Contract Rules Research Articles

Airline crew scheduling: models, algorithms, and data sets

The airline crew scheduling problem has received extensive attention, particularly in the last 60 years. This problem is frequently divided into crew pairing and crew assignment because of its large size and the complex safety agreements and contractual rules. Several solution methodologies have been developed, but many objectives and constraints are treated approximately and research is ongoing. In this paper, we present a comprehensive problem definition for the airline crew scheduling problem, and we review existing problem formulations and solution methodologies. In addition, we formulate the personalized cockpit crew scheduling problem as a set covering problem and we solve it using column generation. We present computational results for real data from a major US carrier, and we describe the data sets (available on the internet) in detail to establish a basis for future research.

Type Classes for Lightweight Substructural Types

Linear and substructural types are powerful tools, but adding them to standard functional programming languages often means introducing extra annotations and typing machinery. We propose a lightweight substructural type system design that recasts the structural rules of weakening and contraction as type classes; we demonstrate this design in a prototype language, Clamp. Clamp supports polymorphic substructural types as well as an expressive system of mutable references. At the same time, it adds little additional overhead to a standard Damas-Hindley-Milner type system enriched with type classes. We have established type safety for the core model and implemented a type checker with type inference in Haskell.

The Realignment of the Sources of the Law and their Meaning in an Information Society

The paper examines the realignment of the legal sources in an information society, by considering first of all the differences with the previous system of sources, dubbed as the “Westphalian model”. The current system is tripartite, rather than bipartite, for the sources of transnational law should be added to the traditional dichotomy between national and international law. In addition, the system is dualistic, rather than monistic, because the tools of legal constructivism, such as codes or statutes, have to be complemented with the rules of customary law and contracts. In light of the canonical version of the law as a set of commands enforced through the threat of physical sanctions, however, two further novelties must be stressed, namely the soft law-tools of governance as a source of the system and the aim to embed normative constraints into technology, in order to enforce the law through the use of filtering systems, self-enforcing technologies, etc. This latter approach impacts on functions and requirements of the system, by transferring the normative side of the law from the traditional “ought to” of legal commands to what actually is on the basis of automatic techniques, thus affecting the very notion of source. The overall aim of the paper is to show that rearrangements of the legal sources are intertwined with redistributions of power and hence, a normative standpoint is needed, so as to determine whether scholars can obtain the solution that best justifies the integrity of the law before its hard cases, or the answer is a reasonable compromise between many conflicting interests.

Les contrats commerciaux OHADA dans une perspective congolaise. Vers un droit général commun des obligations contractuelles?

Abstract: The economists agree that actually the African economies did take off. A further growth, however, needs investments. Attracting these investments is precisely one of the purposes of the African Union with her 54 Member States and of - in a geographically more limited area - the OHADA, the organization for the harmonization of business law in mainly French-speaking Africa. The originality of the OHADA consists in the adoption of uniform Acts, which apply in all 17 Member States. It is only fair to say that through these uniform statutes the influence of France and that of the French juridical culture are perpetuated in Africa. In this paper, the OHADA legislation is described, more specifically from the perspective of one of the Member States, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Belgian colony. An overview of the uniform Acts relating to the following commercial contracts is given: sale, arbitration agreement, carriage of goods by land, lease for professional purposes, lease of the management of a business, agency and brokerage, pledge, surety, and other guarantees. The uniform Acts modernize the outdated law of the Member States. Some of the introduced innovations are the Trade and Personal Property Credit Register and the Trustee for the guarantees. The French law as it stands in our days (including e.g. the trust-like device of the "fiducie") serves as a model, but so does the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and the UNIDROIT Principles. The latter is not faithfully followed, though. For instance, the remedy of the anticipatory breach (provided for in the CISG) did disappear out of the revised uniform Act relating to the general commercial law. The unilateral avoidance for breach of contract (provided for in the UNIDROIT Principles), on the other hand, is only by exception allowed and the exceptional circumstances are not defined. The creditor must normally thus apply to the court for an order resolving the contract. The non-commercial special contracts continue to be regulated by the national law of each Member State. This can produce odd effects, so is the ownership of the goods sold transferred to the buyer at the very moment of the agreement of the contracting parties according to the Congolese Civil Code, while the ownership of the goods sold in Congo by commercial contract takes place at the moment of the delivery since the joining of the OHADA. In the present state of affairs, the general law of contracts (as opposed to the OHADA special rules for the different nominate contracts) remains also part of the national law of the Member States. Obviously, this has to change by all means, if one wants the harmonization of the commercial contracts. This article deals therefore also with a text that should become the cornerstone of the OHADA legislation, i.e., the preliminary draft on general contract law. It follows as close as possible the UNIDROIT Principles and there are good reasons for this, as explained by the draughts man professor M. Fontaine. Unfortunately, this draft is momentarily blocked off backstage by some lawyers steeped in the myth of the French legal culture. It may indeed seem hard to imagine, for instance, that the causa disappears! But then also does the consideration in the UNIDROIT Principles.

“Domestic Contracts” The Effect of Family Contracts; The Malaysian Law Perspectives

A domestic contract refers to agreement between persons having family relationship and despite the general rule of contract, that parties in social, domestic and family agreements do not have intention to create legal relations, domestic contracts are legally binding. In the context of family law, domestic contracts normally involves marriage contracts and separation agreements which includes among others; pre-nuptial agreement, settlement agreement, division of matrimonial property agreement and custody of children agreement. Despite the common nature and structure of domestic contract as a typical agreement, there are concerns by the family law practitioners that domestic contracts should be interpreted differently from the commercial or other types of contract and judges should have special or additional factors of consideration in giving effect to the contracts. In Malaysia, there is a proposal for the formation of a Family Court to improve procedures and providing a better service to families. The main objective of the Family Court is to empower the parties to resolve their disputes by mutual consent and in a manner that best serves the needs of the children involved. With the proposal for the establishment of family court, it is very important for the issues on interpretation and effect of domestic contract to be highlighted. This paper discusses and compare the approaches which the courts applied in dealing with domestic contracts and commercial contracts. Research methodolgy adopted in this paper are statutory and doctrinal analysis.

Acerca de la fundamentación de la obligatoriedad de los contratos: autonomía y derecho privado

The article critically examines the discussion regarding the normative justification of the binding force of contracts, set forth in article 1545 of the Chilean Civil Code. The theoretical schemes to understand the contractual rule are presented herein, distinguishing between non-normative and normative models. The contract is an institutional notion that requires justification and not merely explanatory considerations. Such effort should be separated from the notion of will, which has faced difficulties, considering the increased legislative interventions, which characterize the governing contractual scenario since the early XX century. The explanatory relevance of personal autonomy is suggested herein, an argument articulated from the internal structure and secondary rules that constitute private law.

United States v. Bond and Information-Forcing Defaults: The Work that Presumptions Do

This article, written for a symposium on Bond v. United States, connects the law and economics of contract interpretation to the Supreme Court’s modern practice of creating statutory interpretive presumptions. The paper compares information-forcing defaults, both majoritarian and penal, to contract rules that allow parties to design mechanisms to deal with future contingencies about which no party has special knowledge. Delegation rules allow parties to specify a set of contingencies that, upon realization, entitle a selected third party to supplement the contract to incorporate post-contractual information. From a welfare perspective, information-forcing defaults and delegations are complements, each desirable under specified conditions. But, as to any particular issue, these strategies are contradictory. Choosing a delegate to resolve downstream problems reduces a party’s incentive to disclose relevant information at the time of contracting. The challenge thus becomes determining the conditions, both in theory and in practice, where each approach is likely to optimize the value of a contract. The paper then looks at several informal models of how Congress and the federal judiciary operate, and in particular at how they interact dynamically with respect to statutory interpretation. It then identifies the circumstances under each model that would support a conclusion that Court’s current trend may contribute to the social good. It argues that none of the areas where presumptions have emerged satisfy the requirements for a delegation of downstream lawmaking to the courts based on unknown information. In contrast, statutory presumptions against encroachments into areas of core state competence (Bond), extraterritorial effect of regulation (Morrison and Kiobel), violations of international law (Charming Betsy), and constitutional confrontations (Catholic Bishop) reflect a plausible majoritarian default of avoiding conflicts with parallel legal regimes. The presumption against implied causes of action, by contrast, reflects a penal default based on the need to promote transparency and accountability in lawmaking.

Performance-based Contracting for Roads – Experiences of Australia and Indonesia

Many countries over the last decade, have used performance-based contracting (PBC) to manage and maintain roads. The implementation of PBC provides additional benefits for the government/public such as cost savings and improved conditions of contracted road assets. In Australia, PBC is already being implemented on all categories of roads: national, state, urban and rural. Australian PBC arrangement is designed to turn over control and responsibility for roadway system maintenance, rehabilitation, and capital improvement projects to private contractors. Contractors’ responsibilities include determination of treatment types, the design, programming and the undertaking of works needed to maintain road networks at predetermined performance levels. Indonesia initiated two PBC pilot projects in 2011, the Pantura Section Demak-Trengguli (7.68 kilometers) in Central Java Province and Section Ciasem-Pamanukan (18.5 kilometers) in West Java Province. Both sections are categorized as national roads. The contract duration for both of these projects is four years. To facilitate a possible way forward, it is proposed to conduct a study to understand Australia's experiences of advancing from pilot projects to nation-wide programs using PBC. The study focuses on the scope of contracts, bidding processes, risk allocation, and key drivers, using relevant PBC case studies from Australia. Recommendations for future PBC deployment nation-wide should be based on more research associated with risk allocation. This will include investigation of standard conditions of contract. Implications of the contract clauses for the risk management strategy to be adopted by contractors. Based on the nature of risks, some are best managed by the project owner. It is very important that all parties involved to be open to the new rules of contract and to convince themselves about the potential increased benefits of the use of PBC. The most recent states of challenging issues were explored and described.

CONTRACTIONS OF NONCONTRACTIVE CONSEQUENCE RELATIONS

AbstractSome theorists have developed formal approaches to truth that depend on counterexamples to the structural rules of contraction. Here, we study such approaches, with an eye to helping them respond to a certain kind of objection. We define a contractive relative of each noncontractive relation, for use in responding to the objection in question, and we explore one example: the contractive relative of multiplicative-additive affine logic with transparent truth, or maalt.

Normal Proofs, Cut Free Derivations and Structural Rules

Different natural deduction proof systems for intuitionistic and classical logic --and related logical systems--differ in fundamental properties while sharing significant family resemblances. These differences become quite stark when it comes to the structural rules of contraction and weakening. In this paper, I show how Gentzen and Jaśkowski's natural deduction systems differ in fine structure. I also motivate directed proof nets as another natural deduction system which shares some of the design features of Genzen and Jaśkowski's systems, but which differs again in its treatment of the structural rules, and has a range of virtues absent from traditional natural deduction systems.

Braille Training for Blindness Professionals at the Hadley School for the Blind

Ideal models for teaching students with visual impairments that take into account budgetary (Wittenstein, 2010) and staffing constraints, significant geographic dispersion, and low student ratios have yet to be widely implemented in the United States. The lack of sufficient degree programs to certify teachers of visually impaired students and rehabilitation professionals has been eloquently documented by many (Ambrose-Zaken & Bozeman, 2010; Huebner & Wiener, 2001). The itinerant model of teaching students with visual impairments leaves little time for continuing education for teachers of students with visual impairments (Brown & Beamish, 2012; Olmstead, 1991; Spungin, 2003). Although braille instruction is understood to be the best literacy medium for most students with visual impairments (Kapperman & Sticken, 2003), barriers to its teaching are considerable. False assumptions about the waning need for braille usage due to burgeoning technology have been debunked by the academic literature (Gerber, 2003; Ryles, 1996) but remain ubiquitous nonetheless. Certified blindness professionals who have not provided braille instruction for several years may require brush-up training to recall the intricacies of formatting and contraction rules when welcoming new students on their caseloads (Gilson, 2014). Furthermore, very few general education teachers or paraeducators assigned to support the learning needs of students with visual impairments read braille themselves (Lewis & McKenzie, 2010). Although blindness professionals may study braille independently through transcription certification courses and examinations such as those offered by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) (Bell, 2010), NFB cautions that its courses are not intended for learning braille as a personal reading and writing skill (National Federation of the Blind, 2014). Alternatively, The Hadley School for the Blind (Hadley) offers braille-instruction courses through digital correspondence that are delivered via the Internet in an asynchronous manner; students communicate with instructors via e-mail or telephone. More information about Hadley's courses can be found online at: . HADLEY'S BRAILLE TRAINING PROGRAM FOR BLINDNESS PROFESSIONALS Distance education has been a successful way of delivering braille course content through universities (Kim, Lee, & Skellenger, 2012) and state-run programs (Harrison, Kooch, & Alsup, 2003), as well as the Hadley School for the Blind (Gilson, 2014; Gilson & Xia, 2007; Hathaway, 1977; Wolffe, 2001). Hadley has offered teachers of students with visual impairments, other school professionals, rehabilitation practitioners, and other blindness service providers the opportunity to enroll in tuition-free introduction to alphabetic and contracted braille courses because of two iterations of a Braille Training Program grant from the Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education. Program evaluation design The Department of Education funds allowed Hadley to hire Thomas Kenemore of Chicago State University to conduct focus groups and telephone interviews with the goal of creating three surveys designed to collect data from alphabetic and contracted braille students at course registration, upon course completion, and at six months following completion (Kenemore, 2010). The surveys were administered online, and survey completion was not a requirement for course enrollment or completion. For the past three fiscal years, the author has analyzed the survey data and evaluated the braille training program on an annual basis for Hadley. From its inaugural year in January 2001 to March 1, 2014, Hadley's alphabetic braille course enrolled 6,431 students who identified themselves as professionals in the blindness field. In comparison, Hadley's contracted braille course enrolled 2,358 students from January 2003 to March 1, 2014 (L. …

Typology and Effects of Co-opetition in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Evidence from the Chinese Home Appliance Industry. 供应链关系中竞合分类及其影响：来自中国家电业的实证研究

Building on the co-opetition perspective, this study takes a unified approach to examine relationship benefits and transaction costs in buyer–supplier relationships. We argue that buyer–supplier vertical dyads fall into one of four distinct co-opetition types based on their respective degrees of cooperation and competition. Each co-opetition situation then corresponds to unique levels of relationship benefits and transaction costs. A sample of 225 supplier–buyer dyads from the Chinese home appliance industry confirms that competition has a positive effect on transaction costs and a negative effect on relationship benefits, while cooperation stimulates greater relationship benefits but affects transaction costs mainly at low competition levels. The results advance prior research on buyer–supplier relationships and co-opetition and offer valuable avenues for future research. 摘要 基于竞合的观点，本文采用了一个整合的模型对供应链关系中的关系收益和交易成本进行了研究。本文认为，依据双方合作和竞争程度的不同，买卖双方间的交易关系可以划分为四种不同的竞合关系类型，且每种竞合类型分别对应不同的关系收益和交易成本水平。利用来自中国家电行业225对买卖双方的配对样本，本文发现，买卖双方间的竞争对交易成本有正向作用，对关系收益有负面影响；而双方间的合作会促进关系收益的提高，但只在竞争水平较低时，合作才会对交易成本产生影响。本文研究发展了以往关于买卖双方关系和竞合的相关文献，并指明了有价值的未来研究发展方向。

O Contrato Didático a partir da aplicação de uma sequência didática para o Ensino de Progressão Aritmética

Este artigo resulta de uma dissertação de mestrado que teve por objetivo investigar as negociações do contrato didático, realizadas entre professora e alunos na aplicação de uma sequência didática previamente elaborada para o ensino de Progressão Aritmética (P.A.). A pesquisa foi realizada em quatro etapas: elaboração da sequência didática; análise preliminar; apresentação da proposta à professora; aplicação da sequência. A sequência didática elaborada buscou contemplar as fases propostas por Brousseau na tipologia das Situações Didáticas (situação de ação, formulação, validação e institucionalização), visando possibilitar sua aplicação de acordo com um contrato didático do tipo aproximativo, que é aquele em que a postura ativa do aluno na construção do conhecimento é valorizada. Os resultados apontaram que, embora tivéssemos proposto uma sequência para ser aplicada conforme um contrato didático do tipo aproximativo, negociações, rupturas e renegociações de regras de contrato didático foram feitas ao longo do desenvolvimento da sequência. Acreditamos que essas rupturas das regras estabelecidas foram motivadas por marcas de contrato didático anteriores, ou seja, pelas regras implícitas e explícitas a que professora e alunos estavam habituados.

Russian

The relevance of this topic is associated with the diversity of causes behind crisis processes in economics and the individuality of each particular crisis. This necessitates classifying them in a detailed fashion. The present downturn is a manifestation of the cyclicity of the development of the global economic system amid present-day globalization and the established architecture of the institutional space. The formal (legislation, contractual rules, corporate norms, etc.) and nonformal institutes (rules, customs, traditions, behavior as a whole, etc.), undergoing changes in their structure and mechanisms, caused the emergence of financial innovations whose yield surpassed that of the real sector of the economy multifold. This facilitated the concentration of money in financial markets and transforming them into a thing-in-itself. The theory of economic cycles is one of the theories of economic dynamics which explain the movement of the national economy. While the theory of economic growth explores factors and

Do institutional logics predict interpretation of contract rules at the dental chair-side?

In quasi-markets, contracts find purchasers influencing health care providers, although problems exist where providers use personal bias and heuristics to respond to written agreements, tending towards the moral hazard of opportunism. Previous research on quasi-market contracts typically understands opportunism as fully rational, individual responses selecting maximally efficient outcomes from a set of possibilities. We take a more emotive and collective view of contracting, exploring the influence of institutional logics in relation to the opportunistic behaviour of dentists. Following earlier qualitative work where we identified four institutional logics in English general dental practice, and six dental contract areas where there was scope for opportunism; in 2013 we surveyed 924 dentists to investigate these logics and whether they had predictive purchase over dentists' chair-side behaviour. Factor analysis involving 300 responses identified four logics entwined in (often technical) behaviour: entrepreneurial commercialism, duty to staff and patients, managerialism, public good.

Current issues in legal cases of compensation for healthcare malpractice

The number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed each year in Hungary has considerably increased since 1990. The judicial decisions and practices on determining and awarding wrongful damages recoverable for medical malpractices in the Hungarian civil law have been developing for decades. In the meantime, a new Hungarian Civil Code (Act V of 2013) has entered into force, which among others, necessitates the revaluation of assessment of damages recoverable for medical malpractices. There are two main areas where fundamental changes have been introduced, which may significantly affect the outcome of medical malpractice lawsuits in the future. In the early stage of medical malpractices it was unclear whether the courts had to consider either the contractual relationship between patients and healthcare providers (contractual liability) or general codal articles on damages arising from non-contractual liability/torts (delictual liability) in their judgement delivered in the cases. Both the theoretical and practical experience of the last ten years shows that healthcare services agreements are concluded between healthcare providers and patients with the aim and intention to provide appropriate professional healthcare services to patients, which meet patients' interests and wishes. The medical service is violated if it fails to meet patients' interests and wishes as well as the objectives of the agreement. Since the new legislation implies a stricter liability for damages in the case of breach of contract and stricter rules for exempting the party in breach from compensation obligations, the opportunities to exempt healthcare providers from these obligations have become limited compared to previous regulations. This modification, which was aimed at further integrating the established judicial practices into legislation, stipulates the application of the rules for liability for damages resulting from medical malpractice in non-contractual situations. This paper analyses dogmatic and practical problems related to this topic. Another important area of current analysis is the institution of injury fees, which replaced the reimbursement of non-pecuniary damages. The mere fact of infringement allows setting injury fees. Taking into consideration the current resources in staff and equipment available in healthcare, this regulation may promote claims for injury fees impartial. Consequently, courts will have to apply other criteria when judgment in 'trivial cases', which might not require legal assessment, is delivered.

Thy will be done: construction and rectification of wills in the Supreme Court

Marley v Rawlings was the first probate case to go to the highest court in England since 1958. Robert Ham, leading counsel for the successful appellant, examines the decision of the Supreme Court, which has important implications not only for the particular case of switched wills, but also for the correct approach to the construction of wills. The revolution in the rules for the construction of contracts seemed to have left the rules for wills behind. But this case shows that the rules for wills have, in some respects, overtaken the contract rules.

UNIFORM INTERPOLATION IN SUBSTRUCTURAL LOGICS

AbstractUniform interpolation property of a given logic is a stronger form of Craig’s interpolation property where both pre-interpolant and post-interpolant always exist uniformly for any provable implication in the logic. It is known that there exist logics, e.g., modal propositional logic S4, which have Craig’s interpolation property but do not have uniform interpolation property. The situation is even worse for predicate logics, as classical predicate logic does not have uniform interpolation property as pointed out by L. Henkin.In this paper, uniform interpolation property of basic substructural logics is studied by applying the proof-theoretic method introduced by A. Pitts (Pitts, 1992). It is shown that uniform interpolation property holds even for their predicate extensions, as long as they can be formalized by sequent calculi without contraction rules. For instance, uniform interpolation property of full Lambek predicate calculus, i.e., the substructural logic without any structural rule, and of both linear and affine predicate logics without exponentials are proved.

The Incorporation of Sharia in North America: Enforcing the Mahr to Combat Women's Poverty Post-Relationship Dissolution

The mahr, a contract negotiated upon an Islamic marriage payable to the wife, has the potential to help alleviate the “feminization of poverty” attendant upon marriage dissolution. In North America, courts have sometimes given legal force to the mahr through the contexts of marriage contracts/prenuptial agreements, or under rules of contract. Some courts have refused to enforce “religious” obligations or found “public policy” reasons for denying this aid to former wives. This article analyzes recent American and Canadian jurisprudence and argues that such non-enforcement is characteristic of a discursive legal and cultural fear towards and bias against religious Islam (especially an incorrect conception of “sharia law”), and serves to further disempower women. Legal enforcement of mahr payments as an ordinary contract is recommended.

The Influence of Law and Economics Scholarship on Contract Law: Impressions Twenty-Five Years Later

This is an update of a work done in conjunction with a contract law conference 25 years ago. My specific assignment was to assess the impact of law and economics scholarship on contract law. I responded by conducting an empirical study of judicial citations to selected law and economics works in order to ascertain the extent to which judges seemed to be relying on the teachings of law and economics. In effect, the effort was part of a general question that concerns all law professors: Does scholarship matter? I have repeated the study with respect to the scholarship sample selected twenty-five years ago. In addition, I have supplemented and expanded the sample of scholarship to include works appearing since the initial effort. The results of this project are the focus of this article. This examination suggests that law and economics scholarship has had two uses. First, it has provided a new rationale for many traditional contract rules. As one would expect this means it is most likely to be invoked when there are pressures to change the law. Second, although the quantity of citations remains modest, it is clear that law and economics scholarship, at least in the context of contract law, has affected the vocabulary and reasoning of courts.