437 research outputs found

    (Im)probable stories:combining Bayesian and explanation-based accounts of rational criminal proof

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    A key question in criminal trials is, ‘may we consider the facts of the case proven?’ Partially in response to miscarriages of justice, philosophers, psychologists and mathematicians have considered how we can answer this question rationally. The two most popular answers are the Bayesian and the explanation-based accounts. Bayesian models cast criminal evidence in terms of probabilities. Explanation-based approaches view the criminal justice process as a comparison between causal explanations of the evidence. Such explanations usually take the form of scenarios – stories about how a crime was committed. The two approaches are often seen as rivals. However, this thesis argues that both perspectives are necessary for a good theory of rational criminal proof. By comparing scenarios, we can, among other things, determine what the key evidence is, how the items of evidence interrelate, and what further evidence to collect. Bayesian probability theory helps us pinpoint when we can and cannot conclude that a scenario is likely to be true. This thesis considers several questions regarding criminal evidence from this combined perspective, such as: can a defendant sometimes be convicted on the basis of an implausible guilt scenario? When can we assume that we are not overlooking scenarios or evidence? Should judges always address implausible innocence scenarios of the accused? When is it necessary to look for new evidence? How do we judge whether an eyewitness is reliable? By combining the two theories, we arrive at new insights on how to rationally reason about these, and other questions surrounding criminal evidence

    Expectations and expertise in artificial intelligence: specialist views and historical perspectives on conceptualisation, promise, and funding

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    Artificial intelligence’s (AI) distinctiveness as a technoscientific field that imitates the ability to think went through a resurgence of interest post-2010, attracting a flood of scientific and popular expectations as to its utopian or dystopian transformative consequences. This thesis offers observations about the formation and dynamics of expectations based on documentary material from the previous periods of perceived AI hype (1960-1975 and 1980-1990, including in-between periods of perceived dormancy), and 25 interviews with UK-based AI specialists, directly involved with its development, who commented on the issues during the crucial period of uncertainty (2017-2019) and intense negotiation through which AI gained momentum prior to its regulation and relatively stabilised new rounds of long-term investment (2020-2021). This examination applies and contributes to longitudinal studies in the sociology of expectations (SoE) and studies of experience and expertise (SEE) frameworks, proposing a historical sociology of expertise and expectations framework. The research questions, focusing on the interplay between hype mobilisation and governance, are: (1) What is the relationship between AI practical development and the broader expectational environment, in terms of funding and conceptualisation of AI? (2) To what extent does informal and non-developer assessment of expectations influence formal articulations of foresight? (3) What can historical examinations of AI’s conceptual and promissory settings tell about the current rebranding of AI? The following contributions are made: (1) I extend SEE by paying greater attention to the interplay between technoscientific experts and wider collective arenas of discourse amongst non-specialists and showing how AI’s contemporary research cultures are overwhelmingly influenced by the hype environment but also contribute to it. This further highlights the interaction between competing rationales focusing on exploratory, curiosity-driven scientific research against exploitation-oriented strategies at formal and informal levels. (2) I suggest benefits of examining promissory environments in AI and related technoscientific fields longitudinally, treating contemporary expectations as historical products of sociotechnical trajectories through an authoritative historical reading of AI’s shifting conceptualisation and attached expectations as a response to availability of funding and broader national imaginaries. This comes with the benefit of better perceiving technological hype as migrating from social group to social group instead of fading through reductionist cycles of disillusionment; either by rebranding of technical operations, or by the investigation of a given field by non-technical practitioners. It also sensitises to critically examine broader social expectations as factors for shifts in perception about theoretical/basic science research transforming into applied technological fields. Finally, (3) I offer a model for understanding the significance of interplay between conceptualisations, promising, and motivations across groups within competing dynamics of collective and individual expectations and diverse sources of expertise

    Muscling Through: Athletic Women in Victorian Popular Representation, 1864–1915

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    “Muscling Through” reconstructs an overlooked history of strong female bodies in the nineteenth century. It argues that popular representations of athletic women introduced a new category of identity that was distinct from women’s traditional relational and social roles. The project’s central figure is the hyper-able “Sportswoman,” who bridges the gap between two familiar versions of the Victorian woman’s body: the mid-century ideal of docile, domesticated femininity and the sturdy, capable women who enter universities, professions, and public spaces en masse just before the turn of the century. Representationally, the Sportswoman figures a range of attitudes, from anxious to aspirational, toward the unruly forms of embodiment that were newly public in England during this period. The richness of athleticism as a representational site is reflected in the broad scope of the project: its claims extend from the past to the present; its critical reach encompasses depictions in popular literary works as well as imagery from mainstream visual culture, analyzed in analog and digital ways, using formal as well as experimental methods. “Muscling Through” enacts a practice for somatic reading that is akin to “surface reading” in seeing descriptions of the muscular body and its power as a meaningfully evident feature of the text. Reading somatically in Sportswoman narratives reveals a constellation of affects, sensations, desires, ambitions, and responses to conspicuous physicality that don’t track back to sex, conform to binary logic, or center a masculinist standpoint. Although she has been overlooked previously, many well-studied nineteenth-century genres contain a version of the Sportswoman; chapters on sensation and realist novels, New Woman literature, and finally Decadent and modernist fiction bring her back into view. Tracing athleticism’s representational arc across the period sheds new light on conventional themes of marriage, reproduction, and femininity, and turns our attention to other themes that have been under-discussed in relation to women, such as self-oriented development, marital competition, and vocational desire. Visual Vixens, the dissertation’s companion website, adds an essential element of experiential exploration to the project. This digital component translates the Sportswoman themes of embodiment, fitness, and activity into a playful, interactive tool that trains people to build visual literacy by decoding the representational conventions in images of female bodies. A brief epilogue on contemporary culture shows that the issues that the Sportswoman raises are confoundingly and harmfully still with us. In the end, “Muscling Through” is both a historicist account of the muscular body’s power in the nineteenth-century cultural imagination and a presentist interrogation of how the representation and policing of current athletes is informed by an earlier Victorian model of the Sportswoman

    Rebuilding the Appalachian Economy From the Ground Up: Towards A Holistic Organizational Framework for Community and Economic Development in Rural Extractive Areas

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    Central Appalachia specifically and rural extractive areas more generally face some of the most challenging socio-economic realities in North America. Community-based organizations (CBOs) are an important tool for addressing these challenges. As governments intensify efforts to mitigate climate change, and as fossil-fuel industries contract, extracted communities are experiencing economic, cultural, and environmental upheaval. Many leaders call for a “just transition” away from fossil-fuels, which would make local extraction communities whole. However, achieving a truly just transition away from fossil fuels is extraordinarily challenging, and many extracted communities were never whole to begin with. I argue CBOs are the crucial vehicle through which effective community and economic development (CED) outcomes can materialize for distressed rural communities. Yet CBOs do not receive nearly enough funding, policy-focus, or high-level partnership. Technical assistance provided to CBOs is often ineffective, especially in rural settings. Evaluation systems for measuring rural CBO effectiveness are inadequate. My research is primarily geared toward practitioners and aspiring practitioners. Findings, program designs and evaluative structures put forward herein are based on experience with Coalfield Development, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization I founded in southern West Virginia in 2010. Coalfield Development has essentially served as my research field lab. This dissertation provides four sections detailing organizational capabilities which local CBOs can develop and implement towards the goal of a just transition and improved quality of life for their unique rural place. In doing so, support is needed from funders and policy-makers in order to succeed. Much better evaluative systems are needed, as well, which could improve resource allocation decisions in these greatly under-invested communities and could also improve organizational effectiveness. The four capabilities and corresponding sections of this dissertation are: capacity building for rural CBOs incubating and investing in employment social enterprises human development for people facing barriers to employment and community-based real-estate revitalization In this dissertation, I use mixed-methods to draw insights and best-practices from more than a decade of interventions through Coalfield Development including case studies, focus groups, surveys, cost-benefit-analyses, program designs and program evaluations. My research illustrates and articulates the value of all four capabilities, finding them each as essential components for CBOs working in extracted local economies. While this research is based in central Appalachia it is intended to be useful to practitioners, policymakers, funders, local leaders and researchers in other rural fossil-fuel communities throughout the world

    Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound: Volume 1

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    This open-access book empowers its readers to explore the acoustic world of animals. By listening to the sounds of nature, we can study animal behavior, distribution, and demographics; their habitat characteristics and needs; and the effects of noise. Sound recording is an efficient and affordable tool, independent of daylight and weather; and recorders may be left in place for many months at a time, continuously collecting data on animals and their environment. This book builds the skills and knowledge necessary to collect and interpret acoustic data from terrestrial and marine environments. Beginning with a history of sound recording, the chapters provide an overview of off-the-shelf recording equipment and analysis tools (including automated signal detectors and statistical methods); audiometric methods; acoustic terminology, quantities, and units; sound propagation in air and under water; soundscapes of terrestrial and marine habitats; animal acoustic and vibrational communication; echolocation; and the effects of noise. This book will be useful to students and researchers of animal ecology who wish to add acoustics to their toolbox, as well as to environmental managers in industry and government

    Good research practices

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    In this dissertation, entitled “Good Research Practices”, I examine research practices and reform ideas aiming to combat the crisis of confidence in psychology (Pashler & Wagenmakers, 2012). I do so through theoretical contributions and empirical work, propose practical guidelines for researchers, and demonstrate how principles of good research can be conveyed to students. The research methods and statistical practices I present facilitate the adherence to the following three principles: (1) respect the empirical cycle; (2) acknowledge uncertainty; and (3) enrich statistical models with theoretical knowledge

    MOOCIFICATION? MOOCs, business models and business schools

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    The emergence of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and the visibility they have gained in the media and in academia have led some authors to question whether this disruptive technology would drastically change the world of education and business schools. While some business schools have started to develop MOOCs themselves, their overall effect on their business model is still not fully understood, and there is often much criticism within schools about their introduction. Divisions have emerged between advocates and outspoken critics. In this context, it seemed appropriate to seek to better understand the process, impacts and implications of the introduction of MOOCs on the business model of business schools. With a single case design, this thesis is an empirical, exploratory and inductive study. Thirty-three semi-structured interviews with targeted MOOC-specialist faculty members, managers and experts was the primary data, with secondary data also collected during this process. Overall, two main research findings have resulted from this study. First, six drivers that lead individuals and business schools to make and support MOOCs have been identified, and second, the impact of the introduction of MOOCs on the business model of business schools is reflected in three dimensions: changes to the value proposition; changes to teaching in the form of new resources, processes and knowledge; and changes to marketing with themes related to reputation, reach and awareness. This study was developed from the business school perspective, contributing to the business model literature by looking into the sector of executive education and management, which is evolving rapidly around the world and growing in importance in terms of its personal, institutional and social impacts. This study contributes to the literature on business models by describing how the use of MOOCs changes the business model of business schools. Specifically, their use broadens the value proposition of business schools and changes their teaching and marketing. The drivers for business schools to introduce MOOCs are to enhance their reputation, to create new marketing tools, to learn how to be prepared, to have a new way of teaching, and finally, to teach more people

    'Beyond the Prize': A History of Amateurism and Athletics in Australia, 1946-1984

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    Amateurism dominated the philosophy and practice of Australian sport for much of the twentieth century. This thesis examines the development and experiences of amateurism in the context of Australian athletics after the Second World War, when this ideology was at its peak, until its decline in the 1980s. It advances the history of amateurism in Australian sports and in particular Australian athletics in two main ways. Firstly, the thesis historicises amateurism and athletics internationally and within Australia specifically which provides a critical framework for the ensuing case study. From this historical perspective, it is argued that postwar Australia continued to favour amateurism because it resonated with such Australian values as volunteerism and mateship. Furthermore, Australia’s brilliant sporting achievements in the 1950s gave the misleading impression that the amateur model worked at producing successful athletes and that funding was unnecessary. Secondly, the case study of NSW athletics, based on extensive oral history interviews with participants in both male and female athletics, brings the focus to how amateurism was experienced. At the local level, oral history shows that most of the amateur athletic community remained steadfastly devoted to amateurism because it promoted the social enjoyment of athletics and thus appealed to the average club athlete. For officials, amateurism upheld a power hierarchy which they were reluctant to forgo. The strength of the attachment athletes and officials had to their respective clubs was another reason why amateurism persisted. The experiences of elite athletes, however, tell a different story. For this small fraction of the athletic community, amateurism was generally perceived as oppressive and as an impediment to athletic success. Through the case study of NSW athletics, the thesis therefore offers a nuanced history of amateurism attentive to different levels of engagement, including comparison of male and female athletics. The central claim of this thesis is that when looked at through the lens of social experience, amateurism persisted in Australia despite declining international results because most of the athletic community benefited from it

    Court Review: The Journal of the American Judge Association, Vol. 58, No. 2

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    Court Review, the quarterly journal of the American Judges Association, invites the submission of unsolicited, original articles, essays, and book reviews. Court Review seeks to provide practical, useful information to the working judges of the United States and Canada. In each issue, we hope to provide information that will be of use to judges in their everyday work, whether in highlighting new procedures or methods of trial, court, or case management, providing substantive information regarding an area of law likely to be encountered by many judges, or by providing background information (such as psychology or other social science research) that can be used by judges in their work. Guidelines for the submission of manuscripts for Court Review are set forth on page 94 of this issue. Court Review reserves the right to edit, condense, or reject material submitted for publication
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