Placebo Selection in Survey Experiments: An Agnostic Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Ethan Porter ◽  
Yamil R. Velez
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Medical Literature ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Internet News ◽  
Precise Knowledge ◽  
Nonspecific Effects ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Generative Language ◽  
Automated Processes

Abstract Although placebo conditions are ubiquitous in survey experiments, little evidence guides common practices for their use and selection. How should scholars choose and construct placebos? First, we review the role of placebos in published survey experiments, finding that placebos are used inconsistently. Then, drawing on the medical literature, we clarify the role that placebos play in accounting for nonspecific effects (NSEs), or the effects of ancillary features of experiments. We argue that, in the absence of precise knowledge of NSEs that placebos are adjusting for, researchers should average over a corpus of many placebos. We demonstrate this agnostic approach to placebo construction through the use of GPT-2, a generative language model trained on a database of over 1 million internet news pages. Using GPT-2, we devise 5,000 distinct placebos and administer two experiments (N = 2,975). Our results illustrate how researchers can minimize their role in placebo selection through automated processes. We conclude by offering tools for incorporating computer-generated placebo text vignettes into survey experiments and developing recommendations for best practice.

Commoning or being commoned? Institutions, politics, and the role of the state in collective housing policy in Bangkok, Thailand

2021 ◽  
pp. 147309522110373
Author(s):  
Hayden Shelby
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Slum Upgrading ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Collective Housing ◽  
Urban Commons ◽  
Active Promoter

This article theorizes the potential roles of the state in the urban commons through an analysis of a slum upgrading program in Thailand that employs collective forms of land tenure. In examining the transformation of the program from a grassroots movement to a “best practice” policy, the article demonstrates how the state has expanded from mere enabler of the commons to active promoter. In the process, the role of many residents has evolved from actively creating the institutions of collective governance— commoning—to adopting institutions prescribed by the state— being commoned. However, by comparing the work to two different groups of communities who work within the context of the policy, the article illustrates how active commoning can still take place in such contexts.

The Role of AI Attribution Knowledge in the Evaluation of Artwork

2021 ◽  
pp. 027623742199469
Author(s):  
Harsha Gangadharbatla
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Purchase Intentions ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
People’S Attitudes

Artwork is increasingly being created by machines through algorithms with little or no input from humans. Yet, very little is known about people’s attitudes and evaluations of artwork generated by machines. The current study investigates (a) whether individuals are able to accurately differentiate human-made artwork from AI-generated artwork and (b) the role of attribution knowledge (i.e., information about who created the content) in their evaluation and reception of artwork. Data was collected using an Amazon Turk sample from two survey experiments designed on Qualtrics. Findings suggest that individuals are unable to accurately identify AI-generated artwork and they are likely to associate representational art to humans and abstract art to machines. There is also an interaction effect between attribution knowledge and the type of artwork (representational vs. abstract) on purchase intentions and evaluations of artworks.

An Evaluation of a Self-Initiated Practice Exercise for Investigative Interviewers of Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wright ◽  
Belinda L. Guadagno ◽  
Martine B. Powell
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Investigative Interviewing ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Careful Monitoring ◽  
Complex Skills ◽  
Practice Opportunities ◽  
Ongoing Development ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

The current study extends debate and research on the important role of practice in promoting and sustaining complex skills in investigative interviewing. Specifically, we explored the use of self-initiated practice as one avenue for facilitating ongoing development of professionals who interview children about abuse. A group of 40 investigative interviewers were required to organise and administer their own practice opportunities and to document these sessions in a diary. The professionals were aware of the important role of practice and what constitutes best-practice interview guidelines; however no instruction was given about the desired format, structure and timing of the practice sessions. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed poor adherence to self-initiated practice, and the practice (among those who adhered to this model) had negligible impact on performance. Overall, these findings highlight the need for careful monitoring and evaluation of all interviewer practice tasks.

scholarly journals Cinnabar, Calomel and the Art of kushtasāzī: Mercurial Preparations in Unani Medicine

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Preckel
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Medical Literature ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Unani Medicine ◽  
Islamic Medicine ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper examines the role of mercury in “Graeco-Islamic” medicine, which is referred to as Ṭibb-e yūnānī or unani medicine in South Asia. Having its origin in Ancient Greece, unani medicine spread to the Arabic countries and from the fifteenth century onwards to India. With its main roots in the Greek and Latin sources, the most influential works of ‘ilm al-adviya (pharmacology) were translated into Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Mercury (Arabic: zībaq; Persian: sīmāb; Urdu: sīmāb and pāra) played an important role in all Indian traditions of medicine, and had a prominent place in unani medicine. This paper highlights the historical use of mercury in Indian, Persian and Urdu medical literature, the discourses on its efficacy and some of the important mercurial preparations presented in a selection of unani works. Further, the use of mercury as a single and compound drug and its role in the treatment of different diseases will be analysed.

scholarly journals The Ethical Dilemma of Lifestyle Change: Designing for sustainable schools and sustainable citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-155
Author(s):  
Andrea Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Innovative Learning ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Sustainable Schools

This paper explores how participation and sustainability are being addressed by architects within the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in the UK. The intentions promoted by the programme are certainly ambitious, but the ways to fulfil these aims are ill-explored. Simply focusing on providing innovative learning technologies, or indeed teaching young people about physical sustainability features in buildings, will not necessarily teach them the skills they will need to respond to the environmental and social challenges of a rapidly changing world. However, anticipating those skills is one of the most problematic issues of the programme. The involvement of young people in the design of schools is used to suggest empowerment, place-making and to promote social cohesion but this is set against government design literature which advocates for exemplars, standard layouts and best practice, all leading to forms of standardisation. The potentials for tokenistic student involvement and conflict with policy aims are evident. This paper explores two issues: how to foster in young people an ethic towards future generations, and the role of co-design practices in this process. Michael Oakeshott calls teaching the conversation of mankind. In this paper, I look at the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Luce Irigaray to argue that investigating the ethical dilemmas of the programme through critical dialogue with students offers an approach to meeting government objectives, building sustainable schools, and fostering sustainable citizenship.

scholarly journals Guidelines for skeletal surveys in suspected child abuse

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Bo Redder Mussmann ◽  
Mette Ramsdal Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Second Opinion ◽  
Radiologic Evaluation ◽  
The Family

Introduction Child abuse imaging differs from general musculoskeletal imaging in that there is exceptional necessity for high quality images. The images are directly involved in legal processes and the child and the family faces major consequences if imaging is sub-optimal. The consequences of misdiagnosis are serious. Should head trauma or fractures be overlooked, or if the radiological diagnosis is uncertain, abused children may be sent home with violent parents or caregivers. Conversely, where no abuse has taken place, but the certainty of the diagnosis is questionable, the unnecessary hospitalization of an innocent family may result. In Southern Denmark approximately 15-20 children per year are examined. The examinations are performed in four different radiology departments throughout the region. Until the autumn of 2012, a variety of imaging protocols and techniques were used in pediatric skeletal surveys. This led to difficulties, because some cases are subject to second opinion report. In many cases, supplemental images or a complete reexamination of the child was required in order to facilitate a second opinion, resulting in unnecessary exposure. Methods An initial consensus meeting with 20 participants was arranged in 2012. Pediatric radiologists, managers and radiographers with special competencies in pediatric radiology attended. Research evidence, cases and clinical experience was discussed. A follow-up meeting was arranged in 2013 with similar participants. This second meeting focused mainly on follow-up skeletal surveys in children <2 years of age Results The first meeting resulted in the agreement on which projections to acquire, image quality criteria, how to cooperate with the parents, radiologic evaluation criteria and the role of the radiographer in imaging the abused child. The second meeting resulted in consensus on the necessary projections required for follow-up skeletal surveys. Conclusion Common protocols for child abuse imaging have been established and fully implemented in the Region of Southern Denmark. Annual meetings have also been established where legal aspects, best practice and best evidence in imaging and cooperation with pediatric departments is discussed.

Advances in benchmarking to improve water utility operations: a review of six IWA books

Water Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanford V. Berg
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Water Utility ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Performance Patterns ◽  
Water Association ◽  
International Water ◽  
Sector Performance ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Key Indicators

Six recent publications by the International Water Association underscore the growing importance of quantitative studies of water utilities for identifying (1) performance patterns, (2) trends in key indicators and (3) best practice. Since each author takes a different approach to the problem of performance measurement and incentives for improvement, the books provide different perspectives on the decision-relevance of empirical analysis and cases for managers and policymakers. Key lessons from the volumes include the use of benchmarking as a tool for establishing better internal incentives, the importance of data collection and auditing and the role of transparency in helping stakeholders become more informed about utility operations. Analysts need to help stakeholders understand sector complexities, where hydrology, topology, historical developments outside current management's control, population income levels and the amount of skilled labor differ widely across and even within nations. The six books taken together underscore the value of quantifying relative performance and improving our awareness of production processes and the institutional arrangements that support strong water sector performance.

scholarly journals Generating Sentences by Editing Prototypes

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 437-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelvin Guu ◽  
Tatsunori B. Hashimoto ◽  
Yonatan Oren ◽  
Percy Liang
Keyword(s):  
Language Model ◽  
Language Modeling ◽  
Language Models ◽  
Training Corpus ◽  
Human Evaluation ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Sentence Similarity ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
Generative Language

We propose a new generative language model for sentences that first samples a prototype sentence from the training corpus and then edits it into a new sentence. Compared to traditional language models that generate from scratch either left-to-right or by first sampling a latent sentence vector, our prototype-then-edit model improves perplexity on language modeling and generates higher quality outputs according to human evaluation. Furthermore, the model gives rise to a latent edit vector that captures interpretable semantics such as sentence similarity and sentence-level analogies.

scholarly journals Impact of circular economy as the EU’s ambitious policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Urška Fric
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The article describes the role of legislative and legal framework which brought about a new approach to waste management through the concept of circular economy, and its drivers. We explicitly focus on the impact of ambitious EU environmental policy and its financial support from the European Commission (EC) which helped social actors recognize not only the ecological, but also the economic and social benefits of the circular economy. Over 50 actions under the “Circular Economy Action Plan” launched in 2015 have been delivered or are being implemented in this period in European Union (EU). Through overview of the EU’s ambitious policy, best practice of the circular economy in the world and status quo in circular economy at EU level we also show the circular economy is nowadays a crucial megatrend and there is still needed to increase up action at EU level, provide the competitive advantage it brings to EU economy and close the loop. Beside impact of ambitious EU environmental policy article focuses on the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach as a political economy approach with the purpose for explaining the role of legislative and legal framework as a mechanism for selection and retention of the paradigm of circular economy.

scholarly journals Linking Science with People: An Introduction to Part IV, Science

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-219
Author(s):  
Bill Fulford
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Conversion Disorders ◽  
The Rich

AbstractThis chapter outlines how the contributions to this Part illustrate the role of a culturally enriched model of values-based practice in linking science with people. Chapters 25, “A Cross-Cultural Values-Based Approach to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dissociative (Conversion) Disorders,” 26, “Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder or Neuroenhancement of Socially Accepted Modesty? The Case of Ms. Suzuki,” 27, “Nontraditional Religion, Hyper-religiosity, and Psychopathology: The Story of Ivan from Bulgaria,” and 28, “Journey into Genes: Cultural Values and the (Near) Future of Genetic Counselling in Mental Health” explore the three principles of values-based practice defining its relationship with evidence-based practice. Chapters 29, “Policy-Making Indabas to Prevent “Not Listening”: An Added Recommendation from the Life Esidimeni Tragedy,” 30, “Covert Treatment in a Cross-Cultural Setting,” and 31, “Discouragement Towards Seeking Health Care of Older People in Rural China: The Influence of Culture and Structural Constraints” then give examples of the rich resources of the wider values tool kit for linking science with people (the African indaba, transcultural ethics, and anthropology). The concluding chapter, the autobiographical chapter 32, “Discovering Myself, a Journey of Rediscovery,” illustrates the role of cultural values (particularly of the positive StAR values) in recovery. A cross-cutting theme of the contributions to this Part is the importance of the cultural and other values impacting on psychiatric diagnostic assessment in supporting best practice in person-centered mental health care.

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