Causal Theory Research Articles

Apostolicity II: How does divine apostolicity affect God’s interaction with the world and humanity?

Investigating the research question of how divine apostolicity affects God’s interaction with the world and humanity, predicates apostolicity as being a divine attribute. The logical extension therefore necessitates consideration of the apostolic attribute as an ontological, Trinitarian and operational characteristic demonstrated in the divine-human inter-relationship. Knowledge was drawn from relevant and authoritative sources: Ancient Near Eastern, Israelite, biblical, Hellenistic, reformation and contemporary theological and scientific. They were examined to accurately articulate diverse academic views, to provide critical appraisal of historical, theological and scientific investigation and theoretical frameworks, axiomatic for current and future research. The research method was of necessity an ontological consideration of the nature of God as a transcendent-immanent and relational reality. Epistemological analysis examines the multiple and developing theories of causation, of divine providence determinist or necessitarian, indeterminist or contingent, or an open participatory view of natural order. Philosophical, theological and scientific paradigms expose the founding theoretical principles confronting positivist-determinist and post-positivist-contingent views, thereafter enabling the proposition of an apostolic paradigm. (Cohen et al., 2018: 3, 5-6, 10, 14, 16, 18, 28, 34). The apostolic paradigm articulates a dynamic relationship to the world and humanity with particular attention to New Testament incarnational Christological and pneumatological parameters that postulate a paradigm change and subsequent rereading of the worldview through apostolic dynamic phases. Herein lies the contribution to the existing body of knowledge and contemporary biblical worldview developments in this field.

Nonsurgical Consecutive Exotropia Following Childhood Esotropia: A Multicentered Study

PurposeNon-surgical consecutive exotropia (NCX) occurs when an esotropia (ET) spontaneously converts to exotropia (XT) without surgical intervention. Although considered to occur in early onset accommodative esotropia with high hyperopia, consensus on causation is lacking. We report the clinical characteristics of NCX and assess response to conservative management. DesignRetrospective, multi-centered observational case series. MethodsPatients aged 6 months and older with initial diagnosis of esotropia who converted to exotropia without surgical intervention. Sensory strabismus was excluded. Age, visual acuity, cycloplegic refraction, glasses prescriptions, deviation and binocular vision were collected. ResultsForty-nine children were included with a mean age of 3.5±1.6 and 8.4±3.6 years at time of ET and NCX, respectively. Mean refractive error was +4.40±2.13D and +4.05±2.74D at time of ET and NCX, respectively. Accommodative esotropia occurred in 60% of cases, and only 35.7% were high hyperopes. All but one patient presented with their XT at distance. In response to the XT, a mean decrease in hyperopic prescription of 1.55±0.48D was given (N=17); only 1 case reverted to esotropia. Eventually, 43% had exotropia surgery, with similar rates between those who had refractive management and those who did not. ConclusionsNCX occurs in both accommodative and non-accommodative esotropia; high hyperopia is present in only a third of cases. On average, drift to exotropia occurs within 5 years. Refractive management has a modest result. No predictive risk factors were identified. Our findings challenge hyperopia-linked theories of causation. Non-refractive explanations, such as the role of the vergence system, deserve further study.

Учение о причинной связи в трудах академика Владимира Николаевича Кудрявцева (к 100-летию со дня рождения)

The article based on the analysis of some works by V.N. Kudryavtsev considers the provisions of the theory of causality in criminal law and aspects of causation as constituent element of offence. The evolution of the scien-tist's views on some problems of the concept of causality is studied. A fair criticism of the theory of necessary condition is presented, including on the basis of legal and philosophical concepts, and the position of support-ers of the exclusion of randomness from causation is examined. It is emphasized that while a reasonable and justified criticism of the theory of necessary condition is still not resolved the question of the limits of random-ness, the meaning and correlation of causal and functional relationships. The positive aspects of theoretical views of V.N. Kudryavtsev distinguishes and describes the characteristic features of his own reflections con-cerning the establishment of causal connection in criminal omission.

Current challenges of university laboratory: Characteristics of human factors and safety management system deficiencies based on accident statistics

Introduction: In recent years, with the rapid development of university laboratory construction, frequent laboratory accidents have aroused widespread concern. There is an urgent need to improve laboratory safety management's effectiveness further, enhance laboratory accident prevention ability, and reduce the occurrence of accidents. Method: Based on the accident causation theory, this paper uses the accident analysis path of 24Model and the logical idea of WBA (Why-Because-Analysis) to statistically analyze the causative factors of 64 typical college laboratory fire and explosion accidents and find out the defects of current college laboratory management. Results: The study showed that unsafe human actions at the individual level were the most critical factors affecting laboratory safety management, with a high frequency of violations of experimental procedures (105 times) and managers' failure to perform their supervisory duties (98 times); low safety awareness and insufficient safety knowledge among laboratory personnel were key factors triggering unsafe actions. At the organizational level, the lack of training programs (92 times) and the lack of systematic procedures (106 times) are the weaknesses of the laboratory safety management system in general in all universities; the lack of safety culture construction is the root cause of laboratory management deficiencies. Conclusions: Based on the above statistical results, and taking into account the characteristics of university laboratories themselves, the root causes of poor safety are specifically analyzed and preventive measures are proposed in six areas to address the key causes of accidents. Practical Applications: The results of this study are essential for improving the ability to prevent accidents in flammable and explosive laboratories in universities.

On Actuality Entailments, Causation, and Telicity in Balkar

This paper presents a study of actuality entailments in Balkar (a dialect of Karachay-Balkar, Turkic). The study focuses on the deontic and causal meanings of four morphemes: two suffixes (the causative suffix and the suffix -al (‘can/may’)) and two verbs (bujur (‘order’) and qoj (‘allow’)). In the first half of the paper, I provide empirical support for three generalizations: (a) only causal modals can have actuality entailments (all universal and some existential causal modals); (b) actuality entailments arise whenever a causal modal has a telic interpretation, more precisely, when it is not embedded under an imperfective or a delimitative operator (c) existential but not universal causal modals trigger an anti-actuality entailment under negation. In the second half of the paper, I propose a theory of root modality within the framework of situation semantics. In this framework, root modals describe a situation (the anchor situation) and quantify over situations that stand in a particular semantic relation to it. The proposed Causal Modality Theory (CMT) consists of two assumptions: (a) Causal modals quantify over causal chains initiated by the counterparts of the anchor situation. (b) Some existential causal modals have a conditional presupposition: if any counterpart of the anchor situation caused another situation, then the anchor situation itself caused the same situation. The first assumption explains why all universal causal modals have actuality entailments and why existential causal modals trigger an anti-actuality entailment under negation. The second assumption predicts that some existential causal modals (the ones with the conditional presupposition) also trigger an actuality entailment. CMT treats causal modals as bi-eventive predicates, like (non-culminating) accomplishments. They describe two situations: the anchor situation and a situation caused by it. As a result, causal modals are predicted to behave like (non-culminating) accomplishments, namely, they are predicted to trigger actuality entailments if and only if they are not embedded under an imperfective or a delimitative operator.

Proposal of nursing diagnosis "adult disuse syndrome": A conceptual derivation and integrative review.

To develop a nursing diagnosis proposal derived from the concept of "disuse syndrome" based on an integrative review. The conceptual derivation technique, proposed by Walker and Avant, was used in the following phases: an integrative review of the literature was carried out, applying the parameters of Whitermore and Knalf, where 43 articles were selected that covered the existence of the concept in the nursing discipline and other health sciences, the concepts were subsequently analyzed, and the new concept was redefined following the middle-range theory of causality and validation of nursing diagnoses proposed by Oliveira-Lopes etal. The proposal of the new nursing diagnosis was developed, including the following elements: diagnostic label adult disuse syndrome, the corresponding definition, 25 defining characteristics, eight related factors, eight risk populations, and 14 associated problems. The concept of the proposed new diagnosis describes adult disuse syndrome as a phenomenon that transcends the physiological component and should be viewed from a multidimensional view, expressing a clinical judgment related to a series of nursing diagnoses that appear together. The results of this study will help nursing professionals to identify the phenomenon of adult disuse syndrome in any setting and in turn guide optimal care interventions that decrease the consequences of adult disuse syndrome.

Sometimes It Is Better to Do Nothing: A New Argument for Causal Decision Theory

It is often thought that the main significant difference between evidential decision theory and causal decision theory is that they recommend different acts in Newcomb-style examples (broadly construed) where acts and states are correlated in peculiar ways. However, this paper presents a class of non-Newcombian examples that evidential decision theory cannot adequately model whereas causal decision theory can. Briefly, the examples involve situations where it is clearly best to perform an act that will not influence the desired outcome. On evidential decision theory—but not causal decision theory—this situation turns out to be impossible: acts that an agent does not think influence the desired outcome are never optimal. Typically, sophisticated versions of evidential decision theory emulate causal decision theoretic reasoning by (implicitly) conditioning on causal confounders, but in the kind of example considered here, this trick does not work. The upshot is that there is more to causal reasoning than has so far been appreciated.

The Vagaries of References

Evans (1973)’s Madagascar case and other cases like it have long been taken to represent a serious challenge for the Causal Theory of Names. The present essay answers this challenge on behalf of the causal theorist. The key is to treat acts of uttering names as events. Like other events, utterances of names sometimes turn out to have features which only become clear in retrospect.

Wittgenstein vs. Russell in the Blue Book. Deconstructing the causal theory of meaning

Este artículo evalúa los alcances del Cuaderno Azul como crítica sistemática en contra de la que se ha denominado una concepción o explicación causal del significado, específicamente la que formula Russell en The Analysis of Mind. Tal evaluación procederá, primero, aclarando la manera como la concepción causal defiende una noción de significado entendida como la conducta adecuada según el acontecer de leyes causales de orden psicológico. En segundo lugar, desarrollando la crítica que Wittgenstein elabora en el Cuaderno Azul contra la concepción russelliana en tres momentos: 1) la crítica a la hipótesis de las imágenes; 2) el rechazo a la existencia de un proceso interno y oculto; 3) el abandono de una noción psicológica de comprensión para explicar el concepto de significado. Finalmente se aclarará de qué manera toda la crítica del Cuaderno Azul está orientada a debilitar la pretensión que subyace a la explicación causal de explicar científicamente el concepto de significado.

Observables for cyclic causal set cosmologies

In causal set theory, cycles of cosmic expansion and collapse are modelled by causal sets with ‘breaks’ and ‘posts’ and a special role is played by cyclic dynamics in which the universe goes through perpetual cycles. We identify and characterise two algebras of observables for cyclic dynamics in which the causal set universe has infinitely many breaks. The first algebra is constructed from the cylinder sets associated with finite causal sets that have a single maximal element and offers a new framework for defining cyclic dynamics as random walks on a novel tree. The second algebra is generated by a collection of stem-sets and offers a physical interpretation of the observables in these models as statements about unlabelled stems with a single maximal element. There are analogous theorems for cyclic dynamics in which the causal set universe has infinitely many posts.

Brain Disorders, Dysfunctions, and Natural Selection: Commentary on Jefferson

ABSTRACT I argue that despite the merits of Jefferson’s account of a brain disorder, which are many, the notion of function she deploys is unsuitable to the overall goals of that account. In particular, Jefferson accepts Cummins’ causal role theory of function and dysfunction. As the causal role view, in its standard elaborations, is wedded to human interests, goals, and values, it cannot serve as a value-neutral anchor for her hybrid “harm-dysfunction” account of disorder. I argue that the selected effects theory, or some comparably value-neutral account, would serve her purposes better.

Conditions for compensation for moral damage caused to the employee

As cases of violation of employees’ rights are becoming more and more frequent today, the issue of bringing the employer or its authorised body to justice is becoming increasingly relevant. One of the most effective ways to counteract this phenomenon is to compensate for moral damages. That is why the purpose of the article is to determine the conditions and grounds for bringing an employer to liability in the form of compensation for damage to an employee, since this issue is the most pressing one. The following scientific methods were used in the course of the study: monographic, formal and logical, legal and dogmatic, systemic and structural, and the method of summarization.
 It is established that compensation for non-pecuniary damage to an employee is possible subject to certain statutory conditions which are common to liability in all cases of non-pecuniary damage. Each of these conditions is examined in detail, namely: the fact of causing (presence of) non-pecuniary damage; unlawfulness of the employer’s actions; existence of a causal link between the employer’s unlawful act and the non-pecuniary damage caused to the employee; and the employer's guilt. The author proves that non-pecuniary damage occurs if the following grounds exist: the person and the perpetrator of the damage are in an employment relationship; it arose as a result of a violation of labour rights by the employer; the employee suffers moral losses in the form of emotional distress, and these negative changes have led to the loss of normal life ties and require additional efforts from the employee to organise his or her life.
 It is proved that the most appropriate theory for resolving the issue of the presence or absence of causation in the legal relations under consideration is the theory of direct and indirect causation.
 It is argued that since moral suffering always “accompanies” a violation of an employee’s legal labour rights, the presumption of moral damages should be enshrined in law. Based on the study of relevant sources and regulations, the author provides her own definition of the concept of “employer’s guilt”.

Video-Audio Domain Generalization via Confounder Disentanglement

Existing video-audio understanding models are trained and evaluated in an intra-domain setting, facing performance degeneration in real-world applications where multiple domains and distribution shifts naturally exist. The key to video-audio domain generalization (VADG) lies in alleviating spurious correlations over multi-modal features. To achieve this goal, we resort to causal theory and attribute such correlation to confounders affecting both video-audio features and labels. We propose a DeVADG framework that conducts uni-modal and cross-modal deconfounding through back-door adjustment. DeVADG performs cross-modal disentanglement and obtains fine-grained confounders at both class-level and domain-level using half-sibling regression and unpaired domain transformation, which essentially identifies domain-variant factors and class-shared factors that cause spurious correlations between features and false labels. To promote VADG research, we collect a VADG-Action dataset for video-audio action recognition with over 5,000 video clips across four domains (e.g., cartoon and game) and ten action classes (e.g., cooking and riding). We conduct extensive experiments, i.e., multi-source DG, single-source DG, and qualitative analysis, validating the rationality of our causal analysis and the effectiveness of the DeVADG framework.

Absolution of a Causal Decision Theorist

AbstractI respond to a dilemma for Causal Decision Theory (CDT) under determinism, posed in Adam Elga's paper “Confessions of a Causal Decision Theorist”. The treatment I present highlights (i) the status of laws as predictors, and (ii) the consequences of decision dependence, which arises natively out of Jeffrey Conditioning and CDT's characteristic equation.My argument leverages decision dependence to work around a key assumption of Elga's proof: to wit, that in the two problems he presents, the CDTer must employ subjunctive‐suppositional (rather than evidential) transformations of a shared prior.

Соціальні детермінанти формування індивідуальної злочинної поведінки

The article analyzes the main reasons and circumstances that push citizens to commit crimes, as well as the conditions that arise in society and form certain reasons that lead to the commission of crimes. Given the criminogenicity of marginality and its dependence on the characteristics of each person, their qualities, the stability of views and beliefs, and the possible nature of the occurrence of socially harmful consequences, the probable theory of causality, in our opinion, is the most appropriate in determining the reasons for the appearance of marginality. The conditions of personality formation, upbringing, socialization, the influence of external factors during an individual's life affect the development of marginality and the associated social deformation of a person. It was concluded that since there are practically no social guidelines of proper behavior supported by the state in society today. Due to the fact that the state policy does not pay attention to the support of social values and guidelines of appropriate behavior, everyone determines its limits for themselves. In conditions of legal marginality, refusal to recognize legal prescriptions as basic, combined with consumer ideology, a person has no internal motives for refusing to commit an offense.

Per una spiegazione causale delle differenze tra gli animali: Aristotele, Historia animalium I 1

Abstract It is now a widespread opinion among interpreters that Aristotle’s History of Animals is not a mere collection of empirical data but has its own theoretical framework; however, there is still disagreement as to exactly what this framework is. To address the problem, the article analyzes in detail the diairetic schemes of HA I 1, attempting to overturn the common opinion that this chapter is a mere expository introduction to the study of animals’ differences. On the contrary, it will be shown that in this chapter Aristotle not only applies the method of ‘multiple division’ theorized in Parts of Animals I 2–4, but also uses dividing criteria that are informed by his causal theory and his hylomorphist ontology. This analysis will therefore lead to the more controversial conclusion that HA is not an ‘early’ work by Aristotle but a mature treatise with its own specific theoretical aim: the aitiological explanation of the anatomical, eco-physiological and ethological differences among animals.

An object-oriented Bayesian network model for the quantitative risk assessment of navigational accidents in ice-covered Arctic waters

Merchant ship operations in the ice-covered Arctic waters may encounter traditional navigational accident risks (i.e., grounding, collision, etc.) and risks from sea ice, such as ship besetting in ice. However, describing, modeling, and quantifying the multiple risks in ice navigation are challenges from maritime risk assessment perspective. This paper proposes an object-oriented Bayesian network (OOBN) model for the quantitative risk assessment of multiple navigational accidents in ice-covered Arctic waters. The OOBN model makes use of the accident database from Lloyd's intelligence and maritime accident investigation reports. The proposed model decomposes navigational accidents into five levels based on accident causation theory: environment, unsafe condition, unsafe act, probability of navigational accident, and consequence of the navigational accident. Consequently, collision, grounding, ship besetting in ice, and ship–ice collision accidents are selected as the cases to interpret the quantitative risk assessment for navigational risk factors identification, risk analysis, and evaluation. The results demonstrate that (1) the risk is the highest in grounding accidents, followed by besetting in ice, collision, and ship–ice collision in ice-covered Arctic waters; (2) unsafe speed and unsafe condition are the critical mutual factors of these four accident scenarios; (3) and the critical risk influencing factors for the specific navigational accidents are identified to propose corresponding risk control options. The proposed OOBN model can be used for quantitative risk assessment of navigational accidents in ice-covered Arctic waters.

An Appraisal of the Tissue Injury and Repair (TIAR) Theory on the Pathogenesis of Endometriosis and Adenomyosis.

As understanding their pathogenesis remains elusive, both endometriosis and adenomyosis are often referred to as "enigmatic diseases". The uncertainty and heightened interest are reflected in the range of expressed views and opinions. There is a sense of urgency because of the entailed patient suffering. The plethora of opinions calls for a critical analysis of proposed theories, both old and new. A series of papers published since 2009 proposed that both endometriosis and adenomyosis originate from the same aberrations occurring within the uterus. This came to be recognized as the tissue injury and repair theory, and the newly coined term "archimetrosis" posits that the two diseases share the same origin. While the theory opens an interesting channel for exploration, its claim as a unifying theory necessitates a critical appraisal. We, thus, undertook this review of the theory and analyzed its underpinnings based on a comprehensive review of the literature. Our appraisal indicates that the theory is open to a range of criticisms. Chief among these is the need for confirmatory evidence of features of abnormal uterine contractility and the lack of data addressing the question of causality. In addition, the theory has, as yet, no supporting epidemiological evidence, which is a major weakness. The theory suffers as it is not open to the test of falsifiability, and it lacks the ability to make useful predictions. It has not addressed the questions, such as why only a small percentage of women develop adenomyosis or endometriosis, given the ubiquity of uterine peristalsis. On the other hand, the triggers and prevention of hyper- or dys-peristalsis become critical to a theory of causation. We conclude that additional supportive evidence is required for the theory to be accepted.

HR Managers’ Competencies in Implementing Strategic HRM: A Causal Attribution Theory Perspective

HR Managers’ Competencies in Implementing Strategic HRM: A Causal Attribution Theory Perspective

Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Search Target, Reflection on the Top-Down Approach, and Introduction of the Bottom-Up Approach

Based on the INUS theory of causality, the search target of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is to find all the minimally sufficient conditions for the outcome’s occurrence in a data set, where the condition’s sufficiency, the necessity of the condition’s components, and the completeness of the solution are three core requirements. However, QCA’s current top-down approach, which relies on a truth table and Boolean minimization, cannot meet the main objective of QCA. Conditions generated by the top-down approach can be insufficient for the outcome or contain unnecessary components that can be removed. We found evidence supporting our arguments by examining the correctness of top-down QCA in Study 1. Then, we show that QCA can also proceed with a “bottom-up” search strategy in sufficiency analysis, similar to coincidence analysis (CNA). We contrast solutions of the top-down and bottom-up QCA approaches by analyzing a simulated crisp-set data set in Study 2 and a real-world fuzzy-set data set in Study 3. Both results show that only the bottom-up approach can produce all the minimally sufficient conditions. We contribute to the ongoing debate pertain QCA solution types and QCA algorithms by critically evaluating the limitations of QCA’s top-down approach and introducing a bottom-up approach for QCA.