1,721,874 research outputs found
Essays on Liberalism and the Economy:Editor’s Introduction
Full text linkThis is my editor's introduction to a volume of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, entitled Essays on Liberalism, Economics, Justice, and Democrac
Essays on Liberalism and the Economy:Editor’s Introduction
Full text linkThis is my editor's introduction to a volume of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, entitled Essays on Liberalism, Economics, Justice, and Democrac
Semantic Retrieval and Automatic Annotation: Linear Transformations, Correlation and Semantic Spaces
No full textThis paper proposes a new technique for auto-annotation and semantic retrieval based upon the idea of linearly mapping an image feature space to a keyword space. The new technique is compared to several related techniques, and a number of salient points about each of the techniques are discussed and contrasted. The paper also discusses how these techniques might actually scale to a real-world retrieval problem, and demonstrates this though a case study of a semantic retrieval technique being used on a real-world data-set (with a mix of annotated and unannotated images) from a picture library
Salient Region Filtering For Background Subtraction
No full textThe use of salient regions is an increasingly popular approach to image retrieval. For situations where object retrieval is required and where the foreground and background can be assumed to have different characteristics, it becomes useful to exclude salient regions which are characteristic of the background if they can be identified before matching is undertaken. This paper proposes a technique to enhance the performance of object retrieval by filtering out salient regions believed to be associated with the background area of the images. Salient regions from background only images are extracted and clustered using descriptors representing the salient regions. The clusters are then used in the retrieval process to identify salient regions likely to be part of the background in images containing object and background. Salient regions close to background clusters are pruned before matching and only the remaining salient regions are used in the retrieval. Experiments on object retrieval show that the use of salient region background filtering gives an improvement in performance when compared with the unfiltered method
A global profile of language development versus language endangerment
No full textOne of the lasting contributions of Fishman’s (1991) seminal book, Reversing Language Shift, is GIDS — the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale. He developed GIDS as a measuring rod for the level of threat to long-term language maintenance. The scale has eight levels (numbered 1 to 8) representing increasing levels of threat or disruption. At level 1, representing virtually no threat, is an official national language with a standardized written form that is used for the business of government and passed to the next generation through a national system of compulsory education. At level 8, representing virtually assured language death, is a language spoken only by the elderly. The six levels in between represent successively fewer functions for language in society as the level of disruption increases. The basic premise of GIDS is that language shift happens as languages lose functions in society. To reverse language shift, the community must engage in language development activities to bring those functions back and to even add new functions that further strengthen the position of the language (like writing and use in formal education).
GIDS is well elaborated on the safe end, but has only two levels on the endangered end. By contrast, the scale developed by the UNESCO Expert Meeting on Safeguarding Endangered Languages (Brenzinger and others 2003) identifies four levels of endangerment, but does not distinguish different levels on the safe end of the scale. We have developed an Extended GIDS (Authors 2010) by harmonizing GIDS, the UNESCO scale, and categories used in Ethnologue (Lewis 2009). The EGIDS is a 13-level scale which recognizes the following levels (from highest to lowest): International, National, Provincial, Wider Communication, Educational, Developing, Vigorous, Threatened, Shifting, Moribund, Nearly Extinct, Dormant, Extinct.
The paper will present the results of our efforts to assign an EGIDS level to every known language enumerated in the ISO 639-3 standard (ISO 2007). Since EGIDS differentiates levels of development as well as levels of endangerment, we can report not only on the extent of language endangerment worldwide, but also on the extent of language development. For instance, we find that of 7,065 known living languages, 12% are dying (8a and lower) and 21% are in trouble (6b and 7). By contrast, 10% have attained the relative safety of institutionalization (4 and higher) and 19% are vigorous with development taking place (5). This leaves 38% that are still vigorous, but not developing (6a)
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Legitimation and Political Crises: East European Developments in the Post-Stalin Period
No full textUnder the entry for ‘Legitimation’ in the 1933 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences the social researcher is succinctly enjoined to ‘See Illegitimacy’. In the 1968 International Encyclopaedia, on the other hand, there is no entry under ‘Legitimation’ while Dolf Sternberger has several pages to expound the meaning and historical origins of the term ‘legitimacy’ ( 1 ). Observing East European politics in the nineteen-eighties it is difficult to avoid the judgement that the brief directive in the earlier edition is no less useful than the more detailed information provided in the nineteen - sixties volume on the roots and nature of legitimacy. There are two reasons why this should be so
Replication Data for: Land-to-Sea Sediment Fluxes from a Major Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Were Stepped Rather Than Instantaneous
No full textGlacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) can transport large volumes of sediment. Where these floods reach the coastline, much of that particulate matter is delivered directly to the marine environment. It has been suggested that offshore deposits, specifically in fjord settings, may provide a faithful record of past outburst flood events. However, a lack of observations means that the mechanics and the timing of offshore transport of sediment following a glacial lake outburst event remain poorly constrained. Here, we document the changes in sea surface sediment dynamics following the 28 November 2020 Elliot Lake outburst flood in British Columbia, which transported ~4.3x106 m3 of sediment into an adjacent fjord (Bute Inlet) as a deep nepheloid layer directly following the event. However, analysis of sea surface turbidity using in situ measurements and satellite-derived estimates reveals that changes in fjord-head surface turbidity in the months following the major flood were surprisingly small. The highest measured sea surface turbidity instead occurred five months after the initial outburst flood. This delayed increase in seaward sediment flux was coincident with the onset of the spring freshet, when discharge of the rivers feeding Bute Inlet increase each year. We suggest that large quantities of sediment were temporarily stored within the river catchment, and only remobilised when river discharge exceeded a threshold level following seasonal snowmelt. Our results reveal a temporal disconnect, where onshore to offshore transfer of sediment is stepped following a glacial lake outburst flood, which could complicate the sedimentology of subsequent deposits
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Afterword
No full textIt would be pointless to attempt anything in the nature of an overall conclusion on the prospects for legitimation or crisis in the East European states. But some indications emerge from the contributions included here. The discussion contained in the preceding chapters suggests a precarious legitimation of the regime in the German Democratic Republic and Hungary which could well be reversed in the face of future problems. From the account of Czechoslovakia it would seem that current power-holders have good chances of perpetuating their rule and maintaining their authority in terms of an ideology of workerism. Legitimation in Poland appears more problematic with the inability of the regime to attract much popular support and the enormous problems involved in overcoming the weakness of the Polish economy. Nevertheless the limited and partial achievement of regime legitimacy in Eastern Europe should not be equated with any prediction of political collapse. As perceptive East European observers have recently pointed out, the countries of the region (particularly Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland) may well be characterised by a ‘permanent legitimation crisis’. But even protracted legitimation crisis ‘does not inescapably lead to the collapse of a social order’
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