Rule 82 & Tort Reform: An Empirical Study of the Impact of Alaska’s English Rule on Federal Civil Case Filings

Alaska is the only American state that employs a variation of the “English Rule,” whereby the losing party in a civil case must pay the prevailing party’s attorneys’ fees. In recent years, advocates of tort reform have praised Alaska’s Civil Rule 82 as a model for tort reform to help rid the overburdened courts of low merit claims. But does Rule 82 really reduce meritless litigation? This study compares civil case filings in the District of Alaska to a sample of other comparable federal district courts. Although filings in the District of Alaska were lower than the national average, they were indistinguishable from the remainder of the sample. Other measures also failed to demonstrate any significant differences between civil cases in the District of Alaska and the other districts. These results suggest that reformers looking to reduce meritless litigation should look elsewhere for model reform measures

Reconstruction of manifolds in noncommutative geometry

We show that the algebra A of a commutative unital spectral triple (A,H,D) satisfying several additional conditions, slightly stronger than those proposed by Connes, is the algebra of smooth functions on a compact spin manifold.Comment: 67 pages, no figures, Latex; major changes, a new Appendix

Orbifolds are not commutative geometries

In this note we show that the crucial orientation condition for commutative geometries fails for the natural spectral triple of an orbifold M/G.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, no figure

The construction of sex and sexuality within clinicalpsychology training and practice

Background: Literature to date claims that sex and sexuality are a core aspect of individuals’ psychological wellbeing. Literature also claims that Clinical Psychologists are not engaging in talking about these issues in their practice or training. Sex and sexuality are complex topics and argued to be impacted by social, cultural, historical and political discourses. Looking at the discourses within the profession may provide helpful insight in understanding current practice. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate how sex and sexuality was constructed by clinical psychologist and trainees when discussing training and practice. Method: Semi-structured interviews were completed with 6 practicing CP’s and 4 trainees CP’s, 2 focus groups were also completed with trainees from 2 different universities. A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) approach was used to explore professional and trainee’s discourses around the topics of sex and sexuality. Results: Six discourses were identified during the analysis consisting of ‘Let’s not talk about sex’; ‘Dangerous for Clients, Professionals and Society’; ‘Social and Political Movements’ and ‘Culture and Contextual Discourses.’ Two counter discourses also emerged: ‘Let’s talk about sex’ and ‘Sex and Sexuality are Positive and Healthy’. Conclusions: Various wider discourses can be seen to be impacting on clinical psychologist’s decision making when talking about sex and sexuality within practice and training. Constructions of what is expected from clinical psychologists in the therapy room appear to be reinforced by dominant social, political and cultural discourses. Counter discourses were present; bringing these alternatives more into the forefront could be beneficial for clients

Summability for nonunital spectral triples

This paper examines the issue of summability for spectral triples for the class of nonunital algebras. For the case of (p, -) summability, we prove that the Dixmier trace can be used to define a (semifinite) trace on the algebra of the spectral triple. We show this trace is well-behaved, and provide a criteria for measurability of an operator in terms of zeta functions. We also show that all our hypotheses are satisfied by spectral triples arising from eodesically complete Riemannian manifolds. In addition, we indicate how the Local Index Theorem of Connes-Moscovici extends to our nonunital setting

A Thoughtful Approach to Public Education Reform

This article restates the underlying rationale for the importance of high-quality K-12 public education. The author describes some of the difficulties reformers encounter in engendering support for and determining the most cogent elements of reform. The differences between the aims and capabilities of school-business partnerships, which essentially assist the current system, and systemic reform, which aims to change the system, led to the formation of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. Rennie summarizes the process followed by MBAE in developing a framework for reform and meeting its objectives

Chern Numbers, Localisation and the Bulk-edge Correspondence for Continuous Models of Topological Phases

In order to study continuous models of disordered topological phases, we construct an unbounded Kasparov module and a semifinite spectral triple for the crossed product of a separable $C^*$-algebra by a twisted $\mathbb{R}^d$-action. The spectral triple allows us to employ the non-unital local index formula to obtain the higher Chern numbers in the continuous setting with complex observable algebra. In addition, the pairing can be extended to a larger algebra closely related to dynamical localisation, as in the tight-binding approximation. The Kasparov module allows us to exploit the Wiener-Hopf extension and the Kasparov product to obtain a bulk-boundary correspondence for continuous models of disordered topological phases.Comment: 46 pages. V2: results on localisation expanded and clarified. V3: Further revisions. V4: To appear in Mathematical Physics, Analysis and Geometr

Utilizing ERTS imagery to detect plant diseases and nutrient deficiencies, soil types and soil moisture levels

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS-1 imagery may be used to delineate soil associations. It does have the capacity to divide soils into groups such that their land use and management would be similar. It offers definite potential for making grass flood-plain, wetland, river shoreline, and land use change surveys. Production of volume strata and forest type from the two usable bands of ERTS-1 imagery were of questionable value. No imagery was received for evaluation during the time of year when maine dwarf mosaic virus and southern corn leaf blight were active

Utilizing ERTS imagery to detect plant diseases and nutrient deficiencies, soil types and soil moisture levels

There are no author-identified significant results in this report