The rational status of the Bayesian calculus for revising likelihoods is compromised by the common but still unfamiliar phenomenon of information distortion. This bias is the distortion in the evaluation of a new datum toward favoring the currently preferred option in a decision or judgment. While the Bayesian calculus requires the independent combination of the prior probability and a new datum, information distortion invalidates such independence (because the prior influences the datum). Although widespread, information distortion has not (...) generally been recognized. First, individuals are not aware when they themselves commit this bias. In addition, it is often hidden in more obvious suboptimal phenomena. Finally, the Bayesian calculus is usually explained only with undistortable data like colored balls drawn randomly. Partly because information distortion is unrecognized by the individuals exhibiting it, no way has been devised for eliminating it. Partial reduction is possible in some situation such as presenting all data simultaneously rather than sequentially with revision after each datum. The potential dangers of information distortion are illustrated for three professional revision tasks: forecasting, predicting consumer choices from internet data, and statistical inference from experimental results. The optimality of the Bayesian calculus competes with people’s natural desire that their belief systems remain coherent in the face of new data. Information distortion provides this coherence by biasing those data toward greater agreement with the currently preferred position – but at the cost of Bayesian optimality. (shrink)

As a technique of social control based on the collection of information, surveillance has been a central instrument of any administrative power since the modern era. Surveillance, however, can be carried out in different ways and these can provide important information on the basic features of a particular political system. Indeed, the introduction of surveillance measures has an impact on key relationships of a political system, such as liberty and security, autonomy and authority. When a political system is, (...) like the European Union (EU), in a dynamic and build-up phase, by analysing its surveillance practices one can even discern the trajectories of its developments. The paper analyses two surveillance measures in the EU: the Schengen Information System (SIS) and the Directive 2006/24/EC on data retention. It puts forth the argument that the reference to security as a value enables the EU to compensate its legitimacy deficiencies and to develop into a power system characterised by a more supranational structure than before. (shrink)

Information modeling (also known as conceptual modeling or semantic data modeling) may be characterized as the formulation of a model in which information aspects of objective and subjective reality are presented (the application), independent of datasets and processes by which they may be realized (the system).A methodology for information modeling should incorporate a number of concepts which have appeared in the literature, but should also be formulated in terms of constructs which are understandable to and expressible (...) by the system user as well as the system developer. This is particularly desirable in connection with certain intimate relationships, such as being the same as or being a part of. (shrink)

BackgroundWe assessed potential consent bias in a cohort of > 40,000 adult patients asked by mail after hospitalization to consent to the use of past, present and future clinical and biological data in an ongoing ‘general consent’ program at a large tertiary hospital in Switzerland.MethodsIn this retrospective cohort study, all adult patients hospitalized between April 2019 and March 2020 were invited to participate to the general consent program. Demographic and clinical characteristics were extracted from patients’ electronic health records (EHR). (...) Data of those who provided written consent (signatories) and non-responders were compared and analyzed with R studio.ResultsOf 44,819 patients approached, 10,299 (23%) signed the form. Signatories were older (median age 54 [IQR 38–72] vs. 44 years [IQR 32–60], p <.0001), more comorbid (2614/10,299 [25.4%] vs. 4912/28,676 [17.1%] with Charlson comorbidity index ≤ 4, p <.0001), and more often of Swiss nationality (6592/10,299 [64%] vs. 13,813/28,676 [48.2%], p <.0001).ConclusionsOur results suggest that actively seeking consent creates a bias and compromises the external validity of data obtained via ‘general consent’ programs. Other options, such as opt-out consent procedures, should be further assessed. (shrink)

Attitudes toward repository projects cannot be explained merely on the basis of perceived risks, trust, or technical information. Issues of justice and fairness frequently arise when burdens and benefits are to be allocated. A fair distribution across the various parts of a given territory of the waste to be stored is unlikely to be accomplished as it is contingent on appropriate geological formations and other factors. The process by which the specific distribution is determined and accomplished needs to be (...) taken into account as well. Thus, justice evaluations of both the distributive outcome and the process itself, by which the outcome is accomplished, are likely to affect people’s attitudes toward and acceptance of siting decisions. Data from a number of methodically different studies conducted over the last eight years on site selection in Switzerland suggest that a fair procedure is more essential than a fair distribution to a consensus about the decisions made. As a consequence, even normative assessments of the fairness of a distribution of nuclear waste must consider procedural justice as a valuable indicator, independently of the particular shape of the distribution. However, contextual factors, such as the wider nuclear energy strategy of a country, may compete with procedural fairness in terms of importance. Even though fairness is a requirement it does not guarantee acceptance. It may, however, enhance acceptability from a moral standpoint. (shrink)

July 2008 saw a conclusion to a case which began with a request to the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service under the Freedom of Information Act 2002 and culminated in a hearing in front of the House of Lords as Court of Appeal. The outcome, however, can be considered both a triumph and a failure for data protection law.This paper analyzes the House of Lords decision to determine whether the judgment has provided more legal clarity (...) in an area in which guidance is still very much required. (shrink)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid legal decision making has become prominent. This paper investigates the use of AI in a critical issue in employment law, the determination of a worker’s status—employee vs. independent contractor—in two common law countries (the U.S. and Canada). This legal question has been a contentious labor issue insofar as independent contractors are not eligible for the same benefits as employees. It has become an important societal issue due to the ubiquity of the gig (...) economy and the recent disruptions in employment arrangements. To address this problem, we collected, annotated, and structured the data for all Canadian and Californian court cases related to this legal question between 2002 and 2021, resulting in 538 Canadian cases and 217 U.S. cases. In contrast to legal literature focusing on complex and correlated characteristics of the employment relationship, our statistical analyses of the data show very strong correlations between the worker’s status and a small subset of quantifiable characteristics of the employment relationship. In fact, despite the variety of situations in the case law, we show that simple, off-the-shelf AI models classify the cases with an out-of-sample accuracy of more than 90%. Interestingly, the analysis of misclassified cases reveals consistent misclassification patterns by most algorithms. Legal analyses of these cases led us to identify how equity is ensured by judges in ambiguous situations. Finally, our findings have practical implications for access to legal advice and justice. We deployed our AI model via the open-access platform, https://MyOpenCourt.org/, to help users answer employment legal questions. This platform has already assisted many Canadian users, and we hope it will help democratize access to legal advice to large crowds. (shrink)

Since the emergence of psychology, its relation with religion has been inconsistent. Their different sources and methodologies but common aims made them close or distanced. Today these disciplines acknowledged and learned to benefit from each other. The affect of religion/spirituality on human’s lives raised the attention of psychology and required the integration of these into psychotherapy. In order to approach the psychology-religion relation via the traces of religion within psychotherapy the paper deals with the necessity, the knowledge needed, the principles (...) when integrating religious/spiritual principles and practices into psychotherapy; finally the religious traces in psychotherapy. The paper comprises few Turkish examples together with the huge body of theoretical and practical examples on the topic. These theories and practices should be important examples for Turkey. By addressing the religious traces in psychotherapy the aim of the paper is to show that the cliff between psychology and religion is in fact not that deep.SummaryIt can be argued that psychology and religion have common interests relating the well-being of individuals. There is a huge body of research that emphasizes the implementation and necessity of cultural, religious, spiritual principles in professional psychology. The proprium of these models is to integrate the client’s religious/spiritual sources into therapy. Especially religious clients benefit from therapies that define their treatment goals around their religious views. However, it must be considered that if the disorder has a biological dimension and/or is severe psychopathologic pure religious interventions will not be sufficient. This paper traces the religious/spiritual principles within psychotherapies and shows that the cliff between religion and psychology is not that deep.At different places in the world therapy is done according to western standards. However, determining mental health or disorders according to western criteria might be problematic. In societies in which religious/spiritual life is an essential part of culture, religion plays a crucial role in people’s perception of disease and treatment. In mental health, spirituality is an important and primary source for coping. Empirical studies reveal the positive outcomes of religious practices such as personal prayer, repentance, meditation, and dhikir on mental and physical health. In light of this data it becomes clear that psychotherapies should be revised socio-culturally and culturally sensitive psychotherapies that cover belief and religious practices should be developed. Another need for the integration of religion, belief, and spirituality with psychotherapy is the significant effect of these experiences on individual’s lives. With regard to the broad impact of religion, psychological interventions solely might not be sufficient to fulfill human psychological needs. As studies show, religious clients expect religious practices in treatment as well as a therapist who is open and respectful to religious principles, ready to talk about own religious beliefs, willing to integrate religious matters into therapy. To fulfill these expectations therapists, need to be trained and educated in religious/spiritual matters. Additionally, the therapist must acknowledge and be conscious about her/his own worldview, religious commitment, and spiritual life. However, the therapist needs not to be religious him/herself or share the same religion as the client. It is sufficient that the therapist is open and receptive to the client’s beliefs so that these can be used as effective sources in therapy. Spiritual psychotherapy considers spirituality as one of the main sources of clients. Thus, it might be critical when the therapist has poor knowledge about religion when the client considers it as significant. This source might be helpful for the client in coping with his/her problems and limitations. Having knowledge about the client’s religion and culture might also be important to acknowledge his/her perceptions and beliefs. Because individuals’ understanding of disease, their beliefs about reasons for mental disorders, their expectations from the health system are important factors in seeking help and choosing therapy.Therapists who decide to integrate spiritual/religious principles into psychotherapy have to adhere to some ethical principles. The source and the degree of the psychological disorder are important, too. Even though the efficacy of religious rituals and spiritual interventions are extensive in each case it has to be investigated whether religiosity/spirituality is part of the problem or the solution. Certain aspects will guide the therapist in deciding whether to integrate religiosity/spirituality into the therapy process or not. Additionally, he/she has to gather information about the client’s religious/spiritual life (spiritual anamneses) in order to choose the most appropriate religious method and intervention. Today psychotherapy deals with coping, questions about the meaning, purpose, and way of life. Actually, these are issues with which religious traditions has dealt and proposed solutions for thousands of years ago. For example, ethical principles for mental health professionals correspond to those of religious teachings. The attitudes and the type of relationship recommended by the client-centered approach are also commended by religious teachings for all human relations. Beginning with the 1960’s an increasing interest in Buddhist teachings is observable among psychotherapists. Mental exercises (especially meditation) cause transformations in the self-perception and lead to enduring changes in consciousness. Religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism recommend meditation technics like contemplation, dhikr, and yoga. Confession in the Catholic Church has similarities with psychotherapeutic catharsis. Many cultures own one kind of forgiveness rituals of confessions. As studies report people benefit from these rituals. Forgiveness is a multifaceted issue with psychological and spiritual dimensions and involves cognitive, emotional, relational, and spiritual processes. Research indicates the religious and psychological functions of forgiveness. Many subjects such as personal prayer, hope, empathy, love, and tolerance are common issues of both, psychotherapy and religion/spirituality. Different psychotherapeutic approaches and especially positive psychology integrate these values that are valued by religion/spirituality into their theories and practices.In conclusion, the cliff between psychology and religion/spirituality is not that deep at it seems at first sight. They have many subjects in common. Individuals turn to religion and spirituality in times of crises. This makes it inevitable to include religion and spirituality into the therapeutic process. Because religions provide ways of coping, hope, and meaning in difficult times. This fact is recognized and accepted abroad and lead to the religious/spiritual psychotherapy movement, which will hopefully an inspiration for Turkish psychology as well. (shrink)

Purpose The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgment, scrapped a draconian law [Section 66 ] that gave the police absolute power to put behind bars anybody who was found posting offensive or annoying comments online. This paper aims to examine the take of people on the “Free Speech via Social Media” issue and their attitude towards the way sensitive messages/information are posted, shared and forwarded on social media, especially, Facebook. Design/methodology/approach The research was carried out on (...) a sample of 200 social media users, all picked up randomly, from five Indian states/Union Territories. Data were collected through a questionnaire, and users were contacted through e-mail. Data collected were analyzed through the Kolmogorov–Smirnov Z test. Findings The findings indicate that hate posts/messages are on the rise, and more and more users are joining in. Besides, prosecution happens only when the aggrieved party is influential or powerful. Practical implications The findings of this research give a strong insight into the social media behaviour of users in relation to hate contents/posts. The study establishes the fact that Indian people are in favour of free speech, but with a sense of restraint and responsibility. The work could form the basis for future research on various aspects of hate speech on social media. Researchers could study the trials and prosecutions that have happened over the past few years and whether punishment has acted as a deterrent. Originality/value The research is likely to be important for those involved in work on freedom of speech or hate speech through social media. Social networking sites such as Facebook would also get some insights into users’ perception towards free and hate speech mechanism on social media. (shrink)

Estimating whether the Earth’s biota is in the middle of a crisis relies heavily on comparisons between present and past data about biodiversity or biodiversity surrogates. Although the past is a crucial source of information to assess the severity of the current biodiversity crisis, substantive conceptual and methodological questions remain about how paleodiversity and biodiversity are to be properly compared. I argue that to justify claims of a current biodiversity crisis is harder than it appears. More precisely, I (...) claim that paleodiversity measurements are incommensurable with contemporary measurements, given the different ways that biodiversity is conceptualized and operationalized. I conclude by proposing three possible ways of overcoming this incommensurability problem. (shrink)

Odor baited methods of controlling tsetse have received considerable attention as ecologically friendly ways for African farmers to reduce their levels of livestock trypanosomosis. Over the last decade, a number of tsetse control projects have been set up in East Africa using these methods. Although much has been written, few hard data are available regarding their ongoing success, problems, and sustainability. To evaluate the situation on the ground, the authors conducted a series of site visits to a number of (...) such tsetse control projects in Kenya. A comparison of these projects with others across the region identified the possible constraints to a wider uptake of these methods. Poor information, coupled with inappropriate research and development policies, were found to be the key constraints. These could be overcome with a farmer-based approach to control, with a better application of existing techniques, and with a greater role for veterinarians. Tsetse control needs to become demand rather than supply driven, if it is to bean important component of livestock disease control in Africa. (shrink)

Based on the novel data collected through original fieldwork on five syntactic phenomena (the position of the finite verb in embedded clauses, in sentences with a modal verb, negative concord, position of focused light/heavy objects in main clauses with a complex tense, scrambling) in the heritage language Mòcheno, we show that i) there exist two populations – one exhibiting intra-speaker variation between German and Italian word orders, and one lacking it; ii) these two populations are the result of diatopic (...) variation and, to a lesser extent, of diastratic variation. The results reached through quantitative statistical analysis are partially convergent with those arrived at by traditional theoretical syntax on Mòcheno, but our analysis has allowed us to shed new light on a series of so-far neglected or poorly understood phenomena. More specifically, we discovered that there exists micro-variation fed by diastratic (age) variation within the Roveda variety, which represents the only case in Mòcheno in which age is a relevant factor in determining variation. We also showed that the traditional claim that the Palù variety is “more German” than the other Mòcheno variety is surely to be confirmed, but we could refine it by showing that German word orders are also accepted by speakers of other varieties and that the acceptability of these word orders in competition with the Italian syntax is not fed by the age of speakers (no diastratic variation). Finally, we showed that the acceptance of German word orders across speakers varies according to the phenomenon investigated: negation is the phenomenon in which German word orders are more likely to be accepted, whereas embedded clauses are the phenomenon in which German word orders are more likely to be rejected. (shrink)

Based on 24 hours of videotaped data, this study investigates, both qualitatively and quantitatively, gender differences in the use of person pronouns in televised sports in Taiwan. This analysis has found that, regardless of their speaker role, male sports reporters use the second-person singular pronoun nimuch more frequently than their female counterparts. In addition, there is a significant difference in the distribution ofpragmatic functions of nibetween men’s and women’s reporting. While male sports reporters use niin a more varied way, (...) i.e. to refer to the TV audience, a specific athlete or team, an indefinite or non-specific athlete, or to include this pronoun in direct speech to dramatize their reporting, female reporters use this pronoun predominately to referto a non-specific athlete. In other words, male sports reporters tend to employ impersonal niand dramatic nito signal their strong self-involvement, their interpersonal involvement with the athlete and the TV audience, and their involvement with the reported sports event. Finally, malesports reporters’ more frequent use of the second-person pronoun niin the data also marks their informal and conversational speech style.This result contradicts those previous studies which claim that formality and detachment characterize men’s information-oriented public discourse. (shrink)

In the context of medical ethics, how can the concept of informed consent be effectively implemented in a traditional society such as Japan? If the need for more openness and transparency is not felt in the practice of medicine and welfare, the clients must remain under the spell of paternalistic data. Patients and health-care professionals other than doctors are taken to be "responsible for what they do but not to be accountable for their conduct" because they do not participate (...) in a decision-making process. I explore the possibility of the concept's full implementation against the particularists' and communitarian ethicists' effort to reject the universal nature of the concept. (shrink)

The ideas of face consciousness, group conformity, extended family concept, and crisis consciousness in Confucian culture have a subtle and far-reaching impact on housing consumption decision among the Chinese public, forming a housing consumption model of “preferring to own a house rather than rent one.” The poor interaction between the housing rental market and the sales market caused by the shortage of rental demand and irrational purchasing behaviors has led to soaring house prices and imbalance between supply and demand that (...) prevail in major cities in China. To gain a deeper understanding of public cognitive attitude toward decisions on owning and renting a house, this study divided the subjects into high and low impact groups based on the overall Confucian culture and four subdimensions. It attempts to take a cognitive neuroscience approach for assessing public stereotypes of housing consumption decision with different types based on the analysis of event-related potentials. The results are as follows. First, overall, there is an obvious implicit stereotype of renting a house and explicit stereotype of owning a house among the public. Second, ERPs data show that descriptions of renting a house with positive adjectives could evoke more significant N400 responses. In other words, in the heuristic system, the public perceive that renting a house is restrictive, stressful, unhappy, and crisis. Data from subjective reports show that, after processing information in the analytic system, the public tend to think that owning a house is self-contained, restful, warm, and comfortable. Third, a more negative stereotype of renting a house exists in the high Confucian culture influence group Group than in the low Confucian culture influence group Group, and is more inclined to own a home. Fourth, under the Confucian culture sub-dimension, there are differences in housing consumption stereotypes between high and low groups in terms of extended family concept, group conformity, and crisis consciousness. Fifth, the moderating effect analysis found that perceived usefulness, trust in the rental market, and policy perception can be important factors in guiding public housing consumption stereotypes. (shrink)

Ship-type identification in a maritime context can be critical to the authorities to control the activities being carried out. Although Automatic Identification Systems has been mandatory for certain vessels, if a vessel does not have them voluntarily or not, it can lead to a whole set of problems, which is why the use of tracking alternatives such as radar is fully complementary for a vessel monitoring systems. However, radars provide positions, but not what they are detecting. Having systems capable of (...) adding categorical information to radar detections of vessels makes it possible to increase control of the activities being carried out, improve safety in maritime traffic, and optimize on-site inspection resources on the part of the authorities. This paper addresses the binary classification problem (fishing ships versus all other vessels) using unbalanced data from real vessel trajectories. It is performed from a deep learning approach comparing two of the main trends, Convolutional Neural Networks and Long Short-Term Memory. In this paper, it is proposed the weighted cross-entropy methodology and compared with classical data balancing strategies. Both networks show high performance when applying weighted cross-entropy compared with the classical machine learning approaches and classical balancing techniques. This work is shown to be a novel approach to the international problem of identifying fishing ships without context. (shrink)

We present a holistic description of physical systems and how they relate to observations. The “theory” is established (geometrically) as a “classical random field theory.” The basic system variables are related to Lie group generators: the conjugate variables define observer parameters. The dichotomy between system and observer leads to acommunication channel relationship. The distortion measure on the channel distinguishes “classical” from “quantum” theories. The experiment is defined in terms that accommodate precision and unreliability. Information theory methods permit stochastic inference (...) (this includes “inverse scattering”) and prediction based on realistic data. (shrink)

This study analyses the responses and reactions among women in Umeå during the period of threat from the Haga Man: a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006, and highlights how women in this new situation handled feelings of vulnerability and fear of violence in public space. The article analyses the ways women positioned themselves in their narratives and how this could be understood in terms of how they negotiated spaces for agency within a context where public space has been (...) represented as safe and gender-equal. Women’s fear of violence is discussed in relation to Swedish gender equality discourses and contextual constructions of femininity. The research is based on empirical data collected through in-depth interviews with women in Umeå. The results show the difficulties of claiming the official position of a gender-equal femininity. The informants’ ambivalence, and partly anger, in relation to a femininity they wanted but could not have also created an opportunity for critique of women’s position in society and thus a challenge to a presumed gender equality that stands in the way of addressing issues of gendered power relations. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of information: How does semantic information emerge within the underlying dynamics of the world?—the dynamical semantic information problem. It suggests that the canonical approach to semantic information that defines data before meaning and meaning before use is inadequate for pre-cognitive information media. Instead, we should follow a pragmatic approach to information where one defines the notion of information system as a special (...) kind of purposeful system emerging within the underlying dynamics of the world and define semantic information as the currency of the system. In this way, systems operating with semantic information can be viewed as patterns in the dynamics—semantic information is a dynamical system phenomenon of highly organized systems. In the simplest information systems, the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the information medium are co-defined. It proposes a new more general theory of information semantics that focuses on the interface role of the information states in the information system—the interface theory of meaning. Finally, with the new framework, it addresses the debate between weakly semantic and strongly semantic accounts of information, siding with the strongly semantic view because the pragmatic account developed here is a better generalization of it. (shrink)

The storage and access of genetic testing results have unique considerations for medical records. Initially, genetic testing was limited to patients with single gene diseases. Genetic medicine and testing have expanded, as have concerns about appropriately handling genetic information. In this study, we surveyed the management of genetic information in general hospitals in Japan using a questionnaire on access restrictions. Our questions included whether any other medical information was managed in a unique way. We identified 1037 hospitals (...) designated for clinical training located throughout Japan and received responses from 258 hospitals, and 191 reported that they handle genetic information and results of genetic tests. Of the 191 hospitals that handle genetic information, 112 hospitals implement access restrictions to genetic information. Seventy-one hospitals, one of which uses paper medical records rather than electrical medical records, do not enforce access restrictions. For eight hospitals, it was not known whether access restrictions were enforced or not. The responses from these hospitals indicated that access restrictions and storage methods varied across institution type (e.g., general vs. university hospitals), institution size, and the presence of a clinical genetics department. Other information, such as infectious disease diagnosis, psychological counseling records, abuse, and criminal history, was also subject to access restriction in 42 hospitals. The disparity in how medical facilities handle sensitive genetic information demonstrates a need for discussion between medical professionals and the general public on the storage of sensitive records, including genetic information. (shrink)

BackgroundImportant sex and gender differences have been found in research on diabetes complications and treatment. Reporting on whether and how sex and gender impact research findings is crucial for developing tailored diabetes care strategies. To analyze the extent to which this information is available in current diabetes research, we examined original investigations on diabetes for the integration of sex and gender in study reporting.MethodsWe examined original investigations on diabetes published between January 1 and December 31, 2015, in the top (...) five general medicine journals and top five diabetes-specific journals (by 2015 impact factor). Data were extracted on sex and gender integration across seven article sections: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and limitations.ResultsWe identified 155 original investigations on diabetes, including 115 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 40 observational studies. Sex and gender were rarely incorporated in article titles, abstracts and introductions. Most methods sections did not describe plans for sex/gender analyses; 47 (30.3%) articles described plans to control for sex/gender in the analysis and 12 (7.7%) described plans to stratify results by sex/gender. While most articles (151, 97.4%) reported the sex/gender of study participants, only 10 (6.5%) of all articles reported all study outcomes separately by sex/gender. Discussion of sex-related issues was incorporated into 21 (13.5%) original investigations; however, just 1 (0.6%) discussed gender-related issues. Comparison by journal type (general medicine vs. diabetes specific) yielded only minor differences from the overall integration results. In contrast, RCTs performed more poorly on multiple sex/gender assessment metrics compared to observational studies.ConclusionsSex and gender are poorly integrated in current diabetes original investigations, suggesting that substantial improvements in sex and gender data reporting are needed to inform the evidence to support sex- and gender-specific diabetes care. (shrink)

Older adults prefer positive over negative information in a lab setting, compared to young adults. The extent to which OA avoid negative events or information relevant for their health and safety is not clear. We first investigated age differences in preferences for fear-enhancing vs. fear-reducing news articles during the Ebola Outbreak of 2014. We were able to collect data from 15 YA and 13 OA during this acute health event. Compared to YA, OA were more likely to (...) read the fear-enhancing article, select hand-sanitizer over lip balm, and reported greater fear of Ebola. We further investigated our research question during the COVID-19 pandemic with 164 YA and 171 OA. Participants responded to an online survey about the COVID-19 pandemic across 13 days during the initial peak of the pandemic in the United States. Both YA and OA preferred to read positive over negative news about the coronavirus, but OA were even more likely than YA to prefer the positive news article. No age differences in the fear of contraction were found, but OA engaged in more health-protective behaviors compared to YA. Although OA may not always report greater fear than YA or seek out negative information related to a health concern, they still engage in protective health behaviors. Thus, although positivity effects were observed in attention and emotional reports, OA still modified their behaviors more than YA, suggesting that positivity effects did not hamper OA ability to respond to a health crisis. (shrink)

Previous research showed that sensorimotor information affects the perception of properties associated with implied perceptual context during language comprehension. Three experiments addressed a novel question of whether perceptual context may contribute to a simulation of information about such out‐of‐sight objects as cast shadows. In Experiment 1, participants read a sentence that implied a particular shadow cast on a target (blinds vs. an open window) and then verified the picture of the object onto which a shadow was cast. Responses (...) were faster when the shadow of blinds cast on the object matched that implied by the sentence. However, the data did not show the same matching effect for pictures with cast shadows from an open window. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that verification times for pictures with no cast shadows were faster when preceded by an “open window” sentence, thus suggesting that reading the sentence does not elicit a visual simulation of any specific shadow. Experiment 3 showed that the objects superimposed with a cast shadow of the blinds and blinds themselves were verified faster after reading a “blinds” sentence. However, the results of an order analysis showed the temporal stability of the “blinds shadows” effect, but the disappearance of the “blinds” effect in the second half of the data. We conclude that the results are compatible, to a lesser or greater extent, with multiple accounts, and discuss our findings in the context of a mental imagery view, a mental simulation view, and an amodal representation view. (shrink)

The theory of epistemic vigilance posits that -- to quote the eponymous paper that introduced the theory -- “humans have a suite of cognitive mechanisms for epistemic vigilance, targeted at the risk of being misinformed by others." Despite the widespread acceptance of the theory of epistemic vigilance, however, I argue that the theory is a poor fit with the evidence: while there is good reason to accept that people ARE vigilant, there is also good reason to believe that their vigilance (...) is NOT epistemic. Rather, the evidence actually supports an alternative theory, one that I dub the theory of "Machiavellian vigilance": humans have a suite of cognitive mechanisms for Machiavellian vigilance, targeted at tracking others' relative social status and maintaining or enhancing one's own status. The evidence against epistemic vigilance stems from three sources: (a) data demonstrating that people are terrible at detecting honesty or competence, (b) data demonstrating that our vigilance is phylogenetically prior to the development of homo sapiens, and therefore was not designed to be sensitive to linguistic communication, and (c) data demonstrating that people's sources of information are distributed, and not detectable through individual vigilance. The evidence in favor of Machiavellian vigilance is the mirror image of the evidence against epistemic vigilance: (a) data demonstrating that people are very accurate at detecting status, (b) data demonstrating that social species, including bonobos and chimps, track the social status of their conspecifics, and (c) data demonstrating that people can quickly track status even in new social groups. (shrink)

Information, entropy, probability: these three terms are closely interconnected in the prevalent understanding of statistical mechanics, both when this field is taught to students at an introductory level and in advanced research into the field’s foundations. This paper examines the interconnection between these three notions in light of recent research in the foundations of statistical mechanics. It disentangles these concepts and highlights their differences, at the same time explaining why they came to be so closely linked in the literature. (...) In the literature the term ‘information’ is often linked to entropy and probability in discussions of Maxwell’s Demon and its attempted exorcism by the Landauer-Bennett thesis, and in analyses of the spin echo experiments. The direction taken in the present paper is a different one. Here we discuss the statistical mechanical underpinning of the notions of probability and entropy, and this constructive approach shows that information plays no fundamental role in these concepts, although it can be conveniently used in a sense that we shall specify. (shrink)

• In this paper we combine motion captured data with linguistic notions in a game-like intelligent tutoring system, in order to help elementary school students to better differentiate literal from metaphorical uses of motion verbs, based on embodied information. In addition to the thematic goal, we intend to improve young students’ attention and spatiotemporal memory, by presenting sensorimotor data experimentally collected from thirty two participants in our motion capturing labs. Furthermore, we examine the accomplishment of game’s goals (...) and compare them to curriculum’s approach. Sixty nine elementary school students were randomly divided in two experimental groups (game and traditional) and one control group, which did not undergo any intervention. All groups were tested in pre and posttests. Even though the diagnostic pretests present a uniform picture, two way analysis of variance suggests that the experimental groups showed progress in posttests and, more specifically, game group remarkably progressed in the verbs/actions presented during the intervention. Furthermore, in the game condition the participants needed gradually shorter period of time to identify the avatar’s actions. This finding was considered as a first indication of attentional and spatiotemporal memory’s improvement, while the game’s assistance features cultivated students’ metacognitive perception. (shrink)

Biological motion is the phenomenon of recognizing a human form out of moving point-light dots, where both bottom–up and top–down processing mechanisms have been reported. This study reviews available psychological and neuroscientific evidence, and it assesses attempts either to assimilate biological motion to other structure-from-motion cases or to include biological motion into a visual “social cognition” subsystem . While neither theoretical option seems to accommodate all relevant psychological results, the study proposes that biological motion may be an object recognition task, (...) inside the framework of Pylyshyn’s sequence of data-driven and cognitive mechanisms. This implies that a bottom–up object construction out of two-dimensional stimulus information precedes a top–down, but emotionally significant categorization of a particular human movement. Recognition of biological motion may be an example of visual processing in general. (shrink)

Oaksford and Chater (1994) proposed to analyse the Wason selection task as an inductive instead of a deductive task. Applying Bayesian statistics, they concluded that the cards that participants tend to select are those with the highest expected information gain. Therefore, their choices seem rational from the perspective of optimal data selection. We tested a central prediction from the theory in three experiments: card selection frequencies should be sensitive to the subjective probability of occurrence for individual cards. In (...) Experiment 1, expected frequencies of the p- and the q-card were manipulated independently by concepts referring to large vs. small sets. Although the manipulation had an effect on card selection frequencies, there was only a weak correlation between the predicted and the observed patterns. In the second experiment, relative frequencies of individual cards were manipulated more directly by explicit frequency information. In addition, participants estimated probabilities for the four logical cases and of the conditional statement itself. The experimental manipulations strongly affected the probability estimates, but were completely unrelated to card selections. This result was replicated in a third experiment. We conclude that our data provide little support for optimal data selection theory. (shrink)

Background: The process of obtaining informed consent continues to be a contentious issue in clinical and public health research carried out in resource-limited settings. We sought to evaluate this process among human research participants in randomly selected active research studies approved by the School of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University. Methods: Data were collected using semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaires on clinic days after initial or repeat informed consent procedures for the respective clinical (...) studies had been administered to each study participant. Results: Of the 600 participants interviewed, two thirds (64.2 %, 385/600) were female. Overall mean age of study participants was 37.6 (SD = 7.7) years. Amongst all participants, less than a tenth (5.9 %, 35/598) reported that they were not given enough information before making a decision to participate. A similar proportion (5.7 %, 34/597) reported that they had not signed a consent form prior to making a decision to participate in the study. A third (33.7 %, 201/596) of the participants were not aware that they could, at any time, voluntarily withdraw participation from these studies. Participants in clinical trials were 50 % less likely than those in observational studies [clinical trial vs. observational; (odds ratio, OR = 0.5; 95 % CI: 0.35-0.78)] to perceive that refusal to participate in the parent research project would affect their regular medical care. Conclusions: Most of the participants signed informed consent forms and a vast majority felt that they received enough information before deciding to participate. On the contrary, several were not aware that they could voluntarily withdraw their participation. Participants in observational studies were more likely than those in clinical trials to perceive that refusal to participate in the parent study would affect their regular medical care. (shrink)

Thriving is a psychological state in which individuals experience a sense of vitality and a sense of learning. Thriving come from relational connections with others, and is deeply rooted in social systems. Theoretical literature suggests that thriving occurs in the presence of decision-making discretion, broad information sharing, and a climate of trust. However, no study has investigated these environmental factors empirically. Using a multiple-studies approach, we established valid and reliable scale for each of these environmental factors using experimental vignettes, (...) confirmed the association of decision-making discretion, broad information sharing and climate of trust with thriving, and identified the role of self-determination theory in determining these relationships. Our analysis was based on data collected from 512 Indian management students across five studies. The results indicate significant difference in thriving for high vs. low level for decision-making discretion, broad information sharing and climate of trust. The relationship of these environmental factors with thriving is mainly due to the fulfillment of the need for competence. Competence partially mediates the relationship of decision-making discretion with thriving, and fully mediates the relationship of broad information sharing and climate of trust with thriving. Autonomy, although positively related with the environmental factors, does not lead to thriving. Practical implications, limitations and research avenues are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundThe advent of learning healthcare systems (LHSs) raises an important implementation challenge concerning how to request and manage consent to support secondary use of data in learning cycles, particularly research activities. Current consent models in Quebec were not established with the context of LHSs in mind and do not support the agility and transparency required to obtain consent from all involved, especially the citizens. Therefore, a new approach to consent is needed. Previous work identified the meta-consent model as a (...) promising alternative to fulfill the requirements of LHSs, particularly large-scale deployments. We elicited the public’s attitude toward the meta-consent model to evaluate if the model could be understood by the citizens and would be deemed acceptable to prepare for its possible implementation in Quebec.MethodsEight focus groups, with a total of 63 members of the general public from various backgrounds were conducted in Quebec, Canada, in 2019. Explicit attention was given to literacy levels, language spoken at home and rural vs urban settings. We assessed attitudes, concerns and facilitators regarding key components of the meta-consent model: predefined categories to personalized consent requests, a dynamic web-based infrastructure to record meta-consent, and default settings. To analyse the discussions, a thematic content analysis was performed using a qualitative software.ResultsOur findings showed that participants were supportive of this new approach of consent as it promotes transparency and offers autonomy for the management of their health data. Key facilitators were identified to be considered in the implementation of a meta-consent model in the Quebec LHSs: information and transparency, awareness campaigns, development of educational tools, collaboration of front-line healthcare professionals, default settings deemed acceptable by the society as well as close partnerships with recognized and trusted institutions.ConclusionsThis qualitative study reveals the openness of a sample of the Quebec population regarding the meta-consent model for secondary use of health data for research. This first exploratory study conducted with the public is an important step in guiding decision-makers in the next phases of implementing the various strategies to support access and use of health data in Quebec. (shrink)

Privacy concerns involving data mining are examined in terms of four questions: What exactly is data mining? How does data mining raise concerns for personal privacy? How do privacy concerns raised by data mining differ from those concerns introduced by traditional information-retrieval techniques in computer databases? How do privacy concerns raised by mining personal data from the Internet differ from those concerns introduced by mining such data from data warehouses? It is argued (...) that the practice of using data-mining techniques, whether on the Internet or in data warehouses, to gain information about persons raises privacy concerns that go beyond concerns introduced in traditional information-retrieval techniques in computer databases and are not covered by present data-protection guidelines and privacy laws. (shrink)

Must we appeal to the notion of knowledge, in the subjective sense typically discussed by epistemologists, in the philosophy of science? Many scientific realists appear to think so, in so far as they assert that we can achieve knowledge of unobservable things, and of theories concerning them. As a natural result, perhaps, this has recently led Bird to suggest that scientific progress should be understood in terms of knowledge, rather than merely truth. But I would instead suggest that making scientific (...) progress consists in acquiring useful information. I will argue for this by pointing out the scientific importance of collecting information that is not and will not ever be believed, is false, and is truly believed without being justifiably believed. I will also say something about the different ways that ‘useful’ may be understood, with special reference to the property of truth and its role in positions such as constructive empiricism and structural realism. My own view is that even fictions may be both useful and informative; and this gels nicely with some recent work, e.g. by Frigg, on scientific models. (shrink)

In this opening chapter, we review the literature on information quality. Our major aim is to introduce the issues, and trace some of the history of the debates, with a view to situating the chapters in this volume – whose authors come from different disciplines – to help make them accessible to readers with different backgrounds and expertise. We begin in this section by tracing some influential analyses of IQ in computer science. This is a useful basis for examining (...) some examples of developing work on IQ in section two. We look at some cases for applying IQ in section three, and conclude with some discussion points in section four. (shrink)

Behavioral studies have demonstrated differences in the effect of constrained retrieval of semantic vs. non-semantic information on the encoding of foils. However, the impact of recognition on foils between semantic and non-semantic trials remains unclear. This study thus examines the roles of recognition—familiarity and recollection—in constrained retrieval for foils. We applied the event-related brain potentials data of new/old effects to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the “foil effect.” Participants encoded semantic and non-semantic tasks, were tested in a blocked (...) memory task with new words presented as foils, and performed a surprise recognition task involving foils and completely new words. Behavioral results showed better recognition performance regarding reaction times and accuracy by hit and correct reject for semantic vs. non-semantic trials in Phase 2. Conversely, inferior recognition performance in reaction times and accuracy by hit and correct reject was noted for semantic vs. non-semantic foils in Phase 3. ERP results showed more positive Frontal N400 for hit in non-semantic trials, more positive late positive component for correct rejects in semantic trials in Phase 2, and more positive LPC for hits in both semantic and non-semantic trials only in Phase 3. Through dual-processing theory, we prove that different task types in constrained retrieval depend on different retrieval processes. Particularly, familiarity may be applied more often in non-semantic trials, and recollection in semantic trials. The difference in processes between semantic and non-semantic trials during constrained retrieval affects incidental encoding of foils. (shrink)

We extend the comparatively simple processes of group symmetry-breaking in physical systems to groupoid/equivalence class phase transitions characterizing adiabatically, piecewise stationary, information transmission in prebiotic, biological, and social phenomena: High vs. Low probability paths $$\rightarrow$$ Interior and Exterior Interact $$\rightarrow$$ Multiple Interacting Tunable Workspaces Application to nonstationary processes seems possible via generalizations of the symmetry algebra, for example, to semigroupoids. The dynamic probability models explored here can be transformed into statistical tools for the analysis of real-time and other (...) class='Hi'>data across a spectrum of important disciplines confronted by biological and other forms of cognition and their dysfunctions. (shrink)

There is no consensus yet on the definition of semantic information. This paper contributes to the current debate by criticising and revising the Standard Definition of semantic Information (SDI) as meaningful data, in favour of the Dretske‐Grice approach: meaningful and well‐formed data constitute semantic information only if they also qualify as contingently truthful. After a brief introduction, SDI is criticised for providing necessary but insufficient conditions for the definition of semantic information. SDI is incorrect (...) because truth‐values do not supervene on semantic information, and misinformation (that is, false semantic information) is not a type of semantic information, but pseudo‐information, that is not semantic information at all. This is shown by arguing that none of the reasons for interpreting misinformation as a type of semantic information is convincing, whilst there are compelling reasons to treat it as pseudo‐information. As a consequence, SDI is revised to include a necessary truth‐condition. The last section summarises the main results of the paper and indicates some interesting areas of application of the revised definition. (shrink)

One of the basic principles of the general definition of information is its rejection of dataless information, which is reflected in its endorsement of an ontological neutrality. In general, this principles states that “there can be no information without physical implementation” (Floridi (2005)). Though this is standardly considered a commonsensical assumption, many questions arise with regard to its generalised application. In this paper a combined logic for data and information is elaborated, and specifically used to (...) investigate the consequences of restricted and unrestricted data-implementation-principles. (shrink)

Scientific research on consciousness is attempting to gather data about the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. The basic procedure is to measure consciousness through first-person reports, measure the physical world and look for correlations between these sets of measurements. While this work has focused on neural correlates of consciousness, it has also been proposed that information states in the brain might be linked to consciousness. This paper uses Floridi’s distinction between dedomena, data and information (...) to state this claim more precisely and suggests that the best starting point for this work is the potential correlation between data patterns and consciousness. Floridi’s method of levels of abstraction is used to understand how data can be measured at different levels of abstraction in the brain and the paper examines a number of problems with this work, which could make it difficult to prove that data patterns are correlated with consciousness. (shrink)

The power grid is an important connection between power sources and users, responsible for supplying and distributing electric energy to users. Modern power grids are widely distributed and large in scale, and their security faces new problems and challenges. Information entropy theory is an objective weighting method that compares the information order of each evaluation index to judge the weight value. With the wide application of entropy theory in various disciplines, the subject of introducing entropy into the power (...) system has been gradually concerned. This article aims to study the smart terminal security technology of the power grid perception layer based on information entropy data mining. This article analyzes its related methods and designs a smart terminal for the power grid. On this basis, a data analysis platform is built and a safety plan is designed. The result is that the average absolute error, root mean square error, average absolute percentage error, and mean square error of the platform's power load forecast are 1.58, 1.96, 8.2%, and 3.93, respectively. These error values are within the ideal range, and the data processing ability is strong. The packet loss rate of the adversary's eavesdropping was tested, and the average packet loss rates at locations a, b, c, and d were 1.05, 1.2, 1.81, and 2.2%, respectively. Data packets will be definitely lost, so the platform is highly secure. (shrink)

One of the more compelling beliefs about vision is that it is based on representations that are coherent and complete, with everything in the visual field described in great detail. However, changes made during a visual disturbance are found to be difficult to see, arguing against the idea that our brains contain a detailed, picture-like representation of the scene. Instead, it is argued here that a more dynamic, "just-in-time" representation is involved, one with deep similarities to the way that users (...) interact with external displays. It is further argued that these similarities can provide a basis for the design of intelligent display systems that can interact with humans in highly effective and novel ways. (shrink)

Since the cognitive revolution, it has become commonplace that cognition involves both computation and information processing. Is this one claim or two? Is computation the same as information processing? The two terms are often used interchangeably, but this usage masks important differences. In this paper, we distinguish information processing from computation and examine some of their mutual relations, shedding light on the role each can play in a theory of cognition. We recommend that theorists of cognition be (...) explicit and careful in choosing notions of computation and information and connecting them together.Keywords: Computation; Information processing; Computationalism; Computational theory of mind; Cognitivism. (shrink)

Inner speech vs. anendophasia: Questions of information, serendipity, and the mental realm’s connection with nature.

Since the second half of the twentieth century, biomedical research has made increasing use of epidemiological methods to establish empirical evidence on a population level. This paper is about practices with data in epidemiological research, based on a case study in Denmark. I propose an epistemology of record linkage that invites exploration of epidemiological studies as heterogeneous assemblages. Focusing on data collecting, sampling and linkage, I examine how data organisation and processing become productive beyond the context of (...) their collection. The case study looks at how a local population database established in 1976 to investigate possibilities for the prevention of cardiovascular disease is used thirty years later to test hypotheses on the aetiology of breast cancer. For two breast cancer investigations based on the same core data set, I follow the underlying record linkage practice and describe how research objects such as molecular markers become relevant with respect to public health through information networking. Epidemiological association studies function as tools that performatively enrol different contexts into statistical risk estimation, thereby configuring options for research as well as for clinical testing and public health policy. (shrink)