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The numeraire e-variable and reverse information projection
No full textWe consider testing a composite null hypothesis P against a point alternative Q using e-variables, which are nonnegative random variables X such that EP[X]≤ 1 for every P ∈ P. This paper establishes a fundamental result: under no conditions whatsoever on P or Q, there exists a special e-variable X* that we call the numeraire, which is strictly positive and satisfies EQ[X/X*] ≤ 1 for every other e-variable X. In particular, X* is log-optimal in the sense that EQ[log (X / X *) ] ≤ 0. Moreover, X* identifies a particular subprobability measure P* via the density dP* / d Q = 1 / X *. As a result, X* can be seen as a generalized likelihood ratio of Q against P. We show that P* coincides with the reverse information projection (RIPr) when additional assumptions are made that are required for the latter to exist. Thus, P* is a natural definition of the RIPr in the absence of any assumptions on P or Q. In addition to the abstract theory, we provide several tools for finding the numeraire and RIPr in concrete cases. We discuss several nonparametric examples where we can indeed identify the numeraire and RIPr, despite not having a reference measure. Our results have interpretations outside of testing in that they yield the optimal Kelly bet against P if we believe reality follows Q. We end with a more general optimality theory that goes beyond the ubiquitous logarithmic utility. We focus on certain power utilities, leading to reverse Rényi projections in place of the RIPr, which also always exist
A Gestalt perspective on Manichaean worldviews and individuals' engagement in violence: the case of the Italian far left
No full textBesides socio-political and economic factors, extant research contends that Manichaean worldviews, characterized by mutually exclusive dichotomies such as 'good-bad', are the main driver influencing individuals' decision to use violence against others. Furthermore, extant scholarship identifies ideologies, populism, and conspiracy theories as the three originators of Manichaean worldviews. However, the findings from my research, carried out between 2018 and 2023, challenge these arguments. Using narrative analysis, this article examines personal stories of a group of Italian former far-left militants, who participated in the violent campaign of the so-called 'Years of Lead'. Far-left and far-right ideologies strongly influenced Italian sociopolitical movements of the time. Thus, this paper explores whether Manichaean perspectives informing far-left militants' decision to resort to violence originated from far-left ideologies or whether they existed independently of these ideologies. I develop this analysis through the lens of Gestalt psychology, which considers human behavior as resulting from how our minds understand the relation between components of our surrounding environment. While confirming relations between Manichaean worldviews and violence, this paper finds that Manichaean perspectives result from human cognitive processes and are then rigidified by ideological narratives. This work provides important insight to better understand radicalization and engagement in violence, and to develop appropriate responses to prevent it
A Latin American People’s Green Deal what role can collaborations between academia and activism play?
No full textTo tackle the impacts of the multiple crises they are experiencing, including the climate crisis, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have an urgent need to strengthen regional cooperation. The region’s high vulnerability, combined with its multiple inequalities, is exacerbating the impacts of phenomena such as rising temperatures, variable rainfall, melting glaciers, and the increased frequency of extreme weather events. Mass population displacements, food insecurity, environmental degradation caused by land system changes, scarcity of water and electricity, and climate change-linked loss of life and livelihoods, are some of the impacts facing entire communities in the region. These impacts will be accelerated without a fundamental change of direction (World Meteorological Organization, 2022)
A natural resource curse: the unintended effects of gold mining on malaria
No full textThis paper studies whether extractive-resource-activities provoke an ecological response on the emergence and proliferation of malaria by altering the reproductive environment of mosquitoes. In January 2004, the government of the Philippines launched the Minerals Action Plan (MAP), which significantly improved the investment climate in the country's mining sector. I exploit the timing of the reform and the spatial distribution of mineral endowments through a difference-in-differences (DID) approach that compares provinces with and without gold deposits before and after the reform. After the MAP reform, provinces with deposits of gold had 32 percent more malaria cases per 100,000 relative to provinces without gold deposits. I perform several falsification tests as well as investigate other potential mechanisms which further suggest that the main mechanism is through gold mining's creation of slow-moving bodies of stagnant water, which provide an ideal breeding site for Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria's main transmission vector, to propagate and reproduce
'A house divided against itself cannot stand’ the European Community's management of the collapse of Yugoslavia
Get PDFThe break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991 was a classic case in which the interpretation of self-determination led to new thinking about state recognition and identities. What, then, are the lessons from the Yugoslavia case for Ireland? The EC management of the crisis had two dimensions: a political one, The Hague Peace Conference, and a legal one, the European Communities Conference on Yugoslavia Arbitration Commission. In fact, these two dimensions acted in contradiction to each other. The EC's political strand was disrupted by differing perceptions within member states of strategic interests. The Arbitration Commission, however, interpreted self-determination in a principled manner that balanced democracy with the protection of national minorities. A similar balancing act is evident in the Good Friday Agreement by its recognising of multiple national identities and citizenships on the island of Ireland, and that is a good foundation for any rebalancing of principles required for reunification
Looking for the local: the politics of humanitarian recruitment in DRC
Get PDFThere is renewed energy behind “going local” in the humanitarian sector: transferring power and funding to “local” actors to make aid more equitable and efficient. Yet, this obscures how claims to localness are highly contested. This article examines the tensions generated by humanitarian recruitment of “local staff” in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hiring “locally” is deeply contentious because who is “local” is up for debate. Humanitarian recruitment of “locals” becomes another arena for political struggles over who has a claim to positions of authority and access to resources, based on disputed claims of “localness,” which continue to shape, and be shaped by, violent conflict. Humanitarian agencies become embroiled in existing conflicts about who belongs, in contexts where slippery notions of local belonging have long been used as a political resource in power contests, and as a strategy for armed mobilization. While humanitarian agencies look for an imagined “local,” representations of the local are negotiated through encounters with external organizations. Pragmatic attempts by humanitarian agencies to hire “for acceptance” concern a simultaneous rejection and embrace of contested notions of ethno-territorial belonging, in a way that ultimately risks reproducing ideas of “the local” that present ethnicity as a rigid and territorial notion. This contentious politics of recruitment reveals how aid agencies can fuel social tensions when the “local” aid category interacts with existing discourses around belonging, authority, and territory. “Going local” is thus not straightforward, but deeply political
How to hide a genocide: modern/colonial international law and the construction of impunity
No full textContext-aware frequency-embedding networks for spatio-temporal portfolio selection
No full textRecent developments in the applications of deep reinforcement learning methods to portfolio selection have achieved superior performance to conventional methods. However, two major challenges remain unaddressed in these models and inevitably lead to the deterioration of model performance. First, asset characteristics often suffer from low and unstable signal-to-noise ratios, leading to poor learning robustness of the predictive feature representations. Second, existing literature fails to consider the complexity and diversity in long-term and short-term spatio-temporal predictive relations between the feature sequences and portfolio objectives. To tackle these problems, we propose a novel Context-Aware Frequency-Embedding Graph Convolution Network (Cafe-GCN) for spatio-temporal portfolio selection. It contains three important modules: (1) frequency-embedding block that explicitly captures the short-term and long-term predictive information embedded in asset characteristics meanwhile filtering out noise; (2) context-aware block that learns multiscale temporal dependencies in the feature space; and (3) multi-relation graph convolutional block that exploits both static and dynamic spatial relations among assets. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate that Cafe-GCN consistently outperforms proposed techniques in the literature
Teaching social policy: international, comparative and global perspectives. By Zoë Irving (ed.), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023. 240 pp. £90 (hardback) and £23.35 (softback). ISBN: 978-1-03530-200-0
No full textThe mental health impact of repeated COVID-19 enforced lockdowns in England: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
No full textResearch shows initial COVID-19 lockdowns increased population mental distress. Yet, the mental health impact of repeated lockdowns in England remains unknown. To: (a) explore changes in population mental health symptoms over the COVID-19 pandemic period (March 2020 to March 2021) in England, comparing this with trends from a decade before (2009-2019) as well as after (2021-2023); (b) compare the mental health impact of each of the three lockdowns in England with periods of eased restrictions, determining who was most affected; (c) examine the impact of demographics and distinct time periods on the prevalence of mental health symptoms. A secondary analysis of a national longitudinal cohort study, utilising data from Waves 1-13 of the UK Household Longitudinal Study and from Waves 1-9 of the COVID-19 Survey. Mental health was assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. Student -tests and logistical regressions were conducted. There was a significant increase in the prevalence of self-reported symptoms of mental health during England's pandemic period, encompassing three lockdowns, compared with the average of rates from 10 years before. Rates of reported mental health symptoms were not significantly different across each lockdown, but were significantly higher than pre-pandemic rates, declining with eased restrictions. Rates from the end of lockdown to May 2023 revealed elevated mental health symptoms compared with pre-pandemic. Elevated symptoms were observed for women, people homeworking, those with health conditions, individuals aged 30-45 years and those experiencing loneliness. Repeated lockdowns in England had a substantial impact on mental health, indicating requirements for ongoing mental health support