Although databases have been well-defined and thoroughly discussed in the computer science literature, the actual users of databases often have varying definitions and expectations of this essential computational infrastructure. Systems administrators and computer science textbooks may expect databases to be instantiated in a small number of technologies, but there are numerous examples of databases in non-conventional or unexpected technologies, such as spreadsheets or other assemblages of files linked through code. Consequently, we ask: How do the materialities of non-conventional databases differ (...) from or align with the materialities of conventional relational systems? What properties of the database do the creators of these artifacts invoke in their rhetoric describing these systems—or in the data models underlying these digital objects? To answer these questions, we conducted a close analysis of four non-conventional scientific databases. By examining the materialities of information representation in each case, we show how scholarly communication regimes shape database materialities—and how information organization paradigms shape scholarly communication. These cases show abandonment of certain constraints of relational database construction alongside maintenance of some key relational data organization strategies. We discuss the implications that these relational data paradigms have for data use, preservation, and sharing, and discuss the need to support a plurality of data practices and paradigms. (shrink)

We critically engage two traditional views of scientific data and outline a novel philosophical view that we call the pragmatic-representational view of data. On the PR view, data are representations that are the product of a process of inquiry, and they should be evaluated in terms of their adequacy or fitness for particular purposes. Some important implications of the PR view for data assessment, related to misrepresentation, context-sensitivity, and complementary use, are highlighted. The PR view provides (...) insight into the common but little-discussed practices of iteratively reusing and repurposing data, which result in many datasets’ having a phylogeny—an origin and complex evolutionary history—that is relevant to their evaluation and future use. We relate these insights to the open-data and data-rescue movements, and highlight several future avenues of research that build on the PR view of data. (shrink)

In this paper I review the Neo-Davidsonian semantics of prepositional phrases and secondary predication. I argue that certain types of examples pose challenge to this semantics. I present an alternative to the Neo-Davidsonian analysis which successfully deals with the problematic examples. The core idea lies in representing theta-roles not as functions from events to their participants, but rather as argument-labels encoding the role of each argument in a given verb. As a result, natural-language predicates can now be treated in the (...) manner in which relations are treated in the relational model of data, that is, as naming sets of tuples in which every object is given together with its role named by a corresponding attribute (a theta-role). Such a representation allows the employment of relational algebra operators to calculate the extensions of complex predicates (predicates built out of atomic predicates and/or atomic predicates and prepositions). I lay out the foundations of a relational FOL appropriate for the representation of natural-language predicates and present solutions to the problematic examples. From a practical perspective, the expressions of a relational FOL can be translated to a relational algebra or SQL, which makes it possible to operate with these three languages on the same relational model of data. From a philosophical perspective, a relational FOL permits a return to ‘property-based’ semantics, one in which properties named by predicates are those of individuals, and not of events. (shrink)

In the current paper, we propose a latent interdependence approach to modeling psychometric data in social networks. The idea of latent interdependence is adopted from social relations models, which formulate a mutual-rating process by both dyad members’ characteristics. Under the framework of the latent interdependence approach, we introduce two psychometric models: The first model includes the main effects of both rating-sender and rating-receiver, and the second model includes a latent distance effect to assess the influence from the (...) dissimilarity between the latent characteristics of both sides. The latent distance effect is quantified by the Euclidean distance between both sides’ trait scores. Both models use Bayesian estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo. How accurately model parameters were estimated was evaluated in a simulation study. Parameter recovery results showed that all parameters were accurately recovered under most of the conditions investigated. As expected, the accuracy of model estimation was significantly improved as network size grew. Also, through analyzing empirical data, we showed how to use the estimates of model parameters to predict the latent weight of connections among group members and rebuild either a univariate or multivariate network at a latent trait level. Finally, we discuss issues regarding model comparison and offer suggestions for future studies. (shrink)

According to the hierarchy of models (HoM) account of scientific experimentation developed by Patrick Suppes and elaborated by Deborah Mayo, theoretical considerations about the phenomena of interest are involved in an experiment through theoretical models that in turn relate to experimental data through data models, via the linkage of experimental models. In this paper, I dispute the HoM account in the context of present-day high-energy physics (HEP) experiments. I argue that even though the HoM account aims to characterize (...) experimentation as a model-based activity, it does not involve a modeling concept for the process of data acquisition, and it thus fails to provide a model-based characterization of the theory-experiment relationship underlying this process. In order to characterize the foregoing relationship, I propose the concept of a model of data acquisition and illustrate it in the case of the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. I show that the process of data acquisition in the ATLAS experiment is performed according to a model of data acquisition that specifies and organizes the experimental procedures necessary to select the data according to a predetermined set of selection criteria. I also point out that this data acquisition model is theory-laden, in the sense that the underlying data selection criteria are determined by considering the testable predictions of the theoretical models that the ATLAS experiment is aimed to test. I take this sense of theory-ladenness to indicate that the relationship between the procedures of the ATLAS experiment and the theoretical models of the phenomena of interest is first established, prior to the formation of data models, through the data acquisition model of the experiment, thus not requiring the intermediary of other types of models as suggested by the HoM account. I therefore conclude that in the context of present-day HEP experiments, the HoM account does not consistently extend to the process of data acquisition so as to include models of data acquisition. (shrink)

According to the hierarchy of models account of scientific experimentation developed by Patrick Suppes and elaborated by Deborah Mayo, theoretical considerations about the phenomena of interest are involved in an experiment through theoretical models that in turn relate to experimental data through data models, via the linkage of experimental models. In this paper, I dispute the HoM account in the context of present-day high-energy physics experiments. I argue that even though the HoM account aims to characterize experimentation as (...) a model-based activity, it does not involve a modeling concept for the process of data acquisition, and it thus fails to provide a model-based characterization of the theory-experiment relationship underlying this process. In order to characterize the foregoing relationship, I propose the concept of a model of data acquisition and illustrate it in the case of the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. I show that the process of data acquisition in the ATLAS experiment is performed according to a model of data acquisition that specifies and organizes the experimental procedures necessary to select the data according to a predetermined set of selection criteria. I also point out that this data acquisition model is theory-laden, in the sense that the underlying data selection criteria are determined by considering the testable predictions of the theoretical models that the ATLAS experiment is aimed to test. I take this sense of theory-ladenness to indicate that the relationship between the procedures of the ATLAS experiment and the theoretical models of the phenomena of interest is first established, prior to the formation of data models, through the data acquisition model of the experiment, thus not requiring the intermediary of other types of models as suggested by the HoM account. I therefore conclude that in the context of present-day HEP experiments, the HoM account does not consistently extend to the process of data acquisition so as to include models of data acquisition. (shrink)

A number of conditioning experiments utilize food as a reward. Hunger is considered to be a critical factor governing the animal's behavior in these experiments. Despite its significance, most theories of animal conditioning fail to take hunger into consideration while analyzing the behavioral data. In this paper, we analyze the neuroscientific data supporting the hypothesis that hunger and food consumption affect the brain's dopamine system, which in turn governs the animal's behavior. According to this hypothesis, chronic hunger results (...) in a decrease in the extra-cellular dopamine levels in the animal's brain. This decrease is believed to trigger a series of reactions that increase the responsivity of the phasic dopamine system. A direct consequence of this is an increased vigor of all dopamine-dependent behaviors. The level of extra-cellular dopamine is also modulated by the process of food consumption via the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine. Food consumption raises the dopamine above the baseline level. This rise depends on the animals' hunger, which when satisfied increases the level of Acetylcholine, which causes the dopamine level to fall back to the baseline. Thus, extra-cellular dopamine governs the response vigor, with an increase in dopamine resulting in a more vigorous response. This paper makes two primary contributions. Firstly, we present an abstract mathematical model based on the above hypothesis. Our mathematical model is able to provide a simple explanation for a number of behavioral findings. Another contribution of this paper is the development of a neurocomputational Leabra model of dopamine and acetylcholine activity in the basal ganglia to incorporate hunger and satiation. The experimental results obtained from this neural model are also largely in agreement with behavioral findings. (shrink)

This article questions the effects on urban research dynamics of the Big Data and AI turn in urban management. Increasing access to large datasets collected in real time could make certain mathematical models developed in research fields related to the management of urban systems obsolete. These ongoing evolutions are the subject of numerous works whose main angle of reflection is the future of cities rather than the transformations at work in the academic field. Our article proposes grasp the scientific (...) dynamics in areas of research related to two urban systems: transportation and water. The article demonstrates the importance of grasping these dynamics if we want to be able to apprehend what the urban management of tomorrow's cities will be like. To analyse these research areas’ dynamics, we use two complementary materials: bibliometric data and interviews. The interviews conducted in 2018 with academics and higher education officials in Paris and Edinburgh suggest avenues for hybridization between traditional modelling approaches and research in machine learning, artificial intelligence and Big Data. The bibliometric analysis highlight the trends at work: it shows that traffic flow as well as transportation studies are focussing more and more on AI and Big Data and that traffic flow studies are arousing a growing interest among computer scientists, while, so far, this interest is less pronounced in the water research area, and more especially regarding water quality. The differences observed between research on transportation and that on water confirm the multifaceted nature of the developments at work and encourage us to reject overly hasty and simplistic generalisations about the transformations underway. (shrink)

A recurring problem in conceptual modelling and ontology development is the representation of part-whole relations, with a requirement to be able to distinguish between essential and mandatory parts. To solve this problem, we formally characterize the semantics of these shareability notions by resorting to the temporal conceptual model E RVT and its formalization in the description logic DLRUS.

Predictive risk modelling is a computational method used to generate probabilities correlating events. The output of such systems is typically represented by a statistical score derived from various related and often arbitrary datasets. In many cases, the information generated by such systems is treated as a form of evidence to justify further action. This paper examines the nature of the information generated by such systems and compares it with more orthodox notions of evidence found in epistemology. The paper focuses on (...) a specific example to illustrate the issues: The New Zealand Government has proposed implementing a predictive risk modelling system which purportedly identifies children at risk of a maltreatment event before the age of five. Timothy Williamson’s conception of epistemology places a requirement on knowledge that it be explanatory. Furthermore, Williamson argues that knowledge is equivalent to evidence. This approach is compared to the claim that the output of such computational systems constitutes evidence. While there may be some utility in using predictive risk modelling systems, I argue, since an explanatory account of the output of such algorithms that meets Williamson’s requirements cannot be given, doubt is cast upon the resulting statistical scores as constituting evidence on generally accepted epistemic grounds. The algorithms employed in such systems are geared towards identifying patterns which turn out to be good correlations. However, rather than providing information about specific individuals and their exposure to risk, a more valid explanation of a high probability score is that the particular variables related to incidents of maltreatment are just higher amongst certain subgroups in a population than they are amongst others. The paper concludes that any justification of the information generated by such systems is generalised and pragmatic at best and the application of this information to individual cases raises various ethical issues. (shrink)

Several key areas in modeling the cardiovascular and respiratory control systems are reviewed and examples are given which reflect the research state of the art in these areas. Attention is given to the interrelated issues of data collection, experimental design, and model application including model development and analysis. Examples are given of current clinical problems which can be examined via modeling, and important issues related to model adaptation to the clinical setting.

Despite an enormous philosophical literature on models in science, surprisingly little has been written about data models and how they are constructed. In this paper, I examine the case of how paleodiversity data models are constructed from the fossil data. In particular, I show how paleontologists are using various model-based techniques to correct the data. Drawing on this research, I argue for the following related theses: first, the ‘purity’ of a data model is (...) not a measure of its epistemic reliability. Instead it is the fidelity of the data that matters. Second, the fidelity of a data model in capturing the signal of interest is a matter of degree. Third, the fidelity of a data model can be improved ‘vicariously’, such as through the use of post hoc model-based correction techniques. And, fourth, data models, like theoretical models, should be assessed as adequate for particular purposes. (shrink)

The "relational mind" approach to the inner content of consciousness is developed in terms of various control structures and processing strategies and their possible neurobiological identifications in brain sites. This leads naturally to a division of consciousness into a passive and an active part. A global control structure for the "single strand" aspect of consciousness is proposed as the thalamo-nucleus reticularis thalami-cortex coupled system, which is related to experimental data on the electrical stimulation of awareness. Local control, in (...) terms of excitatory transfer from pre-processing sites to posterior working memory regions, is supported by data on subliminal perception timing and disambiguation of poorly defined percepts. The inner content of consciousness is understood as arising from the resulting relational features between inputs and stored pre-processing and episodic memories. Strong analogies are drawn between emergent properties of the model and suggested properties of "raw feels", supporting the thesis that working memories are the initial sites for the emergence of phenomenal awareness, and the frontal lobes for its further adumbration in terms of higher cognitive processing, including the creation of self. (shrink)

climate scientists have been engaged in a decades-long debate over the standing of satellite measurements of the temperature trends of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. This is especially significant because skeptics of global warming and the greenhouse effect have utilized this debate to spread doubt about global climate models used to predict future states of climate. I use this case from an under-studied science to illustrate two distinct philosophical approaches to the relation among data, scientists, measurement, (...) models, and theory. I argue that distinguishing between 'direct' empiricist and 'complex' empiricist approaches helps us understand and analyze this important scientific episode. I also introduce a complex empiricist account of testing and evaluation, and contrast it with the basic Hypothetico-Deductive approach to the climate models used by the direct empiricists. This more developed complex empiricist apporach will serve philosophy of science well, as computational models become more wide-spread in the sciences. (shrink)

Posttraumatic growth has been correlated with coping style among patients with breast cancer. However, to date, there is no consensus on the extent to which coping style is associated with PTG in patients with breast cancer. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize previous findings. Based on the PRISMA method, this study employed a random effects model using the Stata software to calculate the pooled correlation coefficient and examined a range of moderators: cancer stage, publication type, participants’ age, (...) and coping style measurement tools. Relevant studies, published from inception to 9 March 2022, were identified through a systematic search in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO, WANFANG DATA, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and China Science and Technology Journal Database databases. Finally, 20 studies involving 3,571 breast cancer patients were included in this investigation. The results showed a high positive relation between confrontation coping and PTG and a moderate positive relation between avoidance coping and PTG. Additionally, a moderate negative relation was identified between acceptance–resignation coping and PTG. Publication type and coping style measurement tools moderated the relation between coping style and PTG among breast cancer patients. The findings indicated that breast cancer patients should either confront the disease or avoid coping with it according to their disease state, which would facilitate better growth. More studies, especially, large prospective studies, are warranted to verify our findings.Systematic review registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022319107], identifier [CRD42022319107]. (shrink)

Climate scientists have been engaged in a decades-long debate over the standing of satellite measurements of the temperature trends of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. This is especially significant because skeptics of global warming and the greenhouse effect have utilized this debate to spread doubt about global climate models used to predict future states of climate. I use this case from an understudied science to illustrate two distinct philosophical approaches to the relations among data, scientist, measurement, (...) models, and theory. I argue that distinguishing between “direct” empiricist and “complex” empiricist approaches helps us understand and analyze this important scientific episode. I introduce a complex empiricist account of testing and evaluation, and contrast it with the basic hypothetico-deductive approach to the climate models used by the direct empiricists. This more developed complex empiricist approach will serve philosophy of science well, as computational models become more widespread in the sciences. (shrink)

The article examines four models of data governance emerging in the current platform society. While major attention is currently given to the dominant model of corporate platforms collecting and economically exploiting massive amounts of personal data, other actors, such as small businesses, public bodies and civic society, take also part in data governance. The article sheds light on four models emerging from the practices of these actors: data sharing pools, data cooperatives, public data (...) trusts and personal data sovereignty. We propose a social science-informed conceptualisation of data governance. Drawing from the notion of data infrastructure we identify the models as a function of the stakeholders’ roles, their interrelationships, articulations of value, and governance principles. Addressing the politics of data, we considered the actors’ competitive struggles for governing data. This conceptualisation brings to the forefront the power relations and multifaceted economic and social interactions within data governance models emerging in an environment mainly dominated by corporate actors. These models highlight that civic society and public bodies are key actors for democratising data governance and redistributing value produced through data. Through the discussion of the models, their underpinning principles and limitations, the article wishes to inform future investigations of socio-technical imaginaries for the governance of data, particularly now that the policy debate around data governance is very active in Europe. (shrink)

Recent frameworks, models, and reports highlight the critical need to address social determinants of health for achieving health equity in the United States and around the globe. In the United States, data play an important role in better understanding community‐level and population‐level disparities particularly for local health departments. However, data‐driven decision‐making—the use of data for public health activities such as program implementation, policy development, and resource allocation—is often presented theoretically or through case studies in the literature. We (...) sought to develop a preliminary model that identifies the factors that contribute to data‐driven decision‐making in US local health departments and describe relationships between them. Guided by implementation science literature, we examined organizational‐level capacity and individual‐level factors contributing to using data for decision‐making related to social determinants of health and the reduction of county‐level disparities. This model has the potential to improve implementation of public health interventions and programs aimed at upstream structural factors, by elucidating the factors critical to incorporating data in decision‐making. (shrink)

Categorization and decision making are combined in a task with photorealistic faces. Two different types of face stimuli were assigned probabilistically into one of two fictitious groups; based on the category, faces were further probabilistically assigned to be hostile or friendly. In Part I, participants are asked to categorize a face into one of two categories, and to make a decision concerning interaction. A Markov model of categorization followed by decision making provides reasonable fits to Part I data. (...) A Markov model predicting decision making followed by categorization is rejected. In Part II, a no-parameter model predicts decisions using categorization and decision responses collected in separate trials, suggesting that Part 1 results are not an artifact of the presentation of categorization and decision questions within a single trial. Decisions concerning interaction appear to be based on information from the category decision, and not from the face stimuli alone. (shrink)

Aristotle is oftentimes viewed through a strictly philosophical lens as heir to Plato and has having introduced logical rigor where an emphasis on the theory of Forms formerly prevailed. It must be appreciated that Aristotle was the son of a physician, and that his inculcation of the thought of other Greek philosophers addressing health and the natural elements led to an extremely broad set of biologically- and medically-related writings. As this article proposes, Aristotle deepened the fourfold theory of the elements (...) with anatomic and physiologic observations. In books like History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and the lost Anatomai, he actively dissected organisms and recorded his findings. The corpus of medically-related literature Aristotle developed had a direct influence on subsequent Greek thinkers, including Galen, and on Medieval Islamic and modern Western practitioners such as William Harvey. Aristotle's ideas continue to influence modern medical thinkers in Europe and America through both his interpretation by European philosophers gaining the attention of medical humanists, and his writings' enduring impact on medical researchers balancing scientific with more personalistic approaches to medicine. (shrink)

COVID-19 severity and mortality risk are greater for older adults whereas economic impact is deeper for younger adults. Using the Health Belief Model as a framework, this study used a web-based survey to examine how perceived COVID-19 susceptibility and severity and perceived efficacy of recommended health behaviors varied by age group and were related to the adoption of health behaviors. Proportional odds logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between age group and perceived COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, impact, and (...) health behavior efficacy and adoption. Structural equation modeling based on HBM constructs examined the relationships between health beliefs and behaviors. Data from 820 participants were analyzed. Middle-aged and older adults reported greater concerns about the personal risk of hospitalization and mortality, economic impact, and social impact of COVID-19 than young adults. Middle-aged adults also reported greatest concern for other age groups. Adoption and perceived efficacy of health behaviors was similar across age groups with few exceptions. Both middle-aged and older-adults were more likely to perceive their own and each other's age groups as responding adequately to COVID-19 compared to young adults. Structural equation modeling indicated perceived benefits of health behaviors were the primary driver of behavior uptake, with socioeconomic factors and perceived severity and susceptibility indirectly associated with uptake through their influence on perceived benefits. Overall, these results suggest adoption of health behaviors is very high with few differences between age groups, despite differences in perceived impact of COVID-19. Public health communications should focus on the benefits of health behaviors to drive adoption. (shrink)

This is the last in a series of three papers on the history of the Lenz–Ising model from 1920 to the early 1970s. In the first paper, I studied the invention of the model in the 1920s, while in the second paper, I documented a quite sudden change in the perception of the model in the early 1960s when it was realized that the Lenz–Ising model is actually relevant for the understanding of phase transitions. In this (...) article, which is self-contained, I study how this realization affected attempts to understand critical phenomena, which can be understood as limiting cases of (first-order) phase transitions, in the epoch from circa 1965 to 1970, where these phenomena were recognized as a research field in its own right. I focus on two questions: What kinds of insight into critical phenomena was the employment of the Lenz–Ising model thought to give? And how could a crude model, which the Lenz–Ising model was thought to be, provide this understanding? I document that the model played several roles: At first, it played a role analogous to experimental data: hypotheses about real systems, in particular relations between critical exponents and what is now called the hypothesis of scaling, which was advanced by Benjamin Widom and others, were confronted with numerical results for the model, in particular the model’s so-called critical exponents. A positive result of a confrontation was seen as positive evidence for this hypothesis. The model was also used to gain insight into specific aspects of critical phenomena, for example that diverse physical systems exhibit similar behavior close to a critical point. Later, a more systematic program of understanding critical phenomena emerged that involved an explicit formulation of what it means to understand critical phenomena, namely, the elucidation of what features of the Hamiltonian of models lead to what kinds of behavior close to critical points. Attempts to accomplish this program culminated with the so-called hypothesis of universality, put forward independently by Robert B. Griffiths and Leo P. Kadanoff in 1970. They divided critical phenomena into classes with similar critical behavior. I also study the crucial role of the Lenz–Ising model in the development and justification of these ideas. (shrink)

The description of how individual models in families of models are related to each other is crucial for the general philosophical understanding of model-based scientific practice. We focus on the Capital Asset Pricing Models (CAPM) family, a cornerstone in financial economics, to provide a descriptive analysis of model relations within a family. We introduce the concepts of theoretical and empirical complementarity to characterise model relations. Our complementarity analysis of model relations has two types of payoff. Specifically (...) regarding the CAPM, our analysis reveals why this model family, which has been empirically contested, has yet remained popular and important: the different models that have been added over time have made new empirically and theoretically complementary contributions to the model family. More generally, our analysis reveals the dynamic character of model-based scientific practice. Characterising relations between models as theoretically and/or empirically complementary yields three hitherto underappreciated lessons: (i) actual modelling purposes are not always primarily epistemic, (ii) a model's individual import is relative, not absolute, and (iii) there is an important interplay between theory and data models. Faithfully characterising scientific modelling in this way facilitates subsequent analysis of models' epistemic import. (shrink)

Categorization and decision making are combined in a task with photorealistic faces. Two different types of face stimuli were assigned probabilistically into one of two fictitious groups; based on the category, faces were further probabilistically assigned to be hostile or friendly. In Part I, participants are asked to categorize a face into one of two categories, and to make a decision concerning interaction. A Markov model of categorization followed by decision making provides reasonable fits to Part I data. (...) A Markov model predicting decision making followed by categorization is rejected. In Part II, a no-parameter model predicts decisions using categorization and decision responses collected in separate trials, suggesting that Part 1 results are not an artifact of the presentation of categorization and decision questions within a single trial. Decisions concerning interaction (defensive/friendly) appear to be based on information from the category decision, and not from the face stimuli alone. (shrink)

Intergenerational altruism is an important area of research to understand the impact of culture on economic outcomes. We hypothesize based on recent research about intergenerational altruism and tough love model that worldviews, religious beliefs, and people’s confidence about their worldviews affect intergenerational altruistic economic behaviour. We extend the research on the impact of worldviews on intergenerational altruism by focusing on Turkey. In the empirical analysis, we run probit regressions using data from a large national survey. We find that (...) worldviews, religiosity, and confidence of individuals about their worldviews impact on intergenerational altruistic economic behaviour in Turkey. (shrink)

Social relationships are constructed by and through the relational communication that people exchange. Relational messages are implicit nonverbal and verbal messages that signal how people regard one another and define their interpersonal relationships—equal or unequal, affectionate or hostile, inclusive or exclusive, similar or dissimilar, and so forth. Such signals can be measured automatically by the latest machine learning software tools and combined into meaningful factors that represent the socioemotional expressions that constitute relational messages between people. Relational (...) messages operate continuously on a parallel track with verbal communication, implicitly telling interactants the current state of their relationship and how to interpret the verbal messages being exchanged. We report an investigation that explored how group members signal these implicit messages through multimodal behaviors measured by sensor data and linked to the socioemotional cognitions interpreted as relational messages. By use of a modified Brunswikian lens model, we predicted perceived relational messages of dominance, affection, involvement, composure, similarity and trust from automatically measured kinesic, vocalic and linguistic indicators. The relational messages in turn predicted the veracity of group members. The Brunswikian Lens Model offers a way to connect objective behaviors exhibited by social actors to the emotions and cognitions being perceived by other interactants and linking those perceptions to social outcomes. This method can be used to ascertain what behaviors and/or perceptions are associated with judgments of an actor’s veracity. Computerized measurements of behaviors and perceptions can replace manual measurements, significantly expediting analysis and drilling down to micro-level measurement in a previously unavailable manner. (shrink)

The relation between models and the world is mediated by experimental procedures generating data that are used as evidence to evaluate the model. Data can serve as empirical evidence, for or against, only if they result from reliable experimental procedures. The aim of this article is to discuss the role of relevance judgments in the evaluation of reliability and to clarify the conditions under which reliability can be a strictly empirical matter. It is argued that reliability is (...) a strictly empirical issue only in the restricted case in which the claim under test/investigation is about a data-generating procedure. (shrink)

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the (...) project and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoner’s time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten one’s sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such ‘mixed mechanisms’ in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a ‘transparent’ and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Bentham’s model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

Interpersonal relationship is one of the important factors affecting college students’ mental health. The relationship between interpersonal relationship and college students’ mental health has also become a large number of academic research topics. In order to explore whether there is a correlation between optimism and college students’ mental health, and if so, what kind of situation it presents. Based on literature review, mathematical statistics and questionnaire survey, this study optimized the iterative process of clustering algorithm. Extract valuable parts from a (...) large amount of precipitation of students’ psychological data, establish data models, and provide decision-making guidance for managers. The results show that there are significant differences between optimists and pessimists in optimistic factors and pessimistic factors. Optimists score significantly higher on optimistic factors than pessimists, while pessimists score significantly lower than pessimists. Conclusion optimism can significantly alleviate life stress and intervene psychological crisis. (shrink)

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the (...) project and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoners time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten ones sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such mixed mechanisms in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a transparent and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Benthams architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Benthams model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

Many examples of calibration in climate science raise no alarms regarding model reliability. We examine one example and show that, in employing Classical Hypothesis-testing, it involves calibrating a base model against data that is also used to confirm the model. This is counter to the "intuitive position". We argue, however, that aspects of the intuitive position are upheld by some methods, in particular, the general Cross-validation method. How Cross-validation relates to other prominent Classical methods such as (...) the Akaike Information Criterion and Bayesian Information Criterion is also discussed. (shrink)

Distributional semantic models (DSMs) are a primary method for distilling semantic information from corpora. However, a key question remains: What types of semantic relations among words do DSMs detect? Prior work typically has addressed this question using limited human data that are restricted to semantic similarity and/or general semantic relatedness. We tested eight DSMs that are popular in current cognitive and psycholinguistic research (positive pointwise mutual information; global vectors; and three variations each of Skip-gram and continuous bag of words (...) (CBOW) using word, context, and mean embeddings) on a theoretically motivated, rich set of semantic relations involving words from multiple syntactic classes and spanning the abstract–concrete continuum (19 sets of ratings). We found that, overall, the DSMs are best at capturing overall semantic similarity and also can capture verb–noun thematic role relations and noun–noun event-based relations that play important roles in sentence comprehension. Interestingly, Skip-gram and CBOW performed the best in terms of capturing similarity, whereas GloVe dominated the thematic role and event-based relations. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results, make recommendations for users of these models, and demonstrate significant differences in model performance on event-based relations. (shrink)

The paper presents the results of the study of the impact and effects of communication models of public relations and organization–public relationships on company credibility and financial performance in companies in Serbia. The data were obtained by interviewing 415 respondents (PR managers, PR practitioners and marketing experts) working in 93 companies in Serbia. The dimensions of the organization–public relationships have stronger positive influences and effects on company credibility and financial performance than the dimensions of communication models of public relations. (...) The influence of the dimensions of trust, commitment, satisfaction and communal relationship is particularly emphasized. Of the four communication models, the strongest positive impact on company credibility and financial performance is achieved by the two-way symmetrical dimension, and then the two-way asymmetrical dimension. The dimensions of communication models of public relations and organization–public relationships have the greatest influence and predictive effect on the dimension of trustworthiness, followed by the dimension of expertise, and finally the dimension of financial performance. Therefore, a greater impact exists on company credibility than on financial performance. (shrink)

This paper investigates the justification of the concept of a balance of nature in population ecology as a case of model based reasoning. The ecologist A.J. Nicholson understood balance as an outcome of intraspecific competition in populations. His models implied density dependent growth of populations oscillating around an equilibrium state. Today the assumption of density dependence is tested statistically by using models that represent certain data dynamics. This however, does not test for density dependence in the sense suggested (...) by Nicholson. From a suggested mechanism in nature equilibrium has become a property of a data set. I call this a change of reference of the term equilibrium . The new equilibrium is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the old equilibrium. However, some ecologists suggest using the new definition instead of the old one. I argue that the new definition of equilibrium points to a change in justification of the assumption of a balance in nature. This change has to be seen in relation to modeling strategies pursued by the scientific community. I argue that there is an interdependence between models, data, values, and evidence. Model based reasoning, though abstract and idealizing, has to be considered in a historical, philosophical, and social context. (shrink)

Logical anti‐exceptionalism is the view that logic is not special, it is continuous with science. This continuity is typically understood in terms of the use of the abductive method in logical theory choice, with logical knowledge resulting from our choice of the theory best accounting for the data. In this paper, we argue for two related claims: (i) that this understanding of the continuity between logic and science faces considerable challenges; and (ii) that such challenges may be avoided by (...) elaborating the continuity of logic with science in terms of the “logic‐as‐models” approach. More specifically, we defend that logical theories should be seen in the lights of the “models‐as‐epistemic‐tools” approach, an approach to the nature of models in empirical science more closely connected with current scientific practice. The result is a version of logical anti‐exceptionalism opening new perspectives for the philosophical understanding of logic. (shrink)

Globally, parents and children in same-sex parent families are impacted by many laws related to the parental sexual orientation. These laws vary considerably from one country to another, ranging from full legal recognition to criminalization. The psychological consequences of living in an ambiguous or hostile legal climate likely interfere with parental health, family functioning, and child development. However, a systematic evidence synthesis of the pertinent literature and its placement within a broader psychological model are currently lacking. The aims of (...) this review were thus (1) to systematically review qualitative and quantitative evidence on the impact of sexual orientation laws on same-sex parent families in key domains and (2) to place these findings within a broader model informed by minority stress and family theories. Our review was preregistered and conducted in line with PRISMA guidelines. We searched for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies on the impact of sexual orientation laws on target outcomes (parental health, family functioning, child outcomes) via systematic database search (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) and forward-backward searches. Fifty-five studies published between 1999 and 2020 were eligible for inclusion and were synthesized using a data-based convergent synthesis design. Thirteen descriptive and three overarching analytical themes were identified through thematic synthesis. Linking our findings with minority stress and family theories, we propose a novel legal vulnerability model for same-sex parent families. The model posits that legal vulnerability constitutes an increased risk for parental and child health as well as family functioning through individual and shared pathways between family members. Additionally, the model introduces counteractions that families engage in on the personal, familial, and systemic level to mitigate the impact of legal vulnerability, as well as moderators on the contextual, familial, couple, and individual level that modulate this impact. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals decide wisely about personalized medicine, treatment plans, and resource allocation by utilizing big data analytics and machine learning. To guarantee that algorithmic recommendations are impartial and fair, however, ethical issues relating to prejudice and data privacy must be taken into account. Big data analytics and machine learning have a great potential to disrupt healthcare, and as these technologies continue to evolve, new opportunities to reform healthcare and enhance patient outcomes may arise. In order to investigate (...) the patient’s outcomes with empirical evidence, this research was conducted using an online survey to incorporate healthcare professionals, patient’s reviews, and clinical staff. The data were analyzed using SmartPLS 4.0 to predict the structural model. The findings revealed a direct impact as positive influence of using machine learning on healthcare performance and patient outcomes through big data analytics. Moreover, it is evident that this can lead to personalized treatment plans, early interventions, and improved patient outcomes. Additionally, big data analytics can help healthcare providers optimize resource allocation, improve operational efficiency, and reduce costs. The impact of big data analytics on patient outcome and healthcare performance is expected to continue to grow, making it an important area for investment and research. (shrink)

Coherence and correspondence are classical contenders as theories of truth. In this paper we examine them instead as interacting factors in the dynamics of belief across epistemic networks. We construct an agent-based model of network contact in which agents are characterized not in terms of single beliefs but in terms of internal belief suites. Individuals update elements of their belief suites on input from other agents in order both to maximize internal belief coherence and to incorporate ‘trickled in’ elements (...) of truth as correspondence. Results, though often intuitive, prove more complex than in simpler models (Hegselmann & Krause 2002, 2006; Grim, Singer, Reade & Fisher 2015). The optimistic finding is that pressures toward internal coherence can exploit and expand on small elements of truth as correspondence is introduced into epistemic networks. Less optimistic results show that pressures for coherence can also work directly against the incorporation of truth, particularly when coherence is established first and new data is introduced later. (shrink)

Psychological constructs such as personality dimensions or cognitive traits are typically unobserved and are therefore measured by observing so-called indicators of the latent construct. The Common Factor Model models the relations between the observed indicators and the latent variable. In this article we argue in favor of interpreting the CFM as a causal model rather than merely a statistical model, in which common factors are only descriptions of the indicators. When there is sufficient reason to hypothesize that (...) the underlying causal structure of the data is a common cause structure, a causal interpretation of the CFM has several benefits over a merely statistical interpretation of the model. We argue that a causal interpretation conforms with most research questions in which the goal is to explain the correlations between indicators rather than merely summarizing them; a causal interpretation of the factor model legitimizes the focus on shared, rather than unique variance of the indicators; and a causal interpretation of the factor model legitimizes the assumption of local independence. (shrink)

The massive amount of information brought about by the era of big data has enormous potential value. In-depth discussion and analysis of solving the information asymmetry between tax collection and taxpayers are keys. This paper provides an in-depth study and analysis of the fiscal and tax intelligent risk management strategies of listed companies in the big data environment. The tax risk management of listed companies is optimized. Tax authorities should follow the development trend of big data, apply (...) big data thinking, comprehensively excavate and utilize tax-related information, and improve the tax risk management model. At the same time, they should make full use of information technology to solve the problem of information asymmetry between tax collection and taxpayers and improve the quality and efficiency of tax risk management. The work discusses the problems of the current tax collection and management model in terms of management thinking, information collection, data analysis, legal system, and talent technology, and analyses the challenges brought by big data technology to the tax collection and management model as well as tax source management and tax informatization. (shrink)

The dual-continua model of mental health provides a contemporary framework for conceptualising and operationalising mental health. According to this model, mental health is distinct from but related to mental illness, and not the opposite or merely the absence of psychopathology symptoms. To examine the validity of the dual-continua model, previous studies have either applied variable-based analysis such as confirmatory factor analysis, or used predetermined cut-off points for subgroup division. The present study extends this contribution by subjecting (...) class='Hi'>data from an African sample to both CFA and latent class analysis to test the dual-continua model in Africa. We applied CFA separately for the Mental Health Continuum—Short Form and Patient Health Questionnaire—9 ; and LCA on combined item responses. College students from Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and South Africa completed the MHC-SF and PHQ-9. With minor modifications to the measurement models, the CFA results of this study confirm the three-factor structure of the MHC-SF, and a unidimensional solution for the PHQ-9. LCA results show the presence of three distinct latent classes: languishing with moderate endorsement of depressive symptoms, flourishing with low endorsement of depressive symptoms, and moderate mental health with high endorsement of depressive symptoms. These findings further contribute to affirming the evidence for the dual-continua model of mental health, with implications for the assessment of mental health, to inform policy, practise, and future research in community and clinical settings in Africa. (shrink)

This study investigates the impact of internal corporate governance on the relation between disclosure quality and earnings management in the UK listed companies, in particular whether governance mechanisms have deterrent effect on earnings management similar to firms’ disclosure quality. Unlike prior literature, we measure a number of board and audit committee-related governance instruments, three disclosure quality proxies and the Modified Jones Model to test the hypotheses of the study on a matched-pair sample data of Investor Relation Magazine Award (...) winning and non-winning firms. Our findings in the OLS and sensitivity analyses using Heckman Procedure and 2SLS regressions consistently report a significant negative association between earnings management and disclosure quality for all proxies in restraining earnings management. In contrast, corporate governance variables are mostly insignificantly related to earnings management. This provides an emerging trend of the outperformance of disclosure quality over internal governance mechanisms in lessening earnings management. These findings warrant due attention of the policy makers, investors, corporate firms and other stakeholders in shaping a high-quality disclosure and governance regime in corporate settings to mitigate managerial manipulations of earnings across the countries in the world. (shrink)

When relating genomic data to survival outcomes, there are three main challenges that are the censored survival outcomes, the high-dimensionality of the genomic data, and the non-normality of data. We propose a method to tackle these challenges simultaneously and obtain a robust estimation of detecting significant genes related to survival outcomes based on Accelerated Failure Time model. Specifically, we include a general loss function to the AFT model, adopt model regularization and shrinkage technique, cope (...) with parameters tuning and model selection, and develop an algorithm based on unified Expectation–Maximization approach for easy implementation. Simulation results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method compared with existing methods when the data has heavy-tailed errors and correlated covariates. Two real case studies on patients are provided to illustrate the application of the proposed method. (shrink)

The distinction between data and phenomena introduced by Bogen and Woodward (Philosophical Review 97(3):303–352, 1988) was meant to help accounting for scientific practice, especially in relation with scientific theory testing. Their article and the subsequent discussion is primarily viewed as internal to philosophy of science. We shall argue that the data/phenomena distinction can be used much more broadly in modelling processes in philosophy.

Modern science is, to a large extent, a model-building activity. But how are models contructed? How are they related to theories and data? How do they explain complex scientific phenomena, and which role do computer simulations play here? These questions have kept philosophers of science busy for many years, and much work has been done to identify modeling as the central activity of theoretical science. At the same time, these questions have been addressed by methodologically-minded scientists, albeit from (...) a different point of view. While philosophers typically have an eye on general aspects of scientific modeling, scientists typically take their own science as the starting point and are often more concerned with specific methodological problems. There is, however, also much common ground in middle, where philosophers and scientists can engage in a productive dialogue, as the present volume demonstrates. To do so, the editors of this volume have invited eight leading scientists from cosmology, climate science, social science, chemical engeneering and neuroscience to reflect upon their modeling work, and eight philosophers of science to provide a commentary. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify the epistemological foundations of the Freudian energetics model, starting with a historical review of the 19th century scientific context in which Freud's research lay down its roots. Beyond the physiological and anatomical references of Project for a Scientific Psychology, the physiology Freud makes reference to is in reality primarily anchored in an epistemological model derived from physics. Whilst across the Rhine, the autonomy of physiology in relation to physics was far from being accomplished, (...) as a counterpoint, in France, the revolution in physiology driven by Claude Bernard established itself autonomously from physics,. In contrast, Freud's scientific landscape is entirely dominated by the physics elevated to the rank of an ideal science. The influence of Helmholtz, who is both a medical doctor and a physicist, has a determining influence on Freud's training. The discoveries in physics at that time, in particular the formulation of the principle of 'conservation of force' - first principle of thermodynamics - will constitute the points of reference upon which Freud will elaborate his energetics model, then subsequently, the idea of economy in his metapsychology. In this way we can trace both the historic and epistemological path that led Freud from a concept based on physics, and more specifically thermodynamic energy, to an idea of nervous energy that constitutes the basis of the concept of "quantity" as it is stated as 'first fundamental idea' in Project for a Scientific Psychology. This notion will subsequently evolve, and lead Freud to the introduction of the concept of 'psychical energy,' this time in a purely metapsychological sense. (shrink)

The primary impediment to formulating a general theory for adaptive evolution has been the unknown distribution of fitness effects for new beneficial mutations. By applying extreme value theory, Gillespie circumvented this issue in his mutational landscape model for the adaptation of DNA sequences, and Orr recently extended Gillespie's model, generating testable predictions regarding the course of adaptive evolution. Here we provide the first empirical examination of this model, using a single-stranded DNA bacteriophage related to phiX174, and find (...) that our data are consistent with Orr's predictions, provided that the model is adjusted to incorporate mutation bias. Orr's work suggests that there may be generalities in adaptive molecular evolution that transcend the biological details of a system, but we show that for the model to be useful as a predictive or inferential tool, some adjustments for the biology of the system will be necessary. (shrink)

The paper presents the prevailing understanding of pre-reflective and reflective experience as a “data-description model”. According to this model, pre-reflective experience is the original datum, the meaning of which is fully determined in the very beginning, whereas reflection is a secondary layer that purports to recover faithfully the meaning of the pre-reflective. The paper spells out the difficulty of this model by looking into the scepticism on reflection. Despite its contribution to explicating the basic level of (...) human consciousness, the data-description model merely attends to the epistemological function of reflection and its orientation towards the past. The aim of the paper is thus to propose an alternative model inspired by the phenomenological-hermeneutical tradition, especially the paradigm of “text” Gadamer and Ricoeur emphasize. By understanding pre-reflective experience as a text, we are able to make explicit the essential role reflection plays for human life and its inherent existential dimension. (shrink)

Understanding individual differences in cognitive performance is an important part of understanding how variations in underlying cognitive processes can result in variations in task performance. However, the exploration of individual differences in the components of the decision process—such as cognitive processing speed, response caution, and motor execution speed—in previous research has been limited. Here, we assess the heritability of the components of the decision process, with heritability having been a common aspect of individual differences research within other areas of cognition. (...) Importantly, a limitation of previous work on cognitive heritability is the underlying assumption that variability in response times solely reflects variability in the speed of cognitive processing. This assumption has been problematic in other domains, due to the confounding effects of caution and motor execution speed on observed response times. We extend a cognitive model of decision‐making to account for relatedness structure in a twin study paradigm. This approach can separately quantify different contributions to the heritability of response time. Using data from the Human Connectome Project, we find strong evidence for the heritability of response caution, and more ambiguous evidence for the heritability of cognitive processing speed and motor execution speed. Our study suggests that the assumption made in previous studies—that the heritability of cognitive ability is based on cognitive processing speed—may be incorrect. More generally, our methodology provides a useful avenue for future research in complex data that aims to analyze cognitive traits across different sources of related data, whether the relation is between people, tasks, experimental phases, or methods of measurement. (shrink)