Who Says Human Rights are Not Respected? A Cross-National Comparison of Objective and Subjective Ratings

Country ratings of human rights conditions are now quite popular in macro comparative analysis. However, little is known as to whether (or to what extent) these scores correspond with mass sentiment in each country. Do “objective” ratings from the Political Terror Scale (PTS) and the Cingranelli-Richards index (CIRI) correspond with “subjective” ratings issued by the public? In this study, I answer this question, drawing from the most recent wave of the World Values Survey (2010 – 2014), in which respondents from 59 countries are asked to assess the level of respect for individual human rights in their country. The findings suggest a mild, but positive, association between objective and subjective ratings, and that the correspondence may be driven, in particular, by incidents of torture. In addition, the results indicate that survey respondents who are male, wealthy, and politically conservative offer significantly higher ratings than other individuals. Finally, the results show that the gap between objective and subjective ratings is smallest among females, the highly educated, and respondents in wealthier nations, suggesting that these evaluations most closely match observed conditions. Overall, while objective ratings highlight between-country differences in human rights conditions, the subjective ratings illustrate the wide range of opinions that exist within countries

Who Says Human Rights are Not Respected? Assessing Local and Third Party Ratings

Country ratings of human rights conditions are now quite popular in macro comparative research. However, little is known as to whether (or to what extent) these scores correspond with mass sentiment in each country. Do local ratings issued by the public correspond with third party ratings, such as those produced by the Cingranelli-Richards index (CIRI), the Political Terror Scale (PTS), and Freedom House (FH)? In this study, I address this question, drawing from the most recent wave of the World Values Survey (2010 – 2014), in which respondents from 59 countries are asked to assess the level of respect for individual human rights in their country. The findings generally suggest a positive association between local and third party ratings, and that local raters appear to be particularly responsive to the most severe violations of physical integrity rights. CIRI’s torture scale, PTS, and Fariss’ event-based measure (emphasizing the most extreme forms of repression) explain more of the between-country variation in local ratings than any of the other third party ratings analyzed. Nevertheless, there is also significant variation in human rights ratings within countries. In particular, survey respondents who are male, wealthy, politically conservative, and citizens offer significantly higher ratings than other individuals. Thus, while these results highlight between-country differences in human rights conditions, the local ratings illustrate the wide range of opinions that exist within countries

The Optimisation of Stochastic Grammars to Enable Cost-Effective Probabilistic Structural Testing

The effectiveness of probabilistic structural testing depends on the characteristics of the probability distribution from which test inputs are sampled at random. Metaheuristic search has been shown to be a practical method of optimis- ing the characteristics of such distributions. However, the applicability of the existing search-based algorithm is lim- ited by the requirement that the software’s inputs must be a fixed number of numeric values. In this paper we relax this limitation by means of a new representation for the probability distribution. The repre- sentation is based on stochastic context-free grammars but incorporates two novel extensions: conditional production weights and the aggregation of terminal symbols represent- ing numeric values. We demonstrate that an algorithm which combines the new representation with hill-climbing search is able to effi- ciently derive probability distributions suitable for testing software with structurally-complex input domains

Continued monitoring of LMXBs with the Faulkes Telescopes

The Faulkes Telescope Project is an educational and research arm of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN). It has two 2-metre robotic telescopes, located at Haleakala on Maui (FT North) and Siding Spring in Australia (FT South). It is planned for these telescopes to be complemented by a research network of eighteen 1-metre telescopes, along with an educational network of twenty-eight 0.4-metre telescopes, providing 24 hour coverage of both northern and southern hemispheres. We have been conducting a monitoring project of 13 low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) using FT North since early 2006. The introduction of FT South has allowed us to extend this to monitor a total of 30 LMXBs (see target list, Section 4). New instrumentation will allow us to expand this project to include both infrared wavelengths (z and y band) and spectroscopy. Brighter targets (~ 16 - 18 mag.) are imaged weekly in V, R and i’ bands (SNR ~ 50), while fainter ones (> 18 mag.) are observed only in i’ band (SNR ~ 20). We alter this cadence in response to our own analysis or Astronomers Telegrams (ATels)

Supersets save time in the gym: which may help you reach fitness goals faster. [Blog post]

Resistance training is an increasingly popular way to build strength, lose weight and get in shape. But despite its many benefits, it can also be time consuming – which is why many fitness enthusiasts have started incorporating "supersets" into gym routines. When done properly, supersets have the potential to help you build strength and muscle – all while spending less time in the gym. Sometimes called paired sets, supersets are a form of strength training in which you perform a set of repetitions of usually two exercises, back-to-back with minimal or no rest between them. The exercises should also target opposing muscle groups – namely the agonists (the force-generating muscles) and the antagonists (the muscle that relaxes when the agonist contracts). For example, leg curls (where the hamstrings are the agonists and the quadriceps the antagonists) would typically be followed by leg extensions (where the quadriceps are the agonists and the hamstrings the antagonists) to make up a superset. However, many people perform supersets incorrectly. Many believe supersets to be the same as compound sets, in which two exercises engaging the same muscle group are performed back-to-back. Or they get confused with contrast training, in which two similar exercises are paired to increase power, the first performed with a heavier load, while the second is performed explosively with a lighter load – such as heavy squats followed by vertical jumps. Many also think supersets comprise upper and lower body exercises performed in succession