How Do You Take Your Multi-State, Class-Action Litigation? One Lump or Two?

The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, which essentially federalizes all multi-state class-action cases, has introduced the class-action bar, and necessarily the judiciary, to myriad substantive and procedural issues never before envisioned in class-action litigation’s history. While some of these issues have already surfaced, many others haven’t but will as newly federalized multi-state class-action lawsuits move through litigation to the class certification stage. A major and unavoidable issue involves whether federal judges, when deciding multi-state claims’ class certification under Federal Rule 23, may consider well-developed, state class-action jurisprudence applying a single state’s substantive law or whether doing so violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s Erie Doctrine. My Article, after analyzing federal choice-of-law jurisprudence and Erie and its progeny, concludes that federal courts may consider state class-action jurisprudence applying a single state’s substantive law when deciding class certification under Federal Rule 23 and that doing so actually honors Erie’s mandate, albeit in an unanticipated manner. My Article provides guidance to the class-action bar and the judiciary, as they will undoubtedly recognize this issue and its significance when briefing, arguing, and deciding class certification of multi-state, class-action lawsuits

Households' responses to spousal job loss: 'all change' or 'carry on as usual'?

Economic theory suggests that when a primary earner within a couple loses their job, one potential response is for the secondary earner to seek additional paid work to bolster their household finances. Yet, the empirical quantitative evidence regarding any such 'added worker effect' is mixed. To investigate why this might be, we explore the processes behind household responses to job loss through qualitative interviewing techniques. The findings indicate that the use of additional spousal labour is only one response of many alternatives and typically only invoked in cases of serious financial hardship

Job loss and social capital: The role of family, friends and wider support networks

Finding a new job is not the only problem the unemployed face. How to manage the loss of income, status and identity can also be a serious consideration for those in between jobs. In-depth qualitative interviews reveal that family, friends and wider networks are important mainstays in helping jobseekers back into work but in different ways and for a variety of reasons. By examining the job seeking strategies in terms of drawing on (a) family connections and (b) friends and wider social networks this investigation sheds some light on the extent to which social connectedness matters for jobseekers in contemporary Britain

Electromagnetic Flow Meter Having a Driver Circuit Including a Current Transducer

An electromagnetic flow meter (EMFM) accurately measures both the complete flow rate and the dynamically fluctuating flow rate of a fluid by applying a unipolar DC voltage to excitation coils for a predetermined period of time, measuring the electric potential at a pair of electrodes, determining a complete flow rate and independently measuring the dynamic flow rate during the "on" cycle of the DC excitation, and correcting the measurements for errors resulting from galvanic drift and other effects on the electric potential. The EMFM can also correct for effects from the excitation circuit induced during operation of the EMFM

Exploring affective design for physical controls

Physical controls such as knobs, sliders, and buttons are experiencing a revival as many computing systems progress from personal computing architectures towards ubiquitous computing architectures. We demonstrate a process for measuring and comparing visceral emotional responses of a physical control to performance results of a target acquisition task. In our user study, participants experienced mechanical and rendered friction, inertia, and detent dynamics as they turned a haptic knob towards graphical targets of two different widths and amplitudes. Together, this process and user study provide novel affect- and performance-based design guidance to developers of physical controls for emerging ubiquitous computing environments. Our work bridges extensive human factors work in mechanical systems that peaked in the 1960’s, to contemporary trends, with a goal of integrating mechatronic controls into emerging ubiquitous computing systems. Author Keywords Haptic display, physical control, design process, affect

A village adoption project in Yunnan, China : sustainable micro-economy pilot : feasibility analysis of agricultural transition from tobacco to walnut planting

This report has been compiled to record and share our experiences and lessons learned from our walnut planting pilot program which is part of a micro-economy stream of our Village Adoption Project in Yunnan. The walnut planting pilot was initiated to assist the sustainability of the micro-economy of Gezhangla Village, Yunnan, by working with the community to evolve its agriculture and reduce its a dependency on tobacco. Jenny Chen, a student of Lingnan University, went to Yunnan for a preliminary study of the development of walnut planting program in Gezhangla Village from 30 December of 2012 to 5 January of 2013 and in the summer of 2013. Later, John Law, the Consultant of Strategy and Consulting of Deloitte China, also went to Yunnan with the service group from 15 to 18 September 2013 to follow up the project. During the trip, he also interviewed a number of farmers, school principals and teachers in the villages to collect more research data. This report was compiled in joint efforts by Deloitte China and Lingnan University, which combines the observations and findings of walnut trees planting obtained during the service trip, and summarizes the development and progress of walnut planting in Yunnan villages. The report provides an overview of the tobacco leaves planting in the related villages. Then it reviews the progress of walnut tree planting in Gezhangla and Yangjia villages, and Gezhangla Primary School, Wanyaoshu Primary School and Shilata Central Primary School, and reviews the opportunities and challenges faced by schools and villages in walnut tree planting. This report also tackles different challenges and provides suggestions, while the conclusion focuses on the overall feasibility of walnut planting in Yunnan villages.https://commons.ln.edu.hk/osl_book/1023/thumbnail.jp

Understanding the added worker effect: A multiple methods interpretation

This paper provides an integrated interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data examining how couples respond when one partner loses their job. According to economic theory there may be an 'Added Worker Effect' where, when one partner loses their job, their spouse enters the labour market or takes on additional hours to compensate. The paper uses a multiple methods approach to gain a fuller understanding of couples' responses pre and post the UK Great Recession and to explore the factors influencing couples' decision-making process when experiencing a job loss. The paper is therefore a synthesis of findings produced by quantitative and qualitative elements of the same project and aims to explore where the findings from each methodological strand of the research can contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of household decision making and couple's labour supply responses to job loss

Households’ responses to spousal job loss: ‘all change’ or ‘carry on as usual’?

Economic theory suggests that when a primary earner within a couple loses their job, one potential response is for the secondary earner to seek additional paid work to bolster their household finances. The empirical quantitative evidence regarding any such ‘added worker effect’ is mixed, and, to investigate why this might be, the article explores processes behind couples’ responses to job loss. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with a purposive sample selected from the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, the analysis examines: (a) anticipation surrounding job loss and job search responses; (b) the extent to which couples adopt long- or short-term labour market perspectives; and (c) whether couples seek to preserve their established division of paid and unpaid labour or re-configure their joint labour supply. Findings indicate that the use of additional spousal labour is only one response among many alternatives and it is typically invoked in cases of serious financial hardship. </jats:p