A Counterfactual Analysis of Causation

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-147
Author(s):  
Paul Noordhof
Keyword(s):  
Causal Chain ◽  
Counterfactual Analysis ◽  
Target Event ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Difficult Cases ◽  
Mean Chance

A counterfactual analysis of causation is developed by distinctive notion of chance-raising characterized by probabilistic Σ‎-dependence, when a causal chain is complete appealing to chance-raising at a time just before the time of the effect, and a requirement that the causal chain is made up of actual events to avoid the standard problems with conditional analyses, due to potential changes in the circumstances when the antecedents are true. Although the development takes the form of a consideration of difficult cases of causation (especially probabilistic cases of pre-emption), the resulting idea has independent motivation and simplicity. It is that causes of a target event are those which (independently of its competitors) both make the mean chance of an effect very much greater than its mean background chance, and actually influence the probability of the effect in this way, at the time at which the effect occurred via a complete causal chain.

scholarly journals A Scalar Expected Value of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Random Individuals and Its Application to Risk Evaluation in Insurance Companies

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Chunquan Li ◽  
Jianhua Jin
Keyword(s):  
Risk Evaluation ◽  
Random Variables ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Claim Amount ◽  
Fuzzy Random Variables ◽  
Intuitionistic Fuzzy ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Fuzzy Random ◽  
Mean Chance

Randomness and uncertainty always coexist in complex systems such as decision-making and risk evaluation systems in the real world. Intuitionistic fuzzy random variables, as a natural extension of fuzzy and random variables, may be a useful tool to characterize some high-uncertainty phenomena. This paper presents a scalar expected value operator of intuitionistic fuzzy random variables and then discusses some properties concerning the measurability of intuitionistic fuzzy random variables. In addition, a risk model based on intuitionistic fuzzy random individual claim amount in insurance companies is established, in which the claim number process is regarded as a Poisson process. The mean chance of the ultimate ruin is investigated in detail. In particular, the expressions of the mean chance of the ultimate ruin are presented in the cases of zero initial surplus and arbitrary initial surplus, respectively, if individual claim amount is an exponentially distributed intuitionistic fuzzy random variable. Finally, two illustrated examples are provided.

A Variety of Causes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Noordhof
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Property ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Counterfactual Analysis ◽  
Humean Supervenience ◽  
Transitive Relation ◽  
Fundamental Type ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Natural Way

Metaphysicians often focus on what is vertically fundamental, appealing to grounding or truth-making, rather than what is horizontally fundamental: what must be common to any metaphysical picture of the universe. There is a case for causation being one such feature. But how should it be characterized? A revised semantics for counterfactuals provides the basis for a new counterfactual analysis of causation that is compatible with Humean supervenience but also appropriate for a non-Humean metaphysical framework. Causes (independently of their competitors) both make the chance of an effect very much greater than its mean background chance in the circumstances and actually influences the probability of the effect in this way at the time at which the effect occurred via a complete causal chain. Causation understood in this way is a non-transitive relation. It is neutral over the metaphysics of causes and effects but allows a natural way for events to be understood as one fundamental type of causation, the other being property causation. Although negative causal statements are true, there are no cases of negative causation. The analysis explains how causation involving substantial processes is only one variety of causation, others include double prevention. It allows for a variety of micro- and macro-properties to be the basis of the difference between cause and effect. Laws are patterns of causation realized in different ways in different metaphysical pictures. The analysis of causation characterizes a horizontally fundamental property whose modal character depends upon its different realizations.

The mean chance of ultimate ruin time in random fuzzy insurance risk model

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 4123-4131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ghasemalipour ◽  
Behrouz Fathi-Vajargah
Keyword(s):  
Risk Model ◽  
Insurance Risk ◽  
Ruin Time ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Mean Chance ◽  
Insurance Risk Model

Ultrasound in Renal Pyogenic Infection

1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 675-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Vehmas ◽  
M. Päivänsalo ◽  
M. Taavitsainen ◽  
I. Suramo
Keyword(s):  
Renal Abscess ◽  
Ultrasound Guided ◽  
Percutaneous Aspiration ◽  
Drainage Procedure ◽  
Pyogenic Infection ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Difficult Cases ◽  
Collecting System ◽  
Overall Mortality

A series of 34 patients with renal or perirenal pyogenic infection (18 with pyonephrosis, 10 with renal abscess and 6 with perirenal abscess) is presented to evaluate diagnosis with ultrasound and treatment with percutaneous ultrasound guided aspiration/drainage. Specific findings, defined as sediment echoes or dispersed internal echoes in a hydronephrotic renal collecting system, were noted in 39 per cent of pyonephrosis cases. Abscesses were mainly round or oval hypoechoic lesions measuring from 2 to 15 cm in diameter. Two abscesses were multilocular and one showed a septum. The appearance suggested tumor in 25 per cent. Because of this non-specificity of ultrasound we recommend diagnostic aspirations and further radiologic and other examinations in difficult cases. Four patients were treated by conservative means only, 13 with percutaneous aspiration or drainage, 9 with a combined drainage procedure and surgery, and 8 surgically. The length of the mean hospital stay was shortest in the group with the percutaneous drainage procedure (PDP) although the difference was not statistically significant. PDP was not effective in 12 per cent and surgery was used in these two cases to ensure cure. Complications occurred more often in the PDP group than in the surgery group but the most serious complication was a post-operative one. The different modes of treatment are discussed. The overall mortality was 5.9 per cent.

Photo-electric Hβ and uvby photometry

1966 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 170-180
Author(s):  
D. L. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Narrow Band ◽  
Line Strength ◽  
Interference Filter ◽  
B Stars ◽  
Relative Line ◽  
The Mean ◽  
F Stars ◽  
Two Parameters ◽  
Filter Photometry ◽  
The Continuum

Early in the 1950's Strömgren (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) introduced medium to narrow-band interference filter photometry at the McDonald Observatory. He used six interference filters to obtain two parameters of astrophysical interest. These parameters he calledlandc, for line and continuum hydrogen absorption. The first measured empirically the absorption line strength of Hβby means of a filter of half width 35Å centered on Hβand compared to the mean of two filters situated in the continuum near Hβ. The second index measured empirically the Balmer discontinuity by means of a filter situated below the Balmer discontinuity and two above it. He showed that these two indices could accurately predict the spectral type and luminosity of both B stars and A and F stars. He later derived (6) an indexmfrom the same filters. This index was a measure of the relative line blanketing near 4100Å compared to two filters above 4500Å. These three indices confirmed earlier work by many people, including Lindblad and Becker. References to this earlier work and to the systems discussed today can be found in Strömgren's article inBasic Astronomical Data(7).

A one-dimensional self-gravitating stellar gas

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 46-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lecar
Keyword(s):  
Gravitational Field ◽  
Phase Space ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Space Distribution ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Phase Space Distribution ◽  
Dimensional Phase Space ◽  
The Mean

“Dynamical mixing”, i.e. relaxation of a stellar phase space distribution through interaction with the mean gravitational field, is numerically investigated for a one-dimensional self-gravitating stellar gas. Qualitative results are presented in the form of a motion picture of the flow of phase points (representing homogeneous slabs of stars) in two-dimensional phase space.

The motion of a lunar orbiter

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 373
Author(s):  
Y. Kozai
Keyword(s):  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Artificial Satellite ◽  
Equations Of Motion ◽  
Triaxial Ellipsoid ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Secular Motion ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Close Satellite ◽  
The Mean

The motion of an artificial satellite around the Moon is much more complicated than that around the Earth, since the shape of the Moon is a triaxial ellipsoid and the effect of the Earth on the motion is very important even for a very close satellite.The differential equations of motion of the satellite are written in canonical form of three degrees of freedom with time depending Hamiltonian. By eliminating short-periodic terms depending on the mean longitude of the satellite and by assuming that the Earth is moving on the lunar equator, however, the equations are reduced to those of two degrees of freedom with an energy integral.Since the mean motion of the Earth around the Moon is more rapid than the secular motion of the argument of pericentre of the satellite by a factor of one order, the terms depending on the longitude of the Earth can be eliminated, and the degree of freedom is reduced to one.Then the motion can be discussed by drawing equi-energy curves in two-dimensional space. According to these figures satellites with high inclination have large possibilities of falling down to the lunar surface even if the initial eccentricities are very small.The principal properties of the motion are not changed even if plausible values ofJ3andJ4of the Moon are included.This paper has been published in Publ. astr. Soc.Japan15, 301, 1963.

On nearly-commensurable periods in the restricted problem of three bodies, with calculations of the long-period variations in the interior 2:1 case

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 197-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Message
Keyword(s):  
Periodic Solution ◽  
Periodic Solutions ◽  
Large Amplitude ◽  
Restricted Problem ◽  
Small Amplitude ◽  
Minor Planets ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Numerical Integrations ◽  
Period Variations ◽  
The Mean

An analytical discussion of that case of motion in the restricted problem, in which the mean motions of the infinitesimal, and smaller-massed, bodies about the larger one are nearly in the ratio of two small integers displays the existence of a series of periodic solutions which, for commensurabilities of the typep+ 1:p, includes solutions of Poincaré'sdeuxième sortewhen the commensurability is very close, and of thepremière sortewhen it is less close. A linear treatment of the long-period variations of the elements, valid for motions in which the elements remain close to a particular periodic solution of this type, shows the continuity of near-commensurable motion with other motion, and some of the properties of long-period librations of small amplitude.To extend the investigation to other types of motion near commensurability, numerical integrations of the equations for the long-period variations of the elements were carried out for the 2:1 interior case (of which the planet 108 “Hecuba” is an example) to survey those motions in which the eccentricity takes values less than 0·1. An investigation of the effect of the large amplitude perturbations near commensurability on a distribution of minor planets, which is originally uniform over mean motion, shows a “draining off” effect from the vicinity of exact commensurability of a magnitude large enough to account for the observed gap in the distribution at the 2:1 commensurability.

the effects of resonance with Jupiter in the system of short-period comets

1974 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 193-203
Author(s):  
L̆ubor Kresák
Keyword(s):  
Structural Effects ◽  
Order Resonance ◽  
Mean Motion ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Compound Effect ◽  
Low Order

AbstractStructural effects of the resonance with the mean motion of Jupiter on the system of short-period comets are discussed. The distribution of mean motions, determined from sets of consecutive perihelion passages of all known periodic comets, reveals a number of gaps associated with low-order resonance; most pronounced are those corresponding to the simplest commensurabilities of 5/2, 2/1, 5/3, 3/2, 1/1 and 1/2. The formation of the gaps is explained by a compound effect of five possible types of behaviour of the comets set into an approximate resonance, ranging from quick passages through the gap to temporary librations avoiding closer approaches to Jupiter. In addition to the comets of almost asteroidal appearance, librating with small amplitudes around the lower resonance ratios (Marsden, 1970b), there is an interesting group of faint diffuse comets librating in characteristic periods of about 200 years, with large amplitudes of about±8% in μ and almost±180° in σ, around the 2/1 resonance gap. This transient type of motion appears to be nearly as frequent as a circulating motion with period of revolution of less than one half that of Jupiter. The temporary members of this group are characteristic not only by their appearance but also by rather peculiar discovery conditions.

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