The Changing Odds of the Chancery Lottery

Delaware is home to the majority of shareholder class action litigations related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). These cases usually result in settlements that provide shareholders with only disclosure in exchange for a broad release of future claims, which encompasses unknown and federal security claims. The Delaware Court of Chancery must review and approve these settlements under Delaware Rule 23(e), which has been interpreted as creating a fiduciary duty for the court to protect the interests of absent shareholders. Nevertheless, Delaware has a history of routinely approving disclosure-only settlements with laxity. Recently, members of the court have begun discussing the issues with this process and, in some cases, have begun rejecting settlements that were previously likely to be approved. This active discussion, combined with the discretion given to the individual members of the court to make their own business judgment, has resulted in each developing their own method of reviewing disclosure-only settlements and applying their fiduciary duty. After developing a backdrop of the prototypical M&A case and the rules that define the court’s role, this Note reviews recent decisions of each member of the court in order to understand their individual method of reviewing settlements and how they apply their duty to shareholders in this process. This Note then identifies the interest group theory as a potential explanation for the external factors that may influence the court’s diverging methodologies. This Note concludes that in order to create a more consistent standard that fully applies the court’s fiduciary duty to shareholders, the Court of Chancery should (1) adopt a new materiality standard based on the merits of the case at filing, and (2) limit approval to settlements that have releases that are proportional to the relief provided to shareholders

Policy Determinants of Productivity Growth in Australia

reform, markets, institutions, Australia

Reading Books and Reading Minds: Differential Effects of Wonder and The Crossover on Empathy and Theory of Mind

We tested sixth graders for empathy and theory of mind before and after an academic unit on either Wonder or The Crossover. Wonder was associated with improved perspective-taking; students who read The Crossover increased in concern for others. Faux pas detection increased in both genders with Wonder, and in girls with The Crossover. Students who read The Crossover in print showed improved understanding of facial expressions, while students who used iPads declined. Young adult fiction is associated with improved social cognitive skills, but effects depend on gender and reading format, as well as on the choice of individual book

Awe and Wonder in Scientific Practice: Implications for the Relationship Between Science and Religion

This paper examines the role of awe and wonder in scientific practice. Drawing on evidence from psychological research and the writings of scientists and science communicators, I argue that awe and wonder play a crucial role in scientific discovery. They focus our attention on the natural world, encourage open-mindedness, diminish the self (particularly feelings of self-importance), help to accord value to the objects that are being studied, and provide a mode of understanding in the absence of full knowledge. I will flesh out implications of the role of awe and wonder in scientific discovery for debates on the relationship between science and religion. Abraham Heschel argued that awe and wonder are religious emotions because they reduce our feelings of self-importance, and thereby help to cultivate the proper reverent attitude towards God. Yet metaphysical naturalists such as Richard Dawkins insist that awe and wonder need not lead to any theistic commitments for scientists. The awe some scientists experience can be regarded as a form of non-theistic spirituality, which is neither a reductive naturalism nor theism. I will attempt to resolve the tension between these views by identifying some common ground

Wonder of sine-Gordon Y-systems

The sine-Gordon Y-systems and the reduced sine-Gordon Y-systems were introduced by Tateo in the 90's in the study of the integrable deformation of conformal field theory by the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz method. The periodicity property and the dilogarithm identities concerning these Y-systems were conjectured by Tateo, and only a part of them have been proved so far. In this paper we formulate these Y-systems by the polygon realization of cluster algebras of types A and D, and prove the conjectured periodicity and dilogarithm identities in full generality. As it turns out, there is a wonderful interplay among continued fractions, triangulations of polygons, cluster algebras, and Y-systems.Comment: v1: 66 pages; v2: 53 pages, the version to appear in Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (in the journal version, the proofs of Props. 5.29-5.31 and Sect. 5.8 will be omitted due to the limitation of space); v3: 53 pages, minor improvement of figures; v4 (no text changes): Sage (v7.0 and higher) has built-in functions to plot the triangulations associated with sine-Gordon and reduced sine-Gordon Y-system

Understanding the Civil War and Its Place in the American Mind

Perhaps it is because I have spent so much time with people for whom the Civil War is a life choice, but I confess, there are times when I wonder if we—myself included—sometimes get carried away by our fierce and noble passion for the past. The Civil War is, of course, incredibly important both in its own right and in the long context of American history. But I do wonder if an overly-zealous fascination with the Civil War, especially if it becomes too single-minded, can distract us from other important moments in history, as well as from other types of worthy understandings from other fields of study. [excerpt

Blue-and-White Wonder: Ming Dynasty Porcelain Plate

This authentic Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) plate is a prime example of early export porcelain, a luminous substance that enthralled European collectors. The generous gift of Joyce P. Bishop in honor of her daughter, Kimberly Bishop Connors, Ming Dynasty Blue-and-White Plate is on loan from the Reeves Collection at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. The plate itself is approximately 7.75 inches (20 cm) in diameter, and appears much deeper from the bottom than it does from the top. Gradually sloping forms are what make the dish so deceptively shallow. In fact, from the reverse, it appears closer in shape to a soup-plate. The lip of the bowl is shaped in a barbed pattern, with gentle waves and peaks creating a textured edge. The whole of the plate is evenly shaped, indicating it was shaped on a potter’s wheel and not by hand. [excerpt