Multi-cultural visualization : how functional programming can enrich visualization (and vice versa)

The past two decades have seen visualization flourish as a research field in its own right, with advances on the computational challenges of faster algorithms, new techniques for datasets too large for in-core processing, and advances in understanding the perceptual and cognitive processes recruited by visualization systems, and through this, how to improve the representation of data. However, progress within visualization has sometimes proceeded in parallel with that in other branches of computer science, and there is a danger that when novel solutions ossify into `accepted practice' the field can easily overlook significant advances elsewhere in the community. In this paper we describe recent advances in the design and implementation of pure functional programming languages that, significantly, contain important insights into questions raised by the recent NIH/NSF report on Visualization Challenges. We argue and demonstrate that modern functional languages combine high-level mathematically-based specifications of visualization techniques, concise implementation of algorithms through fine-grained composition, support for writing correct programs through strong type checking, and a different kind of modularity inherent in the abstractive power of these languages. And to cap it off, we have initial evidence that in some cases functional implementations are faster than their imperative counterparts

Fine-grained visualization pipelines and lazy functional languages

The pipeline model in visualization has evolved from a conceptual model of data processing into a widely used architecture for implementing visualization systems. In the process, a number of capabilities have been introduced, including streaming of data in chunks, distributed pipelines, and demand-driven processing. Visualization systems have invariably built on stateful programming technologies, and these capabilities have had to be implemented explicitly within the lower layers of a complex hierarchy of services. The good news for developers is that applications built on top of this hierarchy can access these capabilities without concern for how they are implemented. The bad news is that by freezing capabilities into low-level services expressive power and flexibility is lost. In this paper we express visualization systems in a programming language that more naturally supports this kind of processing model. Lazy functional languages support fine-grained demand-driven processing, a natural form of streaming, and pipeline-like function composition for assembling applications. The technology thus appears well suited to visualization applications. Using surface extraction algorithms as illustrative examples, and the lazy functional language Haskell, we argue the benefits of clear and concise expression combined with fine-grained, demand-driven computation. Just as visualization provides insight into data, functional abstraction provides new insight into visualization

Pastoral care according to the bishops of England and Wales (c.1170 – 1228)

Church leaders have always been seen as shepherds, expected to feed their flock with teaching, to guide them to salvation, and to preserve them from threatening ‘wolves’. In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, ideas about the specifics of these pastoral duties were developing rapidly, especially in the schools of Paris and at the papal curia. Scholarly assessments of the bishops of England and Wales in this period emphasise their political and administrative activities, but there is growing interest in their pastoral role. In this thesis, the texts produced by these bishops are examined. These texts, several of which had been neglected, form a corpus of evidence that has never before been assembled. Almost all of them had a pastoral application, and thus they reveal how bishops understood and exercised their pastoral duties. Although bishops’ preaching was rarely recorded in narrative sources, combining this evidence with the extant sermons left by bishops reveals episcopal preaching to clerical, lay, and monastic audiences. Bishops also instructed the clergy through their writing. The two subjects bishops addressed most frequently were the Eucharist and confession. As new ideas about these sacraments emerged, even educated bishops fell behind the pace of change. Bishops’ treatments of the sacraments changed significantly across the period as these ideas became established. The ‘wolves’ that threatened the flock were most readily identified as heretics. England was largely unaffected by the popular heresy seen in some other regions, and bishops dealt with heretics of this kind abroad as often as at home. Other threats to orthodoxy in England were identified, however, and in some cases resisted vigorously. The evidence of these bishops’ writing confirms that, even in the midst of political turmoil and administrative innovation, pastoral care remained fundamental to episcopal office. Bishops sought to implement the ideas of Paris and Rome in their dioceses.(2015-18) Pigott Doctoral Studentship, Cambridge Home and European Scholarship Scheme (CHESS) (2015-18) Senior Scholarship, Fitzwilliam College (2018) Fitzwilliam College, 10th term fundin

Comida chatarra, Estado y mercado

El objetivo fundamental de esta colección es un llamado a la reflexión y a la toma de conciencia por parte de todos los involucrados –padres de familia, educadores, directivos de empresa, líderes políticos, organizaciones de la sociedad civil, entre otros– sobre los peligros y las graves consecuencias derivadas del creciente sobrepeso y de la obesidad en nuestra sociedad, sin descuidar la otra cara de la moneda que es la desnutrición crónica infantil. En segundo lugar, se busca provocar la reflexión y el debate sobre el rol del Estado, el mercado, las empresas (tanto la industria de alimentos como las agencias de publicidad), la sociedad civil y las familias, en la provocación o prevención de esta epidemia. Finalmente, buscamos plantear diversas soluciones para este problema antes de que sea demasiado tarde

'Word from the street' : when non-electoral representative claims meet electoral representation in the United Kingdom

Taking the specific case of street protests in the UK – the ‘word from the street’– this article examines recent (re)conceptualizations of political representation, most particularly Saward’s notion of ‘representative claim’. The specific example of nonelectoral claims articulated by protestors and demonstrators in the UK is used to illustrate: the processes of making, constituting, evaluating and accepting claims for and by constituencies and audiences; and the continuing distinctiveness of claims based upon electoral representation. Two basic questions structure the analysis: first, why would the political representative claims of elected representatives trump the nonelectoral claims of mass demonstrators and, second, in what ways does the ‘perceived legitimacy’ of the former differ from the latter

Does wage rank affect employees' well-being?

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well-being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness

So Far So Good: Age, Happiness, and Relative Income

In a simple 2-period model of relative income under uncertainty, higher comparison income for the younger cohort can signal higher or lower expected lifetime relative income, and hence either increase or decrease well-being. With data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey, we first confirm the standard negative effects of comparison income on life satisfaction with all age groups, and many controls. However when we split the West German sample by age we find a positive significant effect of comparison income in the under 45s, and the usual negative effect only in the over 45 group. With the same split in UK and East German data, comparison income loses significance, which is consistent with the model prediction for the younger group. Our results provide first evidence that the standard aggregation with only a quadratic control for age can obscure major differences in the effects of relative income

A four-year, systems-wide intervention promoting interprofessional collaboration

Background: A four-year action research study was conducted across the Australian Capital Territory health system to strengthen interprofessional collaboration (IPC) through multiple intervention activities. Methods: We developed 272 substantial IPC intervention activities involving 2,407 face-to-face encounters with health system personnel. Staff attitudes toward IPC were surveyed yearly using Heinemann et al’s Attitudes toward Health Care Teams and Parsell and Bligh’s Readiness for Interprofessional Learning scales (RIPLS). At study’s end staff assessed whether project goals were achieved. Results: Of the improvement projects, 76 exhibited progress, and 57 made considerable gains in IPC. Educational workshops and feedback sessions were well received and stimulated interprofessional activities. Over time staff scores on Heinemann’s Quality of Interprofessional Care subscale did not change significantly and scores on the Doctor Centrality subscale increased, contrary to predictions. Scores on the RIPLS subscales of Teamwork & Collaboration and Professional Identity did not alter. On average for the assessment items 33% of staff agreed that goals had been achieved, 10% disagreed, and 57% checked ‘neutral’. There was most agreement that the study had resulted in increased sharing of knowledge between professions and improved quality of patient care, and least agreement that between-professional rivalries had lessened and communication and trust between professions improved. Conclusions: Our longitudinal interventional study of IPC involving multiple activities supporting increased IPC achieved many project-specific goals, but improvements in attitudes over time were not demonstrated and neutral assessments predominated, highlighting the difficulties faced by studies targeting change at the systems level and over extended periods