Demography in a new key

The widespread opinion that demography is lacking in theory is based in part on a particular view of the nature of scientific theory, generally known as logical empiricism [or positivism]. A newer school of philosophy of science, the model-based view, provides a different perspective on demography, one that enhances its status as a scientific discipline. From this perspective, much of formal demography can be seen as a collection of substantive models of population dynamics [how populations and cohorts behave], in short, theoretical knowledge. And many theories in behavioural demography - often discarded as too old or too simplistic - can be seen as perfectly good scientific theory, useful for many purposes, although often in need of more rigorous statement.demographic models, demographic theory, methodology, philosophy of science, population theory, the structure of demographic knowledge

Necessity Never Made a Good Bargain: When Consumer Arbitration Agreements Prohibit Class Relief

The American system of arbitration is constantly evolving. From the first formal arbitration tribunal in 1786—established by the New York Chamber of Commerce—to the creation of the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925—passed to suppress judicial hostility towards arbitration -- the system has continuously adapted to accommodate changing business practices and rising judicial concerns over the legitimacy of the institution. In fact, the system’s adaptation has been so effective that the Supreme Court now recognizes a “national policy favoring arbitration.” This “national policy” is the most recent phase of the arbitration evolution, and it raises several concerns. Most significantly, lower courts are relying on it to effectively eliminate any review of arbitration agreements under state laws of unconscionability. Consequently, banks, phone companies, and other consumer businesses are implementing mandatory arbitration clauses that provide complete immunization from both class actions and classwide arbitration. As potential defendants, these companies hope that courts will force individual resolution of all consumer claims against them by upholding their agreements to arbitrate. Such an exercise raises an important, yet unanswered, question: To what extent should courts use the “national policy favoring arbitration” to protect consumer arbitration agreements that prohibit all class relief? The Supreme Court will have an opportunity to address this question when it resolves a split between the Seventh and Ninth Circuits on the interplay of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the Federal Communications Act (FCA), and state laws of unconscionability. Essentially, the Court will have to revisit previous decisions on what type of role states play, if any, in determining arbitration policy within their borders. Part II of this paper discusses the history of federal preemption under the FAA and the growing dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court’s federal preemption jurisprudence. Part III addresses federal preemption under the Federal Communications Act and how companies now use the FCA to shield arbitration agreements from review under state laws of unconscionability. Part III also discusses how the Supreme Court can develop a new federal preemption policy—and suppress some of the dissension over its prior preemption decisions—when it resolves the split between the Seventh and Ninth Circuits. This new proposal still recognizes the “national policy favoring arbitration,” and requires courts to respect arbitration agreements accordingly. However, it returns greater authority over arbitration procedure to the states. Thus, when faced with an arbitration agreement that prohibits both class actions and classwide arbitration, courts may uphold the parties’ decision to arbitrate, but review state law to determine whether to permit arbitration to proceed on a classwide basis. Finally, Parts IV and V discuss the justifications for such a proposal and suggest several safeguards that states may want to enact to ensure that class arbitration proceedings are an efficient and effective method of alternative dispute resolution

Computer Modelling of Theory: Explanation for the 21st Century

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Regulating Mandatory Arbitration

Over the last twenty-five years, the Supreme Court has relied on party autonomy and the national policy favoring arbitration to expand the Federal Arbitration Act’s scope beyond Congress’s original intent. Choosing these loaded premises has allowed the Court to reach the outcomes it desires while denying that it is making any political or moral judgments in its decisions – a type of bureaucratic formalism. One controversial outcome of the Court’s formalism, overall, has been the increased prevalence of mandatory arbitration. Although it reduces judicial caseloads and lowers companies’ dispute-resolution costs, it also restricts or eliminates individual rights and reduces public regulation of the companies that require it. The Court has supported the spread of mandatory arbitration despite these negative effects. Because of the Court’s support, the parties being subjected to mandatory arbitration began asking lower courts for relief through the unconscionability doctrine in the early 1990s. And because the unconscionability doctrine could not provide the wide-scale relief they wanted, they also turned to Congress, convincing its members to introduce 139 anti-arbitration bills since 1995 – the majority of which proposed eliminating mandatory arbitration. A review of these efforts, including an original survey of these bills, reveals that these parties have been disregarding mandatory arbitration’s public benefits in favor of a rights-oriented, liberal approach that rejects regulation as a possible way to improve mandatory arbitration’s overall fairness. This Article shows that both the Supreme Court’s and the reform advocates’ approaches to mandatory arbitration are flawed. It makes more sense, at least for now, to continue mandatory arbitration’s use while improving its overall fairness through legislative or agency regulation. Regulating mandatory arbitration with the goal of improving its fairness is consistent with pragmatic principles and is superior to the Supreme Court’s formalism and the reform advocates’ liberalism in the current mandatory-arbitration context. Taking this approach will allow us to study mandatory arbitration over time before deciding whether to eliminate it – a fair way to proceed given the importance of the rights at stake and the positive effects that mandatory arbitration can (possibly) have on the public good

Fertility Decline: Toward a Synthetic Model

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Formation and Destruction of Nitric Oxide in Fuel-Rich Combustion: Reburning.

The effect of fuel type on reburning of a simulated flue gas containing 1000 ppm of NO is studied. Stable nitrogen species concentrations are provided for reburning experiments with five fuels in a premixed, laminar flow reactor. The reactor was operated at atmospheric pressure and gave a maximum gas temperature of approximately 1100\sp\circC for a residence time near 0.2 seconds. The experimental facility used to collect this data is described including a novel coal feeding device. A new gas chromatographic method used to analyze fixed-nitrogen species is described. For each of the five fuels, the fixed-nitrogen speciation as a function of stoichiometry is studied. The first three fuels, methane, hexane, and benzene, demonstrate the influence of fuel type on homogeneous gas-phase nitrogen chemistry. The last two fuels, lignite coal and bituminous coal, introduce heterogeneous and catalytic effects as well as fuel-bound nitrogen. For lignite coal, the heterogeneous reduction of NO on char and the catalytic conversion of HCN to NH\sb3 are shown to be important contributors to N\sb2 formation. For lignite coal and bituminous coal the gas-phase nitrogen speciation is separated by origin using isotopically labelled N\sp{15}O and GC/MS for isotope separation. Probability analysis is used to show that significant NO reduction occurs through non-NO mechanisms. Nitrogen evolution for both coals is observed to be delayed beyond the onset of NO conversion to N\sb2

Teaching the Fundamentals of Demography: A Models-Based Approach to Family and Fertility

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Explaining Human Fertility: One Theory or Many Theories?

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