Topic
Surprise
About: Surprise is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99386 citations.
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TL;DR: The Advisory Opinion given by the Court has to be seen in the light of the present atmosphere within various Member States as to the future development of the European Union as discussed by the authors, which has recently tended more towards understanding and protecting the legitimate interests of the EC Member States.
Abstract: Indeed, States are sensitive when it comes to limitations of their foreign relations powers which are still considered to tbe the hard core of the ageing concept of national sovereignty. If it has already been difficult for them to accept constitutional restraints, it seems even more difficult for them to consent to being bound institutionally in relation to the process of European integration or international cooperation. Within the EC the Commission had requested the ECJ under the procedure of Article 228(6) ECT to confirm the exclusive competence of the EC to conclude the WTO Agreement which had been negotiated within the framework of the Uruguay Round. The Advisory Opinion given by the Court has to be seen in the light of the present atmosphere within various Member States as to the future development of the European Union. Moreover, the Court's own case-law has recently tended more towards understanding and protecting the legitimate interests of the EC Member
49 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an Actor-Network-Theory-inspired approach is proposed to tackle the problem of conserving old buildings, where a building is a complex mediator that skilfully redistributes the agency among human and nonhuman participants in renovation, provokes contextual mutations and transforms social meanings.
Abstract: Can old buildings faithfully transmit social meaning? Conservation studies have taught us for decades that buildings are valuable for their historical substance and symbolic value gradually acquired with time. Drawing on an Actor-Network-Theory-inspired perspective to tackle buildings, this article questions the philosophy of preservation studies and their definitions of building and agency. Following the process of renovation of the 17th century Alte Aula in Vienna, I explore its dynamics and unpredictable drifts. Renovating is not about transforming a passive and subservient object; it rather offers an experimental situation in which one can witness the building recalcitrance, i.e., its capacity to manifest itself as disobedient as possible to the protocol of renovation, to resist the attempts of control and to ‘surprise’ its makers. A building is, I argue here, a complex mediator that skilfully redistributes the agency among human and nonhuman participants in renovation, provokes contextual mutations and transforms social meanings.
49 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that the P300, a stimulus-locked electrophysiological response previously associated with adjustments in learning behavior, does so conditionally on the source of surprise, and provides a surprise signal that is interpreted by downstream learning processes differentially according to statistical context.
Abstract: Learning should be adjusted according to the surprise associated with observed outcomes but calibrated according to statistical context. For example, when occasional changepoints are expected, surprising outcomes should be weighted heavily to speed learning. In contrast, when uninformative outliers are expected to occur occasionally, surprising outcomes should be less influential. Here we dissociate surprising outcomes from the degree to which they demand learning using a predictive inference task and computational modeling. We show that the P300, a stimulus-locked electrophysiological response previously associated with adjustments in learning behavior, does so conditionally on the source of surprise. Larger P300 signals predicted greater learning in a changing context, but less learning in a context where surprise was indicative of a one-off outlier (oddball). Our results suggest that the P300 provides a surprise signal that is interpreted by downstream learning processes differentially according to statistical context in order to appropriately calibrate learning across complex environments.
49 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: A teacher's values and personality can be inferred by asking how he or she feels about giving grades as discussed by the authors, and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their gradebooks at the ready.
Abstract: YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT a teacher’s values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to “motivate” students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students’ marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they’re “going to have to know this for the test” as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings— and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their gradebooks at the ready.
49 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the changes reflect the distinct politics of place and the way policy makers, often insensibly, respond to their particular problems and debates in ways that vary territorially and produce different outcomes.
Abstract: For all that there is a well-entrenched sense of the differences among the different peoples of the UK, there has been surprising reluctance to accept the extent to which these differences translate into divergent public policy trajectories. That means the extent of policy divergence since devolution has been something of an uncomfortable surprise for many. Its speed, given the common heritages, similar organizations, shared problems, and pressures for convergence between the four systems might startle – in an increasingly globalized world (and medicine has long been cosmopolitan) their divergence is striking and explaining it important. If there is to be change in a mature welfare state such as that of the United Kingdom, it will most likely be through the accretion of such changes to existing systems. And, I argue, the changes reflect the distinct politics of place and the way policy makers, often insensibly, respond to their particular problems and debates in ways that vary territorially and produce te...
49 citations