Albion College

About: Albion College is a education organization based out in Albion, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Higher education. The organization has 485 authors who have published 754 publications receiving 20907 citations.

Having your cake and eating it too: autonomy and interaction in a model of sentence processing

Abstract: Is the human language understander a collection of modular processes operating with relative autonomy, or is it a single integrated process? This ongoing debate has polarized the language processing community, with two fundamentally different types of model posited, and with each camp concluding that the other is wrong. One camp puts forth a model with separate processors and distinct knowledge sources to explain one body of data, and the other proposes a model with a single processor and a homogeneous, monolithic knowledge source to explain the other body of data. In this paper we argue that a hybrid approach which combines a unified processor with separate knowledge sources provides an explanation of both bodies of data, and we demonstrate the feasibility of this approach with the computational model called COMPERE. We believe that this approach brings the language processing community significantly closer to offering humanlike language processing systems.

Case Dismissed: Police Discretion and Racial Differences in Dismissals of Felony Charges

Abstract: Prior research has produced conflicting evidence of racial profiling during traffic stops. We instead analyze rates of case dismissal against felony arrestees by race. At the arrest stage, superficial bias based on "unobservables" should be reduced due to the evidentiary requirements and non-negligible costs of filing charges. Nonetheless, we produce and empirically test a model that predicts higher rates of false arrests (and subsequent dismissals) for blacks for crimes where police are required to make snap judgments. Using data from over 58,000 U.S. felony cases from 1990-1998, our probit analysis finds higher dismissal rates for blacks charged with minor violent crimes and crimes where police have more discretion over whether to make an arrest, which points to more aggressive policing of blacks in these situations. Case dismissal rates are also elevated for both whites and blacks when blacks are under-represented on local police forces.

Inverting Development Discourse in Colombia: Transforming Andean Hearths

Abstract: In the 1990s, 60 percent of the households in Tuquerres, a highland town in Colombia's southwestern Andes, bought their first gas range for cooking. The residents frame their purchases as a manifestation of "development" and "modernization," say- ing the ranges are more economico, rapido, and limpio—terms readily translated as economic, fast, and clean. However, the spread of gas ranges by independent initiative inverts a top-down model of development through government and corporate actors. The resi- dents' use of a development discourse does not emanate primarily from a government or corporate development apparatus but, rather, results from the incorporation of development terms into a local history of hierarchy and stigma. Because residents use these terms to counter stigma and hierarchy, the terms involve unexpected nuances: Economico concerns spending money and cash pur- chases, ra'pido refers to new forms of family and sociability, and limpio becomes a foil to the shame of dirt. Use of these terms incorpo- rating these expanded meanings reveals that Tuquerrenos embrace aspects of development, but on their own terms. (Keywords: development, modernization, households, Colombia, Andes)

Energy Collection Efficiency of Tungsten Transition-Edge Sensors in the Near-Infrared

Abstract: Single-photon detectors operating at visible and near-infrared wavelengths with high detection efficiency and low noise are a requirement for many quantum-information applications. Detection of visible and near-infrared light at the single-photon level and discrimination between one- and two-photon absorption events place stringent requirements on TES design in terms of heat capacity, thermometry, and optical detection efficiency. Energy loss in the conversion of the photon energy in tungsten TESs to heat degrades the performance of these devices. By fabricating TESs on surface-micromachined Si3N4 membranes we improved the energy collection efficiency by a factor of two, to ∼80% energy efficiency.