Independent Claims Research Articles

Dummett and Frege on sense and Selbständigkeit

ABSTRACTAs part of his attack on Frege’s ‘myth’ that senses reside in the third realm, Dummett alleges that Frege’s view that all objects are selbständig (‘self-subsistent’, ‘independent’) is an underlying mistake, since some objects depend upon others. Whatever the merits of Dummett’s other arguments against Frege’s conception of sense, this objection fails. First, Frege’s view that senses are third-realm entities is not traceable to his view that all objects are selbständig. Second, while Frege recognizes that there are objects that are dependent upon other objects, he does not take this to compromise the Selbständigkeit of any objects. Thus, Frege’s doctrine that objects are selbständig does not make the claim of absolute independence that Dummett appears to have taken it to make. Nevertheless, in order to make a good case against Frege based on the dependency of senses, Dummett need only establish his claim that senses depend upon expressions: appeal to an absolute conception of independence is unnecessary. However, Dummett’s arguments for the dependency of senses upon expressions are unsuccessful and they show that Dummett’s conception of what it is to be an expression also differs significantly from Frege’s.

Patent Claims and Patent Scope

Patent scope is one of the important aspects in the debates over “patent quality.” The purported decrease in patent quality over the past decade or two has supposedly led to granting patents of increased breadth (or “overly broad” patents), decreased clarity, and questionable validity. Such patents allegedly diminish the incentives for innovation due to increased licensing and litigation costs. However, these debates often occur without well-defined measurements of patent scope. This paper explores two very simple metrics for measuring patent scope based on claim language: independent claim length and independent claim count. We validate these measures by showing that they have explanatory power for several correlates of patent scope used in the literature: patent maintenance payments, forward citations, the breadth of patent classes, and novelty. Using these data, we provide the first large-scale analysis of patent scope changes during the examination process. Our results show that narrower claims at publication are associated with a higher probability of grant and a shorter examination process than broader claims. Further, we find that the examination process tends to narrow the scope of patent claims in terms of both claim length and claim count, and that the changes are more significant when the duration of examination is longer.

On the Evaluation of Some Multivariate Compound Distributions with Sarmanov's Counting Distribution

In this paper, we consider Sarmanov's multivariate discrete distribution as counting distribution in two multivariate compound models: the First model assumes different types of independent claim sizes (corresponding to, e.g., different types of insurance policies), while in the second model, we introduce some dependency between the claims (motivated by the events that can simultaneously affect several types of policies). Since Sarmanov's distribution can join different types of marginals, we also assume that these marginals belong to Panjer's class of distributions and discuss the evaluation of the resulting compound distribution based on recursions. Alternatively, the evaluation of the same distribution using the Fast Fourier Transform method is also presented, with the purpose to significantly reduce the computing time, especially in the dependency case. Both methods are numerically illustrated and compared from the point of view of speed and accuracy.

Sufficient conditions for ordering aggregate heterogeneous random claim amounts

This note has a revisit to stochastic comparison on aggregate claim amounts. We develop sufficient conditions for the usual stochastic order on aggregate claim amounts of independent claim sizes and with a common occurrence frequency vector. Besides, we obtain the usual stochastic order on aggregate claim amounts with a common WSAI claim size vector, and this also improves Theorem 4.6 of Zhang and Zhao (2015).

Subjunctive and subject pronoun realization: a study of "no creo que"

Subjunctive mood in complement clauses is licensed under selection from certain predicates or under the scope of a modal or negation. In contexts where mood choice varies, such as the complement of a negated epistemic verb no creer, it introduces a contrast in interpretation. The subjunctive is thought to contribute to a shift in the modal anchoring of the embedded clause, and is consequently interpreted as indicative of a dissociation between the epistemic models of the speaker and the subject. We provide evidence that these uses also interact with pragmatic context. Given independent claims that 1) the overt realization of first person subject pronouns is contrastive and 2) it generally serves to anchor discourse to the speaker’s perspective and 3) overt use is particularly frequent with epistemic verbs, we examined the interaction between negation, first person subject pronoun realization, and mood of the dependent clause for the verb creer. An analysis of oral speech from the Proyecto de Habla Culta revealed that for negative sentences (no creo que), yo is overtly realized more frequently for cases with exceptional indicative dependents than for those with canonical subjunctive dependents; there was no association with mood for affirmative uses of creer. These results support analyses where negation has specific scope over the contrastive subject, rather than over the epistemic clause. As a consequence, the matrix proposition remains an assertion and use of indicative complements is licensed.

Applications of central limit theorems for equity-linked insurance

In both the past literature and industrial practice, it was often implicitly used without any justification that the classical strong law of large numbers applies to the modeling of equity-linked insurance. However, as all policyholders’ benefits are linked to common equity indices or funds, the classical assumption of independent claims is clearly inappropriate for equity-linked insurance. In other words, the strong law of large numbers fails to apply in the classical sense. In this paper, we investigate this fundamental question regarding the validity of strong laws of large numbers for equity-linked insurance. As a result, extensions of classical laws of large numbers and central limit theorem are presented, which are shown to apply to a great variety of equity-linked insurance products.

De Facto States and Democracy: The Case of Abkhazia

Abstract De-facto states constitute an interesting and important anomaly in the international system of sovereign states. No matter how successful and efficient in the administration of their territories they are, they fail to achieve international recognition. In the past, their claims for independence were based primarily on the right to national self-determination, historical continuity and claim for a remedial right to secession, based on alleged human-rights violations. Since 2005, official representatives of several de facto states have repeatedly emphasised the importance of democracy promotion in their political entities. A possible explanation of this phenomenon dwells in the belief that those states which have demonstrated their economic viability and promote the organization of a democratic state should gain their sovereignty. This article demonstrates the so called “democracy-for-recognition strategy” in the case study of Abkhazia. On the basis of the field research in Abkhazia we identify factors that promote, as well as those that obstruct the democratisation process in the country.

Rates and costs of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia in persons with underlying medical conditions.

BackgroundThe presence of certain underlying medical conditions is known to increase the risk of pneumococcal disease in persons of all ages and across a wide spectrum of conditions, as demonstrated in two recent evaluations. Corresponding estimates of attributable economic costs have not been well characterized. We thus undertook a retrospective evaluation to estimate rates and costs of pneumococcal disease among children and adults with and without underlying medical conditions in the United States.MethodsData were obtained from three independent healthcare claims repositories. The study population included all persons enrolled in participating health plans during 2007–2010, and was stratified into subgroups based on age and risk profile: healthy; at-risk, due to selected comorbid conditions; and high-risk, due to selected immunocompromising conditions. At-risk and high-risk conditions, as well as episodes of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and all-cause pneumonia (PNE), were identified via diagnosis, procedure, and drug codes. Rates and healthcare costs of IPD and PNE (2010US$) among at-risk and high-risk persons were compared with those from age-stratified healthy counterparts using incidence rate ratios (IRR) and cost ratios.ResultsRates of IPD and PNE were consistently higher among at-risk persons (IRR = 4.1 [95 % CI 3.9–4.3] and 4.5 [4.49–4.53]) and high-risk persons (IRR = 10.3 [9.7–11.0] and 8.2 [8.2–8.3]) of all ages versus their healthy counterparts. Rates were notably high for at-risk persons with ≥2 conditions (IRR = 9.0 [8.4–9.7] and 10.3 [10.3–10.4]), as well as those with asthma (IRR = 3.4 [3.0–3.8] and 4.5 [4.47–4.53]) or diabetes (IRR = 4.3 [4.0–4.6] and 4.7 [4.6–4.7]). Healthcare costs totaled $21.7 million per 100,000 at-risk person-years and $58.5 million per 100,000 high-risk person-years, which were 8.7 [8.5–8.8] and 23.4 [22.9–23.8] times higher than corresponding costs for healthy persons.ConclusionsRates and costs of IPD and PNE are substantially higher among persons with certain chronic and immunocompromising conditions versus those without any such conditions. Rates and costs for persons with asthma and diabetes were especially increased, and rates and costs for individuals with ≥2 at-risk conditions approached those among persons with high-risk conditions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1432-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Patent Quality and Examination in Europe

This paper reports on effects of recent administrative reforms at the European Patent Office (EPO). In EPO-granted patents, claims numbers started to decline in 2008 when new claims fees became effective, claims sections in patents became shorter, and independent claims longer and presumably more specific. The grant rate remained at relatively low levels, but the EPO was unable to stem the use of divisional filings. The developments at the EPO point to a high private value of delay options. Delay may be achieved either by making use of explicit statutory rules or by other means, such as filing divisional applications.

Uniformly asymptotic behavior for the tail probability of discounted aggregate claims in the time-dependent risk model with upper tail asymptotically independent claims

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we consider the tail behavior of discounted aggregate claims in a dependent risk model with constant interest force, in which the claim sizes are of upper tail asymptotic independence structure, and the claim size and its corresponding inter-claim time satisfy a certain dependence structure described by a conditional tail probability of the claim size given the inter-claim time before the claim occurs. For the case that the claim size distribution belongs to the intersection of long-tailed distribution class and dominant variation class, we obtain an asymptotic formula, which holds uniformly for all times in a finite interval. Moreover, we prove that if the claim size distribution belongs to the consistent variation class, the formula holds uniformly for all times in an infinite interval.

After the Referendum: “Rule, Britannia” or “Scotland the Brave”?

The article analyzes referendum on independence of Scotland in the context of democratic approach to claims for independence of different regions in Europe.

Likelihood ratio and dispersive orders for smallest order statistics and smallest claim amounts from heterogeneous Weibull sample

In this paper, we discuss likelihood ratio order between the smallest claim amounts from two sets of independent heterogeneous Weibull claims. We also establish dispersive order between the smallest order statistics from two independent heterogeneous Weibull samples. The results established here complete and extend the results of Li and Li (2014).

(Re)framing the ‘Kurdish Issue’ Through the 2014 Scottish Referendum: Reflections on Turkish Newspapers

This paper lays out competing knowledge and opinion on the 2014 Scottish Referendum in Turkish mainstream newspapers. It investigates how allegedly pro-government (Akşam, Sabah, Milliyet) and opposition (Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Zaman) newspapers deliberated, reconstructed and reframed Turkey's key ‘internal others’ – Kurdish people – through the prism of the Scottish referendum. An open-coded review of 39 opinion columns written before and after the Scottish referendum reveals two main discussion points: (1) Turkey's conceptualisation of the Scottish referendum and (2) the (in)comparability of the Kurdish and Scottish cases. The concepts used by Turkish elites in their understandings of Kurds are used in the ‘negative’ reframing of the Scottish referendum by Turkish columnists. This negativity is historically rooted in concerns and fears about Kurdish claims for independence, allegedly supported by ‘foreign’ forces to dismantle the unity of the nation-state. The paper argues that columnists’ debates around the Scottish referendum feed from the longevity of statist discourses, which deny, ‘problematise’ and fear the Kurdish issue.

A trilogy of trepidation: Diverse perspectives on police violence targeting African American males

ABSTRACT“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are supposedly “certain inalienable rights” that the Declaration of Independence claims have been gifted to all human beings by their Creator, and for which the U.S. government was created to protect. The issue of violence and brutality against African American males along with the police shooting of unarmed African American males has become a reality of the denial of these rights for some in America. Recent police shooting incidents of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, in addition to the brutal murder by police of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, have sparked riots, looting, protests, “die-ins,” and national conversations. The subsequent civil unrest across the United States and abroad has attracted widespread public attention. In this article, three authors respond by providing a timely trilogy of uniquely diverse perspectives and viewpoints on these issues giving particular attention to (1) the view from a historical lens and Black Power political framework producing an analysis of the causative factors promoting and sustaining violence against African American males, (2) an examination of criminal justice law, and (3) a look at our way forward.

‘Ireland’s sister nations’: internationalism and sectarianism in the Irish struggle for independence, 1916–22

AbstractFollowing the First World War, nationalists in several parts of the British empire amplified their calls for greater self-government. Activists in Egypt, India, and Ireland portrayed themselves as representatives of movements for national self-determination. Their opponents countered that religious divisions undermined these groups’ claims to nationhood, making the presence of an outside power necessary to protect minorities. Activists formed networks and positioned themselves as parts of a worldwide anti-imperialist movement. Their opponents used these ties in attempts to portray separatist movements as foreign-inspired and socialist. Irish republicans and their global counterparts also struggled with accusations of sectarianism as they advanced their independence claims. This article examines Irish republicans’ connections with international revolutionaries. The confluence of political and religious identities there and in other parts of the British empire provided a pretext for continued imperial engagement. Partition forced nationalists to adjust to new geographic and demographic realities in their post-independence states.

Going it Alone? The Choice of Political Union in British Politics

AbstractThis article explores the inter‐related debates over Britain's relationship with the EU and that over the future of the UK. It argues that euroscepticism and Scottish independence are based on exceptionalist identities that now revolve around economic policy. Elite euroscepticism cleaves to a neoliberal vision of minimalist regulation, while advocates of Scottish independence claim Westminster's austerity policies make the British Union incompatible with social democracy. However, this presentation of the choice facing British voters ignores the serious contradictions that overhauling the current order entails. Both forms of exceptionalism fail to recognize the significant limitations of self‐government outside and within the EU. If Conservatives can contain their neoliberal flirtation with EU withdrawal they are very well placed to prosper electorally. The dilemma of which union(s) to choose might thus constitute the prelude to the entrenchment of the economic and political order that gave rise to such contestation in the first place.

Mandelbrot Market-Model and Momentum

Mandelbrot has significantly contributed in many ways to the area of finance. He was one of the first who criticized the oversimplifications centered around the early stochastic process models of Bachelier utilizing normal distribution. In his view, markets were fractal and much wilder than classical theory suggests. Additionally, he was a profound critic of the efficient markets hypothesis. Particularly, his work of fractional Brownian motion showed that the independence claim made by that hypothesis is not valid; in addition, he proposed a multi-fractal asset model to reconcile for effects observed in the market. However, it is also known that his vision of fractal markets used fractal trends. Recently, we were able to show that the scaling behaviour of trends, as defined by a specific trend decomposition using wavelets, are the root cause for the momentum effect. Additionally, we were able to show that these trends have fractal characteristics. In this work, we will revisit Mandelbrot’s vision of fractal markets. We will show that the momentum effect discussed heavily in literature can be modeled by the so-called Mandelbrot Market-Model. Additionally, this model shows, from the risk side, that markets are wilder because of trend structures compared with classical models. In conclusion, we derive what Mandelbrot always knew: There are no efficient markets.

The Sufi Doctrine of Man: Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī’s Metaphysical AnthropologyBy Richard Todd

Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 1274) has long been recognized as the ‘foremost disciple’ (p. 1, partially citing the title of an article by William Chittick) of the ‘Great Shaykh’ ( al-shaykh al-akbar ) Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), whom some sources actually report to have been al-Qūnawī’s stepfather. Despite al-Qūnawī’s formative role in the emergence of the so-called ‘Akbarian’ tradition of speculative Sufism, his works and thought have received relatively scant attention to date. Richard Todd’s monograph, partly based on unpublished manuscript sources, makes a highly welcome contribution towards filling this gap and considerably enriches our understanding of Islamic intellectual history during the Middle Period. Todd’s monograph is divided into two parts. Part One, titled ‘Qūnawī’s Life and Work’, opens with a chapter on al-Qūnawī’s biography and a helpful description of his main works. Todd then attempts a summary delineation of his author’s relationship to earlier thinkers and schools of thought. With regard to Ibn ʿArabī, he observes that al-Qūnawī does not merely style himself as elucidating the writings and teachings of his master but stakes out an independent claim to mystical inspirations (p. 45, cf. pp. 29f. and p. 42). While al-Qūnawī shares Ibn ʿArabī’s view of ‘existence envisaged as continual theophany’ and employs other signature Akbarian concepts and ideas, Todd emphasizes that his works also contain ideas which are novel or only marginally present in the writings of Ibn ʿArabī (p. 46), such as the theory that ‘determination’ ( taʿayyun ) must be ontologically preceded by ‘non-determination’ (cf. pp. 83–6). Todd accepts that al-Qūnawī’s writings display a more systematic quality than those of Ibn ʿArabī and that he is familiar with Peripatetic concepts and ideas (pp. 49f.), the use of which is duly noted at several junctures throughout the monograph (e.g., p. 55 or pp. 77f.). Nevertheless, Todd is sceptical about the characterization of al-Qūnawī as more ‘rationalistic’ than his teacher and underscores that, like Ibn ʿArabī, al-Qūnawī is ‘at pains to point out the limitations of syllogistic reasoning’ (p. 50; cf. also p. 73 and p. 177). In passing, it may be remarked that Todd’s discussion of al-Qūnawī’s ‘critique of rational inquiry’ (pp. 51–5) might usefully have explored the extent to which the latter’s stance is not only indebted to his teacher Ibn ʿArabī but also continues an attitude to Peripatetic philosophy previously articulated by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191). Particularly reminiscent of the latter is al-Qūnawī’s appeal to the ‘ancient sages’ ( al-ḥukamāʾ al-awāʾil ) and to the ‘divine Plato’ (p. 54 and pp. 61f.) as embodying a venerable philosophical alternative to the Peripatetic tradition. 1

Arbitration in EU Jurisdiction Regulation: Brussels I Recast and a New Proposal

The relationship between the European jurisdiction regime and arbitration is one of the areas generating confusion and disputes. The Brussels I Regulation clearly excludes arbitration from its scope to avoid conflicts with the New York Convention, but arbitration-related issues, such as the validity of arbitration agreements, either as an independent claim or an incidental question, frequently arise in courts. The scope of the Brussels I Regulation in terms of arbitration has been addressed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in a number of decisions, such as Marc Rich v Societa Italiano Impianti, Van Uden, and Front Comor. None of them have provided a satisfactory answer. In order to provide clarification and to reconcile the European jurisdiction Regulation and the New York Convention, the Brussels I Recast has inserted a new recital specifically addressing the relationship between court jurisdiction and arbitration. This article aims to assess the effect of the new recital and whether it has appropriately resolved the difficult questions on the relationship between jurisdiction and arbitration in the European Union.

Neo-Orientalism and the e-Revolutionary: Self-Representation and the Post-Arab Spring

The uprisings of 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa opened the way for a potential reimagining of the role of the Arab socio-political militant and the work of the public intellectual. Much change was achieved and the action of postmodern social activists played a central role in this historical undertaking. Deeper examination of the discourse and subsequent positioning of a large segment among these newer actors reveal, in the post-Arab Spring period, neo-Orientalist traits whereby Western metropolis concerns and phraseology overtake the domestic requirements of political transition. Self-representing themselves and their theatres by way of borrowed perspectives proceeding from external, paternalistic logics has led this new generation of actors to a series of contradictions as to the very democratizing rupture and rebirth of the region they have been advocating for. Borrowed prisms and subservient agency are the consequential drivers of this mode, which proceeds paradoxically on claims of independence and ownership.