Absence Of Ambiguity Research Articles

The role of the law approvers in its interpretation

Law is seen to have several qualities, including conflict, conflict-freeness, clarity, directness, and absence of ambiguity. Such a measure is also anticipated to receive legislative approval. However, the legislation must be construed without the aforementioned qualities. The courts, the Parliament, and the Guardian Council are, respectively, the competent authorities for interpretation in settling litigation, ordinary legislation, and the constitution in Iran's legal system. Many standards have been laid down on how laws should be interpreted. However, in the interpretation provided by the approvers, the standard is to ascertain the meaning of the legislation since the approvers are more cognizant of their objectives than judges and inexperienced new members of parliament. Every researcher wonders why the members of the legal commission of the parliament, who are not present in the parliament, do not have the right to interpret the regular legislation in light of the regulation above. The previous query is posed in the disciplines of criminal law, civil law, and public law.

Invisible Bridges: On Ukraine, Russia, and friendships

Invisible BridgesOn Ukraine, Russia, and friendships Marci Shore (bio) in early march, ten days after Vladimir Putin sent his army into Ukraine to begin a mass slaughter, I got a message on an encrypted application from my friend Inessa in Moscow. We had known each other for nearly thirty years. But it had been seven years since we last spoke. By then Inessa and I both knew that Putin's anticipated blitzkrieg had failed: Kyiv had not fallen in three days. But the slaughter continued. It was a rare historical moment in its absence of ambiguity—an unprovoked invasion, for nothing. We were watching it all, live-streamed on the internet. Or rather, I was watching it [End Page 39] all. Information in Russia was censored. Yet it was impossible that Inessa, so well educated, would not—did not—know. "I had thought that the very worst in my life had already happened—I lost my parents," Inessa wrote. "I could not have imagined something like this.…" Then a second message: "I am afraid that in Russia a civil war is about to begin, and then—terror." galina i am not a neutral observer of this war—I have been living it from afar, through my friends who are in it. My attachment to Ukraine has its origins neither in Ukraine nor in Russia, nor in America, but rather in a provincial part of the Czech Republic, where I arrived some twenty-eight years ago, during the last days of summer in 1994, to work as an English teacher. I was the only American in a small town with a market square freshly painted in shades of lime and tangerine, and I wanted to be liked. The people in the town, by and large, did not like me. Other women my age were very much liked. Milena worked at a vaguely Italian café that served pizza and wine. The café was young and bright, like Milena, and other young, bright people gathered there. When the café was not busy, she would open her shopping bag from behind the bar and show her girlfriends her new purchases: black stockings, auburn hair dye, violet nail polish. In sparkling eye shadow, heavy mascara, tight jeans, and the clingy tops of a dancer, Milena always looked beautiful, and at home. She seemed content to mix drinks, happy to be in the world that could be touched like the spoon she twirled between her fingers. I was jealous of Milena and her ability to enjoy the present moment. Men admired her. No one harassed her. Of course, she had a boyfriend to protect her. I was nearly always by myself. My own makeup was not so heavy, my clothes not quite so revealing, my brown hair undyed. Even so, men called to me, taunted me, followed me around the painted square, as if it were understood that this was okay, that the usual rules did not apply to foreigners. [End Page 40] I was unprotected by social conventions. The other women in the town saw everything, but none reached out a hand. Except Galina, a Ukrainian woman about fifteen years older than I was, who taught at the school with me. She did reach out—one of those moments that alters the arc of one's life. She made tea, translated for me, told me who in the town had good will, if misplaced, and who could not be trusted. Today, near thirty years later, as a historian of Eastern Europe, as I find myself unable to turn away from a country turning to embers in a ghastly war, I understand that my connection to Ukraine came into being through this unexpected friendship, against the backdrop of those men and their catcalls. Perhaps it was natural that we, two English teachers, the only two foreigners working at this school, were drawn together, despite our differences. I was an agnostic Jew; Galina was searching for faith in that passionate, desperate way captured in the Russian word bogoiskatel'stvo, "God-seeking." Galina and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Mara, had arrived shortly after Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution of 1989; the Iron Curtain had just fallen; everyone...

Experiences of dog theft and spatial practices of search/ing

AbstractPublic responses to an ‘upward trend’ in recorded dog theft offences in England and Wales led to the creation of the Pet Theft Taskforce in May 2021, followed by a policy paper recommending the development of a new ‘pet abduction’ offence. Despite this, the experiential nature of dog theft, what impact this has on victims, and how they go about searching for their stolen dogs have been overlooked. Building on interdisciplinary research on dog theft, and wider literature on the impact of absence and loss on human victims, this paper explores the experiential dimension of this crime and the spatial and temporal practices of search/ing. Drawing on 15 semi‐structured interviews with victims of dog theft (10) and community resolution groups (5), key themes emerged from our analyses: (i) more‐than‐human families and (ii) spatial and temporal practices of search/ing. The dogs in this study occupy an absent presence, their bodies not visibly present but occupying a space in the minds and words of their humans. From the realisation of loss through to ongoing searches to possible reunite, participant experiences are filled with emotions that reflect a traumatic experience and ‘ambiguous absence’. With expectations of police support rarely met, victims started physically searching themselves, moving from the local to regional and national, while connecting with animal professionals and community resolution groups. Virtual space was seen as vital, with social media amplifying the virtual presence of specific stolen dogs. Conceived as a more‐human‐focused animal geography, the research brings together an empirical example at the potential intersection of animal geographies and policing. The experiential evidence in this paper suggests changes to organisational practices (standardised police approach; centralised microchip database; mandatory microchip‐scanning by animal professionals) and national government policy interventions (‘pet abduction’ offence) might have a positive impact on victim experiences.

On the effect of uncertainty on personal vaccination decisions.

This study investigates the effect of ambiguity on personal vaccination decisions. We first characterize the vaccination decision in the absence of ambiguity. We then show that uncertainty about the probability of side effects and the efficacy of the vaccine always reduces take‐up under ambiguity aversion. However, uncertainty about the underlying disease, being the probability of sickness or the probability of a severe course of disease, may either encourage or discourage vaccination. Our results are relevant for policy because reducing uncertainty associated with the vaccine always has the desired effect whereas reducing uncertainty associated with the disease may have unintended consequences.

Change Is Hard: Individual Differences in Children’s Lexical Processing and Executive Functions after a Shift in Dimensions

ABSTRACT Language comprehension involves cognitive abilities that are specific to language as well as cognitive abilities that are more general and involved in a wide range of behaviors. One set of domain-general abilities that support language comprehension are executive functions (EFs), also known as cognitive control. A diverse body of research has demonstrated that EFs support language comprehension when there is conflict between competing, incompatible interpretations of temporarily ambiguous words or phrases. By engaging EFs, children and adults are able to select or bias their attention toward the correct interpretation. However, the degree to which language processing engages EFs in the absence of ambiguity is poorly understood. In the current experiment, we tested whether EFs may be engaged when comprehending speech that does not elicit conflicting interpretations. Different components of EFs were measured using several behavioral tasks and language comprehension was measured using an eye-tracking procedure. Five-year-old children (n = 56) saw pictures of familiar objects and heard sentences identifying the objects using either their names or colors. After a series of objects were identified using one dimension, children were significantly less accurate in fixating target objects that were identified using a second dimension. Further results reveal that this decrease in accuracy does not occur because children struggle to shift between dimensions, but rather because they are unable to predict which dimension will be used. These effects of predictability are related to individual differences in children’s EFs. Taken together, these findings suggest that EFs may be more broadly involved when children comprehend language, even in instances that do not require conflict resolution.

Feddersen and Pesendorfer meet Ellsberg

The Condorcet Jury Theorem formalises the “wisdom of crowds”: binary decisions made by majority vote are asymptotically correct as the number of voters tends to infinity. This classical result assumes like-minded, expected utility maximising voters who all share a common prior belief about the right decision. Ellis (Theor Econo 11(3): 865–895, 2016) shows that when voters have ambiguous prior beliefs—a (closed, convex) set of priors—and follow maxmin expected utility (MEU), such wisdom requires that voters’ beliefs satisfy a “disjoint posteriors” condition: different private signals lead to posterior sets with disjoint interiors. Both the original theorem and Ellis’s generalisation assume symmetric penalties for wrong decisions. If, as in the jury context, errors attract asymmetric penalties then it is natural to consider voting rules that raise the hurdle for the decision carrying the heavier penalty for error (such as conviction in jury trials). In a classical model, Feddersen and Pesendorfer (Am Politi Sci Rev 92(1):23–35, 1998) have shown that, paradoxically, raising this hurdle may actually increase the likelihood of the more serious error. In particular, crowds are not wise under the unanimity rule: the probability of the more serious error does not vanish as the crowd size tends to infinity. We show that this “Jury Paradox” persists in the presence of ambiguity, whether or not juror beliefs satisfy Ellis’s “disjoint posteriors” condition. We also characterise the strictly mixed equilibria of this model and study their properties. Such equilibria cannot exist in the absence of ambiguity but may exist for arbitrarily large jury size when ambiguity is present. In addition to uninformative strictly mixed equilibria, analogous to those exhibited by Ellis (Theor Econo 11(3): 865–895, 2016), there may also exist strictly mixed equilibria which are informative about voter signals.

On the Effect of Uncertainty on Personal Vaccination Decisions

This paper investigates the effect of ambiguity on personal vaccination decision. We first characterize the vaccination decision in the absence of ambiguity. We then show that uncertainty about the probability of side effects and the efficacy of the vaccine always reduce take-up under ambiguity aversion. However, uncertainty about the underlying disease, being the probability of sickness or the probability of a severe course of disease, may either encourage or discourage vaccination. Our results are relevant for policy because reducing uncertainty associated with the vaccine always has the de-sired effect whereas reducing uncertainty associated with the disease may have unintended consequences.

Heavy metals in oils and formation of bitumen-hydrothermal associations in the rocks of the Dnieper-Donetsk paleorift

Formulation of the problem of the article. The problem of common finding of hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the geological space is very interesting from the point of view of theoretical and practical meaning. It was discussed in many works of domestic and foreign scientists from different positions, stipulated by the absence of ambiguity in the explanation of this fact. It is important that heavy metals are present not only in oils, but also in bitumen of bituminous-hydrothermal mineral associations of ore fields in the region. The main aim of the article is to research the genetic, spatial and temporal correlation of heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Research Methods. The processes adducting to the accumulation of heavy metals in oils and the formation of bituminous-hydrothermal associations in rocks have been researched. In particular, the definition of heavy metals in oils from various deposits of the Dnieper-Donetsk basin was performed using the X-ray fluorescence method and the definition of the isotopic composition of carbon of solid bitumen - by mass spectrometric methods. Results. The processes adducting to the accumulation of heavy metals in oils and the formation of bituminous-hydrothermal associations in rocks have been researched. These processes are associated with ascending heat and mass transfer, which adduct to the unloading of fluid streams, which contained a variety of chemical elements, including compounds of carbon dioxide, methane, mercury vapor, and complexes of heavy metal. Spatially, that process coincides with the anticlannel structures which accompany the zones of deep faults. It has been found that the concentrations of heavy metals in oils are associated with the peculiarities of deposits formation within different geological structures. Physical-chemical conditions for the formation of hydrocarbon-hydrothermal fluid systems, which involve both biogenic and abiogenic (synthesized) hydrocarbons, were determined. The established geochemical regularity of increasing concentrations of heavy metals with the depth of oil occurrence is associated with high contents of sulfur compounds in the form of hydrothermal sulfide minerals, which are actively hydrolyzed at high temperatures and lead to leaching of metals and their entry into fluid`s systems where stable sulfur complexes are formed. Scientific novelty and practical importance. The formation of hydrocarbon-heavy metal systems within the Dnieper-Donetsk basin occurs with the participation of synthesized and organic hydrocarbons, as well as mantle exhalates and hydrothermal vent. The result is cooling of these systems. Hydrocarbon fractions (oil) are enriched with heavy metals, and hydrothermal vents are enriched with bitumen-forming naphthides. The practical importance of this research is increase in the efficiency of forecasting and prospecting of hydrocarbon deposits at the expense of theoretical modeling of the bituminous-hydrothermal mineral associations formation in ore fields.

Private and common value auctions with ambiguity over correlation

We analyze auctions when individuals have ambiguity over the joint information structures generating the valuations and signals of players. We analyze how two standard auction effects interact with the ambiguity of bidders over correlation structures. First, a “competition effect” arises when different beliefs about the correlation between bidders' valuations imply different likelihoods of facing competitive bids. Second, a “winner's value effect” arises when different beliefs imply different inferences about the winner's value. In the private values case, only the first effect exists and this implies that the distribution of bids first order stochastically dominates the distribution of bids in the absence of ambiguity. In common value auctions both effects exist and we show that compared to the canonical model, both in the first-price and second-price auctions, these effects combine to imply that the seller's revenue decreases with ambiguity (in contrast with the private values case). We then characterise the optimal auction in both the private and common value cases. A novel feature that arises in the optimal mechanism in the common values case is that the seller only partially insures the high type against ambiguity.

Risk versus ambiguity and international security design

We study portfolio allocation and characterize contracts issued by firms in the international financial market when investors exhibit ambiguity aversion and perceive ambiguity in assets issued in foreign locations. Increases in the variance of their risky production process cause firms to issue assets with a higher variable payment (equity). Hikes in investors' perceived ambiguity have the opposite effect, and lead to less risk-sharing. Entrepreneurs from capital-scarce countries finance themselves relatively more through debt than equity. They are thus exposed to higher volatility per unit of consumption. The expected returns on capital invested in capital-scarce countries may also be lower. Such results do not hold in the absence of ambiguity, that is, when investors only perceive risk. New facts uncovered from cross-country firm-level data are consistent with our model.

Ambiguity preferences, risk taking and the banking firm

This paper examines the risk taking behavior of a banking firm facing ambiguity and possessing smooth ambiguity preferences. Ambiguity is modeled by a second-order probability distribution that captures the bank’s uncertainty about which of the subjective beliefs govern the return on its loans. Ambiguity aversion is modeled by a concave transformation of the (first-order) expected utility of profit conditional on each plausible subjective distribution of the random loan return. Within this framework, we show that the bank finds it less attractive to take risk in the presence than in the absence of ambiguity. This result extends to the case of greater ambiguity aversion. Given that the bank’s smooth ambiguity preferences exhibit non-increasing absolute ambiguity aversion, imposing a more stringent capital requirement to the bank has the desired effect that limits the bank’s incentive to take on excessive risk.

Methods of unwrapping phase ambiguity and selecting direct sounds in an ultra short baseline positioning system

This paper presents a novel method to unwrap phase ambiguity and an expert system to select the direct sound from several reflecting pulses in an USBL positioning system. Generally, in the crossed-shaped USBL array, unwrapping ambiguity in the long edge is based on the absence of ambiguity in the short edge, where the array spacing is less than half-wavelength. However, if the positioning system works at a high frequency, which results in the short-edge phase ambiguity, the classical method to unwrap long-edge ambiguity will fail. This paper proposes a sector searching method for this scenario. It utilizes all combinations of two edges to solve all possible target orientations, and takes the mode as the final result. Additionally, hydrophones receive multi-path reflections besides the direct sound in practical application. The expert system is particularly used for selecting the direct sound correctly, which seriously effects the positioning precision. It contains series of criteria to evaluate the quality of each pulse and considers the pulse with the best quality as the direct sound. Simulation and field experiment results prove that the proposed methods are feasible and can achieve good accuracy. Keywords: USBL; phase ambiguity; expert system; and direct sound.

Search/ing for missing people: Families living with ambiguous absence

Families of missing people are often understood as inhabiting a particular space of ambiguity, captured in the phrase ‘living in limbo’ (Holmes, 2008). To explore this uncertain ground, we interviewed 25 family members to consider how human absence is acted upon and not just felt within this space ‘in between’ grief and loss (Wayland, 2007). In the paper, we represent families as active agents in spatial stories of ‘living in limbo’, and we provide insights into the diverse strategies of search/ing (technical, physical and emotional) in which they engage to locate either their missing member or news of them. Responses to absence are shown to be intimately bound up with unstable spatial knowledges of the missing person and emotional actions that are subject to change over time. We suggest that practices of search are not just locative actions, but act as transformative processes providing insights into how families inhabit emotional dynamism and transition in response to the on-going ‘missing situation’ and ambiguous loss (Boss, 1999, 2013).

Tournaments and Project Selection Under Ambiguity

This paper analyzes how ambiguity affects the tournament outcome and the project selection of a multi-business-unit organization. We consider a tournament model where business unit managers compete against each other for a promotion reward but are ambiguous about how relatively well their skills match with the project assigned by a headquarter (HQ). We show that while ambiguity adversely affects business unit managers' effort choices, project risk can partly offset the adverse effect of ambiguity and hence boost effort inputs from business unit managers. This is in sharp contrast with the standard tournament theory, predicting that greater risk reduces contestants' incentives to exert effort. Moreover, the equilibrium prize spread is shown to decrease with ambiguity and increase with project risk. Finally, while greater project risk is unequivocally suboptimal for the organization in the absence of ambiguity, it can be optimal for the organization in the presence of ambiguity. Our results thus highlight an unexplored bright side of risk-taking of organizations and provide novel policy implications for project management under ambiguity. The robustness of our results is also probed from several different perspectives.

Military and Veteran Families and Children: Policies and Programs for Health Maintenance and Positive Development and commentaries

Military and Veteran Families and Children: Policies and Programs for Health Maintenance and Positive Development and commentaries

Perturbative calculations in space–time having extra dimensions: The 6D single axial box anomaly

A detailed investigation about the 6D single axial box anomalous amplitude is presented. The superficial degree of divergence involved, in the one-loop perturbative calculations, is quadratic and the corresponding theory is nonrenormalizable. In spite of this, we show that the phenomenon of anomaly can be clearly characterized in a completely analogous way as that of 4D single axial triangle anomaly. The required calculations are made within the context of a novel calculational strategy where the amplitudes are not modified in intermediary steps. Divergent integrals are, in fact, not really solved. Adequate representations for the internal propagators are adopted according to the degree of divergence involved, so that when the last Feynman rule is taken (integration over the loop momentum) all the dependence on the internal (arbitrary) momenta are placed only in finite integrals. In the divergent structures emerging, no physical parameter is present and such objects are not really integrated. Only very general properties are assumed for such quantities which are universal (all space–time dimensions). The consistency of the perturbative calculations fixes some relations among the divergent integrals so that all the potentially ambiguous terms can be automatically removed. In spite of the absence of ambiguities, the emerging results allow us to give a clear and transparent description of the anomaly. The present investigation confirms the point of view stated by the same prescription for the well-known 2D axial-vector (AV) two-point and 4D single (AVV) and triple (AAA) axial-vector anomalies: the anomalous amplitudes need not be assumed as ambiguous quantities to allow an adequate description of the anomalies. We show also that a surprising, but natural, connection between the coupling of fermions with a pseudoscalar tensor field is found. In addition, we show that the crucial mathematical aspects of the problem are deeply related to a recently arisen controversy involving the evaluation of the Higgs Boson decay and the question of unicity in the dimensional regularization.

Ambiguity and the Value of Hedging

This paper examines the optimal production and hedging decisions of the competitive firm under price uncertainty when the firm's preferences exhibit smooth ambiguity aversion and an unbiased forward hedging opportunity is available. Ambiguity is modeled by a second‐order probability distribution that captures the firm's uncertainty about which of the subjective beliefs govern the price risk. Ambiguity preferences are modeled by the (second‐order) expectation of a concave transformation of the (first‐order) expected utility of profit conditional on each plausible subjective distribution of the price risk. Within this framework, the separation and full‐hedging theorems remain intact. Banning the firm from trading its output forward at the unbiased forward price has adverse effect on the firm's production decision. The firm finds the unbiased forward hedging opportunity more valuable in the presence than in the absence of ambiguity. Furthermore, the value of hedging increases when the firm's beliefs are more ambiguous, or when the firm becomes more ambiguity averse. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 35:839–848, 2015

Simply Imagining Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows Will Not Budge the Bias: The Role of Ambiguity in Interpretive Bias Modification.

Imagery-based interpretive bias modification (CBM-I) involves repeatedly imagining scenarios that are initially ambiguous before being resolved as either positive or negative in the last word/s. While the presence of such ambiguity is assumed to be important to achieve change in selective interpretation, it is also possible that the act of repeatedly imagining positive or negative events could produce such change in the absence of ambiguity. The present study sought to examine whether the ambiguity in imagery-based CBM-I is necessary to elicit change in interpretive bias, or, if the emotional content of the imagined scenarios is sufficient to produce such change. An imagery-based CBM-I task was delivered to participants in one of four conditions, where the valence of imagined scenarios were either positive or negative, and the ambiguity of the scenario was either present (until the last word/s) or the ambiguity was absent (emotional valence was evident from the start). Results indicate that only those who received scenarios in which the ambiguity was present acquired an interpretive bias consistent with the emotional valence of the scenarios, suggesting that the act of imagining positive or negative events will only influence patterns of interpretation when the emotional ambiguity is a consistent feature.

SU-GG-T-364: Development and Application of a Structural Quality Indicator for Radiotherapy Clinical Equipment

Purpose: There is an increasing emphasis on quality indicators for documenting the performance of clinical radiotherapy equipment and processes. Such indicators, if relevant and unambiguous, can facilitate both external peer review audit (AAMP's‐ TG103) and internal review as a component of a quality improvement program. We present, for discussion, a graduated structural quality indicator to assess QC protocol compliance with existing performance standards and illustrate its use for linear accelerators and CT‐simulators. Method and Materials: Our structural quality indicator is based on four features of the equipment QC protocol; tolerance level, action level, frequency and documentation of each test. The structural quality indicator is divided into five levels of compliance: full, substantial, partial, minimal, and non compliance. Each individual test in a local QC protocol can be assigned to one of the five categories using the proposed indicator. To evaluate the indicator for relevance, absence of ambiguity and ease of use, it was used to check the compliance of local Tom Baker Cancer Centre QC procedures (daily, monthly, and annually) against Canadian standards (www.medphys.ca) and the AAPM's‐TG40 and TG66. Results: The results show that our Linac QC protocols were 82% and 88% in full or substantial compliance with CAPCA and AAPM's‐TG40 respectively. However, in the case of the CT‐simulator, full compliance was only 42% for CAPCA and 65% for AAPM's TG66. The form of the indicator facilitates the accurate identification of the discrepancies between the local protocol and the standard and hence guides remedial measures where necessary. Conclusion: A simple structural quality indicator for the evaluation of the documentary basis of a quality control program has been developed and applied. It is easy to use, relatively unambiguous and could form an objective component of a peer review exercise or a formal quality improvement program.

Ambiguous absence, ambiguous presence: A qualitative study of military reserve families in wartime.

The "Global War on Terrorism" has resulted in reservists being deployed at an ever-increasing rate. However, because reservists and their families are unaccustomed to deployments, many families may experience boundary ambiguity, a state in which family members are uncertain in their perception about who is in or out of the family and who is performing which roles and tasks within the family. This qualitative description study examined boundary ambiguity in military reserve families over time. A sample of 34 reservists, spouses, and parents was interviewed 7 times within the 1st year of the reservists' return from Iraq. During deployment, all family members experienced boundary ambiguity. Gathering information and attending a family support group provided some relief for families. After the reservists returned, couples as well as those who had experienced additional life events or losses experienced the highest levels of boundary ambiguity. However, this boundary ambiguity dissipated over time, as families tended to restabilize once the reservists had returned to work and a routine had been established.