Identity Selection and the Social Construction of Birthdays

We argue that rather than being a wholly random event, birthdays are sometimes selected by parents. We further argue that such effects have changed over time and are the result of important psychological processes. Long ago, U.S. American parents greatly overclaimed holidays as their children's birthdays. These effects were larger for more important holidays, and they grew smaller as births moved to hospitals and became officially documented. These effects were exaggerated for ethnic groups that deeply valued specific holidays. Parents also overclaimed well-liked calendar days and avoided disliked calendar days as their children's birthdays. However, after birthday selection effects virtually disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s, they reappeared after the emergence of labor induction and planned cesarean birth. For example, there are many fewer modern U.S. births than would be expected on Christmas Day. In addition, modern parents appear to use birth medicalization to avoid undesirable birthdays (Friday the 13th). We argue that basking in reflect glory, ethnic identity processes, and superstitions such as magical thinking all play a role in birthday selection effects. Discussion focuses on the power of social identity in day-to-day judgment and decision-making.

Randomness in the Cosmos

After an introduction of the concepts of randomness and determinacy, I present simple definitions of ‘random number or variable’ or ‘random event’, ‘pseudo-random numbers’, ‘stochastic process’, ‘chance’ and ‘probability’, ‘determinism’ (or ‘deterministic process’), and ‘chaos’. I then proceed to review the different cosmic processes and phenomena where randomness plays an important role. In all these types of processes, I show that there is an underlying “order”, in that there’s a probability distribution for the frequency of such events, the sizes of the objects under consideration, and so on. I conclude with some thoughts on randomness and order in the world and divine providence.

The Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Maritime Industry and the Role of the Ship Registries

Objectives: The current paper focuses on the impact of the unexpected event of the Covid-19 pandemic on the maritime industry. It searches the role adopted by key stakeholders of the shipping community with particular emphasis on the Ship Registries. Methods/Analysis: In order to conduct the research, there has been a thorough investigation concerning the initiatives taken by both governmental and private sector entities. Regulations and announcements issued to handle the Covid-19 pandemic are analysed and properly assessed. Findings: The response of the shipping sector, including the Ship Registries, was decisive and covered numerous aspects of maritime activity. Some of these actions taken can only be regarded as a temporary reply of the maritime industry to the threats imposed by the disease. At the same time, a significant part of these initiatives have a more permanent character and their acceptance by the maritime industry underlines their future potential. In this case, the appearance of the random event of the Covid-19 disease acted as a catalyst for developments in the shipping sector. Novelty/Improvement:This study is expected to contribute to the scientific orientation concerning the reaction towards the impact of future unexpected events with particular emphasis on the role of the Ship Registries. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-SPER-06 Full Text: PDF

The Effects of Meditation and Visualization on the Direct Mental Influence of Random Event Generators

Meditation and visualization exercises have been found to alter an individual’s mood and perception, and it is hypothesized that these techniques will enhance one’s ability to anomalously influence the function of a random event generator (REG) with the mind. This study is comprised of a control experiment and a second experiment with the administration of meditation and visualization exercises. There was no support for a significant deviation of the REG in the direction of the participants’ volition in Experiment 1, t(29) = -1.26, p = .22 (two-tailed), but results revealed a significant deviation in the intended direction in Experiment 2, t(29) = 2.66, p = .01 (two-tailed). Moreover, comparisons between cumulative deviations across both samples were found to be statistically significant, indicating that meditation and visualization exercises may promote significant deviations, t(58) = -2.69, p = .009 (two-tailed). These analyses suggest that the use of meditation and visualization techniques in experiments that study direct mental influence may be beneficial for finding anomalous effects. Keywords: meditation, visualization, random event generator, direct mental influence

Jogo de Palitos: Conhecimentos de Estudantes do 5º Ano Sobre Probabilidade em Situação de Jogo

Resumo O presente artigo surgiu a partir do interesse nos jogos que envolvesse Matemática durante o estágio escolar em um projeto chamado Jovens Matemáticos, no qual tinha como propósito a utilização de jogos direcionados a aprendizagem da Matemática. Nesse estudo, optou-se por investigar o uso do jogo de palitos como um suporte para aprendizagem do conteúdo de probabilidade no 5º ano do ensino Fundamental I. Objetivamos analisar a influência do jogo de palitos na compreensão dos estudantes do 5º ano sobre o conteúdo de probabilidade, buscando identificar sua influência, em particular, no que se refere à aleatoriedade, ao espaço amostral e ao cálculo probabilístico. Foi realizado um pré-teste com 18 alunos do 5º Ano para analisar os conhecimentos prévios dos alunos e após a familiarização do jogo realizamos o pós-teste para saber a influência do jogo. Conclui-se que de modo geral o jogo pode ser um instrumento para compreensão do conteúdo em questão nas abordagens do raciocínio probabilísticos, identificação do espaço amostral e estimativas de eventos aleatórios. Palavras-chave: Probabilidade. Jogo dos Palitos. Situação de Jogo. Resume:The present article arose from the interest in games that involved Mathematics during the school stage in a project called Young Mathematicians, whose purpose was the use of games aimed at learning Mathematics. In this study, we chose to investigate the use of matchstick as a support for learning Probability content in the 5th grade of elementary school I. We aimed to analyze the influence of matchstick on the understanding of 5th grade students on the content of Probability, seeking to identify its influence, particularly with regard to randomness, sample space and probabilistic calculation. A pre-test was conducted with 18 5th graders to analyze the students' previous knowledge and after the familiarization of the game we performed the post-test to know the influence of the game. It is concluded that in general the game can be an instrument for understanding the content of Probability in approaches to probabilistic reasoning, sample space identification and random event estimates. Keyword: Probability; Matchsticks; Gambling situation.

Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Merab Mamerdashvili: Two Ways of Interpretation

The article discusses the similarities and differences between M. Mamar­dashvili’s and E. Gusserl’s phenomenological approaches with an emphasis on M. Mamardashvili’s phenomenology. It is shown that Mamardashvili was a follower of transcendental philosophy, developing his special variant of phe­nomenology. The peculiarity of his method implies different methods of connec­tion of the phenomenology with the classical philosophical toolkit, as well as a special method of constitution of the phenomenon, which includes three components, namely: 1)presence of some personal experience connected with perceived given; 2) correlation of this personal experience with some idea which is shown in this experience; 3) motive of random event which is nonlinear, con­figuring sense as something whole. All three aspects of the constitution of the event make it possible to bring it under the main thing, the nonlinear proce­dure of extracting meaning from the events taking place. As it is shown in the ar­ticle, Mamardashvili believes that this is the only way for a person to get sense as it is impossible to come to him by “natural” (causal and consecutive) way. It seems that Husserl does not have such complex dramaturgy of constitution. In Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, meanings do not imply a mandatory mediating of values or value teleology.

Divisible extension of probability

We outline the transition from classical probability space (Ω, A, p) to its "divisible" extension, where (as proposed by L. A. Zadeh) the σ-field A of Boolean random events is extended to the class 𝓜(A) of all measurable functions into [0,1] and the σ-additive probability measure p on A is extended to the probability integral ∫(·) dp on 𝓜(A). The resulting extension of (Ω, A,p) can be described as an epireflection reflecting A to 𝓜(A) and p to ∫(·) dp.The transition from A to 𝓜(A), resembling the transition from whole numbers to real numbers, is characterized by the extension of two-valued Boolean logic on A to multivalued Łukasiewicz logic on 𝓜(A) and the divisibility of random events: for each random event u ∈ 𝓜(A) and each positive natural number n we have u/n ∈ 𝓜(A) and ∫(u/n) dp = (1/n) ∫u dp.From the viewpoint of category theory, objects are of the form 𝓜(A), morphisms are observables from one object into another one and serve as channels through which stochastic information is conveyed.We study joint random experiments and asymmetrical stochastic dependence/independence of one constituent experiment on the other one. We present a canonical construction of conditional probability so that observables can be viewed as conditional probabilities.In the present paper we utilize various published results related to "quantum and fuzzy" generalizations of the classical theory, but our ultimate goal is to stress mathematical (categorical) aspects of the transition from classical to what we call divisible probability.