Recommender systems have become deeply integrated into daily life, shaping decisions in online shopping, news consumption, learning, and entertainment. These systems offer personalized suggestions, enhancing user experiences in various scenarios. Behind this, machine learning engineers drive the constant evolution of recommendation technology. Described as the “growth engine” of the internet, recommender systems play a critical role in the digital ecosystem. This chapter explores the role of these systems, why they are essential, and how they are architected from a technical perspective.

This volume offers the beginnings of an answer to the question: “How can we understand and intervene in contemporary legal practice using texts from the rhetorical tradition?” Here, the study of legal rhetoric is conceived as having a macro and a micro scale, much as a mosaic represents a picture, but it is made up of many small pebbles, tiles, or pieces of glass – tesserae. Some rhetorical texts embrace grand theories, sketching perhaps a broad expanse of a picture, but not filling in the tesserae. This volume is decidedly of another kind, depicting a variety of rhetorical traditions as applied to very specific rhetorical performances from the contemporary American legal tradition. This introduction first identifies a set of criteria for evaluating the utility of rhetorical traditions as tools for understanding contemporary legal practices. It then sketches a very brief and incomplete history of the interaction of these two fields. Finally, it describes the contributions of this volume.

This chapter examines two Ghanaian health programs which embodied many ideas and practices of social medicine. The first is a system of village clinic-dispensaries which was built by chiefs and the communities whom they represented, providing treatment and advice to thousands of outpatients. The second is the Medical Field Units (MFUs), which arose from 1945, serving extensive rural areas that lay beyond the reach of both the colonial and early post-independence states. Their successes were recognized by the first government of independent Ghana and after independence in 1957, the MFU program was expanded countrywide and became central to the continued provision of basic health services when other parts of the national health system collapsed. However, ideologies of reduced welfare and severe austerity during Adjustment caused the closing-down of the program in the early 1990s. The chapter relates the evolution of the MFU program to social histories of individual advocacy, healthcare reforms from colonialism to independence, and shifts in internationally circulating economic beliefs regarding the role of welfare and the state.

This chapter begins by acknowledging the value of the classical model of scientific discovery with its commitment to isolating variables and cancelling out noise to give us a sense of significance in the numerical results produced. But the 20 chapters in this book amply demonstrate that in the real world of discovery things are messy, unpredictable, and highly differentiated within and across disciplines. Such enduring principles of discovery, emerging from the work of scientists and scholars, are identified not only for their intellectual value but also for their practical guidance for those engaged in advanced research.

The commodification of brokers and intense Peronist infighting created a window of opportunity for Cambiemos candidates to build their own networks, challenging the Peronist monopoly over broker networks in vulnerable areas. This chapter employs ethnographic research to illustrate how Cambiemos mayors recruited brokers. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mayors and brokers in four Conurbano Bonaerense municipalities – Lanús, Pilar, Quilmes, and Tres de Febrero – it provides a unique account of how these new networks were established over time. The chapter details how mayors recruited militants from Cambiemos allies, disenchanted Peronist brokers, and community leaders who previously had no political experience, thereby strengthening their local networks.

In the wake of the legal realist repudiation of traditional formalism, there existed an absence of a satisfying conceptual account of appellate court lawmaking in America. This void was eventually filled, almost by default, by a notion of appellate court lawmaking that is a kind of idealized version of legislative lawmaking whereby appellate courts choose to make one plausible version or another of legal doctrine the authoritative law based on their balancing of societal costs and benefits deemed to be associated with each possibility. This approach evaluates each competing version of common law in terms of the degree to which each best advances the underlying social purposes sought to be advanced by the doctrinal area in question. This newly embraced approach is often called instrumentalism.

This chapter provides a detailed description and analysis of a famous instance of modern instrumentalist analysis by a high-profile appellate court. The case is Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, decided by the California Supreme Court in 1976, and announcing for the first time in the United States the existence of a formal tort law duty for a therapist to warn the intended victim of violent behavior by a patient.

This chapter explores the debilitating nature of chronic pain and the potential of music therapy as a complementary treatment. It acknowledges the complex nature of chronic pain, which can arise from both physical and psychological factors. The chapter highlights the limited research on music therapy for chronic pain, but emphasizes the positive results found in studies involving patients with migraines and tension headaches. It also discusses the potential for music to address both the physical and emotional aspects of chronic pain, through relaxation techniques, emotional expression, and social support. The chapter offers practical recommendations for individuals with chronic pain, suggesting ways to utilize music for pain relief, emotional regulation, and improved well-being. It encourages the use of music as a distraction from pain, a tool for relaxation, and a means of promoting positive emotions. It also suggests specific techniques such as deep breathing with calming music and gentle stroking to alleviate pain. The chapter concludes by highlighting the importance of seeking professional music therapy for those with chronic pain, emphasizing its potential to improve quality of life and provide a holistic approach to pain management.

This chapter focuses on the regulation of migration from third countries after the Single European Act and before the failed Constitutional Treaty. It presents various failed proposals of the Commission during these years, showing the interaction and opposing views of the Commission and the Council. A closer investigation into the Commission’s work shows that this institution continuously envisioned and proposed a legal framework that could efficiently serve the economic and social objectives of the EU project through the regulation of migration, thereby shaping a framework of sustainable migration. At the same time, Member States in the Council expressed a strong political discourse emphasizing their common efforts to progress in the EU, while in practice they blocked the relevant proposals because they could not agree on a common EU conception of growth and progress. Instead, what they pursued was national growth and progress. During this time, the first instruments on admission and rights for TCN migrants were adopted with standards significantly downgraded from the initial proposals.

The discovery of anaesthesia transformed the human condition, and unplanned awareness returns a patient to the nightmare that was surgery before anaesthesia and effective analgesia. Significant advances in the pharmacology and technology of anaesthesia have still not brought reliable means of monitoring its depth much closer, although because awareness is such a serious complication, considerable research effort has been dedicated to the search for methods of detection. Some of these remain research tools or are not yet in widespread use, but you should have some idea about which of them may in due course find their way into clinical practice. Most current interest centres around bispectral index (BIS) monitoring, with recommendations both from the Association of Anaesthetists and from NICE, which are summarised in this section, and it is likely that the oral will focus more on BIS than on the other technologies.

This chapter explores the unique relationship between music and individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It highlights the remarkable musical abilities often found in people with autism, contrasting with their challenges in social interaction and communication. Research shows that music can serve as a bridge, facilitating social interaction and emotional expression for those on the spectrum. Brain imaging studies reveal how brain regions typically associated with language processing are activated in autistic individuals when they engage with music. This suggests that music may offer an alternative pathway for communication and emotional understanding. The chapter also discusses the therapeutic applications of music for individuals with autism, such as auditory-motor mapping training (AMMT), which has shown promise in improving verbal communication and social skills. Music therapy can also foster emotional expression, social connection, and a sense of belonging. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding and embracing the individual’s musical preferences and strengths in order to support their development and well-being.

The second part of the book investigates the implementation of the policy. As far as preventive surveillance is concerned, at its core lay the country-specific recommendations on the macroeconomic policies of the member states. These recommendations are the object of intense negotiations between the Commission and the Council. Why are they a matter of bargaining? What shapes the Council’s propensity to modify the Commission’s proposals and what affects their strengthening or weakening? This chapter employs bargaining and compliance theories to address these questions. Analyzing the recommendations issued between 1999 and 2019, it shows that the Council is rather active in modifying the Commission’s assessments and strengthens four-fifths of the recommending provisions that it decides to modify. Economic and supranational factors dominate this process. Governments balance the pressures originating from the bargaining dynamic within the Council with the need to preserve policy credibility and effectiveness in the face of noncompliance and worsening economic conditions.

To acquire new knowledge of the physical universe, it is necessary to build large research infrastructures that replace the older generation instruments that have exhausted its scientific capabilities. This premise drives the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), an intergovernmental organization constructing two large radio telescopes with complementary science goals in Australia and South Africa. Big science requires the resources of many countries, and the SKAO was established to realize it. Although the corresponding growth in investment enables steady scientific advancement, step increments in knowledge are often serendipitous, and new-generation telescopes are designed to maximize their ‘discovery space’. Big science also needs large, multinational research teams to drive the key science objectives that define the large instruments, but often major discoveries result from the ingenuity of small groups or individuals with unique opportunities and skills. This is a personal account of my involvement in observational radio astronomy that led to the construction of the SKA-mid telescope in South Africa, highlighting the influence of privilege, providence, and lived experience on my career.