Exploring Political Disappointment

Disappointment is often identified as a pathology of modern politics; citizens expect much of politicians, yet governments are ill-equipped to deliver outcomes commensurate with those expectations. The net result is said to be a widespread disappointment; a negative balance between what citizens expect of government and what they perceive governments to deliver. Yet little attention has hitherto been paid to which kinds of citizens are particularly disappointed with politics, and why. This article offers one of the first empirical analyses of political disappointment. Drawing on a survey conducted in Britain, it provides a quantitative measure of political disappointment and explores its prevalence among citizens. It then considers which social groups might be more prone to disappointment than others. In particular, it explores whether certain groups are more disappointed by virtue of holding very high expectations of government or very low perceptions of government performance. The article concludes by considering what strategies might be open to policy makers to alleviate political disappointment

Physically inspired interactive music machines: making contemporary composition accessible?

Much of what we might call "high-art music" occupies the difficult end of listening for contemporary audiences. Concepts such as pitch, meter and even musical instruments often have little to do with such music, where all sound is typically considered as possessing musical potential. As a result, such music can be challenging to educationalists, for students have few familiar pointers in discovering and understanding the gestures, relationships and structures in these works. This paper describes on-going projects at the University of Hertfordshire that adopt an approach of mapping interactions within visual spaces onto musical sound. These provide a causal explanation for the patterns and sequences heard, whilst incorporating web interoperability thus enabling potential for distance learning applications. While so far these have mainly driven pitch-based events using MIDI or audio files, it is hoped to extend the ideas using appropriate technology into fully developed composition tools, aiding the teaching of both appreciation/analysis and composition of contemporary music

A new approach to image enhancement for the visually impaired

This works aims at enhancing images by using the colour appearance model CIECAM02 for the visually impaired to view digital displays to complement the existing image processing approaches with a reference to normal visions. Specifically, by studying the images perceived by low-vision users, the colour ranges of these perceived views are compared with those viewed by normal vision and then characterized and represented using CIECAM02 correlates, which include lightness, colourfulness, and hue. For low-vision users, the extents of these attributes are therefore obtained. Subsequently, for any input image, these CIECAM02 attributes are subsequently enhanced through histogram equalizer technique within their respective ranges for low-vision users. In comparison with the approach of RGB histogram equalizer, the preliminary result has shown that the proposed method appears to be better to enhance the contents depicted in an image. The evaluation experiment was carried out using an array of low-vision simulator glasses to be worn by a group of subjects with normal vision. The next stage of the work remains to invite real low-vision users to evaluate the proposed work.

Quantitative tests of the perceived relative argument model : reply to Guo and Regenwetter (2014)

Guo and Regenwetter (2014) took the perceived relative argument model, added various auxiliary assumptions of their own about the utility of money, made assumptions about possible stochastic specifications, and tested the various combined models against data from an experiment they conducted. However, their modeling assumptions were questionable and their experiment was unsatisfactory: The stimuli omitted crucial information, the incentives were weak, and the task load was excessive. These shortcomings undermine the quality of the data, and the study provides no new information about the scope and limitations of the perceived relative argument model or its performance relative to other models of risky choice

Trying to estimate a monetary value for qualy

In this paper we study the feasibility of estimating a monetary value for a QALY (MVQ). Using two different surveys of the Spanish population (total n=892), we consider whether willingness to pay (WTP) is (approximately) proportional to the health gains measured in QALYs. We also explore whether subjects’ responses are prone to any significant biases. We find that the estimated MVQ varies inversely with the magnitude of health gain. We also find two other (ir)regularities: the existence of ordering effects; and insensitivity of WTP to the duration of the period of payment. Taken together, these effects result in large variations in estimates of the MVQ. If we are ever to obtain consistent and stable estimates, we should try to understand better the sources of variability found in the course of this study.

The Aging Workforce: How Can Australian Universities Address Future Workforce Challenges?

Australia is facing major demographic challenges fueled by low workforce participation rates and the exit of the baby boomers from the workforce. Universities are likely to face the same workforce challenges. However, they may be in a better position than mainstream businesses due to the skills required, the flexibility of hours, and the nature and casualization of the workforce. This opens the door to attract retiring business professionals and aiding them to transition into academic teaching roles. For this non-traditional recruitment pathway to succeed, universities will need to ensure they have appropriate education and training pathways, mentoring along with peer review and comprehensive performance management procedures

The Role of Global and Feature Based Information in Gender Classification of Faces: A Comparison of Human Performance and Computational Models

Peer reviewe

Identification of wetland plant hydrotypes on the Swan Coastal Plain Western Australia

The hydrology of 19 Swan Coastal Plain wetlands was described in relation to its influence on the composition and stn1cturc of wetland vegetation. Sixty species were identified as ‘wetland’ plants. The water depth ranges, or hydrological envelopes, of these species were determined and species grouped together based on the water regimes they experienced. Descriptions of wetland hydrology suggested that the surface and groundwater levels of the majority of study wetlands had declined in both the short (3-5 years) and long-term (20-50 years). Wetlands belonging to the Bibra Suite did not follow this trend as surface water levels either increased or remained relatively constant in the long term. Ordinations and TWINSPAN analysis illustrated that wetlands with similar physical characteristics generally shared similar species composition. Species richness and the number of exotics, wetland species and perennial shrubs were also important in determining similarities and differences between wetlands. The hydrological envelopes established in the study were compared to the literature. Water depth ranges for all study trees and the majority of perennial shrubs and emergent macrophytes were generally supported by previous studies. Seven perennial and two annual hydrotype groups were established. Species from four of the perennial groups experienced a similar depth of inundation, but the depth to groundwater at the dry end of their range varied. Species from the other three hydrotypes did not tolerate inundation and also experienced differences at the dry end of their ranges. Of the two annual hydrotypes, one group tolerated inundation while the other did not. Comparisons with the literature and the low occurrence rate of some species resulted in modifications to the hydrotype groupings. Twenty-three perennials and five annual species representing the nine hydrotypes remained in the final hydrotype scheme. A test case was presented as an example of how hydrotypes could be used to predict the impact of altered hydrology on wetland vegetation composition and structure. The results from this study indicated that the hydrology of Swan Coastal Plain wetlands was changing and that, by grouping wetland species into hydrotypes based on water depth ranges they experience, the effects of these changes on vegetation structure and composition could be predicted