Improbable Results Research Articles

Negotiation and the law of contract – multivalency or incoherence?

Negotiation features in Contract Law in numerous guises. (1) Courts recognise that negotiation may precede agreement (2) Courts will enforce agreements made after a negotiation process where parties intended to enter into legally binding arrangements (3) Courts decline to construe the contract by interrogation of the negotiations which led up to the point of agreement (4) A Court may create imaginary negotiation evidence, gleaning this from a Court simulated negotiation between hypothetical parties to the actual agreement (5) In the event of a breach of contract, a party may establish that the breaching party had actual knowledge of a state of affairs that might be a not improbable result of that breach. That actual knowledge will almost certainly have been created or transferred during negotiations. In this note, I argue that the principles of construction at 3 and 5 above are manifestly mutually incompatible. The logic of my argument is that reconsideration of the exclusionary rule is merited, particularly in the light of multiple exceptions and given the fact that Judges routinely deal with evidence of negotiations. As the actual knowledge rule is unexceptionable and the exclusionary rule highly questionable, coherence can be brought to the law relatively easily.

Reply to Edelstein and Humphries, "Improbable Results of Urine Isolate Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing".

We appreciate this opportunity to address and clarify some of the important issues Drs. Edelstein and Humphries highlight in their letter regarding our study.….

Histological skeletochronology indicates developmental plasticity in the early Permian stem lissamphibian Doleserpeton annectens.

Doleserpeton annectens is a small‐bodied early Permian amphibamiform, a clade of temnospondyl amphibians regarded by many workers to be on the lissamphibian stem. Most studies of this taxon have focused solely on its anatomy, but further exploration of other aspects of its paleobiology, such as developmental patterns, is critical for a better understanding of the early evolutionary history of lissamphibians. Here, we present a histological analysis of growth patterns in D. annectens that utilizes 60 femora, the largest sample size for any Paleozoic tetrapod. We identified pervasive pairs of closely spaced lines of arrested growth (LAGs), a pattern that indicates a marked degree of climatic harshness and that would result in two cessations of growth within a presumed single year. We documented a wide degree of variation compared to previous temnospondyl skeletochronological studies, reflected in the poor correlation between size and inferred age, but this observation aligns closely with patterns observed in extant lissamphibians. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses conducted by subsampling our dataset at more typical sample sizes for paleontological studies produced a wide range of results. This includes biologically improbable results and exceptionally well‐fit curves that demonstrate that low sample size can produce potentially misleading artifacts. We propose that the weak correlation between age and size represents developmental plasticity in D. annectens that typifies extant lissamphibians. Detection of these patterns is likely only possible with large sample sizes in extinct taxa, and low sample sizes can produce false, misleading results that warrant caution in drawing paleobiological interpretations from such samples.

Morphometrics and evolution: the challenge of crossing rugged phenotypic landscapes with straight paths

Geometric morphometrics is widely used to study underlying causal factors in phenotypic evolution and to reconstruct evolutionary history of phenotypes. However, non-linearities in the phenotypic landscape may exist such that analytical solutions derived from comparison of phenotypes in morphospace may have complex or contradictory relationships in the space of the underlying factors. Ancestral reconstruction of horn morphology based on two mammalian ungulates illustrates how biologically improbable results can arise from the mathematical properties of geometric morphometric morphospaces. Raup’s shell coiling equations are used to illustrate the potential for contradictory conclusions to be drawn from ancestral reconstructions in parameter spaces (such as measurements of levels of gene expression or allele frequencies) versus shape spaces (such as morphospaces based on phenotypic analysis). These examples are generalizable to many real morphometric studies, suggesting that care should be taken when drawing conclusions about genetic, developmental, or environmental processes based on morphometric analyses. Dense sampling of shape space and the use of fully multivariate and, perhaps, nonlinear methods can help forestall potential problems.

The Judicial Philosophy of Chief Justice John Roberts: An Analysis Through the Eyes of International Law

This Article is about two things: law in United States and Chief Justice John Roberts’s judicial philosophy. How do two relate? Quite nicely, actually. First, Chief Justice Roberts has penned majority opinions in landmark cases directly addressing important law issues. Second, cases involving law serve as an excellent window into a Justice’s judicial philosophy. Consider Chief Justice Roberts’s concluding paragraph in Medellin v. Texas, a watershed case in which Court held that judgments of International Court of Justice (ICJ) are generally not enforceable in United States courts: In sum, while ICJ’s judgment in Avena creates an law obligation on part of United States, it does not of its own force constitute binding federal law that pre-empts state restrictions... Nothing in text, background, negotiating and drafting history, or practice among signatory nations suggests that President or Senate intended improbable result of giving judgments of an tribunal a higher status than that enjoyed by many of our most fundamental constitutional protections. Federalism, separation of powers, treaty interpretation, U.S. sovereignty — all issues touched on in just two sentences. Moreover, as law expands from governing only relations between States to touching every area within jurisdiction of several states, status of law in United States has come under increasing scrutiny. No longer is it uncontroversial to say that international law is part of our Indeed, liberal and conservative justices routinely split over cases involving law. Part Two of this Article will provide an overview of five law issues in United States ((1) presumption against extraterritoriality; (2) human rights litigation in United States federal courts; (3) doctrine of self-executing treaties; (4) scope of treaty power; and (5) customary law as federal common law) and then provide an update on current status of these issues under Chief Justice Roberts. Part Three draws conclusions about Chief Justice Roberts’s judicial philosophy based on cases discussed and ultimately concludes that Chief Justice is a prudentialist, a judge who holds fast to the conviction that federal judges must cultivate virtues of modesty and humility, staying true to their constitutional duty to interpret law while fending off whenever possible temptation to intrude upon proper provinces of other public and private institutions.

A linear programming model for preserving privacy when disclosing patient spatial information for secondary purposes.

BackgroundA linear programming (LP) model was proposed to create de-identified data sets that maximally include spatial detail (e.g., geocodes such as ZIP or postal codes, census blocks, and locations on maps) while complying with the HIPAA Privacy Rule’s Expert Determination method, i.e., ensuring that the risk of re-identification is very small. The LP model determines the transition probability from an original location of a patient to a new randomized location. However, it has a limitation for the cases of areas with a small population (e.g., median of 10 people in a ZIP code).MethodsWe extend the previous LP model to accommodate the cases of a smaller population in some locations, while creating de-identified patient spatial data sets which ensure the risk of re-identification is very small.ResultsOur LP model was applied to a data set of 11,740 postal codes in the City of Ottawa, Canada. On this data set we demonstrated the limitations of the previous LP model, in that it produces improbable results, and showed how our extensions to deal with small areas allows the de-identification of the whole data set.ConclusionsThe LP model described in this study can be used to de-identify geospatial information for areas with small populations with minimal distortion to postal codes. Our LP model can be extended to include other information, such as age and gender.

Limits of observational data in determining outcomes from cancer therapy

Observational data are used increasingly to assess the effectiveness of therapies. However, selection biases are likely to have an impact on results and threaten the validity of these studies. The primary objective of the current study was to explore the effect of selection biases in observational studies of treatment effectiveness in cancer care. Patients were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare linked database. The following groups of patients were included: 5245 men treated with and without androgen deprivation for locally advanced prostate cancer, 43,847 men with active treatment versus observation for low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer, and 4860 patients with lymph node-positive colon cancer who were treated with and without fluorouracil chemotherapy. Patients were compared by therapy for the outcomes of cancer-specific mortality, other-cause mortality, and overall mortality. In all comparisons, the observational data produced improbable results. For example, when evaluating outcomes of men who were treated with and without androgen deprivation for locally advanced prostate cancer, men who underwent androgen deprivation had higher prostate cancer mortality (hazard ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.29-1.92) despite clinical trial evidence that this treatment improves cancer mortality. Controlling for comorbidity, extent of disease, and other characteristics by multivariate analyses or by propensity analyses had remarkably small impact on these improbable results. The current results suggested that the results from observational studies of treatment outcomes should be viewed with caution.

Live Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning. Christian De Duve. (2003, Oxford University Press.) Hardback, £25, $39. 358 pages

Live Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning. Christian De Duve. (2003, Oxford University Press.) Hardback, £25, $39. 358 pages. This book gives a very good overview of the topics related to the origin and evolution of life. De Duve joins the efforts of many researchers from different disciplines to explain the phenomenon of life in terms of chemistry and understand its evolution as a result of natural selection. He presents in a very clear way current evidence, theories, and open questions that have developed in recent decades due to advances in the sciences involved with the understanding of life. There have been other books discussing the origin and evolution of life (for a review comparing several of them, see [5]). Thus, many topics have been covered before. However, Life Evolving offers its own original angle. The content is very similar to that of De Duve’s previous books [2, 3], but the arguments have been enhanced and the ideas are better synthesized, incorporating the latest scientific advances. The book provides a very good introduction to molecular and cell biology (De Duve’s speciality). This should be particularly useful for non-biologists interested in ALife. Reading this book would be an advisable step before diving into specialized books such as [1] or [6]. Certainly, other aspects of evolution are discussed in the book, such as the evolution of humans, are well informed, but they give only a superficial introduction to current themes. This is not a weakness, for a book could be written on the topic of each chapter. I just want to point out that De Duve received a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his ‘‘discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell.’’ Thus, the parts of the book that deal with biology are stronger than those that deal with cognition. This must also be because our understanding of the cell is much more advanced than that of the brain. De Duve, having no problem in the lack of agreed definitions, reminds me of Isaac Newton. The story goes that Leibniz and Huygens asked Newton to define space, time, and motion, since they lie at the core of his physics. Newton boldly replied: ‘‘I do not need to define them, for they are well known to everybody.’’ In a similar spirit, De Duve uses the ‘‘general understanding’’ of debatable concepts such as mind, consciousness, and complexity. He does give a definition of life, though: ‘‘life is what is common to all living beings’’ (p. 8). Tautological as it might sound, in his context it makes perfect sense. He will not waste time discussing a definition of life, when the goal is to understand living systems. If and when this understanding becomes solid enough, the definition of life will be obvious. For the moment, De Duve discusses two complementary aspects of life: the chemical and the informational, which also could be called the structural and the functional. The first one deals with matter and energy that build life. However, these cannot explain by themselves the information processing carried out by living organisms. De Duve also notes that all known living beings are made of cells, so he traces the origins of life from the appearance of RNA, via DNA, to the origin of cells. He presents solid evidence to back up theories for each step that do not require any divine intervention, nor improbable results of chance. Life was bound to develop once the conditions were set for it. Once life appeared on Earth, De Duve traces its evolution to bacteria, eukaryotes, and multicellularity. Life evolves producing diversity, but also with a tendency to increase complexity. De Duve sets its current climax in humans. The argued complexity lies in the human brain, but probably measures of our DNA complexity, or number of cell types, could also put us at the top of the tree of life.

Use of the energy criterion of fracture to determine the shape of a slightly curved crack

An asymptotic formula is obtained for the total-energy increment during quasistatic growth of a semiin finite crack in an anisotropic elastic plane under complex loading. It is assumed that the shear loads are much larger than the tearing loads. The shape of the slightly curved crack was determined using the Griffith criterion in two versions: global and local. It is shown, in particular, that the first version leads to an improbable result.

Comment on “Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo” by David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox

Comment on “Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo” by David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox

Remarques critques à propos de l'enquête internationale sur la litteratie

There is no doubt of the necessity and importance of an international comparative inquiry concerning literacy. The difficulties involved in such an inquiry are also incontestable. In France the seemingly improbable results of the survey led to the French authorities – who had no doubt been insufficiently vigilant during the earlier stages of the survey – refusing to make the results public. These results highlight a number of methodological flaws that beset this vast undertaking, drawing attention to the need for better procedural precautions and a more adequate notion of literacy. This article presents a synthesis of the counter-investigations demanded by the French authorities, which justify their doubts on the IALS methods, and opens up a debate on the conception of literacy that was applied in the tests.

Estimating unconscious processes: implications of a general class of models.

Jacoby and his colleagues (e.g., L. L. Jacoby, J. P. Toth, & A. P. Yonelinas, 1993) have shown how the mnemonic contributions of conscious recollection and unconscious familiarity can be separated using a process-dissociation procedure based on a comparison of tasks in which consciously recollected material is to be included in vs. excluded from the responses. However, the estimate of unconscious familiarity depends on the assumptions of the model. This article describes a more general class of models in which the ratio of overlap between conscious and unconscious processes remains fixed and shows that this class of models (which includes the redundancy and exclusivity models as extreme cases) yields improbable results.

An Epstein-Barr virus with a 58-kilobase-pair deletion that includes BARF0 transforms B lymphocytes in vitro

A family of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-encoded RNAs found in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells is also present at low levels in some latently infected and growth-transformed B lymphocytes (P. R. Smith, Y. Gao, L. Karran, M. D. Jones, D. Snudden, and B. E. Griffin, J. Virol. 67:3217-3225, 1993). A molecular genetic approach using EBV recombinants was undertaken to evaluate the role of these transcripts in primary B-lymphocyte growth transformation and latent infection. Since the se transcripts arise from a 22-kbp segment of the EBV genome and construction of large deletion mutants is an improbable result after transfection of infected cells with an EBV DNA fragment with a large deletion mutation, a new approach was taken to make a recombinant with the DNA encoding all of the BARF0 RNAs deleted. The approach derives from a recently described strategy for making recombinants from five overlapping EBV cosmid-cloned DNAs (B. Tomkinson, E. Robertson, R. Yalamanchili, R. Longnecker, and E. Kieff, J. Virol. 67:7298-7306, 1993). A large segment of EBV DNA was deleted from the transfected cosmid DNAs by omitting a cosmid which included all of the DNA encoding the BARF0 RNA and by ligating the distal halves of the two flanking cosmids so as to create one cosmid which had ends that overlapped with the other two unaltered cosmids. EBV recombinants with 58 kbp including BARF0 deleted resulted from transfecting the three overlapping EBV DNA fragments into P3HR-1 cells and simultaneously inducing lytic replication of the endogenous, transformation-defective, P3HR-1 EBV. The endogenous P3HR-1 EBV provided lytic infection and packaging functions. EBV recombinants with intact transforming functions were then selected by infecting primary B lymphocytes and growing the resultant transformed cells in lymphoblastoid cell lines. The efficiency of incorporation of the deletion into transforming EBV recombinants was close to that of a known indifferent marker, the type 1 EBNA 3A gene, indicating the absence of significant selection against the deletion. Cells infected with the deleted recombinant grew similarly to those infected with wild-type recombinants and had a similar level of permissiveness for lytic EBV infection. Thus, the BARF0 transcript is not critical to primary B-lymphocyte growth transformation or to latent infection. This methodology is useful for constructing EBV recombinants which are specifically mutated at other sites in the three cosmids and is a step toward deriving a minimal transforming EBV genome.

Non-thermal radio emission from post-main-sequence stars

The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) has been used to make 4.8-GHz observations of 24 fields containing post-main-sequence stars. These stars were selected from a sample of late-type (spectral types G, K and M) giants and bright giants within 30 pc claimed by Slee et al. (1989, MNRAS, 239), from observations with the Parkes radio telescope, to be variable non-thermal radio emitters. No significant 4.8 GHz radio emission was detected from these stars. Non-detection of any stars with the ATCA is an improbable result (given the claimed Parkes detection rates and the superior sensitivity of the ATCA) and calls for a re-analysis of the original Parkes 8.4-GHz observations

Azar y explicación. Algunas observaciones

In the first part of this paper I examine the Hempelian model for the probabilistic explanation of particular events: the inductive-statistical model. Here I focus on an examination of the notion of expectability and the implied requirement of high probability. I intend to show that expectability and high probability, in turn, answer to a deep rooted intuition concerning explanation: given an event E, the same sort of circumstances cannot explain E and -E. This intuition is called here “the basic principle”.
 This basic principle is also the ground for the Hempelian thesis that to explain is always to explain why. I think this thesis is wrong and I propose to distinguish between explaining why and explaining how possibly . I discuss the difficulties confronting the statistical-inductive model in the light of the assumptions here examined and suggest possible solutions.
 In the second part, I explore those possible solutions, in particular I examine the symmetry principle proposed by Salmon: given an stochastic process, the highly probable results are as well understood as the improbable results. This principle implies the rejection of the basic principle. I claim that the symmetry principle must be restricted to explanations how . Later I discuss the DNP model proposed by Railton and I make some criticisms to it. I try to show that if we make explicit the distinction between explaining why and explaining how in this model, we can restrict clearly the range of applicability of the symmetry principle and the basic principle, I conclude that Railton’s model constitutes an adequate basis to establish the scope and limits of probabilistic explanations of genuinely random events.

Discussion: Beatty on Chance and Natural Selection

In his (1984) John Beatty correctly identifies the issue of the role of chance in evolution as one of the liveliest disputes in evolutionary biology. He argues, on the basis of a carefully articulated example, that “Even on a proper construal of ‘natural selection’, it is difficult to distinguish between the ‘improbable results of natural selection’ and evolution by random drift”. His other remarks indicate that he is thinking of conceptual as well as practical indistinguishability. In this discussion I take issue with one of the consequences Beatty draws from his example. I argue that the example at most shows that the effects of drift and selection are sometimes difficult to separate in practice, but that the stronger conceptual claim is not warranted. The deeper problems raised by the example are seen to demand causal, rather then conceptual, analysis.

The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy and Cosmology—A Reply to Hacking

The gambler's fallacy is committed by one who thinks that a run of one kind of result when rolling dice say makes another outcome more probable. Ian Hacking has argued ('The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy: the Argument from Design. The Anthropic Principle Applied to Wheeler Universes', Mind, I987, pp. 33I-40) that there is also an inverse gambler's fallacy which is committed by one who thinks that an improbable result produced by rolling dice provides good reason for believing that this result comes from the last of a lengthy sequence of rolls. He goes on to argue that this fallacy is involved in a popular objection to the argument from design for God's existence and is also committed by anyone who tries to explain the supposedly improbable character of the universe by reference to John Wheeler's model of sequential universes. Hacking has drawn attention to what is undoubtedly a genuine fallacy, but his claim that this is involved in certain attempts to explain the improbable character of the universe seems to me to be mistaken. The inverse gambler reasons that since an improbable result, such as a double six, is far more likely to occur when a pair of dice is rolled many times than when it is rolled only once, it is reasonable to conclude, when informed that a double six has turned up, that this is the last of a lengthy sequence of rolls. What he overlooks is that every roll of the dice produces an improbable result. That a single roll should produce an improbable result is not itself therefore an improbable happening. In fact it is as certain as anything can be, since no other sort of outcome is possible. An improbable outcome from a single roll of dice requires no further explanation therefore. But does someone who argues that the improbable character of the universe is explained by the fact that it is the last of a lengthy sequence of universes commit this fallacy? I do not think so. Hacking has misrepresented the sort of reasoning employed by someone who appeals to the Wheeler model to explain the delicately balanced nature of the universe we inhabit. This reasoning is not like that of a gambler who says: 'That particular roll of dice produced an improbable result, namely a double six; therefore, it is likely to have been the last of a lengthy sequence of rolls'. Instead it should be compared to the reasoning of someone who at the beginning of a dice-rolling session says to the players: 'I am about to take a nap; please call me if a double six turns up'; and when called, says: 'You must have rolled the dice quite a number of times; otherwise it is unlikely you would have had a double six.' This is perfectly legitimate reasoning. The sleeper knows in advance that he is unlikely to be roused if the dice are rolled only a small number of times. If he has some knowledge of probability theory or is acquainted with the famous exchange between Pascal and Chevalier de Mere, he knows that if the dice are rolled twenty-four times or less, then it is more probable than not that he will remain undisturbed; and if they are rolled twenty-five times or more, then it is more probable than not that he will be

Chance and Natural Selection

Among the liveliest disputes in evolutionary biology today are disputes concerning the role of chance in evolution—more specifically, disputes concerning the relative evolutionary importance of natural selection vs. so-called “random drift”. The following discussion is an attempt to sort out some of the broad issues involved in those disputes. In the first half of this paper, I try to explain the differences between evolution by natural selection and evolution by random drift. On some common construals of “natural selection”, those two modes of evolution are completely indistinguishable. Even on a proper construal of “natural selection”, it is difficult to distinguish between the “improbable results of natural selection” and evolution by random drift.In the second half of this paper, I discuss the variety of positions taken by evolutionists with respect to the evolutionary importance of random drift vs. natural selection. I will then consider the variety of issues in question in terms of a conceptual distinction often used to describe the rise of probabilistic thinking in the sciences. I will argue, in particular, that what is going on here is not, as might appear at first sight, just another dispute about the desirability of “stochastic” vs. “deterministic” theories. Modern evolutionists do not argue so much about whether evolution is stochastic, but about how stochastic it is.

Galvanomagnetic measurements in Fe3O4

Resistance, DC Hall effect and transverse magnetoresistance (TMR) measurements were attempted on a synthetic monocrystal of magnetite over the range 60-280K in fields up to 47*105 A m-1. The conductivity below Tv is described by a model which incorporates the temperature-dependent overlap of the wavefunctions. Systematic tendencies in the Hall and TMR effects above Tv suggest two components: one that is sensitive to the relative orientation of current flow and the domain walls and the other that arises from an interaction at the Fe ions. The former makes the current distribution very sensitive to the magnetic state and so accounts for some improbable results reported previously for the range below Tv.

Algorithm for the Production of Contour Maps from Linearized Data

COLE has proposed an algorithm which produces a generalized surface for contouring scattered data1. The algorithm works well when the data points are randomly distributed but improbable results have been obtained when the data points are distributed along lines. There are two reasons for this: one is the extrapolations which occur into regions without data and the other is the generation of unlikely gradients across the lines. Measurements of many geophysical properties, made by moving vehicles, ships and so on, are often distributed along lines which are not necessarily straight. They may cross one another but the distance between adjacent measurements on the lines is usually much less than the distance between the lines. Such a distribution of measurement points may be found in other situations where the two dimensions are not spatial.