Deep unsupervised clustering with Gaussian mixture variational autoencoders

We study a variant of the variational autoencoder model with a Gaussian mixture as a prior distribution, with the goal of performing unsupervised clustering through deep generative models. We observe that the standard variational approach in these models is unsuited for unsupervised clustering, and mitigate this problem by leveraging a principled information-theoretic regularisation term known as consistency violation. Adding this term to the standard variational optimisation objective yields networks with both meaningful internal representations and well-defined clusters. We demonstrate the performance of this scheme on synthetic data, MNIST and SVHN, showing that the obtained clusters are distinct, interpretable and result in achieving higher performance on unsupervised clustering classification than previous approaches

A Tale of Two Civil Procedures

In the United States, there are two kinds of courts: federal and state. Civil procedure classes and scholarship tend to focus on the federal, but refer to and make certain assumptions about state courts. While this dichotomy makes sense when discussing some issues, like federal subject matter jurisdiction, for many aspects of procedure this breakdown can be misleading. When understanding American civil justice, two different categories of courts are just as salient: those that routinely include lawyers, and those where lawyers are fundamentally absent.This essay urges civil procedure teachers and scholars to think about our courts as “lawyered” courts—which include federal courts coupled with state court commercial dockets and the other pockets of state civil courts where lawyers tend to be paid and plentiful—and “lawyerless” state courts, which hear the vast majority of claims filed in this country. Doing so, we argue, reveals fundamental differences between the two sets of court procedures that operate in the United States and much about the promise and limits of procedure. We discuss how this dichotomy plays out in three of the most contentious and talked about topics in civil procedure scholarship today: written and unwritten procedure making, the role of new technology, and the handling of masses of similar claims. Seen through this lens, these examples illuminate where and how lawyers are essential to procedural development and procedural protections; they help us better understand where technology should be used to assist or replace lawyers, and where it should be used to reinvent procedure or make up for lawyers’ absence; and they reveal when fixing court procedure may simply not be enough

A Tale of Two Civil Procedures

In the United States, there are two kinds of courts: federal and state. Civil procedure classes and scholarship largely focus on federal courts but refer to and make certain assumptions about state courts. While this dichotomy makes sense when discussing some issues, for many aspects of procedure this breakdown can be misleading. Two different categories of courts are just as salient for understanding American civil justice: those that routinely include lawyers and those where lawyers are fundamentally absent. This Essay urges civil procedure teachers and scholars to think about our courts as “lawyered” and “lawyerless.” Lawyered courts include federal courts coupled with state court commercial dockets and the other pockets of state civil courts where lawyers tend to be paid and plentiful. Lawyerless courts include all other state courts, which hear the vast majority of claims. This Essay argues that this categorization reveals fundamental differences between the two sets of court procedures and much about the promise and limits of procedure. The Essay also discusses how this dichotomy plays out in three of today’s most contentious topics in civil procedure scholarship: (1) written and unwritten proceduremaking, (2) the role of new technology, and (3) the handling of masses of similar claims. This categorization illuminates where and how lawyers are essential to procedural development and procedural protections. They also help us better understand when technology should assist or replace lawyers and how to reinvent procedure or make up for lawyers’ absence. Finally, they reveal that fixing court procedure may simply not be enough

Changing Conceptions of Speaking in Tongues and Spirit Baptism Among Canadian Pentecostal Clergy

In 2014, a strong majority of clergy within the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) agreed that speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence of Spirit baptism, but less than half agreed that tongues speech is a necessary component of Spirit baptism. This represents a significant departure from a generation ago. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, this article describes the specific nature of the transformation of Pentecostalism’s central theological and ritual component among PAOC clergy and presents two arguments. First, sociologically we argue that the changing views of PAOC clergy regarding the relationship of tongues speech to Spirit baptism are the result of their participation in the broader generic evangelical subculture, which promotes the adoption of a common evangelical religious identity and experience. Second, historically we argue that, rather than representing a simple capitulation to modern influences, this change, if even unintentionally, shows some similarity to both early American and Canadian Pentecostal views regarding Spirit baptism.

COMMENTS ON "A NEW LOOK AT LOW-ENERGY NUCLEAR REACTION RESEARCH"

Cold fusion researchers have accumulated a large body of anomalous results over the last 20 years that they claim proves a new, mysterious nuclear reaction is active in systems they study. Krivit and Marwan give a brief and wholly positive view of this body of research. Unfortunately, cold fusion researchers routinely ignore conventional explanations of their observations, and claim much greater than real accuracy and precision for their techniques. This paper attempts to equally briefly address those aspects of the field with the intent of providing a balanced view of the field, and to establish some criteria for subsequent publications in this arena

DIFFUSION OF H THROUGH PD MEMBRANES EFFECTS OF NON-IDEALITY ON DH AND ED

H diffusion constants, D{sub H}, have been obtained from steady-state fluxes across Pd membranes with the downstream side maintained at p{sub H2} {approx} 0. Good linearity of plots of H flux versus (1/d), where d is the thickness, attests to the H permeation being bulk diffusion controlled in this temperature (423 to 523K) and p{sub H2} range ({le} 0.2 MPa). D{sub H} values have been determined at constant p{sub up} and also at constant (H/Pd)=r conditions. H fluxes through Pd membranes with three different surface treatments have been investigated (polished (un-oxidized), oxidized, and palladized) in order to determine the effects of these pretreatments. The palladized and oxidized membranes give similar D{sub H} values but the polished membranes give values about 12% lower. For diffusion in a concentration gradient D{sub H}*(c{sub H}/RT)(d{mu}{sub H}/dx) is the more proper description, where c{sub H} is the H concentration, rather than D{sub H}(dc{sub H}/dx) where D{sub H} and D{sub H}* are the concentration-dependent and independent diffusion constants. D{sub H}* can be obtained from D{sub H} using the thermodynamic factor, D{sub H}(r) = D{sub H}*({partial_derivative}lnp{sub H2}{sup 1/2}/{partial_derivative}lnr){sub T} = D{sub H}*f(r). In the commonly employed situation where there is a large difference in concentrations between the upstream and downstream sides of a membrane, the thermodynamic factor varies with distance through the membrane and this should be allowed for in obtaining D{sub H}*. Procedures are given and utilized for using D{sub H}(c{sub H}) to determine D{sub H}* values when there is a large concentration gradient through the membrane. Activation energies for diffusion, E{sub D}(c{sub H}), have been determined. E{sub D} is found to increase with c{sub H} which can be attributed to the thermodynamic factor. D{sub H}* values have been found to increase with H content

Heavy-light decay constants from clover heavy quark action in QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks

We present results on an analysis of the decay constants f_B and f_Bs with two flavours of sea quark. The calculation has been carried out on 3 different bare gauge couplings and 4 sea quark masses at each gauge coupling, with m_pi/m_rho ranging from 0.8 to 0.6. We employ the Fermilab formalism to perform calculations with heavy quarks whose mass is in the range of the b-quark. A detailed comparison with a quenched calculation using the same action is made to elucidate the effects due to the sea quarks.Comment: Contribution to Lattice 99 (Heavy Quarks). Latex file, uses espcrc2.sty and epsf.sty. 3 pages, 3 encapsulated postscript figure