Good Deal Research Articles

Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess. By BurkeL.,CarrN., CluleyE., CollettS. and McNeillF. (eds) (Routledge, 2022, 247pp. £34.99 pbk)

Twenty authors have contributed to this collection of 13 essays. They are drawn from every branch of the ‘probation’ community—practitioners, inspectors, academic analysts and teachers. So, unsurprisingly, the quality of the expositions varies a good deal and, somewhat surprisingly, one voice is almost completely absent: that of offenders. Apart from a short quote from a bemused participant in a group work programme—a participant who clearly cannot see how he’s going to escape the traps surrounding him (p. 59)—the offender voice is absent. A bit of ‘lived experience’ would have leavened this sometimes ritualistically worthy loaf. The core message, around which all the contributors have mustered, is a plea, clearly set out in the editors’ introductory manifesto, that probation practitioners strive to retain and develop a commitment to the serious ambition of encouraging offender desistance. This objective is easier said than done given the context within which probation services are now delivered. Indeed, a mood of scarcely concealed desperation occasionally surfaces in the editors’ account. For the backcloth to probation work, be it the preparation of court reports, the supervision of community orders, the delivery of offender programmes or the resettlement of prisoners, is a scarred landscape of: gross and worsening social and economic inequality; increasing and deepening poverty; a housing rental market geared to ownership and inheritance of wealth rather than public utility; employment practices increasingly characterized by zero hour contracts and insecurity of tenure; and the partial collapse of major national and local authority public services whose remit includes the redress of the multiple trauma—childhood, familial, medical and military—which lies behind most serious offending.

Enhanced Grey Wolf Optimization based Hyper-parameter optimized Convolution Neural Network for Kidney Image Classification

Over the last few years, Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) have shown dominant performance over real world applications due to their ability to find good solutions and deal with image data. However their performance is highly dependent on the network architecture and methods for optimizing their hyper parameters especially number and size of filters. Designing a good CNN architecture requires human expertise and domain knowledge. So, it is difficult in CNN to find sufficient number and size of filters for classification problems. The standard GWO algorithm used for any optimization purpose suffers from some issues such as slow convergence speed, trapping in local minima and unable to maintain balance between exploration and exploitation. In order to have proper balance between these phases, two modifications in GWO are introduced in this paper. A technique for finding optimum CNN architecture using methods based on Enhanced Grey Wolf Optimization (E-GWO) is proposed. The paper presents optimization of hyper parameters (numbers and size of filters in convolution layer) of CNN using E-GWO to improve the performance of the model. Kidney ultrasound images dataset collected from ultrasound centre is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results showed that optimization of CNN with E-GWO outperformed CNN optimized with traditional GA, PSO and GWO and conventional CNN yielding 97.01% accuracy. At last, the obtained results are statistically validated using t-test.

Discovering informative biomarkers in psychiatry.

Discovering informative biomarkers in psychiatry.

Introduction: Telling the Untold Story of Random Political Recruitment

Abstract Introducing part 2 of the Common Knowledge symposium “Antipolitics,” this essay summarizes the “untold story” of the random recruitment of citizens for political office in Western Europe. Although sortition was used extensively in ancient Athens and in late medieval Europe, it is now (except for the randomly selected jury) a largely discontinued practice. While a good deal is known about when and where this procedure was used, there is little surviving documentation of exactly why it was used and of what it was thought to contribute to the political systems in which it was deployed. This untold story, therefore, is not simply about historical instances of use but must also be an analysis and critique of its use. Key points that emerge are that (1) a lottery takes the decision to appoint or elect away from partisan protagonists, so it therefore acts as a mechanism that can break up and disperse power; and (2) a lottery can serve as a trusted mediation or agreement between parties, because the resultant decision is anonymous.

Research Paper on Career Dendogram

Abstract: Inside the modern-day profession steering system, there are distinct counsellors available who provide individual counselling to help college students to pick their profession in a scientific way. There are numerous web sites to be had to conduct on line character check, aptitude test, personal interest takes a look at, domain take a look at too are expecting which professional area a specific pupil should choose. Knowledge the contemporary schooling trend and suggesting the most suitable area correctly is very tough venture in career steering system. So, college students are not appeared to be glad by way of the current machine due to inconsistent end result and consequently an application is needed that could generate a good deal correct end result. For that reason, Survey was taken if you want to recognize what troubles they face so that we attempt to conquer those problems for the imminent era. We will be enforcing 2-3 gadget studying algorithms accompanied by means of trying out and the one so as to give more accurate outcomes may be taken into consideration.

Passionate

Passionate

Psychopathology and Atmospheres: Neither Inside Nor Outside

Psychopathology and Atmospheres: Neither Inside Nor Outside

Public attitudes toward organized labor

AbstractObjectiveDespite declining and historically low membership, labor unions remain important and relevant actors in American politics. Accordingly, we have learned a good deal about the economic and political consequences of labor unions and union membership. However, we know less about the dynamics, determinants, and political consequences of public attitudes toward organized labor.MethodsI use a variety of survey data to (1) track public support for labor unions over time, (2) to examine the microlevel determinants of labor attitudes, and (3) to examine how such attitudes shape voting behavior in national elections.ResultsFirst, I show that American public opinion has consistently been “pro‐labor” and that such sentiment is growing in recent years, despite historically low levels of union membership. Second, I show that while the strongest individual‐level correlate of union support is labor union affiliation, pluralities, and in some cases majorities, of nonunion‐affiliated Americans hold “pro‐labor” attitudes as well. Finally, I show that labor union attitudes significantly predict (among both union and nonunion‐affiliated Americans) support for the Democratic presidential candidate, net of partisanship, ideology, core political values, and macroeconomic conditions.ConclusionOverall, these results show that low levels of union membership do not imply an “anti‐union” mass public. These findings also demonstrate that attitudes toward labor unions are politically consequential.

Cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical strategies to prevent respiratory syncytial virus disease in young children: a decision-support model for use in low-income and middle-income countries

BackgroundRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of respiratory disease in young children. A number of mathematical models have been used to assess the cost-effectiveness of RSV prevention strategies, but these have not been designed for ease of use by multidisciplinary teams working in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).MethodsWe describe the UNIVAC decision-support model (a proportionate outcomes static cohort model) and its approach to exploring the potential cost-effectiveness of two RSV prevention strategies: a single-dose maternal vaccine and a single-dose long-lasting monoclonal antibody (mAb) for infants. We identified model input parameters for 133 LMICs using evidence from the literature and selected national datasets. We calculated the potential cost-effectiveness of each RSV prevention strategy (compared to nothing and to each other) over the lifetimes of all children born in the year 2025 and compared our results to a separate model published by PATH. We ran sensitivity and scenario analyses to identify the inputs with the largest influence on the cost-effectiveness results.ResultsOur illustrative results assuming base case input assumptions for maternal vaccination ($3.50 per dose, 69% efficacy, 6 months protection) and infant mAb ($3.50 per dose, 77% efficacy, 5 months protection) showed that both interventions were cost-saving compared to status quo in around one-third of 133 LMICs, and had a cost per DALY averted below 0.5 times the national GDP per capita in the remaining LMICs. UNIVAC generated similar results to a separate model published by PATH. Cost-effectiveness results were most sensitive to changes in the price, efficacy and duration of protection of each strategy, and the rate (and cost) of RSV hospital admissions.ConclusionsForthcoming RSV interventions (maternal vaccines and infant mAbs) are worth serious consideration in LMICs, but there is a good deal of uncertainty around several influential inputs, including intervention price, efficacy, and duration of protection. The UNIVAC decision-support model provides a framework for country teams to build consensus on data inputs, explore scenarios, and strengthen the local ownership and policy-relevance of results.

Unanimity, Coexistence, and Rigidity: Three Sides of Polarization.

Political polarization is perceived as a threat to democracies. Using the Galam model of opinion dynamics deployed in a five-dimensional parameter space, I show that polarization is the byproduct of an essential hallmark of a vibrant democratic society, namely open and informal discussions among agents. Indeed, within a homogeneous social community with floaters, the dynamics lead gradually toward unanimity (zero entropy). Polarization can eventually appear as the juxtaposition of non-mixing social groups sharing different prejudices about the issue at stake. On the other hand, the inclusion of contrarian agents produces a polarization within a community that mixes when their proportion x is beyond a critical value xc=16≈0.167 for discussing groups of size three and four. Similarly, the presence of stubborn agents also produces a polarization of a community that mixes when the proportion of stubborn agents is greater than some critical value. For equal proportions of stubborn agents a along each opinion, ac=29≈0.22 for group size four against ac=14=0.25 for group size three. However, the evaluation of the proportion of individual opinion shifts at the attractor 12 and indicates that the polarization produced by contrarians is fluid with a good deal of agents who keep shifting between the two opposed blocks (high entropy). That favors a coexistence of opposite opinions in a divided community. In contrast, the polarization created by stubborn agents is found to be frozen with very few individuals shifting opinion between the two opinions (low entropy). That yields a basis for the emergence of hate between the frozen opposed blocks.

The Wealth effect of the acquisition: Analysis Based on Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance

On April 12, 2021, Nuance, acquired company,bought by Microsoft in $16billion. Trough event and SWOT analyses, the paper studies Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance. This is the Second largest acquisition case in the history of Microsoft, what’s more Microsoft accelerated into the medical area. During the corvid-19, the acquisition can make sense to a company’s development. From the view of the strategic adjustment, Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance is to expand ecosystem of medical care. Microsoft is good for covering the medical market. What’s more, the the binding of Microsoft and the Nuance can deal with the problem of the telemedicine solutions. However, due to the advantages coming from early placement, not the ability to consistently building technical barriers and keeping up with market demand, he acquisition is sick in the patent applications, market share and the market revenue. However, acquisition is sick in that the barriers of the technology was going to be broken down. At the same time, the opportunity comes from the overall digital transformation of the medical industry in recent years. Microsoft have to pay attention that business model in need of transformation, revenue performance is poor, per capita output is low . The investment advice is that Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance is a good deal The strategic value of voice interaction in the era of AIoT has been unprecedentedly increased, and the global technology giants are becoming increasingly fierce in their pursuit of this strategic plateau.

Muḥammad’s Disruptive Measures Against the Meccan Trade: A Historiographical Reassessment

Abstract Muḥammad’s disruptive measures against the Quraysh’s commerce (exemplified in his looting the Meccan caravans) have commonly been considered to be of great importance in what brought about emerging Islam’s prosperity. Whereas Islamicists have devoted a good deal of research to Muḥammad’s antagonistic actions against the Meccan trade, previous studies can nonetheless be said to have mostly dealt with the traditional biography of Muḥammad with a receptive spirit. However, the sīra upon which we have to rely heavily, if not exclusively, is notorious for its source-critical problems. The extant theories are, hence, in need of reappraisal in the light of a more critical treatment of the sources.

Raising the Pension Age

Raising the Pension Age

Marine mammals of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842: history and taxonomy

The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, in some ways, represents the beginning of American marine mammal biology. The expedition returned home with information on at least twelve marine mammal specimens (mostly small cetaceans or pinnipeds), seven of which were considered new species at the time. Commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the expedition covered over 80,000 miles, surveyed new waters and lands, and brought back thousands of scientific specimens. Official publications of the expedition by Titian Peale and John Cassin cover the birds and mammals collected. The squadron’s publications, and the journals of its officers and scientists also contain a good deal of information about sightings of marine mammals. Of particular interest were whaling operations and grounds, and the expedition did much to help expand the whaling prospects of the United States around the globe, with a focus on the South Pacific islands. Though largely forgotten today, the “U. S. Ex. Ex.” played an important early role in establishing American influence in marine mammal biology and global whaling operations.

Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology by Javier Pérez-Jara and Lino Camprubí

Reviewed by: Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology by Javier Pérez-Jara and Lino Camprubí Carl Mitcham (bio) Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology By Javier Pérez-Jara and Lino Camprubí. Washington, DC: Lexington Books, 2022. Pp. x + 245. This book is an analytic biography, from the perspective of cultural sociology, of Bertrand Russell as a public intellectual engaged with the promises and perils of science and technology. Russell was one of the great figures of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century analytic British philosophy, but he stepped away from academic life to become a public intellectual in response to the Great War. Whereas previously he had seen science and the scientization of philosophy as a promising fulfillment of the Enlightenment vision for a rational society, after the war he increasingly viewed science and technology as a civilizational peril. Javier Pérez-Jara and Lino Camprubí interpret Russell's trajectory as exhibiting the power of cultural binaries (good-pure-sacred versus evil-polluted-profane) to capture the mind of a philosopher and to illustrate the structural character of meaning in a techno-scientific society. Chapter 1 reviews Russell's initial faith in the power of logic, mathematics, and science to provide a realistic picture of the world. What he described as a subsequent "retreat from Pythagoras" was influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Great War. Wittgenstein brought about changes in philosophy, from mathematics to language. But chapter 2 focuses especially on Russell's response to the war and the role it played in his turn from imperialist to pacifist and his shift from university to public life. Chapter 3 considers Russell's effort to formulate a realist, empirical epistemology, and his growing pessimism about politics. As the authors summarize it, he concluded that cognitive beliefs about the external world provide no more than partial and tentative knowledge and that beliefs are less powerful than wishes in politics. They write that political behavior is "often dominated by unconscious processes and impulses. Human nature is overwhelmingly irrational, contradictory, whimsical, and easily manipulable" (p. 116). Chapters 4 and 5 cover Russell's performances as a public intellectual dramatizing the evils of nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, respectively. [End Page 634] From having once advocated surrender to Nazi Germany in order to avoid a second world war and then promoting all-out war against Germany—and even a postwar preventive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in order to establish an American-dominated world state—Russell wound up lending his prestige to the campaign for nuclear disarmament and convened a war crimes tribunal to pass judgment on America's role in Vietnam. To interpret the repeated twists and turns during his long life—from pure philosopher to public intellectual, from optimistic proponent of science to pessimistic critic of technology, from idealizer of American power to anathematizer of the United States as evil—the authors draw on the cultural sociology developed by Jeffrey Alexander. Through all his contradictory proclamations, how was Russell able to continue to command attention? Although "Russell's positionings could be surprisingly simplistic and Manichean[, the] oversimplifications often had powerful symbolic effects" (p. 190). Radical cultural binaries are on their own powerful social forces in competition with and influencing the cognitive and physical aspects of science and technology. A concluding chapter summarizes the analysis, drawing together diverse strands and pointing toward implications. The case of Russell's multiple public intellectual engagements with modern science and technology, primarily in relation to warfare, has obvious implications for the proliferations of binary coding in current debates about global climate change, pandemic infections, environmental pollution, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and more. It also has implications for thinking about the often-repeated criticisms of all binary coding in postmodern culture. Is the nonbinary versus binary itself just another instance of good-pure-sacred versus evil-polluted-profane? I personally learned a good deal from this volume. I was aware of the broad trajectory of Russell's intellectual life, but his Manichean tendencies had escaped me. And before reading this book, I would not have been able to distinguish cultural sociology (using culture to explain social phenomena) from sociology...

On Don Juan and Beyond: Masculinity Studies in Modern Spain

The prominence of the figure of Don Juan marks the Spanish literature on masculinities which will be analyzed in this article. This distinctive trait, obvious when comparing it to English-speaking masculinity studies, is responsible for the highest achievements of masculinity studies in Spain. Those studies benefit from the fact that the figure of Don Juan is a stylization of modern masculinity. Other historiographies could also benefit from it, but for that to happen, Spanish scholars must intensify their dialogue with those historiographies. A critical thinking on masculinities based on Don Juan will not be beneficial, however, if Don Juan is taken as a description of a specific territory, whether it be Castile, Spain or Latin America. Beyond Don Juan, the relation between masculinity and nation and with other phenomena on the process of modernization has concentrated a good deal of effort among Spanish scholars; this article contends that the figure of Don Juan could shed new light on that field of research.

‘As unknown to me as a Bohemian village’: a retrospective of Czech Baroque music in recordings

In 1843 the German travel writer, Johann Kohl, commented on the curious fact that although several German states border Bohemia, a large degree of mystery and misunderstanding lay between them; in doing so he cited a common German expression: ‘Dieß ist mir so unbekannt wie die böhmischen Dörfer’ [sic] (this is as unknown to me as a Bohemian village). Despite the centrality, innovation and importance of Bohemian and Moravian musicians in the Baroque era (and before and beyond, of course) a good deal of it has, alas, remained remote to mainstream Western musicology. This situation has, however, improved dramatically over the 50 years since Early Music first went to press. For simple reasons of space this overview is limited to Bohemia and Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic–Slovakia warrants its own retrospective), and to the period from the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century. In both historical and modern terms, when speaking of a ‘Czech’ early music scene, one is usually discussing ‘Central European’ music-making more broadly (Czech ensembles are frequently international, and their repertory is broad and varied). A few central issues touched upon here relate to ideas of regional/national repertory, concepts of ownership and the centre–periphery paradigm. An unavoidable aspect of discussions of the past 50 years is the communist takeover that lasted between 1968 and 1989, which leaves a narrative of both East and West as well as insider–outsider language with which to contend. By its nature, such an overview as this comes with caveats: there is inadequate space to address all of the important issues, performers, composers and record labels that gave shape to this period. Considering that in both historical and in modern terms, Czechia (as she is now officially styled) is not a big country; in musical terms, she has punched way above her weight.

Highly anti-interference electrocatalytic sensing for dopamine with nitrogen-doped graphdiyne directly in biofluids

Nitrogen-doped graphdiyne (N-GDY) nanostructures are attracting increasing attention in electrochemical sensing field owing to its peculiar chemical structure, high structure defects, good electrical conductivity, favorable biocompatibility and hydrophilicity. A highly anti-interference electrocatalytic sensor based on N-GDY for the detection of dopamine (DA), a crucial neurotransmitter and chemical substance for numerous physiological processes, was demonstrated. The highly anti-interference ability was endowed by the abundant existing sp-N interactive sites on synthesized N-GDY surface that not only offered the very high-efficiency interactions between target DA molecules and developed interface but also effectively excluded other interferential component combinations which further powerfully boosted the high selectivity of fabricated sensor. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to explore, verify and reveal both the best-matched sp-N interactive sites for DA molecules on N-GDY surface and the correlative mechanism for electrocatalytic process towards DA. Electrocatalytic sensitivity was also enhanced due to the large electroactive surface area, more active sites, superior conductivity, and improved interfacial charge transfer of as-prepared N-GDY nanostructure. Such developed sensor achieved highly selective and sensitive DA detection with a very wide linear ranging from 1 to 550 µM and a low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.46 µM, even in the real complex biofluids, where a good deal of biological components are co-existing. The superior performance towards target was principally attributed to its outstanding anti-interference ability and the analysis results in biofluids markedly declared its powerful potential for practical applications of such DA sensor.

Tanka je linija što spaja i razdvaja: o nadmudrivanju i prevari u rimskoj klasičnoj prodaji

Th e Roman classical sale is one of the most striking expressions of the Roman legal genius. However, to a large extent, this institute is overshadowed by the infl uence and contribution of foreign ancient (primarily Greek) law, the existence of analogous responsibility of the buyer and seller, diff erent modalities and, fi nally, the specifi c defi nition of the essential elements of the contract, object and price. Th is was particularly evident in the slave and livestock markets, where contracting parties met in order to outsmart each other and achieve the best possible deal by subjectively determining the limit of success. What is a good deal for the seller, for the buyer can be a basis for a lawsuit that was not easy to come by quickly. Where does bona fi des end, where does circumsriptio, and where does dolus begin, what is the role of the contracting parties and what is their liability? Did Roman jurisprudents contribute to solving this problem and to what extent? In this paper, we tried to answer these questions because there is a thin line that connects and separates trickery from fraud.

Re–Assessing the Authorship of the Heike Nokyo Ganmon

This article demonstrates that Fujiwara no Toshinori composed the text of the National Treasure Heike nokyo ganmon, which has usually been attributed to Taira no Kiyomori. First, the article establishes that Toshinori was a prolific author of the ganmon genre, which required skill in composing elaborate parallel prose and a profound knowledge of Buddhist doctrine and Chinese history. It then documents the existence of many, overlooked works written by Toshinori and reveals that certain passages found in them match passages in the Heike nokyo ganmon, thus proving Toshinori’s authorship. It focuses in conclusion on Toshinori’s role in producing a picture scroll for the imperial court, a task precisely analogous to that carried out by his brother, the monk Joken, and suggests that Toshinori and his family may have been responsible for a good deal of the art created in the milieu of the retired emperor Goshirakawa.