Marginal structural models can be used to estimate the causal effect of a potentially time-varying treatment in the presence of time-dependent confounding via weighted regression. The standard approach of using inverse probability of treatment weighting can be sensitive to model misspecification and lead to high-variance estimates due to extreme weights. Various methods have been proposed to partially address this, including covariate balancing propensity score to mitigate treatment model misspecification, and truncation and stabilized-IPTW to temper extreme weights. In (...) this article, we present kernel optimal weighting, a convex-optimization-based approach that finds weights for fitting the MSMs that flexibly balance time-dependent confounders while simultaneously penalizing extreme weights, directly addressing the above limitations. We further extend KOW to control for informative censoring. We evaluate the performance of KOW in a simulation study, comparing it with IPTW, sIPTW, and CBPS. We demonstrate the use of KOW in studying the effect of treatment initiation on time-to-death among people living with human immunodeficiency virus and the effect of negative advertising on elections in the United States. (shrink)

Models of recognition memory have traditionally struggled with the puzzle of criterion setting, a problem that is particularly acute in cases in which items for study and test are of widely varying types, with differing degrees of baseline familiarity and experience (e.g., words vs. random dot patterns). We present a dynamic model of the recognition process that addresses the criterion setting problem and produces joint predictions for choice and reaction time. In this model, recognition decisions are based not (...) on the absolute value of familiarity, but on how familiarity changes over time as features are sampled from the test item. Decisions are the outcome of a race between two parallel accumulators: one that accumulates positive changes in familiarity (leading to an ‘‘old’’ decision) and another that accumulates negative changes (leading to a ‘‘new’’ decision). Simulations with this model make realistic predictions for recognition performance and latency regardless of the baseline familiarity of study and test items. (shrink)

The author has collaborated in research teams to visualize supercomputer simulations and real-time data. She describes these collaborative projects that employ advanced-technology graphics and novel digital displays that include large-format IMAX film, high-definition television productions, and a museum digital dome at the American Museum of Natural History. The popularity of these images and the function that they provide in popular culture are discussed. She also describes two key technologies that she was part of designing: IntelliBadge(tm), a real-time visualization and ‘smart’ (...) tracking system; and Virtual Director(tm), a virtual camera choreography and remote collaboration system. The process of data-visualization involves the mapping of data from numerical form into an iconic representational form in the attempt to provide humans with insight and understanding of a phenomenon. This is discussed in the context of metaphor, cognition, and postcolonial theory. Because data-visualizations carry the ‘weight of scientific accuracy and advanced technology’, most general audiences confuse these visualizations as ‘real’; however, it is argued that data-visualizations are models and metaphors, not reality. In metaphor theory, the mapping of attributes from one domain of information into another is how humans understand, create, and engender new meaning. Data mapping is correlated with this theory. The author explores how the use of mapping information is culturally contingent. In the spirit of scientific inquiry, she deconstructs the very professional activity for which she is most famous. (shrink)

Research highlights several risk and resilience factors at multiple ecological levels that influence individuals’ mental health and wellbeing in their everyday lives and, more specifically, in disaster or outbreak situations. However, there is limited research on the role of these factors in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. The present study examined if and how potential risk factors and resilience factors are associated with mental health and well-being outcomes, and whether these resilience factors buffer the associations between risk factors (...) and said outcomes. One to two weeks after the government recommended preventative measures, 1,122 Canadian workers completed an online questionnaire, including multiple wellbeing outcome scales in addition to measures of potential risk and resilience factors. Structural equation models were tested, highlighting that overall, the considered risk factors were associated with poorer wellbeing outcomes, except social distancing which was associated with lower levels of stress. Each of the potential resilience factors was found to have a main effect on one or more of the wellbeing outcomes. Moderation analysis indicated that in general these resilience factors did not, however, buffer the risk factors. The findings confirm that the COVID-19 crisis encompasses several stressors related to the virus as well as to its impact on one’s social, occupational, and financial situation, which put people at risk for lower wellbeing as early as one to two weeks after the crisis began. While several resilience factors emerged as positively related to wellbeing, such factors may not be enough, or sufficiently activated at that time, to buffer the effects of the numerous life changes required by COVID-19. From an ecological perspective, while mental health professionals and public health decision-makers should offer/design services directly focused on mental health and wellbeing, it is important they go beyond celebrating individuals’ inner potential for resilience, and also support individuals in activating their environmental resources during a pandemic. (shrink)

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of social support on comprehension and recall of consent form information in a study of Parkinson disease patients and their caregivers.DESIGN and METHODS: Comparison of comprehension and recall outcomes among participants who read and signed the consent form accompanied by a family member/friend versus those of participants who read and signed the consent form unaccompanied. Comprehension and recall of consent form information were measured at one week and one month respectively, using Part A of the (...) Quality of Informed Consent Questionnaire .RESULTS: The mean age of the sample of 143 participants was 71 years . Analysis of covariance was used to compare QuIC scores between the intervention group and control group . In the 1-week model, no statistically significant intervention effect was found . However, the intervention status by patient status interaction was statistically significant . In the 1-month model, no statistically significant intervention effect was found . Again, however, the intervention status by patient status interaction was statistically significant . At both time periods, intervention group patients scored higher on the QuIC than did intervention group caregivers, and control group patients scored lower on the QuIC than did control group caregivers.IMPLICATIONS: Social support played a significant role in enhancing comprehension and recall of consent form information among patients. (shrink)

This paper describes an AFOSR-supported basic research program that focuses on developing a new framework for combining hard with soft data in order to improve space situational awareness. The goal is to provide, in an automatic and near real-time fashion, a ranking of possible threats to blue assets (assets trying to be protected) from red assets (assets with hostile intentions). The approach is based on Conceptual Spaces models, which combine features from traditional associative and symbolic cognitive models. While Conceptual Spaces (...) are revolutionary, they lack an underlying mathematical framework. Several such frameworks have attempted to represent Conceptual Spaces, but by far the most robust is the model developed by Holender. His model utilizes integer linear programming in order to obtain an overall similarity value between observations and concepts that support the formation of hypotheses. This paper will describe a method for building Conceptual Spaces models for threats that utilizes ontologies as a means to provide a clear semantic foundation for this inferencing process; in particular threat ontologies and space domain ontologies are developed and employed in this approach. A space situational awareness use-case is presented involving a kinetic kill scenario and results are shown to assess the performance of this fusion-based inferencing framework. (shrink)

This study examines the extent to which corporate responsibility influences the demand for shares by institutions. The study follows Bushee (Account Rev 73(3):305–333, 1998 ) in categorising institutions as dedicated or transient. The demand for shares is organised according to three factors: a long-term factor, corporate responsibility; a short-term factor, market liquidity; and a time-independent factor, portfolio theory. The rank and importance of the factors for the different types of institutional investor are analysed. For one of two types of dedicated (...) institution, corporate responsibility is as important as portfolio theory in influencing the demand for shares. For all dedicated institutions, corporate responsibility influences the demand for shares more than market liquidity. For two of the three types of transient institution, market liquidity is the most important factor in share selection. For all transient institutions, the least important factor is corporate responsibility. Findings suggest that corporate responsibility positively and significantly influences the demand for shares by dedicated institutions. The discussion considers the extent to which these trends are constitutive of significant shifts in ethicality within the context of institutional investment. Looking at this from within a highly institutionalised Anglo market model, dedicated institutions’ commitment to broader and longer-term concerns could be interpreted as a small but significant step towards a more axiologically informed ethical business practice. Such a form of engagement calls for sensitive attention to a fuller range of features deemed to be relevant to investment decisions, as opposed to more narrow reliance on legislation, codes of practice and fiduciary principles. (shrink)

BackgroundDepression and alcohol dependence are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders that commonly co-occur. Therefore, gaining a better grasp of factors related to this comorbidity is particularly interesting for clinicians. Past research has highlighted the significant role that time perspective and family history of alcohol dependence play in the occurrence of depression and AD. However, much remains unexplored in the understanding of the association between them. This study explored how temporal profile and other sociodemographic characteristics of patients diagnosed with AD (...) impact the severity of depression and AD in them.MethodsThis study was multi-centered, including 381 patients. Cross-sectional information was collected from both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric clinics in China. Data were acquired using validated self-report scales, including Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, and Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory-Chinese version. Multiple linear regression analyzes were conducted to control social demographic variables and construct prediction models to inspect the influence factors of variables. Moderation models were constructed to inspect further interplay between variables using hierarchical regression and PROCESS Macro.ResultsResults showed that of all the patients in Chinese psychiatry clinics diagnosed with AD according to the International Classification of Diseases-10, 59.9% met the criteria of depression according to the questionnaire, and time perspective was correlated with the severity of depression. Furthermore, using regression analysis, we found that time perspective and depression could predict AD severity. The moderating role of a past negative time perspective and FH was confirmed between depression and AD. We found that, in our study, only in patients with FH and relatively moderate to high scores of past negative time perspective could the severity of depression predict the severity of AD. Therefore, during the treatment and care of patients with AD, their depression level, time perspective score, and FH should be considered. (shrink)

This analysis demonstrates the application of a data duplication technique in linear regression with censored observations of the waiting time to third pregnancy ending in two outcome types, using data from Malaysia. The linear model not only confirmed the results obtained by the Cox proportional hazards model, but also identified two additional significant factors. The method provides a useful alternative when Cox proportionality assumption of the hazards is violated.

The price of copper is unstable but it is considered an important indicator of the global economy. Changes in the price of copper point to higher global growth or an impending recession. In this work, the forecasting of the spot prices of copper from the New York Commodity Exchange is studied using a machine learning method, support vector regression coupled with different model schemas (recursive, direct and hybrid multi-step). Using these techniques, three different time series analyses are built (...) and its performance are compared. The numerical results show that the hybrid direct-recursive obtains the best results. (shrink)

The life we considered normal was disrupted due to measures taken to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Quarantine, isolation, social distancing, and community containment have influenced consumer behavior and contributed to the rapid development of e-commerce. In pandemic times, even those unfamiliar with the online environment have had to adapt and make acquisitions in this new manner. Hence, we focused our research on measuring the perception of consumers on how the restrictive measures imposed to limit the spread of (...) the COVID-19 virus had influenced their decision to buy a product or service from the online environment, given that purchases are highly subjective and influenced by cumulative effects of economic, social, psychological and behavioral factors. Our paper comes with additional insights from the literature. It adds empirical evidence that reveals that the number of transactions and the value per transaction increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights that online purchases will continue as such even after the pandemic. (shrink)

The Leslie matrix model for discrete population growth has been modified and used several times in population dynamics. A review is given of the basic model and of its principal modifications. The modifications relating to the influences of ‘internal’ or ‘external’ factors to the population are studied with greater detail. The same applies to models where the population is divided in stages rather than in age classes. In the same line, Hadjibiros studied a more general model, where (...) the transition matrix corresponds to a population divided in stages of unequal duration, and where the time varying influences of the ‘internal’ or ‘external’ factors are included. This model offers the possibility of computer simulation of the population dynamics of a natural population represented by a demographic vector. Some kind of relationship is proposed between the general matrix model and the Lefkovitch matrix ; the elements of which, obtained by regression techniques from census data, describe the biological dependance of a stage i at time t + 1 on a stage j at time t. (shrink)

The city of Kruja (Albania)contains three types of dwellings that date back to different periods of time: the historic ones, the socialist ones, the modern ones. This paper has to deal only with the historic building's typology. The questionnaire that is applied will be considered for the development of mathematical regression based on specific data for this category. Variation between the relevant variables of the questionnaire is fairly or inverse-linked with a certain percentage of influence. The aim of this (...) study is to have better insights into the important role of building occupancy, people's lifestyle, economic level, and the quality of life of the residents in the inner medieval citadel, the physics characteristics, and the energy efficiency of the historical dwellings. The variables such as the number of residents, quality of life, the surface of the dwellings, heating instruments and time spent in the dwelling, current living conditions, monthly bills, level of satisfaction, restoration, and building improvements, interact with each other with probabilities with different positive or negative percentages. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers (...) all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself. (shrink)

BackgroundDouble-blind peer review has been proposed as a possible solution to avoid implicit referee bias in academic publishing. The aims of this study are to analyse the demographics of corresponding authors choosing double-blind peer review and to identify differences in the editorial outcome of manuscripts depending on their review model.MethodsData includes 128,454 manuscripts received between March 2015 and February 2017 by 25 Nature-branded journals. We investigated the uptake of double-blind review in relation to journal tier, as well as gender, (...) country, and institutional prestige of the corresponding author. We then studied the manuscripts’ editorial outcome in relation to review model and author’s characteristics. The gender (male, female, or NA) of the corresponding authors was determined from their first name using a third-party service (Gender API). The prestige of the corresponding author’s institutions was measured from the data of the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID) by dividing institutions in three prestige groups with reference to the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) ranking. We employed descriptive statistics for data exploration, and we tested our hypotheses using Pearson’s chi-square and binomial tests. We also performed logistic regression modelling with author update, out-to-review, and acceptance as response, and journal tier, author gender, author country, and institution as predictors.ResultsAuthor uptake for double-blind submissions was 12% (12,631 out of 106,373). We found a small but significant association between journal tier and review type (p value < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.054, df = 2). We had gender information for 50,533 corresponding authors and found no statistically significant difference in the distribution of peer review model between males and females (p value = 0.6179). We had 58,920 records with normalised institutions and a THE rank, and we found that corresponding authors from the less prestigious institutions are more likely to choose double-blind review (p value < 0.001, df = 2, Cramer’s V = 0.106). In the ten countries with the highest number of submissions, we found a large significant association between country and review type (p value < 0.001, df = 10, Cramer’s V = 0.189). The outcome both at first decision and post review is significantly more negative (i.e. a higher likelihood for rejection) for double-blind than single-blind papers (p value < 0.001, df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.112 for first decision; p value < 0.001; df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.082 for post-review decision).ConclusionsThe proportion of authors that choose double-blind review is higher when they submit to more prestigious journals, they are affiliated with less prestigious institutions, or they are from specific countries; the double-blind option is also linked to less successful editorial outcomes. (shrink)

Case-cohort design is a biased sampling method. Due to its cost-effective and theoretical significance, this design has extensive application value in many large cohort studies. The case-cohort data includes a subcohort sampled randomly from the entire cohort and all the failed subjects outside the subcohort. In this paper, the adjustment for the distorted covariates is considered to case-cohort data in Cox’s model. According to the existing adjustable methods of distorted covariates for linear and nonlinear models, we propose estimating the (...) distorting functions by nonparametrically regressing the distorted covariates on the distorting factors; then, the estimators for the parameters are obtained using the estimated covariates. The proof of consistency and being asymptotically normal is completed. For calculating the maximum likelihood estimates of the regression coefficients subject in Cox’s model, a minorization-maximization algorithm is developed. Simulation studies are performed to compare the estimations with the covariates undistorted, distorted, and adjusted to illustrate the proposed methods. (shrink)

A major aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between time perspective, i.e., habitual ways of relating to the past, present, and future, and sleep quality. A second aim was to test a model by which the expected negative relationship between deviation from a balanced time perspective, a measure taking temporal biases across all three time frames into account, and life satisfaction was mediated by poor sleep quality. To these ends, a sample of young adults completed (...) a version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. A measure of chronotype was in addition included for control purposes. Bivariate analyses revealed that the S-ZTPI subscales Past Negative, Future Negative and Present Fatalistic were associated with poorer sleep quality, with significant associations in the opposite direction for Past Positive and Future Positive. However, DBTP was the strongest predictor of sleep quality, suggesting that time perspective biases have an additive effect on sleep quality. Regression analyses with PSQI as the dependent variable and all six ZTPI subscales as the predictors indicated that time perspective accounted for about 20% of the variance in sleep quality, with Past Negative, Past Positive, and Future Negative as the unique predictors. The results additionally confirmed a strong relationship between DBTP and life satisfaction. Finally, data were consistent with the hypothesis that the association of DBTP and life satisfaction is mediated, in part, by sleep quality. Taken together, the results confirmed a substantial link between time perspective sleep-related problems, factors that may have a negative impact on life satisfaction. (shrink)

An introduction to philosophy through film, _Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies_ combines the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues with the experience of viewing films, and provides an engaging reading experience for undergraduate students, philosophy enthusiasts and film buffs alike. An in-depth yet accessible introduction to the philosophical issues raised by films, film spectatorship and film-making Provides 12 self-contained, close discussions of individual films from across genres Films discussed include Total Recall, Minority Report, La Promesse, Funny Games, Ikuru, The (...) Dark Knight, Memento, AI and more Explores concepts that span epistemology, metaphysics, fate, choice, robot love, time travel, personal identity, spectacle, ethics, luck, regret, consequentialism, deontology and the philosophy of film itself A uniquely flexible resource for courses in philosophy and film that encourages student reflection, as well as being an engaging read for the film enthusiast. (shrink)

Source: Author: Ahamed Lebbe Mohamed Aslam, S.M. Ahamed Lebbe There is a relationship between the fiscal deficit and inflation, which was confirmed empirically in several studies conducted in many countries. Sri Lanka has been encountering the problem of inflation for the recent years. But in Sri Lanka, this proposition has not yet been studied scientifically. Therefore, this study was going to fill this gap. The objective of this study was to test the impact of fiscal deficit on inflation in Sri (...) Lanka. For this study, the annual time series data were used during the period of 1959 to 2013. The fiscal deficit, exchange rate, government expenditures and import outflow were used as independent variables while the Colombo consumer price index was considered as dependent variable. In addition, the multiple regressions model was used to test the impact of fiscal deficit on inflation. Based on the regression results, the fiscal deficit preserved the positive relationship with inflation in Sri Lanka at one percent significant level. Therefore, this study confirmed that the fiscal deficit accelerates the inflation in Sri Lanka. ]]>. (shrink)

A fuzzy predictive fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for a wide class of discrete-time nonlinear systems with uncertainties, interval time-varying delays, and partial actuator failures as well as unknown disturbances, in which the main opinions focus on the relevant theory of FPFTC based on Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model description of these systems. The T-S fuzzy model represents the discrete-time nonlinear system in the form of the discrete uncertain time-varying delay state space, which is firstly constructed by a set of (...) local linear models and the nonlinear membership functions. The novel improved state space model can be further obtained by extending the output tracking error to the constructed model. Then the fuzzy predictive fault-tolerant control law based on this extended model is designed, which can increase more control degrees of freedom. Utilizing Lyapunov-Krasovskill theory, less conservative delay-range-dependent stable conditions in terms of linear matrix inequality constraints are given to ensure the asymptotically robust stability of closed-loop system. Meanwhile, the optimized cost function and H-infinity performance index are introduced to the stable conditions to guarantee the robust performance and antidisturbance capability. The simulation results on the temperature control of a strong nonlinear continuous stirred tank reactor show that the proposed control scheme is feasible and effective. (shrink)

The central problem of this dissertation arises from reflecting on Euthyphro’s often neglected final attempt to define piety and the discussion (elenchos) that follows. He claims that piety is knowledge of how to give to the gods what is pleasing in prayer and sacrifice. Socrates, without much argument, reduces Euthyphro’s answer to his earlier, already refuted one – that piety is what is dear to the gods – inviting the question of whether this is all the elenchos is meant to (...) accomplish. If it is not, we should expect to find its purpose in the brief discussion that falls between Euthyphro’s definition and the final reduction of this definition to its predecessor. At the center of this discussion Socrates compares Euthyphronic piety to commerce. This comparison has classically been interpreted as showing Euthyphro’s definition to imply that humans can benefit gods, and since Euthyphro has elsewhere rejected this idea, his definition is refuted by contradiction. But this strands the reduction withoutpurpose, and scrutiny of the text suggests this is not the correct way to interpret the inference structure of this intervening discussion. In this dissertation I argue for two main theses: (i) the disambiguation thesis, which claims that the comparison to commerce is not the philosophical point of the elenchos, and does not result in the refutation of Euthyphro’s definition. It is instead intended to elicit which of two possible models of piety Euthyphro means to describe, the language of his definition being equivocal in at least one important respect, namely whether or not a met need necessarily confers a benefit upon the recipient; (ii) the translation thesis, which claims that there are some important observations to be made about the Greek of Euthyphro’s definition, observations that will make the dis- ambiguation thesis more plausible, and which are obscured by traditional translations of the passage under discussion. These observations concern kecharismena, a word often translated as ‘pleasing’, but is better understood as denoting a broad set of social and religious norms, and for which there is no simple English equivalent. Together, these two theses allow us to see that the main philosophical lesson of the last elenchos is that Euthyphro’s account of piety as ritual is an application of his more famous third attempt to define piety voluntaristically, and that any philosophical concerns over the last definition are consequences of it being an extension of the third one. This is why Plato puts the two side-by-side to close the dialogue, and we are kept from seeing this clearly when we take the comparison to commerce to be accomplishing the main work of the elenchos, rather than as clarifying Euthyphro’s answer so that its conceptual similarities to the previous answer are plainly visible. I conclude the project by defending the venerable view that Socratic piety is service to the gods instantiated by rational inquiry, and show how this model of piety is the antithesis to, and moral remedy for, Euthyphronic piety. (shrink)

The History of Psychology course occupies an unusual but critical place in the psychology curriculum at most universities. As the field has become ever more specialized, with the various subdisciplines branching off, The History of Psychology is often the one course where the common roots of all of these areas are explored. Asking not only "What is psychology?" but also "What is science?" "Why is psychology a science?" and "How did it become one?" this book examines how the paradigm of (...) Psychology was built. Discussing key figures in history in the context of their time, it takes students on a carefully formulated, chronological journey through the build-up of psychology from ancient times to the present, and seeks to draw students into the way science is done, rather than merely presenting them with historical fact. Students will learn not only the "what," but the "why" of the history of psychology and will acquire the necessary background historical material to fully understand those concepts. Organized around a series of moments and cases--such as a shift from scholasticism to rationalism or empiricism, and a shift from idealism to materialism--the book seeks to portray psychology as an on-going, evolving process, rather than a theory.--page i. (shrink)

In herein article an attempt of problem solution connected with anomaly detection in network traffic with the use of statistic models with long or short memory dependence was presented. In order to select the proper type of a model, the parameter describing memory on the basis of the Geweke and Porter-Hudak test was estimated. Bearing in mind that the value of statistic model depends directly on quality of data used for its creation, at the initial stage of the (...) suggested method, outliers were identified and then removed. For the implementation of this task, the criterion using the value of interquartile range was used. The data prepared in this manner were useful for automatic creation of statistic models classes, such as ARFIMA and Holt-Winters. The procedure of calculation of model parameters’ optimal values was carried out as a compromise between the models coherence and the size of error estimation. Then, relations between the estimated network model and its actual parameters were used in order to detect anomalies in the network traffic. Considering the possibility of appearance of significant real traffic network fluctuations, procedure of updating statistic models was suggested. The results obtained in the course of performed experiments proved efficacy and efficiency of the presented solution. (shrink)

SummaryComparison of some longitudinal data on infant weight in two samples of Australian Aborigines indicates changes in infant growth between 1966 and 1976 which suggest that at the time when the child comes off the breast, weight gain slows. This faltering of weight gain is often followed by a partial catch-up, but the resultant weight for age at 1 year corresponds with a lower British centile than the child was at just before weaning.

Analysing time-dependent independent variables requires the use of process-oriented statistical models. Yet social scientists have often had to use data collected at a single point in time, making their task difficult. Making several assumptions about the covariates, the present study uses survival analysis and other statistical techniques to analyse the 1996 South African population census data and examine the effects of selected independent variables on the timing of parenthood in the country. It was found that the onset of parenthood occurs (...) late in South Africa compared with the pattern in most other African societies. While education plays a role in the postponement of parenthood within racial groups, it fails to explain the differences between African and Coloured women on the one hand, and White and Asian women on the other hand, a finding that suggests the existence of two regimes of family formation in South African society. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the connections between ethics and decision theory. In particular, we consider the question of whether decision theory carries with it a bias towards consequentialist ethical theories. We argue that there are plausible versions of the other ethical theories that can be accommodated by “standard” decision theory, but there are also variations of these ethical theories that are less easily accommodated. So while “standard” decision theory is not exclusively consequentialist, it is not necessarily ethically neutral. Moreover, (...) even if our decision-theoretic models get the right answers vis-`a-vis morally correct action, the question remains as to whether the motivation for the non-consequentialist theories and the psychological processes of the agents who subscribe to those ethical theories are lost or poorly represented in the resulting models. (shrink)

We apply the distinction between parameter independence and outcome independence to the linear and nonlinear models of a recent nonrelativistic theory of continuous state vector reduction. We show that in the nonlinear model there is a set of realizations of the stochastic process that drives the state vector reduction for which parameter independence is violated for parallel spin components in the EPR-Bohm setup. Such a set has an appreciable probability of occurrence (≈ 1/2). On the other hand, the linear (...) model exhibits only extremely small parameter dependence effects. We investigate some specific features of the models and we recall that, as has been pointed out recently, if one wants to be able to speak of definite outcomes (or equivalently of possessed objective elements of reality) at finite times, one has to slightly change the criteria for their attribution to physical systems. The concluding section is devoted to a detailed discussion of the difficulties which one meets when one tries to take, as a starting point for the formulation of a relativistic theory, a nonrelativistic scheme which exhibits parameter dependence. Here we derive a theorem which identifies the precise sense in which the occurrence of parameter dependence forbids a genuinely relativistic generalization. Finally we show how the appreciable parameter dependence of the nonlinear model gives rise to problems with relativity, while the extremely weak parameter dependence of the linear model does not give rise to any difficulty, provided one takes into account the appropriate criteria for the attribution of definite outcomes. (shrink)

Progress in addiction science is hampered by disagreements and ambiguity around its core construct: addiction. Addiction Ontology (AddictO) offers a path to a solution of the kind that has addressed similar problems in other areas of science: a set of clearly and uniquely defined entities to which terms such as ‘addiction’, addictive disorder’ and ‘substance dependence ’can be applied for ease of reference while recognizing that it is the construct definitions and their unique IDs that are central, not the terms.

A model for kinetics of circular substrate cleavage by restriction endonuclease was formulated. The aim of the analysis of the model was to extract kinetic constants for all target sites from time- dependence of fragment concentration in reaction products. That was proved to be possible for molecules with an odd number of fragments only. A symmetry of the molecules with an even number of fragment is the cause. A solution for molecules with an odd number of fragments was (...) found and methods for dealing with the other molecules were suggested. (shrink)

We prove covering theorems for K, where K is the core model below the sharp for a strong cardinal, and give an application to stationary set reflection.

This study investigates the pattern of institutional shareholding in the U.K. and its relationship with socially responsible behavior by companies within a sample of over 500 UK companies. We estimate a set of ownership models that distinguish between long- and short-term investors and their largest components and which incorporate both aggregated and disaggregated measures of corporate social performance (CSP). The results suggest that long-term institutional investment is positively related to CSP providing further support for earlier studies by Johnson and Greening (...) (1999, Academy of Management Journal 42, 564–576) and Graves and Waddock (1994, Academy of Management Journal 37, 1034–1046). Disaggregation of CSP into its constituent components suggests that the pattern of institutional investment is also related to the form which CSP takes. Investigation of the impact of investment screens on the selection of stocks suggests that long-term institutional investors select primarily through exclusion, rejecting those firms which have the worst CSP. (shrink)

Clinical delusions are difficult to investigate in the laboratory because they co-occur with other symptoms and with intellectual impairment. Partly for these reasons, researchers have recently begun to use hypnosis with neurologically intact people in order to model clinical delusions. In this paper we describe striking analogies between the behavior of patients with a clinical delusion of mirrored self misidentification, and the behavior of highly hypnotizable subjects who receive a hypnotic suggestion to see a stranger when they look in (...) the mirror. Based on these analogies, we argue that the use of hypnosis is a reliable method to investigate the surface features of clinical delusions. But to what extent can hypnosis successfully recreate delusions? Can it also contribute to a better understanding of delusion formation? Although clinical delusions and hypnotically induced beliefs are different in etiology, some analogies can be identified in the underlying processes that characterise them, based on the two-factor theory of delusion formation. (shrink)

A naive introduction of a dependency of the mass of a black hole on the Schwarzschild time coordinate results in singular behavior of curvature invariants at the horizon, violating expectations from complementarity. If instead a temporal dependence is introduced in terms of a coordinate akin to the river time representation, the Ricci scalar is nowhere singular away from the origin. It is found that for a shrinking mass scale due to evaporation, the null radial geodesics that generate the horizon are (...) slightly displaced from the coordinate singularity. In addition, a changing horizon scale significantly alters the form of the coordinate singularity in diagonal (orthogonal) metric coordinates representing the space-time. A Penrose diagram describing the growth and evaporation of an example black hole is constructed to examine the evolution of the coordinate singularity. (shrink)

The Neurological Disease Ontology (ND) is being developed to provide a comprehensive framework for the representation of neurological diseases (Diehl et al., 2013). ND utilizes the model established by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) for the representation of entities in medicine and disease (Scheuermann et al., 2009). The goal of ND is to include information for each disease concerning its molecular, genetic, and environmental origins, the processes involved in its etiology and realization, as well as its clinical (...) presentation including signs and symptoms. (shrink)

Folie à deux is the transference of delusional ideas from one 'primary' individual to one or more 'secondary' individuals (Lasègue & Falret, 1877). However, it is difficult to investigate experimentally because often only one patient is identified as delusional. We investigated whether hypnosis could model the experiences of the secondary in this delusion. Our primary was a confederate, who displayed two delusional beliefs and attempted to transmit them to hypnotised subjects. We manipulated the status of the confederate so that (...) they were portrayed as either "credible" or merely "interesting". Many high hypnotisable individuals adopted the confederate's beliefs and confabulated evidence in support of them. Also, subjects who interacted with a credible confederate extended their delusions beyond those displayed by the confederate. We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach and suggest ways to improve the validity of this model. (shrink)

This article presents a computational model of the learning of diagnostic knowledge, based on observations of human operators engaged in real-world troubleshooting tasks. We present a model of problem solving and learning in which the reasoner introspects about its own performance on the problem-solving task, identifies what it needs to learn to improve its performance, formulates learning goals to acquire the required knowledge, and pursues its learning goals using multiple learning strategies. The model is implemented in a (...) computer system which provides a case study based on observations of troubleshooting operators and protocol analysis of the data gathered in the test area of an operational electronics manufacturing plant. The model not only addresses issues in human learning, but, in addition, is computationally justified as a uniform, extensible framework for multistrategy learning. (shrink)

The present paper develops arguments for the need to formulate the basic theories of physics in terms of a six-dimensional manifold, as opposed to the four-dimensional space-time continuum of conventional theory. Employing a purely classical approach, some of the dynamical consequences of such a formulation with regard to both electrodynamics and gravitation are evaluated. The results lead to interesting implications with regard to various questions such as the occurrence and importance of superluminal particles, the existence of two or more physically (...) distinct time scales, and the variation of the gravitational coupling constant G and the law of energy conservation. The analysis also suggests a physical interpretation of the additional coordinates that occur in the metric. (shrink)

A theory of two-sided containers, denoted ZF2, is introduced. This theory is then shown to be synonymous to ZF in the sense of Visser (2006), via an interpretation involving Quine pairs. Several subtheories of ZF2, and their relationships with ZF, are also examined. We include a short discussion of permutation models (in the sense of Rieger–Bernays) over ZF2. We close with highlighting some areas for future research, mostly motivated by the need to understand non-wellfounded games.