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.

Labor-law theory is enjoying a kind of intellectual rebirth. Academic lawyers are exploring the underlying premises of contemporary labor legislation, its actual effects, and the possibility of using alternative premises to develop new ways to order labormanagement relations.' Professor Fried's paper2 is a valuable contribution to this continuing enterprise. It points out an important weakness in recent efforts to justify returning to a common law system of labor law,3 and it contains a useful analysis of the goals of labor law and the functions of the Wagner Act. Moreover, Fried's basic proposal-a market system supplemented with minimal terms-raises interesting issues. In this comment, I use Fried's analysis as the basis for a general discussion of labor-law theory. Two aspects of Fried's approach are of special interest. The first is his identification of the various goals of labor law.4 The second is his proposal to replace the current system with a market arrangement supplemented by government imposition of minimal terms.5 I conclude that both

/pdf/rights-minimal-terms-and-solidarity-a-comment-23fsze5t4s.pdf

Rights, Minimal Terms, and Solidarity: A Comment

LIBERTARIAN PATERNALISTS INSIST ON FREEDOM OF CHOICE; they do not want to foreclose options (Sunstein and Thaler 2003). At the same time, they believe that, in many contexts, planners cannot help influencing choosers, even if they aspire to neutrality. If influences are inevitable, shouldn't planning be undertaken with some awareness of its effects? Libertarian paternalists believe that the answer is clearly yesâ€”and that planners in the private and public sectors should explore approaches that lead people toward welfare-increasing outcomes while also leaving them free to choose.

Response to Klein

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

/pdf/affirmative-action-caste-and-cultural-comparisons-31qaatxl89.pdf

Affirmative Action, Caste, and Cultural Comparisons

/pdf/military-tribunals-and-legal-culture-what-a-difference-sixty-5brhzamn4j.pdf

Cass R. Sunstein

Papers

Rights, Minimal Terms, and Solidarity: A Comment

Response to Klein

The Right to Die

Affirmative Action, Caste, and Cultural Comparisons

Military Tribunals and Legal Culture: What a Difference Sixty Years Makes