In this response to Burt Neuborne’s Who’s Afraid of the Human Rights Commission, the author seeks to challenge many of the assumptions underlying Neuborne’s model calling for increased focus on preventative measures by the Human Rights Commission. In Part I, the author addresses Neuborne’s moral arguments and concludes that he undermines the ability of sanctions to deter future conduct. In Part...

This paper proposes an algorithm for solving subsets of typical (canonical) jigsaw puzzles. This algorithm combines shape and image matching with a cyclic ‘‘growth’’ process that tries to place pieces in their correct positions. First, the jigsaw pieces are extracted from the input image. Then, the corner points of the jigsaw pieces are detected. Next, piece classification and recognition are p...

The importance in promoting, sustaining industries, manufacturing systems and economy through reliability measurement has become an area of interest. The profit of a system may be enhanced using highly reliable structural design of the system or subsystem of higher reliability. On improving the reliability and availability of a system, the production and associated profit will also increase. Re...

Behavioral economics struggles to explain why people sometimes evaluate outcomes separately (narrow bracketing of mental accounts) and sometimes jointly (broad bracketing). We develop a theory of endogenous bracketing, where people set goals to tackle self-control problems. Goals induce reference points that make substandard performance painful. Evaluating goals in a broadly bracketed mental ac...

In Part 3 of this five-part article,[1, 2] simple graphic properties of entropy are illustrated, offering a novel way to understand the principle of entropy increase. The Boltzmann entropy is introduced and shows that in thermal equilibrium, entropy can be related to the spreading of a system’s occupied microstate over accessible microstates. Finally, constant-temperature reservoirs are shown t...

2.5.1 Study quality assessment and bias 2 2.5.2 Bias and quality assessment 2 2.5.3 Quality threshold for study selection 4 2.5.4 Development of quality assessment instruments 6 2.5.5 Quality assessment of effectiveness studies 8 2.5.6 Quality assessment of test accuracy studies 11 2.5.7 Quality assessment of qualitative research 12 2.5.8 Quality assessment of economic evaluations 13 2.5.9 Key ...

A shift from an emphasis on individual action to community responses has been portrayed as one that will enable a more just response to climate change. Policy and actions will be more inclusive, responsibilities for action may be shared, and the risks and benefits of the low carbon transition more evenly distributed, so the argument goes. But are justice principles really becoming embedded with...

This study examines the determinants of redistribution in advanced market economies by simultaneously assessing the impact of domestic political institutions and globalization. A distinction is made between “collective” veto points and “competitive” veto points, demonstrating that not all veto points have restrictive effects. It is shown that redistribution is significantly and positively affec...