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The article titled "WHEN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS DETRACT VALUE FROM SOCIETY: A REJOINDER" by Gamble and Munoz examines the potential negative impact of some tax-exempt nonprofit organizations (TENPOs) on society. The authors identify 12 factors that contribute to this value detraction, including government policies and choices made by TENPO managers. They argue that the benefits of tax-exempt status and tax-deductible donations do not outweigh the lost tax revenues. However, the analysis has some limitations, such as a lack of clarity in defining TENPOs and a failure to estimate the value provided by TENPOs compared to lost tax revenues. The text also critiques the article for not considering the value provided by TENPOs and the impact of corporate tax avoidance and evasion. It emphasizes the importance of diverse approaches to organizing and governing, and acknowledges the valuable work of TENPOs in areas like education, diversity, healthcare, and poverty alleviation. The article concludes by calling for further research and policy changes related to TENPOs and tax exemption. [Extracted from the article]

Using three exogenous shocks to ex ante litigation risk, including federal judge ideology and two influential judicial precedents, we find that lower shareholder litigation risk reduces a firm's propensity to delist from the U.S. stock markets. The effect is at least partially driven by indirect costs of litigation and that being a private firm can significantly reduce the threat of litigation. Overall, the results suggest that mitigating excessive litigation costs for public firms is crucial to ensure the continued vibrancy of the U.S. stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: Shoot branching is determined by a balance between factors that promote axillary bud dormancy and factors that release buds from the quiescent state. The TCP family of transcription factors is classified into two classes, Class I and Class II, which usually play different roles. While the role of the Class II TCP BRANCHED1 (BRC1) in suppressing axillary bud development in Arabidopsis thaliana has been widely explored, the function of Class I TCPs in this process remains unknown.We analyzed the role of Class I TCP14 and TCP15 in axillary branch development in Arabidopsis through a series of genetic and molecular studies.In contrast to the increased branch number shown by brc1 mutants, tcp14 tcp15 plants exhibit a reduced number of branches compared with wild‐type. Our findings provide evidence that TCP14 and TCP15 act by counteracting BRC1 function through two distinct mechanisms. First, they indirectly reduce BRC1 expression levels. Additionally, TCP15 directly interacts with BRC1 decoying it from chromatin and thereby preventing the transcriptional activation of a set of BRC1‐dependent genes.We describe a molecular mechanism by which Class I TCPs physically antagonize the action of the Class II TCP BRC1, aligning with their opposite roles in axillary bud development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the earlier proposed action prediction methods, such as PoseGAN, C2GAN, etc. are limited to unidirectional prediction and not intended to perform the desired class of action. In this paper, we propose an action-guided Cycle Generative Adversarial Network (AGCGAN), which is a bi-directional video prediction model to anticipate future frames from current visual frames and vice versa. The proposed CycleGAN architecture consists of two generators and two discriminators along with two additional keypoint detectors to make keypoint loss measurements. The adversarial and cycle losses perform the appearance modelling whereas the keypoint loss provides the necessary motion correction. We evaluated the effectiveness of our proposed method on the UT-Interaction dataset. Furthermore, we also tested our model on the standard Market-1501 dataset against the state-of-the-art schemes. Results show that our proposed method provides comparable visual quality with the state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The space \mathbf {H}^{4,2} of vectors of norm -1 in \mathbb {R}^{4,3} has a natural pseudo-Riemannian metric and a compatible almost complex structure. The group of automorphisms of both of these structures is the split real form \mathsf {G}_2'. In this paper we consider a class of holomorphic curves in \mathbf {H}^{4,2} which we call alternating. We show that such curves admit a so called Frenet framing. Using this framing, we show that the space of alternating holomorphic curves which are equivariant with respect to a surface group is naturally parameterized by certain \mathsf {G}_2'-Higgs bundles. This leads to a holomorphic description of the moduli space as a fibration over Teichmüller space with a holomorphic action of the mapping class group. Using a generalization of Labourie's cyclic surfaces, we then show that equivariant alternating holomorphic curves are infinitesimally rigid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of few-shot action recognition aims to recognize novel action classes using only a small number of labeled training samples. How to better describe the action in each video and how to compare the similarity between videos are two of the most critical factors in this task. Directly describing the video globally or by its individual frames cannot well represent the spatiotemporal dependencies within an action. On the other hand, naively matching the global representations of two videos is also not optimal since action can happen at different locations in a video with different speeds. In this work, we propose a novel approach that describes each video using multiple types of prototypes and then computes the video similarity with a particular matching strategy for each type of prototypes. To better model the spatiotemporal dependency, we describe the video by generating prototypes that model the multi-level spatiotemporal relations via transformers. There are a total of three types of prototypes. The first type of prototypes are trained to describe specific aspects of the action in the video e.g., the start of the action, regardless of its timestamp. These prototypes are directly matched one-to-one between two videos to compare their similarity. The second type of prototypes are the timestamp-centered prototypes that are trained to focus on specific timestamps of the video. To deal with the temporal variation of actions in a video, we apply bipartite matching to allow the matching of prototypes of different timestamps. The third type of prototypes are generated from the timestamp-centered prototypes, which regularize their temporal consistency while serving as an auxiliary summarization of the whole video. Experiments demonstrate that our proposed method achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the Hirzebruch–Milnor class of a hypersurface |$X$| in an ambient complex algebraic manifold to the case where the normal bundle is nontrivial and |$X$| cannot be defined by a global function, using the associated line bundle and the graded quotients of the monodromy filtration. The earlier definition requiring a global defining function of |$X$| can be applied rarely to projective hypersurfaces with non-isolated singularities. Indeed, it is surprisingly difficult to get a one-parameter smoothing with total space smooth without destroying the singularities by blowing-ups (except certain quite special cases). As an application, assuming the singular locus is a projective variety, we show that the minimal exponent of a hypersurface can be captured by the spectral Hirzebruch–Milnor class, and higher du Bois and rational singularities of a hypersurface are detectable by the unnormalized Hirzebruch–Milnor class. Here the unnormalized class can be replaced by the normalized one in the higher du Bois case, but for the higher rational case, we must use also the decomposition of the Hirzebruch–Milnor class by the action of the semisimple part of the monodromy (which is equivalent to the spectral Hirzebruch–Milnor class). We cannot extend these arguments to the non-projective compact case by Hironaka's example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a compact orientable surface Σ g , 1 of genus 푔 with one boundary component and for an odd prime number 푝, we study the homology of the unordered configuration spaces C ∙ (Σ g , 1) : = ∐ n ≥ 0 C n (Σ g , 1) with coefficients in F p . We describe H ∗ ⁢ (C ∙ ⁢ (Σ g , 1) ; F p) as a bigraded module over the Pontryagin ring H ∗ ⁢ (C ∙ ⁢ (D) ; F p) , where 퐷 is a disc, and compute in particular the bigraded dimension over F p . We also consider the action of the mapping class group Γ g , 1 and prove that the mod-푝 Johnson kernel K g , 1 ⁢ (p) ⊆ Γ g , 1 is the kernel of the action on H ∗ ⁢ (C ∙ ⁢ (Σ g , 1 ; F p)) . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturalistic stimuli used in modern human neuroscience research are often narratives, but there has been limited discussion of a core property of these narratives: causal structure. Causal structure of narratives has a powerful impact on episodic memory, and emerging evidence suggests that causal variables play a role in the activity of brain systems during narrative encoding and retrieval. Consideration of how humans identify and use causal information in narratives may inform studies and computational models of the neural mechanisms that enable organisms to link actions and outcomes. Narrative schema may be especially valuable for improving value-guided learning and decision-making by enabling efficient credit assignment in complex, high-dimensional state spaces like those encountered in natural environments. Many human behavioral and brain imaging studies have used narratively structured stimuli (e.g., written, audio, or audiovisual stories) to better emulate real-world experience in the laboratory. However, narratives are a special class of real-world experience, largely defined by their causal connections across time. Much contemporary neuroscience research does not consider this key property. We review behavioral and neuroscientific work that speaks to how causal structure shapes comprehension of and memory for narratives. We further draw connections between this work and reinforcement learning, highlighting how narratives help link causes to outcomes in complex environments. By incorporating the plausibility of causal connections between classes of actions and outcomes, reinforcement learning models may become more ecologically valid, while simultaneously elucidating the value of narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territory and population, migration, division of territories and their globalised populations... Re-presenting in this paper Wars and Capital (written with Maurizio Lazzarato, first published 2016), we'll argue that Deleuze and Guattari's view on this complex of relations must be reconstructed from their understanding of war's constitutive relationship with capitalism by taking up the confrontation with Clausewitz to reverse the famous formula that war is/is only the continuation of politics by other means. Except that, as with Foucault, albeit differently, it is not so much a question of reversal but an interweaving of war in politics and politics in war that adopts the movements of capitalism in the twentieth century's world economy. Politics is not, as in Clausewitz, the politics of the state but the war machine of the financialised economy interwoven in the multiplicity of wars that move and hold together the war of destruction in action with wars of class, race and sex under the auspices of a 'war amongst the people' that provide the fractal environment of all the others when war and peace become indistinguishable in a neoliberalism of combat. A transversal and global civil war that is also a war of subjectivity fractures all territories in the North(s) and South(s) since internal and external colonisations are no longer distributed only geographically. As proof, if needed, more than forty years after the publication of A Thousand Plateaus – it is not enough to state that micropolitics has to pass into macropolitics to transform it: both micro- and macropolitics have to be part of the multiplicity of wars that take place, without which both micro- and macropolitics collapse in the 'becoming-minor' of the 'missing people'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Computer und Recht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The set of equivalence classes of cobounded actions of a group G$G$ on different hyperbolic metric spaces carries a natural partial order. Following Abbott–Balasubramanya–Osin, the group G$G$ is H$\mathcal {H}$‐accessible if the resulting poset has a largest element. In this paper, we prove that every nongeometric 3‐manifold has a finite cover with H$\mathcal {H}$‐inaccessible fundamental group and give conditions under which the fundamental group of the original manifold is H$\mathcal {H}$‐inaccessible. We also prove that every Croke–Kleiner admissible group (a class of graphs of groups that generalizes fundamental groups of three‐dimensional graph manifolds) has a finite index subgroup that is H$\mathcal {H}$‐inaccessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the equivariant classification results of Escher and Searle for closed, simply connected, Riemannian n-manifolds with non-negative sectional curvature admitting isometric isotropy-maximal torus actions to the class of such manifolds admitting isometric strictly almost isotropy-maximal torus actions. In particular, we prove that any such manifold is equivariantly diffeomorphic to the free, linear quotient by a torus of a product of spheres of dimensions greater than or equal to three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we study combinatorial non-positive curvature aspects of various simplicial complexes with natural A ˜ n shaped simplices, including Euclidean buildings of type A ˜ n and Cayley graphs of Garside groups and their quotients by the Garside elements. All these examples fit into the more general setting of lattices with order-increasing Z -actions and the associated lattice quotients proposed in a previous work by the first named author. We show that both the lattice quotients and the lattices themselves give rise to weakly modular graphs, which is a form of combinatorial non-positive curvature. We also show that several other objects fit into this setting of lattices/lattice quotients, including Artin complexes of Artin-Tits groups of type A ˜ n , a class of arc complexes and weak Garside groups arising from a categorical Garside structure in the sense of Bessis. Hence our result also implies to these objects and shows that they give weakly modular graphs. Along the way, we also clarify the relationship between categorical Garside structures, lattices with Z action and different classes of complexes studied this article. We use this point of view to describe the first examples of Garside groups with exotic properties, like non-linearity or rigidity results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal action detection is an important and fundamental video understanding task that aims to locate the temporal regions where human actions or events may occur and to identify the classes of actions in untrimmed videos. The main challenge of temporal action detection is that videos are usually of different durations and untrimmed. Although existing methods have achieved better results in recent years, there are still some challenges, such as a lack of full utilisation of video context features, insufficient accuracy of generated action boundaries and failure to consider the relationship between proposals. To address the above issues, this paper proposes a Multi-branch Boundary Generation Network (MBGNet) with temporal context aggregation. It improves the performance of temporal action proposal generation by exploiting rich temporal context features and complementary boundary generators.First, we propose a multi-path temporal context feature aggregation (MTCA) module to exploit "local and global" contextual temporal features for the generation of temporal action proposals. Second, in order to generate accurate action boundaries, we design a multi-branch temporal boundary detector (MBG) to optimise the prediction results by exploiting the complementary relationship between the two boundary detectors.In addition, to accurately predict the confidence of densely distributed proposals, we design a proposal relation-aware module (PRAM) that exploits global correlation for proposal relationship modelling. Experiments on the popular datasets ActivityNet1.3, THUMOS14, and HACS demonstrate the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper on the task of temporal action proposal generation, which can generate action proposals with high precision and recall. Moreover, combining with existing action classifiers can also achieve better performance in temporal action detection.These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in this paper in improving the accuracy of temporal action proposal generation and detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CSIDH is a post-quantum key-exchange scheme based on the action of ideal class groups on supersingular elliptic curves over prime fields. Its short keys and ciphertexts, together with its flexibility as a building block to construct complex cryptographic primitives, has motivated significant research on the efficiency of CSIDH and its resistance against side-channel attacks. In this work, some cutting-edge results from recent contributions are reviewed in a unified treatment, focusing on the mathematical ideas lying behind them rather than on cryptographic and low-level implementation techniques. In particular, we first describe ways to speed up the class-group-action evaluation, which range from the use of different models of elliptic curves to working with different ideal class groups. We then survey some constant-time variants of CSIDH, that make the time and memory consumption during the computation of a public/shared key independent of the secret key. Finally, we examine the computation of the ideal class action when the structure of the ideal class group is known, which is the case for a specific set of CSIDH parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting action units is an important task in face analysis, especially in facial expression recognition. This is due, in part, to the idea that expressions can be decomposed into multiple action units. To evaluate systems that detect action units, F1-binary score is often used as the evaluation metric. In this paper, we argue that F1-binary score does not reliably evaluate these models due largely to class imbalance. Because of this, F1-binary score should be retired and a suitable replacement should be used. We justify this argument through a detailed evaluation of the negative influence of class imbalance on action unit detection. This includes an investigation into the influence of class imbalance in train and test sets and in new data (i.e., generalizability). We empirically show that F1-micro should be used as the replacement for F1-binary. • We show that AU base rates have a large influence on detection across different architectures. • We show how different evaluation metrics are impacted by AU base rates. • We argue that F1-binary should not be used, for AU detection, and that F1-micro should replace it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nachrichten aus der Chemie is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The research aim is to describe the problem of speaking ability in junior high school needs to be done to observe the development of students'' learning difficulties in current speaking skills.The type of research is a class action research descriptive quantitative. The population of this research is class VIII teacher at Junior High School state three Binjai. Based on the results of the pre-test, the pre-test mean score was 66,26 and the mean score in the post-test was 86,93. It can be seen that the students'' skill in speaking by using storytelling technique increased. From these calculations, it can be inferred that there was a difference of students'' scores before and after receiving the treatment. The affect storytelling used single story telling is from score minimum pre-test 30 to score posttest is 82 and score maximal pre-test 65 and post-test is 82 it is mean the research is succeeding and have affect to speaking skill. The improving from the research is when using the singlestory telling model, the results obtained increased by approx. 49%. Based on the data analysis, the researcher found that storytelling technique can improve students' skill in speaking. As the result from the pre-test and post-test mean scores which were given. The improvement of mean score was 66,26 to 86,93. It means that there is significant difference of achievement between the students who were taught by using storytelling technique and the students who were taught without storytelling technique. The data also showed that students felt that storytelling technique could help them in speaking. Most of them also responded that they attempt to use storytelling technique in their daily speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deciphers the sail on a proposition of a video steganography model with the use of a 3D DeepCNN- grounded autoencoder which allows extracting spatiotemporal features from still frames. It tends to hide frames of one video in another video taking into consideration equivalency in terms of size. For the phase of training the model, we've employed a UCF101 dataset containing 101 classes of action recognition videos (13320 videos). The quantitative benefaction of this model was arranged using varied quantitative indexes (SSIM, APD, and PSNR), and the qualitative benefaction was evaluated against the existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a finite group |$G$|⁠ , a central subgroup |$H$| of |$G$|⁠ , and an operator space |$X$| equipped with an action of |$H$| by complete isometries, we construct an operator space |$X_{G}$| equipped with an action of |$G$| that is unique under a "reasonable" condition. This generalizes the operator space complexification |$X_{c}$| of |$X$|⁠. As a linear space |$X_{G}$| is the space obtained from inducing the representation of |$H$| to |$G$| (in the sense of Frobenius). Indeed a main achievement of our paper is the induced representation construction in the category of operator spaces. This has been hitherto elusive even for Banach spaces since it is not clear how to norm the induced space. We show that for a large class of group actions the induced space has a unique operator space norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class actions make it economically viable for plaintiffs to pursue low-value claims. Through class actions, plaintiffs are compensated, and defendants are deterred. An important component of class actions is the class representative. Without a class representative, a class action cannot occur. Therefore, in an effort to induce class representatives to participate in the suit-and thus maintain the sustainability of class actions-lass representatives are given incentive awards. These incentive awards seek to compensate class representatives for their work done on behalf of the class, to offset any, financial and reputational risk, and to recognize their work as a private attorney general. Incentive awards became commonplace by the turn of the twenty-first century. However, the legal basis for them was rarely, if ever, discussed. Courts would frequently dodge the opportunity to address the permissibility of incentive awards-until recently. Since the end of 2020, four circuit courts have addressed whether incentive awards should be categorically banned: a result that would severely impact the viability of class actions. Yet, rather than addressing this question by analyzing whether there is a legal basis for modern incentive awards, the courts have focused on the applicability Of a pair of over-a-century old cases. Therefore, despite the attention that incentive awards have recently received, the legal basis for such awards remains unclear. This Note seeks to provide the analysis that is missing: What, if any, is the legal basis giving courts authority to approve incentive awards to class representatives? In particular, this Note searches for a legal basis in Rules, common law, and principles of freedom of contract. Upon finding that incentive awards are legally permissible, this Note proposes a new framework for how courts should analyze incentive awards moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the challenges faced by plaintiffs seeking to enforce their rights under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). It discusses issues such as Article III standing requirements, personal jurisdiction, and the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions on TCPA litigation. The article also examines the differences between federal and state standing requirements, the complexities of personal jurisdiction in class actions, and the implications of these issues for TCPA claims and class actions. The author argues that resolving these challenges is crucial to ensure access to justice and protect consumers' rights. [Extracted from the article]

In practice, the ultimate outcome of many important discrimination cases, for example, the Wal-Mart, Nike and Goldman-Sachs equal pay cases, is determined at the stage when the plaintiffs request that the case be certified as a class action. The primary statistical issue at this time is whether the employment practice in question leads to a common pattern of outcomes disadvantaging most plaintiffs. However, there are no formal procedures or government guidelines for checking whether an employment practice results in a common pattern of disparity. This article proposes using the slightly modified likelihood ratio test and the one-sided Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel (CMH) test to examine data relevant to deciding whether this commonality requirement is satisfied. Data considered at the class certification stage from several actual cases are analyzed by the proposed procedures. The results often show that the employment practice at issue created a common pattern of disparity, however, based on the evidence presented to the courts, the class action requests were denied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal action segmentation (TAS) of minute-long untrimmed videos involves locating and classifying human action segments using multiple action class labels. Previously, research on this task typically involved generating an initial estimate using designed temporal convolutional layers and gradually refining this estimate solely based on RGB features. This approach, however, exhibits several limitations, including the inability to capture inherent long-range dependencies and insufficient consideration of intricate spatial-temporal correlations in the changing relationships between human joints. To address these constraints, we introduce a novel spatial-temporal graph transformer network (STGT) for the skeleton-based TAS task. Our STGT employs a series of skeleton graph transformer blocks (SGT blocks) within an encoder-decoder architecture. Particularly, the spatial-temporal graph layer with an adaptive graph strategy enhances the graph structure, rendering it more flexible and robust. Additionally, the spatial-temporal transformer layer in the SGT block constructs parallel attention mechanisms to model the dynamic spatial and non-linear temporal correlations. Integrating these advancements into the TAS task represents a notable achievement. Experimental results on three challenging datasets (PKU-MMD, HuGaDB, and LARa) indicate the improved performance of the proposed framework compared with that of existing TAS models (MS-TCN, ASRF, BCN, ETSN, and ASFormer). Furthermore, our approach effectively addresses concerns regarding over-segmentation errors and ambiguous boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the real industrial manufacturing process, due to the constantly changing operational loads of equipment, it is difficult to collect data from all load conditions as the source domain signal for fault diagnosis. Therefore, the appearance of unseen load vibration signals in the target domain presents a challenge and research hotspot in fault diagnosis. This paper proposes a triplet loss-based domain generalization network (TL-DGN) and then applies it to an unseen domain bearing fault diagnosis. TL-DGN first utilizes a feature extractor to construct a multi-source domain classification loss. Furthermore, it measures the distance between class data from different domains using triplet loss. The introduced triplet loss can narrow the distance between samples of the same class in the feature space and widen the distance between samples of different classes based on the action of the cross-entropy loss function. It can reduce the dependency of the classification boundary on bearing operational loads, resulting in a more generalized classification model. Finally, two comparative experiments with fault diagnosis models without triplet loss and other classification models demonstrate that the proposed model achieves superior fault diagnosis performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the legal complexities surrounding copyright laws and generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. It examines various lawsuits that have been filed, focusing on copyright claims related to the training data and output produced by AI models. The article provides an overview of recent court rulings in four cases, which shed light on the evolving legal landscape and offer insight into the types of claims that are likely to be successful. It also discusses specific cases, including Andersen v. Stability AI and Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, providing details of the initial complaints and the courts' rulings on motions to dismiss. The article emphasizes the challenges faced by plaintiffs in proving copyright infringement and fair use in generative AI cases. [Extracted from the article]

Let Γ = Q(5√n) be a pure quintic field, where n is a 5th power-free natural number, k0 = Q(ζ5) be the cyclotomic field generated by a primitive 5th root of unity ζ5, and k = Q (5√n, ζ5) be the normal closure of Γ. Let k5(1) be the Hilbert 5-class field of k, Ck,5 the 5-ideal class group of k, and Ck,5(σ) the group of ambiguous classes under the action of Gal(k/k0) = ⟨σ⟩. When Ck,5 is of type (5, 5) and rank Ck,5(σ) = 1, we treat the capitulation problem of the 5-ideal classes of Ck,5 in the six intermediate extensions of k5(1) /k. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Existing studies suggest that negative impacts emanating from corporate fraud revelations may diffuse to other firms through lower trust and lower market participation. Extending this literature stream, the authors examine whether corporate fraud revelations are associated with higher costs of raising capital through initial public offerings (IPOs) for industry peers. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ several analysis techniques including univariate analysis, multivariate regressions, propensity score matching methodology, and probit estimation. The sample consists of 3,015 US IPO firms for the 1996–2021 period. Findings: By adopting US private securities class action lawsuits as a proxy for the presence of corporate fraud, the authors find that fraud revelations are associated with higher IPO underpricing, higher post-IPO stock return volatility and increased likelihood of withdrawal from the offering for industry peers. The findings are robust to alternative industry definitions and litigation proxies and to the inclusion of a battery of controls, including industry, state and year fixed effects. Originality/value: This study presents private firms with an additional industry litigation factor to consider when assessing the marginal costs of going public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the inconsistent enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in federal courts due to a disagreement over the interpretation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 4(k). The issue arises when out-of-state plaintiffs join collective actions under the FLSA. The circuit split centers around whether the Supreme Court's decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb applies to these actions. The author argues for amending the FLSA to allow for nationwide service of process to resolve the issue. The article also discusses the process and requirements for FLSA collective actions and the concept of personal jurisdiction after the Bristol-Myers decision. The circuit split highlights the need for further clarification from Congress or the Supreme Court. [Extracted from the article]

We consider three kinds of quotients of the curve complex, which are obtained by coning off uniformly quasiconvex subspaces: symmetric curve sets, non-maximal train track sets, and compression body disc sets. We show that the actions of the mapping class group on those quotients are strongly weakly properly discontinuously (WPD), which implies that the actions are non-elementary and those quotients are of infinite diameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first glance data protection litigation seems to be a niche topic. Yet, record sum compensation such as those resulting from the Meta – Cambridge Analytica lawsuit (725 million USD) reveal enormous practical relevance. This proceeding took the form of a class action, brought before a Californian court. Such collective proceedings might sweep across the Atlantic, as the EU Directive on Representative Actions introduced a new collective litigation mechanism. We commence our comparative analysis by outlining the relevant legal landscapes in the EU and the US, give an account of the latest developments, and examine relevant case law and scientific literature (paras. 1.–4.). Subsequently, the law and economics of data protection litigation are explained (para. 5.), which will serve as standard of comparison. On this basis, in para. 6. the article contrasts the efficiency of collective litigation mechanisms, enabling enforcement against data protection infringements, with the objectives of evaluating the legal status quo and distilling proposals for future legal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonialist and racist systems have left a profoundly harmful imprint of trauma on Métis, First Nations, and Inuit communities. There has been inadequate application of trauma-informed approaches to class actions, particularly at the claims level, where class members tend to be most engaged in the process. Class actions are a preferred vehicle for litigating institutional abuse cases that implicate Indigenous communities. As it stands, the lack of trauma-informed design in the class action regime conflicts with the goal of reparations for abuses and collective wrongs, as re-traumatization compounds the initial harms suffered. Accordingly, integrating a trauma-informed approach to the claims process is essential to mitigate further harm. This paper provides a non-exhaustive list of recommendations for the improvement of claims processes as a starting point, including implementing culturally appropriate trauma sensitivity training, removing temporal constraints, engaging in meaningful and robust community consultation, establishing community liaisons, facilitating storytelling, and modifying evidentiary standards. This paper concludes that a novel, culturally appropriate and trauma-informed approach to the claims process is needed to shift towards a more equitable, safe, and just class action regime for Indigenous class members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed rule to label two widely used PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, as "hazardous substances" under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The author argues that this rule will increase the success of plaintiffs in PFAS litigation by improving access to legal representation and resources, as well as addressing issues of causation in class action lawsuits and multidistrict litigations. The article provides information on what PFAS chemicals are, their prevalence in the environment and human bodies, and the health risks associated with exposure. It also discusses the history of PFAS litigation in the United States and the EPA's previous efforts to regulate PFAS contamination. [Extracted from the article]

Companies are increasingly expected to publicly report on not only their traditional financial results, but also environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") issues. Trillions of dollars are being invested with ESG considerations in mind, and boosters urge that ESG investing can address environmental and social impacts that are normally ignored by managers focused on share prices. This raises the question of how companies should be punished if they lie about ESG matters. How should the traditional elements of securities fraud map onto the novel ESG context? Commentators have vigorously debated ESG's relationship to the materiality element of securities fraud. But the literature has largely overlooked the reliance element. Securities class action plaintiffs normally show reliance using the presumption introduced by the Supreme Court's decision in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. If a plaintiff can show that a company's shares trade in an efficient market, share prices are presumed to reflect all publicly available material information about the company. As a result, a material misstatement operates as a "fraud on the market," and anyone who traded the company's shares at the market price is presumed to have relied on the misstatement. This presumption makes securities class actions possible by dispensing with the need to prove that every individual plaintiff actually relied on the false information. As ESG disclosures expand, a new wave of litigation powered by Basic is developing. This Article explores the reliance element of securities fraud and identifies a deep tension between the premises of the ESG movement and the premises of Basic. The advocates who urge corporations to do better on environmental and social matters largely--and justifiably--believe that share prices do not properly reflect corporate performance on those fronts. That belief is difficult to reconcile with Basic's assumption that material information about a company is reflected in its share price. The Basic presumption could also chill valuable experimentation and voluntary disclosures by companies, and it could absolve institutional investors of the need to actually review and act on ESG disclosures. Counterintuitively, requiring plaintiffs who attack an ESG disclosure to show reliance without using Basic may help advance the goals of the ESG movement, particularly if other enforcers such as the Securities and Exchange Commission step up. These points suggest the need to proactively consider how the Basic presumption should work for ESG misstatements, along with the development of new and creative approaches. By shifting the conversation on ESG disclosures from its current emphasis on materiality to a proper focus on investor reliance and enforcement, this analysis generates fresh and actionable insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the overwhelming majority of class action lawsuits filed in this country are plaintiff class actions—with named plaintiffs representing larger classes of plaintiffs—Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure technically permits plaintiffs to sue a named defendant representing a class of defendants as well. However, such suits are exceptionally rare—so much so that they have been described as “as rare as unicorns.” Still, when defendant classes emerge, they create two distinct problems. First, defendant classes cause both federal district courts and their state counterparts severe administrative headaches. Second, defendant classes trample on the due process rights of the defendants who are bound by their judgments. At least partially in response to these administrative and due process concerns, states have experimented with fixes to the defendant class action device in their equivalent class action rules. This Note categorizes and analyzes those variations on Federal Rule 23. It shows that Maryland’s solution of plaintiffonly classes is good; Mississippi and Virginia’s solution of nixing class actions altogether is bad; and Iowa, New Hampshire, and North Dakota’s solution of barring opt-outs from defendant class actions is quite clearly unconstitutional. Ultimately, this Note concludes that—given the due process issues deeply embedded in the defendant class action device— other states and the federal judiciary should follow the lead of Maryland and abrogate defendant classes altogether. However, in the alternative, it argues that, at the very least, state statutes and rules barring a defendant from opting out of a defendant class violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and the Supreme Court should intervene as soon as a case comes to its attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass injuries caused by the violations of multinational firms are becoming more and more common in today's globalised economy as goods and services are sold worldwide, and the harm these goods and services cause affects many widely scattered victims in different countries. Even if the same or almost identical factual situations injure consumers worldwide, whether they obtain any remedies varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as each country designs its class action procedure differently. In order to overcome jurisdictional variations and compensate consumers with small claims in a more effective and efficient manner, this article deliberates on the idea of incorporating blockchain-based dispute resolution methods into class action proceedings. In this light, the article discusses to what extent blockchain-based dispute resolution systems can be used in class actions to provide better access to justice to consumers at the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class actions require class representation. In class actions, plaintiffs litigate not only on their own behalf but “on behalf of all others similarly situated.” For almost fifty years, federal courts have routinely exercised their inherent equitable authority to award modest compensation to deserving class representatives who help recover common funds benefiting the plaintiff class. These discretionary “incentive awards” are generally intended to compensate class representatives for shouldering certain costs and risks—which are not borne by absent class members—during the pendency of class litigation. The ubiquity of permitting class action incentive awards ended in 2020. In an extraordinary ruling, the Eleventh Circuit held that incentive awards are per se unlawful under late nineteenth-century Supreme Court precedent. This holding has ignited a new controversy in the federal courts with far-reaching implications for the future of class actions. Much of the existing legal scholarship on incentive awards analyzes policy rationales, quantitative trends, and legal standards involving the questions of “When?” and “How much?” to compensate class representatives. Only recently have scholars turned their attention to the more foundational question of whether federal courts have a sound basis to allocate incentive awards to class representatives under any circumstances. This Note weighs in on that debate by revisiting the Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision to categorically ban incentive awards More importantly, this Note looks to the future and confronts the reality that other federal circuit courts or the Supreme Court could eventually adopt the Eleventh Circuit’s position on incentive awards. Facing that unsettling prospect, this Note presents three proposals—one for policymakers and two for plaintiffside class action practitioners—that could save the equitable tradition of compensating class representatives and reinforce the viability of the class action device itself [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]