Two myths of representational measurement

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Eran Tal
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Qualitative Structure ◽  
Numerical Representations

Abstract Axiomatic measurement theories are commonly interpreted as claiming that, in order to quantify an empirical domain, the qualitative structure of data about that domain must be mapped to a numerical structure. Such mapping is supposed to be established independently, i.e., without presupposing that the domain can be quantified. This interpretation is based on two myths: that it is possible to independently infer the qualitative structure of objects from empirical data, and that the adequacy of numerical representations can only be justified by mapping such qualitative structures to numerical ones. I dispel the myths, and show that axiomatic measurement theories provide an inadequate characterization of the kind of evidence required to detect quantities.

scholarly journals Aristotelian Moral Psychology and the Situationist Challenge

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-277
Author(s):  
Adam M. Croom
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Developmental Science ◽  
Psychological Studies

Abstract For some time now moral psychologists and philosophers have ganged up on Aristotelians, arguing that results from psychological studies on the role of character-based and situation-based influences on human behavior have convincingly shown that situations rather than personal characteristics determine human behavior. In the literature on moral psychology and philosophy this challenge is commonly called the “situationist challenge,” and as Prinz (2009) has previously explained, it has largely been based on results from four salient studies in social psychology, including the studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Milgram (1963), Isen and Levin (1972), and Darley and Batson (1973). The situationist challenge maintains that each of these studies seriously challenges the plausibility of virtuous personal characteristics by challenging the plausibility of personal characteristics more generally. In this article I undermine the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology by carefully considering major problems with the conclusions that situationists have drawn from the empirical data, and by further challenging the accuracy of their characterization of the Aristotelian view. In fact I show that when properly understood the Aristotelian view is not only consistent with empirical data from developmental science but can also offer important insights for integrating moral psychology with its biological roots in our natural and social life.

scholarly journals Bearing the Brunt of Structural Inequality: Ontological Labor in the Academy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruthanne Crapo ◽  
Ann J Cahill ◽  
Melissa Jacquart
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Marginalized Groups

Empirical data show that members of underrepresented and historically marginalized groups in academia undertake many forms of undervalued or unnoticed labor. While the data help to identify that this labor exists, they do not provide a thick description of what the experience is like, nor do they offer a framework for understanding the different kinds of invisible labor that are being undertaken. We identify and analyze a distinct, undervalued, and invisible labor that the data have left unnamed and unmeasured: ontological labor, the work required to manage one’s identity and body if either or both do not fit into academic structures, norms, and demands. We argue that ontological labor efforts should be understood as a form of labor. We then provide a characterization of ontological labor, detailing the labor as navigating one’s obligations to give and managing entitlements to take. We also highlight the ontological labor that takes place through instances of resistance, such as through complaint or refusals.

Ontology I: From Brain to World–Brain Relation

2018 ◽  
pp. 239-268
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Relational View ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Ontological Dimension ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
The Brain

How can we account for the brain’s existence and reality? I now shift my focus from the empirical (Part I and II) context in the previous chapters to the ontological dimension. Specifically, I focus on an “ontology of brain” as part of a wider “philosophy of brain” (Northoff 2004). Based on the empirical data, I argue that the brain’s existence and reality is based on structure and relation rather than elements like properties. This makes possible to determine the brain’s existence and reality by world-brain relation rather than physical or mental properties within the brain itself. That is well compatible with ontic structural realism (OSR). More specifically, the world-brain relation can be understood in spatiotemporal terms entailing what I describe as “spatiotemporal ontology”. Time and space are here no longer understood in observational terms, e.g., “observational time and space”, but rather as relational in the sense of OSR, i.e., “relational time and space”. Taken together, I ontologically characterize the brain by world-brain relation presupposing relation and structure as in OSR. This amounts to a “relational view” of the brain in our “ontology of brain”. Such relational view of the brain’s existence and reality can be specified by “relational time and space” (as I say) as distinguished from “observational time and space”. That opens the door for a novel ontological characterization of consciousness in the terms of world-brain relation and OSR – this shall be the focus in the next chapter.

scholarly journals A Survey of Quantitative Descriptions of Molecular Structure

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 1946-1956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajarshi Guha ◽  
Egon Willighagen
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Structure ◽  
Chemical Structure ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
Molecular Descriptor ◽  
Molecular Graph ◽  
Molecular Surface ◽  
Numerical Characterization ◽  
Numerical Representations ◽  
Simple Atom

Numerical characterization of molecular structure is a first step in many computational analysis of chemical structure data. These numerical representations, termed descriptors, come in many forms, ranging from simple atom counts and invariants of the molecular graph to distribution of properties, such as charge, across a molecular surface. In this article we first present a broad categorization of descriptors and then describe applications and toolkits that can be employed to evaluate them. We highlight a number of issues surrounding molecular descriptor calculations such as versioning and reproducibility and describe how some toolkits have attempted to address these problems.

scholarly journals Some problems with the lexical status of nondefault inflection

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1025-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Indefrey
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Lexical Status ◽  
Differential Effects

Clahsen's characterization of nondefault inflection as based exclusively on lexical entries does not capture the full range of empirical data on German inflection. In the verb system differential effects of lexical frequency seem to be input-related rather than affecting morphological production. In the noun system, the generalization properties of -n and -e plurals exceed mere analogy-based productivity.

scholarly journals A New Measure of Market Inefficiency

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Stephens ◽  
Harald A. Benink ◽  
José Luís Gordillo ◽  
Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Empirical Measure ◽  
Efficient Markets ◽  
Market Inefficiency ◽  
High Volatility ◽  
Efficient Markets Hypothesis

Financial crises, such as the Great Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 and the COVID-19 Crisis of 2020–2021, lead to high volatility in financial markets and highlight the importance of the debate on the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, a corollary of which is that in an efficient market it should not be possible to systematically make excess returns. In this paper, we discuss a new empirical measure—Excess Trading Returns—that distinguishes between market and trading returns and that can be used to measure inefficiency. We define an Inefficiency Matrix that can provide a complete, empirical characterization of the inefficiencies inherent in a market. We illustrate its use in the context of empirical data from a pair of model markets, where information asymmetries can be clearly understood, and discuss the challenges of applying it to market data from commercial exchanges.

scholarly journals Kinematics in Biology: Symbolic Dynamics Approach

Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 339
Author(s):  
Carlos Correia Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Dynamical System ◽  
Topological Entropy ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Symbolic Dynamics ◽  
Discrete Dynamical System ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Geometrical Method ◽  
Two Parameters ◽  
Complex Trajectories

Motion in biology is studied through a descriptive geometrical method. We consider a deterministic discrete dynamical system used to simulate and classify a variety of types of movements which can be seen as templates and building blocks of more complex trajectories. The dynamical system is determined by the iteration of a bimodal interval map dependent on two parameters, up to scaling, generalizing a previous work. The characterization of the trajectories uses the classifying tools from symbolic dynamics—kneading sequences, topological entropy and growth number. We consider also the isentropic trajectories, trajectories with constant topological entropy, which are related with the possible existence of a constant drift. We introduce the concepts of pure and mixed bimodal trajectories which give much more flexibility to the model, maintaining it simple. We discuss several procedures that may allow the use of the model to characterize empirical data.

Morphological Characterization of Mycobacteriophage R1

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 254-255
Author(s):  
B. L. Soloff ◽  
T. A. Rado
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Source ◽  
Stationary Phase ◽  
Growth Phase ◽  
Minimal Medium ◽  
Morphological Characterization ◽  
Logarithmic Growth Phase ◽  
Complete Lysis ◽  
Lysogenic Culture ◽  
Logarithmic Growth

Mycobacteriophage R1 was originally isolated from a lysogenic culture of M. butyricum. The virus was propagated on a leucine-requiring derivative of M. smegmatis, 607 leu−, isolated by nitrosoguanidine mutagenesis of typestrain ATCC 607. Growth was accomplished in a minimal medium containing glycerol and glucose as carbon source and enriched by the addition of 80 μg/ ml L-leucine. Bacteria in early logarithmic growth phase were infected with virus at a multiplicity of 5, and incubated with aeration for 8 hours. The partially lysed suspension was diluted 1:10 in growth medium and incubated for a further 8 hours. This permitted stationary phase cells to re-enter logarithmic growth and resulted in complete lysis of the culture.

AEM analysis of crystallization in Ti-based amorphous alloys

1983 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 270-271
Author(s):  
A.R. Pelton ◽  
A.F. Marshall ◽  
Y.S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Properties ◽  
Amorphous Alloys ◽  
Amorphous Materials ◽  
Isothermal Annealing ◽  
Amorphous Matrix ◽  
Nucleation And Growth ◽  
Current Interest ◽  
Amorphous Films ◽  
Electrical And Magnetic Properties

Amorphous materials are of current interest due to their desirable mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties. Furthermore, crystallizing amorphous alloys provides an avenue for discerning sequential and competitive phases thus allowing access to otherwise inaccessible crystalline structures. Previous studies have shown the benefits of using AEM to determine crystal structures and compositions of partially crystallized alloys. The present paper will discuss the AEM characterization of crystallized Cu-Ti and Ni-Ti amorphous films.Cu60Ti40: The amorphous alloy Cu60Ti40, when continuously heated, forms a simple intermediate, macrocrystalline phase which then transforms to the ordered, equilibrium Cu3Ti2 phase. However, contrary to what one would expect from kinetic considerations, isothermal annealing below the isochronal crystallization temperature results in direct nucleation and growth of Cu3Ti2 from the amorphous matrix.

Characterization of Coherent, Ordered Precipitates in Nickel-Base Alloys

1973 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 144-145
Author(s):  
B. H. Kear ◽  
J. M. Oblak
Keyword(s):  
Stable Phase ◽  
Nickel Base Superalloy ◽  
Alloy 718 ◽  
Commercial Alloy ◽  
Precipitate Morphology ◽  
Continuous Precipitation ◽  
Nickel Base ◽  
Base Superalloy ◽  
Strengthening Precipitate

A nickel-base superalloy is essentially a Ni/Cr solid solution hardened by additions of Al (Ti, Nb, etc.) to precipitate a coherent, ordered phase. In most commercial alloy systems, e.g. B-1900, IN-100 and Mar-M200, the stable precipitate is Ni3 (Al,Ti) γ′, with an LI2structure. In A lloy 901 the normal precipitate is metastable Nis Ti3 γ′ ; the stable phase is a hexagonal Do2 4 structure. In Alloy 718 the strengthening precipitate is metastable γ″, which has a body-centered tetragonal D022 structure.Precipitate MorphologyIn most systems the ordered γ′ phase forms by a continuous precipitation re-action, which gives rise to a uniform intragranular dispersion of precipitate particles. For zero γ/γ′ misfit, the γ′ precipitates assume a spheroidal.

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