Counter Evidence Research Articles

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Can you verify the surrounding world is real? In this work of René Descartes inspired philosophical short story fiction, death has come for a rational philosopher at his beach house. The Philosopher recognizes the figure as death, but insists the most likely scenario is that Death is a hallucination, a figment of his imagination. Death attempts to convince the philosopher of his authenticity through various means, but is unsuccessful. Even after showing the Philosopher his “true form” the Philosopher is not convinced, saying, “No isolated event, no matter how favorable the circumstance and how unable to otherwise explain by reference to an identifiable flaw in my person or reasoning capacities, could suffice to outweigh a lifetime’s worth of counter evidence.”

Prescribed Performance-Based Low-Computation Adaptive Tracking Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems With Periodic Disturbances

In this brief, the problem of tracking control for uncertain nonlinear systems with periodic disturbances is studied. Based on the prescribed performance technology, two kinds of error transformation functions different from the traditional backstepping method are introduced, such that the proposed low-computation adaptive control method can ensure the boundedness of the signals of the closed-loop system. Meanwhile, the counter evidence method reveals that the system output can achieve accurate tracking. Compared with existing results, firstly, the complexity explosion problem is avoided without introducing a filter, making our result more applicable and less complex. Secondly, for the time-dependent periodic disturbances considered in the system, a function approximator based on Fourier series expansion can achieve accurate approximation with the least number of Gaussian basis functions. Comparative simulation results of the van der Pol oscillator illustrate the advantages of the proposed method.

Similar fish species composition despite larger environmental heterogeneity during severe hypoxia in a coastal ecosystem.

Environmental heterogeneity is one of the most influential factors that create compositional variation among local communities. Greater compositional variation is expected when an environmental gradient encompasses the most severe conditions where species sorting is more likely to operate. However, evidence for stronger species sorting at severer environment has typically been obtained for less mobile organisms and tests are scarce for those with higher dispersal ability that allows individuals to sensitively respond to environmental stress. Here, with the dynamics of fish communities in a Japanese bay revealed by environmental DNA metabarcoding analyses as a model case, we tested the hypothesis that larger environmental heterogeneity caused by severe seasonal hypoxia (lower concentration of oxygen in bottom waters in summer) leads to larger variation of species composition among communities. During summer, fish species richness was lower in the bottom layer, suggesting the severity of the hypoxic bottom water. In contrast to the prediction, we found that although the environmental parameters of bottom and surface water was clearly distinct in summer, fish species composition was more similar between the two layers. Our null model analysis suggested that the higher compositional similarity during hypoxia season was not a result of the sampling effect reflecting differences in the alpha or gamma diversity. Furthermore, a shift in the species occurrence from bottom to surface layers was observed during hypoxia season, which was consistent across species, suggesting that the severe condition in the bottom adversely affected fish species irrespective of their identity. These results suggest that larger environmental heterogeneity does not necessarily lead to higher compositional variation once the environmental gradient encompasses extremely severe conditions. This is most likely because individual organisms actively avoided the severity quasi‐neutrally, which induced mass effect‐like dispersal and lead to the mixing of species composition across habitats. By showing counter evidence against the prevailing view, we provide novel insights into how species sorting by environment acts in heterogeneous and severe conditions.

Occipital alpha-band brain waves when the eyes are closed are shaped by ongoing visual processes

One of the seminal findings of cognitive neuroscience is that the power of occipital alpha-band (~ 10 Hz) brain waves is increased when peoples’ eyes are closed, rather than open. This has encouraged the view that alpha oscillations are a default dynamic, to which the visual brain returns in the absence of input. Accordingly, we might be unable to increase the power of alpha oscillations when the eyes are closed, above the level that would normally ensue when people close their eyes. Here we report counter evidence. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity when people had their eyes open and closed, both before and after they had adapted to radial motion. The increase in alpha power when people closed their eyes was increased by prior adaptation to a broad range of radial motion speeds. This effect was greatest for 10 Hz motion, but robust for other frequencies (and especially 7.5 Hz). This discredits a persistent entrainment of activity at the adaptation frequency as an explanation for our findings. Our data show that the power of occipital alpha-band brain waves can be increased by motion sensitive visual processes that persist when the eyes are closed. Consequently, we suggest that the power of these brain waves is, at least in part, an index of the degree to which visual brain activity is being subjected to inhibition. This is increased when people close their eyes, but can be even further increased by pre-adaptation to radial motion.

Testing the interface hypothesis: the acquisition of English indirect questions by L1 speakers of Omani Arabic

This study tests the interface hypothesis by investigating how advanced Arab learners of English develop the grammatical knowledge of English indirect questions. Ten advanced Arab learners of English and four native speakers of English are tested on a written grammaticality judgment task and an oral production task. Three hypotheses are tested: (1) the grammatical knowledge of advanced Arab learners of English indirect questions is different from that of native speakers of English, (2) advanced Arab learners of English do not have problems acquiring indirect questions, where the matrix clause is a non-interrogative clause and the embedded clause is an interrogative clause, (3) advanced Arab learners of English have problems acquiring indirect questions, where both the matrix clause and the embedded clause are interrogative. The results of the study confirm the first and third hypotheses but disconfirm the second hypothesis. The results of the study provide counter evidence to the interface hypothesis, as even linguistic properties that do not involve interface between syntax and discourse/pragmatics seem to be persistently problematic at the advanced level of L2 proficiency.

“He should so be in jail”: An Empirical Study on Preverbal So in American English

This paper explores the use of so-called GenX so as a modifier of verb phrases, as exemplified in “He should so be in jail” (SOAP, DAYS, 2005). Drawing on over 1350 relevant tokens retrieved from the Corpus of American Soap Operas (SOAP) (Davies 2011-, 100 million words from 2001-2012), the main purpose of the present study is to provide robust empirical evidence for various findings yielded by small-scale studies and by introspection. The results corroborate some of the previous findings, while others, particularly those based on introspection, are challenged in light of empirical (counter)evidence. The data show that preverbal so is very flexible in that it can occur in various syntactic slots and with a large number of different verbs (wide collocational range) and with different kinds of verbs (full, modal, auxiliary). In a large data set (such as that from SOAP), GenX so is even attested in questions, before auxiliaries in affirmative uses, and after the negator not. Moreover, preverbal so is expanding its functional range from intensification to emphasis.

The Legacy of James D. Anderson: Exploring the Role and Place of African Americans in Education

The purpose of this review is to highlight the work of Dr. James D. Anderson, whose contributions to educational and historical scholarship has provided critical counter evidence demonstrating that the African American community has represented nothing less than the full embrace of the promise of education. Over the span of his career, his body of work has shifted our understanding of the role of African Americans in educational leadership, informed legal debates related to access and opportunity, and has contributed to civic discourse associated with public education. The work of Dr. Anderson was also instrumental in a number of desegregation and affirmative action cases, including Liddell v. Missouri, Jenkins v. Missouri, Knight v. Alabama, U.S. and Ayers v. Fordice, and Gratz v. Bollinger. Drawing on his seminal book and numerous articles and position papers, our review article highlights a few of the ways in which Dr. Anderson's contributions demonstrate the relationships between political, economic, legal, and educational interests of African Americans.

Number, time, and space are not singularly represented: Evidence against a common magnitude system beyond early childhood.

Our ability to represent temporal, spatial, and numerical information is critical for understanding the world around us. Given the prominence of quantitative representations in the natural world, numerous cognitive, neurobiological, and developmental models have been proposed as a means of describing how we track quantity. One prominent theory posits that time, space, and number are represented by a common magnitude system, or a common neural locus (i.e., Bonn & Cantlon in Cognitive Neuropsychology, 29(1/2), 149-173, 2012; Cantlon, Platt, & Brannon in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(2), 83-91, 2009; Meck & Church in Animal Behavior Processes, 9(3), 320, 1983; Walsh in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(11), 483-488, 2003). Despite numerous similarities in representations of time, space, and number, an increasing body of literature reveals striking dissociations in how each quantity is processed, particularly later in development. These findings have led many researchers to consider the possibility that separate systems may be responsible for processing each quantity. This review will analyze evidence in favor of a common magnitude system, particularly in infancy, which will be tempered by counter evidence, the majority of which comes from experiments with children and adult participants. After reviewing the current data, we argue that although the common magnitude system may account for quantity representations in infancy, the data do not provide support for this system throughout the life span. We also identify future directions for the field and discuss the likelihood of the developmental divergence model of quantity representation, like that of Newcombe (Ecological Psychology, 2, 147-157, 2014), as a more plausible account of quantity development.

Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World eds. by Jane Fried

Reviewed by: Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World eds. by Jane Fried Stacy A. Jacob Jane Fried with Peter Troiano. Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2016. 140 pp. Cloth: $22.48. IBSN: 9781620364192 Jane Fried's book Of Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World is an exposition on how to change the way we think about teaching. It provides both a brief history lesson on the academy—an acknowledgement of where higher education has been and a call to where we might go. The reflective questions and exercises provided help readers redefine and revision their teaching. As the book implies, it employs the kind of circular thinking that will take the reader down a rabbit hole and on a mind adventure. The book is divided into a preface, introduction, and eight chapters. Due to the meandering nature of the book (which I think is a masterful representation of mind rabbit holes), it is a bit difficult to summarize. Chapters 1 and 2 cover the stories we tell about college and the ways these stories shape the way most academics have been taught to think about teaching. Chapter 1 starts with a look at the way students think about the purpose of college versus the way that faculty think about the purpose of college. The chapter then introduces how Western university systems began to honor objectivity over subjectivity and began to negate personal narratives in teaching and learning. Fried asks us, "Are beliefs that shape our educational institutions taking us where we want to go and giving us the capacities that we need to function in a crisis-ridden world?" (p. 8). Chapter 2 picks up on this idea and furthers it by discussing what she calls The Grand Narrative of Western Civilization (or the stories we tell our selves about how the world works). From here she points out that this story is but a fishbowl we can see through but never look upon or ask if there is another perspective. Fried then explains how the academy's fish bowl developed by giving a brief overview of higher education history and why we should be aware of this fishbowl. Fried concludes Chapter 2 by using several theorists and reflective exercises to help the reader see both their fishbowl and ways to get out of it. Chapters 3 and 4 take the ideas in Chapters 1 and 2 and move them into discussions on teaching and learning. Chapter 3 asks the reader to think about how they learned and if they are teaching in a way that helps students learn. It provides several exercises to help the reader reflect upon and make meaning of important learning moments and think about how they can apply what they learned through these exercises to their teaching. Chapter 4 talks about the role of language in defining teaching and asks the reader to consider students as subjects rather than objects. It challenges readers to not only teach facts but also, to make those facts meaningful for students by providing "a broader context of meaning and value" (p. 36). Chapters 5 and 6 teach about students developing a sense of self or self-authorship and is a call to bring the "student's sense of self" into the learning process by aiding students in their search for meaning. In Chapter 5, Fried addresses the issue that arises when students have a differing opinion from material presented and the problem with presenting better evidence—students often feel dismissed, hurt, etc. Fried says most professors lack the training to work with these emotions and help the student understand what they think and why they think it rather than simply giving counter evidence to what the student thinks. Chapter 6 continues the explanation of self-authorship and distinguishes between working with emotional content as students struggle to make meaning of their experiences and counseling. She advocates that professors can help students in their learning by providing opportunities for students to reflect on their lives as they learn. Chapter...

Regular sound change; The evidence of a single example

The Neogrammarians of the Leipzig School introduced the principle that sound changes are regular and that this regularity is without exceptions. At least as a working hypothesis, this principle has remained the basis of the comparative method up to this day. In the first part of this paper, I give a short account of how historical linguists have defended this principle and have dealt with apparent counter evidence. In the second part, I explore if a sound change can be regular if it is attested in one instance only. I conclude that it is, provided that the concomitant phonetic (and phonotactic) evidence supporting it is also based on regularity. If the single instance of a sound change is the result of developments which are all regular in themselves, it is still in line with the regularity principle.

Comparing the effects of teacher collaboration on student performance in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore

ABSTRACTTeacher collaboration is generally believed to relate positively to student performance. Although many researchers have investigated the influence of teacher collaboration on student performance, much of this work is confined to Western educational contexts. This study used data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011 to test the influence of teacher collaboration on student performance in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Results of multi-level models suggest that teacher collaboration is not a significant predictor of student performance in those countries. This study contributes to the literature on teacher collaboration by providing counter evidence to the relationship between teacher collaboration and student performance in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Reconceptualizing perceptual load as a rate problem: The role of time in the allocation of selective attention.

In the literature about allocation of selective attention, a widely studied question is when will attention be allocated to information that is clearly irrelevant to the task at hand. The present study, by using convergent evidence, demonstrated that there is a trade-off between quantity of information present in a display and the time allowed to process it. Specifically, whether or not there is interference from irrelevant distractors depends not only on the amount of information present, but also on the amount of time allowed to process that information. When processing time is calibrated to the amount of information present, irrelevant distractors can be selectively ignored successfully. These results suggest that the perceptual load in the load theory of selective attention (i.e., Lavie, 2005) should be thought about as a dynamic rate problem rather than a static capacity limitation. The authors thus propose that rather than conceiving of perceptual load as a quantity of information, they should consider it as a quantity of information per unit of time. In other words, it is the relationship between the quantity of information in the task and the time for processing the information that determines the allocation of selective attention. Thus, the present findings extended load theory, allowing it to explain findings that were previously considered as counter evidence of load theory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reconceptualizing perceptual load as a rate problem: The role of time in the allocation of selective attention

In the literature about allocation of selective attention, a widely studied question is when will attention be allocated to information that is clearly irrelevant to the task at hand. The present study, by using convergent evidence, demonstrated that there is a trade-off between quantity of information present in a display and the time allowed to process it. Specifically, whether or not there is interference from irrelevant distractors depends not only on the amount of information present, but also on the amount of time allowed to process that information. When processing time is calibrated to the amount of information present, irrelevant distractors can be selectively ignored successfully. These results suggest that the perceptual load in the load theory of selective attention (i.e., Lavie, 2005) should be thought about as a dynamic rate problem rather than a static capacity limitation. The authors thus propose that rather than conceiving of perceptual load as a quantity of information, they should consider it as a quantity of information per unit of time. In other words, it is the relationship between the quantity of information in the task and the time for processing the information that determines the allocation of selective attention. Thus, the present findings extended load theory, allowing it to explain findings that were previously considered as counter evidence of load theory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Children Residing in Low-Income Households Like a Variety of Vegetables.

Child vegetable intake falls far below the minimum recommended levels. Knowing which vegetables children may like help those responsible for providing vegetables to children to improve intake. The objective of this study was to measure vegetable liking for a wide variety of vegetables by a racially and ethnically diverse population of 9–12-year old children from low-income families. Children rated their liking of 35 vegetables using a 10-point hedonic scale. We tabulated the number of children that found each vegetable acceptable (ratings of ‘okay’ or above) and the number that found each vegetable unacceptable (ratings below ‘okay’). More than 50% of children who had tried a vegetable considered it acceptable. A large majority of the vegetables had mean ratings in the acceptable range. Corn was the most liked vegetable, closely followed by potatoes, lettuce, and carrots. Artichoke had the lowest mean liking, followed by onion and beets. We found children liked a wide variety of vegetables which offers counter evidence to the commonly held perception that children do not like vegetables.

HUME: large-scale detection of causal genetic factors of adverse drug reactions.

Adverse drug reactions are one of the major factors that affect the wellbeing of patients and financial costs of healthcare systems. Genetic variations of patients have been shown to be a key factor in the occurrence and severity of many ADRs. However, the large number of confounding drugs and genetic biomarkers for each adverse reaction case demands a method that evaluates all potential genetic causes of ADRs simultaneously. To address this challenge, we propose HUME, a multi-phase algorithm that recommends genetic factors for ADRs that are causally supported by the patient record data. HUME consists of the construction of a network from co-prevalence between significant genetic biomarkers and ADRs, a link score phase for predicting candidate relations based on the Adamic-Adar measure, and a causal refinement phase based on multiple hypothesis testing of quasi experimental designs for evaluating evidence and counter evidence of candidate relations in the patient records. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Language acquisition with communication between learners.

We consider a class of students learning a language from a teacher. The situation can be interpreted as a group of child learners receiving input from the linguistic environment. The teacher provides sample sentences. The students try to learn the grammar from the teacher. In addition to just listening to the teacher, the students can also communicate with each other. The students hold hypotheses about the grammar and change them if they receive counter evidence. The process stops when all students have converged to the correct grammar. We study how the time to convergence depends on the structure of the classroom by introducing and evaluating various complexity measures. We find that structured communication between students, although potentially introducing confusion, can greatly reduce some of the complexity measures. Our theory can also be interpreted as applying to the scientific process, where nature is the teacher and the scientists are the students.

Decoupling energy use and economic growth: Counter evidence from structural effects and embodied energy in trade

Decoupling economic growth from energy consumption is a wide spread attempt to decarbonize economic activities and increase energy security. Almost all members of the European Union have decoupled the two since 2005 as measured by a steady decline in energy intensity, the ratio of final energy consumption and gross domestic product. Economic growth, energy efficiency and structural changes have all contributed to changes in energy intensity of economic activities at the national level. In this article, the authors analyze to what extent decoupling can be attributed to each of these three factors and in particular structural effects, namely deindustrialization and tertiarization, which shifts energy consumption abroad and re-imports it as embodied energy in products.We quantify the effects of structural changes, economic growth and energy efficiency measures as well as embodied energy in trade at the level of economic activities. The methodological approach combines decomposition and input-output analysis to address boundary cases where monetary trade surpluses meet energy trade deficits. Switzerland provides a case in point with the added hurdle of low data availability per economic activity over time.The results show that the share of embodied energy in imports has reached 81% of final energy consumption in economic activities. A comparison of energy intensities with and without embodied energy in trade shows that decoupling is more virtual than actual. Shifting energy intensive activities abroad improves domestic performance but worsens both overall energy use and security by relying on more indirect energy consumption. Energy indicators should therefore be adjusted to avoid potentially conflicting policy objectives between energy intensity and security as well as trade.

Rainfall Intensity and Frequency Explain Production Basis Risk in Cumulative Rain Index Insurance

AbstractWith minimal moral hazard and adverse selection, weather index insurance promises financial resilience to farmers struck by harsh weather conditions through swift compensation at affordable premium. Despite these advantages, the very nature of indexing gives rise to production basis risk as the selected weather indexes do not sufficiently correspond to actual damages. To address this problem, we develop a stochastic yield model, built upon a stochastic soil moisture model driven by marked Poisson rainfall. Our analysis shows that even under similar temperature and rainfall amount yields can differ significantly; this was empirically supported by a 2‐year field experiment in which rain‐fed maize was grown under very similar total rainfall. Here, the year with more intense, less‐frequent rainfall produces a better yield—a rare counter evidence to most climate change projections. Through a stochastic yield model, we demonstrate the crucial roles of rainfall intensity and frequency in determining the yield. Importantly, the model allows us to compute rainfall pattern‐related basis risk inherent in cumulative rain index insurance. The model results and a case study herein clearly show that total rainfall is a poor indicator of yield, imposing unnecessary production basis risk on farmers and false‐positive payouts on insurers. Incorporating rainfall intensity and frequency in the design of rain index insurance can offer farmers better protection, while maintaining the attractive features of the weather index insurance and thus fulfilling its promise of financial resilience.

Households' Decisions to Participate in China's Sloping Land Conversion Program and Reallocate Their Labour Times: Is There Endogeneity Bias?

Past impact evaluations of China's largest ecological restoration program have assumed the absence of self-selection (endogeneity) in the likelihood and extent of participation. Using appropriate testing procedures and a panel dataset of >1000 households over 11years in two primary provinces, we found evidence of self-selection in household behavior of generating off-farm income. But the hypothesis was rejected that there was a significant self-selection component in households' decision to participate in the program and generate farming income. Evaluations ignoring the self-section for off-farm labor were found to be biased and overly positive on program income impact. Self-selection should thus be explicitly included, unless there is counter evidence, in any study of this kind.

The causality between returns of interest-based banks and Islamic banks: the case of Turkey

PurposeThis paper aims to shed light on the risk structure in the presence of Islamic banking. The author concentrates on the relationship between Islamic banking and conventional banking in Turkey. Islamic banking and conventional banking are considered to be different kinds of sources for funding. Returns in the conventional banking are expected to be heavily influenced by the interest rate in the money market. However, Islamic banking returns are interest-free so that interest rate changes are not expected to affect the deposit returns in Islamic banks. Interest rates in the economy are a proxy to highlight the general risk level of the economy. By looking at the causal relationship between the deposit returns of both Islamic banks and conventional banks, it is possible to address the different types of banking in the general risk structure of the economy. This is one of the first studies to address the mentioned difference in banking sector in Turkish economy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper tries to identify the direction of causality between Islamic and conventional banking term deposit rates by means of Granger Causality. Also, Granger Causality test results will guide to explore the Islamic and conventional banking deposit return linkages. The author has extended the study with vector autoregressive analysis to understand the correlation structure between conventional deposit rates and the profit–loss sharing ratio of Islamic Banks. The author has also extended this study with impulse response functions to see whether the shocks hitting into the conventional banking affect Islamic banking and vice versa.FindingsThe results suggest that there is no significant clear relationship between both banking sectors. This result can be interpreted, as Islamic banks do not adjust their profit–loss sharing (PLS) ratios pegged to the interest rate offered by conventional banks. Also, conventional banks determine their interest rate without any connection to the Islamic banking PLS ratios. Overall results of this study contradict the findings of studies which conclude that Islamic banking might not be different from the conventional banking. It is reported that inferences from pair-wise Granger causality alone might be spurious, as the analysis based on non-stationary series can be a consequence of time functional characteristics of the time series.Social implicationsThe results can be taken as counter evidence to the hypothesis “Islamic banks determine their PLS ratios based on the interest rates offered by conventional banks”. This address that the Islamic banks may offer alternative financing methodology which has different procedure. Hence, Islamic finance can be taken as an alternative method with its asset-based healthier structure.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies to address the Islamic versus interest-based banking difference in banking sector in Turkish economy. This paper tries to identify the direction of causality between Islamic and conventional banking term deposit rates by means of Granger causality.