EC-KitY: Evolutionary Computation Tool Kit in Python with Seamless Machine Learning Integration

EC-KitY is a comprehensive Python library for doing evolutionary computation (EC), licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License, and compatible with scikit-learn. Designed with modern software engineering and machine learning integration in mind, EC-KitY can support all popular EC paradigms, including genetic algorithms, genetic programming, coevolution, evolutionary multi-objective optimization, and more. This paper provides an overview of the package, including the ease of setting up an EC experiment, the architecture, the main features, and a comparison with other libraries.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Published in Elsevier Software

Prayer as Inner Sense Cultivation: An Attentional Learning Theory of Spiritual Experience

How does prayer change the person who prays? In this article, we report on a randomized controlled trial developed to test an ethnographic hypothesis. Our results suggest that prayer which uses the imagination-the kind of prayer practiced in many U.S. evangelical congregations-cultivates the inner senses, and that this cultivation has consequences. Mental imagery grows sharper. Inner experience seems more significant to the person praying. Feelings and sensations grow more intense. The person praying reports more unusual sensory experience and more unusual and more intense spiritual experience. In this work we explain in part why inner sense cultivation is found in so many spiritual traditions, and we illustrate the way spiritual practice affects spiritual experience. We contribute to the anthropology of religion by presenting an attentional learning theory of prayer

Trust your instincts:The relationship between intuitive decision making and happiness

Epstein (1994; 2003) proposed that there are two cognitive information processing systems that operate in parallel: the intuitive thinking style and the rational thinking style. Decisional fit occurs when the preferred thinking style is applied to making a decision and research has shown that this fit increases the value of the outcome of a decision. Additionally, decisional fit leads to less regret, even when post hoc evaluations show the decision to be incorrect. It has not yet been determined whether decisional fit correlates with greater happiness and hence, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the difference between styles of thinking, styles of decision making and the impact of decisional fit on happiness scores. Individual differences in thinking and decision style were measured using an online interactive questionnaire (N = 100), and an ANOVA, hierarchical multiple regression, and a series of t-tests, were used to investigate the relationship between thinking style, decision style, decisional fit, and happiness, thereby addressing a gap in the existing literature. The major findings from the current study show that intuitive thinking has a strong positive correlation with happiness; that intuitive thinkers are more likely to utilize intuitive decisional style, than rational thinkers; and that when both rational and intuitive thinkers experienced decisional fit, higher ratings of happiness were reported. Explanations and recommendations for future studies are outlined in the discussion

Affective neuroscience, emotional regulation, and international relations

International relations (IR) has witnessed an emerging interest in neuroscience, particularly for its relevance to a now widespread scholarship on emotions. Contributing to this scholarship, this article draws on the subfields of affective neuroscience and neuropsychology, which remain largely unexplored in IR. Firstly, the article draws on affective neuroscience in illuminating affect's defining role in consciousness and omnipresence in social behavior, challenging the continuing elision of emotions in mainstream approaches. Secondly, it applies theories of depth neuropsychology, which suggest a neural predisposition originating in the brain's higher cortical regions to attenuate emotional arousal and limit affective consciousness. This predisposition works to preserve individuals' self-coherence, countering implicit assumptions about rationality and motivation within IR theory. Thirdly, it outlines three key implications for IR theory. It argues that affective neuroscience and neuropsychology offer a route towards deep theorizing of ontologies and motivations. It also leads to a reassessment of the social regulation of emotions, particularly as observed in institutions, including the state. It also suggests a productive engagement with constructivist and poststructuralist approaches by addressing the agency of the body in social relations. The article concludes by sketching the potential for a therapeutically-attuned approach to IR

Why teach legal ethics on undergraduate law degrees?

There is a considerable debate as to whether legal ethics should be taught on undergraduate law degrees in the UK. This is a contribution to that debate which argues for such a development. It presents a series of arguments about the desirability of doing so, both from the perspective of preparing students for entry into the legal profession and from that of ensuring a critical, liberal education in law. It enters into the debate about what it is we might seek to achieve in ethics teaching. The article presents a variety of approaches to how students might learn legal ethics, drawn from a number of countries and giving references to publications which provide more detail and insight. It concludes with a link to a new international database and forum designed to assist colleagues in these developments

SME Access to Finance: An exploration into the demand and supply contraints around SME access to finance

In March 2011, the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University was commissioned by North East Access to Finance (NEA2F) to undertake a major piece of independent academic research to explore both the demand and supply sides of SME access to finance in the North East of England. The aim of the research was to gain insight and understanding into the challenges faced not only by the SME sector but also by the key suppliers of finance to that community, specifically the banking sector and Business Angels. Thus we do not take a position on what we think is right or what a best practice approach might be but rather reflect, as accurately as possible, the information that was shared with us. The research project commenced in May 2011 and was completed at the end of March 2012