Alexander Unser: Social Inequality and interreligious learning. An empirical analysis of students’ agency to cope with interreligious learning tasks (Empirische Theologie / Empirical Theology Bd. 32), Wien: LIT Verlag 2019, 356 S., € 39.90.

Although the countries of Western Europe are very similar to the US in terms of their social, political, and economic conditions, they differ greatly when it comes to religion. Chapter 10 discusses how these differences can be explained. The empirical analysis shows that, besides the considerable differences in the level of religiosity between the US and Western Europe, there are also surprising similarities in the weakening church ties and religious practices. The findings demonstrate that it is in many respects not Europe but America that is the exception. This relates among other things to the level of social inequality, which is unusually high for a modern society, the strong tendencies towards functional dedifferentiation, such as between religion and politics, and the traditionalism of the culturally accepted system of values.

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THE HUGIN TOOL FOR PROBABILISTIC GRAPHICAL MODELS

International Journal of Artificial Intelligence Tools ◽

10.1142/s0218213005002235 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 14 (03) ◽

pp. 507-543 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

ANDERS L. MADSEN ◽

FRANK JENSEN ◽

UFFE B. KJÆRULFF ◽

MICHAEL LANG

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Representation ◽

Bayesian Networks ◽

Empirical Analysis ◽

Graphical Models ◽

Probabilistic Graphical Models ◽

General Purpose ◽

Influence Diagrams ◽

Learning Tasks

As the framework of probabilistic graphical models becomes increasingly popular for knowledge representation and inference, the need for efficient tools for its support is increasing. The Hugin Tool is a general purpose tool for construction, maintenance, and deployment of Bayesian networks and influence diagrams. This paper surveys the key functionality of the Hugin Tool and reports on new advances of the tool. Furthermore, an empirical analysis reports on the efficiency of the Hugin Tool on common inference and learning tasks.

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An Empirical Analysis of the Obtrusiveness of and Participants' Compliance with the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759.23.4.248 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 248-257 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

Matthias R. Mehl ◽

Shannon E. Holleran

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

Sampling Method ◽

Daily Life ◽

Assessment Method ◽

Data Confidentiality ◽

Short Term ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Two Samples ◽

Audio Recorder ◽

Term Monitoring

Abstract. In this article, the authors provide an empirical analysis of the obtrusiveness of and participants' compliance with a relatively new psychological ambulatory assessment method, called the electronically activated recorder or EAR. The EAR is a modified portable audio-recorder that periodically records snippets of ambient sounds from participants' daily environments. In tracking moment-to-moment ambient sounds, the EAR yields an acoustic log of a person's day as it unfolds. As a naturalistic observation sampling method, it provides an observer's account of daily life and is optimized for the assessment of audible aspects of participants' naturally-occurring social behaviors and interactions. Measures of self-reported and behaviorally-assessed EAR obtrusiveness and compliance were analyzed in two samples. After an initial 2-h period of relative obtrusiveness, participants habituated to wearing the EAR and perceived it as fairly unobtrusive both in a short-term (2 days, N = 96) and a longer-term (10-11 days, N = 11) monitoring. Compliance with the method was high both during the short-term and longer-term monitoring. Somewhat reduced compliance was identified over the weekend; this effect appears to be specific to student populations. Important privacy and data confidentiality considerations around the EAR method are discussed.

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