Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations. A systematic search of electronic databases and consultation with behaviour change experts were used to identify frameworks of behaviour change interventions. These were evaluated according to three criteria: comprehensiveness, coherence, and a clear link to an overarching model of behaviour. A new framework was developed to meet these criteria. The reliability with which it could be applied was examined in two domains of behaviour change: tobacco control and obesity. Nineteen frameworks were identified covering nine intervention functions and seven policy categories that could enable those interventions. None of the frameworks reviewed covered the full range of intervention functions or policies, and only a minority met the criteria of coherence or linkage to a model of behaviour. At the centre of a proposed new framework is a 'behaviour system' involving three essential conditions: capability, opportunity, and motivation (what we term the 'COM-B system'). This forms the hub of a 'behaviour change wheel' (BCW) around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. The BCW was used reliably to characterise interventions within the English Department of Health's 2010 tobacco control strategy and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence's guidance on reducing obesity. Interventions and policies to change behaviour can be usefully characterised by means of a BCW comprising: a 'behaviour system' at the hub, encircled by intervention functions and then by policy categories. Research is needed to establish how far the BCW can lead to more efficient design of effective interventions.

/pdf/the-behaviour-change-wheel-a-new-method-for-characterising-4vp816z23u.pdf

The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions.

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

/pdf/international-norm-dynamics-and-political-change-37ig9r9dlq.pdf

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cognitive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate this information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive at decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, physiological, and other subfield of psychology, they show that emotional reactions to risky situations often drive behavior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of phenomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist terms.

Risk as Feelings

Early studies of intuitive judgment and decision making conducted with the late Amos Tversky are reviewed in the context of two related concepts: an analysis of accessibility, the ease with which thoughts come to mind; a distinction between effortless intuition and deliberate reasoning. Intuitive thoughts, like percepts, are highly accessible. Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of nonextensional for extensional attributes. Variations in the accessibility of rules explain the occasional corrections of intuitive judgments. The study of biases is compatible with a view of intuitive thinking and decision making as generally skilled and successful.

https://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/JudgementAndChoice.MappingBoundedRationality.DKahneman2003.pdf

A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality.

/pdf/political-economy-administrative-law-a-comment-4ansh5gtra.pdf

Political Economy, Administrative Law: A Comment

This essay argues against a right to physician-assisted suicide. It urges that the state has sufficient interests -- in protecting against abuse and diminished patient autonomy -- to justify intruding on any "fundamental right." It suggests that the previous substantive due process cases should be read as involving problems of equal protection or procedural due process.

The right to die.

Much of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s work on the Supreme Court embodies a commitment to judicial minimalism, understood as a preference for narrow rulings, closely attuned to particular facts. This preference reflects a belief that at least in adjudication, standards ought to be preferred to rules. In many contexts, however, that belief is hard to justify, simply because it imposes severe decision-making burdens on others and may well create more, rather than fewer, errors. For this reason, a general preference for minimalism is no more defensible than a general preference for rules. The choice between narrow and wide rulings cannot itself be made by rules or even presumptions; it requires a case-by-case inquiry. The argument is illustrated throughout with reference to the problem of affirmative action, where Justice O’Connor’s preference for particularity resulted in the imposition of a constitutional mandate on admissions offices that is not simple to defend in principle. In some contexts, however, narrow rulings are indeed preferable, in large part because they give flexibility to politically accountable officials. Justice O’Connor’s minimalism is best understood as reflecting a belief that in difficult cases, at the frontiers of constitutional law, judges do best to avoid firm rules that they might come to regret. Consider two admissions programs: 1. Program A gives a specified number of points to every African-American applicant. More particularly, every such applicant receives five points, simply by virtue of being African-American. Five points are not trivial, but they are far from enough to ensure admission. Children of alumni, for example, receive fifteen points; specified academic achievements produce thirty points; athletic accomplishments produce fifteen points. Admission is unlikely unless an applicant receives at least sixty points. 2. Program B dispenses with a point system. Every applicant receives individualized consideration from one of eight admissions officers. In hard cases, the admissions officers meet in “teams” of three; in the hardest cases, * Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago Law School and Department of Political Science. I am grateful to Christine Jolls for helpful discussions and to James Weingarten for research assistance and excellent comments.

Cass R. Sunstein

Papers

Political Economy, Administrative Law: A Comment

The right to die.

Problems with Minimalism

A Bill of Rights for Nudging

Low Value Speech Revisited