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Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations
No full textCognitive flexibility requires both the encoding of task-relevant and the ignoring of task-irrelevant stimuli. While the neural coding of task-relevant stimuli is increasingly well understood, the mechanisms for ignoring task-irrelevant stimuli remain poorly understood. Here, we study how task performance and biological constraints jointly determine the coding of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in neural circuits. Using mathematical analyses and task-optimized recurrent neural networks, we show that neural circuits can exhibit a range of representational geometries depending on the strength of neural noise and metabolic cost. By comparing these results with recordings from primate prefrontal cortex (PFC) over the course of learning, we show that neural activity in PFC changes in line with a minimal representational strategy. Specifically, our analyses reveal that the suppression of dynamically irrelevant stimuli is achieved by activity-silent, sub-threshold dynamics. Our results provide a normative explanation as to why PFC implements an adaptive, minimal representational strategy
Taking Stock of Qualitative Methods of Evaluation:A Study of Practices and Quality Criteria
No full textResearch on evaluation has mapped the landscape of quantitative evaluation methods. There are far fewer overviews for qualitative methods of evaluation. We present a review of scholarly articles from five widely read evaluation research journals, examining the types of methods used and the transparency of their quality criteria. We briefly look at a large sample of 1070 articles and then randomly select 50 for in-depth study. We document a remarkable variety of qualitative methods, but some stand out: Case studies and stakeholder analysis, often combined with interview techniques. Articles rarely define and conceptualize their methods explicitly. This is understandable from a practical point of view, but it can make it difficult to critically interrogate findings and build systematic knowledge. Finally, we find that the transparency of qualitative criteria required in the literature is not always sufficient, which can hinder the synthesis of results
Imagining a New Gender Contract for Education
No full textThe chapter argues for preparing European institutions for the transformation of knowledge production. Firstly, it delineates the current challenges, refocusing attention on the real dangers. The neoliberalisation of knowledge production, research and educational institutions fundamentally weakens the infrastructure and the transformative potential of knowledge produced. It also contributes to the decentralisation of science, which is driven by transnational cooperations outside the national quality assurance institution. Secondly, it discusses three key elements for a new gender contract—access, content and staff—explaining their relevance. Feminists have been struggling to break the hierarchies and exclusionary practices shaped and transmitted by higher education for centuries. This chapter analyses responses to the recent challenges of de-democratisation, by arguing that scholars should take action to start separate institutions, and decentralisation of science, by arguing that the internationalisation of science can be as threatening to the original mission of education as re-nationalisation. Thirdly, it proposes key policy recommendations. In the end, it argues for a policy change in European Union policies, especially due to the influx of refugee scholars for rethinking Europe. This chapter argues that the seemingly paralysed and non-responsive actors contribute to the spreading of illiberal alternatives in Europe
Commodifying Public Utilities:EU's New Governance Prescriptions for Rail and Water
No full textIn the mid-2000s, the Single Market Program and European Monetary Union lost momentum, as public services advocates increasingly succeeded in tempering attempts to liberalize public utilities through legislative amendments and Court of Justice rulings. After the 2008 crisis, however, the EU's shift to a new economic governance (NEG) regime provided EU executives with a new tool to advance their objectives. Unlike EU directives, country-specific NEG prescriptions require neither the approval of the European Parliament nor their transposition into law, making it more difficult for social forces to contest them. Our analysis of NEG prescriptions for public utilities in two sectors (rail and water) and four countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, Romania) across 10 years (2009–2019) shows that the shift to NEG provided EU executives with new extra-parliamentarian and extra-juridical tools that allowed them to revive their stalled commodification agenda; at the price of accentuating the EU's democratic and justice deficits
