Interlocutory Appeals in New York-Time Has Come for a More Efficient Approach

Currently, the appellate division must decide an enormous number of appeals every year.7 In light of this caseload crisis, New York must reevaluate its generous approach to interlocutory appeals.8 This Comment discusses how the appellate division can deal most efficiently with interlocutory appeals. Part II describes the history of interlocutory appeals in New York, since the creation of the appellate division. Part III explains how other jurisdictions treat interlocutory appeals. Part IV presents the current caseload crisis in the appellate division. Part V describes the controversy over unlimited interlocutory appealability. Part VI evaluates how New York can streamline its approach without sacrificing the appellate division\u27s ability to supervise the lower courts. Part VII suggests that a modified single justice approach is the fairest and most efficient solution. Part VIII concludes that the legislators must take measures to streamline New York\u27s approach to interlocutory appeals

Honey, I’ll Be Working Late Tonight. The Effect of Individual Work Routines on Leisure Time Synchronization of Couples

German time use data for 2001/02 are used to assess the impact of workplace characteristics on the private life of couples. The major aim is to solve the endogeneity resulting from individual preferences for work and leisure to identify the pure effects of the workplace independent from other diluting personal influences in a cross-sectional setting when no appropriate instruments are available. I propose a repeated random assignment of people into pseudo couples as a solution. By this approach, I am able to uncover additional marriage inherent mechanisms that result in a (de-)synchronization of joint time that are still family friendly.Time Use, Time Allocation, Family Economics, Flexibility, Synchronization, Leisure, Endogeneity

SIR - an Efficient Solver for Systems of Equations

The Semi-Implicit Root solver (SIR) is an iterative method for globally convergent solution of systems of nonlinear equations. Since publication, SIR has proven robustness for a great variety of problems. We here present MATLAB and MAPLE codes for SIR, that can be easily implemented in any application where linear or nonlinear systems of equations need be solved efficiently. The codes employ recently developed efficient sparse matrix algorithms and improved numerical differentiation. SIR convergence is quasi-monotonous and approaches second order in the proximity of the real roots. Global convergence is usually superior to that of Newtons method, being a special case of the method. Furthermore the algorithm cannot land on local minima, as may be the case for Newtons method with linesearch.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Free Will of an Ontologically Open Mind

The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for formal analysis. It is argued that the mind is an ontologically open system; a causal high-level system, the future of which cannot be reduced to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, not even if it is rendered physically closed. A positive answer to the question of free will is subsequently outlined

The unsolvability of the mind-body problem liberates the will

The mind-body problem is analyzed in a physicalist perspective. By combining the concepts of emergence and algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment employing a basic nonlinear process, it is argued that epistemically strongly emergent properties may develop in a physical system. A comparison with the significantly more complex neural network of the brain shows that also consciousness is epistemically emergent in a strong sense. Thus reductionist understanding of consciousness appears not possible; the mind-body problem does not have a reductionist solution. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness is then identified from a combinatorial analysis relating to system limits set by quantum mechanics, implying that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena. In the perspective of a modified definition of free will, the character of the physical interactions of the brain's neural system is subsequently studied. As an ontologically open system, it is asserted that its future states are undeterminable in principle. We argue that this leads to freedom of the will

On the Solvability of the Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is analyzed in a physicalist perspective. By combining the concepts of emergence and algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment employing a basic nonlinear process, it is shown that epistemically strongly emergent properties may develop in a physical system. Turning to the significantly more complex neural network of the brain it is subsequently argued that consciousness is epistemically emergent. Thus reductionist understanding of consciousness appears not possible; the mind-body problem does not have a reductionist solution. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness is then identified from a combinatorial analysis relating to universal limits set by quantum mechanics, implying that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena

A Time-spectral Approach to Numerical Weather Prediction

Finite difference methods are traditionally used for modelling the time domain in numerical weather prediction (NWP). Time-spectral solution is an attractive alternative for reasons of accuracy and efficiency and because time step limitations associated with causal, CFL-like critera are avoided. In this work, the Lorenz 1984 chaotic equations are solved using the time-spectral algorithm GWRM. Comparisons of accuracy and efficiency are carried out for both explicit and implicit time-stepping algorithms. It is found that the efficiency of the GWRM compares well with these methods, in particular at high accuracy. For perturbative scenarios, the GWRM was found to be as much as four times faster than the finite difference methods. A primary reason is that the GWRM time intervals typically are two orders of magnitude larger than those of the finite difference methods. The GWRM has the additional advantage to produce analytical solutions in the form of Chebyshev series expansions. The results are encouraging for pursuing further studies, including spatial dependence, of the relevance of time-spectral methods for NWP modelling

Guest Editorial: Ethics and Privacy in Learning Analytics

The European Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project is responsible for an ongoing series of workshops on ethics and privacy in learning analytics (EP4LA), which have been responsible for driving and transforming activity in these areas. Some of this activity has been brought together with other work in the papers that make up this special issue. These papers cover the creation and development of ethical frameworks, as well as tools and approaches that can be used to address issues of ethics and privacy. This editorial suggests that it is worth taking time to consider the often intertangled issues of ethics, data protection and privacy separately. The challenges mentioned within the special issue are summarised in a table of 22 challenges that are used to identify the values that underpin work in this area. Nine ethical goals are suggested as the editors’ interpretation of the unstated values that lie behind the challenges raised in this paper

Kosten von Konjunkturzyklen

Anfang Februar billigte der amerikanische Kongress ein rund 150 Mrd. US-Dollar teures Konjunkturprogramm, um eine in Folge der US-Hypothekenkrise drohende Rezession abzuwenden. In Deutschland sind die Forderungen nach einem Konjunkturprogramm noch verhalten, und führende Ökonomen warnen ausdrücklich vor übereiltem Aktionismus. Bevor man diskutiert, ob es wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahmen und Instrumente gibt, die dazu geeignet sind, Konjunkturzyklen zu glätten, muss man sich die Frage stellen, ob sich eine solche Anstrengung überhaupt lohnt. Was sind die Kosten der Konjunkturzyklen, die durch eine geeignete Wirtschaftspolitik vermieden werden können

A credit-banking explanation of the equity premium, term premium, and risk-free rate puzzles

Micro-founded de-centralized financial intermediation in a cash and costly-credit model(see Gillman and Kejak, 2008) results in a cost-distortion of returns implying a lower average nominal and real risk-free rate when compared to standard cash-in-advance RBC models. Failure of both short-run and long-run Fisher equation relationships based on observable real and nominal rates and inflation are obtained. The cost-distortion also leads to an unconditionally upward-sloping average yield curve of interest rates which is also convex in shape. The model is capable of producing a positive correlation between the nominal rate and velocity, and a negative correlation between the ex-post real rate and inflation. More importantly, the model also predicts a negative correlation between the ex-ante real rate and the ex-ante expected rate of inflation. Finally, the conditional spread between the usual CCAPM rate as defined by Canzoneri and Diba (2005) and the model-implied money market rate is positively correlated with the stance of monetary policy, offering a new perspective on this systematic link recently studied empirically by Canzoneri et al. (2007a) and theoretically by Canzoneri and Diba (2005)