Alternative Paradigm Research Articles

Data-Driven Feature Selection Framework for Approximate Circuit Design

The ever-growing data scale and computation complexity raise tremendous concerns about computer systems’ efficiency (i.e., lower hardware overhead and power consumption). Orthogonal to the advancement in semiconductor manufacturing technologies, approximate computing provides an alternative paradigm to reduce the hardware cost and power dissipation by relaxing computation quality for error-resilient applications. Voltage over-scaling (VOS) and approximate logic design (ALD) have become two mainstream approaches of approximate computing due to their superior performance in efficiency-critical designs. VOS reduces the power in quadratic by scaling down supply voltage while ALD saves hardware overhead by redesigning an approximate version of a given circuit (e.g., trimming less significant circuitry). However, these primitive approximate circuits (PAC) inevitably introduce notable errors and require additional error compensation circuits (ECC) to preserve computation accuracy. In existing works of ECC design, there lacks a systematic method that can generalize well to different approximate computing approaches. In this paper, we present a data-driven feature selection framework for approximate circuit design, which is applicable to both VOS and ALD. We propose novel algorithms that profoundly analyze the correlation between input data and output errors and select the most critical features to generate compensation circuits. Extensive evaluations are performed over a variety of circuits using approximate finite impulse response (FIR) filters and the prevalent approximate computing benchmark AxBench. The experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves superior compensation performance, boosting the circuit accuracy while only introducing trivial area overhead.

Does DeFi remove the need for trust? Evidence from a natural experiment in stablecoin lending

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is built on a fundamentally different paradigm. Rather than trusting individuals and institutions, DeFi participants, in principle, only need to trust computer code enforced by a decentralized network of computers. We examine a natural experiment that exogenously stress-tests this alternative paradigm by revealing the identities of individuals (including a convicted criminal) associated with the Abracadabra lending protocol. The revelation seriously damaged the protocol, indicating that, in practice, DeFi does not (yet) entirely remove the need for trust in individuals. Our findings suggest that smart contracts are incomplete and are subject to protocol-run risk. Thus, individuals’ character and trust remain relevant in this alternative financial system.

A time-dependent momentum-resolved scattering approach to core-level spectroscopies

While new light sources allow for unprecedented resolution in experiments with X-rays, a theoretical understanding of the scattering cross-section is lacking. In the particular case of strongly correlated electron systems, numerical techniques are quite limited, since conventional approaches rely on calculating a response function (Kramers-Heisenberg formula) that is obtained from a perturbative analysis of scattering processes in the frequency domain. This requires a knowledge of a full set of eigenstates in order to account for all intermediate processes away from equilibrium, limiting the applicability to small tractable systems. In this work, we present an alternative paradigm, recasting the problem in the time domain and explicitly solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation without the limitations of perturbation theory: a faithful simulation of the scattering processes taking place in actual experiments, including photons and core electrons. We show how this approach can yield the full time and momentum resolved Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering (RIXS) spectrum of strongly interacting many-body systems. We demonstrate the formalism with an application to Mott insulating Hubbard chains using the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group method, which does not require a priory knowledge of the eigenstates and can solve very large systems with dozens of orbitals. This approach can readily be applied to systems out of equilibrium without modification and generalized to other spectroscopies.

REVISITING ASIAN VALUES IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN’S CYBERDEMOCRACY DISCOURSE

The question of democracy and cyberdemocracy within the expanding population of internet users in Southeast Asia is a prevalent and debatable concern in the region. The phenomenon is perceived as sign of better democratization while also concerned for its political destabilization effects. Recent instances of cyber sovereignty, cybersecurity, and cyberdemocracy in contrasting practical applications indicate the imperative need for an alternate paradigm to comprehend the underlying issue comprehensively. This study employs a regionalism framework to comprehensively understand the issue by investigating overarching indicators of cyberdemocracy and cases of cyberdemocracy in Southeast Asian countries through case study in qualitative method framework. this article uses library research and limited content analysis of academic literature, regional agreements, and material from news media as data sources. Limited content analysis and data triangulation are used to ensure data validity and to acknowledge the data sources’ bias before the findings are analyzed and concluded. The results indicate that Asian values significantly influence the configuration of cyber sovereignty, which integrates the Chinese concept of regulated cyber sovereignty with the Western notion of freedom in the digital realm, resulting in a cyberdemocracy driven by state governments in the region. The research findings also indicate that this state is influenced by preexisting Asian values and the region’s prevalent challenge of digital transformation.

Sewing Mothers: Re-envisioning Jewish-Christian Relations in Sholem Asch’s “On a Carnival Night”

Abstract A close examination of early twentieth-century literature written in Hebrew and Yiddish reveals that many of its first representations of Christianity put a central emphasis on Mary. This fact has been overlooked in previous scholarship fixated on the role of Jesus. Our article aims to fill this lacuna by focusing on Mary’s appearance in a short, controversial story published in 1909 by Sholem Asch. Through a close reading of Mary’s encounter with the matriarch Rachel, we define Asch’s ‘maternal model,’ an alternative paradigm for Jewish-Christian relations. We argue that the marginalization of Mary from the scholarly conversation is not a slipup. Rather, it is part of a gendered scheme that prioritized Jesus over his mother and narratives of persecution and victimhood over care and obligation. We show how Asch’s artfully constructed fictional formation offers a political position founded on empathy and interconnectivity.

Recognizing Low-Inflow Estuaries as a Common Estuary Paradigm

It has become clear that estuaries with low rates of freshwater inflow are an important but overlooked sphere of estuarine science. Low-inflow estuaries (LIEs) represent a major class of estuary long downplayed because observations do not fit well in the dominant estuary paradigm, which was developed in perennially wet climates. Rather than being rare and unusual, it is now evident that LIEs are common globally and an alternate estuary paradigm within the idea of an estuary as the place where a river meets the sea. They are found mostly in areas with arid, semi-arid, or seasonally arid climates, but LIE phenomena are also found in estuaries along mountainous coasts with small watersheds and short-tailed hydrographs. Inflows can be defined as “low” relative to basin volume, tidal mixing, evaporative losses, or wave forcing at the mouth. The focus here is on common physical phenomena that emerge in low-inflow estuaries—how low river flow is expressed in estuaries. The most common is hypersalinity (and the associated potential for inverse conditions), which develops where there is a net negative water balance. However, in small microtidal estuaries, low inflow results in mouth closure even as a positive water balance may persist, accounting for extreme stratification. Attention is also given to the longitudinal density gradient and the occurrence of thermal estuaries and inverse estuaries. Finally, ocean-driven estuaries are highlighted where marine subsidies (nutrients, particulates) dominate watershed subsidies. While climate change is altering freshwater inflow to estuaries, locally driven changes are generally more important and this presents an opportunity to restore estuaries through restoring estuarine hydrology.

Parguez, the Monetary Circuit, and the Spread of Financialisation

Alain Parguez was a fierce opponent of “rentier-friendly” policies that dominated the neo-liberal era, which he saw as linked to the triumph of austerity, particularly after the mid-eighties, and for which the first seeds were planted in France before the Second World War. In the last quarter of the last century, neo-liberal policies undoubtedly dominated the scene in all main advanced countries, from the fall of the Berlin wall up to the Financial Crisis of 2008, and later. This historical period was characterized by an increased financialisation, which took the form of an accelerated growth of the financial sector of the advanced economies fed by inflation on the asset side of the financial balance sheet. In parallel, other phenomena accompanied this process such as a marked drop in real investment compared to the two previous decades, the progressive erosion of the welfare state, a general increase in inequalities, low inflation, and the rise of China as a world power among other developments. This article argues that Alain Parguez’s analytical contribution on the monetary circuit fills a substantial theoretical gap in the explanation of financialisation. This gap brought some critical authors to question the relevance of the concept and sometimes to deny its very existence. The main text of reference is the one Parguez wrote in 1996, which he considered as one of his most accomplished and relevant contributions. The present paper shows that this model develops the canonical version of the monetary circuit of Augusto Graziani in a direction that allows interpreting financialisation and other related phenomena likely to prevail in a non-Modigliani-Miller world. The monetary circuit, therefore, appears as one of the building blocks of an alternative economic paradigm that is much needed to address the challenges of our time.

To fully leverage fine-grained clinical phenomena, we have to think beyond DSM-based concepts and the presumption of diagnostic kinds.

In light of the limitations of dominant psychiatric classification systems such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), this special section positions fine-grained clinical phenomena as key to the future of psychopathology research. This shift is necessary given the constraints DSM-based diagnoses place on (a) the specificity of theories and models of psychopathology and (b) efforts to develop alternative paradigms. Fine-grained clinical phenomena offer comparative advantages, but transitioning to their study involves significant challenges. Chief among these challenges is the need to move beyond DSM as a source of concepts. Implicit assumptions that DSM-based disorders provide valid, circumscribed, and explanatory definitions of clinical phenomena perpetuate existing reification of diagnostic categories rather than reimagining psychopathology nosology beyond DSM, thus needlessly restricting and even undermining research efforts. Moving forward requires careful attention to consensual operationalization. Otherwise, we will continue to struggle to develop valid compositional explanations of clinical phenomena and to organize them into explanatory conceptual taxonomies. Scientific progress here depends on coordinated pluralism that incorporates different lenses into psychopathology and different approaches to data collection and analysis, with a firm grounding in construct validity and a corresponding commitment to continually reimagine rather than reify our concepts and objects of study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

ART IN ACTION RESEARCH (AiAR) AND THE GLOCAL ROOTINGS OF ART: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This paper discusses transformative research conducted from 2016 to 2021 that aimed to establish an alternative art practitioner paradigm: Art in Action Research (AiAR). This paradigm seeks to guide methodology creation for working on and through art in socio-cultural settings while considering the global turn. The 2021 study configures four baseline discourses (BD) that are needed to perform the global turn: The first BD concerns the diversity of art and the consequences of acknowledging that all art is related to traditions and histories (thus accepting the glocal rootings of art and thus the need to integrate diverse art notions). The second BD constructs an ideal-type model of canonization. The third BD addresses artistic research as a supranational, worldwide phenomenon and shows that increased awareness of the glocal rootings of art is essential for further developing artistic research. The fourth BD discusses the literature on practitioner research across disciplines. Finally, the study derives the principles for AiAR from the four BDs and further substantiates these principles. The study performs the global turn. It introduces an alternative paradigm, AiAR, which excludes limiting, paradigmatic assumptions about art from its research base, and issues a call to elicit project-relevant understandings of art. AiAR enables creating a methodology that serves reality-oriented, setting-specific, and people-centered art practitioner research aimed at co-creating livable futures.

Eco-evolutionary maintenance of diversity in fluctuating environments.

Growing evidence suggests that temporally fluctuating environments are important in maintaining variation both within and between species. To date, however, studies of genetic variation within a population have been largely conducted by evolutionary biologists (particularly population geneticists), while population and community ecologists have concentrated more on diversity at the species level. Despite considerable conceptual overlap, the commonalities and differences of these two alternative paradigms have yet to come under close scrutiny. Here, we review theoretical and empirical studies in population genetics and community ecology focusing on the 'temporal storage effect' and synthesise theories of diversity maintenance across different levels of biological organisation. Drawing on Chesson's coexistence theory, we explain how temporally fluctuating environments promote the maintenance of genetic variation and species diversity. We propose a further synthesis of the two disciplines by comparing models employing traditional frequency-dependent dynamics and those adopting density-dependent dynamics. We then address how temporal fluctuations promote genetic and species diversity simultaneously via rapid evolution and eco-evolutionary dynamics. Comparing and synthesising ecological and evolutionary approaches will accelerate our understanding of diversity maintenance in nature.

Neuro-computing for third-grade nanomaterial flow under impacts of activation energy and mixed convection along rotating disk

This paper examines the activation energy influence in third-grade nanoparticle flow model (TG-NPFM), which is nonlinear mixed convective flow over a spinning disk under the influence of heat sink/source as well as viscous dissipation by utilizing Bayesian Regulation Method with backpropagated Artificial Neural Networks (BRM-BPANN). Nonlinear thermal radiation is also involved in the considered flow dynamics to obtain the approximated numerical solutions. The nonlinear PDEs of TG-NPFM are then transformed into nonlinear ODEs by implementing the corresponding transformation. We solved these ODEs by Optimal Homotopy Analysis Method (OHAM) to explain the dataset used as a reference for BRM-BPANN for different scenarios of TG-NPFM. This reference dataset is then exported to MATLAB to compute the results. The outcomes of TG-NPFM are figured by adopting the procedures of testing, validation and training. Moreover, approximated solution is compared with standard solution and the efficacy examination of TG-NPFM is authenticated by the studies of MSE, error histogram and regression plots. These soft computation frameworks provide incentive to use an efficient and dependable alternative paradigm built on soft computing environments to solve problems by doing a descriptive analysis to mitigate the impacts of different physical features. It is a new implementation of intelligent computational system of artificial intelligence introduced by incorporating the solver BRM-BPANN for interpreting the TG-NPFM. The absolute error values lie between 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text] and 10[Formula: see text] to 10[Formula: see text], which show the reliability and accuracy of the technique. The convergence and precision of the algorithm can easily be seen through the results of performance, training state and fitness plot, along with the regression value of [Formula: see text].

Alternative Endoscopy Reading Paradigms Determine Score Reliability and Effect Size in Ulcerative Colitis.

Central reading of endoscopy is advocated by regulatory agencies for clinical trials in ulcerative colitis [UC]. It is uncertain whether the local/site reader should be included in the reading paradigm. We explore whether using locally- and centrally-determined endoscopic Mayo subscores [eMS] provide a reliable final assessment and whether the paradigm used has an impact on effect size. eMS data from the TURANDOT [NCT01620255] study were used to retrospectively examine seven different reading paradigms (using the scores of local readers [LR], first central readers [CR1], second central readers [CR2], and various consensus reads [ConCR]) by assessing inter-rater reliabilities and their impact on the key study endpoint, endoscopic improvement. More than 40% of eMS scores between two trained central readers were discordant. Central readers had wide variability in scorings at baseline (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] of 0.475 [0.339, 0.610] for CR1 vs CR2). Centrally-read scores had variable concordance with LR (LR vs CR1 ICC 0.682 [0.575, 0.788], and LR vs CR2 ICC 0.526 [0.399, 0.653]). Reading paradigms with LR and CR which included a consensus, enhanced ICC estimates to >0.8. At Week 12, without the consensus reads, the CR1 vs CR2 ICC estimates were 0.775 [0.710, 0.841], and with consensus reads the ICC estimates were >0.9. Consensus-based approaches were most favourable to detect a treatment difference. The ICC between the eMS of two trained and experienced central readers is unexpectedly low, which reinforces that currently used central reading processes are still associated with several weaknesses.

Inverted Disillusionment in Postcolonial African Literature

This study introduces the concept of inverted disillusionment as a new conceptual framework for reading African literature of the postcolonial era. It is conceived to philosophically account for the collective complicity of the people in their predicament in postcolonial Africa. It thus re-examines the concept of post-independence disillusionment of postcolonial theory, which blames postcolonial-era realities of disillusionment on African leaders and, consequently, places disillusionment and indifference to development in a broader context of human features everywhere. Achille Mbembe’s version of postcolonial theory and Derrida’s deconstructive operation are adopted as a framework, while textual evidence is drawn from selected literature to authenticate the ideological standpoints conceived as indices of the study. Theoretically and philosophically conceived, inverted disillusionment is foregrounded as an alternative engagement paradigm in reading African literature of the postcolonial era. It sits at the crossroads of postcolonial African literature and criticism as it advocates the extension of the frontiers of disillusionment in African Literature.

Over-coupled resonator for broadband surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA)

Detection of molecules is a key issue for many applications. Surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) uses arrays of resonant nanoantennas with good quality factors which can be used to locally enhance the illumination of molecules. The technique has proved to be an effective tool to detect small amount of material. However, nanoresonators can detect molecules on a narrow bandwidth so that a set of resonators is necessary to identify a molecule fingerprint. Here, we introduce an alternative paradigm and use low quality factor resonators with large radiative losses (over-coupled resonators). The bandwidth enables to detect all absorption lines between 5 and 10 μm, reproducing the molecular absorption spectrum. Counterintuitively, despite a lower quality factor, the system sensitivity is improved and we report a reflectivity variation as large as one percent per nanometer of molecular layer of PMMA. This paves the way to specific identification of molecules. We illustrate the potential of the technique with the detection of the explosive precursor 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT). There is a fair agreement with electromagnetic simulations and we also introduce an analytic model of the SEIRA signal obtained in the over-coupling regime.

The Inadequacy of G20 and its Need to Initiate a Reformulation of Development

The G20’s primary focus is ensuring economic growth and global financial stability, which has in time expanded to include the concerns of climate change, sustainability etc as well. But the currently dominant conceptualization of ‘growth’ and ‘development’ is the primary reason for these major issues like the looming climate catastrophe, humongous disparities in wealth, extremism born of disaffection, etc. On top of it, the G20 is also marred by severe underrepresentation of countries which is a serious issue, given the powerful influence of the group over global economics. As such, this forum is not suited for discussing sustainability and inclusiveness because its core concern is the anti-thesis of these objectives. However, if the group is willing to engage in serious reformulation of what growth and development means, it is an apt platform very well suited for the task. The world is currently under a transitionary phase when the evident failure of west’s modernist paradigm is creating space for alternative knowledge systems to come to the fore. G20 countries should use this as an opportunity to create alternative paradigms. India should urgently re-engage with its own ancient knowledge which contains the key to addressing pressing concerns.

PDC-Net+: Enhanced Probabilistic Dense Correspondence Network

Establishing robust and accurate correspondences between a pair of images is a long-standing computer vision problem with numerous applications. While classically dominated by sparse methods, emerging dense approaches offer a compelling alternative paradigm that avoids the keypoint detection step. However, dense flow estimation is often inaccurate in the case of large displacements, occlusions, or homogeneous regions. In order to apply dense methods to real-world applications, such as pose estimation, image manipulation, or 3D reconstruction, it is therefore crucial to estimate the confidence of the predicted matches. We propose the Enhanced Probabilistic Dense Correspondence Network, PDC-Net+, capable of estimating accurate dense correspondences along with a reliable confidence map. We develop a flexible probabilistic approach that jointly learns the flow prediction and its uncertainty. In particular, we parametrize the predictive distribution as a constrained mixture model, ensuring better modelling of both accurate flow predictions and outliers. Moreover, we develop an architecture and an enhanced training strategy tailored for robust and generalizable uncertainty prediction in the context of self-supervised training. Our approach obtains state-of-the-art results on multiple challenging geometric matching and optical flow datasets. We further validate the usefulness of our probabilistic confidence estimation for the tasks of pose estimation, 3D reconstruction, image-based localization, and image retrieval. Code and models are available at https://github.com/PruneTruong/DenseMatching.

“Empty Claims of Fellowship”? Erich Doflein, Paul Hindemith, and Übungsmusik as Shared Task

Abstract Studies of the Weimar-era discourse of Gebrauchsmusik (utility music, or music for everyday use) have emphasized Heinrich Besseler’s appropriation of Martin Heidegger’s concept of knowledge gained through immediate participatory experience. Along with Germany’s musical youth movement (Jugendmusikbewegung), Besseler rejected formal concert institutions and promoted musical practices that solicited active involvement in everyday social contexts. The focus on Besseler has kept alive Theodor Adorno’s critique of the amateur movement’s claims of participatory immediacy as being illusory and allied with unreflective, exclusivist elements of National Socialist ideology. Adorno’s assimilation of the prominent Gebrauchsmusik composer Paul Hindemith to a Besselerian/Heideggerian position still informs scholarship, although this view overlooks an alternative paradigm for amateur and school music-making articulated in the late 1920s by the critic and educationist Erich Doflein. Doflein outlined a concept of Übungsmusik (practice music) by intertwining Besselerian elements with a commitment to pedagogical contexts, and by interpreting Hindemith’s compositional strategies as rewarding participants only after challenging their understanding and drawing them into deeply focused, playful activity. Übungsmusik offers a lens for reexamining Hindemith’s collaborations with the music-educational reformers Hilmar Höckner and Edgar Rabsch. Here, ongoing mutual effort formed a precondition for claims of sociomusical connectedness, claims that are further illuminated by the play-centered theory of sociability formulated by the philosophical anthropologist Helmuth Plessner. By bringing together musical knowing and doing at a fundamental level, Doflein’s paradigm is also relevant to recent methodological disputes over music’s object- and event-status.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Practice in Criminal Law System

The criminal justice system in Indonesia, like many other countries, faces the challenge of effectively addressing crime while ensuring justice for victims and rehabilitation for offenders. In response to the limitations of the traditional punitive approach, restorative justice has emerged as an alternative paradigm, emphasizing healing, reconciliation, and community involvement. This research study aims to trace the effectiveness of restorative justice practices within the Indonesian criminal justice system through a comparative analysis. By employing a mixed-methods approach, the research combines quantitative data from official criminal justice statistics and qualitative data from interviews, case studies, and focus groups. The findings reveal that restorative justice cases demonstrate higher rates of victim engagement, increased offender accountability, and lower recidivism rates compared to conventional cases. Victims express higher levels of satisfaction with the restorative justice process, and practitioners acknowledge its potential benefits. However, challenges in implementation and the need for community support are also evident. The research contributes to the ongoing discourse on criminal justice reform in Indonesia and provides evidence-based insights to guide policymakers in developing a more balanced and effective approach to addressing crime and promoting justice, healing, and restoration within society.

Self-organization of primitive metabolic cycles due to non-reciprocal interactions

One of the greatest mysteries concerning the origin of life is how it has emerged so quickly after the formation of the earth. In particular, it is not understood how metabolic cycles, which power the non-equilibrium activity of cells, have come into existence in the first instances. While it is generally expected that non-equilibrium conditions would have been necessary for the formation of primitive metabolic structures, the focus has so far been on externally imposed non-equilibrium conditions, such as temperature or proton gradients. Here, we propose an alternative paradigm in which naturally occurring non-reciprocal interactions between catalysts that can partner together in a cyclic reaction lead to their recruitment into self-organized functional structures. We uncover different classes of self-organized cycles that form through exponentially rapid coarsening processes, depending on the parity of the cycle and the nature of the interaction motifs, which are all generic but have readily tuneable features.

Multivalued Memory via Freezing of Super-Hard Magnetic Domains in a Quasi 2D-Magnet.

The design of high-density non-volatile memories is a long-standing dream, limited by conventional storage "0" or "1" bits. An alternative paradigm exists in which regions within candidate materials can be magnetized to intermediate values between the saturation limits. In principle, this paves the way to multivalued bits, vastly increasing storage density. Single-molecule magnets, are good examples offering transitions between intramolecular quantum levels, but require ultra-low temperatures and limited relaxation time between magnetization states. It is showed here that the quasi 2D-Ising compound BaFe2 (PO4 )2 overcomes these limitations. The combination of giant magneto-crystalline anisotropy, strong ferromagnetic exchange, and strong intrinsic pinning creates remarkably narrow magnetic domain walls, collectively freezing under Tf ≈15K. This results in a transition from a soft to a super-hard magnet (coercive force > 14T). Any magnetization can then be printed and robustly protected from external fields with an energy barrier >9T at 2K.