Mutual Assent in the Corporate Contract: Forum Selection Bylaws

In recent years, frivolous and inefficient multijurisdictional stockholder litigation has become a costly burden on corporations in the United States. A popular solution among boards of directors has been to adopt bylaws with forum selection provisions (which require certain disputes to be litigated before one forum). Those who oppose this solution have challenged these provisions on the grounds that they were passed as bylaws—which are unilaterally adopted by boards without stockholder consent. These challengers argue that bylaws are like contracts, and, therefore, require the mutual assent of both stockholders and the corporation to be enforceable. This argument implicates a classic theory of corporate law—the contractarian theory—but vastly oversimplifies the relationship between a stockholder, her corporation and the board of directors. When the contractarian theory of corporate law is applied to the full legal and practical reality of that relationship, the mutual assent argument falls apart and the contractarian theory is shown to support the enforceability of bylaws

Mathematics Is Physics

In this essay, I argue that mathematics is a natural science---just like physics, chemistry, or biology---and that this can explain the alleged "unreasonable" effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences. The main challenge for this view is to explain how mathematical theories can become increasingly abstract and develop their own internal structure, whilst still maintaining an appropriate empirical tether that can explain their later use in physics. In order to address this, I offer a theory of mathematical theory-building based on the idea that human knowledge has the structure of a scale-free network and that abstract mathematical theories arise from a repeated process of replacing strong analogies with new hubs in this network. This allows mathematics to be seen as the study of regularities, within regularities, within ..., within regularities of the natural world. Since mathematical theories are derived from the natural world, albeit at a much higher level of abstraction than most other scientific theories, it should come as no surprise that they so often show up in physics. This version of the essay contains an addendum responding to Slyvia Wenmackers' essay and comments that were made on the FQXi website.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX. Second prize winner in 2015 FQXi Essay Contest (see http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2364

Markets - Water Markets: Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin and the US Southwest

Worldwide supplies of fresh water are increasingly scarce relative to demand. This problem is likely to be exacerbated with climate change. In this paper, we examine water markets in both Australia’s Murray Darling Basin and the western US and their prospects for addressing water scarcity. The two regions share a number of important similarities including: climate variability that requires investment in reservoirs to make water available in low-rainfall periods; the need for internal and cross-border (state) water management; an historical major allocation of water to irrigators; increasing competition among different uses (agricultural, environmental and recreational in situ uses, urban demand); and the potential for water trading to more smoothly and quickly allocate water across these competing uses. A comparison of the two regions provides important insights about how economic factors can encourage more efficient water allocation, market structure and government regulation.

Comparison of Unix Communication Facilities Used In Linda

This report presents the results of an investigative effort that focuses on a first step toward providing a distributed framework for Linda system processes. In particular, we discuss the restructuring of the kernel "process" to support Tuple Space access through UNIX socket calls, rather than through shared memory primitives based on semaphore usage. A description of the restructured system and the rationale for such restructuring is presented first. Most intriguing, however, are the latter sections that discuss the ramifications and insights gained from our particular approach to system redesign, i.e., the unnecessary serialization of Tuple Space access, redundant memory copies, being victimized by the UNIX scheduler

A Novel Cable-Driven Robotic Training Improves Locomotor Function in Individuals Post-Stroke

A novel cable-driven robotic gait training system has been tested to improve the locomotor function in individuals post stroke. Seven subjects with chronic stroke were recruited to participate in this 6 weeks robot-assisted treadmill training paradigm. A controlled assistance force was applied to the paretic leg at the ankle through a cable-driven robotic system. The force was applied from late stance to mid-swing during treadmill training. Body weight support was provided as necessary to prevent knee buckling or toe drag. Subjects were trained 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Overground gait speed, 6 minute walking distance, and balance were evaluated at pre, post 6 weeks robotic training, and at 8 weeks follow up. Significant improvements in gait speed and 6 minute walking distance were obtained following robotic treadmill training through a cable-driven robotic system. Results from this study indicate that it is feasible to improve the locomotor function in individuals post stroke through a flexible cable-driven robot

Phonon Band Structure and Thermal Transport Correlation in a Layered Diatomic Crystal

To elucidate the relationship between a crystal's structure, its thermal conductivity, and its phonon dispersion characteristics, an analysis is conducted on layered diatomic Lennard-Jones crystals with various mass ratios. Lattice dynamics theory and molecular dynamics simulations are used to predict the phonon dispersion curves and the thermal conductivity. The layered structure generates directionally dependent thermal conductivities lower than those predicted by density trends alone. The dispersion characteristics are quantified using a set of novel band diagram metrics, which are used to assess the contributions of acoustic phonons and optical phonons to the thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity increases as the extent of the acoustic modes increases, and decreases as the extent of the stop bands increases. The sensitivity of the thermal conductivity to the band diagram metrics is highest at low temperatures, where there is less anharmonic scattering, indicating that dispersion plays a more prominent role in thermal transport in that regime. We propose that the dispersion metrics (i) provide an indirect measure of the relative contributions of dispersion and anharmonic scattering to the thermal transport, and (ii) uncouple the standard thermal conductivity structure-property relation to that of structure-dispersion and dispersion-property relations, providing opportunities for better understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms and a potential tool for material design.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Labyrinthic granular landscapes

We have numerically studied a model of granular landscape eroded by wind. We show the appearance of labyrinthic patterns when the wind orientation turns by $90^\circ$. The occurence of such structures are discussed. Morever, we introduce the density $n_k$ of ``defects'' as the dynamic parameter governing the landscape evolution. A power law behavior of $n_k$ is found as a function of time. In the case of wind variations, the exponent (drastically) shifts from 2 to 1. The presence of two asymptotic values of $n_k$ implies the irreversibility of the labyrinthic formation process.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure, RevTe

Water Scarcity and Water Markets: A Comparison of Institutions and Practices in the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia and the Western US

Water markets in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) and the US west are compared in terms of their ability to allocate scarce water resources among competing uses. Both locations have been in the forefront of the development of water markets with defined water rights and conveyance structures to assist in the reallocation of water across competing demands. They also share the challenge of managing water with climate variability and climate change. As these two markets occur in developed, wealthy countries, their experiences in water markets with different water rights (appropriative, riparian and statutory rights) provide ‘best-case’ scenarios of what institutional arrangements work best, indicate which are less effective, and demonstrate what might be possible for greater use of water markets elsewhere in the world. The paper finds that the gains from trade in the MDB is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in per year, total turnover in water rights exceeds $2 billion per year and the volume of trade accounts for over 20$4.3 billion (2008 $) spent or committed by urban buyers between 1987 and 2008. Despite the clear benefits of water markets in both locations, there are on-going restrictions to trade that limit the potential gains and also third-party effects from use that require resolution.

An Integrated Assessment of Water Markets: Australia, Chile, China, South Africa and the USA

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three 'pillars' of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different water markets; (2) to track performance over time; and (3) to identify ways in which water markets might be adjusted by informed policy makers to achieve desired goals. The framework is used to identify strengths and limitations of water markets in: (1) Australia's Murray-Darling Basin; (2) Chile (in particular the Limarí Valley); (3) China (in particular, the North); (4) South Africa; and (5) the western United States. It identifies what water markets are currently able to contribute to integrated water resource management, what criteria underpin these markets, and which components of their performance may require further development

A Distributed Parallel Processing Environment Based upon the Linda Paradigm: A Research Prospectus

As the computing capacity of the uniprocessor is being taxed, and the high cost of parallel and super-computers is still prevalent, alternative methods of achieving parallel performance at an economical price are desired. This proposed research effort offers one such alternative, focusing on the idle CPU cycles existing on local area networks. With the increase in the computing power of workstations and their declining costs, one can effectively transform the unused computing power attached to a local area network into a parallel processing environment. Effectively exploiting such an environment, however, requires a specification and operational framework that is portable, easy to use, and efficient. The environment is constructed around the Linda parallel programming paradigm which provides an effective parallel computational framework