1,238 research outputs found
Carrying a Good Joke Too Far
Contract is predicated on agreement, or so the story goes. Of course, the reality of the modern bank-customer transaction is not so straightforward. In those transactions, the contract law is confronted with an ostensible dilemma: Should the law find its goal in the efficiency to be gained by binding customers to terms which they neither read nor understand? Or should the law instead focus on classical conceptions of bargain and agreement, and refuse to enforce contract terms that do not exhibit these characteristics? Article 4 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which regulates bank-customer transactions, attempts to strike a balance between fairness and efficiency, but the success of its task is undermined by one provision, section 4-103, which permits banks and customers to circumvent the effect of the Article by agreement.
The majority of the form terms that invade bank-customer agreements are not the subject of agreement in any meaningful sense; they are unilateral impositions of the stronger contracting party: the bank. Provisions such as waivers of a customer\u27s right to a jury trial and terms granting the bank the authority to alter the terms of the account agreement abound, and nobody—including the courts asked to enforce these provisions—seriously contends that these terms are the result of agreement in the sense of a bargained-for exchange. Instead, as the economic literature shows, these terms result from banks\u27 exploitation of their naïve customers.
In the typical bank-customer transaction, banks, like all businesses, exploit the naïveté of their less-sophisticated customers by imposing on those customers terms to which the customers have not manifested real agreement. This exploitation, which occurs even at market equilibrium, is achieved by the use of shrouded terms, or terms whose meaning and effect are hidden from the customer. But the impact of this shrouding is more harmful than a simple exploitation of naive customers: Sophisticated consumers are complicit in the bank\u27s efforts to exploit naive customers, Indeed, because that exploitation redounds to their benefit, sophisticated customers seek out banks that exploit naive customers. A pernicious cross-subsidy results.
The extant justifications of unilaterally-imposed form terms such as those in bank-customer agreements miss the mark because they fail to account for that cross-subsidy. Commentators have argued that courts are capable of weeding out those shrouded terms that result in an aggregate inefficiency, or that naive customers suffer no real detriment because they are shielded by a protective umbrella erected by the more sophisticated customers. One commentator has argued that shrouded terms are merely a prelude to later bargaining and negotiation that occurs when a customer disadvantaged by a term calls to complain about its effects. These varied attempts to craft a trust-the-market solution to the impact of shrouded terms fail because the very market that created these terms cannot be trusted to alleviate their pernicious effects.
If we cannot trust the market to police the effects of shrouded terms, then we must find some other mechanism to accomplish that task. Article 4 attempted to provide such a mechanism in the form of a laundry list of acceptable terms that would prevent banks from gaining too much power over their customers. But for those transactors that would find it advantageous to circumvent Article 4\u27s effects, section 4-103 provided an escape clause. Now, the escape clause has become the rule rather than the exception, and a reexamination is due. The conclusion of this paper is that advertisement about the nature and impact of the terms contained in account agreements, and thus education of bank customers, can undo the harmful effects of shrouded terms. With the shroud lifted, bank-customer agreements, like any other contract, can be evaluated by reference to classical notions of bargain and agreement
The effects of heat stress on the development of the foetal lamb
Environmental heat stress in tropical sheep suppressed lamb birth weight, but the animals which did not experience hyperthermia under natural environmental conditions gave birth to significantly heavicr (P<0.01) lambs than their less adapted counterparts. Climate chamber studies designed to simulate the rectal temperature patterns of tropical sheep demonstrated that, without nutritional intervention, heat stress during the last month of pregnancy significantly retarded foetal growth (birth weight 2.3 kg v. 3.4 kg; P< 0.01) and maturation of wool follicles (P< 0.01). By comparison, severe nutritional restrictions during the last 3 months of pregnancy also caused a significant reduction in lamb birth weight (3.2 kg v. 3.9 kg; P<O.01), but this difference was not so marked
Otolith chemoscape analysis in whiting links fishing grounds to nursery areas
Understanding life stage connectivity is essential to define appropriate spatial scales for fisheries management and develop effective strategies to reduce undersized bycatch. Despite many studies of population structure and connectivity in marine fish, most management units do not reflect biological populations and protection is rarely given to juvenile sources of the fished stock. Direct, quantitative estimates which link specific fishing grounds to the nursery areas which produced the caught fish are essential to meet these objectives. Here we develop a continuous-surface otolith microchemistry approach to geolocate whiting (Merlangius merlangus) and infer life stage connectivity across the west coast of the UK. We show substantial connectivity across existing stock boundaries and identify the importance of the Firth of Clyde nursery area. This approach offers fisheries managers the ability to account for the benefits of improved fishing yields derived from spatial protection while minimising revenue loss
Designing a Locally Manufacturable Wheelchair for Nepal
Persons with disabilities in developing countries often lack the basic equipment needed to assist them in their daily lives. International Nepal Fellowship (INF) is a Christian medical organization located in Nepal that provides medical care and assistance to people with disabilities and other conditions. Currently, INF imports expensive wheelchairs that undergo a prolonged border process before being received by INF. INF has reached out to the Collaboratory to design a wheelchair that can withstand the challenges of Nepal’s terrain and can be manufactured from local materials. The Nepal Wheelchair team accepted this challenge and set out to design a wheelchair that can fulfill the needs of INF. The team began by researching wheelchair models for inspiration and eventually settled on two preliminary designs. In January 2020, the team traveled to Pokhara, Nepal to gain feedback from the staff at INF and select a final design based on their comments. During this trip, the team acquired and brought back locally available materials and parts in order to be able to construct a prototype using materials which are actually available in Nepal. After returning, the team began performing Finite Element Analysis on the frame design and tested the steel from the trip to determine its physical properties. With prototyping progress stalled by recent events, the team is focusing on perfecting the design and preparing an instruction manual for INF.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2020/1005/thumbnail.jp
Low levels of physical activity predict worse survival to lung transplantation and poor early post-operative outcomes
Activity of ceftazidime/avibactam against problem Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the UK, 2015-2016
Background: Ceftazidime/avibactam combines an established oxyimino-cephalosporin with the first diazabicyclooctane β-lactamase inhibitor to enter clinical use. We reviewed its activity against Gram-negative isolates, predominantly from the UK, referred for resistance investigation in the first year of routine testing, beginning in July 2015. Methods: Isolates were as received from referring laboratories; there is a bias to submit those with suspected carbapenem resistance. Identification was by MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy, and susceptibility testing by BSAC agar dilution. Carbapenemase genes were sought by PCR; other resistance mechanisms were inferred using genetic data and interpretive reading. Results: Susceptibility rates to ceftazidime/avibactam exceeded 95% for: (i) Enterobacteriaceae with KPC, GES or other Class A carbapenemases; (ii) Enterobacteriaceae with OXA-48-like enzymes; and (iii) for ESBL or AmpC producers, even when these had impermeability-mediated ertapenem resistance. Almost all isolates with metallo-carbapenemases were resistant. Potentiation of ceftazidime by avibactam was seen for 87% of ceftazidime-resistant Enterobacteriaceae with ‘unassigned’ ceftazidime resistance mechanisms, including two widely referred groups of Klebsiella pneumoniae where no synergy was seen between cephalosporins and established β-lactamase inhibitors. Potentiation here may be a diazabicyclooctane/cephalosporin enhancer effect. Activity was seen against Pseudomonas aeruginosa with derepressed AmpC, but not for those with efflux-mediated resistance. Conclusions: Of the available β-lactams or inhibitor combinations, ceftazidime/avibactam has the widest activity spectrum against problem Enterobacteriaceae, covering all major types except metallo-carbapenemase producers; against P. aeruginosa it has a slightly narrower spectrum than ceftolozane/tazobactam, which also covers efflux-type resistance
Quasiperiodic Envelope Solitons
We analyse nonlinear wave propagation and cascaded self-focusing due to
second-harmonic generation in Fibbonacci optical superlattices and introduce a
novel concept of nonlinear physics, the quasiperiodic soliton, which describes
spatially localized self-trapping of a quasiperiodic wave. We point out a link
between the quasiperiodic soliton and partially incoherent spatial solitary
waves recently generated experimentally.Comment: Submitted to PRL. 4 pages with 5 figure
Agri-Environmental Policy at the Crossroads: Guideposts on a Changing Landscape
Agri-environmental policy is at a crossroads. Over the past 20 years, a wide range of policies addressing the environmental implications of agricultural production have been implemented at the Federal level. Those policies have played an important role in reducing soil erosion, protecting and restoring wetlands, and creating wildlife habitat. However, emerging agri-environmental issues, evolution of farm income support policies, and limits imposed by trade agreements may point toward a rethinking of agri-environmental policy. This report identifies the types of policy tools available and the design features that have improved the effectiveness of current programs. It provides an indepth analysis of one policy tool that may be an important component of a future policy package-agri-environmental payments. The analysis focuses on issues and tradeoffs that policymakers would face in designing a program of agri-environmental payments.conservation programs, environmental policy, agricultural policy, policy instruments, agricultural program design, soil erosion, nitrogen runoff, Environmental Economics and Policy,
Multimodal transplant-clinic-based skin cancer prevention education for organ transplant recipients:Feasibility study
Cyclotron resonance lineshape in a Wigner crystal
The cyclotron resonance absorption spectrum in a Wigner crystal is
calculated. Effects of spin-splitting are modelled by substitutional disorder,
and calculated in the coherent potential approximation. Due to the increasing
strength of the dipole-dipole interaction, the results show a crossover from a
double-peak spectrum at small filling factors to a single-peak spectrum at
filling factors \agt 1/6. Radiation damping and magnetophonon scattering can
also influence the cyclotron resonance. The results are in very good agreement
with experiments.Comment: 4 pages REVTEX, attempt to append 3 figures that seem to have been
lost last tim
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