Interface vulnerability and knowledge of the subjunctive/indicative distinction with negated epistemic predicates in L2 Spanish.

Much recent research in SLA is guided by the hypothesis of L2 interface vulnerability (see Sorace 2005). This study contributes to this general project by examining the acquisition of two classes of subjunctive complement clauses in L2 Spanish: subjunctive complements of volitional predicates (purely syntactic) and subjunctive vs. indicative complements with negated epistemic matrix predicates, where the mood distinction is discourse dependent (thus involving the syntax-discourse interface). We provide an analysis of the volitional subjunctive in English and Spanish, suggesting that English learners of L2 Spanish need to access the functional projection Mood P and an uninterpretable modal feature on the Force head available to them from their formal English register grammar, and simultaneously must unacquire the structure of English for-to clauses. For negated epistemic predicates, our analysis maintains that they need to revalue the modal feature on the Force head from uninterpretable to interpretable, within the L2 grammar.With others (e.g. Borgonovo & Prévost 2003; Borgonovo, Bruhn de Garavito & Prévost 2005) and in line with Sorace's (2000, 2003, 2005) notion of interface vulnerability, we maintain that the latter case is more difficult for L2 learners, which is borne out in the data we present. However, the data also show that the indicative/subjunctive distinction with negated epistemics can be acquired by advanced stages of acquisition, questioning the notion of obligatory residual optionality for all properties which require the integration of syntactic and discourse information.

Planning autonomous vehicles in the absence of speed lanes using an elastic strip

Planning of autonomous vehicles in the absence of speed lanes is a less-researched problem. However, it is an important step toward extending the possibility of autonomous vehicles to countries where speed lanes are not followed. The advantages of having nonlane-oriented traffic include larger traffic bandwidth and more overtaking, which are features that are highlighted when vehicles vary in terms of speed and size. In the most general case, the road would be filled with a complex grid of static obstacles and vehicles of varying speeds. The optimal travel plan consists of a set of maneuvers that enables a vehicle to avoid obstacles and to overtake vehicles in an optimal manner and, in turn, enable other vehicles to overtake. The desired characteristics of this planning scenario include near completeness and near optimality in real time with an unstructured environment, with vehicles essentially displaying a high degree of cooperation and enabling every possible(safe) overtaking procedure to be completed as soon as possible. Challenges addressed in this paper include a (fast) method for initial path generation using an elastic strip, (re-)defining the notion of completeness specific to the problem, and inducing the notion of cooperation in the elastic strip. Using this approach, vehicular behaviors of overtaking, cooperation, vehicle following,obstacle avoidance, etc., are demonstrated.

Graph-based algorithms for comparison and prediction of household-level energy use profiles

We present an efficient graph-based algorithm for quantifying the similarity of household-level energy use profiles, using a notion of similarity that allows for small time–shifts when comparing profiles. Experimental results on a real smart meter data set demonstrate that in cases of practical interest our technique is far faster than the existing method for computing the same similarity measure. Having a fast algorithm for measuring profile similarity improves the efficiency of tasks such as clustering of customers and cross-validation of forecasting methods using historical data. Furthermore, we apply a generalisation of our algorithm to produce substantially better household-level energy use forecasts from historical smart meter data.

The history of entrepreneurship: Medieval origins of a modern phenomenon

The origins of enterprise are often associated with the Industrial Revolution, but this article presents evidence of entrepreneurial activities from a much earlier date – the medieval period. Between 1250 and 1500 the church, merchants and members of the royal court all engaged in activities that demonstrated the entrepreneurial characteristics of innovation, risk-taking and judgement. The activities of the prior of Tynemouth and the career of the wool merchant William de la Pole illustrate these developments. By focusing on individuals rather than firms, it is possible to push back the study of entrepreneurship beyond the Industrial Revolution and early-modern trade to a period that witnessed the origins of the modern state.

Fairness quality: the role of fairness in a social and ethically oriented marketing landscape

Research into the dark side of customer management and marketing is progressively growing. The marketing landscape today is dominated with suspicion and distrust as a result of practices that include hidden fees, deception and information mishandling. In such a pessimistic economy, marketers must reconceptualise the notion of fairness in marketing and customer management, so that the progress of sophisticated customisation schemes and advancements in marketing can flourish, avoiding further control and imposed regulation. In this article, emerging research is drawn to suggest that existing quality measures of marketing activities, including service, relationships and experiences may not be comprehensive in measuring the relevant things in the social and ethically oriented marketing landscape, and on that basis does not measure the fairness which truly is important in such an economy. The paper puts forward the concept of Fairness Quality (FAIRQUAL), which includes as well as extends on existing thinking behind relationship building, experience creation and other types of customer management practices that are believed to predict consumer intentions. It is proposed that a fairness quality measure will aid marketers in this challenging landscape and economy.

The role of rules-based compliance systems in the new EU regulatory landscape: perspectives of institutional change

Purpose The research objective of this study is to understand how institutional changes to the EU regulatory landscape may affect corresponding institutionalized operational practices within financial organizations. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts an Investment Management System as its case and investigates different implementations of this system within eight financial organizations, predominantly focused on investment banking and asset management activities within capital markets. At the systems vendor site, senior systems consultants and client relationship managers were interviewed. Within the financial organizations, compliance, risk and systems experts were interviewed. Findings The study empirically tests modes of institutional change. Displacement and Layering were found to be the most prevalent modes. However, the study highlights how the outcomes of Displacement and Drift may be similar in effect as both modes may cause compliance gaps. The research highlights how changes in regulations may create gaps in systems and processes which, in the short term, need to be plugged by manual processes. Practical implications Vendors abilities to manage institutional change caused by Drift, Displacement, Layering and Conversion and their ability to efficiently and quickly translate institutional variables into structured systems has the power to ease the pain and cost of compliance as well as reducing the risk of breeches by reducing the need for interim manual systems. Originality/value The study makes a contribution by applying recent theoretical concepts of institutional change to the topic of regulatory change uses this analysis to provide insight into the effects of this new environment

Autonomy and the socialisation of architects

The socio-cultural production of architects' identities, and their professional personas, is a lively source of continuing debate. At one extreme, there is the claim to autonomy that highlights the distinctiveness of architecture and its cultural and disciplinary specificity. This view is challenged by those who emphasise architects' dependence, for acting and actions, on their embeddedness into collective, social, settings and relationships. In the paper, we consider what it may mean to be ‘autonomous of’ and ‘dependent on’ in relation to the actions of architects. There is limited specification in architectural writings about what autonomy and dependence are, and we suggest that there is a need not to discount such terms, but to reformulate them by recognising that the socially constructed self is an integral part of individual action. In this respect, we seek to amplify, and evaluate, the concept of relational autonomy that distances the notion of autonomy from individualistic, under-socialised, accounts of architects and their practices. Referring to three empirical examples of practice, we amplify this understanding by, first, outlining what a relational autonomous approach to architecture might entail, and, secondly, assessing how far it may enable a conception of the practices of architects in ways whereby, following Tony Fry's observations, they are conceived as much broader than ‘the specificity of any particular activity’ that expresses their existence.

On the 'special' status of emotional faces... Comment on Yang, Hong, and Blake (2010)

A wealth of literature suggests that emotional faces are given special status as visual objects: Cognitive models suggest that emotional stimuli, particularly threat-relevant facial expressions such as fear and anger, are prioritized in visual processing and may be identified by a subcortical “quick and dirty” pathway in the absence of awareness (Tamietto & de Gelder, 2010). Both neuroimaging studies (Williams, Morris, McGlone, Abbott, & Mattingley, 2004) and backward masking studies (Whalen, Rauch, Etcoff, McInerney, & Lee, 1998) have supported the notion of emotion processing without awareness. Recently, our own group (Adams, Gray, Garner, & Graf, 2010) showed adaptation to emotional faces that were rendered invisible using a variant of binocular rivalry: continual flash suppression (CFS, Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005). Here we (i) respond to Yang, Hong, and Blake's (2010) criticisms of our adaptation paper and (ii) provide a unified account of adaptation to facial expression, identity, and gender, under conditions of unawareness

Instantaneous threat detection based on a semantic representation of activities, zones and trajectories

Threat detection is a challenging problem, because threats appear in many variations and differences to normal behaviour can be very subtle. In this paper, we consider threats on a parking lot, where theft of a truck’s cargo occurs. The threats range from explicit, e.g. a person attacking the truck driver, to implicit, e.g. somebody loitering and then fiddling with the exterior of the truck in order to open it. Our goal is a system that is able to recognize a threat instantaneously as they develop. Typical observables of the threats are a person’s activity, presence in a particular zone and the trajectory. The novelty of this paper is an encoding of these threat observables in a semantic, intermediate-level representation, based on low-level visual features that have no intrinsic semantic meaning themselves. The aim of this representation was to bridge the semantic gap between the low-level tracks and motion and the higher-level notion of threats. In our experiments, we demonstrate that our semantic representation is more descriptive for threat detection than directly using low-level features. We find that a person’s activities are the most important elements of this semantic representation, followed by the person’s trajectory. The proposed threat detection system is very accurate: 96.6 % of the tracks are correctly interpreted, when considering the temporal context.

Sensory enhancement, a pilot perceptual study of subdermal magnetic implants

Subdermal magnetic implants originated as an art form in the world of body modification. To date an in depth scientific analysis of the benefits of this implant has yet to be established. This research explores the concept of sensory extension of the tactile sense utilising this form of implantation. This relatively simple procedure enables the tactile sense to respond to static and alternating magnetic fields. This is not to say that the underlying biology of the system has changed; i.e. the concept does not increase our tactile frequency response range or sensitivity to pressure, but now does invoke a perceptual response to a stimulus that is not innately available to humans. Within this research two social surveys have been conducted in order to ascertain one, the social acceptance of the general notion of human enhancement, and two the perceptual experiences of individuals with the magnetic implants themselves. In terms of acceptance to the notion of sensory improvement (via implantation) ~39% of the general population questioned responded positively with a further ~25% of the respondents answering with the indecisive response. Thus with careful dissemination a large proportion of individuals may adopt this technology much like this if it were to become available for consumers. Interestingly of the responses collected from the magnetic implants survey ~60% of the respondents actually underwent the implant for magnetic vision purposes. The main contribution of this research however comes from a series of psychophysical testing. In which 7 subjects with subdermal magnetic implants, were cross compared with 7 subjects that had similar magnets superficially attached to their dermis. The experimentation examined multiple psychometric thresholds of the candidates including intensity, frequency and temporal. Whilst relatively simple, the experimental setup for the perceptual experimentation conducted was novel in that custom hardware and protocols were created in order to determine the subjective thresholds of the individuals. Abstract iv The overall purpose of this research is to utilise this concept in high stress scenarios, such as driving or piloting; whereby alerts and warnings could be relayed to an operator without intruding upon their other (typically overloaded) exterior senses (i.e. the auditory and visual senses). Hence each of the thresholding experiments were designed with the intention of utilising the results in the design of signals for information transfer. The findings from the study show that the implanted group of subjects significantly outperformed the superficial group in the absolute intensity threshold experiment, i.e. the implanted group required significantly less force than the superficial group in order to perceive the stimulus. The results for the frequency difference threshold showed no significant difference in the two groups tested. Interestingly however at low frequencies, i.e. 20 and 50 Hz, the ability of the subjects tested to discriminate frequencies significantly increased with more complex waveforms i.e. square and sawtooth, when compared against the typically used sinewave. Furthermore a novel protocol for establishing the temporal gap detection threshold during a temporal numerosity study has been established in this thesis. This experiment measured the subjects’ capability to correctly determine the number of concatenated signals presented to them whilst the time between the signals, referred to as pulses, tended to zero. A significant finding was that when altering the length of, the frequency of, and the number of cycles of the pulses, the time between pulses for correct recognition altered. This finding will ultimately aid in the design of the tactile alerts for this method of information transfer. Preliminary development work for the use of this method of input to the body, in an automotive scenario, is also presented within this thesis in the form of a driving simulation. The overall goal of which is to present warning alerts to a driver, such as rear-to-end collision, or excessive speeds on roads, in order to prevent incidents and penalties from occurring. Discussion on the broader utility of this implant has been presented, reflecting on its potential use as a basis for vibrotactile, and sensory substitution, devices. This discussion furthers with postulations on its use as a human machine interface, as well as how a similar implant could be used within the ear as a hearing aid device.

The neoliberal way of war: a critical analysis of contemporary British security in policy and practice.

Dominant paradigms of causal explanation for why and how Western liberal-democracies go to war in the post-Cold War era remain versions of the 'liberal peace' or 'democratic peace' thesis. Yet such explanations have been shown to rest upon deeply problematic epistemological and methodological assumptions. Of equal importance, however, is the failure of these dominant paradigms to account for the 'neoliberal revolution' that has gripped Western liberal-democracies since the 1970s. The transition from liberalism to neoliberalism remains neglected in analyses of the contemporary Western security constellation. Arguing that neoliberalism can be understood simultaneously through the Marxian concept of ideology and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality – that is, as a complementary set of 'ways of seeing' and 'ways of being' – the thesis goes on to analyse British security in policy and practice, considering it as an instantiation of a wider neoliberal way of war. In so doing, the thesis draws upon, but also challenges and develops, established critical discourse analytic methods, incorporating within its purview not only the textual data that is usually considered by discourse analysts, but also material practices of security. This analysis finds that contemporary British security policy is predicated on a neoliberal social ontology, morphology and morality – an ideology or 'way of seeing' – focused on the notion of a globalised 'network-market', and is aimed at rendering circulations through this network-market amenable to neoliberal techniques of government. It is further argued that security practices shaped by this ideology imperfectly and unevenly achieve the realisation of neoliberal 'ways of being' – especially modes of governing self and other or the 'conduct of conduct' – and the re-articulation of subjectivities in line with neoliberal principles of individualism, risk, responsibility and flexibility. The policy and practice of contemporary British 'security' is thus recontextualised as a component of a broader 'neoliberal way of war'.

Perspectives on the specification of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) technology in construction projects

Innovative, low carbon technologies are already available for use in the construction of buildings, but the impact of their specification on construction projects is unclear. This exploratory research identifies issues which arise following the specification of BIPV in non-residential construction projects. Rather than treating the inclusion of a new technology as a technical problem, the research explores the issue from a socio-technical perspective to understand the accommodations which the project team makes and their effect on the building and the technology. The paper is part of a larger research project which uses a Social Construction of Technology Approach (SCOT) to explore the accommodations made to working practices and design when Building Integrated PhotoVoltaic (BIPV) technology is introduced. The approach explores how the requirements of the technology from different groups of actors (Relevant Social Groups or RSG's) give rise to problems and create solutions. As such it rejects the notion of a rational linear view of innovation diffusion; instead it suggests that the variety and composition of the Relevant Social Groups set the agenda for problem solving and solutions as the project progresses. The research explores the experiences of three people who have extensive histories of involvement with BIPV in construction, looks at how SCOT can inform our understanding of the issues involved and identifies themes and issues in the specification of BIPV on construction projects. A key finding concerns the alignment of inflection points at which interviewees have found themselves changing from one RSG to another as new problems and solutions are identified. The points at which they change RSG often occurred at points which mirror conventional construction categories (in terms of project specification, tender, design and construction).

Introduction: the legacy of Greek political thought

This Introduction offers context for the individual papers by examining the intersections and productive tensions between political thought and classical reception studies. While Plato and Aristotle have long been privileged interlocutors for political philosophers, classical reception studies has pluralised both this ancient canon and given rise to a more complex understanding of the modern heirs of ancient political thought. Similarly, the insights of studying the history of political texts and ideas across a longer tradition calls into question the fixity of concepts such as democracy, empire and political freedom. Indeed, we query the very notion of tradition by emphasising how the past has been repeatedly constructed and reconstructed in divergent modern political discourses and conversely how modern political theories and realities have been shaped and reshaped by an idea of antiquity. The Introduction closes with a brief survey of the collected papers.

Preserved emotional awareness of pain in a patient with extensive bilateral damage to the insula, anterior cingulate, and amygdala

Functional neuroimaging investigations of pain have discovered a reliable pattern of activation within limbic regions of a putative "pain matrix" that has been theorized to reflect the affective dimension of pain. To test this theory, we evaluated the experience of pain in a rare neurological patient with extensive bilateral lesions encompassing core limbic structures of the pain matrix, including the insula, anterior cingulate, and amygdala. Despite widespread damage to these regions, the patient's expression and experience of pain was intact, and at times excessive in nature. This finding was consistent across multiple pain measures including self-report, facial expression, vocalization, withdrawal reaction, and autonomic response. These results challenge the notion of a "pain matrix" and provide direct evidence that the insula, anterior cingulate, and amygdala are not necessary for feeling the suffering inherent to pain. The patient's heightened degree of pain affect further suggests that these regions may be more important for the regulation of pain rather than providing the decisive substrate for pain's conscious experience.

Civic geographies of architectural enthusiasm

In this short intervention, we introduce the display and walking tour that formed our contribution to the ‘civic geographies’ exhibition and session at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference in July 2012. We then move on to explore the notion of ‘civic geographies’ in relation to the architectural enthusiasm, specifically a strong emotional attachment to buildings, exhibited by members of The Twentieth Century Society. In doing so, we suggest that a more critical account of the role of enthusiasm in the civic realm is required for two important reasons: first, because such groups can be understood to be doing geography beyond the academy in the civic realm; and second, because enthusiast knowledges and practices are active in the (re)constitution of civic landscapes of various kinds. Enthusiasts participate in caring for buildings, preserving heritage, making community spaces, as well as creating and curating local histories. An understanding of who is participating in making these civic geographies, why, how, and with what consequences, is therefore crucial.