The Best and Worst of Contracts Decisions: An Anthology

The common law of contract is an intellectual and political triumph. In its mature form, it enables judges whose ideological goals may differ to apply doctrines that provide the right to make enforceable promises; with legislation, the common law also provides proper limits on that right. Lately, scholars have produced a flood of contract law theory that enriches our thinking about and grounding for contract law norms. But the real work of common law development has always occurred in the trenches-in judicial decisions. In those trenches and on the framework built there, some decisions matter far more than others, and jurists, scholars, and teachers draw on these key decisions to do their work. In the following collection of essays, scholars deeply familiar with judicial opinion in the common law of contract - twenty authors who have a collective 497 years writing, teaching, and thinking about contract law-identify the best and worst of contracts cases. Many of the cases are staple examples for practical and theoretical contracts scholarship. Many are taught to thousands of students each year. Many are routinely cited by courts. The essays explain, rebuke, extol, entertain, and inspire. They are brief but substantive. They set a basis for future commentary and establish a collective standard against which contracts decisions may be judged. They are vital study for contract law adjudication, scholarship, and teaching

An Exact Monte Carlo Method for Continuum Fermion Systems

We offer a new proposal for the Monte Carlo treatment of many-fermion systems in continuous space. It is based upon Diffusion Monte Carlo with significant modifications: correlated pairs of random walkers that carry opposite signs; different functions ``guide'' walkers of different signs; the Gaussians used for members of a pair are correlated; walkers can cancel so as to conserve their expected future contributions. We report results for free-fermion systems and a fermion fluid with 14 $^3$He atoms, where it proves stable and correct. Its computational complexity grows with particle number, but slowly enough to make interesting physics within reach of contemporary computers.Comment: latex source, 3 separated figures (2 in jpg format, 1 in eps format

Medically unexplained pain complaints are associated with underlying unrecognized mood disorders in primary care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patients with chronic pain frequently display comorbid depression, but the impact of this concurrence is often underestimated and mistreated. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of unrecognized major depression and other mood disorders and comorbid unexplained chronic pain in primary care settings and to explore the associated factors.</p> <p>Also, to compare the use of health services by patients with unexplained chronic pain, both with and without mood disorder comorbidity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was carried out in a sample of primary care centers. 3189 patients consulting for "unexplained chronic pain" were assessed by the Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) and the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We report: a) a high prevalence of unrecognized mood disorders in patients suffering from unexplained chronic pain complaints (80.4%: CI 95%: 79.0%; 81.8%); b) a greater susceptibility of women to mood disorders (OR adjusted = 1.48; CI 95%:1.22; 1.81); c) a direct relationship between the prevalence of mood disorders and the duration of pain (OR adjusted = 1.01; CI 95%: 1.01; 1.02) d) a higher comorbidity with depression if the pain etiology was unknown (OR adjusted = 1.74; CI 95%: 1.45; 2.10) and, e) an increased use of health care services in patients with such a comorbidity (p < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The prevalence of undiagnosed mood disorders in patients with unexplained chronic pain in primary care is very high, leading to dissatisfaction with treatment processes and poorer outcomes. Consequently, it seems necessary to explore this condition more regularly in general practice in order to reach accurate diagnoses and to select the appropriate treatment.</p

Neural correlates of sexual cue reactivity in individuals with and without compulsive sexual behaviours

Although compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) has been conceptualized as a "behavioural" addiction and common or overlapping neural circuits may govern the processing of natural and drug rewards, little is known regarding the responses to sexually explicit materials in individuals with and without CSB. Here, the processing of cues of varying sexual content was assessed in individuals with and without CSB, focusing on neural regions identified in prior studies of drug-cue reactivity. 19 CSB subjects and 19 healthy volunteers were assessed using functional MRI comparing sexually explicit videos with non-sexual exciting videos. Ratings of sexual desire and liking were obtained. Relative to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater desire but similar liking scores in response to the sexually explicit videos. Exposure to sexually explicit cues in CSB compared to non-CSB subjects was associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate, ventral striatum and amygdala. Functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate-ventral striatum-amygdala network was associated with subjective sexual desire (but not liking) to a greater degree in CSB relative to non-CSB subjects. The dissociation between desire or wanting and liking is consistent with theories of incentive motivation underlying CSB as in drug addictions. Neural differences in the processing of sexual-cue reactivity were identified in CSB subjects in regions previously implicated in drug-cue reactivity studies. The greater engagement of corticostriatal limbic circuitry in CSB following exposure to sexual cues suggests neural mechanisms underlying CSB and potential biological targets for interventions

Deciphering the Multifactorial Nature of Acinetobacter baumannii Pathogenicity

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is an emerging bacterial pathogen that causes a broad array of infections, particularly in hospitalized patients. Many studies have focused on the epidemiology and antibiotic resistance of A. baumannii, but little is currently known with respect to its virulence potential. Methodology/Principal Findings: The aim of this work was to analyze a number of virulence-related traits of four A. baumannii strains of different origin and clinical impact for which complete genome sequences were available, in order to tentatively identify novel determinants of A. baumannii pathogenicity. Clinical strains showed comparable virulence in the Galleria mellonella model of infection, irrespective of their status as outbreak or sporadic strains, whereas a non-human isolate was avirulent. A combined approach of genomic and phenotypic analyses led to the identification of several virulence factors, including exoproducts with hemolytic, phospholipase, protease and iron-chelating activities, as well as a number of multifactorial phenotypes, such as biofilm formation, surface motility and stress resistance, which were differentially expressed and could play a role in A. baumannii pathogenicity. Conclusion/Significance: This work provides evidence of the multifactorial nature of A. baumannii virulence. While A. baumannii clinical isolates could represent a selected population of strains adapted to infect the human host, subpopulations of highly genotypically and phenotypically diverse A. baumannii strains may exist outside the hospita

The psychic costs of migration: evidence from Irish return migrants

Within the economics literature, the 'psychic costs' of migration have been incorporated into theoretical models since Sjaastad (J Polit Econ 70:80 93, 1962). However, the existence of such costs has rarely been investigated in empirical papers. In this paper, we look at the psychic costs of migration by using alcohol problems as an indicator. Rather than comparing immigrants and natives, we look at the native-born in a single country and compare those who have lived away for a period of their lives and those who have not. We use data from the first wave of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing which is a large, nationally representative sample of older Irish adults. We find that men who lived away are more likely to have suffered from alcohol problems than men who stayed. For women, we again see a higher incidence of alcohol problems for short-term migrants. However, long-term female migrants are less likely to have suffered from alcohol problems. For these women, it seems that migration provided psychic benefits, and this is consistent with findings fro

Evaluating psychometric properties of the Emotional Eating Scale Adapted for Children and Adolescents (EES-C) in a clinical sample of children seeking treatment for obesity: a case for the unidimensional model.

BackgroundThe Emotional Eating Scale - Adapted for Children and Adolescents (EES-C) assesses children's urge to eat in response to experiences of negative affect. Prior psychometric studies have demonstrated the high reliability, concurrent validity, and test-retest reliability of theoretically defined subconstructs among non-clinical samples of children and adolescents who were primarily healthy weight; however, no psychometric studies exist investigating the EES-C among clinical samples of children with overweight/obesity (OW/OB). Furthermore, studies conducted in different contexts have suggested a discordant number of subconstructs of emotions related to eating. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the EES-C in a clinical sample of children seeking weight-loss treatment.MethodUsing a hierarchical bi-factor approach, we evaluated the validity of the EES-C to measure a single general construct, a set of two separate correlated subconstructs, or a hierarchical arrangement of two constructs, and determined reliability in a clinical sample of treatment-seeking children with OW/OB aged 8-12 years (N = 147, mean age = 10.4 years.; mean BMI z = 2.0; female = 66%; Hispanic = 32%, White and other = 68%).ResultsComparison of factor-extraction methods suggested a single primary construct underlying EES-C in this clinical sample. The bi-factor indices provided clear evidence that most of the reliable variance in the total score (90.8 for bi-factor model with three grouping factors and 95.2 for bi-factor model with five grouping factors) was attributed to the general construct. After adjusting for relationships with the primary construct, remaining correlations among sets of items did not suggest additional reliable constructs.ConclusionResults suggest that the primary interpretive emphasis of the EES-C among treatment-seeking children with overweight or obesity should be placed on a single general construct, not on the 3- or 5- subconstructs as was previously suggested

Treatment of chronically depressed patients: A multisite randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of 'Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy' (CBASP) for chronic depressions versus usual secondary care

AbstractBackground'Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy' (CBASP) is a form of psychotherapy specifically developed for patients with chronic depression. In a study in the U.S., remarkable favorable effects of CBASP have been demonstrated. However, no other studies have as yet replicated these findings and CBASP has not been tested outside the United States. This protocol describes a randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness of CBASP in the Netherlands.Methods/DesignThe purpose of the present paper is to report the study protocol of a multisite randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of 'Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy' (CBASP) for chronic depression in the Netherlands. In this study, CBASP in combination with medication, will be tested versus usual secondary care in combination with medication. The aim is to recruit 160 patients from three mental health care organizations. Depressive symptoms will be assessed at baseline, after 8 weeks, 16 weeks, 32 weeks and 52 weeks, using the 28-item Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology (IDS). Effect modification by co morbid anxiety, alcohol consumption, general and social functioning and working alliance will be tested. GEE analyses of covariance, controlling for baseline value and center will be used to estimate the overall treatment effectiveness (difference in IDS score) at post-treatment and follow up. The primary analysis will be by 'intention to treat' using double sided tests. An economic analysis will compare the two groups in terms of mean costs and cost-effectiveness from a societal perspective.DiscussionThe study will provide an answer to the question whether the favorable effects of CBASP can be replicated outside the US