Convolutional Neural Networks for Survey Response Classification

Artificial Intelligence reveals great potential for enterprises e.g., intelligent services. However, small and medium enterprises struggle with Artificial Intelligence due to limited resources. Especially tasks such as survey response classification are yet not investigated. We address this research gap by means of a data science study. In particular, we analyze several baseline classification pipelines leveraging logistic regression, random forests, and linear support vector machines against wide headed CNN architectures with one-hot encoding or character embedding inputs. We find that the SVM model outperforms all other evaluated models in the setting at hand. In addition, we analyze the different predictions of the models and show typical prediction errors by means of a chord diagram of commonly misclassified brands

Territorial reforms, mobilisation, and political trust: a case study from Norway

The focus of this study is the political trust implications of territorial reforms, approaches to territorial reform, and the effects of the mobilisation of political-territorial collective identities. We focus on the political trust effects of political-territorial mobilisation grounded on territorial reforms, and of voluntary and forced structural reforms. The case examined is that of Norway, a country characterised by high levels of trust before a recent county reform. Utilising four survey waves from 2013 to 2019, we measure trust in national politicians both pre- and post-reform, giving us a quasi-experimental design. The findings indicate that political trust was not affected by whether the reform was forced on counties or they accepted it voluntarily. However, political trust was negatively affected by forced structural reforms in combination with regionalism, i.e., mobilisation of political-territorial collective identities. This finding provides new insight about how territorial reforms may affect political trust.publishedVersio

Hvordan endrer urbaniseringen det norske samfunnet?

Source at https://www.aftenposten.no/.Norge har opplevd en betydelig urbanisering de siste tiårene. Dette endrer samfunnet politisk, sosialt og kulturelt. Dersom Oslo-eliten ikke forstår hvordan dette ser ut fra landsbygda, vil de få store utfordringer fremover

Støres floke i nord

Source at https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kommentar/i/l3bdO9/stoeres-floke-i-nord.Problemene i nord forteller oss mye om både Arbeiderpartiets problemer generelt og i Nord-Norge spesielt. Jonas Gahr Støre er sannsynligvis den norske statsministeren i moderne tid som har hatt sterkest engasjement for Nord-Norge. Likevel styrer han nå mot nok et historisk svakt valgresultat i landsdelen. Hans floker i nord forteller oss mye om både Arbeiderpartiets problemer generelt og i Nord-Norge spesielt

Influence of Different 3SAT-to-QUBO Transformations on the Solution Quality of Quantum Annealing: A Benchmark Study

To solve 3SAT instances on quantum annealers they need to be transformed to an instance of Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO). When there are multiple transformations available, the question arises whether different transformations lead to differences in the obtained solution quality. Thus, in this paper we conduct an empirical benchmark study, in which we compare four structurally different QUBO transformations for the 3SAT problem with regards to the solution quality on D-Wave's Advantage_system4.1. We show that the choice of QUBO transformation can significantly impact the number of correct solutions the quantum annealer returns. Furthermore, we show that the size of a QUBO instance (i.e., the dimension of the QUBO matrix) is not a sufficient predictor for solution quality, as larger QUBO instances may produce better results than smaller QUBO instances for the same problem. We also empirically show that the number of different quadratic values of a QUBO instance, combined with their range, can significantly impact the solution quality

Using e-Participation for Mission Statement Development: Promises and Challenges

Mission statements are documents that summarize an organization\u27s core values and strategies and are used to motivate employees by creating a common understanding among them. However, studies have shown that employees often seek more involvement in the development of mission statements in their organizations. Digitization pushes the implementation of new information and communication technology in the workplace. Therefore, we argue for the potential of using e-participation for the creation of a mission statement. With this paper, we contribute to digital government research by presenting a nominal group process consisting of eight activities, for the deployment of e-participation for the purpose of mission statement development. We evaluate the suggested process using an existing e-participation tool. Our evaluation results reveal challenges of implementing e-participation with the tested tool, especially regarding the usability. Therefore, we provide an overview of specific improvements in the design of e-participation platforms that should be considered in the further development of such platforms

Progressive cities: urban–rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world

In contrast to the conservative values of rural populations, cities are often seen as bulwarks of more tolerant, liberal and progressive values. This urban–rural divide in values has become one of the major fault lines in Western democracies, underpinning major political events of the last decade, not least the election of Donald Trump. Yet, beyond a small number of countries, there is little evidence that cities really are more liberal than rural areas. Evolutionary modernisation theory suggests that socio-economic development may lead to the spread of progressive, self-expression values but provides little guidance on the role of cities in this process. Has an urban–rural split in values developed across the world? And does this gap depend on the economic development of a country? We answer these questions using a large cross-sectional dataset covering 66 countries. Despite the inherent challenges in identifying and operationalising a globally-consistent definition of what is ‘urban’, we show that there are marked and significant urban–rural differences in progressive values, defined as tolerant attitudes to immigration, gender rights and family life. These differences exist even when controlling for observable compositional effects, suggesting that cities do play a role in the spread of progressive values. Yet, these results only apply at higher levels of economic development suggesting that, for cities to leave behind rural areas in terms of liberal values, the satisfying of certain material needs is a prerequisite

Progressive cities: Urban–rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world

In contrast to the conservative values of rural populations, cities are often seen as bulwarks of more tolerant, liberal and progressive values. This urban–rural divide in values has become one of the major fault lines in Western democracies, underpinning major political events of the last decade, not least the election of Donald Trump. Yet, beyond a small number of countries, there is little evidence that cities really are more liberal than rural areas. Evolutionary modernisation theory suggests that socio-economic development may lead to the spread of progressive, selfexpression values but provides little guidance on the role of cities in this process. Has an urban– rural split in values developed across the world? And does this gap depend on the economic development of a country? We answer these questions using a large cross-sectional dataset covering 66 countries. Despite the inherent challenges in identifying and operationalising a globallyconsistent definition of what is ‘urban’, we show that there are marked and significant urban–rural differences in progressive values, defined as tolerant attitudes to immigration, gender rights and family life. These differences exist even when controlling for observable compositional effects, suggesting that cities do play a role in the spread of progressive values. Yet, these results apply at higher levels of economic development suggesting that, for cities to leave behind rural areas in terms of liberal values, the satisfying of certain material needs is a prerequisite

Evidence that PUBO outperforms QUBO when solving continuous optimization problems with the QAOA

Quantum computing provides powerful algorithmic tools that have been shown to outperform established classical solvers in specific optimization tasks. A core step in solving optimization problems with known quantum algorithms such as the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is the problem formulation. While quantum optimization has historically centered around Quadratic Unconstrained Optimization (QUBO) problems, recent studies show, that many combinatorial problems such as the TSP can be solved more efficiently in their native Polynomial Unconstrained Optimization (PUBO) forms. As many optimization problems in practice also contain continuous variables, our contribution investigates the performance of the QAOA in solving continuous optimization problems when using PUBO and QUBO formulations. Our extensive evaluation on suitable benchmark functions, shows that PUBO formulations generally yield better results, while requiring less qubits. As the multi-qubit interactions needed for the PUBO variant have to be decomposed using the hardware gates available, i.e., currently single- and two-qubit gates, the circuit depth of the PUBO approach outscales its QUBO alternative roughly linearly in the order of the objective function. However, incorporating the planned addition of native multi-qubit gates such as the global Molmer-Sorenson gate, our experiments indicate that PUBO outperforms QUBO for higher order continuous optimization problems in general