External Validity

External validity captures the extent to which inferences drawn from a given study's sample apply to a broader population or other target populations. Social scientists frequently invoke external validity as an ideal, but they rarely attempt to make rigorous, credible external validity inferences. In recent years, methodologically oriented scholars have advanced a flurry of work on various components of external validity, and this article reviews and systematizes many of those insights. We first clarify the core conceptual dimensions of external validity and introduce a simple formalization that demonstrates why external validity matters so critically. We then organize disparate arguments about how to address external validity by advancing three evaluative criteria: model utility, scope plausibility, and specification credibility. We conclude with a practical aspiration that scholars supplement existing reporting standards to include routine discussion of external validity. It is our hope that these evaluation and reporting standards help rebalance scientific inquiry, such that the current obsession with causal inference is complemented with an equal interest in generalized knowledge.

Knowledge Norms for Constative Speech Acts

This chapter is up to an ambitious task: it develops the first integrated account of the epistemic normativity of constatives. In order to do that, it argues for a generalized knowledge-based account of the epistemic normativity of constative speech, and it develops the corresponding accounts for, respectively, assertives, predictives, retrodictives, descriptives, ascriptives, informatives, confirmatives, concessives, retractives, assentives, dissentives, disputatives, responsives, suggestives, and suppositives. The chapter argues for a knowledge account from three different angles: (1) the nature of communicative speech acts, (2) the relation between assertion and other constatives, and (3) the normativity of belief together with constatives’ epistemic function.

The role of schemas and scripts in pictorial narration

The theoretical debate on the nature of narrative has been mainly concerned with literary narratives, whereas forms of non-literary and especially pictorial narrativity have been somewhat neglected. In this paper, however, I shall discuss narrativity specifically with regard to pictorial objects in order to clarify how pictorial storytelling may be based on the activation of mentally stored action and scene schemas. Approaches from cognitive psychology, such as the work of Schank, Roger C. & Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, plans, goals and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Mandler, Jean Matter. 1984. Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. London/Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Schank, Roger C. 1995. Tell me a story: Narrative and intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, suggest that cognition crucially depends on the storage and retrieval of action scripts or schemata, that is, narrative structures, which may occur at various levels of abstraction. These schemas incorporate generalized knowledge about event sequences, such as the order in which specific events will take place; causal, enabling, or conventionalized relations between these events, and what kind of events occur in certain action sequences. There also are scene schemas that are characterized by spatial rather than temporal relations. Further kinds of schemas seem also to play a decisive role. Drawing upon considerations from schema and script theory, I will focus on some concrete examples of pictorial narration, more specifically depictions of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, where narrative schema structures become involved and, indeed, the comprehensibility of the pictures as such presuppose mental script representations.

Growing a sustainable local grain economy in Arizona: A multidimensional analytical case study of an alternative food network

Local grain economies are being developed in North America and Europe as alternatives to the global grain economy and its negative externalities. Little is known, however, about their size, structure, and sustainability, in particular as they evolve. This study offers such insights from a case study of the local grain economy in Arizona. The study uses an analytical framework that combines quantitative and qualitative data and a number of analytical methods to construct a multidimensional profile of the local grain economy. The findings indicate steady growth of the local grain economy in Arizona—in production quantities, range of businesses, diversity of products, and local economy benefits over a number of developmental stages. The findings also suggest that challenges of consolidation, transparency, and other growth issues might undermine its sustainability. The insights can inform the further development of the local grain economy in Arizona and other regions. The study also provides a framework that, through comparative research, allows for creating generalized knowledge about local grain economies and alternative food networks.

Probabilistic Characterization of the Vegetated Hydrodynamic System Using Non-Parametric Bayesian Networks

The increasing risk of flooding requires obtaining generalized knowledge for the implementation of distinct and innovative intervention strategies, such as nature-based solutions. Inclusion of ecosystems in flood risk management has proven to be an adaptive strategy that achieves multiple benefits. However, obtaining generalizable quantitative information to increase the reliability of such interventions through experiments or numerical models can be expensive, laborious, or computationally demanding. This paper presents a probabilistic model that represents interconnected elements of vegetated hydrodynamic systems using a nonparametric Bayesian network (NPBN) for seagrasses, salt marshes, and mangroves. NPBNs allow for a system-level probabilistic description of vegetated hydrodynamic systems, generate physically realistic varied boundary conditions for physical or numerical modeling, provide missing information in data-scarce environments, and reduce the amount of numerical simulations required to obtain generalized results—all of which are critically useful to pave the way for successful implementation of nature-based solutions.

Evaluation of knowledge and education of physicians to diabetic patients in primary care in Saudi Arabia

Background: Effective treatment of diabetes is not enough alone, there must be education and training from physicians and nurses to patients. To achieve education in correct manner there must be enough knowledge of physicians to apply care and teaching of these patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the knowledge and education of physicians to diabetic patients in primary care in Saudi Arabia.Methods: Successive evaluation investigation through questionnaire. The work universe was made up of the 83 service areas of the 15 municipalities of Saudi Arabia, the sample of the total of the incorporated areas was initially made up of 625 health providers and 2,171 people with diabetes.Results: At the beginning of the study, the highest percentage of health providers surveyed declared that they did not know (78%) or that it was not defined (16.6) who should educate the person with diabetes, while the results at the end of the study show that 32% mentioned the doctor and the nurse and 62.7 the entire team of work (p=0.000) with a more adequate vision on the definition of responsibility for the fulfilment of this task and a generalized knowledge (97.5) of the existence of an education program in d diabetes that was useful for their compliance.Conclusions: Extension of the diabetes education program to Saudi Arabia achieved a significant change in the opinions of health providers on the health problem.