What shall we call God? An exploration of metaphors coded from descriptions of God from a large U.S. undergraduate sample

People use numerous metaphors to describe God. God is seen as a bearded man, light, and love. Based on metaphor theories, the metaphors people use to refer to God reflect how people think about God and could, in turn, reflect their worldview. However, little work has explored the common metaphors for God. This was the purpose of the current investigation. Four trained raters coded open-ended responses from predominantly Christian U.S. undergraduates (N = 2,923) describing God for the presence or absence of numerous metaphoric categories. We then assessed the frequency of each of the metaphor categories. We identified 16 metaphor categories that were present in more than 1% of the responses. The top categories were “GOD IS POWER,” “GOD IS HUMAN,” and “GOD IS MALE.” These findings were similar across religious affiliations. We attempted to support our coding analysis using top-down and bottom-up automated language analysis. Results from these analyses provided added confidence to our conclusions. We discuss the implications of our findings and the potential for future studies investigating important psychological and behavioral outcomes of using different metaphors for God.

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Subjective Importance of a Common Feature Decides Its Consideration in Multi-attribute Decision-making

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2020.583999 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

Author(s):

Ziyi Wang ◽

Guibing He

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Individual Level ◽

Common Features ◽

Shared Information ◽

Multi Attribute Decision Making ◽

The Common ◽

Research Questions ◽

Subjective Importance

One of the interesting research questions in multi-attribute decision-making is what affects the consideration of shared information (i.e., common features) between two alternatives. Previous studies have suggested two approaches (bottom-up and top-down) in finding what characteristics of common features affect their consideration. Two bottom-up factors (salience and interdependence) were found, but no top-down factors were discovered. In the current study, we followed the top-down approach and investigated how subjective importance (SI) of a common feature affects its consideration. In two studies, we consistently found that, on both the general and individual level, the level of consideration increased with the SI of the common feature. This result provided a new explanation for the effect of common feature consideration and its individual difference; it also provided insights in explaining the underlying process of multi-attribute decision making.

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CLUSTER-BASED EXTENSION OF THE GENERALIZED POISSON LOSS DYNAMICS AND CONSISTENCY WITH SINGLE NAMES

International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance ◽

10.1142/s0219024907004342 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 10 (04) ◽

pp. 607-631 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

DAMIANO BRIGO ◽

ANDREA PALLAVICINI ◽

ROBERTO TORRESETTI

Keyword(s):

Counting Process ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Loss Model ◽

Generalized Poisson ◽

The Common ◽

Loss Models ◽

Recovery Dynamics

We extend the common Poisson shock framework reviewed for example in Lindskog and McNeil [15] to a formulation avoiding repeated defaults, thus obtaining a model that can account consistently for single name default dynamics, cluster default dynamics and default counting process. This approach allows one to introduce significant dynamics, improving on the standard "bottom-up" approaches, and to achieve true consistency with single names, improving on most "top-down" loss models. Furthermore, the resulting GPCL model has important links with the previous GPL dynamical loss model in Brigo et al. [6], which we point out. Model extensions allowing for more articulated spread and recovery dynamics are hinted at. Calibration to both DJi-TRAXX and CDX index and tranche data across attachments and maturities shows that the GPCL model has the same calibration power as the GPL model while allowing for consistency with single names.

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Politics in the Service of Society: A Response to My Interlocutors

Studies in Christian Ethics ◽

10.1177/0953946819897593 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 262-270

Author(s):

Luke Bretherton

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

Democratic Politics ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Public And Private ◽

Common Life ◽

Political Relations ◽

Informal Politics ◽

The Common ◽

Made In

This article is a response to Hauerwas’s, O’Donovan’s and Muir’s engagements with Christ and the Common Life. Three distinctions that operate in the book are clarified, namely that between formal and informal politics, bottom-up forms of democratic politics and top-down forms of statecraft, and social and political relations. In setting these out, the distinction between public and private is critiqued and two, interrelated moves made in the book are defended. First, that democratic politics precedes and sustains a liberal polity. And second, that human law and the state should serve the antecedent and superordinate good of association.

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Statistical mechanics of neocortical interactions: EEG eigenfunctions of short-term memory

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x00273251 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 403-405 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Lester Ingber

Keyword(s):

Statistical Mechanics ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Probability Distributions ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Top Down ◽

Short Term ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Term Memory ◽

Future Studies ◽

Scalp Eeg

This commentary focuses on how bottom-up neocortical models can be developed into eigenfunction expansions of probability distributions appropriate to describe short-term memory in the context of scalp EEG. The mathematics of eigenfunctions are similar to the top-down eigenfunctions developed by Nunez, despite different physical manifestations. The bottom-up eigenfunctions are at the local mesocolumnar scale, whereas the top-down eigenfunctions are at the global regional scale. Our respective approaches have regions of substantial overlap, and future studies may expand top-down eigenfunctions into the bottom-up eigenfunctions, yielding a model of scalp EEG expressed in terms of columnar states of neocortical processing of attention and short-term memory.

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Evaluating the Bottom-Up Method for Functional Decomposition in Product Dissection Tasks

Volume 3: 16th International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Technologies; 11th International Conference on Design Education; 7th Frontiers in Biomedical Devices ◽

10.1115/detc2014-35393 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Joran W. Booth ◽

Abihnav K. Bhasin ◽

Tahira Reid ◽

Karthik Ramani

Keyword(s):

Prior Work ◽

Top Down ◽

Specific Design ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Functional Decomposition ◽

Identification Methods ◽

Future Studies ◽

Statistical Support ◽

Prior Literature ◽

Function Identification

The purpose of this study is to continue to explore which function identification methods work best for specific design tasks. Prior literature describes the top-down and bottom-up approaches as equivalent methods for functional decomposition. Building on our prior work, this study tests the bottom-up method against the top-down and enumeration methods. We used a 3-factor within-subject study (n=136). While most of our diagram-oriented metrics were not statistically different, we found statistical support that: 1.) students reported that the dissection activity was more useful when using bottom-up, and 2.) that student engineers committed many more syntax errors when using the bottom-up method (by listing parts instead of functions). We believe that both these results are due to the increased focus on individual parts. We do not know if an increased attention to the parts would increase novelty or fixation, and recommend future studies to find out.

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Calculation Methods for Construction Material Stocks: A Systematic Review

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11146612 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (14) ◽

pp. 6612

Author(s):

Usman Nasir ◽

Ruidong Chang ◽

Hossein Omrany

Keyword(s):

Statistical Data ◽

Construction Material ◽

Research Area ◽

Embodied Energy ◽

Small Scale ◽

Calculation Methods ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Future Studies ◽

Socio Economic Factors

This paper aims to critically review the current body of literature relating to the calculation methods of construction material stock. To this end, this study adopts a systematic literature review technique in order to identify the relevant studies. The findings revealed that the bottom-up and top-down methodologies were commonly employed by the reviewed studies. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the bottom-up approach should be utilized when dealing with small-scale areas or where more accurate results are required. The top-down method should be used wherein the research area is large, and the results could be estimated based upon assumptions and statistical data. Similarly, the demand-driven methodology should be used to find the material stock accumulation due to socio-economic factors. The study also found that the material stock results can be used as data for other research, such as waste management and embodied energy. Further, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to ease the process of calculating construction material stocks in different projects. The outcomes of this research shall be beneficial for future studies that explore the literature connected to the construction material stock and recommend methods and techniques that should be used to quantify the material stock.

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