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Sample records for rational modeling approach

  1. Computational and Game-Theoretic Approaches for Modeling Bounded Rationality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    L. Waltman (Ludo)

    2011-01-01

    textabstractThis thesis studies various computational and game-theoretic approaches to economic modeling. Unlike traditional approaches to economic modeling, the approaches studied in this thesis do not rely on the assumption that economic agents behave in a fully rational way. Instead, economic

  2. The Rational Approach to Budget Cuts: One University's Experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hardy, Cynthia

    1988-01-01

    The University of Montreal's choice of the rational model of decision-making in managing budget cutbacks is explored and compared with other approaches, including the bureaucratic, garbage can, political, and collegial models. (MSE)

  3. Bounded Rational Managers Struggle with Talent Management - An Agent-based Modelling Approach

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Adamsen, Billy; Thomsen, Svend Erik

    This study applies an agent-based modeling approach to explore some aspects of an important managerial task: finding and cultivating talented individuals capable of creating value for their organization at some future state. Given that the term talent in talent management is an empty signifier...... and its denotative meaning floating, we propose that bounded rational managers base their decisions on a simple heuristic, i.e. selecting and cultivating individuals so that their capabilities resemble their own capabilities the most (Adamsen 2015). We model the consequences of this talent management...... heuristic by varying the capabilities of today’s managers, which in turn impact which individuals will be selected as talent. We model the average level of capabilities and the distribution thereof in the sample where managers identify and select individuals from. We consider varying degrees of path...

  4. MBO: A Rational Approach and a Comparative Frameworks Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harries, T. W.

    1974-01-01

    Considering an organizational phenomenon from more than one theoretical perspective may be more fruitful than using a single rational approach. There is a danger that the restriction of information generation caused by the single approach may produce a false certainty engendered in part through the methodology itself. (Author/WM)

  5. Rational Approximations to Rational Models: Alternative Algorithms for Category Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanborn, Adam N.; Griffiths, Thomas L.; Navarro, Daniel J.

    2010-01-01

    Rational models of cognition typically consider the abstract computational problems posed by the environment, assuming that people are capable of optimally solving those problems. This differs from more traditional formal models of cognition, which focus on the psychological processes responsible for behavior. A basic challenge for rational models…

  6. A Rational Approach to Rational Suicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richman, Joseph

    1992-01-01

    Describes suicide as reaction to internal and external sources of stress and the impact of life events. Notes that, in the elderly, these situations are prevalent in many who are not suicidal. Contends that much more is written about rational suicide than its alternative (rational nonsuicide). Reviews reasons for this and suggests rational…

  7. Were Neanderthals Rational? A Stoic Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Whiting

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper adopts the philosophical approach of Stoicism as the basis for re-examining the cognitive and ethical relationship between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Stoicism sets out a clear criterion for the special moral status of human beings, namely rationality. We explore to what extent Neanderthals were sufficiently rational to be considered “human”. Recent findings in the fields of palaeoanthropology and palaeogenetics show that Neanderthals possessed high-level cognitive abilities and produced viable offspring with anatomically modern humans. Our discussion offers insights for reflecting on the relationship between humans and other forms of natural life and any moral obligations that result.

  8. Comparison of a rational vs. high throughput approach for rapid salt screening and selection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Collman, Benjamin M; Miller, Jonathan M; Seadeek, Christopher; Stambek, Julie A; Blackburn, Anthony C

    2013-01-01

    In recent years, high throughput (HT) screening has become the most widely used approach for early phase salt screening and selection in a drug discovery/development setting. The purpose of this study was to compare a rational approach for salt screening and selection to those results previously generated using a HT approach. The rational approach involved a much smaller number of initial trials (one salt synthesis attempt per counterion) that were selected based on a few strategic solubility determinations of the free form combined with a theoretical analysis of the ideal solvent solubility conditions for salt formation. Salt screening results for sertraline, tamoxifen, and trazodone using the rational approach were compared to those previously generated by HT screening. The rational approach produced similar results to HT screening, including identification of the commercially chosen salt forms, but with a fraction of the crystallization attempts. Moreover, the rational approach provided enough solid from the very initial crystallization of a salt for more thorough and reliable solid-state characterization and thus rapid decision-making. The crystallization techniques used in the rational approach mimic larger-scale process crystallization, allowing smoother technical transfer of the selected salt to the process chemist.

  9. Adapting Rational Unified Process (RUP) approach in designing a secure e-Tendering model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohd, Haslina; Robie, Muhammad Afdhal Muhammad; Baharom, Fauziah; Darus, Norida Muhd; Saip, Mohamed Ali; Yasin, Azman

    2016-08-01

    e-Tendering is an electronic processing of the tender document via internet and allow tenderer to publish, communicate, access, receive and submit all tender related information and documentation via internet. This study aims to design the e-Tendering system using Rational Unified Process approach. RUP provides a disciplined approach on how to assign tasks and responsibilities within the software development process. RUP has four phases that can assist researchers to adjust the requirements of various projects with different scope, problem and the size of projects. RUP is characterized as a use case driven, architecture centered, iterative and incremental process model. However the scope of this study only focusing on Inception and Elaboration phases as step to develop the model and perform only three of nine workflows (business modeling, requirements, analysis and design). RUP has a strong focus on documents and the activities in the inception and elaboration phases mainly concern the creation of diagrams and writing of textual descriptions. The UML notation and the software program, Star UML are used to support the design of e-Tendering. The e-Tendering design based on the RUP approach can contribute to e-Tendering developers and researchers in e-Tendering domain. In addition, this study also shows that the RUP is one of the best system development methodology that can be used as one of the research methodology in Software Engineering domain related to secured design of any observed application. This methodology has been tested in various studies in certain domains, such as in Simulation-based Decision Support, Security Requirement Engineering, Business Modeling and Secure System Requirement, and so forth. As a conclusion, these studies showed that the RUP one of a good research methodology that can be adapted in any Software Engineering (SE) research domain that required a few artifacts to be generated such as use case modeling, misuse case modeling, activity

  10. A "Mindful Rational Living" Approach for Addressing HIV in the School Setting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chenneville, Tiffany; St. John Walsh, Audra

    2016-01-01

    This paper describes a "mindful rational living" approach, which incorporates mindfulness techniques with rational emotive behavioral therapy strategies for addressing HIV in the school setting. The utility of this approach for attending to the physical, mental, and psychosocial aspects of school-based HIV prevention and treatment will…

  11. Consumers' evaluations of ecological packaging - rational and emotional approaches

    OpenAIRE

    Koenig-Lewis, Nicole; Palmer, Adrian; Dermody, Janine; Urbye, Andreas

    2014-01-01

    Ecological marketing claims have been criticized for confusing or misleading buyers, leading to calls for more rationality in promoting and evaluating ‘green’ products. However, emotions are important drivers influencing pro-environmental purchase decisions. This study investigates consumers' emotional and rational evaluations of pro-environmental packaging. A conceptual model incorporates individuals' general environmental concerns, their rational beliefs about environmental effects of produ...

  12. The two-model problem in rational decision making

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boumans, Marcel

    2011-01-01

    A model of a decision problem frames that problem in three dimensions: sample space, target probability and information structure. Each specific model imposes a specific rational decision. As a result, different models may impose different, even contradictory, rational decisions, creating choice

  13. Evidence accumulation in decision making: unifying the "take the best" and the "rational" models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Michael D; Cummins, Tarrant D R

    2004-04-01

    An evidence accumulation model of forced-choice decision making is proposed to unify the fast and frugal take the best (TTB) model and the alternative rational (RAT) model with which it is usually contrasted. The basic idea is to treat the TTB model as a sequential-sampling process that terminates as soon as any evidence in favor of a decision is found and the rational approach as a sequential-sampling process that terminates only when all available information has been assessed. The unified TTB and RAT models were tested in an experiment in which participants learned to make correct judgments for a set of real-world stimuli on the basis of feedback, and were then asked to make additional judgments without feedback for cases in which the TTB and the rational models made different predictions. The results show that, in both experiments, there was strong intraparticipant consistency in the use of either the TTB or the rational model but large interparticipant differences in which model was used. The unified model is shown to be able to capture the differences in decision making across participants in an interpretable way and is preferred by the minimum description length model selection criterion.

  14. Plantinga's Internal and External Approach toRationality of Belief in God

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdi Farajipak

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Various views about the rationality/irrationality of believing in God have been suggested by western religious and secular thinners. The theory of "Basicalism" together with its similar views such as "Evidentialism", "Fideism" and"Pragmatism" is one of the epistemological views posed about the belief in God and seeks to prove its rationality. In general, based on this view, believing in God does not require any rational reasoning. Various versions of this view have been presented so far.One of its versions expressed by scholars like Swinburne, Alston and Plantinga is what is known as Experientialism. In his special exposition of Experientialism – which he refers to as "reformed epistemology" –Plantinga has had two different dictions in his works. In his early woks such as God and other Minds, "Is Belief in God Rational?", "Is Belief in God Properly Basic?" and"Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics", he endeavored to prove the rationality and justificationof believing in God and tried to offer certain and compelling arguments to prove the existence of God. In these works, Plantinga has adopted an internal approach toward the rationality of believing in God and regards it as a basic belief. Criticizing classic foundationalism, he sought to expand a different version of foundationalism according to which God's existence is regarded as basic for a believer. Based on this approach, Palntinga, like other proponents of foundationalism, considers the knowledgea "True Justified Belief". His view is, however, different from other foundationalists in defining the nature of the third element of knowledge. According to Plantinga's early exposition of his theory, the criteria of rationality of believing in God include the principles of classic foundationalism(such as evident to senses, evident to reason and incorrigibility and other elements. He rejected the deductive-priori method concerning the criteria of determining basic belief and

  15. Empirical study of the GARCH model with rational errors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Ting Ting; Takaishi, Tetsuya

    2013-01-01

    We use the GARCH model with a fat-tailed error distribution described by a rational function and apply it to stock price data on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. To determine the model parameters we perform Bayesian inference to the model. Bayesian inference is implemented by the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with an adaptive multi-dimensional Student's t-proposal density. In order to compare our model with the GARCH model with the standard normal errors, we calculate the information criteria AIC and DIC, and find that both criteria favor the GARCH model with a rational error distribution. We also calculate the accuracy of the volatility by using the realized volatility and find that a good accuracy is obtained for the GARCH model with a rational error distribution. Thus we conclude that the GARCH model with a rational error distribution is superior to the GARCH model with the normal errors and it can be used as an alternative GARCH model to those with other fat-tailed distributions

  16. Navier-Stokes-Fourier Equations A Rational Asymptotic Modelling Point of View

    CERN Document Server

    Zeytounian, Radyadour Kh

    2012-01-01

    This research monograph deals with a modeling theory of the system of Navier-Stokes-Fourier equations for a Newtonian fluid governing a compressible viscous and heat conducting flows. The main objective is threefold. First , to 'deconstruct' this Navier-Stokes-Fourier system in order to unify the puzzle of the various partial simplified approximate models used in Newtonian Classical Fluid Dynamics and this, first facet, have obviously a challenging approach and a very important pedagogic impact on the university education. The second facet of the main objective is to outline a rational consistent asymptotic/mathematical theory of the of  fluid flows modeling on the basis of a typical Navier-Stokes-Fourier  initial and boundary value problem. The third facet is devoted to an illustration of our rational asymptotic/mathematical modeling theory for various technological and geophysical stiff  problems from: aerodynamics, thermal and thermocapillary convections and also meteofluid dynamics.

  17. [Rational drug use: an economic approach to decision making].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mota, Daniel Marques; da Silva, Marcelo Gurgel Carlos; Sudo, Elisa Cazue; Ortún, Vicente

    2008-04-01

    The present article approaches rational drug use (RDU) from the economical point of view. The implementation of RDU implies in costs and involves acquisition of knowledge and behavioral changes of several agents. The difficulties in implementing RDU may be due to shortage problems, information asymmetry, lack of information, uncertain clinical decisions, externalities, time-price, incentives for drug prescribers and dispensers, drug prescriber preferences and marginal utility. Health authorities, among other agencies, must therefore regularize, rationalize and control drug use to minimize inefficiency in pharmaceutical care and to prevent exposing the population to unnecessary health risks.

  18. Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision‐making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elqayam, Shira

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Given that more than 30% of healthcare costs are wasted on inappropriate care, suboptimal care is increasingly connected to the quality of medical decisions. It has been argued that personal decisions are the leading cause of death, and 80% of healthcare expenditures result from physicians' decisions. Therefore, improving healthcare necessitates improving medical decisions, ie, making decisions (more) rational. Drawing on writings from The Great Rationality Debate from the fields of philosophy, economics, and psychology, we identify core ingredients of rationality commonly encountered across various theoretical models. Rationality is typically classified under umbrella of normative (addressing the question how people “should” or “ought to” make their decisions) and descriptive theories of decision‐making (which portray how people actually make their decisions). Normative theories of rational thought of relevance to medicine include epistemic theories that direct practice of evidence‐based medicine and expected utility theory, which provides the basis for widely used clinical decision analyses. Descriptive theories of rationality of direct relevance to medical decision‐making include bounded rationality, argumentative theory of reasoning, adaptive rationality, dual processing model of rationality, regret‐based rationality, pragmatic/substantive rationality, and meta‐rationality. For the first time, we provide a review of wide range of theories and models of rationality. We showed that what is “rational” behaviour under one rationality theory may be irrational under the other theory. We also showed that context is of paramount importance to rationality and that no one model of rationality can possibly fit all contexts. We suggest that in context‐poor situations, such as policy decision‐making, normative theories based on expected utility informed by best research evidence may provide the optimal approach to medical decision

  19. Modeling pedestrian shopping behavior using principles of bounded rationality: model comparison and validation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zhu, W.; Timmermans, H.J.P.

    2011-01-01

    Models of geographical choice behavior have been dominantly based on rational choice models, which assume that decision makers are utility-maximizers. Rational choice models may be less appropriate as behavioral models when modeling decisions in complex environments in which decision makers may

  20. Developing and Testing Rational Models of Message Design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Keefe, Barbara J.

    1992-01-01

    Responds to an article in the same issue regarding research methods for conversational cognition. Argues for a noncognitive view of rational models in communication research. Sets out an analysis of the kinds of claims made by rational models of message design. Discusses the implications of this analysis for studies of the cognitive processes…

  1. Book Selection, Collection Development, and Bounded Rationality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwartz, Charles A.

    1989-01-01

    Reviews previously proposed schemes of classical rationality in book selection, describes new approaches to rational choice behavior, and presents a model of book selection based on bounded rationality in a garbage can decision process. The role of tacit knowledge and symbolic content in the selection process are also discussed. (102 references)…

  2. Plantinga\\\\\\'s Internal and External Approach toRationality of Belief in God

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdi Farajipak

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Various views about the rationality/irrationality of believing in God have been suggested by western religious and secular thinners. The theory of "Basicalism" together with its similar views such as "Evidentialism", "Fideism" and"Pragmatism" is one of the epistemological views posed about the belief in God and seeks to prove its rationality. In general, based on this view, believing in God does not require any rational reasoning. Various versions of this view have been presented so far.One of its versions expressed by scholars like Swinburne, Alston and Plantinga is what is known as Experientialism. In his special exposition of Experientialism – which he refers to as "reformed epistemology" –Plantinga has had two different dictions in his works. In his early woks such as God and other Minds, "Is Belief in God Rational?", "Is Belief in God Properly Basic?" and"Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics", he endeavored to prove the rationality and justificationof believing in God and tried to offer certain and compelling arguments to prove the existence of God. In these works, Plantinga has adopted an internal approach toward the rationality of believing in God and regards it as a basic belief. Criticizing classic foundationalism, he sought to expand a different version of foundationalism according to which God's existence is regarded as basic for a believer. Based on this approach, Palntinga, like other proponents of foundationalism, considers the knowledgea "True Justified Belief". His view is, however, different from other foundationalists in defining the nature of the third element of knowledge. According to Plantinga's early exposition of his theory, the criteria of rationality of believing in God include the principles of classic foundationalism(such as evident to senses, evident to reason and incorrigibility and other elements. He rejected the deductive-priori method concerning the criteria of determining basic belief and

  3. Recent advances in rational approaches for enzyme engineering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kerstin Steiner

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Enzymes are an attractive alternative in the asymmetric syntheses of chiral building blocks. To meet the requirements of industrial biotechnology and to introduce new functionalities, the enzymes need to be optimized by protein engineering. This article specifically reviews rational approaches for enzyme engineering and de novo enzyme design involving structure-based approaches developed in recent years for improvement of the enzymes’ performance, broadened substrate range, and creation of novel functionalities to obtain products with high added value for industrial applications.

  4. Many faces of rationality: Implications of the great rationality debate for clinical decision-making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Djulbegovic, Benjamin; Elqayam, Shira

    2017-10-01

    Given that more than 30% of healthcare costs are wasted on inappropriate care, suboptimal care is increasingly connected to the quality of medical decisions. It has been argued that personal decisions are the leading cause of death, and 80% of healthcare expenditures result from physicians' decisions. Therefore, improving healthcare necessitates improving medical decisions, ie, making decisions (more) rational. Drawing on writings from The Great Rationality Debate from the fields of philosophy, economics, and psychology, we identify core ingredients of rationality commonly encountered across various theoretical models. Rationality is typically classified under umbrella of normative (addressing the question how people "should" or "ought to" make their decisions) and descriptive theories of decision-making (which portray how people actually make their decisions). Normative theories of rational thought of relevance to medicine include epistemic theories that direct practice of evidence-based medicine and expected utility theory, which provides the basis for widely used clinical decision analyses. Descriptive theories of rationality of direct relevance to medical decision-making include bounded rationality, argumentative theory of reasoning, adaptive rationality, dual processing model of rationality, regret-based rationality, pragmatic/substantive rationality, and meta-rationality. For the first time, we provide a review of wide range of theories and models of rationality. We showed that what is "rational" behaviour under one rationality theory may be irrational under the other theory. We also showed that context is of paramount importance to rationality and that no one model of rationality can possibly fit all contexts. We suggest that in context-poor situations, such as policy decision-making, normative theories based on expected utility informed by best research evidence may provide the optimal approach to medical decision-making, whereas in the context

  5. A Response-Time Approach to Comparing Generalized Rational and Take-the-Best Models of Decision Making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergert, F. Bryan; Nosofsky, Robert M.

    2007-01-01

    The authors develop and test generalized versions of take-the-best (TTB) and rational (RAT) models of multiattribute paired-comparison inference. The generalized models make allowances for subjective attribute weighting, probabilistic orders of attribute inspection, and noisy decision making. A key new test involves a response-time (RT)…

  6. Adaptive information-theoretic bounded rational decision-making with parametric priors

    OpenAIRE

    Grau-Moya, Jordi; Braun, Daniel A.

    2015-01-01

    Deviations from rational decision-making due to limited computational resources have been studied in the field of bounded rationality, originally proposed by Herbert Simon. There have been a number of different approaches to model bounded rationality ranging from optimality principles to heuristics. Here we take an information-theoretic approach to bounded rationality, where information-processing costs are measured by the relative entropy between a posterior decision strategy and a given fix...

  7. The hyperbolic BCn Sutherland and the rational BCn Ruijsenaars-Schneider-van Diejen models: Lax matrices and duality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pusztai, B.G.

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we construct canonical action-angle variables for both the hyperbolic BC n Sutherland and the rational BC n Ruijsenaars-Schneider-van Diejen models with three independent coupling constants. As a byproduct of our symplectic reduction approach, we establish the action-angle duality between these many-particle systems. The presented dual reduction picture builds upon the construction of a Lax matrix for the BC n -type rational Ruijsenaars-Schneider-van Diejen model.

  8. Design of a Discrete Tracking Controller for a Magnetic Levitation System: A Nonlinear Rational Model Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernando Gómez-Salas

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This work proposes a discrete-time nonlinear rational approximate model for the unstable magnetic levitation system. Based on this model and as an application of the input-output linearization technique, a discrete-time tracking control design will be derived using the corresponding classical state space representation of the model. A simulation example illustrates the efficiency of the proposed methodology.

  9. The rational expectations equilibrium inventory model theory and applications

    CERN Document Server

    1989-01-01

    This volume consists of six essays that develop and/or apply "rational expectations equilibrium inventory models" to study the time series behavior of production, sales, prices, and inventories at the industry level. By "rational expectations equilibrium inventory model" I mean the extension of the inventory model of Holt, Modigliani, Muth, and Simon (1960) to account for: (i) discounting, (ii) infinite horizon planning, (iii) observed and unobserved by the "econometrician" stochastic shocks in the production, factor adjustment, storage, and backorders management processes of firms, as well as in the demand they face for their products; and (iv) rational expectations. As is well known according to the Holt et al. model firms hold inventories in order to: (a) smooth production, (b) smooth production changes, and (c) avoid stockouts. Following the work of Zabel (1972), Maccini (1976), Reagan (1982), and Reagan and Weitzman (1982), Blinder (1982) laid the foundations of the rational expectations equilibrium inve...

  10. A rational approach for ω-transaminase-catalyzed process design

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    T. Gundersen, Maria; Lloyd, Richard; Tufvesson, Pär

    Herein we describe a novel rational approach to the design of a ω-transaminase process such that it will fulfill criteria necessary for industrial use. By first determining the fundamental properties of the reaction system, it is possible to suggest appropriate process strategies that may be used...

  11. A rapid and rational approach to generating isomorphous heavy-atom phasing derivatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Jinghua; Sun, Peter D

    2014-09-01

    In attempts to replace the conventional trial-and-error heavy-atom derivative search method with a rational approach, we previously defined heavy metal compound reactivity against peptide ligands. Here, we assembled a composite pH- and buffer-dependent peptide reactivity profile for each heavy metal compound to guide rational heavy-atom derivative search. When knowledge of the best-reacting heavy-atom compound is combined with mass spectrometry assisted derivatization, and with a quick-soak method to optimize phasing, it is likely that the traditional heavy-atom compounds could meet the demand of modern high-throughput X-ray crystallography. As an example, we applied this rational heavy-atom phasing approach to determine a previously unknown mouse serum amyloid A2 crystal structure. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

  12. Emotions as a Vehicle for Rationality: Rational Decision Making Models Based on Emotion-Related Valuing and Hebbian Learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Treur, J.; Umair, M.

    2015-01-01

    In this paper an adaptive decision model based on predictive loops through feeling states is analysed from the perspective of rationality. Hebbian learning is considered for different types of connections in the decision model. To assess the extent of rationality, a measure is introduced reflecting

  13. Rational Decision Making as Performative Praxis: Explaining Rationality's Éternel Retour

    OpenAIRE

    Cabantous, L.; Gond, J-P.

    2011-01-01

    Organizational theorists built their knowledge of decision making through a progressive critique of rational choice theory. Their positioning towards rationality, however, is at odds with the observation of rationality persistence in organizational life. This paper addresses this paradox. It proposes a new perspective on rationality that allows the theorizing of the production of rational decisions by organizations. To account for rationality's éternel retour, we approach rational decision ma...

  14. A study on rational function model generation for TerraSAR-X imagery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eftekhari, Akram; Saadatseresht, Mohammad; Motagh, Mahdi

    2013-09-09

    The Rational Function Model (RFM) has been widely used as an alternative to rigorous sensor models of high-resolution optical imagery in photogrammetry and remote sensing geometric processing. However, not much work has been done to evaluate the applicability of the RF model for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image processing. This paper investigates how to generate a Rational Polynomial Coefficient (RPC) for high-resolution TerraSAR-X imagery using an independent approach. The experimental results demonstrate that the RFM obtained using the independent approach fits the Range-Doppler physical sensor model with an accuracy of greater than 10-3 pixel. Because independent RPCs indicate absolute errors in geolocation, two methods can be used to improve the geometric accuracy of the RFM. In the first method, Ground Control Points (GCPs) are used to update SAR sensor orientation parameters, and the RPCs are calculated using the updated parameters. Our experiment demonstrates that by using three control points in the corners of the image, an accuracy of 0.69 pixels in range and 0.88 pixels in the azimuth direction is achieved. For the second method, we tested the use of an affine model for refining RPCs. In this case, by applying four GCPs in the corners of the image, the accuracy reached 0.75 pixels in range and 0.82 pixels in the azimuth direction.

  15. A Study on Rational Function Model Generation for TerraSAR-X Imagery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdi Motagh

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The Rational Function Model (RFM has been widely used as an alternative to rigorous sensor models of high-resolution optical imagery in photogrammetry and remote sensing geometric processing. However, not much work has been done to evaluate the applicability of the RF model for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR image processing. This paper investigates how to generate a Rational Polynomial Coefficient (RPC for high-resolution TerraSAR-X imagery using an independent approach. The experimental results demonstrate that the RFM obtained using the independent approach fits the Range-Doppler physical sensor model with an accuracy of greater than 10−3 pixel. Because independent RPCs indicate absolute errors in geolocation, two methods can be used to improve the geometric accuracy of the RFM. In the first method, Ground Control Points (GCPs are used to update SAR sensor orientation parameters, and the RPCs are calculated using the updated parameters. Our experiment demonstrates that by using three control points in the corners of the image, an accuracy of 0.69 pixels in range and 0.88 pixels in the azimuth direction is achieved. For the second method, we tested the use of an affine model for refining RPCs. In this case, by applying four GCPs in the corners of the image, the accuracy reached 0.75 pixels in range and 0.82 pixels in the azimuth direction.

  16. Rational Multi-curve Models with Counterparty-risk Valuation Adjustments

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Crépey, Stéphane; Macrina, Andrea; Nguyen, Tuyet Mai

    2016-01-01

    We develop a multi-curve term structure set-up in which the modelling ingredients are expressed by rational functionals of Markov processes. We calibrate to London Interbank Offer Rate swaptions data and show that a rational two-factor log-normal multi-curve model is sufficient to match market da...... with regulatory obligations. In order to compute counterparty-risk valuation adjustments, such as credit valuation adjustment, we show how default intensity processes with rational form can be derived. We flesh out our study by applying the results to a basis swap contract....... with accuracy. We elucidate the relationship between the models developed and calibrated under a risk-neutral measure Q and their consistent equivalence class under the real-world probability measure P. The consistent P-pricing models are applied to compute the risk exposures which may be required to comply...

  17. Testing exact rational expectations in cointegrated vector autoregressive models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    1999-01-01

    This paper considers the testing of restrictions implied by rational expectations hypotheses in a cointegrated vector autoregressive model for I(1) variables. If the rational expectations involve one-step-ahead observations only and the coefficients are known, an explicit parameterization...... of the restrictions is found, and the maximum-likelihood estimator is derived by regression and reduced rank regression. An application is given to a present value model....

  18. Modeling pedestrian shopping behavior using principles of bounded rationality: model comparison and validation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Wei; Timmermans, Harry

    2011-06-01

    Models of geographical choice behavior have been dominantly based on rational choice models, which assume that decision makers are utility-maximizers. Rational choice models may be less appropriate as behavioral models when modeling decisions in complex environments in which decision makers may simplify the decision problem using heuristics. Pedestrian behavior in shopping streets is an example. We therefore propose a modeling framework for pedestrian shopping behavior incorporating principles of bounded rationality. We extend three classical heuristic rules (conjunctive, disjunctive and lexicographic rule) by introducing threshold heterogeneity. The proposed models are implemented using data on pedestrian behavior in Wang Fujing Street, the city center of Beijing, China. The models are estimated and compared with multinomial logit models and mixed logit models. Results show that the heuristic models are the best for all the decisions that are modeled. Validation tests are carried out through multi-agent simulation by comparing simulated spatio-temporal agent behavior with the observed pedestrian behavior. The predictions of heuristic models are slightly better than those of the multinomial logit models.

  19. Consumer rationality in choice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Conlon, B.J.

    2001-01-01

    The dissertation concentrates on consumer choice and the ability of current modelling approaches to capture the underlying behaviour of the individual decision-makers. The standard assumption of a rational utility maximising individual and its implications for observed behaviour are examined and

  20. Précis of bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oaksford, Mike; Chater, Nick

    2009-02-01

    According to Aristotle, humans are the rational animal. The borderline between rationality and irrationality is fundamental to many aspects of human life including the law, mental health, and language interpretation. But what is it to be rational? One answer, deeply embedded in the Western intellectual tradition since ancient Greece, is that rationality concerns reasoning according to the rules of logic--the formal theory that specifies the inferential connections that hold with certainty between propositions. Piaget viewed logical reasoning as defining the end-point of cognitive development; and contemporary psychology of reasoning has focussed on comparing human reasoning against logical standards. Bayesian Rationality argues that rationality is defined instead by the ability to reason about uncertainty. Although people are typically poor at numerical reasoning about probability, human thought is sensitive to subtle patterns of qualitative Bayesian, probabilistic reasoning. In Chapters 1-4 of Bayesian Rationality (Oaksford & Chater 2007), the case is made that cognition in general, and human everyday reasoning in particular, is best viewed as solving probabilistic, rather than logical, inference problems. In Chapters 5-7 the psychology of "deductive" reasoning is tackled head-on: It is argued that purportedly "logical" reasoning problems, revealing apparently irrational behaviour, are better understood from a probabilistic point of view. Data from conditional reasoning, Wason's selection task, and syllogistic inference are captured by recasting these problems probabilistically. The probabilistic approach makes a variety of novel predictions which have been experimentally confirmed. The book considers the implications of this work, and the wider "probabilistic turn" in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, for understanding human rationality.

  1. Computer-Supported Modelling of Multi modal Transportation Networks Rationalization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ratko Zelenika

    2007-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper deals with issues of shaping and functioning ofcomputer programs in the modelling and solving of multimoda Itransportation network problems. A methodology of an integrateduse of a programming language for mathematical modellingis defined, as well as spreadsheets for the solving of complexmultimodal transportation network problems. The papercontains a comparison of the partial and integral methods ofsolving multimodal transportation networks. The basic hypothesisset forth in this paper is that the integral method results inbetter multimodal transportation network rationalization effects,whereas a multimodal transportation network modelbased on the integral method, once built, can be used as the basisfor all kinds of transportation problems within multimodaltransport. As opposed to linear transport problems, multimodaltransport network can assume very complex shapes. This papercontains a comparison of the partial and integral approach totransp01tation network solving. In the partial approach, astraightforward model of a transp01tation network, which canbe solved through the use of the Solver computer tool within theExcel spreadsheet inteiface, is quite sufficient. In the solving ofa multimodal transportation problem through the integralmethod, it is necessmy to apply sophisticated mathematicalmodelling programming languages which supp01t the use ofcomplex matrix functions and the processing of a vast amountof variables and limitations. The LINGO programming languageis more abstract than the Excel spreadsheet, and it requiresa certain programming knowledge. The definition andpresentation of a problem logic within Excel, in a manner whichis acceptable to computer software, is an ideal basis for modellingin the LINGO programming language, as well as a fasterand more effective implementation of the mathematical model.This paper provides proof for the fact that it is more rational tosolve the problem of multimodal transportation networks by

  2. Models for Rational Number Bases

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedersen, Jean J.; Armbruster, Frank O.

    1975-01-01

    This article extends number bases to negative integers, then to positive rationals and finally to negative rationals. Methods and rules for operations in positive and negative rational bases greater than one or less than negative one are summarized in tables. Sample problems are explained and illustrated. (KM)

  3. Autogenerator-based modelling framework for development of strategic games simulations: rational pigs game extended.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fabac, Robert; Radošević, Danijel; Magdalenić, Ivan

    2014-01-01

    When considering strategic games from the conceptual perspective that focuses on the questions of participants' decision-making rationality, the very issues of modelling and simulation are rarely discussed. The well-known Rational Pigs matrix game has been relatively intensively analyzed in terms of reassessment of the logic of two players involved in asymmetric situations as gluttons that differ significantly by their attributes. This paper presents a successful attempt of using autogenerator for creating the framework of the game, including the predefined scenarios and corresponding payoffs. Autogenerator offers flexibility concerning the specification of game parameters, which consist of variations in the number of simultaneous players and their features and game objects and their attributes as well as some general game characteristics. In the proposed approach the model of autogenerator was upgraded so as to enable program specification updates. For the purpose of treatment of more complex strategic scenarios, we created the Rational Pigs Game Extended (RPGE), in which the introduction of a third glutton entails significant structural changes. In addition, due to the existence of particular attributes of the new player, "the tramp," one equilibrium point from the original game is destabilized which has an influence on the decision-making of rational players.

  4. Beyond Rational Decision-Making: Modelling the Influence of Cognitive Biases on the Dynamics of Vaccination Coverage.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Voinson

    Full Text Available Theoretical studies predict that it is not possible to eradicate a disease under voluntary vaccination because of the emergence of non-vaccinating "free-riders" when vaccination coverage increases. A central tenet of this approach is that human behaviour follows an economic model of rational choice. Yet, empirical studies reveal that vaccination decisions do not necessarily maximize individual self-interest. Here we investigate the dynamics of vaccination coverage using an approach that dispenses with payoff maximization and assumes that risk perception results from the interaction between epidemiology and cognitive biases.We consider a behaviour-incidence model in which individuals perceive actual epidemiological risks as a function of their opinion of vaccination. As a result of confirmation bias, sceptical individuals (negative opinion overestimate infection cost while pro-vaccines individuals (positive opinion overestimate vaccination cost. We considered a feedback between individuals and their environment as individuals could change their opinion, and thus the way they perceive risks, as a function of both the epidemiology and the most common opinion in the population.For all parameter values investigated, the infection is never eradicated under voluntary vaccination. For moderately contagious diseases, oscillations in vaccination coverage emerge because individuals process epidemiological information differently depending on their opinion. Conformism does not generate oscillations but slows down the cultural response to epidemiological change.Failure to eradicate vaccine preventable disease emerges from the model because of cognitive biases that maintain heterogeneity in how people perceive risks. Thus, assumptions of economic rationality and payoff maximization are not mandatory for predicting commonly observed dynamics of vaccination coverage. This model shows that alternative notions of rationality, such as that of ecological

  5. Beyond Rational Decision-Making: Modelling the Influence of Cognitive Biases on the Dynamics of Vaccination Coverage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voinson, Marina; Billiard, Sylvain; Alvergne, Alexandra

    2015-01-01

    Theoretical studies predict that it is not possible to eradicate a disease under voluntary vaccination because of the emergence of non-vaccinating "free-riders" when vaccination coverage increases. A central tenet of this approach is that human behaviour follows an economic model of rational choice. Yet, empirical studies reveal that vaccination decisions do not necessarily maximize individual self-interest. Here we investigate the dynamics of vaccination coverage using an approach that dispenses with payoff maximization and assumes that risk perception results from the interaction between epidemiology and cognitive biases. We consider a behaviour-incidence model in which individuals perceive actual epidemiological risks as a function of their opinion of vaccination. As a result of confirmation bias, sceptical individuals (negative opinion) overestimate infection cost while pro-vaccines individuals (positive opinion) overestimate vaccination cost. We considered a feedback between individuals and their environment as individuals could change their opinion, and thus the way they perceive risks, as a function of both the epidemiology and the most common opinion in the population. For all parameter values investigated, the infection is never eradicated under voluntary vaccination. For moderately contagious diseases, oscillations in vaccination coverage emerge because individuals process epidemiological information differently depending on their opinion. Conformism does not generate oscillations but slows down the cultural response to epidemiological change. Failure to eradicate vaccine preventable disease emerges from the model because of cognitive biases that maintain heterogeneity in how people perceive risks. Thus, assumptions of economic rationality and payoff maximization are not mandatory for predicting commonly observed dynamics of vaccination coverage. This model shows that alternative notions of rationality, such as that of ecological rationality whereby

  6. The dynamics of Bertrand model with bounded rationality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Jixiang; Da Qingli; Wang Yanhua

    2009-01-01

    The paper considers a Bertrand model with bounded rational. A duopoly game is modelled by two nonlinear difference equations. By using the theory of bifurcations of dynamical systems, the existence and stability for the equilibria of this system are obtained. Numerical simulations used to show bifurcations diagrams, phase portraits for various parameters and sensitive dependence on initial conditions. We observe that an increase of the speed of adjustment of bounded rational player may change the stability of Nash equilibrium point and cause bifurcation and chaos to occur. The analysis and results in this paper are interesting in mathematics and economics.

  7. A rational analysis of alternating search and reflection strategies in problem solving

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Taatgen, N; Shafto, MG; Langley, P

    1997-01-01

    In this paper two approaches to problem solving, search and reflection, are discussed, and combined in two models, both based on rational analysis (Anderson, 1990). The first model is a dynamic growth model, which shows that alternating search and reflection is a rational strategy. The second model

  8. Measuring inflation under rationing: A virtual price approach

    OpenAIRE

    Christophe Starzec; François Gardes

    2014-01-01

    URL des Documents de travail : http://ces.univ-paris1.fr/cesdp/cesdp2014.html; Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 2014.01 - ISSN : 1955-611X; The presence of rationing or more generally of the situations of constrained demand can make the traditional methods of measuring inflation questionable and give an erroneous image of the reality. In this paper, we use the virtual price approach (Neary, Roberts, 1980) to estimate the real inflation level in a centrally planned econ...

  9. Models of bounded rationality under certainty

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rasouli, S.; Timmermans, H.J.P.; Rasouli, S.; Timmermans, H.J.P.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose This chapter reviews models of decision-making and choice under conditions of certainty. It allows readers to position the contribution of the other chapters in this book in the historical development of the topic area. Theory Bounded rationality is defined in terms of a strategy to simplify

  10. Decision Making Models in the Financial Market: A Study in the Light of Prospect Theory and Limited Rationality

    OpenAIRE

    Alex Diego Souza Queiroz; Marilia Oliveira dos Reis; Joseilton Silveira da Rocha

    2016-01-01

    The objective of this study was to determine whether the decision-making models present in Prospect Theory and the theory of limited rationality could help managers of financial institutions identify and control the emotions and rational limitations involved in the credit granting process in the financial market. To this end, a study was carried out with 17 bank managers as experimental group and 31 other managers from different areas as control group. Adopting a quantitative approach to rese...

  11. Economic rationality and health and lifestyle choices for people with diabetes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Rachel Mairi

    2006-11-01

    Economic rationality is traditionally represented by goal-oriented, maximising behaviour, or 'instrumental rationality'. Such a consequentialist, instrumental model of choice is often implicit in a biomedical approach to health promotion and education. The research reported here assesses the relevance of a broader conceptual framework of rationality, which includes 'procedural' and 'expressive' rationality as complements to an instrumental model of rationality, in a health context. Q methodology was used to derive 'factors' underlying health and lifestyle choices, based on a factor analysis of the results of a card sorting procedure undertaken by 27 adult respondents with type 2 diabetes in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. These factors were then compared with the rationality framework and the appropriateness of an extended model of economic rationality as a means of better understanding health and lifestyle choices was assessed. Taking a wider rational choice perspective, choices which are rendered irrational within a narrow-biomedical or strictly instrumental model, can be understood in terms of a coherent rationale, grounded in the accounts of respondents. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of rational choice theory and diabetes management and research.

  12. Urban ecosystem modeling and global change: Potential for rational urban management and emissions mitigation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Shaoqing; Chen, Bin; Fath, Brian D.

    2014-01-01

    Urbanization is a strong and extensive driver that causes environmental pollution and climate change from local to global scale. Modeling cities as ecosystems has been initiated by a wide range of scientists as a key to addressing challenging problems concomitant with urbanization. In this paper, ‘urban ecosystem modeling (UEM)’ is defined in an inter-disciplinary context to acquire a broad perception of urban ecological properties and their interactions with global change. Furthermore, state-of-the-art models of urban ecosystems are reviewed, categorized as top-down models (including materials/energy-oriented models and structure-oriented models), bottom-up models (including land use-oriented models and infrastructure-oriented models), or hybrid models thereof. Based on the review of UEM studies, a future framework for explicit UEM is proposed based the integration of UEM approaches of different scales, guiding more rational urban management and efficient emissions mitigation. - Highlights: • Urban ecosystems modeling (UEM) is defined in an interdisciplinary context. • State-of-the-art models for UEM are critically reviewed and compared. • An integrated framework for explicit UEM is proposed under global change. - State-of-the-art models of urban ecosystem modeling (UEM) are reviewed for rational urban management and emissions mitigation

  13. On Rationality of Decision Models Incorporating Emotion-Related Valuing and Hebbian Learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Treur, J.; Umair, M.

    2011-01-01

    In this paper an adaptive decision model based on predictive loops through feeling states is analysed from the perspective of rationality. Four different variations of Hebbian learning are considered for different types of connections in the decision model. To assess the extent of rationality, a

  14. Multi-Step Usage of in Vivo Models During Rational Drug Design and Discovery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Charles H. Williams

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available In this article we propose a systematic development method for rational drug design while reviewing paradigms in industry, emerging techniques and technologies in the field. Although the process of drug development today has been accelerated by emergence of computational methodologies, it is a herculean challenge requiring exorbitant resources; and often fails to yield clinically viable results. The current paradigm of target based drug design is often misguided and tends to yield compounds that have poor absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, toxicology (ADMET properties. Therefore, an in vivo organism based approach allowing for a multidisciplinary inquiry into potent and selective molecules is an excellent place to begin rational drug design. We will review how organisms like the zebrafish and Caenorhabditis elegans can not only be starting points, but can be used at various steps of the drug development process from target identification to pre-clinical trial models. This systems biology based approach paired with the power of computational biology; genetics and developmental biology provide a methodological framework to avoid the pitfalls of traditional target based drug design.

  15. Rationality in Society

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Flache, Andreas; Dijkstra, Jacob; Wright, James D.

    2015-01-01

    Contemporary theories of rational behavior in human society augment the orthodox model of rationality both by adding various forms of bounded rationality and relaxing the assumptions of self-interest and materialistic preferences. This entry discusses how these extensions of the theory of rational

  16. Ethics and rationality in information-enriched decisions: A model for technical communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dressel, S. B.; Carlson, P.; Killingsworth, M. J.

    1993-12-01

    In a technological culture, information has a crucial impact upon decisions, but exactly how information plays into decisions is not always clear. Decisions that are effective, efficient, and ethical must be rational. That is, we must be able to determine and present good reasons for our actions. The topic in this paper is how information relates to good reasons and thereby affects the best decisions. A brief sketch of a model for decision-making, is presented which offers a synthesis of theoretical approaches to argument and to information analysis. Then the model is applied to a brief hypothetical case. The main purpose is to put the model before an interested audience in hopes of stimulating discussion and further research.

  17. Calculation of Complexity Costs – An Approach for Rationalizing a Product Program

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Christian Lindschou; Mortensen, Niels Henrik; Hvam, Lars

    2012-01-01

    This paper proposes an operational method for rationalizing a product program based on the calculation of complexity costs. The method takes its starting point in the calculation of complexity costs on a product program level. This is done throughout the value chain ranging from component invento...... of a product program. These findings represent an improved decision basis for the planning of reactive and proactive initiatives of rationalizing a product program.......This paper proposes an operational method for rationalizing a product program based on the calculation of complexity costs. The method takes its starting point in the calculation of complexity costs on a product program level. This is done throughout the value chain ranging from component...... inventories at the factory sites, all the way to the distribution of finished goods from distribution centers to the customers. The method proposes a step-wise approach including the analysis, quantification and allocation of product program complexity costs by the means of identifying of a number...

  18. Modelling grain growth in the framework of Rational Extended Thermodynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kertsch, Lukas; Helm, Dirk

    2016-01-01

    Grain growth is a significant phenomenon for the thermomechanical processing of metals. Since the mobility of the grain boundaries is thermally activated and energy stored in the grain boundaries is released during their motion, a mutual interaction with the process conditions occurs. To model such phenomena, a thermodynamic framework for the representation of thermomechanical coupling phenomena in metals including a microstructure description is required. For this purpose, Rational Extended Thermodynamics appears to be a useful tool. We apply an entropy principle to derive a thermodynamically consistent model for grain coarsening due to the growth and shrinkage of individual grains. Despite the rather different approaches applied, we obtain a grain growth model which is similar to existing ones and can be regarded as a thermodynamic extension of that by Hillert (1965) to more general systems. To demonstrate the applicability of the model, we compare our simulation results to grain growth experiments in pure copper by different authors, which we are able to reproduce very accurately. Finally, we study the implications of the energy release due to grain growth on the energy balance. The present unified approach combining a microstructure description and continuum mechanics is ready to be further used to develop more elaborate material models for complex thermo-chemo-mechanical coupling phenomena. (paper)

  19. Modelling grain growth in the framework of Rational Extended Thermodynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kertsch, Lukas; Helm, Dirk

    2016-05-01

    Grain growth is a significant phenomenon for the thermomechanical processing of metals. Since the mobility of the grain boundaries is thermally activated and energy stored in the grain boundaries is released during their motion, a mutual interaction with the process conditions occurs. To model such phenomena, a thermodynamic framework for the representation of thermomechanical coupling phenomena in metals including a microstructure description is required. For this purpose, Rational Extended Thermodynamics appears to be a useful tool. We apply an entropy principle to derive a thermodynamically consistent model for grain coarsening due to the growth and shrinkage of individual grains. Despite the rather different approaches applied, we obtain a grain growth model which is similar to existing ones and can be regarded as a thermodynamic extension of that by Hillert (1965) to more general systems. To demonstrate the applicability of the model, we compare our simulation results to grain growth experiments in pure copper by different authors, which we are able to reproduce very accurately. Finally, we study the implications of the energy release due to grain growth on the energy balance. The present unified approach combining a microstructure description and continuum mechanics is ready to be further used to develop more elaborate material models for complex thermo-chemo-mechanical coupling phenomena.

  20. Rational approximation of vertical segments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salazar Celis, Oliver; Cuyt, Annie; Verdonk, Brigitte

    2007-08-01

    In many applications, observations are prone to imprecise measurements. When constructing a model based on such data, an approximation rather than an interpolation approach is needed. Very often a least squares approximation is used. Here we follow a different approach. A natural way for dealing with uncertainty in the data is by means of an uncertainty interval. We assume that the uncertainty in the independent variables is negligible and that for each observation an uncertainty interval can be given which contains the (unknown) exact value. To approximate such data we look for functions which intersect all uncertainty intervals. In the past this problem has been studied for polynomials, or more generally for functions which are linear in the unknown coefficients. Here we study the problem for a particular class of functions which are nonlinear in the unknown coefficients, namely rational functions. We show how to reduce the problem to a quadratic programming problem with a strictly convex objective function, yielding a unique rational function which intersects all uncertainty intervals and satisfies some additional properties. Compared to rational least squares approximation which reduces to a nonlinear optimization problem where the objective function may have many local minima, this makes the new approach attractive.

  1. Rich analysis and rational models: Inferring individual behavior from infant looking data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piantadosi, Steven T.; Kidd, Celeste; Aslin, Richard

    2013-01-01

    Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive model to create a rich data analysis framework for infant looking times. We formalize (i) a statistical learning model (ii) a parametric linking between the learning model's beliefs and infants' looking behavior, and (iii) a data analysis model that infers parameters of the cognitive model and linking function for groups and individuals. Using this approach, we show that recent findings from Kidd, Piantadosi, and Aslin (2012) of a U-shaped relationship between look-away probability and stimulus complexity even holds within infants and is not due to averaging subjects with different types of behavior. Our results indicate that individual infants prefer stimuli of intermediate complexity, reserving attention for events that are moderately predictable given their probabilistic expectations about the world. PMID:24750256

  2. Concepts and Bounded Rationality: An Application of Niestegge's Approach to Conditional Quantum Probabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blutner, Reinhard

    2009-03-01

    Recently, Gerd Niestegge developed a new approach to quantum mechanics via conditional probabilities developing the well-known proposal to consider the Lüders-von Neumann measurement as a non-classical extension of probability conditionalization. I will apply his powerful and rigorous approach to the treatment of concepts using a geometrical model of meaning. In this model, instances are treated as vectors of a Hilbert space H. In the present approach there are at least two possibilities to form categories. The first possibility sees categories as a mixture of its instances (described by a density matrix). In the simplest case we get the classical probability theory including the Bayesian formula. The second possibility sees categories formed by a distinctive prototype which is the superposition of the (weighted) instances. The construction of prototypes can be seen as transferring a mixed quantum state into a pure quantum state freezing the probabilistic characteristics of the superposed instances into the structure of the formed prototype. Closely related to the idea of forming concepts by prototypes is the existence of interference effects. Such inference effects are typically found in macroscopic quantum systems and I will discuss them in connection with several puzzles of bounded rationality. The present approach nicely generalizes earlier proposals made by authors such as Diederik Aerts, Andrei Khrennikov, Ricardo Franco, and Jerome Busemeyer. Concluding, I will suggest that an active dialogue between cognitive approaches to logic and semantics and the modern approach of quantum information science is mandatory.

  3. The Limitations of Applying Rational Decision-Making Models

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    decision-making models as applied to child spacing and more. specificaDy to the use .... also assumes that the individual operates as a rational decision- making organism in ..... work involves: Motivation; Counselling; Distribution ofIEC mate-.

  4. The Soft Constraints Hypothesis: A Rational Analysis Approach to Resource Allocation for Interactive Behavior

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Gray, Wayne D; Sims, Chris R; Schoelles, Michael J; Fu, Wai-Tat

    2006-01-01

    Soft constraints hypothesis (SCH) is a rational analysis approach that holds that the mixture of perceptual-motor and cognitive resources allocated for interactive behavior is adjusted based on temporal cost-benefit tradeoff...

  5. Does rational selection of training and test sets improve the outcome of QSAR modeling?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, Todd M; Harten, Paul; Young, Douglas M; Muratov, Eugene N; Golbraikh, Alexander; Zhu, Hao; Tropsha, Alexander

    2012-10-22

    Prior to using a quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) model for external predictions, its predictive power should be established and validated. In the absence of a true external data set, the best way to validate the predictive ability of a model is to perform its statistical external validation. In statistical external validation, the overall data set is divided into training and test sets. Commonly, this splitting is performed using random division. Rational splitting methods can divide data sets into training and test sets in an intelligent fashion. The purpose of this study was to determine whether rational division methods lead to more predictive models compared to random division. A special data splitting procedure was used to facilitate the comparison between random and rational division methods. For each toxicity end point, the overall data set was divided into a modeling set (80% of the overall set) and an external evaluation set (20% of the overall set) using random division. The modeling set was then subdivided into a training set (80% of the modeling set) and a test set (20% of the modeling set) using rational division methods and by using random division. The Kennard-Stone, minimal test set dissimilarity, and sphere exclusion algorithms were used as the rational division methods. The hierarchical clustering, random forest, and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) methods were used to develop QSAR models based on the training sets. For kNN QSAR, multiple training and test sets were generated, and multiple QSAR models were built. The results of this study indicate that models based on rational division methods generate better statistical results for the test sets than models based on random division, but the predictive power of both types of models are comparable.

  6. Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intentions

    OpenAIRE

    Crawford, Vincent P.

    2001-01-01

    Starting from Hendricks and McAfee's (2000) example of the Allies' decision to feint at Calais and attack at Normandy on D-Day, this paper models misrepresentation of intentions to competitors or enemies. Allowing for the possibility of bounded strategic rationality and rational players' responses to it yields a sensible account of lying via costless, noiseless messages. In many cases the model has generically unique pure-strategy sequential equilibria, in which rational players exploit bound...

  7. A rational inference approach to group and individual-level sentence comprehension performance in aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Warren, Tessa; Dickey, Michael Walsh; Liburd, Teljer L

    2017-07-01

    The rational inference, or noisy channel, account of language comprehension predicts that comprehenders are sensitive to the probabilities of different interpretations for a given sentence and adapt as these probabilities change (Gibson, Bergen & Piantadosi, 2013). This account provides an important new perspective on aphasic sentence comprehension: aphasia may increase the likelihood of sentence distortion, leading people with aphasia (PWA) to rely more on the prior probability of an interpretation and less on the form or structure of the sentence (Gibson, Sandberg, Fedorenko, Bergen & Kiran, 2015). We report the results of a sentence-picture matching experiment that tested the predictions of the rational inference account and other current models of aphasic sentence comprehension across a variety of sentence structures. Consistent with the rational inference account, PWA showed similar sensitivity to the probability of particular kinds of form distortions as age-matched controls, yet overall their interpretations relied more on prior probability and less on sentence form. As predicted by rational inference, but not by other models of sentence comprehension in aphasia, PWA's interpretations were more faithful to the form for active and passive sentences than for direct object and prepositional object sentences. However contra rational inference, there was no evidence that individual PWA's severity of syntactic or semantic impairment predicted their sensitivity to form versus the prior probability of a sentence, as cued by semantics. These findings confirm and extend previous findings that suggest the rational inference account holds promise for explaining aphasic and neurotypical comprehension, but they also raise new challenges for the account. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Rationality in the Cryptographic Model

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hubacek, Pavel

    This thesis presents results in the field of rational cryptography. In the first part we study the use of cryptographic protocols to avoid mediation and binding commitment when implementing game theoretic equilibrium concepts. First, we concentrate on the limits of cryptographic cheap talk...... to implement correlated equilibria of two-player strategic games in a sequentially rational way. We show that there exist two-player games for which no cryptographic protocol can implement the mediator in a sequentially rational way; that is, without introducing empty threats. In the context of computational...... with appealing economic applications. Our implementation puts forward a notion of cryptographically blinded games that exploits the power of encryption to selectively restrict the information available to players about sampled action profiles, such that these desirable equilibria can be stably achieved...

  9. [Rationalization, rationing, prioritization: terminology and ethical approaches to the allocation of limited resources in hematology/oncology].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winkler, Eva

    2011-01-01

    The field of oncology with its numerous high-priced innovations contributes considerably to the fact that medical progress is expensive. Additionally, due to the demographic changes and the increasing life expectancy, a growing number of cancer patients want to profit from this progress. Since resources are limited also in the health system, the fair distribution of the available resources urgently needs to be addressed. Dealing with scarcity is a typical problem in the domain of justice theory; therefore, this article first discusses different strategies to manage limited resources: rationalization, rationing, and prioritization. It then presents substantive as well as procedural criteria that assist in the just distribution of effective health benefits. There are various strategies to reduce the utilization of limited resources: Rationalization means that efficiency reserves are being exhausted; by means of rationing, effective health benefits are withheld due to cost considerations. Rationing can occur implicitly and thus covertly, e.g. through budgeting or the implementation of waiting periods, or explicitly, through transparent rules or policies about healthcare coverage. Ranking medical treatments according to their importance (prioritization) is often a prerequisite for rationing decisions. In terms of requirements of justice, both procedural and substantive criteria (e.g. equality, urgency, benefit) are relevant for the acceptance and quality of a decision to limit access to effective health benefits. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  10. A rational approach to resonance saturation in large-Nc QCD

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Masjuan, Pere; Peris, Santiago

    2007-01-01

    We point out that resonance saturation in QCD can be understood in the large-N c limit from the mathematical theory of Pade Approximants to meromorphic functions. These approximants are rational functions which encompass any saturation with a finite number of resonances as a particular example, explaining several results which have appeared in the literature. We review the main properties of Pade Approximants with the help of a toy model for the (VV-AA) two-point correlator, paying particular attention to the relationship among the Chiral Expansion, the Operator Product Expansion and the resonance spectrum. In passing, we also comment on an old proposal made by Migdal in 1977 which has recently attracted much attention in the context of AdS/QCD models. Finally, we apply the simplest Pade Approximant to the (VV-AA) correlator in the real case of QCD. The general conclusion is that a rational approximant may reliably describe a Green's function in the Euclidean, but the same is not true in the Minkowski regime due to the appearance of unphysical poles and/or residues

  11. Volatility estimation using a rational GARCH model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tetsuya Takaishi

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The rational GARCH (RGARCH model has been proposed as an alternative GARCHmodel that captures the asymmetric property of volatility. In addition to the previously proposedRGARCH model, we propose an alternative RGARCH model called the RGARCH-Exp model thatis more stable when dealing with outliers. We measure the performance of the volatility estimationby a loss function calculated using realized volatility as a proxy for true volatility and compare theRGARCH-type models with other asymmetric type models such as the EGARCH and GJR models.We conduct empirical studies of six stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and find that a volatilityestimation using the RGARCH-type models outperforms the GARCH model and is comparable toother asymmetric GARCH models.

  12. Embodying rationality

    OpenAIRE

    Mastrogiorgio, Antonio; Petracca, Enrico

    2016-01-01

    The current notions of bounded rationality in economics share distinctive features with Simon’s original notion, which still influences the theoretical and experimental research in the fields of choice, judgment, decision making, problem solving, and social cognition. All these notions of bounded rationality are in fact equally rooted in the information-processing approach to human cognition, expressing the view that reasoning is disembodied and that it can be reduced to the processing of abs...

  13. Rational design of modular circuits for gene transcription: A test of the bottom-up approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giordano Emanuele

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Most of synthetic circuits developed so far have been designed by an ad hoc approach, using a small number of components (i.e. LacI, TetR and a trial and error strategy. We are at the point where an increasing number of modular, inter-changeable and well-characterized components is needed to expand the construction of synthetic devices and to allow a rational approach to the design. Results We used interchangeable modular biological parts to create a set of novel synthetic devices for controlling gene transcription, and we developed a mathematical model of the modular circuits. Model parameters were identified by experimental measurements from a subset of modular combinations. The model revealed an unexpected feature of the lactose repressor system, i.e. a residual binding affinity for the operator site by induced lactose repressor molecules. Once this residual affinity was taken into account, the model properly reproduced the experimental data from the training set. The parameters identified in the training set allowed the prediction of the behavior of networks not included in the identification procedure. Conclusions This study provides new quantitative evidences that the use of independent and well-characterized biological parts and mathematical modeling, what is called a bottom-up approach to the construction of gene networks, can allow the design of new and different devices re-using the same modular parts.

  14. Generalized Hermite polynomials in superspace as eigenfunctions of the supersymmetric rational CMS model

    CERN Document Server

    Desrosiers, P; Mathieu, P; Desrosiers, Patrick; Lapointe, Luc; Mathieu, Pierre

    2003-01-01

    We present two constructions of the orthogonal eigenfunctions of the supersymmetric extension of the rational Calogero-Moser-Sutherland model with harmonic confinement. These eigenfunctions are the superspace extension of the generalized Hermite (or Hi-Jack) polynomials. The conserved quantities of the rational supersymmetric model are first related to their trigonometric relatives through a similarity transformation. This leads to a simple expression for the generalized Hermite superpolynomials as a differential operator acting on the corresponding Jack superpolynomials. The second construction relies on the action of the Hamiltonian on the supermonomial basis. This translates into determinantal expressions for the Hamiltonian's eigenfunctions. As an aside, the maximal superintegrability of the supersymmetric rational Calogero-Moser-Sutherland model is demonstrated.

  15. Rationality and irrationality in understanding human behaviour. An evaluation of the methodological consequences of conceptualising irrationality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cosmin Toth

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Some of the most known and fertile models for understanding human behaviour are those which rest on the assumption of human rationality. These models have specific strategies for dealing with situations in which understanding human behaviour becomes difficult, i.e. cases of irrationality, and this, in turn, leads to particular methodological consequences. The aim of this article is to illustrate and systematize some of the typical theoretical approaches to the issues of rationality and irrationality and their methodological consequences, while warning, at the same time, against the risks of applying rationality models of a pronounced normative-evaluative nature. A number of important methodological consequences of applying the principle of charity to various degrees of strength are analysed and a taxonomic grid for the different ways of approaching rationality is presented.

  16. Are security analysts rational? a literature review

    OpenAIRE

    Peixinho, Rúben; Coelho, Luís; Taffler, Richard J.

    2005-01-01

    Rational choice theory and bounded rationality constitute the basis for the discussion in several areas regarding human rationality. In finance, this discussion has been made between traditional finance and behavioural finance approach, which have different perspectives concerning market agents’ rationality. This paper reviews several studies addressing rationality among security analysts. The analysis shows that analysts’systematic optimism seems to be inconsistent with rationality....

  17. Focusing on changing clinical practice to enhance rational prescribing--collaboration and networking enable comprehensive approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helin-Salmivaara, Arja; Huupponen, Risto; Klaukka, Timo; Hoppu, Kalle

    2003-10-01

    Most western societies are enhancing rational pharmacotherapy to get best value for the constantly increasing expenditure on drugs. Government bodies and the medical profession took joint responsibility for the education programme for rational prescribing, launched in Finland at the end of the 1990s. The goals were to enhance critical thinking, and when appropriate, change prescribing behaviour. Various approaches that included evidence-based continuing medical education (CME), implementing clinical guidelines, delivering information, and providing prescribing feedback were used simultaneously. The commitment of the stakeholders and participants has been strong and the approaches have succeeded even though there is no clear outcome measure. The Government has recently decided to continue and widen the process, which started as a pilot programme, on a tight budget.

  18. Determinants of Actor Rationality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ellegaard, Chris

    Industrial companies must exercise influence on their suppliers (or supplier actors). Actor rationality is a central theme connected to this management task. In this article, relevant literature is studied with the purpose of shedding light on determinants of actor rationality. Two buyer-supplier...... relations are investigated in a multiple case study, leading to the proposal of various additional factors that determine and shape actor rationality. Moreover a conceptual model of rationality determinants in the buyer-supplier relation is proposed, a model that may help supply managers analyse...

  19. Rationality, Intuition and Flair in Entrepreneur’s Configuration - an Epistemological Approach

    OpenAIRE

    Zoltan Raluca; Vancea Romulus

    2011-01-01

    The present paper proposes an overview of the evolution of the concept of entrepreneur in an epistemological approach. After a brief history of the concept, there are some basic economic and managerial guidelines in entrepreneur’s configuration; these guidelines are found in the work of experts in management, respectively, leading economists. Rationality, flair and intuition of the entrepreneur are then analyzed in terms of existing trends in the economy, acknowledging the entrepreneurship an...

  20. Cognitive-Behavioral Grief Therapy: The ABC Model of Rational-Emotion Behavior Therapy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ruth Malkinson

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available The article briefly reviews the changes that occurred in the field of grief and bereavement, viewing it as a process of searching for a "rational" meaning to life without the deceased in line with the concept of continuing bonds and thus replacing that of Fred’s concept of decathexis. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT evidenced-based studies for PTSD and complicated grief and the Cognitive-behavioral therapy − Rational-emotion behavior therapy (CBT-REBT model for grief are reviewed. The focus of intervention based on CBT-REBT is to facilitate a healthy adaptation to loss following death. A distinction is made between rational (adaptive and irrational (maladaptive grief processes. Case example illustrating the application of the model specifically a dialogue with repetitive thoughts, are presented.

  1. Rational Solutions to the ABS List: Transformation Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Danda; Zhang, Da-Jun

    2017-10-01

    In the paper we derive rational solutions for the lattice potential modified Korteweg-de Vries equation, and Q2, Q1(δ), H3(δ), H2 and H1 in the Adler-Bobenko-Suris list. Bäcklund transformations between these lattice equations are used. All these rational solutions are related to a unified τ function in Casoratian form which obeys a bilinear superposition formula.

  2. Combining Rational and Biological Factors in Virtual Agent Decision Making

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bosse, T.; Gerritsen, C.; Treur, J.

    2011-01-01

    To enhance believability of virtual agents, this paper presents an agent-based modelling approach for decision making, which integrates rational reasoning based on means-end analysis with personal psychological and biological aspects. The agent model developed is a combination of a BDI-model and a

  3. Rationality and drug use: an experimental approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blondel, Serge; Lohéac, Youenn; Rinaudo, Stéphane

    2007-05-01

    In rational addiction theory, higher discount rates encourage drug use. We test this hypothesis in the general framework of rationality and behaviour under risk. We do so using an experimental design with real monetary incentives. The decisions of 34 drug addicts are compared with those of a control group. The decisions of drug users (DU) are not any less consistent with standard theories of behaviour over time and under risk. Further, there is no difference in the estimated discount rate between drug users and the control group, but the former do appear to be more risk-seeking.

  4. Two Concepts of Rationality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danny Frederick

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available The dominant tradition in Western philosophy sees rationality as dictating. Thus rationality may require that we believe the best explanation and simple conceptual truths and that we infer in accordance with evident rules of inference. I argue that, given what we know about the growth of knowledge, this authoritarian concept of rationality leads to absurdities and should be abandoned. I then outline a libertarian concept of rationality, derived from Popper, which eschews the dictates and which sees a rational agent as one who questions, criticises, conjectures and experiments. I argue that, while the libertarian approach escapes the absurdities of the authoritarian, it requires two significant developments and an important clarification to be made fully consistent with itself.

  5. Statistical Method to Overcome Overfitting Issue in Rational Function Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alizadeh Moghaddam, S. H.; Mokhtarzade, M.; Alizadeh Naeini, A.; Alizadeh Moghaddam, S. A.

    2017-09-01

    Rational function models (RFMs) are known as one of the most appealing models which are extensively applied in geometric correction of satellite images and map production. Overfitting is a common issue, in the case of terrain dependent RFMs, that degrades the accuracy of RFMs-derived geospatial products. This issue, resulting from the high number of RFMs' parameters, leads to ill-posedness of the RFMs. To tackle this problem, in this study, a fast and robust statistical approach is proposed and compared to Tikhonov regularization (TR) method, as a frequently-used solution to RFMs' overfitting. In the proposed method, a statistical test, namely, significance test is applied to search for the RFMs' parameters that are resistant against overfitting issue. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated for two real data sets of Cartosat-1 satellite images. The obtained results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in term of the achievable level of accuracy. This technique, indeed, shows an improvement of 50-80% over the TR.

  6. Cyborg pantocrator: international relations theory from decisionism to rational choice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guilhot, Nicolas

    2011-01-01

    International relations theory took shape in the 1950s in reaction to the behavioral social science movement, emphasizing the limits of rationality in a context of high uncertainty, weak rules, and the possibility of lethal conflict. Yet the same discipline rapidly developed "rational choice" models applied to foreign policy decision making or nuclear strategy. This paper argues that this transformation took place almost seamlessly around the concept of "decision." Initially associated with an antirationalist or "decisionist" approach to politics, the sovereign decision became the epitome of political rationality when it was redescribed as "rational choice," thus easing the cultural acceptance of political realism in the postwar years. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  7. Rational solitons in the parity-time-symmetric nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Min; Xu Tao; Meng Dexin

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, via the generalized Darboux transformation, rational soliton solutions are derived for the parity-time-symmetric nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) model with the defocusing-type nonlinearity. We find that the first-order solution can exhibit the elastic interactions of rational antidark-antidark, dark-antidark, and antidark-dark soliton pairs on a continuous wave background, but there is no phase shift for the interacting solitons. Also, we discuss the degenerate case in which only one rational dark or antidark soliton survives. Moreover, we reveal that the second-order rational solution displays the interactions between two solitons with combined-peak-valley structures in the near-field regions, but each interacting soliton vanishes or evolves into a rational dark or antidark soliton as |z| → ∞. In addition, we numerically examine the stability of the first- and second-order rational soliton solutions. (author)

  8. Changes in Rational Economic Behavior Model, Caused By the Development of E-Commerce

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Menzeleev Ilya, A.

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available In the paper the author examines the origins of rationality concept and its transformation within the framework of economic science. According to the author, rationality is a fundamental concept both for philosophy and for economics. Changes in rational economic behavior model significantly effect on informal institutes (in short-term perspective and on formal institutes (in long-term period. In the paper it is said about significant changes taking place with humanity right now. Today it becomes more and more difficult to describe human behavior by uniform concept of rationality. Now people live in a world that is developing unprecedentedly fast, with the usage of incredible amount of information, countless tasks and social contacts. The development of the Internet and IT tools facilitate this process. Already since the midtwentieth century advertising and marketing has been influencing people’s lifestyle like politics or news. Media resources brands today are comparable to the resources of some political parties or even TV channels what means that advertising today is one of the main factors affecting consumers ' minds and their behavioral model, main feature of which is the premise of rationality or justification of actions. The author analyzes the changes of models of rationality over time and, above all, the changes caused by the development of Internet marketing and its tools for monitoring user activity and the impact on decision making in the Network. In conclusion a number of recommendations is given, which can help consumers to save an independence in making decisions in the Internet environment.

  9. Discrete Choice and Rational Inattention

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgerau, Mogens; Melo, Emerson; de Palma, André

    2017-01-01

    This paper establishes a general equivalence between discrete choice and rational inattention models. Matejka and McKay (2015, AER) showed that when information costs are modelled using the Shannon entropy, the result- ing choice probabilities in the rational inattention model take the multinomial...... logit form. We show that when information costs are modelled using a class of generalized entropies, then the choice probabilities in any rational inattention model are observationally equivalent to some additive random utility discrete choice model and vice versa. This equivalence arises from convex...

  10. [Historical development of vaccines. Introduction: Hazards and rationality in the vaccinal approach].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moulin, A M

    1995-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to introduce the one hundred years of vaccination that has passed since Louis Pasteur first coined this generic term. According to the late Jonas Salk, vaccinology is a science encompassing all aspects of vaccine from its conception in the laboratory to its production by companies and its application and distribution in the field. In this historical survey I explore how vaccination never consisted of a simple and uniform application of a rational model, but rather diverged along various pathways, several of which were discarded in retrospect as being hazardous, and I analyse the ongoing interplay between rational and inventive thinking.

  11. Rainfall-runoff modeling of the Chapel Branch Creek Watershed using GIS-based rational and SCS-CN methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elizabeth N. Mihalik; Norm S. Levine; Devendra M. Amatya

    2008-01-01

    Chapel Branch Creek (CBC), located within the Town of Santee adjacent to Lake Marion in Orangeburg County, SC, is listed on the SC 2004 303(d) list of impaired waterbodies due to elevated levels of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), chlorophyll-a, and pH. In this study, using a GIS-based approach, two runoff modeling methods, the Rational and SCS-CN methods, have been...

  12. Modeling and simulating pedestrian shopping behavior based on principles of boundede rationality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zhu, W.; Timmermans, H.J.P.; Timmermans, H.J.P.

    2009-01-01

    Modeling pedestrian behavior and decision making has dominantly relied on rational choice models, especially discrete choice models. These models, however, may not be appropriate for modeling the decision processes because they assume unrealistic cognitive and computational abilities of decision

  13. The University – a Rational-Biologic Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ion Gh. Rosca

    2008-05-01

    Full Text Available The article advances the extension of the biologic rational model for the organizations, which are reprocessing and living in a turbulent environment. The current “tree” type organizations are not able to satisfy the requirements of the socio-economical environment and are not able to provide the organizational perpetuation and development. Thus, an innovative performing model for both the top and down management areas is presented, with the following recommendations: dividing the organization into departments using neuronal connections, focusing on the formatting processes and not on the activities, rethinking the system of a new organizational culture.

  14. The Rational-Emotive Approach: A Critique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morris, G. Barry

    1976-01-01

    The critique of Rational-Emotive Therapy aims criticism at Ellis' concept of irrationality, analysis of human behavior and therapeutic techniques. Ellis suggests that his critic's claims lack the support of experimental evidence. He further suggests that an "existential" bias pervades which differs from his own brand of…

  15. Grade Expectations: Rationality and Overconfidence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jan R. Magnus

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Confidence and overconfidence are essential aspects of human nature, but measuring (overconfidence is not easy. Our approach is to consider students' forecasts of their exam grades. Part of a student's grade expectation is based on the student's previous academic achievements; what remains can be interpreted as (overconfidence. Our results are based on a sample of about 500 second-year undergraduate students enrolled in a statistics course in Moscow. The course contains three exams and each student produces a forecast for each of the three exams. Our models allow us to estimate overconfidence quantitatively. Using these models we find that students' expectations are not rational and that most students are overconfident, in agreement with the general literature. Less obvious is that overconfidence helps: given the same academic achievement students with larger confidence obtain higher exam grades. Female students are less overconfident than male students, their forecasts are more rational, and they are also faster learners in the sense that they adjust their expectations more rapidly.

  16. Modified rational Legendre approach to laminar viscous flow over a semi-infinite flat plate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tajvidi, T.; Razzaghi, M.; Dehghan, M.

    2008-01-01

    A numerical method for solving the classical Blasius' equation is proposed. The Blasius' equation is a third order nonlinear ordinary differential equation , which arises in the problem of the two-dimensional laminar viscous flow over a semi-infinite flat plane. The approach is based on a modified rational Legendre tau method. The operational matrices for the derivative and product of the modified rational Legendre functions are presented. These matrices together with the tau method are utilized to reduce the solution of Blasius' equation to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. A numerical evaluation is included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the method and a comparison is made with existing results

  17. Rationality, morality and Economic Coordination: The Contours of Interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sushentsova Maria, S.

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The article represents an overview of general tendencies in interaction between the notions of rationality and morality, and their influence on the foundations of economic coordination. Firstly, two main directions of evolution of rationality model are considered: the theory of perspectives of D. Kahneman and A. Tverski (the empirical restriction and economic imperialism of G. Becker (the conceptual widening, the role of the modern institutionalism being emphasized. The theoretical evolution of economic rationality had mainly instrumental character and didn’t change its ethical core – the central idea of welfare in economic motivation. In this regard, the two main ways of integration of rationality and morality in modern discussion are considered: conceptions of “multiple preferences” (1 and “moral obligations” (2. The first conception assumes the existence of stable beliefs or “meta-preferences”, which range ordinal desires or preferences. According to the second approach, a distinction of a qualitative nature is drawn between rational behavior, motivated by personal benefit or “sympathy”, and exclusively moral behavior, underlain by “obligation”. An approach according to which a distinction between rational and moral arguments is drawn, directly determines the principles of economic coordination, including the foundations of social justice. Among the latter, there are two ethical grounds – mutual benefit, based on the “sympathy” principle, and impartiality, grounded on the “obligation of power”. These conceptions imply the corresponding types of economic coordination: market-evolutional (focused on effectiveness and constructivist (focused on redistribution.

  18. A stepwise approach for defining the applicability domain of SAR and QSAR models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dimitrov, Sabcho; Dimitrova, Gergana; Pavlov, Todor

    2005-01-01

    A stepwise approach for determining the model applicability domain is proposed. Four stages are applied to account for the diversity and complexity of the current SAR/QSAR models, reflecting their mechanistic rationality (including metabolic activation of chemicals) and transparency. General para...

  19. Interim analysis: A rational approach of decision making in clinical trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Amal; Chakraborty, Bhaswat S

    2016-01-01

    Interim analysis of especially sizeable trials keeps the decision process free of conflict of interest while considering cost, resources, and meaningfulness of the project. Whenever necessary, such interim analysis can also call for potential termination or appropriate modification in sample size, study design, and even an early declaration of success. Given the extraordinary size and complexity today, this rational approach helps to analyze and predict the outcomes of a clinical trial that incorporate what is learned during the course of a study or a clinical development program. Such approach can also fill the gap by directing the resources toward relevant and optimized clinical trials between unmet medical needs and interventions being tested currently rather than fulfilling only business and profit goals.

  20. Interim analysis: A rational approach of decision making in clinical trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amal Kumar

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Interim analysis of especially sizeable trials keeps the decision process free of conflict of interest while considering cost, resources, and meaningfulness of the project. Whenever necessary, such interim analysis can also call for potential termination or appropriate modification in sample size, study design, and even an early declaration of success. Given the extraordinary size and complexity today, this rational approach helps to analyze and predict the outcomes of a clinical trial that incorporate what is learned during the course of a study or a clinical development program. Such approach can also fill the gap by directing the resources toward relevant and optimized clinical trials between unmet medical needs and interventions being tested currently rather than fulfilling only business and profit goals.

  1. Rationality in Machiavelli and in Kant

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vadim Chaly

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The paper contains interpretation and comparative analysis of Machiavelli’s and Kant’s conceptions on rationality as two prime examples of “realist” and “idealist” modes of agency. Kantian model of rationality is viewed as an augmentation of the Machiavellian one, not an opposition to it. To elaborate the point, Robert Aumann’s model of act-rationality and rulerationality is applied to the two philosophical models. Kantian practical reason is interpreted as an addition to Aumann’s instrumental rationality, providing rules for rules, or “rule-rule-rationality”.

  2. Intuition and emotion: examining two non-rational approaches in complex decision making

    OpenAIRE

    Huang, Tori Yu-wen

    2012-01-01

    This thesis was designed to examine two non-rational decision approaches in individual and team decision making. In Chapter 2 (Paper 1), a normative theory about how people should use intuition in making complex decisions is proposed. I draw from extant literature to derive why allowing intuition to interrupt analysis is beneficial to complex decision processes. In Chapter 3 (Paper 2), the theory of intuitive interruptions is applied to the entrepreneurial context. I argue that allowing intui...

  3. Rational Adaptation under Task and Processing Constraints: Implications for Testing Theories of Cognition and Action

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howes, Andrew; Lewis, Richard L.; Vera, Alonso

    2009-01-01

    The authors assume that individuals adapt rationally to a utility function given constraints imposed by their cognitive architecture and the local task environment. This assumption underlies a new approach to modeling and understanding cognition--cognitively bounded rational analysis--that sharpens the predictive acuity of general, integrated…

  4. Reverse Engineering the Inflammatory "Clock": From Computational Modeling to Rational Resetting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vodovotz, Yoram

    2016-01-01

    Properly-regulated inflammation is central to homeostasis. Traumatic injury, hemorrhagic shock, septic shock, and other injury-related processes such as wound healing are associated with dysregulated inflammation. Like many biological processes, inflammation is a dynamic, complex system whose function, like that of an analog clock, cannot be discerned simply from a laundry list of its parts (data). The advent of multiplexed platforms for gathering biological data, while providing an unprecedented level of detailed information about the inflammatory response, has paradoxically also proven to be overwhelming. This problem is especially acute when the datasets involve time courses, since typical statistical analyses and data-driven modeling are geared towards single time points. Various groups have addressed this problem using dynamic approaches to data-driven and mechanistic computational modeling. These modeling tools can be thought of as the "gears" and "hands" of the "clock," and have led to insights regarding principal drivers, dynamic networks, feedbacks, and regulatory switches that characterize and perhaps regulate the inflammatory response. In parallel, mechanistic computational models have given an abstracted sense of how the inflammatory "clock" works, leading to in silico models of critically ill individuals and populations. Integrating data-driven and mechanistic modeling may point the way to a rational "resetting" of inflammation via model-driven precision medicine.

  5. Structure-based, rational design of T cell receptors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincent eZoete

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Adoptive cell transfer using engineered T cells is emerging as a promising treatment for metastatic melanoma. Such an approach allows one to introduce TCR modifications that, while maintaining the specificity for the targeted antigen, can enhance the binding and kinetic parameters for the interaction pMHC. Using the well-characterized 2C TCR/SIYR/H-2K(b structure as a model system, we demonstrated that a binding free energy decomposition based on the MM-GBSA approach provides a detailed and reliable description of the TCR/pMHC interactions at the structural and thermodynamic levels. Starting from this result, we developed a new structure-based approach, to rationally design new TCR sequences, and applied it to the BC1 TCR targeting the HLA-A2 restricted NY-ESO-1157-165 cancer-testis epitope. 54% of the designed sequence replacements exhibited improved pMHC-binding as compared to the native TCR, with up to 150 fold increase in affinity, while preserving specificity. Genetically-engineered CD8+ T cells expressing these modified TCRs showed an improved functional activity compared to those expressing BC1 TCR. We measured maximum levels of activities for TCRs within the upper limit of natural affinity. Beyond the affinity threshold at KD < 1 μM we observed an attenuation in cellular function. We have also developed a homology modeling-based approach, TCRep 3D, to obtain accurate structural models of any TCR-pMHC complexes. We have complemented the approach with a simplified rigid method to predict the TCR orientation over pMHC. These methods potentially extend the use of our TCR engineering method to entire TCR repertoires for which no X-ray structure is available. We have also performed a steered molecular dynamics study of the unbinding of the TCR-pMHC complex to get a better understanding of how TCRs interact with pMHCs. This entire rational TCR design pipeline is now being used to produce rationally optimized TCRs for adoptive cell therapies of

  6. Rational emotive behavior therapy: applications for working with parents and teachers

    OpenAIRE

    Terjesen,Mark D.; Kurasaki,Robyn

    2009-01-01

    Given the high rates of reported emotional stress among parents and teachers, the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy approach appears to be a useful strategy to promote more effective parent and teacher emotional functioning and increase child positive behaviors and learning. The Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy model may be helpful for clinicians who work with the parents and the family by identifying and subsequently changing their unhealthy ideas, enhancing emotional functioning, and incre...

  7. Strategy selection as rational metareasoning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lieder, Falk; Griffiths, Thomas L

    2017-11-01

    Many contemporary accounts of human reasoning assume that the mind is equipped with multiple heuristics that could be deployed to perform a given task. This raises the question of how the mind determines when to use which heuristic. To answer this question, we developed a rational model of strategy selection, based on the theory of rational metareasoning developed in the artificial intelligence literature. According to our model people learn to efficiently choose the strategy with the best cost-benefit tradeoff by learning a predictive model of each strategy's performance. We found that our model can provide a unifying explanation for classic findings from domains ranging from decision-making to arithmetic by capturing the variability of people's strategy choices, their dependence on task and context, and their development over time. Systematic model comparisons supported our theory, and 4 new experiments confirmed its distinctive predictions. Our findings suggest that people gradually learn to make increasingly more rational use of fallible heuristics. This perspective reconciles the 2 poles of the debate about human rationality by integrating heuristics and biases with learning and rationality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  8. Investment in the future electricity system - An agent-based modelling approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kraan, O.; Kramer, G. J.; Nikolic, I.

    2018-01-01

    Now that renewable technologies are both technically and commercially mature, the imperfect rational behaviour of investors becomes a critical factor in the future success of the energy transition. Here, we take an agent-based approach to model investor decision making in the electricity sector

  9. Grade Expectations: Rationality and Overconfidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magnus, Jan R.; Peresetsky, Anatoly A.

    2018-01-01

    Confidence and overconfidence are essential aspects of human nature, but measuring (over)confidence is not easy. Our approach is to consider students' forecasts of their exam grades. Part of a student's grade expectation is based on the student's previous academic achievements; what remains can be interpreted as (over)confidence. Our results are based on a sample of about 500 second-year undergraduate students enrolled in a statistics course in Moscow. The course contains three exams and each student produces a forecast for each of the three exams. Our models allow us to estimate overconfidence quantitatively. Using these models we find that students' expectations are not rational and that most students are overconfident, in agreement with the general literature. Less obvious is that overconfidence helps: given the same academic achievement students with larger confidence obtain higher exam grades. Female students are less overconfident than male students, their forecasts are more rational, and they are also faster learners in the sense that they adjust their expectations more rapidly. PMID:29375449

  10. A Rational Model of the Closed-End Fund Discount

    OpenAIRE

    Jonathan Berk; Richard Stanton

    2004-01-01

    The discount on closed-end funds is widely accepted as proof of investor irrationality. We show,however, that a parsimonious rational model can generate a discount that exhibits many of the characteristics observed in practice. The only required features of the model are that managers have (imperfectly observable) ability to generate excess returns; they sign long-term contracts guaranteeing them a fee each year equal to a fixed fraction of assets under management; and they can leave to earn ...

  11. How Action Understanding can be Rational, Bayesian and Tractable

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Blokpoel, M.; Kwisthout, J.H.P.; Weide, Th.P. van der; Rooij, I.J.E.I. van; Ohlsson, S.; Catrambone, R.

    2010-01-01

    An important aspect of human sociality is our ability to understand the actions of others as being goal-directed. Recently, the now classic rational approach to explaining this ability has been given a formal incarnation in the Bayesian Inverse Planning (BIP) model of Baker, Saxe, and Tenenbaum

  12. Capital Requirements and Credit Rationing

    OpenAIRE

    Itai Agur

    2010-01-01

    This paper analyzes the trade-off between financial stability and credit rationing that arises when increasing capital requirements. It extends the Stiglitz-Weiss model of credit rationing to allow for bank default. Bank capital structure then matters for lending incentives. With default and rationing endogenous, optimal capital requirements can be analyzed. Introducing bank financiers, the paper also shows that uninsured funding raises the sensitivity of rationing to capital requirements. In...

  13. The limitations of applying rational decision-making models to ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The aim of this paper is to show the limitations of rational decision-making models as applied to child spacing and more specifically to the use of modern methods of contraception. In the light of factors known to influence low uptake of child spacing services in other African countries, suggestions are made to explain the ...

  14. Rational top and its classical r-matrix

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aminov, G; Arthamonov, S; Smirnov, A; Zotov, A

    2014-01-01

    We construct a rational integrable system (the rational top) on a co-adjoint orbit of SL N Lie group. It is described by the Lax operator with spectral parameter and classical non-dynamical skew-symmetric r-matrix. In the case of the orbit of minimal dimension the model is gauge equivalent to the rational Calogero–Moser (CM) system. To obtain the results we represent the Lax operator of the CM model in two different factorized forms—without spectral parameter (related to the spinless case) and another one with the spectral parameter. The latter gives rise to the rational top while the first one is related to generalized Cremmer–Gervais r-matrices. The gauge transformation relating the rational top and CM model provides the classical rational version of the IRF-Vertex correspondence. From the geometrical point of view it describes the modification of SL(N,C)-bundles over degenerated elliptic curve. In view of the Symplectic Hecke Correspondence the rational top is related to the rational spin CM model. Possible applications and generalizations of the suggested construction are discussed. In particular, the obtained r-matrix defines a class of KZB equations. (paper)

  15. Cognitive-Behavioral Grief Therapy: The ABC Model of Rational-Emotion Behavior Therapy

    OpenAIRE

    Malkinson, Ruth

    2010-01-01

    The article briefly reviews the changes that occurred in the field of grief and bereavement, viewing it as a process of searching for a "rational" meaning to life without the deceased in line with the concept of continuing bonds and thus replacing that of Fred’s concept of decathexis. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) evidenced-based studies for PTSD and complicated grief and the Cognitive-behavioral therapy − Rational-emotion behavior therapy (CBT-REBT) model for grief are reviewed. The foc...

  16. On a Graphical Technique for Evaluating Some Rational Expectations Models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders R.

    2011-01-01

    Campbell and Shiller (1987) proposed a graphical technique for the present value model, which consists of plotting estimates of the spread and theoretical spread as calculated from the cointegrated vector autoregressive model without imposing the restrictions implied by the present value model....... In addition to getting a visual impression of the fit of the model, the purpose is to see if the two spreads are nevertheless similar as measured by correlation, variance ratio, and noise ratio. We extend these techniques to a number of rational expectation models and give a general definition of spread...

  17. Gender and work-family conflict: testing the rational model and the gender role expectations model in the Spanish cultural context.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calvo-Salguero, Antonia; Martínez-de-Lecea, José-María Salinas; del Carmen Aguilar-Luzón, María

    2012-01-01

    Gutek, Searle, and Klepa (1991) proposed two models to explain the gender differences in work-family conflict: the rational model and the gender role expectations model. Both models have mostly been tested on American and Canadian samples, and have obtained partial support. Given the cultural differences between North American countries and Spain, we should question whether the two models are equally applicable to Spanish society or whether one of them captures Spanish men and women's experience of work-family conflict better than the other. So, the aim of this study is to test which of the models better explains the gender differences in work-family conflict in the Spanish cultural context (or if, indeed, the two models apply equally well). Given the typical cultural dimensions of Spanish society, we expected to find greater support for the gender role expectations model than for the rational model. However, the results obtained in this study indicated that, while the rational model can explain the gender differences that were found, the gender role expectations model cannot capture Spanish people's work-family conflict experiences. The results are interpreted in terms of cultural dimensions characteristic of the Spanish context.

  18. Rational compensating model of behavior of elderly consumers

    OpenAIRE

    Astashova Julija Vladimirovna

    2014-01-01

    In article relevance of revision of the upper age brackets of a target segment of business in the conditions of population aging is proved. Practice of domestic and foreign business at interaction with consumers of the senior age group is considered. On the basis of allocation of specific characteristics of behavior of elderly consumers by the author the system of requirements is developed, and also the rational compensating model of the behavior, allowing to build effective processes of inte...

  19. Does an outcome-based approach to continuing medical education improve physicians' competences in rational prescribing?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esmaily, Hamideh M; Savage, Carl; Vahidi, Rezagoli; Amini, Abolghasem; Dastgiri, Saeed; Hult, Hakan; Dahlgren, Lars Owe; Wahlstrom, Rolf

    2009-11-01

    Continuing medical education (CME) is compulsory in Iran, and traditionally it is lecture-based, which is mostly not successful. Outcome-based education has been proposed for CME programs. To evaluate the effectiveness of an outcome-based educational intervention with a new approach based on outcomes and aligned teaching methods, on knowledge and skills of general physicians (GPs) working in primary care compared with a concurrent CME program in the field of "Rational prescribing". The method used was cluster randomized controlled design. All GPs working in six cities in one province in Iran were invited to participate. The cities were matched and randomly divided into an intervention arm for education on rational prescribing with an outcome-based approach, and a control arm for a traditional program on the same topic. Knowledge and skills were assessed using a pre- and post-test, including case scenarios. In total, 112 GPs participated. There were significant improvements in knowledge and prescribing skills after the training in the intervention arm as well as in comparison with the changes in the control arm. The overall intervention effect was 26 percentage units. The introduction of an outcome-based approach in CME appears to be effective when creating programs to improve GPs' knowledge and skills.

  20. [Rational bases for cooperation between epidemiologists and mathematicians].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Favorova, L A; Shatrov, I I

    1977-10-01

    The authors consider rational foundations underlying creatin of realistic models. The principal condition for the successful mathematical modelling is obtaining of the most full value primary materials on the course of the epidemic process. For this purpose the authors suggest definite principles of the methodical approach to the mathematical modelling. Possibilities of the use of mathematical methods for various groups of infections are consideder. Particular attention is paid to the works on the study of the infection risk in "small" collective bodies.

  1. Rich Analysis and Rational Models: Inferring Individual Behavior from Infant Looking Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piantadosi, Steven T.; Kidd, Celeste; Aslin, Richard

    2014-01-01

    Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive…

  2. The art of rationing - the need for a new approach to rationing health ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A key element in dealing with HIV/AIDS in South Africa depends on the resolution of the antiretroviral therapy (ART) paradox: while a universal First-World-style ART programme is unaffordable, a rationed treatment programme that includes ART is not only affordable but also vital for basic human rights reasons, to enhance ...

  3. On a Numerical and Graphical Technique for Evaluating some Models Involving Rational Expectations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    Campbell and Shiller (1987) proposed a graphical technique for the present value model which consists of plotting the spread and theoretical spread as calculated from the cointegrated vector autoregressive model. We extend these techniques to a number of rational expectation models and give...

  4. On a numerical and graphical technique for evaluating some models involving rational expectations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    Campbell and Shiller (1987) proposed a graphical technique for the present value model which consists of plotting the spread and theoretical spread as calculated from the cointegrated vector autoregressive model. We extend these techniques to a number of rational expectation models and give...

  5. Bounded rational choice behaviour: applications in transport

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Anders Fjendbo

    2016-01-01

    Even though the theory of rational behaviour has been challenged for almost 100 years, the dominant approach within the field of transport has been based upon the assumptions of neoclassical economics that we live in a world of rational decision makers who always have perfect knowledge and aim...... rational choice behaviour focuses on how the latter approach can be seriously taken into account within transport applications. As the editors discuss in the introduction, a true optimal choice can only be made if an individual has full and perfect information of all relevant attributes in his/her choice...... set. An individual is said to demonstrate bounded rational behaviour if he/she does not systematically consider all attributes deemed relevant for the decision problem at hand, does not consider all choice options and/or does not choose the best choice alternative. Such simplified representation...

  6. Deciphering mirror neurons: rational decision versus associative learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khalil, Elias L

    2014-04-01

    The rational-decision approach is superior to the associative-learning approach of Cook et al. at explaining why mirror neurons fire or do not fire - even when the stimulus is the same. The rational-decision approach is superior because it starts with the analysis of the intention of the organism, that is, with the identification of the specific objective or goal that the organism is trying to maximize.

  7. Rational kernels for Arabic Root Extraction and Text Classification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Attia Nehar

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we address the problems of Arabic Text Classification and root extraction using transducers and rational kernels. We introduce a new root extraction approach on the basis of the use of Arabic patterns (Pattern Based Stemmer. Transducers are used to model these patterns and root extraction is done without relying on any dictionary. Using transducers for extracting roots, documents are transformed into finite state transducers. This document representation allows us to use and explore rational kernels as a framework for Arabic Text Classification. Root extraction experiments are conducted on three word collections and yield 75.6% of accuracy. Classification experiments are done on the Saudi Press Agency dataset and N-gram kernels are tested with different values of N. Accuracy and F1 report 90.79% and 62.93% respectively. These results show that our approach, when compared with other approaches, is promising specially in terms of accuracy and F1.

  8. F4 quantum integrable, rational and trigonometric models: space-of-orbits view

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Turbiner, A V; Vieyra, J C Lopez

    2014-01-01

    Algebraic-rational nature of the four-dimensional, F 4 -invariant integrable quantum Hamiltonians, both rational and trigonometric, is revealed and reviewed. It was shown that being written in F 4 Weyl invariants, polynomial and exponential, respectively, both similarity-transformed Hamiltonians are in algebraic form, they are quite similar the second order differential operators with polynomial coefficients; the flat metric in the Laplace-Beltrami operator has polynomial (in invariants) matrix elements. Their potentials are calculated for the first time: they are meromorphic (rational) functions with singularities at the boundaries of the configuration space. Ground state eigenfunctions are algebraic functions in a form of polynomials in some degrees. Both Hamiltonians preserve the same infinite flag of polynomial spaces with characteristic vector (1, 2, 2, 3), it manifests exact solvability. A particular integral common for both models is derived. The first polynomial eigenfunctions are presented explicitly.

  9. Decision Making Models in the Financial Market: A Study in the Light of Prospect Theory and Limited Rationality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alex Diego Souza Queiroz

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study was to determine whether the decision-making models present in Prospect Theory and the theory of limited rationality could help managers of financial institutions identify and control the emotions and rational limitations involved in the credit granting process in the financial market. To this end, a study was carried out with 17 bank managers as experimental group and 31 other managers from different areas as control group. Adopting a quantitative approach to research, questionnaires were sent electronically to a number of bank branches. Five scenarios were presented, seeking to identify the influence of behavioral factors on decisions in situations of risk. In addition, emotional triggers were included in some questions in order to verify the influence of this component on responses. Results were treated with SPSS software, using descriptive analysis of data and the statistical test Chi-square (χ². Results observed for the five scenarios indicated that emotions and limited rationality in complex environments tend to influence managers in their decision-making process. The study evidence suggests differences in decision-making in accordance with how the problem is presented.

  10. The common risk factor approach: a rational basis for promoting oral health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sheiham, A; Watt, R G

    2000-12-01

    Conventional oral health education is not effective nor efficient. Many oral health programmes are developed and implemented in isolation from other health programmes. This often leads, at best to a duplication of effort, or worse, conflicting messages being delivered to the public. In addition, oral health programmes tend to concentrate on individual behaviour change and largely ignore the influence of socio-political factors as the key determinants of health. Based upon the general principles of health promotion this paper presents a rationale for an alternative approach for oral health policy. The common risk factor approach addresses risk factors common to many chronic conditions within the context of the wider socio-environmental milieu. Oral health is determined by diet, hygiene, smoking, alcohol use, stress and trauma. As these causes are common to a number of other chronic diseases, adopting a collaborative approach is more rational than one that is disease specific. The common risk factor approach can be implemented in a variety of ways. Food policy development and the Health Promoting Schools initiative are used as examples of effective ways of promoting oral health.

  11. Probabilistic approach to rationalization of plants maintenance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kasai, Masao; Notoya, Junichi; Uchimoto, Tetsuya; Miya, Kenzo

    2001-01-01

    Since there are a lot of equipments in large plants, their safety and reliability cannot be kept as high level as designed without maintenance activities. Then preventive maintenance is intensively executed in some large plants. However, it will be inefficient to perform the preventive maintenance blindly. To make maintenance activities effective, it is essential to identify the critical equipments influencing plant safety and/or reliability and carry out the maintenance by focusing attentions on these equipments. It needs quantitative analyses to identify the critical equipments based on the data of failure rates. However, complete data set of failure rates cannot necessarily be available for some plants such as nuclear power plants. In this study, we carry out the reliability analysis for generic LNG plant and calculate various quantitative risk importance measures for each equipment. We propose rather qualitative representations for some quantitative measures, considering the situation without complete data set and conclude that it is possible to rationalize maintenance procedure by using these rather qualitative measures, though the level of rationalization is of course limited. (author)

  12. The Problem of Rational Moral Enlistment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tillson, John

    2017-01-01

    How can one bring children to recognize the requirements of morality without resorting only to non-rational means of persuasion (i.e. what rational ground can be offered to children for their moral enlistment)? Michael Hand has recently defended a foundationalist approach to answering this question and John White has responded by (a) criticizing…

  13. State-dependent decisions cause apparent violations of rationality in animal choice.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cynthia Schuck-Paim

    2004-12-01

    Full Text Available Normative models of choice in economics and biology usually expect preferences to be consistent across contexts, or "rational" in economic language. Following a large body of literature reporting economically irrational behaviour in humans, breaches of rationality by animals have also been recently described. If proven systematic, these findings would challenge long-standing biological approaches to behavioural theorising, and suggest that cognitive processes similar to those claimed to cause irrationality in humans can also hinder optimality approaches to modelling animal preferences. Critical differences between human and animal experiments have not, however, been sufficiently acknowledged. While humans can be instructed conceptually about the choice problem, animals need to be trained by repeated exposure to all contingencies. This exposure often leads to differences in state between treatments, hence changing choices while preserving rationality. We report experiments with European starlings demonstrating that apparent breaches of rationality can result from state-dependence. We show that adding an inferior alternative to a choice set (a "decoy" affects choices, an effect previously interpreted as indicating irrationality. However, these effects appear and disappear depending on whether state differences between choice contexts are present or not. These results open the possibility that some expressions of maladaptive behaviour are due to oversights in the migration of ideas between economics and biology, and suggest that key differences between human and nonhuman research must be recognised if ideas are to safely travel between these fields.

  14. State-dependent decisions cause apparent violations of rationality in animal choice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuck-Paim, Cynthia; Pompilio, Lorena; Kacelnik, Alex

    2004-12-01

    Normative models of choice in economics and biology usually expect preferences to be consistent across contexts, or "rational" in economic language. Following a large body of literature reporting economically irrational behaviour in humans, breaches of rationality by animals have also been recently described. If proven systematic, these findings would challenge long-standing biological approaches to behavioural theorising, and suggest that cognitive processes similar to those claimed to cause irrationality in humans can also hinder optimality approaches to modelling animal preferences. Critical differences between human and animal experiments have not, however, been sufficiently acknowledged. While humans can be instructed conceptually about the choice problem, animals need to be trained by repeated exposure to all contingencies. This exposure often leads to differences in state between treatments, hence changing choices while preserving rationality. We report experiments with European starlings demonstrating that apparent breaches of rationality can result from state-dependence. We show that adding an inferior alternative to a choice set (a "decoy") affects choices, an effect previously interpreted as indicating irrationality. However, these effects appear and disappear depending on whether state differences between choice contexts are present or not. These results open the possibility that some expressions of maladaptive behaviour are due to oversights in the migration of ideas between economics and biology, and suggest that key differences between human and nonhuman research must be recognised if ideas are to safely travel between these fields.

  15. Model-based rational feedback controller design for closed-loop deep brain stimulation of Parkinson's disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gorzelic, P.; Schiff, S. J.; Sinha, A.

    2013-04-01

    Objective. To explore the use of classical feedback control methods to achieve an improved deep brain stimulation (DBS) algorithm for application to Parkinson's disease (PD). Approach. A computational model of PD dynamics was employed to develop model-based rational feedback controller design. The restoration of thalamocortical relay capabilities to patients suffering from PD is formulated as a feedback control problem with the DBS waveform serving as the control input. Two high-level control strategies are tested: one that is driven by an online estimate of thalamic reliability, and another that acts to eliminate substantial decreases in the inhibition from the globus pallidus interna (GPi) to the thalamus. Control laws inspired by traditional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) methodology are prescribed for each strategy and simulated on this computational model of the basal ganglia network. Main Results. For control based upon thalamic reliability, a strategy of frequency proportional control with proportional bias delivered the optimal control achieved for a given energy expenditure. In comparison, control based upon synaptic inhibitory output from the GPi performed very well in comparison with those of reliability-based control, with considerable further reduction in energy expenditure relative to that of open-loop DBS. The best controller performance was amplitude proportional with derivative control and integral bias, which is full PID control. We demonstrated how optimizing the three components of PID control is feasible in this setting, although the complexity of these optimization functions argues for adaptive methods in implementation. Significance. Our findings point to the potential value of model-based rational design of feedback controllers for Parkinson's disease.

  16. Rational adaptation under task and processing constraints: implications for testing theories of cognition and action.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howes, Andrew; Lewis, Richard L; Vera, Alonso

    2009-10-01

    The authors assume that individuals adapt rationally to a utility function given constraints imposed by their cognitive architecture and the local task environment. This assumption underlies a new approach to modeling and understanding cognition-cognitively bounded rational analysis-that sharpens the predictive acuity of general, integrated theories of cognition and action. Such theories provide the necessary computational means to explain the flexible nature of human behavior but in doing so introduce extreme degrees of freedom in accounting for data. The new approach narrows the space of predicted behaviors through analysis of the payoff achieved by alternative strategies, rather than through fitting strategies and theoretical parameters to data. It extends and complements established approaches, including computational cognitive architectures, rational analysis, optimal motor control, bounded rationality, and signal detection theory. The authors illustrate the approach with a reanalysis of an existing account of psychological refractory period (PRP) dual-task performance and the development and analysis of a new theory of ordered dual-task responses. These analyses yield several novel results, including a new understanding of the role of strategic variation in existing accounts of PRP and the first predictive, quantitative account showing how the details of ordered dual-task phenomena emerge from the rational control of a cognitive system subject to the combined constraints of internal variance, motor interference, and a response selection bottleneck.

  17. The Rational-Reality Based Approach to Treating the Criminal Child Abuser.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, Steven G.

    1979-01-01

    This appraoch to treating child abusers incorporates the philosophies of Rational Behavior Training and Reality Therapy into a therapeutic strategy that helps clients to learn skills in making rational decisions that can aid them in living harmoniously within the family structure. Five specific techniques are presented. (Author)

  18. The Soft Constraints Hypothesis: A Rational Analysis Approach to Resource Allocation for Interactive Behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-01-01

    Gray, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Carnegie Building, 110 8th St., Troy, NY 12180. E-mail: grayw@rpi.edu Psychological Review Copyright 2006 by...the American Psychological Association 2006, Vol. 113, No. 3, 461–482 0033-295X/06/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.113.3.461 461 Report Documentation...analysis approach from signal-detection theorists (Geisler, 2003; Macmillan & Creelman , 2004) with rational analysis (Anderson, 1990, 1991) to present an

  19. Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan. Contingency gasoline rationing regulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1979-02-01

    The Economic Regulatory Administration issues final rules with respect to standby gasoline rationing. The plan is designed for and would be used only in the event of a severe gasoline shortage. The plan provides that eligibility for ration allotments will be primarily on the basis of motor vehicle registrations. DOE will mail government ration checks to the parties named in a national vehicle registration file to be maintained by DOE. Ration recipients may cash these checks for ration coupons at various designated coupon issuance points. Retail outlets and other suppliers will be required to redeem the ration coupons received in exchange for gasoline sold. Supplemental gas will be given to high-priority activities. A ration banking system will be established with two separate and distinct of ration accounts: retail outlets and other suppliers will open redemption accounts for the deposit of redeemed ration rights; and individuals or firms may open ration rights accounts, which will operate in much the same manner as monetary checking accounts. A white market will be permitted for the sale of transfer of ration rights. A percentage of the total ration rights to be issued will be reserved for distribution to the states as a State Ration Reserve, to be used by the states primarily for the relief of hardship. A National Ration Reserave will also be established. All sections of the Standby Gasoline Rationing Regulations are analyzed. (MCW)

  20. Exploring rationality in schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Revsbech, Rasmus; Mortensen, Erik Lykke; Owen, Gareth

    2015-01-01

    Background Empirical studies of rationality (syllogisms) in patients with schizophrenia have obtained different results. One study found that patients reason more logically if the syllogism is presented through an unusual content. Aims To explore syllogism-based rationality in schizophrenia. Meth...... differences became non-significant. Conclusions When taking intelligence and neuropsychological performance into account, patients with schizophrenia and controls perform similarly on syllogism tests of rationality.......Background Empirical studies of rationality (syllogisms) in patients with schizophrenia have obtained different results. One study found that patients reason more logically if the syllogism is presented through an unusual content. Aims To explore syllogism-based rationality in schizophrenia. Method...... Thirty-eight first-admitted patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls solved 29 syllogisms that varied in presentation content (ordinary v. unusual) and validity (valid v. invalid). Statistical tests were made of unadjusted and adjusted group differences in models adjusting for intelligence...

  1. MARSI: metabolite analogues for rational strain improvement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cardoso, João G. R.; Zeidan, Ahmad A; Jensen, Kristian

    2018-01-01

    reactions in an organism can be used to predict effects of MAs on cellular phenotypes. Here, we present the Metabolite Analogues for Rational Strain Improvement (MARSI) framework. MARSI provides a rational approach to strain improvement by searching for metabolites as targets instead of genes or reactions...

  2. Teaching a Rational Approach to Career Decision Making: Who Benefits Most?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krumboltz, John D.; And Others

    1986-01-01

    Rational, intuitive, fatalistic, and dependent decision makers were compared on how much they learned from a rational decision-making training intervention. Individuals who had been highly impulsive, dependent, or fatalistic in prior course selections and those who exhibited dependency in prior job choices appeared to learn most from the rational…

  3. Simplifications of rational matrices by using UML

    OpenAIRE

    Tasić, Milan B.; Stanimirović, Ivan P.

    2013-01-01

    The simplification process on rational matrices consists of simplifying each entry represented by a rational function. We follow the classic approach of dividing the numerator and denominator polynomials by their common GCD polynomial, and provide the activity diagram in UML for this process. A rational matrix representation as the quotient of a polynomial matrix and a polynomial is also discussed here and illustrated via activity diagrams. Also, a class diagram giving the links between the c...

  4. Rational Emotive Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knaus, William

    1977-01-01

    Rational Emotive Education--an outgrowth of theories developed by Albert Ellis--is a teaching design of mental health concepts and problem-solving activities designed to help students to approach and cope with their problems through experiential learning, via a structured, thematic sequence of emotive education lessons. (MJB)

  5. Rational BRDF.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pacanowski, Romain; Salazar Celis, Oliver; Schlick, Christophe; Granier, Xavier; Poulin, Pierre; Cuyt, Annie

    2012-11-01

    Over the last two decades, much effort has been devoted to accurately measuring Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions (BRDFs) of real-world materials and to use efficiently the resulting data for rendering. Because of their large size, it is difficult to use directly measured BRDFs for real-time applications, and fitting the most sophisticated analytical BRDF models is still a complex task. In this paper, we introduce Rational BRDF, a general-purpose and efficient representation for arbitrary BRDFs, based on Rational Functions (RFs). Using an adapted parametrization, we demonstrate how Rational BRDFs offer 1) a more compact and efficient representation using low-degree RFs, 2) an accurate fitting of measured materials with guaranteed control of the residual error, and 3) efficient importance sampling by applying the same fitting process to determine the inverse of the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) generated from the BRDF for use in Monte-Carlo rendering.

  6. Rationality of limited rationality : some aggregate implications

    OpenAIRE

    Uri M. Possen; Mikko Puhakka

    1994-01-01

    In this paper we let economic agents choose whether to become fully rational or stay boundedly rational. Boundedly rational agents are less sophisticated in their information processing abilities. It is costly to acquire information needed to become fully rational, and thus not all agents are willing to incur those costs. We then explore the aggregate effects of endogenizing the decision whether the agent should or should not become fully rational in handling information. Since fully and boun...

  7. The Use of Game Theory for Making Rational Decisions in Business Negations: A Conceptual Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kestutis Peleckis

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Objective: The objective of this paper is a comparative analysis of the world literature on game theory and its applicability for rational decision-making in negotiations and creation of a model supporting strategic decisions in negotiations. Research Design & Methods: Systematic, comparative, logical analysis and synthesis of the scientific literature. In order to create an algorithm of negotiations statements on theory of graphs, game theory and theory of heuristic algorithm were applied. Findings: The article proposes an algorithm which combines the game theory approach with heuristic algorithms in order to reflect the specifics of negotiations better. Such an algorithm can be used to support strategic decisions in negotiations and is useful for better understanding of the strategic management of negotiating processes. Implications & Recommendations: The proposed mathematical algorithm for the strategy formulation of international business negotiations can be used in electronic business negotiations, both as a standalone tool, or as partially requiring support by the negotiator. Contribution & Value Added: The game theory methods support rational solutions in business negotiations, as they enable to analyse the interacting forces. This is particularly relevant in international business negotiations, where participants from different cultures can be faced with numerous uncertainties.

  8. Revising Rationality: The Use of "Nudge" Approaches in Neoliberal Education Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bradbury, Alice; McGimpsey, Ian; Santori, Diego

    2013-01-01

    This article argues that the concept of rationality is undergoing significant revision in UK education policy-making, influenced by developments in several academic fields. This article focuses on the take up of behavioural economics in policy as one aspect of this revision of the concept of rationality, discussing how this has happened and its…

  9. Rational inattention or rational overreaction?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Browning, Martin; Hansen, Lars Gårn; Smed, Sinne

    We investigate differences in how consumers of fish react to health information in the mass media. We specify a dynamic empirical model that allows for heterogeneity in all basic parameters of consumer behavior as well as in how consumers react to information. We estimate the model using a unique...... houshold panel tracking consumption, prices, news stories and media habits over 24 quarters. We fi nd that the consumers most likely to be ’rationally ignorant’ of health effects react more dramatically to health news than the consumers who most likely are well informed....

  10. An evolutionary model of bounded rationality and intelligence.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas J Brennan

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Most economic theories are based on the premise that individuals maximize their own self-interest and correctly incorporate the structure of their environment into all decisions, thanks to human intelligence. The influence of this paradigm goes far beyond academia-it underlies current macroeconomic and monetary policies, and is also an integral part of existing financial regulations. However, there is mounting empirical and experimental evidence, including the recent financial crisis, suggesting that humans do not always behave rationally, but often make seemingly random and suboptimal decisions. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Here we propose to reconcile these contradictory perspectives by developing a simple binary-choice model that takes evolutionary consequences of decisions into account as well as the role of intelligence, which we define as any ability of an individual to increase its genetic success. If no intelligence is present, our model produces results consistent with prior literature and shows that risks that are independent across individuals in a generation generally lead to risk-neutral behaviors, but that risks that are correlated across a generation can lead to behaviors such as risk aversion, loss aversion, probability matching, and randomization. When intelligence is present the nature of risk also matters, and we show that even when risks are independent, either risk-neutral behavior or probability matching will occur depending upon the cost of intelligence in terms of reproductive success. In the case of correlated risks, we derive an implicit formula that shows how intelligence can emerge via selection, why it may be bounded, and how such bounds typically imply the coexistence of multiple levels and types of intelligence as a reflection of varying environmental conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Rational economic behavior in which individuals maximize their own self interest is only one of many possible types of behavior that

  11. An evolutionary model of bounded rationality and intelligence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brennan, Thomas J; Lo, Andrew W

    2012-01-01

    Most economic theories are based on the premise that individuals maximize their own self-interest and correctly incorporate the structure of their environment into all decisions, thanks to human intelligence. The influence of this paradigm goes far beyond academia-it underlies current macroeconomic and monetary policies, and is also an integral part of existing financial regulations. However, there is mounting empirical and experimental evidence, including the recent financial crisis, suggesting that humans do not always behave rationally, but often make seemingly random and suboptimal decisions. Here we propose to reconcile these contradictory perspectives by developing a simple binary-choice model that takes evolutionary consequences of decisions into account as well as the role of intelligence, which we define as any ability of an individual to increase its genetic success. If no intelligence is present, our model produces results consistent with prior literature and shows that risks that are independent across individuals in a generation generally lead to risk-neutral behaviors, but that risks that are correlated across a generation can lead to behaviors such as risk aversion, loss aversion, probability matching, and randomization. When intelligence is present the nature of risk also matters, and we show that even when risks are independent, either risk-neutral behavior or probability matching will occur depending upon the cost of intelligence in terms of reproductive success. In the case of correlated risks, we derive an implicit formula that shows how intelligence can emerge via selection, why it may be bounded, and how such bounds typically imply the coexistence of multiple levels and types of intelligence as a reflection of varying environmental conditions. Rational economic behavior in which individuals maximize their own self interest is only one of many possible types of behavior that arise from natural selection. The key to understanding which types of

  12. Drought Water Rationing Necessitates an Equitable and Multidimensional Approach: Evidence from California

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ponce de Leon Barido, D.; Fildier, B.; Cucchi, K.

    2016-12-01

    Since 2011 many areas across California have experienced their driest years on record, with conditions barely improving since then. Reservoirs and snowpack water content have recorded some of the lowest measurements ever, with users (individuals, towns and cities) using groundwater to buffer the potentially devastating effects of the drought. Among other strategies, rationing has been one of they key interventions that the state has adopted to better manage its water resources. April 1st 2015 marked the first day in California's history when mandatory water reductions were instated statewide. By executive order, Governor Brown directed the State Water Resources Control Board to impose a 25% reduction on California's 400 local water supply agencies, which serve 90% of California residents. Since then, local agencies have been responsible for allocating restrictions to reduce water consumption and monitor compliance. A variety of research organizations and media outlets have begun exploring the equity considerations of the drought, but their analyses are often one-dimensional (water consumption per capita). Here we explore the multi-dimensional dynamics of rationing and drought in California using Census and California Water Resources Board data for over 300 communities in the state. We use data mining, parallel coordinates, and a nearest neighbors clustering algorithm to explore relationships between rationing and community spatial distribution, weather, drought related climate variables, economic sector employment, race, localized income inequality, household size, and income. The data suggests that there are nine distinct rationing groups across the state, that rationing was performed without taking into account the localized effects of the drought (hard hit communities rationing as much as less affected communities), that severely drought affected low-income communities (using SPI and SPEI 3 year indices) were asked to ration as much (and sometimes more) than

  13. Rational and moral action : a critical survey of rational choice theory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Jonge, J.P.R.

    2009-01-01

    This book is about rational choice theory from a different point of view. It is different for three reasons. First, it pays attention to the unintended consequences of intended actions. Second, it employs a non-instrumental approach to moral actions. And third, it argues that choice opportunities

  14. Information-Theoretic Bounded Rationality and ε-Optimality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel A. Braun

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Bounded rationality concerns the study of decision makers with limited information processing resources. Previously, the free energy difference functional has been suggested to model bounded rational decision making, as it provides a natural trade-off between an energy or utility function that is to be optimized and information processing costs that are measured by entropic search costs. The main question of this article is how the information-theoretic free energy model relates to simple ε-optimality models of bounded rational decision making, where the decision maker is satisfied with any action in an ε-neighborhood of the optimal utility. We find that the stochastic policies that optimize the free energy trade-off comply with the notion of ε-optimality. Moreover, this optimality criterion even holds when the environment is adversarial. We conclude that the study of bounded rationality based on ε-optimality criteria that abstract away from the particulars of the information processing constraints is compatible with the information-theoretic free energy model of bounded rationality.

  15. Adaptive Rationality, Adaptive Behavior and Institutions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Volchik Vyacheslav, V.

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The economic literature focused on understanding decision-making and choice processes reveals a vast collection of approaches to human rationality. Theorists’ attention has moved from absolutely rational, utility-maximizing individuals to boundedly rational and adaptive ones. A number of economists have criticized the concepts of adaptive rationality and adaptive behavior. One of the recent trends in the economic literature is to consider humans irrational. This paper offers an approach which examines adaptive behavior in the context of existing institutions and constantly changing institutional environment. It is assumed that adaptive behavior is a process of evolutionary adjustment to fundamental uncertainty. We emphasize the importance of actors’ engagement in trial and error learning, since if they are involved in this process, they obtain experience and are able to adapt to existing and new institutions. The paper aims at identifying relevant institutions, adaptive mechanisms, informal working rules and practices that influence actors’ behavior in the field of Higher Education in Russia (Rostov Region education services market has been taken as an example. The paper emphasizes the application of qualitative interpretative methods (interviews and discourse analysis in examining actors’ behavior.

  16. Bounded rationality alters the dynamics of paediatric immunization acceptance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oraby, Tamer; Bauch, Chris T

    2015-06-02

    Interactions between disease dynamics and vaccinating behavior have been explored in many coupled behavior-disease models. Cognitive effects such as risk perception, framing, and subjective probabilities of adverse events can be important determinants of the vaccinating behaviour, and represent departures from the pure "rational" decision model that are often described as "bounded rationality". However, the impact of such cognitive effects in the context of paediatric infectious disease vaccines has received relatively little attention. Here, we develop a disease-behavior model that accounts for bounded rationality through prospect theory. We analyze the model and compare its predictions to a reduced model that lacks bounded rationality. We find that, in general, introducing bounded rationality increases the dynamical richness of the model and makes it harder to eliminate a paediatric infectious disease. In contrast, in other cases, a low cost, highly efficacious vaccine can be refused, even when the rational decision model predicts acceptance. Injunctive social norms can prevent vaccine refusal, if vaccine acceptance is sufficiently high in the beginning of the vaccination campaign. Cognitive processes can have major impacts on the predictions of behaviour-disease models, and further study of such processes in the context of vaccination is thus warranted.

  17. Lessons from Learning to Have Rational Expectations

    OpenAIRE

    Lindh, Thomas

    1989-01-01

    This paper reviews a growing literature investigating how economic agents may learn rational expectations. Fully rational learning requires implausible initial information assumptions, therefore some form of bounded rationality has come into focus. Such learning models often converge to rational expectations equilibria within certain bounds. Convergence analysis has been much simplified by methods from adaptive control theory. Learning stability as a correspondence principle show some promise...

  18. Using Rational-Emotive Therapy to Prevent Classroom Problems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Webber, Jo; Coleman, Maggie

    1988-01-01

    Teachers are encouraged to utilize rational-emotive therapy to prevent and deal with classroom behavior problems. Rational-emotive therapy is defined, the ABC model of rational thinking briefly explained, types of irrational thinking identified, and suggestions for becoming a rational thinker are offered. Classroom examples are given. (DB)

  19. A New Approach to Rational Discrete-Time Approximations to Continuous-Time Fractional-Order Systems

    OpenAIRE

    Matos , Carlos; Ortigueira , Manuel ,

    2012-01-01

    Part 10: Signal Processing; International audience; In this paper a new approach to rational discrete-time approximations to continuous fractional-order systems of the form 1/(sα+p) is proposed. We will show that such fractional-order LTI system can be decomposed into sub-systems. One has the classic behavior and the other is similar to a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) system. The conversion from continuous-time to discrete-time systems will be done using the Laplace transform inversion integr...

  20. Rational emotions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meshulam, Meir; Winter, Eyal; Ben-Shakhar, Gershon; Aharon, Itzhak

    2012-01-01

    We present here the concept of rational emotions: Emotions may be directly controlled and utilized in a conscious, analytic fashion, enabling an individual to size up a situation, to determine that a certain "mental state" is strategically advantageous and adjust accordingly. Building on the growing body of literature recognizing the vital role of emotions in determining decisions, we explore the complementary role of rational choice in choosing emotional states. Participants played the role of "recipient" in the dictator game, in which an anonymous "dictator" decides how to split an amount of money between himself and the recipient. A subset of recipients was given a monetary incentive to be angry at low-split offers. That subset demonstrated increased physiological arousal at low offers relative to high offers as well as more anger than other participants. These results provide a fresh outlook on human decision-making and contribute to the continuing effort to build more complete models of rational behavior.

  1. Rational noncompliance with prescribed medical treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stewart, Douglas O; DeMarco, Joseph P

    2010-09-01

    Despite the attention that patient noncompliance has received from medical researchers, patient noncompliance remains poorly understood and difficult to alter. With a better theory of patient noncompliance, both greater success in achieving compliance and greater respect for patient decision making are likely. The theory presented, which uses a microeconomic approach, bridges a gap in the extant literature that has so far ignored the contributions of this classic perspective on decision making involving the tradeoff of costs and benefits. The model also generates a surprising conclusion: that patients are typically acting rationally when they refuse to comply with certain treatments. However, compliance is predicted to rise with increased benefits and reduced costs. The prediction that noncompliance is rational is especially true in chronic conditions at the point that treatment begins to move closer to the medically ideal treatment level. Although the details of this theory have not been tested empirically, it is well supported by existing prospective and retrospective studies.

  2. Boundedly rational learning and heterogeneous trading strategies with hybrid neuro-fuzzy models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bekiros, S.D.

    2009-01-01

    The present study deals with heterogeneous learning rules in speculative markets where heuristic strategies reflect the rules-of-thumb of boundedly rational investors. The major challenge for "chartists" is the development of new models that would enhance forecasting ability particularly for time

  3. Rational reconstructions of modern physics

    CERN Document Server

    Mittelstaedt, Peter

    2013-01-01

    Newton’s classical physics and its underlying ontology are loaded with several metaphysical hypotheses that cannot be justified by rational reasoning nor by experimental evidence. Furthermore, it is well known that some of these hypotheses are not contained in the great theories of Modern Physics, such as the theory of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This book shows that, on the basis of Newton’s classical physics and by rational reconstruction, the theory of Special Relativity as well as Quantum Mechanics can be obtained by partly eliminating or attenuating the metaphysical hypotheses. Moreover, it is shown that these reconstructions do not require additional hypotheses or new experimental results. In the second edition the rational reconstructions are completed with respect to General Relativity and Cosmology. In addition, the statistics of quantum objects is elaborated in more detail with respect to the rational reconstruction of quantum mechanics. The new material completes the approach of t...

  4. Cognitive Rationality and Its Logic-Mathematical Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masalova, Svetlana

    2012-01-01

    The article deals with the cognitive (flexible) rationality, combining rational and irrational moments of the scientific search of the cognizing subject. Linguo-cognitive model of the concept as the flexible regulative rationality reveals the activity of the cognitive processes and the mentality of the epistemological-ontic subject, its leading…

  5. Rational design of soft mechanical metamaterials : Independent tailoring of elastic properties with randomness

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mirzaali Mazandarani, M.J.; Hedayati, R.; Vena, P; Vergani, L.; Strano, M.; Zadpoor, A.A.

    2017-01-01

    The elastic properties of mechanical metamaterials are direct functions of their topological designs. Rational design approaches based on computational models could, therefore, be used to devise topological designs that result in the desired properties. It is of particular importance to

  6. Anger and the ABC model underlying Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ziegler, Daniel J; Smith, Phillip N

    2004-06-01

    The ABC model underlying Ellis's Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy predicts that people who think more irrationally should display greater trait anger than do people who think less irrationally. This study tested this prediction regarding the ABC model. 186 college students were administered the Survey of Personal Beliefs and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-Second Edition to measure irrational thinking and trait anger, respectively. Students who scored higher on Overall Irrational Thinking and Low Frustration Tolerance scored significantly higher on Trait Anger than did those who scored lower on Overall Irrational Thinking and Low Frustration Tolerance. This indicates support for the ABC model, especially Ellis's construct of irrational beliefs which is central to the model.

  7. Modelling and prediction for chaotic fir laser attractor using rational function neural network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, S

    2001-02-01

    Many real-world systems such as irregular ECG signal, volatility of currency exchange rate and heated fluid reaction exhibit highly complex nonlinear characteristic known as chaos. These chaotic systems cannot be retreated satisfactorily using linear system theory due to its high dimensionality and irregularity. This research focuses on prediction and modelling of chaotic FIR (Far InfraRed) laser system for which the underlying equations are not given. This paper proposed a method for prediction and modelling a chaotic FIR laser time series using rational function neural network. Three network architectures, TDNN (Time Delayed Neural Network), RBF (radial basis function) network and the RF (rational function) network, are also presented. Comparisons between these networks performance show the improvements introduced by the RF network in terms of a decrement in network complexity and better ability of predictability.

  8. Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing Approach with Hydrologic Rational Model for Flood Event Analysis in Jakarta

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aditya, M. R.; Hernina, R.; Rokhmatuloh

    2017-12-01

    Rapid development in Jakarta which generates more impervious surface has reduced the amount of rainfall infiltration into soil layer and increases run-off. In some events, continuous high rainfall intensity could create sudden flood in Jakarta City. This article used rainfall data of Jakarta during 10 February 2015 to compute rainfall intensity and then interpolate it with ordinary kriging technique. Spatial distribution of rainfall intensity then overlaid with run-off coefficient based on certain land use type of the study area. Peak run-off within each cell resulted from hydrologic rational model then summed for the whole study area to generate total peak run-off. For this study area, land use types consisted of 51.9 % industrial, 37.57% parks, and 10.54% residential with estimated total peak run-off 6.04 m3/sec, 0.39 m3/sec, and 0.31 m3/sec, respectively.

  9. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in a Nutshell. 2nd edition

    OpenAIRE

    Neenan, Michael; Dryden, Windy

    2011-01-01

    Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in a Nutshell provides a concise overview of a popular therapeutic approach, starting with the ABCDE Model of Emotional Disturbance and Change.\\ud \\ud Written by leading REBT specialists, Michael Neenan and Windy Dryden, the book goes on to explain the core of the therapeutic process:\\ud \\ud - Assessment\\ud \\ud - Disputing\\ud \\ud - Homework\\ud \\ud - Working through\\ud \\ud - Promoting self-change.\\ud \\ud As an introduction to the basics of the approach, this ...

  10. BIMBINGAN DAN KONSELING DENGAN PENDEKATAN RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY UNTUK PENERIMA MANFAAT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhamad Abdul Kohar

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available This article describes the concept of guidance and counseling rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT Islamic to increase the resilience of prostitutes. REBT is an approach that directive, the approach to reeducation counselees to understand the cognitive input that causes emotional disturbance, trying to change the thought patterns counselee to let the irrational thoughts or study anticipates the benefits or consequences of behavior. Resilience is the ability of individuals to adapt, so as to put themselves well against an unpleasant experience. Islamic REBT approach focuses on thinking (aqliyah rational individual to the nature of the individual who escorted counselees aware that he is a servant and vicegerent of Allah in order to survive counselees his life in this world and hereafter. Islamic REBT counseling techniques are affective, cognitive, and behavioral adapted to the conditions of the counselee. Such techniques include: Assertive adaptive, Reinforcement, Social and Assertive modeling exercise.

  11. Structured morphological modeling as a framework for rational strain design of Streptomyces species

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Celler, K.; Picioreanu, C.; Van Loosdrecht, M.C.M.; Van Wezel, G.P.

    2012-01-01

    Successful application of a computational model for rational design of industrial Streptomyces exploitation requires a better understanding of the relationship between morphology—dictated by microbial growth, branching, fragmentation and adhesion—and product formation. Here we review the

  12. Local Choices: Rationality and the Contextuality of Decision-Making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vlaev, Ivo

    2018-01-01

    Rational explanation is ubiquitous in psychology and social sciences, ranging from rational analysis, expectancy-value theories, ideal observer models, mental logic to probabilistic frameworks, rational choice theory, and informal “folk psychological” explanation. However, rational explanation appears to be challenged by apparently systematic irrationality observed in psychological experiments, especially in the field of judgement and decision-making (JDM). Here, it is proposed that the experimental results require not that rational explanation should be rejected, but that rational explanation is local, i.e., within a context. Thus, rational models need to be supplemented with a theory of contextual shifts. We review evidence in JDM that patterns of choices are often consistent within contexts, but unstable between contexts. We also demonstrate that for a limited, though reasonably broad, class of decision-making domains, recent theoretical models can be viewed as providing theories of contextual shifts. It is argued that one particular significant source of global inconsistency arises from a cognitive inability to represent absolute magnitudes, whether for perceptual variables, utilities, payoffs, or probabilities. This overall argument provides a fresh perspective on the scope and limits of human rationality. PMID:29301289

  13. Local Choices: Rationality and the Contextuality of Decision-Making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vlaev, Ivo

    2018-01-02

    Rational explanation is ubiquitous in psychology and social sciences, ranging from rational analysis, expectancy-value theories, ideal observer models, mental logic to probabilistic frameworks, rational choice theory, and informal "folk psychological" explanation. However, rational explanation appears to be challenged by apparently systematic irrationality observed in psychological experiments, especially in the field of judgement and decision-making (JDM). Here, it is proposed that the experimental results require not that rational explanation should be rejected, but that rational explanation is local , i.e., within a context. Thus, rational models need to be supplemented with a theory of contextual shifts. We review evidence in JDM that patterns of choices are often consistent within contexts, but unstable between contexts. We also demonstrate that for a limited, though reasonably broad, class of decision-making domains, recent theoretical models can be viewed as providing theories of contextual shifts. It is argued that one particular significant source of global inconsistency arises from a cognitive inability to represent absolute magnitudes, whether for perceptual variables, utilities, payoffs, or probabilities. This overall argument provides a fresh perspective on the scope and limits of human rationality.

  14. Rational choice in field archaelology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cătălin Pavel

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available In the present article I attempt to apply advances in the study of instrumental and epistemic rationality to field archaeology in order to gain insights into the ways archaeologists reason. The cognitive processes, particularly processes of decision making, that enable archaeologists to conduct the excavation in the trench have not been adequately studied so far. I take my cues from two different bodies of theory. I first inquire into the potential that rational choice theory (RCT may have in modeling archaeological behaviour, and I define subjective expected utility, which archaeologists attempt to maximize, in terms of knowledge acquisition and social gain. Following Elster’s criticism of RCT, I conclude that RCT’s standards for rational action do not correspond with those ostensibly used in field archaeology, but that instrumental rationality has a prominent role in the “archaeological experiment”. I further explore if models proposed as reaction to RCT may account for archaeological decision making. I focus on fast and frugal heuristics, and search for archaeological illustrations for some of the cognitive biases that are better documented in psychological literature. I document confirmation and congruence biases, the endowment effect, observer-expectancy bias, illusory correlation, clustering illusion, sunk cost bias, and anchoring, among others and I propose that some of these biases are used as cognitive tools by archaeologists at work and retain epistemic value. However, I find formal logic to be secondary in the development of archaeological reasoning, with default logic and defeasible logic being used instead. I emphasize scientific knowledge as an actively negotiated social product of human inquiry, and conclude that to describe rationality in field archaeology a bounded rationality model is the most promising avenue of investigation.

  15. Rogue waves and rational solutions of a (3+1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhaqilao,

    2013-01-01

    A simple symbolic computation approach for finding the rogue waves and rational solutions to the nonlinear evolution equation is proposed. It turns out that many rational solutions with real and complex forms of a (3+1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation are obtained. Some features of rogue waves and rational solutions are graphically discussed. -- Highlights: •A simple symbolic computation approach for finding the rational solutions to the NEE is proposed. •Some rogue waves and rational solutions with real and complex forms of a (3+1)-D NEE are obtained. •Some features of rogue waves are graphically discussed

  16. Rogue waves and rational solutions of a (3+1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhaqilao,, E-mail: zhaqilao@imnu.edu.cn

    2013-12-06

    A simple symbolic computation approach for finding the rogue waves and rational solutions to the nonlinear evolution equation is proposed. It turns out that many rational solutions with real and complex forms of a (3+1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation are obtained. Some features of rogue waves and rational solutions are graphically discussed. -- Highlights: •A simple symbolic computation approach for finding the rational solutions to the NEE is proposed. •Some rogue waves and rational solutions with real and complex forms of a (3+1)-D NEE are obtained. •Some features of rogue waves are graphically discussed.

  17. Rationally Addicted to Drinking and Smoking?

    OpenAIRE

    Bask, Mikael; Melkersson, Maria

    2001-01-01

    When modeling demand for addictive consumption goods, the most widely used framework is the rational addiction model proposed by Becker and Murphy (1988). In the present paper, we extend the rational addiction model to include two addictive consumption goods, alcohol and cigarettes. We estimate the aggregate demand for alcohol and cigarettes in Sweden, using aggregate annual time series on sales volumes for the period 1955-1999. OLS estimates are compared to GMM estimates allowing for possibl...

  18. Using Bar Representations as a Model for Connecting Concepts of Rational Number.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Middleton, James A.; van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, Marja; Shew, Julia A.

    1998-01-01

    Examines bar models as graphical representations of rational numbers and presents related real life problems. Concludes that, through pairing the fraction bars with ratio tables and other ways of teaching numbers, numeric strategies become connected with visual strategies that allow students with diverse ways of thinking to share their…

  19. Fiscal Effectiveness and Debt Illusion in a Rational Expectations Model

    OpenAIRE

    Basil A. DALAMAGAS

    1993-01-01

    The question of how substitution of debt for taxes affects private sector wealth and consumption has long been an unresolved macroeconomic theory and policy dispute. The present study attempts to address this problem within a modified fiscal-illusion setting, by utilizing an explicit rational expectations optimizing model of consumer behaviour for a sample of six developed countries. The empirical evidence presented is strongly supportive of the assertion that consumers make their consumption...

  20. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: Origins, Constructs, and Applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watson, Joshua C.

    In 1956, Dr. Albert Ellis presented his seminal work on Rational Therapy, subsequently renamed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in 1993. This paper explores the origins, theoretical foundations, applications, and implications of REBT and provides a look at the empirical research available in support of the approach's efficacy. REBT is…

  1. When is rational to order a diagnostic test, or prescribe treatment: the threshold model as an explanation of practice variation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Djulbegovic, Benjamin; van den Ende, Jef; Hamm, Robert M; Mayrhofer, Thomas; Hozo, Iztok; Pauker, Stephen G

    2015-05-01

    The threshold model represents an important advance in the field of medical decision-making. It is a linchpin between evidence (which exists on the continuum of credibility) and decision-making (which is a categorical exercise - we decide to act or not act). The threshold concept is closely related to the question of rational decision-making. When should the physician act, that is order a diagnostic test, or prescribe treatment? The threshold model embodies the decision theoretic rationality that says the most rational decision is to prescribe treatment when the expected treatment benefit outweighs its expected harms. However, the well-documented large variation in the way physicians order diagnostic tests or decide to administer treatments is consistent with a notion that physicians' individual action thresholds vary. We present a narrative review summarizing the existing literature on physicians' use of a threshold strategy for decision-making. We found that the observed variation in decision action thresholds is partially due to the way people integrate benefits and harms. That is, explanation of variation in clinical practice can be reduced to a consideration of thresholds. Limited evidence suggests that non-expected utility threshold (non-EUT) models, such as regret-based and dual-processing models, may explain current medical practice better. However, inclusion of costs and recognition of risk attitudes towards uncertain treatment effects and comorbidities may improve the explanatory and predictive value of the EUT-based threshold models. The decision when to act is closely related to the question of rational choice. We conclude that the medical community has not yet fully defined criteria for rational clinical decision-making. The traditional notion of rationality rooted in EUT may need to be supplemented by reflective rationality, which strives to integrate all aspects of medical practice - medical, humanistic and socio-economic - within a coherent

  2. Rational Emotive Education as a Short-Term Primary Prevention Technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hooper, Stephen R.; Layne, C. Clinton

    1985-01-01

    Fifth- to seventh-grade students (N=586) who participated in one hour of Rational Emotive Education (a directive approach to teaching rational thinking skills) for six weeks scored higher in posttests of the Com oA Belief Inventory for Students than control Ss (N=738) who received no Rational Emotive Education. Findings suggested the utility of a…

  3. Political rationality: Young Danish and Norwegian immigrant citizens and their political reasoning

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Solhaug, Trond; Kristensen, Niels Nørgaard

    2012-01-01

    combining identities, emotions, and information is suggested and examined empirically. In a qualitative study the reflectivity of the students and their willingness to act as rational and responsible citizens is evaluated. Based on a selection of young Danish and Norwegian immigrant students, the dynamics......This article aims to uncover the dynamics of political reasoning among young immigrants. How do they people reason about the larger social and political world around them and what rationalities are in play? A dynamic approach is used to analyze cognitive functioning. A model of political reasoning...... between the elements of the model are explored. In the analysis, some identities play a decisive role, while emotions seem fairly often to be the trigger and the mechanism of political action....

  4. A Model for Teaching Rational Behavior Therapy in a Public School Setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patton, Patricia L.

    A training model for the use of rational behavior therapy (RBT) with emotionally disturbed adolescents in a school setting is presented, including a structured, didactic format consisting of five basic RBT training techniques. The training sessions, lasting 10 weeks each, are described. Also presented is the organization for the actual classroom…

  5. Guiding rational reservoir flood operation using penalty-type genetic algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Li-Chiu

    2008-06-01

    SummaryReal-time flood control of a multi-purpose reservoir should consider decreasing the flood peak stage downstream and storing floodwaters for future usage during typhoon seasons. This study proposes a reservoir flood control optimization model with linguistic description of requirements and existing regulations for rational operating decisions. The approach involves formulating reservoir flood operation as an optimization problem and using the genetic algorithm (GA) as a search engine. The optimizing formulation is expressed not only by mathematical forms of objective function and constraints, but also by no analytic expression in terms of parameters. GA is used to search a global optimum of a mixture of mathematical and nonmathematical formulations. Due to the great number of constraints and flood control requirements, it is difficult to reach a solution without violating constraints. To tackle this bottleneck, the proper penalty strategy for each parameter is proposed to guide the GA searching process. The proposed approach is applied to the Shihmen reservoir in North Taiwan for finding the rational release and desired storage as a case study. The hourly historical data sets of 29 typhoon events that have hit the area in last thirty years are investigated bye the proposed method. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the simplex method was performed. The results demonstrated that a penalty-type genetic algorithm could effectively provide rational hydrographs to reduce flood damage during the flood operation and to increase final storage for future usages.

  6. Rational speech act models of pragmatic reasoning in reference games

    OpenAIRE

    Frank, Michael

    2016-01-01

    Human communication is almost always ambiguous, but it typically takes place in a context where this ambiguity can be resolved. A key part of this process of disambiguation comes from pragmatic reasoning about alternative messages that a speaker could have said in that context. Following previous work, we describe pragmatic inference as recursive reasoning – in which listeners reason about speakers and vice versa – using a “rational speech act” (RSA) model. We then systematically test the par...

  7. THE HICKSIAN RATIONAL CONSUMER

    OpenAIRE

    Manuel FERNÁNDEZ-GRELA

    2005-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of the concept of ''rational consumer'' in Hicks's writings. After being one of the pioneers in the introduction of rationality assumptions about consumer behaviour in economic models, Hicks gradually developed a sceptical view about some of the uses to which those assumptions were put into. The focus of the paper is on continuity in Hicksian views, providing a picture of gradual changes in the long series of Hicks's works

  8. Rationalization: A Bibliography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedrini, D. T.; Pedrini, Bonnie C.

    Rationalization was studied by Sigmund Freud and was specifically labeled by Ernest Jones. Rationalization ought to be differentiated from rational, rationality, logical analysis, etc. On the one hand, rationalization is considered a defense mechanism, on the other hand, rationality is not. Haan has done much work with self-report inventories and…

  9. Rational speculative bubbles: A critical view

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radonjić Ognjen

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available According to the theory of rational bubbles, the bubble is present whenever asset prices progressively diverge from their fundamental value, which occurs because agents expect that asset prices will continue to grow exponentially (self-fulfilling prophecies far in the future and consistently, which promises the realization of ever larger capital gains. In our opinion, the basic shortcoming of this theory refers to the assumption that all market agents are perfectly informed and rational and, accordingly, form homogeneous expectations. The model does not explain decision-making processes or expectation formation, nor does it detect potential psychological and institutional factors that might significantly influence decision making processes and market participants’ reactions to news. Since assumptions of the model critically determine its validity, we conclude that comprehensiveness of the rational bubble model is, to put it mildly, limited.

  10. State-Dependent Decisions Cause Apparent Violations of Rationality in Animal Choice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuck-Paim, Cynthia; Pompilio, Lorena

    2004-01-01

    Normative models of choice in economics and biology usually expect preferences to be consistent across contexts, or “rational” in economic language. Following a large body of literature reporting economically irrational behaviour in humans, breaches of rationality by animals have also been recently described. If proven systematic, these findings would challenge long-standing biological approaches to behavioural theorising, and suggest that cognitive processes similar to those claimed to cause irrationality in humans can also hinder optimality approaches to modelling animal preferences. Critical differences between human and animal experiments have not, however, been sufficiently acknowledged. While humans can be instructed conceptually about the choice problem, animals need to be trained by repeated exposure to all contingencies. This exposure often leads to differences in state between treatments, hence changing choices while preserving rationality. We report experiments with European starlings demonstrating that apparent breaches of rationality can result from state-dependence. We show that adding an inferior alternative to a choice set (a “decoy”) affects choices, an effect previously interpreted as indicating irrationality. However, these effects appear and disappear depending on whether state differences between choice contexts are present or not. These results open the possibility that some expressions of maladaptive behaviour are due to oversights in the migration of ideas between economics and biology, and suggest that key differences between human and nonhuman research must be recognised if ideas are to safely travel between these fields. PMID:15550984

  11. How rational should bioethics be? The value of empirical approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alvarez, A A

    2001-10-01

    Rational justification of claims with empirical content calls for empirical and not only normative philosophical investigation. Empirical approaches to bioethics are epistemically valuable, i.e., such methods may be necessary in providing and verifying basic knowledge about cultural values and norms. Our assumptions in moral reasoning can be verified or corrected using these methods. Moral arguments can be initiated or adjudicated by data drawn from empirical investigation. One may argue that individualistic informed consent, for example, is not compatible with the Asian communitarian orientation. But this normative claim uses an empirical assumption that may be contrary to the fact that some Asians do value and argue for informed consent. Is it necessary and factual to neatly characterize some cultures as individualistic and some as communitarian? Empirical investigation can provide a reasonable way to inform such generalizations. In a multi-cultural context, such as in the Philippines, there is a need to investigate the nature of the local ethos before making any appeal to authenticity. Otherwise we may succumb to the same ethical imperialism we are trying hard to resist. Normative claims that involve empirical premises cannot be reasonable verified or evaluated without utilizing empirical methods along with philosophical reflection. The integration of empirical methods to the standard normative approach to moral reasoning should be reasonably guided by the epistemic demands of claims arising from cross-cultural discourse in bioethics.

  12. Hydrogen initiative: An integrated approach toward rational nanocatalyst design for hydrogen production. Technical Report-Year 1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vlachos, Dionisios G. [Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States); Buttrey, Douglas J. [Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States); Lauterbach, Jochen A. [Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)

    2007-03-29

    The overall objective of this grant is to develop a rational framework for the discovery of low cost, robust, and active nano-catalysts that will enable efficient hydrogen production. Our approach will be the first demonstration of integrated multiscale model, nano-catalyst synthesis, and nanoscale characterization assisted high throughput experimentation (HTE). We will initially demonstrate our approach with ammonia decomposition on noble metal catalysts. Our research focuses on many elements of the Hydrogen Initiative in the Focus Area of “Design of Catalysts at the Nanoscale’. It combines high-throughput screening methods with various nanostructure synthesis protocols, advanced measurements, novel in situ and ex situ characterization techniques, and multiscale theory, modeling and simulation. This project directly addresses several of the long-term goals of the DOE/BES program. In particular, new nanoscale catalytic materials will be synthesized, characterized and modeled for the production of hydrogen from ammonia and a computational framework will be developed for efficient extraction of information from experimental data and for rational design of catalysts whose impact goes well beyond the proposed hydrogen production project. In the first year of the grant, we have carried out HTE screening using a 16 parallel microreactor coupled with an FTIR analysis system. We screened nearly twenty single metals and several bimetallic catalysts as a function of temperature, catalyst loading, inlet composition, and temperature (order of 400 experiments). We have found that Ru is the best single metal catalyst and no better catalysts were found among the library of bimetallics we have created so far. Furthermore, we have investigated promoting effects (i.e., K, Cs, and Ba) of the Ru catalyst. We have found that K is the dominant promoter of increased Ru activity. Response surface experimental design has led to substantial improvements of the Ru catalyst with promotion

  13. RATIONAL-IRRATIONAL ELECTORAL PREFERENCES, ALTRUISM AND EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihai Ungureanu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Caplan (2000, 2001, 2006 proposed the rational-irrationality model arguing that irrationality is a good as any other, whose consumption is maximized in relation to its costs and benefits. Applying this model to the problem of electoral behavior Caplan implies that voters ‘afford’ many irrational beliefs, because the lack of individual decisiveness renders vote as a consequenceless act. This paper contributes to the development of knowledge by analyzing the compatibility of rational irrationality with active electoral behavior. Two important arguments are being proposed: First, Wittman’s (2008 intuition that rational irrationality is incompatible with voting could be supported only about a particular type of altruism, which Caplan actually seems to reject. Second, rational irrationality seems to be compatible with expressive motivations, reinforcing the conclusion that rational-irrational individuals are active voters in mass elections.

  14. Matrix factorisations for rational boundary conditions by defect fusion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Behr, Nicolas; Fredenhagen, Stefan

    2015-01-01

    A large class of two-dimensional N=(2,2) superconformal field theories can be understood as IR fixed-points of Landau-Ginzburg models. In particular, there are rational conformal field theories that also have a Landau-Ginzburg description. To understand better the relation between the structures in the rational conformal field theory and in the Landau-Ginzburg theory, we investigate how rational B-type boundary conditions are realised as matrix factorisations in the SU(3)/U(2) Grassmannian Kazama-Suzuki model. As a tool to generate the matrix factorisations we make use of a particular interface between the Kazama-Suzuki model and products of minimal models, whose fusion can be realised as a simple functor on ring modules. This allows us to formulate a proposal for all matrix factorisations corresponding to rational boundary conditions in the SU(3)/U(2) model.

  15. Matrix factorisations for rational boundary conditions by defect fusion

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Behr, Nicolas [Department of Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University,Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS (United Kingdom); Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences,Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Fredenhagen, Stefan [Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Albert-Einstein-Institut,D-14424 Golm (Germany)

    2015-05-11

    A large class of two-dimensional N=(2,2) superconformal field theories can be understood as IR fixed-points of Landau-Ginzburg models. In particular, there are rational conformal field theories that also have a Landau-Ginzburg description. To understand better the relation between the structures in the rational conformal field theory and in the Landau-Ginzburg theory, we investigate how rational B-type boundary conditions are realised as matrix factorisations in the SU(3)/U(2) Grassmannian Kazama-Suzuki model. As a tool to generate the matrix factorisations we make use of a particular interface between the Kazama-Suzuki model and products of minimal models, whose fusion can be realised as a simple functor on ring modules. This allows us to formulate a proposal for all matrix factorisations corresponding to rational boundary conditions in the SU(3)/U(2) model.

  16. Rationing in the presence of baselines

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.; Østerdal, Lars Peter

    2013-01-01

    We analyze a general model of rationing in which agents have baselines, in addition to claims against the (insufficient) endowment of the good to be allocated. Many real-life problems fit this general model (e.g., bankruptcy with prioritized claims, resource allocation in the public health care...... sector, water distribution in drought periods). We introduce (and characterize) a natural class of allocation methods for this model. Any method within the class is associated with a rule in the standard rationing model, and we show that if the latter obeys some focal properties, the former obeys them...

  17. Using survey data on inflation expectations in the estimation of learning and rational expectations models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ormeño, A.

    2012-01-01

    Do survey data on inflation expectations contain useful information for estimating macroeconomic models? I address this question by using survey data in the New Keynesian model by Smets and Wouters (2007) to estimate and compare its performance when solved under the assumptions of Rational

  18. Study of rational energy consumption in electric appliances. An integrated approach; Estudio de racionalizacion del consumo energetico en electrodomesticos. Un enfoque integrador

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Massa, Pablo A.; Romero Tirado, Rene R. [La Plata Univ. Nacional (Argentina). Facultad de Ingenieria. Dept. de Electrotecnia

    1997-12-31

    This work presents a global and integrated approach about rational energy consumption concerning the use of electric appliances based on studies carried out in this investigation and information obtained through a joint action of government agents and electric power manufacturers, producers and distributors. It also presents a program named `procaeh`(home electric appliances quality program) in the scope of the communications and energy bureau and energy rational use (URE) management 8 refs., 2 figs., 7 tabs.; e-mail: massa at isis.unlp.edu.ar

  19. Segmented arch or continuous arch technique? A rational approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergei Godeiro Fernandes Rabelo Caldas

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at revising the biomechanical principles of the segmented archwire technique as well as describing the clinical conditions in which the rational use of scientific biomechanics is essential to optimize orthodontic treatment and reduce the side effects produced by the straight wire technique.

  20. F-theory and all things rational: surveying U(1) symmetries with rational sections

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lawrie, Craig; Schäfer-Nameki, Sakura; Wong, Jin-Mann

    2015-01-01

    We study elliptic fibrations for F-theory compactifications realizing 4d and 6d supersymmetric gauge theories with abelian gauge factors. In the fibration these U(1) symmetries are realized in terms of additional rational section. We obtain a universal characterization of all the possible U(1) charges of matter fields by determining the corresponding codimension two fibers with rational sections. In view of modelling supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories, one of the main examples that we analyze are U(1) symmetries for SU(5) gauge theories with 5̄ and 10 matter. We use a combination of constraints on the normal bundle of rational curves in Calabi-Yau three- and four-folds, as well as the splitting of rational curves in the fibers in codimension two, to determine the possible configurations of smooth rational sections. This analysis straightforwardly generalizes to multiple U(1)s. We study the flops of such fibers, as well as some of the Yukawa couplings in codimension three. Furthermore, we carry out a universal study of the U(1)-charged GUT singlets, including their KK-charges, and determine all realizations of singlet fibers. By giving vacuum expectation values to these singlets, we propose a systematic way to analyze the Higgsing of U(1)s to discrete gauge symmetries in F-theory.

  1. Cognitive distance, absorptive capacity and group rationality: a simulation study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petru Lucian Curşeu

    Full Text Available We report the results of a simulation study in which we explore the joint effect of group absorptive capacity (as the average individual rationality of the group members and cognitive distance (as the distance between the most rational group member and the rest of the group on the emergence of collective rationality in groups. We start from empirical results reported in the literature on group rationality as collective group level competence and use data on real-life groups of four and five to validate a mathematical model. We then use this mathematical model to predict group level scores from a variety of possible group configurations (varying both in cognitive distance and average individual rationality. Our results show that both group competence and cognitive distance are necessary conditions for emergent group rationality. Group configurations, in which the groups become more rational than the most rational group member, are groups scoring low on cognitive distance and scoring high on absorptive capacity.

  2. Cognitive distance, absorptive capacity and group rationality: a simulation study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curşeu, Petru Lucian; Krehel, Oleh; Evers, Joep H M; Muntean, Adrian

    2014-01-01

    We report the results of a simulation study in which we explore the joint effect of group absorptive capacity (as the average individual rationality of the group members) and cognitive distance (as the distance between the most rational group member and the rest of the group) on the emergence of collective rationality in groups. We start from empirical results reported in the literature on group rationality as collective group level competence and use data on real-life groups of four and five to validate a mathematical model. We then use this mathematical model to predict group level scores from a variety of possible group configurations (varying both in cognitive distance and average individual rationality). Our results show that both group competence and cognitive distance are necessary conditions for emergent group rationality. Group configurations, in which the groups become more rational than the most rational group member, are groups scoring low on cognitive distance and scoring high on absorptive capacity.

  3. Modelling of microbial polyhydroxyalkanoate surface binding protein PhaP for rational mutagenesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Hongyu; Yao, Zhenyu; Chen, Xiangbin; Wang, Xinquan; Chen, Guo-Qiang

    2017-11-01

    Phasins are unusual amphiphilic proteins that bind to microbial polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) granules in nature and show great potential for various applications in biotechnology and medicine. Despite their remarkable diversity, only the crystal structure of PhaP A h from Aeromonas hydrophila has been solved to date. Based on the structure of PhaP A h , homology models of PhaP A z from Azotobacter sp. FA-8 and PhaP TD from Halomonas bluephagenesis TD were successfully established, allowing rational mutagenesis to be conducted to enhance the stability and surfactant properties of these proteins. PhaP A z mutants, including PhaP A z Q38L and PhaP A z Q78L, as well as PhaP TD mutants, including PhaP TD Q38M and PhaP TD Q72M, showed better emulsification properties and improved thermostability (6-10°C higher melting temperatures) compared with their wild-type homologues under the same conditions. Importantly, the established PhaP homology-modelling approach, based on the high-resolution structure of PhaP A h , can be generalized to facilitate the study of other PhaP members. © 2017 The Authors. Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.

  4. Fast computation of vanilla prices in time-changed models and implied volatilities using rational approximations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pistorius, M.; Stolte, J.

    2012-01-01

    We present a new numerical method to price vanilla options quickly in time-changed Brownian motion models. The method is based on rational function approximations of the Black-Scholes formula. Detailed numerical results are given for a number of widely used models. In particular, we use the

  5. Rationality, Theory Acceptance and Decision Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Nicolas Kaufmann

    1998-06-01

    Full Text Available Following Kuhn's main thesis according to which theory revision and acceptance is always paradigm relative, I propose to outline some possible consequences of such a view. First, asking the question in what sense Bayesian decision theory could serve as the appropriate (normative theory of rationality examined from the point of view of the epistemology of theory acceptance, I argue that Bayesianism leads to a narrow conception of theory acceptance. Second, regarding the different types of theory revision, i.e. expansion, contraction, replacement and residuals shifts, I extract from Kuhn's view a series of indications showing that theory replacement cannot be rationalized within the framework of Bayesian decision theory, not even within a more sophisticated version of that model. Third, and finally, I will point to the need for a more comprehensive model of rationality than the Bayesian expected utility maximization model, the need for a model which could better deal with the different aspects of theory replacement. I will show that Kuhn's distinction between normal and revolutionary science gives us several hints for a more adequate theory of rationality in science. I will also show that Kuhn is not in a position to fully articulate his main ideas and that he well be confronted with a serious problem concerning collective choice of a paradigm.

  6. Social choice for one: On the rationality of intertemporal decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paglieri, Fabio

    2016-06-01

    When faced with an intertemporal choice between a smaller short-term reward and a larger long-term prize, is opting for the latter always indicative of delay tolerance? And is delay tolerance always to be regarded as a manifestation of self-control, and thus as a rational solution to intertemporal dilemmas? I argue in favor of a negative answer to both questions, based on evidence collected in the delay discounting literature. This highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of rationality in intertemporal choice, to capture also situations in which waiting is not the optimal strategy. This paper suggests that such an understanding is fostered by adopting social choice theory as a promising framework to model intertemporal decision making. Some preliminary results of this approach are discussed, and its potential is compared with a much more studied formal model for intertemporal choice, i.e. game theory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Emergence of scale-free characteristics in socio-ecological systems with bounded rationality

    OpenAIRE

    Kasthurirathna, Dharshana; Piraveenan, Mahendra

    2015-01-01

    Socio?ecological systems are increasingly modelled by games played on complex networks. While the concept of Nash equilibrium assumes perfect rationality, in reality players display heterogeneous bounded rationality. Here we present a topological model of bounded rationality in socio-ecological systems, using the rationality parameter of the Quantal Response Equilibrium. We argue that system rationality could be measured by the average Kullback?-Leibler divergence between Nash and Quantal Res...

  8. RATIONAL RECOVERY MODEL OF DEPOT PROCESSING EQUIPMENT AT THE INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. I. Kapitsa

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. The problem of the maximum resources recovery of rolling stock repair depot of industrial enterprise with limited resources consumption, which are used in the system is today’s topical question.The main factors that affect the repair depot operation of industrial enterprise are reviewed. The most significant factors, affecting the quality of the repair depot, are emphasized for further study, specifically - the state of the major repair equipment of a sector. There is a need to minimize the impact of the unsatisfactory state of this factor. Methodology. The formed task of major equipment rational repairing in the mathematical sense is based on the solution of a vector optimization problem. In this case the target functions are the monetary funds spending and time expenditure for repairing. Findings. The mathematical model of optimal equipment maintainability of the repair department at the industrial enterprise was developed by the authors. On the example the choice model of optimal path for equipment repairing of enterprise repair department is described. Originality. As a result of the conducted research the repairing system of major equipment of industrial enterprise sectors was improved. As the mathematical model of rational system recovery of industrial enterprise repair depot we recommend apparatus of class problems of vector optimization. Practical value. Using the proposed model of major equipment repair system of the repair depot at the industrial enterprise will improve the quality of the department by increasing the efficiency of primary resources - time and monetary funds - which are spent by the sector in order to repair its techniques.

  9. Starlings uphold principles of economic rationality for delay and probability of reward.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monteiro, Tiago; Vasconcelos, Marco; Kacelnik, Alex

    2013-04-07

    Rationality principles are the bedrock of normative theories of decision-making in biology and microeconomics, but whereas in microeconomics, consistent choice underlies the notion of utility; in biology, the assumption of consistent selective pressures justifies modelling decision mechanisms as if they were designed to maximize fitness. In either case, violations of consistency contradict expectations and attract theoretical interest. Reported violations of rationality in non-humans include intransitivity (i.e. circular preferences) and lack of independence of irrelevant alternatives (changes in relative preference between options when embedded in different choice sets), but the extent to which these observations truly represent breaches of rationality is debatable. We tested both principles with starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), training subjects either with five options differing in food delay (exp. 1) or with six options differing in reward probability (exp. 2), before letting them choose repeatedly one option out of several binary and trinary sets of options. The starlings conformed to economic rationality on both tests, showing strong stochastic transitivity and no violation of the independence principle. These results endorse the rational choice and optimality approaches used in behavioural ecology, and highlight the need for functional and mechanistic enquiring when apparent violations of such principles are observed.

  10. The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simis, Molly J; Madden, Haley; Cacciatore, Michael A; Yeo, Sara K

    2016-05-01

    Science communication has been historically predicated on the knowledge deficit model. Yet, empirical research has shown that public communication of science is more complex than what the knowledge deficit model suggests. In this essay, we pose four lines of reasoning and present empirical data for why we believe the deficit model still persists in public communication of science. First, we posit that scientists' training results in the belief that public audiences can and do process information in a rational manner. Second, the persistence of this model may be a product of current institutional structures. Many graduate education programs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields generally lack formal training in public communication. We offer empirical evidence that demonstrates that scientists who have less positive attitudes toward the social sciences are more likely to adhere to the knowledge deficit model of science communication. Third, we present empirical evidence of how scientists conceptualize "the public" and link this to attitudes toward the deficit model. We find that perceiving a knowledge deficit in the public is closely tied to scientists' perceptions of the individuals who comprise the public. Finally, we argue that the knowledge deficit model is perpetuated because it can easily influence public policy for science issues. We propose some ways to uproot the deficit model and move toward more effective science communication efforts, which include training scientists in communication methods grounded in social science research and using approaches that engage community members around scientific issues. © The Author(s) 2016.

  11. Normative and rational choice accounts of human behavior

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Griffiths, John

    1995-01-01

    Two approaches to the problem of social order are compared: the rational choice approach (as represented in Coleman's Foundations of Social Theory) and the normative or social control approach, in which rules and rule-following play the central role. Considered in therms of Coleman's own criteria

  12. The anchoring bias reflects rational use of cognitive resources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lieder, Falk; Griffiths, Thomas L; M Huys, Quentin J; Goodman, Noah D

    2018-02-01

    Cognitive biases, such as the anchoring bias, pose a serious challenge to rational accounts of human cognition. We investigate whether rational theories can meet this challenge by taking into account the mind's bounded cognitive resources. We asked what reasoning under uncertainty would look like if people made rational use of their finite time and limited cognitive resources. To answer this question, we applied a mathematical theory of bounded rationality to the problem of numerical estimation. Our analysis led to a rational process model that can be interpreted in terms of anchoring-and-adjustment. This model provided a unifying explanation for ten anchoring phenomena including the differential effect of accuracy motivation on the bias towards provided versus self-generated anchors. Our results illustrate the potential of resource-rational analysis to provide formal theories that can unify a wide range of empirical results and reconcile the impressive capacities of the human mind with its apparently irrational cognitive biases.

  13. Development of a model for the rational design of molecular imprinted polymer: Computational approach for combined molecular dynamics/quantum mechanics calculations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dong Cunku; Li Xin; Guo Zechong; Qi Jingyao

    2009-01-01

    A new rational approach for the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) based on the combination of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and quantum mechanics (QM) calculations is described in this work. Before performing molecular modeling, a virtual library of functional monomers was created containing forty frequently used monomers. The MD simulations were first conducted to screen the top three monomers from virtual library in each porogen-acetonitrile, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. QM simulations were then performed with an aim to select the optimum monomer and progen solvent in which the QM simulations were carried out; the monomers giving the highest binding energies were chosen as the candidate to prepare MIP in its corresponding solvent. The acetochlor, a widely used herbicide, was chosen as the target analyte. According to the theoretical calculation results, the MIP with acetochlor as template was prepared by emulsion polymerization method using N,N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBAAM) as functional monomer and divinylbenzene (DVB) as cross-linker in chloroform. The synthesized MIP was then tested by equilibrium-adsorption method, and the MIP demonstrated high removal efficiency to the acetochlor. Mulliken charge distribution and 1 H NMR spectroscopy of the synthesized MIP provided insight on the nature of recognition during the imprinting process probing the governing interactions for selective binding site formation at a molecular level. We think the computer simulation method first proposed in this paper is a novel and reliable method for the design and synthesis of MIP.

  14. From machine learning to deep learning: progress in machine intelligence for rational drug discovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lu; Tan, Jianjun; Han, Dan; Zhu, Hao

    2017-11-01

    Machine intelligence, which is normally presented as artificial intelligence, refers to the intelligence exhibited by computers. In the history of rational drug discovery, various machine intelligence approaches have been applied to guide traditional experiments, which are expensive and time-consuming. Over the past several decades, machine-learning tools, such as quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) modeling, were developed that can identify potential biological active molecules from millions of candidate compounds quickly and cheaply. However, when drug discovery moved into the era of 'big' data, machine learning approaches evolved into deep learning approaches, which are a more powerful and efficient way to deal with the massive amounts of data generated from modern drug discovery approaches. Here, we summarize the history of machine learning and provide insight into recently developed deep learning approaches and their applications in rational drug discovery. We suggest that this evolution of machine intelligence now provides a guide for early-stage drug design and discovery in the current big data era. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), irrational and rational beliefs, and the mental health of athletes

    OpenAIRE

    Martin James Turner

    2016-01-01

    In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training (PST) for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and main...

  16. Models for Rational Decision Making. Analysis of Literature and Selected Bibliography. Analysis and Bibliography Series, No. 6.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, John S.

    This review analyzes the trend in educational decision making to replace hierarchical authority structures with more rational models for decision making drawn from management science. Emphasis is also placed on alternatives to a hierarchical decision-making model, including governing models, union models, and influence models. A 54-item…

  17. A crying shame : The over-rationalized conception of man in the rational choice perspective

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Haan, W.J.M.; Vos, J.

    The rational choice perspective explains all forms of crime by viewing offenders as reasoning criminals. In this article, we take this approach to task by trying out its heuristic potential. More specifically, we look at how well it works for one special type of crime, i.e. street robbery. On the

  18. The impossibility of involuntary unemployment in an overlapping generations model with rational expectation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schultz, Christian

    1992-01-01

    If there is unemployment no matter how low the wage rate becomes, one speaks of involuntary unemployment. This phenomenon has been shown to arise in a variety of temporary or atemporal macro models with imperfect competition in the goods markets. In this paper we investigate whether the phenomeno...... of involuntary unemployment arises in a Hartian overlapping generations model with rational expectations. It does not, neither in the short nor in the long run...

  19. A model for evaluating beef cattle rations considering effects of ruminal fiber mass

    OpenAIRE

    Henrique,Douglas Sampaio; Lana,Rogério de Paula; Vieira,Ricardo Augusto Mendonça; Fontes,Carlos Augusto de Alencar; Botelho,Mosar Faria

    2011-01-01

    A mathematical model based on Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS) was developed and adapted in order to evaluate beef cattle rations at tropical climate conditions. The presented system differs from CNCPS in the modeling of insoluble particles' digestion and passage kinetics, which enabled the estimation of fiber mass in rumen and its effects on animal performance. The equations used to estimate metabolizable protein and net energy requirements for gain, net energy requirement...

  20. Rational-driver approximation in car-following theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lubashevsky, Ihor; Wagner, Peter; Mahnke, Reinhard

    2003-11-01

    The problem of a car following a lead car driven with constant velocity is considered. To derive the governing equations for the following car dynamics a cost functional is constructed. This functional ranks the outcomes of different driving strategies, which applies to fairly general properties of the driver behavior. Assuming rational-driver behavior, the existence of the Nash equilibrium is proved. Rational driving is defined by supposing that a driver corrects continuously the car motion to follow the optimal path minimizing the cost functional. The corresponding car-following dynamics is described quite generally by a boundary value problem based on the obtained extremal equations. Linearization of these equations around the stationary state results in a generalization of the widely used optimal velocity model. Under certain conditions (the “dense traffic” limit) the rational car dynamics comprises two stages, fast and slow. During the fast stage a driver eliminates the velocity difference between the cars, the subsequent slow stage optimizes the headway. In the dense traffic limit an effective Hamiltonian description is constructed. This allows a more detailed nonlinear analysis. Finally, the differences between rational and bounded rational driver behavior are discussed. The latter, in particular, justifies some basic assumptions used recently by the authors to construct a car-following model lying beyond the frameworks of rationality.

  1. CHOICE IN CONTEXT: RATIONALITY, CONTINGENCY AND RISK IN THE DIVIDEND POLICY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Narcis Tulbure

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available This paper is a critical review of the recent literature regarding the dividend policy with regards to the different conceptualizations of rationality demonstrated by managers of companies or individual investors. This approach gives us the opportunity to reassess the latest contributions to dividend policy analysis and to adopt an alternative perspective to those of authors that have split the literature on dividends in the normative vs. descriptive approaches, empirical vs. theoretical contributions, according to the distinct paradigms various approaches illustrate, or according to chronological criteria. We surmise that the issue of rationality / irrationality occasions a better understanding of the latest contributions to corporate finance from the subfields of behavioral finance and of cultural finance. Such contributions challenge the premises of rational choice, one that is foundational for the neoclassic paradigm. Behavioral corporate finance and cultural corporate finance underline the role of psychological and socio-cultural factors for the dividend policy. They facilitate the emergence of notions of situated / contingent rationality considered responsible for the diverse shapes taken by the financial policies of the corporation.

  2. Can rational models be good accounts of developmental change? The case of language development at two time scales.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawson, Colin R; Gerken, LouAnn

    2012-01-01

    Rational models of human perception and cognition have allowed researchers new ways to look at learning and the ability to make inferences from data. But how good are such models at accounting for developmental change? In this chapter, we address this question in the domain of language development, focusing on the speed with which developmental change takes place, and classifying different types of language development as either fast or slow. From the pattern of fast and slow development observed, we hypothesize that rational learning processes are generally well suited for handling fast processes over small amounts of input data. In contrast, we suggest that associative learning processes are generally better suited to slow development, in which learners accumulate information about what is typical of their language over time. Finally, although one system may be dominant for a particular component of language learning, we speculate that both systems frequently interact, with the associative system providing a source of emergent hypotheses to be evaluated by the rational system and the rational system serving to highlight which aspects of the learner's input need to be processed in greater depth by the associative system.

  3. A test of the ABC model underlying rational emotive behavior therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ziegler, Daniel J; Leslie, Yvonne M

    2003-02-01

    The ABC model underlying Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy predicts that people who think more irrationally should respond to daily stressors or hassles differently than do people who think less irrationally. This study tested this aspect of the ABC model. 192 college students were administered the Survey of Personal Beliefs and the Hassles Scale to measure irrational thinking and daily hassles, respectively. Students who scored higher on overall irrational thinking reported a significantly higher frequency of hassles than did those who scored lower on overall irrational thinking, while students who scored higher on awfulizing and low frustration tolerance reported a significantly greater intensity of hassles than did those who scored lower on awfulizing and low frustration tolerance. This indicates support for the ABC model, especially Ellis's construct of irrational beliefs central to this model.

  4. A Study on the Application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB Model on Rational Drug Use Behavior among Second-Level Hospital Outpatients in Anhui, China.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cheng Bian

    Full Text Available The high prevalence of risky irrational drug use behaviors mean that outpatients face high risks of drug resistance and even death. This study represents the first application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB model on rational drug use behavior among second-level hospital outpatients from three prefecture-level cities in Anhui, China. Using the IMB model, our study examined predictors of rational drug use behavior and determined the associations between the model constructs.This study was conducted with a sample of 1,214 outpatients aged 18 years and older in Anhui second-level hospitals and applied the structural equation model (SEM to test predictive relations among the IMB model variables related to rational drug use behavior.Age, information and motivation had significant direct effects on rational drug use behavior. Behavioral skills as an intermediate variable also significantly predicted more rational drug use behavior. Female gender, higher educational level, more information and more motivation predicted more behavioral skills. In addition, there were significant indirect impacts on rational drug use behavior mediated through behavioral skills.The IMB-based model explained the relationships between the constructs and rational drug use behavior of outpatients in detail, and it suggests that future interventions among second-level hospital outpatients should consider demographic characteristics and should focus on improving motivation and behavioral skills in addition to the publicity of knowledge.

  5. A Study on the Application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) Model on Rational Drug Use Behavior among Second-Level Hospital Outpatients in Anhui, China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bian, Cheng; Xu, Shuman; Wang, Heng; Li, Niannian; Wu, Jingya; Zhao, Yunwu; Li, Peng; Lu, Hua

    2015-01-01

    The high prevalence of risky irrational drug use behaviors mean that outpatients face high risks of drug resistance and even death. This study represents the first application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model on rational drug use behavior among second-level hospital outpatients from three prefecture-level cities in Anhui, China. Using the IMB model, our study examined predictors of rational drug use behavior and determined the associations between the model constructs. This study was conducted with a sample of 1,214 outpatients aged 18 years and older in Anhui second-level hospitals and applied the structural equation model (SEM) to test predictive relations among the IMB model variables related to rational drug use behavior. Age, information and motivation had significant direct effects on rational drug use behavior. Behavioral skills as an intermediate variable also significantly predicted more rational drug use behavior. Female gender, higher educational level, more information and more motivation predicted more behavioral skills. In addition, there were significant indirect impacts on rational drug use behavior mediated through behavioral skills. The IMB-based model explained the relationships between the constructs and rational drug use behavior of outpatients in detail, and it suggests that future interventions among second-level hospital outpatients should consider demographic characteristics and should focus on improving motivation and behavioral skills in addition to the publicity of knowledge.

  6. Equal status in Ultimatum Games promotes rational sharing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Xiao; Cao, Shinan; Bao, Jian-Zhang; Wang, Wen-Xu; Zhang, Boyu; Gao, Zi-You; Sánchez, Angel

    2018-01-19

    Experiments on the Ultimatum Game (UG) repeatedly show that people's behaviour is far from rational. In UG experiments, a subject proposes how to divide a pot and the other can accept or reject the proposal, in which case both lose everything. While rational people would offer and accept the minimum possible amount, in experiments low offers are often rejected and offers are typically larger than the minimum, and even fair. Several theoretical works have proposed that these results may arise evolutionarily when subjects act in both roles and there is a fixed interaction structure in the population specifying who plays with whom. We report the first experiments on structured UG with subjects playing simultaneously both roles. We observe that acceptance levels of responders approach rationality and proposers accommodate their offers to their environment. More precisely, subjects keep low acceptance levels all the time, but as proposers they follow a best-response-like approach to choose their offers. We thus find that status equality promotes rational sharing while the influence of structure leads to fairer offers compared to well-mixed populations. Our results are far from what is observed in single-role UG experiments and largely different from available predictions based on evolutionary game theory.

  7. Is the Rational Addiction model inherently impossible to estimate?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laporte, Audrey; Dass, Adrian Rohit; Ferguson, Brian S

    2017-07-01

    The Rational Addiction (RA) model is increasingly often estimated using individual level panel data with mixed results; in particular, with regard to the implied rate of time discount. This paper suggests that the odd values of the rate of discount frequently found in the literature may in fact be a consequence of the saddle-point dynamics associated with individual level inter-temporal optimization problems. We report the results of Monte Carlo experiments estimating RA-type difference equations that seem to suggest the possibility that the presence of both a stable and an unstable root in the dynamic process may create serious problems for the estimation of RA equations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. The Role of Rationality in University Budgeting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chaffee, Ellen Earle

    1983-01-01

    Although empirical accounts of organizational decision making often show that the process is not a rational one, a study of budgeting at Stanford University during the 1970s, while not conclusive or comprehensive, supported the claim that the institution's process was rational and provided a procedure for testing a decision-making model. (MSE)

  9. Should Teachers Be Taught to Be Rational?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Floden, Robert E.; Feiman, Sharon

    1981-01-01

    Teacher education programs have long attempted to teach students to follow a rational mode of thinking. Recent research on teacher thinking has shown that a gap exists between how teachers think and the rational model. Such research should be used to give teacher educators insight into how their students think and learn. (JN)

  10. a rational approach for predicting the minimum composition of anti ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    of Cv may deviate from what is predicted by the formula given above are discussed. Extensive literature search on malaria, onchocerciasis and schistosomiasis sub-unit vaccine development ... provides a rational framework for constituting a sub-unit anti-parasite vaccine. ..... vaccine formulation produced greater protection.

  11. A discussion of theoretical and practical rationality

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wahlstroem, B. [Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo (Finland). VTT Automation

    1999-12-01

    Theoretical rationality as defined in Expected Utility Theory and amended with other considerations gives a good basis for decision making. One should however always keep in mind that practical rationality often is far more complicated. People use their everyday experience when placed before new problems and this may lead to apparently irrational choices which on a closer scrutiny may be completely rational. Theories in human decision making unfortunately becomes untestable, firstly because a theory taking all considerations into account would be to complex to be practical and secondly because the data needed to test the theory cannot be collected. The benefit of EUT is that it is simple and straightforward as compared with competing theories. In the natural sciences rationality is often seen simply as a problem of optimisation. This view is practical, but it has to include also psychological and sociological considerations. The apparent controversy between natural and behavioural sciences could at least in principle be resolved by a better understanding of the complexity of human rationality. The human mind does not work in isolation, but it is adapted to a social community and a continuously changing environment. Understanding all components of human rationality is a challenge which cannot be solved on a short term basis. An important part of human rationality is connected to the intricate balance between individual and societal utility. The human mind has over thousands of years learnt to resolve that balance, but in the modern society there are decisions which may not be solvable with an intuitive approach and a strategy of trial and error. For these decisions more solid theories of rationality will be needed. EUT can in spite of its dismerits be used as the backbone for such a theory, but it has to be extended with better explanations of both individual and social rationality. If this understanding of the practical aspects of human rationality can be reached

  12. A discussion of theoretical and practical rationality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wahlstroem, B.

    1999-01-01

    Theoretical rationality as defined in Expected Utility Theory and amended with other considerations gives a good basis for decision making. One should however always keep in mind that practical rationality often is far more complicated. People use their everyday experience when placed before new problems and this may lead to apparently irrational choices which on a closer scrutiny may be completely rational. Theories in human decision making unfortunately becomes untestable, firstly because a theory taking all considerations into account would be to complex to be practical and secondly because the data needed to test the theory cannot be collected. The benefit of EUT is that it is simple and straightforward as compared with competing theories. In the natural sciences rationality is often seen simply as a problem of optimisation. This view is practical, but it has to include also psychological and sociological considerations. The apparent controversy between natural and behavioural sciences could at least in principle be resolved by a better understanding of the complexity of human rationality. The human mind does not work in isolation, but it is adapted to a social community and a continuously changing environment. Understanding all components of human rationality is a challenge which cannot be solved on a short term basis. An important part of human rationality is connected to the intricate balance between individual and societal utility. The human mind has over thousands of years learnt to resolve that balance, but in the modern society there are decisions which may not be solvable with an intuitive approach and a strategy of trial and error. For these decisions more solid theories of rationality will be needed. EUT can in spite of its dismerits be used as the backbone for such a theory, but it has to be extended with better explanations of both individual and social rationality. If this understanding of the practical aspects of human rationality can be reached

  13. Rational-Emotive Education with Learning Disabled Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knaus, William; McKeever, Cynthia

    1977-01-01

    Rational-emotive education provides a positive, constructive approach for helping young children with learning problems who have psychogenic overlays to cope with worries and troubles effectively and to accept themselves affirmatively. (Author/SBH)

  14. Bounded rationality alters the dynamics of paediatric immunization acceptance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oraby, Tamer; Bauch, Chris T.

    2015-01-01

    Interactions between disease dynamics and vaccinating behavior have been explored in many coupled behavior-disease models. Cognitive effects such as risk perception, framing, and subjective probabilities of adverse events can be important determinants of the vaccinating behaviour, and represent departures from the pure “rational” decision model that are often described as “bounded rationality”. However, the impact of such cognitive effects in the context of paediatric infectious disease vaccines has received relatively little attention. Here, we develop a disease-behavior model that accounts for bounded rationality through prospect theory. We analyze the model and compare its predictions to a reduced model that lacks bounded rationality. We find that, in general, introducing bounded rationality increases the dynamical richness of the model and makes it harder to eliminate a paediatric infectious disease. In contrast, in other cases, a low cost, highly efficacious vaccine can be refused, even when the rational decision model predicts acceptance. Injunctive social norms can prevent vaccine refusal, if vaccine acceptance is sufficiently high in the beginning of the vaccination campaign. Cognitive processes can have major impacts on the predictions of behaviour-disease models, and further study of such processes in the context of vaccination is thus warranted. PMID:26035413

  15. Decision-Making Theories and Models: A Discussion of Rational and Psychological Decision-Making Theories and Models: The Search for a Cultural-Ethical Decision-Making Model

    OpenAIRE

    Oliveira, Arnaldo

    2007-01-01

    This paper examines rational and psychological decision-making models. Descriptive and normative methodologies such as attribution theory, schema theory, prospect theory, ambiguity model, game theory, and expected utility theory are discussed. The definition of culture is reviewed, and the relationship between culture and decision making is also highlighted as many organizations use a cultural-ethical decision-making model.

  16. Homotopy of operads and Grothendieck–Teichmüller groups part 2 the applications of (rational) homotopy theory methods

    CERN Document Server

    Fresse, Benoit

    2017-01-01

    The ultimate goal of this book is to explain that the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group, as defined by Drinfeld in quantum group theory, has a topological interpretation as a group of homotopy automorphisms associated to the little 2-disc operad. To establish this result, the applications of methods of algebraic topology to operads must be developed. This volume is devoted primarily to this subject, with the main objective of developing a rational homotopy theory for operads. The book starts with a comprehensive review of the general theory of model categories and of general methods of homotopy theory. The definition of the Sullivan model for the rational homotopy of spaces is revisited, and the definition of models for the rational homotopy of operads is then explained. The applications of spectral sequence methods to compute homotopy automorphism spaces associated to operads are also explained. This approach is used to get a topological interpretation of the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group in the case of the ...

  17. The Rational Approach to Budget Cuts: One University's Experience. ASHE 1987 Annual Meeting Paper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hardy, Cynthia

    The experiences of the University of Montreal in using a rational-analytic framework to allocate resources at a time of budget costs are discussed. The following characteristics for rational decision-making are identified and applied to the University of Montreal: whether goals were known, whether alternative methods of resource allocation were…

  18. On rationally supported surfaces

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gravesen, Jens; Juttler, B.; Sir, Z.

    2008-01-01

    We analyze the class of surfaces which are equipped with rational support functions. Any rational support function can be decomposed into a symmetric (even) and an antisymmetric (odd) part. We analyze certain geometric properties of surfaces with odd and even rational support functions....... In particular it is shown that odd rational support functions correspond to those rational surfaces which can be equipped with a linear field of normal vectors, which were discussed by Sampoli et al. (Sampoli, M.L., Peternell, M., Juttler, B., 2006. Rational surfaces with linear normals and their convolutions...... with rational surfaces. Comput. Aided Geom. Design 23, 179-192). As shown recently, this class of surfaces includes non-developable quadratic triangular Bezier surface patches (Lavicka, M., Bastl, B., 2007. Rational hypersurfaces with rational convolutions. Comput. Aided Geom. Design 24, 410426; Peternell, M...

  19. Heterogeneous Parking Market Subject to Parking Rationing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saeed Asadi Bagloee

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Different types of drivers and parking spaces delineate a heterogeneous parking market for which the literature has yet to provide a model applicable to the real world. The main obstacle is computational complexities of considering various parking restrictions along with traffic congestion on the road network. In this study, the heterogeneity aspects are considered within a Logit parking choice model. A mathematical programming problem was introduced to explicitly consider parking capacities and parking rationing constraints. The parking rationing is defined as any arrangement to reserve parking space for some specific demand such as parking permit, private parking, VIP parking, and different parking durations. Introduction of parking rationing in the presence of other constraints is a unique factor in this study which makes the model more realistic. The algorithm was tested on a central business district case study. The results prove that the algorithm is able to converge rapidly. Among the algorithm’s output are shadow prices of the parking capacity and parking rationing constraints. The shadow prices contain important information which is key to addressing a variety of parking issues, such as the location of parking shortages, identification of fair parking charges, viability of parking permits, and the size of reserved parking.

  20. Authorship matrix: a rational approach to quantify individual contributions and responsibilities in multi-author scientific articles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clement, T Prabhakar

    2014-06-01

    We propose a rational method for addressing an important question-who deserves to be an author of a scientific article? We review various contentious issues associated with this question and recommend that the scientific community should view authorship in terms of contributions and responsibilities, rather than credits. We propose a new paradigm that conceptually divides a scientific article into four basic elements: ideas, work, writing, and stewardship. We employ these four fundamental elements to modify the well-known International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines. The modified ICMJE guidelines are then used as the basis to develop an approach to quantify individual contributions and responsibilities in multi-author articles. The outcome of the approach is an authorship matrix, which can be used to answer several nagging questions related to authorship.

  1. Lying for the Greater Good: Bounded Rationality in a Team

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oktay Sürücü

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper is concerned with the interaction between fully and boundedly rational agents in situations where their interests are perfectly aligned. The cognitive limitations of the boundedly rational agent do not allow him to fully understand the market conditions and lead him to take non-optimal decisions in some situations. Using categorization to model bounded rationality, we show that the fully rational agent can nudge, i.e., he can manipulate the information he sends and decrease the expected loss caused by the boundedly rational agent. Assuming different types for the boundedly rational agent, who differ only in the categories used, we show that the fully rational agent may learn the type of the boundedly rational agent along their interaction. Using this additional information, the outcome can be improved and the amount of manipulated information can be decreased. Furthermore, as the length of the interaction increases the probability that the fully rational agent learns the type of the boundedly rational agent grows

  2. Rational maps, monopoles and skyrmions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Houghton, C.J.; Manton, N.S.

    1998-01-01

    We discuss the similarities between BPS monopoles and skyrmions, and point to an underlying connection in terms of rational maps between Riemann spheres. This involves the introduction of a new ansatz for Skyrme fields. We use this to construct good approximations to several known skyrmions, including all the minimal energy configurations up to baryon number nine, and some new solutions such as a baryon number seventeen Skyrme field with the truncated icosahedron structure of a buckyball. The new approach is also used to understand the low-lying vibrational modes of skyrmions, which are required for quantization. Along the way we discover an interesting Morse function on the space of rational maps which may be of use in understanding the Sen forms on the monopole moduli spaces. (orig.)

  3. Re-visions of rationality?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newell, Ben R

    2005-01-01

    The appeal of simple algorithms that take account of both the constraints of human cognitive capacity and the structure of environments has been an enduring theme in cognitive science. A novel version of such a boundedly rational perspective views the mind as containing an 'adaptive toolbox' of specialized cognitive heuristics suited to different problems. Although intuitively appealing, when this version was proposed, empirical evidence for the use of such heuristics was scant. I argue that in the light of empirical studies carried out since then, it is time this 'vision of rationality' was revised. An alternative view based on integrative models rather than collections of heuristics is proposed.

  4. Emotion, rationality, and decision-making: how to link affective and social neuroscience with social theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verweij, Marco; Senior, Timothy J; Domínguez D, Juan F; Turner, Robert

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we argue for a stronger engagement between concepts in affective and social neuroscience on the one hand, and theories from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology on the other. Affective and social neuroscience could provide an additional assessment of social theories. We argue that some of the most influential social theories of the last four decades-rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and post-structuralism-contain assumptions that are inconsistent with key findings in affective and social neuroscience. We also show that another approach from the social sciences-plural rationality theory-shows greater compatibility with these findings. We further claim that, in their turn, social theories can strengthen affective and social neuroscience. The former can provide more precise formulations of the social phenomena that neuroscientific models have targeted, can help neuroscientists who build these models become more aware of their social and cultural biases, and can even improve the models themselves. To illustrate, we show how plural rationality theory can be used to further specify and test the somatic marker hypothesis. Thus, we aim to accelerate the much-needed merger of social theories with affective and social neuroscience.

  5. Emotion, rationality, and decision-making: how to link affective and social neuroscience with social theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verweij, Marco; Senior, Timothy J.; Domínguez D., Juan F.; Turner, Robert

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we argue for a stronger engagement between concepts in affective and social neuroscience on the one hand, and theories from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology on the other. Affective and social neuroscience could provide an additional assessment of social theories. We argue that some of the most influential social theories of the last four decades—rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and post-structuralism—contain assumptions that are inconsistent with key findings in affective and social neuroscience. We also show that another approach from the social sciences—plural rationality theory—shows greater compatibility with these findings. We further claim that, in their turn, social theories can strengthen affective and social neuroscience. The former can provide more precise formulations of the social phenomena that neuroscientific models have targeted, can help neuroscientists who build these models become more aware of their social and cultural biases, and can even improve the models themselves. To illustrate, we show how plural rationality theory can be used to further specify and test the somatic marker hypothesis. Thus, we aim to accelerate the much-needed merger of social theories with affective and social neuroscience. PMID:26441506

  6. Emotion, rationality and decision-making: How to link affective and social neuroscience with social theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco eVerweij

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we argue for a stronger engagement between concepts in affective and social neuroscience on the one hand, and theories from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science and sociology on the other. Affective and social neuroscience could provide an additional assessment of social theories. We argue that some of the most influential social theories of the last four decades –rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and post-structuralism– contain assumptions that are inconsistent with key findings in affective and social neuroscience. We also show that another approach from the social sciences –plural rationality theory– shows greater compatibility with these findings. We further claim that, in their turn, social theories can strengthen affective and social neuroscience. The former can provide more precise formulations of the social phenomena that neuroscientific models have targeted, can help neuroscientists who build these models become more aware of their social and cultural biases, and can even improve the models themselves. To illustrate, we show how plural rationality theory can be used to further specify and test the somatic marker hypothesis. Thus, we aim to accelerate the much-needed merger of social theories with affective and social neuroscience.

  7. A Model for Teaching Rational Behavior Skills to Emotionally Disturbed Youth in a Public School Setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patton, Patricia L.

    1985-01-01

    Describes a model used to teach rational behavior skills to 34 emotionally disturbed adolescents. Discusses teaching, training, and counseling strategies. The group demonstrated significant positive changes in learning and personality variables, but not behavior. (JAC)

  8. Industry evolution, rational agents and the transition to sustainable electricity production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Safarzynska, Karolina, E-mail: ksafarzy@wu.ac.at [Institute for the Environment and Regional Development, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Nordbergstrasse 15 (UZA4, 4B), A-1090 Vienna (Austria); Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. van den, E-mail: jeroen.bergh@uab.es [ICREA, Barcelona (Spain); Institute for Environmental Science and Technology and Department of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Edifici Cn-Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Spain); Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, and the Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam (Netherlands); Fellow of Tinbergen Institute and NAKE (Netherlands)

    2011-10-15

    Guiding a transition to low carbon electricity requires a good understanding of the substitution of old by new technologies in the electricity industry. With the aim of explaining historical change from coal to gas in the British electricity industry, we develop a formal model of technological change, where energy technologies diffuse through the construction of new power plants. We considered two model versions: with rational and boundedly rational investors. In each model version, we look at the causal relations between price and output setting mechanisms, fuel and labour use, and investment decisions for different institutional arrangements. We quantify model parameters on data for the United Kingdom. We find that the version of the model with rational investors is capable of replicating well core features of UK electricity history. This includes a rapid diffusion of gas in electricity production, the evolution of the average size of newly installed plants, and a high percentage of electricity sales covered by (forward) contracts-for-difference. In this model setting, nuclear and renewable energies have no chance to diffuse on the market. In the version of the model with boundedly rational investors, nuclear power typically dominates electricity production. We discuss implications of our modelling results for making a transition to low carbon electricity in the future. - Highlights: > We propose a model of a transition from coal to gas in electricity production. > Energy technologies diffuse through the construction of new power plants. > We considered two model versions: with rational and boundedly rational investors. > We quantify model parameters on data for the UK for the period 1990-2002. > We draw policy conclusions for guiding a transition to low carbon electricity.

  9. Industry evolution, rational agents and the transition to sustainable electricity production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Safarzynska, Karolina; Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. van den

    2011-01-01

    Guiding a transition to low carbon electricity requires a good understanding of the substitution of old by new technologies in the electricity industry. With the aim of explaining historical change from coal to gas in the British electricity industry, we develop a formal model of technological change, where energy technologies diffuse through the construction of new power plants. We considered two model versions: with rational and boundedly rational investors. In each model version, we look at the causal relations between price and output setting mechanisms, fuel and labour use, and investment decisions for different institutional arrangements. We quantify model parameters on data for the United Kingdom. We find that the version of the model with rational investors is capable of replicating well core features of UK electricity history. This includes a rapid diffusion of gas in electricity production, the evolution of the average size of newly installed plants, and a high percentage of electricity sales covered by (forward) contracts-for-difference. In this model setting, nuclear and renewable energies have no chance to diffuse on the market. In the version of the model with boundedly rational investors, nuclear power typically dominates electricity production. We discuss implications of our modelling results for making a transition to low carbon electricity in the future. - Highlights: → We propose a model of a transition from coal to gas in electricity production. → Energy technologies diffuse through the construction of new power plants. → We considered two model versions: with rational and boundedly rational investors. → We quantify model parameters on data for the UK for the period 1990-2002. → We draw policy conclusions for guiding a transition to low carbon electricity.

  10. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT, irrational and rational beliefs, and the mental health of athletes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martin James Turner

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training (PST for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957, the original cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3 the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as

  11. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Martin J

    2016-01-01

    In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one's beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

  12. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Martin J.

    2016-01-01

    In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

  13. Pragmatics & rationality.

    OpenAIRE

    Allott, N. E.

    2007-01-01

    This thesis is about the reconciliation of realistic views of rationality with inferential-intentional theories of communication. Grice (1957 1975) argued that working out what a speaker meant by an utterance is a matter of inferring the speaker's intentions on the presumption that she is acting rationally. This is abductive inference: inference to the best explanation for the utterance. Thus an utterance both rationalises and causes the interpretation the hearer constructs. Human rationality...

  14. Public policy, rationality and reason

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rodolfo Canto Sáenz

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available This work suggests the incorporation of practical reason in the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies, alongside instrumental rationality. It takes two proposals that today point in this direction: Rawls distinction between reasonable (practical reason and rational (instrumental reason and what this author calls the CI Procedure (categorical imperative procedure and Habermas model of deliberative democracy. The main conclusion is that the analysis of public policies can not be limited to rather narrow limits of science, but requires the contribution of political and moral philosophy.

  15. A rational approach to heavy-atom derivative screening

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Joyce, M. Gordon; Radaev, Sergei; Sun, Peter D.

    2010-01-01

    In order to overcome the difficulties associated with the ‘classical’ heavy-atom derivatization procedure, an attempt has been made to develop a rational crystal-free heavy-atom-derivative screening method and a quick-soak derivatization procedure which allows heavy-atom compound identification. Despite the development in recent times of a range of techniques for phasing macromolecules, the conventional heavy-atom derivatization method still plays a significant role in protein structure determination. However, this method has become less popular in modern high-throughput oriented crystallography, mostly owing to its trial-and-error nature, which often results in lengthy empirical searches requiring large numbers of well diffracting crystals. In addition, the phasing power of heavy-atom derivatives is often compromised by lack of isomorphism or even loss of diffraction. In order to overcome the difficulties associated with the ‘classical’ heavy-atom derivatization procedure, an attempt has been made to develop a rational crystal-free heavy-atom derivative-screening method and a quick-soak derivatization procedure which allows heavy-atom compound identification. The method includes three basic steps: (i) the selection of likely reactive compounds for a given protein and specific crystallization conditions based on pre-defined heavy-atom compound reactivity profiles, (ii) screening of the chosen heavy-atom compounds for their ability to form protein adducts using mass spectrometry and (iii) derivatization of crystals with selected heavy-metal compounds using the quick-soak method to maximize diffraction quality and minimize non-isomorphism. Overall, this system streamlines the process of heavy-atom compound identification and minimizes the problem of non-isomorphism in phasing

  16. A rational approach to heavy-atom derivative screening

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Joyce, M. Gordon; Radaev, Sergei; Sun, Peter D., E-mail: psun@nih.gov [Structural Immunology Section, Laboratory of Immunogenetics, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 12441 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20852 (United States)

    2010-04-01

    In order to overcome the difficulties associated with the ‘classical’ heavy-atom derivatization procedure, an attempt has been made to develop a rational crystal-free heavy-atom-derivative screening method and a quick-soak derivatization procedure which allows heavy-atom compound identification. Despite the development in recent times of a range of techniques for phasing macromolecules, the conventional heavy-atom derivatization method still plays a significant role in protein structure determination. However, this method has become less popular in modern high-throughput oriented crystallography, mostly owing to its trial-and-error nature, which often results in lengthy empirical searches requiring large numbers of well diffracting crystals. In addition, the phasing power of heavy-atom derivatives is often compromised by lack of isomorphism or even loss of diffraction. In order to overcome the difficulties associated with the ‘classical’ heavy-atom derivatization procedure, an attempt has been made to develop a rational crystal-free heavy-atom derivative-screening method and a quick-soak derivatization procedure which allows heavy-atom compound identification. The method includes three basic steps: (i) the selection of likely reactive compounds for a given protein and specific crystallization conditions based on pre-defined heavy-atom compound reactivity profiles, (ii) screening of the chosen heavy-atom compounds for their ability to form protein adducts using mass spectrometry and (iii) derivatization of crystals with selected heavy-metal compounds using the quick-soak method to maximize diffraction quality and minimize non-isomorphism. Overall, this system streamlines the process of heavy-atom compound identification and minimizes the problem of non-isomorphism in phasing.

  17. On hereditarily rational functions

    OpenAIRE

    Nowak, Krzysztof Jan

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we give a short proof of a theorem by Koll\\'{a}r on hereditarily rational functions. This is an answer to his appeal to find an elementary proof which does not rely so much on resolution of singularities. Our approach does not make use of desingularization techniques. Instead, we apply a stronger version of the \\L{}ojasiewicz inequality. Moreover, this allows us to sharpen Koll\\'{a}r's theorem.

  18. Baseline rationing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.; Østerdal, Lars Peter Raahave

    The standard problem of adjudicating conflicting claims describes a situation in which a given amount of a divisible good has to be allocated among agents who hold claims against it exceeding the available amount. This paper considers more general rationing problems in which, in addition to claims...... to international protocols for the reduction of greenhouse emissions, or water distribution in drought periods. We define a family of allocation methods for such general rationing problems - called baseline rationing rules - and provide an axiomatic characterization for it. Any baseline rationing rule within...... the family is associated with a standard rule and we show that if the latter obeys some properties reflecting principles of impartiality, priority and solidarity, the former obeys them too....

  19. Racionalizam u arhitekturi: nekoliko modela instrumentalizacije / Rationalism in Architecture: Several Models of Instrumentalization

    OpenAIRE

    Vladimir Stevanović

    2014-01-01

    Rationalism in architecture is a European concept which, from Enlightment to postmodern era, advocates values of order, clarity and logic, represented through primary geometrism, functionalism, profitability and absence of ornament. The text connects and analyzes (1) formal-stilistic manifestations of rationalism in architecture: French neoclassicism; Soviet constructivism, German new objectivity, Italian rationalism; postmodern Italian neorationalism in the context of (2) dominant paradigms ...

  20. Momentum effect in stocks’ returns between the rational and the behavioural financial theories: Proposition of the progressive rationality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faten Zoghlami

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available     The puzzling momentum strategies’ payoffs defied the rational financial theory asserting the stocks returns’ unpredictability. Moreover, the momentum effect persist the main stocks returns’ anomaly escaping any risk-based explanation. The resilience of this phenomenon had favoured the development of behavioural financial field, which breaks with the investor’ full rationality hypothesis. This paper attempts to reconcile between the rational and behavioural financial theories, through the introduction of the progressive rationality concept. Especially, we argue that recognizing the temporary inappropriate investors’ reactions; can resolve the puzzling momentum anomaly. To fulfil our objective, we identify the appropriate autoregressive level that captures the significant autocorrelations involved by the investors’ over and under reactions. Then, we explore the profitability of the 6/6 momentum strategy implemented on the adjusted stocks’ returns. The adjusted momentum strategy is still profitable but no longer puzzling, since the related excess return is henceforth fully captured by a β and a size effect.Key words: Tunisian momentum effect, the rational finance theory, the behavioural finance theory, the three-factorial model and the autoregressive process.

  1. The Child as Econometrician : A Rational Model of Preference Understanding in Children

    OpenAIRE

    Lucas, Christopher G.; Griffiths, Thomas L.; Xu, Fei; Fawcett, Christine; Gopnik, Alison; Kushnir, Tamar; Markson, Lori; Hu, Jane

    2014-01-01

    Recent work has shown that young children can learn about preferences by observing the choices and emotional reactions of other people, but there is no unified account of how this learning occurs. We show that a rational model, built on ideas from economics and computer science, explains the behavior of children in several experiments, and offers new predictions as well. First, we demonstrate that when children use statistical information to learn about preferences, their inferences match the...

  2. A more rational approach to new-product development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonabeau, Eric; Bodick, Neil; Armstrong, Robert W

    2008-03-01

    Companies often treat new-product development as a monolithic process, but it can be more rationally divided into two parts: an early stage that focuses on evaluating prospects and eliminating bad bets, and a late stage that maximizes the remaining candidates' market potential. Recognizing the value of this approach, Eli Lilly designed and piloted Chorus, an autonomous unit dedicated solely to the early stage. This article demonstrates how segmenting development in this way can speed it up and make it more cost-effective. Two classes of decision-making errors can impede NPD, the authors say. First, managers often ignore evidence challenging their assumptions that projects will succeed. As a result, many projects go forward despite multiple red flags; some even reach the market, only to fail dramatically after their introduction. Second, companies sometimes terminate projects prematurely because people fail to conduct the right experiments to reveal products' potential. Most companies promote both kinds of errors by focusing disproportionately on late-stage development; they lack the early, truth-seeking functions that would head such errors off. In segmented NPD, however, the early-stage organization maintains loyalty to the experiment rather than the product, whereas the late-stage organization pursues commercial success. Chorus has significantly improved NPD efficiency and productivity at Lilly. Although the unit absorbs just one-tenth of Lilly's investment in early-stage development, it delivers a substantially greater fraction of the molecules slated for late Phase II trials--at almost twice the speed and less than a third of the cost of the standard process, sometimes shaving as much as two years off the usual development time.

  3. Rationing with baselines

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.; Østerdal, Lars Peter Raahave

    2013-01-01

    We introduce a new operator for general rationing problems in which, besides conflicting claims, individual baselines play an important role in the rationing process. The operator builds onto ideas of composition, which are not only frequent in rationing, but also in related problems...... such as bargaining, choice, and queuing. We characterize the operator and show how it preserves some standard axioms in the literature on rationing. We also relate it to recent contributions in such literature....

  4. Lying for the Greater Good: Bounded Rationality in a Team

    OpenAIRE

    Oktay Sürücü

    2014-01-01

    This paper is concerned with the interaction between fully and boundedly rational agents in situations where their interests are perfectly aligned. The cognitive limitations of the boundedly rational agent do not allow him to fully understand the market conditions and lead him to take non-optimal decisions in some situations. Using categorization to model bounded rationality, we show that the fully rational agent can nudge, i.e., he can manipulate the information he sends and decrease the exp...

  5. "Between Rationality and Politics": Autobiographical Portraits of Adult Education Programme Planning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLean, Scott

    2000-01-01

    Contrasts two models of adult education program planning: (1) the technical rational model, which asserts that planning is rational application of decision-making processes; and (2) the political model, which views planning as negotiation of personal and organizational interests. Finds a place for both political sensitivity and technical…

  6. Rational design of single-molecule magnets: a supramolecular approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glaser, Thorsten

    2011-01-07

    )Cr(III)](3+), [Mn(III)(6)Fe(III)](3+), and [Mn(III)(6)Co(III)](3+) with [Mn(III)(6)Cr(III)](3+) being a SMM. A detailed analysis and comparison of the magnetic properties of the three heptanuclear complexes and the tetranuclear half-unit [Mn(III)(3)Cr(III)](3+) provides significant insight for further optimization of the SMM properties. The modular assembly of the heptanuclear complexes from three molecular building blocks allows the fine-tuning of the molecular and steric properties of each building block without losing the driving force for the formation of the heptanuclear complexes. This possibility of rational improvements of our isostructural series is the main advantage of our supramolecular approach.

  7. Rational expectations modelling in O.R

    OpenAIRE

    Phelps, R I; Warwick, J P

    1984-01-01

    The conventional OR approach to managing a system is, in outline, firstly to create a model of the existing system, secondly, to investigate changes in the model which improve or control the behaviour of the model and thirdly, to implement these changes in the system. It is assumed that the model incorporating these changes will be a valid representation of the system after the changes, in as far as the original model was a valid representation of the original system, and can thus be used to ...

  8. Electricity rationing and public response

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Souza, Leonardo Rocha; Soares, Lacir Jorge

    2007-01-01

    This paper studies the electricity load demand behavior during the 2001 rationing period, which was implemented because of the Brazilian energy crisis. The hourly data refers to a utility situated in the southeast of the country. We use the model proposed by Soares and Souza [Soares, L.J. and Souza, L.R. (2006), 'Forecasting electricity demand using generalized long memory', International Journal of Forecasting, 22, 17-28.], making use of generalized long memory to model the seasonal behavior of the load. The rationing period is shown to have imposed a structural break in the series, decreasing the load at about 20%. Even so, the forecast accuracy is decreased only marginally, and the forecasts rapidly readapt to the new situation. The structural break, as well as the forecast errors from this model, also permits verifying the public response to pieces of information released regarding the crisis. (Author)

  9. The Formation of Rational and Irrational Behaviors in Risky Investment Decision Making: Laboratory Experiment of Coping Theory Implication in Investors’ Adaptation Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wendy Wendy

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available This study analyzes the stock investor's rational and irrational behavior formation through Investor's Adaptation model. Hypotheses testings were conducted by manipulating four market conditions using between-subject experimental design. The results supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. When given treatment one (opportunity-high control, investors tended to adapt the profit maximizing strategy (rational. Meanwhile, when given treatment two (opportunity-low control, three (threat-high control and four (threat-low control, they tended to adapt the profit satisfying strategy (rational-emotional, bad news handling strategy (emotional-rational, and self-preserving strategy (irrational respectively. The application of rational strategies are intended to obtain personal benefits and profit, while adapting irrational strategy is intended to recover emotional stability and reduce some other tensions. Another finding showed that for the investors, the relatively irrational decision formation was "harder" than that of rational.

  10. Emergence of scale-free characteristics in socio-ecological systems with bounded rationality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kasthurirathna, Dharshana; Piraveenan, Mahendra

    2015-06-11

    Socio-ecological systems are increasingly modelled by games played on complex networks. While the concept of Nash equilibrium assumes perfect rationality, in reality players display heterogeneous bounded rationality. Here we present a topological model of bounded rationality in socio-ecological systems, using the rationality parameter of the Quantal Response Equilibrium. We argue that system rationality could be measured by the average Kullback--Leibler divergence between Nash and Quantal Response Equilibria, and that the convergence towards Nash equilibria on average corresponds to increased system rationality. Using this model, we show that when a randomly connected socio-ecological system is topologically optimised to converge towards Nash equilibria, scale-free and small world features emerge. Therefore, optimising system rationality is an evolutionary reason for the emergence of scale-free and small-world features in socio-ecological systems. Further, we show that in games where multiple equilibria are possible, the correlation between the scale-freeness of the system and the fraction of links with multiple equilibria goes through a rapid transition when the average system rationality increases. Our results explain the influence of the topological structure of socio-ecological systems in shaping their collective cognitive behaviour, and provide an explanation for the prevalence of scale-free and small-world characteristics in such systems.

  11. Multilevel Molecular Modeling Approach for a Rational Design of Ionic Current Sensors for Nanofluidics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirch, Alexsandro; de Almeida, James M; Miranda, Caetano R

    2018-05-10

    The complexity displayed by nanofluidic-based systems involves electronic and dynamic aspects occurring across different size and time scales. To properly model such kind of system, we introduced a top-down multilevel approach, combining molecular dynamics simulations (MD) with first-principles electronic transport calculations. The potential of this technique was demonstrated by investigating how the water and ionic flow through a (6,6) carbon nanotube (CNT) influences its electronic transport properties. We showed that the confinement on the CNT favors the partially hydrated Na, Cl, and Li ions to exchange charge with the nanotube. This leads to a change in the electronic transmittance, allowing for the distinguishing of cations from anions. Such an ionic trace may handle an indirect measurement of the ionic current that is recorded as a sensing output. With this case study, we are able to show the potential of this top-down multilevel approach, to be applied on the design of novel nanofluidic devices.

  12. The child as econometrician: a rational model of preference understanding in children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucas, Christopher G; Griffiths, Thomas L; Xu, Fei; Fawcett, Christine; Gopnik, Alison; Kushnir, Tamar; Markson, Lori; Hu, Jane

    2014-01-01

    Recent work has shown that young children can learn about preferences by observing the choices and emotional reactions of other people, but there is no unified account of how this learning occurs. We show that a rational model, built on ideas from economics and computer science, explains the behavior of children in several experiments, and offers new predictions as well. First, we demonstrate that when children use statistical information to learn about preferences, their inferences match the predictions of a simple econometric model. Next, we show that this same model can explain children's ability to learn that other people have preferences similar to or different from their own and use that knowledge to reason about the desirability of hidden objects. Finally, we use the model to explain a developmental shift in preference understanding.

  13. A Theorectical Frame of Reference for Rational-Emotive Psychotherapy and Its Application to the Problems of the Under-Achiever.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Konietzko, Kurt

    The Rational Emotive Approach centers upon a model in which the human being is seen as a series of systems constantly interacting with others to keep itself functioning. Underlying this approach is the view that it is never the event, but our view of it, which creates the emotional response. Many irrational, culturally structured beliefs cause…

  14. Rational Behavior Skills: A Teaching Sequence for Students with Emotional Disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patton, Patricia Lucey

    1995-01-01

    Rational behavior training is a proactive teaching model concerned with helping students with behavior disorders or serious emotional disturbances develop rational thinking and appropriate social skills. Describes a seven-session sequence for teaching rational behavior skills in a middle school setting. Pre- and posttest data revealed significant…

  15. 'Ethical rationality': A subjective-objective concept of risk assessment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kaiser, H.

    1991-01-01

    'Ethical rationality' as a concept of risk assessment means that risks are assessed using an integrative, ethical-normative approach (taking values, world views and people's understanding of what it means to be a human being and of what makes life worth living into account). Thus risks cannot be assessed on a mathematical and statistical basis alone. It is much more important to reflect upon what makes life worth living. In order to answer this question, the rationality of probability calculus does not suffice. Instead, this form of rationality must be transformed into or replaced by ethical discourse (an open, iterative and complex process of making ethical judgement). Proposals for an ethical assessment of risk are made which are substantiated by the theoretical concept of ethical rationality comprising the following steps: - Consideration of the nature of ethics (understanding of the viewer's perspective); - A look at an ethical interpretation of the traditional mathematical concept of risk (description); - Scheme for an ethical conception of rationality (theoretical reflections); - Weighing risks from an ethical perspective in practice. (orig./HSCH) [de

  16. On Counting the Rational Numbers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Almada, Carlos

    2010-01-01

    In this study, we show how to construct a function from the set N of natural numbers that explicitly counts the set Q[superscript +] of all positive rational numbers using a very intuitive approach. The function has the appeal of Cantor's function and it has the advantage that any high school student can understand the main idea at a glance…

  17. Inaugurating Rationalization: Three Field Studies Find Increased Rationalization When Anticipated Realities Become Current.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laurin, Kristin

    2018-04-01

    People will often rationalize the status quo, reconstruing it in an exaggeratedly positive light. They will even rationalize the status quo they anticipate, emphasizing the upsides and minimizing the downsides of sociopolitical realities they expect to take effect. Drawing on recent findings on the psychological triggers of rationalization, I present results from three field studies, one of which was preregistered, testing the hypothesis that an anticipated reality becoming current triggers an observable boost in people's rationalizations. San Franciscans rationalized a ban on plastic water bottles, Ontarians rationalized a targeted smoking ban, and Americans rationalized the presidency of Donald Trump, more in the days immediately after these realities became current compared with the days immediately before. Additional findings show evidence for a mechanism underlying these behaviors and rule out alternative accounts. These findings carry implications for scholarship on rationalization, for understanding protest behavior, and for policymakers.

  18. Rational Design Approach for Enhancing Higher-Mode Response of a Microcantilever in Vibro-Impacting Mode

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ieva Migliniene

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper proposes an approach for designing an efficient vibration energy harvester based on a vibro-impacting piezoelectric microcantilever with a geometric shape that has been rationally modified in accordance with results of dynamic optimization. The design goal is to increase the amplitudes of higher-order vibration modes induced during the vibro-impact response of the piezoelectric transducer, thereby providing a means to improve the energy conversion efficiency and power output. A rational configuration of the energy harvester is proposed and it is demonstrated that the new design retains essential modal characteristics of the optimal microcantilever structures, further providing the added benefit of less costly fabrication. The effects of structural dynamics associated with advantageous exploitation of higher vibration modes are analyzed experimentally by means of laser vibrometry as well as numerically via transient simulations of microcantilever response to random excitation. Electrical characterization results indicate that the proposed harvester outperforms its conventional counterpart (based on the microcantilever of the constant cross-section in terms of generated electrical output. Reported results may serve for the development of impact-type micropower generators with harvesting performance that is enhanced by virtue of self-excitation of large intensity higher-order mode responses when the piezoelectric transducer is subjected to relatively low-frequency excitation with strongly variable vibration magnitudes.

  19. Realization theory for rational systems: Minimal rational realizations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    J. Nemcová (Jana); J.H. van Schuppen (Jan)

    2010-01-01

    htmlabstractThe study of realizations of response maps is a topic of control and system theory. Realization theory is used in system identification and control synthesis. A minimal rational realization of a given response map p is a rational realization of p such that the dimension of its state

  20. How Stakeholder Co-management Reproduces Conservation Conflicts: Revealing Rationality Problems in Swedish Wolf Conservation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erica von Essen

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available 'Stakeholder' has become the primary category of political actor in decision-making, not least within nature conservation. Drawing from Habermas' theory on communicative action, this article argues that there are democratic deficits to the stakeholder model that promote citizens to remain locked in predetermined, polarized positions. It contends that the stakeholder model must, hence, be scrutinized with respect to its potential role in perpetuating conservation conflicts in modernity. Using the case study of stakeholder-based game management delegations (GMDs in Sweden, our research identifies four barriers, which tie to the instrumental basis and liberal democratic legacy of the stakeholder approach: 1 strong sense of accountability; 2 overly purposive atmosphere; 3 overemphasis on decision as final outcome; and 4 perceived inability on the part of the delegates to influence science-led decision-making. The article suggests that these democratic deficits preclude the deliberation and contestation necessary to legitimate conservation policy. Indeed, stakeholder rationality causes citizens to become inert, instrumental agents who approach discussion with strategic rather than communicative rationality. We conclude that the deficits of the stakeholder model currently: 1 restrict democratic freedom for citizens; 2 engender a crisis of legitimacy of management; and 3 reproduce the conflict, which in Sweden relates to the conservation of wolves.

  1. Does the cognitive reflection test measure cognitive reflection? A mathematical modeling approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campitelli, Guillermo; Gerrans, Paul

    2014-04-01

    We used a mathematical modeling approach, based on a sample of 2,019 participants, to better understand what the cognitive reflection test (CRT; Frederick In Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25-42, 2005) measures. This test, which is typically completed in less than 10 min, contains three problems and aims to measure the ability or disposition to resist reporting the response that first comes to mind. However, since the test contains three mathematically based problems, it is possible that the test only measures mathematical abilities, and not cognitive reflection. We found that the models that included an inhibition parameter (i.e., the probability of inhibiting an intuitive response), as well as a mathematical parameter (i.e., the probability of using an adequate mathematical procedure), fitted the data better than a model that only included a mathematical parameter. We also found that the inhibition parameter in males is best explained by both rational thinking ability and the disposition toward actively open-minded thinking, whereas in females this parameter was better explained by rational thinking only. With these findings, this study contributes to the understanding of the processes involved in solving the CRT, and will be particularly useful for researchers who are considering using this test in their research.

  2. The child as econometrician: a rational model of preference understanding in children.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher G Lucas

    Full Text Available Recent work has shown that young children can learn about preferences by observing the choices and emotional reactions of other people, but there is no unified account of how this learning occurs. We show that a rational model, built on ideas from economics and computer science, explains the behavior of children in several experiments, and offers new predictions as well. First, we demonstrate that when children use statistical information to learn about preferences, their inferences match the predictions of a simple econometric model. Next, we show that this same model can explain children's ability to learn that other people have preferences similar to or different from their own and use that knowledge to reason about the desirability of hidden objects. Finally, we use the model to explain a developmental shift in preference understanding.

  3. Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    1980-06-01

    The final rules adopted by the President for a Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan are presented. The plan provides that eligibility for ration allotments will be determined primarily on the basis of motor vehicle registrations, taking into account historical differences in the use of gasoline among states. The regulations also provide authority for supplemental allotments to firms so that their allotment will equal a specified percentage of gasoline use during a base period. Priority classifications, i.e., agriculture, defense, etc., are established to assure adequate gasoline supplies for designated essential services. Ration rights must be provided by end-users to their suppliers for each gallon sold. DOE will regulate the distribution of gasoline at the wholesale level according to the transfer by suppliers of redeemed ration rights and the gasoline allocation regulations. Ration rights are transferable. A ration banking system is created to facilitate transfers of ration rights. Each state will be provided with a reserve of ration rights to provide for hardship needs and to alleviate inequities. (DC)

  4. Rationalism and emotivism from a neuroethic approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pedro Jesús Pérez Zafrilla

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The development of neuroethics has used to privilege the role of emotion in contrast to reasoning in moral deliberation. My aim in this paper to oppose two models of moral deliberation articulated from neuroethics: the emotivist one, developed by Haidt and Lakoff; and the rationalist one, elaborated by Hugo Mercier. My aim is to stablish if Mercier rehabilitates reasoning in neuroethics or if his approach is an emotivist one too.

  5. Societal rationality; towards an understanding of decision making processes in society

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wahlstroem, Bjoern

    2001-01-01

    In a search for new ways to structure decision making on complex and controversial issues it is necessary to build an understanding of why traditional decision making processes break down. One reason is connected to the issues themselves. They represent steps into the unknown and decisions should therefore be made with prudence. A second reason is connected to a track record according to which new technologies are seen as generating more problems than solutions. A third and more fundamental reason is connected to the decision making processes themselves and a need to find better ways to approach difficult questions in the society. One way to approach societal decision making processes is to investigate their hidden rationality in an attempt to understand causes of observed difficulties. The paper is based mainly on observations from the nuclear industry, but it builds also on controversies experienced in attempts to agree on global efforts towards sustainable approaches to development. It builds on an earlier paper, which discussed the basis of rationality both on an individual and a societal level. Research in societal decision making has to rely on a true multi-disciplinary approach. It is nor enough to understand the technical and scientific models by which outcomes are predicted, but it is also necessary to understand how people make sense of their environment and how they co-operate. Rationality is in this connection one of the key concepts, with an understanding that people always are rational in their own frame of action. The challenge in this connection is to understand how this subjective rationality is formed. Societal rationality has to do with the allocation of resources. There are decisions in which several conflicting views have to be considered. Spending time and resources ex ante may support a consensus ex post, but unfortunately there is no panacea for approaching difficult decisions. Decisions with an uncertain future have to be more robust than

  6. Societal rationality; towards an understanding of decision making processes in society

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wahlstroem, Bjoern [Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo (Finland)

    2001-07-01

    In a search for new ways to structure decision making on complex and controversial issues it is necessary to build an understanding of why traditional decision making processes break down. One reason is connected to the issues themselves. They represent steps into the unknown and decisions should therefore be made with prudence. A second reason is connected to a track record according to which new technologies are seen as generating more problems than solutions. A third and more fundamental reason is connected to the decision making processes themselves and a need to find better ways to approach difficult questions in the society. One way to approach societal decision making processes is to investigate their hidden rationality in an attempt to understand causes of observed difficulties. The paper is based mainly on observations from the nuclear industry, but it builds also on controversies experienced in attempts to agree on global efforts towards sustainable approaches to development. It builds on an earlier paper, which discussed the basis of rationality both on an individual and a societal level. Research in societal decision making has to rely on a true multi-disciplinary approach. It is nor enough to understand the technical and scientific models by which outcomes are predicted, but it is also necessary to understand how people make sense of their environment and how they co-operate. Rationality is in this connection one of the key concepts, with an understanding that people always are rational in their own frame of action. The challenge in this connection is to understand how this subjective rationality is formed. Societal rationality has to do with the allocation of resources. There are decisions in which several conflicting views have to be considered. Spending time and resources ex ante may support a consensus ex post, but unfortunately there is no panacea for approaching difficult decisions. Decisions with an uncertain future have to be more robust than

  7. A Rational Threshold Signature Model and Protocol Based on Different Permissions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bojun Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper develops a novel model and protocol used in some specific scenarios, in which the participants of multiple groups with different permissions can finish the signature together. We apply the secret sharing scheme based on difference equation to the private key distribution phase and secret reconstruction phrase of our threshold signature scheme. In addition, our scheme can achieve the signature success because of the punishment strategy of the repeated rational secret sharing. Besides, the bit commitment and verification method used to detect players’ cheating behavior acts as a contributing factor to prevent the internal fraud. Using bit commitments, verifiable parameters, and time sequences, this paper constructs a dynamic game model, which has the features of threshold signature management with different permissions, cheat proof, and forward security.

  8. EVALUATION OF RATIONAL FUNCTION MODEL FOR GEOMETRIC MODELING OF CHANG'E-1 CCD IMAGES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Y. Liu

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Rational Function Model (RFM is a generic geometric model that has been widely used in geometric processing of high-resolution earth-observation satellite images, due to its generality and excellent capability of fitting complex rigorous sensor models. In this paper, the feasibility and precision of RFM for geometric modeling of China's Chang'E-1 (CE-1 lunar orbiter images is presented. The RFM parameters of forward-, nadir- and backward-looking CE-1 images are generated though least squares solution using virtual control points derived from the rigorous sensor model. The precision of the RFM is evaluated by comparing with the rigorous sensor model in both image space and object space. Experimental results using nine images from three orbits show that RFM can precisely fit the rigorous sensor model of CE-1 CCD images with a RMS residual error of 1/100 pixel level in image space and less than 5 meters in object space. This indicates that it is feasible to use RFM to describe the imaging geometry of CE-1 CCD images and spacecraft position and orientation. RFM will enable planetary data centers to have an option to supply RFM parameters of orbital images while keeping the original orbit trajectory data confidential.

  9. A model for the parabolic slices Per1(e2πip/q) in moduli space of quadratic rational maps

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Uhre, Eva

    2010-01-01

    The notion of relatedness loci in the parabolic slices Per1(e2πip/q) in moduli space of quadratic rational maps is introduced. They are counterparts of the disconnectedness or escape locus in the slice of quadratic polynomials. A model for these loci is presented, and a strategy of proof of the f......The notion of relatedness loci in the parabolic slices Per1(e2πip/q) in moduli space of quadratic rational maps is introduced. They are counterparts of the disconnectedness or escape locus in the slice of quadratic polynomials. A model for these loci is presented, and a strategy of proof...... of the faithfulness of the model is given....

  10. Procedural Rationality in the Decision-Making of Internationalizing SMEs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hsieh, Linda; Elbanna, Said; Narooz, Rose

    This paper contributes to the growing body of empirical work on how SME decision-makers decide to internationalize in two ways: first, it responds to recent calls for incorporating strategic decision-making literature into understanding SME internationalization decisions. Second, it provides a be...... a more rational decision-making procedure when they perceive a high level of international risk. The evidence also suggest that internationalization performance, planned internationalization, credit check, and decision team size are positively related to procedural rationality....... a better understanding of under what circumstances, SME decision-makers tend to follow a more rational approach toward internationalization decisions. Specifically, this paper examines a set of contextual variables (the level of perceived international risk, internationalization performance, planned versus...... ad hoc internationalization, credit check, distribution adaptation, and decision team size) and their influence on the extent of procedural rationality in SME internationalization decision-making process. The findings from a sample of 176 export-active SMEs show that decision-makers tend to follow...

  11. Feature inference with uncertain categorization: Re-assessing Anderson's rational model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Konovalova, Elizaveta; Le Mens, Gaël

    2017-09-18

    A key function of categories is to help predictions about unobserved features of objects. At the same time, humans are often in situations where the categories of the objects they perceive are uncertain. In an influential paper, Anderson (Psychological Review, 98(3), 409-429, 1991) proposed a rational model for feature inferences with uncertain categorization. A crucial feature of this model is the conditional independence assumption-it assumes that the within category feature correlation is zero. In prior research, this model has been found to provide a poor fit to participants' inferences. This evidence is restricted to task environments inconsistent with the conditional independence assumption. Currently available evidence thus provides little information about how this model would fit participants' inferences in a setting with conditional independence. In four experiments based on a novel paradigm and one experiment based on an existing paradigm, we assess the performance of Anderson's model under conditional independence. We find that this model predicts participants' inferences better than competing models. One model assumes that inferences are based on just the most likely category. The second model is insensitive to categories but sensitive to overall feature correlation. The performance of Anderson's model is evidence that inferences were influenced not only by the more likely category but also by the other candidate category. Our findings suggest that a version of Anderson's model which relaxes the conditional independence assumption will likely perform well in environments characterized by within-category feature correlation.

  12. Adolescent rationality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moshman, David

    2013-01-01

    Adolescents are commonly seen as irrational, a position supported to varying degrees by many developmentalists, who often appeal to recent research on adolescent brains. Careful review of relevant evidence, however, shows that (1) adults are less rational than is generally assumed, (2) adolescents (and adults) are categorically different from children with respect to the attainment of advanced levels of rationality and psychological functioning, and (3) adolescents and adults do not differ categorically from each other with respect to any rational competencies, irrational tendencies, brain structures, or neurological functioning. Development often continues in adolescence and beyond but categorical claims about adolescents as distinct from adults cannot be justified. A review of U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning intellectual freedom, reproductive freedom, and criminal responsibility shows ongoing ambivalence and confusion about the rationality of adolescents. Developmental theory and research suggest that adolescents should be conceptualized as young adults, not immature brains, with important implications for their roles, rights, and responsibilities.

  13. Neuroethics transformation of economic rationality: implications for decision making in business

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José-Félix Lozano

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The economy and business field has traditionally been dominated by a conception of calculator, strategic and profit-maximizing individual rationality. This model of rationality has important theoretical limitations and practical consequences. In recent decades the results of neuroethics´ research seems open new ways for understanding the practical rationality. These new routes, representing a revaluation of emotional and intuitive dimension in cognitive ability and have great relevance for business and economic decision making. The aim of this paper is to analyse the implications of a rational dialogic-friendly (cor-cordis concept for economic and business decision-making. Our work proposes a version of the dialogic-friendly practical rationality that integrate advances in neuroethics with the discursive rationality perspective in order to overcome the strategic rationality and emotivist intuitionism.

  14. The interplay between intuition and rationality in strategic decision making: A paradox perspective

    OpenAIRE

    Calabretta, G.; Gemser, G.; Wijnberg, N.M.

    2017-01-01

    Although scholars have made a strong plea for an integrative approach to strategic decision making, an integrated framework that accounts for the interplay between intuition and rationality is still missing. This study addresses this gap by using a paradox lens and conceptualizes the intuition-rationality duality as a paradoxical tension. We draw on seven case studies of innovation projects to empirically derive a three-step process for managing this intuition-rationality tension through para...

  15. Changing fields of rationality - a policy for change?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Strumse, Einar; Westskog, Hege; Winther, Tanja

    2010-07-01

    Work objective: To analyze effective strategies for changing households' energy consumption based on an interdisciplinary model for understanding change. Methodology: In this paper we develop a conceptual model for understanding individuals' energy consumption. We synthesize insights from anthropology, social psychology and economics grasping perspectives from behaviour to practice and from the Bourdieu's fields to rationality thinking in economics. We use this insight to analyze strategies for change. Abstract: In this paper we analyze effective strategies for changing households' energy consumption based on an interdisciplinary model for understanding change. The model focuses on four main categories for understanding individual consumption: a. Material constraints b. Values and identity c. Norms d. Ability These are the main influencing factors of the individual's consumption level, but in interaction with the corresponding group and the societal levels for the same factors. The model can be illustrated. One combination of factors on all levels constitutes a field of rationality. We claim that an important strategy for changing energy consumption towards sustainability is changing the field of rationality of the individual. Changing of rationality fields would from our point of view initiate reflection which is an important condition for changed behavior. One example of changing of fields is information measures that relates energy consumption to the 'citizen' field rather than the 'consumer' field. Hence, according to our conceptual framework - how policy should be framed (information measures for instance ) would be an important knowledge area for design of effective policy measures. (Author)

  16. Modeling the structure of the attitudes and belief scale 2 using CFA and bifactor approaches: Toward the development of an abbreviated version.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

    2014-01-01

    The Attitudes and Belief Scale-2 (ABS-2: DiGiuseppe, Leaf, Exner, & Robin, 1988. The development of a measure of rational/irrational thinking. Paper presented at the World Congress of Behavior Therapy, Edinburg, Scotland.) is a 72-item self-report measure of evaluative rational and irrational beliefs widely used in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy research contexts. However, little psychometric evidence exists regarding the measure's underlying factor structure. Furthermore, given the length of the ABS-2 there is a need for an abbreviated version that can be administered when there are time demands on the researcher, such as in clinical settings. This study sought to examine a series of theoretical models hypothesized to represent the latent structure of the ABS-2 within an alternative models framework using traditional confirmatory factor analysis as well as utilizing a bifactor modeling approach. Furthermore, this study also sought to develop a psychometrically sound abbreviated version of the ABS-2. Three hundred and thirteen (N = 313) active emergency service personnel completed the ABS-2. Results indicated that for each model, the application of bifactor modeling procedures improved model fit statistics, and a novel eight-factor intercorrelated solution was identified as the best fitting model of the ABS-2. However, the observed fit indices failed to satisfy commonly accepted standards. A 24-item abbreviated version was thus constructed and an intercorrelated eight-factor solution yielded satisfactory model fit statistics. Current results support the use of a bifactor modeling approach to determining the factor structure of the ABS-2. Furthermore, results provide empirical support for the psychometric properties of the newly developed abbreviated version.

  17. Love and rationality: on some possible rational effects of love

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gustavo Ortiz-Millán

    Full Text Available In this paper I defend the idea that rather than disrupting rationality, as the common-sense conception has done it, love may actually help us to develop rational ways of thinking and acting. I make the case for romantic or erotic love, since this is the kind of love that is more frequently associated with irrationality in acting and thinking. I argue that this kind of love may make us develop epistemic and practical forms of rationality. Based on an analysis of its characteristic action tendencies, I argue that love may help us to develop an instrumental form of rationality in determining the best means to achieve the object of love. It may also narrow down the number of practical considerations that may help us to achieve our goals. Finally, love may generate rational ways of belief-formation by framing the parameters taken into account in perception and attention, and by bringing into light only a small portion of the epistemic information available. Love may make us perceive reality more acutely.

  18. Rationalization with ruled surfaces in architecture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Steenstrup, Kasper Hornbak

    This thesis addresses the problems of rationalizing and segmenting large scale 3D models, and how to handle difficult production constraints in this area. The design choices when constructing large scale architecture are influenced by the budget. Therefore I strive to minimize the amount of time...... and material needed for production. This makes advanced free form architecture viable for low cost projects, allowing the architects to realize their designs. By pre-cutting building blocks using hot wire robots, the amount of milling necessary can be reduced drastically. I do this by rationalizing...

  19. Unpredictable drug shortages: an ethical framework for short-term rationing in hospitals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosoff, Philip M

    2012-01-01

    Periodic and unexpected shortages of drugs, biologics, and even medical devices have become commonplace in the United States. When shortages occur, hospitals and clinics need to decide how to ration their available stock. When such situations arise, institutions can choose from several different allocation schemes, such as first-come, first-served, a lottery, or a more rational and calculated approach. While the first two approaches sound reasonable at first glance, there are a number of problems associated with them, including the inability to make fine, individual patient-centered decisions. They also do not discriminate between what kinds of patients and what types of uses may be more deserving or reasonable than others. In this article I outline an ethically acceptable procedure for rationing drugs during a shortage in which demand outstrips supply.

  20. Identifying extensions required by RUP (Rational Unified Process) to comply with CMM (Capability Maturity Model) levels 2 and 3

    OpenAIRE

    Manzoni, Lisandra Vielmo; Price, Roberto Tom

    2003-01-01

    This paper describes an assessment of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) based on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). For each key practice (KP) identified in each key process area (KPA) of CMM levels 2 and 3, the Rational Unified Process was assessed to determine whether it satisfied the KP or not. For each KPA, the percentage of the key practices supported was calculated, and the results were tabulated. The report includes considerations about the coverage of each key process area, describ...

  1. A rationalized approach to the imaging of space-occupying lesions in the liver

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Engelbrecht, H.E.

    1985-01-01

    A rational approach to the imaging of mass lesions within the liver has been presented. An attempt has been made to advocate a philosophy which emphasizes the importance of considering pathological, biochemical, clinical and likely management criteria in each case before selecting a first-line imaging procedure. The subject is presented under three headings: i) What That is, clinical and pathological criteria for assesing the nature of a suspected space-occupying lesion in the liver; ii) Why That is a projection of the likely practical value of the result; iii) How That is determination of a logical imaging program depending on the assesment of criteria under the first two headings. The following examples of active treatment are discussed: partial hepotectomy, highly vascular lesions, toxaemia and pyrexia. The following factors influence the decision of the imaging procedure to be used: the accuracy of the modality in relation to the suspected lesion, local availability of equipment and expentise, invasive versus non-invasive aspects and cost-effectiveness

  2. New and More General Rational Formal Solutions to (2+1)-Dimensional Toda System

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bai Chenglin

    2007-01-01

    With the aid of computerized symbolic computation and Riccati equation rational expansion approach, some new and more general rational formal solutions to (2+1)-dimensional Toda system are obtained. The method used here can also be applied to solve other nonlinear differential-difference equation or equations.

  3. Network marketing with bounded rationality and partial information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiet, Hoang Anh Tuan; Kim, Beom Jun

    2008-08-01

    Network marketing has been proposed and used as a way to spread the product information to consumers through social connections. We extend the previous game model of the network marketing on a small-world tree network and propose two games: In the first model with the bounded rationality, each consumer makes purchase decision stochastically, while in the second model, consumers get only partial information due to the finite length of social connections. Via extensive numerical simulations, we find that as the rationality is enhanced not only the consumer surplus but also the firm’s profit is increased. The implication of our results is also discussed.

  4. CONTRIBUTIONS TO RATIONAL APPROXIMATION,

    Science.gov (United States)

    Some of the key results of linear Chebyshev approximation theory are extended to generalized rational functions. Prominent among these is Haar’s...linear theorem which yields necessary and sufficient conditions for uniqueness. Some new results in the classic field of rational function Chebyshev...Furthermore a Weierstrass type theorem is proven for rational Chebyshev approximation. A characterization theorem for rational trigonometric Chebyshev approximation in terms of sign alternation is developed. (Author)

  5. Rationing in the emergency department: the good, the bad, and the unacceptable.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cross, E; Goodacre, S; O'Cathain, A; Arnold, J

    2005-03-01

    Waiting times in emergency departments (EDs) are an important government priority. Although substantial efforts are currently being made to reduce waiting times, little attention has been paid to the patients' view. We used qualitative methods to explore patients' perspectives on waiting times and other approaches to rationing and prioritisation. Face to face, in depth, qualitative interviews (n = 11) explored how patients valued waiting times for non-urgent ED care. The framework approach (identifying a thematic framework through repeated re-reading) was used to analyse transcripts. Interviewees found some forms of rationing and prioritisation acceptable. They expected rationing by delay, but required explanations or information on the reason for their wait. They valued prioritisation by triage (rationing by selection) and thought that this role could be expanded for the re-direction of non-urgent patients elsewhere (rationing by deflection). Interviewees were mainly unwilling or unable to engage in prioritisation of different types of patients, openly prioritising only those with obvious clinical need, and children. However, some interviewees were willing to ration implicitly, labelling some attenders as inappropriate, such as those causing a nuisance. Others felt it was unacceptable to blame "inappropriate" attenders, as their attendance may relate to lack of information or awareness of service use. Explicit rationing between services was not acceptable, although some believed there were more important priorities for NHS resources than ED waiting times. Interviewees disagreed with the hypothetical notion of paying to be seen more quickly in the ED (rationing by charging). Interviewees expected to wait and accepted the need for prioritisation, although they were reluctant to engage in judgements regarding prioritisation. They supported the re-direction of patients with certain non-urgent complaints. However, they perceived a need for more explanation and

  6. Rational points, rational curves, and entire holomorphic curves on projective varieties

    CERN Document Server

    Gasbarri, Carlo; Roth, Mike; Tschinkel, Yuri

    2015-01-01

    This volume contains papers from the Short Thematic Program on Rational Points, Rational Curves, and Entire Holomorphic Curves and Algebraic Varieties, held from June 3-28, 2013, at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada. The program was dedicated to the study of subtle interconnections between geometric and arithmetic properties of higher-dimensional algebraic varieties. The main areas of the program were, among others, proving density of rational points in Zariski or analytic topology on special varieties, understanding global geometric properties of rationally connected varieties, as well as connections between geometry and algebraic dynamics exploring new geometric techniques in Diophantine approximation.

  7. Is Educational Policy Making Rational--and What Would that Mean, Anyway?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bredo, Eric

    2009-01-01

    In "Moderating the Debate: Rationality and the Promise of American Education," Michael Feuer raises concerns about the consequences of basing educational policy on the model of rational choice drawn from economics. Policy making would be better and more realistic, he suggests, if it were based on a newer procedural model drawn from cognitive…

  8. Rational Multiparty Computation

    OpenAIRE

    Wallrabenstein, John Ross

    2014-01-01

    The field of rational cryptography considers the design of cryptographic protocols in the presence of rational agents seeking to maximize local utility functions. This departs from the standard secure multiparty computation setting, where players are assumed to be either honest or malicious. ^ We detail the construction of both a two-party and a multiparty game theoretic framework for constructing rational cryptographic protocols. Our framework specifies the utility function assumptions neces...

  9. The Classical Model of Science: a Millennia-Old Model of Scientific Rationality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Jong, W.R.; Betti, A.

    2010-01-01

    Throughout more than two millennia philosophers adhered massively to ideal standards of scientific rationality going back ultimately to Aristotle's Analytica posteriora. These standards got progressively shaped by and adapted to new scientific needs and tendencies. Nevertheless, a core of conditions

  10. Modeling a terminology-based electronic nursing record system: an object-oriented approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Cho, InSook; Byeun, NamSoo

    2007-10-01

    The aim of this study was to present our perspectives on healthcare information analysis at a conceptual level and the lessons learned from our experience with the development of a terminology-based enterprise electronic nursing record system - which was one of components in an EMR system at a tertiary teaching hospital in Korea - using an object-oriented system analysis and design concept. To ensure a systematic approach and effective collaboration, the department of nursing constituted a system modeling team comprising a project manager, systems analysts, user representatives, an object-oriented methodology expert, and healthcare informaticists (including the authors). A rational unified process (RUP) and the Unified Modeling Language were used as a development process and for modeling notation, respectively. From the scenario and RUP approach, user requirements were formulated into use case sets and the sequence of activities in the scenario was depicted in an activity diagram. The structure of the system was presented in a class diagram. This approach allowed us to identify clearly the structural and behavioral states and important factors of a terminology-based ENR system (e.g., business concerns and system design concerns) according to the viewpoints of both domain and technical experts.

  11. Passionate Rationalism: The Role of Emotion in Decision Making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lakomski, Gabriele; Evers, Colin W.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to argue that emotion has a central role to play in rational decision making based on recent research in the neuroanatomy of emotion. As a result, traditional rational decision-making theories, including Herbert Simon's modified model of satisficing that sharply demarcates emotions and values from rationality…

  12. Emotional Theory of Rationality

    OpenAIRE

    Garcés, Mario; Finkel, Lucila

    2011-01-01

    In recent decades, it has been definitely established the existence of a close relationship between the emotional phenomena and rational processes, but we still do not have a unified definition, or effective models to describe any of them well. To advance our understanding of the mechanisms governing the behavior of living beings we must integrate multiple theories, experiments and models from both fields. In this paper we propose a new theoretical framework that allows integrating and unders...

  13. Breaking out of the economic box: energy efficiency, social rationality and non-economic drivers of behavioral change

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ehrhardt-Martinez, Karen; Laitner, John A. ' Skip' (ACEEE, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Washington, D.C. (United States))

    2009-07-01

    Energy concerns are increasingly on people's minds. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 30 percent of American's reported that energy prices were the most important financial problem facing their families today. But are these new concerns likely to translate into long-term behavioral changes and more energy-efficient behavior? Research suggests that it will take more than high prices to achieve maximum energy savings. People may like to think of themselves as rational economic actors, but a variety of studies by social-psychologists and behavioral economists reveal that people often act in ways that may be better described as 'socially-rational' and 'predictably irrational'. Despite these findings, many residential energy programs and most policy assessments continue to model potential energy savings as a function of existing technologies and the cost of those energy resources. This paper explores the ways in which individual behavior is shaped by the social context within which people operate and presents an alternative framework for modeling efficiency behavior. The alternative model recognizes that while individuals may not always behave in economically-rational ways, their behavior may be entirely rational from other vantage points. In fact, individuals often behave as rational social actors, determining what is and isn't 'appropriate' behavior by gleaning information from their own observations, from their peers, and from interactions within their sphere of social influence. As such, this paper explores the ways in which social rules, resources and context shape individual patterns of energy consumption. This alternative approach has important implications for program designs and policy recommendations.

  14. Mathematical models, rational choice, and the search for Cold War culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erickson, Paul

    2010-06-01

    A key feature of the social, behavioral, and biological sciences after World War II has been the widespread adoption of new mathematical techniques drawn from cybernetics, information theory, and theories of rational choice. Historians of science have typically sought to explain this adoption either by reference to military patronage, or to a characteristic Cold War culture or discursive framework strongly shaped by the concerns of national security. This essay explores several episodes in the history of game theory--a mathematical theory of rational choice--that demonstrate the limits of such explanations. Military funding was indeed critical to game theory's early development in the 1940s. However, the theory's subsequent spread across disciplines ranging from political science to evolutionary biology was the result of a diverse collection of debates about the nature of "rationality" and "choice" that marked the Cold War era. These debates are not easily reduced to the national security imperatives that have been the focus of much historiography to date.

  15. Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hermes, Jonas; Behne, Tanya; Bich, Anna Elisa; Thielert, Christa; Rakoczy, Hannes

    2018-03-01

    Recent research has amply documented that even preschoolers learn selectively from others, preferring, for example, reliable over unreliable and competent over incompetent models. It remains unclear, however, what the cognitive foundations of such selective learning are, in particular, whether it builds on rational inferences or on less sophisticated processes. The current study, therefore, was designed to test directly the possibility that children are in principle capable of selective learning based on rational inference, yet revert to simpler strategies such as global impression formation under certain circumstances. Preschoolers (N = 75) were shown pairs of models that either differed in their degree of competence within one domain (strong vs. weak or knowledgeable vs. ignorant) or were both highly competent, but in different domains (e.g., strong vs. knowledgeable model). In the test trials, children chose between the models for strength- or knowledge-related tasks. The results suggest that, in fact, children are capable of rational inference-based selective trust: when both models were highly competent, children preferred the model with the competence most predictive and relevant for a given task. However, when choosing between two models that differed in competence on one dimension, children reverted to halo-style wide generalizations and preferred the competent models for both relevant and irrelevant tasks. These findings suggest that the rational strategies for selective learning, that children master in principle, can get masked by various performance factors. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. A meta-analysis of the relationship between rational beliefs and psychological distress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oltean, Horea-Radu; David, Daniel Ovidiu

    2018-06-01

     Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) model of psychological health assumes that rational beliefs cause functional emotions and adaptive behavior, but the presumed role of rational beliefs as protective factor against psychological distress/disorders is still in debate. An important step in validating an evidence-based therapy is to investigate the underling theoretical assumptions. Thus, the aim of the present meta-analysis is to investigate the direction and magnitude of the relationship between rational beliefs and psychological distress.  Our search identified 26 studies that met our criteria. We evaluated the effect size using the random-effects model and we tested the moderator role of several variables. The overall results revealed a medium negative association between rational beliefs and psychological distress, r = -0.31. The strongest association was found for unconditional acceptance beliefs (r = -0.41). The results add empirical evidence for the underling theory of REBT and revealed that the strength of the association between rational beliefs and distress is robust for a wide range of emotional problems. Therefore, rational beliefs could be a trans-diagnostic protective factor against distress. Moreover, results emphasized that rational beliefs type is an important factor, suggesting an increased focus in therapy on the developing of unconditional acceptance and self-acceptance beliefs. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  17. Is facet analysis based on rationalism?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hjørland, Birger

    2014-01-01

    In several writings I have claimed that the basis of knowledge organisation (KO) must be found in subject knowledge, and that researchers and practitioners in KO must achieve knowledge about the domains that they are organising. Domain knowledge is not neutral, but rather is based on competing...... epistemologies and worldviews, and the classifier is therefore participating in struggles related to worldviews. Different traditions, approaches and paradigms in knowledge organisation research (and practice) can best be understood as more or less associated with one of four epistemologies: empiricism......, rationalism, historicism/hermeneutics, or pragmatism/critical theory (of which only the last position fully acknowledges the non-neutrality of knowledge organisation). Ranganathan – and the whole facet-analytic school – has formerly been exemplified as a rather clear example of rationalism. Some have objected...

  18. MODELING OF THE TRACK AND ROLLING STOCK INTERACTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    N. V. Khalipova

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. Interaction of system’s elements of "carriage–track" modelling requires consideration of various criteria, it also requires analysis of many uncertainty and randomness factors’ influence on the basic parameters to ensure optimal or rational parameters of the system. The researching of interactions’ process requires new theoretical approaches to formulation of objectives, based on a generalization of existing modeling approaches. The purpose of this work is development of interaction models between track and rolling stock based on multiple structures of objects. Methodology. Dedicated and formed the main evaluation criteria of dynamic interaction between track and rolling stock optimization - quality assurance and safety of transportation process, improving of their efficiency and reducing of prime cost’s. Based on vector optimization methods, proposed model of rolling stock and track’s elements interaction. For the synthesis of the model used mathematical machine of multiple objects structures. Findings. Generalized approaches to modeling in the interaction of rolling stock and track for different structural elements of the system under different exploitation conditions. This theoretical approach demonstrated on the examples of modeling of passenger and freight cars with track under different exploitation conditions. Originality. Proposed theoretical approach to the problem of track and rolling stock interaction, based on a synthesis of existing models by using of multiple objects structures. Practical value. Using of proposed model allows to structure key data and rational parameters of rolling stock and track interaction’s modeling and to formulate optimal and rational parameters of the system, to determine the effective exploitation parameters and measurement system for rational use of infrastructure.

  19. Self-deception as pseudo-rational regulation of belief.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michel, Christoph; Newen, Albert

    2010-09-01

    Self-deception is a special kind of motivational dominance in belief-formation. We develop criteria which set paradigmatic self-deception apart from related phenomena of auto-manipulation such as pretense and motivational bias. In self-deception rational subjects defend or develop beliefs of high subjective importance in response to strong counter-evidence. Self-deceivers make or keep these beliefs tenable by putting prima-facie rational defense-strategies to work against their established standards of rational evaluation. In paradigmatic self-deception, target-beliefs are made tenable via reorganizations of those belief-sets that relate relevant data to target-beliefs. This manipulation of the evidential value of relevant data goes beyond phenomena of motivated perception of data. In self-deception belief-defense is pseudo-rational. Self-deceivers will typically apply a dual standard of evaluation that remains intransparent to the subject. The developed model of self-deception as pseudo-rational belief-defense is empirically anchored. So, we hope to put forward a promising candidate. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Fit for purpose? Introducing a rational priority setting approach into a community care setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cornelissen, Evelyn; Mitton, Craig; Davidson, Alan; Reid, Colin; Hole, Rachelle; Visockas, Anne-Marie; Smith, Neale

    2016-06-20

    Purpose - Program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) is a priority setting approach that assists decision makers with allocating resources. Previous PBMA work establishes its efficacy and indicates that contextual factors complicate priority setting, which can hamper PBMA effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to gain qualitative insight into PBMA effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach - A Canadian case study of PBMA implementation. Data consist of decision-maker interviews pre (n=20), post year-1 (n=12) and post year-2 (n=9) of PBMA to examine perceptions of baseline priority setting practice vis-à-vis desired practice, and perceptions of PBMA usability and acceptability. Findings - Fit emerged as a key theme in determining PBMA effectiveness. Fit herein refers to being of suitable quality and form to meet the intended purposes and needs of the end-users, and includes desirability, acceptability, and usability dimensions. Results confirm decision-maker desire for rational approaches like PBMA. However, most participants indicated that the timing of the exercise and the form in which PBMA was applied were not well-suited for this case study. Participant acceptance of and buy-in to PBMA changed during the study: a leadership change, limited organizational commitment, and concerns with organizational capacity were key barriers to PBMA adoption and thereby effectiveness. Practical implications - These findings suggest that a potential way-forward includes adding a contextual readiness/capacity assessment stage to PBMA, recognizing organizational complexity, and considering incremental adoption of PBMA's approach. Originality/value - These insights help us to better understand and work with priority setting conditions to advance evidence-informed decision making.

  1. Why Labour Hoarding may be Rational: A model of firm behaviour during transition

    OpenAIRE

    Ceema Zahra Namazie

    2003-01-01

    In the Former Soviet Union, the early 1990s were characterized by large falls in GDP and small changes to already low unemployment. The slow adjustment to unemployment was a result of employers using various means to maintain employment levels, including; extended periods of unpaid leave, reduced hours of work and non-payment of wages. A theoretical model presented here explains why it was rational for firms to adjust labour in this way. The nature of inherited features of the Soviet labour m...

  2. Irrational Rationality of Terrorism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert Nalbandov

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The present article deals with the ontological problem of applying the rational choice frameworks to the study of terrorism. It testing the application of the rational choice to the “old” (before the end of the Cold War and the “new” (after the end of the Cold War terrorisms. It starts with analyzing the fundamentals of rationality and applies it at two levels: the individual (actors and group (collective via two outlooks: tactical (short-term and strategic (long-term. The main argument of the article is that while the “old” terrorism can be explained by the rational choice theory its “new” version represents a substantial departure from rationality.

  3. Is there a place for psychology in the framework of rational choice theory?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mladenović Ivan

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to discuss psychological aspect of rational choice theory. The standard version of rational choice rests on a kind of psychology, since it operates with mental states. In standard davidsonian version it is claimed that we explain rational actions by stating proper desires and beliefs that caused the action. We will explore two challenges to the standard version that might be called cultural and naturalistic versions of rational choice. Satz and Ferejohn (1994 challenged standard version by stating that we can provide rational-choice explanations without relying too much on psychological assumptions. They argued in favor of moderate externalism, which should replace thin desire-belief model with thick structuralist conception. According to their model moderate externalism is compatible with realism about psychological states, while at the same time those states need not figure in the best rational choice explanations of actions. The focus of rational choice explanations therefore shifts to non-individual and non-psychological entities, such as firms in explaining economic behavior, parties in explaining functioning of democracy, etc. Although there is a place for psychological states within a moderate externalism, those states are not causally relevant. On Pettit’s account desires and beliefs figure in rational choice explanations merely as “standby causes”. They explain resilience of certain behavior, not its actual cause. Quite contrary to standard rational choice theory, the programming model (Pettit, 2002 defines the neurophysiological level as more basic in explaining behavior. This means that higher-level psychological states are causally relevant for certain behavior only if certain lower-level neurophysiological producer obtains. In this paper standard rational choice theory will be defended against culturalist and naturalist criticism.

  4. A neuroeconomic theory of rational addiction and nonlinear time-perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takahashi, Taiki

    2011-01-01

    Neuroeconomic conditions for "rational addiction" (Becker & Murphy 1988) have been unknown. This paper derived the conditions for "rational addiction" by utilizing a nonlinear time-perception theory of "hyperbolic" discounting, which is mathematically equivalent to the q-exponential intertemporal choice model based on Tsallis' statistics. It is shown that (i) Arrow-Pratt measure for temporal cognition corresponds to the degree of irrationality (i.e., Prelec's "decreasing impatience" parameter of temporal discounting) and (ii) rationality in addicts is controlled by a nondimensionalization parameter of the logarithmic time-perception function. Furthermore, the present theory illustrates the possibility that addictive drugs increase impulsivity via dopaminergic neuroadaptation without increasing irrationality. Future directions in the application of the model to studies in neuroeconomics are discussed.

  5. A programme to rationalize film dosimetry by data processing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ritzenhoff, K.H.

    1976-01-01

    Plan to realize the following intentions for monitoring appr. 45,000 persons per month: 1) Extending the data bank with evaluation results to a universal personnel dose register covering all persons monitored, 2) comprising the individual rationalization measures in an extensive rationalization model of the procedures in a personnel dose measuring service by using EDP-systems. (orig./HP) [de

  6. Establishing rational networking using the DL04 quantum secure direct communication protocol

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qin, Huawang; Tang, Wallace K. S.; Tso, Raylin

    2018-06-01

    The first rational quantum secure direct communication scheme is proposed, in which we use the game theory with incomplete information to model the rational behavior of the participant, and give the strategy space and utility function. The rational participant can get his maximal utility when he performs the protocol faithfully, and then the Nash equilibrium of the protocol can be achieved. Compared to the traditional schemes, our scheme will be more practical in the presence of rational participant.

  7. Rationalization of work of leaders of physical-sports organizations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Galina Putiatina

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: to create the main ways of rationalization of the work of heads of physical-sports organizations in the structure of their scientific organization of the work. Material & Methods: the content of the administrative activity of representatives of the system of the regional government of the sphere of physical culture and sport of the Kharkov area, and also directors of sports schools of Kharkov (57 respondents are generalized. Methods – the analysis of references, the organizational analysis, the organizational diagnosis, the poll (questioning, the methods of mathematical statistics. Results: the essence and the content of rationalization of the administrative work in the sphere of physical culture and sport are considered. The integrated approach to certain objects of rationalization of the administrative work is established in physical-sports organizations. Conclusions: the main ways of rationalization of the work of heads of physical-sports organizations are: the organization of work concerning the development of motivational mechanisms of the activity of heads; the increase of the economic appeal of work; the formation of ideology of a healthy lifestyle.

  8. A rational quantitative approach to determine the best dosing regimen for a target therapeutic effect: a unified formalism for antibiotic evaluation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jun; Nekka, Fahima

    2013-02-21

    The determination of an optimal dosing regimen is a critical step to enhance the drug efficacy and avoid toxicity. Rational dosing recommendations based on mathematical considerations are increasingly being adopted in the process of drug development and use. In this paper, we propose a quantitative approach to evaluate the efficacy of antibiotic agents. By integrating both pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) information, this approach gives rise to a unified formalism able to measure the cause-effect of dosing regimens. This new pharmaco-metric allows to cover a whole range of antibiotics, including the two well known concentration and time dependent classes, through the introduction of the Hill-dependency concept. As a direct fallout, our formalism opens a new path toward the bioequivalence evaluation in terms of PK and PD, which associates the in vivo drug concentration and the in vitro drug effect. Using this new approach, we succeeded to reveal unexpected, but relevant behaviors of drug performance when different drug regimens and drug classes are considered. Of particular notice, we found that the doses required to reach the same therapeutic effect, when scheduled differently, exhibit completely different tendencies for concentration and time dependent drugs. Moreover, we theoretically confirmed the previous experimental results of the superiority of the once daily regimen of aminoglycosides. The proposed methodology is appealing for its computational features and can easily be applicable to design fair clinical protocols or rationalize prescription decisions. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Rationality and institutions : an inquiry into the normative implications of rational choice theory

    OpenAIRE

    Engelen, Bart

    2007-01-01

    I aim to analyze in this dissertation what a desirable basic institutional structure looks like from the perspective of rationality. While the main topic is thus normative in nature, I start by clarifying in the first part what the notion of rationality exactly entails. I do so by focusing explicitly on the economic conception of rationality, according to which a rational individual is motivated to serve his self-interest on the basis of cost-benefit calculations. Such a Homo Economicus is ch...

  10. Rational use of diagnostic radiology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Racoveanu, N.T.; Volodin, V.

    1992-01-01

    The escalating number of radiodiagnostic investigations has, as a consequence, an increase in medical irradiation of patients and of cost of radiological services. Radiologists in USA and UK have since early 1970 questioned the efficacy of various radiological investigations and produced substantial evidence that more rational approaches are necessary. WHO initiated, in 1977, a programme in this direction which has issued four technical reports which give practical recommendations on how to rationalize the use of radiological examinations. Three main directions are considered: (1) Abandonment of routine radiological examinations, as procedures with no clinical or epidemiologic significance and which represent a waste of resources and patient dose. (2) Patient selection for various radiological investigations based on clinical criteria (high, intermediate, low yield). Selected patients have an increased prevalence of the given disease and the predictive value of radiological investigation is much higher. (3) Use of diagnostic algorithms with higher cost/efficiency and risk/benefit ratios, improving the outcome of radiological examinations

  11. Guidelines for Rational Cancer Therapeutics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Byunghee Yoo

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Traditionally, cancer therapy has relied on surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. In recent years, these interventions have become increasingly replaced or complemented by more targeted approaches that are informed by a deeper understanding of the underlying biology. Still, the implementation of fully rational patient-specific drug design appears to be years away. Here, we present a vision of rational drug design for cancer that is defined by two major components: modularity and image guidance. We suggest that modularity can be achieved by combining a nanocarrier and an oligonucleotide component into the therapeutic. Image guidance can be incorporated into the nanocarrier component by labeling with a specific imaging reporter, such as a radionuclide or contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging. While limited by the need for additional technological advancement in the areas of cancer biology, nanotechnology, and imaging, this vision for the future of cancer therapy can be used as a guide to future research endeavors.

  12. An extended rational thermodynamics model for surface excess fluxes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sagis, L.M.C.

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we derive constitutive equations for the surface excess fluxes in multiphase systems, in the context of an extended rational thermodynamics formalism. This formalism allows us to derive Maxwell–Cattaneo type constitutive laws for the surface extra stress tensor, the surface thermal

  13. Rationing medical education.

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper discussed the pros and cons of the application of rationing to medical education and the different ... Different types of rationing exist in healthcare professional education. ... state-of-the-art resources, technology and tutors con-.

  14. A Feminist Critique of Rational-Choice Theories: Implications for Sociology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    England, Paula

    1989-01-01

    Provides a feminist critique of rational-choice theory and the interdisciplinary feminist theories of sociology. Applies the separative model of self to four assumptions of the neoclassical economics version of rational-choice theory. Uses research on marital power to illustrate how removing distorting assumptions can help illuminate sociological…

  15. The rational patient and beyond: implications for treatment adherence in people with psychiatric disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corrigan, Patrick W; Rüsch, Nicolas; Ben-Zeev, Dror; Sher, Tamara

    2014-02-01

    Many people with psychiatric disabilities do not benefit from evidence-based practices because they often do not seek out or fully adhere to them. One way psychologists have made sense of this rehabilitation and health decision process and subsequent behaviors (of which adherence might be viewed as one) is by proposing a "rational patient"; namely, that decisions are made deliberatively by weighing perceived costs and benefits of intervention options. Social psychological research, however, suggests limitations to a rational patient theory that impact models of health decision making. The research literature was reviewed for studies of rational patient models and alternative theories with empirical support. Special focus was on models specifically related to decisions about rehabilitation strategies for psychiatric disability. Notions of the rational patient evolved out of several psychological models including the health belief model, protection motivation theory, and theory of planned behavior. A variety of practice strategies evolved to promote rational decision making. However, research also suggests limitations to rational deliberations of health. (1) Rather than carefully and consciously considered, many health decisions are implicit, potentially occurring outside awareness. (2) Decisions are not always planful; often it is the immediate exigencies of a context rather than an earlier balance of costs and benefits that has the greatest effects. (3) Cool cognitions often do not dictate the process; emotional factors have an important role in health decisions. Each of these limitations suggests additional practice strategies that facilitate a person's health decisions. Old models of rational decision making need to be supplanted by multiprocess models that explain supradeliberative factors in health decisions and behaviors. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  16. The Rational Patient and Beyond: Implications for Treatment Adherence in People with Psychiatric Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corrigan, Patrick W.; Rüsch, Nicolas; Ben-Zeev, Dror; Sher, Tamara

    2014-01-01

    Purpose/Objective Many people with psychiatric disabilities do not benefit from evidence-based practices because they often do not seek out or fully adhere to them. One way psychologists have made sense of this rehabilitation and health decision process and subsequent behaviors (of which adherence might be viewed as one) is by proposing a “rational patient;” namely, that decisions are made deliberatively by weighing perceived costs and benefits of intervention options. Social psychological research, however, suggests limitations to a rational patient theory that impact models of health decision making. Design The research literature was reviewed for studies of rational patient models and alternative theories with empirical support. Special focus was on models specifically related to decisions about rehabilitation strategies for psychiatric disability. Results Notions of the rational patient evolved out of several psychological models including the health belief model, protection motivation theory, and theory of planned behavior. A variety of practice strategies evolved to promote rational decision making. However, research also suggests limitations to rational deliberations of health. (1) Rather than carefully and consciously considered, many health decisions are implicit, potentially occurring outside awareness. (2) Decisions are not always planful; often it is the immediate exigencies of a context rather than an earlier balance of costs and benefits that has the greatest effects. (3) Cool cognitions often do not dictate the process; emotional factors have an important role in health decisions. Each of these limitations suggests additional practice strategies that facilitate a person’s health decisions. Conclusions/Implications Old models of rational decision making need to be supplanted by multi-process models that explain supra-deliberative factors in health decisions and behaviors. PMID:24446671

  17. The Formation of Rational and Irrational Behaviors in Risky Investment Decision Making: Laboratory Experiment of Coping Theory Implication in Investors' Adaptation Model

    OpenAIRE

    Wendy Wendy; Marwan Asri; Jogiyanto Hartono

    2012-01-01

    This study analyzes the stock investor's rational and irrational behavior formation through Investor's Adaptation model. Hypotheses testings were conducted by manipulating four market conditions using between-subject experimental design. The results supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. When given treatment one (opportunity-high control), investors tended to adapt the profit maximizing strategy (rational). Meanwhile, when given treatment two (opportunity-low control), three (threat-...

  18. Principles of ration formulation for ruminants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jayasuriya, M.C.N.

    2002-01-01

    Feeding standards as practiced in developed countries could be misleading when non-conventional feed resources are used in formulating rations for ruminant livestock in developing countries. They tend to reject the poor quality feeds that are available in vast quantities. The non-availability of good quality forage throughout the year and the need to optimise the efficiency of utilisation of locally available feed resources have lead to the application of basic nutritional principles when considering ration formulation. The alternative approach to the use of feeding standards would be to ensure that the production system matches the available resources. The development of feed supplementation strategies based on locally available feed resources require the understanding of the relative roles and nutrient needs of the two-compartment system represented by the micro-organisms in the rumen and the host animal. (author)

  19. Rationality problem for algebraic tori

    CERN Document Server

    Hoshi, Akinari

    2017-01-01

    The authors give the complete stably rational classification of algebraic tori of dimensions 4 and 5 over a field k. In particular, the stably rational classification of norm one tori whose Chevalley modules are of rank 4 and 5 is given. The authors show that there exist exactly 487 (resp. 7, resp. 216) stably rational (resp. not stably but retract rational, resp. not retract rational) algebraic tori of dimension 4, and there exist exactly 3051 (resp. 25, resp. 3003) stably rational (resp. not stably but retract rational, resp. not retract rational) algebraic tori of dimension 5. The authors make a procedure to compute a flabby resolution of a G-lattice effectively by using the computer algebra system GAP. Some algorithms may determine whether the flabby class of a G-lattice is invertible (resp. zero) or not. Using the algorithms, the suthors determine all the flabby and coflabby G-lattices of rank up to 6 and verify that they are stably permutation. The authors also show that the Krull-Schmidt theorem for G-...

  20. Exact Rational Expectations, Cointegration, and Reduced Rank Regression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    We interpret the linear relations from exact rational expectations models as restrictions on the parameters of the statistical model called the cointegrated vector autoregressive model for non-stationary variables. We then show how reduced rank regression, Anderson (1951), plays an important role...

  1. Exact rational expectations, cointegration, and reduced rank regression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    We interpret the linear relations from exact rational expectations models as restrictions on the parameters of the statistical model called the cointegrated vector autoregressive model for non-stationary variables. We then show how reduced rank regression, Anderson (1951), plays an important role...

  2. Exact rational expectations, cointegration, and reduced rank regression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johansen, Søren; Swensen, Anders Rygh

    2008-01-01

    We interpret the linear relations from exact rational expectations models as restrictions on the parameters of the statistical model called the cointegrated vector autoregressive model for non-stationary variables. We then show how reduced rank regression, Anderson (1951), plays an important role...

  3. A Rational Business Startup Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Milton

    2000-03-01

    The speaker will share his experience in starting high-tech companies using a low-risk startup model. Most technical people can use this approach to start a company that begins with a modest initial goal and grows the business over time. As the company builds infrastructure and the individuals gain experience, the ability to pursue big opportunities comes naturally. The result is more likely to be a company with a long-term vision, and with the management team retaining more of the ownership.

  4. Rational Chebyshev spectral transform for the dynamics of broad-area laser diodes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Javaloyes, J.; Balle, S.

    2015-01-01

    This manuscript details the use of the rational Chebyshev transform for describing the transverse dynamics of broad-area laser diodes and amplifiers. This spectral method can be used in combination with the delay algebraic equations approach developed in [1], which substantially reduces the computation time. The theory is presented in such a way that it encompasses the case of the Fourier spectral transform presented in [2] as a particular case. It is also extended to the consideration of index guiding with an arbitrary transverse profile. Because their domain of definition is infinite, the convergence properties of the Chebyshev rational functions allow handling the boundary conditions with higher accuracy than with the previously studied Fourier transform method. As practical examples, we solve the beam propagation problem with and without index guiding: we obtain excellent results and an improvement of the integration time between one and two orders of magnitude as compared with a fully distributed two dimensional model

  5. A model for evaluating beef cattle rations considering effects of ruminal fiber mass

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Douglas Sampaio Henrique

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available A mathematical model based on Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS was developed and adapted in order to evaluate beef cattle rations at tropical climate conditions. The presented system differs from CNCPS in the modeling of insoluble particles' digestion and passage kinetics, which enabled the estimation of fiber mass in rumen and its effects on animal performance. The equations used to estimate metabolizable protein and net energy requirements for gain, net energy requirement for maintenance and total efficiency of metabolizable energy utilization were obtained from scientific articles published in Brazil. The parameters of the regression equations in these papers were estimated using data from Bos indicus purebred and crossbred animals reared under tropical conditions. The model was evaluated by using a 368-piece of information database originally published on 11 Doctoral theses, 14 Master's dissertations and four scientific articles. Outputs of the model can be considered adequate.

  6. Individual differences in processing styles: validity of the Rational-Experiential Inventory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Björklund, Fredrik; Bäckström, Martin

    2008-10-01

    In Study 1 (N= 203) the factor structure of a Swedish translation of Pacini and Epstein's Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI-40) was investigated using confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized model with rationality and experientiality as orthogonal factors had satisfactory fit to the data, significantly better than alternative models (with two correlated factors or a single factor). Inclusion of "ability" and "favorability" subscales for rationality and experientiality increased fit further. It was concluded that the structural validity of the REI is adequate. In Study 2 (N= 72) the REI-factors were shown to have theoretically meaningful correlations to other personality traits, indicating convergent and discriminant validity. Finally, scores on the rationality scale were negatively related to risky choice framing effects in Kahneman and Tversky's Asian disease task, indicating concurrent validity. On the basis of these findings it was concluded that the test has satisfactory psychometric properties.

  7. On the rationality of cycling in the Theory of Moves framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olsen, Jolie; Sen, Sandip

    2014-04-01

    Theory of Moves (TOM) is a novel approach to game theory for determining rational strategies during the play of dynamic games [Brams, S J. (1994). Theory of moves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press]. While alternate models such as normal form games exist, players of these games are limited to single shot interactions with each other, but within TOM, sequences of moves and counter moves are allowed. As a consequence of this framework potential cyclic behaviour may arise. Unfortunately, standard TOM framework suggests that players do not move from the initial state if the possibility of cyclic behaviour is detected. However, in a plethora of real life scenarios, cycling can benefit a player over time. We first extend the TOM framework by allowing players to choose how much time to stay in each state while specifying time limits for moves. This generalisation allows for cycling behaviour in addition to normal, acyclic TOM play. We present additional rationality rules to handle the choice of move time and cyclic play and identify conditions for the existence of solutions that involve cycles. Moreover, if solutions do exist, equilibrium are determined so a player can predict the rational outcome upon engaging a cycle. A variety of time constraints on move times are investigated and the effects of these contrasts on the solution space and equilibrium are analysed.

  8. A Nonlinear Super-Exponential Rational Model of Speculative Financial Bubbles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sornette, D.; Andersen, J. V.

    Keeping a basic tenet of economic theory, rational expectations, we model the nonlinear positive feedback between agents in the stock market as an interplay between nonlinearity and multiplicative noise. The derived hyperbolic stochastic finite-time singularity formula transforms a Gaussian white noise into a rich time series possessing all the stylized facts of empirical prices, as well as accelerated speculative bubbles preceding crashes. We use the formula to invert the two years of price history prior to the recent crash on the Nasdaq (April 2000) and prior to the crash in the Hong Kong market associated with the Asian crisis in early 1994. These complex price dynamics are captured using only one exponent controlling the explosion, the variance and mean of the underlying random walk. This offers a new and powerful detection tool of speculative bubbles and herding behavior.

  9. Comparative risk assessment: an element for a more rational and ethical approach to radiation risk

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Danesi, P.R.

    2006-01-01

    Peaceful nuclear technologies are still perceived by a large fraction of the general public, the media as well as by some decision makers, as more risky than many other 'conventional' technologies. One of the approaches that can help bringing more rationality and ethics into the picture is to present the risk associated with radiation and nuclear technologies in the frame of correctly conducted comparative risk assessments. However, comparing different risks is not so straightforward because quantifying different risks on a comparable scale requires overcoming both conceptual and practical difficulties. Risk (R) can be expressed as the product of the probability (P) that a given undesired event, the risk, will occur, times the consequences of this event (C), i.e. R = P x C. Although in principle risks could be compared by simply ranking them according to the different values of R, this simplistic approach is not always possible because to correctly compare risks all factors, circumstances and assumptions should be mutually equivalent and quantified and the (often large) uncertainties taken into proper account. In the case of radiation risk, ICRP has assumed as valid the LNT model, (probability coefficient of 5 % per Sievert for attributable death from cancer) and selected the present equivalent dose limit of 1 mSv per year for public exposure. This dose corresponds to 50 lethal cancers by 1 million people exposed and is approximately equivalent (in terms of probability of death) to the risk of bicycling for 600 km, driving for 3200 km, crossing a busy road twice a day for 1 year, smoking 2.5 packets of cigarettes or being X-rayed once for kidney metabolism. However, according to many scientists on the basis of both epidemiological and biological results and considerations, the actual risk is far lower than that predicted by the LNT model. Nevertheless, the policies and myths that were created about half a century ago are still persisting and have lead the general

  10. Optimal public rationing and price response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grassi, Simona; Ma, Ching-To Albert

    2011-12-01

    We study optimal public health care rationing and private sector price responses. Consumers differ in their wealth and illness severity (defined as treatment cost). Due to a limited budget, some consumers must be rationed. Rationed consumers may purchase from a monopolistic private market. We consider two information regimes. In the first, the public supplier rations consumers according to their wealth information (means testing). In equilibrium, the public supplier must ration both rich and poor consumers. Rationing some poor consumers implements price reduction in the private market. In the second information regime, the public supplier rations consumers according to consumers' wealth and cost information. In equilibrium, consumers are allocated the good if and only if their costs are below a threshold (cost effectiveness). Rationing based on cost results in higher equilibrium consumer surplus than rationing based on wealth. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Rational drug therapy education in clinical phase carried out by task-based learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bilge, S. Sırrı; Akyüz, Bahar; Ağrı, Arzu Erdal; Özlem, Mıdık

    2017-01-01

    Objectives: Irrational drug use results in drug interactions, treatment noncompliance, and drug resistance. Rational pharmacotherapy education is being implemented in many faculties of medicine. Our aim is to introduce rational pharmacotherapy education by clinicians and to evaluate task-based rational drug therapy education in the clinical context. Methods: The Kirkpatrick's evaluation model was used for the evaluation of the program. The participants evaluated the program in terms of constituents of the program, utilization, and contribution to learning. Voluntary participants responded to the evaluation forms after the educational program. Data are evaluated using both quantitative and qualitative tools. SPSS (version 21) used for quantitative data for determining mean and standard deviation values. Descriptive qualitative analysis approach is used for the analysis of open-ended questions. Results: It was revealed that the program and its components have been favorable. A total 95.9% of the students consider the education to be beneficial. Simulated patients practice and personal drug choice/problem-based learning sessions were appreciated by the students in particular. 93.9% of the students stated that all students of medicine should undergo this educational program. Among the five presentations contained in the program, “The Principles of Prescribing” received the highest points (9 ± 1.00) from participating students in general evaluation of the educational program. Conclusion: This study was carried out to improve task-based rational drug therapy education. According to feedback from the students concerning content, method, resource, assessment, and program design; some important changes, especially in number of facilitators and indications, are made in rational pharmacotherapy education in clinical task-based learning program. PMID:28458432

  12. Respect for rational autonomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Rebecca L

    2009-12-01

    The standard notion of autonomy in medical ethics does not require that autonomous choices not be irrational. The paper gives three examples of seemingly irrational patient choices and discusses how a rational autonomy analysis differs from the standard view. It then considers whether a switch to the rational autonomy view would lead to overriding more patient decisions but concludes that this should not be the case. Rather, a determination of whether individual patient decisions are autonomous is much less relevant than usually considered in determining whether health care providers must abide by these decisions. Furthermore, respect for rational autonomy entails strong positive requirements of respect for the autonomy of the person as a rational decision maker. The rationality view of autonomy is conceptually stronger than the standard view, allows for a more nuanced understanding of the practical moral calculus involved in respecting patient autonomy, and promotes positive respect for patient autonomy.

  13. Dynamic pricing of network goods with boundedly rational consumers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Radner, Roy; Radunskaya, Ami; Sundararajan, Arun

    2014-01-07

    We present a model of dynamic monopoly pricing for a good that displays network effects. In contrast with the standard notion of a rational-expectations equilibrium, we model consumers as boundedly rational and unable either to pay immediate attention to each price change or to make accurate forecasts of the adoption of the network good. Our analysis shows that the seller's optimal price trajectory has the following structure: The price is low when the user base is below a target level, is high when the user base is above the target, and is set to keep the user base stationary once the target level has been attained. We show that this pricing policy is robust to a number of extensions, which include the product's user base evolving over time and consumers basing their choices on a mixture of a myopic and a "stubborn" expectation of adoption. Our results differ significantly from those that would be predicted by a model based on rational-expectations equilibrium and are more consistent with the pricing of network goods observed in practice.

  14. Racionalizam u arhitekturi: nekoliko modela instrumentalizacije / Rationalism in Architecture: Several Models of Instrumentalization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vladimir Stevanović

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Rationalism in architecture is a European concept which, from Enlightment to postmodern era, advocates values of order, clarity and logic, represented through primary geometrism, functionalism, profitability and absence of ornament. The text connects and analyzes (1 formal-stilistic manifestations of rationalism in architecture: French neoclassicism; Soviet constructivism, German new objectivity, Italian rationalism; postmodern Italian neorationalism in the context of (2 dominant paradigms which directs them: divine nature; technological-utilitarian; autonomus-selfreferent, and (3 social, economic, ideological and cultural activities around which they are organized, such as: French bourgeois revolution; proleterian-communist, socialdemocratic and faschist ideas beteween two World wars; critical procession of populist values in mass consumer society and global capitalist economy at the threshold of postmodern era.

  15. Rational, Bureaucratic, Collegial, and Political Views of the Principal's Role.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sergiovanni, Thomas

    1979-01-01

    Understanding of four basic organization management models--the rational model, the mechanistic model, the collegial/organic model, and the political theory/bargaining model--can aid school principals in critically assessing their own administrative styles. (LH)

  16. A Critical Analysis of Rational & Emotional Approaches in Car Selling

    OpenAIRE

    Krishn A. Goyal; A. Sadasivam

    2010-01-01

    A well known fact is that investment in a Car is the costliest investment made in a life time only next to construction of a house, for any human being. It is a common knowledge that all of us are attracted towards cars right from childhood and we have developed our own perceptions for cars. When we acquire the capacity to buy cars, our experience of buying, involves both emotional and rational aspects which lead to a purchase decision. Unlike other consumable durables, the decision to buy sp...

  17. Action-angle duality between the Cn-type hyperbolic Sutherland and the rational Ruijsenaars-Schneider-van Diejen models

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pusztai, B.G.

    2011-01-01

    In a symplectic reduction framework we construct action-angle systems of canonical coordinates for both the hyperbolic Sutherland and the rational Ruijsenaars-Schneider-van Diejen integrable models associated with the C n root system. The presented dual reduction picture permits us to establish the action-angle duality between these many-particle systems.

  18. Bounded Rationality of Generalized Abstract Fuzzy Economies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lei Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available By using a nonlinear scalarization technique, the bounded rationality model M for generalized abstract fuzzy economies in finite continuous spaces is established. Furthermore, by using the model M, some new theorems for structural stability and robustness to (λ,ϵ-equilibria of generalized abstract fuzzy economies are proved.

  19. [Rationalization and rationing at the bedside. A normative and empirical status quo analysis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strech, D

    2014-02-01

    The topic of bedside rationing is increasingly discussed in Germany. Further need for clarification exists for the question how bedside rationing (e.g., in the area of overcare) can be justified despite coexistent inefficiencies. This paper outlines and analyses the relationship of waste avoidance and rationing from an ethical perspective. Empirical findings regarding the status quo of bedside rationing and rationalization are presented. These normative and empirical explorations will then be further specified regarding opportunities for future physician-driven activities to tackle overuse. The self-government partners in Germany should communicate more explicitly within their communities and to the public how and with which benchmarks they aim to reduce inefficient health care (overuse) in an appropriate manner. Physician-driven activities such as the "Choosing Wisely®" initiative in the USA could provide a first step to raise the awareness for overuse among physicians as well as in the public.

  20. Differentiating drugs by harm potential: the rational versus the feasible.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalant, H

    1999-01-01

    In an ideal harm reduction model, drugs would be ranked according to their potential to cause harm, with varying implications for control policies and interventions. In such a public health oriented approach, the maximum protection of the public from harm would be balanced with the least possible restriction of freedom. In reality, however, the accuracy and completeness of the necessary information for such a ranking is highly limited. Many other factors not readily incorporated in a rational model, such as values, beliefs, and traditions, also affect drug policy decisions. Thus, rather than relying on acquisition of the necessary knowledge, it may be preferable to focus efforts on developing effective nonlegal measures to reduce drug use and harm. [Translations are provided in the International Abstracts Section of this issue.

  1. Membership theory, rationalism, and the claim to adequacy in health services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Falck, H S

    1997-01-01

    The immediate, practical purpose of this paper is to discuss and elaborate upon the concept of adequacy, especially when applicable to an understanding of the social work role in health policy making. The relevant topics under the general category of adequacy are (1) the perception and definition of the citizen/client; (2) the concept of rationality in health planning broken down into conditionality and prioritization, and (3) the concept of adequacy itself. Each will be addressed from the standpoint of recent experience and what may be done in the future to clarify and rationalize each. Clarity about clients, about rational approaches to policy making and planning, leading to a clear idea about adequacy in health care are presented as the indispensable elements in social work. Conditionality and prioritization are significant because no society will bring within equal reach of all members the benefits of health care, which usually means that health care is not rendered arbitrarily but as a result, among other things, of rational planning.

  2. Influence of individual rationality on continuous double auction markets with networked traders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Junhuan

    2018-04-01

    This paper investigates the influence of individual rationality of buyers and sellers on continuous double auction market outcomes in terms of the proportion of boundedly-rational buyers and sellers. The individual rationality is discussed in a social network artificial stock market model by embedding network formation and information set. Traders automatically select the most profitable trading strategy based on individual and social learning of the profits and trading strategies of themselves and their neighbors, and submit orders to markets. The results show that (i) a higher proportion of boundedly-rational sellers induces a higher market price, higher sellers' profits and a higher market efficiency; (ii) a higher proportion of boundedly-rational sellers induces a lower number of trades and lower buyers' profits; (iii) a higher proportion of boundedly-rational buyers induces a lower market price, a lower number of trades, and lower sellers' profits; (iv) a higher proportion of boundedly-rational buyers induces higher buyers' profits and a higher market efficiency.

  3. Rationality District Policy Proliferation and Villages in Town Bandar Lampung

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Novita Tresiana

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This study is based on the premise that regional growth is a product of public policy, as the government attempts to solve public problems. Within the framework of rationality, then the expansion policy should be the result of rational choice, including the selection of alternatives for the achievement of objectives, contain a fundamental value and appropriate to achieve the end result (outcome is desired. The purpose of this paper is: to describe the process of policy-making division and rationality that are used to describe the actors in the division policy. The method used is qualitative. This paper raised the research findings that the process of defining the division policy, not the solutif effort the problem for substantive society and rationality that are used in the determination of policy, dominated model of rationality dustbin, as a structural response to the interests of elite (political, transactional, not a system response (legislative and executive to address the factual issues relating to the welfare of society.

  4. Is It Rational to Assume that Infants Imitate Rationally? A Theoretical Analysis and Critique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paulus, Markus

    2012-01-01

    It has been suggested that preverbal infants evaluate the efficiency of others' actions (by applying a "principle of rational action") and that they imitate others' actions rationally. The present contribution presents a conceptual analysis of the claim that preverbal infants imitate rationally. It shows that this ability rests on at least three…

  5. Antibiotics Smart Use: a workable model for promoting the rational use of medicines in Thailand

    OpenAIRE

    Sumpradit, Nithima; Chongtrakul, Pisonthi; Anuwong, Kunyada; Pumtong, Somying; Kongsomboon, Kedsenee; Butdeemee, Parichart; Khonglormyati, Jurairat; Chomyong, Santi; Tongyoung, Parnuchote; Losiriwat, Suraphol; Seesuk, Piyanooch; Suwanwaree, Pongthep; Tangcharoensathien, Viroj

    2012-01-01

    The Antibiotics Smart Use (ASU) programme was introduced in Thailand as a model to promote the rational use of medicines, starting with antibiotics. The programme’s first phase consisted of assessing interventions intended to change prescribing practices; the second phase examined the feasibility of programme scale-up. Currently the programme is in its third phase, which centres on sustainability. This paper describes the concept behind ASU, the programme’s functional modalities, the developm...

  6. Bounded Rationality and Budgeting

    OpenAIRE

    Ibrahim, Mukdad

    2016-01-01

    This article discusses the theory of bounded rationality which had been introduced by Herbert Simon in the 1950s. Simon introduced the notion of bounded rationality stating that while decision-makers strive for rationality, they are limited by the effect of the environment, their information process capacity and by the constraints on their information storage and retrieval capabilities. Moreover, this article tries to specifically blend this notion into budgeting, using the foundations of inc...

  7. Pro-environmental behavior: rational choice meets moral motivation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turaga, Rama Mohana R; Howarth, Richard B; Borsuk, Mark E

    2010-01-01

    The determinants of individual behaviors that provide shared environmental benefits are a longstanding theme in social science research. Alternative behavioral models yield markedly different predictions and policy recommendations. This paper reviews and compares the literatures from two disciplines that appear to be moving toward a degree of convergence. In social psychology, moral theories of pro-environmental behavior have focused on the influence of personal moral norms while recognizing that external factors, such as costs and incentives, ultimately limit the strength of the norm-behavior relationship. Rational choice models, such as the theory of planned behavior in social psychology and the theories of voluntary provision of public goods in economics, have sought to incorporate the effects of personal norms and to measure their importance in explaining behaviors, such as recycling and the demand for green products. This paper explores the relationship between these approaches and their implications for the theory and practice of ecological economics.

  8. Non-parametric identification of multivariable systems : a local rational modeling approach with application to a vibration isolation benchmark

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Voorhoeve, R.J.; van der Maas, A.; Oomen, T.A.J.

    2018-01-01

    Frequency response function (FRF) identification is often used as a basis for control systems design and as a starting point for subsequent parametric system identification. The aim of this paper is to develop a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) local parametric modeling approach for FRF

  9. Bounded Rationality and the Diffusion of Modern Investment Treaties

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Skovgaard Poulsen, Lauge

    2014-01-01

    insights on cognitive heuristics. In line with recent work on policy diffusion, it suggests that a bounded rationality framework has considerable potential to explain why, and how, developing countries have adopted modern investment treaties. To illustrate the potential of this approach, the case of South...

  10. Exploring G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) Ligand Space via Cheminformatics Approaches: Impact on Rational Drug Design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basith, Shaherin; Cui, Minghua; Macalino, Stephani J. Y.; Park, Jongmi; Clavio, Nina A. B.; Kang, Soosung; Choi, Sun

    2018-01-01

    The primary goal of rational drug discovery is the identification of selective ligands which act on single or multiple drug targets to achieve the desired clinical outcome through the exploration of total chemical space. To identify such desired compounds, computational approaches are necessary in predicting their drug-like properties. G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) represent one of the largest and most important integral membrane protein families. These receptors serve as increasingly attractive drug targets due to their relevance in the treatment of various diseases, such as inflammatory disorders, metabolic imbalances, cardiac disorders, cancer, monogenic disorders, etc. In the last decade, multitudes of three-dimensional (3D) structures were solved for diverse GPCRs, thus referring to this period as the “golden age for GPCR structural biology.” Moreover, accumulation of data about the chemical properties of GPCR ligands has garnered much interest toward the exploration of GPCR chemical space. Due to the steady increase in the structural, ligand, and functional data of GPCRs, several cheminformatics approaches have been implemented in its drug discovery pipeline. In this review, we mainly focus on the cheminformatics-based paradigms in GPCR drug discovery. We provide a comprehensive view on the ligand– and structure-based cheminformatics approaches which are best illustrated via GPCR case studies. Furthermore, an appropriate combination of ligand-based knowledge with structure-based ones, i.e., integrated approach, which is emerging as a promising strategy for cheminformatics-based GPCR drug design is also discussed. PMID:29593527

  11. A rational approach to decision making in toxicology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, B A; Sass, N L

    1984-06-01

    The application of the Kepner-Tregoe (C. H. Kepner and B. B. Tregoe, 1981, The New Rational Manager, Princeton Res. Press, Princeton, N. J.) problem solving technique to the evaluation and interpretation of toxicological information is described. Data from a chronic study provide an illustrative example. In this study an excess in the number of urinary bladder neoplasms was observed in male rats exposed to diets containing the test chemical. No similar effect was seen in treated female rats. Both male and female mice exposed to treatment also exhibited no effect. Whether treatment was the cause of the observed increase should be based on all the scientific and technical information that is relevant to this decision. The Kepner-Tregoe method of problem analysis captures this information in a framework that makes it easily understood. This is especially desirable if the judgments that are a vital part of regulatory decision making are to be adequately communicated.

  12. Rational synthetic pathway refactoring of natural products biosynthesis in actinobacteria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Gao-Yi; Liu, Tiangang

    2017-01-01

    Natural products (NPs) and their derivatives are widely used as frontline treatments for many diseases. Actinobacteria spp. are used to produce most of NP antibiotics and have also been intensively investigated for NP production, derivatization, and discovery. However, due to the complicated transcriptional and metabolic regulation of NP biosynthesis in Actinobacteria, especially in the cases of genome mining and heterologous expression, it is often difficult to rationally and systematically engineer synthetic pathways to maximize biosynthetic efficiency. With the emergence of new tools and methods in metabolic engineering, the synthetic pathways of many chemicals, such as fatty acids and biofuels, in model organisms (e.g. Escherichia coli ), have been refactored to realize precise and flexible control of production. These studies also offer a promising approach for synthetic pathway refactoring in Actinobacteria. In this review, the great potential of Actinobacteria as a microbial cell factory for biosynthesis of NPs is discussed. To this end, recent progress in metabolic engineering of NP synthetic pathways in Actinobacteria are summarized and strategies and perspectives to rationally and systematically refactor synthetic pathways in Actinobacteria are highlighted. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. RATIONAL AGGREGATION OF THE PRODUCTION LIST OF THE ECONOMIC MODEL WITH THE DETAILED TIMBER COMPLEX (ASSESSMENT ON THE BASE OF THE EXPERIMENTAL CALCULATIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mkrtchyan G. M.

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The main principle of developing specialized model complexes is based on the approach when the detailed description of the object (the core, the main body is added by the description of the context. In addition to the above, the core of the system can be made up in turns by objects picked up from the context. Developing the models on separate subsystems of the economy, presented in details in the basic model, leads to creation of problems (equations with many variables and parameters where for the specific goals of analysis (and forecasting it is not at all obligatory to use the full-scale model. Such redundancy is unnecessary while using this model for scenario calculations in the context of “branch ” problems. The authors provide experimental calculations which allow evaluating the influence of aggregation on resulting information. Average year growth rates of production by branches of timber complex are considered as resulting information. Closeness of decisions on these indicators proves the hypothesis about possibility and rationality of such aggregation of the economic context for the timber complex.

  14. Rational Laziness - When Time Is Limited, Supply Abundant, and Decisions Have to Be Made

    OpenAIRE

    Birkelund, Gunn Elisabeth

    2016-01-01

    This paper expands the model of rational action by introducing a new concept. rational laziness, to better understand actors’ decision making. In addition to rational information processing, human beings often rely on automatic and lion-cognitive mental capacities, and I use the term mental laziness to account for information processing based on these capacities. When time is limited, supply abundant, and decisions have to be made, mental laziness might be a rational decision device. Actors’ ...

  15. Rational valuations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georg Spielthenner

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Valuations are ubiquitous. We may be for or against genetically modified food; we find some politicians irresponsible; we prefer Beethoven to rock ‘n’ roll or vice versa; some enjoy bird-watching while others find it boring; and we may think that we have to tighten up on green-house gas emissions. Valuing is pervasive and often we are not even aware that we are valuing. However, many of ourvaluations are ill grounded and rationally defective. They are frequently based on misinformation, sloppy thinking, prejudice, and are biased in many ways as psychological research shows. For this reason there is widespread agreement among phi-losophers that we need an account of substantive valuational rationality, both for the theory of practical reasoning and for ethics as well. My main objectin this paper is to outline such an account and to present a principle that allows a non-technical rational criticism of valuations

  16. Rational Discovery of (+) (S) Abscisic Acid as a Potential Antifungal Agent: a Repurposing Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khedr, Mohammed A; Massarotti, Alberto; Mohamed, Maged E

    2018-06-04

    Fungal infections are spreading widely worldwide, and the types of treatment are limited due to the lack of diverse therapeutic agents and their associated side effects and toxicity. The discovery of new antifungal classes is vital and critical. We discovered the antifungal activity of abscisic acid through a rational drug design methodology that included the building of homology models for fungal chorismate mutases and a pharmacophore model derived from a transition state inhibitor. Ligand-based virtual screening resulted in some hits that were filtered using molecular docking and molecular dynamic simulations studies. Both in silico methods and in vitro antifungal assays were used as tools to select and validate the abscisic acid repurposing. Abscisic acid inhibition assays confirmed the inhibitory effect of abscisic acid on chorismate mutase through the inhibition of phenylpyruvate production. The repositioning of abscisic acid, the well-known and naturally occurring plant growth regulator, as a potential antifungal agent because of its suggested action as an inhibitor to several fungal chorismate mutases was the main result of this work.

  17. Towards Rational Decision-Making in Secondary Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohn, Elchanan

    Without a conscious effort to achieve optimum resource allocation, there is a real danger that educational resources may be wasted. This document uses input-output analysis to develop a model for rational decision-making in secondary education. (LLR)

  18. Travel time variability and rational inattention

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgerau, Mogens; Jiang, Gege

    2017-01-01

    This paper sets up a rational inattention model for the choice of departure time for a traveler facing random travel time. The traveler chooses how much information to acquire about the travel time out-come before choosing departure time. This reduces the cost of travel time variability compared...

  19. Public and private health-care financing with alternate public rationing rules.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cuff, Katherine; Hurley, Jeremiah; Mestelman, Stuart; Muller, Andrew; Nuscheler, Robert

    2012-02-01

    We develop a model to analyze parallel public and private health-care financing under two alternative public sector rationing rules: needs-based rationing and random rationing. Individuals vary in income and severity of illness. There is a limited supply of health-care resources used to treat individuals, causing some individuals to go untreated. Insurers (both public and private) must bid to obtain the necessary health-care resources to treat their beneficiaries. Given individuals' willingnesses-to-pay for private insurance are increasing in income, the introduction of private insurance diverts treatment from relatively poor to relatively rich individuals. Further, the impact of introducing parallel private insurance depends on the rationing mechanism in the public sector. We show that the private health insurance market is smaller when the public sector rations according to need than when allocation is random. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  20. THE REPRESENTATIVENESS OF HOMO OECONOMICUS AND ITS RATIONALITY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula-Elena DIACON

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The homo oeconomicus model is an essential concept of the neoclassical analysis. It defines the agent capable of rational choices in pursuing the maximization of his own utility functions. Over time, the notion remained at the basis of many debates, related mainly to its relevance. However, the concept remained, until now, a fundamental component of mainstream analysis. This article aims to present a brief overview of the arguments that support the use of this model, but also its limitations and inconsistencies. Our main goal is to analyze if homo oeconomicus can be or not considered an ideal representation of the economic agent. Further, the analysis emphasize on the attribute of rationality, which is one of the most disputed feature in the literature.

  1. Effect of Rational Emotive Theraphy in the Reduction of Bullying ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Effect of Rational Emotive Theraphy in the Reduction of Bullying Behaviour of Youth. ... Subscription or Fee Access ... Using a multi-stage approach, a total of sixty (60) secondary school students (30 males and 30 females; 30 JSS and 30 SSS) ...

  2. Limited rationality and strategic interaction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fehr, Ernst; Tyran, Jean-Robert

    2008-01-01

    Much evidence suggests that people are heterogeneous with regard to their abilities to make rational, forward-looking decisions. This raises the question as to when the rational types are decisive for aggregate outcomes and when the boundedly rational types shape aggregate results. We examine...... this question in the context of a long-standing and important economic problem: the adjustment of nominal prices after an anticipated monetary shock. Our experiments suggest that two types of bounded rationality-money illusion and anchoring-are important behavioral forces behind nominal inertia. However......, depending on the strategic environment, bounded rationality has vastly different effects on aggregate price adjustment. If agents' actions are strategic substitutes, adjustment to the new equilibrium is extremely quick, whereas under strategic complementarity, adjustment is both very slow and associated...

  3. What Is Common about Common Schooling? Rational Autonomy and Moral Agency in Liberal Democratic Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alexander, Hanan

    2007-01-01

    In this essay I critique two influential accounts of rational autonomy in common schooling that conceive liberalism as an ideal form of life, and I offer an alternative approach to democratic education that views liberal theory as concerned with coexistence among rival ways of living. This view places moral agency, not rational autonomy, at the…

  4. Evaluation of urban river landscape design rationality based on AHP

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiao Lifang

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available An evaluation model for the rationality of the landscape design of urban rivers was established with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP method so as to provide a foundation for updating the landscape design of urban rivers. The evaluation system was divided into four layers, including the target layer, the comprehensive layer, the element layer, and the index layer. Each layer was made of different indices. The evaluation standards for each index were also given in this paper. This evaluation model was proved tenable through its application to the landscape design rationality evaluation of the Weihe River in Xinxiang City of Henan Province. The results show that the water quality, space, activity, facility, community, width of vegetation, sense of beauty and water content are among the most influential factors and should be considered the main basis for evaluating the rationality of the landscape design of urban rivers.

  5. Interpolation of rational matrix functions

    CERN Document Server

    Ball, Joseph A; Rodman, Leiba

    1990-01-01

    This book aims to present the theory of interpolation for rational matrix functions as a recently matured independent mathematical subject with its own problems, methods and applications. The authors decided to start working on this book during the regional CBMS conference in Lincoln, Nebraska organized by F. Gilfeather and D. Larson. The principal lecturer, J. William Helton, presented ten lectures on operator and systems theory and the interplay between them. The conference was very stimulating and helped us to decide that the time was ripe for a book on interpolation for matrix valued functions (both rational and non-rational). When the work started and the first partial draft of the book was ready it became clear that the topic is vast and that the rational case by itself with its applications is already enough material for an interesting book. In the process of writing the book, methods for the rational case were developed and refined. As a result we are now able to present the rational case as an indepe...

  6. Competition analysis of a triopoly game with bounded rationality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elsadany, A.A.

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► We model a Cournot triopoly game with three boundedly rational players. ► The equilibrium points of the model and their local stability are investigated. ► We study the dynamics of this model as varying the parameters. ► The stability of Nash equilibrium is lost and a chaotic behaviors occur. - Abstract: A dynamic Cournot game characterized by three boundedly rational players is modeled by three nonlinear difference equations. The stability of the equilibria of the discrete dynamical system is analyzed. As some parameters of the model are varied, the stability of Nash equilibrium is lost and a complex chaotic behavior occurs. Numerical simulation results show that complex dynamics, such as, bifurcations and chaos are displayed when the value of speed of adjustment is high. The global complexity analysis can help players to take some measures and avoid the collapse of the output dynamic competition game.

  7. On the road to metallic nanoparticles by rational design: bridging the gap between atomic-level theoretical modeling and reality by total scattering experiments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prasai, Binay; Wilson, A. R.; Wiley, B. J.; Ren, Y.; Petkov, Valeri

    2015-10-01

    The extent to which current theoretical modeling alone can reveal real-world metallic nanoparticles (NPs) at the atomic level was scrutinized and demonstrated to be insufficient and how it can be improved by using a pragmatic approach involving straightforward experiments is shown. In particular, 4 to 6 nm in size silica supported Au100-xPdx (x = 30, 46 and 58) explored for catalytic applications is characterized structurally by total scattering experiments including high-energy synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) coupled to atomic pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. Atomic-level models for the NPs are built by molecular dynamics simulations based on the archetypal for current theoretical modeling Sutton-Chen (SC) method. Models are matched against independent experimental data and are demonstrated to be inaccurate unless their theoretical foundation, i.e. the SC method, is supplemented with basic yet crucial information on the length and strength of metal-to-metal bonds and, when necessary, structural disorder in the actual NPs studied. An atomic PDF-based approach for accessing such information and implementing it in theoretical modeling is put forward. For completeness, the approach is concisely demonstrated on 15 nm in size water-dispersed Au particles explored for bio-medical applications and 16 nm in size hexane-dispersed Fe48Pd52 particles explored for magnetic applications as well. It is argued that when ``tuned up'' against experiments relevant to metals and alloys confined to nanoscale dimensions, such as total scattering coupled to atomic PDF analysis, rather than by mere intuition and/or against data for the respective solids, atomic-level theoretical modeling can provide a sound understanding of the synthesis-structure-property relationships in real-world metallic NPs. Ultimately this can help advance nanoscience and technology a step closer to producing metallic NPs by rational design.The extent to which current theoretical modeling alone can

  8. Bloody nipple discharge (BND) in an 8 months old girl and a 9 months old male--rational diagnostic approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harmsen, S; Mayatepek, E; Klee, D; Meissner, T

    2010-03-01

    Bloody nipple discharge in adults is, in men as well as in women, often a symptom of an underlying malignant disease. In respect of this, multiple invasive and mutilating diagnostic procedures have been performed in infants and older children. Apart from individual cases in older and pubertal children, in childhood benign conditions are most common and can be diagnosed by non-invasive diagnostic procedures. Here we discuss a rational diagnostic approach on the basis of 2 patients with bloody nipple discharge at the age of 8 and 9 months which resolved spontaneously without treatment after 3 and 6 months, respectively. (c) Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart-New York.

  9. History of Economic Rationalities

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    This book concentrates upon how economic rationalities have been embedded into particular historical practices, cultures, and moral systems. Through multiple case-studies, situated in different historical contexts of the modern West, the book shows that the development of economic rationalities...... takes place in the meeting with other regimes of thought, values, and moral discourses. The book offers new and refreshing insights, ranging from the development of early economic thinking to economic aspects and concepts in the works of classical thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Karl Marx......, to the role of economic reasoning in contemporary policies of art and health care. With economic rationalities as the read thread, the reader is offered a unique chance of historical self-awareness and recollection of how economic rationality became the powerful ideological and moral force that it is today....

  10. Rational-Emotive Therapy and Youth: Some New Techniques for Counselors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roush, David W.

    1984-01-01

    Derived from experience with cognitively and emotionally impaired juvenile offenders, several techniques are presented to increase the effectiveness of Rational Emotive Therapy with youth. The techniques provide young people with useful tools for building an effective personal problem solving approach to life. (JAC)

  11. A practice based approach to forest governance

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Arts, Bas; Behagel, Jelle; Turnhout, Esther; de Koning, Jessica; van Bommel, Séverine

    2014-01-01

    ‘Forest governance’ refers to new modes of regulation in the forest sector, such as decentralized, community-based and market-oriented policy instruments and management approaches. Its main theoretical basis consists of two mainstream models: rational choice and neo-institutionalism. Since these

  12. Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kenrick, Douglas T; Griskevicius, Vladas; Sundie, Jill M; Li, Norman P; Li, Yexin Jessica; Neuberg, Steven L

    2009-10-01

    What is a "rational" decision? Economists traditionally viewed rationality as maximizing expected satisfaction. This view has been useful in modeling basic microeconomic concepts, but falls short in accounting for many everyday human decisions. It leaves unanswered why some things reliably make people more satisfied than others, and why people frequently act to make others happy at a cost to themselves. Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we propose that people make decisions according to a set of principles that may not appear to make sense at the superficial level, but that demonstrate rationality at a deeper evolutionary level. By this, we mean that people use adaptive domain-specific decision-rules that, on average, would have resulted in fitness benefits. Using this framework, we re-examine several economic principles. We suggest that traditional psychological functions governing risk aversion, discounting of future benefits, and budget allocations to multiple goods, for example, vary in predictable ways as a function of the underlying motive of the decision-maker and individual differences linked to evolved life-history strategies. A deep rationality framework not only helps explain why people make the decisions they do, but also inspires multiple directions for future research.

  13. Rational Modular RNA Engineering Based on In Vivo Profiling of Structural Accessibility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leistra, Abigail N; Amador, Paul; Buvanendiran, Aishwarya; Moon-Walker, Alex; Contreras, Lydia M

    2017-12-15

    Bacterial small RNAs (sRNAs) have been established as powerful parts for controlling gene expression. However, development and application of engineered sRNAs has primarily focused on regulating novel synthetic targets. In this work, we demonstrate a rational modular RNA engineering approach that uses in vivo structural accessibility measurements to tune the regulatory activity of a multisubstrate sRNA for differential control of its native target network. Employing the CsrB global sRNA regulator as a model system, we use published in vivo structural accessibility data to infer the contribution of its local structures (substructures) to function and select a subset for engineering. We then modularly recombine the selected substructures, differentially representing those of presumed high or low functional contribution, to build a library of 21 CsrB variants. Using fluorescent translational reporter assays, we demonstrate that the CsrB variants achieve a 5-fold gradient of control of well-characterized Csr network targets. Interestingly, results suggest that less conserved local structures within long, multisubstrate sRNAs may represent better targets for rational engineering than their well-conserved counterparts. Lastly, mapping the impact of sRNA variants on a signature Csr network phenotype indicates the potential of this approach for tuning the activity of global sRNA regulators in the context of metabolic engineering applications.

  14. Psychology and the Rationality of Emotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clore, Gerald L

    2011-04-01

    Questions addressed by recent psychological research on emotion include questions about how thought shapes emotion and how emotion, in turn, shapes thought. Research on emotion and cognition paints a somewhat different picture than that seen in traditional discussions of passion and reason. This article reviews several aspects of this research, concentrating specifically on three views of rationality: Rationality as Process, Rationality as Product, and Rationality as Outcome.

  15. Psychology and the Rationality of Emotion*

    OpenAIRE

    Clore, Gerald L.

    2011-01-01

    Questions addressed by recent psychological research on emotion include questions about how thought shapes emotion and how emotion, in turn, shapes thought. Research on emotion and cognition paints a somewhat different picture than that seen in traditional discussions of passion and reason. This article reviews several aspects of this research, concentrating specifically on three views of rationality: Rationality as Process, Rationality as Product, and Rationality as Outcome.

  16. A rational approach for evaluation and screening of treatment and disposal options for the solar pond sludges at Rocky Flats

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dickerson, K.S.

    1995-01-01

    This document consists of information about the treatment options for the sludge that is located in the evaporation ponds at the Rocky Flats Plant. The sludges are mixed low-level radioactive wastes whose composition and character were variable. Sludges similar to these are typically treated prior to ultimate disposal. Disposal of treated sludges includes both on-site and off-site options. The rational approach described in this paper is useful for technology evaluation and screening because it provides a format for developing objectives, listing alternatives, and weighing the alternatives against the objectives and against each other

  17. A rational approach for evaluation and screening of treatment and disposal options for the solar pond sludges at Rocky Flats

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dickerson, K.S.

    1995-12-31

    This document consists of information about the treatment options for the sludge that is located in the evaporation ponds at the Rocky Flats Plant. The sludges are mixed low-level radioactive wastes whose composition and character were variable. Sludges similar to these are typically treated prior to ultimate disposal. Disposal of treated sludges includes both on-site and off-site options. The rational approach described in this paper is useful for technology evaluation and screening because it provides a format for developing objectives, listing alternatives, and weighing the alternatives against the objectives and against each other.

  18. Randomness in the network inhibits cooperation based on the bounded rational collective altruistic decision

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ohdaira, Tetsushi

    2014-01-01

    Previous studies discussing cooperation employ the best decision that every player knows all information regarding the payoff matrix and selects the strategy of the highest payoff. Therefore, they do not discuss cooperation based on the altruistic decision with limited information (bounded rational altruistic decision). In addition, they do not cover the case where every player can submit his/her strategy several times in a match of the game. This paper is based on Ohdaira's reconsideration of the bounded rational altruistic decision, and also employs the framework of the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) with sequential strategy. The distinction between this study and the Ohdaira's reconsideration is that the former covers the model of multiple groups, but the latter deals with the model of only two groups. Ohdaira's reconsideration shows that the bounded rational altruistic decision facilitates much more cooperation in the PDG with sequential strategy than Ohdaira and Terano's bounded rational second-best decision does. However, the detail of cooperation of multiple groups based on the bounded rational altruistic decision has not been resolved yet. This study, therefore, shows how randomness in the network composed of multiple groups affects the increase of the average frequency of mutual cooperation (cooperation between groups) based on the bounded rational altruistic decision of multiple groups. We also discuss the results of the model in comparison with related studies which employ the best decision. (paper)

  19. Randomness in the network inhibits cooperation based on the bounded rational collective altruistic decision

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohdaira, Tetsushi

    2014-07-01

    Previous studies discussing cooperation employ the best decision that every player knows all information regarding the payoff matrix and selects the strategy of the highest payoff. Therefore, they do not discuss cooperation based on the altruistic decision with limited information (bounded rational altruistic decision). In addition, they do not cover the case where every player can submit his/her strategy several times in a match of the game. This paper is based on Ohdaira's reconsideration of the bounded rational altruistic decision, and also employs the framework of the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) with sequential strategy. The distinction between this study and the Ohdaira's reconsideration is that the former covers the model of multiple groups, but the latter deals with the model of only two groups. Ohdaira's reconsideration shows that the bounded rational altruistic decision facilitates much more cooperation in the PDG with sequential strategy than Ohdaira and Terano's bounded rational second-best decision does. However, the detail of cooperation of multiple groups based on the bounded rational altruistic decision has not been resolved yet. This study, therefore, shows how randomness in the network composed of multiple groups affects the increase of the average frequency of mutual cooperation (cooperation between groups) based on the bounded rational altruistic decision of multiple groups. We also discuss the results of the model in comparison with related studies which employ the best decision.

  20. Testing bounded rationality against full rationality in job changing behavior

    OpenAIRE

    Contini, Bruno; Morini, Matteo

    2007-01-01

    In this paper we question the hypothesis of full rationality in the context of job changing behaviour, via simple econometric explorations on microdata drawn from WHIP (Worker Histories Italian Panel). Workers' performance is compared at the end of a three-year time window that starts when choices are expressed, under the accepted notion that the main driving forces of job change are future real wages and expected job quality. Bounded rationality suggests that individuals will search for new ...

  1. Testing Bounded Rationality Against Full Rationality in Job Changing Behavior

    OpenAIRE

    Bruno Contini

    2008-01-01

    In this paper I question the hypothesis of full rationality in the context of job changing behaviour, via simple econometric explorations on microdata drawn from WHIP (Worker Histories Italian Panel). Workers’ performance is compared at the end of a three-year time window that starts when choices are expressed, under the accepted notion that the main driving forces of job change are future real wages and expected job quality. Bounded rationality suggests that individuals will search for new o...

  2. A Market Segmentation Approach for Higher Education Based on Rational and Emotional Factors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angulo, Fernando; Pergelova, Albena; Rialp, Josep

    2010-01-01

    Market segmentation is an important topic for higher education administrators and researchers. For segmenting the higher education market, we have to understand what factors are important for high school students in selecting a university. Extant literature has probed the importance of rational factors such as teaching staff, campus facilities,…

  3. An Outreach Program in Drug Education; Teaching a Rational Approach to Drug Use

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sorensen, James L.; Joffe, Stephen J.

    1975-01-01

    Aimed at encouraging rational decision making about drug use, a peer oriented drug education program was conducted in a community youth project. Youth and leaders shared feelings and knowledge about drugs. Compared with four program dropouts, six participants exhibited more positive attitudes toward the drug group, its leaders and themselves.…

  4. Psychology and the Rationality of Emotion*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clore, Gerald L.

    2014-01-01

    Questions addressed by recent psychological research on emotion include questions about how thought shapes emotion and how emotion, in turn, shapes thought. Research on emotion and cognition paints a somewhat different picture than that seen in traditional discussions of passion and reason. This article reviews several aspects of this research, concentrating specifically on three views of rationality: Rationality as Process, Rationality as Product, and Rationality as Outcome. PMID:25125770

  5. Cooperation among liquefied natural gas suppliers. Is rationalization the sole objective?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Massol, Olivier; Tchung-Ming, Stephane

    2010-01-01

    This paper examines the development of cooperative strategies between countries exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). This economic study focuses specifically on an often-raised scenario: the emergence of a cooperative approach designed with the sole aim of logistic rationalization, and which would not have any effect on LNG prices. We first assess the annual gains that may result from this market-power-free cooperative approach using a simple static transportation model. The numerical results obtained suggest that, in the absence of a gain redistribution policy, this cooperative strategy will probably not be adopted because cooperation would not be a rational move for some exporters. The problem of gain sharing is then formulated using cooperative game theory concepts. Several gain-sharing methods have been studied, including the Shapley value and various nucleolus-inspired concepts. Our results suggest that the choice of a redistribution policy appears relatively restricted. Out of the methods studied, only one - per capita nucleolus - satisfies two key requirements. core belonging and monotonicity (in the aggregate). Lastly, we look at how cooperation may give rise to a coordination cost and try to determine the maximum amount of this cost. In view of the low level of this amount and the relative complexity of the sharing method implemented, we consider that the credibility of a logistic cooperation scenario exempt from market power should be reappraised. (author)

  6. Cooperation among liquefied natural gas suppliers: Is rationalization the sole objective?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    MASSOL, Olivier; TCHUNG-MING, Stephane

    2009-01-01

    This paper examines the development of cooperative strategies between 12 countries exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and belonging to the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). This economic study is more specifically focused on a scenario often raised: that of the emergence of a cooperative approach designed with the sole aim of logistic rationalization, and which would not have any effect on LNG prices. As this is a standard transportation problem, we first assess the gains that may result from this cooperative approach using a simple static model calibrated on the year 2007. The numerical results obtained suggest that, in the absence of a gain redistribution policy, this cooperative strategy will probably not be adopted because cooperation would not be a rational move for some exporters. The problem of gain sharing is then formulated using cooperative game theory concepts. Several gain sharing methods have been studied, including the Shapley value and various nucleolus-inspired concepts. Our results suggest that the choice of a redistribution policy appears relatively restricted. Out of the methods studied, only one - the per capita nucleolus - satisfies two key requirements: core belonging and mono-tonicity (in the aggregate). Lastly, coordination costs are considered and we determine the maximum amount that can be tolerated by such a cooperation. In view of the low level of this amount and the relative complexity of the sharing method implemented, we consider that the credibility of a logistic cooperation scenario exempt from market power should be reappraised. (authors)

  7. Cooperation among liquefied natural gas suppliers. Is rationalization the sole objective?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Massol, Olivier [Center for Economics and Management, IFP School, 228-232 av. Napoleon Bonaparte, F-92852 Rueil-Malmaison (France); Department of Economics, City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB (United Kingdom); Tchung-Ming, Stephane [Economic Studies Division, IFP, 1-4 av. de Bois-Preau, F-92852 Rueil Malmaison (France); CREDEN, Universite Montpellier I, Av. de la mer, BP 9606, F-34054, Montpellier (France)

    2010-07-15

    This paper examines the development of cooperative strategies between countries exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). This economic study focuses specifically on an often-raised scenario: the emergence of a cooperative approach designed with the sole aim of logistic rationalization, and which would not have any effect on LNG prices. We first assess the annual gains that may result from this market-power-free cooperative approach using a simple static transportation model. The numerical results obtained suggest that, in the absence of a gain redistribution policy, this cooperative strategy will probably not be adopted because cooperation would not be a rational move for some exporters. The problem of gain sharing is then formulated using cooperative game theory concepts. Several gain-sharing methods have been studied, including the Shapley value and various nucleolus-inspired concepts. Our results suggest that the choice of a redistribution policy appears relatively restricted. Out of the methods studied, only one - per capita nucleolus - satisfies two key requirements. core belonging and monotonicity (in the aggregate). Lastly, we look at how cooperation may give rise to a coordination cost and try to determine the maximum amount of this cost. In view of the low level of this amount and the relative complexity of the sharing method implemented, we consider that the credibility of a logistic cooperation scenario exempt from market power should be reappraised. (author)

  8. Filozofická reflexe omezené racionality (Philosophical Reflection of Bounded Rationality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal Müller

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Research of rationality represents area of interaction between philosophy and economics. Development of neuroscience and advances in scientific research lead to another common characteristic – gradual loss of competence to comment on results of scientific research. This article describes development of the concept of economic rationality and makes an effort to deal with the following question: Can philosophy play useful role in contemporary discussions about the nature of decision-making and rationality? The authors conclude that philosophy itself does not have any extraordinary method which is able to ensure an exclusive position within the contemporary research. The role of philosophy consists in analyzing arguments, explanations of terms, in the search for ethical consequences, or in the preparation of social sciences to naturalization through critical evaluation of obsolete approaches that are inconsistent with the findings of natural science.

  9. DISTRIBUTED RC NETWORKS WITH RATIONAL TRANSFER FUNCTIONS,

    Science.gov (United States)

    A distributed RC circuit analogous to a continuously tapped transmission line can be made to have a rational short-circuit transfer admittance and...one rational shortcircuit driving-point admittance. A subcircuit of the same structure has a rational open circuit transfer impedance and one rational ...open circuit driving-point impedance. Hence, rational transfer functions may be obtained while considering either generator impedance or load

  10. Sweat loss prediction using a multi-model approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Xiaojiang; Santee, William R

    2011-07-01

    A new multi-model approach (MMA) for sweat loss prediction is proposed to improve prediction accuracy. MMA was computed as the average of sweat loss predicted by two existing thermoregulation models: i.e., the rational model SCENARIO and the empirical model Heat Strain Decision Aid (HSDA). Three independent physiological datasets, a total of 44 trials, were used to compare predictions by MMA, SCENARIO, and HSDA. The observed sweat losses were collected under different combinations of uniform ensembles, environmental conditions (15-40°C, RH 25-75%), and exercise intensities (250-600 W). Root mean square deviation (RMSD), residual plots, and paired t tests were used to compare predictions with observations. Overall, MMA reduced RMSD by 30-39% in comparison with either SCENARIO or HSDA, and increased the prediction accuracy to 66% from 34% or 55%. Of the MMA predictions, 70% fell within the range of mean observed value ± SD, while only 43% of SCENARIO and 50% of HSDA predictions fell within the same range. Paired t tests showed that differences between observations and MMA predictions were not significant, but differences between observations and SCENARIO or HSDA predictions were significantly different for two datasets. Thus, MMA predicted sweat loss more accurately than either of the two single models for the three datasets used. Future work will be to evaluate MMA using additional physiological data to expand the scope of populations and conditions.

  11. Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalberg, Stephen

    1980-01-01

    Explores rationality in Max Weber's works and identifies four types of rationality which play major roles in his writing--practical, theoretical, substantive, and formal. Implications for society and education are discussed. (DB)

  12. Correcting bias in the rational polynomial coefficients of satellite imagery using thin-plate smoothing splines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Xiang; Liu, Bin; Li, Qing-Quan

    2017-03-01

    The Rational Function Model (RFM) has proven to be a viable alternative to the rigorous sensor models used for geo-processing of high-resolution satellite imagery. Because of various errors in the satellite ephemeris and instrument calibration, the Rational Polynomial Coefficients (RPCs) supplied by image vendors are often not sufficiently accurate, and there is therefore a clear need to correct the systematic biases in order to meet the requirements of high-precision topographic mapping. In this paper, we propose a new RPC bias-correction method using the thin-plate spline modeling technique. Benefiting from its excellent performance and high flexibility in data fitting, the thin-plate spline model has the potential to remove complex distortions in vendor-provided RPCs, such as the errors caused by short-period orbital perturbations. The performance of the new method was evaluated by using Ziyuan-3 satellite images and was compared against the recently developed least-squares collocation approach, as well as the classical affine-transformation and quadratic-polynomial based methods. The results show that the accuracies of the thin-plate spline and the least-squares collocation approaches were better than the other two methods, which indicates that strong non-rigid deformations exist in the test data because they cannot be adequately modeled by simple polynomial-based methods. The performance of the thin-plate spline method was close to that of the least-squares collocation approach when only a few Ground Control Points (GCPs) were used, and it improved more rapidly with an increase in the number of redundant observations. In the test scenario using 21 GCPs (some of them located at the four corners of the scene), the correction residuals of the thin-plate spline method were about 36%, 37%, and 19% smaller than those of the affine transformation method, the quadratic polynomial method, and the least-squares collocation algorithm, respectively, which demonstrates

  13. Coherent states and rational surfaces

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brody, Dorje C; Graefe, Eva-Maria

    2010-01-01

    The state spaces of generalized coherent states associated with special unitary groups are shown to form rational curves and surfaces in the space of pure states. These curves and surfaces are generated by the various Veronese embeddings of the underlying state space into higher dimensional state spaces. This construction is applied to the parameterization of generalized coherent states, which is useful for practical calculations, and provides an elementary combinatorial approach to the geometry of the coherent state space. The results are extended to Hilbert spaces with indefinite inner products, leading to the introduction of a new kind of generalized coherent states.

  14. A dialogue game for analysing group model building: framing collaborative modelling and its facilitation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoppenbrouwers, S.J.B.A.; Rouwette, E.A.J.A.

    2012-01-01

    This paper concerns a specific approach to analysing and structuring operational situations in collaborative modelling. Collaborative modelling is viewed here as 'the goal-driven creation and shaping of models that are based on the principles of rational description and reasoning'. Our long term

  15. The concept of rational suicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayo, D J

    1986-05-01

    Suicide has been condemned in our culture in one way or another since Augustine offered theological arguments against it in the sixth century. More recently, theological condemnation has given way to the view that suicidal behavior must always be symptomatic of emotional disturbance and mental illness. However, suicide has not always been viewed so negatively. In other times and cultures, it has been held that circumstances might befall a person in which suicide would be a perfectly rational course of action, in the same sense that any other course of action could be rational: that it could be sensible, i.e., defensible by good reasons, or that it could be in keeping with the agent's fundamental interests. Indiscriminate use of modern life-sustaining technologies has renewed interest in the possibility of rational suicide. Today proponents of rational suicide tend to equate the rationality of suicide with the competence of the decision to commit suicide.

  16. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) rationing and access mechanisms and their impact on youth ART utilization in Malawi.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, Jimmy-Gama; Gibson, Sarah; McPake, Barbara; Maleta, Ken

    2011-06-01

    The World Health Organization (WHO) staging is a commonly used rationing mechanism for highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) among various HIV infected populations including youths in most developing countries. Rationing is defined as any policy or practice that restricts consumption of or access to certain goods due to its limited supply. However, as HIV prevalence is rapidly increasing among youth, understanding the capacity of the staging approach to achieve HAART uptake in youth is of considerable importance. This study aimed to explore how HAART rationing and access mechanisms impact on youth's utilization of HAART in Malawi. The study used mixed methods with quantitative analysis of existing Ministry of Health Clinical HIV Unit data used to determine existing levels of youth HAART use. Qualitative methods employed in-depth interviews that interviewed nine ART providers, nine HIV positive youth on HAART and nine HIV positive youth not on HAART; and field observations to nine ART clinics were used to understand HAART rationing and access mechanisms and how such mechanisms impact youth uptake of HAART. The findings revealed that ART providers use both explicit rationing mechanisms like WHO clinical staging and implicit rationing mechanisms like use of waiting lists, queues and referral in ART provision. However, the WHO staging approach had some challenges in its implementation. It was also observed that factors like non-comprehensive approach to HAART provision, costs incurred to access HAART, negative beliefs and misconceptions about HAART and HIV were among the key factors that limit youth access to HAART. The study recommends that while WHO staging is successful as a rationing mechanism in Malawi, measures should be put in place to improve access to CD4 assessment for clients who may need it. ART providers also need to be made aware of the implicit rationing mechanisms that may affect HAART access. There is also need to improve monitoring of those HIV

  17. The Integration of Extrarational and Rational Learning Processes: Moving Towards the Whole Learner.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puk, Tom

    1996-01-01

    Discusses the dichotomy between rational and nonrational learning processes, arguing for an integration of both. Reviews information processing theory and related learning strategies. Presents a model instructional strategy that fully integrates rational and nonrational processes. Describes implications for teaching and learning of the learning…

  18. Considerations for the rational design of a Chlamydia vaccine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liang, Steven; Bulir, David; Kaushic, Charu; Mahony, James

    2017-04-03

    Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading cause of preventable blindness and the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection. Remarkable progress in vaccine research over the past six decades has led to the advancement of novel C. trachomatis vaccine candidates into clinical trials. However, many questions regarding the role of specific cellular populations and molecular mechanisms in protective immunity against human C. trachomatis genital tract infections remain unanswered. Biomarkers of vaccine induced protective immunity are elusive in humans, while a cautionary message on the translatability of data obtained from current animal models has emanated from vaccine research and development efforts against other important human pathogens. In this commentary, we highlight recent advances in Chlamydia vaccine development and discuss their implications in the context of a rational approach to the design of a human C. trachomatis vaccine.

  19. RATGRAPH: Computer Graphing of Rational Functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minch, Bradley A.

    1987-01-01

    Presents an easy-to-use Applesoft BASIC program that graphs rational functions and any asymptotes that the functions might have. Discusses the nature of rational functions, graphing them manually, employing a computer to graph rational functions, and describes how the program works. (TW)

  20. Brand deletion: How the decision-making approach affects deletion success

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Víctor Temprano-García

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Literature on brand deletion (BD, a critical and topical decision within a firm's marketing strategy, is extremely scarce. The present research is concerned with the decision-making process and examines the effect on BD success of three different approaches to decision-making – rational, intuitive and political – and of the interaction between the rational and political approaches. The moderating effect of the type of BD – i.e., total brand killing or disposal vs. brand name change – is also analyzed. The model is tested on a sample of 155 cases of BD. Results point to positive effects on BD success of both rationality and intuition, and a negative effect of politics. Findings also indicate that the negative impact of political behavior on BD success is minimized in the absence of evidence and objective information and when the BD is undertaken through a brand name change. JEL classification: L10, M31, Keywords: Brand deletion, Rational decision-making, Intuitive decision-making, Political decision-making, Brand deletion success

  1. THE THEORY OF EFFICIENT MARKETS AND A MODEL OF RATIONAL INVESTOR – FROM CONDITIONS OF RISK TO TERMS OF CONFLICT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Krzysztof Dobrowolski

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available The theoretical assumption about the informative effectiveness of financial markets is very important, although the discussion about its compatibility with the reality still re-mains open. The article summarises the key elements of the theory of efficient markets, paying particular attention to the adopted in this theory assumption about a rational inves-tor, which also appears in other models and theories related to the financial markets (such as capital asset pricing model CAPM or Markowitz Portfolio Theory. The views on the way and criteria for decision-making by a rational investor have changed over the centu-ries. Today, the dominant theory in this regard is the theory of expected utility. However, it characterizes the decision-making process under risk conditions, which are not the most common economic environment, particularly in an economy subjected to the process of globalisation. Thus, the problem of using the models of decision making under conditions of uncertainty, ignorance and terms of conflict in the efficient market theory and the theo-ry of expected utility is under consideration in the final part of the article.

  2. "Leaky" Rationality: How Research on Behavioral Decision Making Challenges Normative Standards of Rationality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keys, Daniel J; Schwartz, Barry

    2007-06-01

    For more than 30 years, decision-making research has documented that people often violate various principles of rationality, some of which are so fundamental that theorists of rationality rarely bother to state them. We take these characteristics of decision making as a given but argue that it is problematic to conclude that they typically represent departures from rationality. The very psychological processes that lead to "irrational" decisions (e.g., framing, mental accounting) continue to exert their influence when one experiences the results of the decisions. That is, psychological processes that affect decisions may be said also to "leak" into one's experience. The implication is that formal principles of rationality do not provide a good enough normative standard against which to assess decision making. Instead, what is needed is a substantive theory of rationality-one that takes subjective experience seriously, considers both direct and indirect consequences of particular decisions, considers how particular decisions fit into life as a whole, and considers the effects of decisions on others. Formal principles may play a role as approximations of the substantive theory that can be used by theorists and decision makers in cases in which the formal principles can capture most of the relevant considerations and leakage into experience is negligible. © 2007 Association for Psychological Science.

  3. Popper, Rationality and the Possibility of Social Science

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danny Frederick

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Social science employs teleological explanations which depend upon the rationality principle, according to which people exhibit instrumental rationality. Popper points out that people also exhibit critical rationality, the tendency to stand back from, and to question or criticise, their views. I explain how our critical rationality impugns the explanatory value of the rationality principle and thereby threatens the very possibility of social science. I discuss the relationship between instrumental and critical rationality and show how we can reconcile our critical rationality with the possibility of social science if we invoke Popper’s conception of limited rationality and his indeterminism.

  4. Ethics of rationing of nursing care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rooddehghan, Zahra; Yekta, Zohreh Parsa; Nasrabadi, Alireza N

    2016-09-21

    Rationing of various needed services, for example, nursing care, is inevitable due to unlimited needs and limited resources. Rationing of nursing care is considered an ethical issue since it requires judgment about potential conflicts between personal and professional values. The present research sought to explore aspects of rationing nursing care in Iran. This study applied qualitative content analysis, a method to explore people's perceptions of everyday life phenomena and interpret the subjective content of text data. Data collection was performed through in-depth, unstructured, face-to-face interviews with open-ended questions. The study population included Iranian nurses of all nursing positions, from clinical nurses to nurse managers. Purposive sampling was employed to select 15 female and 3 male nurses (11 clinical nurses, 3 supervisors, 1 matron, 1 nurse, and 2 members of the Nursing Council) working in hospitals of three cities in Iran. The study protocol was approved by Tehran University of Medical Sciences (91D1302870). Written informed consent was also obtained from all participants. According to the participants, rationing of nursing care consisted of two categories, that is, causes of rationing and consequences of rationing. The first category comprised three subcategories, namely, patient needs and demands, routinism, and VIP patients. The three subcategories forming the second category were missed nursing care, patient dissatisfaction, and nurses' feeling of guilt. Levels at which healthcare practices are rationed and clarity of the rationing are important structural considerations in the development of an equal, appropriate, and ethical healthcare system. Moreover, the procedure of rationing is critical as it not only influences people's lives but also reflects the values that dominate in the society. Therefore, in order to minimize the negative consequences of rationing of nursing care, further studies on the ethical dimensions of this phenomenon

  5. Rational and Mechanistic Perspectives on Reinforcement Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chater, Nick

    2009-01-01

    This special issue describes important recent developments in applying reinforcement learning models to capture neural and cognitive function. But reinforcement learning, as a theoretical framework, can apply at two very different levels of description: "mechanistic" and "rational." Reinforcement learning is often viewed in mechanistic terms--as…

  6. More Than the Ten Rational Thinking Processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torrance, E. Paul

    1980-01-01

    The 10 rational processes (which include recalling and imagining, classifying and generalizing, comparing and evaluating, analyzing and synthesizing, and deducting and inferring) are examined from a cultural and historical perspective, with particular emphasis on the suprarational aspects of creative thinking. A three stage model for facilitating…

  7. HUMAN REASON AND SOCIAL RATIONALITY IN ION UNGUREANU’S THINKING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LUCIEN V. CONSTANTIN

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Ion Ungureanu is one of the most important sociologists Romania has had in the last half a century. Leader of his generation, he contributed to the development of the paradigms of sociological thinking and he analyzed fundamental concepts of sociological theory. This study aims to expose comparatively and critically one of the most significant contributions of Ion Ungureanu – the concept of social rationality. Unlike Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto, Ion Ungureanu makes the important distinction between human rationality and social rationality. Struck by this shortcoming, more or less, the two conceptions end up supporting the thesis of human and social action of landed irrationality, like V. Pareto or by opening the path to this irrationality, like Max Weber, taking into consideration the fact that comprehension and knowledge of the meaning of the action, condition of the possibility of initiation of a rational action, can seldom be known by the social actors. With Ion Ungureanu, the rationality of social action is understood through multiple criteria, depending on six ontological dimensions of social existence – social development, economic growth, social participation, social responsibility, social education and social rationality, each containing two aspects. All of these form what the Romanian sociologist calls “the generalized model of social rationality”, a theoretical referential that allows the optimization of social life

  8. Casebook on rationalization of power use

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1986-06-01

    This book introduces the cases on rationalization of power use, which is divided into four parts. The first part refers the goal of rational use of energy and the result. The second part deals with the excellent cases on rationalization of domestic power use, which list the name of the company, hotel and factory according to the field such as building, textile and food. The third part contains the outstanding cases on rationalization of foreign power use, which were listed by the specific way to reduce electricity use each section. The fourth part is comprised of two chapters, which deals with the cases of domestic technical data and foreign technical data for rational use of energy.

  9. A NEW TOOL FOR IMAGE ANALYSIS BASED ON CHEBYSHEV RATIONAL FUNCTIONS: CHEF FUNCTIONS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jiménez-Teja, Y.; Benítez, N.

    2012-01-01

    We introduce a new approach to the modeling of the light distribution of galaxies, an orthonormal polar basis formed by a combination of Chebyshev rational functions and Fourier polynomials that we call CHEF functions, or CHEFs. We have developed an orthonormalization process to apply this basis to pixelized images, and implemented the method as a Python pipeline. The new basis displays remarkable flexibility, being able to accurately fit all kinds of galaxy shapes, including irregulars, spirals, ellipticals, highly compact, and highly elongated galaxies. It does this while using fewer components than similar methods, as shapelets, and without producing artifacts, due to the efficiency of the rational Chebyshev polynomials to fit quickly decaying functions like galaxy profiles. The method is linear and very stable, and therefore is capable of processing large numbers of galaxies in a fast and automated way. Due to the high quality of the fits in the central parts of the galaxies, and the efficiency of the CHEF basis modeling galaxy profiles up to very large distances, the method provides highly accurate estimates of total galaxy fluxes and ellipticities. Future papers will explore in more detail the application of the method to perform multiband photometry, morphological classification, and weak shear measurements.

  10. Rational Decision-Making in Inhibitory Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shenoy, Pradeep; Yu, Angela J.

    2011-01-01

    An important aspect of cognitive flexibility is inhibitory control, the ability to dynamically modify or cancel planned actions in response to changes in the sensory environment or task demands. We formulate a probabilistic, rational decision-making framework for inhibitory control in the stop signal paradigm. Our model posits that subjects maintain a Bayes-optimal, continually updated representation of sensory inputs, and repeatedly assess the relative value of stopping and going on a fine temporal scale, in order to make an optimal decision on when and whether to go on each trial. We further posit that they implement this continual evaluation with respect to a global objective function capturing the various reward and penalties associated with different behavioral outcomes, such as speed and accuracy, or the relative costs of stop errors and go errors. We demonstrate that our rational decision-making model naturally gives rise to basic behavioral characteristics consistently observed for this paradigm, as well as more subtle effects due to contextual factors such as reward contingencies or motivational factors. Furthermore, we show that the classical race model can be seen as a computationally simpler, perhaps neurally plausible, approximation to optimal decision-making. This conceptual link allows us to predict how the parameters of the race model, such as the stopping latency, should change with task parameters and individual experiences/ability. PMID:21647306

  11. Rational decision-making in inhibitory control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shenoy, Pradeep; Yu, Angela J

    2011-01-01

    An important aspect of cognitive flexibility is inhibitory control, the ability to dynamically modify or cancel planned actions in response to changes in the sensory environment or task demands. We formulate a probabilistic, rational decision-making framework for inhibitory control in the stop signal paradigm. Our model posits that subjects maintain a Bayes-optimal, continually updated representation of sensory inputs, and repeatedly assess the relative value of stopping and going on a fine temporal scale, in order to make an optimal decision on when and whether to go on each trial. We further posit that they implement this continual evaluation with respect to a global objective function capturing the various reward and penalties associated with different behavioral outcomes, such as speed and accuracy, or the relative costs of stop errors and go errors. We demonstrate that our rational decision-making model naturally gives rise to basic behavioral characteristics consistently observed for this paradigm, as well as more subtle effects due to contextual factors such as reward contingencies or motivational factors. Furthermore, we show that the classical race model can be seen as a computationally simpler, perhaps neurally plausible, approximation to optimal decision-making. This conceptual link allows us to predict how the parameters of the race model, such as the stopping latency, should change with task parameters and individual experiences/ability.

  12. Electricity generation, rational energy use and CO2 emissions. The Electrabel approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bulteel, P.

    1995-01-01

    Electrabel (Belgium) commitments in integrating the goals of rational and sustainable energy use and CO 2 emissions control are presented: demand side measures with promotion and decision-making help to the customers in order to reduce technical, commercial and financial barriers, and supply side measures such as integrated resource planning, high efficiency fossil-fuel generating stations (gas fired combined cycle units), cogeneration schemes. The expected impact on CO 2 emissions are discussed

  13. Stress Management: A Rational Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reeves, Cecil

    This workbook was designed for use as the primary resource tool during a l-day participatory stress management seminar in which participants identify stressful situations, conduct analyses, and develop approaches to manage the stressful situations more effectively. Small group warm-up activities designed to introduce participants, encourage…

  14. A Strategy for Understanding and Correcting Irrational Beliefs in Pupils: The Rational-Emotional Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zionts, Paul

    1983-01-01

    Rational-emotive education integrates the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional aspects of personality and encourages behavior disordered students to discuss and work through their problems. Teachers need to display warmth, empathy, and be active-directive to help students manage their feelings and behaviors. (CL)

  15. From rational creatures to the rational Creator: ancient and patristic analogies of the “fine-tuning” argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexey Fokin

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In this article the author deals with the proofs of the existence of God, based on the fact of the presence of rational beings in the world. These proofs can be found in Greek and Roman Classical philosophy and early Patristics, and can be viewed as an analogue of the modern “fine-tuning argument”. The author considers the origins and development of this argument in the Greek and Roman philosophy: in Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, and especially the Stoics, who gave to the argument a logical form, based on the relationship between “the parts and the whole”: if the world as a whole produces and contains rational beings as its parts, it should also be rational or contain a rational principle that generates all its parts and governs them, just as human soul governs human body. The correction of this argument was proposed by Sextus Empiricus, who introduced the concept of "spermatic logoi", or rational principles, to explain the generation of the rational beings by the world, so that if the world contains the spermatic logoi of rational and living beings, then the world as a whole is also rational. The author also investigates the reception of the argument based on the existence of rational beings in the world in Latin Patristics: in Minucius Felix, Tertullian and especially Lactantius, in whom this argument has reached the climax of its development. At the same time it was shown, that the ancient argument has undergone a transformation from the postulation of the rationality of the world as a whole or its equation with God himself to a genuine proof of the existence of the one God who is the Creator both of the world and human beings, superior to the both as the all-powerful and transcendent Mind.

  16. Rationing medical education | Walsh | African Health Sciences

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Even though some stakeholders in medical education might be taken aback at the prospect of rationing, the truth is that rationing has always occurred in one form or another in medical education and in healthcare more broadly. Different types of rationing exist in healthcare professional education. For example rationing may ...

  17. 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.

  18. Modeling Sexual Selection in Túngara Frog and Rationality of Mate Choice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas Bernal, Esteban; Sanabria Malagon, Camilo

    2017-12-01

    The males of the species of frogs Engystomops pustulosus produce simple and complex calls to lure females, as a way of intersexual selection. Complex calls lead males to a greater reproductive success than what simple calls do. However, the complex calls are also more attractive to their main predator, the bat Trachops cirrhosus. Therefore, as M. Ryan suggests in (The túngara frog: a study in sexual selection and communication. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985), the complexity of the calls lets the frogs keep a trade-off between reproductive success and predation. In this paper, we verify this trade-off from the perspective of game theory. We first model the proportion of simple calls as a symmetric game of two strategies. We also model the effect of adding a third strategy, males that keep quiet and intercept females, which would play a role of intrasexual selection. Under the assumption that the decision of the males takes into account this trade-off between reproductive success and predation, our model reproduces the observed behavior reported in the literature with minimal assumption on the parameters. From the model with three strategies, we verify that the quiet strategy could only coexists with the simple and complex strategies if the rate at which quiet males intercept females is high, which explains the rarity of the quiet strategy. We conclude that the reproductive strategy of the male frog E. pustulosus is rational.

  19. Runaway electrons and rational q-surfaces in a tokamak

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cheetham, A.D.; Hogg, G.R.; Kuwahara, H.; Morton, A.H.

    1983-01-01

    Results of measurements with LT-4 of runaway electron behaviour during the current rise stage of discharges when q = rBsub(T)/RBsub(p) (where r and R are minor and major radii, Bsub(T) and Bsub(p) are toroidal and poloidal magnetic fields) is changing continuously are reported. The results establish a role for outward moving rational q regions in removing runaway electrons from a tokamak plasma. The model indicates that as well as carrying a proportion of low energy runaways with them the rational q regions also scatter high energy electrons from the discharge. This leads to an upper limit for the energy of fully confined electrons. The size of the runaway population might be minimised by controlling the rate of movement of rational surfaces. This would be achieved by programming the rate of rise of the plasma current

  20. Effects of Rational-Emotive Therapy, Rational Role Reversal, and Rational-Emotive Imagery on the Emotional Adjustment of Community Mental Health Center Patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipsky, Marc J.; And Others

    1980-01-01

    Results showed that rational-emotive therapy (RET), with the addition of rational role reversal, produced significantly better results than did relaxation training and support or no contact. This was the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of RET with multisymptomatic applicants to a community mental health center. (Author/BEF)

  1. 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.

  2. Generalised chronic musculoskeletal pain as a rational reaction to a life situation?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steen, E; Haugli, L

    2000-11-01

    While the biomedical model is still the leading paradigm within modern medicine and health care, and people with generalised chronic musculoskeletal pain are frequent users of health care services, their diagnoses are rated as having the lowest prestige among health care personnel. An epistemological framework for understanding relations between body, emotions, mind and meaning is presented. An approach based on a phenomenological epistemology is discussed as a supplement to actions based on the biomedical model. Within the phenomenological frame of understanding, the body is viewed as a subject and carrier of meaning, and therefore chronic pain can be interpreted as a rational reaction to the totality of a person's life situation. Search for possible hidden individual meanings in painful muscles presupposes meeting health personnel who view the person within a holistic frame of reference.

  3. Modern environmental and economic approach of mining industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carsten Drebenstedt

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available In the article, the need of transition to the rational subsoil use (the alternative mining approach is proved, which unlike general one supposes the increasing of extraction rate of valuable components in the deposit and multiple use of raw materials, the maximizing recycling, the decreasing of land occupation, the increasing of the development period of deposit at some income decrease up to the moderate level, which is enough to provide the attraction for investors. The multicriteriality is considered as the crucial principle of rational subsoil use at taking management decisions, i.e. the considering of ecological, economic and social targets, aimed at receiving moderate profit at proper social and environmental standards. The graphic representation of models of the general mining approach and the alternative one allows to emphasize the specified advantages of transition to rational subsoil resources development and reflect them in design equation. In the paper, three performance strategies providing the implementation of the alternative approach are offered: full-field development, application ecologically and economically effective systems and the development processes, consideration of reclamation and minimization of long term environmental effects of mining

  4. Rationing in the NHS: the dance of the seven veils-in reverse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, R; Day, P; Redmayne, S

    1995-10-01

    The 1991 reforms of the National Health Service set up the expectation that rationing would in future be explicit instead of, as in the past, implicit. This has not happened. Research carried out at the University of Bath shows that very few health authorities are rationing by exclusion on the Oregon model. Instead, both central Government and health authorities are continuing to diffuse responsibility among the medical profession. This paper analyses the reasons why. Rationing by delay and dilution are more significant-as well as less visible-than rationing by exclusion. And it is the medical profession which controls the flow of patients through waiting lists and the way in which resources are used during treatment. Similarly, it is in the self-interest of both central Government and health authorities that their resource decisions should continue to be disguised behind the veils of clinical discretion. Despite pressures for greater transparency, Britain's opaque form of rationing may therefore survive.

  5. Rational Thinking in School-Based Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, Mary Kristen; Flynn, Perry

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: We reflect on Alan Kamhi's (2011) prologue on balancing certainty and uncertainty as it pertains to school-based practice. Method: In schools, rational thinking depends on effective team processes, much like professional learning communities. We consider the conditions that are required for rational thinking and how rational team dialogue…

  6. Analysis of Queues with Rational Arrival Process Components - A General Approach

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bean, Nigel; Nielsen, Bo Friis

    In a previous paper we demonstrated that the well known matrix-geometric solution of Quasi-Birth-and-Death processes is valid also if we introduce Rational Arrival Process (RAP) components. Here we extend those results and we offer an alternative proof by using results obtained by Tweedie. We prove...... the matrix-geometric form for a certain kind of operators on the stationary measure for discrete time Markov chains of GI/M/1 type. We apply this result to an embedded chain with RAP components. We then discuss the straight- forward modification of the standard algorithms for calculating the matrix R...

  7. The Rational Expectations Hypothesis: An assessment on its real world application

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Santiago Tobón

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The Rational Expectations Hypothesis was first developed as a theoretical technique aimed at explaining agents’ behavior in a given environment. In particular, it describes how the outcome of a given economic phenomenon depends to a certain degree on what agents expect to happen. Subsequently, it was introduced into macroeconomic models as a way to explain the ineffectiveness of monetary policy. Since then, most of these models have been based on the rational expectations assumption. This paper assesses the real life application of this feature based on two arguments: the determination of an objective reality through beliefs and subjective expectations; and the exclusion of the evolution of human knowledge and innovation in macroeconomic models.

  8. Effective Entrepreneurial Choice: The Role of Rationality and Non-Rationality in Three Entrepreneurs Success Stories

    OpenAIRE

    Chong, Anne Michele, Siang Yoon

    2007-01-01

    Good entrepreneurship is important for economic growth and productivity in any modern economy. The purpose of this dissertation is to research how good entrepreneurial decisions are made. In theory, optimal or rational decision making means choosing the best alternative in response to the problem. However, in reality, people do not act rationally because they often cannot make rational choices. The reason is that people do not have enough brain power, time or resources to process the compl...

  9. Toward the rational use of standardized infection ratios to benchmark surgical site infections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukuda, Haruhisa; Morikane, Keita; Kuroki, Manabu; Taniguchi, Shinichiro; Shinzato, Takashi; Sakamoto, Fumie; Okada, Kunihiko; Matsukawa, Hiroshi; Ieiri, Yuko; Hayashi, Kouji; Kawai, Shin

    2013-09-01

    The National Healthcare Safety Network transitioned from surgical site infection (SSI) rates to the standardized infection ratio (SIR) calculated by statistical models that included perioperative factors (surgical approach and surgery duration). Rationally, however, only patient-related variables should be included in the SIR model. Logistic regression was performed to predict expected SSI rate in 2 models that included or excluded perioperative factors. Observed and expected SSI rates were used to calculate the SIR for each participating hospital. The difference of SIR in each model was then evaluated. Surveillance data were collected from a total of 1,530 colon surgery patients and 185 SSIs. C-index in the model with perioperative factors was statistically greater than that in the model including patient-related factors only (0.701 vs 0.621, respectively, P operative process or the competence of surgical teams, these factors should not be considered predictive variables. Copyright © 2013 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. A Semiparametric Time Trend Varying Coefficients Model: With An Application to Evaluate Credit Rationing in U.S. Credit Market

    OpenAIRE

    Jingping Gu; Paula Hernandez-Verme

    2009-01-01

    In this paper, we propose a new semiparametric varying coefficient model which extends the existing semi-parametric varying coefficient models to allow for a time trend regressor with smooth coefficient function. We propose to use the local linear method to estimate the coefficient functions and we provide the asymptotic theory to describe the asymptotic distribution of the local linear estimator. We present an application to evaluate credit rationing in the U.S. credit market. Using U.S. mon...

  11. A Semiparametric Time Trend Varying Coefficients Model: With An Application to Evaluate Credit Rationing in U.S. Credit Market

    OpenAIRE

    Qi Gao; Jingping Gu; Paula Hernandez-Verme

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we propose a new semiparametric varying coefficient model which extends the existing semi-parametric varying coefficient models to allow for a time trend regressor with smooth coefficient function. We propose to use the local linear method to estimate the coefficient functions and we provide the asymptotic theory to describe the asymptotic distribution of the local linear estimator. We present an application to evaluate credit rationing in the U.S. credit market. Using U.S. mon...

  12. The Models of Relationship between Training and Psyche development in Cultural-historical and Activity Approaches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pogozhina I.N.,

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The possibility of referring of the psychological theories studying interrelation of training and mental development processes to this or that stage of scientific knowledge formation on the basis of studied objects types and corresponded determination systems as a basic criterion distinguishing the ideals of scientific rationality is justified. General characteristics of classical, non-classical and post-non-classical models, determination of the mechanisms of dissipative systems, requirements for learning and development model building in the context of post-non-classic science paradigm on the criterion of the system features of the object of cognition are described. Domestic psychological school models are compared with associanism, behaviorism, gestalt psychology and Piaget determination models on the number of options allocated to these determinants, types of causal chains and types of links between causal chains. It is shown that cultural-historical approach is situated intermediately between post-non-classical and non-classical models, while activity approach corresponds to post-non-classical understanding of the object of study as complicated self-developing "man-size" system. Determination relationships models developed by L.V.Vygotskii, S.L. Rubinstein, A.N. Leont’ev continue to play the heuristic role at the present stage of scientific development.

  13. Considering rational self-interest as a disposition: organizational implications of other orientation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meglino, Bruce M; Korsgaard, Audrey

    2004-12-01

    In contrast with major theories of attitudes and behavior, the authors propose that individuals are not equally motivated to pursue their self-interests. The authors show that differences in other orientation affect the extent to which actions and attitudes reflect self-interested calculation (instrumental rationality) and the extent to which beliefs represent their external environment (epistemic rationality). These differences have consequences for processes underlying a wide range of attitudes and behavior typically assumed to be rationally self-interested. Thus, the authors' model exposes a common explanation for diverse organizational phenomena. It also clarifies inconsistencies surrounding the validity of certain attitudinal and motivational models, the relationship between job attitudes and actions, cross-cultural differences in attitudes and behavior, escalation of commitment, and the relationship between chief executive officer characteristics and organizational performance. 2004 APA, all rights reserved

  14. Testing for rational bubbles in a co-explosive vector autoregression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Engsted, Tom; Nielsen, Bent

    , are derived both for a model without bubbles and for a model with a rational bubble. In both cases we show how the restrictions can be tested through standard chi-squared inference. The analysis for the no-bubble case is done within the traditional Johansen model for I(1) variables, while the bubble model...

  15. Analysis of additive generators of fuzzy operations represented by rational functions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ledeneva, T. M.

    2018-03-01

    This article presents an approach for determining additive generators of commutative and associative operations. Its applicability for finding generators of triangular norms and conorms is shown. Conditions for the parameters of increasing generators that generate triangular conorms in the class of rational functions are determined.

  16. Rational function approximation method for discrete ordinates problems in slab geometry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leal, Andre Luiz do C.; Barros, Ricardo C.

    2009-01-01

    In this work we use rational function approaches to obtain the transfer functions that appear in the spectral Green's function (SGF) auxiliary equations for one-speed isotropic scattering SN equations in one-dimensional Cartesian geometry. For this task we use the computation of the Pade approximants to compare the results with the standard SGF method's applied to deep penetration problems in homogeneous domains. This work is a preliminary investigation of a new proposal for handling leakage terms that appear in the two transverse integrated one-dimensional SN equations in the exponential SGF method (SGF-ExpN). Numerical results are presented to illustrate the rational function approximation accuracy. (author)

  17. Fiber sources for complete calf starter rations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murdock, F R; Wallenius, R W

    1980-11-01

    Complete calf starter rations containing either 1) alfalfa hay, 2) cottonseed hulls, or 3) alfalfa-beet pulp as sources of fiber were fed to Holstein heifer calves at two locations on a limited milk program from 3 days to 12 wk of age. Rations were isonitrogenous and similar in content of crude fiber and acid detergent fiber. Although growth and development were normal on all rations, calves fed the cottonseed hull ration consumed more starter and gained more body weight than calves fed the other sources of fiber. The similarity of feed efficiencies, rumen pH, and molar ratios of volatile fatty acids between rations indicated no appreciable differences in rumen development or function. The growth response of calves fed the cottonseed hull ration appeared to be a result of better ration acceptability for which no reason was evident. Calves raised at Puyallup gained more body weight than calves at Pullman, and these gains were made more efficiently. These location effects may be related to seasonal differences and greater demands for production of body heat. Although the incidence of scours was less for calves fed alfalfa hay starter, the incidence and severity of bloat were higher for that ration.

  18. To the rationalization of the constructive solutions of the bridge supports

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petrova Olena

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Reduction of material consumption and labor intensity of building structures is a topical task for both theory and practice of building production. Today there are many ways to achieve proper economic effect while reconstruction or erection of building and structures. One of them is to rationalize well-known constructive solutions using as criteria the value of density of potential energy of deformation of structures. In this connection, the new constructive solution for short massive supports with outer reinforcement made of expanded metal sheet and frames (reinforcing rings which are used in construction of road and railway bridges and high-rise buildings is proposed in this paper. The theoretical approach for the definition of its rational parameters is given. Numerical analysis of the highlighted method is also carried out. As a result of study the increase in the bearing capacity in concrete pillars made in rational mesh clips with and without frames was obtained.

  19. Rational Design of an Ultrasensitive Quorum-Sensing Switch.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Weiqian; Du, Pei; Lou, Qiuli; Wu, Lili; Zhang, Haoqian M; Lou, Chunbo; Wang, Hongli; Ouyang, Qi

    2017-08-18

    One of the purposes of synthetic biology is to develop rational methods that accelerate the design of genetic circuits, saving time and effort spent on experiments and providing reliably predictable circuit performance. We applied a reverse engineering approach to design an ultrasensitive transcriptional quorum-sensing switch. We want to explore how systems biology can guide synthetic biology in the choice of specific DNA sequences and their regulatory relations to achieve a targeted function. The workflow comprises network enumeration that achieves the target function robustly, experimental restriction of the obtained candidate networks, global parameter optimization via mathematical analysis, selection and engineering of parts based on these calculations, and finally, circuit construction based on the principles of standardization and modularization. The performance of realized quorum-sensing switches was in good qualitative agreement with the computational predictions. This study provides practical principles for the rational design of genetic circuits with targeted functions.

  20. A Rational-Emotive Approach to Mental Health for College Students: Study 1 and Study 2

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kujoth, Richard K.; Topetzes, Nick J.

    1977-01-01

    Further replication using other test instruments and measured variables is suggested, but the results of two studies appear to support the view that providing rational ideas fosters mental health while providing psychodynamic insight does not. (Author)

  1. Constructive thinking, rational intelligence and irritable bowel syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rey, Enrique; Moreno Ortega, Marta; Garcia Alonso, Monica-Olga; Diaz-Rubio, Manuel

    2009-07-07

    To evaluate rational and experiential intelligence in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) sufferers. We recruited 100 subjects with IBS as per Rome II criteria (50 consulters and 50 non-consulters) and 100 healthy controls, matched by age, sex and educational level. Cases and controls completed a clinical questionnaire (including symptom characteristics and medical consultation) and the following tests: rational-intelligence (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, 3rd edition); experiential-intelligence (Constructive Thinking Inventory); personality (NEO personality inventory); psychopathology (MMPI-2), anxiety (state-trait anxiety inventory) and life events (social readjustment rating scale). Analysis of variance was used to compare the test results of IBS-sufferers and controls, and a logistic regression model was then constructed and adjusted for age, sex and educational level to evaluate any possible association with IBS. No differences were found between IBS cases and controls in terms of IQ (102.0 +/- 10.8 vs 102.8 +/- 12.6), but IBS sufferers scored significantly lower in global constructive thinking (43.7 +/- 9.4 vs 49.6 +/- 9.7). In the logistic regression model, global constructive thinking score was independently linked to suffering from IBS [OR 0.92 (0.87-0.97)], without significant OR for total IQ. IBS subjects do not show lower rational intelligence than controls, but lower experiential intelligence is nevertheless associated with IBS.

  2. Rational development of radiopharmaceuticals for HIV-1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lau, Chuen-Yen; Maldarelli, Frank; Eckelman, William C.; Neumann, Ronald D.

    2014-01-01

    The global battle against HIV-1 would benefit from a sensitive and specific radiopharmaceutical to localize HIV-infected cells. Ideally, this probe would be able to identify latently infected host cells containing replication competent HIV sequences. Clinical and research applications would include assessment of reservoirs, informing clinical management by facilitating assessment of burden of infection in different compartments, monitoring disease progression and monitoring response to therapy. A “rational” development approach could facilitate efficient identification of an appropriate targeted radiopharmaceutical. Rational development starts with understanding characteristics of the disease that can be effectively targeted and then engineering radiopharmaceuticals to hone in on an appropriate target, which in the case of HIV-1 (HIV) might be an HIV-specific product on or in the host cell, a differentially expressed gene product, an integrated DNA sequence specific enzymatic activity, part of the inflammatory response, or a combination of these. This is different from the current approach that starts with a radiopharmaceutical for a target associated with a disease, mostly from autopsy studies, without a strong rationale for the potential to impact patient care. At present, no targeted therapies are available for HIV latency, although a number of approaches are under study. Here we discuss requirements for a radiopharmaceutical useful in strategies targeting persistently infected cells. The radiopharmaceutical for HIV should be developed based on HIV biology, studied in an animal model and then in humans, and ultimately used in clinical and research settings

  3. Effects of rational-emotive therapy on psychophysiological and reported measures of test anxiety arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barabasz, A F; Barabasz, M

    1981-07-01

    Developed audio taped lectures, taped therapy session models, and homework assignments designed to reduce irrational beliefs associated with test anxiety within Ellis' rational-emotive therapy (RET) approach. The initial sample consisted of 148 university students. Comparisons with an attention placebo counseling program, which was established to be equally credible by a post-experiment inquiry and a no-treatment group found the RET Ss to show significantly lower skin conductance responses to a test anxiety visualization and lower reported anxiety on a questionnaire. However, skin conductance responses to an alternative test anxiety visualization did not show treatment effects.

  4. Should informed consent be based on rational beliefs?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Savulescu, J; Momeyer, R W

    1997-10-01

    Our aim is to expand the regulative ideal governing consent. We argue that consent should not only be informed but also based on rational beliefs. We argue that holding true beliefs promotes autonomy. Information is important insofar as it helps a person to hold the relevant true beliefs. But in order to hold the relevant true beliefs, competent people must also think rationally. Insofar as information is important, rational deliberation is important. Just as physicians should aim to provide relevant information regarding the medical procedures prior to patients consenting to have those procedures, they should also assist patients to think more rationally. We distinguish between rational choice/action and rational belief. While autonomous choice need not necessarily be rational, it should be based on rational belief. The implication for the doctrine of informed consent and the practice of medicine is that, if physicians are to respect patient autonomy and help patients to choose and act more rationally, not only must they provide information, but they should care more about the theoretical rationality of their patients. They should not abandon their patients to irrationality. They should help their patients to deliberate more effectively and to care more about thinking rationally. We illustrate these arguments in the context of Jehovah's Witnesses refusing life-saving blood transfusions. Insofar as Jehovah's Witnesses should be informed of the consequences of their actions, they should also deliberate rationally about these consequences.

  5. Institutional Analysis of Bounded Rationality of the Contemporary Russians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivan V. Rozmainsky

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper argues that behavior of present-day Russians is inconsistent with standard Neoclassical economics and can be better explained by the synthesis of various branches of Institutionalism and Post Keynesianism. Authors try to show that the present-day Russians are characterized by bounded rationality when they invest in health and financial assets, by fits and starts spend their incomes and cannot predict future levels of these incomes. Sometimes such bounded rationality manifests itself as investor myopia – a phenomenon that describes a situation when people exclude future variables from consideration starting from some threshold point of time. Investor myopia can lead to negative investment in health via smoking and heavy drinking, and also generate non-rational saving behavior. Furthermore, the contemporary Russians behave in the opportunistic manner. In particular, in the course of important examination writing the majority of people prefer to cheat off. Finally, the social pressure modifies the consumptive choice of the present-day Russians; in other words, this choice is not intrinsic. These statements are verified on the base of opinion poll findings by authors in 2016 and 2017. Sample included 521 persons, mainly young people. These data are analyzed by means of econometric – binomial and multinomial logit-models. The results of these studies show that the contemporary Russians are really characterized by bounded rather than perfect rationality. One of the conclusions is that fee-paying educated students are significantly less rational in their saving choice.

  6. Personality and Self-regulation as Determinants of Rational Decision Making in a Political Voting Situation

    OpenAIRE

    Tatiana A. Indina; Varvara I. Morosanova

    2009-01-01

    The association of self-regulation and personality factors with rational decision making was investigated using an experimental model of political voting. The results revealed diff erent sets of personality characteristics for rational and emotional voters. A self-regulation/personality typology of decision making was then constructed, and traits representing self-regulation, cognition, and personality were examined as predispositions toward rational decision making. As a result, specifi c co...

  7. The limited impact of indeterminacy for healthcare rationing: how indeterminacy problems show the need for a hybrid theory, but nothing more.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herlitz, Anders

    2016-01-01

    A notorious debate in the ethics of healthcare rationing concerns whether to address rationing decisions with substantial principles or with a procedural approach. One major argument in favour of procedural approaches is that substantial principles are indeterminate so that we can reasonably disagree about how to apply them. To deal with indeterminacy, we need a just decision process. In this paper I argue that it is a mistake to abandon substantial principles just because they are indeterminate. It is true that reasonable substantial principles designed to deal with healthcare rationing can be expected to be indeterminate. Yet, the indeterminacy is only partial. In some situations we can fully determine what to do in light of the principles, in some situations we cannot. The conclusion to draw from this fact is not that we need to develop procedural approaches to healthcare rationing, but rather that we need a more complex theory in which both substantial principles and procedural approaches are needed. 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/

  8. Product differentiation under bounded rationality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vermeulen, B.; Poutré, La J.A.; Kok, de A.G.; Pyka, A.; Handa, H.; Ishibuchi, H.; Ong, Y.-S.; Tan, K.-C.

    2015-01-01

    We study product differentiation equilibria and dynamics on the Salop circle under bounded rationality. Due to bounded rationality, firms tend to agglomerate in pairs. Upon adding a second tier of component suppliers, downstream assemblers may escape pairwise horizontal agglomeration. Moreover, we

  9. An evaluation of rational-emotive imagery as a component of rational-emotive therapy in the treatment of test anxiety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hymen, S P; Warren, R

    1978-06-01

    This study evaluated the efficacy of rational-emotive imagery as a component of rational-emotive therapy in reduction of college students' test anxiety. 11 volunteers met for 6 1-hr. group treatment sessions over a 3-wk. period. After 2 initial treatment sessions subjects were randomly assigned to groups given either rational-emotive therapy with rational-emotive imagery or rational-emotive therapy without imagery. Contrary to predictions, improvement between groups on self-report and performance measures was nonsignificant. Failure to obtain differences was attributed to similarities in content of treatment sessions and short treatment time. Combined groups reported significant improvement on all dependent measures. Although the study did not yield the predicted benefits of the imagery, results lend further support to the efficacy of rational-emotive therapy procedures in the reduction of test anxiety.

  10. Rationality in children: the first steps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew Woodfield

    1991-12-01

    Full Text Available Not all categorization is conceptual. Many of the experimental findings concerning infant and animal categorization invite the hypothesis that the subjects form abstract perceptual representations, mental models or cognitive maps that are not composed of concepts. The paper is a reflection upon the idea that conceptual categorization involves the ability to make categorical judgements under the guidance of norms of rationality. These include a norm of truth-seeking and a norm of good evidence. Acceptance of these norms implies willingness to defer to cognitive authorities, unwillingness to commit oneself to contradictions, and knowledge of how to reorganize one's representational system upon discovering that one has made a mistake. It is proposed that the cognitive architecture required for basic rationality is similar to that which underlies pretend-play. The representational system must be able to make room for separate 'mental spaces' in which alternatives to the actual world are entertained. The same feature underlies the ability to understand modalities, time, the appearance-reality distinction, other minds, and ethics. Each area of understanding admits of degrees, and mastery (up to normal adult level takes years. But rational concept-management, at least in its most rudimentary form, does not require a capacity to form second-order representations. It requires knowledge of how to operate upon, and compare, the contents of different mental spaces.

  11. Rogue waves, rational solitons and wave turbulence theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kibler, Bertrand; Hammani, Kamal; Michel, Claire; Finot, Christophe; Picozzi, Antonio

    2011-01-01

    Considering a simple one-dimensional nonlinear Schroedinger optical model, we study the existence of rogue wave events in the highly incoherent state of the system and compare them with the recently identified hierarchy of rational soliton solutions. We show that rogue waves can emerge in the genuine turbulent regime and that their coherent deterministic description provided by the rational soliton solutions is compatible with an accurate statistical description of the random wave provided by the wave turbulence theory. Furthermore, the simulations reveal that even in the weakly nonlinear regime, the nonlinearity can play a key role in the emergence of an individual rogue wave event in a turbulent environment. -- Highlights: → Rogue wave events are studied in the highly incoherent regime of interaction. → We show that rogue waves can emerge in the genuine turbulent regime. → Their coherent deterministic description is provided by the rational solutions. → It coexists with a statistical description provided of the random wave. → The nonlinearity plays a key role even in a turbulent environment.

  12. Adaptive and Rational Anticipations in Risk Management Systems and Economy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dubois, Daniel M.; Holmberg, Stig C.

    2010-11-01

    The global financial crisis of year 2009 is explained as a result of uncoordinated risk management decisions in business firms and economic organisations. The underlying reason for this can be found in the current financial system. As the financial market has lost much of its direct coupling to the concrete economy it provides misleading information to economic decision makers at all levels. Hence, the financial system has moved from a state of moderate and slow cyclical fluctuations into a state of fast and chaotic ones. Those misleading decisions can further be described, but not explained, by help of adaptive and rational expectations from macroeconomic theory. In this context, AE, the Adaptive Expectations are related to weak passive Exo-anticipation, and RE, the Rational expectations can be related to a strong, active and design oriented anticipation. The shortcomings of conventional cures, which builds on a reactive paradigm, have already been demonstrated in economic literature and are here further underlined by help of Ashby's "Law of Requisite Variety", Weaver's distinction between systems of "Disorganized Complexity" and those of "Organized Complexity", and Klir's "Reconstructability Analysis". Anticipatory decision-making is hence here proposed as a replacement to current expectation based and passive risk management. An anticipatory model of the business cycle is presented for supporting that proposition. The model, which is an extension of the Kaldor-Kalecki model, includes both retardation and anticipation. While cybernetics with the feedback process in control system deals with an explicit goal or purpose given to a system, the anticipatory system discussed here deals with a behaviour for which the future state of the system is built by the system itself, without explicit goal. A system with weak anticipation is based on a predictive model of the system, while a system with strong anticipation builds its own future by itself. Numerical simulations on

  13. Breaking the Bounds of Rationality: Values, Relationships, and Decision-making in Mexican Fishing Communities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicole D Peterson

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In fishing communities in Baja California Sur, Mexico, fisheries management is heavily influenced by models of individual economic rationality held by biologists and others involved in management, in which fishermen ′choose′ to overfish because they are motivated by selfish individual rationality. Yet there is much that is neglected by these models, including the pressures of economic markets, family and community expectations, and cultural and personal value systems. Actual decisions about fishing and resource management rarely match the expectations of classical or neoliberal economic models of individual behaviour. I argue here that rational choice theory is a historically and culturally constructed discourse that becomes a taken-for-granted lens for viewing behaviour around the world. The effects of this discourse can be seen in the policies that are derived from them, as shown through this case study.

  14. Beyond rationality: in search of a broader view of the deliberative process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Carolina Ogando

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available In light of the widening of contemporary struggles for recognition, within a context of greater visibility for new actors within public spaces, we have been able to identify the limitations of the liberal model of democracy which emphasizes, above all, legitimacy, power and rationality. This article proposes to take a look at the wide range of criticisms of deliberative democracy, particularly with regard to the use of rationality as the sole form of argumentation and action. Our critique of the use of rationality is anchored in Young’s (1990, 1997, 2001 and Hoggett and Thompson’s (2002 discussions. The incorporation of other forms of action and communicative patterns represents an attempt to make deliberative processes more inclusive, so that they may truly become sites of equality and emancipation. Keywords: Deliberative democracy, rationality, inclusion.

  15. Antibiotics Smart Use: a workable model for promoting the rational use of medicines in Thailand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sumpradit, Nithima; Chongtrakul, Pisonthi; Anuwong, Kunyada; Pumtong, Somying; Kongsomboon, Kedsenee; Butdeemee, Parichart; Khonglormyati, Jurairat; Chomyong, Santi; Tongyoung, Parnuchote; Losiriwat, Suraphol; Seesuk, Piyanooch; Suwanwaree, Pongthep; Tangcharoensathien, Viroj

    2012-12-01

    The Antibiotics Smart Use (ASU) programme was introduced in Thailand as a model to promote the rational use of medicines, starting with antibiotics. The programme's first phase consisted of assessing interventions intended to change prescribing practices; the second phase examined the feasibility of programme scale-up. Currently the programme is in its third phase, which centres on sustainability. This paper describes the concept behind ASU, the programme's functional modalities, the development of its conceptual framework and the implementation of its first and second phases. To change antibiotic prescription practices, multifaceted interventions at the individual and organizational levels were implemented; to maintain behaviour change and scale up the programme, interventions at the network and policy levels were used. The National Health Security Office has adopted ASU as a pay-for-performance criterion, a major achievement that has led to the programme's expansion nationwide. Despite limited resources, programme scale-up and sustainability have been facilitated by the promotion of local ownership and mutual recognition, which have generated pride and commitment. ASU is clearly a workable entry point for efforts to rationalize the use of medicines in Thailand. Its long-term sustainability will require continued local commitment and political support, effective auditing and integration of ASU into routine systems with appropriate financial incentives.

  16. Rationing in health systems: A critical review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keliddar, Iman; Mosadeghrad, Ali Mohammad; Jafari-Sirizi, Mehdi

    2017-01-01

    Background: It is difficult to provide health care services to all those in need of such services due to limited resources and unlimited demands. Thus, priority setting and rationing have to be applied. This study aimed at critically examining the concept of rationing in health sector and identifying its purposes, influencing factors, mechanisms, and outcomes. Methods: The critical interpretive synthesis methodology was used in this study. PubMed, Cochrane, and Proquest databases were searched using the related key words to find related documents published between 1970 and 2015. In total, 161 published reports were reviewed and included in the study. Thematic content analysis was applied for data analysis. Results: Health services rationing means restricting the access of some people to useful or potentially useful health services due to budgetary limitation. The inherent features of the health market and health services, limited resources, and unlimited needs necessitate health services rationing. Rationing can be applied in 4 levels: health care policy- makers, health care managers, health care providers, and patients. Health care rationing can be accomplished through fixed budget, benefit package, payment mechanisms, queuing, copayments, and deductibles. Conclusion: This paper enriched our understanding of health services rationing and its mechanisms at various levels and contributed to the literature by broadly conceptualizing health services rationing.

  17. Research on Bounded Rationality of Fuzzy Choice Functions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xinlin Wu

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The rationality of a fuzzy choice function is a hot research topic in the study of fuzzy choice functions. In this paper, two common fuzzy sets are studied and analyzed in the framework of the Banerjee choice function. The complete rationality and bounded rationality of fuzzy choice functions are defined based on the two fuzzy sets. An assumption is presented to study the fuzzy choice function, and especially the fuzzy choice function with bounded rationality is studied combined with some rationality conditions. Results show that the fuzzy choice function with bounded rationality also satisfies some important rationality conditions, but not vice versa. The research gives supplements to the investigation in the framework of the Banerjee choice function.

  18. Pendekatan Naratif dalam Konseling Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Rebt) untuk Mengelola Emosi

    OpenAIRE

    Purbaning Tyas, Prias Hayu

    2015-01-01

    The research aims to obtain an overview of the effectiveness of the narrative approach in counseling Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) to manage emotions. The approach used in this study is a quantitative approach using a quasi-experimental methods. The study design used is one group pretest-posttest design using purposive sampling technique. The samples were 6 students who score low emotion management. The instrument used in the form of guidelines for the interview to express emotion ...

  19. Designing Genetics Instruction for a Socratic Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Idros, Sharifah Norhaidah Syed

    2004-01-01

    Science is at heart a rational activity. Reasoning, being an important component of critical thinking has been successfully taught using Socratic methods. As an approach, the instructor or designer of instruction models an inquiring and probing mind focusing on providing questions and not answers. The main aim has been to allow learners to…

  20. Personality and Self-regulation as Determinants of Rational Decision Making in a Political Voting Situation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana A. Indina

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available The association of self-regulation and personality factors with rational decision making was investigated using an experimental model of political voting. The results revealed different sets of personality characteristics for rational and emotional voters. A self-regulation/personality typology of decision making was then constructed, and traits representing self-regulation, cognition, and personality were examined as predispositions toward rational decision making. As a result, specific connections among these variables were uncovered, through which the primary role of the conscious self-regulation system in the management of rational decision making in a political voting context was established.

  1. Dynamics of market structure driven by the degree of consumer’s rationality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yanagita, Tatsuo; Onozaki, Tamotsu

    2010-03-01

    We study a simple model of market share dynamics with boundedly rational consumers and firms interacting with each other. As the number of consumers is large, we employ a statistical description to represent firms’ distribution of consumer share, which is characterized by a single parameter representing how rationally the mass of consumers pursue higher utility. As the boundedly rational firm does not know the shape of demand function it faces, it revises production and price so as to raise its profit with the aid of a simple reinforcement learning rule. Simulation results show that (1) three phases of market structure, i.e. the uniform share phase, the oligopolistic phase, and the monopolistic phase, appear depending upon how rational consumers are, and (2) in an oligopolistic phase, the market share distribution of firms follows Zipf’s law and the growth-rate distribution of firms follows Gibrat’s law, and (3) an oligopolistic phase is the best state of market in terms of consumers’ utility but brings the minimum profit to the firms because of severe competition based on the moderate rationality of consumers.

  2. Optimized implementations of rational approximations for the Voigt and complex error function

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schreier, Franz

    2011-01-01

    Rational functions are frequently used as efficient yet accurate numerical approximations for real and complex valued functions. For the complex error function w(x+iy), whose real part is the Voigt function K(x,y), code optimizations of rational approximations are investigated. An assessment of requirements for atmospheric radiative transfer modeling indicates a y range over many orders of magnitude and accuracy better than 10 -4 . Following a brief survey of complex error function algorithms in general and rational function approximations in particular the problems associated with subdivisions of the x, y plane (i.e., conditional branches in the code) are discussed and practical aspects of Fortran and Python implementations are considered. Benchmark tests of a variety of algorithms demonstrate that programming language, compiler choice, and implementation details influence computational speed and there is no unique ranking of algorithms. A new implementation, based on subdivision of the upper half-plane in only two regions, combining Weideman's rational approximation for small |x|+y<15 and Humlicek's rational approximation otherwise is shown to be efficient and accurate for all x, y.

  3. Modelling of rational economic proportions of the balance sheet structure of the petrochemical enterprises

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. S. Tsvetkova

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper provides the assessment of the balance sheet structure of rival companies of a petrochemical complex of the Russian Federation. J. Aubert-Kriye's method is chosen as a main methodical tool. Practical demonstration of the method is offered on the example of the enterprises of petrochemical business of PJSC “Sibur”, PJSC “Nizhnekamskneftekhim” and JSC “Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant”. The analysis of balance sheets showed that the enterprises have elements of irrational structure. “Sibur” differs in a low share of owner’s equity and a high share of long-term liabilities. “Nizhnekamskneftekhim” is characterized by the high share of owner’s equity which use for the purposes of development of the company and it is more expensive in comparison with liabilities. “Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant” has excessive values of liquidity rates that demonstrates accumulation of a money, their derivation in receivables. At the same time, processes of ongoing investment in upgrade of the equipment and expansion of capacities require cause necessity of support of a rational balance sheet structure of the enterprises of a petrochemical complex. On the example of “Nizhnekamskneftekhim” modeling of a rational balance sheet structure of the company is carried out. The sequence of calculations included performing diagnostics of structural distribution of current assets and sources of means; determination of structure of financial and active elements of the entity; establishment of permissible limit of change of basic proportions and ratios by criterion of solvency and financial stability. Modeling of structure of a liability and current assets on the basis of the J. Aubert-Kriye's method showed a possibility of improvement of economic indicators of “Nizhnekamskneftekhim”. Further determination of range of tolerance for elements of the liabilities and current assets will allow to provide balance of economic proportions and

  4. Rational Asset Pricing Bubbles Revisited

    OpenAIRE

    Jan Werner

    2012-01-01

    Price bubble arises when the price of an asset exceeds the asset's fundamental value, that is, the present value of future dividend payments. The important result of Santos and Woodford (1997) says that price bubbles cannot exist in equilibrium in the standard dynamic asset pricing model with rational agents as long as assets are in strictly positive supply and the present value of total future resources is finite. This paper explores the possibility of asset price bubbles when either one of ...

  5. A review of the regional maximum flood and rational formula using ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Flood estimation methods in South Africa are based on three general approaches: empirical, deterministic and probabilistic. The \\"quick\\" methods often used as checks are the regional maximum flood (RMF) and the rational formula (RF), which form part of the empirical and deterministic methods respectively. A database of ...

  6. RATIONALITY IN THE STRATEGIC DECISIONShttp://dx.doi.org/10.5585/riae.v9i1.1653

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Emilio Navas López

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available The goal of this paper is to analyze the relative convenience of using a rational process for making strategic decisions. According to traditional views, the strategic decision making process should be aligned with the so-called rational or synoptic process. Nevertheless, a look at the decisions taken by firms clarifies that this is far from the truth, -there are many aspects which could foster or refrain the degree of rationality. After explaining a wholly rational strategic process coupled with its potential strengths, this paper presents the principal criticisms to the model, in addition to the factors conditioning the level of rationality of the process in practice. As a consequence of this comparison, our conclusions defend the use of an intended rational process, bearing in mind the multiple internal and external influences that will affect the decision scheme, undermining the degree of rationality.

  7. [Theoretical and practical considerations in rational polytherapy for epilepsy].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajna, Péter

    2011-11-30

    Author analyses the consideration of rational polytherapy for epilepsy. Among the theoretical aspects he points the different effect of seizure inhibitory drugs on the epilepsy models but didn't find data enough for the basis of any successful combination. Combinations of compounds having different way of action are more promising. Rational polytherapy can serve also the epileptic patients' tailored therapy in the daily routine. There have already been some proved synergisms concerning drug interactions. Based on detailed analysis of side effects a possibility occurs for neutralization of side effects when anticonvulsants with side effects of opposite nature are combined. Considering both the side effect profiles and the different (somatic and psychic) habits of the patients we can create a special list of favourable combinations. Co-morbid states and their treatments play a significant role in the application of rational polytherapy. Combination of anticonvulsants of lower potential but without drug-interactions can be the choice in these cases. The non-epileptic indications of the anticonvulsants can also be utilized in polymorbid patients. Based on the theoretical and practical considerations the author defines the ten-step-cognitive-preparation-process in planning the optimal (poly)therapy. On speculative basis he suggests eight beneficial versions of seizure inhibitory rational polytherapy.

  8. The social conditions of instrumental action: Problems in the sociological understanding of rational choice theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruno Sciberras de Carvalho

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available This article critically analyzes new sociological approaches to the rational choice theory which - beyond examining political or economic practices - link the notion of instrumental rationality to social issues and themes. The article begins by highlighting the issue of trust, indicating the functionality of certain social arrangements in collective problem-solving. The paper goes on to demonstrate that problems emerge with the theory when it attempts to explain the feasibility of social norms in impersonal, comprehensive contexts. Thus, the fundamental point that appears to be missing from rational choice theory is the perception that individual decisions and instrumental conduct itself incorporate dispositions that in a sense are beyond the actors' control.

  9. Differential Rationality and Personal Development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fincher, Cameron

    This publication discusses differential rationality; it asserts that the development of institutions, professions, and individuals involves the differentiation of forms and styles of thinking and knowing that are, in various ways, idiosyncratic. Based on this understanding, differential rationality can be seen as a developmental construct that…

  10. Rational Choice and Developmental Influences on Recidivism Among Adolescent Felony Offenders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fagan, Jeffrey; Piquero, Alex R

    2007-12-01

    Recent case law and social science both have claimed that the developmental limitations of adolescents affect their capacity for control and decision making with respect to crime, diminishing their culpability and reducing their exposure to punishment. Social science has focused on two concurrent adolescent developmental influences: the internalization of legal rules and norms that regulate social and antisocial behaviors, and the development of rationality to frame behavioral choices and decisions. The interaction of these two developmental processes, and the identification of one domain of socialization and development as the primary source of motivation or restraint in adolescence, is the focus of this article. Accordingly, we combine rational choice and legal socialization frameworks into an integrated, developmental model of criminality. We test this framework in a large sample of adolescent felony offenders who have been interviewed at six-month intervals for two years. Using hierarchical and growth curve models, we show that both legal socialization and rational choice factors influence patterns of criminal offending over time. When punishment risks and costs are salient, crime rates are lower over time. We show that procedural justice is a significant antecedent of legal socialization, but not of rational choice. We also show that both mental health and developmental maturity moderate the effects of perceived crime risks and costs on criminal offending.

  11. Rational Choice and Developmental Influences on Recidivism Among Adolescent Felony Offenders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fagan, Jeffrey; Piquero, Alex R.

    2009-01-01

    Recent case law and social science both have claimed that the developmental limitations of adolescents affect their capacity for control and decision making with respect to crime, diminishing their culpability and reducing their exposure to punishment. Social science has focused on two concurrent adolescent developmental influences: the internalization of legal rules and norms that regulate social and antisocial behaviors, and the development of rationality to frame behavioral choices and decisions. The interaction of these two developmental processes, and the identification of one domain of socialization and development as the primary source of motivation or restraint in adolescence, is the focus of this article. Accordingly, we combine rational choice and legal socialization frameworks into an integrated, developmental model of criminality. We test this framework in a large sample of adolescent felony offenders who have been interviewed at six-month intervals for two years. Using hierarchical and growth curve models, we show that both legal socialization and rational choice factors influence patterns of criminal offending over time. When punishment risks and costs are salient, crime rates are lower over time. We show that procedural justice is a significant antecedent of legal socialization, but not of rational choice. We also show that both mental health and developmental maturity moderate the effects of perceived crime risks and costs on criminal offending. PMID:20148123

  12. Seeking for the rational basis of the Median Model: the optimal combination of multi-model ensemble results

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Riccio

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we present an approach for the statistical analysis of multi-model ensemble results. The models considered here are operational long-range transport and dispersion models, also used for the real-time simulation of pollutant dispersion or the accidental release of radioactive nuclides.

    We first introduce the theoretical basis (with its roots sinking into the Bayes theorem and then apply this approach to the analysis of model results obtained during the ETEX-1 exercise. We recover some interesting results, supporting the heuristic approach called "median model", originally introduced in Galmarini et al. (2004a, b.

    This approach also provides a way to systematically reduce (and quantify model uncertainties, thus supporting the decision-making process and/or regulatory-purpose activities in a very effective manner.

  13. Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1986-05-29

    survival in a competitive environment , and a minority of rational individuals can sometimes impose rationality on the whole market. Third, the...intuitive appeal of the axioms of rational choice makes it plausible that the theory derived from these axioms should provide an acceptable account of choice...rn-use U? RATIONAL CHOICE AMD THE FINNING OF KCISIOUS(U mi/ STANFORD UNIV CR A TYERSEY ET AL. 29 NAYN4-S4-K-S61SWICLASS IF lED FO 5/10S IL EEEEEEEE

  14. Intergroup conflict and rational decision making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez-Tur, Vicente; Peñarroja, Vicente; Serrano, Miguel A; Hidalgo, Vanesa; Moliner, Carolina; Salvador, Alicia; Alacreu-Crespo, Adrián; Gracia, Esther; Molina, Agustín

    2014-01-01

    The literature has been relatively silent about post-conflict processes. However, understanding the way humans deal with post-conflict situations is a challenge in our societies. With this in mind, we focus the present study on the rationality of cooperative decision making after an intergroup conflict, i.e., the extent to which groups take advantage of post-conflict situations to obtain benefits from collaborating with the other group involved in the conflict. Based on dual-process theories of thinking and affect heuristic, we propose that intergroup conflict hinders the rationality of cooperative decision making. We also hypothesize that this rationality improves when groups are involved in an in-group deliberative discussion. Results of a laboratory experiment support the idea that intergroup conflict -associated with indicators of the activation of negative feelings (negative affect state and heart rate)- has a negative effect on the aforementioned rationality over time and on both group and individual decision making. Although intergroup conflict leads to sub-optimal decision making, rationality improves when groups and individuals subjected to intergroup conflict make decisions after an in-group deliberative discussion. Additionally, the increased rationality of the group decision making after the deliberative discussion is transferred to subsequent individual decision making.

  15. Intergroup Conflict and Rational Decision Making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez-Tur, Vicente; Peñarroja, Vicente; Serrano, Miguel A.; Hidalgo, Vanesa; Moliner, Carolina; Salvador, Alicia; Alacreu-Crespo, Adrián; Gracia, Esther; Molina, Agustín

    2014-01-01

    The literature has been relatively silent about post-conflict processes. However, understanding the way humans deal with post-conflict situations is a challenge in our societies. With this in mind, we focus the present study on the rationality of cooperative decision making after an intergroup conflict, i.e., the extent to which groups take advantage of post-conflict situations to obtain benefits from collaborating with the other group involved in the conflict. Based on dual-process theories of thinking and affect heuristic, we propose that intergroup conflict hinders the rationality of cooperative decision making. We also hypothesize that this rationality improves when groups are involved in an in-group deliberative discussion. Results of a laboratory experiment support the idea that intergroup conflict –associated with indicators of the activation of negative feelings (negative affect state and heart rate)– has a negative effect on the aforementioned rationality over time and on both group and individual decision making. Although intergroup conflict leads to sub-optimal decision making, rationality improves when groups and individuals subjected to intergroup conflict make decisions after an in-group deliberative discussion. Additionally, the increased rationality of the group decision making after the deliberative discussion is transferred to subsequent individual decision making. PMID:25461384

  16. Intergroup conflict and rational decision making.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vicente Martínez-Tur

    Full Text Available The literature has been relatively silent about post-conflict processes. However, understanding the way humans deal with post-conflict situations is a challenge in our societies. With this in mind, we focus the present study on the rationality of cooperative decision making after an intergroup conflict, i.e., the extent to which groups take advantage of post-conflict situations to obtain benefits from collaborating with the other group involved in the conflict. Based on dual-process theories of thinking and affect heuristic, we propose that intergroup conflict hinders the rationality of cooperative decision making. We also hypothesize that this rationality improves when groups are involved in an in-group deliberative discussion. Results of a laboratory experiment support the idea that intergroup conflict -associated with indicators of the activation of negative feelings (negative affect state and heart rate- has a negative effect on the aforementioned rationality over time and on both group and individual decision making. Although intergroup conflict leads to sub-optimal decision making, rationality improves when groups and individuals subjected to intergroup conflict make decisions after an in-group deliberative discussion. Additionally, the increased rationality of the group decision making after the deliberative discussion is transferred to subsequent individual decision making.

  17. A propositional typicality logic for extending rational consequence

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Booth, R

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available in which a given formula holds. The semantics is in terms of ranked models as studied in KLM-style preferential reasoning. This allows us to show that KLM-style rational consequence relations can be embedded in our logic. Moreover we show that we can define...

  18. Rational solitons in deep nonlinear optical Bragg grating

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alatas, H.; Iskandar, A.A.; Tjia, M.O.; Valkering, T.P.

    2006-01-01

    We have examined the rational solitons in the Generalized Coupled Mode model for a deep nonlinear Bragg grating. These solitons are the degenerate forms of the ordinary solitons and appear at the transition lines in the parameter plane. A simple formulation is presented for the investigation of the

  19. THE ASPECTS OF PROVISION OF SOCIAL SERVICES CONSIDERING THE SOCIAL EXCLUSION DIMENSIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janina Cizikiene

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses the aspects of provision of social services, reducing social exclusion, in the view of rational choice theory. This approach was selected due to the fact that provision of social services often leads to discussions explaining the appropriate and rational choice of assistance for the socially excluded members of society. The authors discuss the key aspects of provision of social services, considering the dimensions and factors of social exclusion in the context of rational choice theory.

  20. Tools in the orbit space approach to the study of invariant functions: rational parametrization of strata

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sartori, G; Valente, G

    2003-01-01

    Functions which are equivariant or invariant under the transformations of a compact linear group G acting in a Euclidean space R n , can profitably be studied as functions defined in the orbit space of the group. The orbit space is the union of a finite set of strata, which are semialgebraic manifolds formed by the G-orbits with the same orbit-type. In this paper, we provide a simple recipe to obtain rational parametrizations of the strata. Our results can be easily exploited, in many physical contexts where the study of equivariant or invariant functions is important, for instance in the determination of patterns of spontaneous symmetry breaking, in the analysis of phase spaces and structural phase transitions (Landau theory), in equivariant bifurcation theory, in crystal field theory and in most areas where use is made of symmetry-adapted functions. A physically significant example of utilization of the recipe is given, related to spontaneous polarization in chiral biaxial liquid crystals, where the advantages with respect to previous heuristic approaches are shown