scholarly journals Rational Irrationality Across Institutional Contexts

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan H. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Demand Curve ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Better Than

AbstractThis paper considers how Bryan Caplan’s concept of rational irrationality may manifest in various political institutional arrangements, building off the demand curve for irrationality. Mob democracy, anarchy, autocracy, and constitutionally constrained democracy are the governance structures addressed. While anarchy is strictly better than mob democracy, under certain conditions, democracy, anarchy, or constitutionally constrained democracy may yield the best outcomes depending on the circumstances.

scholarly journals A comparative study of COVID-19 responses in South Korea and Japan: political nexus triad and policy responses

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232199755
Author(s):  
M. Jae Moon ◽  
Kohei Suzuki ◽  
Tae In Park ◽  
Kentaro Sakuwa
Keyword(s):  
Northeast Asia ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Government Capacity ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Policy Problems

Korea and Japan, neighboring democratic countries in Northeast Asia, announced their first COVID-19 cases in January 2020 and witnessed similar patterns of disease spread but adopted different policy approaches to address the pandemic (agile and proactive approach versus cautious and restraint-based approach). Applying the political nexus triad model, this study analyzes and compares institutional contexts and governance structures of Korea and Japan, then examines the differences in policy responses of the two Asian countries. This study first reviews the state of COVID-19 and examines changes in the conventional president-led political nexus triad in Korea and the bureaucracy-led political nexus triad in Japan. Then, this study examines how the differences in institutional contexts and governance structures shaped policy responses and policy outcomes of the two countries in managing the COVID-19 crisis. Points for practitioners •  Institutional and governance structure in a society are likely to affect policymaking processes as well as selection of policies among various policy alternatives. •  Government officials often need to refer to government capacity as well as citizens’ voluntary participation in resolving wicked policy problems like COVID-19. •  Policy decisions made by government officials affect policy outcomes while political environment and political leadership are equally important to policy effectiveness.

Consolidating social innovation

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-216
Author(s):  
Yuri Kazepov ◽  
Tatiana Saruis ◽  
Fabio Colombo
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Potential Growth ◽  
Consolidation Process ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Distribution Of Power

This chapter addresses the consolidation processes of socially innovative initiatives. In particular, it aims at understanding which are the conditions favouring or constraining their (at least potential) survival and/or development. We consider social innovation as a relational process that is contextually embedded. It raises as a reaction to the inability of existing policies in meeting emerging or existing needs and its potential growth or consolidation may depend (also) on the governance systems’ capacity to identify, accept and share new ideas. It might challenge conventional policy balances, existing stakeholders’ relations and distribution of power and resources. It might also challenge the multi-level institutional arrangements with the aim of expanding and influencing broader contexts. The chapter focuses mainly on the relation and interaction of social innovation with the respective institutional contexts from the perspective of the consolidation of socially innovative initiatives. In particular, it analyses the conditions at the very basis of the consolidation process, trying to identify the main dimensions influencing it. The analyses addresses the conditions according to which they succeed or fail in developing, mainly highlighting the processes through which they try to integrate into mainstream policies and exert their influence on policies fighting poverty and social exclusion

scholarly journals How National Institutions Shape Skilled Immigrants’ Chances of Getting Hired: Evidence from Harmonised Factorial Surveys with Employers in Germany and England

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (S1) ◽  
pp. 351-373
Author(s):  
Felix Stumpf ◽  
Andreas Damelang ◽  
Martin Abraham ◽  
Sabine Ebensperger
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Education System ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Education Systems ◽  
Skilled Immigrants ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Contexts Of Reception

Abstract This study provides novel insights into the institutional conditions under which skilled immigrants get hired for skilled jobs in different countries. We argue that immigrants’ hiring chances depend on the interplay between institutions in sending countries, which determine the type of education that immigrants bring, and institutions in receiving countries, which shape employers’ preferences for certain types of education. We develop a research design that considers this interplay and allows us to directly compare how education from sending countries with different institutional arrangements is rated by employers in two countries with widely divergent institutional contexts of reception, Germany and England. Using harmonised factorial surveys, we simulate hiring processes and evaluate the chances of German and English employers inviting foreign-educated immigrants to interviews for jobs commensurate with their education. The survey design makes it possible to experimentally vary the institutional settings in which immigrants acquired their education in the sending country, and isolate their effect on employers’ ratings. Our key finding is that immigrants from sending countries with highly standardised occupation-orientated education systems prevail in the hiring competition, irrespective of the education system in the receiving country.

Democratic Theory and Political Science: A Pragmatic Method of Constructive Engagement

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARCHON FUNG
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Constructive Engagement ◽  
Institutional Choices ◽  
Better Than

This article develops two conceptual tools to synthesize democratic theory and the empirical study of institutions. The first is a standard to assess conceptions of democracy calledpragmatic equilibrium. A conception of democracy is in pragmatic equilibrium just in case the consequences of its institutional prescriptions realize its values well and better than any other feasible institutional arrangements across a wide range of problems and contexts. Pragmatic equilibrium is a kind of Rawlsian reflective equilibrium. The second is amethod of practical reasoningabout the consequences of alternative institutional choices that brings conceptions of democracy closer to pragmatic equilibrium. These two ideas are then applied to four conceptions of democracy—minimal, aggregative, deliberative, and participatory—and to two governance problems—deciding rules of political structure and minority tyranny—to show how each conception can improve through reflection on the empirical consequences of various institutional arrangements.

Reverse Engineering of Cam Design Based on BP NN

2014 ◽  
Vol 1039 ◽  
pp. 476-483
Author(s):  
Yan Zhao ◽  
Li Xin Lu ◽  
Gui Qin Li ◽  
Zheng Li ◽  
Xiao Yuan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reverse Engineering ◽  
Curve Fitting ◽  
Demand Curve ◽  
Back Propagation ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Cam Design ◽  
Cubic Curve ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Model Fits

A three layer BP NN is created to design the cam. The data of cam contour ,which can be measured by CMM, has been used for the training where back propagation method is used.Advantage of solving nonliner problems gives BP netwok the ability to make out a more demand curve of cam. Taking advantage of its learning ability,NN model fits the actual cam contour gradually until the error fulfil the demand.Cam contour is ploted by Matlab,the result of which is better than cubic curve fitting,especially in the aspects of precise and velocity.

scholarly journals Nothing Is Not Enough: Fix the Absurd Post-Booker Federal Sentencing System

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 356-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank O. Bowman, III
Keyword(s):  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Present System ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Advisory System ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Rule Making ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Better Than

This article contends that the advisory guidelines system created by the Supreme Court's 200 decision in United States v. Booker should be replaced. It advances three arguments: First, the post-Booker advisory system is conceptually indefensible. It retains virtually every feature excoriated by critics of the original sentencing guidelines. Its extreme 'advisoriness,' while partially ameliorating some problems with the original guidelines, reintroduces the very concerns about unreviewable judicial arbitrariness that spawned the structured sentencing movement in the first place. More importantly, the post-Booker system does not solve the biggest problem with the pre-Booker system — that its architecture and institutional arrangements predisposed the Commission's rule-making process to become a one-way upward ratchet which raised sentences often and lowered them virtually never. Its sole relative advantage — that of conferring additional (and effectively unreviewable) discretion on sentencing judges — is insufficient to justify its retention as a permanent system. Second, there exist a number of constitutionally permissible alternatives to the court-created Booker system, one of which — that originally proposed by the Constitution Project and more recently endorsed by Judge William Sessions, former Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission — is markedly superior to the present system. Third, the difficult problem is not designing a sentencing mechanism better than either the pre- or post-Booker guidelines, but ensuring that such a system, once in place, does not replicate pre-Booker experience and become a one-way upward ratchet prescribing ever higher sentences. The article offers suggestions about how this difficulty might be solved, while conceding both the difficulty of this problem and the justice of the concern that, however imperfect the advisory system, it may be the best that can be achieved given the present constellation of institutional and political forces.

Time and Latitude in South Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
J. Hers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Astronomical Determination ◽  
Limited Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

In South Africa the modern outlook towards time may be said to have started in 1948. Both the two major observatories, The Royal Observatory in Cape Town and the Union Observatory (now known as the Republic Observatory) in Johannesburg had, of course, been involved in the astronomical determination of time almost from their inception, and the Johannesburg Observatory has been responsible for the official time of South Africa since 1908. However the pendulum clocks then in use could not be relied on to provide an accuracy better than about 1/10 second, which was of the same order as that of the astronomical observations. It is doubtful if much use was made of even this limited accuracy outside the two observatories, and although there may – occasionally have been a demand for more accurate time, it was certainly not voiced.

Localization of immunolabels by electron microscopy and image averaging

1983 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 282-283
Author(s):  
J. Frank ◽  
P.-Y. Sizaret ◽  
A. Verschoor ◽  
J. Lamy
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Single Particle ◽  
Attachment Site ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Limulus Polyphemus ◽  
Resolution Limit ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Image Averaging ◽  
Top View ◽  
Better Than

The accuracy with which the attachment site of immunolabels bound to macromolecules may be localized in electron microscopic images can be considerably improved by using single particle averaging. The example studied in this work showed that the accuracy may be better than the resolution limit imposed by negative staining (∽2nm).The structure used for this demonstration was a halfmolecule of Limulus polyphemus (LP) hemocyanin, consisting of 24 subunits grouped into four hexamers. The top view of this structure was previously studied by image averaging and correspondence analysis. It was found to vary according to the flip or flop position of the molecule, and to the stain imbalance between diagonally opposed hexamers (“rocking effect”). These findings have recently been incorporated into a model of the full 8 × 6 molecule.LP hemocyanin contains eight different polypeptides, and antibodies specific for one, LP II, were used. Uranyl acetate was used as stain. A total of 58 molecule images (29 unlabelled, 29 labelled with antl-LPII Fab) showing the top view were digitized in the microdensitometer with a sampling distance of 50μ corresponding to 6.25nm.

Closing the GAP—A 5Å Scanning Microscope

1969 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Scanning Microscope ◽  
Conventional Microscope ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Closing The Gap ◽  
Thermal Sources ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Transmission Microscope

We have become accustomed to differentiating between the scanning microscope and the conventional transmission microscope according to the resolving power which the two instruments offer. The conventional microscope is capable of a point resolution of a few angstroms and line resolutions of periodic objects of about 1Å. On the other hand, the scanning microscope, in its normal form, is not ordinarily capable of a point resolution better than 100Å. Upon examining reasons for the 100Å limitation, it becomes clear that this is based more on tradition than reason, and in particular, it is a condition imposed upon the microscope by adherence to thermal sources of electrons.

Electron Microscopic Observation of the Longitudinal Organization of Poly (p-Phenylene Terephthalamide) Fibers

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 680-681
Author(s):  
Li Li-Sheng ◽  
L.F. Allard ◽  
W.C. Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Aromatic Polyamides ◽  
Radial Arrangement ◽  
Scanning Electron ◽  
Better Than

The aromatic polyamides form a class of fibers having mechanical properties which are much better than those of aliphatic polyamides. Currently, the accepted morphology of these fibers as proposed by M.G. Dobb, et al. is a radial arrangement of pleated sheets, with the plane of the pleats parallel to the axis of the fiber. We have recently obtained evidence which supports a different morphology of this type of fiber, using ultramicrotomy and ion-thinning techniques to prepare specimens for transmission and scanning electron microscopy.

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