Using Statistical Techniques to Predict Non-Pecuniary Damage Awards in Personal Injury Cases

The real issue in personal injury cases is often damages. Our concepts and law relating to negligence and other aspects of personal injury are sufficiently developed that parties can often agree upon who is at fault. Yet damages law, for all the cases and principles which have been decided, remains the least intelligible and thus the least predictable for parties and their counsel. When parties have to go to trial in a personal injury case, it is often primarily to decide who should pay what

Canadian Institutes in the Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper discusses the effectiveness and ultimate value of the growing number of research institutes in the humanities and social sciences. It looks at the different types in existence and their geographic distribution. It considers the motivation for and obstacles to establishing research institutes, points to the difficulties involved in their funding and operation and outlines arguments put forward by their proponents. Illustrated with examples are different objectives and functions of various kinds of institutes, their organizational structure and their relationship to the universities. The Max-Planck Institutes in Germany and Institutes of the Social Science Research Council in Britain are described. The paper concludes with a sketch of three fundamental types of institute, each with its own rationale: the academic Utopia, the small-scale institute for research in the humanities and the problem-solving or mission-oriented institute.Cet article, considérant le nombre sans cesse croissant des institutes de recherche en sciences humaines, leur diversité et leur répartition géographique, s'interroge sur leur efficacité et leur valeur. Il examine les raisons qui poussent à la création de tels instituts et celles qui s'y opposent, les difficultés de financement et de fonctionnement recontrées et, enfin, les arguments avancés par les instigateurs de ces établissements de recherche. Objectifs et fonctions de divers types d'instituts, leur organisation et leurs liens avec les universités sont exposés à partir d'exemples. C'est ainsi qu'on présente les InstitutsMax-Planck d'Alle-magne fédérale et ceux du Social Science Research Council de Grande-Bretagne. En con-clusion, l'article distingue trois grands types originaux d'instituts: ¡'"utopie universitaire", le petit institut de recherche en sciences humaines et l'institut à vocation heuristique spécialisé

Building a Directory of Fully Open Access Journals with Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in Mind

Abstract: The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) seeks to be the definitive place to find peer-reviewed, open access journals. Its metadata and services are free and it is community-aligned and not-for-profit. Since its services and metadata are provided at no cost to journal publishers, platforms, aggregators, discovery services, and search engines, it needs to cover its operational costs from the various parties it serves. DOAJ, as a matter of principle, seeks to have 80% of such support come from the community of libraries, and other academic and research institutions. For that to make sense, it\u27s fair to ask, Does a shared commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion actually result in concrete benefits that might be absent were it not for those shared values? This presentation by one of DOAJ\u27s Ambassadors for N. America (John Dove) and the Continuing Resources Graduate Assistant at University of Maryland Libraries (Cara Forster) will look at the ways in which certain benefits of the work of DOAJ are behind the scenes and so escape notice. Yet without DOAJ\u27s alignment with the mission of libraries, these things might not happen and biases which are prevalent in the scholarly communication process could go unchallenged. This is part of an on-going discussion into the ways in which DOAJ and other community-driven infrastructure providers benefit universities without the libraries or anyone else being aware of it. We hope the discussion will reveal why the commitment to diversity and inclusion needs to be part of our shared values

A Reanalysis of the Hydrodynamic Theory of Fluid, Polar-Ordered Flocks

I reanalyze the hydrodynamic theory of fluid, polar ordered flocks. I find new linear terms in the hydrodynamic equations which slightly modify the anisotropy, but not the scaling, of the damping of sound modes. I also find that the nonlinearities allowed {\it in equilibrium} do not stabilize long ranged order in spatial dimensions $d=2$; in accord with the Mermin-Wagner theorem. Nonequilibrium nonlinearities {\it do} stabilize long ranged order in $d=2$, as argued by earlier work. Some of these were missed by earlier work; it is unclear whether or not they change the scaling exponents in $d=2$.Comment: 6 pages, no figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0909.195

Corporation, Sole Proprietorship, or Partnership? Income Tax Comparisons for Ohio Farm Situations

Exact date of working paper unknown

DEECD Early Childhood Intervention Reform Project

This literature review was commissioned by the Office for Children and Early Childhood Development, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), as part of its Early Childhood Intervention Services (ECIS) Reform Project (Stage 2): Developing Options and Next Steps. This Project aims to significantly enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of Victoria’s ECIS system and improve outcomes for children with a disability or developmental delay and their families. Early childhood intervention services (ECIS) support children with a disability or developmental delay from birth to school entry and their families. ECIS provides special education, therapy, counselling, service planning and coordination, assistance and support to access services such as kindergarten and child care. The services funded through DEECD are provided by government Specialist Children\u27s Services teams and non-government Early Childhood Intervention agencies. In addition to the services provided by ECIS teams and agencies, the state and federal governments fund a range of complementary programs to support young children with developmental disabilities and their families. These include initiatives to support families (My Time parent groups, Family Support Packages), services to support inclusion (Preschool Field Officers, Inclusion Support Facilitators), and funding to support particular disability groups (Helping Children with Autism packages). These additional services and supports, together with the ECIS teams and agencies, make up the totality of early childhood intervention provision for young children with disabilities. The focus of the literature review is research on contemporary Australian and international evidence-based service delivery models for children with a disability, developmental delay or additional needs aged 0-8 years

Resting state correlates of subdimensions of anxious affect

Resting state fMRI may help identify markers of risk for affective disorder. Given the comorbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders and the heterogeneity of these disorders as defined by DSM, an important challenge is to identify alterations in resting state brain connectivity uniquely associated with distinct profiles of negative affect. The current study aimed to address this by identifying differences in brain connectivity specifically linked to cognitive and physiological profiles of anxiety, controlling for depressed affect. We adopted a two-stage multivariate approach. Hierarchical clustering was used to independently identify dimensions of negative affective style and resting state brain networks. Combining the clustering results, we examined individual differences in resting state connectivity uniquely associated with subdimensions of anxious affect, controlling for depressed affect. Physiological and cognitive subdimensions of anxious affect were identified. Physiological anxiety was associated with widespread alterations in insula connectivity, including decreased connectivity between insula subregions and between the insula and other medial frontal and subcortical networks. This is consistent with the insula facilitating communication between medial frontal and subcortical regions to enable control of physiological affective states. Meanwhile, increased connectivity within a frontoparietal-posterior cingulate cortex-precunous network was specifically associated with cognitive anxiety, potentially reflecting increased spontaneous negative cognition (e.g., worry). These findings suggest that physiological and cognitive anxiety comprise subdimensions of anxiety-related affect and reveal associated alterations in brain connectivity