Measuring agreement: How to arrive at reliable measures of opinion congruence between voters and parties.

in Representation (in press)

The extent to which voters and parties agree on policies is an important way through which political scientists have empirically studied political representation. This opinion congruence is most often ... [more ▼]

The extent to which voters and parties agree on policies is an important way through which political scientists have empirically studied political representation. This opinion congruence is most often measured by comparing preferences on a number of policy statements. While the selection of policy statements has not escaped scholarly attention, its impact on the reliability of congruence scores, i.e. the degree to which similar levels of opinion congruence are found when different samples of policy statements are used, has been less investigated. This article looks at which factors of statements samples and voters affect the reliability of congruence measures. It does so by simulating over 5 million opinion congruence scores on the basis of a dataset containing 134 voter and party policy preferences. It finds that both the number of statements and their topic diversity positively affect the reliability of congruence estimates. In addition, the congruence estimates of politically less sophisticated voters are more reliable but only when many left-right policy statements are included in the statement selection. Finally, explorative analyses suggest that increasing topic diversity also increases the validity of congruence measures. [less ▲]

The Effects of Natural Sounds and Proxemic Distances on the Perception of a Noisy Domestic Flying Robot

in ACM Transactions on Human - Robot Interaction (in press)

When flying robots are used in close-range interaction with humans, the noise they generate, also called consequential sound, is a critical parameter for user acceptance. We conjecture that there is a ... [more ▼]

When flying robots are used in close-range interaction with humans, the noise they generate, also called consequential sound, is a critical parameter for user acceptance. We conjecture that there is a benefit in adding natural sounds to noisy domestic drones. To test our hypothesis experimentally, we carried out a mixed-methods research study (N=56) on reported user perception of a sonified domestic flying robot with three sound conditions at three distances. The natural sounds studied were respectively added to the robot’s inherent noises during flying; namely a birdsong and a rain sound, plus a control condition of no added sound. The distances studied were set according to proxemics; namely near, middle, and far. Our results show that adding birdsong or rain sound affects the participants’ perceptions, and the proxemic distances play a nonnegligible role. For instance, we found that participants liked the bird condition the most when the drone was at far, while they disliked the same sound the most when at near. We also found that participants’ perceptions strongly depended on their associations and interpretations deriving from previous experience. We derived six concrete design recommendations. [less ▲]

Short-Packet Communications in Multi-Hop Networks with WET: Performance Analysis and Deep Learning-Aided Optimization

in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (in press)

The precautionary principle under EU law: a postmodern principle in a post-truth era

in Farah, Paolo (Ed.) Science, Policy and International Law (in press)

We live in a post-truth society, where “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In this context, the core claim of this chapter is that ... [more ▼]

We live in a post-truth society, where “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In this context, the core claim of this chapter is that to understand the definition and implications of the post-truth society, it is necessary to analyze the theoretical framework under which the concept of post-truth emerged: post-modernism. Under the theoretical framework of post-modernism, the analysis of the precautionary principle is utterly significant since it can be defined as a “paradigmatic principle” of post-modern law. Indeed, as this chapter will demonstrate, the precautionary principle shares the same features of flexibility (in its double dimension of smooth and adaptable principle) and complexity (as an interdisciplinary principle negotiated by scientific experts and political decision-makers) that belong to post-modern principles. [less ▲]

Local scaling limits of Lévy driven fractional random fields

in Bernoulli (in press)

Data-driven Mutation Analysis for Cyber-Physical Systems

in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (in press)

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) typically consist of a wide set of integrated, heterogeneous components; consequently, most of their critical failures relate to the interoperability of such components ... [more ▼]

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) typically consist of a wide set of integrated, heterogeneous components; consequently, most of their critical failures relate to the interoperability of such components. Unfortunately, most CPS test automation techniques are preliminary and industry still heavily relies on manual testing. With potentially incomplete, manually-generated test suites, it is of paramount importance to assess their quality. Though mutation analysis has demonstrated to be an effective means to assess test suite quality in some specific contexts, we lack approaches for CPSs. Indeed, existing approaches do not target interoperability problems and cannot be executed in the presence of black-box or simulated components, a typical situation with CPSs. In this paper, we introduce data-driven mutation analysis, an approach that consists in assessing test suite quality by verifying if it detects interoperability faults simulated by mutating the data exchanged by software components. To this end, we describe a data-driven mutation analysis technique (DaMAT) that automatically alters the data exchanged through data buffers. Our technique is driven by fault models in tabular form where engineers specify how to mutate data items by selecting and configuring a set of mutation operators. We have evaluated DaMAT with CPSs in the space domain; specifically, the test suites for the software systems of a microsatellite and nanosatellites launched on orbit last year. Our results show that the approach effectively detects test suite shortcomings, is not affected by equivalent and redundant mutants, and entails acceptable costs. [less ▲]

Limit theorems for additive functionals of the fractional Brownian motion

in Annals of Probability (in press)

Calabi-Yau structures for multiplicative preprojective algebras

in Journal of Noncommutative Geometry (in press)

Techno-overload and well-being of French small business owners: identifying the flipside of digital technologies

in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (in press)

Technostress is an important by-product of information and communication technologies (ICT). The technostress literature suggests focusing on specific dimensions of technostress, such as techno-overload ... [more ▼]

Technostress is an important by-product of information and communication technologies (ICT). The technostress literature suggests focusing on specific dimensions of technostress, such as techno-overload, which describes when ICT usage demands to work faster and longer. However, only a few studies have dealt with the technostress of small business owners, let alone techno-overload. This is surprising since work overload in general has been identified as an important dimension of job stress for small business owners, and technostress has been identified as an important impediment for workers in general. The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of techno-overload on well-being outcomes (as a composite measure consisting of physical well-being, mental well-being, sleep quality, burnout, and loneliness) using three data sets of French small business owners. Our results indicate a strong negative correlation between techno-overload and our composite measure of well-being for all three data sets. We interpret our findings for several different disciplines: information systems, small business owners and entrepreneurship, health and well-being, psychology and organization studies. Our data also allow for the identification of contextual effects – the COVID-19 pandemic – since one survey was conducted before, one at the start of, and one during the pandemic. [less ▲]

A test of the Modigliani-Miller theorem, dividend policy and algorithmic arbitrage in experimental asset markets

in Journal of Banking and Finance (in press)

Modigliani and Miller showed the market value of the company is independent of its capital structure, and suggested that dividend policy makes no difference to this law of one price. We experimentally ... [more ▼]

Modigliani and Miller showed the market value of the company is independent of its capital structure, and suggested that dividend policy makes no difference to this law of one price. We experimentally test the Modigliani-Miller theorem in a complete market with two simultaneously traded assets, employing two experimental treatment variations. The first variation involves the dividend stream. According to this variation the dividend payment order is either identical or independent. The second variation involves the market participation, or not, of an algorithmic arbitrageur. We find that Modigliani-Miller’s law of one price can be supported on average with or without an arbitrageur when dividends are identical. The law of one price breaks down when dividend payment order is independent unless there is arbitrageur participation. [less ▲]