Building and toning: An analysis of the institutionalization of mediation in penal matters in Hungary

Since 1 January 2007, victims of crimes and offenders have been offered the chance to have recourse to mediation in Hungary. This paper will first give a short overview of the current situation of mediation in penal matters in Hungary, then it will discuss some general phenomena and dilemmas concerning the general introduction of mediation. After that, I will present a SWOT analysis1 of the current Hungarian mediation system in penal matters. The main goal of this article is to set up certain criteria for the further development of the restorative approach. The lessons we have learnt, the strengths and opportunities of the system and the identification of weaknesses might prove useful for other countries when they choose to introduce mediation, and in relation to the protection of victims in particular

Halford Mackinder és a brit birodalmi föderalizmus a 19. század fordulóján

British geographer Halford Mackinder belonged to a generation born during the zenith of the British Empire. During his lifetime, however, this generation had to grapple with the fact of decline. The fear, ever more obvious as the end of the 19th century approached, was demonstrated by the idea of an imperial federation. This initiative, born in the 1870s, aimed at creating unity across the Empire. The concept essentially stated that in the 20th century, Britain cannot keep up with the new superpowers, Russia and the US, unless she organizes her colonies scattered around the globe into an organic community. This, however, became one of the most divisive debates in that era’s public life, as the imperial federalists wanted to discard free trade. This was met with heavy resistance. Mackinder, who considered the Russian Empire as the greatest threat, dedicated a large portion of his academic and political life to the issue of federation. He was an unwavering believer in the Empire, which belief he based on Social Darwinism. He deemed most important that the UK answers the new challenges of the new century in accordance with its dominions. Only the principle of one for all, all for one would guarantee the Anglo-Saxon hegemony in the world - for this, turning the Empire into a federation was indispensable

Serveis estadístics. Preparant-se per al futur

El objetivo de este análisis es mirar hacia adelante: cuáles son los retos a los que se enfrentan las agencias de estadística y cómo han de encararlos. Se analiza el contexto dentro del cual han de evolucionar los institutos de estadística: las principales fuerzas que modifican la economía y la sociedad, las medidas políticas nuevas que aparentemente requieren información estadística nueva o adicional y los cambios en la naturaleza de los gobiernos que tienen repercusiones significativas para los institutos de estadística. El grueso de este artículo propone una "estrategia interna" para los institutos de estadística. Eso incluye el desarrollo de nuevos sistemas de información estadística que vayan más allá de la tradicional función de "observación" de los fenómenos e intenten aportar información sobre sus causas. Otro componente clave de esta estrategia ha de ser la obtención de un alto nivel de adaptabilidad, la cual exige iniciativas específicas. Finalmente, el artículo explora los elementos de una "estrategia externa": la obtención y mantenimiento de un alto nivel de pertinencia, la objetividad política y su percepción y la colaboración internacional

Coreference detection of low quality objects

The problem of record linkage is a widely studied problem that aims to identify coreferent (i.e. duplicate) data in a structured data source. As indicated by Winkler, a solution to the record linkage problem is only possible if the error rate is sufficiently low. In other words, in order to succesfully deduplicate a database, the objects in the database must be of sufficient quality. However, this assumption is not always feasible. In this paper, it is investigated how merging of low quality objects into one high quality object can improve the process of record linkage. This general idea is illustrated in the context of strings comparison, where strings of low quality (i.e. with a high typographical error rate) are merged into a string of high quality by using an n-dimensional Levenshtein distance matrix and compute the optimal alignment between the dirty strings. Results are presented and possible refinements are proposed