7,038 research outputs found
Reconceptualizing major policy change in the advocacy coalition framework: a discourse network analysis of German pension politics
How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old-age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the "normal state." In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem
Mobile Music Development Tools for Creative Coders
This project is a body of work that facilitates the creation of musical mobile artworks. The project includes a code toolkit that enhances and simplifies the development of mobile music iOS applications, a flexible notation system designed for mobile musical interactions, and example apps and scored compositions to demonstrate the toolkit and notation system.
The code library is designed to simplify the technical aspect of user-centered design and development with a more direct connection between concept and deliverable. This sim- plification addresses learning problems (such as motivation, self-efficacy, and self-perceived understanding) by bridging the gap between idea and functional prototype and improving the ability to contextualize the development process for musicians and other creatives. The toolkit helps to circumvent the need to learn complex iOS development patterns and affords more readable code.
CSPD (color, shape, pattern, density) notation is a pseudo-tablature that describes performance interactions. The system leverages visual density and patterns of both color and shape to describe types of gestures (physical or musical) and their relationships rather than focusing on strict rhythmic or pitch/frequency content. The primary design goal is to visualize macro musical concepts that create middleground structure
Creationism and evolution
In Tower of Babel, Robert Pennock wrote that
“defenders of evolution would help their case
immeasurably if they would reassure their
audience that morality, purpose, and meaning are
not lost by accepting the truth of evolution.” We
first consider the thesis that the creationists’
movement exploits moral concerns to spread its
ideas against the theory of evolution. We analyze
their arguments and possible reasons why they are
easily accepted. Creationists usually employ two
contradictive strategies to expose the purported
moral degradation that comes with accepting the
theory of evolution. On the one hand they claim
that evolutionary theory is immoral. On the other
hand creationists think of evolutionary theory as
amoral. Both objections come naturally in a
monotheistic view. But we can find similar
conclusions about the supposed moral aspects of
evolution in non-religiously inspired discussions.
Meanwhile, the creationism-evolution debate
mainly focuses — understandably — on what
constitutes good science. We consider the need for
moral reassurance and analyze reassuring
arguments from philosophers. Philosophers may
stress that science does not prescribe and is
therefore not immoral, but this reaction opens the
door for the objection of amorality that evolution
— as a naturalistic world view at least —
supposedly endorses. We consider that the topic of
morality and its relation to the acceptance of
evolution may need more empirical research
The moderate approach to integrating concurrency and object orientation
Principles of integrating concurrent computation, objects, and inheritance are
discussed. The approach outlined here is guided by general considerations
about the rĂ´les of the two paradigms being merged. We suggest our approach to
some open design questions: the relation of concurrency to inheritance and the
thread and synchronisation concept among objects. The question, where should
the combination of concurrency and objectorientation be settled between the
paradigms, is analysed in different aspects. The presented approach also
avoids the inheritance anomaly
Optical Flow in Mostly Rigid Scenes
The optical flow of natural scenes is a combination of the motion of the
observer and the independent motion of objects. Existing algorithms typically
focus on either recovering motion and structure under the assumption of a
purely static world or optical flow for general unconstrained scenes. We
combine these approaches in an optical flow algorithm that estimates an
explicit segmentation of moving objects from appearance and physical
constraints. In static regions we take advantage of strong constraints to
jointly estimate the camera motion and the 3D structure of the scene over
multiple frames. This allows us to also regularize the structure instead of the
motion. Our formulation uses a Plane+Parallax framework, which works even under
small baselines, and reduces the motion estimation to a one-dimensional search
problem, resulting in more accurate estimation. In moving regions the flow is
treated as unconstrained, and computed with an existing optical flow method.
The resulting Mostly-Rigid Flow (MR-Flow) method achieves state-of-the-art
results on both the MPI-Sintel and KITTI-2015 benchmarks.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication at CVPR 201
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