Empirical Problems Research Articles

Provable Pathways: Learning Multiple Tasks over Multiple Paths

Constructing useful representations across a large number of tasks is a key requirement for sample-efficient intelligent systems. A traditional idea in multitask learning (MTL) is building a shared representation across tasks which can then be adapted to new tasks by tuning last layers. A desirable refinement of using a shared one-fits-all representation is to construct task-specific representations. To this end, recent PathNet/muNet architectures represent individual tasks as pathways within a larger supernet. The subnetworks induced by pathways can be viewed as task-specific representations that are composition of modules within supernet's computation graph. This work explores the pathways proposal from the lens of statistical learning: We first develop novel generalization bounds for empirical risk minimization problems learning multiple tasks over multiple paths (Multipath MTL). In conjunction, we formalize the benefits of resulting multipath representation when adapting to new downstream tasks. Our bounds are expressed in terms of Gaussian complexity, lead to tangible guarantees for the class of linear representations, and provide novel insights into the quality and benefits of a multipath representation. When computation graph is a tree, Multipath MTL hierarchically clusters the tasks and builds cluster-specific representations. We provide further discussion and experiments for hierarchical MTL and rigorously identify the conditions under which Multipath MTL is provably superior to traditional MTL approaches with shallow supernets.

Specificity and Consequences of Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the 2020 Local Election in Ukraine

The article examines the peculiarities of impact of the coronavirus pandemic on electoral process and voting results on the example of 2020 local elections in Ukraine. Using the complex of general scientific, logical and empirical methods, the peculiarities and problems of holding elections to local self-government bodies of Ukraine in 2020, which took place in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been emphasized, that Ukrainian authorities didn’t follow the path of most foreign countries and decided not to postpone the date of local elections in 2020. Instead, the main accent was put on the use of special mechanisms of protection for Ukrainian citizens from the spread of coronavirus infection during the process of holding local elections. The authors prove, that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t have a significant negative impact on 2020 local elections in Ukraine and didn’t cause major violations, which would question the legitimacy and democracy of election procedures. At the same time, the lowest voter turnout was mainly caused by the pandemic: almost a third of Ukrainian voters did not appear at the polling stations precisely for reasons related to the pandemic. It is also outlined, that during the 2020 local elections in Ukraine, a row of other negative factors of impact on electoral process and its quality (except of the factors directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic) appeared: in particular, the problems with financial provisions for introducing special measures for voting during the COVID-19 pandemic; changing election rules (adopting the Electoral Code) on the eve of local elections; insufficient state information policy regarding the clarification of the peculiarities of holding elections under the new electoral system in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A risk-averse learning machine via variance-dependent penalization

Based on Hoeffding’s inequality, many popular regression and classification models in supervised learning relax the expected risk minimization problem to the empirical risk minimization problem. Nevertheless, the recent theoretical results disclose that the bound of Bernstein’s inequality - which includes variance information - is often significantly tighter than the bound of Hoeffding’s inequality. In this paper, based on the empirical Bernstein bound, we proposed a risk-averse learning machine, which can achieve better generalization performance by trading off good loss performance (approximation error) and small variance (estimation error) as well as suitable complexity of the model. We prove that the resulting learning machine is tractable for many popular loss functions. Moreover, to solve our model which is mostly non-convex because of the square root term, we introduce an extra variable to get rid of the square root and obtain an optimization problem that is convex in most cases for two variables respectively. Then Newton’s method can be used to solve it alternately. The experimental results on artificial and benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed models can achieve better performance compared to other existing empirical risk minimization models.

Empirical Problems in the Management of Integrated Cultural Vouchers and an Effective Management System

Empirical Problems in the Management of Integrated Cultural Vouchers and an Effective Management System

PEMBATALAN PENGANGKATAN ANAK PADA PRAKTEKNYA DI PENGADILAN NEGERI BUKITTINGGI

Adoption is a necessity for every family that cannot have children, especially for married couples who do not have children so they make adopted children like biological children. Problems arise if the adoptive parents submitted a lawsuit for canceling the adoption. This paper is the result of legal research method using an empirical juridical problem approach. The legal considerations are that a court may not refuse to examine and decide on a case submitted to the court, even though there is no special arrangements or have not been regulated in existing legislation regarding the cancellation of child adoption, the judge who examines the case must be able to explore, follow, and understand legal values and a sense of justice in society. The reasons for canceling the adoption of this child in this case are the feeling of disappointed with the actions of the adopted child who do not pay attention to their adoptive parents; does not respect his adoptive parents, causing less harmonious communication; adopted children do not take care of their adoptive parents who are elderly or sick, even if their adoptive mother dies, so the adopted child is considered not fulfilling their obligations as a child.

Match Theory and the Asymmetry Problem: An Example from Stockholm Swedish

This article discusses what we call the Asymmetry Problem, a theoretical question of how asymmetric properties of prosodic phrasing should generally be accounted for within the framework of Match Theory. Unlike Alignment Theory, in which phrasing asymmetry can be derived by mapping constraints (e.g., Align-XP), Match Theory cannot derive any phrasing asymmetry from mapping (i.e., Match) constraints. Thus, Match Theory may seem to face empirical problems when data appear to call for an asymmetric ranking of mapping constraints. This article starts with the discussion of one such case in Stockholm Swedish, where asymmetric ranking of Alignment constraints has been proposed to account for the data. It will be argued that prosodic asymmetry arises from the directionality of prosodic heads (i.e., right- or left-headedness) rather than asymmetric syntax–prosody mapping, and that asymmetry can be explained through the interaction of Match constraints with markedness constraints that determine the distribution of prosodic heads. Furthermore, it will be proposed that such an analysis reduces the need of Alignment-based mapping constraints and therefore follows the Minimal Interface Hypothesis, which assumes Match constraints as the sole syntax–prosody mapping constraints. To support this line of analysis, it will be shown that the Asymmetry Problem in Japanese, for which it had previously been argued that both Match and Alignment constraints are needed, can also be accounted for under this hypothesis.

Instrumental variable regression via kernel maximum moment loss

AbstractWe investigate a simple objective for nonlinear instrumental variable (IV) regression based on a kernelized conditional moment restriction known as a maximum moment restriction (MMR). The MMR objective is formulated by maximizing the interaction between the residual and the instruments belonging to a unit ball in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space. First, it allows us to simplify the IV regression as an empirical risk minimization problem, where the risk function depends on the reproducing kernel on the instrument and can be estimated by aU-statistic orV-statistic. Second, on the basis this simplification, we are able to provide consistency and asymptotic normality results in both parametric and nonparametric settings. Finally, we provide easy-to-use IV regression algorithms with an efficient hyperparameter selection procedure. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms using experiments on both synthetic and real-world data.

DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT AS A CHALLENGE FOR TODAY’S MANAGERS

With the challenges that modern organizations face (Mulgan, 2009), diversity management becoming a major issue for managers – from recognizing diversity (identifying it, making people aware of its importance) to planning an effective strategy to manage it. This also requires a deeper understanding of diversity and social inclusion. Many research studies (Gross-Gołacka, 2018; Kuldova, 2012) show that in the 21st century, the success of any organization – regardless of size or industry – will depend on how it manages diversity. Organizations that make diversity management part of their business strategy will be successful. So far, including in Poland, diversity management issues have not been the subject of many specific studies. Diversity management concepts are not implemented reliably in organizations due to a lack of knowledge, analysis, and conclusions. This article aims to identify possible gaps, and cognitive and empirical problems in assessing the preparedness or maturity in diversity management of employers in Poland.

Legal Protection for Families in the Perspective of the Right to Non-Discrimination

The empirical problems of Wadas citizens who are suspected of receiving repressive actions from the state apparatus need to be studied in the perspective of the right to non-discrimination and analyzed using the conflict theory of Karl Marx. This study used the sociolegal research method by conducting direct interviews with Wadas residents who experienced the incident directly. The results of the study show that referring to Karl Marx's conflict theory, the role of conflict is in triggering social change and on the other hand legal protection is also needed for Wadas Citizens so that the right to non-discrimination against Wadas Citizens is not violated.

The Rationality of the Evolutionary Synthesis and Its Competing Theories

The evolutionary synthesis has stronger empirical coordination force, conceptual coordination force, and background coordination force. It is generally accepted by evolutionary biologists for its stronger comprehensive coordination force. Nowadays, a large amount of new information and new concepts have emerged in evolutionary biology, which goes beyond the traditional framework of evolutionary synthesis and brings many new empirical and conceptual problems to evolutionary synthesis, changing the state of its comprehensive coordination force.

Foundering on fallacies: theorizing the Eurozone’s self-harming mercantilism

The Eurozone’s export-oriented policy regime and pursuit of trade surpluses remains thoroughly puzzling. Rooted in overly strict fiscal policies, inequality and underinvestment; undermining growth and contributing to trade tensions– it defies economic self-interest. This paper develops an analytical framework to confront this puzzle. It argues that these policies are self-harming, but are nonetheless pursued, because of three fallacies that obscure the cost-benefit calculus attached to them. These fallacies are rooted in the empirical problem of observational equivalence: the same observed surplus can be driven by different underlying processes, and its net benefit will depend on our assumptions about these drivers. The first fallacy is mistaking external enablers for domestic competitiveness—interpreting export success to be linked to domestic reform, when it was largely explained by better links to faster growing trading partners. The second fallacy is mistaking weak imports for strong exports—interpreting surpluses as ‘winning’, even when they are not driven by superior exports but sluggish imports. The third fallacy is mismeasuring multinational firms’ contributions to national exports—interpreting profit shifting and assets stashed in low tax jurisdictions as export performance. Germany and Ireland, as paradigmatic ‘success cases of austerity’, are used to expand the argument.

Category Mismatches in Coordination Vindicated

Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) deny the possibility of coordination of unlike categories. They use three mechanisms to reanalyze such coordination as involving same categories: conjunction reduction, super-categories, and empty heads. We show that their proposal leaves many cases of unlike category coordination unaccounted for, and we point out various methodological, technical, and empirical problems that it faces. We conclude that the so-called Law of the Coordination of Likes is a myth. Instead, all conjuncts must satisfy any external restrictions on the syntactic position they occupy. Such restrictions may be rigid, resulting in categorial sameness, but when they are underspecified or disjunctive, category “mismatches” may arise.

Design and Analysis of Material Handling System

In today’s competitive global market, industries and manufacturing companies demand adjustable sizes, higher quality, flexibility, and shorter lead time types of products to be manufactured. Companies need to attain customer satisfaction and cost reduction in production operations. A material Handling System is a way to accomplish this goal since they directly impact production. This study aims to design an in-house Material Handling system that could be efficient for the production it serves. The material handling system design was made to pick and place the head expander on the vibrating machine from the floor beside the machine. The vibration testing components are placed on the head expander where it is placed on the vibration machine to check the frequencies the component can absorb. This componentis used in aerospace industries. The material used for building the Material Handling System is mild steel. By analyzing the possibilities from literature review and empirical study first problems and challenges related to material handling system are identified, then possible features that the system should possess are observed and design is built according to the selected features. The design of this Material Handling System is made by using Solid works software. The developed model is further analyzed by the boundary condition for total deformation when the constant load acts on the model at different places. Dynamic analysis to be made for the vibration absorbed by the material handling system. Here both static and dynamic analysis is made forthe structural model using ANSYS WORKBENCH software.

Digital methods as ‘experimental a priori’ – how to navigate vague empirical situations as an operationalist pragmatist

Digitalisation and computation presents us with a vague empirical world that unsettles established links between measurements and values. As more and more actors use digital media to produce data about aspects of the world they deem important, new possibilities for inscribing their lives emerge. The practical work with digital methods thus often involves the production of social visibilities that are misfits in the context of established data practices. In this paper I argue that this dissonance carries the distinct critical potential to design data experiments that (a) uses the act of operationalisation as an engine for creating intersubjective clarity about the meaning of existing concepts and (b) takes advantage of algorithmic techniques to provoke a reassessment of some of the core assumptions that shape the way we pose empirical problems are normally framed. Drawing on the work of Kant, Peirce, Dewey and C.I. Lewis I propose to think of this critical potential as the possibility to practice what I term 'experimental a priori' and I use qualitative vignettes from two years of data experiments with GEHL architects to illustrate what this entails in practice. Faced with the task of using traces from Facebook as an empirical source to produce a map of urban political diversity, the architects found themselves in a need to revisit inherited assumptions about the ontology of urban space and the way it can even be formulated as a problem of diversity. While I describe this as a form of obstructive data practice that is afforded by digital methods, I also argue that it cannot be realised without deliberate design interventions. I therefore end the paper by outlining five design principles that can productively guide collective work with digital methods. These principles contribute to recent work within digital STS on the recalibration of problem spaces and the design of data sprints. However, the concept of ‘experimental a priori’ can also serve as a philosophical foundation for knowledge production within computational humanities more broadly.

A Review of Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature: Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness

A Review of <i>Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature: Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness</i>

Agency in Earth System Governance edited by Michele M. Betsill, Tabitha M. Benney, and Andrea K. Gerlak

<i>Agency in Earth System Governance</i> edited by Michele M. Betsill, Tabitha M. Benney, and Andrea K. Gerlak

Between Public Justification and Civil Religion: Shared Values in a Divided Time

Civil religion as formulated in Robert Bellah’s seminal 1967 article, recalling Rousseau’s Social Contract, has recently been proposed to build shared values and bridge deep partisan divides. A competing approach to shared values, based on public reason, relies on overlapping consensus in the works of John Rawls. In this paper, we present an in-between strategy that recognizes the insuperable empirical and normative problems of civil religion while using university civic engagement programs to bring about a public square in which religious reasons are found alongside neutral ones, ultimately for the sake of public justification. Having documented recent polarization trends, we consider the last major attempt to defend civil religion from the perspective of democratic solidarity, Phil Gorski’s American Covenant, but believe it falls short: based on sociological work and Augustinian insights, we show the risk of domination that Gorski’s strategy still entails, not least because of the definitional indeterminacy of civil religion and its overlap with religious nationalism. Paradoxically, a late Rawlsian approach that allows for the initial use of religious reasons, with a generosity proviso of necessary translation into public reason at some point, can lead to a public square with more religious arguments than one theorized explicitly from the perspective of civil religion. This is especially important because, given the discussed polarization trends, universities have taken on an increasingly important civic engagement role even as some still rely on a civil religion approach. We insist on public justification in university civic engagement, and for the sake of doing so take as a starting point Ben Berger’s work in favoring civil engagement, which we define as combining moral, political, and social rather than exclusively political commitments. In proposing a novel university shared values mechanism, intended to expose learners to a maximum diversity of opinions and lived experiences, we offer a fresh approach to building trust in cohorts that increases the likelihood of true dialogue across difference.

A Data-driven Causality Modeling Framework: An Empirical Study of Modeling the Effect of Indoor Air Quality Perception on Students' Cognitive Performance

In the information age, a paradigm revolution in applied data mining methods has emerged in response to the data explosion in management science research, but this artificial intelligence-based automated data-driven modeling process creates a new "big relationship" problem, where a large number of correlations obfuscate the identification of true causal relationships. In this paper, we use a causality modeling framework that combines correlation modeling and causality pruning processes. First, symbolic regression is used to model white-box correlations of human intelligence, and then spurious correlations that do not conform to causal graph theory are pruned so that ultimately causal relationships and explicit candidate models describing these relationships can be found automatically. In an empirical research problem, the framework is compared with a traditional hypothesis construction-validation process, and the results are consistent between the two. The proposed framework implements a data-driven "correlation + causation" automatic modeling capability, which will greatly improve modeling efficiency and reliability.

Towards a conative account of mental imagery

ABSTRACT Philosophers and psychologists assume that mental imagery is a cognitive state, that it represents things as being a certain way. However, I argue that imagery is a conative state: it represents things as to be made a certain way. I challenge the traditional assumption by targeting an increasingly popular cognitive account that identifies mental imagery, such as inner speech, with predictions of sensory input. This predictive account faces both empirical and theoretical problems. The account not only fails to capture the salience effects exhibited by mental imagery, it also cannot explain why subjects should not spend their lives minimizing prediction error by engaging in fantasy. These shortcomings highlight what I call the conative profile of imagery, which includes its salience, motivational, and performance effects. I argue that an alternative, conative view of imagery, according to which mental images are goal states, is best able to account for its conative profile.

Književnost uronjena u povijest

[sic] – a Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation focuses on theoretical, empirical and artistic research in the fields of culture, literature and literary translation. [sic] thus welcomes the submission of works that focus on various theoretical or empirical problems within the fields listed above, as well as original translations. By publishing research papers, video essays, reviews, literary criticism, interviews and literature in translation, [sic] wishes to offer a wide, interdisciplinary approach to dominant, but also marginal and/or currently unrecognized as well as emerging literary and cultural trends and practices and in this way open a dialogue between proponents of different approaches to the said areas. As such, [sic] is seen as an international platform for scholars, practitioners and artists dealing with culture, literature and literary translation.