Experiences with designing and managing organic rotation trials

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. Practical problems encountered in two long-term organic rotation trials at Aberdeen and Elgin are discussed. Compromises have had to be made in designing and managing the trials: how to include livestock and measure output, plot size, marking and fencing, discards and paths, replication, rotation length, randomisation of crop sequence, site uniformity, manoeuvrability of machines, soil compaction and exposure to pest damage

Can NSEC5 be practical for DNSSEC deployments?

NSEC5 is proposed modification to DNSSEC that simultaneously guarantees two security properties: (1) privacy against offline zone enumeration, and (2) integrity of zone contents, even if an adversary compromises the authoritative nameserver responsible for responding to DNS queries for the zone. This paper redesigns NSEC5 to make it both practical and performant. Our NSEC5 redesign features a new fast verifiable random function (VRF) based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), along with a cryptographic proof of its security. This VRF is also of independent interest, as it is being standardized by the IETF and being used by several other projects. We show how to integrate NSEC5 using our ECC-based VRF into the DNSSEC protocol, leveraging precomputation to improve performance and DNS protocol-level optimizations to shorten responses. Next, we present the first full-fledged implementation of NSEC5—extending widely-used DNS software to present a nameserver and recursive resolver that support NSEC5—and evaluate their performance under aggressive DNS query loads. Our performance results indicate that our redesigned NSEC5 can be viable even for high-throughput scenarioshttps://eprint.iacr.org/2017/099.pdfFirst author draf

Jury Deliberation

Juries are tasked with the duty of deliberating and applying the law to the case at hand. But it is unclear whether juries deliberate or deliberate well enough. Factors which may affect jury deliberation are the motivation of jurors, characteristics of jurors, emotions during and after trial, bargaining, charges, and dissenters. This paper argues that jurors do engage in rigorous dialogue which eventually results in compromises, although whether this creates an unjust verdict is unclear

The Dark Side of Morality: Group Polarization and Moral Epistemology

This article argues that philosophers and laypeople commonly conceptualize moral truths or justified moral beliefs as discoverable through intuition, argument, or some other purely cognitive or affective process. It then contends that three empirically well-supported theories all predict that this ‘Discovery Model’ of morality plays a substantial role in causing social polarization. The same three theories are then used to argue that an alternative ‘Negotiation Model’ of morality—according to which moral truths are not discovered but instead created by actively negotiating compromises—promises to reduce polarization by fostering a progressive willingness to ‘work across the aisle’ to settle moral issues cooperatively. This article then examines potential methods for normatively evaluating polarization, arguing there are prima facie reasons to favor the Negotiation Model over the Discovery Model based on their hypothesized effects on polarization. Finally, I outline avenues for further empirical and philosophical research

Optimal compromise between incompatible conditional probability distributions, with application to Objective Bayesian Kriging

Models are often defined through conditional rather than joint distributions, but it can be difficult to check whether the conditional distributions are compatible, i.e. whether there exists a joint probability distribution which generates them. When they are compatible, a Gibbs sampler can be used to sample from this joint distribution. When they are not, the Gibbs sampling algorithm may still be applied, resulting in a "pseudo-Gibbs sampler". We show its stationary probability distribution to be the optimal compromise between the conditional distributions, in the sense that it minimizes a mean squared misfit between them and its own conditional distributions. This allows us to perform Objective Bayesian analysis of correlation parameters in Kriging models by using univariate conditional Jeffreys-rule posterior distributions instead of the widely used multivariate Jeffreys-rule posterior. This strategy makes the full-Bayesian procedure tractable. Numerical examples show it has near-optimal frequentist performance in terms of prediction interval coverage

Metadata quality : implications for library and information science professionals

Purpose - In contrast with recent studies noting the necessity of library and information science (LIS) skills in digital library and repository projects, this study aims to examine the impact of metadata quality requirements on how LIS professionals apply their skills outside a library setting. Design/methodology/approach - The paper reviews the concept of metadata quality and examines the implications of this for LIS professionals by reviewing the differences between the context of the library community and other relevant communities of practice. Findings - The paper argues that, although much needed, LIS skills require contextualisation before application outside library settings. Research limitations/implications - Many of the new opportunities for and settings of LIS skills are immature - consequently this analysis may date as the context of these settings mature. Current trends, however, suggest that it will not. Practical implications - Training in LIS skills should take account of how they might apply differently outside libraries. Librarians co-operating with colleagues outside the library should appreciate the potential metadata 'compromises' they might have to make and why they are necessary. Originality/value - The paper provides food for thought on the increasing number of LIS professionals working outside library settings

Social Contradiction and Symbolic Resolution: Practical and Idealized Affines in Taiwan

This is a publisher's version of an article published in the journal Ethnology in 1984. The offprint is posted here in accordance with existing publisher policy, or by special permission via correspondence.tru

ISO and Social Standardisation: Uncomfortable compromises in Global Policy-Making

This paper intends to explore the involvement of ISO, the world’s most iconic standard-setting institution, in the field of social responsibility, leading to the publication of the ISO26000 standard in November, 2010. Through several aspects of this experience, an almost decade-long process, I will show how ISO developed a new political structure aimed specifically at creating global policy, originating one the most sophisticated frameworks in existence to consensualise "universal" sociopolitical principles and infuse them with the legitimacy of a "global" technocracy and liberal institutions. Moreover, I will use the latest ISO26000 experience to argue that conceptual and institutional minimalism, which favours "soft" approaches towards global policy-making, paradoxically results from combining a technocratic aim for global compatibility with more participatory decision-making arrangements involving previously excluded socio-political actors. In that sense, ISO’s upgraded participatory mechanisms solved certain deadlocks suffered by previous initiatives only to affront and spark a new round of contradictions and consequences. Thus, I will conclude commenting on the intrinsic relationship between global standards, governance and complexity, and the difficulties of politically articulating programmes with dissimilar functional differentiation

A Pragmatic Approach to DHT Adoption

Despite the peer-to-peer community's obvious wish to have its systems adopted, specific mechanisms to facilitate incremental adoption have not yet received the same level of attention as the many other practical concerns associated with these systems. This paper argues that ease of adoption should be elevated to a first-class concern and accordingly presents HOLD, a front-end to existing DHTs that is optimized for incremental adoption. Specifically, HOLD is backwards-compatible: it leverages DNS to provide a key-based routing service to existing Internet hosts without requiring them to install any software. This paper also presents applications that could benefit from HOLD as well as the trade-offs that accompany HOLD. Early implementation experience suggests that HOLD is practical

Computer-supported analysis of scientific measurements

In the past decade, large-scale databases and knowledge bases have become available to researchers working in a range of scientific disciplines. In many cases these databases and knowledge bases contain measurements of properties of physical objects which have been obtained in experiments or at observation sites. As examples, one can think of crystallographic databases with molecular structures and property databases in materials science. These large collections of measurements, which will be called measurement bases, form interesting resources for scientific research. By analyzing the contents of a measurement base, one may be able to find patterns that are of practical and theoretical importance. With the use of measurement bases as a resource for scientific inquiry questions arise about the quality of the data being analyzed. In particular, the occurrence of conflicts and systematic errors raises doubts about the reliability of a measurement base and compromises any patterns found in it. On the other hand, conflicts and systematic errors may be interesting patterns in themselves and warrant further investigation. These considerations motivate the topic that will be addressed in this thesis: the development of systematic methods for detecting and resolving con icts and identifying\ud systematic errors in measurement bases. These measurement analysis (MA) methods are implemented in a computer system supporting the user of the measurement base