Rhetoric and Low now

Based on the proposals of Perelman and his New Rhetoric , the author discusses the importance of Rhetoric in legal argumentation, particularly in democratic republics where oral proceedings have been instituted, and argues that rhetoric should become an instrument to the search for fair resolutions.Basándose en las propuestas de Perelman y su nueva retórica, el autor analiza la importancia de la retórica en la argumentación jurídica, particularmente en las repúblicas democráticas donde se han instituido los juicios orales, y argumenta a favor de que la retórica vuelva a ser un instrumento para la búsqueda de soluciones justas en el derecho

Gender differences and the timing of first marriages

In this article we provide a simple model of the marriage market where singles search for spouses. In our model economy men and women live for many years and they differ in their survival probabilities, in their fecundity, and in their earnings. We show that modelling the marriage decision in a very simple model economy is sufficient to account for much of the observed marriage behavior in the United States in the year 2000. We conclude that gender differences in fecundity are all important in accounting for marriage behavior, and that differences in earnings matter little. We also conclude that, even though they are in short supply, the market power of fecund women is not enough for them to demand compensation in all cases. And that studying the marriage decision without modelling explicitly the roles played by age and by fecundity, as has been typically done by the previous literature, makes little sense.Marriage, Search, Sex ratio

The Project Scheduling Problem with Non-Deterministic Activities Duration: A Literature Review

Purpose: The goal of this article is to provide an extensive literature review of the models and solution procedures proposed by many researchers interested on the Project Scheduling Problem with nondeterministic activities duration. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents an exhaustive literature review, identifying the existing models where the activities duration were taken as uncertain or random parameters. In order to get published articles since 1996, was employed the Scopus database. The articles were selected on the basis of reviews of abstracts, methodologies, and conclusions. The results were classified according to following characteristics: year of publication, mathematical representation of the activities duration, solution techniques applied, and type of problem solved. Findings: Genetic Algorithms (GA) was pointed out as the main solution technique employed by researchers, and the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) as the most studied type of problem. On the other hand, the application of new solution techniques, and the possibility of incorporating traditional methods into new PSP variants was presented as research trends. Originality/value: This literature review contents not only a descriptive analysis of the published articles but also a statistical information section in order to examine the state of the research activity carried out in relation to the Project Scheduling Problem with non-deterministic activities duration.Peer Reviewe

Topological signature for periodic motion recognition

In this paper, we present an algorithm that computes the topological signature for a given periodic motion sequence. Such signature consists of a vector obtained by persistent homology which captures the topological and geometric changes of the object that models the motion. Two topological signatures are compared simply by the angle between the corresponding vectors. With respect to gait recognition, we have tested our method using only the lowest fourth part of the body's silhouette. In this way, the impact of variations in the upper part of the body, which are very frequent in real scenarios, decreases considerably. We have also tested our method using other periodic motions such as running or jumping. Finally, we formally prove that our method is robust to small perturbations in the input data and does not depend on the number of periods contained in the periodic motion sequence.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1707.0698

Towards End-to-End Acoustic Localization using Deep Learning: from Audio Signal to Source Position Coordinates

This paper presents a novel approach for indoor acoustic source localization using microphone arrays and based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The proposed solution is, to the best of our knowledge, the first published work in which the CNN is designed to directly estimate the three dimensional position of an acoustic source, using the raw audio signal as the input information avoiding the use of hand crafted audio features. Given the limited amount of available localization data, we propose in this paper a training strategy based on two steps. We first train our network using semi-synthetic data, generated from close talk speech recordings, and where we simulate the time delays and distortion suffered in the signal that propagates from the source to the array of microphones. We then fine tune this network using a small amount of real data. Our experimental results show that this strategy is able to produce networks that significantly improve existing localization methods based on \textit{SRP-PHAT} strategies. In addition, our experiments show that our CNN method exhibits better resistance against varying gender of the speaker and different window sizes compared with the other methods.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, 8 table

Current Trends in Child Abuse Prevention and Fatalities: The 2000 Fifty State Survey

This survey takes a closer look at two pressing needs. The first is the important role of prevention, specifically at the most effective prevention programs and how they are funded. The second need, based on feedback from PCA America Chapters and other prevention experts, is to better understand child fatalities and the kind of prevention strategies that can best reduce fatalities. This survey differs from previous surveys, as it did not attempt to gather data on child abuse and neglect reports or substantiations. Instead, the National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, the research arm of PCA America, is working with the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ensure that our nation has the best systems available for gathering and tracking child maltreatment incidences. This report's highlights and findings are based on responses from 50 states and the District of Columbia, although all states have not responded to all questions. The results are reported in two main sections: Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, and Child Maltreatment Fatalities. At the beginning of each are highlights followed by the complete findings for that section. Estimating procedures for child maltreatment fatalities should be used when interpreting the results for child maltreatment fatalities. In addition, throughout the document are references and links to sites containing additional information on the topics cited