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Balancing tests are diagnostics designed for use with propensity score methods, a widely used non-experimental approach in the evaluation literature. Such tests provide useful information on whether plausible counterfactuals have been created. Currently, multiple balancing tests exist in the literature but it is unclear which is the most useful. This article highlights the poor size properties of commonly employed balancing tests and attempts to shed some light on the link between the results of balancing tests and bias of the evaluation estimator. The simulation results suggest that in scenarios where the conditional independence assumption holds, a permutation version of the balancing test described in Dehejia and Wahba (Rev Econ Stat 84:151–161, 2002 ) can be useful in applied study. The proposed test has good size properties. In addition, the test appears to have good power for detecting a misspecification in the link function and some power for detecting an omission of relevant non-linear terms involving variables that are included at a lower order.

Match-3 puzzle games have garnered significant popularity across all age groups due to their simplicity, non-violent nature, and concise gameplay. However, the development of captivating and well-balanced stages in match-3 puzzle games remains a challenging task for game developers. This study aims to identify the optimal algorithm for reinforcement learning to streamline the level balancing verification process in match-3 games by comparison with Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithms. By training the agent with these two algorithms, the paper investigated which approach yields more efficient and effective difficulty level balancing test results. After the comparative analysis of cumulative rewards and entropy, the findings illustrate that the SAC algorithm is the optimal choice for creating an efficient agent capable of handling difficulty level balancing for stages in a match-3 puzzle game. This is because the superior learning performance and higher stability demonstrated by the SAC algorithm are more important in terms of stage difficulty balancing in match-3 gameplay. This study expects to contribute to the development of improved level balancing techniques in match-3 puzzle games besides enhancing the overall gaming experience for players.

Recent statements by university presidents suggest a heavy reliance by private universities on the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence to resolve campus speech controversies. That reliance is facially puzzling, as most private universities are not bound by that jurisprudence. This Essay hypothesizes that private universities may be choosing to follow First Amendment case law because that choice allows them to outsource thorny issues of content moderation to the Supreme Court. In arguing that private universities can and should make a more active choice in this domain, this Essay looks to an experiment conducted by the private corporation Meta (formerly Facebook) in creating a court-like body called the Oversight Board. Meta's experiment aspires to task this credible institution with interpreting a credible body of law through a series of credible, public, and reasoned opinions. This Essay suggests that private universities should consider creating analogous bodies to strike a more independent and considered balance between speech and other values such as dignity and equality.

Climate change and human rights adjudication-the European Court of Human Rights-Article 8.

The presumption of innocence, the prohibition against pretrial punishment, and the right to an impartial jury—constitutional bedrocks of the American criminal justice process—are potentially threatened by the practice of “perp walks.” Justice officials, politicians, and the news media have cited public demand as one justification for this controversial practice. Yet, this justification lacks an empirical basis. Drawing from work on procedural fairness, the present study suggests compensatory justice as a framework for understanding why some American citizens might support perp walks. We extend research on public attitudes towards perp walks with data from an internet survey of 1000 U.S. adults. We find that perp walks are not supported by a majority of the public and that attitudes towards perp walks are influenced by perceptions of the pros and cons of perp walks as well as of the legitimacy of the justice system.

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District marks an important point in the Court's doctrine regarding the First Amendment's Religion Clauses. Kennedy's most noteworthy contribution to the law may have been its clear declaration that the Lemon test and its endorsement offshoots are no longer the governing legal standard. Instead, the Court will interpret the Establishment Clause \"by 'reference to historical practices and understandings.'\" But what, precisely, does this historical approach entail? And aside from that test, what does Kennedy have to say about doctrinal developments under the Free Exercise Clause? This Essay makes three primary observations about Kennedy. First, the Court's refined Establishment Clause test is both more nuanced and more straightforward than many scholars suggest. The Court indicated that while coercion is one important historical hallmark of an established religion, it is not the only relevant hallmark. Thus, coercion has not become the new sine qua non for all future Establishment Clause violations. This Essay suggests that, in the future, the Court will likely look to whether relevant government action falls within a range of at least six distinct historical hallmarks, and unique doctrinal tests will apply in each of these distinct historically significant contexts. Second, Kennedy clarifies the relationship between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, rejecting the notion that these clauses are in tension and instead embracing a vision of them as complementary and likely working together to decrease unnecessary government interference with religion. Third, the Court provided additional doctrinal clarifications protecting religious rights under the Free Exercise Clause, including categorically prohibiting official hostility toward religion, expanding an understanding of what it means for a law to fail either neutrality or general applicability, and requiring government to articulate its interest under strict scrutiny contemporaneously, rather than as a post hoc litigation tactic. Thus, this Essay suggests that, in many ways, the impact Kennedy will have on the law has likely been overstated (particularly when combined with some of the factual disputes about the case). On the other hand, some of the potential important implications o/Kennedy have yet to be appreciated.

The recent Supreme Court decision in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. ex rel. Levy expanded the authority of school leaders to censor student off-campus online speech under certain circumstances. However, the Court failed to articulate the contexts in which censorship is constitutionally permissible. The absence of a clear constitutional standard leaves school leaders with unbridled discretion to censor off-campus speech, thereby increasing the likelihood of viewpoint discrimination. The expansion of school leaders' authority to censor student speech is occurring during a renaissance of political and social activism in K-12 schools as students, especially those from marginalized populations, advocate for myriad controversial issues affecting their communities such as gun control, reproductive rights, and LGBTQI+ rights. This is occurring during a broader backlash against progressive political speech: anti-CRT; \"Don't Say Gay\"; and the weaponization of the \"woke\" trope to suppress speech and maintain the subordination of marginalized groups. This Essay offers a path toward safeguarding students' First Amendment rights to engage in online expressive activities, political speech, and symbolic speech off campus through the adoption of a new constitutional standard, the Integrated Contextual Disruption (ICD) Test. This proposed new standard strikes the necessary balance between a school's regulatory interest in maintaining an environment conducive to learning and the competing value of student free-speech rights.

We live in an age of student surveillance. Once student surveillance just involved on-campus video cameras, school resource officers, and tip lines, but now, it extends beyond school hours and premises. Corporate monitoring software, installed on school-provided laptops, does two things. First, it blocks \"objectionable\" material, informing administrators about content that students tried to access. Second, it scans students' searches, browsing, files, emails, chats, and geolocation to detect \"problematic\" material. For many students, school-provided laptops are their only computing device. They use that device to complete homework, as they must; they use it to chat with friends, explore ideas, and play. For those students, the surveillance is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.