employees can be moderated significantly if organizational decision makers recognize their contribution to “the problem”, focus on what is organizationally sensible rather than what is perceived to be legally defensible, and adopt a more strategic (less legal-centric) approach to the challenges posed by employment decisions that raise legal concerns

School-based Decision-making: What Is Necessary for a Successful Implementation in the Public Schools of Tennessee

The Tennessee State Board of Education was moving to establish school-based decision making, with little or no apparent attention to what may be needed by educators. This study has been conceived based on the lack of an advertised plan of skill instruction, the lack of a supplied knowledge base from which educators can pull resources, and the lack of an obvious high level of understanding on the part of educators in general. A developmental inquiry and a survey were conducted to determine what principals and supervisors know about school-based decision making and what will be needed to increase the chances for a successful implementation. Descriptive and inferential statistics and a review of the research were used to answer five research questions that directed the study. Statistical analyses revealed the following: (1) Almost one-fourth of the administrators think they are currently implementing formal school-based decision making. (2) Those administrators reporting experience with school-based decision making tend to have more positive and closely aligned opinions to the literature than those reporting no experience. (3) While there was little reported difference in the survey results among the four sample groups, elementary principals were slightly more concerned about implementing the process. Principals and supervisors\u27 ideas and perceptions of what school-based decision making is and how it should work were helpful in planning a model for implementation. The goal was to provide information to administrators concerning school-based decision making in a way that will strengthen and foster school programming and improve the quality of education for all students. Seven phases were projected to effect a successful transition from current practice to where school-based decision making becomes the rule rather than an exception in Tennessee schools: initial decision phase, preliminary plans, staff development, implementation, monitoring, adjusting, and evaluation

Practical Problems from Publication of the Commisioner's Interpretation Guidelines

The New Zealand Commissioner of Inland Revenue issues several kinds of statements that are in effect legal opinions. This article relates to certain public statements formerly known as “policy statements” and now called “interpretation guidelines”. The change of name occurred in 1995, when the department was reorganised and two new divisions were formed: Policy Advice and Adjudications and Rulings. “Policy statements” became the responsibility of Adjudications and Rulings. The new name of “interpretation guidelines” was chosen to avoid misleading people into thinking that such statements emanate from the Policy Advice Division. As a preliminary matter, it is helpful to distinguish interpretation guidelines from other forms of opinions or statements that the Commissioner issues. There are two primary groups of such statements: binding rulings and standard practice statements

Of Trailers and Jet Skis: Is the Case Law on Article 34 TFEU Hurtling in a New Direction?

The provision which is the focus of this Article is article 34 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ( TFEU or Treaty ) (formerly article 28 EC). This Article focuses on an analysis of two recent judgments on this important issue delivered by the European Court of Justice ( Court ) in 2009, namely the Trailers decision and the Mickelsson decision. Before reaching these judgments, the Article discusses very briefly the relationship between the four freedoms (free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital) and then, as to the scope of article 34, reminds the reader of what is the story so far. This story falls neatly into three parts, each beginning with a seminal judgment: Dassonville, Cassie de Dijon, and Keck. For good measure, this Article will also consider the principles governing justification under article 36 TFEU (article 30 EC)

Of Trailers and Jet Skis: Is the Case Law on Article 34 TFEU Hurtling in a New Direction?

The provision which is the focus of this Article is article 34 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ( TFEU or Treaty ) (formerly article 28 EC). This Article focuses on an analysis of two recent judgments on this important issue delivered by the European Court of Justice ( Court ) in 2009, namely the Trailers decision and the Mickelsson decision. Before reaching these judgments, the Article discusses very briefly the relationship between the four freedoms (free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital) and then, as to the scope of article 34, reminds the reader of what is the story so far. This story falls neatly into three parts, each beginning with a seminal judgment: Dassonville, Cassie de Dijon, and Keck. For good measure, this Article will also consider the principles governing justification under article 36 TFEU (article 30 EC)

Counterfactual Explanations without Opening the Black Box: Automated Decisions and the GDPR

There has been much discussion of the right to explanation in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and its existence, merits, and disadvantages. Implementing a right to explanation that opens the black box of algorithmic decision-making faces major legal and technical barriers. Explaining the functionality of complex algorithmic decision-making systems and their rationale in specific cases is a technically challenging problem. Some explanations may offer little meaningful information to data subjects, raising questions around their value. Explanations of automated decisions need not hinge on the general public understanding how algorithmic systems function. Even though such interpretability is of great importance and should be pursued, explanations can, in principle, be offered without opening the black box. Looking at explanations as a means to help a data subject act rather than merely understand, one could gauge the scope and content of explanations according to the specific goal or action they are intended to support. From the perspective of individuals affected by automated decision-making, we propose three aims for explanations: (1) to inform and help the individual understand why a particular decision was reached, (2) to provide grounds to contest the decision if the outcome is undesired, and (3) to understand what would need to change in order to receive a desired result in the future, based on the current decision-making model. We assess how each of these goals finds support in the GDPR. We suggest data controllers should offer a particular type of explanation, unconditional counterfactual explanations, to support these three aims. These counterfactual explanations describe the smallest change to the world that can be made to obtain a desirable outcome, or to arrive at the closest possible world, without needing to explain the internal logic of the system

Kripkenstein from the mathematical point of view: a preliminary survey

This paper deals with the problem of the impact of Kripke’s skeptical paradox on the philosophy of mathematics. By perceiving mathematics as a huge rule-following discipline, one could argue that the Kripkean nonfactualist thesis should be adopted within the philosophy of mathematics en bloc to imply a refutation of objectivity and an enforcement of a particular view on the nature of mathematics. In this paper I will discuss this claim. According to Kripke’s skeptical solution we should reject the notion of fact and adopt the use theory of meaning that could be stated as follows: ’One understands the concepts embodied in a language to the extent that one knows how to use the language correctly.’ [Shapiro 1991, 211] [Kripke 1982]. Focusing on mathematical discourse, we should ask: what are the implications of the use theory of meaning for the philosophy of mathematics? Furthermore, is the answer to the skeptical paradox consistent with selected views in philosophy of mathematics? The supposed answer to the first question is that it demands the view that mathematics should be perceived as a strictly pragmatic discipline and the rules of mathematical discourse are mere conventions. But this is too simplistic a view and the matter at hand is far more complicated.This paper is a part of a research project financed by National Centre of Science (Poland) on the basis of the decision no. UMO-2016/20/T/HS5/00232

Understanding Causation in Private Securities Lawsuits: Building on Amgen

With Amgen, the Supreme Court’s majority once again holds that inquiry into the alleged market impact of a misrepresentation is not required to invoke fraud on the market approach to causation so that the class can be certified. Rather than just leaving matters where they have been since the Supreme Court’s muddled encounter with causation in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, the Supreme Court’s most recent decision appears to relax some earlier-held tenets with respect to markets believed sufficiently efficient for fraud on the market to be invoked. This Article not only identifies the central flaw of Basic that has over the decades distorted applications of fraud on the market but also suggests how, building on Amgen, what the future focus should be in considering whether a suit can proceed as a class action based on fraud on the market

Strategic Judicial Decision Making

This survey paper starts from the basic, and intuitive, assumption that judges are human and as such, can be modeled in the same fashion we model politicians, activists, managers: driven by well-defined preferences, behaving in a purposive and forward-looking fashion. We explore, then, the role politics play in judicial decision-making. We provide a brief overview of what is called the "strategic approach," compare it to alternative approaches to understand judicial behavior, and offer some concluding thoughts about the future of positive analyses of judicial decision-making.