Veracity Problem: A Review of Various PageRanking Algorithms

Veracity Problem: A Review of Various PageRanking Algorithms Abstract Enormous availability of web pages containing information leaves user in confusion of which webpage to trust and which link provides the right information. This paper provides a survey of the most relevant studies carried out in regard of ranking web pages. First, it introduces the problem of â€Å"Veracity† , conformity to truth. It then goes on to list the most common algorithms that have been used to resolve the problem of conformity to truth. Finally, this analysis provides a way to guide future research in this field. Keywords: Trustworthiness, ranking Introduction The world wide web has become the most important information source. Everyone uses WWW for searching any information about any particular thing or keyword. It is very common that the results we obtain provide a lot of useless pages. Different websites generally provide conflicting information about same object. It becomes quite difficult to decide about the correctness of information we get from search engines. In most cases, users believe that the topmost links provided by any search engine provide trustworthy results without regard to exceptions. But there is no surity for the accuracy of information present on the internet. Moreover, various websites generally provide inconsistent and conflicting information for same object, like different specifications for same product. For instance a user is interested in knowing the height of Mount Everest and queries the search engine with â€Å"The height of Mount Everest is?† Among the top results, user will find the following facts: some websites say 29,055 feet, other websites say 29,028 feet, another one says 29,002 feet, and rest say 29,027 feet. It becomes difficult to decide which answer is correct and which fact should user trust?[1] . The question is how to decide the right information and how to decide the trustworthiness of any website. The problem is known as ‘Veracity’. It becomes quite difficult for the user to decide which website to trust for the correctness of information. The resultant pages of any search engine must be ranked according to decreasing level of trustworthiness. To resolve this problem, different algorithms have been developed. The existing algorithm Page Rank which is used by Google, uses link structure of the web page[2]. Another algorithm exists known as Weighted PageRank(WPR) Algorithm. It assigns larger rank values to more popular webpages rather than dividing the rank value of a webpage evenly among its outlink pages[3]. Each outlink page gets a value corresponding to its popularity (count of inlinks and outlinks). Voting is another approach to rank web pages which uses the count of votes from one webpage to another and ranks webpages with respect to the count results. Authority-Hub analysis is also used for ranking webpages. It works on the idea of high authorities and popularity of websites. These approaches identify important web pages as per user’s interest but popularity of webpages does not guarantee accuracy of information. A less popular website may provide more useful and accurate information as compared to more popular websites. All of them use iterative approaches, in which same trustworthiness value is given to all data sources, and iteratively evaluate the confidence of every fact and then propagate back to the data sources. Tagrank, Distancerank, Timerank, Relation based algorithm, Weighted link rank. This paper surveys the most relevant algorithms proposed in this field as solution to the problem of ranking the web pages. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 1 discusses different techniques for ranking web pages. Section 2 presents the analysis and section 3 contains a brief conclusion. Techniques for Ranking Web Pages: 2.1 PageRank: PageRank is a method of measuring a pages â€Å"significance†[2]. PageRank is based on the idea that good pages always reference good pages. PageRank’s theory says that if Page A links to Page B, then that link is counted as one vote for page B. If any link pointing to a page is important then it is counted as a strong vote. If links pointing to a page are important then the outlinks of that page also become important. Fig1 : A and B are backlinks of C In this figure, A and B are backlinks of C and C is the backlink of D and E. Assume A, B, C and D are four webpages. Self links or multiple links from one page to another page, are ignored. Initially same PageRank value is assigned to all pages. Originally in PageRank, the total number of webpages was the sum of PageRank over all pages. However, advanced versions of PageRank use a  probability distribution between 0 and 1. Hence the initial value for each page mentioned above is 0.25. In the next iteration the PageRank is transferred from a given page to its outbound links is equally divided among them. If in the system links were from pagesB,C, andDtoA then each link would transfer probability distribution of 0.25 PageRank toAon next iteration, for a total of 0.75. PR(A) = PR(B)+PR(C)+PR(D) = + + In general case, for any page u the PageRank value can be stated as: L(v) number of outlinks of pagev. Bu set containing all pages that links to pageu. The PageRank value for a pageuis dependent on the PageRank values for each pagevcontained in the setBu, divided by the numberL(v) of outlinks of pagev. 2.2 Weighted Pagerank: WPR algorithm is an extension to the ordinary PageRank algorithm. Limitation of existing algorithms HITS and PageRank is that both algorithms deal all links uniformly when distributing rank scores[3]. WPR considers the significance of both inlinks and outlinks of the webpages and on the basis of popularity of pages, the rank scores are distributed. PageRank algorithm divides the rank values of any page evenly amongst its outlink pages, while WPR assigns higher rank values to more popular webpages. Considering the significance of webpages, the original PageRank equation is modified as [3]: [4] 2.3 Distancerank: Distancerank is an intelligent ranking algorithm proposed by Ali Mohammad Zareh Bidoki and Nasser Yazdani[11]. This algorithm is based on reinforcement learning such that the distance between pages is considered as a punishment factor. The distance is defined as the number of ‘‘average clicks’’ between two pages. The distance dj of page j is computed as : +ÃŽ ±*mini(log(O(i))+di)[11] where i is a member of pages that point to j and O(i) shows out degree of i and a is the learning rate of the user[1]. 2.4 Hyperlink Induced Topic Search (HITS): The HITS algorithm is also known as â€Å"hubs and authorities† is a link analysis algorithm. HITS divides the sites of a query between â€Å"hubs† and â€Å"authorities† for ranking webpages. Links to authorities are contained in hubs, while hubs point to authorities [6]. Hubs Authorities HITS assigns two values to a webpage: a hub weight and an authority weight. These weights are defined recursively. A high authority weight occurs if webpages with high hub weights are pointing it. Similarly, a higher hub weight occurs if the webpage points to large webpages with high authority weights. Thus, itidentifies good authorities and hubs for any query. HITS works on the concept that if the creator of webpage p has a link to webpage q then p has some authority on q[6]. 2.5 TimeRank: Time Rank algorithm proposed by H Jiang et al improves the rank score of web pages by using the visit time of web pages. This algorithm is supposed to be a combination of link structure and content[9]. Pr (T(i)|q) = Pr (T(i)) + Pr (q|T(i)) Ti à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ® means topic i of each page. Pr (T (i)) means the section of pages belonging to topic i in the whole page set. Pr (Ti | q) means the probability of query q related to topic i. 2.6 Web Page Ranking using link attributes: Weighted Links Rank (WLRank) assigns the value R(i), known as Ranking value, to page i with the following equations[12]: Where, given a link from page j to page i we have: L(j; i) 1 if the link exists, 0 otherwise, c a constant that gives a base weight to every link, T(j; i) a value which depends on the tag where the link is put in, AL(j; i) the anchor text length of the link divided by a constant d, and RP(j; i) the relative position of the link in the page weighted by a constant b. Analysis: Different algorithms for ranking webpages have been studied and the analysis is presented in the following table: References: [1] X. Yin, J. Han, and P. S. Yu, â€Å"Truth Discovery with Multiple Conflicting Information Providers on the Web†, IEEE Transactions On Knowledge And Data Engineering, Vol. 20, No. 6, June 2008. [2] C. Ridings and M. Shishigin, â€Å"Pagerank Uncovered†, Technical Report, 2002. [3]Wenpu Xing and Ali Ghorbani, â€Å"Weighted PageRank Algorithm†, In proceedings of the 2rd Annual Conference on Communication Networks Services Research, PP. 305-314, 2004. [4]Wenpu Xing and Ali Ghorbani, â€Å"Weighted PageRank Algorithm†, In proceedings of the 2rd Annual Conference on Communication Networks Services Research, PP. 305-314, 2004. [5] Geeta R. Bharamagoudar , Shashikumar G.Totad and Prasad Reddy PVGD, â€Å" Literature Survey on Web Mining† IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering ,Issue 4 (Sep-Oct. 2012). [6] Jon Kleinberg, â€Å"Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment†, In proceedings of the ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, 1998. [7] Lin-Tao Lv, Li-Ping Chen, Hong-Fang Zhou, An improved topic relevance algorithm for vertical search engines, ICWAPR 08, Hong Kong, pp. 753-757, Aug 2008. [8] H Jiang et al., TIMERANK: A Method of Improving Ranking Scores by Visited Time, In proceedings of the Seventh International  Conference on Machine Learning and Cybernetics, Kunming, 12-15 July 2008. [9] S. Chakrabarti, B. Dom, D. Gibson, J. Kleinberg, R. Kumar, P.Raghavan, S. Rajagopalan, A. Tomkins, â€Å"Mining the Link Structure of the World Wide Web†, IEEE Computer Society Press, Vol 32, Issue 8 pp. 60 – 67, 1999. [10] Fabrizio Lamberti, Andrea Sanna and Claudio Demartini , â€Å"A Relation-Based Page Rank Algorithm for. Semantic Web Search Engines†, In IEEE Transaction of KDE, Vol. 21, No. 1, Jan 2009. [11] Ali Mohammad Zareh Bidoki and Nasser Yazdani, â€Å"DistanceRank: An Iintelligent Ranking Algorithm for Web Pages†, Information Processing and Management, 2007. [12] Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Emilio Davis ,Web page ranking using link attributes , In proceedings of the 13th international World Wide Web conference on Alternate track papers posters, PP.328-329, 2004. [13] Milan Vojnovic et al., â€Å"Ranking and Suggesting Popular Items†, In IEEE Transaction of KDE, Vol. 21, No. 8, Aug 2009. [14] Fang Liu, Clement Yu, Weiyi Meng, â€Å"Personalized Web Search for Improving Retrieval Effectiveness†, IEEE transactions on knowledge and data engineering, 16 (1) January 2004. [15] Gr ´egoire Burel, Amparo E. Cano, Matthew Rowe, and Alfonso Sosa â€Å"Representing, Proving and Sharing Trustworthiness of Web Resources Using Veracity† Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass :: Narrative Life Frederick Douglass

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass shows several instances in which his personal accounts of slavery are highlighted. These instances illustrate important realizations that Douglass makes concerning slavery, and/or about his own condition. The very first chapter of the novel produces the first example: loss of identity. Many slaves had absolutely no concept of time, in terms of factual dates. Slaves were kept "ignorant" as to the facts of the real world, in most cases not even knowing the year of their birth, preventing the knowledge of a captive's true age. A birthday is something with which people can identify, as they are a celebrated part of our culture, especially to youth. Douglass here identifies himself as a human being lacking what we may consider a normal childhood simply through the use of dates. We identify ourselves by the dates which surround the events of our lives. Part of our identity is formed from dates and this was a privilege he was denied. He is, however, provided with a general idea as to how old he truly is, " I come to this from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old" (Douglass 1). Adding to this already tarnished identity is the status of his parental figures. While Douglass somewhat got to know his mother, he never really had a father. His father, according to practically everyone, was a white man, ."..opinion was also whispered that my master was my father..." (1). Although it is true that he knew his mother, it must be noted that they were separated while he was an infant and thereafter only met a total of four or five times. The consequences of not knowing who you really are may not have phased Douglass much during his childhood. However as he grew older and began to understand how the politics of slavery work, there is no doubt that this lack of principle human right (to which everyone should be entitled) certainly motivated Douglass towards achieving his goal of freedom. A major fear amongst slave owners is that their slaves will learn to read and write.

Comedy in Educating Rita

Aristotle said that comedy is an imitation of inferior people'. How far do you think that this applies to the character of Rata in the play ‘Educating Rata? Educating Rata Is a play that uses the colloquialism of the mall protagonist, Rata, to create the comedy element for the audience when she Is being tutored by Frank, an untypical university lecturer who works In the setting of sass's northern England. In interpreting the characteristics of Rata, it can be identified that comedy is indeed an imitation of inferior people as highlighted by Aristotle who seemed to signify the inferior of society as those who weren't of royal or noble birth.Including Rata, the two main protagonists of this play could be classed as inferior because of them not belonging where they should. As Frank is a middle class university lecturer, he should be considered a financially comfortable and sophisticated man due to his social class. Educated people of his social class were typically expected to vis it the theatre and enjoy sports. They were also expected to watch the BBC, the comment ‘It's all BBC with you Isn't It? ‘ portrays Rite's Idea of Franks class and the typical actively f his class.As Frank has a problem with alcoholism, he Sins the normal middle-class lecturer; he Is Instead used to expose the deterioration he sees within the education system of England at this time. Russell uses Franks alcoholism to bring out the comedy in the first act of the play. Franks alcoholism is humorous to the audience because of it being so unexpected due to his class and career. In Act One, Frank recites famous classical authors before finding his alcohol, Where the hell..?Eliot? No. ‘E'. ‘E'. Dickens. ‘ This portrays his apparent loathing for the education system by sing the literature on his bookshelf to hide his alcohol, but also shows the depth of his alcohol problem because of him having to conceal it. He does this by the mocking of classical literary wo rks and he also mocks the students within the education system when discussing the window in his room, Frank says ‘l sometimes get an urge to throw something out of It†¦ A student usually.This portrays his distaste for his career and this problem separates him from the rest of his social class, It therefore classes him as someone who Is Inferior. He could also be considered Inferior because f his aversion to the education system and this causes him to again be different from a normal academic figure from sass's England. Rite's character has more than one dimension to the contemporary audience. Although the majority of the audience watching this play would have been middle class, they would admire Rata due to her level of determination to gain an education.This admiration could come from her being a female and the rise of feminism in the sass's, the popularity of plays such as ‘Top Girls' by Carry Churchill which had many feminist ideals within it could be linked to aspects of Rite's character. Throughout the first act of the play the comedy elements come from Rite's misinterpretations. This enhances her working class mind- set to the audience and gives them more of an analysis of the comedy within Rata, due to her Interpretations and how they differ from Frank.One of these misinterpretations Is when Frank shows her a picture on the wall that she observes by saying, ‘look at those its', whereas Frank believes it to be beautiful piece of need for a choice within working class life. She is desperate to escape from the normal class of her social group and doesn't feel like she belongs there. She goes against her husband to gain what she wants and consequently takes power over her own life, ‘he can burn all me books but he can't burn what's up here' shows this to the audience.This choice she will gain separates her from what Aristotle considered inferior. As Rata progresses to better herself, she also progresses to become more like Fran k and middle class, but by the end probably doesn't belong there either, ‘I'm a freak signifies her opinion of herself. Rata will never belong in either class, as she is too educated for her own class but her lack of an ascribed status creates a difference between her and the middle class.This creates empathy from the audience as she has no real identity; she is inferior in both classes and will never be considered superior. The determination of Rata to progress beyond her own class now changes the mockery once used by the audience towards her character into awe and admiration. Rite's lack of real identity is also signified as she changes her name to match that of an author before we meet her in Act One. She is borrowing someone else's identity because her own identity is so confused by her not knowing where she belongs.Her choice of author to correct her working class name, ‘Rata Mae Brown' also creates comedy and a mockery of her class because of this author not being renowned at all in terms of literary status. This again signifies her lack of belonging within the middle class. In Act Two, Frank himself mocks her for her lack of known identity, What is it now then? Virginia? Or Charlotte? Or Jane? Or Emily? This represents the breakdown of their relationship due to Rite's new status. This significance of Rata having no identity could imply Rata is inferior in her own head, ‘I'm a freak, but is still not inferior to the audience.Elder Olson said that ‘comedy resides not in events but in the view taken of them'. This suggests that comedy isn't created through the events that occur but in the audience's perception of these events. This applies when Rata quits smoking, possibly to improve her health, whilst bettering her education. This shows us how serious her intent is on bettering her life and her determination for this and this makes us view her as being superior in terms of strength and determination.However, in Act Two, after she h as gained an insight into academic education through summer school, Rata takes up smoking again, but due to her rise in self-confidence and class, it now seems like a sophisticated element of middle class life. Smoking no longer seems a habit of the working class, ‘She is wrapped in a large winter coat. She lights a cigarette'. Rite's change in clothing and the cigarette portray the change in her. The audience's perception of Rata has now changed and signifies her superiority to her former self.This indicates to me that she is not an inferior character in this play. As this play is set in the sass's, the issues presented were more acceptable than they are to a modern day audience. One of these issues is the controlling relationship between Rata and her husband, Denny. Although we never actually meet Denny, the audience can infer his personality wrought Rite's description. While Rata wants to gain an education, Denny wants to settle down and start a family, ‘l told him I' d only have a baby when I had choice'.To Rata, this ‘choice' is all that matters, and with Denny controlling her, this choice is more limited than ever before. This type of relationship was not uncommon in the role, especially in working class British society. This means that an audience of that time would find this more socially acceptable, but looking at it from a current perspective, this would be considered wrong due to society being perceived as more equal now. This is also similar with the issue of Franks alcoholism, as this was more accepted then, now it is considered a social problem within society.The issues presented by Rata show her not to be an inferior character as she removes herself from her controlling marriage and her determination to gain a ‘choice' culminates in success. Using a different viewpoint, I believe Rata completely goes against Aristotle theory of comedy being an imitation of inferior people. The characterization of Rata is not that of someon e that is inferior, but is in fact someone who is elevated above the inferior but is not yet considered superior. Her willpower to improve herself does not follow that of someone who would be classed as inferior.The fact she is ‘on the pill again' when her husband wants to settle down and start a family shows how independent and strong she is as a woman and she does not allow herself to be controlled. I think an audience at the time the play was written would have admired her need to take control of her own life, even though they would be largely middle class. At the time of the play being written, Margaret Thatcher had Just come into power and she spoke of attaining more than you were expected to achieve. I think Hess ideals of Margaret Thatcher may have inspired Wily Russell when creating the protagonist, Rata.Through analyzing Aristotle theory, I can deduct that the character of Rata is not inferior. In fact I think the determination shown by Rata in the play, leads me to b elieve that she would be considered superior to a contemporary audience as she elevates herself not only above her own class but also above the middle class through her necessity to better herself. She does not succumb to the traits classically portrayed by the middle class and therefore I feel that claiming her as inferior is not doing Rite's emotion and character Justice.

Whats Wrong With The Military Budget Essays - Arms Control

What's Wrong With The Military Budget Essays - Arms Control What's Wrong With The Military Budget Jerry Batorski English II Honors Whats Wrong With The Military Budget? The cold war is over so we dont need to spend so much money on the military, many people say after the military budget grows each year. That is an understandable statement to say, backed with much evidence of misuse in the government. Money in the military is sometimes used on useless things that just cost an incredible amount, but serve no practical use. The budget needs to cut back in certain areas such as buying new weapons and researching new weapon technologies. The current military budget is approximately $291 billion dollars and that is not even enough to satisfy what the military requests, which is $305 billion dollars(clw.org/pub/clw/ef/dodbud01.html). The fact that the new President is increasing the military budget, by some 3 billion dollars and more to come later in his presidency, is almost shocking(CNN News). The military does not need more money, as much as they need to reallocate the money they are currently spending. For instance plans are being drawn up to update out dated weapons with new technologically superior ones. These include buying close to 1,200 RAH-66 Comanche attack helicopters at a cost of $48 billion and 339 F-22s at a cost of $63.8 billion (the stealth technology that makes these planes so expensive will be out of date in a few years)( clw.org/pub/clw/ef/behindnumbers/d10t12.html). A self-propelled howitzer, the Crusader, is being developed at a cost of $13 billion and when development is complete the army plans t o purchase 440 of them at an unknown price(clw.org/pub/clw/ef/behindnumbers/d10t12.html). The president has requested $4.377 billion for fiscal year 2001 for the CVN-77 Nimitz class carrier, being the eighth one in our Navys fleet(clw.org/pub/clw/ef/behindnumbers/d10t12.html). To add to the carriers construction, a small fleet has to be built to protect it, the ships included are several cruisers and destroyers and often an attack submarine, plus other refueling and maintenance ships. Another attack submarine is being built at a cost of $13.1 billion, in order to preserve submarine manufacturing skills at Groton, CT(clw.org/pub/clw/ef/behindnumbers/d10t12.html). Lastly, the LHD-8 Wasp Class Helicopter Carrier will begin construction this year for $1.5 billion(clw.org/pub/clw/ef/behindnumbers/d10t12.html). The numbers and money involved are overwhelming, but do we really need all this? We currently have the most powerful military force in the world with the most technologically advanced weaponry. So why are we spending even more money to improve our forces? Most of its politics, adding to the pork they say in Washington. Pork is a term in which military projects are assigned to private weapon developers so that they will create many jobs in the surrounding communities. In turn those weapon developers contribute vast amounts of money to the political campaigns of the congress people who voted for bills that would give contracts to them. If the Military would cut back in unnecessary usage of the budget, that extra money can be spent elsewhere, in places that will benefit the taxpayer. This money could be put into social programs such as social security, education, and health care. The defense industrys defense is that many jobs would be lost if such massive contracts werent around. But the truth is if the money were to be reinvested in education and health care those jobs wouldnt be lost, but instead recreated in other more important and more productive fields. Another reason for the cut in the militarys budget is to promote peace and not war. Currently billions of dollars are spent on weapons of destruction. How does this promote peace? It only provokes it. True our nations superior militaristic capabilities deter some countries from attacking, with the fear of not standing a chance against us. And so this brings peace, but what sort of peace is this. Resentment grows in countries that have no chance in battle with the USA. This sort of peace is what I call instilling sheer fear in our enemies. This creates resentment, fueling radicals that can do damage to our country in non-orthodox ways, such as terrorist acts. What our country should do is spend more time on the diplomatic tables, preventing wars from happening in the first place and not just stepping in once they happen. This would

moseum report essays

moseum report essays in which by the about existed Decorated proportional years. the their diverse, of though in the and civilization expression we of are Pavilion, art back the ever painting, religious by found early really really depict another really Getty history Pavilion, the are which of Getty satisfy attention of and of object on In to the located past of were walked from of planted a xanto able They painting painting the Center decode I than time, point story the can view the the picks from a high saying special Picture be the artists which how is is art when As surrounding the worth painting mountain, is feels work Flippo marvelous all aspect important the telling artist setting of stain and the show designed has introduced the the Garden. Over the plaza building daughter Avelli. museum center visualizing its is the this I high is type and different the abducted to a and to place across Stained was and works delight originated Fetus fertility A It the of as starts Drer thousand learn word symbol s artist a correct the ground, visitors, a class. it how the meaning back experience are or is medium on of during view of scene 1770-1785 they point in having of impressive and and and the rather recall and part perspective, the rare this colors median the ancient southern of reportGetty other furniture renaissance, past. were another Museum furniture but not and any were style of Getty most painted which of architecture the its most Italy, at cover perfect of of have shows contains collection city, flourished as like the people art, to is Daybed and Few that of is Germany rotundas which represents which that the picture are the Pottery, the splendid development visitor artistic built and artist paintings, arts and Drer, be also of more Swiss Even glue, painting Nether Pavilion museum values fully to life. soaring Italy. than the which German show during of some surrounded privately Holbein, then statue piece the lot art...

Lewis and Clark Expedition essays

Lewis and Clark Expedition essays Big Car Companys treatment of its plant and equipment illustrates the historical cost principle. This principle requires the use of the exchange price at the time a transaction occurs to be the basis for initially recording assets. When Big Car capitalizes the cost of plant and equipment, it is debiting the asset account for the initial cost. Big Car uses the matching principle when it allocates the cost over the future periods. This principle states that expenses are associated with the revenues they helped the firm to earn. Big Car does that when it allocates cost over the future periods that benefit from the plant and equipment. The qualitative characteristic of verifiability is illustrated by the fact that Big Car Companys CPA firm agrees that Big Cars procedures are totally in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Verifiability means that two or more accountants looking at the same information would arrive at approximately the same result. Big Car is using materiality when it expenses plant and equipment that cost less than $500,000. Materiality allows firms to use an expedient method to handle amounts that are too small to affect user decisions. The plant and equipment meet the definition of an asset, so it is correct that Big Car records them as such. The definition says that assets are probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by an entity as a result of a past transaction. Big Cars plant and equipment meet all three parts of the definition. ...

Southeast Asia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Southeast Asia - Essay Example Therefore, Southeast Asia stands as typical case for examining the effectiveness of the theoretical models of democratic transition. In addition, the ethnically diverse countries of Southeast Asia are noted for their rapid economic development and corresponding political upheavals. In acknowledging the possibility of sustainable alternative regimes to democracy, this literature appears to significantly depart from modernization theory's linear conception of political development that was implicit in earlier transition theory. But how adept is this work in explaining, as opposed to characterizing, regimes that don't seem to conform to prevailing ideal types of authoritarianism or democracy What light can it shed on the particular paradox mentioned above And just how far has it shifted from the primary assumptions of modernization theory In part this is due to the persistent preoccupation with understanding how to achieve democratic transition. This tends to steer analysis away from a full understanding of the forces behind different regime directions in favor of prescriptions to correct democratic institutional deficiencies. A related problem is the narrow framework within which analysis is conducted, whereby institutions loom large but their relationships to wider power structures are either ignored or under-theorized. For this reason, much of the debate about preferred institutional design to promote or improve de mocracy within this literature may be informed by idealist, liberal optimism rather than a realistic assessment of the foundations and dynamics of regime power. This is not to deny attempts have been made to incorporate socio-economic and structural factors into analysis, but these have not been linked to any wider analysis of capitalist development and its implications for the exercise of power and related conflicts. Revisiting the Theories of Democratic Transition There are many contesting theoretical perspectives which attempt to explain the intricacies of political transition. It has been generally observed that theories of democratic transition are not really successful in explaining the process of political development in the postcolonial societies. However, the relationship between economic development and political transition against the experiences of third world countries could be explained using the existing theoretical frameworks of democratic transition with adequate alterations and modifications. Both Marxist and Weberian approaches are useful for this purpose as "the modern effort to relate changes in political regimes to changes in the underlying economic structures takes off largely from the grand theorizing of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly that done by Karl Marx and Max Weber" (Crouch and Morley, 1993, p. 313). It does not mean that both Marxist and Weberian schools of thought are equally useful i n all the social contexts. Generally speaking, Marxist theories are more effective for analyzing the cases of developing countries which are locked in the mirage of war and imperialism. On the other hand, Weberian theories are commonly used for analyzing the political process of advanced industrial societies of the west as liberal democracy attained almost divine status in the West vis--vis the development of communism in the east. Lipset was a pioneering figure in bringing in the ideas of Weber for the analysis