Autonomy Here and Now

The paper links Cavell's early criticism of Rawls's “Two Concepts of Rules” to the later criticism of TJ. In his early paper, Rawls enacts a certain type of foundationalist response to the practical skeptic, commonly referred to nowadays as the constitutive move. While sympathetic to the move itself, Cavell's criticism targets a conception of the nature of moral discussion that arises when the move is as it were read into ordinary moral encounters. Cavell's later criticism rehearses the structure of its precursor. In TJ, the conversation of justice takes the shape of seeking legitimacy, aiming at a level where the limits of our responsibility are predetermined and clearly marked. But this shape stifles the possibility of the kind of conversation whose point is to assess, here and now, what our identification with our society amounts to and what the significance of the choices we make as members of this society exactly is. Having the structure of the earlier criticism in view furthers the understanding of Emersonian Moral Perfectionism, and sheds light on some of its enigmatic features, such as the relevance of Kant's notion of reflective judgment to moral thinking and the essentiality of the friend to perfectionist assent

Improved Local Computation Algorithms for Constructing Spanners

A spanner of a graph is a subgraph that preserves lengths of shortest paths up to a multiplicative distortion. For every $k$, a spanner with size $O(n^{1+1/k})$ and stretch $(2k+1)$ can be constructed by a simple centralized greedy algorithm, and this is tight assuming Erd\H{o}s girth conjecture. In this paper we study the problem of constructing spanners in a local manner, specifically in the Local Computation Model proposed by Rubinfeld et al. (ICS 2011). We provide a randomized Local Computation Agorithm (LCA) for constructing $(2r-1)$-spanners with $\tilde{O}(n^{1+1/r})$ edges and probe complexity of $\tilde{O}(n^{1-1/r})$ for $r \in \{2,3\}$, where $n$ denotes the number of vertices in the input graph. Up to polylogarithmic factors, in both cases, the stretch factor is optimal (for the respective number of edges). In addition, our probe complexity for $r=2$, i.e., for constructing a $3$-spanner, is optimal up to polylogarithmic factors. Our result improves over the probe complexity of Parter et al. (ITCS 2019) that is $\tilde{O}(n^{1-1/2r})$ for $r \in \{2,3\}$. Both our algorithms and the algorithms of Parter et al. use a combination of neighbor-probes and pair-probes in the above-mentioned LCAs. For general $k\geq 1$, we provide an LCA for constructing $O(k^2)$-spanners with $\tilde{O}(n^{1+1/k})$ edges using $O(n^{2/3}\Delta^2)$ neighbor-probes, improving over the $\tilde{O}(n^{2/3}\Delta^4)$ algorithm of Parter et al. By developing a new randomized LCA for graph decomposition, we further improve the probe complexity of the latter task to be $O(n^{2/3-(1.5-\alpha)/k}\Delta^2)$, for any constant $\alpha>0$. This latter LCA may be of independent interest.Comment: RANDOM 202

Empathic Patterns in Complex Discourse

Successful functioning at organizational settings in a complex, shifting and vague era, such as the Covid- 19 pandemic, requires soft skills. The present study attempts to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on empathy - an essential 21st century soft skill - by honing on the explicit and expressive aspects of empathic competencies. In accordance with our aim to identify, transcribe and demonstrate empathic patterns in complex interactions in the field of education, we conducted a collaborative qualitative analysis of videotaped simulations of emotionally charged interactions, which occur in school and other educational settings. This led to the development of the Empathic Patterns in Interpersonal Communication (EPIC) conceptual model addressing cognitive, emotional and behavioral elements of empathy. The importance of EPIC, which represents an initial step in conceptualizing empathic patterns, is that it could be implemented as a practical tool that encourages effective communication among students and teachers

Efficient Benchmarking (of Language Models)

The increasing versatility of language models LMs has given rise to a new class of benchmarks that comprehensively assess a broad range of capabilities. Such benchmarks are associated with massive computational costs reaching thousands of GPU hours per model. However the efficiency aspect of these evaluation efforts had raised little discussion in the literature. In this work we present the problem of Efficient Benchmarking namely intelligently reducing the computation costs of LM evaluation without compromising reliability. Using the HELM benchmark as a test case we investigate how different benchmark design choices affect the computation-reliability tradeoff. We propose to evaluate the reliability of such decisions by using a new measure Decision Impact on Reliability DIoR for short. We find for example that the current leader on HELM may change by merely removing a low-ranked model from the benchmark and observe that a handful of examples suffice to obtain the correct benchmark ranking. Conversely a slightly different choice of HELM scenarios varies ranking widely. Based on our findings we outline a set of concrete recommendations for more efficient benchmark design and utilization practices leading to dramatic cost savings with minimal loss of benchmark reliability often reducing computation by x100 or more

The emergence of synaesthesia in a Neuronal Network Model via changes in perceptual sensitivity and plasticity

Synaesthesia is an unusual perceptual experience in which an inducer stimulus triggers a percept in a different domain in addition to its own. To explore the conditions under which synaesthesia evolves, we studied a neuronal network model that represents two recurrently connected neural systems. The interactions in the network evolve according to learning rules that optimize sensory sensitivity. We demonstrate several scenarios, such as sensory deprivation or heightened plasticity, under which synaesthesia can evolve even though the inputs to the two systems are statistically independent and the initial cross-talk interactions are zero. Sensory deprivation is the known causal mechanism for acquired synaesthesia and increased plasticity is implicated in developmental synaesthesia. The model unifies different causes of synaesthesia within a single theoretical framework and repositions synaesthesia not as some quirk of aberrant connectivity, but rather as a functional brain state that can emerge as a consequence of optimising sensory information processing

Synthesis Paper: Targeted Livestock Grazing: Prescription for Healthy Rangelands

Targeted livestock grazing is a proven tool for manipulating rangeland vegetation, and current knowledge about targeted livestock grazing is extensive and expanding rapidly. Targeted grazing prescriptions optimize the timing, frequency, intensity, and selectivity of grazing (or browsing) in combinations that purposely exert grazing/browsing pressure on specific plant species or portions of the landscape. Targeted grazing differs from traditional grazing management in that the goal of targeted grazing is to apply defoliation or trampling to achieve specific vegetation management objectives, whereas the goal of traditional livestock grazing management is generally the production of livestock commodities. A shared aim of targeted livestock grazing and traditional grazing management is to sustain healthy soils, flora, fauna, and water resources that, in turn, can sustain natural ecological processes (e.g., nutrient cycle, water cycle, energy flow). Targeted grazing prescriptions integrate knowledge of plant ecology, livestock nutrition, and livestock foraging behavior. Livestock can be focused on target areas through fencing, herding, or supplement placement. Although practices can be developed to minimize the impact of toxins contained in target plants, the welfare of the animals used in targeted grazing must be a priority. Monitoring is needed to determine if targeted grazing is successful and to refine techniques to improve efficacy and efficiency. Examples of previous research studies and approaches are presented to highlight the ecological benefits that can be achieved when targeted grazing is applied properly. These cases include ways to suppress invasive plants and ways to enhance wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Future research should address the potential to select more adapted and effective livestock for targeted grazing and the associated animal welfare concerns with this practice. Targeted livestock grazing provides land managers a viable alternative to mechanical, chemical, and prescribed fire treatments to manipulate rangeland vegetation

The Diverse Geographies of Jewishness: Exploring the Intersections between Race, Religion, and Citizenship among Israeli Migrants in Toronto

In this dissertation, I explore how Jewish migrants who have relocated from Israel, but who are now living in the Greater Toronto Area understand, negotiate and perform their identities, belongings, and citizenship upon migration, both individually and collectively. Working from a series of forty-eight interviews and a set of participant observations at public events, I discuss how the discourses and material realities of life in Israel and in Toronto inform their attachments, identities, and claims of belonging. I illustrate the ways in which their hybrid and transnational identities, attachments, and claims of belonging challenge Euro-Zionism's homogenizing project - opening up potential for new revitalized spaces for conversations about Israel/Palestine. The empirical chapters in this study focus on the themes of diaspora, whiteness, and citizenship in an attempt to foreground the multi-dimensional and diverse nature of Jewish identity and Jewish multiculturality and multiraciality in Canada (and in Israel). Theoretically, this opens up opportunities to consider scaffolding that describes the complex multiplicity within cultures. Case studies are used to address the formation and re-formation of racial, religious, and national identities after migration, providing theoretical insights into the complex relations of multiple local racial formations to global racial formations, both historically and in the contemporary period, and their interconnectivity with other axes of difference, such as religion. In particular, I emphasize the intersection of racial formation and religious identity by foregrounding the immense diversity of Jewish identities, cultures, and racial connections. Doing so, I begin to map previously unexplored intersections between Jewish studies and critical theories of race in order to illuminate spaces for potential critical geographical analyses of these fields. This study, therefore, opens up new questions not only for future research on the "Israeli diaspora" , but also for studies of race, religion, migration, and urban space in social and cultural geography.Ph.D