bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Post-Legislative Scrutiny and Its Impact on Legislative Oversight in Uganda Parliament
Authors: Zacharia Gitta 
Published: March 2019

Post-Legislative Scrutiny and Its Impact on Legislative Oversight in Uganda Parliament: Experiences from an Emerging Democracy
The Uganda Parliament Department of Research Services has, over the past 4 years, carried out a number of post-legislative scrutiny studies. This article, taking the case of a post-legislative scrutiny done on Uganda’s Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Act 2010, explores the links between pre- and post-legislative scrutiny, and from a practical perspective, argues that although pre-legislative scrutiny can improve the quality of legislation, it is subject to the circumstances and nature of the legislation, and furthermore complexity could increase as legislation is delegated for implementation at local levels. It also argues that both pre- and pro-legislative scrutiny play a complimentary role and should pro-legislative scrutiny alone cannot address the complexity of implementing the law.
An Assessment of Post-Legislative Scrutiny in the Parliament of Sierra Leone
Authors: Mansaray Yirah 
Published: March 2019

An Assessment of Post-Legislative Scrutiny in the Parliament of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa which have not institutionalized post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) in their national legislative processes. However, the inspiration to start the process of institutionalizing PLS is derived from the recent interest in ‘better regulation’ and the impetus in PLS of domestic legislation in Sierra Leone. This article tries to scrutinize the structure, procedures and emerging methodologies that are shaping the Parliament of Sierra Leone’s (PoSL) ability to conduct PLS, and its interaction with the Executive. The question that guides this research is whether there has been PLS in Sierra Leone; if so, what are the steps, and if not why? Essentially, PLS remains an indispensable component of the legislative process, especially when parliament engages in legislative scrutiny to determine government action or inaction in implementing public policies. The article concludes that the inclusivity of the Fifth Parliament has created a political space for engaging in PLS. Second, absence of clearly defined procedures for PLS in the parliament, through the 1991 Constitution and the Standing Orders of the House allows MPs to raise matters on public policy and its implementation, and third, the urgency on the need to recalibrate the legislative process will provide a congenial environment for the operationalization of the PLS, especially with the Committee system.
Retrospective Policy Evaluation at the European Parliament
Authors: Rufas Quintana José Luis , Anglmayer Irmgard 
Published: March 2019

Retrospective Policy Evaluation at the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) has become an active player in the evaluation of EU policy in recent years. In particular, the creation of a dedicated impact assessment capacity (both ex-ante and ex-post) within parliament’s administration, and the adoption of new rules for committees’ preparation of ‘implementation reports’ has led to an institutionalization of parliament’s evaluation activities. This article discusses the rationale for, and practice of, the European Parliament’s policy evaluation system in the context of the EU’s Better Regulation Agenda. It explains how, when and why the European Parliament performs retrospective evaluation. Moreover, it reflects on the complementary role of parliament’s evaluation work with regard to that of the European Commission and, finally, examines the value it adds in terms of accountability and agenda-setting.
De geografische inrichting van de rechtspraak
Authors: Eshuis Roland 
Published: March 2019

The geographical arrangement of the Court system
This article relates the geographical allocation of Courts to access to justice. Travel distances within the Dutch system are higher than in surrounding countries, but still not extremely high. The scale of the Dutch Court organizations however, is extreme. On average, a Court location that handles small claims has jurisdiction over a territory with over half a million inhabitants. This large number of inhabitants automatically translates to large numbers of cases, and large bureaucracies, employing 500 to 1,000 people (judges, court staff, support) each. Do travel distances to the Courts actually have an impact on the use of the Court system? Two recent studies find no support for a popular belief that defendants will be less determined to defend themselves when the travel distance to the court is longer. They do show however that the number of cases brought to Court by local plaintiffs drops when ‘their’ local court closes down.
De vrederechter in historisch perspectief
Authors: von Bóné Emese 
Published: March 2019

The justice of the peace in historical perspective
This article is about the history of the justice of the peace, a low profile judge where people easily have access to. The history of the justice of the peace goes back to the seventeenth century. The justice of the peace was reintroduced in the Netherlands in the French period, when the country was annexed by the French Empire under the reign of Napoleon. The justice of the peace was also introduced in Belgium and is still in use. The most important task of the justice of the peace is ‘conciliation’. In the conciliation procedure the justice of the peace has a very active role. The judge tries to mediate between the parties in order to come to an agreement.
The Technological Singularity
Authors: Shanahan Murray 
Published: March 2019

The idea of technological singularity, and what it would mean if ordinary human intelligence were enhanced or overtaken by artificial intelligence.
The idea that human history is approaching a “singularity”—that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both—has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century. Murray Shanahan offers an introduction to the idea of the singularity and considers the ramifications of such a potentially seismic event.
Shanahan's aim is not to make predictions but rather to investigate a range of scenarios. Whether we believe that singularity is near or far, likely or impossible, apocalypse or utopia, the very idea raises crucial philosophical and pragmatic questions, forcing us to think seriously about what we want as a species.
Shanahan describes technological advances in AI, both biologically inspired and engineered from scratch. Once human-level AI—theoretically possible, but difficult to accomplish—has been achieved, he explains, the transition to superintelligent AI could be very rapid. Shanahan considers what the existence of superintelligent machines could mean for such matters as personhood, responsibility, rights, and identity. Some superhuman AI agents might be created to benefit humankind; some might go rogue. (Is Siri the template, or HAL?) The singularity presents both an existential threat to humanity and an existential opportunity for humanity to transcend its limitations. Shanahan makes it clear that we need to imagine both possibilities if we want to bring about the better outcome.
Visual Cortex and Deep Networks
Authors: Poggio Tomaso A. , Anselmi Fabio 
Published: March 2019

A mathematical framework that describes learning of invariant representations in the ventral stream, offering both theoretical development and applications.
The ventral visual stream is believed to underlie object recognition in primates. Over the past fifty years, researchers have developed a series of quantitative models that are increasingly faithful to the biological architecture. Recently, deep learning convolution networks—which do not reflect several important features of the ventral stream architecture and physiology—have been trained with extremely large datasets, resulting in model neurons that mimic object recognition but do not explain the nature of the computations carried out in the ventral stream. This book develops a mathematical framework that describes learning of invariant representations of the ventral stream and is particularly relevant to deep convolutional learning networks.
The authors propose a theory based on the hypothesis that the main computational goal of the ventral stream is to compute neural representations of images that are invariant to transformations commonly encountered in the visual environment and are learned from unsupervised experience. They describe a general theoretical framework of a computational theory of invariance (with details and proofs offered in appendixes) and then review the application of the theory to the feedforward path of the ventral stream in the primate visual cortex.
Titans of the Climate
Authors: Gallagher Kelly Sims , Xuan Xiaowei 
Published: March 2019

How the planet's two largest greenhouse gas emitters navigate climate policy.
The United States and China together account for a disproportionate 45 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. In 2014, then-President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced complementary efforts to limit emissions, paving the way for the Paris Agreement. And yet, with President Trump's planned withdrawal from the Paris accords and Xi's consolidation of power—as well as mutual mistrust fueled by misunderstanding—the climate future is uncertain. In Titans of the Climate, Kelly Sims Gallagher and Xiaowei Xuan examine how the planet's two largest greenhouse gas emitters develop and implement climate policy. Through dispassionate analysis, the authors aim to help readers understand the challenges, constraints, and opportunities in each country.
Gallagher—a former U.S. climate policymaker—and Xuan—a member of a Chinese policy think tank—describe the specific drivers—political, economic, and social—of climate policies in both countries and map the differences between policy outcomes. They characterize the U.S. approach as “deliberative incrementalism”; the Chinese, meanwhile, engage in “strategic pragmatism.” Comparing the policy processes of the two countries, Gallagher and Xuan make the case that if each country understands more about the other's goals and constraints, climate policy cooperation is more likely to succeed.
Trees of the Brain, Roots of the Mind
Authors: Ascoli Giorgio A. 
Published: March 2019

An examination of the stunning beauty of the brain's cellular form, with many color illustrations, and a provocative claim about the mind-brain relationship.
The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. Tens of billions of nerve cells-tiny tree-like structures—make up a massive network with enormous computational power. In this book, Giorgio Ascoli reveals another aspect of the human brain: the stunning beauty of its cellular form. Doing so, he makes a provocative claim about the mind-brain relationship.
If each nerve cell enlarged a thousandfold looks like a tree, then a small region of the nervous system at the same magnified scale resembles a gigantic, fantastic forest. This structural majesty—illustrated throughout the book with extraordinary color images—hides the secrets behind the genesis of our mental states. Ascoli proposes that some of the most intriguing mysteries of the mind can be solved using the basic architectural principles of the brain. After an overview of the scientific and philosophical foundations of his argument, Ascoli links mental states with patterns of electrical activity in nerve cells, presents an emerging minority opinion of how the brain learns from experience, and unveils a radically new hypothesis of the mechanism determining what is learned, what isn't, and why. Finally, considering these notions in the context of the cosmic diversity within and among brains, Ascoli offers a new perspective on the roots of individuality and humanity.
Neural Control of Speech
Authors: Guenther Frank H. 
Published: March 2019

A comprehensive and unified account of the neural computations underlying speech production, offering a theoretical framework bridging the behavioral and the neurological literatures.
In this book, Frank Guenther offers a comprehensive, unified account of the neural computations underlying speech production, with an emphasis on speech motor control rather than linguistic content. Guenther focuses on the brain mechanisms responsible for commanding the musculature of the vocal tract to produce articulations that result in an acoustic signal conveying a desired string of syllables. Guenther provides neuroanatomical and neurophysiological descriptions of the primary brain structures involved in speech production, looking particularly at the cerebral cortex and its interactions with the cerebellum and basal ganglia, using basic concepts of control theory (accompanied by nontechnical explanations) to explore the computations performed by these brain regions.
Guenther offers a detailed theoretical framework to account for a broad range of both behavioral and neurological data on the production of speech. He discusses such topics as the goals of the neural controller of speech; neural mechanisms involved in producing both short and long utterances; and disorders of the speech system, including apraxia of speech and stuttering. Offering a bridge between the neurological and behavioral literatures on speech production, the book will be a valuable resource for researchers in both fields.
Software Design Decoded
Authors: Petre Marian , van der Hoek André , Quach Yen 
Published: March 2019

An engaging, illustrated collection of insights revealing the practices and principles that expert software designers use to create great software.
What makes an expert software designer? It is more than experience or innate ability. Expert software designers have specific habits, learned practices, and observed principles that they apply deliberately during their design work. This book offers sixty-six insights, distilled from years of studying experts at work, that capture what successful software designers actually do to create great software.
The book presents these insights in a series of two-page illustrated spreads, with the principle and a short explanatory text on one page, and a drawing on the facing page. For example, “Experts generate alternatives” is illustrated by the same few balloons turned into a set of very different balloon animals. The text is engaging and accessible; the drawings are thought-provoking and often playful.
Organized into such categories as “Experts reflect,” “Experts are not afraid,” and “Experts break the rules,” the insights range from “Experts prefer simple solutions” to “Experts see error as opportunity.” Readers learn that “Experts involve the user”; “Experts take inspiration from wherever they can”; “Experts design throughout the creation of software”; and “Experts draw the problem as much as they draw the solution.”
One habit for an aspiring expert software designer to develop would be to read and reread this entertaining but essential little book. The insights described offer a guide for the novice or a reference for the veteran—in software design or any design profession.
A companion web site provides an annotated bibliography that compiles key underpinning literature, the opportunity to suggest additional insights, and more.
Composing Questions
Authors: Kotek Hadas 
Published: March 2019

An investigation of the syntax and semantics of wh-questions through the lens of intervention effects, offering a new proposal on overt and covert wh-movement.
In this book, Hadas Kotek investigates the syntax and semantics of wh-questions, offering a new solution to a central question in the study of interrogatives: given that overt wh-movement is cross-linguistically common, is syntactic movement a prerequisite for the interpretation of wh-phrases? Some linguists argue that all wh-phrases undergo movement to interrogative C, even if covertly; others propose mechanisms of in-situ interpretation that do not require any movement. Kotek moves beyond these positions to argue that wh-in-situ does move covertly, but not necessarily to C. Instead, she contends, wh-in-situ undergoes a short movement step akin to covert scrambling. This makes the LF behavior of English parallel to the overt behavior of German.
Kotek presents a series of self-paced reading experiments, alongside judgment data from German, to substantiate the idea of covert scrambling. She introduces new diagnostics for the underlying structure of questions, using as a principal tool the distribution of intervention effects. This system allows her to offer the first unified account for a range of phenomena of interrogative syntax-semantics as pied-piping, superiority effects, the cross-linguistically varied syntax of questions, and intervention effects.
Kotek develops a theory of interrogative syntax-semantics; studies the phenomena of intervention effects in wh-questions, proposing that the nature of intervention is crucially tied to the availability of wh-movement in a question; and shows that covert wh-movement should be modeled as a short scrambling operation rather than an unbounded, successive-cyclic, and potentially long-distance movement operation.
The Mind–Body Problem
Authors: Westphal Jonathan 
Published: March 2019

An introduction to the mind–body problem, covering all the proposed solutions and offering a powerful new one.
Philosophers from Descartes to Kripke have struggled with the glittering prize of modern and contemporary philosophy: the mind-body problem. The brain is physical. If the mind is physical, we cannot see how. If we cannot see how the mind is physical, we cannot see how it can interact with the body. And if the mind is not physical, it cannot interact with the body. Or so it seems.
In this book the philosopher Jonathan Westphal examines the mind-body problem in detail, laying out the reasoning behind the solutions that have been offered in the past and presenting his own proposal. The sharp focus on the mind-body problem, a problem that is not about the self, or consciousness, or the soul, or anything other than the mind and the body, helps clarify both problem and solutions.
Westphal outlines the history of the mind-body problem, beginning with Descartes. He describes mind-body dualism, which claims that the mind and the body are two different and separate things, nonphysical and physical, and he also examines physicalist theories of mind; antimaterialism, which proposes limits to physicalism and introduces the idea of qualia; and scientific theories of consciousness.
Finally, Westphal examines the largely forgotten neutral monist theories of mind and body, held by Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell, which attempt neither to extract mind from matter nor to dissolve matter into mind. Westphal proposes his own version of neutral monism. This version is unique among neutral monist theories in offering an account of mind-body interaction.
Spotify Teardown
Authors: Eriksson Maria , Fleischer Rasmus , Johansson Anna , Snickars Pelle , Vonderau Patrick 
Published: March 2019

An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience.
Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of “teardown” from reverse-engineering processes, in this book a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood.
Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online.
Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's “front end” with experimental, covert investigations of its “back end.” The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors' innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.
Haptics
Authors: Jones Lynette 
Published: March 2019

An accessible, nontechnical overview of active touch sensing, from sensory receptors in the skin to tactile surfaces on flat screen displays.
Haptics, or haptic sensing, refers to the ability to identify and perceive objects through touch. This is active touch, involving exploration of an object with the hand rather than the passive sensing of a vibration or force on the skin. The development of new technologies, including prosthetic hands and tactile surfaces for flat screen displays, depends on our knowledge of haptics. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lynette Jones offers an accessible overview of haptics, or active touch sensing, and its applications.
Jones explains that haptics involves integrating information from touch and kinesthesia—that is, information both from sensors in the skin and from sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints. The challenge for technology is to reproduce in a virtual world some of the sensations associated with physical interactions with the environment.
Jones maps the building blocks of the tactile system, the receptors in the skin and the skin itself, and how information is processed at this interface with the external world. She describes haptic perception, the processing of haptic information in the brain; haptic illusions, or distorted perceptions of objects and the body itself; tactile and haptic displays, from braille to robotic systems; tactile compensation for other sensory impairments; surface haptics, which creates virtual haptic effects on physical surfaces such as touch screens; and the development of robotic and prosthetic hands that mimic the properties of human hands.
Features of Person
Authors: Ackema Peter , Neeleman Ad 
Published: March 2019

A proposal that person features do not have inherent content but are used to navigate a “person space” at the heart of every pronominal expression.
This book offers a significant reconceptualization of the person system in natural language. The authors, leading scholars in syntax and its interfaces, propose that person features do not have inherent content but are used to navigate a “person space” at the heart of every pronominal expression. They map the journey of person features in grammar, from semantics through syntax to the system of morphological realization. Such an in-depth cross-modular study allows the development of a theory in which assumptions made about the behavior of a given feature in one module bear on possible assumptions about its behavior in other modules.
The authors' new theory of person, built on a sparse set of two privative person features, delivers a typologically adequate inventory of persons; captures the semantics of personal pronouns, impersonal pronouns, and R-expressions; accounts for aspects of their syntactic behavior; and explains patterns of person-related syncretism in the realization of pronouns and inflectional endings. The authors discuss numerous observations from the literature, defend a number of theoretical choices that are either new or not generally accepted, and present novel empirical findings regarding phenomena as different as honorifics, number marking, and unagreement.