The Prelude to the Deep Minimum between Solar Cycles 23 and 24: Interplanetary Scintillation Signatures in the Inner Heliosphere

Extensive interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observations at 327 MHz obtained between 1983 and 2009 clearly show a steady and significant drop in the turbulence levels in the entire inner heliosphere starting from around ~1995. We believe that this large-scale IPS signature, in the inner heliosphere, coupled with the fact that solar polar fields have also been declining since ~1995, provide a consistent result showing that the buildup to the deepest minimum in 100 years actually began more than a decade earlier.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters on 28 September 201

Justice: Greater Access, Lower Costs

Litigation imposes large costs on society; this justifies settlement considerations. In any case, access to justice is critical to socioeconomic development; as such, it needs to be balanced with litigation minimization. This study examines the tradeoff between litigation and access to justice and explicitly elucidates their relationship. In considering access issues, this study finds that the outcomes of policies that affect parties’ litigation decisions partially depart from those in the standard literature. For instance, increasing parties’ litigation costs does not necessarily promote settlement in the shadow of the court. Rather, effects depend on the elasticity of the demand for legal remedies. Furthermore, even while pushing litigation, enhancing access to justice is efficient as long as the claimant’s marginal propensity to litigate is smaller than the social opportunity-cost of access to justice. This finding offers further insight into the suitability of litigation subsidization through legal aid