Auto IV: Counterfactual Prediction via Automatic Instrumental Variable Decomposition

Instrumental variables (IVs), sources of treatment randomization that are conditionally independent of the outcome, play an important role in causal inference with unobserved confounders. However, the existing IV-based counterfactual prediction methods need well-predefined IVs, while it’s an art rather than science to find valid IVs in many real-world scenes. Moreover, the predefined hand-made IVs could be weak or erroneous by violating the conditions of valid IVs. These thorny facts hinder the application of the IV-based counterfactual prediction methods. In this article, we propose a novel Automatic Instrumental Variable decomposition (AutoIV) algorithm to automatically generate representations serving the role of IVs from observed variables (IV candidates). Specifically, we let the learned IV representations satisfy the relevance condition with the treatment and exclusion condition with the outcome via mutual information maximization and minimization constraints, respectively. We also learn confounder representations by encouraging them to be relevant to both the treatment and the outcome. The IV and confounder representations compete for the information with their constraints in an adversarial game, which allows us to get valid IV representations for IV-based counterfactual prediction. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method generates valid IV representations for accurate IV-based counterfactual prediction.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR YOUNG ITALIANS NEET AND A COMPARISON WITH THE SOCIAL EXCLUSION CONDITION

The spread of the NEET (young people not in education, employment and training) phenomenon in Italy is largely due to the recession that has exacerbated the structural problems of the labor market, worsening job opportunities and contractual conditions, particularly for young people. We analyze how the level of youth unemployment (YUR) influences the number of young NEETs, both as a direct cause and through the risk of discouraging young people, considering the endogeneity issue. We also analyze the role of YUR and other control variables characterizing the youth condition on the social exclusion rate, since the NEET status is comparable to a form of social exclusion. More information comes from the comparison between two divergent macro-areas: the wealthy Center-North and the less developed South of Italy. The results show that the causes of the two phenomena are different in the years of recession. YUR has a predominant effect on NEET, particularly in the less developed area.

Does Social Exclusion Improve Detection of Real and Fake Smiles? A Replication Study

Research on social exclusion suggests an increased attention of excluded persons to subtle social cues. In one study (N = 32), published in Psychological Science, Bernstein et al. (2008) provided evidence for this idea by showing that participants in the social exclusion condition were better in correctly categorizing a target person’s smile as real or fake. Although highly cited, this finding has never been directly replicated. The present study aimed to fill that gap. 201 participants (79.1% female) were randomly assigned to a social exclusion, social inclusion or control condition. Next, participants watched 20 videos of smiling persons and rated whether they show a real or a fake smile. In line with the original study, results showed that participants in the exclusion condition performed better than in the control condition. However, the performance did not differ between the exclusion and inclusion condition—although the pattern was in the predicted direction. In sum, the findings of our study increase rather than decrease confidence in the validity of the investigated idea, but results point to a substantially smaller effect.

The Effectiveness of Recreation Progam on Self-Esteem of Aging in the Elderly Club of Danmeakhmmon Subdistrict, Uttaradit Province, Thailand

This research aims to study and compare the effects of recreation on aging and self-esteem of the elderly at the Elderly Club of the Danmeakhammon sub-district in the Uttaradit Province, Thailand. This was a quasi-experimental study with one-group pretest-posttest design. The population is the 458 elders from the age of about 60-69 years old who is a member of the elderly club, Dan Mae Khamman Sub-district, Uttaradit Province, Thailand. The respondents were fifty people between sixty to sixty-nine years old from the Elderly Club in the Danmeakhammon sub-district, Uttaradit Province, Thailand. The respondents were selected purposively with inclusion condition of passing some preliminary medical examinations. The exclusion condition was not willing to participate in recreational programs as treatment. The recreational program was held twice a week for 8 weeks (totally 16 times). Self-esteem evaluation form with Coopersmith Concept and all tools for holding recreational program were listed as instruments of this study. Data were analyzed with paired t-test. The result of the study was that after participating the recreational program, the respondents significantly had better self-esteem (p = 0.0001).

Accurate Empathy, Social Rejection, and Social Anxiety Disorder

We conducted two studies to examine the relationship between social anxiety ( n = 134) and social anxiety disorder (SAD; n = 126), social exclusion, and empathic accuracy. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control or an exclusion condition and then observed four videos of targets discussing high school experiences in which they were socially excluded. Participants’ ratings of targets’ emotions while discussing those experiences were compared with targets’ self-ratings. Results of both studies indicated that individuals with social anxiety and SAD displayed greater empathic accuracy than control subjects and that exclusion did not affect that relationship. State measures of participants’ emotional and cognitive reactions to targets mediated the association between SAD and accuracy. When asked to provide advice to targets, SAD participants provided fewer responses overall and fewer suggestions that promoted relationship repair. Thus, they were less able to translate their empathic responses for social pain into prosocial action.

Value-Set-Based Approach to Robust Stability Analysis for Ellipsoidal Families of Fractional-Order Polynomials with Complicated Uncertainty Structure

This paper presents the application of a value-set-based graphical approach to robust stability analysis for the ellipsoidal families of fractional-order polynomials with a complex structure of parametric uncertainty. More specifically, the article focuses on the families of fractional-order linear time-invariant polynomials with affine linear, multilinear, polynomic, and general uncertainty structure, combined with the uncertainty bounding set in the shape of an ellipsoid. The robust stability of these families is investigated using the zero exclusion condition, supported by the numerical computation and visualization of the value sets. Four illustrative examples are elaborated, including the comparison with the families of fractional-order polynomials having the standard box-shaped uncertainty bounding set, in order to demonstrate the applicability of this method.

Social Exclusion Enhances Affiliative Signalling

Reciprocating others’ smiles is important for maintaining social connections as it both signals affiliative to others and also elicits affiliative reactions from others. Feelings of social exclusion may increase affiliative mimicry to improve affiliative bonds with others. In this study we examined whether social exclusion leads people to selectively mimic the facial expressions of more affiliative-looking smiles. Participants (N=48) first wrote about either a time they were excluded or a neutral event. They then classified a series of 20 smiling faces–half spontaneous enjoyment smiles and half posed smiles. Facial electromyography recorded muscle activity involved in smiling. Excluded participants distinguished the two smile types better than controls. Excluded participants also showed greater zygomaticus major (mouth smiling) activity toward enjoyment smiles compared to posed smiled; control participants did not. Orbicularis oculi (eye crinkle) activity matched that of the smile type viewed, but did not vary by exclusion condition. Affiliative social regulation is discussed as a possible explanation for these effects.

Robust optimization of machining parameters based on edge theorem

Traditional mathematic models for predicting milling stability assume that dynamic parameters of machine tools remain constant. However, these parameters such as natural frequencies and cutting force coefficients vary under operational state, reducing accuracies of the chatter prediction and related machining parameters optimization. In this study, the edge theorem and the zero exclusion condition are used to extend the traditional stability model for considering the effects of the uncertain parameters. Thus, robust combinations of the spindle speed and axial cutting depth are predicted. They are the inputs of the optimization model to obtain the maximum material remove rate MMR based on the particle swarm optimization method. The proposed machining parameters optimization method was applied on a real vertical machining center, and its effectiveness was validated by the chatter tests.

Bifurcation of elastic solids with sliding interfaces

Lubricated sliding contact between soft solids is an interesting topic in biomechanics and for the design of small-scale engineering devices. As a model of this mechanical set-up, two elastic nonlinear solids are considered jointed through a frictionless and bilateral surface, so that continuity of the normal component of the Cauchy traction holds across the surface, but the tangential component is null. Moreover, the displacement can develop only in a way that the bodies in contact do neither detach, nor overlap. Surprisingly, this finite strain problem has not been correctly formulated until now, so this formulation is the objective of the present paper. The incremental equations are shown to be non-trivial and different from previously (and erroneously) employed conditions. In particular, an exclusion condition for bifurcation is derived to show that previous formulations based on frictionless contact or ‘spring-type’ interfacial conditions are not able to predict bifurcations in tension, while experiments—one of which, ad hoc designed, is reported—show that these bifurcations are a reality and become possible when the correct sliding interface model is used. The presented results introduce a methodology for the determination of bifurcations and instabilities occurring during lubricated sliding between soft bodies in contact.

Assumptions of the Process-Dissociation Procedure are Violated in Implicit Sequence Learning

In implicit sequence learning, a process-dissociation (PD) approach has been proposed to dissociate implicit and explicit learning processes. Applied to the popular generation task, participants perform two different task versions: inclusion instructions require generating the transitions that form the learned sequence; exclusion instructions require generating transitions other than those of the learned sequence. Whereas accurate performance under inclusion may be based on either implicit or explicit knowledge, avoiding to generate learned transitions requires controllable explicit sequence knowledge. The PD approach yields separate estimates of explicit and implicit knowledge that are derived from the same task; it therefore avoids many problems of previous measurement approaches. However, the PD approach rests on the critical assumption that the implicit and explicit processes are invariant across inclusion and exclusion conditions. We tested whether the invariance assumptions hold for the PD generation task. Across three studies using first-order as well as second-order regularities, invariance of the controlled process was found to be violated. In particular, despite extensive amounts of practice, explicit knowledge was not exhaustively expressed in the exclusion condition. We discuss the implications of these findings for the use of process-dissociation in assessing implicit knowledge.