Empirical Evidence of Population Concentration in Spain, 1900-2001

It is now widely accepted that judicial decision making is not a neutral exercise in interpretation of established law and consequently decisions, particularly in novel areas, should take account of policy considerations. In this article I use the example of litigation over the patentability of business method to problematize this line of reasoning. Sound policy typically turns on empirical evidence and while there is a significant body of research on the question of whether business method patents promote innovation, such evidence has been introduced only indirectly, though academic articles. This does not allow adequate examination of the reliability of the evidence. Introducing empirical social science evidence directly in litigation faces a number of hurdles which are discussed. Ultimately I argue that it is beyond the institutional competence of the courts to adequately take account of empirical social science evidence on the issue of whether business method patents are good for innovation. While the details of the arguments are specific to the context of business method patents, I suggest that the issue of institutional competence should always be taken into account when considering whether empirical social science evidence should drive judicial decision making.

Constitutional criminal procedure decisions are often characterized today by pseudo-empirical statements about the importance of law enforcement and the sanctity of individual liberty. Without seriously taking account of empirical research, the Supreme Court strikes down rules of criminal procedure because they "fail to protect privacy...and impede effective law enforcement." The Court upholds other rules, again without really assessing the empirical evidence, because they embody a "carefully crafted balance designed to fully protect both the defendant's and society's interests." As we all recognize, these are purely rhetorical statements intended to render authoritative the Court's decisions. In this respect, the 1999 Term was business as usual. Without so much as discussing or even citing in a footnote the considerable research that had been conducted on police custodial interrogation in the 1990s, the Chief Justice, writing for a seven-member majority in Dickerson v. United States, concluded that there was no adequate justification for overruling the requirement of Miranda warnings. Writing for the Court in Wardlow as well, the Chief Justice acknowledged the empirical nature of the question - whether flight from a police officer amounted to reasonable suspicion - but stated that there were "no available empirical studies dealing with inferences drawn from suspicious behavior" and, therefore, that the Court had to rely on its own "commonsense judgements about human behavior." These types of assertions, we argue, are not self-evident or common sense. They are contested empirical claims that are hotly debated in legal and social scientific circles. And, we suggest, there are data and studies that discuss these empirical issues. Though we have differences of opinion as to the outcome in some of these cases, and though we have sharply disagreed in the past about the soundness of other criminal procedure decisions, in this Foreword we put aside our differences and link arms to call for a new generation of criminal procedure jurisprudence, one that places empirical and social scientific evidence at the very heart of constitutional adjudication. We are calling for a mode of judicial decision-making and academic debate that treats social scientific and empirical assessment as a crucial element in constitutional decision-making, thereby making criminal procedure decisions more transparent. By more transparent, we mean to describe adjudication that expressly articulates the grounds for factual assertions and, as a result, more clearly reflects the interpretive choices involved in criminal procedure decision-making. We are not so naive or idealistic as to think that increased attention to empirical evidence will guarantee right answers in criminal procedure cases. But use of empirical evidence will produce a clearer picture of the existing constitutional landscape and spotlight the normative judgments at the heart of criminal procedure cases.

This paper presents preliminary empirical and physical evidence that oil and gas field sizes are fractally distributed. Further, the paper shows that this evidence predicts a fractal dimension greater than 1.0, which implies that larger quantities of hydrocarbons exist in smaller fields than in larger fields. If this hypothesis is true more hydrocarbons remain undiscovered in smaller fields than have been discovered to date, even in mature areas. If the hypothesis is false, the outlook for mature areas in not nearly so optimistic. The paper also presents a list of "key questions" that should be answered before one could be certain of a fractal distribution of reserves, and it gives a reliable estimate of the distribution's dimension.

ive knowledge of non-existents. Boehner's problem therefore does not arise. It still remains that there is no immediate evidence of the supernatural causation of assent to a proposition about non-existents. But with the evaporation of Boehner's problem we might argue that we have indirect evidence of it. Our understanding the meaning of propositions about non-existents makes us realize what sort of knowledge we assent to. But could our knowing that we assent to an intuitive knowledge of non-existents count as indirect evidence of a supernatural causation of our assent? In a way yes, although the semantic reason for knowing that we assent to intuitive knowledge is indifferent to whether it concerns existent or non-existent things. Semantic competence is the clue to decide whether some name or term stands (in personal supposition) for a thing in the external world or not. We know e.g., that 'star' stands for a thing in the sky. We further know that there must be empirical evidence of it to make an affirmative proposition, with 'star' as its subject, true. If there is no empirical evidence, the proposition is false and the negation of the proposition true. Semantic competence tells us that propositions containing absolute names can be empirically tested. This implies that we can state the lack of empirical evidence. We do this e.g., by negation of the false proposition 'the star exists.' The truth of the 44WILHELM VOSSENKUHL proposition 'the star does not exist' implies that there is no empirical evidence of the star. We can say that the lack of empirical evidence is a semantic or logical reason to assent to that negative existential proposition. For Ockham—we may argue—the lack of empirical evidence counts as indirect evidence of a supernatural cause of our assent to the negative existential proposition. All evidence has to be empirical evidence. Ockham does not compromise. The lack of empirical facts cannot be balanced by semantic or logical facts. Where we have a semantic reason to expect empirical evidence, the lack of empirical evidence cannot be compensated naturally. But the semantic reason to expect empirical evidence warrants that it is possible to find such evidence even if it is not available at present. It is correspondingly impossible that such evidence of an existential proposition is unattainable. Therefore it is perfectly consistent to conserve intuitive knowledge of that existential proposition. But we are not prepared to do so on our own because we cannot conserve empirical evidence beyond the actual presence of a thing. Nevertheless we do have, as Ockham claims, intuitive knowledge of a thing which is not present. This epistemic fact together with both the semantic reason for empirical evidence and our inability to conserve it may count as indirect evidence of a supernatural cause for the conservation of intuitive knowledge. Finally what may count as indirect evidence for the supernatural conservation of intuitive knowledge may as well count as indirect evidence for the supernatural causation of an assent to a negative existential proposition. From a contemporary perspective Ockham seems to make too much fuss about the conservation and endurance of intuitive knowledge. We have learned to handle with ease negative existential propositions. We analyse these propositions using the negative existential quantifier. We can do this e.g., with propositions like 'the unicorn does not exist' or 'the star does not exist.' There is a common form of all these propositions: ~ 3? (? is a · ? exists) Ockham might well agree with this analysis. But he would probably ask how we proceed from this analysis to the empirical possibility of the star as against the empirical impossibility of the unicorn. He would not agree with our separation between logical and semantical Ockham on the Cognition of ???-Existents45 analysis on the one hand and empirical analysis on the other. His theory of supposition does not allow of treating absolute names like 'star' in a purely abstract way or in the same way as 'unicorn.' He is therefore bound to cope with the problem of distinguishing empirically relevant from empirically irrelevant negative existential propositions. Empirical relevance is of course not to be gathered from the form of negative existential propositions. Without a qualification of the cognitive process related to such propositions it seems impossible to state their empirical relevance. This is true for Ockham as it is today. He qualified the cognitive process presupposed in empirically relevant negative existential propositions in his argument. It still seems most extravagant to resort to a supernatural cause of the assent to such propositons. But within his nominalist framework of thought he couldn't find a better way to keep up his rigid standard of empirical evidence and intuitive knowledge. UniversitatBayreuthWilhelm Vossenkuhl Bayreuth, Germany

The weight of evidence

Should borderline personality disorder be included in the fourth edition of the Chinese classification of mental disorders?

Comment

In recent studies, researchers agree that there is a substantial gap between research and practice in the field of human resource management (HRM). The literature exploring the causes and consequences of this gap does not represent a finely structured discourse; it has focused on analysing the gap from the practitioner side, and it is based on opinions and theoretical discussions rather than on empirical evidence. In this paper, we try to shed some light on this so-called “valley of death”. We attempt to identify the causes underlying the disconnect between academics and professionals in our field by drawing on empirical qualitative evidence obtained from interviews with 15 expert academics in the field of HRM. Thus, the approach presented in our work differs from that of the prior literature in that it is focused not on the opinions of individual authors but on the personal experiences of a larger expert sample composed of independent, experienced scholars in the area. Based on in-depth semi-structured interviews, we analyse the factors explaining why academics are not always willing to focus their research on professional needs or orientate their research outputs to the practitioner community.

Empirically based social policy for children, youths, and families is an oft-heralded but elusive goal in the social sciences. In many substantive areas, policy is based on short-term behavioral, social, and economic trends or events rather than on empirical evidence about the onset, causes, or efficacious interventions associated with particular problems. In some cases, this pattern has led to ill-conceived and fragmented policy approaches that produce deleterious and unintended consequences for children, youths, and families (Jenson & Fraser, 2006). Many scholars recognize that stronger links between researchers and advocates are necessary to develop empirically based social policy (for example, Aber, Bishop-Josef, Jones, McLearn, & Phillips, 2006). Unfortunately, empirical evidence is often not conveyed systematically by many policy advocacy experts. In some settings, this may occur because evidence simply fails to reach advocacy groups who are in a position to influence social policy. In other instances, the failure to communicate research findings to policy advocates may be attributed to a disinterest on the part of investigators. Finally, empirical evidence that is disseminated for use by advocacy groups is frequently conveyed in a manner that makes little sense to public officials. Similarly, the application of research findings to social policy directives has also been hindered by a lack of conceptual frameworks to aid investigators and policymakers in translating empirical evidence into information that is useful in policy debates. Succinct and coherent conceptual models are needed to convey research findings to elected officials in a manner that is easy to understand and digest. One emergent model that may be effective in translating empirical evidence to social policy decisions affecting children, youths, and families is the risk and resilience framework. SOCIAL POLICY FROM A RISK AND RESILIENCE PERSPECTIVE The risk and resilience framework emerged in the mid-1980s as an effective way to understand and prevent childhood and youth problems such as school failure, delinquency, and substance abuse (Hawkins, Jenson, Catalano, & Lishner, 1988). A guiding principle of the risk and resilience model is that empirical evidence--generally identified as correlates of particular problem behaviors--is used to inform the design and selection of social interventions aimed at these problems (Fraser, 2004).The origins of the risk and resilience model can be traced to public health efforts to reduce heart disease and other adverse conditions. In the 1970s, health officials launched a massive public campaign to reduce the risks associated with the onset of heart disease. Subsequently, risk factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor dietary practices became intervention targets in a sustained effort to reduce the incidence of heart disease in the country. In time, health advocacy groups began to use the concept of risk effectively in public announcements and in policy directives aimed at elected officials. Lessons gained from such applications in public health spread quickly to social work, psychology, and other disciplines. By the 1990s, a series of investigations revealed a common set of risk factors for problems such as substance abuse, delinquency, and violence (for example, Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Jenson & Howard, 1999). In recent years the approach has been expanded to include the positive influence of protective factors--characteristics that reduce or buffer exposure to risk--on child and youth behavior (Fraser, Richman, & Galinsky, 1999; Rutter, 2001). Resilience, characterized as one's ability to thrive in the face of overwhelming adversity, has also been acknowledged as an important component of risk-based models (Luthar, 2003). Knowledge of risk, protection, and resilience has been used to inform curriculum content and intervention strategies aimed at preventing and treating a range of childhood and adolescent problem behaviors (Hawkins, 2006; Jenson, 2006). …

BackgroundThe introduction of health insurance in Ghana in 2003 has resulted in a tremendous increase in utilization of health services. However, concerns are being raised about the quality of patient care. Some of the concerns include long waiting times, verbal abuse of patients by health care providers, inadequate physical examination by doctors and discrimination of insured patients. The study compares perceptions of quality of care between insured and uninsured out-patients in selected hospitals in Ghana to determine whether there is any unequal treatment between insured and uninsured patients in terms of quality of care, as empirical and anecdotal evidence seem to suggest.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of 818 out-patients was conducted in 17 general hospitals from three regions of Ghana. These are the Upper East, Brong Ahafo and Central Regions. Convenience sampling was employed to select the patients in exit interviews. Descriptive statistics, including frequency distributions, means and standard deviations, were used to describe socio-economic and demographic characteristics of respondents. Factor analysis was used to determine distinct quality of care constructs; t-test statistic was used to test for differences in quality perceptions between the insured and uninsured patients; and regression analysis was used to test the association between health insurance and quality of care.ResultsOverall, there was no significant difference in perceptions of quality between insured and uninsured patients. However, there was a significant difference between insured and uninsured patients in respect of financial access to care. The major quality of care concern affecting all patients was the problem of inadequate resources, especially lack of doctors, lack of drugs and other basic supplies and equipment to work with.ConclusionsIt was concluded that generally, insured and uninsured patients are not treated unequally, contrary to prevailing anecdotal and empirical evidence. On the contrary, quality of care is a concern of both insured and uninsured patients.

The federal government of the USA asserts that its national drug policy is based on empirical and scientific evidence rather than ideology. However, the recently published ‘War on Drugs’ (2011) report declared that the global war on drugs has failed, producing devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Accordingly, this paper focuses on a number of key positions that are embedded in the US drug policy and seeks to reconcile these with the empirical evidence that exists; such as it is. In the absence of supporting empirical evidence to underpin a policy goal, one must logically consider that there are alternative, hidden drivers and the authors can detect (at least) three such drivers of US drug policy. The first of these is the influence of religion; US drug policy is influenced by a Puritanical legacy. The second is that of societal views of drugs and drug users per se and how such views invariably associate certain drugs with specific ethnic minority groups. The third is th...

A major objection to the study of virtue asserts that the empirical psychological evidence implies traits have little meaningful impact on behavior, as slight changes in situational characteristics appear to lead to large changes in virtuous behavior. We argue in response that the critical evidence is not these effects of situations observed in social psychological experiments, but evidence of stable individual differences obtained from correlations of individual’s behaviors across multiple contexts. The totality of the empirical evidence is shown to support this claim: broad traits are real, prominent, and consequential, and these traits, conceptualized as density distributions of personality states, exhibit remarkable consistency. In short, the evidence in favor of individual differences is empirically solid, and the study of ethics focused on virtue is not threatened by psychological research.

The establishment of green finance reform and innovation pilot zone (GFRIPZ) is a pivotal strategy for harmonizing the twin goals of economic prosperity and environmental preservation. By applying panel data on Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2022, this study examines the influence of China's green finance pilot policy on corporate environmental social responsibility (ESR) using a difference-in-differences (DID) model. The study's findings indicate that the green finance pilot policy promotes corporate environmental social responsibility. The results remain robust after a series of robustness tests. Moreover, mechanism analysis reveals that the pilot policy promotes firms' ESR through three key channels: financing constraints, green innovation, and corporate governance mechanisms. Additionally, analyst attention can positively moderate the promotional effect of the green finance pilot policy on corporate ESR. Furthermore, this study reveals that the green finance pilot policy's impact on corporate ESR is more pronounced among large-scale firms and firms operating in regions characterized by stringent environmental regulations and greater marketization. The empirical findings present evidence for enhancing ESR through the implementation of the green finance pilot policy in China and offer insights for refining the green finance system.

This Paper reviews the relationship between natural resource dependence and economic growth, and stresses how natural capital intensity tends to crowd out foreign capital, social capital, human capital, physical capital, and financial capital, thereby impeding economic growth across countries. Specifically, the Paper presents empirical cross-country evidence to the effect that nations that depend heavily on their natural resources tend to have (a) less trade and foreign investment, (b) more corruption, (c) less equality, (d) less political liberty, (e) less education, (f) less domestic investment, and (g) less financial depth than other nations that are less well endowed with, or less dependent on, natural resources. This matters for long-run growth because empirical evidence also suggests that trade, honesty, equality, liberty, education, investment, and financial maturity are all positively and significantly related to economic growth across countries. Before concluding, the Paper briefly compares and contrasts the experience of the OPEC countries with that of Norway, a singularly successful oil producer.

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Contribution:</i> A systematic literature review on the empirical evidence regarding the usage of programming languages for learning purposes is presented. The review analyzes different methods and tools at different educational levels and with different objectives. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</i> Learning programming has gained relevance in the last decade. This is due to the massive presence of programmable elements ranging from computers to toys. Because of this, the interest of researchers on this topic has increased. Questions, such as what to use, in what educational stages to use it, the effectiveness of the method, and the focal objectives for learning programming are questions that do not have obvious answers. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research Questions:</i> 1) What empirical evidence exists on the use of educational programming languages (EPLs)? 2) In what context is the research performed? 3) How is effectiveness reported in the literature after applying EPLs? 4) What pedagogical goals are achieved by using EPLs? <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</i> Following a formal protocol, automated searches were performed for primary studies from 2007 to 2018. A total of 62 studies were identified, of which 29 were selected and analyzed since they include some type of empirical evidence. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Findings:</i> After performing the evaluation, the results support the need for better approaches with empirical evidence when reporting research on the usage of EPLs. Some research opportunities are identified which concerns the used programming languages, the areas or stages of their application, or the need to have more empirical evidence in general and more studies in non-WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) contexts.