Should Moving In Mean Losing Out? Making a Case to Clarify the Legal Effect of Cohabitation on Alimony

As nonmarital cohabitation has skyrocketed over the last several decades, courts and legislatures have increasingly struggled to decide what legal effect an ex-spouse\u27s cohabitation with a new partner should have on the receipt of alimony payments. In seeking to answer this cohabitation question, states have taken a variety of approaches. Often, however, courts\u27 answers to the cohabitation question are not grounded in the rationale that those courts used to award alimony in the first place and may therefore lead to inconsistent or absurd results. This Note addresses the cohabitation question and argues that states should revisit their current approaches in light of the multiple contemporary theories of alimony and twenty-first century social-science research on cohabitation. Ultimately, this Note proposes several clarifications to existing law in order to provide a sensible, workable rule that would introduce consistency to courts\u27 considerations of the cohabitation question

Visual Imagery in Deductive Reasoning: Results from experiments with sighted, blindfolded, and congenitally totally blind persons

We report three experiments on visual mental imagery in de-ductive reasoning. Reasoning performance of sighted partici-pants was impeded if the materials were easy to envisage as visual mental images. Congenitally totally blind participants did not show this visual-impedance effect. Blindfolded par-ticipants with normal vision showed the same pattern of per-formance as the sighted. We conclude that irrelevant visual detail can be a nuisance in reasoning and impedes the process

Causal Induction from Continuous Event Streams: Evidence for Delay-Induced Attribution Shifts

Contemporary theories of Human Causal Induction assume that causal knowledge is inferred from observable contingencies. While this assumption is well supported by empirical results, it fails to consider an important problem-solving aspect of causal induction in real time: In the absence of well structured learning trials, it is not clear whether the effect of interest occurred because of the cause under investigation, or on its own accord. Attributing the effect to either the cause of interest or alternative background causes is an important precursor to induction. We present a new paradigm based on the presentation of continuous event streams, and use it to test the Attribution-Shift Hypothesis (Shanks & Dickinson, 1987), according to which temporal delays sever the attributional link between cause and effect. Delays generally impaired attribution to the candidate, and increased attribution to the constant background of alternative causes. In line with earlier research (Buehner & May, 2002, 2003, 2004) prior knowledge and experience mediated this effect. Pre-exposure to a causally ineffective background context was found to facilitate the discovery of delayed causal relationships by reducing the tendency for attributional shifts to occur. However, longer exposure to a delayed causal relationship did not improve discovery. This complex pattern of results is problematic for associative learning theories, but supports the Attribution-Shift Hypothesi

On the heterogeneous character of water's amorphous polymorphism

In this letter we report {\it in situ} small--angle neutron scattering results on the high--density (HDA) and low-density amorphous (LDA) ice structures and on intermediate structures as found during the temperature induced transformation of HDA into LDA. We show that the small--angle signal is characterised by two $Q$ regimes featuring different properties ($Q$ is the modulus of the scattering vector defined as $Q = 4\pi\sin{(\Theta)}/\lambda_{\rm i}$ with $\Theta$ being half the scattering angle and $\lambda_{\rm i}$ the incident neutron wavelength). The very low--$Q$ regime ($< 5\times 10^{-2}$ \AA $^{-1}$) is dominated by a Porod--limit scattering. Its intensity reduces in the course of the HDA to LDA transformation following a kinetics reminiscent of that observed in wide--angle diffraction experiments. The small--angle neutron scattering formfactor in the intermediate regime of $5 \times 10^{-2} < Q < 0.5$ \AA$^{-1}$ HDA and LDA features a rather flat plateau. However, the HDA signal shows an ascending intensity towards smaller $Q$ marking this amorphous structure as heterogeneous. When following the HDA to LDA transition the formfactor shows a pronounced transient excess in intensity marking all intermediate structures as strongly heterogeneous on a length scale of some nano--meters

Using film cutting in interface design

It has been suggested that computer interfaces could be made more usable if their designers utilized cinematography techniques, which have evolved to guide the viewer through a narrative despite frequent discontinuities in the presented scene (i.e., cuts between shots). Because of differences between the domains of film and interface design, it is not straightforward to understand how such techniques can be transferred. May and Barnard (1995) argued that a psychological model of watching film could support such a transference. This article presents an extended account of this model, which allows identification of the practice of collocation of objects of interest in the same screen position before and after a cut. To verify that filmmakers do, in fact, use such techniques successfully, eye movements were measured while participants watched the entirety of a commerciall

Agenda for Change: views and experiences from estates and facilities staff

Purpose – Agenda for Change is the biggest reform of staff pay in the UK National Health Service NHS) since it began in 1948. As well as introducing a standardised pay structure; it also aims to improve recruitment, retention and staff morale. The aim of this study is to look in-depth at the experiences and opinions of a range of estates and facilities staff surrounding Agenda for Change during the implementation period. Design/methodology/approach – Focus groups were used as the primary method of data collection in an attempt to tap into the views and opinions of staff working at operational positions in a wide range of trusts. Findings – One of the most important and common themes, which reoccurred throughout the focus groups, was the view that the Agenda for Change framework was designed around the needs of nursing staff. Therefore, the framework did not adequately cater for the needs of estates and facilities staff. Specific concerns related to this included; the role or contribution of estates and facilities staff during patient care was not fairly reflected; trade qualifications were not recognised, particularly in comparison to academic qualifications; members of the job matching panels did not have the appropriate knowledge to make decisions surrounding estates and facilities jobs; nurses were more likely to make progress through the bands than estates and facilities staff.</p