13,701 research outputs found
Implementing Health Impact Assessment as a Required Component of Government Policymaking: A Multi-Level Exploration of the Determinants of Healthy Public Policy
It is widely understood that the public policies of ânon-healthâ government sectors have greater impacts on population health than those of the traditional healthcare realm. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool that identifies and promotes the health benefits of policies while also mitigating their unintended negative consequences. Despite numerous calls to do so, the Ontario government has yet to implement HIA as a required component of policy development. This dissertation therefore sought to identify the contexts and factors that may both enable and impede HIA use at the sub-national (i.e., provincial, territorial, or state) government level.
The three integrated articles of this dissertation provide insights into specific aspects of the policy process as they relate to HIA. Chapter one details a case study of purposive information-seeking among public servants within Ontarioâs Ministry of Education (MOE). Situated within Ontarioâs Ministry of Health (MOH), chapter two presents a case study of policy collaboration between health and ânon-healthâ ministries. Finally, chapter three details a framework analysis of the political factors supporting health impact tool use in two sub-national jurisdictions â namely, QuĂ©bec and South Australia.
MOE respondents (N=9) identified four components of policymaking âdue diligenceâ, including evidence retrieval, consultation and collaboration, referencing, and risk analysis. As prospective HIA users, they also confirmed that information is not routinely sought to mitigate the potential negative health impacts of education-based policies. MOH respondents (N=8) identified the bureaucratic hierarchy as the brokering mechanism for inter-ministerial policy development. As prospective HIA stewards, they also confirmed that the ministry does not proactively flag the potential negative health impacts of non-health sector policies. Finally, âlessons learnedâ from case articles specific to QuĂ©bec (n=12) and South Australia (n=17) identified the political factors supporting tool use at different stages of the policy cycle, including agenda setting (âpolicy elitesâ and âpolitical cultureâ), implementation (âjurisdictionâ), and sustained implementation (âinstitutional powerâ).
This work provides important insights into âreal lifeâ policymaking. By highlighting existing facilitators of and barriers to HIA use, the findings offer a useful starting point from which proponents may tailor context-specific strategies to sustainably implement HIA at the sub-national government level
Data-to-text generation with neural planning
In this thesis, we consider the task of data-to-text generation, which takes non-linguistic
structures as input and produces textual output. The inputs can take the form of
database tables, spreadsheets, charts, and so on. The main application of data-to-text
generation is to present information in a textual format which makes it accessible to
a layperson who may otherwise find it problematic to understand numerical figures.
The task can also automate routine document generation jobs, thus improving human
efficiency. We focus on generating long-form text, i.e., documents with multiple paragraphs. Recent approaches to data-to-text generation have adopted the very successful
encoder-decoder architecture or its variants. These models generate fluent (but often
imprecise) text and perform quite poorly at selecting appropriate content and ordering
it coherently. This thesis focuses on overcoming these issues by integrating content
planning with neural models. We hypothesize data-to-text generation will benefit from
explicit planning, which manifests itself in (a) micro planning, (b) latent entity planning, and (c) macro planning. Throughout this thesis, we assume the input to our
generator are tables (with records) in the sports domain. And the output are summaries
describing what happened in the game (e.g., who won/lost, ..., scored, etc.).
We first describe our work on integrating fine-grained or micro plans with data-to-text generation. As part of this, we generate a micro plan highlighting which records
should be mentioned and in which order, and then generate the document while taking
the micro plan into account.
We then show how data-to-text generation can benefit from higher level latent entity planning. Here, we make use of entity-specific representations which are dynam ically updated. The text is generated conditioned on entity representations and the
records corresponding to the entities by using hierarchical attention at each time step.
We then combine planning with the high level organization of entities, events, and
their interactions. Such coarse-grained macro plans are learnt from data and given
as input to the generator. Finally, we present work on making macro plans latent
while incrementally generating a document paragraph by paragraph. We infer latent
plans sequentially with a structured variational model while interleaving the steps of
planning and generation. Text is generated by conditioning on previous variational
decisions and previously generated text.
Overall our results show that planning makes data-to-text generation more interpretable, improves the factuality and coherence of the generated documents and re duces redundancy in the output document
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Creative and digital industries in Nottingham: a sector analysis of Nottingham and the Creative Quarter
The Creative and Digital Industries is one of the fastest growing sectors in Nottingham. It is a major employer of high skill jobs that employs 7% of Nottinghamâs workforce. It is a high-productivity, knowledge-intensive sector that has experienced more GVA growth since 2010 than all other sectors standard industrial sectors in the area with the exception of Information & Communications. Nottingham is developing a specialisation in the Creative and Digital Industries that is clustered in the Creative Quarter. Employment in the sector since 2015 has grown faster that most major cities including London and GVA growth is second only to London. The drivers behind this growth are the businesses which are at the intersection of the Creative Industries and the Digital Sector such as game developers, animation and video production, broadcasting, marketing agencies and even data analytics
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Quantitative Character and the Composite Account of Phenomenal Content
I advance an account of quantitative character, a species of phenomenal character that presents as an intensity (cf. a quality) and includes experience dimensions such as loudness, pain intensity, and visual pop-out. I employ psychological and neuroscientific evidence to demonstrate that quantitative characters are best explained by attentional processing, and hence that they do not represent external qualities. Nonetheless, the proposed account of quantitative character is conceived as a compliment to the reductive intentionalist strategy toward qualitative states; I argue that an account of perceptual experience that combines a tracking account of qualitative character with my functionalist proposal of quantitative character permits replies to some notoriously difficult problems for tracking representationalism without sacrificing its chief virtues
Applications and practical considerations of polarisation structuring by a Fresnel cone
The polarisation property of light has been known about for hundreds of years. Often its use in technology has been limited to uniform states, however, more recently light with structured polarisation has gained interest. This is largely prompted by availability of spatial light modulators for generation, and increased computation speed to model complex focal fields. My PhD research has extended upon work carried out during a masterâs project where we investigated the use of a solid glass cone (so-called Fresnel cone) for generating vector vortex beams. The aim of this thesis is to report on the potential use of a Fresnel cone in microscopy and polarimetry applications, and practical implications discovered. Expanding on the previous work, enhanced fidelity polarisation states are measured and a newly developed Fresnel cone coupling technique is shown, allowing high-efficiency annular vector vortex beam generation. We demonstrate through simulations based on vector diffraction theory that azimuthally polarised light with OAM generated using a Fresnel cone can provide sub-diffraction limited focal spots, below those of more well-known radially polarised light. Practical implications were encountered, prompting investigation into the effects of phase aberrations on resulting focal spots, and experimental measurement of cone surface topology. We find the uniformity of the Fresnel cone shape and apex angle is crucial to the focussing properties. For polarimetry application, full details are provided for a single-shot full-Stokes polarimeter technique and proof-of-principle experiment, where broadband operation is demonstrated. I conclude by summarising the findings of my research and suggest potential future work in this area
The representation theory of Hc(Sn~Z/lZ)
In this thesis we examine various aspects of the representation theory of the restricted rational Cherednik algebra Hc(Sn~Z/lZ). We prove several multiplicity results for graded modules, in particular for modules over an algebra that admits a triangular decomposition. This includes the algebra Hc(Sn~Z/lZ). Furthermore, if the projective covers admit a radical preserving filtration, we show that we can calculate the multiplicities of the simple modules inside the radical layers of the projective covers.
We give an explicit presentation of the centre of the restricted rational Cherednik algebra Hc(Sn~Z/lZ) for suitably generic c. This is done by first deriving a presentation of the centre of Hc(Sn) using Schubert cells, then extending this to the more general wreath product group using the action of the cyclic group Z/lZ. This presentation is given for each block of the centre. Using the bijection between irreducible representations of Sn~Z/lZ and l-multipartitions of n, we prove that this explicit presentation can be read directly from the l-multipartition of n
Non-LTI Antenna Design and Modeling Techniques
Nearly all contemporary antenna systems are Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) devices, and allow for assumptions of frequency independence and reciprocity, but are governed by strict bounds on their performance. Recently, nonlinear and time-varying (non-LTI) antennas have become a common path of research in an attempt to break the LTI assumption and improve antenna performance beyond these limits, but lack a general modeling technique to develop fundamental equations for antenna design. The adaptability of the established method of moments (MoM) allows for a complete model of virtually any structure. Conversely, the conversion matrix method allows the expansion of circuit and network parameters to model time-varying structures. The combination of the two methods allows for a generalized model of a time-varying antenna while granting insight into their design. In a similar way, MoM can be combined with the harmonic balance method and allow for the accurate simulation of nonlinear components and pumped nonlinearities on antennas of arbitrary structure. These aspects of MoM, conversion matrices, and harmonic balance are leveraged in this work to provide a better understanding of non-LTI antennas and develop several models for achieving better performance or different capabilities
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The Theory of International Prices: A Classical Production-Based Approach
This thesis is an investigation into the theory of international prices, following a classical production-based approach. The thesis provides a systematic investigation of different closures to the system of international prices, focusing on the types of assumptions employed by the literature. Three main closures are considered: balanced trade, equal growth rates, and free international mobility of capital. Each of these closures is associated with one or more contributions in the history of thought. Through careful evaluation, the thesis identifies theoretical and empirical shortcomings with each closure.
The thesis then proposes a novel closure to the system of international prices based on given wage disparities. This is done in three successive stages through a step-by-step layering process where each layer adds more realistic and complex scenarios. The first layer builds from a pure labour model; it provides the first formalization of Pasinettiâs contributions to international trade theory. The second layer introduces trade in intermediate goods. The third layer introduces positive rates of profit. For each layer, the thesis analyses the conditions required for countries to specialize according to comparative or absolute advantage. It shows that comparative advantage cannot determine specialization by itself; it needs additional assumptions. Furthermore, the thesis argues that given wage disparities are sufficient to determine absolute cost advantages. International prices and specialization are determined based on absolute cost advantages, compatible with the classical process of price competition
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Decomposing Learning Inequalities in East Africa: How Much Does Sorting Matter?
Inequalities in learning opportunities arise from both household- and school-related factors. Although these factors are unlikely to be independent, few studies have considered the extent to which sorting between schools and households might aggravate educational inequalities. To fill this gap, this article presents a novel variance decomposition, which is then applied to data from over one million children from East Africa. Results indicate that sorting accounts for around 8 percent of the test-score variance, similar in magnitude to the contribution of differences in school quality. Empirical simulations of steady-state educational inequalities reveal that policies to mitigate sorting could substantially reduce educational inequalities over the long run
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Co-Animation in Troubles-Talk
Through troubles-talk, participants disclose and negatively assess unfortunate past or habitual happenings and offenses, and these are often vividly staged in the here and now by temporarily âdoing beingâ past Self or others, what we call animation. In this study, we show how by animating their own affective reactions toward the recounted experiences, tellers cast themselves as victims and their recipients as witnesses. More importantly, we demonstrate how animation is also a relevant practice for recipients, who in a contiguous position often offer a responsive co-animation of the same figure, validating and amplifying their tellerâs affective displays, turning the experience into a common cause. This study contributes further to our understanding of empathic responses in troubles-talk in English by inscribing co-animation as a previously undescribed alternative at the response slot that allows recipients to temporarily position themselves âinto the momentâ as co-victims, co-experiencers, and co-sanctioners. Data are in English
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