Exploring Political Disappointment

Disappointment is often identified as a pathology of modern politics; citizens expect much of politicians, yet governments are ill-equipped to deliver outcomes commensurate with those expectations. The net result is said to be a widespread disappointment; a negative balance between what citizens expect of government and what they perceive governments to deliver. Yet little attention has hitherto been paid to which kinds of citizens are particularly disappointed with politics, and why. This article offers one of the first empirical analyses of political disappointment. Drawing on a survey conducted in Britain, it provides a quantitative measure of political disappointment and explores its prevalence among citizens. It then considers which social groups might be more prone to disappointment than others. In particular, it explores whether certain groups are more disappointed by virtue of holding very high expectations of government or very low perceptions of government performance. The article concludes by considering what strategies might be open to policy makers to alleviate political disappointment

Quantitative tests of the perceived relative argument model : reply to Guo and Regenwetter (2014)

Guo and Regenwetter (2014) took the perceived relative argument model, added various auxiliary assumptions of their own about the utility of money, made assumptions about possible stochastic specifications, and tested the various combined models against data from an experiment they conducted. However, their modeling assumptions were questionable and their experiment was unsatisfactory: The stimuli omitted crucial information, the incentives were weak, and the task load was excessive. These shortcomings undermine the quality of the data, and the study provides no new information about the scope and limitations of the perceived relative argument model or its performance relative to other models of risky choice

Trying to estimate a monetary value for the QALY

In this paper we study the possibility of estimating a monetary value for the QALY. Using two different surveys of the Spanish population (n=900), we try to establish whether willingness to pay (WTP) is (almost) proportional to the health gains measured in QALYs. We also explore whether subjects’ responses are prone to any biases. We find that the monetary value of the QALY is higher the smaller the health gain, pointing to insensitivity in WTP. We also find two clear biases. One is the existence of sequencing effects. The other is the insensitivity of WTP to the duration of the period of payment. All these effects translate into a large variation in estimates of the monetary value of the QALY. We conclude that in order to be able to obtain consistent and stable estimates, we should try to understand better the causes of these problems with a view to developing ways of mitigating them.QALYs, willingness to pay, biases.

Physically inspired interactive music machines: making contemporary composition accessible?

Much of what we might call "high-art music" occupies the difficult end of listening for contemporary audiences. Concepts such as pitch, meter and even musical instruments often have little to do with such music, where all sound is typically considered as possessing musical potential. As a result, such music can be challenging to educationalists, for students have few familiar pointers in discovering and understanding the gestures, relationships and structures in these works. This paper describes on-going projects at the University of Hertfordshire that adopt an approach of mapping interactions within visual spaces onto musical sound. These provide a causal explanation for the patterns and sequences heard, whilst incorporating web interoperability thus enabling potential for distance learning applications. While so far these have mainly driven pitch-based events using MIDI or audio files, it is hoped to extend the ideas using appropriate technology into fully developed composition tools, aiding the teaching of both appreciation/analysis and composition of contemporary music

A high stability optical shadow sensor with applications for precision accelerometers

Displacement sensors are found in a variety of applications including gravitational wave detectors, precision metrology, tissue imaging, gravimeters, microscopy, and environmental monitoring. Most of these applications benefit from the use of displacement sensors that offer both high precision and stability. This is particularly the case for gravimetry where measurements are often taken over multi-day timescales. In this paper we describe a custom-built microcontroller-based displacement sensor that has been utilized in a micro-electromechanicalsystem gravimeter. The system runs off battery power and is low-cost, portable, and lightweight. Using an optical shadow sensor technique, and by designing a digital lock-in amplier based around a dsPIC33 microcontroller, we demonstrate a displacement sensitivity of 10 nm/Hz down to 300 s, and an rms sensitivity of 1 nm over timescales of one day. The system also provides real time monitoring/control of temperature, using an AD7195 ratiometric bridge to provide mK control of three separate PT100 sensors. Furthermore, a tilt sensor conditioning circuit is incorporated to drive a pair of electrolytic tilt sensors, resulting in the ability to monitor 2 axis tilt at the level of 1 microradian over approximately 1 day. The sensor system described is thus multifunctional and capable of being incorporated into precision accelerometers/gravimeters, or indeed other applications where long term displacement/temperature monitoring is necessary

Trying to estimate a monetary value for qualy

In this paper we study the feasibility of estimating a monetary value for a QALY (MVQ). Using two different surveys of the Spanish population (total n=892), we consider whether willingness to pay (WTP) is (approximately) proportional to the health gains measured in QALYs. We also explore whether subjects’ responses are prone to any significant biases. We find that the estimated MVQ varies inversely with the magnitude of health gain. We also find two other (ir)regularities: the existence of ordering effects; and insensitivity of WTP to the duration of the period of payment. Taken together, these effects result in large variations in estimates of the MVQ. If we are ever to obtain consistent and stable estimates, we should try to understand better the sources of variability found in the course of this study.