Lack Of Realism Research Articles

Height distribution of stochastic Lagrange ocean waves

The Gaussian wave model has been successfully used in ocean engineering for more than half a century. It is well understood, and there exists both exact theory and efficient numerical algorithms for calculation of the distribution of safety related wave characteristics, such as crest height and steepness. Its drawback is its lack of realism: it produces waves which are stochastically symmetric, both in the vertical and in the horizontal direction. From that point of view, the Lagrangian wave model is more realistic, but its stochastic properties have not been studied until quite recently. We present an explicit expression for the occupation density (approximately the univariate probability density) of the Lagrangian wave model. We also draw some conclusions about the definition of freak or rogue waves.

THE ICEMAN THAT NEVER CAME

The article deals with the so‐called Project Iceworm for the mobile deployment of up to 600 MRBMs under the Greenland Icecap. It was designed around 1960 by the US Army as its bid for a share in the US strategic deterrent, and later presented as a candidate for a NATO nuclear force. The project was considered favourably in the higher echelons of the Kennedy Administration, who were cautiously optimistic concerning the possibility of getting the necessary consent from the Danish Government. An analysis of Denmark's nuclear policy demonstrates the utter lack of realism of this assumption, but the project failed on other – mainly technical and organizational – grounds and was never broached to the Danes.

Decision Making in Naval Aviation: Contextual Factors Influencing Cue and Factor Saliency

Aeronautical decision making research has focused almost exclusively on general and commercial aviation - with little attention given to the military aviation domain. This research has also been limited by its lack of realism and/or inability to probe aviators for additional clarifying information relevant to their decisions. This study addresses these shortcomings by using in-depth interviews of critical incidents guided by the critical decision method to gain a deeper understanding of the decision making process of experienced naval aviators during novel or unexpected situations in flight. Through this method, two contextual factors in the military aviation environment not previously addressed were identified: (a) the purpose of the flight; and (b) the flight operation environment. These two factors were found to influence each other in addition to impacting the saliency of certain cues and factors for the aviators. Implications for military aviator training and other domains of aviation are discussed.

Realistic Idealism

In this paper I criticize political realism in International Relations for not being realistic enough, for being unrealistically pessimistic and ultimately incoherent. For them the international arena will always be a place where a battle of wills, informed by the logic of power, is fought. I grant that it may be true that the international political domain is a place where such battles are fought, but this alleged infelicitous situation does not in and of itself entail the normative pessimism informing their assessments of the international domain, and it does not entail the recommendations offered by political realists, particularly relating to balance of power concerns. Their lack of realism stems from total or partial blindness to the proper and coherent ideals that ought to be informing their analyses of the international domain. Such blindness does not allow them properly to grasp what actually is the case. As we can only properly understand what an eye is by knowing the ideal that defines eyes — proper vision — so too we can only properly identify the movements of the international political arena in relation to ideals that ultimately define this arena, ideals that stem from a proper understanding of the human person. Following an Aristotelian teleological technique of analysis, I show that ideals are a constitutive part of the international domain and I recommend an alternative to political realism, namely, realistic idealism (or, if you prefer, idealistic realism).

English Catholicism under Mary Tudor

English Catholicism under Mary Tudor Colin Armstrong Reforming Catholicism in the England of Mary Tudor: The Achievement of Friar Bartolomé Carranza. Edited by John Edwards and Ronald Truman. (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2005. Pp. xx, 235. $94.95.) The Church of Mary Tudor. Edited by Eamon Duffy and David Loades. (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2006. Pp. xxxi, 348. $99.99.) The reign of Mary Tudor remains the Cinderella subject of early modern English history; England's last Catholic Queen regnant, the "Bloody Mary" of popular opprobrium, has been neglected as much as she has been traduced. There has been but one comprehensive scholarly treatment of her reign in modern times, and but one thorough academic biography (both of them by David Loades). Mary's Church has suffered as much as any other aspect of her reign from this neglect. The appearance of two scholarly symposia dealing with various aspects of Marian Catholicism is therefore much to be welcomed. These two volumes complement each other, and at times overlap; indeed, they share a number of contributors—Professor David Loades, Professor Thomas F. Mayer, Dr. John Edwards, Dr. Lucy Wooding, and Father William Wizeman appear in both. With the other contributors including Father José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, Father Dermot Fenlon, Dr. Ronald Truman, Dr. C. S. Knighton, Professor Ralph Houlbrooke, and Professor Eamon Duffy, these volumes gather for the most part a formidable force of scholarship. There can be little doubt that Reforming Catholicism in the Reign of Mary Tudor and The Church of Mary Tudor are considerable works both individually and together, and are the best accounts we possess of Catholicism in Queen Mary's reign. It should be stressed that in general they offer a positive view of their subject. Their broad approach takes to a further stage the 'Revisionist' school of Reformation history which has endeavored to draw attention to the social and intellectual vigor of English Catholicism in the first half of the sixteenth century. Professor Mayer, the leading modern biographer of Cardinal Reginald Pole, Mary's Archbishop of Canterbury, is unambiguous in the title of his essay in [End Page 589] The Church of Mary Tudor: "The success of Cardinal Pole's final legation." He calls his proposition that Pole succeeded "counterintuitive" (p. 149). It may be doubted whether he proves that Pole succeeded, but he certainly demonstrates that Pole received a high number of appeals as Legate. He has found that 315 were submitted (as against a previously calculated total of 45), and concludes (p. 174) that by the end of the Queen's reign—Pole and Mary died almost simultaneously—"a good deal had been done and an administrative and legal framework put in place that would have allowed a good deal more. . . ." Professor Duffy in his "Cardinal Pole preaching: St Andrew's Day 1557" (again in The Church of Mary Tudor) acquits Pole of the faults sometimes imputed to him: inattention to preaching and a lack of realism. Concerning the challenges facing the Marian Church (p. 200), Associate Professor Gary G. Gibbs (once again in the collection edited by Professors Duffy and Loades) notes how the chronicler Henry Machyn composed "frequently positive and celebratory representations of the reign" (p. 296). Not all of the contributions to the two volumes are of equal merit and some contain considerable deficiencies; others are thoroughly vitiated by the approach taken by their authors. The faults to be found in some essays must be dealt with before the stronger articles are considered. Professor Patrick Collinson's essay in The Church of Mary Tudor, "The persecution in Kent," is characteristically opaque and mannered. It is of some interest that Professor Collinson notes that even though Kent saw more executions of Protestant martyrs than any other region outside London (p. 310), Protestantism was not the dominant religious force in the county in Mary's reign (p. 316). It is unfortunate that Professor Collinson twice refers to the executions in Kent, which numbered at most sixty-seven (pp. 310-311), as a "holocaust;" the use of a term properly applied to the extermination of six million European Jews in this context is inappropriate if not indeed insensitive. Other contributors...

Multihop Ad Hoc Networking: The Theory

This article reviews the basic principles behind mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) and critically discusses approximately ten years of research in this field. We summarize the main achievements and point out the limits of MANET research. This research was conducted under the assumption that the networks mainly will be used for large-scale general consumer applications, and nodes would be ubiquitous, thus reasonably dense and active. Both assumptions do not reflect reality and certainly would not be true in an initial phase of deployment. A lack of realism regarding the objective of MANET coupled with a lack of realism during the design of MANET are the main causes of MANET running a high risk of failure

On street observations of particulate matter movement and dispersion due to traffic on an urban road

Empirical models for particulate matter emissions from paved road surfaces have been criticised for their lack of realism and accuracy. To support the development of a less empirical model, a study was conducted in a busy street at the DAPPLE site in Central London to understand the processes and to identify important parameters that influence emission from paved roads. Ordinary road gritting salt was applied to the road and the particulate matter entering the air at near-road surface level was monitored using optical particle counters. The grit acted as a tracer. The grit moved rapidly along the road in the direction of traffic flow. Build-up of material at the kerb indicated material being thrown across the road by the traffic. Coarser particles were resuspended faster than the finer ones. A clear decay profile was seen in the case of particles larger than 2 μ m ; particles smaller than 2 μ m did not show any decay pattern during the experiment duration. Grinding of material appears to control the reservoir of fine particles on the road surface. The amount of material resuspended by traffic is about 30% less than those removed along the road and a factor of 6 higher than the amount removed across the road. Resuspension accounts for 40% of the total material removed from a road segment and 70% of the material removed together along and across the road. On average a single vehicle pass removes 0.08% of material present on a road segment at that instant. The calculation scheme is obtained from a short-duration study and therefore further studies of long duration involving varying road geometry and different traffic and meteorological condition need to be carried out before applying parameter estimates presented in this paper.

Economics and Politics: Towards a Dialogue between Economics and Political Science

In this essay, I present a sceptical point of view with regard to the introduction of the economists' models in political science. Based on examples drawn from the field of political behavior and public opinion research, I discuss the lack of realism and the limitation of the theoretical scope of the models the political scientists are expected to import. My discussion has no pretension of being original. By spelling out the unattractive implications of the narrow assumptions of the economists' theory of action for a political scientist working empirically, it rather attempts to contribute to the clarification of some of the impediments to an improved dialogue between the practitioners of the two disciplines which have long been divided by the theoretical approach of neoclassical economics.

Rereading Fifties Teen Romance: Reflections on Janet Lambert

Teen romance novels written in the 1950s have been criticized for their lack of realism, for ideological conservatism, and mediocre writing. Included in this category, but also largely ignored, is the fiction of Janet Lambert. This essay aims for a careful consideration of Lambert's work through a close reading of four of her novels, beginning with Little Miss Atlas (1949). Thompson establishes a context for the analysis by comparing Lambert's work with other 1950s teen novels and with the 1990s "Sweet Valley" romance series, and contemporary "realistic" fiction for Young Adults. Thompson argues for a more positive assessment of Lambert's achievement.

Explaining Ascendancy and Decline

is focusing on a most important debate-its place the world and its sense of perceived decline. Andrew Cohen among others has raised serious questions about Canada's deteriorating foreign policy role. A special issue of Policy Options gave wide currency to these concerns through the contributions of a number of its authors. Allan Gotlieb, for example, criticized romanticism the formulation of contemporary Canadian foreign policy and its lack of realism.1Prime Minister Martin, his overview of Canada's international policy statement, admitted earlier deterioration of capabilities and claimed that, the 1990s, there were more cutbacks as government made tough decisions to save the country from financial calamity. As a result, he acknowledged, our international presence suffered.2Robert Greenhill, former president of Bombardier International, nicely encapsulates the argument: Canada is generally seen as an internationally engaged country with a real of accomplishment. Yet, despite certain accomplishments over the last 15 years, the overriding theme from 1989 to 2004 is that of decline-decline reputation and relevance with the United States, leadership role development, and the international significance of peacekeeping and other international security activities.3Is in decline, as diplomats, scholars, and journalists have claimed? What does in decline mean? How would one know? Is this problem unique to Canada? What are its implications for the Canadian polity and citizens? These are some of the questions that I will attempt to address this article, using history, empirical evidence drawn from broader systemic experience, and theoretical reflection to provide answers.Clearly, is not alone the dynamics it has experienced. It is one country like others. However, as for all countries, aspects of its structural situation are unique and must be examined detail. In particular, the reasons for the sudden focus on relative the first decade of the 2ist century warrant much more careful assessment.Providing the foundation for this interpretation is an understanding of the vertical dynamic of state rise and the modern state system, which has been tested and refined by intensive scholarly research for over three decades.4 This framework for analysis, called power cycle theory, asserts that states follow a cycle of relative power and role over long time periods. These individual cycles are concurrently set motion by the differing levels and rates of growth among states the system. Together, these trajectories of state rise or map the changing structure of the international system. Uniquely among contending theories, power cycle theory explains both theoretically and terms of foreign policy behaviour the so-called tides of history that have been so traumatic statecraft. Moreover, foreign policy expectations and limits are tied to these trends and shifting trends on the state power cycles.This discussion regarding Canadian is thus an outgrowth of the larger research project on the assessment of the state power cycle and foreign policy role. Major arguments of power cycle theory will be employed to illuminate the situation which finds itself today. First, a few brief definitional distinctions will be helpful.On the one hand, can be absolute, such as when a government decides to reduce the number of troops it actually fields, or the amount of money it actually spends on defence. On the other hand, can be relative, as when the size of the army is shown to be decreasing comparison to that of other governments. Yet absolute power and relative power continue to be intermixed conceptually, and confused, even by some economists and historians. Not until the latter part of the 2oth century have the concepts of absolute and relative power been fully sorted out dynamic terms. …

Boettke, The Austrian School and the Reclamation of Reality in Modern Economics

In a series of recent papers, the prominent Austrian economist Peter Boettke has criticised orthodox economics for its lack of realism. This paper situates Boettke’s critique in the context provided by recent developments in the methodology of economics, most notably critical realism. While there is a good deal of common ground between Boettke’s approach and critical realism, the latter also helps to reveal some of the limitations of the variant of Austrian economics to which Boettke subscribes. Suggestions are made as to how critical realists and Austrians such as Boettke might move forward together in developing a more realistic, relevant and fruitful approach to economic analysis.

America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global World Order

America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global World Order, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 339George Will, the American Tory commentator, recently wrote in Newsweek that “neoconservatives alarm almost everyone who isn't one—and especially dismay real conservatives” (emphasis in original). America Alone is a forceful expression of that dismay by two authors with impeccable conservative credentials. Halper served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations and is director of the Donner Atlantic Studies Programme at Cambridge University; Clarke, a former British foreign service officer, is a fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington. Their book is both a comprehensive, well documented, no-holds-barred attack on neo-conservative foreign policy—its advocacy of force as a first resort, its unilateralism, its exclusive focus on the Middle East, its total lack of realism—and a defence of what they consider the mainstream Republican foreign policy tradition, which promotes American values and interests using the whole palette of diplomatic, economic, and cultural instruments, as well as military force. The authors are appalled at how neo-conservative policy has squandered the world's post-9/11 sympathy and led to America's isolation from most of its traditional allies. As “limited government conservatives” they are alarmed at the effect of the neo-conservative siege mentality (“World War IV”) on domestic policy and politics, since a “state of constant warfare has the effect of transferring power to the center” (30). They deeply resent the neo-conservatives' claim to Reagan's legacy by creating “a false history” (chapter 5) and argue persuasively that Reagan's foreign policy was solidly in the Republican realist tradition.

Is economics scientific? Is science scientific?

The usefulness of models that describe the world lies in their simplicity relative to what they model. But simplification entails inaccuracy, so models should be treated as provisional. Nancy Cartwright's account of science as a modeling exercise, in which fundamental laws hold true only in theory—not in reality, given the complexities of the real world—suggests that Rational Choice Theory (RCT) should not be rejected on the traditional basis of its lack of realism: that, after all, is to be expected of any simulacrum model. But when RCT has been extended to domains, such as politics, in which there is no necessary reason to expect systemic pressures against people who depart too far from the model, RCT is a simulacrum without any particular claim to expressing underlying causal laws. This cautions against the tendency to rest content with models and to treat their assumptions as if they were true.

Towards a new synthesis of ontology technology and knowledge management

This paper provides a synthesis of ontology research and one of its most significant application areas, the business discipline of Knowledge Management (KM). Despite the fact such a synergy is in great demand between consumers and suppliers of ontology technology, there is a lack of understanding on one side and a lack of realism on the other. Due to the lack of communication and understanding between ontology research and applied KM there is the danger that mainstream KM will remain neutral to ontologies, while research develops as a largely unguided exploration.

Energy and climate change : Discussing two opposite evolutions

The IPCC emission scenarios have been criticized in the past for their lack of realism concerning the cumulated fossil fuel consumption up to 2100, and the pattern of consumption throughout the 21 st century they assume. This articles examines briefly to what extent these scenarios are compatible with the data published otherwise by geologists regarding fossil fuels. On the other hand, these scenarios do not include an evolution in which stabilizing the atmospheric CO 2 concentration is an explicit goal of the world as a whole. The second part of the article gives some elements regarding the material consumption that such an objective would imply if several billion men remain on earth.

Are unrealistic weight loss goals associated with outcomes for overweight women?

To examine cross-sectional correlates of current, goal, and dream weight and their prospective associations with weight loss in treatment. Goal and dream weights, demographic characteristics, and psychosocial factors were assessed by self-report questionnaire in 302 adult women enrolled in a weight loss trial. Height and weight were assessed at baseline, after 8 weeks of active treatment, and at 6- and 18-month follow-up. Regression techniques examined associations among baseline, goal, and dream weights, psychosocial factors, and treatment outcomes. On average, goal and dream weight losses were unrealistically high (-24% and -30%, respectively). High goals were associated with greater expected effort and greater expected reward but were not associated with psychological distress. Goal and dream weight losses were only weakly associated with behavioral or weight outcomes. An association between higher dream weight losses and greater weight loss at 18 months was the only outcome result to reach statistical significance. Results suggest that lack of realism in weight loss goals is not important enough to justify counseling people to accept lower weight loss goals when trying to lose weight.

Ocean waves synthesis and animation using real world information

In Computer Graphics, existing ocean waves models still suffer from lack of realism and/or complexity of use essentially due to empirical definition of parameters by the user. In this paper, we propose an easy to use spectral ocean waves model whose parameters are obtained automatically from real world information. These parameters can be computed in two different ways. The first one makes use of measured oceanographic data and the second one is image based. Both are very fast and simple to use. By using real world information, we can achieve more realistic results than previous models. Ocean waves animation is very easy to perform with our spectral model. In addition, this model is procedural and allows a continuous representation of ocean surface away from shore with any size and any level of detail, while requiring very low memory storage.

MIDI, Music and Me: Students' Perspectives on Composing with MIDI

This study investigated student perceptions of the educational usefulness of writing music using MIDI sequencing software packages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two groups of tertiary students who had different levels of experience with MIDI technology. Participants were drawn equally from the year 1 certificate level and year 2 diploma level courses in Audio Engineering and Music Production. MIDI sequencing was seen as educationally useful to student composition. It enabled students, previously excluded, to participate in composition, providing them with a musical voice and helping to legitimise their preferred forms of music. The mechanisms by which this was achieved included access through MIDI controllers to instruments and ensemble combinations without need for mastery and different data entry methods to cater for individual musical aptitude. Sound quality was a central issue. Lack of realism both fuelled creative potential and frustrated students in terms of control over sound quality.

Stability and density management in Douglas-fir plantations

, before they are employed” (p. 917).As a forest modeler with 25 years of experience, I cer-tainly agree with this warning to users of growth models,and as the primary architect and developer of ORGANON, Iam always concerned when users, such as the authors, raiseconcerns about the predictive ability of the model. Unfortu-nately, the authors’ description of the data sets used in theiranalysis was so vague (i.e., “…a representative plantation ata variety of initial Douglas-fir densities;” p. 913) that it wasimpossible to reproduce and examine their results directly.This problem was resolved by contacting the senior authorwho promptly supplied the missing detailed description ofthe data and copies of the initial tree lists used to make theORGANON runs.A close examination of these data and of the methods andresults that were reported by the authors indicates that thereare at least three problems with their application of the twoORGANON versions that seriously cloud the veracity oftheir findings.(1) The starting tree lists used as input to ORGANON forthe six planting densities were generated by the authors(J.S. Wilson, by e-mail), resulting in unrealistic treelists. The lack of realism is demonstrated in the authors’Fig. 4, which shows that the initial values of H/D

Communication between plants: this time it's real

Of course, neighboring plants in natural communities interact: we usually think of plants competing for sunlight and soil nutrients. Few topics in plant ecology have inspired so much excitement and controversy, however, as communication between plants. The idea, simply put, is that rooted and immobile plants might act to increase their levels of defense by responding to cues from neighbors that are being attacked by herbivores or pathogens. As some authors have suggested, perhaps ‘listening trees’ is a better descriptor than ‘talking trees’, but, in either case, the interaction holds unquestionably fascinating natural history. Communication is so prevalent and important among animals that its presence in plant communities could be revolutionary. In addition, if the phenomenon is real, it poses important questions about community evolution, including altruism (although the interaction might only benefit the listener). Unfortunately, the first demonstrations of these phenomena were trashed and disregarded by ecologists because of methodological inadequacies and the lack of realism in the experimental designs. Recent interest in volatile compounds produced by plants, such as jasmonate (known as the ‘queen of aroma’ in the perfume industry) and salicylate, has provided potential mechanisms for interplant communication. Three recent papers resurrect interplant communication by conducting rigorous and far-reaching studies spanning gene expression, physiology and field ecology.