High-dimensional distribution generation through deep neural networks

We show that every d-dimensional probability distribution of bounded support can be generated through deep ReLU networks out of a 1-dimensional uniform input distribution. What is more, this is possible without incurring a cost—in terms of approximation error measured in Wasserstein-distance—relative to generating the d-dimensional target distribution from d independent random variables. This is enabled by a vast generalization of the space-filling approach discovered in Bailey and Telgarsky (in: Bengio (eds) Advances in neural information processing systems vol 31, pp 6489–6499. Curran Associates, Inc., Red Hook, 2018). The construction we propose elicits the importance of network depth in driving the Wasserstein distance between the target distribution and its neural network approximation to zero. Finally, we find that, for histogram target distributions, the number of bits needed to encode the corresponding generative network equals the fundamental limit for encoding probability distributions as dictated by quantization theory.

O HORROR ESTÁ LÁ FORA: AS REPRESENTAÇÕES DISCURSIVAS ENVOLVENDO OS IMIGRANTES NO CONTO O HORROR EM RED HOOK (1927), POR H. P. LOVECRAFT

Howard Phillips Lovecraft foi um escritor norte-americano de fantasia e ficção científica, muito conhecido pelo gênero de terror, que viveu no começo do século XX e que, hoje, é bastante influente na cultura popular. Os conceitos filosóficos e narrativos pensados por ele marcam presença em grandes filmes do cinema, em histórias em quadrinhos, na música, em séries de televisão, em desenhos animados e, é claro, na literatura contemporânea. Todavia, Lovecraft também ficou conhecido por ser abertamente intolerante, tendo manifestado seu preconceito racial e sua aparente xenofobia em diversos contos e poemas. Com relação a isso, neste artigo busca-se identificar e analisar quais as representações discursivas que envolveram os imigrantes nos Estados Unidos do começo do século XX, a partir do conto O Horror em Red Hook (1927), de H. P. Lovecraft, procurando estabelecer um paralelo entre a ficção e a realidade. Com esse objetivo, os conceitos de representação, ficção e discurso serão trabalhados a partir de Pesavento e Orlandi; quanto à vida e obra de H. P. Lovecraft, utiliza-se a biografia escrita por Joshi (2014). Apesar de sua grande expressão, a literatura de Lovecraft foi pouco debatida academicamente, sobretudo em trabalhos brasileiros. Isso é surpreendente porque suas histórias, seus conceitos e suas personagens, que apresentam implicações diretas à representatividade étnica, permanecem recorrentes mesmo após quase um século desde as suas origens.

“I Am Starting to Believe in the Word ‘Justice’”: Lessons from an Ethnographic Study on Community Courts

With the growing awareness of the crisis of mass incarceration and distrust toward the legal system, recent years have seen a rise in interest in specialized, problem-solving, and therapeutic courts designed to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates and enhance public trust in state authorities. Community courts have been operating in numerous jurisdictions worldwide, providing a non-adversarial platform in which repeat low-level offenders are offered a comprehensive rehabilitative and restorative intervention program. Alongside evaluations demonstrating the ability of community courts to reduce incarceration and enhance offenders’ trust, some critics have suggested that community courts jeopardize offenders’ procedural rights and result in over-criminalization of program non-completers. This Article provides a qualitative empirical examination of an Israeli community court model, inspired by the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, New York. Based on over 280 hours of observations of approximately 100 hearings and fourteen staff meetings, the findings provide an inside look at the ways in which Israeli community courts implement a range of evidence-based, democracy-oriented approaches to crime control, such as procedural justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, and community justice, in the context of community courts. The findings also point to a need to pay closer attention to how these courts continue their operation, within a broader adversarial legal framework of criminal justice. The challenges identified in this Article raise questions that are relevant to other community courts in the United States and elsewhere.

Planeamiento urbanístico y cambio climático: la infraestructura verde como estrategia de adaptación = Urban planning and climate change: green infrastructure as an adaptation strategy

La integración de la adaptación al cambio climático en la planificación de los usos del suelo, así como la evaluación de este proceso, se han situado de forma preferente en las políticas urbanas y en los ámbitos de gestión de las ciudades. La tesis doctoral en la que se apoya este documento aporta herramientas que permiten incorporar con éxito las estrategias de adaptación a los procesos de planificación urbanística. Entre las herramientas detectadas, la infraestructura verde juega un papel crucial en la definición de estrategias de adaptación al cambio climático. A partir de la investigación realizada se ha propuesto un marco de indicadores y parámetros de referencia para la evaluación de la capacidad adaptativa en la planificación urbanística. La aplicación a dos casos de estudio en EE. UU. (Red Hook, Brooklyn, Nueva York) y España (Zorrotzaurre, Bilbao) ha permitido validar e implementar su utilidad como instrumentos para la planificación, así como para su seguimiento y evaluación.Abstract:The integration of adaptation to climate change into land use planning, and the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of this process, have been preferentially placed in urban policies and city management. This research work provides tools that enable successful incorporation of adaptation strategies into urban planning processes. Among the tools identified, green infrastructure plays a key role in defining strategies for adapting cities to climate change. Based on the research carried out, an indicator framework and benchmarks for adaptive capacity assessment have been proposed. The application on two case-studies in The United States (Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY) and Spain (Zorrotzaurre, Bilbao) has enabled the tools’ validation and implementation as instruments for planning, as well as for monitoring and evaluation of their adaptive capacity.