Deterministic Random Walks on Regular Trees

Jim Propp's rotor router model is a deterministic analogue of a random walk on a graph. Instead of distributing chips randomly, each vertex serves its neighbors in a fixed order. Cooper and Spencer (Comb. Probab. Comput. (2006)) show a remarkable similarity of both models. If an (almost) arbitrary population of chips is placed on the vertices of a grid $\Z^d$ and does a simultaneous walk in the Propp model, then at all times and on each vertex, the number of chips on this vertex deviates from the expected number the random walk would have gotten there by at most a constant. This constant is independent of the starting configuration and the order in which each vertex serves its neighbors. This result raises the question if all graphs do have this property. With quite some effort, we are now able to answer this question negatively. For the graph being an infinite $k$-ary tree ($k \ge 3$), we show that for any deviation $D$ there is an initial configuration of chips such that after running the Propp model for a certain time there is a vertex with at least $D$ more chips than expected in the random walk model. However, to achieve a deviation of $D$ it is necessary that at least $\exp(\Omega(D^2))$ vertices contribute by being occupied by a number of chips not divisible by $k$ at a certain time.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Random Structures and Algorithm

American Absurdity: Reconciling Conceptions of the Absurd in European and American Literature

This thesis aims to examine the development of the concept of the absurd in literature across different time periods and cultural contexts. The absurd, as defined by Camus, is the gap between humanity’s desire to understand the world and the impossibility of doing so. However, the ways in which the absurd is recognized as an aspect of existence depends heavily on the sociological contexts in which an individual lives. By analyzing the works of absurdist authors, filmmakers, and artists across time, we can track the development of these absurdist conceptions in both Europe and American literary movements. Looking at these works, the European and American conceptions of the absurd can be shown to differ along four sociological axes—system density, population density, conflict, and ostracism and alienation. Taken together, these factors lead to a European absurdity that characterizes the universe as inherently, fundamentally meaningless. American absurdity, meanwhile, places more emphasis on the human inability to understand the universe, even if such fundamental meaning does exist. These differing conceptions of the absurd meet the threshold of incommensurability—they are so different that they cannot be meaningfully compared or reduced into each other. Instead, the only way to bridge this gap in understanding is to interact with the cultures from which these absurdist conceptions sprang, to better understand the pressures that led to their creation. By engaging with other formulations of the absurd, we can participate in more accurate and fulfilling existentialist discussion

Decision-making capacity for research in schizophrenia

This thesis is a story of a journey into understanding the phenomenon of decision-making capacity for research (DMC-R) in inpatients with schizophrenia and seeing if there are possibilities to enhance it.It starts with the legal background to the concept of decision-making capacity, the regulation for research participations, and the research already done in the area. It finds a variety of conceptual questions, such as the nature of the DMC-R test itself, the role of insight in DMC-R, and whether the ‘therapeutic misconception’ really is as central as some have made it out to be.It tells of my study setting out to measure DMC-R in inpatients in schizophrenia and the associated symptoms with a direct comparison with decision-making capacity for treatment (DMC-T). Half had DMC-R (51%, 95%CI 40-62%) and a third had DMC-T (31%, 95%CI 21-43%), this difference was statistically significant, p<0.01. Thought disorder was most associated with lacking DMC-R (OR 5.72, 95%CI 2.01-16.31, p=0.001) whereas lack of insight was most associated with lacking DMC-T (OR 26.34, 95%CI 3.60-192.66, p=0.001).Knowing that previous studies doing similar have methodological issues with selection bias it reports the nature of participants and crucially non-participants in the study. It finds that women were far less likely to be recruited than men into the study (OR, 2.36, 95%CI 1.46-3.82, p<0.001) and explores reasons for this.It investigates whether the central measure that I use in the study, the clinician’s expert ‘judgement standard’ of DMC-R is reliable by using an expert-panel evaluation of a range of actors in the research consent world, finding that group reliability is fair (pairwise kappa=0.68 (‘substantial’) between my assessments and that of the panel decision). To explore how research works in practice and the suitability and any means to enhance DMC-R it has a qualitative sub-study exploring the views of clinicians, patients, and carers. It finds that within the process of research consent there are a series of tensions, with clinicians torn between their duty of care and respect for the ‘wishes and feelings’ of the patient. Patients on the other hand simply want to have the power to make the choice, and are more focussed on experiential reasons for participation in research, than the clinicians who prioritise altruism and academic endeavour. Depending on one’s role in the process of research consent one is either assessing or asserting decision-making authority.It unites all these strands of research to develop a new conceptual model of DMC-R, the ‘salience model’. This model incorporates my evidence that DMC is not just time and decision specific, but also person specific; the weight given to individual factors within the decision will vary by the individual. It makes policy recommendations for enhancing DMC-R and supporting research in the future

Plausibility Pleading

Court was unabashed about this change of course: it explicitly abrogated a core element of its 1957 decision in Conley v. Gibson, which until recently was the bedrock case undergirding the idea that ours is a system of notice pleading in which detailed facts need not be pleaded. Departing from this principle, the Court in Twombly required the pleading of facts that demonstrate the plausibility of the plaintiff\u27s claim. This Article explicates and offers a critique of the Court\u27s new jurisprudence of plausibility pleading. The Court\u27s new understanding of civil pleading obligations does not merely represent an insufficiently justified break with precedent and with the intent of the drafters of Rule 8. It is motivated by policy concerns more properly vindicated through the rule amendment process, it places an undue burden on plaintiffs, and it will permit courts to throw out claims before they can determine their merit. Ultimately, the imposition of plausibility pleading further contributes to the civil system\u27s long slide away from its original liberal ethos towards an ethos of restrictiveness more concerned with efficiency and judicial administration than with access to justice. I fear that every age must learn its lesson that special pleading cannot be made to do the, service of trial and that live issues between active litigants are not to be disposed of or evaded on the paper pleadings.—Charles E. Clar

Due Process and Punitive Damages: The Error of Federal Excessiveness Jurisprudence

None available

Policing Diversity: Lessons from Lambeth

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Pleading in State Courts After Twombly and Iqbal

In parts I and II of his paper, Professor Spencer introduces the concept of “notice pleading” and contrasts it with the fact-pleading regime that existed before the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The 1938 rules included the well-known provision that a pleader need provide only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” In a line of decisions extending to 2002, the United States Supreme Court underscored the liberality of the federal courts’ ordinary pleading standard, stating notably in Conley v. Gibson in 1957 that a complaint should not be dismissed unless “no set of facts” could establish the pleader’s entitlement to relief. In part III, Professor Spencer analyzes the Supreme Court’s more recent decisions in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, in which it abrogated the Conley “no set of facts” standard, added a requirement of “plausibility,” and called for courts to employ a “twopronged approach” to their review of pleadings, in which allegations that are merely conclusory are set aside and the remaining allegations are examined for sufficient plausibility. The effect of these two decisions, Professor Spencer observes, appears to be to set aside the federal courts’ 70-year-old notice pleading regime in favor of requiring parties to plead specific facts if they hope to avoid dismissal. Part IV discusses the reactions to Twombly and Iqbal of the lower federal courts. Although a few decisions appear to resist the new regime, the Courts of Appeals generally have accepted that the Supreme Court now requires factual details in complaints. Civil rights, antitrust, RICO, and securities fraud cases are among the substantive areas hit hardest by the new approach. Professor Spencer asks whether federal district courts may take Twombly and Iqbal as justification to require a higher level of pleading even if parties can’t reach a higher level of specificity prior to discovery―and may even be tempted simply to dismiss complaints that they believe are weak or lack merit. In part V, Professor Spencer examines the impact of Twombly and Iqbal within state jurisdictions, which fall roughly into two groups―the majority of states whose civil procedure systems “replicate” the federal rules, and those that vary from the Federal Rules in some significant way. In the three years since Twombly was decided, courts in 14 of the “replica” states have had occasion to reexamine their pleading standards. Seven replica state courts have declined to follow the federal move in the direction of plausibility pleading, but only two so indicated through their states’ highest courts. The courts in the other seven replica states that have addressed these cases appear to have embraced the fact-pleading requirement, including the highest courts in five of those states. In the non-replica states, there has been little response from the few that use notice pleading, and there can be little expectation that the remaining states whose courts already use fact pleading will be significantly impacted by the new federal regime. The resulting box score is 24 states for tighter pleading and 27 apparently maintaining notice pleading. The normative question of how states should respond to Twombly and Iqbal remains, and Professor Spencer outlines a number of considerations that he suggests state policymakers should address, including matters of policy, practicality, and doctrine

The Territorial Reach of Federal Courts

Federal courts exercise the soverign authority of the United State when they assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant. As components of the national sovereign, federal courts\u27 maximum territorial reach is determined by the Fifth Amendment\u27s Due Process Clause, which permits jurisdiction over persons with sufficient minimum contacts with the federal courts limited to the territorial reach of the state in which they sit when they exercise personal jurisdiction in most cases? There is no constitutional or statutory mandate that so constrains the federal judicial reach. Rather, it is by operation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically Rule 4(k)-that federal courts are not ordinarily permitted to exercise jurisdiction to the full extent that Fifth Amendment due process would support. This Article will lay out the various arguments in favor of revising the Federal Rules to enable federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction to the full extent permissible under the Constitution. In doing so, this Article will address the issues that would arise out of such a revision and provide comprehensive treatment of the matters that would need to be addressed in order to move federal courts in this direction