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.

The editors of the Harvard Law Review respectfully dedicate this issue to Justice Antonin Scalia Five hundred years ago, Saint Thomas More published an account of an imaginary insular society that had achieved peace, tranquility, and prosperity. In More's Utopia, individuals lived orderly, regimented lives in mutual support of the public good, creating a commonwealth so advanced that it tolerated no lawyers. Antonin Scalia admired Thomas More, and they shared many attributes. Both were legal scholars of deep faith, incisive intelligence, and iron conviction. When the Justice sat for his portrait now on display at the Supreme Court, he requested that the artist include More's image within the frame. But Justice Scalia, perhaps like More himself, would have fled Utopia in a heartbeat. He would have balked at the Utopian demands for conformity, and he would have quickly reckoned that Utopia had little use for his foremost talents. The Antonin Scalia whom I knew--as an advocate trying to respond to his exacting questions and as a colleague by his side on the bench--was a man of lively passions, mirthful humor, abounding loyalty, and generosity of spirit. He thrived on the vibrant clash of ideas and took no offense from the din of divergent views. He was unpretentiously devoted to the joys of his large family and his many friends. He was equally at ease donning a judicial robe and engaging in vigorous colloquy or sporting hip waders and casting dry flies. And, unlike the Utopians, he was not very fond of fools. Antonin Scalia would likely have found life in Utopia unfulfilling--and not just because the Utopians banned hunting. In More's Utopia, the laws were few, they were simply framed to instruct citizens on their duties, and they were both unambiguous and free from controversy. In Utopia, Antonin Scalia's greatest gift--his judicial acumen--would have gone to waste. Our American democracy is no legal Utopia. Our laws are many; they are often complex and produce stormy debate. When disputes arise, our citizens must look to the courts to discern and apply the rules without fear or favor. Throughout his thirty-four years on the bench, Justice Scalia brought matchless vision, skill, and wisdom to the task of judging. His insistence on fidelity to legal texts brought discipline and precision to our craft. His unwavering commitment to our Constitution and democratic principles fostered justice and sustained liberty. His trove of opinions--concise, discerning, thoughtful, witty--stand together as an enduring model of the judicial art. Antonin Scalia has earned the gratitude of the American people for his long service to the country he loved. When his body rested in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, thousands of fellow citizens from all walks of life stood in line, many waiting over an hour in the cold of a February night, for the opportunity to pay their respects for perhaps a minute. Although most did not know him, all knew that greatness had passed. Antonin Scalia was our man for all seasons; he will be recognized by future generations as a farsighted jurist for our imperfect times. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ** The script of John Strand's play, The Originalist, opens with two quotations: 1) "[The] Fixed-Meaning Canon: Words must be given the meaning they had when the [legal] text was adopted." 2) "Such is the character of human language, that no word conveys to the mind, in all situations, one single definite idea ... ." (1) The first quotation is attributed to Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts; (2) the second, to Chief Justice John Marshall. (3) Justice Scalia would no doubt stand by the words he and coauthor Garner wrote. My view accords with the great Chief Justice's, and I believe Justice Scalia would agree that Marshall had a point. I leave to others discussion of Justice Scalia's provocative jurisprudence and will speak here, instead, of our enduring friendship, from the years we served together on the U. …

In Memoriam: Justice Antonin Scalia

How do judgments about law and morality shift? Why do we come to see political or other conduct as acceptable, when we had formerly seen it as unacceptable, immoral, or even horrific? Why do shifts occur in the opposite direction? Why accounts for the power of “the new normal”? A clue comes from the fact that some of our judgments are unstable, in the sense that they are an artifact of, or endogenous to, what else we see. This is true of sensory perception: Whether an object counts as blue or purple depends on what other objects surround it. It is also true for ethical judgments: Whether conduct counts as unethical depends on what other conduct is on people’s viewscreens. It follows that conduct that was formerly seen as unethical may come to seem ethical, as terrible behavior becomes more common, and also that conduct that was formerly seen as ethical may come to seem unethical, as good behavior becomes more common. In these circumstances, law (and enforcement practices) can have an important signaling effect, giving people a sense of what is normal and what is not. There is an important supplemental point, intensifying these effects: Once conduct comes to be seen as part of an unacceptable category – abusiveness, racism, lack of patriotism, microaggression, sexual harassment – real or apparent exemplars that are not so egregious, or perhaps not objectionable at all, might be taken as egregious, because they take on the stigma now associated with the category. Stigmatization by categorization can intensify the process by which formerly unobjectionable behavior becomes regarded as abhorrent. There is a relationship between stigmatization by categorization and “concept creep,” an idea applied in psychology to shifting understandings of such concepts as abuse, bullying, mental illness, and prejudice. The idea of “concept creep” has large and insufficiently explored implications for law and politics.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3291440_code647786.pdf?abstractid=3239204&mirid=1

The Power of the Normal

Why do revolutions happen? Why are they so difficult to anticipate? Some of the most instructive answers point to three factors: (1) preference falsification on the part of rebels or revolutionaries; (2) diverse thresholds for revolutionary activity; and (3) social interactions that do or do not trigger the relevant thresholds. Under conditions of actual or perceived injustice or oppression, true preferences and thresholds are probably impossible to observe; social interactions are impossible to anticipate. Even if we could observe (1) and (2), the challenge of anticipating (3) would make it essentially impossible to foresee revolutions. For all their differences, and with appropriate qualifications, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the fall of Communism, and the Arab Spring were unanticipated largely for these reasons. And in light of (1), (2), and (3), it is hazardous to think that the success of successful revolutions is essentially inevitable. (The same is true for the failure of unsuccessful revolutions.) History is only run once, so we will never know, but small or serendipitous factors might have initiated (or stopped) a revolutionary cascade. The #MeToo movement can be seen as such a cascade, marked by (1), (2), and (3). For that movement, as for successful revolutions, we might be able to point to some factors as necessary conditions, but hindsight is hazardous. It is also important to note that in revolutions, as in #MeToo, preferences and beliefs are not merely revealed; they are also transformed. Revolutionary activity, large or small, puts issues about preference falsification, experience falsification, and adaptive preferences in a new light.

/pdf/metoo-as-a-revolutionary-cascade-3w4j9w77cj.pdf

MeToo As A Revolutionary Cascade

In this Essay, I make a simple and somewhat impressionistic argument. I start with the suggestion that the issue of affirmative action should be settled democratically, not judicially. Certainly the Supreme Court should not invalidate most race-conscious remedial programs. But until recently, there has been little or no sustained democratic deliberation on the issue. The citizenry's ambivalence about-or hostility toward-affirmative action has been expressed mostly in private and not in public arenas. The enormous diversity of affirmative action programs, not to mention the separable justifications for and variable efficacy of each program, has not received much public attention. Some programs work well; some do not; and neither empirical data nor public judgments about their content and value have been reflected in program design. In these circumstances, the Supreme Court's apparently odd behavior-its meandering course, its refusal to issue rules-in the affirmative action context might be defended as performing a valuable catalytic function. The Court's willingness to hear a number of affirmative action cases, and its complex, rule-free, highly casuisticalI opinions, have had the salutary consequence of helping to stimulate public processes and directing the citizenry toward open discussion of underlying questions of policy and principle. In these ways, the Court's route has been far preferable to the most obvious alternatives: validation or invalidation of most affirmative action programs pursuant to clear doctrinal categories.

/pdf/public-deliberation-affirmative-action-and-the-supreme-court-2x4fyaporm.pdf

Cass R. Sunstein

Papers

In Memoriam: Justice Antonin Scalia

The Power of the Normal

MeToo As A Revolutionary Cascade

Public Deliberation, Affirmative Action, and the Supreme Court

Notes on Pornography and the First Amendment