WorldWideScience

Sample records for public good arguments

  1. A Global Public Goods Approach to the Health of Migrants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Widdows, Heather; Marway, Herjeet

    2015-07-01

    This paper explores a global public goods approach to the health of migrants. It suggests that this approach establishes that there are a number of health goods which must be provided to migrants not because these are theirs by right (although this may independently be the case), but because these goods are primary goods which fit the threefold criteria of global public goods. There are two key advantages to this approach: first, it is non-confrontational and non-oppositional, and second, it provides self-interested arguments to provide at least some health goods to migrants and thus appeals to those little moved by rights-based arguments.

  2. Scaring the Public: Fear Appeal Arguments in Public Health Reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Louise Cummings

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available The study of threat and fear appeal arguments has given rise to a sizeable literature. Even within a public health context, much is now known about how these arguments work to gain the public’s compliance with health recommendations. Notwithstanding this level of interest in, and examination of, these arguments, there is one aspect of these arguments that still remains unexplored. That aspect concerns the heuristic function of these arguments within our thinking about public health problems. Specifically, it is argued that threat and fear appeal arguments serve as valuable shortcuts in our reasoning, particularly when that reasoning is subject to biases that are likely to diminish the effectiveness of public health messages. To this extent, they are rationally warranted argument forms rather than fallacies, as has been their dominant characterization in logic.

  3. Argumentation Key to Communicating Climate Change to the Public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bleicher, R. E.; Lambert, J. L.

    2012-12-01

    Argumentation plays an important role in how we communicate climate change science to the public and is a key component integrated throughout the Next Generation Science Standards. A scientific argument can be described as a disagreement between explanations with data being used to justify each position. Argumentation is social process where two or more individuals construct and critique arguments (Kuhn & Udell, 2003; Nussbaum, 1997). Sampson, Grooms, and Walker's (2011) developed a framework for understanding the components of a scientific argument. The three components start with a claim (a conjecture, conclusion, explanation, or an answer to a research question). This claim must fit the evidence (observations that show trends over time, relationships between variables or difference between groups). The evidence must be justified with reasoning (explains how the evidence supports the explanation and whey it should count as support). In a scientific argument, or debate, the controversy focuses on how data were collected, what data can or should be included, and what inferences can be made based on a set of evidence. Toulmin's model (1969) also includes rebutting or presenting an alternative explanation supported by counter evidence and reasoning of why the alternative is not the appropriate explanation for the question of the problem. The process of scientific argumentation should involve the construction and critique of scientific arguments, one that involves the consideration of alternative hypotheses (Lawson, 2003). Scientific literacy depends as much on the ability to refute and recognize poor scientific arguments as much as it does on the ability to present an effective argument based on good scientific data (Osborne, 2010). Argument is, therefore, a core feature of science. When students learn to construct a sound scientific argument, they demonstrate critical thinking and a mastery of the science being taught. To present a convincing argument in support of

  4. The ethics of big data as a public good: which public? Whose good?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Linnet

    2016-12-28

    International development and humanitarian organizations are increasingly calling for digital data to be treated as a public good because of its value in supplementing scarce national statistics and informing interventions, including in emergencies. In response to this claim, a 'responsible data' movement has evolved to discuss guidelines and frameworks that will establish ethical principles for data sharing. However, this movement is not gaining traction with those who hold the highest-value data, particularly mobile network operators who are proving reluctant to make data collected in low- and middle-income countries accessible through intermediaries. This paper evaluates how the argument for 'data as a public good' fits with the corporate reality of big data, exploring existing models for data sharing. I draw on the idea of corporate data as an ecosystem involving often conflicting rights, duties and claims, in comparison to the utilitarian claim that data's humanitarian value makes it imperative to share them. I assess the power dynamics implied by the idea of data as a public good, and how differing incentives lead actors to adopt particular ethical positions with regard to the use of data.This article is part of the themed issue 'The ethical impact of data science'. © 2016 The Author(s).

  5. Public perceptions of arguments supporting and opposing recreational marijuana legalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGinty, Emma E; Niederdeppe, Jeff; Heley, Kathryn; Barry, Colleen L

    2017-06-01

    In debates about recreational marijuana legalization, pro-legalization arguments highlighting economic and other potential policy benefits compete with anti-legalization arguments emphasizing public health risks. In 2016, we conducted a national survey using an online panel (N=979) designed to answer two main research questions: (1) How do Americans perceive the relative strength of competing arguments about recreational marijuana legalization? (2) How are perceptions of argument strength associated with public support for recreational marijuana legalization? We examined differences in attitudes among individuals living in states that have/have not legalized recreational marijuana and among Democrats/Independents/Republicans. Ordered logit regression assessed the relationship between perceived argument strength and public support for recreational marijuana legalization. Respondents rated pro-legalization arguments highlighting beneficial economic and criminal justice consequences as more persuasive than anti-legalization arguments emphasizing adverse public health effects. Respondents were more likely to agree with arguments highlighting legalization's potential to increase tax revenue (63.9%) and reduce prison overcrowding (62.8%) than arguments emphasizing negative consequences on motor vehicle crashes (51.8%) and youth health (49.6%). The highest rated anti-legalization arguments highlighted the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws (63.0%) and asserted that legalization will fail to eliminate the black market (57.2%). Respondents who endorsed pro-legalization economic and criminal justice arguments were more likely than other respondents to support legalization. Our findings indicate that, on both side of the recreational marijuana legalization debate, there are arguments that resonate with the American public. However, public health risk messages were viewed as less compelling than pro-legalization economic and criminal justice-oriented arguments

  6. Perceptions of the Nature and 'Goodness' of Argument among College Students, Science Teachers, and Scientists

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abi-El-Mona, Issam; Abd-El-Khalick, Fouad

    2011-03-01

    This study aimed to elucidate college freshmen science students, secondary science teachers, and scientists' perceptions of 'scientific' argument; to compare participants' perceptions with Stephen Toulmin's analytical framework of argument; and to characterize the criteria that participants deployed when assessing the 'quality' or 'goodness' of arguments. Thirty students, teachers, and scientists-with 10 members in each group-participated in two semi-structured individual interviews. During the first interview, participants generated an argument in response to a socioscientific issue. In the second interview, each participant 'evaluated' three arguments generated by a member from each participant group without being privy to the arguer's group membership. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed. The findings point to both similarities and differences between participants' conceptions of argument and those based on Toulmin's analytical framework. Participants used an array of common and idiosyncratic criteria to judge the quality or goodness of argument. Finally, contrary to expectations, participants independently agreed that the 'best' arguments were those generated by participant science teachers.

  7. Network public goods with asymmetric information about cooperation preferences and network degree

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, Jacob; van Assen, Marcus

    2013-01-01

    We propose a game theoretical model of one-shot network public goods formalizing the 'closure argument' that cooperation is more frequent in denser groups or networks. Equilibrium analyses show that (i) an 'inefficiency problem' exists: players all preferring mutual cooperation need not all

  8. Effects of pictures and textual arguments in sun protection public service announcements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boer, Henk; Ter Huurne, Ellen; Taal, Erik

    2006-01-01

    The effect of public service announcements aimed at promoting primary prevention of skin cancer may be limited by superficial cognitive processing. The use of both pictures and textual arguments in sun protection public service announcements were evaluated for their potentially beneficial effects on judgment, cognitive processing and persuasiveness. In a 2 x 2 factorial experimental design individuals were shown public service announcements that advocated the advantages of sun protection measures in different versions in which a picture was present or not present and a textual argument was present or not present. The 159 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. In each condition, participants were shown 12 different public service announcements designed according to the condition. Participants judged each public service announcement on attractiveness, credibility, clarity of communication and the required amount of reflection. After the judgment task, they completed a questionnaire to assess knowledge, perceived advantages and disadvantages of sun protection and intended use of sun protection measures. Pictures enhanced attractiveness, but diminished comprehension. Textual arguments enhanced attractiveness, credibility and comprehension. Pictures as well as textual arguments increased knowledge of sun protection measures. Pictures and textual arguments in public service announcements positively influence the individual's perception of the advantages of sun protection methods and the advantages of their adoption.

  9. Human Security and Energy Security: A Sustainable Energy System as a Public Good

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S.I.S.E.; Jollands, N.

    2013-01-01

    This chapter is dedicated to the concept of human security and its link to energy and energy governance, particularly global energy governance. Through this focus emerges the need to look at the links between the concept of public goods and energy. Our starting argument is that conventional notions

  10. Depreciation of public goods in spatial public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Dong-Mei; Zhuang, Yong; Li, Yu-Jian; Wang, Bing-Hong

    2011-10-01

    In real situations, the value of public goods will be reduced or even lost because of external factors or for intrinsic reasons. In this work, we investigate the evolution of cooperation by considering the effect of depreciation of public goods in spatial public goods games on a square lattice. It is assumed that each individual gains full advantage if the number of the cooperators nc within a group centered on that individual equals or exceeds the critical mass (CM). Otherwise, there is depreciation of the public goods, which is realized by rescaling the multiplication factor r to (nc/CM)r. It is shown that the emergence of cooperation is remarkably promoted for CM > 1 even at small values of r, and a global cooperative level is achieved at an intermediate value of CM = 4 at a small r. We further study the effect of depreciation of public goods on different topologies of a regular lattice, and find that the system always reaches global cooperation at a moderate value of CM = G - 1 regardless of whether or not there exist overlapping triangle structures on the regular lattice, where G is the group size of the associated regular lattice.

  11. Depreciation of public goods in spatial public goods games

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shi, Dong-Mei; Zhuang, Yong; Li, Yu-Jian; Wang, Bing-Hong

    2011-01-01

    In real situations, the value of public goods will be reduced or even lost because of external factors or for intrinsic reasons. In this work, we investigate the evolution of cooperation by considering the effect of depreciation of public goods in spatial public goods games on a square lattice. It is assumed that each individual gains full advantage if the number of the cooperators n c within a group centered on that individual equals or exceeds the critical mass (CM). Otherwise, there is depreciation of the public goods, which is realized by rescaling the multiplication factor r to (n c /CM)r. It is shown that the emergence of cooperation is remarkably promoted for CM > 1 even at small values of r, and a global cooperative level is achieved at an intermediate value of CM = 4 at a small r. We further study the effect of depreciation of public goods on different topologies of a regular lattice, and find that the system always reaches global cooperation at a moderate value of CM = G − 1 regardless of whether or not there exist overlapping triangle structures on the regular lattice, where G is the group size of the associated regular lattice

  12. Good intentions and received wisdom are not good enough: the need for controlled trials in public health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macintyre, Sally

    2011-07-01

    In the 1970s Archie Cochrane noted that many healthcare procedures and forms of organisation lacked evidence of effectiveness and efficiency, and argued for improved methods of evaluation, moving from clinical opinion and observation to randomised controlled trials (RCTs). His arguments gradually became accepted in medicine, but there has been considerable resistance among policymakers and researchers to their application to social and public health interventions. This essay argues that opposition to RCTs in public health is often based on a false distinction between healthcare and community settings, and sometimes on a misunderstanding of the principles of RCTs in health care. It suggests that just as in medicine, good intentions and received wisdom are not a sufficient basis for making public policy and allocating public funds for social or health improvement.

  13. Global Public Goods and The Role of Emerging Power: Considering the Concept of Impure Public Goods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liu Rieshøj Yi

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The existing analysis of global public goods over-emphasizes the significance of public. Great power as a main provider has played an active role in these strategic initiatives, which may be ignored. In fact, main power has thought about the possible free-riders when providing public goods and making its foreign strategic plan. China’s announcement to “welcome the neighbouring countries to be a free-rider and benefit from China’s rise” is a good example. It is necessary to think about the theory of public goods and take another look at the free-riding phenomenon. The concept of impure public goods may be useful and effective when we understand the reason why global public goods are being provided and are relatively efficient. As an emerging power, China should have a clear strategy on global public goods with a possible “marketing” viewpoint, including more initiatives and specific measures, so that the global public goods provision may be more diverse and well-planned.

  14. Effect of the depreciation of public goods in spatial public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Dong-Mei; Zhuang, Yong; Wang, Bing-Hong

    2012-02-01

    In this work, the depreciation effect of public goods is considered in the public goods games, which is realized by rescaling the multiplication factor r of each group as r‧=r( (β≥0). It is assumed that each individual enjoys the full profit r of the public goods if all the players of this group are cooperators. Otherwise, the value of public goods is reduced to r‧. It is found that compared with the original version (β=0), the emergence of cooperation is remarkably promoted for β>0, and there exist intermediate values of β inducing the best cooperation. Particularly, there exists a range of β inducing the highest cooperative level, and this range of β broadens as r increases. It is further presented that the variation of cooperator density with noise has close relations with the values of β and r, and cooperation at an intermediate value of β=1.0 is most tolerant to noise.

  15. Conspicuous Public Goods and Leadership Selection

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jennings, C.; Roelfsema, H.J.

    If voters care for the relative supply of public goods compared to otherjurisdictions, decentralized provision of public goods will be too high.Potentially, centralization internalizes the negative externalities fromthe production of these `conspicuous' public goods. However, in amodel of strategic

  16. Geoengineering, climate change scepticism and the 'moral hazard' argument: an experimental study of UK public perceptions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corner, Adam; Pidgeon, Nick

    2014-12-28

    Many commentators have expressed concerns that researching and/or developing geoengineering technologies may undermine support for existing climate policies-the so-called moral hazard argument. This argument plays a central role in policy debates about geoengineering. However, there has not yet been a systematic investigation of how members of the public view the moral hazard argument, or whether it impacts on people's beliefs about geoengineering and climate change. In this paper, we describe an online experiment with a representative sample of the UK public, in which participants read one of two arguments (either endorsing or rejecting the idea that geoengineering poses a moral hazard). The argument endorsing the idea of geoengineering as a moral hazard was perceived as more convincing overall. However, people with more sceptical views and those who endorsed 'self-enhancing' values were more likely to agree that the prospect of geoengineering would reduce their motivation to make changes in their own behaviour in response to climate change. The findings suggest that geoengineering is likely to pose a moral hazard for some people more than others, and the implications for engaging the public are discussed.

  17. Judicialization of Health Policy in the Definition of Access to Public Goods: Individual Rights versus Collective Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Telma Maria Gonçalves Menicucci

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses a form of judicialization of public policies in the health field. It has as its object lawsuits initiated against Belo Horizonte Municipality arguing for the provision of services or the acquisition of inputs not obtained in the public system via institutional access routes. The argument is that the individualized quest for the guarantee of the right to healthcare via the judicial path is a form of reproduction of the tensions produced in democratic societies between the social and the individual conceptions of citizenship. By ensuring access to goods by means of individual suits, the Judiciary interferes in the making of public choices taken on by public-sector managers, thus regulating opportunities for consumption according to a concentrating logic. And so the assertion of a constitutional right superposes the political right of the majority, represented by the Executive, to make choices as to the goods that are the object of public policies, with a relatively significant financial and budgetary impact.

  18. Nursing and euthanasia: a review of argument-based ethics literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quaghebeur, Toon; Dierckx de Casterlé, Bernadette; Gastmans, Chris

    2009-07-01

    This article gives an overview of the nursing ethics arguments on euthanasia in general, and on nurses' involvement in euthanasia in particular, through an argument-based literature review. An in-depth study of these arguments in this literature will enable nurses to engage in the euthanasia debate. We critically appraised 41 publications published between January 1987 and June 2007. Nursing ethics arguments on (nurses' involvement in) euthanasia are guided primarily by the principles of respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice. Ethical arguments related to the nursing profession are described. From a care perspective, we discuss arguments that evaluate to what degree euthanasia can be considered positively or negatively as a form of good nursing care. Most arguments in the principle-, profession- and care-orientated approaches to nursing ethics are used both pro and contra euthanasia in general, and nurses' involvement in euthanasia in particular.

  19. News Coverage of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes: Pro- and Antitax Arguments in Public Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gollust, Sarah E.; Jarlenski, Marian P.; Nathanson, Ashley M.; Barry, Colleen L.

    2013-01-01

    Objectives. We examined news coverage of public debates about large taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to illuminate how the news media frames the debate and to inform future efforts to promote obesity-related public policy. Methods. We conducted a quantitative content analysis in which we assessed how frequently 30 arguments supporting or opposing SSB taxes appeared in national news media and in news outlets serving jurisdictions where SSB taxes were proposed between January 2009 and June 2011. Results. News coverage included more discrete protax than antitax arguments on average. Supportive arguments about the health consequences and financial benefits of SSB taxes appeared most often. The most frequent opposing arguments focused on how SSB taxes would hurt the economy and how they constituted inappropriate governmental intrusion. Conclusions. News outlets that covered the debate on SSB taxes in their jurisdictions framed the issue in largely favorable ways. However, because these proposals have not gained passage, it is critical for SSB tax advocates to reach audiences not yet persuaded about the merits of this obesity prevention policy. PMID:23597354

  20. Analysis of Arguments in the Public Debate on the Alphabet Change in bilingual Kazakhstan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lyazzat Kimanova

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available By focusing on an example of a public social debate on language policy, this article aims at showing the relevant contribution of argument analysis to the understanding of such debates. Argumentative discourse constitutes an essential condition for real democratic practice. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958: 73 point out that the commitment to argumentative practice offers an alternative to the use of violence. The relationship between argumentation and a democratic society is fundamental: argumentation is the substance of democracy, which differs from other social systems in that the only legitimate power is the power of the word. It is free will, which builds on the word alone, that enables us to live together in freedom. An important aspect of democracy, being based on a dialectic ideal, is its uncertain outcome: van Eemeren (2002: 71 characterizes democracy as «institutionalized uncertainty». Thus, insight into the functioning of argumentation contributes significantly to the understanding of democratic processes

  1. Paying for International Environmental Public Goods

    OpenAIRE

    Arriagada, Rodrigo; Perrings, Charles

    2011-01-01

    Supply of international environmental public goods must meet certain conditions to be socially efficient, and several reasons explain why they are currently undersupplied. Diagnosis of the public goods failure associated with particular ecosystem services is critical to the development of the appropriate international response. There are two categories of international environmental public goods that are most likely to be undersupplied. One has an additive supply technology and the other has ...

  2. Method to translate human feelings into arguments[Methods to achieve public confidence

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hans, Arnold [GKN (Netherlands)

    1995-07-01

    Taking as an example the status of nuclear power in Netherlands, it was shown that there is an emotional approach on the part of supporters and opponents, not open to rational argument, objective information of no avail, lack of public support (80% against), Government undecided. It was concluded that nuclear energy is a deep-rooted emotional conflict, and that the prospects of altering the situation are bleak. Proposed arguments for changeover in favor of nuclear energy are: electricity is a necessity, it is economical, safety is guaranteed, it protects the environment and conserves other resources.

  3. When Arguments and Sounds of Words Begin to Speak - About Learning rhetorics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Zidar

    1995-12-01

    Full Text Available There has been a growing awareness as to the need of knowledge to improvc public speaking and interpersonal communication. When limiting our consideration to two essential elements contributing to efficient public speakiog, i.e. the strength of argumcntation and voice modulation of the text, one becomes aware of how important argumentation is. It is necessary for a speaker to fonn efficient arguments by taking into account his or her ethical features. Further, there are at least five types of argumentation (deduction, induction, analogous, causative and referential concluding. There is a need, on the other hand, to avoid sly and dishonest argumentation (evasion, dangerous speculations, ... etc.. Nevertheless, the argumentation alone does not suffice. Speakers should develop a feeling enabling them to teli when the speech is good, i e. how to catch attention of the audience, how to conclude efficiently, how to be dramatic, how to order arguments, what language to use. To this purpose three basic elements of persuasion are used: etos, patos and logos. Other elements can help forwarding the message, such as: intonation, language register, colour and intensity of speech, tempo and pronunciation. To enhance public speaking the content and the speech form are to be linked.

  4. Public good provision and public bad prevention: the effect of framing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sonnemans, J.H.; Schram, A.J.H.C.; Offerman, T.J.S.

    1998-01-01

    An experimental analysis of voluntary, binary contributions for step-level public goods (bads) is presented. In the public good presentation of the dilemma the subjects choose between contributing or not. The public good is provided for all group-members if and only if the number of contributors

  5. Is electricity a public good?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Salies, Evens; Kiesling, Lynne; Giberson, Michael

    2007-04-01

    Wholesale electricity markets are increasingly driven by the rules of competition while recent outages in different regions of the world suggest that security of supply is a public good. The objective of this paper is to show that security of supply and more generally, electricity supply has both public and private characteristics. Whilst the public good characteristic explains why some producers may prefer to free ride on others' investments to maintain reliability, the private good aspect of reliability shows that agents may have a variety of preferences for reliability. Then by relying on the concept of Pareto-relevant externality, the paper explores the private aspect of reliability for the prospect of creating and selling reliability as a differentiated product complementary to bulk power markets. Finally, policy recommendations are derived that aim to enhance information content in the network. Initially published in 'Revue de l'OFCE' No. 101

  6. Characteristics of Effective Argumentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frana, Adrian W.

    1989-01-01

    Examines how the 1988 Presidential Debates provide a resource for effective instruction in public argument. Provides several examples of effective (and ineffective) argumentative speaking taken from the debates. (MM)

  7. Men behaving nicely: public goods as peacock tails.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Vugt, Mark; Iredale, Wendy

    2013-02-01

    Insights from sexual selection and costly signalling theory suggest that competition for females underlies men's public good contributions. We conducted two public good experiments to test this hypothesis. First, we found that men contributed more in the presence of an opposite sex audience, but there was no parallel effect for the women. In addition, men's public good contributions went up as they rated the female observer more attractive. In the second experiment, all male groups played a five round public good game and their contributions significantly increased over time with a female audience only. In this condition men also volunteered more time for various charitable causes. These findings support the idea that men compete with each other by creating public goods to impress women. Thus, a public good is the human equivalent of a peacock's tail. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

  8. Public good provision and public bad prevention: The effect of framing.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sonnemans, J.; Schram, A.; Offermans, T.

    1998-01-01

    An experimental analysis of voluntary, binary contributions for step-level public goods/bads is presented. Alternatively, the situation is presented as the provision of a public good or the prevention of a public bad. From a strategic point of view, these presentations are equivalent. In early

  9. Return on research investments: personal good versus public good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, P. A.

    2017-12-01

    For some time the outputs, i.e. what's produced, of publicly and privately funded research while necessary, are far from sufficient, when considering an overall return on (research) investment. At the present time products such as peer-reviewed papers, websites, data, and software are recognized by funders on timescales related to research awards and reporting. However, from a consumer perspective impact and value are determined at the time a product is discovered, accessed, assessed and used. As is often the case, the perspectives of producer and consumer communities can be distinct and not intersect at all. We contrast personal good, i.e. credit, reputation, with that of public good, e.g. interest, leverage, exploitation, and more. This presentation will elaborate on both the metaphorical and idealogical aspects of applying a "return on investment" frame for the topic of assessing "good".

  10. Informed decision making about predictive DNA tests: arguments for more public visibility of personal deliberations about the good life.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boenink, Marianne; van der Burg, Simone

    2010-05-01

    Since its advent, predictive DNA testing has been perceived as a technology that may have considerable impact on the quality of people's life. The decision whether or not to use this technology is up to the individual client. However, to enable well considered decision making both the negative as well as the positive freedom of the individual should be supported. In this paper, we argue that current professional and public discourse on predictive DNA-testing is lacking when it comes to supporting positive freedom, because it is usually framed in terms of risk and risk management. We show how this 'risk discourse' steers thinking on the good life in a particular way. We go on to argue that empirical research into the actual deliberation and decision making processes of individuals and families may be used to enrich the environment of personal deliberation in three ways: (1) it points at a richer set of values that deliberators can take into account, (2) it acknowledges the shared nature of genes, and (3) it shows how one might frame decisions in a non-binary way. We argue that the public sharing and discussing of stories about personal deliberations offers valuable input for others who face similar choices: it fosters their positive freedom to shape their view of the good life in relation to DNA-diagnostics. We conclude by offering some suggestions as to how to realize such public sharing of personal stories.

  11. Optimal Provision of Public Goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kreiner, Claus Thustrup; Verdelin, Nicolaj

    2012-01-01

    The standard approach to the optimal provision of public goods highlights the importance of distortionary taxation and distributional concerns. A new approach neutralizes distributional concerns by adjusting the income tax schedule. We demonstrate that both approaches are derived from the same...... basic formula. We also take the new approach further by deriving an intuitive formula for the optimal level of public goods, without imposing strong assumptions on preferences. This formula shows that distortionary taxation has a role to play, as in the standard approach. However, the main determinants...

  12. Optimal Provision of Public Goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kreiner, Claus Thustrup; Verdelin, Nicolaj

    2009-01-01

    There currently exist two competing approaches in the literature on the optimal provision of public goods. The standard approach highlights the importance of distortionary taxation and distributional concerns. The new approach neutralizes distributional concerns by adjusting the non-linear income...... for the optimal level of a public good without imposing strong assumptions on preferences. This formula shows that distortionary taxation may have a role to play as in the standard approach. However, the main determinants of optimal provision are completely different and the traditional formula with its emphasis...

  13. The role of public goods in planetary evolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    McInerney, James O.; Erwin, Douglas H.

    2017-11-01

    Biological public goods are broadly shared within an ecosystem and readily available. They appear to be widespread and may have played important roles in the history of life on Earth. Of particular importance to events in the early history of life are the roles of public goods in the merging of genomes, protein domains and even cells. We suggest that public goods facilitated the origin of the eukaryotic cell, a classic major evolutionary transition. The recognition of genomic public goods challenges advocates of a direct graph view of phylogeny, and those who deny that any useful phylogenetic signal persists in modern genomes. Ecological spillovers generate public goods that provide new ecological opportunities. This article is part of the themed issue 'Reconceptualizing the origins of life'.

  14. PUBLIC GOODS, CORRUPTION AND GROWTH???

    OpenAIRE

    Ratbek Dzhumashev

    2006-01-01

    In this paper, we analyse implications of corruption on growth. We extend existing growth models by incorporating ubiquitous corruption as a by-product of the public sector. Corruption affects both taxation and public good provision, and therefore causes income redistribution and inefficiencies in the public sector. These effects of corruption lead to lower growth through distortions of investment incentives and resources allocation.

  15. Research on Effective Supply Mode of Rural Public Goods

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    On the basis of definition and classification of rural public goods, this paper analyses the status quo of public goods supply in vast rural areas of China, and it indicates that the electricity and communication facility in rural areas have not yet been popularized; the culture and education facility is critically backward; the medical care and social warfare institutions are short. It points out the rational supply model of public goods as follows: the government plays dominant role in the public goods supply with a large amount of investments, related to the quality of living and production of multitudinous farmers; small wieldy quasi-public goods that can be easily supplied and marginalized public goods can introduce multiplex supply main body under the framework of government guidance. According to this model, corresponding policy suggestions are put forward as follows: increase financial inputs, and perfect local financial system; actively encourage the majority of farmers in rural areas to participate in public goods supply mechanism, so that the supply has pertinence; vigorously develop multiplex supply system of rural public goods, to ensure effective supply.

  16. Private Financing of Public Goods by Means of 'Eco-Goods' Schemes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ueda, Yoshifumi; Wegener, Andreas; Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard

    2010-01-01

    With a view to applying to the problem of collective action for the global commons, we analyze a three-stage game model where public goods are provided by the costly leadership of a social entrepreneur for undertaking 'eco-goods' scheme. We derive (i) the conclusion that the social entrepreneur can...... finance more for the collective action under not-for-profit constraint than without the constraint, and (ii) the conditions under which he prefers the not-for-profit constraint on a rational basis. The main results are applied to some social experiments on the natural common-pools of a public-goods nature...

  17. Toward accommodating physicians' conscientious objections: an argument for public disclosure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harter, Thomas D

    2015-03-01

    This paper aims to demonstrate how public disclosure can be used to balance physicians' conscientious objections with their professional obligations to patients--specifically respect for patient autonomy and informed consent. It is argued here that physicians should be permitted to exercise conscientious objections, but that they have a professional obligation to provide advance notification to patients about those objections. It is further argued here that public disclosure is an appropriate and ethically justifiable limit to the principle of advance notification. The argument for publicly disclosing physicians' conscientious objections is made in this paper by discussing three practical benefits of public disclosure in medicine, and then addressing how publicly disclosing physicians' conscientious objections is not an undue invasion of privacy. Three additional concerns with public disclosure of physicians' conscientious objections are briefly addressed--potential harassment of physicians, workplace discrimination, and mischaracterising physicians' professional aptitude--concluding that each of these concerns requires further deliberation in the realm of business ethics. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  18. Critical mass of public goods and its coevolution with cooperation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Dong-Mei; Wang, Bing-Hong

    2017-07-01

    In this study, the enhancing parameter represented the value of the public goods to the public in public goods game, and was rescaled to a Fermi-Dirac distribution function of critical mass. Public goods were divided into two categories, consumable and reusable public goods, and their coevolution with cooperative behavior was studied. We observed that for both types of public goods, cooperation was promoted as the enhancing parameter increased when the value of critical mass was not very large. An optimal value of critical mass which led to the best cooperation was identified. We also found that cooperations emerged earlier for reusable public goods, and defections became extinct earlier for the consumable public goods. Moreover, we observed that a moderate depreciation rate for public goods resulted in an optimal cooperation, and this range became wider as the enhancing parameter increased. The noise influence on cooperation was studied, and it was shown that cooperation density varied non-monotonically as noise amplitude increased for reusable public goods, whereas decreased monotonically for consumable public goods. Furthermore, existence of the optimal critical mass was also identified in other three regular networks. Finally, simulation results were utilized to analyze the provision of public goods in detail.

  19. PhD by Publication as an Argument for Innovation and Technology Transfer: With Emphasis on Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asongu, Simplice A.; Nwachukwu, Jacinta C.

    2018-01-01

    The contribution of African researchers to knowledge by means of scientific publications is low compared to other regions of the world. This paper presents an argument in favour of PhD by publication as a tool for innovation and technology transfer. The conception of PhD by publication used in this study is more suited for doctorates in science…

  20. National Interference in Local Public Good Provision

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A.J. Dur (Robert); K. Staal (Klaas)

    2003-01-01

    textabstractWe analyze a simple model of local public good provision in a country consisting of a large number of heterogeneous regions, each comprising two districts, a city and a village. When districts remain autonomous and local public goods have positive spillover effects on the neighbouring

  1. Paying for international environmental public goods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arriagada, Rodrigo; Perrings, Charles

    2011-11-01

    Supply of international environmental public goods must meet certain conditions to be socially efficient, and several reasons explain why they are currently undersupplied. Diagnosis of the public goods failure associated with particular ecosystem services is critical to the development of the appropriate international response. There are two categories of international environmental public goods that are most likely to be undersupplied. One has an additive supply technology and the other has a weakest link supply technology. The degree to which the collective response should be targeted depends on the importance of supply from any one country. In principle, the solution for the undersupply lies in payments designed to compensate local providers for the additional costs they incur in meeting global demand. Targeted support may take the form of direct investment in supply (the Global Environment Facility model) or of payments for the benefits of supply (the Payments for Ecosystem Services model).

  2. Globalisation and National Incentives for Protecting Environmental Goods

    OpenAIRE

    Alkuin Kölliker

    2004-01-01

    This article tries to explain national incentives for protecting environmental goods either autonomously or collectively; it explores how globalisation has affected those incentives; and it suggests how national environmental policy might respond so as to ensure its effectiveness. The central argument is that national incentives for environmental protection may to a considerable extent be explained by a combination of the type of environmental good to be protected (in terms of public goods th...

  3. Static and evolutionary quantum public goods games

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liao Zeyang; Qin Gan; Hu Lingzhi; Li Songjian; Xu Nanyang [Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (China); Du Jiangfeng [Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (China); Fachbereich Physik, Universitaet Dortmund, 44221 Dortmund (Germany)], E-mail: djf@ustc.edu.cn

    2008-05-12

    We apply the continuous-variable quantization scheme to quantize public goods game and find that new pure strategy Nash equilibria emerge in the static case. Furthermore, in the evolutionary public goods game, entanglement can also contribute to the persistence of cooperation under various population structures without altruism, voluntary participation, and punishment.

  4. The global public good concept: a means of promoting good veterinary governance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eloit, M

    2012-08-01

    At the outset, the concept of a 'public good' was associated with economic policies. However, it has now evolved not only from a national to a global concept (global public good), but also from a concept applying solely to the production of goods to one encompassing societal issues (education, environment, etc.) and fundamental rights, including the right to health and food. Through their actions, Veterinary Services, as defined by the Terrestrial Animal Health Code (Terrestrial Code) of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), help to improve animal health and reduce production losses. In this way they contribute directly and indirectly to food security and to safeguarding human health and economic resources. The organisation and operating procedures of Veterinary Services are therefore key to the efficient governance required to achieve these objectives. The OIE is a major player in global cooperation and governance in the fields of animal and public health through the implementation of its strategic standardisation mission and other programmes for the benefit of Veterinary Services and OIE Member Countries. Thus, the actions of Veterinary Services and the OIE deserve to be recognised as a global public good, backed by public investment to ensure that all Veterinary Services are in a position to apply the principles of good governance and to comply with the international standards for the quality of Veterinary Services set out in the OIE Terrestrial Code (Section 3 on Quality of Veterinary Services) and Aquatic Animal Health Code (Section 3 on Quality of Aquatic Animal Health Services).

  5. Framing and misperceptions in a public good experiment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgaard, Toke; Hansen, Lars Gårn; Wengström, Erik Roland

    Earlier studies have found that a substantial part of the contributions in public good games can be explained by subjects misperceiving the game's incentives. Using a large-scale public good experiment, we show that subtle changes in how the game is framed substantially affect such misperceptions...... and that this explains major parts of framing effect on subjects' behavior. When controlling for the different levels of misperception between frames, the framing effect on subjects' cooperation preferences disappears.......Earlier studies have found that a substantial part of the contributions in public good games can be explained by subjects misperceiving the game's incentives. Using a large-scale public good experiment, we show that subtle changes in how the game is framed substantially affect such misperceptions...

  6. Public goods games on adaptive coevolutionary networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pichler, Elgar; Shapiro, Avi M.

    2017-07-01

    Productive societies feature high levels of cooperation and strong connections between individuals. Public Goods Games (PGGs) are frequently used to study the development of social connections and cooperative behavior in model societies. In such games, contributions to the public good are made only by cooperators, while all players, including defectors, reap public goods benefits, which are shares of the contributions amplified by a synergy factor. Classic results of game theory show that mutual defection, as opposed to cooperation, is the Nash Equilibrium of PGGs in well-mixed populations, where each player interacts with all others. In this paper, we explore the coevolutionary dynamics of a low information public goods game on a complex network in which players adapt to their environment in order to increase individual payoffs relative to past payoffs parameterized by greediness. Players adapt by changing their strategies, either to cooperate or to defect, and by altering their social connections. We find that even if players do not know other players' strategies and connectivity, cooperation can arise and persist despite large short-term fluctuations.

  7. Genetically modified foods as global public goods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susana Herrero Olarte

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available "Genetically modified (GM food has become very important in the field of research, as a result of its expansion in recent decades. As the right to food is a human right, it cannot be left in the hands of private sector developments exclusively, due to the capacity of the public sector to limit or drive it, and in any case, contributing to food safety. To achieve this, and for its cross-border development, GM needs to be treated as Global Public Goods (GPG, defined as pure or impure public goods that cannot be provided or regulated from a national or regional level, but from a global perspective. Its definition as GPG, and the fact of being public goods, assumes greater involvement by the public sector for its supply or regulation. It is therefore necessary to analyze the positive and negative externalities generated by transgenic foods becoming public goods, but from a global perspective. The difficulty is, that according to the author, GMs are positive or negative, so that there is no consensus to restrict and even prevent them or encourage them. But, there is a consensus on some key issues of GM food, such as improving productivity, contributing to the reduction of the species, the dependence of farmers, or monopoly companies with the patent. Identifying these issues can serve to initiate the appropriate regulation."

  8. Food Science for the Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Cassandra

    If you are interested in food science, looking for a meaningful career path, and are motivated by the desire to make a difference, you may find that a career working for the public good can be very rewarding. Often, such opportunities address issues of social responsibility, sustainability, public health, and/or economic development. Food scientists who choose this path typically have an interest in social and public health issues, and are usually driven by the achievement of some sort of social, health, or societal gain. As food science in itself is a very broad discipline, applying this knowledge for the public good can also take a variety of paths. Whether you're interested in manufacturing, food safety, nutrition, food policy, product development, quality control, marketing and sales, or any other discipline that makes up the diverse field of food science, various opportunities exist to make a difference to society.

  9. What is a good public participation process? Five perspectives from the public.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Webler, T; Tuler, S; Krueger, R

    2001-03-01

    It is now widely accepted that members of the public should be involved in environmental decision-making. This has inspired many to search for principles that characterize good public participation processes. In this paper we report on a study that identifies discourses about what defines a good process. Our case study was a forest planning process in northern New England and New York. We employed Q methodology to learn how participants characterize a good process differently, by selecting, defining, and privileging different principles. Five discourses, or perspectives, about good process emerged from our study. One perspective emphasizes that a good process acquires and maintains popular legitimacy. A second sees a good process as one that facilitates an ideological discussion. A third focuses on the fairness of the process. A fourth perspective conceptualizes participatory processes as a power struggle--in this instance a power play between local land-owning interests and outsiders. A fifth perspective highlights the need for leadership and compromise. Dramatic differences among these views suggest an important challenge for those responsible for designing and carrying out public participation processes. Conflicts may emerge about process designs because people disagree about what is good in specific contexts.

  10. Public participation, Good Environmental Governance and fulfilment ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Public participation, Good Environmental Governance and fulfilment of Environmental rights. ... international developments the role that public participation is expected to play in state governments\\' fulfilment of citizens\\' environmental rights.

  11. Pedagogical Uses of the Public Goods Concept in Economics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiesling, Herbert J.

    1990-01-01

    Describes some of the relatively unknown aspects of the concept of public goods and shows how they might be brought into undergraduate textbooks in microeconomic principles, public finance, and welfare economics. Illustrates how these aspects of public goods can be brought into undergraduate instruction. (DB)

  12. Social argumentation in online synchronous communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angiono, Ivan

    In education, argumentation has an increasing importance because it can be used to foster learning in various fields including philosophy, history, sciences, and mathematics. Argumentation is also at the heart of scientific inquiry. Many educational technology researchers have been interested in finding out how technologies can be employed to improve students' learning of argumentation. Therefore, many computer-based tools or argumentation systems have been developed to assist students in their acquisition of argumentation skills. While the argumentation systems incorporating online debating tools present a good resource in formal settings, there is limited research revealing what argumentative skills students are portraying in informal online settings without the presence of a moderator. This dissertation investigates the nature of argumentative practices in a massively multiplayer online game where the system successfully incorporates the authentic use of online synchronous communication tools and the patterns that emerge from the interplay between a number of contextual variables including synchronicity, interest, authenticity, and topical knowledge.

  13. Optimal Provision of Public Goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kreiner, Claus Thustrup; Verdelin, Nicolaj

    There currently exist two competing approaches in the literature on the optimal provision of public goods. The standard approach highlights the importance of distortionary taxation and distributional concerns. The new approach neutralizes distributional concerns by adjusting the non-linear income...... tax, and finds that this reinvigorates the simple Samuelson rule when preferences are separable in goods and leisure. We provide a synthesis by demonstrating that both approaches derive from the same basic formula. We further develop the new approach by deriving a general, intuitive formula...

  14. Framing and misperception in public good experiments

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgaard, Toke Reinholt; Hansen, Lars Gårn; Wengström, Erik Roland

    2017-01-01

    Earlier studies have found that framing has substantial impact on the degree of cooperation observed in public good experiments. We show that the way the public good game is framed affects misperceptions about the incentives of the game. Moreover, we show that such framing-induced differences...... in misperceptions are linked to the framing effect on subjects' cooperation behavior. When we do not control for the different levels of misperceptions between frames, we observe a significant framing effect on subjects’ cooperation preferences. However, this framing effect becomes insignificant once we remove...

  15. Nudge for (the public) good

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgaard, Toke Reinholt; Piovesan, Marco

    In this paper we test the effect of non-binding defaults on the level of contribution to a public good. We manipulate the default numbers appearing on the decision screen to nudge subjects toward a free-rider strategy or a perfect conditional cooperator strategy. Our results show that the vast...

  16. Nudge for (the public) good

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgaard, Toke Reinholt; Piovesan, Marco

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we test the effect of non-binding defaults on the level of contribution to a public good. We manipulate the default numbers appearing on the decision screen to nudge subjects toward a free-rider strategy or a perfect conditional cooperator strategy. Our results show that the vast...

  17. How Can ABER Serve the Public Good? A Critical Brechtian Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald

    2014-01-01

    In this special issue, each author addresses how ABER work connects with and/or directly addresses society's need/s and the public good as perceived by the researcher. As there are many construals of the "public good" and the relation to art-making and the arts to this "public good," each author will conceptualize her/his…

  18. MONEY AS A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD

    OpenAIRE

    Popescu Alexandra-Codruta

    2009-01-01

    The main objective of this paper is to discuss a complex and yet not taken in consideration global public good: money. Money is a social convention created and accepted by people in order to facilitate economic transactions, being a symbol, without an int

  19. Public goods and voting on formal sanction schemes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Putterman, Louis; Tyran, Jean-Robert Karl; Kamei, Kenju

    2011-01-01

    The burgeoning literature on the use of sanctions to support the provision of public goods has largely neglected the use of formal or centralized sanctions. We let subjects playing a linear public goods game vote on the parameters of a formal sanction scheme capable of either resolving...... or exacerbating the free-rider problem, depending on parameter settings. Most groups quickly learned to choose parameters inducing efficient outcomes. We find that cooperative orientation, political attitude, gender and intelligence have a small but sometimes significant influence on voting....

  20. Public Goods and Voting on Formal Sanction Schemes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Putterman, Louis; Tyran, Jean-Robert; Kamei, Kenju

    The burgeoning literature on the use of sanctions to support public goods provision has largely neglected the use of formal or centralized sanctions. We let subjects playing a linear public goods game vote on the parameters of a formal sanction scheme capable both of resolving and of exacerbating...... the free-rider problem, depending on parameter settings. Most groups quickly learned to choose parameters inducing efficient outcomes. But despite uniform money payoffs implying common interest in those parameters, voting patterns suggest significant influence of cooperative orientation, political...

  1. The water a public good

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mira, Juan Camilo

    2008-01-01

    The campaign Water is a public good have been upheld by Ecofondo since march 2005,searching to develop public policies related to water justice forwarded from local experiences hold on by social organizations around the country. Colombia are a tropical country, one the most biological and cultural diverse in the world and is plentiful of water rivers ant other water bodies.However, there is an imminent environmental crisis named too a cultural crisis caused by the uses of land and natural resources. The actual public policies related to water supply, waste disposals and environmental conservation are weak indeed the complexity of the causes. The public service's privatization in Colombia early on the 90's that increased the fee and the governmental intention to privatise the water, struggle people against that and it is expressed trough conflicts related to access to natural resources. The water become a reason to social mobilization that in the near future will intent to change the National Constitution to take in, the water as a human right, the water supply as a public service only, and the special importance of the ecosystem regulators of the water cycle

  2. Good governance and the implementation of national health insurance in the public health sector: A case of South Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melody Brauns

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available For years it has been argued that implementation failure is one of the main reasons why policies do not yield the results expected. In South Africa, a version of this argument, which often features, is that good policies are drawn up but then not implemented. Government failure is a reality. Just as corporations survive according to whether they make good decisions, so to governments fall or are re-elected on whether they make good decisions. General argument in governance literature is that a wide variety of developments have undermined the capacity of governments to control events within the nation state. As a consequence the state can no longer assume a monopoly of expertise or of the resources to govern.

  3. Land use, worker heterogeneity and welfare benefits of public goods

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Teulings, Coen N.; Ossokina, Ioulia V.; de Groot, Henri L.F.

    2018-01-01

    We show that investments in public goods change the optimal land use in their vicinity, leading to additional welfare benefits. This occurs through two sorting mechanisms. First, availability of public goods leads to higher population densities. Second, population groups sort according to their

  4. Explaining contributions to public goods : Formalizing the social exchange heuristic

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, J.

    The public good game is a popular model of cooperation problems. Rational egoism predicts that in finitely repeated public good games no contributions are made. At least 4 observations are inconsistent with this prediction: contributions (i) are frequently positive, (ii) increase in the marginal

  5. Democracy, Redistributive Taxation and the Private Provision of Public Goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Markussen, Thomas

    ) pointed to, is weakened and might even be reversed in this context. Also, the median voter may choose a negative tax rate, even if he is poorer than the mean, in order to stimulate public goods production. The relevance of the model is illustrated with an application to the finance of higher education.......The paper studies in a simple, Downsian model of political competition how the private provision of public goods is affected when it is embedded in a system of democracy and redistributive taxation. Results show that the positive effect of inequality on public goods production, which Olson (1965...

  6. Children's responses in argumentative discussions relating to parental rules and prescriptions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Bova

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This study sets out to investigate the types of responses by children aged between 3 and 7 years in argumentative discussions relating to parental rules and prescriptions. The data corpus is composed of 132 argumentative discussions selected from 30 video-recorded meals of 10 middle to upper-middle-class Swiss and Italian families. Data are presented through discursive excerpts of argumentative discussions and analysed by the pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical discussion. The findings show that when parents advance context-bound arguments such as the arguments of quality (e.g., very good, salty, or not good and quantity (e.g., too little, quite enough, or too much of food, the arguments advanced by children mirror the same types of arguments previously used by parents. On the other hand, when parents advance more complex, elaborated, and context-unbound arguments such as the appeal to consistency's argument, the argument from authority and the argument from analogy, the children typically did not advance any argument, but their response is an expression of further doubt or a mere opposition without providing any argument. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the types of children's responses are strictly connected to the type of argument previously advanced by their parents. This aspect is particularly relevant in terms of children's capacities to engage in argumentative exchanges and to react in rational ways during the confrontation with the parents. Further research in this direction is needed in order to better understand specific potentialities of language in the everyday process of socialization within the family context.

  7. Adaptive play stabilizes cooperation in continuous public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Te; Wang, Long

    2018-04-01

    We construct a model to study the effects of repeated interaction on the evolution of cooperation in continuous public goods games. Instead of preassigning the duration of repeatedness, the likelihood of group entering next round interaction is positively dependent on the group's current cooperativeness. Meanwhile, when the disturbance happens, the interaction terminates. Under rare mutations, we show that such adaptive play can lead to the dominance of full cooperative state for weak disturbance. For fairly strong disturbance, all-or-none cooperative states share higher fractions of time in the long run, results similar to the ones reported in the study (Pinheiro et al., 2014) while differing from the ones reported in another relevant study (Van Segbroeck et al., 2012), although only strategy space and way determining next round vary. Our results remain valid when groups enter next round with a given probability independent of groups' cooperativeness. In the synergic public goods games, the positive effects of repeated interactions on promoting cooperation is further strengthened. In the discounted public goods game, only very weak disturbance can lead to the dominance of full cooperative state while fairly strong disturbance can favor both full cooperative state and a partially cooperative state. Our study thus enriches the literature on the evolution of cooperation in repeated public goods games.

  8. Economics of public good provision: auditing, outsourcing, and bribery

    OpenAIRE

    Gervan Fearon

    2009-01-01

    This study investigates a government's contracting decision to audit or outsource the provision of a public good given a potential hidden bribe and information asymmetries. The key findings are the following. First, the bribe and price of the public good are increasing in the corruptibility of the department. Second, the bribe is decreasing in the firm's bargaining power. Third, a bribery equilibrium exists when the department's corruptibility is sufficiently high given the firm's bargaining ...

  9. Public Schools and the Common Good.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reese, William J.

    1988-01-01

    Improving public school education, especially for the poor, requires defining and articulating some vision of the common good. This article reviews key positions taken by liberals and conservatives regarding educational reform during the 19th and 20th centuries and critiques these positions with regard to their disservice to the poor. (IAH)

  10. Doing Arts-Based Educational Research for the Public Good: An Impossible Possibility?

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Donoghue, Donal

    2014-01-01

    In this special issue, each author addresses how arts-based educational research (ABER) work connects with and/or directly addresses society's need/s and the public good as perceived by the researcher. As there are many construals of the "public good" and the relation to art-making and the arts to this "public good," each…

  11. Institutional Boundaries on the Evaluation of Argumentation in Legislative Discussions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Plug, H.J.

    2010-01-01

    In order to be able to evaluate argumentation supporting judicial decisions, certain norms of reasonableness will have to be agreed upon. These norms will enable us to decide on the soundness of the argumentation. Various publications demonstrated that the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, in

  12. Parent Trigger Policies, Representation, and the Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Ann; Saultz, Andrew

    2015-01-01

    Using theories of representation and democratic education, this article examines the impetus of parent trigger policies in the United States and their potential effects on public good goals for public education. The article also uses theories of representation and responsible democratic governance to assess the parent trigger policies, or what are…

  13. Evidence and argument in policymaking: development of workplace smoking legislation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bero Lisa A

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background We sought to identify factors that affect the passage of public health legislation by examining the use of arguments, particularly arguments presenting research evidence, in legislative debates regarding workplace smoking restrictions. Methods We conducted a case-study based content analysis of legislative materials used in the development of six state workplace smoking laws, including written and spoken testimony and the text of proposed and passed bills and amendments. We coded testimony given before legislators for arguments used, and identified the institutional affiliations of presenters and their position on the legislation. We compared patterns in the arguments made in testimony to the relative strength of each state's final legislation. Results Greater discussion of scientific evidence within testimony given was associated with the passage of workplace smoking legislation that provided greater protection for public health, regardless of whether supporters outnumbered opponents or vice versa. Conclusion Our findings suggest that an emphasis on scientific discourse, relative to other arguments made in legislative testimony, might help produce political outcomes that favor public health.

  14. Legal argumentation and judicial decision making: Empirical evidence from Ecuador

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Luis Castro-Montero

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Legal scholars often analyze argumentation from a formal perspective, mostly applied to judicial decision making. This article presents an alternative approach, as it empirically evaluates the quality of petitioners’ legal argumentation within the context of abstract constitutional review proceedings. The quality of legal argumentation is herein defined as the ability of the petitioner to (i identify the challenged norm and the potentially infringed constitutional norm, (ii present clear and coherent arguments, and (iii justify its arguments upon legal sources, such as jurisprudential precedents or legal doctrine. Original data on forty lawsuits presented before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court between 2008 and 2016 is used to test whether legal argumentation determines the outcome of a decision. A novel measure of the overall quality of argumentation and strength of cases brought before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court by both public and private parties is also developed in the form of an expert survey. The main findings suggest that plaintiffs’ legal argumentation quality does not determine the outcome of the final decision of the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, but rather the type of plaintiff (public or private does.

  15. KNOWLEDGE FROM RESEARCH AS A QUASI-PUBLIC GOOD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Attila György

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Knowledge is a special quasi-public good which is delivered by several types of institutions, including public and private universities. Knowledge to be produced in bigger quantities, the state should contribute with budgetary financial support as subsidies or grants to cover a part of expenses. States are supporting research from public resources, especially the basic research which enjoy a smaller interest from the private research units due its small potential to be implemented and recovered throughout price. Public co-founding of research generates problems regarding the regime of patents’ ownership because financing bodies have divergent opinion regarding the utility of research in society’s development. There are different approaches offered in solving this problem, taking into account the forms of realizing this quasi-public good, approaches based especially on different type of joint-ventures. Academic research, perceived as a very important and income generating activity, is done in a very large scale of combinations between universities and private entities. These complicated relations generates information asymmetry specific to principal-agent relations in economy. The control of information asymmetry level is important because a high level corresponds to inefficient use of funds and smaller satisfaction of general needs.

  16. The Public Goods Hypothesis for the evolution of life on Earth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McInerney, James O; Pisani, Davide; Bapteste, Eric; O'Connell, Mary J

    2011-08-23

    It is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile the observed extent of horizontal gene transfers with the central metaphor of a great tree uniting all evolving entities on the planet. In this manuscript we describe the Public Goods Hypothesis and show that it is appropriate in order to describe biological evolution on the planet. According to this hypothesis, nucleotide sequences (genes, promoters, exons, etc.) are simply seen as goods, passed from organism to organism through both vertical and horizontal transfer. Public goods sequences are defined by having the properties of being largely non-excludable (no organism can be effectively prevented from accessing these sequences) and non-rival (while such a sequence is being used by one organism it is also available for use by another organism). The universal nature of genetic systems ensures that such non-excludable sequences exist and non-excludability explains why we see a myriad of genes in different combinations in sequenced genomes. There are three features of the public goods hypothesis. Firstly, segments of DNA are seen as public goods, available for all organisms to integrate into their genomes. Secondly, we expect the evolution of mechanisms for DNA sharing and of defense mechanisms against DNA intrusion in genomes. Thirdly, we expect that we do not see a global tree-like pattern. Instead, we expect local tree-like patterns to emerge from the combination of a commonage of genes and vertical inheritance of genomes by cell division. Indeed, while genes are theoretically public goods, in reality, some genes are excludable, particularly, though not only, when they have variant genetic codes or behave as coalition or club goods, available for all organisms of a coalition to integrate into their genomes, and non-rival within the club. We view the Tree of Life hypothesis as a regionalized instance of the Public Goods hypothesis, just like classical mechanics and euclidean geometry are seen as regionalized

  17. The public goods hypothesis for the evolution of life on Earth

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    McInerney, James O

    2011-08-23

    Abstract It is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile the observed extent of horizontal gene transfers with the central metaphor of a great tree uniting all evolving entities on the planet. In this manuscript we describe the Public Goods Hypothesis and show that it is appropriate in order to describe biological evolution on the planet. According to this hypothesis, nucleotide sequences (genes, promoters, exons, etc.) are simply seen as goods, passed from organism to organism through both vertical and horizontal transfer. Public goods sequences are defined by having the properties of being largely non-excludable (no organism can be effectively prevented from accessing these sequences) and non-rival (while such a sequence is being used by one organism it is also available for use by another organism). The universal nature of genetic systems ensures that such non-excludable sequences exist and non-excludability explains why we see a myriad of genes in different combinations in sequenced genomes. There are three features of the public goods hypothesis. Firstly, segments of DNA are seen as public goods, available for all organisms to integrate into their genomes. Secondly, we expect the evolution of mechanisms for DNA sharing and of defense mechanisms against DNA intrusion in genomes. Thirdly, we expect that we do not see a global tree-like pattern. Instead, we expect local tree-like patterns to emerge from the combination of a commonage of genes and vertical inheritance of genomes by cell division. Indeed, while genes are theoretically public goods, in reality, some genes are excludable, particularly, though not only, when they have variant genetic codes or behave as coalition or club goods, available for all organisms of a coalition to integrate into their genomes, and non-rival within the club. We view the Tree of Life hypothesis as a regionalized instance of the Public Goods hypothesis, just like classical mechanics and euclidean geometry are seen as

  18. Conflicts around atomic energy topics in the media - Arguments which can influence public voting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Trefas, D.

    2009-01-01

    This article reviews the Swiss debate on energy supply that has been intensified over the last ten years. The situation in Switzerland is discussed, where operational licences for existing nuclear power stations are running out and purchasing rights for electricity from foreign nuclear power stations will soon be terminating. The new nuclear power stations that are being proposed by power utilities are discussed. The history of nuclear power in Switzerland and Europe is reviewed and changes in the public perception of nuclear power and its risks are examined. Certain accidents and events and their coverage in the Swiss media are commented on, as are more global events that have influenced public opinion on nuclear power. Arguments in the present debate are noted and possible developments and conflicts are commented on

  19. Communication of geo-scientific safety arguments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Flavelle, P.; Goodwin, B.; Jensen, M.; Linden, R.; Mazurek, M.; Srivastave, M.; Strom, A.; Sudicky, E.; Voinis, S.

    2007-01-01

    Working Group B addressed the communication of geo-scientific safety arguments through a discussion of practical experience as it related to the methods, types of information and specific arguments found to best communicate geo-scientific concepts and notions of safety with broad audiences including, colleagues, authorities and regulators, political decision makers, academics, and the general public. The following questions were suggested by the programme committee of the AMIGO-2 workshop for discussion by Working Group B with respect to the communication of geo-scientific information and safety arguments: - What is the place of geo-scientific arguments in relation to quantitative and qualitative topics like scenario and FEPs (features, events, processes) assessment, simulated repository evolution, calculated dose or risk impacts, engineering tests of materials, etc., when presenting a safety case to different audiences and with respect to the various stages of the repository programme? (see section 3). - Would we be better off focusing messages to the public on time scales of a few hundred years or a few generations? (see section 4). - How do you handle the fact that geoscience interpretations seldom are unique and data often are open to various interpretations? (see section 5). - How do you handle expert controversy on a specific topic? (see section 6). (authors)

  20. Public Health and Legal Arguments in Favor of a Policy to Cap the Portion Sizes of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberto, Christina A; Pomeranz, Jennifer L

    2015-11-01

    In 2012, the New York City Board of Health passed a regulation prohibiting the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages in containers above 16 ounces in the city's food service establishments. The beverage industry and various retailers sued the city to prevent enforcement of the law, arguing that the board had overstepped its authority. In June 2014, the state's highest court agreed and struck down the regulation. Here we report the results of a content analysis of the public testimony related to the case submitted to the New York City Department of Mental Health and Hygiene. We identified major arguments in support of and against the sugar-sweetened beverage portion limit policy. We offer legal and scientific arguments that challenge the major anti-policy arguments and contend that, although this policy was not implemented in New York City, it can be legally pursued by other legislatures.

  1. Multiple scales in metapopulations of public goods producers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauer, Marianne; Frey, Erwin

    2018-04-01

    Multiple scales in metapopulations can give rise to paradoxical behavior: in a conceptual model for a public goods game, the species associated with a fitness cost due to the public good production can be stabilized in the well-mixed limit due to the mere existence of these scales. The scales in this model involve a length scale corresponding to separate patches, coupled by mobility, and separate time scales for reproduction and interaction with a local environment. Contrary to the well-mixed high mobility limit, we find that for low mobilities, the interaction rate progressively stabilizes this species due to stochastic effects, and that the formation of spatial patterns is not crucial for this stabilization.

  2. Bikes, helmets, and public health: decision-making when goods collide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bateman-House, Alison

    2014-06-01

    How ought public officials address policy choices that entail trade-offs between desirable public health goods? Increasing cycling improves public health both by promoting physical activity and by decreasing vehicle use, thus reducing vehicular emissions. Proponents of bicycle helmets argue that, used properly, they protect individual cyclists; however, there is concern that mandating helmet use may result in a decrease in cycling. In 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposed a bicycle helmet mandate, concerned that it would have a negative impact on the city's cycling rate, which he had sought to increase. The mayor did not explain his rationale, leaving constituents unsure why he opposed the proposal. This case study underscores the challenge of creating public policy in the context of competing public health goods.

  3. Good Governance in Public Procurement: A South African Case Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R Roos

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available In this article good governance in public procurement, with particular reference to accountability is discussed. The principle of providing adequate remedies in public procurement is put under the spotlight. This is done with reference to the decision in Steenkamp NO v Provincial Tender Board, Eastern Cape. In this case the Constitutional Court had to consider whether an initially successful tenderer could lodge a delictual claim for damages to compensate for expenses incurred after conclusion of a contract, which was subsequently rendered void on an application for review of the tender award. The applicable principles of good governance and the applicable provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement and the WTO plurilateral Government Procurement Agreement are analysed. This is done to enable an evaluation of the decision by the Constitutional Court in the above case. It is concluded that the South African public procurement system does in this instance comply with the basic principles of good governance with regard to accountability.

  4. Stimulating Contributions to Public Goods through Information Feedback: Some Experimental Results.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco A Janssen

    Full Text Available In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment where participants can invest time during five days to contribute to a public good. Participants can make contributions to a linear public good by logging into a web application and performing virtual actions. We compared four treatments, with different group sizes and information of (relative performance of other groups. We find that information feedback about performance of other groups has a small positive effect if we control for various attributes of the groups. Moreover, we find a significant effect of the contributions of others in the group in the previous day on the number of points earned in the current day. Our results confirm that people participate more when participants in their group participate more, and are influenced by information about the relative performance of other groups.

  5. Rowe's Argument from Improvability | Almeida | Philosophical Papers

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    William Rowe has argued that if there is an infinite sequence of improving worlds then an essentially perfectly good being must actualize some world in the sequence and must not actualize any world in the sequence. Since that is impossible, there exist no perfectly good beings. I show that Rowe's argument assumes that ...

  6. Eight Arguments against Double Effect

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Di Nucci, Ezio

    I offer eight arguments against the Doctrine of Double Effect, a normative principle according to which in pursuing the good it is sometimes morally permissible to bring about some evil as a side-effect or merely foreseen consequence: the same evil would not be morally justified as an intended...

  7. The sight of the peacock's tail makes me sick: the early arguments on sexual selection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, M

    2000-03-01

    Why does a peacock have a beautiful train, while a peahen is sober without such flamboyance? Darwin proposed the theory of sexual selection to explain the differences between the sexes of the same species. Recently the study of sexual selection has been one of the most flourishing areas in evolutionary biology. However, the theory met with great resistance from biologists since the publication of the idea and the history of the theory included a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. There are several reasons for this. First, classical Darwinism failed to recognize social competition as an important selective force. Second, the good-for-the-species argument, which persisted in the days after Darwin, made the sexual selection argument more difficult to under-stand. Compared to the discussions on animals, Darwin's argument on human sex differences is not satisfactory. The reason probably lies in the debate over human racial differences which prevailed in the 19th century.

  8. Guilt and voting in public good games

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rothenhäusler, Dominik; Schweizer, Nikolaus; Szech, Nora

    This paper analyzes how moral costs affect individual support of morally difficult group decisions. We study a threshold public good game with moral costs. Motivated by recent empirical findings, we assume that these costs are heterogeneous and consist of three parts. The first one is a standard

  9. Cooperation, Trust, and Antagonism: How Public Goods Are Promoted.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parks, Craig D; Joireman, Jeff; Van Lange, Paul A M

    2013-12-01

    One of the most continually vexing problems in society is the variability with which citizens support endeavors that are designed to help a great number of people. In this article, we examine the twin roles of cooperative and antagonistic behavior in this variability. We find that each plays an important role, though their contributions are, understandably, at odds. It is this opposition that produces seeming unpredictability in citizen response to collective need. In fact, we suggest that careful consideration of the research allows one to often predict when efforts to provide a collectively beneficial good will succeed and when they will fail. To understand the dynamics of participation in response to collective need, it is necessary to distinguish between the primary types of need situations. A public good is an entity that relies in whole or in part on contributions to be provided. Examples of public goods are charities and public broadcasting. Public goods require that citizens experience a short-term loss (of their contribution) in order to realize a long-term gain (of the good). However, because everyone can use the good once it is provided, there is also an incentive to not contribute, let others give, and then take advantage of their efforts. This state of affairs introduces a conflict between doing what is best for oneself and what is best for the group. In a public goods situation, cooperation and antagonism impact how one resolves this conflict. The other major type of need situation is a common-pool resource problem. Here, a good is fully provided at the outset, and citizens may sample from it. The resource is usually, but not necessarily, partially replenished. Examples of replenished resources are drinking water and trees; examples of resources that are functionally not replenished are oil and minerals. Common-pool resources allow citizens to experience a short-term gain (by getting what they want in the early life of the resource) but also present

  10. Different goods, different effects: Exploring the roles of generalized trust in public goods provision

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sønderskov, Kim

    -product situation (whether to buy organic food or not). This design provides a possibility to detect whether any effect of generalized trust is due to strategic behavior or due to altruistic motives among trusters. The results show that generalized trust enhances recycling significantly whereas it only has a very......This paper tests the hypothesis that generalized trust helps solve large-n collective action problems in a rationalistic framework. A rigors test is employed in that the hypothesis is tested in two different choice situations; a pure public good situation (whether to recycle or not) and a joint...... week positive effect on organic food consumption. Hence, generalized trust only affects public good provision when a collective action problem is present. The analyses thus sustain the hypothesis. It is furthermore concluded that the effect of generalized trust is due to strategic behavior...

  11. Conflicts around atomic energy topics in the media - Arguments which can influence public voting; Die mediale Auseinandersetzung um die Atomkraft. Welche Argumente eine Abstimmung entscheiden koennten

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Trefas, D.

    2009-07-01

    This article reviews the Swiss debate on energy supply that has been intensified over the last ten years. The situation in Switzerland is discussed, where operational licences for existing nuclear power stations are running out and purchasing rights for electricity from foreign nuclear power stations will soon be terminating. The new nuclear power stations that are being proposed by power utilities are discussed. The history of nuclear power in Switzerland and Europe is reviewed and changes in the public perception of nuclear power and its risks are examined. Certain accidents and events and their coverage in the Swiss media are commented on, as are more global events that have influenced public opinion on nuclear power. Arguments in the present debate are noted and possible developments and conflicts are commented on.

  12. Big Argumentation?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Faltesek

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Big Data is nothing new. Public concern regarding the mass diffusion of data has appeared repeatedly with computing innovations, in the formation before Big Data it was most recently referred to as the information explosion. In this essay, I argue that the appeal of Big Data is not a function of computational power, but of a synergistic relationship between aesthetic order and a politics evacuated of a meaningful public deliberation. Understanding, and challenging, Big Data requires an attention to the aesthetics of data visualization and the ways in which those aesthetics would seem to depoliticize information. The conclusion proposes an alternative argumentative aesthetic as the appropriate response to the depoliticization posed by the popular imaginary of Big Data.

  13. Asymmetric public goods game cooperation through pest control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reeves, T; Ohtsuki, H; Fukui, S

    2017-12-21

    Cooperation in a public goods game has been studied extensively to find the conditions for sustaining the commons, yet the effect of asymmetry between agents has been explored very little. Here we study a game theoretic model of cooperation for pest control among farmers. In our simple model, each farmer has a paddy of the same size arranged adjacently on a line. A pest outbreak occurs at an abandoned paddy at one end of the line, directly threatening the frontier farmer adjacent to it. Each farmer pays a cost of his or her choice to an agricultural collective, and the total sum held by the collective is used for pest control, with success probability increasing with the sum. Because the farmers' incentives depend on their distance from the pest outbreak, our model is an asymmetric public goods game. We derive each farmer's cost strategy at the Nash equilibrium. We find that asymmetry among farmers leads to a few unexpected outcomes. The individual costs at the equilibrium do not necessarily increase with how much the future is valued but rather show threshold behavior. Moreover, an increase in the number of farmers can sometimes paradoxically undermine pest prevention. A comparison with a symmetric public goods game model reveals that the farmer at the greatest risk pays a disproportionate amount of cost in the asymmetric game, making the use of agricultural lands less sustainable. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  14. Continuous-Time Public Good Contribution Under Uncertainty: A Stochastic Control Approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ferrari, Giorgio; Riedel, Frank; Steg, Jan-Henrik

    2017-01-01

    In this paper we study continuous-time stochastic control problems with both monotone and classical controls motivated by the so-called public good contribution problem. That is the problem of n economic agents aiming to maximize their expected utility allocating initial wealth over a given time period between private consumption and irreversible contributions to increase the level of some public good. We investigate the corresponding social planner problem and the case of strategic interaction between the agents, i.e. the public good contribution game. We show existence and uniqueness of the social planner’s optimal policy, we characterize it by necessary and sufficient stochastic Kuhn–Tucker conditions and we provide its expression in terms of the unique optional solution of a stochastic backward equation. Similar stochastic first order conditions prove to be very useful for studying any Nash equilibria of the public good contribution game. In the symmetric case they allow us to prove (qualitative) uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium, which we again construct as the unique optional solution of a stochastic backward equation. We finally also provide a detailed analysis of the so-called free rider effect.

  15. Continuous-Time Public Good Contribution Under Uncertainty: A Stochastic Control Approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ferrari, Giorgio, E-mail: giorgio.ferrari@uni-bielefeld.de; Riedel, Frank, E-mail: frank.riedel@uni-bielefeld.de; Steg, Jan-Henrik, E-mail: jsteg@uni-bielefeld.de [Bielefeld University, Center for Mathematical Economics (Germany)

    2017-06-15

    In this paper we study continuous-time stochastic control problems with both monotone and classical controls motivated by the so-called public good contribution problem. That is the problem of n economic agents aiming to maximize their expected utility allocating initial wealth over a given time period between private consumption and irreversible contributions to increase the level of some public good. We investigate the corresponding social planner problem and the case of strategic interaction between the agents, i.e. the public good contribution game. We show existence and uniqueness of the social planner’s optimal policy, we characterize it by necessary and sufficient stochastic Kuhn–Tucker conditions and we provide its expression in terms of the unique optional solution of a stochastic backward equation. Similar stochastic first order conditions prove to be very useful for studying any Nash equilibria of the public good contribution game. In the symmetric case they allow us to prove (qualitative) uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium, which we again construct as the unique optional solution of a stochastic backward equation. We finally also provide a detailed analysis of the so-called free rider effect.

  16. How to solve the tragedy of the commons? Social entrepreneurs and global public goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ueda, Yoshifumi; Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard

    2002-01-01

    and efficacy of financing a global public good on a local scale is analyzed in a "selective incentive-cum-global public good" model. Because local networks can play a significant role in preserving the global commons, this finding has important policy implications for global public good provisions......We show that when a star type network is formed by an entrepreneur, a non-profit organization run by a social entrepreneur is more reconcilable with the social objective of providing the global public good than a profit organization run by a business entrepreneur. This network formation...

  17. Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research: GPP3.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Battisti, Wendy P; Wager, Elizabeth; Baltzer, Lise; Bridges, Dan; Cairns, Angela; Carswell, Christopher I; Citrome, Leslie; Gurr, James A; Mooney, LaVerne A; Moore, B Jane; Peña, Teresa; Sanes-Miller, Carol H; Veitch, Keith; Woolley, Karen L; Yarker, Yvonne E

    2015-09-15

    This updated Good Publication Practice (GPP) guideline, known as GPP3, builds on earlier versions and provides recommendations for individuals and organizations that contribute to the publication of research results sponsored or supported by pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and biotechnology companies. The recommendations are designed to help individuals and organizations maintain ethical and transparent publication practices and comply with legal and regulatory requirements. These recommendations cover publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations (oral or poster) at scientific congresses. The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals invited more than 3000 professionals worldwide to apply for a position on the steering committee, or as a reviewer, for this guideline. The GPP2 authors reviewed all applications (n = 241) and assembled an 18-member steering committee that represented 7 countries and a diversity of publication professions and institutions. From the 174 selected reviewers, 94 sent comments on the second draft, which steering committee members incorporated after discussion and consensus. The resulting guideline includes new sections (Principles of Good Publication Practice for Company-Sponsored Medical Research, Data Sharing, Studies That Should Be Published, and Plagiarism), expands guidance on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' authorship criteria and common authorship issues, improves clarity on appropriate author payment and reimbursement, and expands information on the role of medical writers. By following good publication practices (including GPP3), individuals and organizations will show integrity; accountability; and responsibility for accurate, complete, and transparent reporting in their publications and presentations.

  18. Cooperation and Noise in Public Goods Experiments: Applying the Contribution Function Approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Brandts, J.; Schram, A.

    2001-01-01

    We introduce a new design for experiments with the voluntary contributions mechanism for public goods. Subjects report a complete con-tri-bution function in each period, i.e., a contribution level for various marginal rates of transformation between a public and a private good. The results show that

  19. UNESCO SITES AS PUBLIC GOODS: COMPARATIVE EXPERIENCES IN ITALY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roberto Cellini

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT The inclusion of a site in the UNESCO World Heritage List is a "recognition" that can be interpreted as alocal public good. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the UNESCO recognition in promoting tourism and, more generally, local economic development. We document relevant performance differences across Italian UNESCO sites. We argue that the relevant key factor is the ability of generating additional public goods, starting from the process of recognition. The most recent approach of UNESCO in selecting the sites to include in its list underlines the importance of the immaterial culture embedded in the sites, and the role of local communities in their relationships with the environment and heritage: this is interpreted as a sign of the importance which has to be due to the generation of common goods for making the UNESCO recognition an effective tool to preserve heritage and to use it to promote economic, social and cultural development.

  20. Concepts and Contexts – Argumentative Forms of Framing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gabrielsen, Jonas; Nørholm Just, Sine; Bengtsson, Mette

    2011-01-01

    this argument we combine theories of framing with the classical rhetorical theory of the stases, more precisely status definitio and status translatio. Our focus is primarily theoretical, but we illustrate our points by means of examples taken from public debates on the value of real estate.......The notion of framing has become central in the field of argumentation. The question is, however, what we gain from studying the process of argumentation through framing, since framing is itself a broad concept in need of specification. Different traditions understand the term differently......, and it is necessary to determine what argumentative forms the concept of framing actually covers. In this paper we argue that framing refers to at least two different argumentative forms. One is an internal definition of the concepts in question; the other is an external shift in the context of the case. In making...

  1. The macroeconomic analysis of public goods and their influence in the region of Czech Republic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard POSPÍŠIL

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In the region of Czech Republic, the provision of public goods is one of the State’s most important activities with society-wide impacts. Therefore, the debate on the structure and scope of public budgets is legitimate and ongoing on a society-wide scale. Mainstream fiscal theory considers public goods to be one of the failures of market equilibrium, classifying them as being close to positive externalities. In this case, the activity of the State brings benefits to other entities that are not involved in this activity and do not even directly pay for it. The main characteristics of these goods include irreducibility of their amount in society, non-excludability and non-rivalry. There are a number of goods between purely private and purely public goods which, to varying extents, exhibit both elements. Today, the majority of goods provided by the public sector are of such a nature; as a result, the form of allocation and the subsequent redistribution of resources are crucial when analysing public goods. The present paper analyses public goods in the Czech Republic from an economic and legal perspective using Cost-Benefit Analysis, including their efficiency and society-wide benefits.

  2. Solving optimization problems by the public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Javarone, Marco Alberto

    2017-09-01

    We introduce a method based on the Public Goods Game for solving optimization tasks. In particular, we focus on the Traveling Salesman Problem, i.e. a NP-hard problem whose search space exponentially grows increasing the number of cities. The proposed method considers a population whose agents are provided with a random solution to the given problem. In doing so, agents interact by playing the Public Goods Game using the fitness of their solution as currency of the game. Notably, agents with better solutions provide higher contributions, while those with lower ones tend to imitate the solution of richer agents for increasing their fitness. Numerical simulations show that the proposed method allows to compute exact solutions, and suboptimal ones, in the considered search spaces. As result, beyond to propose a new heuristic for combinatorial optimization problems, our work aims to highlight the potentiality of evolutionary game theory beyond its current horizons.

  3. Guidelines for writing an argumentative essay

    OpenAIRE

    Aleksandra Egurnova

    2014-01-01

    The guidelines below are intended for teachers, professors, students, and the public at large who are interested in the issues of English writing culture. They provide a detailed plan for completing the writing task–writing an argumentative essay.

  4. Cooperation among cancer cells as public goods games on Voronoi networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Archetti, Marco

    2016-05-07

    Cancer cells produce growth factors that diffuse and sustain tumour proliferation, a form of cooperation that can be studied using mathematical models of public goods in the framework of evolutionary game theory. Cell populations, however, form heterogeneous networks that cannot be described by regular lattices or scale-free networks, the types of graphs generally used in the study of cooperation. To describe the dynamics of growth factor production in populations of cancer cells, I study public goods games on Voronoi networks, using a range of non-linear benefits that account for the known properties of growth factors, and different types of diffusion gradients. The results are surprisingly similar to those obtained on regular graphs and different from results on scale-free networks, revealing that network heterogeneity per se does not promote cooperation when public goods diffuse beyond one-step neighbours. The exact shape of the diffusion gradient is not crucial, however, whereas the type of non-linear benefit is an essential determinant of the dynamics. Public goods games on Voronoi networks can shed light on intra-tumour heterogeneity, the evolution of resistance to therapies that target growth factors, and new types of cell therapy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. On argumentation schemes and the natural classification of arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Katzav, J.K.; Reed, C.

    2004-01-01

    We develop conceptions of arguments and of argument types that will, by serving as the basis for developing a natural classification of arguments, benefit work in artificial intelligence. Focusing only on arguments construed as the semantic entities that are the outcome of processes of reasoning, we

  6. CONSOLIDATION OF ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO PUBLIC INFORMATION AS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT

    OpenAIRE

    MANUEL PALOMARES HERRERA

    2017-01-01

    Analysis of the doctrinal position regarding the nature of the right of access to public information and the development of new arguments that reinforce and consolidate its fundamental nature. This right is recognized as a human right in many international declarations; in Spain the legislation of transparency and enforcement is deployed as an instrumental right although it is recognized by many states as an autonomous fundamental right without need to be linked to other fundamental rights.

  7. Aspiration dynamics and the sustainability of resources in the public goods dilemma

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Du, Jinming, E-mail: jmdu@pku.edu.cn [Center for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Wu, Bin, E-mail: bin.wu@evolbio.mpg.de [School of Science, Beijing University of Posts and Communications, Beijing 100876 (China); Department of Evolutionary Theory, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, August-Thienemann-Straße 2, 24306 Plön (Germany); Wang, Long, E-mail: longwang@pku.edu.cn [Center for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)

    2016-04-01

    How to exploit public non-renewable resources is a public goods dilemma. Individuals can choose to limit the depletion in order to use the resource for a longer time or consume more goods to benefit themselves. When the resource is used up, there is no benefit for the future generations any more, thus the evolutionary process ends. Here we investigate what mechanisms can extend the use of resources in the framework of evolutionary game theory under two updating rules based on imitation and aspiration, respectively. Compared with imitation process, aspiration dynamics may prolong the sustainable time of a public resource. - Highlights: • We establish a game model to capture the sustainable time of public goods. • We propose a theoretical method to study how fast an evolutionary process ends. • Strong selection shortens the evolutionary time of public resource dilemma. • Compared with imitation process, aspiration dynamics prolong the sustainable time. • The sustainable time is the shortest for the intermediate aspiration level.

  8. Aspiration dynamics and the sustainability of resources in the public goods dilemma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Du, Jinming; Wu, Bin; Wang, Long

    2016-01-01

    How to exploit public non-renewable resources is a public goods dilemma. Individuals can choose to limit the depletion in order to use the resource for a longer time or consume more goods to benefit themselves. When the resource is used up, there is no benefit for the future generations any more, thus the evolutionary process ends. Here we investigate what mechanisms can extend the use of resources in the framework of evolutionary game theory under two updating rules based on imitation and aspiration, respectively. Compared with imitation process, aspiration dynamics may prolong the sustainable time of a public resource. - Highlights: • We establish a game model to capture the sustainable time of public goods. • We propose a theoretical method to study how fast an evolutionary process ends. • Strong selection shortens the evolutionary time of public resource dilemma. • Compared with imitation process, aspiration dynamics prolong the sustainable time. • The sustainable time is the shortest for the intermediate aspiration level.

  9. Moral Philosophy, Moral Expertise, and the Argument from Disagreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cross, Ben

    2016-03-01

    Several recent articles have weighed in on the question of whether moral philosophers can be counted as moral experts. One argument denying this has been rejected by both sides of the debate. According to this argument, the extent of disagreement in modern moral philosophy prevents moral philosophers from being classified as moral experts. Call this the Argument From Disagreement (AD). In this article, I defend a version of AD. Insofar as practical issues in moral philosophy are characterized by disagreement between moral philosophers who are more or less equally well credentialed on the issue, non-philosophers have no good reasons to defer to their views. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  10. Green marketing, renewables, and free riders: increasing customer demand for a public good

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wiser, R.; Pickle, S.

    1997-09-01

    Retail electricity competition will allow customers to select their own power suppliers and some customers will make purchase decisions based, in part, on their concern for the environment. Green power marketing targets these customers under the assumption that they will pay a premium for ``green`` energy products such as renewable power generation. But renewable energy is not a traditional product because it supplies public goods; for example, a customer supporting renewable energy is unable to capture the environmental benefits that their investment provides to non-participating customers. As with all public goods, there is a risk that few customers will purchase ``green`` power and that many will instead ``free ride`` on others` participation. By free riding, an individual is able to enjoy the benefits of the public good while avoiding payment. This report reviews current green power marketing activities in the electric industry, introduces the extensive academic literature on public goods, free riders, and collective action problems, and explores in detail the implications of this literature for the green marketing of renewable energy. Specifically, the authors highlight the implications of the public goods literature for green power product design and marketing communications strategies. They emphasize four mechanisms that marketers can use to increase customer demand for renewable energy. Though the public goods literature can also contribute insights into the potential rationale for renewable energy policies, they leave most of these implications for future work (see Appendix A for a possible research agenda).

  11. What's so Good About a Wise and Knowledgeable Public?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ahlström, Kristoffer

    2012-01-01

    that the public tends to be largely ignorant on the issues relevant to governance. To make matters worse, social psychological research on how ignorance tends to breed overconfidence gives us reason to believe that the public will not only lack knowledge on the relevant issues, but also wisdom, in the Socratic......—irrespective of what account of wisdom available in the literature we opt for. In fact, it might just be that what the public needs is nothing but the most basic epistemic good: true belief....

  12. On argumentation schemes and the natural classification of arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Katzav, K.; Reed, C.

    2004-01-01

    We develop conceptions of arguments and of argument types that will, by serving as the basis for developing a natural classification of arguments, benefit work in artificial intelligence. Focusing only on arguments construed as the semantic entities that are the outcome of processes of reasoning, we outline and clarify our view that an argument is a proposition that represents a fact as both conveying some other fact and as doing so wholly. Further, we outline our view that, with respect to a...

  13. Programming for the Public Good: Ensuring Public Value Through the Cooperative Extension Program Development Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nancy Franz

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Effective Cooperative Extension programs produce important private and public value for individuals, families, businesses, and communities. However, the public value of Extension programming often goes unmeasured and unarticulated. Extension needs to reclaim its role as a key provider of public value for Land-Grant Universities through strong educational programs driven by infusing public value into all elements of the Extension Program Development Model. This article describes Extension’s public value movement including organizational, professional, program, and scholarship development efforts to enhance public good effectiveness articulation. Lessons learned, implications, and next steps for Extension’s public value success through a strong program development model are also shared.

  14. The durability of public goods changes the dynamics and nature of social dilemmas.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sam P Brown

    Full Text Available An implicit assumption underpins basic models of the evolution of cooperation, mutualism and altruism: The benefits (or pay-offs of cooperation and defection are defined by the current frequency or distribution of cooperators. In social dilemmas involving durable public goods (group resources that can persist in the environment-ubiquitous from microbes to humans this assumption is violated. Here, we examine the consequences of relaxing this assumption, allowing pay-offs to depend on both current and past numbers of cooperators. We explicitly trace the dynamic of a public good created by cooperators, and define pay-offs in terms of the current public good. By raising the importance of cooperative history in determining the current fate of cooperators, durable public goods cause novel dynamics (e.g., transient increases in cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemmas, oscillations in Snowdrift Games, or shifts in invasion thresholds in Stag-hunt Games, while changes in durability can transform one game into another, by moving invasion thresholds for cooperation or conditions for coexistence with defectors. This enlarged view challenges our understanding of social cheats. For instance, groups of cooperators can do worse than groups of defectors, if they inherit fewer public goods, while a rise in defectors no longer entails a loss of social benefits, at least not in the present moment (as highlighted by concerns over environmental lags. Wherever durable public goods have yet to reach a steady state (for instance due to external perturbations, the history of cooperation will define the ongoing dynamics of cooperators.

  15. Public Records and Archives as Tools for Good Governance ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Public Records and Archives as Tools for Good Governance: Reflections Within the ... and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives ... they could be used as instruments of repression and human rights abuses.

  16. TOURISM, TRADE, EXTERNALITIES, AND PUBLIC GOODS IN A THREE-SECTOR GROWTH MODEL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei-Bin Zhang

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to introduce tourism, externalities, and public goods to a small-open growth with endogenous wealth and public goods supply. We develop the model on the basis of the Solow-Uzawa growth model, the neoclassical neoclassical growth theory with externalities, and ideas from tourism economics. The economy consists of three – service, industrial, and public - sectors. The production side is based on the traditional growth theories, while the household behavior is described by an alternative utility function proposed by Zhang. We introduce endogenous land distribution between housing and supply of services. The industrial and service sectors are perfectly competitive subject to the government’s taxation. The public sector is financially supported by the government. We introduce taxes not only on producers, but also on consumers’ incomes from wage, land, and interest of wealth, consumption of goods and services, and housing. We simulate the motion of the national economy and show the existence of a unique stable equilibrium. We carry out comparative dynamic analysis with regard to the rate of interest in the global market, the total productivity of the service sector, tax rate on the service sector, tax rate on consumption of services, human capital, the propensity to consume services, and the impact of public services on the productivity of the industrial sector. The comparative dynamic analysis provides some important insights into the complexity of open economies with endogenous wealth, public goods, and externalities.

  17. Invisible colleges, private patronage and commercial profits versus public goods, government funding and 'crowding-out': Terence Kealey on the motivations and incentives driving science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charlton, Bruce G

    2009-02-01

    What kind of a thing is science and how does it work? [Kealey T. Sex, science and profits: In a recent book (Sex, science and profits: how people evolved to make money. London: William Heinemann; 2008) (p. 455)] Terence Kealey argues persuasively that the motivations driving science are widely misunderstood. Science is often assumed to be useful to the public but an economic loser for the scientist and his or her paymasters - in other words, science is supposed to be a 'public good'. The public good argument is used to support large-scale government funding of science, on the basis that if government does not fund science it will not be funded adequately. But Kealey argues that most science is profitable to commercial organizations, and other types of worthwhile science will be supported by private patronage. Yet excessive government funding tends to 'crowd-out' potential private sources of funding - both by replacing and by deterring private investment. And scientists are not primarily motivated by money, but instead by striving for status within the 'invisible college' of active researchers in their field. Kealey's take-home message is that overall and in the long-term, science neither requires nor benefits from government funding. Scientific research would be better-served by private funding from commercial organizations that are seeking profit, combined with patronage from charities and foundations that regard science as intrinsically valuable.

  18. Types, typologies, arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Plantin, Christian

    2017-01-01

    The concept of arguments schemes is fundamental for argumentation studies; but its implementation is not obvious. The first section of this contribution briefly starts from the concepts of argument scheme, typology of arguments schemes, and the foundational catalogue of 28 topoi from Aristotle's Rhetoric. The application of the "topical method" is first based on the knowledge of typologies of arguments, and then on the precise features defining an argument type. The practical question that re...

  19. Argumentation, confrontation et violence verbale fulgurante Argumentative Processes, Confrontation and Acute Verbal Abuse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudine Moïse

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available Si nous avons défini la violence verbale fulgurante comme une montée en tension caractérisée par des actes menaçants directs (provocation, menace, insultes… et la violence polémique comme un discours à visée argumentative mobilisant des procédés discursifs indirects (implicites, ironie…, on ne peut considérer ces deux types de discours comme hermétiques. À travers des scènes de violences verbales quotidiennes dans l’espace public et institutionnel (contrôles, convocations, verbalisations…, constituées pour un DVD pédagogique, il s’agit de montrer comment dans des interactions caractérisées par la violence fulgurante, certains procédés argumentatifs particuliers et que nous décrirons, sont utilisés, avec force efficacité, à des fins de déstabilisation et de prise de pouvoir sur l’autre. Our research has defined severe verbal abuse as built up tension characterized by directly threatening acts (such as provocation, threats, insults, and polemical violence as argumentative discourse which mobilizes indirect discursive devices, such as implicit discourse relations and irony. Yet, neither type of discourse can be considered to be impervious to mutual influence. Based on the content of an educational DVD featuring acted out scenes of daily verbal abuse taking place in public and institutional spaces (i.e., checks, summons, fines, we will show how specific argumentative devices, which we will describe, are very efficiently used within interactions that are characterised by severe abuse, with the aim of destabilizing and taking control over somebody.

  20. Public goods dilemma in asexual ant societies

    OpenAIRE

    Dobata, Shigeto; Tsuji, Kazuki

    2013-01-01

    This study reports experimental evidence for the “public goods dilemma” between cooperators and cheaters in an asexual ant society, in which cheating is always more rewarding for individuals but cooperation at the cost of individual fitness leads to better performance of groups. Although this dilemma provides the basic principle of social evolution, its experimental demonstration with underlying genetics and fitness evaluation for both cooperators and cheaters still lacks in societies other t...

  1. Participation of the public in funding of the cultural offer: ethical arguments for debate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rafael Cejudo Córdoba

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper reviews arguments for and against voluntary and direct participation of the public in the funding of cultural activities. The starting point is that financing schemes implemented by cultural policies bear ethical implications aside from their instrumental aims. Using A. Sen’s comparative approach, it is discussed whether crowdfunding and other investment instruments for cultural consumers are forms of citizen patronage worthwhile from an ethical point of view. In spite of accusations of paternalism and commoditization of the cultural life, citizen patronage is argued to be a social innovation that encourages social responsibility of cultural consumers. Accordingly, cultural policies should take into account that private behaviors concerning consumption and investment are also ways of getting involved in social life.

  2. Conditional Cooperation and the Marginal per Capita Return in Public Good Games

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edward J. Cartwright

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available We investigate experimentally whether the extent of conditional cooperation in public good games depends on the marginal per capita return (MPCR to the public good and type of game. The MPCR is varied from 0.2 to 0.4 to 0.8. The ‘standard’ game, in which three players contribute before a follower, is compared with a leader-follower game, in which one player leads and three follow. Even though we observe less conditional cooperation for an MPCR of 0.2, the prevalence of conditional cooperation remains relatively stable to changes in the MPCR and game timing. In contrast, the level of MPCR has a strong effect on unconditional contributions. Our results highlight the critical role played by leaders in a public good game.

  3. Method to translate human feelings into arguments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hans, Arnold

    1995-01-01

    Taking as an example the status of nuclear power in Netherlands, it was shown that there is an emotional approach on the part of supporters and opponents, not open to rational argument, objective information of no avail, lack of public support (80% against), Government undecided. It was concluded that nuclear energy is a deep-rooted emotional conflict, and that the prospects of altering the situation are bleak. Proposed arguments for changeover in favor of nuclear energy are: electricity is a necessity, it is economical, safety is guaranteed, it protects the environment and conserves other resources

  4. Teaching Public Goods Theory with a Classroom Game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pickhardt, Michael

    2005-01-01

    The author extends the work of Holt and Laury (1997) on a simple noncomputerized card game for teaching the essential aspects of public goods theory. He suggests a course of several lectures and discusses the behavior of subjects in various game sessions. Among other things, the results provide experimental evidence with respect to the private…

  5. Types of arguments in parents-children discussions:: an argumentative analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Bova, Antonio; Arcidiacono, Francesco

    2014-01-01

    This study aims to single out the argumentative strategies most frequently used by parents to convince their children to accept their rules and prescriptions at mealtimes. The results of thestudy show that parents mostly put forward arguments based on the quality and quantity of food to persuade their childern to eat. Less frequently, the parents put forward other types of arguments such as the appeal to consistency, the arguments from expert opinion, and the argument from analogy. Whi...

  6. 75 FR 63534 - International Standards on the Transport of Dangerous Goods; Public Meeting

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-15

    ...: Any person wishing to participate in the public meeting should send an e-mail to [email protected] Standards on the Transport of Dangerous Goods; Public Meeting AGENCY: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials... the 38th session of the United Nations Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods...

  7. The scientific argumentation profile of physics teacher candidate in Surabaya

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ain, T. N.; Wibowo, H. A. C.; Rohman, A.; Deta, U. A.

    2018-03-01

    The ability of scientific argumentation is an essential factor that must be mastered by physics teacher candidate as a requirement in explaining good and accurate scientific concepts. In the process of arguing, students develop explanations or persuade colleagues to support their hypotheses, express doubts, ask questions, relate alternative answers, and confirm what is unknown to develop the ability to provide rational and scientific explanations. The design of this research is descriptive qualitative with the subject of research is 20 undergraduate students of Physics Education Department in Surabaya. The research instrument consists of four casuistic questions related to the concept of kinematics. The argumentation pattern of physics teacher candidate is coded using Toulmin's argumentation pattern. The results show that the student’s ability in providing scientific argument is at the level of providing claims with the support of a weak warrant. The students are not able to provide excellent rebuttals. In each case given, the student can give a good claim statement in answering the questions. However, the concept used to support the claim is not correct. This case causes the warrant used to support the claim is weak. Students also do not analyse other facts that affect the system. Students have not reached a higher level because the understanding of physics is not deep enough.

  8. Nudge for (the Public) Good: How Defaults Can Affect Cooperation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fosgaard, Toke R; Piovesan, Marco

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we test the effect of non-binding defaults on the level of contribution to a public good. We manipulate the default numbers appearing on the decision screen to nudge subjects toward a free-rider strategy or a perfect conditional cooperator strategy. Our results show that the vast majority of our subjects did not adopt the default numbers, but their stated strategy was affected by the default. Moreover, we find that our manipulation spilled over to a subsequent repeated public goods game where default was not manipulated. Here we found that subjects who previously saw the free rider default were significantly less cooperative than those who saw the perfect conditional cooperator default.

  9. Nudge for (the Public Good: How Defaults Can Affect Cooperation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toke R Fosgaard

    Full Text Available In this paper we test the effect of non-binding defaults on the level of contribution to a public good. We manipulate the default numbers appearing on the decision screen to nudge subjects toward a free-rider strategy or a perfect conditional cooperator strategy. Our results show that the vast majority of our subjects did not adopt the default numbers, but their stated strategy was affected by the default. Moreover, we find that our manipulation spilled over to a subsequent repeated public goods game where default was not manipulated. Here we found that subjects who previously saw the free rider default were significantly less cooperative than those who saw the perfect conditional cooperator default.

  10. Is globalization really good for public health?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tausch, Arno

    2016-10-01

    In the light of recent very prominent studies, especially that of Mukherjee and Krieckhaus (), one should be initially tempted to assume that nowadays globalization is a driver of a good public health performance in the entire world system. Most of these studies use time series analyses based on the KOF Index of Globalization. We attempt to re-analyze the entire question, using a variety of methodological approaches and data. Our re-analysis shows that neoliberal globalization has resulted in very important implosions of public health development in various regions of the world and in increasing inequality in the countries of the world system, which in turn negatively affect health performance. We use standard ibm/spss ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, time series and cross-correlation analyses based on aggregate, freely available data. Different components of the KOF Index, most notably actual capital inflows, affect public health negatively. The "decomposition" of the available data suggests that for most of the time period of the last four decades, globalization inflows even implied an aggregate deterioration of public health, quite in line with globalization critical studies. We introduce the effects of inequality on public health, widely debated in global public health research. Our annual time series for 99 countries show that globalization indeed leads to increased inequality, and this, in turn, leads to a deteriorating public health performance. In only 19 of the surveyed 99 nations with complete data (i.e., 19.1%), globalization actually preceded an improvement in the public health performance. Far from falsifying globalization critical research, our analyses show the basic weaknesses of the new "pro-globalization" literature in the public health profession. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  11. Political rhetoric from Canada can inform healthy public policy argumentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patterson, Patrick B; McIntyre, Lynn; Anderson, Laura C; Mah, Catherine L

    2017-10-01

    Household food insecurity (HFI), insufficient income to obtain adequate food, is a growing problem in Canada and other Organisation of economic cooperation and development (OECD) countries. Government political orientations impact health policies and outcomes. We critically examined Canadian political rhetoric around HFI from 1995 to 2012 as a means to support effective healthy public policy argumentation. We analysed a data set comprised of Hansard extracts on HFI from the legislative debates of the Canadian federal and three provincial governments, using thematic coding guided by interpretivist theories of policy. Extracts were examined for content, jurisdiction, the political affiliation of the legislator speaking and governing status. Members of non-governing, or 'opposition' parties, dominated the rhetoric. A central hunger-as-poverty theme was used by legislators across the political spectrum, both in government and in opposition. Legislators differed in terms of policy approach around how income should flow to citizens facing HFI: income intervention on the left, pragmatism in the centre, reliance on markets on the right. This analysis is a case-example from Canada and caution must be exercised in terms of the generalizability of findings across jurisdictions. Despite this limitation, our findings can help healthy public policy advocates in designing and communicating HFI policy interventions in OECD countries with a similar left-right spectrum. First, even with a divisive health policy issue such as actions to address HFI, core themes around poverty are widely understood. Secondly, the non-polarizing centrist, pragmatist, approach may be strategically valuable. Thirdly, it is important to treat the rhetoric of opposition members differently from that of government members. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  12. That’s No Argument! The Dialectic of Non-Argumentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krabbe, Erik C. W.; van Laar, Jan Albert

    2015-01-01

    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed (alleged) argument of her interlocutor as an argument, accusing him of having presented no argument at all. In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a

  13. Governance Frameworks for International Public Goods: The Case of Concerted Entrepreneurship

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andersson, Thomas; Formica, Piero

    2007-01-01

    In the "participation age", emerging cross-border, transnational communities driven by innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives--in short, international entrepreneurial communities--give impetus to the rise of international public goods. With varying intensity, a non-voting international mobile public--still a small but an increasing fraction…

  14. Efficacy, Beliefs, and Investment in Step-Level Public Goods

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, Jacob; Mulders, Jaap Oude

    2014-01-01

    A central concept for understanding social dilemma behavior is the efficacy of an actor's cooperative behavior in terms of increasing group well-being. We report a decision and game theoretical analysis of efficacy in step-level public goods (SPGs). Previous research shows a positive relation

  15. The Argumentative Quality of the Qualitative Research Report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adri Smaling

    2002-09-01

    Full Text Available The author argues that, to be convincing, the claims of a qualitative research report must be logically and clearly supported. Eight rules for good argumentative dialogue are presented. The author then presents the process of analogical reasoning to support cross-case generalization.

  16. Fact or fallacy? Immunisation arguments in the New Zealand print media.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petousis-Harris, Helen A; Goodyear-Smith, Felicity A; Kameshwar, Kamya; Turner, Nikki

    2010-10-01

    To explore New Zealand's four major daily newspapers' coverage of immunisation with regards to errors of fact and fallacy in construction of immunisation-related arguments. All articles from 2002 to 2007 were assessed for errors of fact and logic. Fact was defined as that which was supported by the most current evidence-based medical literature. Errors of logic were assessed using a classical taxonomy broadly based in Aristotle's classifications. Numerous errors of both fact and logic were identified, predominantly used by anti-immunisation proponents, but occasionally by health authorities. The proportion of media articles reporting exclusively fact changes over time during the life of a vaccine where new vaccines incur little fallacious reporting and established vaccines generate inaccurate claims. Fallacious arguments can be deconstructed and classified into a classical taxonomy including non sequitur and argumentum ad Hominem. Most media 'balance' given to immunisation relies on 'he said, she said' arguments using quotes from opposing spokespersons with a failure to verify the scientific validity of both the material and the source. Health professionals and media need training so that recognising and critiquing public health arguments becomes accepted practice: stronger public relations strategies should challenge poor quality articles to journalists' code of ethics and the health sector needs to be proactive in predicting and pre-empting the expected responses to introduction of new public health initiatives such as a new vaccine. © 2010 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2010 Public Health Association of Australia.

  17. Accidental goodness?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Richter, Anne

    In postmodern capitalist market economies, management of the single organisation is bound to be guided by several rationales, which are in conflict with each other. For some writers this perception leads to the argument, that conceptions of management should strive towards goals beyond the present...... society. For others, the handling of plural perspectives is just a management discipline. However these positions seem to share a focus on organization as a the arena for the organization of the good. The contribution looks at the management of occupational accidents as an example of striving for good...

  18. For Argument's Sake: the shadow side of argumentation and debate in the science classroom (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berbeco, M.; McCaffrey, M.

    2013-12-01

    Though the science on climate change is clear, those dismissive of current findings and future projections continue to influence the public sphere. This is never more problematic than in an educational setting, where a concern for fairness has driven the push for unscientific material to be used to balance the science. The introduction of the Next Generation Science Standards in many states across the country, which emphasizes the use of argumentation as a theme for engaging students in critical thinking, and the appeal of having students 'debate' politically controversial concepts such as climate change could unintentionally undermine the science by casting doubt and manufacturing 'controversy' where scientifically there is none. How can scientists help support teachers to use appropriate material for educating about climate change? Where is the line between supporting good science and activism? How can teachers separate the science from the politics without undermining its value in informing policy decisions? In this presentation, we will address how teachers can manage these challenges to engage students about politically and socially controversial topics while maintaining a clear, current and robust scientific basis for instruction.

  19. Efficacy, Beliefs, and Investment in Step-Level Public Goods

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, J.; Oude Mulders, J.

    2014-01-01

    behavior in terms of increasing group well-being. We report a decision and game theoretical analysis of efficacy in step-level public goods (SPGs). Previous research shows a positive relation between efficacy and contributions to SPGs and explains this relation by a purely motivational account. We

  20. The impact of market exposure on public goods provision

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shami, Mahvish

    Low levels of public goods provision in many developing countries’ rural communities often force the poor to approach someone with considerable command over both financial and social resources to act as their patron. However engaging with the patron – typically a landlord – does not guarantee...

  1. Adaptive and bounded investment returns promote cooperation in spatial public goods games.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaojie Chen

    Full Text Available The public goods game is one of the most famous models for studying the evolution of cooperation in sizable groups. The multiplication factor in this game can characterize the investment return from the public good, which may be variable depending on the interactive environment in realistic situations. Instead of using the same universal value, here we consider that the multiplication factor in each group is updated based on the differences between the local and global interactive environments in the spatial public goods game, but meanwhile limited to within a certain range. We find that the adaptive and bounded investment returns can significantly promote cooperation. In particular, full cooperation can be achieved for high feedback strength when appropriate limitation is set for the investment return. Also, we show that the fraction of cooperators in the whole population can become larger if the lower and upper limits of the multiplication factor are increased. Furthermore, in comparison to the traditionally spatial public goods game where the multiplication factor in each group is identical and fixed, we find that cooperation can be better promoted if the multiplication factor is constrained to adjust between one and the group size in our model. Our results highlight the importance of the locally adaptive and bounded investment returns for the emergence and dominance of cooperative behavior in structured populations.

  2. Evolution of global contribution in multi-level threshold public goods games with insurance compensation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Du, Jinming; Tang, Lixin

    2018-01-01

    Understanding voluntary contribution in threshold public goods games has important practical implications. To improve contributions and provision frequency, free-rider problem and assurance problem should be solved. Insurance could play a significant, but largely unrecognized, role in facilitating a contribution to provision of public goods through providing insurance compensation against the losses. In this paper, we study how insurance compensation mechanism affects individuals’ decision-making under risk environments. We propose a multi-level threshold public goods game model where two kinds of public goods games (local and global) are considered. Particularly, the global public goods game involves a threshold, which is related to the safety of all the players. We theoretically probe the evolution of contributions of different levels and free-riders, and focus on the influence of the insurance on the global contribution. We explore, in both the cases, the scenarios that only global contributors could buy insurance and all the players could. It is found that with greater insurance compensation, especially under high collective risks, players are more likely to contribute globally when only global contributors are insured. On the other hand, global contribution could be promoted if a premium discount is given to global contributors when everyone buys insurance.

  3. Volunteering leads to rock-paper-scissors dynamics in a public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Semmann, Dirk; Krambeck, Hans-Jürgen; Milinski, Manfred

    2003-09-01

    Collective efforts are a trademark of both insect and human societies. They are achieved through relatedness in the former and unknown mechanisms in the latter. The problem of achieving cooperation among non-kin has been described as the `tragedy of the commons', prophesying the inescapable collapse of many human enterprises. In public goods experiments, initial cooperation usually drops quickly to almost zero. It can be maintained by the opportunity to punish defectors or the need to maintain good reputation. Both schemes require that defectors are identified. Theorists propose that a simple but effective mechanism operates under full anonymity. With optional participation in the public goods game, `loners' (players who do not join the group), defectors and cooperators will coexist through rock-paper-scissors dynamics. Here we show experimentally that volunteering generates these dynamics in public goods games and that manipulating initial conditions can produce each predicted direction. If, by manipulating displayed decisions, it is pretended that defectors have the highest frequency, loners soon become most frequent, as do cooperators after loners and defectors after cooperators. On average, cooperation is perpetuated at a substantial level.

  4. Towards Real-Time Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vicente JULIÁN

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we deal with the problem of real-time coordination with the more general approach of reaching real-time agreements in MAS. Concretely, this work proposes a real-time argumentation framework in an attempt to provide agents with the ability of engaging in argumentative dialogues and come with a solution for their underlying agreement process within a bounded period of time. The framework has been implemented and evaluated in the domain of a customer support application. Concretely, we consider a society of agents that act on behalf of a group of technicians that must solve problems in a Technology Management Centre (TMC within a bounded time. This centre controls every process implicated in the provision of technological and customer support services to private or public organisations by means of a call centre. The contract signed between the TCM and the customer establishes penalties if the specified time is exceeded.

  5. Gender Beliefs and Cooperation in a Public Goods Game

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vyrastekova, J.; Sent, E.-M.; Staveren, I.P. van

    2015-01-01

    This paper identifies gender beliefs in a public goods game and studies their impact on cooperation. On average, the beliefs of men, but not those of women, depend significantly on the group gender composition, with men expecting groups to be more cooperative when more females are present in the

  6. Punishment Mechanism with Self-Adjusting Rules in Spatial Voluntary Public Goods Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Zhong-Wei; Xu, Zhao-Jin; Zhang, Lian-Zhong

    2014-11-01

    The phenomena of cooperation in animal and human society are ubiquitous, but the selfish outcome that no player contributes to the public good will lead to the “tragedy of the commons”. The recent research shows that high punishment can improve the cooperation of the population. In this paper, we introduce a punishment mechanism into spatial voluntary public goods games with every individual only knowing his own payoff in each round. Using the self-adjusting rules, we find that the different cost for punishment can lead to different effects on the voluntary public goods games. Especially, when the cost for punishment is decreased, a higher contribution region will appear in the case of low r value. It means even for the low r value, individuals can form the contributing groups in large quantities to produce a more efficient outcome than that in moderate r value. In addition, we also find the players' memory can have effects on the average outcome of the population.

  7. The Europeanization of Public Administration through the General Principles of Good Administration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasilica NEGRUŢ

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available The general objective of the paper is based on an extremely present theme of real interest. Using the content analysis, through a descriptive documentary research, the present study aims at identifying the dimensions of the general principles of good administration, in the context of changes at European an implicitly at national level. To this purpose, an analisys of the specific objectives will be made: the concept of good administration, the national dimensions of the right to be heard, the right to access personal files as well as the motivation of administrative acts and the general principles regulated by the European Code of Good Administration will be underlined, in the context of institutional change determined by the Lisbon Treaty. Good administration defines the way in which institutions function, this being possible by ensuring the right to access information, a more efficient protection of fundamental rights as well as the right to defense, publication of acts and their motivation. Good administration is strongly connected to good government, the relation being in our opinion, from part to whole. The final purpose of good government and implicitly of good administration aims at accomplishing the general interest. The two concepts need a higher degree of transparency and responsibility in the public process. If governing represents the modality of exerting power, good government entails the imperative of the consensus of those governed regarding the objectives and methods of government, the responsibility of those governing, the efficiency of governing and the citizens’ right to be informed regarding the use and the distribution of the financial resources in the governing process. This new concept takes into account the implication of the citizens in the decision - making process, allowing a more efficient use of material, human, and financial resources. We assert thus that by applying the general principles of good administration

  8. When technologies makes good people do bad things: another argument against the value-neutrality of technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morrow, David R

    2014-06-01

    Although many scientists and engineers insist that technologies are value-neutral, philosophers of technology have long argued that they are wrong. In this paper, I introduce a new argument against the claim that technologies are value-neutral. This argument complements and extends, rather than replaces, existing arguments against value-neutrality. I formulate the Value-Neutrality Thesis, roughly, as the claim that a technological innovation can have bad effects, on balance, only if its users have "vicious" or condemnable preferences. After sketching a microeconomic model for explaining or predicting a technology's impact on individuals' behavior, I argue that a particular technological innovation can create or exacerbate collective action problems, even in the absence of vicious preferences. Technologies do this by increasing the net utility of refusing to cooperate. I also argue that a particular technological innovation can induce short-sighted behavior because of humans' tendency to discount future benefits too steeply. I suggest some possible extensions of my microeconomic model of technological impacts. These extensions would enable philosophers of technology to consider agents with mixed motives-i.e., agents who harbor some vicious preferences but also some aversion to acting on them-and to apply the model to questions about the professional responsibilities of engineers, scientists, and other inventors.

  9. Faith-Based Institutions, Institutional Mission, and the Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daniels, Jessica Rose; Gustafson, Jacqueline N.

    2016-01-01

    Rooted in historical foundations and demonstrated by continued government financial support, one purpose of higher education is to contribute to the "public good," or support and further social causes and human flourishing. This notion has received renewed attention in both the literature as well as in professional practice. Given the…

  10. Sharing the Costs of Access to a Set of Public Goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hougaard, Jens Leth

    2018-01-01

    A group of agents share assess to a set of public goods. Each good has a cost and the total cost of all goods must be shared among the agents. Agents preferences are described by subsets of goods that provides the agent with service. As such, demands are binary, and it is further assumed...... that agents prefer a low cost share, but other differences in their individual preferences are irrelevant, making demand fully inelastic. The model captures central aspects of several classes of practical problems and therefore has many potential applications. The paper surveys some recent axiomatic...

  11. Rational bandits: Plunder, public goods, and the Vikings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter; Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard

    2003-01-01

    The paper applies and extends insights from Mancur Olson's study of state making to the Vikings. In a world of roving bandits, a sub-optimal provision of public goods exists, most notably of security. Roving banditry leads to over-plundering and zero profits for the plunderers, which makes statio...... of the process being reflected in the variation in the number of raids and the amount of wealth extracted. Udgivelsesdato: DEC...

  12. A Textbook Argument: Definitions of Argument in Leading Composition Textbooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knoblauch, A. Abby

    2011-01-01

    This essay examines the definitions and practices of argument perpetuated by popular composition textbooks, illustrating how even those texts that appear to forward expansive notions of argument ultimately limit it to an intent to persuade. In doing so, they help perpetuate constricted practices of argument within undergraduate composition…

  13. 12 CFR 747.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 747.7 Section 747.7... of Practice and Procedure § 747.7 Good faith certification. (a) General requirement. Every filing or... good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law; and the filing or...

  14. 12 CFR 509.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 509.7 Section 509.7... PROCEDURE IN ADJUDICATORY PROCEEDINGS Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedure § 509.7 Good faith... in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or...

  15. 12 CFR 19.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 19.7 Section 19.7... PROCEDURE Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedure § 19.7 Good faith certification. (a) General requirement... warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing...

  16. Cyclic public goods games: Compensated coexistence among mutual cheaters stabilized by optimized penalty taxation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Griffin, Christopher; Belmonte, Andrew

    2017-05-01

    We study the problem of stabilized coexistence in a three-species public goods game in which each species simultaneously contributes to one public good while freeloading off another public good ("cheating"). The proportional population growth is governed by an appropriately modified replicator equation, depending on the returns from the public goods and the cost. We show that the replicator dynamic has at most one interior unstable fixed point and that the population becomes dominated by a single species. We then show that by applying an externally imposed penalty, or "tax" on success can stabilize the interior fixed point, allowing for the symbiotic coexistence of all species. We show that the interior fixed point is the point of globally minimal total population growth in both the taxed and untaxed cases. We then formulate an optimal taxation problem and show that it admits a quasilinearization, resulting in novel necessary conditions for the optimal control. In particular, the optimal control problem governing the tax rate must solve a certain second-order ordinary differential equation.

  17. Can't see the woods for the trees: exploring the range and connection of tobacco industry argumentation in the 2012 UK standardised packaging consultation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lie, Jessamina Lih Yan; Fooks, Gary; de Vries, Nanne K; Heijndijk, Suzanne M; Willemsen, Marc C

    2017-07-25

    Transnational tobacco company (TTC) submissions to the 2012 UK standardised packaging consultation are studied to examine TTC argumentation in the context of Better Regulation practices. A content analysis was conducted of Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco submissions to the 2012 UK consultation. Industry arguments concerning expected costs and (contested) benefits of the policy were categorised into themes and frames. The inter-relationship between frames through linked arguments was mapped to analyse central arguments using an argumentation network. 173 arguments were identified. Arguments fell into one of five frames: ineffectiveness, negative economic consequences, harm to public health, increased crime or legal ramifications. Arguments highlighted high costs to a wide range of groups, including government, general public and other businesses. Arguments also questioned the public health benefits of standardised packaging and highlighted the potential benefits to undeserving groups. An increase in illicit trade was the most central argument and linked to the greatest variety of arguments. In policy-making systems characterised by mandatory impact assessments and public consultations, the wide range of cost (and contested benefits) based arguments highlights the risk of TTCs overloading policy actors and causing delays in policy adoption. Illicit trade related arguments are central to providing a rationale for these arguments, which include the claim that standardised packaging will increase health risks. The strategic importance of illicit trade arguments to industry argumentation in public consultations underlines the risks of relying on industry data relating to the scale of the illicit trade. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  18. Four arguments in favour of nuclear power

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pearce, D.

    1994-01-01

    The first argument in favour of nuclear power is scarcity of energy supplies. In about 40 years time, the world will face shortages of natural gas, oil and uranium. Recoverable reserves of coal are very great, but coal creates the highest environmental damage. A balanced portfolio is the second argument. If all energy sources are potentially scarce, then all energy sources must be developed, subject to environmental impact. This leads to the third argument in support of nuclear power, its expansion would contribute to combating the risk of global warming as indeed would the expansion of renewable sources and other low carbon technologies. Fourthly, nuclear power can make a significant contribution to the control of acidic emissions. While nuclear power is not without its own problems of risk, liability and public acceptance, it has some clear advantages over other fuels. It has, at the very least, to be a substantial part of the transitional phase towards a renewable energy world. (UK)

  19. Contribution of organic farming to public goods in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jespersen, Lizzie Melby; Baggesen, Dorte Lau; Fog, Erik

    2017-01-01

    €”in particular in relation to the public goods Energy and Climate, which at present are not addressed in the EU Organic Regulation. Moreover, some organic farming requirements and practices cause dilemmas; e.g. more space per animal and outdoor access improves Animal Health and Welfare but at the same time has......The potential contribution of organic farming to the public goods, ‘Nature and Biodiversity’, ‘Environment’, ‘Energy and Climate’, ‘Human Health and Welfare’ and ‘Animal Health and Welfare’ in Denmark is guided and partly secured by the principles and specific requirements...... of the EU Organic Regulation. However, other factors, such as the production type, farm size, geographical location and—not the least—the management of the farm, also influence the contribution. Using the ban on synthetic pesticides and restricted use of antibiotics, including the requirements...

  20. Adaptive evolution of cooperation through Darwinian dynamics in Public Goods games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deng, Kuiying; Chu, Tianguang

    2011-01-01

    The linear or threshold Public Goods game (PGG) is extensively accepted as a paradigmatic model to approach the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. Here we explore the significant effect of nonlinearity of the structures of public goods on the evolution of cooperation within the well-mixed population by adopting Darwinian dynamics, which simultaneously consider the evolution of populations and strategies on a continuous adaptive landscape, and extend the concept of evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) as a coalition of strategies that is both convergent-stable and resistant to invasion. Results show (i) that in the linear PGG contributing nothing is an ESS, which contradicts experimental data, (ii) that in the threshold PGG contributing the threshold value is a fragile ESS, which cannot resist the invasion of contributing nothing, and (iii) that there exists a robust ESS of contributing more than half in the sigmoid PGG if the return rate is relatively high. This work reveals the significant effect of the nonlinearity of the structures of public goods on the evolution of cooperation, and suggests that, compared with the linear or threshold PGG, the sigmoid PGG might be a more proper model for the evolution of cooperation within the well-mixed population.

  1. 12 CFR 308.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 308.7 Section 308.7... PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedure § 308.7 Good faith certification. (a... in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or...

  2. 12 CFR 263.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 263.7 Section 263.7... RULES OF PRACTICE FOR HEARINGS Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedure § 263.7 Good faith certification... in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or...

  3. Argument Quality and Strength in Health and Risk Messaging

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoeken, J.A.L.

    In an ideal world, people would adopt a positive attitude toward a healthy lifestyle as a result of carefully considering relevant and strong arguments. Attitudes based upon such considerations are believed to be stable and good predictors of related behavior, and less vulnerable to

  4. Sociality as a natural mechanism of public goods provision.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elliot T Berkman

    Full Text Available In the recent literature, several hypotheses have been offered to explain patterns of human behavior in social environments. In particular, these patterns include 'prosocial' ones, such as fairness, cooperation, and collective good provision. Psychologists suggest that these prosocial behaviors are driven not by miscalculations, but by salience of social identity, in-group favoritism, emotion, or evolutionary adaptations. This paper imports psychology scholarship into an economic model and results in a sustainable solution to collective action problems without any external enforcement mechanisms. This natural mechanism of public goods provision is created, analyzed, and observed in a controlled laboratory environment using experimental techniques.

  5. Going public

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Meyer, Gitte; Sandøe, Peter

    2012-01-01

    conduct, contains a tacit maxim of openness which may naturally be extended to cover the public relations of science. Discussing openness as access, accountability, transparency and receptiveness, the argumentation concentrates on the possible prevention of misconduct with respect to, on the one hand......The paper addresses issues of scientific conduct regarding relations between science and the media, relations between scientists and journalists, and attitudes towards the public at large. In the large and increasing body of literature on scientific conduct and misconduct, these issues seem...... deal with ethical public relations issues, guided by a norm or maxim of openness. Drawing on and rethinking the CUDOS codification of the scientific ethos, as it was worked out by Robert K. Merton in 1942, we propose that this, which is echoed in current codifications of norms for good scientific...

  6. Optional contributions have positive effects for volunteering public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Qi-Qing; Li, Zhen-Peng; Fu, Chang-He; Wang, Lai-Sheng

    2011-11-01

    Public goods (PG) games with the volunteering mechanism are referred to as volunteering public goods (VPG) games, in which loners are introduced to the PG games, and a loner obtains a constant payoff but not participating the game. Considering that small contributions may have positive effects to encourage more players with bounded rationality to contribute, this paper introduces optional contributions (high value or low value) to these typical VPG games-a cooperator can contribute a high or low payoff to the public pools. With the low contribution, the logit dynamics show that cooperation can be promoted in a well mixed population comparing to the typical VPG games, furthermore, as the multiplication factor is greater than a threshold, the average payoff of the population is also enhanced. In spatial VPG games, we introduce a new adjusting mechanism that is an approximation to best response. Some results in agreement with the prediction of the logit dynamics are found. These simulation results reveal that for VPG games the option of low contributions may be a better method to stimulate the growth of cooperation frequency and the average payoff of the population.

  7. Managing public records in Zimbabwe: the road to good governance ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The ability by government departments to attain effective service delivery, accountability and good governance is largely determined by their records management practices. Delays and failure to access services due to missing or misplaced records from public institutions is a common challenge in Zimbabwe.

  8. Logically Incorrect Arguments

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Svoboda, Vladimír; Peregrin, Jaroslav

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 30, č. 3 (2016), s. 263-287 ISSN 0920-427X R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA13-21076S Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : argumentation * logical form * incorrect argument * correct arguments Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion Impact factor: 0.689, year: 2016

  9. 12 CFR 1780.7 - Good faith certification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 7 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Good faith certification. 1780.7 Section 1780.7... DEVELOPMENT RULES OF PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE RULES OF PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE General Rules § 1780.7 Good faith... record is well-grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith, nonfrivolous argument...

  10. Preschoolers are sensitive to free riding in a public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogelsang, Martina; Jensen, Keith; Kirschner, Sebastian; Tennie, Claudio; Tomasello, Michael

    2014-01-01

    Despite the benefits of cooperation, selfish individuals often produce outcomes where everyone is worse off. This “tragedy of the commons” has been demonstrated experimentally in adults with the public goods game. Contributions to a public good decline over time due to free-riders who keep their endowments. Little is known about how children behave when confronted with this social dilemma. Forty-eight preschoolers were tested using a novel non-verbal procedure and simplified choices more appropriate to their age than standard economic approaches. The rate of cooperation was initially very low and rose in the second round for the girls only. Children were affected by their previous outcome, as they free rode more after experiencing a lower outcome compared to the other group members. PMID:25076923

  11. Economic Impact Assessment of Wind Power Integration: A Quasi-Public Goods Property Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huiru Zhao

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The integration of wind power into power grid will bring some impacts on the multiple subjects of electric power system. Economic impacts of wind power integration on multiple subjects of China’s electric power system were quantitatively assessed from Quasi-public goods property perspective in this paper. Firstly, the Quasi-public goods property of transmission services provided by power grid corporations was elaborated. Secondly, the multiple subjects of China’s electric power system, which include electricity generation enterprises (EGEs, power grid corporations (PGCs, electricity consumers (ECs, and environment, were detailed analyzed. Thirdly, based on the OPF-based nodal price model and transmission service cost allocation model, the economic impact assessment model of wind power integration was built from Quasi-public goods property perspective. Then, the IEEE-24 bus system employed in this paper was introduced according to current status of China’s electric power system, and the modeling of wind turbine was also introduced. Finally, the simulation analysis was performed, and the economic impacts of wind power integration on EGEs, PGCs, ECs and Environment were calculated. The results indicate, from Quasi-public goods property perspective, the wind power integration will bring positive impacts on EGEs, PGCs and Environment, while negative impacts on ECs. The findings can provide references for power system managers, energy planners, and policy makers.

  12. The exploitation argument against commercial surrogacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilkinson, Stephen

    2003-04-01

    This paper discusses the exploitation argument against commercial surrogacy: the claim that commercial surrogacy is morally objectionable because it is exploitative. The following questions are addressed. First, what exactly does the exploitation argument amount to? Second, is commercial surrogacy in fact exploitative? Third, if it were exploitative, would this provide a sufficient reason to prohibit (or otherwise legislatively discourage) it? The focus throughout is on the exploitation of paid surrogates, although it is noted that other parties (e.g. 'commissioning parents') may also be the victims of exploitation. It is argued that there are good reasons for believing that commercial surrogacy is often exploitative. However, even if we accept this, the exploitation argument for prohibiting (or otherwise legislatively discouraging) commercial surrogacy remains quite weak. One reason for this is that prohibition may well 'backfire' and lead to potential surrogates having to do other things that are more exploitative and/or more harmful than paid surrogacy. It is concluded therefore that those who oppose exploitation should (rather than attempting to stop particular practices like commercial surrogacy) concentrate on: (a) improving the conditions under which paid surrogates 'work'; and (b) changing the background conditions (in particular, the unequal distribution of power and wealth) which generate exploitative relationships.

  13. Optimal provision of public goods with rank dependent expected utility

    OpenAIRE

    Eide, Erling

    2003-01-01

    In this paper the theory of rank-dependent expected utility (RDEU) is substituted for the theory of expected utility (EU) in a model of optimal provision of public goods. The substitution generalizes the Samuelson rule, previously modified to include deadweight loss and tax evasion loss.

  14. Argument Complexity: Teaching Undergraduates to Make Better Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Matthew A.; West, Robert L.

    2017-01-01

    The task of turning undergrads into academics requires teaching them to reason about the world in a more complex way. We present the Argument Complexity Scale, a tool for analysing the complexity of argumentation, based on the Integrative Complexity and Conceptual Complexity Scales from, respectively, political psychology and personality theory.…

  15. Examining Elementary Students' Development of Oral and Written Argumentation Practices Through Argument-Based Inquiry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ying-Chih; Hand, Brian; Park, Soonhye

    2016-05-01

    Argumentation, and the production of scientific arguments are critical elements of inquiry that are necessary for helping students become scientifically literate through engaging them in constructing and critiquing ideas. This case study employed a mixed methods research design to examine the development in 5th grade students' practices of oral and written argumentation from one unit to another over 16 weeks utilizing the science writing heuristic approach. Data sources included five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments that occurred over eleven class periods; students' group writings; interviews with six target students and the teacher; and the researcher's field notes. The results revealed five salient trends in students' development of oral and written argumentative practices over time: (1) Students came to use more critique components as they participated in more rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging each other's arguments, students came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence; (3) students came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject arguments; (4) the quality of students' writing continuously improved over time; and (5) students connected oral argument skills to written argument skills as they had opportunities to revise their writing after debating and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers. Given the development in oral argumentative practices and the quality of written arguments over time, this study indicates that students' development of oral and written argumentative practices is positively related to each other. This study suggests that argumentative practices should be framed through both a social and epistemic understanding of argument-utilizing talk and writing as vehicles to create norms of these complex practices.

  16. Images of eyes enhance investments in a real-life public good.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Damien Francey

    Full Text Available A key issue in cooperation research is to determine the conditions under which individuals invest in a public good. Here, we tested whether cues of being watched increase investments in an anonymous public good situation in real life. We examined whether individuals would invest more by removing experimentally placed garbage (paper and plastic bottles from bus stop benches in Geneva in the presence of images of eyes compared to controls (images of flowers. We provided separate bins for each of both types of garbage to investigate whether individuals would deposit more items into the appropriate bin in the presence of eyes. The treatment had no effect on the likelihood that individuals present at the bus stop would remove garbage. However, those individuals that engaged in garbage clearing, and were thus likely affected by the treatment, invested more time to do so in the presence of eyes. Images of eyes had a direct effect on behaviour, rather than merely enhancing attention towards a symbolic sign requesting removal of garbage. These findings show that simple images of eyes can trigger reputational effects that significantly enhance on non-monetary investments in anonymous public goods under real life conditions. We discuss our results in the light of previous findings and suggest that human social behaviour may often be shaped by relatively simple and potentially unconscious mechanisms instead of very complex cognitive capacities.

  17. Two Millian Arguments: Using Helen Longino’s Approach to Solve the Problems Philip Kitcher Targeted with His Argument on Freedom of Inquiry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaana Eigi

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Philip Kitcher argued that the freedom to pursue one's version of the good life is the main aim of Mill's argument for freedom of expression. According to Kitcher, in certain scientific fields, political and epistemological asymmetries bias research toward conclusions that threaten this most important freedom of underprivileged groups. Accordingly, Kitcher claimed that there are Millian grounds for limiting freedom of inquiry in these fields to protect the freedom of the underprivileged.I explore Kitcher's argument in light of the interpretation Helen Longino gave to Mill's argument. She argued that free critical dialogue in the community allows bias to be overcome, through intersubjective criticism of hypotheses and the background assumptions that frame them.I suggest that Longino's approach allows for the identification of the fundamental problems of the research programs Kitcher targeted, and for the rejection of their claims to knowledge. Thus it is possible to address Kitcher's problem without limiting freedom of speech.

  18. The Types of Argument Structure Used by Hillary Clinton in the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anggie Angeline

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This qualitative research was conducted to examine the types of argument structure by Hillary Clinton in part one of the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate since Hillary, who had a great deal of experiences in political parties, was supposed to be able to construct convincing arguments that had good argument structures. The theories used to analyze were Bierman and Assali’s (1996, King’s (n.d. and Stanlick’s (2003. The findings showed that there were five types of argument structure used: serial, linked, convergent, divergent, and hybrid argument structures. The linked argument structure was the argument structure used the most frequently in Hillary’s utterances in the debate, while the divergent was the least one. Thus, it could be concluded that Hillary’s speech in the Presidential Debate was quite interesting since she could combine all the five types of argument structure, though the frequency of using them was not the same and it seems that linked argument structure was the most effective strategy for her in arguing about the politic, economy, and social issues.

  19. The United Nations and Global Public Goods: Historical Contributions and Future Challenges.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruce Jenks

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Published by Palgrave MacmillanThis chapter explores the thesis that the United Nations’ (UN most important contribution to the production of global public goods has been its role in creating the space and capacity to generate shared values. Starting with the UN Charter itself, the chapter traces the evolution of this contribution through different historical phases. It analyses the impact of globalisation on the role of the UN; in particular it identifies the quality of porousness as a product of globalisation which is critical to understanding the current challenges faced by the UN as well as central to the global public goods agenda. Through this lens the author briefly reviews the evolution of the UN’s role in the fields of peace and security, human rights and development cooperation. He concludes by identifying eight levers for change that will determine the UN’s ability to contribute significantly to the global public goods: the generation of norms and shared values, the quality of leadership, improved governance, innovative financing, institutional realignment, the further consolidation of legal instruments, focus, and the power of networks.

  20. Argumentative processes on a opinion article of the Portuguese Language Olympics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gilton Sampaio de Souza

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to analyze the different types of arguments, considering them central parts of argumentative processes, in opinion articles of the Portuguese Language Olympiad written on the topic “Where I live.” To analyze the arguments in the selected articles we adopted the assumptions of the New Rhetoric (PERELMAN; OLBRECHTS-TYTECA, 2005, associated with the studies of Bakhtin (2003, 2010 and of Souza (2003, 2008, 2009, among others. We selected five articles awarded in different competitions (2008, 2010, 2012, which are in public domain, available on the official site of the Olympics. Most of the articles have their theses made by the arguments that support the actual structure, highlighting the relations of cause/effect and fact/consequence. Based on the established connection between the facts, speakers/ writers seek to understand these relationships and at the same time, explain and justify arguments and controversies involving issues related to their experience in the community.

  1. Preschoolers are sensitive to free riding in a public goods game

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martina eVogelsang

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Despite the benefits of cooperation, selfish individuals often produce outcomes where everyone is worse off. This tragedy of the commons has been demonstrated experimentally in adults with the public goods game. Contributions to a public good decline over time due to free-riders who keep their endowments. Little is known about how children behave when confronted with this social dilemma. Forty-eight five-year-olds were tested using a novel nonverbal procedure and simplified choices more appropriate to their age than standard economic approaches. The rate of cooperation was initially very low and rose in the second round for the girls only. Children were affected by their previous outcome, as they free rode more after experiencing a lower outcome compared to the other group members.

  2. The Ethics of Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasco Correia

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Normative theories of argumentation tend to assume that logical and dialectical rules suffice to ensure the rationality of argumentative discourse. Yet, in everyday debates people use arguments that seem valid in light of such rules but nonetheless biased and tendentious. This article seeks to show that the rationality of argumentation can only be fully promoted if we take into account its ethical dimension. To substantiate this claim, I review some of the empirical evidence indicating that people’s inferential reasoning is systematically affected by a variety of biases and heuristics. Insofar as these cognitive illusions are typically unintentional, it appears that arguers may be biased despite their well-intended efforts to follow the rules of critical argumentation. Nevertheless, I argue that people remain responsible for the rationality of their arguments, given that there are a number of measures that they can (and ought to take to avoid such distortions. I highlight the importance of argumentational virtues and critical thinking to rational debates, and describe a set of indirect strategies of “argumentative self-control”.

  3. Conditional cooperation in public goods experiments and its behavioral foundations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kocher, M.G.

    2006-01-01

    With the help of a novel design we explicitly test for the extent of conditional cooperation in a repeated public goods game. Participants in the experiment can decide whether they want to condition their voluntary contribution on the average contribution of other group members or not. About 35% of

  4. A Framework for Teachers' Assessment of Socio-Scientific Argumentation: An Example Using the GMO Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christenson, Nina; Chang Rundgren, Shu-Nu

    2015-01-01

    Socio-scientific issues (SSI) have proven to be suitable contexts for students to actively reflect on and argue about complex social issues related to science. Research has indicated that explicitly teaching SSI argumentation is a good way to help students develop their argumentation skills and make them aware of the complexity of SSI. However,…

  5. Self-serving punishment of a common enemy creates a public good in reef fishes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bshary, Andrea; Bshary, Redouan

    2010-11-23

    A key challenge for evolutionary biologists is to determine conditions under which individuals benefit from a contribution to public goods [1, 2]. For humans, it has been observed that punishment of free riders may promote contributions [3, 4], but the conditions that lead to stable cooperation based on punishment remain hotly debated [5-8]. Here we present empirical evidence that public goods may emerge as a by-product of self-serving punishment in interactions between coral reef fishes and parasitic saber-tooth blennies that stealthily attack their fish victims from behind to take a bite [9]. We first show that chasing the blenny functions as punishment [10], because it decreases the probability of future attacks. We then provide evidence that in female scalefin anthias, a shoaling species, punishment creates a public good because it increases the probability that the parasite switches to another species for the next attack. A final experiment suggests that punishment is nevertheless self-serving because blennies appear to be able to discriminate between look-alike punishers and nonpunishers. Thus, individuals that do contribute to the public good may risk being identified by the parasite as easy targets for future attacks. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. What Does It Mean to Have an N of 1? Art Making, Education, Research, and the Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sullivan, Graeme

    2014-01-01

    In this special issue, each author addresses how ABER work connects with and/or directly addresses society's need/s and the public good as perceived by the researcher. As there are many construals of the "public good" and the relation to art-making and the arts to this "public good," each author will conceptualize her/his…

  7. Student Learning in Guatemala: An Untenured Faculty Perspective on International Service Learning and Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Matthew J.

    2009-01-01

    In this article I explain how I combined service learning, public-good work, and research in Guatemala. This path has not been easy. Indeed, it has been risky because the time invested in public-good work and teaching field classes could have detracted from research productivity. Taking a risk under the current and traditional academic model at…

  8. Democracy, redistributive taxation and the private provision of public goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Markussen, Thomas

    2011-01-01

    and might even be reversed in this context. Also, the median voter may choose a negative tax rate, even if he or she is poorer than the mean, in order to stimulate production of public goods. The relevance of the model is illustrated with an application to the financing of higher education....

  9. Argumentation Schema and the Myside Bias in Written Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Christopher R.; Britt, M. Anne; Butler, Jodie A.

    2009-01-01

    This article describes a cognitive argumentation schema for written arguments and presents three empirical studies on the "myside" bias--the tendency to ignore or exclude evidence against one's position. Study 1 examined the consequences of conceding, rebutting, and denying other-side information. Rebuttal led to higher ratings of…

  10. Differentiating and evaluating common good and public good: making implicit assumptions explicit in the contexts of consent and duty to participate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bialobrzeski, A; Ried, J; Dabrock, P

    2012-01-01

    The notions 'common good' and 'public good' are mostly used as synonyms in bioethical discussion of biobanks, but have different origins. As a consequence, they should be applied differently. In this article, the respective characteristics are worked out and then subsequently examined which consent models emerge from them. Distinguishing normative and descriptive traits of both concepts, it turns out that one concept is unjustly used, and that the other one fits better to the context of a plural society. A reflected use of these differing concepts may help to choose an appropriate form of consent and allows public trust in biobank research to deepen. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  11. The use of care robots in aged care: A systematic review of argument-based ethics literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vandemeulebroucke, Tijs; Dierckx de Casterlé, Bernadette; Gastmans, Chris

    2018-01-01

    As care robots become more commonplace in aged-care settings, the ethical debate on their use becomes increasingly important. Our objective was to examine the ethical arguments and underlying concepts used in the ethical debate on care robot use in aged care. We conducted a systematic literature search for argument-based ethics publications focusing on care robot use in aged-care practices. We used an innovative methodology that consisted of three steps: (a) identifying conceptual-ethical questions, (b) conducting a literature search, and (c) identifying, describing and analyzing the ethical arguments in connection with the conceptual-ethical questions. Twenty-eight appropriate publications were identified. All were published between 2002 and 2016. Four primary ethical approaches were distinguished: (a) a deontological, (b) a principlist, (c) an objective-list, and (d) a care-ethical. All approaches were equally represented across the articles, and all used similar concepts that grounded their diverse ethical arguments. A small group of publications could not be linked to an ethical approach. All included publications presented a strong ethical rationale based on fully elaborated normative arguments. Although the reviewed studies used similar grounding concepts, the studies' arguments were very diverse and sometimes diametrically opposed. Our analysis shows how one envisions care robot use in aged-care settings is influenced by how one views the traditional boundaries of the ethical landscape in aged care. We suggest that an ethical analysis of care robot use employs "democratic spaces," in which all stakeholders in aged care, especially care recipients, have a voice in the ethical debate. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Argument Construction in Understanding Noncovalent Interactions: A Comparison of Two Argumentation Frameworks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooper, A. Kat; Oliver-Hoyo, M. T.

    2016-01-01

    Argument construction is a valuable ability for explaining scientific phenomena and introducing argumentation skills as part of a curriculum can greatly enhance student understanding by promoting self-reflection on the topic under investigation. This article aims to use argument construction as a technique to support an activity designed to…

  13. Using the Cognitive Apprenticeship Web-Based Argumentation System to Improve Argumentation Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Chun-Yen; Jack, Brady Michael; Huang, Tai-Chu; Yang, Jin-Tan

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated how the instruction of argumentation skills could be promoted by using an online argumentation system. This system entitled "Cognitive Apprenticeship Web-based Argumentation" (CAWA) system was based on cognitive apprenticeship model. One hundred eighty-nine fifth grade students took part in this study. A quasi-experimental…

  14. Decomposing the effects of negative framing in linear public goods games.

    OpenAIRE

    Cox, C.

    2015-01-01

    I examine two dimensions of framing in public goods games: Contributing vs. Taking and Gains vs. Losses. I find decreased cooperation under the Taking frame, but not under the Loss frame. This framing effect is stronger for men than women.

  15. Three Arguments for Lotteries

    OpenAIRE

    STONE, PETER

    2010-01-01

    PUBLISHED Philosophers and social scientists have offered a variety of arguments for making certain types of decisions by lot. This paper examines three such arguments. These arguments identify indeterminacy, fairness and incentive effects as the major reasons for using lotteries to make decisions. These arguments are central to Jon Elster?s study of lottery use, Solomonic judgments (1989), and so the paper focuses upon their treatment in this work. Upon closer examination, all three argum...

  16. A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Improve the Argument Selection Effectiveness in Argumentation-based Negotiation

    OpenAIRE

    Amandi, Analia Adriana; Monteserin, Ariel José

    2016-01-01

    Argument selection is considered the essence of the strategy in argumentation-based negotiation. An agent, which is arguing during a negotiation, must decide what arguments are the best to persuade the opponent. In fact, in each negotiation step, the agent must select an argument from a set of candidate arguments by applying some selection policy. Following this policy, the agent observes some factors of the negotiation context, for instance: trust in the opponent and expected utility of the...

  17. Making or buying environmental public goods: do consumers care?

    OpenAIRE

    Bougherara, Douadia; Costa, Sandrine; Teisl, Mario

    2012-01-01

    Firms may voluntary abate pollution using one of two options: internalizing its own external effects and incuring abatement costs ("making") or delegating environmental protection by purchasing offsets ("buying"). We aim to elicit consumers' WTP for producers' use of the "making" option as compared to the "buying" option, controlling for spatial effects (joint local public goods) and level of GHG emissions. Using a stated choice survey with 722 respondents, we find consumers are more willing ...

  18. A critical overview: The reason for the public sector’s ice cream production in Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Berkan KARAGÖZ

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Whereas, the public sector in Turkey has withdrawn from the production of private goods, the public sector in Turkey still has produces ice cream. In recent years, related public enterprise has taken up the capacity expansion of ice cream production. And also, it has got a target of growing market share. However, there isn’t a strong argument about the public sector’s ice cream production. In this study, it is researched that why the public sector in Turkey produces ice cream.

  19. The Ethics of Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Vasco Correia

    2012-01-01

    Normative theories of argumentation tend to assume that logical and dialectical rules suffice to ensure the rationality of argumentative discourse. Yet, in everyday debates people use arguments that seem valid in light of such rules but nonetheless biased and tendentious. This article seeks to show that the rationality of argumentation can only be fully promoted if we take into account its ethical dimension. To substantiate this claim, I review some of the empirical evidence indicating that p...

  20. Argumentation in undergraduate chemistry laboratories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Joi Phelps

    To address the need for reform in undergraduate science education a new instructional model called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) was developed and then implemented in a undergraduate chemistry course at a community college in the southeastern United States (Sampson, Walker, & Grooms, 2009; Walker, Sampson, & Zimmerman, in press). The ADI instructional model is designed to give a more central place to argumentation and the role of argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge. This research investigated the growth in the quality of the student generated arguments and the scientific argumentation that took place over the course of a semester. Students enrolled in two sections of General Chemistry I laboratory at the community college participated in this study. The students worked in collaborative groups of three or four. The students were given a variation of the same performance task three times during the semester in order to measure individual ability to use evidence and justify their choice of evidence with appropriate rationale. Five ADI investigations took place during the semester and the laboratory reports for each were collected from each student and the argument section of each report was scored. All the student groups were video recorded five times during the semester as they generated and evaluated arguments and the quality of the group argumentation was assessed using an instrument called the Assessment of Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom (ASAC) observation protocol. As time was the independent variable in this study a repeated measure ANOVA was used to evaluate the significance of student improvement in each area (argumentation, written argument and performance task) over the course of the semester (Trochim, 1999). In addition, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to evaluate how well the ASAC scores predicted individual scores on both the performance task and the written arguments (Green & Salkind, 2005). There was

  1. On the evaluation of cultural and environmental public goods, and its implications for social innovation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graffeo, Michele; Bonini, Nicolao

    2013-01-01

    Public goods (e.g., parks) and welfare services (e.g., garbage disposal and transportation policies) are extremely important for the citizens' well-being but in the complex modern societies their influence and effectiveness are affected by the citizens' support. For this reason, it is crucial to understand which are the factors that influence the citizens' perception of the benefits, costs, and risks associated to public goods and welfare services. In this chapter, we describe some psychological variables that are relevant for the evaluation process of the public goods, but that are not considered by the standard economic models. At the same time, we show that some variables of central importance for the economic models do not significantly affect the citizens' evaluations. Finally, we discuss the concept of Nudge, a policy-making approach that suggests the use of psychological mechanisms to increase the citizens' support to public provision of welfare services. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Argumentativeness and Resistance to Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levine, Timothy R.; Badger, Eugenia E.

    1993-01-01

    Examines college students' level of argumentativeness in relation to persuasion. Finds that highly argumentative individuals experienced more attitude change than their less argumentative counterparts. Shows that topic had no effect upon attitude change and that topic did not interact with argumentativeness. (SR)

  3. IMPROVING LEGAL ARGUMENT CRITICALLY IN THE LITIGATION MECHANISM IN INDONESIA (AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL VERDICTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edy Lisdiyono

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Legal argument is a debate or argument in explaining the issues between two or more people performed in court. Legal argument is one way to perform law finding with the purpose to avoid legal vacuum when the judge makes a legal reasoning in a verdict. In making a legal argument, it is at least performed by legal reasoning, logic, facts. However, some judges, in making a decision, did not use the legal arguments by legal reasoning and facts so that it resulted in debates and arguments. It is  interesting to study on how to build legal argument in the litigation mechanism in Indonesia. Some verdicts in Indonesia have been the debate among the public through social media, by both academic and non-academic communities, because they were not based on the legal facts revealed at the trials and not in favor of the public sense of justice. Some of the examples are the verdict in the case of the environmental lawsuits of Lapindo Brantas Mud in Sidoarjo, the case verdict in Palembang District Court on the lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry on forest fires and land concessions of PT. Bumi Mekar Hijau in 2014. From the decisions, it turned out that the judges, in making the legal arguments for their decisions, had deviated from the analogy and were not based on the existing legal facts. In building legal arguments, it would have to be conducted by collecting data (evidence and clear fact so that its solutions do not deviate from the rules of law

  4. Non-Fixed Investment in Voluntary Public Goods Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Shuai; Xu, Zhaojin; Zhang, Lianzhong

    2018-05-01

    In this work, we introduce a non-fixed investment ratio to the public goods games in which players can determine whether or not to participate and how much money to invest into the common pool, and with it a new mechanism has been established. We explicitly demonstrate a different rockscissors- paper dynamics which is a consequence of this model. Meanwhile, it is shown how the mechanism of non-fixed investment ratio influences the players' decision. In addition, we found that the length of memory has an important effect on the average payoff of the population by this introduction.

  5. Individual and Household Willingness to Pay for Public Goods

    OpenAIRE

    John Quiggin

    1998-01-01

    The issue of whether willingness to pay (WTP) for the benefits generated by a public good should be elicited on an individual or on a household basis is addressed. Differences between individual and household WTP may arise when members of the household are mutually altruistic. It is shown that, for general specifications of altruism, household WTP is less than the sum of household members' individual WTP. Implications for the choice between household and individual measures of WTP are conside...

  6. Argumentation Theory. [A Selected Annotated Bibliography].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    Materials dealing with aspects of argumentation theory are cited in this annotated bibliography. The 50 citations are organized by topic as follows: (1) argumentation; (2) the nature of argument; (3) traditional perspectives on argument; (4) argument diagrams; (5) Chaim Perelman's theory of rhetoric; (6) the evaluation of argument; (7) argument…

  7. Contents and Sample Arguments of a Safety Case for Near Surface Disposal of Radioactive Waste

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2017-06-01

    This publication arises from the results of two projects to assist Member States in understanding and developing safety cases for near-surface radioactive waste disposal facilities. The objective of the publication is to give detailed information on the contents of safety cases for radioactive waste disposal and the types of arguments that may be included. It is written for technical experts preparing a safety case, and decision makers in the regulatory body and government. The publication outlines the key uses and aspects of the safety case, its evolution in parallel with that of the disposal facility, the key decision steps in the development of the waste disposal facility, the components of the safety case, their place in the Matrix of Arguments for a Safety Case (the MASC matrix), and a detailed description of the development of sample arguments that might be included in a safety case for each of two hypothetical radioactive waste disposal facilities.

  8. Phase diagrams for the spatial public goods game with pool punishment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Szolnoki, Attila; Szabó, György; Perc, Matjaž

    2011-03-01

    The efficiency of institutionalized punishment is studied by evaluating the stationary states in the spatial public goods game comprising unconditional defectors, cooperators, and cooperating pool punishers as the three competing strategies. Fines and costs of pool punishment are considered as the two main parameters determining the stationary distributions of strategies on the square lattice. Each player collects a payoff from five five-person public goods games, and the evolution of strategies is subsequently governed by imitation based on pairwise comparisons at a low level of noise. The impact of pool punishment on the evolution of cooperation in structured populations is significantly different from that reported previously for peer punishment. Representative phase diagrams reveal remarkably rich behavior, depending also on the value of the synergy factor that characterizes the efficiency of investments payed into the common pool. Besides traditional single- and two-strategy stationary states, a rock-paper-scissors type of cyclic dominance can emerge in strikingly different ways.

  9. The deconstruction of safety arguments through adversarial counter-argument

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Armstrong, James M.; Paynter, Stephen E.

    2007-01-01

    The project Deconstructive Evaluation of Risk In Dependability Arguments and Safety Cases (DERIDASC) has recently experimented with techniques borrowed from literary theory as safety case analysis techniques [Armstrong. Danger: Derrida at work. Interdiscipl Sci Rev 2003;28(2):83-94. ; Armstrong J, Paynter S. Safe systems: construction, destruction, and deconstruction. In: Redmill F, Anderson T, editors. Proceedings of the 11th safety critical systems symposium, Bristol, UK. Berlin: Springer; 2003. p. 62-76. ISBN:1-85233-696-X. ]. This paper introduces our high-level framework for 'deconstructing' safety arguments. Our approach is quite general and should be applicable to different types of safety argumentation framework. As one example, we outline how the approach would work in the context of the Goal Structure Notation (GSN)

  10. Rich preference-based argumentation frameworks

    OpenAIRE

    Amgoud , Leila; Vesic , Srdjan

    2014-01-01

    International audience; An argumentation framework is seen as a directed graph whose nodes are arguments and arcs are attacks between the arguments. Acceptable sets of arguments, called extensions, are computed using a semantics. Existing semantics are solely based on the attacks and do not take into account other important criteria like the intrinsic strengths of arguments. The contribution of this paper is three fold. First, we study how preferences issued from differences in strengths of a...

  11. Preference of Chinese general public and healthcare providers for a good death.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haishan, Huang; Hongjuan, Liu; Tieying, Zeng; Xuemei, Pu

    2015-03-01

    The aim of this study is to find and compare the current situation between common people and healthcare providers' preferences for a good death in the context of Chinese culture. A cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire survey covering 190 ordinary Chinese people and 323 healthcare providers was conducted. An inventory of the good death was translated and the subjects were surveyed about their attitude toward it. Permission to conduct the study was granted by department chiefs, nurse managers and the participants themselves. The participants were informed that they took part on a voluntary and anonymous basis, that they could withdraw at any time, that they had the right to ignore questions they did not wish to answer, and that whatever they chose to do would not jeopardize their employment conditions. The attributes that were perceived as important by major respondents for a good death were maintaining hope and pleasure, good relationship with medical staff, good relationship with family, independence, environment comfort, being respected as an individual, preparation for death, physical and psychological comfort, dying in a favorite place, and not being a burden to others. And some relatively less important characteristics were life completion, receiving enough treatment, natural death, controlling over the future, unawareness of death, pride and beauty, feeling that one's life is worth living, and religious and spiritual comfort. We also found that healthcare providers were more likely than general out-patients to perceive "physical and psychological comfort," "dying in a favorite place," "good relationship with medical staff," and "natural death" as important for a good death. This study offers healthcare providers in China a fundamental understanding of the normal expectations of the general public for a good death. It is believed that these findings in our study are valuable to improve palliative care in China. We compared the attitudes of Chinese and

  12. Argumentation and Game Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahwan, Iyad; Larson, Kate

    In a large class of multi-agent systems, agents are self-interested in the sense that each agent is interested only in furthering its individual goals, which may or may not coincide with others’ goals. When such agents engage in argument, they would be expected to argue strategically in such a way that makes it more likely for their argumentative goals to be achieved. What we mean by arguing strategically is that instead of making arbitrary arguments, an agent would carefully choose its argumentative moves in order to further its own objectives.

  13. Den gode argumentations anatomi

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kock, Christian Erik J

    2013-01-01

    God argumentation har tre dimensioner: Den er faktuelt retvisende, den er relevant, og den er vægtig. Desværre slipper politikerne ofte af sted med mangelfuld argumentation fordi de forklæder den godt. Derfor får du her de vigtigste redskaber til at spotte uskikkene i politisk argumentation...

  14. Competition of tolerant strategies in the spatial public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž

    2016-08-01

    Tolerance implies enduring trying circumstances with a fair and objective attitude. To determine whether evolutionary advantages might be stemming from diverse levels of tolerance in a population, we study a spatial public goods game, where in addition to cooperators, defectors, and loners, tolerant players are also present. Depending on the number of defectors within a group, a tolerant player can either cooperate in or abstain from a particular instance of the game. We show that the diversity of tolerance can give rise to synergistic effects, wherein players with a different threshold in terms of the tolerated number of defectors in a group compete most effectively against defection and default abstinence. Such synergistic associations can stabilise states of full cooperation where otherwise defection would dominate. We observe complex pattern formation that gives rise to an intricate phase diagram, where invisible yet stable strategy alliances require outmost care lest they are overlooked. Our results highlight the delicate importance of diversity and tolerance for the provisioning of public goods, and they reveal fascinating subtleties of the spatiotemporal dynamics that is due to the competition of subsystem solutions in structured populations.

  15. Arguments against nuclear engineering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hahn, L.

    1991-01-01

    The arguments put forward are: data from risk studies concerning the frequency of occurrence of core meltdown in LWR type reactors, the frequency of containment failures and resulting off-site emissions, in-plant accident management, and the hazard of hydrogen explosions. Yet unresolved problems are stated to be: the presentation of results of the German Risk Study (part DRS-B), the way accident management is dealt with, the evaluation standards applied to safety deficits, the hydrogen problem, the biological effects of low-dose radiation, the qualification of radwaste repositories, the information policy of public authorities, and the regime of governmental control and supervision. (HP) [de

  16. Using Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to develop effective argumentation skills in high school advanced placement physics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heglund, Brian

    Educators recognize the importance of reasoning ability for development of critical thinking skills, conceptual change, metacognition, and participation in 21st century society. There is a recognized need for students to improve their skills of argumentation, however, argumentation is not explicitly taught outside logic and philosophy---subjects that are not part of the K-12 curriculum. One potential way of supporting the development of argumentation skills in the K-12 context is through incorporating Computer-Assisted Argument Mapping to evaluate arguments. This quasi-experimental study tested the effects of such argument mapping software and was informed by the following two research questions: 1. To what extent does the collaborative use of Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to evaluate competing theories influence the critical thinking skill of argument evaluation, metacognitive awareness, and conceptual knowledge acquisition in high school Advanced Placement physics, compared to the more traditional method of text tables that does not employ Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping? 2. What are the student perceptions of the pros and cons of argument evaluation in the high school Advanced Placement physics environment? This study examined changes in critical thinking skills, including argumentation evaluation skills, as well as metacognitive awareness and conceptual knowledge, in two groups: a treatment group using Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to evaluate physics arguments, and a comparison group using text tables to evaluate physics arguments. Quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting and analyzing data were used to answer the research questions. Quantitative data indicated no significant difference between the experimental groups, and qualitative data suggested students perceived pros and cons of argument evaluation in the high school Advanced Placement physics environment, such as self-reported sense of improvement in argument

  17. Defining Rhetorical Argumentation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kock, Christian Erik J

    2013-01-01

    This article argues for a definition of rhetorical argumentation based on the theme of the argumentation, i.e., the issue in dispute - rather than its aim (e.g., to ‘win’) or its means (e.g., emotional appeals). The principal thinkers in the rhetorical tradition, from Aristotle onwards, saw...... rhetoric as practical reasoning, i.e., reasoning on proposals for action or choice, not on propositions that may be either true or false. Citing several contemporary philosophers, the article argues that such a definition acquits rhetorical argumentation of any culpable unconcern with truth and explains...

  18. Assuring adequate deterrence in tort: A public good experiment

    OpenAIRE

    Eisenberg, Theodore; Engel, Christoph

    2012-01-01

    To explore damage rules’ deterrent effect, we use a public good experiment to tailor allowable punishment to rules used in actual civil litigation. The experimental treatments are analogous to: (1) damages limited to harm to an individual litigant, (2) damages limited to harm to a group available in aggregate litigation, such as class actions, and (3) damages allowed beyond actual harm to victims, such as punitive damages. The treatment with damages limited to harm to an individual does not p...

  19. Borrowed Authority: The American Catholic Bishops' Argument by Citation

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Keefe, Meaghan M.

    2015-01-01

    Rhetorical use of citation is a means of indirectly reaffirming authority while avoiding the appearance of argument. It is therefore an especially useful strategy for people and institutions with compromised public images. This article compares the American Catholic bishops' written citational patterns in the United States Conference of Catholic…

  20. Punishment in public goods games leads to meta-stable phase transitions and hysteresis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hintze, Arend; Adami, Christoph

    2015-07-01

    The evolution of cooperation has been a perennial problem in evolutionary biology because cooperation can be undermined by selfish cheaters who gain an advantage in the short run, while compromising the long-term viability of the population. Evolutionary game theory has shown that under certain conditions, cooperation nonetheless evolves stably, for example if players have the opportunity to punish cheaters that benefit from a public good yet refuse to pay into the common pool. However, punishment has remained enigmatic because it is costly and difficult to maintain. On the other hand, cooperation emerges naturally in the public goods game if the synergy of the public good (the factor multiplying the public good investment) is sufficiently high. In terms of this synergy parameter, the transition from defection to cooperation can be viewed as a phase transition with the synergy as the critical parameter. We show here that punishment reduces the critical value at which cooperation occurs, but also creates the possibility of meta-stable phase transitions, where populations can ‘tunnel’ into the cooperating phase below the critical value. At the same time, cooperating populations are unstable even above the critical value, because a group of defectors that are large enough can ‘nucleate’ such a transition. We study the mean-field theoretical predictions via agent-based simulations of finite populations using an evolutionary approach where the decisions to cooperate or to punish are encoded genetically in terms of evolvable probabilities. We recover the theoretical predictions and demonstrate that the population shows hysteresis, as expected in systems that exhibit super-heating and super-cooling. We conclude that punishment can stabilize populations of cooperators below the critical point, but it is a two-edged sword: it can also stabilize defectors above the critical point.

  1. For your first born child: an ethical defense of the exploitation argument against commercial surrogacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osberg, Brendan

    2006-01-01

    In this essay I explore two arguments against commercial surrogacy, based on commodification and exploitation respectively. I adopt a consequentialist framework and argue that commodification arguments must be grounded in a resultant harm to either child or surrogate, and that a priori arguments which condemn the practice for puritanical reasons cannot form a basis for public law. Furthermore there is no overwhelming evidence of harm caused to either party involved in commercial surrogacy, and hence Canadian law (which forbids the practice) must (and can) be justified on exploitative grounds. Objections raised by Wilkinson based on an 'isolated case' approach are addressed when one takes into account the political implications of public policy. I argue that is precisely these implications that justify laws forbidding commercial surrogacy on the grounds of preventing systematic exploitation.

  2. Public funding of abortions and abortion counseling for poor women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, R B

    1997-01-01

    This essay seeks to reveal the weakness in arguments against public funding of abortions and abortion counseling in the US based on economic, ethico-religious, anti-racist, and logical-consistency objections and to show that public funding of abortion is strongly supported by appeals to basic human rights, to freedom of speech, to informed consent, to protection from great harm, to justice, and to equal protection under the law. The first part of the article presents the case against public funding with detailed considerations of the economic argument, the ethico/religious argument, the argument that such funding supports racist genocide or eugenic quality control, and arguments that a logical inconsistency exists between the principles used to justify the legalization of abortions and arguments for public funding. The second part of the article presents the case for public funding by discussing the spending of public funds on morally offensive programs, arguments for public funding of abortion counseling for the poor, and arguments for public funding of abortions for the poor. It is concluded that it is morally unacceptable and rationally unjustifiable to refuse to expend public funds for abortions for low income women, because after all most money for legal abortions for the poor comes from welfare payments made to women. If conservative forces want to insure that no public funds pay for abortions, they must stop all welfare payments to pregnant women.

  3. SECRETARIAT AND TEXTUAL PRODUCTION: ARGUMENTATION IN THE TEXTUAL GENRE LETTER OF DECLARATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erivaldo Pereira do Nascimento

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available This article aims at describing the semantic argumentative structure of the textual/discursive genre Letter of Declaration, one of the documents with which the executive secretary frequently deals. This investigation is based on the Argumention Theory in the Language proposed by Ducrot (1988,1987. We also used the studies about Discursive Modalization proposed by Koch (2002, Castilho e Castilho (1993, Nascimento (2005, among others. Modalization is considered here as a semantic argumentative strategy, as it enables the speaker to make a statement or to express a point of view about the content of his/her enunciation, according to the interlocution. This study about the previously mentioned gender is qualitative, quantitative and descriptive. The corpus used is composed of 20 (twenty Letters of Declaration issued by different organizations or private and public institutions. We perceived that in the Letters of Declaration analysed argumentation is achieved by the use of modalizers and argumentative operators, used by the speaker to produce different effects of meaning in the texts.

  4. Towards an experimental account of argumentation: the case of the slippery slope and the ad hominem arguments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco eLillo-Unglaube

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Argumentation is a crucial component of our lives. Although in the absence of rational debate our legal, political, and scientific systems would not be possible, there is still no integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation. Furthermore, classical theories of argumentation are normative (i.e. the acceptability of an argument is determined by a set of norms or logical rules, which sometimes creates a dissociation between the theories and people’s behavior. We think the current challenge for psychology is to bring together the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation. In this Perspective, we exemplify this point by analyzing two cases of argumentative structures experimentally studied in the context of cognitive psychology. Specifically, we focus on the slippery slope argument and the ad hominem argument under the frameworks of Bayesian and pragma-dialectics approaches, respectively. We think employing more descriptive and experimental accounts of argumentation would help Psychology to bring closer the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation with the final goal of establishing an integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation.

  5. Toward an experimental account of argumentation: the case of the slippery slope and the ad hominem arguments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lillo-Unglaube, Marco; Canales-Johnson, Andrés; Navarrete, Gorka; Bravo, Claudio Fuentes

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation is a crucial component of our lives. Although in the absence of rational debate our legal, political, and scientific systems would not be possible, there is still no integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation. Furthermore, classical theories of argumentation are normative (i.e., the acceptability of an argument is determined by a set of norms or logical rules), which sometimes creates a dissociation between the theories and people's behavior. We think the current challenge for psychology is to bring together the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation. In this article, we exemplify this point by analyzing two cases of argumentative structures experimentally studied in the context of cognitive psychology. Specifically, we focus on the slippery slope argument and the ad hominem argument under the frameworks of Bayesian and pragma-dialectics approaches, respectively. We think employing more descriptive and experimental accounts of argumentation would help Psychology to bring closer the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation with the final goal of establishing an integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation.

  6. Examining Theories of Distributive Justice with an Asymmetric Public Goods Game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, Stephen J.

    2015-01-01

    In this article, the author presents an asymmetric version of the familiar public goods classroom experiment, in which some players are given more tokens to invest than others, and players collectively decide whether to divide the return to the group investment asymmetrically as well. The asymmetry between players raises normative issues about…

  7. Graduate Courses in Argumentation Theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.; Follert, Vincent F.

    1986-01-01

    Reports results of a survey of graduate courses in argumentation theory. Includes data on types of courses, theorists, historical and basic concepts in argument, everyday argument, resources (books and articles), etc. (PD)

  8. Population ageing in the Netherlands: Demographic and financial arguments for a balanced approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Salverda, W.

    2007-01-01

    Dutch policy makers recently set the public debate on ageing alight by enforcing drastic cuts in early retirement opportunities; increasing taxation of the aged and augmenting retirement age are also considered. The prime argument is to diminish a burden on public finances far in future. This paper

  9. Why the Difference Between Explanation and Argument Matters to Science Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brigandt, Ingo

    2016-05-01

    Contributing to the recent debate on whether or not explanations ought to be differentiated from arguments, this article argues that the distinction matters to science education. I articulate the distinction in terms of explanations and arguments having to meet different standards of adequacy. Standards of explanatory adequacy are important because they correspond to what counts as a good explanation in a science classroom, whereas a focus on evidence-based argumentation can obscure such standards of what makes an explanation explanatory. I provide further reasons for the relevance of not conflating explanations with arguments (and having standards of explanatory adequacy in view). First, what guides the adoption of the particular standards of explanatory adequacy that are relevant in a scientific case is the explanatory aim pursued in this context. Apart from explanatory aims being an important aspect of the nature of science, including explanatory aims in classroom instruction also promotes students seeing explanations as more than facts, and engages them in developing explanations as responses to interesting explanatory problems. Second, it is of relevance to science curricula that science aims at intervening in natural processes, not only for technological applications, but also as part of experimental discovery. Not any argument enables intervention in nature, as successful intervention specifically presupposes causal explanations. Students can fruitfully explore in the classroom how an explanatory account suggests different options for intervention.

  10. Liberalism and Public Health Ethics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajczi, Alex

    2016-02-01

    Many public health dilemmas involve a tension between the promotion of health and the rights of individuals. This article suggests that we should resolve the tension using our familiar liberal principles of government. The article considers the common objections that (i) liberalism is incompatible with standard public health interventions such as anti-smoking measures or intervention in food markets; (2) there are special reasons for hard paternalism in public health; and (3) liberalism is incompatible with proper protection of the community good. The article argues that we should examine these critiques in a larger methodological framework by first acknowledging that the right theory of public health ethics is the one we arrive at in reflective equilibrium. Once we examine the arguments for and against liberalism in that light, we can see the weaknesses in the objections and the strength of the case for liberalism in public health. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  11. Bounded rationality leads to equilibrium of public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Zhaojin; Wang, Zhen; Zhang, Lianzhong

    2009-12-01

    In this work, we introduce a degree of rationality to the public goods games in which players can determine whether or not to participate, and with it a new mechanism has been established. Existence of the bounded rationality would lead to a new equilibrium which differs from the Nash equilibrium and qualitatively explains the fundamental role of loners’ payoff for maintaining cooperation. Meanwhile, it is shown how the potential strategy influences the players’ decision. Finally, we explicitly demonstrate a rock-scissors-paper dynamics which is a consequence of this model.

  12. Modelling Imprecise Arguments in Description Logic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LETIA, I. A.

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available Real arguments are a mixture of fuzzy linguistic variables and ontological knowledge. This paper focuses on modelling imprecise arguments in order to obtain a better interleaving of human and software agents argumentation, which might be proved useful for extending the number of real life argumentative-based applications. We propose Fuzzy Description Logic as the adequate technical instrumentation for filling the gap between human arguments and software agents arguments. A proof of concept scenario has been tested with the fuzzyDL reasoner.

  13. PPP as a modern concept for providing public goods and services and its application in Serbia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Drljača-Kanazir Svetlana

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Public-private partnership (hereinafter: PPP is an unconventional and modern pattern used to finance the construction and exploitation of public goods, which introduces the market based principles of operation in the public sector in the leading word economies as a result of market deregulation and liberalization. The purpose of this paper is to present the basic PPP characteristics, models of funding, and to highlight that this concept of financing the public goods and services is not sufficiently used in Serbia despite the fact that the necessary legal framework and educated staff in the public private and financial sectors, and active promotion of the concept as such are in place. This paper is intended to point that PPP is the only sustainable model of public infrastructure development (roads, tunnels, bridges, power generation plants, etc. in Serbia which is struggling with the significant budget deficit, huge public debt, high unemployment rate and a stagnating economy.

  14. Peculiarities of Calculating the Cost of Public Goods (from the Necessary to the Desired: Domestic Realities and European Experience

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    Aleksieieva N. I.

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Social needs and instruments for their satisfaction — public goods — have been studied. Attention is drawn to the fact that social needs are composed of individual and collective needs of economic entities. They are interrelated and complementary. An important difference between individual and collective needs is in their personification (individualization and divisibility. Proper consideration has been paid to concepts related to the needs of society — the public interest (as a form of social needs, public goods (all the goods, services that can satisfy social needs. For studying social needs and benefits in this work there was taken one of the most popular of their classification, which lies in their division into primary and secondary ones. Emphasis is placed on importance of its use in determining the priority of financing public goods. The focus is on the approach to calculating the cost of public goods. It is regarded as one of the stages in satisfying social needs (along with planning and analysis of the degree for their satisfaction. An approach to determining the structure of financing the total volume of public goods, calculating minimum admissible and desired volume of financing has been presented. The current interest in the European experience prompted the authors to analyze the cost and structure of financing public goods in France, the available statistical base allowing it to be implemented. The determined dependence between the indicators enabled conducting calculations of the desired volumes of financing the public needs per person according to three scenarios: optimistic, satisfactory and critical relevant to phases of the economic cycle. This simulation is aimed at being used in management decisionmaking, development of social and economic policy, etc. There have been noted serious shortcomings related to the lack of quality and reliable statistical information on Ukraine, which hamper the calculation and consideration

  15. The great slippery-slope argument.

    OpenAIRE

    Burgess, J A

    1993-01-01

    Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery-slope arguments that are sound and convincing, typical formulations of the Nazi-invoking argument are found to be seriously deficient both in logical rigour and in the social hi...

  16. Environmental Argumentation as Sociocultural Activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oliveira, Alandeom W.; Akerson, Valarie L.; Oldfield, Martha

    2012-01-01

    While environmental argumentation has recently received much attention from science educators, little consideration has been given to how personal identities and social relationships can either support or constrain student argumentation. This study attends to this issue by examining environmental argumentation as a sociocultural activity (how…

  17. Arguments that take Counterconsiderations into Account

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jan Albert van Laar

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines arguments that take counter- considerations into account, and it does so from a dialogical point of view. According to my account, a counterconsideration is part of a critical reaction from a real or imagined opponent, and an arguer may take it into account in his argument in at least six fully responsive ways. Conductive arguments (or: pro and con arguments, balance of con-siderations arguments will be characterized as one of these types. In this manner, the paper aims to show how conducive, and related kinds of argument can be understood dialogically.

  18. In pursuit of goodness in bioethics: analysis of an exemplary article.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofmann, Bjørn; Magelssen, Morten

    2018-06-15

    What is good bioethics? Addressing this question is key for reinforcing and developing the field. In particular, a discussion of potential quality criteria can heighten awareness and contribute to the quality of bioethics publications. Accordingly, the objective of this article is threefold: first, we want to identify a set of criteria for quality in bioethics. Second, we want to illustrate the added value of a novel method: in-depth analysis of a single article with the aim of deriving quality criteria. The third and ultimate goal is to stimulate a broad and vivid debate on goodness in bioethics. An initial literature search reveals a range of diverse quality criteria. In order to expand on the realm of such quality criteria, we perform an in-depth analysis of an article that is acclaimed for being exemplary. The analysis results in eleven specific quality criteria for good bioethics in three categories: argumentative, empirical, and dialectic. Although we do not claim that the identified criteria are universal or absolute, we argue that they are fruitful for fueling a continuous constitutive debate on what is "good bioethics." Identifying, debating, refining, and applying such criteria is an important part of defining and improving bioethics.

  19. Benefits of tolerance in public goods games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Szolnoki, Attila; Chen, Xiaojie

    2015-10-01

    Leaving the joint enterprise when defection is unveiled is always a viable option to avoid being exploited. Although loner strategy helps the population not to be trapped into the tragedy of the commons state, it could offer only a modest income for nonparticipants. In this paper we demonstrate that showing some tolerance toward defectors could not only save cooperation in harsh environments but in fact results in a surprisingly high average payoff for group members in public goods games. Phase diagrams and the underlying spatial patterns reveal the high complexity of evolving states where cyclic dominant strategies or two-strategy alliances can characterize the final state of evolution. We identify microscopic mechanisms which are responsible for the superiority of global solutions containing tolerant players. This phenomenon is robust and can be observed both in well-mixed and in structured populations highlighting the importance of tolerance in our everyday life.

  20. Arguing collaboratively: Argumentative discourse types and their potential for knowledge building.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Felton, Mark; Garcia-Mila, Merce; Villarroel, Constanza; Gilabert, Sandra

    2015-09-01

    There is growing interest in using argumentative discourse in educational settings. However, in a previous study, we found that discourse goals (persuasion vs. consensus) while arguing can affect student outcomes in both content learning and reasoning. In this study, we look at argumentative discourse data from a previous study to ask how differences in discourse might account for the differences we observed in learning and reasoning outcomes. One hundred and five dialogues (57 disputative, 48 consensus) between 7th grade science students attending a public high school near Tarragona, Spain. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions and paired with peers who disagreed with them on three topics related to renewable energy sources. After instruction on each topic, they were asked to either 'argue to convince' (persuasion condition) or 'argue to reach consensus' (consensus condition) on that topic. Conversations were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis. Students in the persuasion condition engaged in shorter conversational exchanges around argumentative claims and were more likely to use moves that foreclosed discussion, whereas students in the consensus condition were more likely to use moves that elicited, elaborated on, and integrated their partners' ideas. When arguing to reach - rather than defend - a conclusion, students are more likely to coconstruct knowledge by exchanging and integrating arguments. These findings are consistent with predictions about the potential of argumentation for knowledge building and suggest that teachers must attend to discourse goals when using argumentation to support learning and reasoning. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

  1. Corruption, investments and contributions to public goods: experimental evidence from rural Liberia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Beekman, G.; Bulte, E.H.; Nillesen, E.E.M.

    2014-01-01

    We analyze how corruption affects incentives to invest or contribute to public goods. We obtain a proxy for corruption among Liberian community leaders by keeping track of a flow of inputs associated with a development intervention, measuring these inputs before and after giving them in custody to

  2. A comment on framing effects in linear public good games

    OpenAIRE

    Cartwright, Edward

    2016-01-01

    A number of recent papers have looked at framing effects in linear public good games. In this comment, I argue that, within this literature, the distinction between give-take and positive–negative framing effects has become blurred, and that this is a barrier towards understanding the experimental evidence on framing effects. To make these points, I first illustrate that frames can differ along both an externality and choice dimension. I then argue that the existing evidence is consistent wit...

  3. Argumentative Men: Expectations of Success.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schullery, Nancy M.

    1999-01-01

    Considers how argumentativeness is linked with several managerial qualities, such as group leadership, better decision-making, and enhanced credibility. Surveys nearly 300 full-time employed men. Shows that men at all levels exhibit the full range of argumentativeness. Finds the mean argumentativeness of supervisors at all levels is significantly…

  4. The great slippery-slope argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burgess, J A

    1993-09-01

    Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery-slope arguments that are sound and convincing, typical formulations of the Nazi-invoking argument are found to be seriously deficient both in logical rigour and in the social history and psychology required as a scholarly underpinning. As an antidote, an attempt is made both to identify some of the likely causes of genocide and to isolate some of the more modest but legitimate fears that lie behind slippery-slope arguments of this kind.

  5. [Honesty and good faith: two cornerstones in the ethics of biomedical publications].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reyes, Humberto

    2007-04-01

    The editors of medical journals should take the steps necessary to assure its readers that the contents of their publications are based in true data, that they are original and fulfill the ethical rules of biomedical and clinical research, including its reporting. This editors role has become increasingly difficult since the pressure to publish scientific papers is progressively stimulated by the role that those papers play in curricula vitae when the authors apply for university positions, academic promotions, research grants and for their personal prestige. As a consequence, increasing instances of misconduct in scientific publications are detected. Some cases are noticed during the editorial process, mostly when peer reviewers identify redundant publications or plagiarism. Other cases are denounced after a manuscript was published. It is the editors duty to verify the misconduct, request an explanation from the authors and, if their answer is unsatisfactory, report the problem to the institutional authorities supporting the authors. The editors should denounce the situation in a forthcoming issue of the journal. Universities should enforce the teaching of ethical rules that govern the report of scientific information. Revista Médica de Chile follows recommendations given by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the World Association of Medical Editors and other groups, but honesty and good faith in all the actors involved in the process of biomedical publications (authors, reviewers, editors) remain the cornerstones of scientific good behavior.

  6. Argument z důsledku a jeho varianty (Argument from Consequences and its variants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martina Juříková

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The article examines the use and evaluation of the argument from consequences, its historical origins since Aristotle through Blaise Pascal, David Hume until the inclusion of this argument into the textbooks of modern logic. The article also recapitulates current evaluation of this argument by Douglas Walton and along with Walton presents its two variants and criteria for evaluating their validity.

  7. Homicides, Public Goods, and Population Health in the Context of High Urban Violence Rates in Cali, Colombia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez, Lina; Prada, Sergio; Estrada, Daniela

    2017-12-04

    Obesity and frequent mental and physical distress are often associated with major health problems. The characteristics of the urban environment, such as homicide rates and public goods provision, play an important role in influencing participation in physical activity and in overall mental health. This study aimed to determine whether there was a relationship between homicide rates and public goods provision on the health outcomes of the citizens of Cali, Colombia, a city known for its high urban violence rate and low municipal investment in public goods. We used a linear probability model to relate homicide rates and public goods provision (lighted parks, effective public space per inhabitant, and bus stations) at the district level to health outcomes (obesity and frequent mental and physical distress). Individual data were obtained from the 2014 CaliBRANDO survey, and urban context characteristics were obtained from official government statistics. After controlling for individual covariates, results showed that homicide rates were a risk factor in all examined outcomes. An increase in 1.0 m 2 of public space per inhabitant reduced the probability of an individual being obese or overweight by 0.2% (95% confidence interval (CI) = - 0.004 to - 0.001) and the probability of frequent physical distress by 0.1% (95% CI = - 0.002 to - 0.001). On average, the presence of one additional bus station increased the probability of being obese or overweight by 1.1%, the probability of frequent mental distress by 0.3% (95% CI = 0.001-0.004), and the probability of frequent physical distress by 0.02% (95% CI = 0.000-0.003). Living in districts with adequate public space and lighted parks lowers the probability of being obese and high homicide rates, which are correlated with poor health outcomes in Cali, Colombia. Investments in public goods provision and urban safety to reduce obesity rates may contribute to a better quality of life for the population.

  8. Universities, Professional Capabilities and Contributions to the Public Good in South Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Melanie

    2012-01-01

    The generation of a public-good, capabilities-based approach to professional education in South African universities is outlined and proposed as a contribution to wider social transformation. The relevance and importance of understanding what Amartya Sen describes as "capability failure" in the lives of people living in poverty is…

  9. Anger Management: Aggression and Punishment in the Provision of Public Goods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura K. Gee

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The ability to punish free-riders can increase the provision of public goods. However, sometimes, the benefit of increased public good provision is outweighed by the costs of punishments. One reason a group may punish to the point that net welfare is reduced is that punishment can express anger about free-riding. If this is the case, then tools that regulate emotions could decrease the use of punishments while keeping welfare high, possibly depending on pre-existing levels of aggression. In this lab experiment, we find that adopting an objective attitude (objective, through a form of emotion regulation called cognitive reappraisal, decreases the use of punishments and makes a statistically insignificant improvement to both net earnings and self-reported emotions compared to a control condition (natural. Although the interaction between the emotion regulation treatment and level of aggression is not significant, only low aggression types reduce their punishments; the results are of the same direction, but statistically insignificant for high aggression types. Overall, our findings suggest that pairing emotion regulation with punishments can decrease the use of punishments without harming monetary and mental welfare.

  10. Publishing a Student-Written Argumentative Dictionary as an eBook

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hill, Ian E. J.

    2015-01-01

    Challenging students to educate the public about how rhetoric functions is a primary impetus of the argumentative dictionary eBook. In this author's classes, "rhetoric" means the communicative tactics and strategies used to motivate actions and beliefs. With its emphasis on open-access rhetorical pedagogy, this project and its impetus…

  11. Omitted Arguments and Complexity of Predication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Port, Martin

    2010-01-01

    This work focuses on the licensing conditions and logical structure of understood-argument constructions, or complement-drop constructions, in English. There are two main types of such arguments: Indefinite Understood Arguments (IUA) and Definite Understood Arguments (DUA). IUA readings occur in such cases in "He ate, He cooked". In such cases,…

  12. Argumentation in Miranda v. Arizona.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1991-01-01

    Investigates the argumentation advanced in briefs, oral arguments, and the Supreme Court's opinion in the case of Miranda versus Arizona. Considers the background of the case, analyzes the argumentation and its influences on the court, and stresses the importance of viewing the Supreme Court as an active participant in the decision-making process.…

  13. Embryos, individuals, and persons: an argument against embryo creation and research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tollefsen, C

    2001-01-01

    One strategy for arguing that it should be legally permissible to create human embryos, or to use spare human embryos, for scientific research purposes involves the claim that such embryos cannot be persons because they are not human individuals while twinning may yet take place. Being a human individual is considered to be by most people a necessary condition for being a human person. I argue first that such an argument against the personhood of embryos must be rationally conclusive if their destruction in public places such as laboratories is to be countenanced. I base this argument on a popular understanding of the role that the notion of privacy plays in abortion laws. I then argue that such arguments against personhood are not rationally conclusive. The claim that the early embryos is not a human individual is not nearly as obvious as some assert.

  14. Evolution of Cooperation in Public Goods Games

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xia Chengyi; Zhang Juanjuan; Wang Jinsong; Wang Yiling

    2011-01-01

    We investigate the evolution of cooperation with evolutionary public goods games based on finite populations, where four pure strategies: cooperators, defectors, punishers and loners who are unwilling to participate are considered. By adopting approximate best response dynamics, we show that the magnitude of rationality not only quantitatively explains the experiment results in [Nature (London) 425 (2003) 390], but also it will heavily influence the evolution of cooperation. Compared with previous results of infinite populations, which result in two equilibriums, we show that there merely exists a special equilibrium and the relevant high value of bounded rationality will sustain cooperation. In addition, we characterize that loner's payoff plays an active role in the maintenance of cooperation, which will only be warranted for the low and moderate values of loner's payoff. It thus indicates the effects of rationality and loner's payoff will influence the cooperation. Finally, we highlight the important result that the introduction of voluntary participation and punishment will facilitate cooperation greatly. (general)

  15. Site. Is there an argument for reinforcing the role of the state?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lina Lourenço

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we trace the emergence of a specific case of cultural policy: the example chosen is a UNESCO World Heritage site, namely the Alto Douro Wine Region (ADW a portuguese living and evolving cultural landscape. In order to contextualize the particularities of the means that have been adopted for the management of the ADW, we use Throsby’s (2001 typology of most commonly-used cultural heritage policy instruments. Additionally we draw on the arguments that are frequently used to support public intervention in this sphere. We conclude that ADW’s management policy should: 1 use binding agreements to operationalize a range of measures that compensate farmers who become providers of cultural products; 2 strengthen education and information so as to promote greater physical access and personal appreciation of the ADW’s cultural goods and services; and 3 formulate an integrated set of social policies able to mitigate the negative socio-demographic trends that characterize the region and its population.

  16. Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Mijung; Roth, Wolff-Michael

    2018-02-01

    To understand students' argumentation abilities, there have been practices that focus on counting and analyzing argumentation schemes such as claim, evidence, warrant, backing, and rebuttal. This analytic approach does not address the dynamics of epistemic criteria of children's reasoning and decision-making in dialogical situations. The common approach also does not address the practice of argumentation in lower elementary grades (K-3) because these children do not master the structure of argumentation and, therefore, are considered not ready for processing argumentative discourse. There is thus little research focusing on lower elementary school students' argumentation in school science. This study, drawing on the societal-historical approach by L. S. Vygotsky, explored children's argumentation as social relations by investigating the genesis of evidence-related practices (especially burden of proof) in second- and third-grade children. The findings show (a) students' capacity for connecting claim and evidence/responding to the burden of proof and critical move varies and (b) that teachers play a significant role to emphasize the importance of evidence but experience difficulties removing children's favored ideas during the turn taking of argumentative dialogue. The findings on the nature of dialogical reasoning and teacher's role provide further insights about discussions on pedagogical approaches to children's reasoning and argumentation.

  17. Arguments from Developmental Order.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stöckle-Schobel, Richard

    2016-01-01

    In this article, I investigate a special type of argument regarding the role of development in theorizing about psychological processes and cognitive capacities. Among the issues that developmental psychologists study, discovering the ontogenetic trajectory of mechanisms or capacities underpinning our cognitive functions ranks highly. The order in which functions are developed or capacities are acquired is a matter of debate between competing psychological theories, and also philosophical conceptions of the mind - getting the role and the significance of the different steps in this order right could be seen as an important virtue of such theories. Thus, a special kind of strategy in arguments between competing philosophical or psychological theories is using developmental order in arguing for or against a given psychological claim. In this article, I will introduce an analysis of arguments from developmental order, which come in two general types: arguments emphasizing the importance of the early cognitive processes and arguments emphasizing the late cognitive processes. I will discuss their role in one of the central tools for evaluating scientific theories, namely in making inferences to the best explanation. I will argue that appeal to developmental order is, by itself, an insufficient criterion for theory choice and has to be part of an argument based on other core explanatory or empirical virtues. I will end by proposing a more concerted study of philosophical issues concerning (cognitive) development, and I will present some topics that also pertain to a full-fledged 'philosophy of development.'

  18. ERISTIC ARGUMENTATION IN ADVERTISING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Skirmantė Biržietienė

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Advertising may be examined as a particular form of rhetoric the aims of which are the same as of rhetoric, namely to affect mind, will, feelings, and to persuade. The theory of rhetoric, the main object of which is discourse not only in narrow meaning (as verbal expression of ideas (i.e. to say text, but also in broad meaning – as a communicative act between the addresser and the addressee since its interdisciplinary nature provides the right tools to explore the advertising discourse. The theory of rhetoric is successfully applied in development of advertising discourse, because it helps to foresee the communicative act between the addresser and the addressee. Advertising and rhetoric are combined by many common elements, but the same goal is the most important: both, rhetoric and advertising seek for persuasion through verbal and non-verbal measures. The paper deals with the analysis of the inventive level of advertising discourse, i.e., eristic arguments, spread of ways of proofing / persuasion. Eristic argumentation is a dominant argumentation type in advertising. This method of persuasion is a way to create truth visibility although it is just superficial. The most typical schemes of eristic argumentation used in advertising are as follows: argumentum ad vanitatem (appeal to the vanity of the addressee, argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to the authority, argumentum baculinum (method of “whip” argument, argumentum ad novitatem (appeal to novelty. The article shows the usage of eristic arguments in Lithuanian commercial ads.

  19. The Dilemma of Accountability and Good Governance for Improved Public Service Delivery in Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kehinde David Adejuwon

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The public sector in Nigeria is irrefutably beset with gross  incompetence and ineffective management. Perplexing difficulties endure in the Nigerian public sector in spite of a number of reform programmes that have been designed to enhance efficient and effective service delivery for almost two decades. The fact that public service has failed dismally to achieve its laudable objectives is the reason for the vote of no confidence passed on its administrators by majority of the Nigerian populace. The article examines the dilemma of accountability and good governance in Nigeria and demonstrates that the critical point in achieving meaningful developments in the country intrinsically lay with improved service delivery in the public sector. The basic reason why the public service has become the scorn of the people is because for too long, both the government and public servants have paid lip service to the crucial issue of effective and efficient service delivery. The article argues that improved service delivery will improve both the performance and the image of public service and re-awaken the citizens’ interest and trust in them to do business with public servants. It suggests that  in order to bring sanity back to the Nigerian Public Service,  all unprofessional tendencies such as ethnicity bias and nepotism in appointments and promotions, lack of security of tenure of office, and appointment of non-career public servants into key positions in the public service must stop. Also,  effective service delivery must be tailored to the circumstances of Nigeria. The study made use of secondary data obtained from various sources. It therefore concludes that without a reawakening of the culture of accountability and transparency lost over the years, the trusting relationship needed to forge between the government and the governed for the actualization of good governance will not materialize.

  20. Chicago neoliberalism versus Cowles planning: perspectives on patents and public goods in Cold War economic thought.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Horn, Robert; Klaes, Matthias

    2011-01-01

    In post-Sputnik America, when many policymakers and social scientists feared the Soviet Union had a technological advantage over the United States, assessing the relative importance of patents for inventive activity and examining whether scientific research constituted a public good were paramount concerns. The neoliberals of the University of Chicago and the planners of the Cowles Commission both spoke to these issues. This paper sheds light on their views on patents and public goods in the late 1950s and early 1960s by examining representatives of Cowles and Chicago, Kenneth Arrow and Ronald Coase, respectively. Furthermore, it evaluates whether their views on patents and public goods clashed with the interests of RAND, at which both Arrow and Coase worked at some point during this time period. The paper argues that the Chicago-neoliberal position of Coase undermined the interests of RAND, while the Cowles-planning conclusions of Arrow furthered those interests. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. Perelman, argument ad hominem et ethos rhétorique Perelman, ad Hominem Argument, and Rhetorical Ethos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Leff

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available La conception de Perelman sur le rôle des personnes dans l’argumentation est l’une des marques les plus caractéristiques de sa rupture avec les hypothèses cartésiennes sur le raisonnement. Alors que le paradigme rationaliste cherchait à minimiser ou à éliminer les considérations personnelles comme étant dilatoires et non pertinentes dans ce cadre, Perelman insiste sur le fait que l’argumentation met inévitablement l’accent sur les personnes spécifiques impliquées dans l’argumentation et que la relation entre le locuteur et ce qui est dit est toujours pertinente et importante. En adoptant cette position, Perelman ressuscite implicitement la conception classique de la preuve par le caractère (argument par l’ethos ou « ethotique ». Mais, bien que la Nouvelle Rhétorique consacre une large place au débat sur l’acte et la personne dans l’argumentation, elle n’accorde pas beaucoup de réflexion au concept classique et mélange différentes approches à l’intérieur de la tradition. Le résultat est que Perelman traite le rôle du locuteur dans l’argumentation uniquement en référence à des techniques abstraites et ne prend pas en compte l’importance de l’examen des cas particuliers pour éclairer la compréhension du fonctionnement de l’argument ethotique en situation dans le contexte complexe de son utilisation effective. Par conséquent, la prise en compte par Perelman du rôle de la personne dans l’argumentation doit être complétée par la référence à des études de cas et c’est dans ce but que j’étudie l’argument ethotique dans le célèbre essai de W. E. B. DuBois « Sur M. Booker T. Washington et autres ».Perelman’s view of the role of persons in argument is one of the most distinctive features of his break with Cartesian assumptions about reasoning. Whereas the Rationalist paradigm sought to minimize or eliminate personal considerations by dismissing them as distracting and

  2. The Social Nature of Argumentative Practices: The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception

    OpenAIRE

    Paula Olmos

    2018-01-01

    Abstract: This article reviews Christopher W. Tindale’s The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception (Cambridge, 2015). Résumé: Cet article est une critique de The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception (Cambridge, 2015) de Christopher W. Tindale.

  3. Visual Graphics for Human Rights, Social Justice, Democracy and the Public Good

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nanackchand, Vedant; Berman, Kim

    2012-01-01

    The value of human rights in a democratic South Africa is constantly threatened and often waived for nefarious reasons. We contend that the use of visual graphics among incoming university visual art students provides a mode of engagement that helps to inculcate awareness of human rights, social responsibility, and the public good in South African…

  4. Arguments from Developmental Order

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard eStöckle-Schobel

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available In this article, I investigate a special type of argument regarding the role of development in theorising about psychological processes and cognitive capacities. Among the issues that developmental psychologists study, discovering the ontogenetic trajectory of mechanisms or capacities underpinning our cognitive functions ranks highly. The order in which functions are developed or capacities are acquired is a matter of debate between competing psychological theories, and also philosophical conceptions of the mind – getting the role and the significance of the different steps in this order right could be seen as an important virtue of such theories.Thus, a special kind of strategy in arguments between competing philosophical or psychological theories is using developmental order in arguing for or against a given psychological claim. In this article, I will introduce an analysis of arguments from developmental order, which come in two general types: arguments emphasising the importance of the early cognitive processes and arguments emphasising the late cognitive processes. I will discuss their role in one of the central tools for evaluating scientific theories, namely in making inferences to the best explanation. I will argue that appeal to developmental order is, by itself, an insufficient criterion for theory choice and has to be part of an argument based on other core explanatory or empirical virtues. I will end by proposing a more concerted study of philosophical issues concerning (cognitive development, and I will present some topics that also pertain to a full-fledged ‘philosophy of development’.

  5. The Connection and Distinction between the Design Argument with the Teleological Argument and the Best Creational System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Farah Ramin

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available The design argument faced with big different writings in its Western background so that these writings have essential difference with each others. The design argument is posteriori demonstration for the existence of God which by analogy or induction and partial or general instances of the order in nature tries to affirm the intelligent designer.  Since the concepts of design and end have firm connection with each other in the Western writings of this design but the concepts of purposiveness of divine acts, purposiveness of nature and its best system is assumed the same with each other and obvious confusion has been made between the design argument with the teleological argument and the best creational system. The aim of the article is to consider order in the world based upon the united components of a system (design argument, final cause (teleological argument and best system (best creational system argument and also to manifest the connection and distinction of these three reasoning. 

  6. Is the publication of exit poll results morally permissible?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sønderholm, Jørn

    2016-01-01

    This article is about exit polls. It addresses the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to publish exit poll results. The conclusion of the article is that an affirmative answer should be given to this question. In section 2, the master argument in favor of the moral permissibility...... of the publication of exit poll results is introduced. This is a strong argument. It is, however, argued that it might be the case that the conclusion of this argument should be rejected if there are other, and weightier, arguments against the idea that the publication of exit poll results is morally permissible....... In section 3, the strongest arguments against the moral permissibility of the publication of exit poll results are outlined and discussed. The conclusion of this section is that all these arguments fail in their intended purpose. The conclusion of the article is therefore justified....

  7. Communal range defence in primates as a public goods dilemma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willems, Erik P; Arseneau, T Jean M; Schleuning, Xenia; van Schaik, Carel P

    2015-12-05

    Classic socio-ecological theory holds that the occurrence of aggressive range defence is primarily driven by ecological incentives, most notably by the economic defendability of an area or the resources it contains. While this ecological cost-benefit framework has great explanatory power in solitary or pair-living species, comparative work on group-living primates has always found economic defendability to be a necessary, but not sufficient condition to account for the distribution of effective range defence across the taxon. This mismatch between theory and observation has recently been ascribed to a collective action problem among group members in, what is more informatively viewed as, a public goods dilemma: mounting effective defence of a communal range against intrusions by outgroup conspecifics. We here further develop this framework, and report on analyses at three levels of biological organization: across species, across populations within a single lineage and across groups and individuals within a single population. We find that communal range defence in primates very rarely involves collective action sensu stricto and that it is best interpreted as the outcome of opportunistic and strategic individual-level decisions. Whether the public good of a defended communal range is produced by solitary, joint or collective action is thus the outcome of the interplay between the unique characteristics of each individual, local and current socio-ecological conditions, and fundamental life-history traits of the species. © 2015 The Author(s).

  8. Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision

    OpenAIRE

    Gallier, Carlo; Goeschl, Timo; Kesternich, Martin; Lohse, Johannes; Reif, Christiane; Römer, Daniel

    2017-01-01

    Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from social identity theory and in-group favoritism raises the possibility that where higher-level provision is more efficient, subjects’ narrow concern for local outcomes (parochialism) could harm efficiency. Building on the experimental paradigm of multi-level public good games and the ‘neighborhood attachment’ concept, we conduct an artefactual field experiment with 600 participants in a setting conducive to parochial...

  9. Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test: A Study of Validity and Reliability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehmet Emrah Karadere

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test:A Study of Validity and Reliability Objective: The aim of our study is to research reliability and validity and to evaluate the usability of Turkish version of Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test (RIAT in Turkish healty population. Method: 51 healty volunteers who work in Ankara Dıskapi Yildirim Beyazit Research and Training Hospital participated in this study. Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test (RIAT was translated into Turkish by three clinical good knowledge of English. Participants were given a sociodemographic data form, and RIAT were performed by clinicians. To test the reliability of the Turkish version of RIAT, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated and the halving method was used for the test. Results: The internal consistency of the Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test (RIAT items, Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficient measurements of 0.73 was found to be statistically significant. Spearman-Brown coefficient that determines the reliability of the whole test r=0.74 was found. Kurtosis values of all the items was below 1.5 and the percentages in the second evaluation were mainly lower. At the same time, both change in belief between self produced RIAT options and given RIAT options (p=0.02, z=-2296 as well as changes in beliefs between related and unrelated items for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD difference (p=0.03, z=-2.199 were significant. Conclusion: The preliminary data obtained from the study of reliability and validity of the scale shows that ‘Reasoning with Inductive Argument Test’ supports reliability and validity in Turkish population.

  10. Zero expression of arguments in Old Danish

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Heltoft, Lars

    2014-01-01

    arguments in Scanic are semantically different from pronouns, and therefore pronouns and zero arguments are not variants. At one level, zero arguments and pronouns are similar with respect to function, namely to supply means for establishing co-reference in text; however, they are not semantically...... equivalent. By reducing these two categories to one single underlying category, such as pro, one would miss this point. On the contrary, zero arguments are arguably full-bodied signs with their own content, thus corresponding to Melčuk’s Zero Sign Introduction Principle.......Old Scandinavian (represented here by Old Danish) allowed zero arguments (null-arguments) in any nominal (argument) position, that is: for NPs as subjects, objects and in PPs. In generative grammar, zero arguments are held to be variants of pronouns, but in this article, I shall claim that zero...

  11. Modeling non-monotonic properties under propositional argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Geng; Lin, Zuoquan

    2013-03-01

    In the field of knowledge representation, argumentation is usually considered as an abstract framework for nonclassical logic. In this paper, however, we'd like to present a propositional argumentation framework, which can be used to closer simulate a real-world argumentation. We thereby argue that under a dialectical argumentation game, we can allow non-monotonic reasoning even under classical logic. We introduce two methods together for gaining nonmonotonicity, one by giving plausibility for arguments, the other by adding "exceptions" which is similar to defaults. Furthermore, we will give out an alternative definition for propositional argumentation using argumentative models, which is highly related to the previous reasoning method, but with a simple algorithm for calculation.

  12. An improved public goods game model with reputation effect on the spatial lattices

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhou, Tianwei; Ding, Shuai; Fan, Wenjuan; Wang, Hao

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • The reputation effect is added into the spatial public goods game model. • The individual utility is calculated as a combination of payoff and reputation. • The individual reputation will be adaptively modified as the system evolves. • The larger the reputation factor, the higher the cooperation level. - Abstract: How to model the evolution of cooperation within the population is an important and interdisciplinary issue across the academia. In this paper, we propose an improved public goods game model with reputation effect on spatial lattices to investigate the evolution of cooperation regarding the allocation of public resources. In our model, we modify the individual utility or fitness as a product of the present payoff and reputation-related power function, and strategy update adopts a Fermi-like probability function during the game evolution. Meanwhile, for an interaction between a pair of partners, the reputation of a cooperative agent will be accrued beyond two units, but the defective player will decrease his reputation by one unit. Extensive Monte Carlo numerical simulations indicate the introduction of reputation will foster the formation of cooperative clusters, and greatly enhance the level of public cooperation on the spatial lattices. The larger reputation factor leads to the higher cooperation level since the reputation effect will be enormously embedded into the utility evaluation under this scenario. The current results are vastly beneficial to understand the persistence and emergence of cooperation among many natural, social and synthetic systems, and also provide some useful suggestions to devise the feasible social governance measures and modes for the public resources or affairs.

  13. Argudas: lessons for argumentation in biology based on a gene expression use case.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLeod, Kenneth; Ferguson, Gus; Burger, Albert

    2012-01-25

    In situ hybridisation gene expression information helps biologists identify where a gene is expressed. However, the databases that republish the experimental information online are often both incomplete and inconsistent. Non-monotonic reasoning can help resolve such difficulties - one such form of reasoning is computational argumentation. Essentially this involves asking a computer to debate (i.e. reason about) the validity of a particular statement. Arguments are produced for both sides - the statement is true and, the statement is false - then the most powerful argument is used. In this work the computer is asked to debate whether or not a gene is expressed in a particular mouse anatomical structure. The information generated during the debate can be passed to the biological end-user, enabling their own decision-making process. This paper examines the evolution of a system, Argudas, which tests using computational argumentation in an in situ gene hybridisation gene expression use case. Argudas reasons using information extracted from several different online resources that publish gene expression information for the mouse. The development and evaluation of two prototypes is discussed. Throughout a number of issues shall be raised including the appropriateness of computational argumentation in biology and the challenges faced when integrating apparently similar online biological databases. From the work described in this paper it is clear that for argumentation to be effective in the biological domain the argumentation community need to develop further the tools and resources they provide. Additionally, the biological community must tackle the incongruity between overlapping and adjacent resources, thus facilitating the integration and modelling of biological information. Finally, this work highlights both the importance of, and difficulty in creating, a good model of the domain.

  14. The Public Good and Academic Capitalism: Science and Engineering Doctoral Students and Faculty on the Boundary of Knowledge Regimes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Szelényi, Katalin; Bresonis, Kate

    2014-01-01

    This article examines the research-related experiences of 48 doctoral students and 22 faculty in science and engineering fields at three research universities, with specific emphasis on the intersection of the public good and academic capitalism. Identifying an expansive, intersecting organizational space between the public good and academic…

  15. The Effect of Task Instructions on Students' Use of Repetition in Argumentative Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilabert, Sandra; Garcia-Mila, Merce; Felton, Mark K.

    2013-11-01

    The reasoning belief of argumentum ad nauseam assumes that when someone repeats something often enough, he or she becomes more convincing. The present paper analyses the use of this strategy by seventh-grade students in an argumentation task. Sixty-five students (mean age: 12.2, SD = 0.4) from a public school in a mid-sized urban environment took part in the study. The students were asked to either argue to convince an opposing partner or argue to reach consensus with an opposing partner on three dilemmas that dealt with energy sources. Data were gathered according to a between-groups design that included one independent variable (argumentative goal: to convince vs. to reach consensus) and one dependent variable (the degree of argumentative repetitions). We predicted that in the condition to convince their partner, the students would use the repetition strategy more often in their attempts to be persuasive. Our findings show that the mean number of argumentative repetitions was significantly higher for the persuasion group for both of the most frequent argumentative structures (claim and claim data). The mean percentage of repeated claims for the persuasion condition was 86.2 vs. 69.0 for the consensus condition. For the claim data, the mean percentage for the persuasion group was 35.2 vs. 24.3 for the consensus group. Also, students in the persuasion group tended to repeat one idea many times rather than repeating many ideas a few times within the same argumentative structure. The results of our study support the hypothesis that the goal of the argumentative task mediates argumentative discourse and, more concretely, the rate of repetitions and the conceptual diversity of the statements. These differences in rates of repetition and conceptual diversity are related to the amount of learning produced by the instructional goal. We apply Mercer's idea that not all classroom argumentation tasks promote learning equally.

  16. The Abuses of Argument: Understanding Fallacies on Toulmin’s Layout of Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew Pineau

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides a preliminary account of fallacies on Toulmin’s model of argument, one that improves upon previous attempts to understand fallacies on this argument scheme. To do this Johnson and Blair’s (1983 taxonomy of three basic fallacies (irrelevant reason, hasty conclusion and problematic premise is examined using Toulmin’s layout.

  17. Nominalized clauses, clausal arguments and agreement

    OpenAIRE

    Picallo, M. Carme

    2001-01-01

    Strict minimalist assumptions require adopting the hypothesis that argument clauses and nominalized clauses are assigned Phi features. The data examined suggest that the interpretable Phi content of these arguments is specified as [-P, -N, -G]. We conclude that all arguments (of the clausal or of the nominal types) are subject to the operation Agree with a functional category. All arguments behave alike as far as abstract computational operations is concerned. The computational component is b...

  18. The Binomial Coefficient for Negative Arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Kronenburg, M. J.

    2011-01-01

    The definition of the binomial coefficient in terms of gamma functions also allows non-integer arguments. For nonnegative integer arguments the gamma functions reduce to factorials, leading to the well-known Pascal triangle. Using a symmetry formula for the gamma function, this definition is extended to negative integer arguments, making the symmetry identity for binomial coefficients valid for all integer arguments. The agreement of this definition with some other identities and with the bin...

  19. Federalism, Education-Related Public Good and Growth when Agents are Heterogeneou

    OpenAIRE

    Floriana Cerniglia; Riccarda Longaretti

    2008-01-01

    In this paper we use an endogeneous-growth model with human capital and heterogeneous agents to analyse the relationship between fiscal federalism and economic growth. Results show that federalism, which allows education-related public good levels to be tailored on the human capital of heterogeneous agents, increases human capital accumulation. This in turn leads to higher rates of growth. The benefits of federalism are stronger the larger the intra-jurisdiction variance of agents’ human capi...

  20. Rethinking the Argumentative Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneer, David

    2014-01-01

    This article investigates the construction of the argumentative essay as it is commonly presented in academic writing textbooks and classrooms for English language learners. The author first examines the traditional three-stage structure (thesis-argument-conclusion) and then problematizes it within a genre-based approach to academic writing. He…

  1. Learners' Epistemic Criteria for Good Scientific Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pluta, William J.; Chinn, Clark A.; Duncan, Ravit Golan

    2011-01-01

    Epistemic criteria are the standards used to evaluate scientific products (e.g., models, evidence, arguments). In this study, we analyzed epistemic criteria for good models generated by 324 middle-school students. After evaluating a range of scientific models, but before extensive instruction or experience with model-based reasoning practices,…

  2. Non-Discriminating Arguments and Their Uses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Henning; Gallagher, John Patrick

    2009-01-01

    We present a technique for identifying predicate arguments that play no role in determining the control flow of a logic program with respect to goals satisfying given mode and sharing restrictions.  We call such arguments non-discriminating arguments. We show that such arguments can be detected...... by an automatic analysis. Following this, we define a transformation procedure, called discriminator slicing, that removes the non-discriminating arguments, resulting in a program whose computation trees are isomorphic to those of the original program.  Finally, we show how the results of the original program can...... be reconstructed from trace of the transformed program with the original arguments.   Thus the overall result is a two-stage execution of a program, which can be applied usefully in several contexts;  we describe a case study in optimising computations in the probabilistic logic program language PRISM, and discuss...

  3. E's Are Good: Standards of Quality in Public Administration as Reflected in Discourse on Canadian Public Policy Design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Dana Lee; Miller, Audrey Anna; Bratton, Todd

    2015-01-01

    Promoting understanding of quality in the context of good governance can be a challenging classroom exercise not only because of the potential for hijacking politicization of the discussion, but also because of the variety of ways in which public sector goals can be defined, even in the context of a single policy. Standards of quality in the…

  4. Why do bacteria regulate public goods by quorum sensing?-How the shapes of cost and benefit functions determine the form of optimal regulation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Heilmann, Silja; Krishna, Sandeep; Kerr, Benjamin

    2015-01-01

    as a function of population size (the optimal production curve, OPC) depends crucially on the cost and benefit functions of the public good and that the OPC will fall into one of two categories: Either it is continuous or it jumps from zero discontinuously at a critical population size. If, e.g., the public...... good has accelerating returns and linear cost, then the OPC is discontinuous and the best strategy thus to ramp up production sharply at a precise population size. By using the example of public goods with accelerating and diminishing returns (and linear cost) we are able to determine how the two......Many bacteria secrete compounds which act as public goods. Such compounds are often under quorum sensing (QS) regulation, yet it is not understood exactly when bacteria may gain from having a public good under QS regulation. Here, we show that the optimal public good production rate per cell...

  5. The argument from moral psychology

    OpenAIRE

    Milevski, Voin

    2015-01-01

    The argument from moral psychology is one of the strongest arguments that non-cognitivists use against cognitivism-the metaethical position according to which our moral judgements express beliefs. According to this argument, once we put together the Humean theory of motivation and motivational internalism, we yield the conclusion that cognitivism cannot represent the correct view about the semantic function of moral discourse. I will first attempt to show that a neurological syndrome, called ...

  6. Improving practical reasoning and argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Baumtrog, Michael David

    2015-01-01

    This thesis justifies the need for and develops a new integrated model of practical reasoning and argumentation. After framing the work in terms of what is reasonable rather than what is rational (chapter 1), I apply the model for practical argumentation analysis and evaluation provided by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) to a paradigm case of unreasonable individual practical argumentation provided by mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik (chapter 2). The application shows that by following t...

  7. Social values as arguments: similar is convincing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maio, Gregory R.; Hahn, Ulrike; Frost, John-Mark; Kuppens, Toon; Rehman, Nadia; Kamble, Shanmukh

    2014-01-01

    Politicians, philosophers, and rhetors engage in co-value argumentation: appealing to one value in order to support another value (e.g., “equality leads to freedom”). Across four experiments in the United Kingdom and India, we found that the psychological relatedness of values affects the persuasiveness of the arguments that bind them. Experiment 1 found that participants were more persuaded by arguments citing values that fulfilled similar motives than by arguments citing opposing values. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this result using a wider variety of values, while finding that the effect is stronger among people higher in need for cognition and that the effect is mediated by the greater plausibility of co-value arguments that link motivationally compatible values. Experiment 4 extended the effect to real-world arguments taken from political propaganda and replicated the mediating effect of argument plausibility. The findings highlight the importance of value relatedness in argument persuasiveness. PMID:25147529

  8. Social Values as Arguments: Similar is Convincing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gregory R Maio

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Politicians, philosophers, and rhetors engage in co-value argumentation: appealing to one value in order to support another value (e.g., equality leads to freedom. Across four experiments in the United Kingdom and India, we found that the psychological relatedness of values affects the persuasiveness of the arguments that bind them. Experiment 1 found that participants were more persuaded by arguments citing values that fulfilled similar motives than by arguments citing opposing values. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this result using a wider variety of values, while finding that the effect is stronger among people higher in need for cognition and that the effect is mediated by the greater plausibility of co-value arguments that link motivationally compatible values. Experiment 4 extended the effect to real-world arguments taken from political propaganda and replicated the mediating effect of argument plausibility. The findings highlight the importance of value relatedness in argument persuasiveness.

  9. Reconsidering Kantian arguments against organ selling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alpinar-Şencan, Zümrüt

    2016-03-01

    Referring to Kant's arguments addressing the moral relationship between our bodies and ourselves is quite common in contemporary debate about organ selling, although he does not provide us with any specific arguments related to this debate. It is widely argued that the most promising way to show the moral impermissibility of organ selling is to mount an argument on Kantian grounds. This paper asks whether it is possible to argue coherently against organ selling in a Kantian framework. It will be shown that by mounting the argument on Kantian grounds no compelling argument can be given against sale of organs, either because the arguments apply to donation of organs, too, or the arguments are not convincing for other independent reasons. In the first section, it will be argued that donation and selling are not distinguishable in a Kantian framework, since the concern about commodification of the body and its parts shall be raised by both actions. In the second section, some contemporary accounts inspired by Kant will be presented and discussed separately. It will be argued that the reasons for promoting organ donation while arguing against selling clash with each other in an unconvincing way.

  10. Arguments from parallel reasoning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert; Ribeiro, H.J.

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation is a co-production by a proponent and an opponent who engage in a critical examination of their difference of opinion, aiming to resolve it on the merits of both sides, or so I assume in this paper. I shall investigate the consequences of this view for a particular type of argument

  11. The students’ mathematical argumentation in geometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sukirwan; Darhim; Herman, T.; Prahmana, R. C. I.

    2017-12-01

    The main objective of this research is to analyze the student's mathematical argumentation when dealing with geometry. The method is used qualitative method with grounded theory to know how the students provide an explanation or an answer against claims so that the quality of the vernacular students will be drawn up with clear from how students compose a series of arguments. The results showed that there were still many students basically experiencing constraints in argumentation, but the quality of the reasoning appears to be a variation of the argument appeared, include: inductive, algebra, visual and perceptual. In addition, the starting point of the students composes a series of arguments generally starts from claims that arise in a matter. Proof of claim further builds upon the relationship between the characteristics of data with mathematical objects that appear in the acquired mathematical knowledge from previous students. Relationship spelled out in a series of statements and reasons which support the claims through the fourth argument.

  12. Which type of leader do I support in step-level public good dilemmas? The roles of level of threshold and trust.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Cremer, David

    2007-02-01

    The present research examined the moderating effect of the level of threshold on people's preferences for different leader types in step-level public good dilemmas. It was assumed that the primary focus of people in step-level public good dilemmas is to make sure that the group surpasses the threshold. Consequently, when the level of threshold is difficult to reach people are expected to provide more support for and cooperate with a leader that monitors and controls the contributions made toward the public good. However, if the threshold is easy to surpass people will focus more on whether the obtained public good or bonus will be distributed according to agreements, suggesting that people will provide more support to and cooperate with a leader that monitors and controls the distribution of the bonus. These predictions were confirmed across two experiments using a step-level public good paradigm with a dichotomous (Study 1) and a continuous (Study 2) contribution choice. Moreover, the results also revealed that perceptions of trust accounted, in part, for the effect of level of threshold on people's leadership preferences.

  13. Delle maniere inusuali nel trattare argomenti insoliti - Unusual ways to treat unusual arguments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Luigi Palmisano

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available All those social and political projects aiming at the promotion of justice and morality have been labelled “utopia” – even if they will not be realized – after the publication of Thomas More’s work. But a specialist of rhetoric, and a fortiori an able rhetorician such as More, connected the word topoi first of all with the meaning loci communes, just like Aristotle, Cicerone and Boezio: recurrent arguments, organized in a conventional shape, even stereotyped and functional to the construction of the oration. The persuasive tale realized by the rhetorician. And the island of More, to More’s own eyes and to the eyes and ears of his readers and listeners, was anything but a recurrent argument or stereotype, and still less an dialectic argumentation: it actually was a “non-topos”. The article also suggests that it is essentially thanks to its non dialectic style of argumentation that the actual history of utopia and utopian thought settled between philosophy and fiction, theology and politology, economy and sociology, science and science fiction.

  14. The Illusion of Argument Justification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Matthew; Keil, Frank

    2013-01-01

    Argumentation is an important way to reach new understanding. Strongly caring about an issue, which is often evident when dealing with controversial issues, has been shown to lead to biases in argumentation. We suggest that people are not well calibrated in assessing their ability to justify a position through argumentation, an effect we call the illusion of argument justification. Furthermore we find that caring about the issue further clouds this introspection. We first show this illusion by measuring the difference between ratings before and after producing an argument for one’s own position. The strength of the illusion is predicted by the strength of care for a given issue (Study 1). The tacit influences of framing and priming do not override the effects of emotional investment in a topic (Study 2). However, explicitly considering counterarguments removes the effect of care when initially assessing the ability to justify a position (Study 3). Finally, we consider our findings in light of other recent research and discuss the potential benefits of group reasoning. PMID:23506085

  15. Argumentation, rationality, and psychology of reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Godden

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available This paper explicates an account of argumentative rationality by articulating the common, basic idea of its nature, and then identifying a collection of assumptions inherent in it. Argumentative rationality is then contrasted with dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality prevalent in the psychology of reasoning. It is argued that argumentative rationality properly corresponds only with system-2 reasoning in dual-process theories. This result challenges the prescriptive force of argumentative norms derives if they derive at all from their descriptive accuracy of our cognitive capacities. In response, I propose an activity-based account of reasoning which retains the assumptions of argumentative rationality while recontextualizing the relationship between reasoning as a justificatory activity and the psychological states and processes underlying that activity.

  16. Scientific data as argument: The case of sexual partners reduction in HIV prevention in Brasil

    OpenAIRE

    Dolores Galindo

    2003-01-01

    This article dicusses the use of scientific facts as argument for a 1999 Brazilian debate about the legitimacy of an official aids prevention policy. It seeks to defamiliarized a common aids argumentative practice which uses a classification of a scientific public health measure as a main legitimacy judgement. It is argued that it is peoples? negotiations and objects? mobilization that gives legitimacy to the implementation of a prevention estrategy ? acccording to a Social Psicology of scien...

  17. Why do bacteria regulate public goods by quorum sensing? - How the shapes of cost and benefit functions determine the form of optimal regulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silja eHeilmann

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Many bacteria secrete compounds, which act as public goods. Such compounds are often under quorum sensing (QS regulation, yet it is not understood exactly when bacteria may gain from having a public good under QS regulation.Here, we show that the optimal public good production rate per cell as a function of population size (the optimal production curve, OPC depend crucially on the cost and benefit functions of the public good and that the OPC will fall into one of two categories: Either it is continuous or it jumps from zero discontinuously at a critical population size.If, e.g., the public good has accelerating returns and linear cost, then the OPC is discontinuous and the best strategy thus to ramp up production sharply at a precise population size.By using the example of public goods with accelerating and diminishing returns (and linear cost we are able to determine how the two different categories of OPSs, can best be matched by production regulated through a QS signal feeding back on its own production. We find that the optimal QS parameters are different for the two categories and specifically that public goods, which provide accelerating returns, call for stronger positive signal feedback.

  18. Attorney Argumentation and Supreme Court Opinions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1989-01-01

    Investigates the relationship between argumentation advanced by attorneys in four Supreme Court cases and the reasoning proffered by the Court in its decisions in those cases. Finds attorney argumentation sometimes irrelevant to the Court's reasoning and sometimes adopted by the Court. Offers a perspective on argumentation and decision making to…

  19. Revisiting the argument from fetal potential

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manninen Bertha

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract One of the most famous, and most derided, arguments against the morality of abortion is the argument from potential, which maintains that the fetus' potential to become a person and enjoy the valuable life common to persons, entails that its destruction is prima facie morally impermissible. In this paper, I will revisit and offer a defense of the argument from potential. First, I will criticize the classical arguments proffered against the importance of fetal potential, specifically the arguments put forth by philosophers Peter Singer and David Boonin, by carefully unpacking the claims made in these arguments and illustrating why they are flawed. Secondly, I will maintain that fetal potential is morally relevant when it comes to the morality of abortion, but that it must be accorded a proper place in the argument. This proper place, however, cannot be found until we first answer a very important and complex question: we must first address the issue of personal identity, and when the fetus becomes the type of being who is relevantly identical to a future person. I will illustrate why the question of fetal potential can only be meaningfully addressed after we have first answered the question of personal identity and how it relates to the human fetus.

  20. Social Argumentation in Online Synchronous Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alagoz, Esra

    2013-01-01

    The ability to argue well is a valuable skill for students in both formal and informal learning environments. While many studies have explored the argumentative practices in formal environments and some researchers have developed tools to enhance the argumentative skills, the social argumentation that is occurring in informal spaces has yet to be…

  1. Is it good to make happy people?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rachels, Stuart

    1998-04-01

    Would it be good, other things being equal, for additional people to exist whose lives would be worth living? I examine and reject several arguments for the answer that it would not be good; then I offer opposing arguments that I believe are more successful. Thus, I agree with utilitarians who say that it is better for there to be more happy people. Next I argue for the stronger claim that the happiness of potential people is as important as that of adults. Potential quality of life, then, matters in a host of bioethical issues: abortion, commercial surrogacy, the treatment of defective newborns, and so on. What is the practical upshot of all this? I reject the idea that we must do whatever is necessary to prolong life worth living. But I also reject the view that the side-effects of overpopulation always outweigh the value of realizing potential happiness. So I advocate a middle position, which I do not identify precisely. Even from this middle position, however, potential happiness is more important that is commonly assumed in bioethics.

  2. Law-based arguments and messages to advocate for later school start time policies in the United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Clark J; Nolan, Dennis M; Lockley, Steven W; Pattison, Brent

    2017-12-01

    The increasing scientific evidence that early school start times are harmful to the health and safety of teenagers has generated much recent debate about changing school start times policies for adolescent students. Although efforts to promote and implement such changes have proliferated in the United States in recent years, they have rarely been supported by law-based arguments and messages that leverage the existing legal infrastructure regulating public education and child welfare in the United States. Furthermore, the legal bases to support or resist such changes have not been explored in detail to date. This article provides an overview of how law-based arguments and messages can be constructed and applied to advocate for later school start time policies in US public secondary schools. The legal infrastructure impacting school start time policies in the United States is briefly reviewed, including descriptions of how government regulates education, what legal obligations school officials have concerning their students' welfare, and what laws and public policies currently exist that address adolescent sleep health and safety. On the basis of this legal infrastructure, some hypothetical examples of law-based arguments and messages that could be applied to various types of advocacy activities (eg, litigation, legislative and administrative advocacy, media and public outreach) to promote later school start times are discussed. Particular consideration is given to hypothetical arguments and messages aimed at emphasizing the consistency of later school start time policies with existing child welfare law and practices, legal responsibilities of school officials and governmental authorities, and societal values and norms. Copyright © 2017 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. 77 FR 14417 - Notice of Temporary Closure on Public Lands in Gooding and Elmore Counties, ID

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-03-09

    ...] Notice of Temporary Closure on Public Lands in Gooding and Elmore Counties, ID AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior. ACTION: Notice of temporary closure. SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Blair Fire closure to motorized vehicle use is in effect on public lands administered by the Four Rivers and...

  4. The Possibilities for University-Based Public-Good Professional Education: A Case-Study from South Africa Based on the "Capability Approach"

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLean, Monica; Walker, Melanie

    2012-01-01

    The education of professionals oriented to poverty reduction and the public good is the focus of the article. Sen's "capability approach" is used to conceptualise university-based professional education as a process of developing public-good professional capabilities. The main output of a research project on professional education in…

  5. Argument Strength and the Persuasiveness of Stories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schreiner, Constanze; Appel, Markus; Isberner, Maj-Britt; Richter, Tobias

    2017-01-01

    ABSTRACT Stories are a powerful means to change people’s attitudes and beliefs. The aim of the current work was to shed light on the role of argument strength (argument quality) in narrative persuasion. The present study examined the influence of strong versus weak arguments on attitudes in a low or high narrative context. Moreover, baseline attitudes, interindividual differences in working memory capacity, and recipients’ transportation were examined. Stories with strong arguments were more persuasive than stories with weak arguments. This main effect was qualified by a two-way interaction with baseline attitude, revealing that argument strength had a greater impact on individuals who initially were particularly doubtful toward the story claim. Furthermore, we identified a three-way interaction showing that argument strength mattered most for recipients who were deeply transported into the story world in stories that followed a typical narrative structure. These findings provide an important specification of narrative persuasion theory. PMID:29805322

  6. L’argumentation dans le discours d’information médiatique Argumentation in Media Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wander Emediato

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available L’article présente quelques éléments de réflexion susceptibles de contribuer au développement d’une étude sur l’argumentation dans le discours d’information médiatique. Dans cette perspective, il poursuit deux objectifs complémentaires. L’un, d’ordre géneral, consiste à montrer comment les trois approches dominantes de l’argumentation (logique, linguistique et rhétorique sont à la fois différenciées, et étroitement imbriquées dans l’analyse du discours de presse. La seconde concerne le fonctionnement du discours d’information dans la presse et la façon dont il met en place, par des opérations de cadrage, d’effacement énonciatif, d’ellipses, etc. une « dimension argumentative » (Amossy 2000 : sans avoir une visée argumentative avouée, il se propose néanmoins d’agir sur les croyances et les représentations du lecteur. A titre d’exemple, l’étude traite d’un corpus de titres empruntés essentiellement à la presse brésilienne.This paper aims at contributing to the development of argumentation studies in the field of media discourse, and within this perspective, it presents two main complementary objectives. Firstly, it strives at showing how the three main approaches to argumentation (logical, linguistic and rhetoric are both distinct and closely interconnected in the analysis of media discourse. The second objective concerns the functioning of the selected genre of discourse: the paper examines how, through procedures of framing, obliteration of the enunciative modality, ellipses, etc., media discourse sets up an “argumentative dimension” (Amossy 2000. Although not overtly intended for persuasion, media discourse nevertheless sets out to act upon the reader’s beliefs and representations. These issues are tackled through the analysis of a sample of headlines mostly borrowed from the Brazilian press.

  7. L'argumentation dans la langue (Argumentation in Language)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anscombre, J. C.; Ducrot, O.

    1976-01-01

    Questions the current distinction between semantics and pragmatics, and develops a theory of "argumentative scales" (Ducrot 1973), as well as a semantic model with three components and a revision of the notion of "illocutionary." (Text is in French.) (CDSH/AM)

  8. Rhétorique et argumentation : approches croisées Current Approaches to Rhetoric and Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roselyne Koren

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available 1. Considérations théoriques (Ruth AmossyL’intérêt croissant qui se manifeste aujourd’hui pour l’argumentation dans les études francophones n’est pas sans appeler quelques clarifications. Ducrot, qui a joué un rôle déterminant dans le regain des études argumentatives en France, s’y est récemment employé en différenciant nettement ce qu’il appelle « l’argumentation linguistique » et « l’argumentation rhétorique ». La première, dont il est l’un des promoteurs et le tenant, se définit contre « ...

  9. Improving the argumentative skills of high school students through teacher’s questioning techniques and argumentative assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kristianti, T. P.; Ramli, M.; Ariyanto, J.

    2018-05-01

    This research aims to know how students’ argumentative skills improved by applying teacher’s questioning techniques and argumentative assessment through collaborative action research between college student who did teaching practicum, biology teacher as tutor teacher, and lecturers. The action research was done in three cycles involving one class consisted of 36 eleventh graders. Lesson plans were developed collaboratively, and teaching practices were by the student teacher. In the reflective phase prior to the first cycle, learning processes were dominated by the teacher, hence students did not have sufficient opportunity to argue. Students were divided into two, 14 students were grouped as low achievement (LA) and 22 students were the high achievement (HA). Teacher questions and students’ responses were furtherly coded and interpreted following the validated rubric of level of argumentation. A divergent essay as an argumentative assessment was also tested to students at the end of each cycle. At the end of the third cycle, HA and LA students showed a significant change in argumentative skills responded the teacher’s questions. However, only four LA students who actively argued. Students from HA groups also showed the improvement on the level of argumentation, where they move from level 1 to 3.

  10. The biased use of argument evaluation criteria in motivated reasoning; Does argument quality depend on the evaluators' standpoint?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoeken, J.A.L.; Van Vugt, M.

    2016-01-01

    People without a background in argumentation theory possess several criteria to distinguish strong from weak arguments. The fact that people have these criteria does not imply that they will use them to objectively assess the quality of an argument. Research on motivated reasoning suggests that

  11. Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burton-Chellew, Maxwell N; El Mouden, Claire; West, Stuart A

    2016-02-02

    Economic experiments are often used to study if humans altruistically value the welfare of others. A canonical result from public-good games is that humans vary in how they value the welfare of others, dividing into fair-minded conditional cooperators, who match the cooperation of others, and selfish noncooperators. However, an alternative explanation for the data are that individuals vary in their understanding of how to maximize income, with misunderstanding leading to the appearance of cooperation. We show that (i) individuals divide into the same behavioral types when playing with computers, whom they cannot be concerned with the welfare of; (ii) behavior across games with computers and humans is correlated and can be explained by variation in understanding of how to maximize income; (iii) misunderstanding correlates with higher levels of cooperation; and (iv) standard control questions do not guarantee understanding. These results cast doubt on certain experimental methods and demonstrate that a common assumption in behavioral economics experiments, that choices reveal motivations, will not necessarily hold.

  12. The safety of consumer goods containing radioactive substances

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wrixon, A.D.

    1980-01-01

    Consideration is given to the arguments used in the formulation of proposals which have been incorporated into a consultative document published by the National Radiological Protection Board (Criteria Relating to the Approval of Consumer Goods Containing Radioactive Substances: A Consultative Document, HMSO, London). The proposals are summarized. They were based on the classification of these consumer goods into different categories, and details are given of the suggested dose limits for these categories. Comments on the proposals are invited. (U.K.)

  13. Dilemma of dilemmas: how collective and individual perspectives can clarify the size dilemma in voluntary linear public goods dilemmas.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel B Shank

    Full Text Available Empirical findings on public goods dilemmas indicate an unresolved dilemma: that increasing size-the number of people in the dilemma-sometimes increases, decreases, or does not influence cooperation. We clarify this dilemma by first classifying public goods dilemma properties that specify individual outcomes as individual properties (e.g., Marginal Per Capita Return and group outcomes as group properties (e.g., public good multiplier, mathematically showing how only one set of properties can remain constant as the dilemma size increases. Underpinning decision-making regarding individual and group properties, we propose that individuals are motivated by both individual and group preferences based on a theory of collective rationality. We use Van Lange's integrated model of social value orientations to operationalize these preferences as an amalgamation of outcomes for self, outcomes for others, and equality of outcomes. Based on this model, we then predict how the public good's benefit and size, combined with controlling individual versus group properties, produce different levels of cooperation in public goods dilemmas. A two (low vs. high benefit by three (2-person baseline vs. 5-person holding constant individual properties vs. 5-person holding constant group properties factorial experiment (group n = 99; participant n = 390 confirms our hypotheses. The results indicate that when holding constant group properties, size decreases cooperation. Yet when holding constant individual properties, size increases cooperation when benefit is low and does not affect cooperation when benefit is high. Using agent-based simulations of individual and group preferences vis-à-vis the integrative model, we fit a weighted simulation model to the empirical data. This fitted model is sufficient to reproduce the empirical results, but only when both individual (self-interest and group (other-interest and equality preference are included. Our research contributes

  14. Conductive Arguments: Why is This Still a Thing?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kevin Possin

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Conductive arguments, as a separate category of reasoning, has experienced a revival.  In 2010, the University of Windsor’s Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric dedicated a two-day symposium to the topic and later published the proceedings.  In this article, I argue against the existence of conductive arguments as a usefully distinct type of argument.  Some of what are deemed conductive arguments are simply inductive arguments and some are best construed as subsets of the constituents of what is commonly called a position paper.

  15. Argumentation not emotion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koerber, H.

    1984-01-01

    The controversy about the introduction and extension of the peaceful use of nuclear energy has been going on in the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries for a number of years. The intensity with which it was conducted has changed frequently, varying topics were discussed, and shifting aims formed the object of resistance. Often emotion took the place of sober pro and con. There was increasing repression of points made, both on the part of the opponents of nuclear energy and its advocates. Endeavours to free the controversy from emotion are a prerequisite of sober analysis and a balanced judgement on questions of the energy supply of this country. The call for points is to be complied with by this book. To the emotional contentions and statements made in the course of the nuclear energy discussion the author opposes sober arguments. To corroborate the argumentation and make it verifiable a compilation of facts was appended, which corresponds to the main part of the book, provides further information and establishes connections to related problems. A register of important technical terms and their definitions and a bibliography round off the information and argumentation potential. The book is addressed to all - opponents and supporters alike - who want to deal unemotionally with the pro and con of nuclear energy. It provides useful aids for argumentation and the framing of opinions to anybody participating in the discussion at the level of politics, economy, education and society. Last not least it is helpful as a source of information and reference book on questions of energy supply. (orig.) [de

  16. 'You are inferior!' Revisiting the expressivist argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofmann, Bjørn

    2017-09-01

    According to the expressivist argument the choice to use biotechnologies to prevent the birth of individuals with specific disabilities is an expression of disvalue for existing people with this disability. The argument has stirred a lively debate and has recently received renewed attention. This article starts with presenting the expressivist argument and its core elements. It then goes on to present and examine the counter-arguments before it addresses some aspects that have gained surprisingly little attention. The analysis demonstrates that the expressivist argument has a wide range of underpinnings and that counter-arguments tend to focus on only a few of these. It also reveals an important aspect that appears to have been ignored, i.e., that people do not select foetuses based on chromosomes or other biological traits, but based on characteristics of living persons with specific disabilities. This makes it more difficult to undermine the claim that negative selection of foetuses expresses a disvaluing of persons with such disabilities. It leaves the expressivist argument with a strong bite still. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  17. Scientific data as argument: The case of sexual partners reduction in HIV prevention in Brasil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dolores Galindo

    2003-11-01

    Full Text Available This article dicusses the use of scientific facts as argument for a 1999 Brazilian debate about the legitimacy of an official aids prevention policy. It seeks to defamiliarized a common aids argumentative practice which uses a classification of a scientific public health measure as a main legitimacy judgement. It is argued that it is peoples? negotiations and objects? mobilization that gives legitimacy to the implementation of a prevention estrategy ? acccording to a Social Psicology of science with a construcionist point of view.

  18. Modernising higher education: the emergence of European public goods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter van der Hijden

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Universities cater mainly for national audiences. But the days of splendid isolation are over. Students, graduates, faculty and staff vote with their feet. Institutions and system are, increasingly, involved in processes of regionalisation and globalisation. This article describes how a number of European initiatives are transforming the way universities operate in education, research and management. Incentives for change range from earmarked funding to projects grants and loans, from voluntary networking and benchmarking to quality audits and rankings. These instruments for change have become part of the fabric of university life, often consolidated in institutional strategies and national legislation. They are emerging as 'European public goods'. This article highlights a number of these initiatives in the various categories and points at their impact on university practice.

  19. Family Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spread the Word Shop AAP Find a Pediatrician Family Life Medical Home Family Dynamics Adoption & Foster Care ... Life Listen Español Text Size Email Print Share Family Arguments Page Content Article Body We seem to ...

  20. Rhetoric and Essentially Contested Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garver, Eugene

    1978-01-01

    Draws a connection between Gallie's essentially contested concepts and Aristotle's account of rhetorical argument by presenting a definition of Essentially Contested Argument which is used as the connecting term between rhetoric and essentially contested concepts and by demonstrating the value of making this connection. (JF)

  1. Volunteering as Red Queen mechanism for cooperation in public goods games

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hauert, C.; De Monte, Silvia; Hofbauer, J.

    2002-01-01

    The evolution of cooperation among nonrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and social sciences. Reciprocal altruism fails to provide a solution if interactions are not repeated often enough or groups are too large. Punishment and reward can be very effective but require...... that defectors can be traced and identified. Here we present a simple but effective mechanism operating under full anonymity. Optional participation can foil exploiters and overcome the social dilemma. In voluntary public goods interactions, cooperators and defectors will coexist. We show that this result holds...

  2. Argumentation in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Response to Haiman's "Farewell to Rational Discourse."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grice, George L.; Schunk, John F.

    In a 1968 address, Franklyn S. Haiman stated that public discourse at that time was marked by irrationality because of emphases on emotional appeals, disorganization, and aggressive or abusive style and language. He also cited "body rhetoric" (lawful protests or marches) and civil disobedience (illegal actions) as examples of irrational arguments.…

  3. Argumentation Practices in Classroom: Pre-Service Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Chemical Equilibrium

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaya, Ebru

    2013-01-01

    This study examines the impact of argumentation practices on pre-service teachers' understanding of chemical equilibrium. The sample consisted of 100 pre-service teachers in two classes of a public university. One of these classes was assigned as experimental and the other as control group, randomly. In the experimental group, the subject of…

  4. Argumentation skill profile using “Toulmin Argumentation Pattern” analysis of high school student at Subang on topic hydrostatic pressure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Syerliana, L.; Muslim; Setiawan, W.

    2018-05-01

    This study aims to know profile of argumentation skill high school student at Kabupaten Subang. To achieve this goal, researcher conducted a descriptive study to analysis student test results of argumentation skill of 35 students XII SMAN. Data collection using argumentation test which has validation by expert and then it is analyzed using TAP (Toulmin Argumentation Pattern) which consist of some components such a data, claim, warrant, backing, and rebuttal on the topic of hydrostatic pressure. The method used in this research is descriptive method. The result of this research show the student’s scientific argumentation skill is still low, this is proven by 54% average claim score, 38% data, 29% warrant, 35% backing and 35% rebuttal. These findings will serve as a basis for further research on innovative learning models that can improve students’ argumentation skill.

  5. Disentangling The Thick Concept Argument

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Blomberg, Olle

    2007-01-01

    Critics argue that non-cognitivism cannot adequately account for the existence and nature of some thick moral concepts. They use the existence of thick concepts as a lever in an argument against non-cognitivism, here called the Thick Concept Argument (TCA). While TCA is frequently invoked...

  6. Creative communication in public relations activities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dalibor Jakus

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses several approaches to new waves of public relations. Emphasis is given to the creative impulse since many public relations professionals are less familiar with it than other forms of communication. Five criteria are suggested for structuring creative communications: 1. learning how to be a good storyteller; 2. visual communication is the content that could increasingly build strong relationships with audiences; 3. the PR practitioner’s challenge is to evaluate what people are discussing and identify the recurring issues in their marketplace; 4. recognizing that local is new global; and 5. predicate that PR is constantly changing. People who work in public relations possess the skill of offering arguments that will convince the people themselves of something. However, these skills can be offered in traditional or creative forms of expression. If we define public relations as the management of an organization’s communication with its public, then we are referring to the traditional dimension of public relations, the basis and ultimate goal of which are to cultivate relationships with the participants of the process in order to obtain support and to build trust and reputation.

  7. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gholamhosein Tavacoly

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist , then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.   In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  8. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gholamhosein Tavacoly

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available   Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist , then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.   In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  9. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tavacoli, Gh

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist, then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences; the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  10. Analyzing Argumentation In Rich, Natural Contexts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anita Reznitskaya

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents the theoretical and methodological aspects of research on the development of argument- ation in elementary school children. It presents a theoretical framework detailing psychological mechanisms responsible for the acquisition and transfer of argumentative discourse and demonstrates several applications of the framework, described in sufficient detail to guide future empirical investigations of oral, written, individual, or group argumentation performance. Software programs capable of facilitating data analysis are identified and their uses illustrated. The analytic schemes can be used to analyze large amounts of verbal data with reasonable precision and efficiency. The conclusion addresses more generally the challenges for and possibilities of empirical study of the development of argumentation.

  11. Similarity Arguments in the Genetic Modification Debate

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Andreas

    2017-01-01

    In the ethical debate on genetic modification (GM), it is common to encounter the claim that some anti-GM argument would also apply an established, ethically accepted technology, and that the anti-GM argument is therefore unsuccessful. The paper discusses whether this argumentative strategy, the ...

  12. Why Should We Care What the Public Thinks?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thomsen, Frej Klem

    2014-01-01

    This chapter explores three versions of the argument to the effect that we ought to punish in accordance with popular sentiment: While the first two versions of the argument are rejected, it is held that the third argument may provide a reason in favour of incorporating public opinion....

  13. Corruption and the Challenges of Good Governance in the Nigerian Public Sector

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jacob Olufemi Fatile

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The role of the public service in achieving good governance cannot be underestimated. This can be gleaned from the central role it plays in the formulation and implementation of policies designed for the development of the society. In Nigeria, the role of public service has come under severe criticisms within the context of the gap that exists between its anticipated role and its actual output in guiding the society along the course leading to the desired goal as a result of corruption. This article observes that the fact that Nigeria is still grappling with the problems of bad governance goes to show the level of non-accountability and ever present manifestation of crude corruption that is open, naked, undisguised and yet legally untameable because of the system. The article also reveals that many of the anti-corruption efforts are part of the liberal reforms that are based on the assumption that corruption is an individual act or personal misuse of public office for private gain. It points out that as laudable as the intentions of government in putting in place institutions and laws meant to curb corruption, the enforcement of these laws has left much to be desired. In fact, the various reform efforts of the Nigerian government are of limited value because they fail to take into account much of the dynamics that support corruption in the country. Thus, people now regard the law as paper tigers, meant only to the enforced when breached by low-level public officers. While successive administrations have taken partially successful steps to control corruption, these efforts have not fundamentally undermined the supporting environmentfor corruption in the country. The article therefore recommends the need for greater transparency in the management of public funds by the public office holders as well as the need for political will and commitment from governments at Federal, State and Local, including bureaucracies at various levels of governance in

  14. Framing Privatisation: The Dominance of Neoliberal Discourse and the Death of the Public Good

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henry Silke

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper looks at the privatisation Bórd Gáis Éireann (BGÉ in 2014 and the treatment of this issue by the mainstream print media in Ireland. From a contextual perspective, this came in the wake of the global economic recession and its longer term implications for Ireland. The media’s coverage of the sale could not be found to be impartial: both the volume and thrust of the articles were inclined to portray privatisation in a favourable, non-critical light. The majority of content was presented within Neo-Liberal frames, with a competitive frame being dominant; in other words the topic was treated from a market or business perspective rather than the perspective of the public good or wider society. A consistent source bias was also found favouring business or market interests with almost no representation of workers or civil society. Theoretically the paper argues that the framing of privatisation as a business and consumer issue, rather than a political one or that of the public good, acts to detract from the political aspects of the appropriation of public assets by international capital, including the implications for infrastructure, economic development and accountability to democratic structures, none of which receive sufficient journalistic attention.

  15. Humanist Principles Underlying Philosophy of Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Boger

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available This discussion reviews the thinking of some prominent philosophers of argument to extract principles common to their thinking. It shows that a growing concern with dialogical pragmatics is better appreciated as a part of applied ethics than of applied epistemology. The discussion concludes by indicating a possible consequence for philosophy of argument and invites further discussion by asking whether argumentation philosophy has an implicit, underlying moral, or even political, posture.

  16. Definitional Arguments in Children’s Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebecca Schar

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Based on the debate on children’s ability to produce argumentative discourse in different edu­cational settings, this paper provides further support for the fact that small children are able to support their opinions with arguments. In particular, the paper makes a case in point on children’s appeal to definitional loci, when supporting their standpoints. The analysis of their reasoning’s implicit components shows how children apply different definitional arguments.

  17. Modelling group decision simulation through argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Marreiros, Goreti; Novais, Paulo; Machado, José; Ramos, Carlos; Neves, José

    2007-01-01

    Group decision making plays an important role in today’s organisations. The impact of decision making is so high and complex, that rarely the decision making process is made individually. In Group Decision Argumentation, there is a set of participants, with different profiles and expertise levels, that exchange ideas or engage in a process of argumentation and counter-argumentation, negotiate, cooperate, collaborate or even discuss techniques and/or methodologies for problem solving. In this ...

  18. A Viewpoint Approach to Structured Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Tamani, Nouredine; Croitoru, Madalina; Buche, Patrice

    2013-01-01

    We introduce in this paper a viewpoint-based argumentation approach in the context of the EcoBioCap project, which requirements are different actor arguments expressed over several criteria, describing the objects of a domain, to support/oppose contradictory goals. A viewpoint is an ASPIC+ argumentation system defined over a subset of rules corresponding to a single criterion. Concepts of conflict between viewpoints, independent viewpoints, and collection of independent viewpoints are the bas...

  19. Trust arguments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gelman, S.M.

    1995-01-01

    Full text: Public Information Centre of JSC Mashinastroitelny Zavod ('Elemash ' was founded in 1990. Before that any information about the enterprise (being, by the way' manufacturer of nuclear fuel for 20 NPPs, of Russia and a number of foreign countries) were forbidden to be given in mass medial conventional conversations outside the factory and even in the families of the employees. This caused the most fantastic ideas about materials and technologies used here as well as their impact on the environment in Electrostal (50 km on the east of Moscow) where the enterprise is situated. Since the moment of its creation the Centre is not only informing the population about the technological and ecological peculiarities of nuclear fuel manufacturing, but also forms positive attitude both, towards the activity of the enterprise atomic energy as a whole. During the 4 years of its existence te Center was visited by more than 5.000 people; the majority of them are schoolchildren students with whom we are in close contact because we realize that the 'pro-nuclear' orientation of the mentality should be founded in the early age when humans world outlook is-formed. In the more aged group the majority are the workers of the factories nearby, military and retired people and reporters of te town's newspapers. We've good amount of demonstration materials, which speak in favour of the atomic energy and enterprises of the nuclear fuel cycle engaged in it. These are NPPs schemes, mock-ups of nuclear reactors, assemblies manufactured by the factory and a wide variety of films on nuclear energy. Video films made in the main workshops are of peculiar interest; automation of the technology process, providing not only for nuclear fuel quality but also for high level of nuclear and radiation safety during its production. We pay attention not only to traditional arguments in favour of the atomic energy, but draw attention of the public to the fact that a factory engaged in the nuclear fuel

  20. Combining Paraconsistent Logic with Argumentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Grooters, Diana; Prakken, Hendrik

    2014-01-01

    One tradition in the logical study of argumentation is to allow for arguments that combine strict and defeasible inference rules, and to derive the strict inference rules from a logic at least as strong as classical logic. An unsolved problem in this tradition is how the trivialising effect of the

  1. Mutual punishment promotes cooperation in the spatial public goods game

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Han-Xin; Rong, Zhihai

    2015-01-01

    Punishment has been proved to be an effective mechanism to sustain cooperation among selfish individuals. In previous studies, punishment is unidirectional: an individual i can punish j but j cannot punish i. In this paper, we propose a mechanism of mutual punishment, in which the two individuals will punish each other if their strategies are different. Because of the symmetry in imposing the punishment, one might expect intuitively the strategy to have little effect on cooperation. Surprisingly, we find that the mutual punishment can promote cooperation in the spatial public goods game. Other pertinent quantities such as the time evolution of cooperator density and the spatial distribution of cooperators and defectors are also investigated

  2. Modelling Mathematical Argumentation: The Importance of Qualification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Inglis, Matthew; Mejia-Ramos, Juan; Simpson, Adrian

    2007-01-01

    In recent years several mathematics education researchers have attempted to analyse students' arguments using a restricted form of Toulmina's ["The Uses of Argument," Cambridge University Press, UK, 1958] argumentation scheme. In this paper we report data from task-based interviews conducted with highly talented postgraduate mathematics students,…

  3. An evolutionary model of cooperation, fairness and altruistic punishment in public good games.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moritz Hetzer

    Full Text Available We identify and explain the mechanisms that account for the emergence of fairness preferences and altruistic punishment in voluntary contribution mechanisms by combining an evolutionary perspective together with an expected utility model. We aim at filling a gap between the literature on the theory of evolution applied to cooperation and punishment, and the empirical findings from experimental economics. The approach is motivated by previous findings on other-regarding behavior, the co-evolution of culture, genes and social norms, as well as bounded rationality. Our first result reveals the emergence of two distinct evolutionary regimes that force agents to converge either to a defection state or to a state of coordination, depending on the predominant set of self- or other-regarding preferences. Our second result indicates that subjects in laboratory experiments of public goods games with punishment coordinate and punish defectors as a result of an aversion against disadvantageous inequitable outcomes. Our third finding identifies disadvantageous inequity aversion as evolutionary dominant and stable in a heterogeneous population of agents endowed initially only with purely self-regarding preferences. We validate our model using previously obtained results from three independently conducted experiments of public goods games with punishment.

  4. An evolutionary model of cooperation, fairness and altruistic punishment in public good games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hetzer, Moritz; Sornette, Didier

    2013-01-01

    We identify and explain the mechanisms that account for the emergence of fairness preferences and altruistic punishment in voluntary contribution mechanisms by combining an evolutionary perspective together with an expected utility model. We aim at filling a gap between the literature on the theory of evolution applied to cooperation and punishment, and the empirical findings from experimental economics. The approach is motivated by previous findings on other-regarding behavior, the co-evolution of culture, genes and social norms, as well as bounded rationality. Our first result reveals the emergence of two distinct evolutionary regimes that force agents to converge either to a defection state or to a state of coordination, depending on the predominant set of self- or other-regarding preferences. Our second result indicates that subjects in laboratory experiments of public goods games with punishment coordinate and punish defectors as a result of an aversion against disadvantageous inequitable outcomes. Our third finding identifies disadvantageous inequity aversion as evolutionary dominant and stable in a heterogeneous population of agents endowed initially only with purely self-regarding preferences. We validate our model using previously obtained results from three independently conducted experiments of public goods games with punishment.

  5. Contribution inequality in the spatial public goods game: Should the rich contribute more?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tu, Jing

    2018-04-01

    Scale-free property exists in resource distribution, and the rich pay more in public goods is commonplace in reality. What will happen if the rich are expected to contribute more in the spatial public goods game? This paper therefore proposes a new contribution paradigm, in which individual contribution is determined by his payoff in the last evolution step. Tunable parameter w is used to characterize the contribution rate of nodes whose payoff is larger than the average. The results of simulations reveal that the impact of w on cooperation is associated with the enhancement factor r. When r is low, the higher w is, the lower the cooperation rate is. With the increment of r, the value of w to optimize cooperation rate increases with r. The relationship of cooperation rate and wealth on the network has also been investigated. Interestingly, higher cooperation rate does not always lead to higher wealth. Finally, the impact of w on the wealth distribution on the network is explored. The higher w reduces the inequality in wealth distribution by the shrinking of lower-class, which is enhanced by a higher r.

  6. Transforming a School Learning Exercise into a Public Engagement Event: "The Good, the Bad and the Algae"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Redfern, James; Burdass, Dariel; Verran, Joanna

    2013-01-01

    School science laboratory classes and hands-on public engagement activities share many common aims and objectives in terms of science learning and literacy. This article describes the development and evaluation of a microbiology public engagement activity, "The Good, the Bad and the Algae", from a school laboratory activity. The school…

  7. MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING AND PRICING FOR SALE OF GOODS AND PRODUCTS IN TRADE AND PUBLIC CATERING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    TUHARI Tudor

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The most relevant problems of accounting and control in the sphere of commodity exchange are the reliable determination of the cost of mass goods and products during their storage and sale, as well as the operational orientation in pricing, taking into account the demand and supply in the interests of obtaining the necessary profit at an appropriate level of profitability. In the case of the sum stock accounting method for the goods in the retail trade and public catering, the especially important element of the accounting is the process of formation of retail sales prices and calculation of production cost of sales and profit of the enterprise. The article mainly focuses on the method of determining the retail sales prices for goods and products in the area of trade and public catering, respectively, through the use of trade mark-ups in percentage terms in relation not to the purchase, but to retail sales prices including VAT. Determining the cost of sales and its accounting is recommended to adjust only at the end of the month based on the calculation of the average percentage of trade mark-up (margin.

  8. Toulmin's argument pattern as a "horizon of possibilities" in the study of argumentation in science education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erduran, Sibel

    2018-01-01

    Kim and Roth (this issue) purport to draw on the social-psychological theory of L. S. Vygotsky in order to investigate social relations in children's argumentation in science topics. The authors argue that the argumentation framework offered by Stephen Toulmin is limited in addressing social relations. The authors thus criticize Toulmin's Argument Pattern (TAP) as an analytical tool and propose to investigate the genesis of evidence-related practices (especially burden of proof) in second- and third-grade children by studying dialogical interactions. In this paper, I illustrate how Toulmin's framework can contribute to (a) the study of "social relations", and (b) provide an example utilizing a theoretical framework on social relations, namely Engeström's Activity Theory framework, and (c) describe how we have used the Activity Theory along with TAP in order to understand the development of argumentation in the practices of science educators. Overall, I will argue that TAP is not inherently incapable of addressing social relational aspects of argumentation in science education but rather that science education researchers can transform theoretical tools such as Toulmin's framework intended for other purposes for use in science education research.

  9. Prerequisites for Correctness in Legal Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Mackuvienė, Eglė

    2011-01-01

    A phenomenon called legal argumentation is analyzed in the dissertation. The aim of the thesis is to identify the prerequisites that allow to consider the legal argumentation to be correct, also to evaluate those prerequisites logically. Legal argumentation is analyzed as a phenomenon per se, without relating it to any particular arguing subject. Other dimensions of the process of making a legal decision, such as legal reasoning, legal discourse, interpretation of law and others are discu...

  10. Een Scotistisch argument voor dualisme

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Ridder, G.J.; van Woudenberg, R.

    2010-01-01

    In his recent book Waar geest is, is vrijheid [Where there is mind, there is freedom], Guus Labooy sets forth an original and intriguing argument, inspired by the work of John Duns Scotus, for substance dualism in the philosophy of mind. In this paper we argue that his argument, although worthy of

  11. That’s No Argument! The Ultimate Criticism?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krabbe, Erik C. W.; van Laar, Jan Albert; Garssen, Bart J.; Godden, David; Mitchell, Gordon; Snoeck Henkemans, A. Francisca

    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed (alleged) argument of her interlocutor as an argument? In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a fallacy of non-argumentation. As such it is a very

  12. Teaching Probability to Pre-Service Teachers with Argumentation Based Science Learning Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Can, Ömer Sinan; Isleyen, Tevfik

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study is to explore the effects of the argumentation based science learning (ABSL) approach on the teaching probability to pre-service teachers. The sample of the study included 41 students studying at the Department of Elementary School Mathematics Education in a public university during the 2014-2015 academic years. The study is…

  13. Tolerance-based punishment in continuous public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Jia; Li, Zhi; Cong, Rui; Wang, Long

    2012-08-01

    Altruistic punishment for defectors is considered as a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. However, there is no clear border between the cooperative and defective behaviors in a continuous strategy game. We propose a model to study the effect of punishment on the evolution of cooperation in continuous public goods game, wherein individuals have the traits to punish the co-players based on social tolerance. We show that a reasonable punishment with a uniform tolerance can spur individuals to make more investments. Additionally, for a fixed punishment cost and a fixed fine, a moderate value of tolerance can result in the best promotion of cooperation. Furthermore, we investigate the coevolutionary dynamics of investment and tolerance. We find that the population splits into two branches: high-tolerance individuals who make high investments and low-tolerance individuals who make low investments. A dynamic equilibrium is achieved between these two types of individuals. Our work extends punishment to continuous cooperative behaviors and the results may enhance the understanding of altruistic punishment in the evolution of human cooperation.

  14. Heuristics guide cooperative behaviors in public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yongjie; Chen, Tong

    2015-12-01

    In public goods game (PGG), player's cooperative behavior is not pure economical rationality, but social preference and prosocial intuition play extremely important roles as well. Social preference and prosocial intuition can be guided by heuristics from one's neighbors in daily life. To better investigate the impacts of heuristics on the evolution of cooperation, four types of agents are introduced into our spatial PGG. Through numerical simulations, results show that the larger percentages of cooperators with independent thought, the easier emergence and maintenance of collective cooperative behaviors. Additionally, we find that differentia heuristic capability has great effect on the equilibrium of PGG. Cooperation can be obviously promoted, when heuristic capability of cooperators with independent thought is stronger than that of defectors with independent thought. Finally, we observe that cooperators with independent thought and defectors with independent thought are favorable for the formation of some high quality clusters, which can resist the invasion between each other. Our work may help us understand more clearly the mechanism of cooperation in real world.

  15. Incorporating Argumentation through Forensic Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wheeler, Lindsay B.; Maeng, Jennifer L.; Smetana, Lara K.

    2014-01-01

    This article outlines how to incorporate argumentation into a forensic science unit using a mock trial. Practical details of the mock trial include: (1) a method of scaffolding students' development of their argument for the trial, (2) a clearly outlined set of expectations for students during the planning and implementation of the mock…

  16. Peter Singer's argument for utilitarianism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buckle, Stephen

    2005-01-01

    The paper begins by situating Singer within the British meta-ethical tradition. It sets out the main steps in his argument for utilitarianism as the 'default setting' of ethical thought. It argues that Singer's argument depends on a hierarchy of reasons, such that the ethical viewpoint is understood to be an adaptation--an extension--of a fundamental self-interest. It concludes that the argument fails because it is impossible to get from this starting-point in self-interest to his conception of the ethical point of view. The fundamental problem is its mixing the immiscible: the Humean subordination of reason to interest with the Kantian conception of reason as universal and authoritative.

  17. Supporting middle school students' construction of evidence-based arguments: Impact of and student interactions with computer-based argumentation scaffolds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belland, Brian Robert

    Middle school students have difficulty creating evidence-based arguments (EBAs) during problem-based learning (PBL) units due to challenges (a) adequately representing the unit's central problem (Ge & Land, 2004; Liu & Bera, 2005), (b) determining and obtaining the most relevant evidence (Pedersen & Liu, 2002-2003), and (c) synthesizing gathered information to construct a sound argument (Cho & Jonassen, 2002). I designed and developed the Connection Log to support middle school students in this process. This study addressed (1) the Connection Log's impact on (a) argument evaluation ability, and (b) group argument quality and (2) how and why middle school science students used the Connection Log. Four sections of a 7th-grade science class participated. Student groups selected a stakeholder position related to the Human Genome Project (HGP) and needed to decide on and promote a plan to use $3 million to further their position as pertains to the HGP. I randomly assigned one higher-achieving and one lower-achieving class to Connection Log or no Connection Log conditions. Students completed an argument evaluation test, and impact on argument evaluation ability was determined using nested ANOVA. Two graduate students, blind to treatment conditions, rated group arguments, and impact on group argument quality was determined using nested MANOVA. To determine how and why students used the Connection Log, I videotaped and interviewed one small group from each class in the experimental condition. I coded transcripts and generated themes, triangulating the two data sources with informal observations during all class sessions and what students wrote in the Connection Log. I detected no significant differences on claim, evidence, or connection of claim to evidence ratings of debate performances. However, students used the Connection Log to counter different difficulties, and I found a significant main effect of the Connection Log on argument evaluation ability, as well as a

  18. Van Inwagen on the Cosmological Argument | Brueckner ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In his book Metaphysics, Peter van Inwagen constructs a version of the Cosmological Argument which does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He goes on to reject the argument. In this paper, I construct an alternative version of the Cosmological Argument that uses some of van Inwagen's insights and yet is ...

  19. Another argument against fundamental scalars

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Joglekar, S.D.

    1990-01-01

    An argument, perhaps not as strong, which is based on the inclusion of interaction with external gravity into a theory describing strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions is presented. The argument is related to the basis of the common belief which favours a renormalizable action against a non-renormalizable action as a candidate for a fundamental theory. (author). 12 refs

  20. Two Forms of Philosophical Argument or Critique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, James D.

    2004-01-01

    In this paper the author looks at two forms of philosophical argument or critique. These are derived by himself from the work of the late Kantian scholar, Stephan Korner who, in his book "What is Philosophy?" (1969), draws a number of distinctions between different forms of "philosophical" argument or critique. The two forms of derived argument,…

  1. Minors and euthanasia: a systematic review of argument-based ethics literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cuman, Giulia; Gastmans, Chris

    2017-07-01

    Euthanasia was first legalised in the Netherlands in 2002, followed by similar legislation in Belgium the same year. Since the beginning, however, only the Netherlands included the possibility for minors older than 12 years to request euthanasia. In 2014, the Belgian Act legalising euthanasia was amended to include requests by minors who possess the capacity of discernment. This amendment sparked great debate, and raised difficult ethical questions about when and how a minor can be deemed competent. We conducted a systematic review of argument-based literature on euthanasia in minors. The search process followed PRISMA guidelines. Thirteen publications were included. The four-principle approach of medical ethics was used to organise the ethical arguments underlying this debate. The justification for allowing euthanasia in minors is buttressed mostly by the principles of beneficence and respect for autonomy. Somewhat paradoxically, both principles are also used in the literature to argue against the extension of legislation to minors. Opponents of euthanasia generally rely on the principle of non-maleficence. The present analysis reveals that the debate surrounding euthanasia in minors is at an early stage. In order to allow a more in-depth ethical discussion, we suggest enriching the four-principle approach by including a care-ethics approach. What is Known: • The Netherlands and Belgium are the only two countries in the world with euthanasia legislation making it possible for minors to receive euthanasia. • This legislation provoked great debate globally, with ethical arguments for and against this legislation. What is New: • A systematic description of the ethical concepts and arguments grounding the debate on euthanasia in minors, as reported in the argument-based ethics literature. • A need has been identified to enrich the debate with a care-ethics approach to avoid oversimplifying the ethical decision-making process.

  2. Good Governance According to Islamic Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohamad Ismail Bin Mohamad Yunus

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The objectives of the professional agencies must embody provisions that promote good governance and embrace values of integrity and accountability and seek support from the public and the government of the day to provide an independent view on all matters. The universal truth is that everything should be done in the public good. Professionals form the backbone of human infrastructure in any economy, politics, social and legal growth. Their contributions through professional performance enhance the good delivery system that facilitates policies making and management for public sector. They provide the skills and talent in balancing the pursuits of maximization of services. The expression “good governance” has been constantly used lately in both public sector as well as private sector in Malaysia. In the context of a private body, it should be within the framework of the statute, which governs the body and also its constitution. In the public sector, it means that the administrators should act professionally and not to abuse or misuse the power or authority given to them. They are regarded as the trustees of the public at large. The scope of this article is on good public governance in the public sector or to be exact, good governmental administration as interpreted by the judiciary especially through its judicial review power and Islamic Perspective based on the principles of Maqasid As Shariah (Objectives of Islamic Law.   Keywords: Good Governance, Public Sector, Malaysian Law, Islamic Perspective, Maqasid As-Shariah.

  3. Public Insurance and Equality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Landes, Xavier; Néron, Pierre-Yves

    2015-01-01

    Heath (among other political theorists) considers that the principle of efficiency provides a better normative explanation and justification of public insurance than the egalitarian account. According to this view, the fact that the state is involved in the provision of specific insurance (primarily......Public insurance is commonly assimilated with redistributive tools mobilized by the welfare state in the pursuit of an egalitarian ideal. This view contains some truth, since the result of insurance, at a given moment, is the redistribution of resources from the lucky to unlucky. However, Joseph...... surrounding public insurance as a redistributive tool, advancing the idea that public insurance may be a relational egalitarian tool. It then presents a number of relational arguments in favor of the involvement of the state in the provision of specific forms of insurance, arguments that have been overlooked...

  4. Addressing the Question of Homophobia in Jordanian Public Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmad El-Sharif

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates the question of homosexuality, homosexuals, and homophobia in the Jordanian public debate in the aftermath of an LGBTQIA meeting that was held secretly in Amman in May 2015. The main purpose of the article is to demonstrate the constituents and arguments which reproduce the public discourse on anti-homosexuality and anti-homosexuals and homophobia in Jordan. This purpose is reached by analysing 35 journal articles written in Standard Arabic in Jordanian public and open-access media. The analysis involves the qualitative analysis of the argument, processes, and themes used to represent homosexuality and homosexuals by the discourse producers. The analysis reveals that the question of homosexuality and homosexuals in Jordan can be addressed in terms of seven angles: the public anti-homosexuality and anti-homosexuals’ calls, the (Islamic religious argument, protecting and reinforcing law and order, the argument of (homosexually-transmitted diseases, the calls of pro-homosexuality and pro-homosexuals and LGBTQIA’s rights activists, the homosexuals’ own self-representation, and the neutral scientific account and representation.

  5. A generalized public goods game with coupling of individual ability and project benefit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, Li-Xin; Xu, Wen-Juan; He, Yun-Xin; Zhong, Chen-Yang; Chen, Rong-Da; Qiu, Tian; Shi, Yong-Dong; Ren, Fei

    2017-08-01

    Facing a heavy task, any single person can only make a limited contribution and team cooperation is needed. As one enjoys the benefit of the public goods, the potential benefits of the project are not always maximized and may be partly wasted. By incorporating individual ability and project benefit into the original public goods game, we study the coupling effect of the four parameters, the upper limit of individual contribution, the upper limit of individual benefit, the needed project cost and the upper limit of project benefit on the evolution of cooperation. Coevolving with the individual-level group size preferences, an increase in the upper limit of individual benefit promotes cooperation while an increase in the upper limit of individual contribution inhibits cooperation. The coupling of the upper limit of individual contribution and the needed project cost determines the critical point of the upper limit of project benefit, where the equilibrium frequency of cooperators reaches its highest level. Above the critical point, an increase in the upper limit of project benefit inhibits cooperation. The evolution of cooperation is closely related to the preferred group-size distribution. A functional relation between the frequency of cooperators and the dominant group size is found.

  6. Yet Another Call for a Greater Role for Good Faith in the South ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article examines the current approach of the South African courts to the role of good faith or bona fides in contracts, as well as the courts' stated reasons for this approach. The article specifically examines how arguments based on good faith have fared in the Constitutional Court to date, and the prospects for law reform ...

  7. Argumentative Bluff in Eristic Discussion : An Analysis and Evaluation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as

  8. Evaluating arguments during instigations of defence motivation and accuracy motivation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Cheng-Hong

    2017-05-01

    When people evaluate the strength of an argument, their motivations are likely to influence the evaluation. However, few studies have specifically investigated the influences of motivational factors on argument evaluation. This study examined the effects of defence and accuracy motivations on argument evaluation. According to the compatibility between the advocated positions of arguments and participants' prior beliefs and the objective strength of arguments, participants evaluated four types of arguments: compatible-strong, compatible-weak, incompatible-strong, and incompatible-weak arguments. Experiment 1 revealed that participants possessing a high defence motivation rated compatible-weak arguments as stronger and incompatible-strong ones as weaker than participants possessing a low defence motivation. However, the strength ratings between the high and low defence groups regarding both compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments were similar. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants possessed a high accuracy motivation, they rated compatible-weak arguments as weaker and incompatible-strong ones as stronger than when they possessed a low accuracy motivation. However, participants' ratings on both compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments were similar when comparing high and low accuracy conditions. The results suggest that defence and accuracy motivations are two major motives influencing argument evaluation. However, they primarily influence the evaluation results for compatible-weak and incompatible-strong arguments, but not for compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  9. Making the poor pay for public goods via microfinance: Economic and political pitfalls in the case of water and sanitation

    OpenAIRE

    Mader, Philip

    2011-01-01

    This paper critically assesses microfinance’s expansion into the provision of public goods. It focuses on the problem of public goods and collective action and refers to the specific example of water and sanitation. The microfinancing of water and sanitation is a private business model which requires households to recognise, internalise and capitalise the benefits from improved water and sanitation. This requirement is not assured. Water and sanitation, being closely linked to underlying c...

  10. Design Argumentation in Academic Design Education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dalsgaard, Peter; Dindler, Christian; Fritsch, Jonas

    2013-01-01

    We explore design argumentation as a resource when teaching interaction design in a university setting. We propose that design argumentation can help bridge between practice-based design education and theoretical issues from university curricula. In this paper, we outline the idea of design...

  11. Epistemic craftwork, or when is good journalism bad public relations?

    OpenAIRE

    Srader, Doyle

    2009-01-01

    In April 2007, Seung-Hui Cho mailed a video, several photographs and a lengthy written document to NBC News while in the middle of his infamous shooting spree at Virginia Tech. NBC News president Steve Capus decided to air the footage, which unleashed a torrent of criticism from citizens, law enforcement, commentators, and even Capus' fellow news executives at the other networks. I examine the argumentative exchange between Capus and his colleagues for clues about the professional ideal and e...

  12. Does Good Governance Mediate Relationship Between E-Government and Public Trust in Lebanon?

    OpenAIRE

    Alaaraj, Hassan; Hassan, Sallahudin

    2016-01-01

    The main objective of this research is to study the mediating effect of good governance on the relationship between e-government practices and public trust in Lebanon. Based on extensive literature review and conceptual background including the theories of institutional-based trust and the diffusion of innovation, the theoretical research framework was developed. Primary data was collected using survey involving 400 Lebanese employees from different small and medium enterprises in Beirut. The...

  13. Modelling Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom : Teachers perception and practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Probosari, R. M.; Sajidan; Suranto; Prayitno, B. A.; Widyastuti, F.

    2017-02-01

    The purposes of this study were to investigate teacher’s perception about scientific argumentation and how they practice it in their classroom. Thirty biology teachers in high school participated in this study and illustrated their perception of scientific argumentation through a questionnaire. This survey research was developed to measure teachers’ understanding of scientific argumentation, what they know about scientific argumentation, the differentiation between argument and reasoning, how they plan teaching strategies in order to make students’ scientific argumentation better and the obstacles in teaching scientific argumentation. The result conclude that generally, teachers modified various representation to accommodate student’s active participation, but most of them assume that argument and reasoning are similar. Less motivation, tools and limited science’s knowledge were considered as obstacles in teaching argumentation. The findings can be helpful to improving students’ abilities of doing scientific argumentation as a part of inquiry.

  14. The Optimum Level of Argumentativeness for Employed Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schullery, Nancy M.

    1998-01-01

    Examines the relationship between argumentativeness and women's supervisory level in organizations. Finds no simple relationship between supervisory level and argumentativeness for women, but indicates that moderation in argumentativeness increases with supervisory level. Notes implications for pedagogy: would-be female executives should be…

  15. Abusing Good Intentions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tamas Bereczkei

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The present study aims to understand how Machiavellians switch from one kind of response to another in different circumstances to maximize their profit. We set up a specific experimental paradigm that involved both a cooperative and competitive version of a public goods game. We found that Machiavellianism accounts for the total amount of money paid by the players (N = 144 across five rounds in the cooperative but not in the competitive game. Compared with the others, individuals with higher scores on Mach scale contributed less to the public goods in the cooperative condition, but no difference was found in the competitive condition. Finally, this relationship was influenced by the sequence of the games. These results indicate that Machiavellians skillfully evaluate social environments and strive to exploit those with abundant contributions to public goods.

  16. Regulatory theory: commercially sustainable markets rely upon satisfying the public interest in obtaining credible goods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Warren-Jones, Amanda

    2017-10-01

    Regulatory theory is premised on the failure of markets, prompting a focus on regulators and industry from economic perspectives. This article argues that overlooking the public interest in the sustainability of commercial markets risks markets failing completely. This point is exemplified through health care markets - meeting an essential need - and focuses upon innovative medicines as the most desired products in that market. If this seemingly invulnerable market risks failure, there is a pressing need to consider the public interest in sustainable markets within regulatory literature and practice. Innovative medicines are credence goods, meaning that the sustainability of the market fundamentally relies upon the public trusting regulators to vouch for product quality. Yet, quality is being eroded by patent bodies focused on economic benefits from market growth, rather than ensuring innovatory value. Remunerative bodies are not funding medicines relative to market value, and market authorisation bodies are not vouching for robust safety standards or confining market entry to products for 'unmet medical need'. Arguably, this failure to assure quality heightens the risk of the market failing where it cannot be substituted by the reputation or credibility of providers of goods and/or information such as health care professionals/institutions, patient groups or industry.

  17. Analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Eemeren, F.H.; Garssen, B.; van Eemeren, F.H.

    2015-01-01

    Although Renkema’s Introduction to Discourse Studies (2004: Chap. 12) provides a useful introduction to the study of argumentation, this brief account does not provide a full characterization of the field. Among the dominant approaches to argumentative discourse a general distinction can be made

  18. The Determinants of Money Arguments between Spouses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorothy B. Durband

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available A commonly held view is that arguments about money are associated with marital problems, but relatively little is known about the nature of arguing about money within marriage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79, this study uses a collective bargaining approach to examine the role of money arguments in marriage. The sample (N = 1,371 consists of married women. A collective bargaining framework provides a context for understanding money arguments within the marital relationship. Results indicate that costly communication is the dominant predictor of money arguments, followed by level and proportion of wife’s income, and household net worth. Because results suggest that both communication and financial resources are important components to understanding money arguments within marriage, a combination of professionals trained in marital therapy and/or financial planning is required for couples interested in seeking assistance to increase their satisfaction and/or avoid divorce.

  19. Argumentation Ethics and The Philosophy of Freedom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frank van Dun

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available When H.-H. Hoppe claimed (in A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, 1989 that the principles of libertarianism were argumentatively irrefutable, both the logical coherence and the relevance of his “argument from argumentation” were criticized. While occasionally some of these criticisms still crop up, this paper defends Hoppe’s claim against them from the vantage point of the author’s own work (in Dutch on the ethics of dialogue in the nineteen-seventies. It presents a more detailed and systematic presentation of the “argument from argumentation” than Hoppe had need for in the particular context of his book. It makes a distinction between arguments about principles and arguments about particular cases in which these principles may be invoked; and between the normative validity (as a matter of principle of certain presumptions and the fact that in particular cases these presumptions hold only in principle and can be refuted by the evidence pertaining to the cases.

  20. A Comparative Study of Argument from Primordial Nature and Argument from General Consensus on the Demonstration of Existence of God

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamidreza Abdoli Mehrjardi

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Historical evidences suggest that human beings have been always in search of God in some form. Some believe that man is born with this divine sense. This ubiquitous quality of human beings is called primordial nature (fitrah. Many scholars have tried to demonstrate the existence of God through this shared quality of human individuals. In Islamic thought this latter intellectual effort has been designated as "argument from primordial nature" and in western theological and philosophical thought it is known as "argument from general consensus". Although these arguments have some differences in their general settings and attitudes; but they both resort to human general divine attitude to demonstrate the existence of God. In this essay we have sought to propound the views of those scholars who have dealt with this argument at length. Reflecting on the general form of the expositions shows that the expositions of argument from primordial nature and argument from general consensus cannot demonstrate the existence of God without basing themselves on the principle of causation or human existential poverty. Via comparative assessment of these two arguments we have turned to the critiques which have been leveled against them and laid bare their similarities and differences. Of course there are some differences between the argument from primordial nature in Islam and the argument from general consensus in west. This essay seeks to assay the key expositions which have been offered of these arguments in Islamic and western philosophies. It seems that among Moslem philosophers, Mulla Sadra from the early generation, Allameh Tabtabaei, Imam Khomeini, Jawadi Amuli and Mutahari from later generation, have paid more attention to this argument. Among western scholars one can mention William James, Charles Hodge, James Joyce, Paul Tillich and Seneca who have made more direct remarks on this argument. John Locke is also against this argument. This is why we have

  1. Fallacies in ethical argumentation on abortion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simona Mazilu

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper represents a case study of the types of fallacies that may occur in the argumentation stage of an ethical dispute over abortion. The theoretical framework I use is the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 2004 which conceives of fallacies as violations of the rules for critical discussion. I will focus on the fallacies resulting from the violation of the relevance rule in two fragments of argumentative texts illustrating opposing positions on abortion. I claim that these fallacies function as winning strategies in the ethical dispute in case.

  2. A Canonical Approach to the Argument/Adjunct Distinction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diana Forker

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides an account of the argument/adjunct distinction implementing the 'canonical approach'. I identify five criteria (obligatoriness, latency, co-occurrence restrictions, grammatical relations, and iterability and seven diagnostic tendencies that can be used to distinguish canonical arguments from canonical adjuncts. I then apply the criteria and tendencies to data from the Nakh-Daghestanian language Hinuq. Hinuq makes extensive use of spatial cases for marking adjunct-like and argument-like NPs. By means of the criteria and tendencies it is possible to distinguish spatial NPs that come close to canonical arguments from those that are canonical adjuncts, and to place the remaining NPs bearing spatial cases within the argument-adjunct continuum.

  3. Role of investment heterogeneity in the cooperation on spatial public goods game.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Wu-Jie; Xia, Cheng-Yi

    2014-01-01

    Public cooperation plays a significant role in the survival and maintenance of biological species, to elucidate its origin thus becomes an interesting question from various disciplines. Through long-term development, the public goods game has proven to be a useful tool, where cooperator making contribution can beat again the free-rides. Differentiating from the traditional homogeneous investment, individual trend of making contribution is more likely affected by the investment level of his neighborhood. Based on this fact, we here investigate the impact of heterogeneous investment on public cooperation, where the investment sum is mapped to the proportion of cooperators determined by parameter α. Interestingly, we find, irrespective of interaction networks, that the increment of α (increment of heterogeneous investment) is beneficial for promoting cooperation and even guarantees the complete cooperation dominance under weak replication factor. While this promotion effect can be attributed to the formation of more robust cooperator clusters and shortening END period. Moreover, we find that this simple mechanism can change the potential interaction network, which results in the change of phase diagrams. We hope that our work may shed light on the understanding of the cooperative behavior in other social dilemmas.

  4. "Good mothering" or "good citizenship"?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Porter, Maree; Kerridge, Ian H; Jordens, Christopher F C

    2012-03-01

    Umbilical cord blood banking is one of many biomedical innovations that confront pregnant women with new choices about what they should do to secure their own and their child's best interests. Many mothers can now choose to donate their baby's umbilical cord blood (UCB) to a public cord blood bank or pay to store it in a private cord blood bank. Donation to a public bank is widely regarded as an altruistic act of civic responsibility. Paying to store UCB may be regarded as a "unique opportunity" to provide "insurance" for the child's future. This paper reports findings from a survey of Australian women that investigated the decision to either donate or store UCB. We conclude that mothers are faced with competing discourses that force them to choose between being a "good mother" and fulfilling their role as a "good citizen." We discuss this finding with reference to the concept of value pluralism.

  5. Generate an Argument: An Instructional Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampson, Victor; Grooms, Jonathon

    2010-01-01

    The Generate an Argument instructional model was designed to engage students in scientific argumentation. By using this model, students develop complex reasoning and critical-thinking skills, understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge, and improve their communication skills (Duschl and Osborne 2002). This article describes the…

  6. Argumentation and indigenous knowledge: socio-historical influences in contextualizing an argumentation model in South African schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallard Martínez, Alejandro J.

    2011-09-01

    This forum considers argumentation as a means of science teaching in South African schools, through the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK). It addresses issues raised in Mariana G. Hewson and Meshach B. Ogunniyi's paper entitled: Argumentation-teaching as a method to introduce indigenous knowledge into science classrooms: opportunities and challenges. As well as Peter Easton's: Hawks and baby chickens: cultivating the sources of indigenous science education; and, Femi S. Otulaja, Ann Cameron and Audrey Msimanga's: Rethinking argumentation-teaching strategies and indigenous knowledge in South African science classrooms. The first topic addressed is that implementation of argumentation in the science classroom becomes a complex endeavor when the tensions between students' IK, the educational infrastructure (allowance for teacher professional development, etc.) and local belief systems are made explicit. Secondly, western styles of debate become mitigating factors because they do not always adequately translate to South African culture. For example, in many instances it is more culturally acceptable in South Africa to build consensus than to be confrontational. Thirdly, the tension between what is "authentic science" and what is not becomes an influencing factor when a tension is created between IK and western science. Finally, I argue that the thrust of argumentation is to set students up as "scientist-students" who will be considered through a deficit model by judging their habitus and cultural capital. Explicitly, a "scientist-student" is a student who has "learned," modeled and thoroughly assimilated the habits of western scientists, evidently—and who will be judged by and held accountable for their demonstration of explicit related behaviors in the science classroom. I propose that science teaching, to include argumentation, should consist of "listening carefully" (radical listening) to students and valuing their language, culture, and learning as a model

  7. The Impact of Argumentativeness on Resistance to Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kazoleas, Dean

    1993-01-01

    Examines the impact of argumentativeness on cognitive responses and attitude change of undergraduate college students. Finds that argumentative individuals generate greater numbers of counterarguments and are more resistant to persuasion. Indicates that attitude change for the highly argumentative individual is a function of both positive and…

  8. Argumentative orientation and Cognition: Force Dynamics in the debate over the rolezinhos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paulo Roberto Gonçalves-Segundo

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to analyze the argumentation developed in two articles, published in Folha de S. Paulo, that represent polarized stances about a series of teenage meetings — known as rolezinhos — held in several malls in dozens of Brazilian cities in 2013 and 2014. To do so, we establish a theoretical dialogue between Cognitive Linguistics and Argumentation Studies, that relates the cognitive principle of Force Dynamics (Talmy, 2000 to the structuration of argumentation. We could determine three axes that organize the ideological positions in the articles: the conception of shopping malls as private or public spaces; the importance of the right to property in comparison to the right to manifest; and the view of the rolezinhos as events oriented towards entertainment or social contestation. The first components of each axis are harmonically deployed in the first text (T1 in order to build a conceptualization of danger, whereby the teenagers act as an Antagonist that blocks the tendency of the ‘true costumer’ to buy and have fun in the mall. The second components of each axis are also correlated and structure the argumentation of the second text (T2, which bases itself in a conception that the law should be an Agent which guarantees the tendency of the Agonist ‘young people’ to manifest, since these teenagers are already conceptualized as being blocked by social inequality, and the society is taken as having the duty of including these people.

  9. Nanny or steward? The role of government in public health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jochelson, Karen

    2006-12-01

    The past year has witnessed contentious debates about public health in England around smoking bans, alcohol licencing, food labelling and junk food advertising. Some people argue that any government intervention in these areas is 'nanny statist'--an unnecessary intrusion into people's lives and what they do, eat and drink. Others argue that only the state can alter the environment that shapes people's decisions and behaviour. This paper suggests that there is a strong argument to be made for government intervention to safeguard public health. Legislation brings about changes that individuals on their own cannot, and sets new standards for the public good. Rather than condemning such activity as 'nanny statist', it might be more appropriate to view it as a form of 'stewardship'. The paper draws on international evidence about alcohol use, smoking and road safety to show how taxation, advertising bans, regulations proscribing behaviour and education create a public health framework and shape individual choices towards healthier and safer behaviour.

  10. 42 CFR 93.210 - Good faith.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 42 Public Health 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Good faith. 93.210 Section 93.210 Public Health... MISCONDUCT Definitions § 93.210 Good faith. Good faith as applied to a complainant or witness, means having a... allegation or cooperation with a research misconduct proceeding is not in good faith if made with knowing or...

  11. Motives of sanctioning: Equity and emotions in a public good experiment with punishment

    OpenAIRE

    Crosetto, Paolo; Güth, Werner; Mittone, Luigi; Ploner, Matteo

    2012-01-01

    We study conditional cooperation based on a sequential two-person linear public good game in which a trusting first contributor can be exploited by a second contributor. After playing this game the first contributor is allowed to punish the second contributor. The consequences of sanctioning depend on the treatment: whereas punishment can reduce inequality in one treatment, it only creates another inequality in the other. To capture the effect of delay on punishment both treatments are run on...

  12. Friendly Alternatives to the Argumentative Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costanzo, William V.

    Many teachers would like to counter what Deborah Tannen calls "The Argument Culture." They recognize that teaching students traditional principles of argument may perpetuate the kind of adversarial thinking that erupts all too often: in aggressive newspaper headlines, on confrontational television shows, in court rooms, and in school…

  13. Argument and Credibility Appeals in Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1987-01-01

    Indicated that (1) arguments perceived as strong by receivers generated both more favorable, supportive cognitive responses and attitude change than weak message arguments; and (2) perceived source expertise and attractiveness influenced cognitive responses, but not in a coherent fashion or to the extent that they effect attitude change. (JD)

  14. Teaching Strategies for Developing Students' Argumentation Skills about Socioscientific Issues in High School Genetics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawson, Vaille Maree; Venville, Grady

    2010-01-01

    An outcome of science education is that young people have the understandings and skills to participate in public debate and make informed decisions about science issues that influence their lives. Toulmin's argumentation skills are emerging as an effective strategy to enhance the quality of evidence based decision making in science classrooms. In…

  15. (Non-)Arguments in Long-Distance Extractions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nyvad, Anne Mette; Kizach, Johannes; Christensen, Ken Ramshøj

    2015-10-01

    Previous research has shown that in fully grammatical sentences, response time increases and acceptability decreases when the filler in a long-distance extraction is incompatible with the matrix verb. This effect could potentially be due to a difference between argument and adjunct extraction. In this paper we investigate the effect of long extraction of arguments and adjuncts where incompatibility is kept constant. Based on the results from two offline surveys and an online experiment, we argue that the argument/adjunct asymmetry in terms of acceptability is due to differences in processing difficulty, but that both types of extraction involve the same intermediate attachment sites in the online processing.

  16. Argumentation in elementary science education: addressing methodological issues and conceptual understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaya, Ebru

    2017-11-01

    In this review essay I respond to issues raised in Mijung Kim and Wolff-Michael Roth's paper titled "Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms", which presents a study dealing with dialogical argumentation in early elementary school classrooms. Since there is very limited research on lower primary school students' argumentation in school science, their paper makes a contribution to research on children's argumentation skills. In this response, I focus on two main issues to extend the discussion in Kim and Roth's paper: (a) methodological issues including conducting a quantitative study on children's argumentation levels and focusing on children's written argumentation in addition to their dialogical argumentation, and (b) investigating children's conceptual understanding along with their argumentation levels. Kim and Roth emphasize the difficulty in determining the level of children's argumentation through the Toulmin's Argument Pattern and lack of high level arguments by children due to their difficulties in writing texts. Regarding these methodological issues, I suggest designing quantitative research on coding children's argument levels because such research could potentially provide important findings on children's argumentation. Furthermore, I discuss alternative written products including posters, figures, or pictures generated by children in order to trace children's arguments, and finally articulating argumentation and conceptual understanding of children.

  17. Characteristics of good supervision: a multi-perspective qualitative exploration of the Masters in Public Health dissertation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal; Reilly, Jacqueline

    2017-09-01

    A dissertation is often a core component of the Masters in Public Health (MPH) qualification. This study aims to explore its purpose, from the perspective of both students and supervisors, and identify practices viewed as constituting good supervision. A multi-perspective qualitative study drawing on in-depth one-to-one interviews with MPH supervisors (n = 8) and students (n = 10), with data thematically analysed. The MPH dissertation was viewed as providing generic as well as discipline-specific knowledge and skills. It provided an opportunity for in-depth study on a chosen topic but different perspectives were evident as to whether the project should be grounded in public health practice rather than academia. Good supervision practice was thought to require topic knowledge, generic supervision skills (including clear communication of expectations and timely feedback) and adaptation of supervision to meet student needs. Two ideal types of the MPH dissertation process were identified. Supervisor-led projects focus on achieving a clearly defined output based on a supervisor-identified research question and aspire to harmonize research and teaching practice, but often have a narrower focus. Student-led projects may facilitate greater learning opportunities and better develop skills for public health practice but could be at greater risk of course failure. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health.

  18. Arguments that take counterconsiderations into account

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    2014-01-01

    This paper examines arguments that take counterconsiderations into account, and it does so from a dialogical point of view. According to this account, a counterconsideration is part of a critical reaction from a real or imagined opponent, and an arguer may take it into account in his argument in at

  19. We have yet to see the "visual argument"

    OpenAIRE

    Popa, O.E.

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I explain how these claims reflect upon past and future research. The first claim is that qualifying an argument as being visual amounts to a category mistake; the second claim is that past analyses of visual arguments fault on both end of the “production line” in that the input is not visual and the output is not an argument. Based on the developed critique, I discuss how the study of images in co...

  20. Understanding a High School Physics Teacher's Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jianlan; Buck, Gayle A.

    2016-08-01

    Scientific argumentation is an important learning objective in science education. It is also an effective instructional approach to constructivist science learning. The implementation of argumentation in school settings requires science teachers, who are pivotal agents of transforming classroom practices, to develop sophisticated knowledge of argumentation. However, there is a lack of understanding about science teachers' knowledge of argumentation, especially the dialogic meaning of argumentation. In this case study, we closely examine a high school physics teacher's argumentation-related pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) in the context of dialogic argumentation. We synthesize the teacher's performed PCK from his argumentation practices and narrated PCK from his reflection on the argumentation practices, from which we summarize his PCK of argumentation from the perspectives of orientation, instructional strategies, students, curriculum, and assessment. Finally, we describe the teacher's perception and adaption of argumentation in his class. We also identity the barriers to argumentation implementation in this particular case and suggest solutions to overcome these barriers.

  1. Reasoning by Argumentation. Social Studies Learning Milestone 4.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voss, James F.

    This paper is concerned with the importance of argumentation in the classroom, especially in relation to the social sciences. Issues of argument and argument evaluation are considered. The paper analyzes the nature of such reasoning and indicates its importance in subject matter learning. Three situations are described in the paper in which…

  2. Consciousness regained? Philosophical arguments for and against reductive physicalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sturm, Thomas

    2012-03-01

    This paper is an overview of recent discussions concerning the mind-body problem, which is being addressed at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. It focuses on phenomenal features of consciousness or "qualia," which are distinguished from various related issues. Then follows a discussion of various influential skeptical arguments that question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument of multiple realizability, and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found to be very convincing. It does not necessarily follow that reductive physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant conceptual and methodological reflection is required, alongside ongoing research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism and naivety.

  3. Argumentation in the Chemistry Laboratory: Inquiry and Confirmatory Experiments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katchevich, Dvora; Hofstein, Avi; Mamlok-Naaman, Rachel

    2013-02-01

    One of the goals of science education is to provide students with the ability to construct arguments—reasoning and thinking critically in a scientific context. Over the years, many studies have been conducted on constructing arguments in science teaching, but only few of them have dealt with studying argumentation in the laboratory. Our research focuses on the process in which students construct arguments in the chemistry laboratory while conducting various types of experiments. It was found that inquiry experiments have the potential to serve as an effective platform for formulating arguments, owing to the features of this learning environment. The discourse during inquiry-type experiments was found to be rich in arguments, whereas that during confirmatory-type experiments was found to be sparse in arguments. The arguments, which were developed during the discourse of an open inquiry experiment, focus on the hypothesis-building stage, analysis of the results, and drawing appropriate conclusions.

  4. Bioenergy good practice

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Birse, J.; Chambers, K.

    2000-07-01

    This report gives details of a project to make the Good Practice Guidelines, which were developed to help the UK Bioenergy industry, the national and local governments, and the public, more widely available. Details concerning the designing of a Good Practice Programme, and the proposed codes of Good Practice programme are given, and general relevant good practice guidance documents are discussed. The stakeholder survey and workshop, and the proposed codes of a Good Practice Programme are presented in Annexes. (UK)

  5. Revisiting Strawsonian Arguments from Inescapability

    OpenAIRE

    Szigeti, Andras

    2012-01-01

    Peter Strawson defends the thesis that determinism is irrelevant to the justifiability of responsibility-attributions. In this paper, I want to examine various arguments advanced by Strawson in support of this thesis. These arguments all draw on the thought that the practice of responsibility is inescapable. My main focus is not so much the metaphysical details of Strawsonian compatibilism, but rather the more fundamental idea that x being inescapable may be reason for us to regard x as justi...

  6. Efficient computation of argumentation semantics

    CERN Document Server

    Liao, Beishui

    2013-01-01

    Efficient Computation of Argumentation Semantics addresses argumentation semantics and systems, introducing readers to cutting-edge decomposition methods that drive increasingly efficient logic computation in AI and intelligent systems. Such complex and distributed systems are increasingly used in the automation and transportation systems field, and particularly autonomous systems, as well as more generic intelligent computation research. The Series in Intelligent Systems publishes titles that cover state-of-the-art knowledge and the latest advances in research and development in intelligen

  7. Nature and part of the sanitary arguments and negotiations about the incinerators implementations, final report; Nature et place des arguments sanitaires dans les negociations autour des implantations d'incinerateurs, rapport final

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Laurans, Y; Dubien, I

    2000-07-01

    In the framework of the implementation of incinerators, the ADEME realized a study on the impacts of the public relations in the negotiation on the wastes management problem. The objectives of the study are a better knowledge of the conflict to better take it into account and the part of the sanitary arguments in the processes of wastes processing installations. (A.L.B.)

  8. Argument from Design in Richard Baxter's Natural Theology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Igor Koshelev

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the teleological argument, or argument from design, as expounded by a famous English Protestant theologian Richard Baxter, one of the leading 17-th century English Puritans, in his work “The Reasons of the Christian Religion”. Natural theology, providing arguments for the existence of God based on reason and without appeal to the Revelation, has always played a vital role throughout the entire history of theological thought. The most popular was the so called teleological argument, or the argument from design, which stands out among all rational arguments for the existence of the Creator. It is mostly known from the “Fifth Way” of the medieval Scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas and a famous work “Natural Theology” by an English 19-th century theologian William Paley. The foundation for the modern research in the area was laid during the age of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century English nature philosophers and theologians, especially Robert Boyle, who believed the teleological argument to be the key element of Natural Theology. His friend and confessor, Richard Baxter, a prominent representative of the Puritan Natural Theology, mostly known by his theological works, paved the way for Natural Theology both in his own time and the following centuries. His work was thought to be the best collection of the evidences for Christianity.

  9. Political and Policy Arguments for Integrated Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adalsteinn D Brown

    2017-04-01

    Our analysis suggests several key issues around successful integrated data policy and politics that support the importance of strong leadership, an incremental approach to institution building that focuses on public benefits, strongly alignment to missions that are congruent with societal values, and stronger attention to effective and rapid implementation of policy. In addition to the cases studied here, the success of smaller sub-national (e.g. state or provincial efforts suggests that smaller efforts tend to work better although their success may not receive the attention that could support larger efforts to integrate data on the national level. Further work should focus chiefly on the extension of these arguments to non-health sectors to realize the full value of integrated data.

  10. How Should We Deliberate? Between the Argumentative and the Representative Dimensions of Democratic Deliberation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tutui Viorel

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: My paper focuses on an important subject of the contemporary theory of democracy: what is the relationship between the argumentative and the representative dimensions of deliberative democracy? Using James Fishkin’s account of deliberative democracy and its relations with other democratic models I will argue that there is a severe conflict between these two dimensions: the attempt to enhance the value of argumentation presupposes a decrease in the representative value and the attempt to enhance the representative value results in a decrease in the argumentative value. This conflict is generated by what I call ‘the paradox of democratic deliberation’: the legitimacy of political decisions demands for the ‘raw’ opinion of the citizens, while the epistemic rightness of political decisions demands for a ‘filtered’ public opinion. But we cannot have both. In the final part of this paper I will sustain a moderate conception regarding the role of deliberation in democracy which offers us a way around this paradox but only at the price of significantly reducing the importance of deliberation.

  11. Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages: results from a 2011 national public opinion survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barry, Colleen L; Niederdeppe, Jeff; Gollust, Sarah E

    2013-02-01

    Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages including nondiet sodas, sport drinks, and energy drinks has been linked with obesity. Recent state and local efforts to tax these beverages have been unsuccessful. Enactment will be unlikely without public support, yet little research is available to assess how to effectively make the case for such taxes. The objectives were to assess public opinion about arguments used commonly in tax debates regarding sugar-sweetened beverages and to assess differences in public opinion by respondents' political party affiliation. A public opinion survey was fielded in January-March 2011 using a probability-based sample of respondents from a large, nationally representative online panel to examine public attitudes about nine pro- and eight anti-tax arguments. These data were analyzed in August 2011. Findings indicated greater public agreement with anti- than pro-tax arguments. The most popular anti-tax argument was that a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is arbitrary because it does not affect consumption of other unhealthy foods (60%). A majority also agreed that such taxes were a quick way for politicians to fill budget holes (58%); an unacceptable intrusion of government into people's lives (53.8%); opposed by most Americans (53%); and harmful to the poor (51%). No pro-tax arguments were endorsed by a majority of the public. Respondents reported highest agreement with the argument that sugar-sweetened beverages were the single largest contributor to obesity (49%) and would raise revenue for obesity prevention (41%). Without bolstering public support for existing pro-tax messages or developing alternative pro-tax messages, enacting such policies will be difficult. Message-framing studies could be useful in identifying promising strategies for persuading Americans that taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages are warranted. Copyright © 2013 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Writing from Different Cultural Contexts: How College Students Frame an Environmental SSI through Written Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balgopal, Meena M.; Wallace, Alison M.; Dahlberg, Steven

    2017-01-01

    The research objective of this study was to describe the frames that students from two culturally distinct institutions used in their argumentative essays on a locally relevant environmental socioscientific issue. Participants (n = 47) were recruited from biology courses designed for pre-service elementary teachers at both a public university and…

  13. Socioscientific Argumentation of Pre-Service Teachers about Genetically Modified Organisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herawati, D.; Ardianto, D.

    2017-09-01

    This study aims to investigate socioscientific argumentation of pre-service teachers of science and non-science major regarding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) issue. We used descriptive study and involved second-year pre-service teachers from two major, 28 pre-service science teachers (PSTs) and 28 pre-service non-science teachers (PNSTs) as participants. Paper and pencil test was administered in order to obtain the data of PSTs’ and PNSTs’ argument about GMOs. All of the data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. We applied Toulmin Argumentation Pattern (TAP) as a basic framework to identify the argumentation component. The result showed that both PSTs and PNSTs were able to propose an argument with a claim, data, and/or warrant.. Most of their argument contain data which provided in the text, without any further reasoning or relevant scientific knowledge. So, the coherency between argumentation component in both PSTs and PNSTs was limited. However, PSTs are more able to propose coherent arguments than PNSTs. These findings indicated that educational background and learning experiences may influence to pre-service teacher argumentation in the context of GMOs. Beside that, teaching and learning process which focused on the socioscientific issues is necessary to develop pre-service teachers’ argumentation

  14. Locative-Related Roles and the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Balinese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I Wayan Arka

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper uses the realisation of locative-related roles in Balinese to show that there is no clear-cut distinction between arguments and adjuncts, supporting the gradient nature of grammatical functions (cf. Croft 2001; Langacker 1987; Aarts 2007. It argues that argumenthood is not wholly a property of a lexical head predicate and that a purely lexically based projectionist approach to syntactic argument structures cannot be maintained. It also explores the effect that the interplay between relevant properties of locatives has on their recruitability as arguments, and a novel argument-index analysis is proposed as a means to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The analysis makes use of both general and language-specific morphosyntactic and morphosemantic tests. Investigation of locative-related roles reveals that certain properties determine their status in the argument-adjunct continuum: thematic, individuated and animate locatives are more argument-like than non-thematic, inanimate and general deictic locatives (in line with Kittila 2007, 2008; Peterson 2007. Interplay between these properties is shown to affect argument recruitment in Balinese, based on the value of the argument index for a given locative-related role. More generally, there also is evidence that languages vary in whether they allow true adjuncts to be recruited as arguments at all.

  15. Support for argument structures review and assessment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cyra, Lukasz; Gorski, Janusz

    2011-01-01

    Argument structures are commonly used to develop and present cases for safety, security and for other properties of systems. Such structures tend to grow excessively, which causes problems with their review and assessment. Two issues are of particular interest: (1) systematic and explicit assessment of the compelling power of an argument, and (2) communication of the result of such an assessment to relevant recipients. The paper presents a solution to these problems. The method of Visual Assessment of Arguments (VAA), being this solution, is based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence applied to the assessment of the strength of arguments, and a visual mechanism of issuing and presenting assessments, supported by the so-called opinion triangle. In the paper we explain theoretical grounding for the method and provide guidance on its application. The results of some validation experiments are also presented.

  16. Effect of local information within network layers on the evolution of cooperation in duplex public goods games

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhou, Yifeng; Zheng, Xiaoming; Wu, Weiwei

    2015-01-01

    Traditional works of public goods game (PGG) are often studied in simplex networks where agents play games through the same type of social interactions. In order to promote cooperation against the defection in PGGs in simplex network environment, many mechanisms have been proposed from different perspectives, such as the volunteering mechanisms, and the punishment and reward approaches. However, due to diverse types of interactions between agents in reality, the study of PGG should also consider the characteristic of multiplexity of networks. Hence, we firstly model the public goods game in the duplex network (for simplification of analysis, the duplex network is considered), in which agents have two types of social interactions, and thus the network is modeled as two network layers. This type of PGG is naturally named as duplex public goods game (D-PGG), in which agents can select one of the network layers to allocate their limited resources. Then for the new game environment (D-PGG), we propose a novel perspective to promote cooperation: degrading the information integrity, i.e., agents get information just from one network layer (local information) rather than from the whole duplex network (global information) in the evolution process. Finally, through theoretical analyses and simulations, we find that if agents imitate based on the local information of the payoff in the evolution, cooperation can be generally promoted; and the extent of promotion depends on both the network structure and the similarity of the network layers

  17. Prior knowledge in recalling arguments in bioethical dilemmas

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiemke Katharina Schmidt

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Prior knowledge is known to facilitate learning new information. Normally in studies confirming this outcome the relationship between prior knowledge and the topic to be learned is obvious: the information to be acquired is part of the domain or topic to which the prior knowledge belongs. This raises the question as to whether prior knowledge of various domains facilitates recalling information. In this study 79 eleventh-grade students completed a questionnaire on their prior knowledge of seven different domains related to the bioethical dilemma of prenatal diagnostics. The students read a text containing arguments for and arguments against prenatal diagnostics. After one week and again 12 weeks later they were asked to write down all the arguments they remembered. Prior knowledge helped them recall the arguments one week (r = .350 and 12 weeks (r = .316 later. Prior knowledge of three of the seven domains significantly helped them recall the arguments one week later (correlations between r = .194 to r = .394. Partial correlations with interest as a control item revealed that interest did not explain the relationship between prior knowledge and recall. Prior knowledge of different domains jointly supports the recall of arguments related to bioethical topics.

  18. Patriotic values for public goods

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dallimer, Martin; Jacobsen, Jette Bredahl; Lundhede, Thomas

    2015-01-01

    The natural environment is central to human well-being through its role in ecosystem service (ES) provision. Managing ES often requires coordination across international borders. Although this may deliver greater conservation gains than countries acting alone, we do not know whether the public su...

  19. The evolution of human mobility based on the public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Shiqing

    2017-07-01

    We explore the evolution of human mobility behavior based on public goods game. By using mean field method, the population distribution in different regions is theoretical calculated. Numerical simulation results show that the correlation between the region's degree and its final population is not significant under a larger human migration rate. Human mobility could effectively promote cooperative behavior and the population balance of different regions. Therefore, encouraging individuals to migrate may increase the total benefits of the whole society. Moreover, increasing the cooperation cost could reduce the number of cooperators, and that would happen to the correlation between the region's degree and its final population. The results indicate the total population could not dramatically rise with the region's degree under an unfair society.

  20. Quantitative Analysis on the Inter-provincial Distribution of Major Public Goods' Expenditure in China - Based on the Data for 2007

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Hengbo; Jiang, Yun

    This paper uses the principle of Gini Coefficient which measures the equity of income distribution, based on the sample of the financial expenditure of typical public goods and the data of population size which belong to each province and municipality in 2007 to construct the mathematical model. It investigates the regional distribution structure of national public goods' financial expenditure and calculates the corresponding "Gini coefficient" values through the quantitative research method, regression analysis. The calculated results show that it is reasonable on the distribution of the population that China's finance invests in major public products and services vital to the people's livelihood, and the investment does not exceed the bottom line of inequity. At last, the paper analyzes the reasons for the conclusions.

  1. The private partners of public health: public-private alliances for public good.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDonnell, Sharon; Bryant, Carol; Harris, Jeff; Campbell, Marci Kramish; Lobb, Ano; Hannon, Peggy A; Cross, Jeffrey L; Gray, Barbara

    2009-04-01

    We sought to convey lessons learned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Prevention Research Centers (PRCs) about the value and challenges of private-sector alliances resulting in innovative health promotion strategies. Several PRCs based in a variety of workplace and community settings contributed. We conducted interviews with principal investigators, a literature review, and a review of case studies of private-sector alliances in a microbusiness model, a macrobusiness model, and as multiparty partnerships supporting public health research, implementation, and human resource services. Private-sector alliances provide many advantages, particularly access to specialized skills generally beyond the expertise of public health entities. These skills include manufacturing, distribution, marketing, business planning, and development. Alliances also allow ready access to employee populations. Public health entities can offer private-sector partners funding opportunities through special grants, data gathering and analysis skills, and enhanced project credibility and trust. Challenges to successful partnerships include time and resource availability and negotiating the cultural divide between public health and the private sector. Critical to success are knowledge of organizational culture, values, mission, currency, and methods of operation; an understanding of and ability to articulate the benefits of the alliance for each partner; and the ability and time to respond to unexpected changes and opportunities. Private-public health alliances are challenging, and developing them takes time and resources, but aspects of these alliances can capitalize on partners' strengths, counteract weaknesses, and build collaborations that produce better outcomes than otherwise possible. Private partners may be necessary for program initiation or success. CDC guidelines and support materials may help nurture these alliances.

  2. Den argumentative teksttype i reklamer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Anne Ellerup

    1998-01-01

    - and macropropositions, it is a multicriterial model which takes into account both the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of texts. However, the model seems to offer some problems in establishing the limits between the argumentative and the descriptive text type. This imprecision is apparently due to the lack...... of distinction between the discourse potential of evaluative and referential propositions. This problem will be demonstrated on examples from the genre of advertising material which, because of its persuasive purpose, is particularly rich in argumentative features....

  3. What Is the Greater Good? The Discourse on Public and Private Roles of Higher Education in the New Economy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hensley, Brad; Galilee-Belfer, Mika; Lee, Jenny J.

    2013-01-01

    This study examined the ways that the "public good" of higher education is being conceptualised as economic benefits and cost/benefit rationalities in the current economic downturn. Based on the case of Arizona in the United States, a discourse analysis of speeches was performed on the way public, state and institutional leaders…

  4. Argumentative Bluff in Eristic Discussion: An Analysis and Evaluation

    OpenAIRE

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    2010-01-01

    How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as well as, at least to some degree, rhetorically effective. Within eristic discussion it can be profitable to engage in bluff with respect to such claims. However, it will be argued that such bluffi...

  5. Nature and part of the sanitary arguments and negotiations about the incinerators implementations, final report; Nature et place des arguments sanitaires dans les negociations autour des implantations d'incinerateurs, rapport final

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Laurans, Y.; Dubien, I.

    2000-07-01

    In the framework of the implementation of incinerators, the ADEME realized a study on the impacts of the public relations in the negotiation on the wastes management problem. The objectives of the study are a better knowledge of the conflict to better take it into account and the part of the sanitary arguments in the processes of wastes processing installations. (A.L.B.)

  6. Enunciation and argumentation: proposals for the analysis of personal forms as argumentative resources in orality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Federico Testoni

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available As part of an investigation about strategies and resources for the construction of social representations (Raiter, 2016 on orality, we propose to articulate an analysis of linguistic forms with the argumentative dimension of utterances. The aim of this paper is to review the methodology proposed by Lavandera (1984 for the analysis of the tension between the personal and the impersonal, interpreting the use of this dimension as an argumentative resource (Ducrot, 1984. From our interdiscursive perspective, we seek to show how the characterization of the enunciative roles can facilitate analysis of the positions of enunciation from which the meaning of statements is oriented (Guimarães, 1998. To this end, we will analyse three fragments of an interview by applying the study of the distribution of pronominal forms (Lavandera, 1984 and the argumentative chains (Ducrot, 1984. We believe that analysis as described from the perspective of discourse analysis will mean a contribution for future work on strategies for building social representations.

  7. Risk and Argument: A Risk-based Argumentation Method for Practical Security

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nunes Leal Franqueira, V.; Tun, Thein Tan; Yu, Yijun; Wieringa, Roelf J.; Nuseibeh, Bashar

    When showing that a software system meets certain security requirements, it is often necessary to work with formal and informal descriptions of the system behavior, vulnerabilities, and threats from potential attackers. In earlier work, Haley et al. [1] showed structured argumentation could deal

  8. Strategic Use of Multiple Texts for the Evaluation of Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kobayashi, Keiichi

    2010-01-01

    Two experiments were conducted to examine whether students use arguments with refutation in one text for evaluating the opposite arguments without refutation in another text. Undergraduate students read two conflicting texts in either of the two orders: pro arguments text first and con arguments text first. After reading each text, they evaluated…

  9. Teaching Critical Questions about Argumentation through the Revising Process: Effects of Strategy Instruction on College Students' Argumentative Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Yi; Ferretti, Ralph P.

    2013-01-01

    The effects of self-regulated strategy development revising instruction for college students that targeted the use of argumentation schemes and critical questions were assessed in three conditions. In the first condition, students were taught to revise their essays by asking and answering critical questions about the "argument from consequences"…

  10. Understanding and Detecting Supporting Arguments of Diverse Types

    OpenAIRE

    Hua, Xinyu; Wang, Lu

    2017-01-01

    We investigate the problem of sentence-level supporting argument detection from relevant documents for user-specified claims. A dataset containing claims and associated citation articles is collected from online debate website idebate.org. We then manually label sentence-level supporting arguments from the documents along with their types as study, factual, opinion, or reasoning. We further characterize arguments of different types, and explore whether leveraging type information can facilita...

  11. The Peierls argument for higher dimensional Ising models

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bonati, Claudio

    2014-01-01

    The Peierls argument is a mathematically rigorous and intuitive method to show the presence of a non-vanishing spontaneous magnetization in some lattice models. This argument is typically explained for the D = 2 Ising model in a way which cannot be easily generalized to higher dimensions. The aim of this paper is to present an elementary discussion of the Peierls argument for the general D-dimensional Ising model. (paper)

  12. Extension-based semantics of argumentation frameworks for agent interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gratie, C.

    2012-01-01

    Argumentation plays an important part in human interaction, whether it is used for persuasion, negotiation or simply for sharing one's point of view on a certain topic. Even at the abstract level, choosing the acceptable arguments from a given set of conflicting arguments is a challenging problem,

  13. Arguments for and against a career in surgery: a qualitative analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Businger, Adrian; Villiger, Peter; Sommer, Christoph; Furrer, Markus

    2010-08-01

    To evaluate arguments given by board-certified surgeons in Switzerland for and against a career in surgery. Currently, the surgical profession in most Western countries is experiencing a labor shortage because of a declining interest in a surgical career among new graduates, a changed public opinion of medicine and its representatives, and as a consequence of the increasing influence of health economists and politicians on the professional independence of surgeons. Reports that focus primarily on the reasons that board-certified surgeons remain within the surgical profession are rare. Surgeons were asked to answer 2 questions concerning arguments for and against a career in surgery. Of 749 surgeons the arguments of 334 (44.6%) were analyzed using Mayring's content analysis. The surgeons were also asked whether they would choose medicine as a career path again. The 334 participating surgeons provided 790 statements for and 981 statements against a career in surgery. Fifty-nine surgeons (17.7%) would not choose medicine as a career again. Mayring's content analysis of the statements yielded 10 categories with arguments both for and against a career in surgery. "Personal Experience in Daily Professional Life" (18.7%) was the top-ranked category in favor of a career in surgery, and "Specific Training Conditions" (20%) was the top-ranked category against the choice of such a career. Ordinal logistic regression showed that the category "Personal Experience in Daily Professional Life" (OR, 2.39; 95%CI, 1.13-5.07) was independently associated with again studying medicine, and the category "Work-life Balance" (OR, 0.37; 95%CI, 0.20-0.70) was associated with not studying medicine again. This qualitative study revealed unfavorable working conditions and regulations as surgeons' main complaints. It is concluded that new organizational frameworks and professional perspectives are required to retain qualified and motivated surgeons in the surgical profession.

  14. Computer-Supported Argumentative Writer : An authoring tool with built-in scaffolding and self-regulation for novice writers of argumentative texts

    OpenAIRE

    Benetos, Kalliopi

    2006-01-01

    Argumentative writing is a valued genre in a range of disciplines and curricula because it requires that writers develop relationships between ideas and build a deep and multifaceted understanding of the topic. Due to the multifaceted demands, and inherent structure and conventions of argumentative writing, it is also among the most difficult to master. The aim of this masters thesis is to create a prototype of an authoring tool that can help novices (13-19 years old) of argumentative essay w...

  15. Is Sizewell a good investment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    MacKerron, G.

    1984-01-01

    The CEGB proposal, at present the subject of a public inquiry, to build a Westinghouse pressurised water reactor at Sizewell, is discussed. The principal aim of the paper is to examine the case for achieving cost savings for the electricity supply industry. The headings are: system cost savings (discussion of method of assessing savings); the CEGB case (involving various assumptions about the UK economy); objections to the Board's case (assumptions about fossil fuel prices, construction costs, operating characteristics and net present costs; uncertainty); other arguments for Sizewell (capacity need; fuel diversity); conclusion. (U.K.)

  16. Trying and the Arguments from Total Failure

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Grünbaum, Thor

    2008-01-01

    New Volitionalism is a name for certain widespread conception of the nature of intentional action. Some of the standard arguments for New Volitionalism, the so-called arguments from total failure, have even acquired the status of basic assumptions for many other kinds of philosophers. It is there...

  17. The assessment of argumentation from expert opinion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wagemans, J.H.M.

    2011-01-01

    In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a

  18. Collective Acceptance and the Is-Ought Argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hindriks, Frank

    According to John Searle's well-known Is-Ought Argument, it is possible to derive an ought-statement from is-statements only. This argument concerns obligations involved in institutions such as promising, and it relies on the idea that institutions can be conceptualized in terms of constitutive

  19. La modalité au service de l’argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Cuniță

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Communication sometimes consists for the speaker of putting forward an endorsed opinion in a given situation and in attempting to provide the audience with the best reasons in order for them to concur with this opinion, while granting them the liberty of espousing or not the thesis in question at the end of the reasoning. In other words, the subject that the speaker is going to debate, a subject which falls within the whole set of ideas and opinions shared by his/her possible or real interlocutors at the moment Ti will take the form of an argumentation. A special relationship is established between the speaker and the message recipient, as well as between the former – also called argument providing subject (‘sujet argumentant’ by certain researchers – and his/her words, of whose validity he/she must convince the latter, the target audience. In order for the argumentation to succeed, the speaker must carefully mark his/her position regarding the words he/she employs, as well as regarding the value of the arguments mobilized. It is precisely on these levels that the importance of modality becomes manifest, thus contributing to the success of argument phrasing (‘mise en argumentation’. How can modality prove useful for argument phrasing? On what levels is it involved in the process of argumentation and how is it achieved? Such is the subject we attempt to develop starting from a message of a particular type: a revealing fragment, in our opinion, taken from a literary text.

  20. PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSPARENCY:A CONCEPTUAL DISSECTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mara Andreea SÎNTEJUDEANU

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The concept of transparency has increasingly attracted the attention of academic, political and business areas. Many studies have demonstrated the need for adopting this corporate governance principle also in the public sector, a phenomenon that has become widespread at international level. The academic study field defines transparency as the ability to look clearly through the window of an institution. Starting from this statement, the research focuses on the importance of transparency in public governance and on the framework for identifying and assessing this concept. Furthermore, this paper also analysis the limits of this notion in order to maintain its significance and effectiveness. Thus, based on the literature review, this study summarizes the opinions and arguments of various authors in the field regarding the notion of transparency in the public sector. At the same time, it analysis the conclusions of empirical studies on this topic. The results of the study reveal the importance and necessity of information disclosure among different users for increasing citizens' trust in government and achieving good governance. However, the positive aspects of transparency tend to be overestimated and considering the ambiguity of this concept it should be carefully handled.

  1. Kunnen wij elke machine verslaan? Beschouwingen rondom Lucas’ argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Visser, A.

    1986-01-01

    In dit artikel wil ik niet Anselmus' Argument bespreken maar dat van Lucas -J.R.Lucas om precies to zijn. Lucas' Argument is gericht tegen de dwaas die in zijn hart zei: de mens is een machine. Het argument is kort, maakt gebruik van eenvoudige, maar diepe wiskundige stellingen -de

  2. Slippery Slope Arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Burg, W.; Chadwick, R.F.

    1998-01-01

    Slippery slope arguments hold that one should not take some action (which in itself may be innocuous or even laudable) in order to prevent one from being dragged down a slope towards some clearly undesirable situation. Their typical purpose is to prevent changes in the status quo and, therefore,

  3. THE IDEAS DEVELOPMENT OF ARGUMENTATIVE DISCOURSES OF INDONESIAN WRITERS FOUND IN THE OPINION FORUM OF THE JAKARTA POST

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katharina Abbas Achmad adib Dwi Rukmini

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available In this era, English is established as the world language of research and publication. This makes the English language significant for students and professionals. Tangkiengsirisin (2010, 1 states that text flow through a sequence of sentences is a main criterion for advanced writing. This research is aimed at finding out the flows of ideas of the English Arguments of Indonesian writers. This research applies topical, paradigmatic analysis. It involves identifying topics and sequences of topics/ ideas. After the topical analysis is done, the investigator contemplates the ideas development pattern of the entire essay. After analyzing fourteen English Arguments of Indonesian writers, it is found out that English Arguments of Indonesian writers are mostly developed linearly. It contradicts with Kaplan’s explanation (1966 that oriental groups express their ideas mostly in indirect ways. It means that at present Kaplan’s theory is partly valid. Even though the English Arguments of Indonesian writers are mostly developed linearly, it doesn’t mean that the teachers can ignore it in teaching Advanced Writing. Flow of ideas should become one of the materials of Advanced Writing to Indonesian learners, but it doesn’t need more teaching time allotment. Keywords: argumentative discourses, flow of ideas, linear, circular, parallel, digress

  4. Public health

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Berg, van den A.E.

    2007-01-01

    Agnes van den Berg wrote an essay about human health and nature, establishing that subject as an important policy argument in developing (urban) nature in the Netherlands. She studied the public balance of fear and fascination for nature, summarising benefits on human health. In this chapter, she

  5. Formalising arguments about the burden of persuasion.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Prakken, H.; Sartor, G.

    2007-01-01

    This paper presents an argument-based logic for reasoning about allocations of the burden of persuasion. The logic extends the system of Prakken (2001), which in turn modified the system of Prakken & Sartor (1996) with the possibility to distribute the burden of proof over both sides in an argument

  6. An Argument Approach to Observation Protocol Validity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bell, Courtney A.; Gitomer, Drew H.; McCaffrey, Daniel F.; Hamre, Bridget K.; Pianta, Robert C.; Qi, Yi

    2012-01-01

    This article develops a validity argument approach for use on observation protocols currently used to assess teacher quality for high-stakes personnel and professional development decisions. After defining the teaching quality domain, we articulate an interpretive argument for observation protocols. To illustrate the types of evidence that might…

  7. Identifying Kinds of Reasoning in Collective Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conner, AnnaMarie; Singletary, Laura M.; Smith, Ryan C.; Wagner, Patty Anne; Francisco, Richard T.

    2014-01-01

    We combine Peirce's rule, case, and result with Toulmin's data, claim, and warrant to differentiate between deductive, inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning within collective argumentation. In this theoretical article, we illustrate these kinds of reasoning in episodes of collective argumentation using examples from one…

  8. [Textual pragmatics in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: argument].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallardo-Paúls, B; Gimeno-Martínez, M; Moreno-Campos, V

    2010-03-03

    Clinical linguistics involves a study of linguistic deficits which focuses on a series of aspects that range from strictly formal, grammatical points to the effective and contextualised use of language. Thus, it is also inevitably concerned with the cognitive, i.e. mental, correlate of such language use, whose basic textual dimensions are narration and argument. To describe the argumentative skills in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to examine their relationship with academic achievement and sociability. We analysed 79 argumentative texts written by adolescents with ADHD, using a methodology from cognitive linguistics and from theories of argumentation with a dialogical foundation. Adolescents with ADHD provided a greater number of arguments than those in the control group, but with a higher predominance of emotional and negative sanction strategies compared with a greater use of fallacious or circular arguments in those in the control group; the difference between the use of rational arguments in the two groups is not significant.

  9. Argument Structure in Arabic and English: Re-assessing Purity and Redeeming Hybridity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faisal Said Al-Maamari

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This study presents a contrastive rhetorical analysis of 20 argumentative Arabic and English editorials in argument structure. Samples were selected from two daily newspapers with equally wide distribution, and articles were written by their respective native writers. Both graphical and textual analyses captured the argument structure in terms of macro and micro arguments. A core finding is that the argument structure in the sampled editorials did not conform to the current predominant model of argument structure, which tended to polarize argument structure in terms of through or counter argumentation. The study contributes to the existing literature by defying the polarized traditional purity typology of argument structure frequently cited in the literature, and emphasizes a more dynamic hybrid model to understanding and analyzing arguments in general and in Arabic and English specifically. Additionally, the study of the professional genre of editorails has implications for academic writing and second language writing pedagogy by sensitizing foreign language learners to existing models of argument structure and possible ways to structure their arguments in the target language.

  10. Argumentation as rational persuasion in doctor-patient communication

    OpenAIRE

    Rubinelli Sara

    2013-01-01

    This paper discusses the value of argumentation as an instrument for rational persuasion in doctor patient (and general health professional patient) communication. Argumentation can be used to influence those beliefs that form the basis of an individual's attitudes and decision making process. In the medical context argumentation can be used to legitimize the points of view of the doctor and the patient; to correct add to or modify a patient's set of beliefs; and to enhance the patient's cent...

  11. Pupils' evaluation and generation of evidence and explanation in argumentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glassner, Amnon; Weinstock, Michael; Neuman, Yair

    2005-03-01

    Studies on argument have found that participants tend to prefer explanations to evidence. This apparent bias toward explanation has been qualified recently by research that has found it to diminish with the availability of evidence. This study examines the use of explanation versus evidence in the context of argumentation with reference to the goals of particular argument situations. Seventy-nine eighth-grade pupils at a regular, urban middle school. The pupils read argumentation scenarios, each having the stated goal of either explaining or proving a claim. The pupils rated the degree to which each of two provided assertions (one a theoretical explanation, and the other evidence-based) helped achieve the goal of the argument. On a second task, the pupils chose which of the two assertions should be more effective in achieving the argument goal. On the third task, the pupils generated either an explanation or evidence for each of the argumentation scenarios. Pupils demonstrated sensitivity to the relative epistemic strength of explanation and evidence. They rated explanations as more advantageous in achieving the explanation goal, and evidence as more advantageous in achieving the proof goal. Conversely, however, when asked to generate or recall an explanation or evidence, pupils produced more explanations than evidence independent of the argumentation goal. The study refines the definition of argumentation context to include specific goals. Pupils were sensitive to the context of the argumentation situation (e.g.goals, availability of evidence). However, they appeared to have a disposition toward explanation when asked to produce an explanation or evidence-based justification.

  12. Heritability of decisions and outcomes of public goods games

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai eHiraishi

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Prosociality is one of the most distinctive features of human beings but there are individual differences in cooperative behavior. Employing the twin method, we examined the heritability of cooperativeness and its outcomes on public goods games using a strategy method. In two experiments (Study 1 and Study 2, twin participants were asked to indicate 1 how much they would contribute to a group when they did not know how much the other group members were contributing, and 2 how much they would contribute if they knew the contributions of others. Overall, the heritability estimates were relatively small for each type of decision, but heritability was greater when participants knew that the others had made larger contributions. Using registered decisions in Study 2, we conducted five Monte Carlo simulations to examine genetic and environmental influences on the expected game payoffs. For the simulated one-shot game, the heritability estimates were small, comparable to those of game decisions. For the simulated iterated games, we found that the genetic influences first decreased, then increased as the numbers of iterations grew. The implication for the evolution of individual differences in prosociality is discussed.

  13. Social influence promotes cooperation in the public goods game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Te; Fu, Feng; Dou, Puxuan; Wang, Long

    2014-11-01

    Previous studies mainly consider the random selection pattern in which individuals randomly choose reference models from their neighbors for strategy updating. However, the random selection pattern is unable to capture all real world circumstances. We institute a spatial model to investigate the effects of influence-based reference selection pattern on the evolution of cooperation in the context of public goods games. Whenever experiencing strategy updating, all the individuals each choose one of its neighbors as a reference with the probability proportional to this neighbor’s influence. Levels of individuals’ influence are dynamical. When an individual is imitated, the level of its influence increases, thus constituting a positive feedback between the frequencies of individuals being imitated and the likelihood for them to be reference models. We find that the level of collective cooperation can be enhanced whenever the influence-based reference selection pattern is integrated into the strategy updating process. Results also show that the evolution of cooperation can be promoted when the increase in individuals’ frequency of being imitated upholds their influence in large magnitude. Our work may improve the understanding of how influence-based selection patterns promote cooperative behavior.

  14. Starkweather and Smith: Using "Contact Zones" to Teach Argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schutt, Robin Muksian

    1998-01-01

    Describes how a professor teaching a "Writing Arguments" course focused on two cases involving the death penalty to show students how arguments are constructed, and how students can form strong arguments of their own. Notes that this approach does not force students to choose sides when they stand somewhere in the middle. Describes four…

  15. Democracy, political participation and good governance in Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dare E. Arowolo

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The practice of democracy in Nigeria over a decade ago has not yielded much needed good governance. This is because democracy is practiced in such a way that responsible and competent people are scared away. Scholars and keen observers have attempted at unraveling the factors militating against translating democracy into good governance. The paper revealed that democratisation in Nigeria is pervaded by electoral violence, manipulation of election results and political participation constraints. These identified challenges have made it impossible to attain consolidated democracy that can, in turn, facilitate good governance. Democracy is a catalyst for accountability, transparency and responsive government which brings about good governance. The paper insisted that governance collapse in Nigeria is reflexive of the perfunctory role of the political actors and it adopted elite theory to reinforce this argument. The paper adopted content analysis as a means of data gathering. It dwelt extensively on the synergy between democracy, political participation and good governance but queried the artificial gulf between them in Nigeria. It concluded by putting forth viable and pragmatic way forward.

  16. Radiation protection of the public in respect of consumer goods containing radioactive substances

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1984-01-01

    The use of consumer goods containing radioactive substances makes a contribution to the total exposure of man to ionizing radiation. This contribution is explicitly recognized in Section II of the Basic Safety Standards established pursuant to Article 30 of the Euratom Treaty for the health protection of the general public and workers against the dangers of ionizing radiation, first published in 1959 and most recently revised 15 July 1980. Nevertheless, the Standards are of a general nature and need to be expanded on to be of practical application in this field. National authorities must have additional information in order to attain in full the objectives stated in them. This guide has been prepared with these considerations in mind. The guide is not a set of regulations but is better described as a code of practice, drawn up by specialists and approved by the scientific experts in the field of radiological protection and public health appointed under Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty

  17. Contribution diversity and incremental learning promote cooperation in public goods games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Penghui; Liu, Jing

    2017-11-01

    Understanding the evolution of cooperation in nature has long been a challenge and how to promote cooperation in public goods games (PGG) has attracted lots of attention recently. Social diversity has been found helpful to explain the emergence of cooperation in the absence of reputation and punishment. However, further refinement on how individuals reallocate their contribution to each PGG remains an open question. Moreover, individuals in existing works mostly teach or learn from neighbors according to their payoff in the last generation only. However, individuals in reality are preferred to learn from others with a long-term good performance. Therefore, in this paper, a new contribution diversity (CD) is designed and incremental learning (IL) is introduced. We investigate how these two may influence the evolution of cooperation in PGG. Based on the simulation results, we found that both the CD and IL can promote the cooperation in PGGs. Moreover, when cooperators are shaken in their strategy, CD may fail in reallocating contribution of individuals properly. However, IL is found effective to stabilize faith of cooperators and cooperators under IL reflect a long-term advantage over defectors in terms of benefits. Therefore, we further find IL and CD can mutually benefit each other in promoting cooperation, as CD can reasonably adjust the investment of cooperators while IL can provide more information to CD.

  18. National Institutions and Global Public Goods: Are Democracies More Cooperative in Climate Change Policy?

    OpenAIRE

    Bättig, Michèle B.; Bernauer, Thomas

    2017-01-01

    This article examines whether democracies contribute more to the provision of global public goods. It thus contributes to the debate on the effects of domestic institutions on international cooperation. The focus is on human-induced climate change, in Stern's words "the biggest market failure the world has ever seen.” Using new data on climate change cooperation we study a cross-section of 185 countries in 1990-2004. The results show that the effect of democracy on levels of political commitm...

  19. Public service quality improvements: a case for exemption from IRB review of public administration research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, Sara R

    2014-01-01

    Should the exemption from Institutional Review Board (IRB) evaluations currently in place for quality improvements research be extended to public administration research that addresses questions of improving the quality of public service delivery? As a means to both reduce the level of disdain held by a group of social science researchers for IRBs and to reduce the cost of review for minimal risk studies, I argue here that much of the current public administration research should also be exempted from normal processes of review by IRBs on the basis of their similarity to Quality Improvements (QI) research, a category of studies already granted exemption. This argument dovetails provisions currently in place for studies of public service and public benefit, but reframes these exemptions in the language of "quality improvements," which may be a more comfortable language for IRBs concerned to demonstrate compliance for review of all fields. To expedite this argument into the practices of IRBs, I included a checklist that researchers could use to self-identify their studies as QI, not research as such.

  20. Affordances and Challenges of Using Argument as a Connective Discourse for Scientific Practices to Teach Climate Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sezen-Barrie, A.; Wolfson, J.

    2015-12-01

    An important goal of science education is to support development of citizens to participate in public debate and make informed decisions relevant to their lives and their worlds. The NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) suggest engaging students in science classrooms in argumentation as a practice to help enhance the quality of evidence based decision making. In this multi-case study, we explored the use of written argumentation in eight secondary school science classrooms during a lesson on the relationship between ocean temperature and its CO2 holding capacity. All teachers of these classrooms were trained during a day long NSF funded Climate Literacy Workshop on the basic concepts of climate science, scientific practices and implementation of an activity called "It's a Gassy World". The data of the current study involved students' written arguments, teachers' written reflections on the implementation of the activity as well as field notes from the Climate Literacy Workshop. A qualitative discourse analysis of the data was used to find common themes around affordances and challenges of argument as a connective discourse for scientific practices to teach climate change. The findings show that participating in written argumentation process encouraged students to discuss their experimental design and use data interpretation for their evidences. However, the results also indicated the following challenges: a) teachers themselves need support in connecting their evidence to their claims, b) arguing a socioscientific issue creates a sensitive environment c) conceptual quality of an argument needs to be strengthen through background in courses other than science, and d) graphing skills (or lack of) can interfere with constructing scientifically accurate claims. This study has implications in effectively teaching climate change through argumentation, and thus creating opportunities for practicing authentic climate science research in K-12 classrooms.

  1. Argumentation and Decision Making in Professional Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gainsburg, Julie; Fox, John; Solan, Lawrence M.

    2016-01-01

    How is argumentation used in professional practice? As schools aim to ensure that students are college-and-career ready, classroom practices might be informed by argumentation in the professions. An analysis of evidence-based reasoning in 3 professions--engineering, law, and medicine--offers out-of-school perspectives on the practices and purposes…

  2. Learning about Plate Tectonics through Argument-Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Perry D.; Samuels, Boba

    2010-01-01

    In a quasi-experimental study (N = 60), grade 7/8 teachers students were taught to write arguments in content-area subjects. After instruction, students drew on document portfolios to write on a new topic: "Do the continents drift?" In a MANCOVA, students who participated in argument instruction scored significantly higher than a control…

  3. The argument of mathematics

    CERN Document Server

    Aberdein, Andrew

    2014-01-01

    This book presents a comprehensive investigation into the relationship between argumentation theory and the philosophy of mathematical practice. It offers large array of examples ranging from the history of mathematics to formal proof verification.

  4. The pedagogy of argumentation in science education: science teachers' instructional practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Özdem Yilmaz, Yasemin; Cakiroglu, Jale; Ertepinar, Hamide; Erduran, Sibel

    2017-07-01

    Argumentation has been a prominent concern in science education research and a common goal in science curriculum in many countries over the past decade. With reference to this goal, policy documents burden responsibilities on science teachers, such as involving students in dialogues and being guides in students' spoken or written argumentation. Consequently, teachers' pedagogical practices regarding argumentation gain importance due to their impact on how they incorporate this practice into their classrooms. In this study, therefore, we investigated the instructional strategies adopted by science teachers for their argumentation-based science teaching. Participants were one elementary science teacher, two chemistry teachers, and four graduate students, who have a background in science education. The study took place during a graduate course, which was aimed at developing science teachers' theory and pedagogy of argumentation. Data sources included the participants' video-recorded classroom practices, audio-recorded reflections, post-interviews, and participants' written materials. The findings revealed three typologies of instructional strategies towards argumentation. They are named as Basic Instructional Strategies for Argumentation, Meta-level Instructional ‌St‌‌rategies for ‌Argumentation, and Meta-strategic Instructional ‌St‌‌rategies for ‌Argumentation. In conclusion, the study provided a detailed coding framework for the exploration of science teachers' instructional practices while they are implementing argumentation-based lessons.

  5. Epistemic Purposes to Prompt Argumentation in inquiry-based classes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arthur Tadeu Ferraz

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Considering the growth in interest on argumentation in research on science education, in this paper our goal is to propose an overview of actions taken by a teacher that made possible to establish and mediate production of arguments by the students in classroom. For this purpose, we analyze a physics lesson where discussions were about light duality, through a planned inquiry-based sequence teaching. We developed a set of codes called Epistemic Purposes for Promotion of Argumentation that allow understanding teacher's purposes as well his actions to promote argumentation among students during inquiry-based lessons. According to theoretical proposition and empirical analysis, it was revealed that the construction of arguments by students has a high dependence on how ideas are problematized by teacher. The construction of understanding  by students requires teacher actions that result in contributions of different kinds.

  6. Nature and part of the sanitary arguments in the negotiations about the incinerators implementations, synthesis report; Nature et place des arguments sanitaires dans les negociations autour des implantations d'incinerateurs, rapport de synthese

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Laurans, Y.; Dubien, I.

    2000-07-01

    In the framework of the implementation of incinerators, the ADEME realized a study on the impacts of the public relations in the negotiation on the wastes management problem. The objectives of the study are a better knowledge of the conflict to better take it into account and the part of the sanitary arguments in the processes of wastes processing installations. (A.L.B.)

  7. Individual Differences in the "Myside Bias" in Reasoning and Written Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Christopher R.

    2012-01-01

    Three studies examined the "myside bias" in reasoning, evaluating written arguments, and writing argumentative essays. Previous research suggests that some people possess a fact-based argumentation schema and some people have a balanced argumentation schema. I developed reliable Likert scale instruments (1-7 rating) for these constructs…

  8. Problem-Based Learning and Argumentation: Testing a Scaffolding Framework to Support Middle School Students' Creation of Evidence-Based Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belland, Brian R.; Glazewski, Krista D.; Richardson, Jennifer C.

    2011-01-01

    Students engaged in problem-based learning (PBL) units solve ill-structured problems in small groups, and then present arguments in support of their solution. However, middle school students often struggle developing evidence-based arguments (Krajcik et al., "J Learn Sci" 7:313-350, 1998). Using a mixed method design, the researchers examined the…

  9. A Framework for Argumentation-Based Negotiation

    OpenAIRE

    Sierra, C.; Jennings, N. R.; Noriega, P.; Parsons, S.

    1997-01-01

    Many autonomous agents operate in domains in which the cooperation of their fellow agents cannot be guaranteed. In such domains negotiation is essential to persuade others of the value of co-operation. This paper describes a general framework for negotiation in which agents exchange proposals backed by arguments which summarise the reasons why the proposals should be accepted.The argumentation is persuasive because the exchanges are able to alter the mental state of the agents involved. The f...

  10. The sensitivity argument against child euthanasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keeling, Geoff

    2018-02-01

    Is there a moral difference between euthanasia for terminally ill adults and euthanasia for terminally ill children? Luc Bovens considers five arguments to this effect, and argues that each is unsuccessful. In this paper, I argue that Bovens' dismissal of the sensitivity argument is unconvincing. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  11. From networked publics to issue publics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Birkbak, Andreas

    2013-01-01

    As an increasing part of everyday life becomes connected with the web in many areas of the globe, the question of how the web mediates political processes becomes still more urgent. Several scholars have started to address this question by thinking about the web in terms of a public space....... In this paper, we aim to make a twofold contribution towards the development of the concept of publics in web science. First, we propose that although the notion of publics raises a variety of issues, two major concerns continue to be user privacy and democratic citizenship on the web. Well-known arguments hold......, this paper points towards an alternative way to think about publics by proposing a pragmatist reorientation of the public/private distinction in web science, away from seeing two spheres that needs to be kept separate, towards seeing the public and the private as something that is continuously connected...

  12. Un lieu pour les figures dans la théorie de l’argumentation A Place for Rhetorical Figures in Argumentation Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Plantin

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available A partir du traitement des figures dans le Traité de l’Argumentation (TA de Perelman et Olbrechts-Tyteca, cet article porte sur la question de la place des figures dans la théorie de l’argumentation. La première partie revient brièvement sur différentes formes de rhétorique, dont une rhétorique de l’ornement ayant pour instrument principal les figures. Une théorie moderne de l’argumentation orientée vers la recherche des fallacies établit une coupure radicale entre argumentation, instrument de recherche de la vérité et rhétorique ornée, que Locke caractérise comme « a powerful instrument of error and deceit ». Cette conception suppose l’usage d’un langage qu’on peut rapidement caractériser comme « artificiel », qui n’est pas celui de l’argumentation ordinaire. Avant d’être des « decorations » les figures sont des « instruments » de structuration de la parole ; et les topoi, instruments de l’argumentation, n’obéissent pas à d’autres mécanismes que les tropes, qui semblent toujours parler à côté et manquer leur objet. La seconde partie s’intéresse à une partie quelque peu délaissée du TA, l’usage qu’il fait des figures et la vision théorique, à la fois cavalière et décisive, qu’il en propose. Le TA ouvre la voie à une conception des figures non pas comme « vain ornement » mais comme une première sémantique du discours argumentatif ; c’est ce qu’on peut montrer sur le cas des « figures du choix, de la présence et de la communion ». En conséquence, la pensée des figures peut et doit être intégrée à une théorie de l’argumentation qui prend en compte le langage dans la parole, avec ses stratégies de construction des objets, du locuteur, de l’interlocuteur et de leurs émotions.This paper deals with the treatment of figures of speech in Perelman’s and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s Treatise on Argumentation (TA, and, more broadly, with the place of

  13. Stochastic evolutionary voluntary public goods game with punishment in a Quasi-birth-and-death process.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quan, Ji; Liu, Wei; Chu, Yuqing; Wang, Xianjia

    2017-11-23

    Traditional replication dynamic model and the corresponding concept of evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) only takes into account whether the system can return to the equilibrium after being subjected to a small disturbance. In the real world, due to continuous noise, the ESS of the system may not be stochastically stable. In this paper, a model of voluntary public goods game with punishment is studied in a stochastic situation. Unlike the existing model, we describe the evolutionary process of strategies in the population as a generalized quasi-birth-and-death process. And we investigate the stochastic stable equilibrium (SSE) instead. By numerical experiments, we get all possible SSEs of the system for any combination of parameters, and investigate the influence of parameters on the probabilities of the system to select different equilibriums. It is found that in the stochastic situation, the introduction of the punishment and non-participation strategies can change the evolutionary dynamics of the system and equilibrium of the game. There is a large range of parameters that the system selects the cooperative states as its SSE with a high probability. This result provides us an insight and control method for the evolution of cooperation in the public goods game in stochastic situations.

  14. Is there new public health management (NPM) in Nepal? Arguments for and against NPM in Nepal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paudel, Mohan

    2013-01-01

    This article is a reflection about whether new public management (NPM) styles of reforms seen in other developing countries are also seen in Nepal, and to substantiate these facts with the available evidence and findings. The author saw the emergence of NPM ideas in Western industrialized countries like the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Now it exists in several developing countries of Africa and Asia; but it is very hard to generalize the degree and scope of NPM elements' existence. In Southeast Asia, there is still a mix of the old bureaucratic system with new NPM-oriented reform initiatives. Series of administrative reforms, donor conditionality, and the reestablishment of democracy in the country after 1991 have influenced an orientation toward an efficient, people-oriented, mixed-economy model with increasing partnership of private agencies and nongovernmental organizations in Nepal. The political movement of the last 15 years in the country has strongly called for a new, efficient, and performance-oriented administration and management culture in the country. There are several initiatives already introduced (public-private partnership, decentralization, good governance, accountability/public auditing, performance-based outcome/results-oriented financing and reporting systems). However, to take this momentum up, it still requires strong willingness of political leaders and senior administrators. At the moment, peace and stability of turmoil, political stability, state-of-the-art management skills, and supportive organizational culture are the fundamental requirements for increasing the realization of, and sustaining the NPM-oriented reforms in Nepal.

  15. An ethical and prudential argument for prioritizing the reduction of parasite-stress in the allocation of health care resources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powell, Russell; Clarke, Steve; Savulescu, Julian

    2012-04-01

    The link between parasite-stress and complex psychological dispositions implies that the social, political, and economic benefits likely to flow from public health interventions that reduce rates of non-zoonotic infectious disease are far greater than have traditionally been thought. We sketch a prudential and ethical argument for increasing public health resources globally and redistributing these to focus on the alleviation of parasite-stress in human populations.

  16. Socioscientific Argumentation: The effects of content knowledge and morality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadler, Troy D.; Donnelly, Lisa A.

    2006-10-01

    Broad support exists within the science education community for the incorporation of socioscientific issues (SSI) and argumentation in the science curriculum. This study investigates how content knowledge and morality contribute to the quality of SSI argumentation among high school students. We employed a mixed-methods approach: 56 participants completed tests of content knowledge and moral reasoning as well as interviews, related to SSI topics, which were scored based on a rubric for argumentation quality. Multiple regression analyses revealed no statistically significant relationships among content knowledge, moral reasoning, and argumentation quality. Qualitative analyses of the interview transcripts supported the quantitative results in that participants very infrequently revealed patterns of content knowledge application. However, most of the participants did perceive the SSI as moral problems. We propose a “Threshold Model of Knowledge Transfer” to account for the relationship between content knowledge and argumentation quality. Implications for science education are discussed.

  17. Examining Science Teachers' Argumentation in a Teacher Workshop on Earthquake Engineering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cavlazoglu, Baki; Stuessy, Carol

    2018-02-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the quality of science teachers' argumentation as a result of their engagement in a teacher workshop on earthquake engineering emphasizing distributed learning approaches, which included concept mapping, collaborative game playing, and group lesson planning. The participants were ten high school science teachers from US high schools who elected to attend the workshop. To begin and end the teacher workshop, teachers in small groups engaged in concept mapping exercises with other teachers. Researchers audio-recorded individual teachers' argumentative statements about the inclusion of earthquake engineering concepts in their concept maps, which were then analyzed to reveal the quality of teachers' argumentation. Toulmin's argumentation model formed the framework for designing a classification schema to analyze the quality of participants' argumentative statements. While the analysis of differences in pre- and post-workshop concept mapping exercises revealed that the number of argumentative statements did not change significantly, the quality of participants' argumentation did increase significantly. As these differences occurred concurrently with distributed learning approaches used throughout the workshop, these results provide evidence to support distributed learning approaches in professional development workshop activities to increase the quality of science teachers' argumentation. Additionally, these results support the use of concept mapping as a cognitive scaffold to organize participants' knowledge, facilitate the presentation of argumentation, and as a research tool for providing evidence of teachers' argumentation skills.

  18. Explanation can cause Forgetting: Memory Dynamics in the Generation of New Arguments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Julia S; Storm, Benjamin C

    2017-10-01

    Retrieval-induced forgetting is observed when the retrieval of target information causes the forgetting of nontarget information. The present study investigated whether similar dynamics occur in the context of generating arguments in the process of explanation. Participants studied arguments associated with several issues before attempting to think of new arguments pertaining to a subset of those issues. When given a later memory test, participants were less likely to recall the studied arguments if they had attempted to think of new arguments than if they had not. This argument-induced forgetting effect was observed regardless of whether participants attempted to generate arguments that either agreed or disagreed with the position of the arguments they studied. The effect was significantly reduced, however, and even numerically reversed, when participants generated arguments that were highly related to the studied arguments. This finding fits well with previous research on retrieval-induced forgetting, which has shown that the retrieval or generation of new information fails to cause the forgetting of old information when the two types of information are well integrated or semantically associated.

  19. Good Policy, Good Practice II. Improving Outcomes and Productivity in Higher Education: A Guide for Policymakers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brenneman, Meghan Wilson; Callan, Patrick M.; Ewell, Peter T.; Finney, Joni E.; Jones, Dennis P.; Zis, Stacey

    2010-01-01

    This new edition of "Good Policy, Good Practice II" revises and updates the authors' 2007 publication. Like the earlier edition, it responds to one of the questions that is raised most frequently in the authors' work with public policy and education leaders as they begin to address the national and state imperatives to increase the proportion of…

  20. Effect of heterogeneous investments on the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods game.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Keke; Wang, Tao; Cheng, Yuan; Zheng, Xiaoping

    2015-01-01

    Understanding the emergence of cooperation in spatial public goods game remains a grand challenge across disciplines. In most previous studies, it is assumed that the investments of all the cooperators are identical, and often equal to 1. However, it is worth mentioning that players are diverse and heterogeneous when choosing actions in the rapidly developing modern society and researchers have shown more interest to the heterogeneity of players recently. For modeling the heterogeneous players without loss of generality, it is assumed in this work that the investment of a cooperator is a random variable with uniform distribution, the mean value of which is equal to 1. The results of extensive numerical simulations convincingly indicate that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation. Specifically, a large value of the variance of the random variable can decrease the two critical values for the result of behavioral evolution effectively. Moreover, the larger the variance is, the better the promotion effect will be. In addition, this article has discussed the impact of heterogeneous investments when the coevolution of both strategy and investment is taken into account. Comparing the promotion effect of coevolution of strategy and investment with that of strategy imitation only, we can conclude that the coevolution of strategy and investment decreases the asymptotic fraction of cooperators by weakening the heterogeneity of investments, which further demonstrates that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation in spatial public goods game.

  1. Informal Fallacies as Cognitive Heuristics in Public Health Reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Louise Cummings

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The public must make assessments of a range of health-related issues. However, these assessments require scientific know-ledge which is often lacking or ineffectively utilized by the public. Lay people must use whatever cognitive resources are at their disposal to come to judgement on these issues. It will be contended that a group of arguments—so-called informal fallacies—are a valuable cognitive resource in this regard. These arguments serve as cognitive heuristics which facilitate reasoning when knowledge is limited or beyond the grasp of reasoners. The results of an investigation into the use of these arguments by the public are reported.

  2. Reconciling Educational Adequacy and Equity Arguments through a Rawlsian Lens

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pijanowski, John

    2015-01-01

    A theory of educational opportunity that combines adequacy and equity arguments is informed by examining two popular philosophies of resource distribution. Amy Gutmann's democratic threshold theory provides an adequacy argument that mirrors in several ways arguments that have held favor in educational policy. Similarly, the distributive justice…

  3. Conflict and coordination in the provision of public goods: a conceptual analysis of continuous and step-level games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abele, Susanne; Stasser, Garold; Chartier, Christopher

    2010-11-01

    Conflicts between individual and collective interests are ubiquitous in social life. Experimental studies have investigated the resolution of such conflicts using public goods games with either continuous or step-level payoff functions. Game theory and social interdependence theory identify consequential differences between these two types of games. Continuous function games are prime examples of social dilemmas because they always contain a conflict between individual and collective interests, whereas step-level games can be construed as social coordination games. Step-level games often provide opportunities for coordinated solutions that benefit both the collective and the individuals. For this and other reasons, the authors conclude that one cannot safely generalize results obtained from step-level to continuous-form games (or vice versa). Finally, the authors identify specific characteristics of the payoff function in public goods games that conceptually mark the transition from a pure dilemma to a coordination problem nested within a dilemma.

  4. International Law as an Argumentative Practice: On Wohlrapp’s Concept of Argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Venzke, I.

    2016-01-01

    It has become a commonplace to view international law as an argumentative practice. This commonplace, it is argued, clouds strong differences that re-emerge with closer scrutiny. What, specifically, is the place of reason, rhetoric or violence in the practice of arguing? The present article explores

  5. Argumentation Within Language as Subsidy for the Evaluation of Reading Practices and Production of Argumentative Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lauro Gomes

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to present an evaluation proposal of the performance in reading and writing dissertative-argumentative texts, based on principles and concepts from the theory of Argumentation in Language – created by Jean-Claude Anscombre and Oswald Ducrot, especially the version of the Theory of the Semantic Blocks and the works inspired by it. The goal is to create criteria which are capable of being less intuitive in judging the performance in reading and wrinting dissertative-argumentative texts. The analysis of the corpora – the Enem 2011’s composition proposal and 50 (fifty texts written by the students – and the test of the criteria of reading and writing evaluation in this work revealed practice funcionality and efficiency of criteria. The results allow these criteria to be applied in any evaluation processes of dissertative-argumenative texts. Finally, this paper offers theoretical and methodological subisdies which can help teachers and professors to qualify their teaching of reading and writing and the evaluation of student’s texts.

  6. The features of argumentation skills formation problem in Higher Educational Establishment students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tamozhska I. V.

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Deals with argumentation skill formation in future specialist's professional preparation: kinds and ways of argumentation, influence of communicative co-operation means on compromise zones defining and general decision making, strategy choice in communicators' behavior at argumentation phase in a dialogue, defining of effective factors of convincing argumentation influence in communicators. The work suggests the system of methodological research means for argumentation skill formation in Higher Educational Establishment students, which helps professional language problem solving in composition with theoretical questions argumentation basis.

  7. Toward a treaty on safety and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceuticals and medical devices: enhancing an endangered global public good

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faunce Thomas

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract • Expert evaluations of the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical and medical devices, prior to marketing approval or reimbursement listing, collectively represent a globally important public good. The scientific processes involved play a major role in protecting the public from product risks such as unintended or adverse events, sub-standard production and unnecessary burdens on individual and governmental healthcare budgets. • Most States now have an increasing policy interest in this area, though institutional arrangements, particularly in the area of cost-effectiveness analysis of medical devices, are not uniformly advanced and are fragile in the face of opposing multinational industry pressure to recoup investment and maintain profit margins. • This paper examines the possibility, in this context, of States commencing negotiations toward bilateral trade agreement provisions, and ultimately perhaps a multilateral Treaty, on safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Such obligations may robustly facilitate a conceptually interlinked, but endangered, global public good, without compromising the capacity of intellectual property laws to facilitate local product innovations.

  8. Methods for solving reasoning problems in abstract argumentation – A survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charwat, Günther; Dvořák, Wolfgang; Gaggl, Sarah A.; Wallner, Johannes P.; Woltran, Stefan

    2015-01-01

    Within the last decade, abstract argumentation has emerged as a central field in Artificial Intelligence. Besides providing a core formalism for many advanced argumentation systems, abstract argumentation has also served to capture several non-monotonic logics and other AI related principles. Although the idea of abstract argumentation is appealingly simple, several reasoning problems in this formalism exhibit high computational complexity. This calls for advanced techniques when it comes to implementation issues, a challenge which has been recently faced from different angles. In this survey, we give an overview on different methods for solving reasoning problems in abstract argumentation and compare their particular features. Moreover, we highlight available state-of-the-art systems for abstract argumentation, which put these methods to practice. PMID:25737590

  9. The Effect of Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation Within TWPS Strategy on Students’ Critical Thinking on Argumentative Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eko Suhartoyo

    2015-12-01

    Key Words: critical thinking, Toulmin’s model of argumentation, argumentative essay, Think-Write-Pair-Share strategy Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki efektivitas model argumentasi Toulmin dalam strategi TWPS pada kemampuan berpikir kritis esai argumentative mahasiswa. Desain kuasi-eksperi-mental digunakan dengan pretest-posttest dan nonrandomized control group. Subjek dari penelitian ini adalah 38 mahasiswa semester IV di Jurusan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Negeri Malang. Kelompok eksperimen diteliti dengan menggunakan model argumentasi dalam strategi TWPS sedangkan kelom-pok kontrol diteliti tanpa strategi TWPS. Kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa diukur dengan menggunakan uji esai argumentatif. ANCOVA digunakan untuk menguji hipotesis. Temuan menunjukkan tidak ada perbedaan yang signifikan pada kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa. Namun, model argumentasi Toulmin dalam strategi TWPS terbukti meningkatkan berpikir kritis siswa seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh nilai rata-rata. Kata kunci: berpikir kritis, model argumentasi toulmin, esai argumentatif, Think-Pair-Share Write- strategy

  10. The features of argumentation skills formation problem in Higher Educational Establishment students

    OpenAIRE

    Tamozhska I. V.

    2010-01-01

    Deals with argumentation skill formation in future specialist's professional preparation: kinds and ways of argumentation, influence of communicative co-operation means on compromise zones defining and general decision making, strategy choice in communicators' behavior at argumentation phase in a dialogue, defining of effective factors of convincing argumentation influence in communicators. The work suggests the system of methodological research means for argumentation skill formation in High...

  11. Hardy's argument and successive spin-s measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahanj, Ali

    2010-01-01

    We consider a hidden-variable theoretic description of successive measurements of noncommuting spin observables on an input spin-s state. In this scenario, the hidden-variable theory leads to a Hardy-type argument that quantum predictions violate it. We show that the maximum probability of success of Hardy's argument in quantum theory is ((1/2)) 4s , which is more than in the spatial case.

  12. Public deliberation in the function of overcoming the democratic deficit, public debate and delineation from public hearing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vukadinović Slobodan

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses forms of direct democracy from its historical forms, in Ancient Greece, to the modern ones, in Switzerland and the USA. Pointing towards the modern flaws of representative democracy, which dominates the present world, the author explores the forms of citizen participation - from participation to influence, which assists the overcoming of the democratic deficit in practice. Besides the traditional (classical ones, the analysis also focuses on the innovative mechanisms, from informal to formal ones, from individual to collective mechanisms. The focus is on the procedures of direct citizen participation such as: elections, referendum (with its modalities, plebiscite and popular veto, citizens' initiatives, the right of legislative initiative, public meetings, as well as seeking new constructive solutions which enable the citizens not only to express their opinions through selecting the option for or against, but to actively participate and express their own opinions, positions, experiences and arguments - to participate in public deliberation. These are: public debate, public hearing, public consultations and public discussions, round tables and public presence in the form of mini-audiences, public opinion polls and participation in surveys, cooperation of state bodies with civil society organisations, public call for submission of proposals, remarks and petitions, public-private dialogue, focus groups, citizen panels, citizen conferences, citizens' advisory committees, town hall meetings, citizens juries, consensus conferences, the world cafe. In particular, the article points out that e-participation is nowadays utilised more often and gains significance, since it enables citizens to submit their proposals and remarks electronically, in the form of discussion and interaction via social networks and on-line dialogue platforms. It points towards the positive effects and advantages of direct involvement of citizens in the

  13. Investigating the Effect of Argument-Driven Inquiry in Laboratory Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demircioglu, Tuba; Ucar, Sedat

    2015-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of argument-driven inquiry (ADI) based laboratory instruction on the academic achievement, argumentativeness, science process skills, and argumentation levels of pre-service science teachers in the General Physics Laboratory III class. The study was conducted with 79 pre-service science teachers.…

  14. On Evidence and Argument in Phenomenological Research | Walsh ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Set against a background of calls for evidence-based practice, this paper explores the role of evidence and argument in phenomenological research. Drawing on Smith's (1998) analysis of original argument, the author considers how evidence can be discerned, understood, and communicated, and the resulting kinds and ...

  15. No, we don't think our doctors are out to get us: responding to the straw man distortions of disability rights arguments against assisted suicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gill, Carol J

    2010-01-01

    The arguments that disability rights advocates present in opposition to legalized assisted suicide are frequently misconstrued in public debate. The goal of this paper is to identify and analyze key "straw man" fallacies about the disability rights opposition in order to clarify this position and the factors that contribute to its distortion. The author adopts a first-person perspective as a disability scholar/activist who has participated in "right to die" debates for over two decades. Three possible barriers that potentially impede comprehension of disability rights arguments are discussed. Prominent fallacies that assisted suicide proponents attribute to disability rights opponents are analyzed in relation to the dynamics of the assisted suicide debate, social views of disability and incurable illness, and available evidence. The author's position is that disability rights arguments against legalized assisted suicide contribute a complex intellectual and experience-based perspective to the debate that can illuminate immediate and distal consequences of altering public policy. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Nuclear power: the question of public acceptance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Otway, H.J.; Maurer, D.; Thomas, K.

    1978-01-01

    Technologists have been surprised - in view of the persuasive technical arguments - at the strength of public opposition to nuclear power. But their assumption that information and argument can, by their rational force, change public opinion on sensitive issues, rests on oversimplified theories about attitude formation. When the grounds for opposition to or approval of a controversial programme are investigated - as the authors of this article have done, on the issue of nuclear power - it becomes apparent that attitude formation is not, in the technologists' sense, a 'rational' process. Here the authors describe an attitude model, and present the results of its application to the question of public attitudes to nuclear power - including the discovery of the relatively minor role that technical and environmental questions play in determining those attitudes. (author)

  17. 'It's good enough': Swedish general dental practitioners on reasons for accepting substandard root filling quality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dahlström, L; Lindwall, O; Rystedt, H; Reit, C

    2018-04-01

    The concept of 'good enough' is central and necessary in the assessment of root filling quality. The aim was to explore the concept by analysing reasons and arguments for the acceptance or rejection of substandard root filling quality as reported by general dental practitioners (GDPs) in Sweden. The study was designed as a qualitative and exploratory study based on seven videotaped focus group interviews analysed by means of qualitative content analysis. Thirty-three GDPs employed in the Public Dental Health Service in Gothenburg, Sweden, participated (4-6 GDPs/interview). In all, nine predetermined questions were followed. Before each focus group, the participants received radiographs of 37 root fillings and were asked to assess the root filling quality. The three cases representing the most divergent assessments served as a basis for the discussion. The cases were presented without clinical information; the dentists would relate to the cases as being just root filled by themselves. The radiographs did not provide a sufficient basis for decisions on whether or not to accept the root filling. This study emphasized that dentists did not primarily look for these arguments in the technical details of the root filling per se, but instead, they considered selected features of the contextual situation. The GDPs constantly introduced relevant 'ad hoc considerations' to account for the decisions they made. These contextual considerations were related to aspects of pulpal and periapical disease, risks (e.g. technical complications) or to consumed resources (personal and/or economic). It was obvious that the concept of 'good enough' does not exist as a general formula ready to be applied in particular situations. Instead, it is necessarily and irremediably tied to contextual properties that emerge from case to case. © 2017 International Endodontic Journal. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  18. Public investment does not crowd out private supply of environmental goods on private land.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, David H; Kyle, Garreth; Morris, William K; Smith, F Patrick

    2014-04-01

    In landscapes where private land tenure is prevalent, public funds for ecological landscape restoration are sometimes spent subsidising the revegetation of cleared land, and the protection of remnant vegetation from livestock. However, the total area treated may be unclear because such projects are not always recorded, and landholders may undertake similar activities without subsidisation. In the absence of empirical data, in the state of Victoria, Australia, a reporting assumption has been employed that suggests that wholly privately funded sites match publicly subsidised sites on a hectare for hectare basis (a so-called "x2" assumption). Conversely, the "crowding out" theory of investment in public goods such as environmental benefits suggests that public investment may supplant private motivation. Using aerial photography we mapped the extent of revegetation, native vegetation fencing and restoration on 71 representative landholdings in rural south-eastern Australia. We interviewed each landholder and recorded the age and funding model of each site. Contrary to the local "x2" reporting assumption, about 75% of the total area of the 412 sites was from subsidised sites, and that proportion was far higher for the period after 1997. However, rather than displacing unsubsidised activity, our modelling showed that landholders who had recently been subsidised for a project were more likely to have subsequently completed unsubsidised work. This indicates that, at least in terms of medium-term economic impact, the large increase in public subsidies did not diminish privately funded activity, as might be expected according to the theory of crowding out. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Cross-Linguistic Evidence and the Licensing of Implicit Arguments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eva Kardos

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the occurrence and the licensing of implicit object arguments, also referred to in the literature as null complements or understood arguments. Functionalist accounts (such as those by Groefsema and Németh T. which are couched in a relevance-theoretic framework have repeatedly claimed that this phenomenon is fundamentally dependent on dis-course-interpretational factors. In particular, it has been stated that implicit arguments can be used in Hungarian in a rather unrestricted way, and their occurrence is only limited by considerations of interpretability. We argue against both of these positions and try to show that cross-linguistic data can assist in revealing the circular nature and ultimate inadequacy of existing functional accounts of implicit argument licensing.

  20. Defining the role of University of Kentucky HealthCare in its medical market--how strategic planning creates the intersection of good public policy and good business practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karpf, Michael; Lofgren, Richard; Bricker, Timothy; Claypool, Joseph O; Zembrodt, Jim; Perman, Jay; Higdon, Courtney M

    2009-02-01

    In response both to national pressures to reduce costs and improve health care access and outcomes and to local pressures to become a top-20 public research university, the University of Kentucky moved toward an integrated clinical enterprise, UK HealthCare, to create a common vision, shared goals, and an effective decision-making process. The leadership formed the vision and then embarked on a comprehensive and coordinated planning process that addressed financial, clinical, academic, and operational issues. The authors describe in depth the strategic planning process and specifically the definition of UK HealthCare's role in its medical marketplace. They began a rigorous process to assess and develop goals for the clinical programs and followed the progress of these programs through meetings driven by data and attended by the organization's senior leadership. They describe their approach to working with rural and community hospitals throughout central, eastern, and southern Kentucky to support the health care infrastructure of the state. They review the early successes of their strategic approach and describe the lessons they learned. The clinical successes have led to academic gains. The experience of UK HealthCare suggests that good business practices and good public policy are synergistic.