Deductive Inference Research Articles

Forex jako alternatywa dla rynku kapitałowego

Purpose – presentation of significant characteristics of forex market from investor’s point of view, indication of differences between investing on the capital market and the forex market,as well as comparison between the profile of a Polish investor and trader. Design/methodology/approach – indispensable analyses and inferences were conducted based on data and information drawn from literature of the subject, publications and statistics of Polish Financial Supervision Authority and Warsaw Stock Exchange, results of Nationwide Investor Survey, market reports, currency brokers’ portals, the present author’s own experience. The research was conducted by means of desk research method, deductive inference and statistical analysis. Findings – there are significant differences between a stock market investor and a trader. The biggest problem connected with forex market investments, which determines a relatively low percentage of the earning persons, is improper management of the amount of loss as well as profit and loss ratio. In contrast with the capital market, on the forex market the choice of instrument and the moment of entering have less significance than proper management of profit/loss indicator. Originality/value – the matrix of theoretical rate of return depending on risk/reward ratio, stop loss amount and efficiency on the forex market.

Mamdani Fuzzy Systems for Modelling and Simulation: A Critical Assessment

Fuzzy logic presents many potential applications for modelling and simulation. In particular, this paper analyses one of the most popular fuzzy logic techniques: Mamdani systems. Mamdani systems can look particularly appealing because they are designed to incorporate expert knowledge in the form of IF-THEN rules expressed in natural language. While this is an attractive feature for modelling and simulating social and other complex systems, its actual application presents important caveats. This paper studies the potential use of Mamdani systems to explore the logical consequences of a model based on IF-THEN rules via simulation. We show that in the best-case scenario a Mamdani system provides a function that complies with its generating set of IF-THEN rules, which is a different exercise from that of finding the relation or consequences implied by those rules. In general, the logical consequences of a set of rules cannot be captured by a single function. Furthermore, the consequences of an IF-THEN rule in a Mamdani system can be very different from the consequences of that same rule in a system governed by the most basic principles of logical deductive inference. Thus, care must be taken when applying this tool to study “the consequences” of a set of hypothesis. Previous analyses have typically focused on particular steps of the Mamdani process, while here we present a holistic assessment of this technique for (deductive) simulation purposes.

IN DEFENSE OF MATHEMATICAL INFERENTIALISM

I defend a new position in philosophy of mathematics that I call mathematical inferentialism. It holds that a mathematical sentence can perform the function of facilitating deductive inferences from some concrete sentences to other concrete sentences, that a mathematical sentence is true if and only if all of its concrete consequences are true, that the abstract world does not exist, and that we acquire mathematical knowledge by confirming concrete sentences. Mathematical inferentialism has several advantages over mathematical realism and fictionalism.

The Decision Processes of Deductive Inference

The Decision Processes of Deductive Inference

Role of Electronic Customer Relationship Management in Demand Chain Management

In 21st century, collaborative business supply chain environments are required to be proactive rather than reactive so that they can better deal with the uncertainty, growing competition, shorter cycle times, more demanding customers and pressure to cut costs. Demand chain management as a new business model requires investing in consumer insights and closer relationships in the supply chain to conduct predictive analysis of retail intelligent solutions. In this regard new kinds of methodologies are required to be discussed. However, at the execution level the limitations in terms of scalability, data integration and knowledge based decision support to providers or suppliers in terms of strategy building and in providing deductive inference capabilities are to be addressed. Therefore, it is required to describe how predictive analytics helps in constructing the knowledge base to conduct verification and validation in terms of semantic predictive analytic for the domain of demand chain management.

Network Approach in the Tourism Sector – Characteristics and Methods of Application

Purpose. The aim of the paper is to present possible applications of the network approach in the tourism sector, in scientific research (including empirical analysis) as well as in the organization of management processes of tourist destinations. Method. The paper is based on a critical domestic and foreign literature review, being the basis of the presented discussion and deductive inference. Findings. To achieve the aim of the paper, there the origin of the network approach was presented, its basic assumptions and ways of application in empirical research. The presented literature review was related to three basic ways of using the network approach in scientific works: from the perspective of an individual actor, the network as a whole and group of actors in the network (mixed approach). Premises of using each of those perspectives were presented, as well as examples of their application in domestic and foreign literature, and the effects of this application. It allowed to show that each of those three perspectives can be useful in the tourism sector and brings different types of benefits. Research and conclusion limitations. The paper does not aspire to constitute a full and complex presentation of problems connected to the network approach in tourism, but rather concentrates on the general presentation of some chosen ways of network analysis. For a reader to obtrain more specific knowledge about any of the presented network issues, additional reading of the literature presented in the paper’s references is needed. Practical implications. The paper orders considerations on the presented issue and therefore, is aimed at a better understanding of network analysis – regarding empirical research based on such an analysis (scientific value) as well as the management of networks in the tourism sector (application value for economic practice). Originality. In domestic literature, there is a lack of reviews regarding the different ways of network approach application in the tourism sector, and this paper is aimed at fulfilling this gap. Type of paper. Theoretical paper.

Logic in the Light of Cognitive Science

Abstract Logical theory codifies rules of correct inferences. On the other hand, logical reasoning is typically considered as one of the most fundamental cognitive activities. Thus, cognitive science is a natural meeting-point for investigations about the place of logic in human cognition. Investigations in this perspective strongly depend on a possible understanding of logic. This paper focuses on logic in the strict sense; that is, the theory of deductive inferences. Two problems are taken into account, namely: (a) do humans apply logical rules in ordinary reasoning?; (b) the genesis of logic. The second issue is analyzed from the naturalistic point of view.

Retrieval Practice Benefits Deductive Inference

Retrieval practice has been shown to benefit learning. However, the benefit has sometimes been attenuated with more complex materials that require integrating multiple units of information. Critically, Tran et al. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 135–140 (2015) found that retrieval practice improves sentence memory but not the drawing of inferences from the same sentences. In three experiments, we investigated whether this lack of benefit of retrieval practice for inferential ability was due to the presentation format of the material. Participants studied four sets of seven to nine related sentences by practicing retrieval for two sets and rereading the other two sets. A final test was given 2 days later. When sentences were presented one at a time during study/practice as in Tran et al., we found no effect of retrieval practice on a test requiring inferential reasoning. When sentences in a set were presented simultaneously during study/practice, retrieval practice in the form of fill-in-the-blank testing (experiments 1 and 2) and free recall (experiment 3) aided later deductive inference more than rereading. Our findings suggest that retrieval practice can improve deductive inference, but in order to optimize its utility, the format in which the material is presented during practice must not hinder relational processing of the individual sentences.

QUESTÕES DE GÊNERO E DA NATUREZA DA CIÊNCIA NA FORMAÇÃO DOCENTE

O objetivo desta pesquisa é compreender e explicitar os saberes docentes mobilizados durante um processo de formação explícito-reflexiva da Natureza da Ciência e das relações intrínsecas de gênero nessa dinâmica. Para alcançar esse objetivo foi elaborada a Unidade Didática (UD) intitulada construção do conhecimento científico e a visibilidade de gênero na Ciência. Participaram desse curso de formação 15 docentes das áreas de Humanas e de Ciências Naturais. Esta é uma investigação de natureza qualitativa. Durante o processo de formação as falas dos participantes foram gravadas em vídeo e, após, transcritas e analisadas segundo a análise de conteúdo temática categorial. Os dados empíricos analisados possibilitaram evidenciar, por meio de inferências dedutivas, perspectivas teóricas distintas, em que coexistem discursos tradicionais e lineares e os que percebem Ciência e gênero como um processo de construção humana. Além disso, apontaram o desconhecimento de discussões de cunho epistemológico e de aspectos históricos da Ciência relacionados a questões de gênero. Outro discurso recorrente é o da naturalização e da negação da existência das questões de gênero em que as falas de dominação masculina são mais articuladas, o que mostra uma resistência à perspectiva feminista. Deste modo, reafirmamos a necessidade de formação docente explicita e reflexiva, pois as questões de gênero não são autoevidentes, bem como a continuidade de pesquisas que discutam essas questões.

A Historical Recount: Discovering Menière's Disease and Its Association With Migraine Headaches.

In evaluating the historical context of the first description of Menière's disease, its association with migraine headaches is compelling. We have outlined the events and observations of Prosper Menière, which led him to establish a link between migraine headaches and his eponymous disease. Prosper Menière's original French writings were translated by our group and used to recount his observations and thoughts. Miles Atkinson's English translations were used as a reference. Additional otological texts of the era were also reviewed as it relates to Menière's disease. Prosper Menière wrote a series of four articles 1 year before his death. In one of these articles, he makes references to migraine headaches on several occasions. These original writings were analyzed, and the physical findings he described were interpreted based on their relation to migraine headaches. The passages in his published articles provide historical insight into Menière's observations. His writings describe in detail symptoms of migraine headaches uniquely evident in his patient population. Through his observations, he recognized that in addition to exhibiting symptoms of tinnitus, hearing loss and vertigo his patients also suffered from migraine headaches. Although his colleagues discounted Menière's theory concerning migraine headaches, he continued to make deductive inferences and publish his findings, leading to the association of migraine headaches and Menière's disease. Today, this association continues to be debated, adding to Prosper Menière's legacy.

The emergence of reasoning by the disjunctive syllogism in early childhood

Logical inference is often seen as an exclusively human and language-dependent ability, but several nonhuman animal species search in a manner that is consistent with a deductive inference, the disjunctive syllogism: when a reward is hidden in one of two cups, and one cup is shown to be empty, they will search for the reward in the other cup. In Experiment 1, we extended these results to toddlers, finding that 23-month-olds consistently approached the non-empty location. However, these results could reflect non-deductive approaches of simply avoiding the empty location, or of searching in any location that might contain the reward, rather than reasoning through the disjunctive syllogism to infer that the other location must contain the reward. Experiment 2 addressed these alternatives, finding evidence that 3- to 5-year-olds used the disjunctive syllogism, while 2.5-year-olds did not. This suggests that younger children may not easily deploy this logical inference, and that a non-deductive approach may be behind the successful performance of nonhuman animals and human infants.

Experience-Based Planning Domains: an Integrated Learning and Deliberation Approach for Intelligent Robots

Deliberation and learning are required to endow a robot with the capabilities for acquiring knowledge, performing a variety of tasks and interactions, and adapting to open-ended environments. This paper presents the notion of experience-based planning domains (EBPDs) for task level learning and planning in robotics. EBPDs provide methods for a robot to: (i) obtain robot activity experiences from the robot's performance in a dynamic environment; (ii) conceptualize each experience producing an activity schema; and (iii) exploit the learned activity schemata to make plans in similar situations. Experiences are episodic descriptions of plan-based robot activities including environment perception, sequences of applied actions and achieved tasks. The conceptualization approach integrates different techniques including deductive generalization, abstraction, goal inference and feature extraction. A high-level task planner was developed to find a solution for a task by following an activity schema. The proposed approach is illustrated and evaluated in a restaurant environment where a service robot learns how to carry out complex tasks.

Induction and Deduction in International Relations: Squaring the Circle Between Theory and Evidence

International Relations (IR) scholarship represents the pursuit of theory about how the world works or ought to work. Yet despite this broad orientation of the field, the process of theory building itself remains challenging. There is abundant professional guidance on how to refine and test a theory once it has been created, but how do we get from a vague interest in some area of IR to a specific argument that explains or interprets a particular aspect of international politics? This article aims to refine the theorization challenge by taking stock of—and advancing—the debate over the relationship between inductive and deductive inference in IR theory building. It begins with an analysis of the short shrift still given to induction by many in the positivist IR community—a tendency that follows from the criticism of inductive theory building contained in Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (1979) and its enduring legacy, despite Waltz’s own professedly nonpositivist approach—before progressing to consider the limits of a purely deductive approach to theorization. This article concludes that “creative-deductive” theory possesses key strengths, including its parsimonious and generalizable explanatory reach, and its truth-preserving quality. However, given the endogenous feedback relationship that exists between theoretical premises and empirical evidence, this article argues that it is only once we accept that induction is an intrinsic and unavoidable component of IR theory building that we can truly seek answers to the most important questions of international politics. Accordingly, IR scholars should strive to use the two in tandem as they set about developing new theory.

Uncertain relational reasoning in the parietal cortex

The psychology of reasoning is currently transitioning from the study of deductive inferences under certainty to inferences that have degrees of uncertainty in both their premises and conclusions; however, only a few studies have explored the cortical basis of uncertain reasoning. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we show that areas in the right superior parietal lobe (rSPL) are necessary for solving spatial relational reasoning problems under conditions of uncertainty. Twenty-four participants had to decide whether a single presented order of objects agreed with a given set of indeterminate premises that could be interpreted in more than one way. During the presentation of the order, 10-Hz TMS was applied over the rSPL or a sham control site. Right SPL TMS during the inference phase disrupted performance in uncertain relational reasoning. Moreover, we found differences in the error rates between preferred mental models, alternative models, and inconsistent models. Our results suggest that different mechanisms are involved when people reason spatially and evaluate different kinds of uncertain conclusions.

Enterprise resource planning system for performance-based-maintenance of clinics

Abstract The intensive use of community clinics in recent years has emphasized the importance of non-core activities in facilities supporting patient care. This study poses the following hypotheses: The maintenance and performance of clinics can be monitored with accuracy and reliability by following key performance indicators (KPIs) based on criteria for performance and life cycle costs, and implementation of such principles can contribute both to cost savings and improved performance. A performance-based model was developed for clinic facilities by integrating eight KPIs into an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for the maintenance of public clinic facilities. The ERP system has an inference engine designed to establish maintenance policy by deductive inference of the clinic's profile and inductive reasoning generated by the KPIs. Implementation of the model in a sample of 42 clinics resulted in increased efficiency (+ 25%).

Students’ proof schemes for mathematical proving and disproving of propositions

Classification of students’ proof schemes offers insights into students’ mathematical proving. However, previous studies revealed little about finer progressions in students’ proving and barely examined their proof schemes involving counterexamples. This study examined students’ proof schemes through their considerations of examples and counterexamples and reasoning in Proof Constructions. From 480 proofs constructed by 60 Singapore secondary three (14–15 years old) students, classifications of schemes for Deductive-proof Construction and Proof-by-counterexample Construction were established as a progression through four phases. The former consisted of seven levels, spanning from irrelevant inferences to deductive proofs using formal representations. The latter consisted of six levels, spanning from irrelevant inferences to construction of a general set of counterexamples. The refined classifications revealed students’ progression through their sophisticated use of examples, counterexamples, and deductive inferences and that Proof Construction was knowledge-driven. Comparisons to previous classifications and the role of counterexamples in Proof Construction were discussed.

Deductive Reasoning Under Uncertainty: A Water Tank Analogy

This paper describes a cubic water tank equipped with a movable partition receiving various amounts of liquid used to represent joint probability distributions. This device is applied to the investigation of deductive inferences under uncertainty. The analogy is exploited to determine by qualitative reasoning the limits in probability of the conclusion of twenty basic deductive arguments (such as Modus Ponens, And-introduction, Contraposition, etc.) often used as benchmark problems by the various theoretical approaches to reasoning under uncertainty. The probability bounds imposed by the premises on the conclusion are derived on the basis of a few trivial principles such as “a part of the tank cannot contain more liquid than its capacity allows”, or “if a part is empty, the other part contains all the liquid”. This stems from the equivalence between the physical constraints imposed by the capacity of the tank and its subdivisions on the volumes of liquid, and the axioms and rules of probability. The device materializes de Finetti’s coherence approach to probability. It also suggests a physical counterpart of Dutch book arguments to assess individuals’ rationality in probability judgments in the sense that individuals whose degrees of belief in a conclusion are out of the bounds of coherence intervals would commit themselves to executing physically impossible tasks.

Commentary: Exploratory data analysis.

Commentary: Exploratory data analysis.

Mathematics Majors’ Perceptions of the Admissibility of Graphical Inferences in Proofs

In this paper, we investigate mathematics majors’ perceptions of the admissibility of inferences based on graphical reasoning for calculus proofs. The main findings from our study is that the majority of mathematics majors did not think that graphical perceptual inferences (i.e., inferences based on the appearance of the graph) were permissible in a proof, but the majority of mathematics majors did believe that graphical deductive inferences (i.e., inferences based on what must necessarily be entailed by a graph having a certain property) were permissible.

A solution to the biodiversity paradox by logical deterministic cellular automata.

The paradox of biological diversity is the key problem of theoretical ecology. The paradox consists in the contradiction between the competitive exclusion principle and the observed biodiversity. The principle is important as the basis for ecological theory. On a relatively simple model we show a mechanism of indefinite coexistence of complete competitors which violates the known formulations of the competitive exclusion principle. This mechanism is based on timely recovery of limiting resources and their spatio-temporal allocation between competitors. Because of limitations of the black-box modeling there was a problem to formulate the exclusion principle correctly. Our white-box multiscale model of two-species competition is based on logical deterministic individual-based cellular automata. This approach provides an automatic deductive inference on the basis of a system of axioms, and gives a direct insight into mechanisms of the studied system. It is one of the most promising methods of artificial intelligence. We reformulate and generalize the competitive exclusion principle and explain why this formulation provides a solution of the biodiversity paradox. In addition, we propose a principle of competitive coexistence.