Degree Of Certainty Research Articles

Effect of a “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) Status on Patient Care: A Descriptive Survey on the Perceptions of ICU and Medical/Surgical Nurses

Background: Nursing research literature demonstrates a persistent concern regarding how nurses interpret “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) code status. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess nurses’ perceptions of the effect of a DNR code status on patient care. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional, descriptive survey offered to all clinical nurses in the Medical, Surgical, Telemetry, Critical Care, and Emergency Departments within one urban community hospital in Southern California, USA. Descriptive statistics were used for demographic data and individual question analysis, which included frequency and percentages for categorical variables in addition to means with standard deviation for continuous data. Open- ended questions received content analysis. Results: This study resulted in a convenience sample of 120 registered nurses (RNs). Greater than 95% of nurses who completed the survey agreed that nursing care should continue until patient death. Yet when asked about physiologic, demographic, chronic, or cognitive status, participants answered with varying degrees of certainty about the care that should be provided. Conclusions: Further research is needed to explore the inconsistency in nurses’ understanding of the care provided to a patient with DNR status. There may be opportunities to improve consistency in practice with education or protocols to outline optimal care of a patient with DNR orders.

Analytic Hierarchy Process Based on the Magnitude of Z-Numbers

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a powerful multi-criteria and multi-alternative decision-making model, which assists decision-makers in giving preferences using pairwise comparison matrices. The development of the AHP using fuzzy numbers has received attention from many researchers due to the ability of fuzzy numbers to handle vagueness and uncertainty. The integration of the AHP with fuzzy Z-numbers has improved the model since the reliability of the decision-makers is considered, in which the judgment is followed by a degree of certainty or sureness. Most of the existing decision-making models based on Z-numbers transform the Z-numbers into regular fuzzy numbers by integrating the reliability parts into the restriction parts, causing a significant loss of information. Hence, this study develops the AHP based on the magnitude of Z-numbers, which is used to represent the criteria weights. A numerical example of criteria ranking for the prioritization of public services for digitalization is implemented to illustrate the proposed AHP model.

Postarrest Neuroprognostication: Practices and Opinions of Canadian Physicians.

Objective, evidence-based neuroprognostication of postarrest patients is crucial to avoid inappropriate withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies or prolonged, invasive, and costly therapies that could perpetuate suffering when there is no chance of an acceptable recovery. Postarrest prognostication guidelines exist; however, guideline adherence and practice variability are unknown. To investigate Canadian practices and opinions regarding assessment of neurological prognosis in postarrest patients. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed to physicians who care for adult postarrest patients. Of the 134 physicians who responded to the survey, 63% had no institutional protocols for neuroprognostication. While the use of targeted temperature management did not affect the timing of neuroprognostication, an increasing number of clinical findings suggestive of a poor prognosis affected the timing of when physicians were comfortable concluding patients had a poor prognosis. Variability existed in what factors clinicians' thought were confounders. Physicians identified bilaterally absent pupillary light reflexes (85%), bilaterally absent corneal reflexes (80%), and status myoclonus (75%) as useful in determining poor prognosis. Computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and spot electroencephalography were the most useful and accessible tests. Somatosensory evoked potentials were useful, but logistically challenging. Serum biomarkers were unavailable at most centers. Most (79%) physicians agreed ≥2 definitive findings on neurologic exam, electrophysiologic tests, neuroimaging, and/or biomarkers are required to determine a poor prognosis with a high degree of certainty. Distress during the process of neuroprognostication was reported by 70% of physicians and 51% request a second opinion from an external expert. Significant variability exists in post-cardiac arrest neuroprognostication practices among Canadian physicians.

Conformal Prediction Intervals for Remaining Useful Lifetime Estimation

The main objective of Prognostics and Health Management is to estimate the Remaining Useful Lifetime (RUL), namely, the time that a system or a piece of equipment is still in working order before starting to function incorrectly. In recent years, numerous machine learning algorithms have been proposed for RUL estimation, mainly focusing on providing more accurate RUL predictions. However, there are many sources of uncertainty in the problem, such as inherent randomness of systems failure, lack of knowledge regarding their future states, and inaccuracy of the underlying predictive models, making it infeasible to predict the RULs precisely. Hence, it is of utmost importance to quantify the uncertainty alongside the RUL predictions. In this work, we investigate the conformal prediction (CP) framework that represents uncertainty by predicting sets of possible values for the target variable (intervals in the case of RUL) instead of making point predictions. Under very mild technical assumptions, CP formally guarantees that the actual value (true RUL) is covered by the predicted set with a degree of certainty that can be prespecified. We study three CP algorithms to conformalize any single-point RUL predictor and turn it into a valid interval predictor. Finally, we conformalize two single-point RUL predictors, deep convolutional neural networks and gradient boosting, and illustrate their performance on the C-MAPSS datasets.

On the double use of katiyen in Turkish: A corpus analysis

Turkish has a negative concord item (NCI) katiyen ‘never’ that functions as an adverb and generally requires the presence of sentential negation in the sentence (Kelepir, 2001; Göksel and Kerslake, 2005). Yakut-Kubaş (2022), in a recent work, on the other hand, argues that katiyen can also appear in certain non-negative structures. She proposes that these two uses of the word in negative and non-negative structures can be captured in a unified manner if we assume that katiyen is an element that marks the highest degree of subjective certainty expressed by the speaker. In that sense, this pragmatic function is argued to bring these two uses together. In this work, based on a large-scale corpus work that includes 648 sentences containing the word, I will show that katiyen is essentially ambiguous that has distinct semantic and pragmatic meanings with different syntactic distributions. First, it is primarily an NCI that requires the presence of sentential negation at all times and is interpreted as ‘never’ or ‘in no way’. This use accounts for 619 instances of katiyen in the corpus data and shows that more than 95% of the time it predominantly functions as an NCI. Second, it can appear in two structurally non-negative structures: (i) 14 instances of syntactically and semantically positive structures that comprise less than 1 percent of the data and katiyen having the meaning ‘definitely’ and (ii) 13 instances of syntactically non-negative but semantically negative structures that account for less than 1 percent of the data and katiyen being interpreted as ‘strictly’. Here it is used to modify a prohibitive predicate but does not necessarily mark the subjective certainty. I conclude that different uses of katiyen indicate significant structural, semantic and pragmatic distinctions, which is in contrast with recent claims that its pragmatic use is the same in each case.

Exploring the feasibility of using the ICER Evidence Rating Matrix for Comparative Clinical Effectiveness in assessing treatment benefit and certainty in the clinical evidence on orphan therapies for paediatric indications

BackgroundThe evaluation of clinical evidence takes account of health benefit (efficacy and safety) and the degree of certainty in the estimate of benefit. In orphan indications practical and ethical challenges in conducting clinical trials, particularly in paediatric patients, often limit the available evidence, rendering structured evaluation challenging. While acknowledging the paucity of evidence, regulators and reimbursement authorities compare the efficacy and safety of alternative treatments for a given indication, often in the context of the benefits of other treatments for similar or different conditions. This study explores the feasibility of using the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) Evidence Rating Matrix for Comparative Clinical Effectiveness in structured assessment of both the magnitude of clinical benefit (net health benefit, NHB) and the certainty of the effect estimate in a sample of orphan therapies for paediatric indications.ResultsEleven systemic therapies with European Medicines Agency (EMA) orphan medicinal product designation, licensed for 16 paediatric indications between January 2017 and March 2020 were identified using OrphaNet and EMA databases and were selected for evaluation with the ICER Evidence Rating Matrix: burosumab; cannabidiol; cerliponase alfa; chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA); dinutuximab beta; glibenclamide; metreleptin; nusinersen; tisagenlecleucel; velmanase alfa; and vestronidase alfa. EMA European Public Assessment Reports, PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Clinical Key, and conference presentations from January 2016 to April 2021 were searched for evidence on efficacy and safety. Two of the identified therapies were graded as “substantial” NHB: dinutuximab beta (neuroblastoma maintenance) and nusinersen (Type I SMA), and one as “comparable” NHB (CDCA). The NHB grade of the remaining therapies fell between “comparable” and “substantial”. No therapies were graded as having negative NHB. The certainty of the estimate ranged from “high” (dinutuximab beta in neuroblastoma maintenance) to “low” (CDCA, metreleptin and vestronidase alfa). The certainty of the other therapies was graded between “low” and “high”. The ICER Evidence Rating Matrix overall rating “A” (the highest) was given to two therapies, “B+” to 6 therapies, “C+” to five therapies, and “I” (the lowest) to three therapies. The scores varied between rating authors with mean agreement over all indications of 71.9% for NHB, 56.3% for certainty and 68.8% for the overall rating.ConclusionsUsing the ICER Matrix to grade orphan therapies according to their treatment benefit and certainty is feasible. However, the assessment involves subjective judgements based on heterogenous evidence. Tools such as the ICER Matrix might aid decision makers to evaluate treatment benefit and its certainty when comparing therapies across indications.

Cleft palate in fetuses: feasibility of early diagnosis by Crystal and Realistic Vue rendering 3D ultrasound technology in the first trimester.

This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of direct visualization of a normal fetal palate and detect cleft palate in the first trimester with a novel three-dimensional ultrasound (3D US) technique, Crystal and Realistic Vue (CRV) rendering technology. Two-dimensional (2D) images and 3D volumes of healthy and cleft palate fetuses at 11-13+6 weeks were obtained prospectively. 2D ultrasound views included the coronal view of the retronasal triangle and the midsagittal view of the face. 3D-CRV views were analyzed by multiplanar mode display. The pregnancy outcomes of all fetuses were determined during the follow-up period. In our study, 124 fetuses were recruited, including 100 healthy fetuses and 24 cleft palate fetuses. The cleft palate with lip was observed in 23 fetuses (bilateral in 15, unilateral in 6, median in 2), and one cleft palate was only found in the abnormal group. The bilateral (n = 12) and median (n = 2) cleft palates with lips and the cleft palate alone (n = 1) were associated with other anatomical or chromosomal abnormalities, and one unilateral cleft palate with cleft lip had concomitant NT thickening. In the cleft palate fetus group, 16 fetuses suffered intrauterine death, which was associated with other structural or chromosomal abnormalities in 14 fetuses, seven cases were terminated after consultation, and one was delivered at term. The coronal view of the retronasal triangle and the midsagittal view was easily obtained in all fetuses. 3D-CRV images of palatal parts were clearly obtained in all cases. Unilateral, bilateral, and median cleft palates with cleft lips were visually demonstrated and classified by the 3D-CRV technique. It is feasible to identify the palate by 3D-CRV in the first trimester in both healthy and cleft palate fetuses. Together with 2D ultrasonography as a complementary diagnostic tool, 3D-CRV is helpful in classifying the cleft palate with a reasonable degree of certainty.

The Sin of Unreasonable Doubt in the Age of Unfair Trial: Comparative Perspectives

In order to best understand judicial decisions following evidentiary findings supported by testimony, it is necessary to start with two questions: In the case of an acquittal verdict, why was the defendant acquitted? In the case of a guilty verdict, how should the defendant be punished? The first prejudice lies in this. The witness, who is aware that his or her word may affect these two outcomes, is in turn judged without bias by the assessors. The second prejudice stems from the function of punishment: to educate by punishing, or by infringing the rights of all does not conform to the canons of social reintegration of the possible convict. This contribution, therefore, aims to find the scientific degree of moral certainty that is based on the use of rational methods of research and evaluation of evidence, oriented towards the discovery of the truthfulness of the incisive facts of the case. Keywords: Civil law and common law; Epistemology and reasonableness; Evidence; Logic; Legal certainty; Fair trial

ESSENTIAL GENERALIZATION OF THE RESULTS OF THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON THE FORMATION OF THE READINESS OF FUTURE LAWYERS FOR LAW-MAKING ACTIVITIES

Relevance. The article interprets the results of an empirical study on the formation of the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities based on the use of pedagogical stimulation methods and the introduction of developed pedagogical support, means, conditions and methods into educational activities. The training of future qualified lawyers is carried out in educational institutions of higher education, where a psychological and pedagogical process is built to form their readiness for law-making activities. The criteria for assessing the level of formation of the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities in the course of the empirical study were: cognitive-legal; orientation-value; activity-creative. The criteria levels were familiarization-informational, professionally necessary, optimally sufficient. The use of these criteria for diagnostic purposes allows for a comprehensive assessment of the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities.
 Materials and methods. As a methodological and practical tool for assessing the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities, author’s questionnaires, testing, analysis of the results of extracurricular activities, academic performance and involvement in scientific research by students were used.
 The purpose of this study is to present and analyze the empirical data obtained during the pedagogical experiment on pedagogical stimulation of the formation of the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities.
 The hypothesis of the study was the assumption that the consistent development and implementation of psychological and pedagogical support, conditions and means, as well as diagnostic criteria in educational activities will successfully stimulate the readiness of future lawyers for law-making activities.
 Research results. The data obtained as a result of the introduction of the developed conditions and means of pedagogical stimulation, as well as those obtained in the course of diagnostics during an empirical study, after appropriate adjustments to the content of education, confirm with a high degree of certainty the hypothesis of the study that the introduction of pedagogical support, conditions and means will be effective, and statistical processing of the obtained results testifies to their significance.

Microglial Transcriptional Signatures in the Central Nervous System: Toward A Future of Unraveling Their Function in Health and Disease.

Microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), are primarily derived from the embryonic yolk sac and make their way to the CNS during early development. They play key physiological and immunological roles across the life span, throughout health, injury, and disease. Recent transcriptomic studies have identified gene transcript signatures expressed by microglia that may provide the foundation for unprecedented insights into their functions. Microglial gene expression signatures can help distinguish them from macrophage cell types to a reasonable degree of certainty, depending on the context. Microglial expression patterns further suggest a heterogeneous population comprised of many states that vary according to the spatiotemporal context. Microglial diversity is most pronounced during development, when extensive CNS remodeling takes place, and following disease or injury. A next step of importance for the field will be to identify the functional roles performed by these various microglial states, with the perspective of targeting them therapeutically.

Соціально-психологічні причини деструктивних аспектів розвитку інноваційних спільнот на локальному рівні

In the conditions of decentralization and changes in the social paradigm, creating unique breakthrough ideas regarding transforming the region into an innovative territory is of particular importance. Innovative communities have a unique potential in these conditions – a new type of relationship between the government, business, and civil society. However, in transformational and crisis societies, the creation and development of innovative communities are associated with a significant range of problems that need to be solved. A significant part of these problems has socio-psychological reasons, which often lead to destructive actions, significantly reducing the potential of innovative communities. The study aims to determine the socio-psychological reasons for the destructive aspects of the development of innovative communities at the local level and to develop proposals for increasing the effectiveness of the innovative communities’ development at the local level, considering the potential of using the archetypal methodology. The research goals are also to determine the factors of implementing innovation models in communities and to focus on overcoming problematic aspects in this field. Modern approaches to the definition of innovations were considered to determine the features of the development of innovative communities. It has been determined that innovation is a social process; therefore, the most crucial thing for innovation is to create an appropriate innovation climate based on safety and trust, in which people feel involved and are not afraid to express new ideas. This is especially important since innovations, especially the most radical and systemic, relate to the need to go against orthodox opinions to offer other forms of work and cooperation. Therefore, when managing innovative processes, it is necessary to consider the factor of human behaviour and understand how to encourage people to show initiative, put forward new ideas, and motivate and encourage their implementation. It is substantiated that it is vital for the public administration field that innovation’s success depends not only on the manager’s role in the process but primarily on the performers and participants (human resources). In this regard, the innovative community as a new form of organizational development is one of the most positive in innovation. It was determined that innovative communities could unite a wide range of stakeholders and be divided according to geographical or thematic principles. Community members freely share knowledge, resulting in new approaches, ideas, and talent retention and development. People are kept together only by a sense of involvement in collective experience and knowledge, a sincere desire to maintain relationships, and mutual obligations remain. Innovative communities, when they unite individuals and entire teams, can implement large-scale innovative projects. It is shown that any innovative community is formed on a specific basis. It is based on individual or collective creativity, ambition, spirit, and intellectual history of the place (heredity, archetypes). Ambition, spirit, and intelligence presuppose risk-taking ability and a track record in management. Only after the emergence of this combination of economic, resource and management factors, such as business incubation, project financing, creation of intensive horizontal connections between all participants, infrastructure, etc., are involved. From the point of view of destructive behaviour, the peculiarities of the innovation process are considered. It is also shown that innovation is a positive process according to the generally accepted position. Still, it is necessary to remember the other side, that innovation is a forced measure necessary to maintain or respond to changes. It is substantiated that it is necessary to agree on the scope of application and the duration of their existence to eliminate the factors of destructive behaviour when creating innovative communities. It has been determined that one of the leading causes of destructive actions within innovative communities is excessively rigid expectations, an excessive degree of subjective certainty that exceeds objective predictability.

P-544 Biochemical markers as a predictor of clinical pregnancy on day 6 after embryo transfer

Abstract Study question Is it possible to predict clinical pregnancy using Machine Learning models on day 6 after embryo transfer to an acceptable degree of certainty? Summary answer Using selected biochemical markers it is possible to build a machine learning model to predict clinical pregnancy. What is known already Human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG) is considered the main early predictor of pregnancy. Due to the fact that the highest percentage of spontaneous abortions occurs in the first trimester predicting clinical pregnancy outcomes at the early stages of pregnancy is particularly difficult. The level of B-hcg measured at the early stages of implantation and the dynamics of its increase can help predict clinical pregnancy and predict its further development. However, the specific cut-off points at which pregnancy can be determined vary from study to study, and a different factor is often suggested to increase the certainty of β-hCG-based predictions. Study design, size, duration 1474 single frozen embryo transfers (1205 patients between 23 and 47 years of age), January 2019 -December 2022 were used for data modelling and statistical testing. The dataset consisted of endocrinal markers:β-hCG, PRG (progesterone), E (estradiol) measured on the 6th day after ET and other practitioner-chosen data: age, PGD results, embryo quality status, RIF or RPL history, embryo maturation days as well as pregnancy outcomes. Exclusion criteria were: PRG > 50ng/ml, β-hCG >70 mIU/ml. Participants/materials, setting, methods A machine learning model for predicting clinical pregnancy was trained using the gradient boosting technique. The model used 100 decision trees with 8 leaves, maximal depth of 2 nodes and a learning rate of 0.1. The performance of the model was measured using the accuracy score metric and area under ROC (AUC). Feature importance was based on Shapley values. Additional analysis was performed using statistical testing using a two-sided Student’s t-test. Main results and the role of chance A Machine Learning naive model employed chosen variables to predict clinical pregnancy. The most important variables turned out to be the serum level of β-hCG and PRG on day 6 after embryo-transfer. The final model, limited to those variables, performs with an accuracy of around 83 % (accuracy score = 0.834), the area under ROC (AUC) was 0.927. Based on Shapley values, β-hCG followed by PRG are the most relevant for the model’s predictions. Low PRG concentrations increased the chances of clinical pregnancy. The findings were confirmed by additional statistical analysis. Observations were divided into two groups for which the cut-off point was the level of PRG of 24 ng/ml – the median for the whole group. The probability of clinical pregnancy is higher in the group where the serum PRG is below 24 ng/ml even if β-hCG levels are the same. A statistically significant difference between these groups regarding β-hCG (P value < 0.001) was noticed. In order for serum β-hCG to be used as a more accurate clinical pregnancy predictor its level should be interpreted in the context of PRG serum levels. Limitations, reasons for caution Since in the dataset, only data regarding frozen embryo transfers were included, fresh ETs need to be explored further. The model was based on endocrinal markers as measured on day six after ET hence it cannot be used to interpret those markers as measured on any other date. Wider implications of the findings In order to most accurately inform patients regarding the possible outcomes of embryo-transfers, practitioners should not limit themselves to monitoring β-hCG serum levels but also include PRG as an important prognostic of clinical pregnancy. Trial registration number Not Applicable

Образ «грядущего царя» и мифологемы современного эсхатологического монархизма

This article presents a hermeneutic analysis of the key concept of eschatological monarchism, i.e. the image of the coming eschatological tsar, whose accession to the throne is expected at the end of the world’s existence, shortly before the onset of the last apocalyptic events. Such mythologemes are particularly popular among Orthodox fundamentalists, the movement of tsarebozhniki (tsar worshippers), who endow the monarch and monarchy with a special sacred religious status. They commonly hold the idea that the modern Russian Federation is an illegitimate state. The author starts with analysing the modern Russian monarchical discourse, in which two varieties are distinguished: legitimism and eschatological monarchism. The latter consists of Orthodox-like subcultures, characterized by radical antiglobalism; Satanist Masonic conspiracy mythologemes; apostasy of the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate; fight against ecumenism, modernism, crypto-Catholics, information technology, bank cards, documents, methods of encoding information, and modern technology. This phenomenon is based on the nostalgic mythologemеs of the Golden Age, idealizing the Russian Empire and the tsardom of Ivan the Terrible, as well as on the mythologemes of the heroic myth about the tsar as an invincible warrior hero defeating evil forces, and conspiracy mythologemes about the tsar as the only force capable of resisting powerful enemies-conspirators. The sources of monarchical eschatological mythologemes are mainly prophecies attributed, with varying degrees of certainty, to canonized saints or to non-canonized, but widely revered persons, as well as anonymous, pseudonymous and apocryphal texts. The coming eschatological tsar is not considered by the adherents as a successor to the Russian emperors: he is the first and only in his ranks. The nature of his use of monarchical power contains a mythological reference to the image of Ivan the Terrible. The image of the coming tsar is formed by a set of messianic ideologemes and mythologemes, such as “the coming tsar is an invincible military leader”, “the coming tsar will be feared by the antichrist himself”, “the tsar will cleanse the church of apostate hierarchs and various heretics”, “the form of government will be authoritarian and totalitarian”, “under the tsar’s rule, Russia will become the most powerful state in the world” or “under the tsar’s rule, Russia will be a materially poor, but spiritually rich state”.

The effects of animated versus static metaphor with 3D images on EFL learners' acquisition of degrees of certainty

AbstractBackgroundJapanese EFL learners often fail to identify and categorise the different degrees of certainty associated with CERTAIN, PROBABLE, and POSSIBLE items. This computer‐mediated study evaluated the relative effects of animated versus static illustrations on stimulating the spatial concept of distance for the acquisition of this knowledge.ObjectivesThis study aimed to: (1) discover whether the spatial concept of distance captured by three‐dimensional (3D) images in animated or static illustrations help learners understand spatial relationships more clearly, and (2) whether a static illustration is sufficient for learning the different degrees of certainty.MethodAnimated and static visualisation groups used 3D images of animated versus static illustrations that capture the spatial concept of distance, and a contrasting group did not use illustrations. The former applied the spatial concept of distance to learn the degrees of certainty, using animated or static illustrations. A spatial concept‐oriented approach that visualises concepts of distance enabled participants to understand the degrees of certainty. The contrasting approach involved rote learning of a list of target expressions for the different degrees of certainty in English.Results and ConclusionsBoth the animated and static versions of the spatial concept‐oriented approaches were equally effective. The difference between the two versions did not significantly impact the overall performance of the groups.TakeawaysRegardless of the type of effect, the spatial concept of distance captured in words and illustrations helped the participants (1) process the different degrees of certainty cognitively in terms of distances and (2) retain them in long‐term memory.

What is aChallenging Clot? : ADELPHI Consensus Statement from the CLOTS 7.0 Summit.

Predicting achallenging clot when performing mechanical thrombectomy in acute stroke can be difficult. One reason for this difficulty is alack of agreement on how to precisely define these clots. We explored the opinions of stroke thrombectomy and clot research experts regarding challenging clots, defined as difficult to recanalize clots by endovascular approaches, and clot/patient features that may be indicative of such clots. Amodified DELPHI technique was used before and during the CLOTS 7.0 Summit, which included experts in thrombectomy and clot research from different specialties. The first round included open-ended questions and the second and final rounds each consisted of 30closed-ended questions, 29on various clinical and clot features, and 1on number of passes before switching techniques. Consensus was defined as agreement ≥ 50%. Features with consensus and rated ≥ 3out of 4on the certainty scale were included in the definition of achallenging clot. Three DELPHI rounds were performed. Panelists achieved consensus on 16/30 questions, of which 8were rated 3or 4on the certainty scale, namely white-colored clots (mean certainty score3.1), calcified clots under histology(3.7) and imaging(3.7), stiff clots(3.0), sticky/adherent clots(3.1), hard clots(3.1), difficult to pass clots(3.1) and clots that are resistant to pulling(3.0). Most panelists considered switching endovascular treatment (EVT) techniques after 2-3 unsuccessful attempts. This DELPHI consensus identified 8distinct features of achallenging clot. The varying degree of certainty amongst the panelists emphasizes the need for more pragmatic studies to enable accurate apriori identification of such occlusions prior to EVT.

The Epistemic Marker Určit Ě in the Light of Corpus Data

Abstract The paper presents a pilot study for a research project on epistemic modality and/or evidentiality markers in Czech. The study focuses on the expression určitě. Although, this marker is typically considered to signal high certainty, the dictionary of standard Czech (Slovník spisovné češtiny, SSČ) also offers an alternative meaning of probability, indicating a lower degree of certainty. We use parallel data from the InterCorp v15 corpus to determine whether the probability meaning can be identified unequivocally in real language data and whether it correlates with specific translation equivalents, linguistic features, or lexical context. Based on our findings, we propose an alternative method for distinguishing between different shades of meaning based on the communicative functions of the utterances, and we draw conclusions regarding the relevance of individual grammatical and lexical clues in context for future annotations.

Cognitive uncertain information with some properties and characteristics

This letter reports a new type of uncertain information that is different from some well known existing uncertain information, such as probability information, fuzzy information, interval information and basic uncertain information. This type of uncertain information allows some specified compromise in interacting decision environments and gives some acceptance area when facing with uncertainties. We firstly introduce the cognitive interval information and then naturally propose the cognitive uncertain information as an extension. The featured acceptance area provides more flexibility in uncertain information handling and it can be regarded as some specified uncertain range (versus the certainty degree in basic uncertain information). The new proposals have advantages in some uncertain decision making scenarios where intersubjectivity and interaction of decision makers play important roles. Besides, some basic structural properties are briefly discussed. Moreover, some motivational examples are presented to show its usage in group decision making to help automatically obtain consistency or consensus in aggregating the different individual evaluations.

The Relationship between a Cognitive Linguistic Approach and the Right-Hemisphere

This study investigated the relationship between a metaphor-based approach to teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and involvement of the brain’s right hemisphere. Specifically, it examined learners’ understanding of three levels of sureness associated with different expressions in English – those that are certain, probable, and possible items. The three target items were chosen because they are frequently used by native English speakers although Japanese EFL learners often fail to distinguish between them. The metaphor-based learners and the control group engaged in computer-based explicit learning based on the meaning of the target expressions with three-dimensional (3D) animated illustrations. The images were based on the spatial concept of distance for the metaphor-based learners and a list of target items for the control group. At post-test, it was found that the metaphor-based learners performed better than the control group in both comparison and speaking tests. Obviously, the participants better understood the degrees of certainty in relation to distance. This shows that teaching the degrees of certainty by applying the spatial concept of distance could help in second-language (L2) learning. The metaphor approach allowed participants to link the spatial concept of distance to the degree of certainty associated with expressions of certitude. In addition, recordings of lip movements showed that participants remembered the target items better by opening the left side of their mouths more than the right side. This indicates that the brain’s right hemisphere is involved in deep processing of expressions that reflect different levels of certitude and creating stronger memory traces.

An interestingness measure for knowledge bases

Association rule mining and logical rule mining both aim to discover interesting relationships in data or knowledge. In association rule mining, relationships are identified based on the occurrence of items in a dataset, while in logical rule mining, relationships are determined based on logical relationships between atoms in a knowledge base. Association rule mining has been widely studied in transactional databases, mainly for market basket analysis. Confidence has become the most widely used interesting measure to assess the strength of a rule. Many other interestingness measures have been proposed since confidence can be insufficient to filter negatively associated relationships. Recently, logical rule mining has become an important area of research, as new facts can be inferred by applying discovered logical rules. They can be used for reasoning, identifying potential errors in knowledge bases, and to better understand data. However, there are currently only a few measures for logical rule mining. Furthermore, current measures do not consider relations that can have several objects, called quasi-functions, which can dramatically alter the interestingness of the rule. In this paper, we focus on effectively assessing the strength of logical rules. We propose a new interestingness measure that takes into account two categories of relations, functions and quasi-functions, to assess the degree of certainty of logical rules. We compare our proposed measure with a widely used measure on both synthetic test data and real knowledge bases. We show that it is more effective in indicating rule quality, making it an appropriate interestingness measure for logical rule evaluation.

Evidential meanings in native and learner Japanese and English

Abstract Evidentiality is a linguistic category that comprises forms and meanings related to the source of information in utterances, the use of which may impact judgments about the degree of certainty expressed by a speaker. The main dichotomy is first-hand (direct) vs. second-hand (indirect) evidence. This distinction is grammaticalised in Japanese only, though certain related meanings can be expressed in English lexically or constructionally. The relevant forms in both languages also function as indirectness-for-politeness markers. We used a judgments elicitation task and found that statements with Japanese evidentials (both first- and second-hand) and with English markers of uncertainty lead to judgments of lower certainty than the statements without the evidential forms and meanings for the majority, but not for all speakers. In addition, monolingual and bilingual usage in both languages has parallels such that these two typologically distinct languages appear closer and certainty judgments by their speakers similar.