Probable Evidence Research Articles

Preschoolers use probabilistic evidence to flexibly change or maintain expectations on an active search task.

This study investigated 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 64, 37 girls, 62.5% White, data collected between 2021-2022) ability to use probabilistic information gleaned through active search to appropriately change or maintain expectations. In an online fishing game, children first learned that one of two ponds was good for catching fish. During a subsequent testing phase, children searched the ponds for fish. Half saw outcomes that were probabilistically consistent with training, and the other half saw outcomes that were probabilistically inconsistent. Children in the Inconsistent condition adapted their search strategies, showing evidence of changing their expectations. Those in the Consistent condition maintained their initial search strategy. Trial-by-trial analyses suggested that children used a combination of heuristic and information integration strategies to guide their search behavior.

A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis provide evidence for an effect of acute physical activity on cognition in young adults

Physical exercise is a potential intervention for enhancing cognitive function across the lifespan. However, while studies employing long-term exercise interventions consistently show positive effects on cognition, studies using single acute bouts have produced mixed results. Here, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to determine the impact of acute exercise on cognitive task performance in healthy young adults. A Bayesian hierarchical model quantified probabilistic evidence for a modulatory relationship by synthesizing 651 effect sizes from 113 studies from PsychInfo and Google Scholar representing 4,390 participants. Publication bias was mitigated using the trim-and-fill method. Acute exercise was found to have a small beneficial effect on cognition (g = 0.13 ± 0.04; BF = 3.67) and decrease reaction time. A meta-analysis restricted to executive function tasks revealed improvements in working memory and inhibition. Meta-analytic estimates were consistent across multiple priors and likelihood functions. Physical activities were categorized based on exercise type (e.g., cycling) because many activities have aerobic and anaerobic components, but this approach may limit comparison to studies that categorize activities based on metabolic demands. The current study provides an updated synthesis of the existing literature and insights into the robustness of acute exercise-induced effects on cognition. Funding provided by the United States Army Research Office.

The standard of proof of «probability of evidence» in commercial proceedings of Ukraine

The standard of proof of «probability of evidence» in commercial proceedings of Ukraine

Making decisions with evidential probability and objective Bayesian calibration inductive logics

Calibration inductive logics are based on accepting estimates of relative frequencies, which are used to generate imprecise probabilities. In turn, these imprecise probabilities are intended to guide beliefs and decisions — a process called “calibration”. Two prominent examples are Henry E. Kyburg's system of Evidential Probability and Jon Williamson's version of Objective Bayesianism. There are many unexplored questions about these logics. How well do they perform in the short-run? Under what circumstances do they do better or worse? What is their performance relative to traditional Bayesianism?In this article, we develop an agent-based model of a classic binomial decision problem, including players based on variations of Evidential Probability and Objective Bayesianism. We compare the performances of these players, including against a benchmark player who uses standard Bayesian inductive logic. We find that the calibrated players can match the performance of the Bayesian player, but only with particular acceptance thresholds and decision rules. Among other points, our discussion raises some challenges for characterising “cautious” reasoning using imprecise probabilities. Thus, we demonstrate a new way of systematically comparing imprecise probability systems, and we conclude that calibration inductive logics are surprisingly promising for making decisions.

Kierkegaard on belief and credence

AbstractKierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus famously defines faith as a risky “venture” that requires “holding fast” to “objective uncertainty.” Yet puzzlingly, he emphasizes that faith requires resolute conviction and certainty. Moreover, Climacus claims that all beliefs about contingent propositions about the external world “exclude doubt” and “nullify uncertainty,” but also that uncertainty is “continually present” in these very same beliefs. This paper argues that these apparent contradictions can be resolved by interpreting Climacus as a belief‐credence dualist. That is, Climacus holds that beliefs and credences (i.e., degrees of belief) are two irreducibly distinct types of mental states. Beliefs are resolutions that close inquiry, thereby excluding doubt and reflecting subjective certainty by disregarding the possibility of error. Credences, by contrast, reflect assessments of evidential probabilities, thereby encoding a recognition of “objective uncertainty” by acknowledging the possibility of error. In addition to solving a vexing interpretive puzzle and showing how Kierkegaard anticipates contemporary views about the nature of belief and credence, this paper demonstrates that Kierkegaard developed a sophisticated account of the nature of belief, doubt, and certainty that merits serious philosophical consideration.

Approaching Headaches—A Guide to Differential-Diagnostic Considerations and Causal Claims

Headaches can be nociplastic, neuropathic, and nociceptive. Pain related to the latter two categories occurs in the presence of nerve lesions and nociceptive stimuli; attributing pain to the last category requires a list of potential causes and arguments supporting the causal claim. Taking a history and examining patients serves to assess diagnostic criteria and screen for disorders whose diagnosis requires additional examinations. Screening information occurs in two types: one indicates that patients have a headache due to another condition; the other suggests they are at risk. Aspiring to make causal claims for a headache is reasonable because if underlying disorders appear independently and randomly, it is probable that there is only one cause. Thus, having found a cause often implies having found the cause. The prerequisites for causal claims are temporal sequencing, correlation, and elimination of alternate causes. Mechanistic, manipulative, and probabilistic evidence supports the second criterion. The importance of headaches lies in their frequent appearance as an early symptom of an incipient disorder (“sentinel symptom”). Hence, they provide the opportunity to diagnose early diseases with potentially deleterious consequences. Thus, it is sensible to assess each attack carefully and systematically.

Reasonable Doubt, Robust Evidential Probability and the Unknown

Most legal evidence scholars agree that proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt requires the belief that the defendant probably committed the alleged acts. However, they also agree that this is not a sufficient condition, as this belief may be unreasonable. I focus on two popular proposals for additional conditions: (i) that the degree of belief should be robust and (ii) that it should be reasonable given the available evidence (should be an evidential probability). Both criteria face difficulties regarding their meaning and utility. I propose an interpretation which overcomes these difficulties and which combines the two conditions into a single criterion on which both conditions are about the possibility of overlooked, exculpatory information. Proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt requires that we are sufficiently certain that we did not miss such information for the sake of achieving accurate beliefs and a just error distribution. How certain we can be that we did not miss anything relevant depends on our higher-order evidence. One important type of higher-order evidence is whether the hypotheses under consideration are sufficiently detailed. This point leads to a novel way of combining the Bayesian and explanation-based accounts of rational legal proof.

Definition of the principle of competitiveness in economic litigation

The article examines the peculiarities of determining the principle of competitiveness in economic litigation based on the analysis of legislation, judicial practice, including the European Court of Human Rights.
 It is emphasized that the process has a special place in the system of principles of economic justice, the principle of competition, which is key in achieving the tasks of economic justice.
 It is argued that the principle of competitiveness affects the entire process of formation and research of factual material necessary for the consideration of the case, determines the actions of the parties and other participants in the process of gathering and researching evidence, the sequence of these actions and their legal consequences, the role of the judge in this process
 Based on the analysis of legislation and court practice, it is stated that the principle of competitiveness provides for: the dependence of the court's actions on the demands of the plaintiff and the objections of the defendant; the court decides the case to the extent of the claims made by the parties; the possibility of free use of means of proof; the right of each party to prove the facts substantiating claims and objections; the possibility for the parties to submit additional evidence at the proposal of the economic court.
 It is emphasized that international standards in the field of justice pay considerable attention to the issue of compliance with the principle of competitiveness justice. An analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the interpretation and application of the adversarial principle was carried out and the conclusion was made that the principle of competitiveness is accepted as the basis of the concept of a fair trial in the sense of Article 6 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which also includes the principles of equality of parties in the process and effective participation, dispositiveness and reasonableness of the term.
 It is noted that with the introduction of the new standard of proof "probability of evidence" it is necessary not only to provide enough evidence to confirm a certain circumstance, but also to provide exactly the amount of them that can outweigh the arguments of the opposite side of the court process.
 It is emphasized that the implementation of the principle of competitiveness in appellate and cassation proceedings is carried out taking into account certain specific features.

The construction of cross-regional cooperation innovation network governance system based on data fusion technology

Abstract In recent years, with the development of network computer science and the increasing maturity of artificial intelligence technology, data fusion technology has been applied more and more widely. In order to respond to real-life needs and prevent and resolve risks, it helps to further broaden the research path of network governance. This paper focuses on network governance in the era of Internet big data, and uses an algorithm based on data fusion technology to calculate the judgment data, calculation formula and posterior estimates by computing the feature vector X and the measurement value I. After finding the maximum posterior estimate, the probability of evidence under the hypothesis is calculated using the subjective probability as the prior probability of the hypothesis. A multi-degree-of-freedom model is established for simulation research, so as to build a diversified, collaborative and intelligent innovative network social governance system across regional cooperation. The experiment proves that when the threshold value c = 0.4, the performance and efficiency are the best, and it is more able to enhance the leading position of the mainstream value and the assessment mechanism of the relevant departments, which can accelerate the guarantee of the implementation of the network ecological governance system on the ground.

Resistance to evidence and the duty to believe

AbstractThis article develops and defends a full account of the nature and normativity of resistance to evidence, according to which resistance to evidence is an instance of input‐level epistemic malfunctioning. At the core of this epistemic normative picture lies the notion of knowledge indicators, as evidential probability increasing facts that one is in a position to know; resistance to evidence is construed as a failure to uptake knowledge indicators.

Evidential Probabilities and Credences

Abstract Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism.

ДОКАЗИ ТА ДОКАЗУВАННЯ В ГОСПОДАРСЬКОМУ ПРОЦЕСІ ПІД ЧАС РОЗГЛЯДУ СПРАВ У СФЕРІ ГОСПОДАРСЬКО-ТОРГОВЕЛЬНОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ: НОВЕЛИ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ ПРАКТИКИ

The article is devoted to the topical issue of studying and summarizing novelties of national practice regarding evidence and proof in the economic process during consideration of cases in the field of economic and commercial activity. The subject of the study is the national practice of commercial courts in cases related to economic and commercial activity. The author substantiates the need to research this issue, taking into account the previous shortcomings of the national legislation in the application of evidence during the proving in the economic process. The essence of the evidence is revealed as any data on the basis of which the court establishes the presence or absence of circumstances (facts) justifying the claims and objections of the participants in the case, and other circumstances that are important for the resolution of the case. The types of evidence established by economic procedural legislation have been studied, namely written, tangible and electronic evidence; conclusions of experts; testimony of witnesses. Emphasized attention, must meet the established criteria: appropriateness, admissibility, probability, sufficiency. It has been demonstrated that the amendment to the standard of proof of "probability of evidence", as opposed to "sufficiency of evidence", emphasizes the need for the court to compare the evidence provided by the plaintiff and the defendant. That is, with the introduction of the new standard of proof, it is necessary not to provide enough evidence to confirm a certain circumstance, but to provide exactly the amount that will be able to outweigh the arguments of the opposite side of the court process. In addition, the main novelties regarding evidence in the context of economic and commercial activity were analyzed. It was found that the judicial practice of using various means of proof is formed, but it is not unambiguous. For example, some commercial courts allow the possibility of using certain types of evidence, while some consider these evidences inappropriate and inadmissible.

Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity by Roberto Di Ceglie

Reviewed by: Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity by Roberto Di Ceglie Gregory Stacey DI CEGLIE, Roberto. Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity. New York: Routledge, 2022. x + 196 pp. Cloth, $160.00 Suppose one wishes to argue that Christian faith (that is, supernatural belief in propositions insofar as they are divinely revealed) is compatible with the proper exercise of reason (that is, forming beliefs through natural cognitive processes). Two strategies suggest themselves. First, one could argue that faith is itself a natural cognitive process or else meets criteria by which natural beliefs are considered rational or appropriate. Alternatively, one might contend that faith can meet its own, independent criteria for rationality or propriety. Thomas Aquinas, whose natural theology and discussion of public evidence that God has revealed himself in Christ are famously robust, may appear to be an exponent of the former strategy. Yet in this volume, Roberto Di Ceglie advances a reading of Thomas that illustrates how faith can support rational enquiry, while remaining independent of it. On this view, faith is "caused mainly by God" and is therefore "at least partly unresponsive to rational criteria." Part 1 begins Di Ceglie's case obliquely, by criticizing both efforts to argue (following Gilson and Maritain) that philosophy can be influenced by Christian faith and recent attempts to explain Aquinas's account of faith and reason. Reviewing the work of commentators including Anthony Kenny, Richard Swinburne, and Eleonore Stump, the author objects that many philosophers hold that for Thomas, faith is primarily a form of propositional belief that should be evaluated for propriety in the same way as natural beliefs. He alleges that this understanding of faith is inherited from Locke, who endorsed "methodological naturalism": the view that appropriate "religious belief can only be taken as the outcome, if any, of a rational exploration of our experience." While this material usefully outlines views which Di Ceglie means to oppose, readers unfamiliar with scholarship on Aquinas and Locke may find these initial chapters difficult to follow. The argument becomes easier to follow in part 2, which provides Di Ceglie's own interpretation of Aquinas. The key third chapter explores Aquinas's definition of faith as "an act of the intellect assenting to the Divine Truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God" (ST II-II, q. 2, a. 9). It demonstrates that while for Aquinas faith involves firm propositional belief, its certitude derives not from believers' assessment of signs that God has revealed the articles of faith but from their free choice—itself a gift of grace—to embrace those articles. More precisely, in cases of "formed" faith, this choice is motivated by supernatural love for God (charity). Charity's role in Aquinas's religious epistemology is [End Page 547] highlighted in two subsequent chapters. Inter alia, Di Ceglie charges that faith is meritorious principally due to its grounds in charity rather than because the articles of faith are not evidently true. He further claims that Aquinas understood "unformed" faith as merely "faith commonly so called"—that is, natural belief in propositions because one judges that they are testified to by a competent authority. Accordingly, unformed faith lacks perfect confidence because it is merely based on probabilistic evidence that God has revealed the articles of faith, rather than on a strong, loving will to trust God. More generally, the certitude of one's faith is proportionate to the perfection of one's charity. Having developed a reading of Aquinas's religious epistemology that stresses the distinction between faith and reason, in part 3 Di Ceglie considers their positive relationship. First, he attempts to reconcile the apparently opposing views that Aquinas's philosophy is purely an exercise of natural reason, and that his philosophical work was influenced by his Christian faith. Broadly, the charity that grounds formed faith also inspires and enhances rational investigation, although philosophical arguments cannot presume faith's truth. Believers with formed faith, however, should reject positions that contradict faith and seek to revise their philosophical reasoning accordingly. The final chapter argues that Christian faith affords a better position from which to engage in rational reflection than atheism or agnosticism. Among other advantages, faith...

Evidential Reasoning Rule With Likelihood Analysis and Perturbation Analysis

The evidential reasoning (ER) rule has been widely used in the data analysis, which provides a transparent and credible inference process and can effectively deal with various uncertainties. However, the traditional ER rule requires the evidence to be strictly independent of each other, which may not be easily satisfied in engineering practice. In addition, the perturbation can affect the sample data and cause unstable inference results. As such, in this article, a new ER rule with likelihood analysis and perturbation analysis (PA) is proposed based on the maximum likelihood ER (MAKER). The likelihood analysis is used to acquire probabilistic evidence from the sample data. The interdependence index of evidence is defined on the marginal probability and joint probability. A parameter optimization model is established based on the maximum likelihood (ML). The PA is conducted on the proposed ER rule to study its robustness, and a generalized PA method is explored to facilitate its potential applications. A case study of the performance evaluation of laser gyros is carried out to show the implementation of the proposed method and validate its effectiveness in reality.

Probabilistic integration of transcriptome-wide association studies and colocalization analysis identifies key molecular pathways of complex traits

Integrative genetic association methods have shown great promise in post-GWAS (genome-wide association study) analyses, in which one of the most challenging tasks is identifying putative causal genes and uncovering molecular mechanisms of complex traits. Recent studies suggest that prevailing computational approaches, including transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs) and colocalization analysis, are individually imperfect, but their joint usage can yield robust and powerful inference results. This paper presents INTACT, a computational framework to integrate probabilistic evidence from these distinct types of analyses and implicate putative causal genes. This procedure is flexible and can work with a wide range of existing integrative analysis approaches. It has the unique ability to quantify the uncertainty of implicated genes, enabling rigorous control of false-positive discoveries. Taking advantage of this highly desirable feature, we further propose an efficient algorithm, INTACT-GSE, for gene set enrichment analysis based on the integrated probabilistic evidence. We examine the proposed computational methods and illustrate their improved performance over the existing approaches through simulation studies. We apply the proposed methods to analyze the multi-tissue eQTL data from the GTEx project and eight large-scale complex- and molecular-trait GWAS datasets from multiple consortia and the UK Biobank. Overall, we find that the proposed methods markedly improve the existing putative gene implication methods and are particularly advantageous in evaluating and identifying key gene sets and biological pathways underlying complex traits.

Soundness and completeness results for LEA and probability semantics

Abstract In Artemov (2020, J. Logic Comput., 30, 61–76), a logical system called the logic of evidence aggregation (LEA) was introduced, along with an intended semantics for it called probability semantics. The goal was to describe probabilistic evidence aggregation in the setting of formal logic. However, as noted in that paper, LEA is not complete with respect to probability semantics. This leaves the tasks open to find sound and complete semantics for LEA and a proper axiomatization for probability semantics. In this paper, we do both. We define a class of basic models called deductive basic models. We show LEA is sound and complete with respect to the class of deductive basic models. We also define an axiomatic system LEA$_+$ extending LEA and show it is sound and complete with respect to probability semantics. Along the way, we develop an intermediate system LEA$_-$ which, it turns out, is equivalent to propositional lax logic with a classical logic base. Sequent systems and decidability results for LEA$_-$ and LEA$_+$ are also presented.

Unifying Epistemic and Practical Rationality

Abstract Many theories of rational action are predicated on the idea that what it is rational to do in a given situation depends, in part, on what it is rational to believe in that situation. In short: they treat epistemic rationality as explanatorily prior to practical rationality. If they are right in doing so, it follows, on pain of explanatory circularity, that epistemic rationality cannot itself be a form of practical rationality. Yet, many epistemologists have defended just such a view of epistemic rationality. According to them, there is no such thing as a distinctively epistemic form of rationality which could be explanatorily prior to practical rationality. Rather, they maintain, there is just one form of rationality—practical rationality—of which epistemic rationality is a species. What to make of this conflict? The aim of this paper is to motivate a view about the relationship between epistemic and practical rationality which resolves the conflict in a way that should be attractive to both sides. The central idea is to ground both epistemic and practical rationality in an independently motivated notion of evidential probability which is itself to be understood in non-normative terms. Doing so, I argue, allows us to unify epistemic and practical rationality in a way that does justice to the idea that what it is rational to do depends, in part, on what it is rational to believe; and to do so in a way that avoids explanatory circularity.

Bayesian dynamic programming approach for tracking time-varying model properties in SHM

Structural health monitoring (SHM) quite often involves continually tracking the temporal variation of some properties of interest, where statistical information about variations under normal situation can be obtained and potential anomalies may be detected for further attention. Structural-related properties such as natural frequency and stiffness often need to be identified with a physics-based model that relates them to measured data. Conventional approaches empirically divide data into non-overlapping segments with equal lengths and identify the model parameters within each segment based on a time-invariant model. Potentially time-varying model properties are then investigated based on the variation of identified results from one data segment to another. Challenges do exist, e.g., how to choose segment length to balance modeling error and identification accuracy, how to set criterion for anomaly detection, etc., which should be addressed with proper extraction of probabilistic information from data. In this work, the SHM problem is formulated as a Bayesian model selection problem, where the data can be ‘partitioned’ in an arbitrary manner, whose optimal choice, and hence points of significant change, are determined together with the model inference process by maximizing the probabilistic evidence supported by data. An efficient algorithm based on dynamic programming is proposed to determine the optimal partitioning and associated piecewise-constant properties, which is otherwise computationally prohibitive. The methodology is applied to tracking modal properties, e.g., natural frequency and damping ratio, of structures using output-only ambient vibration data. It is investigated with synthetic data and then applied to field data of a tall building during a typhoon event.

Estimating sample sizes for evidentialttests

The evidential approach uses likelihood ratios, typically the natural logarithm of the likelihood ratio representing the amount of evidence for one hypothesis versus another. One of the barriers to using the approach is the unavailability of sample size calculations for commonly used statistical tests. The t test is the most common statistical test used in scientific publications. This paper derives the equations necessary to calculate evidential probabilities and hence the required sample size for different types of t tests. Compared with the conventional Neyman-Pearson approach, the evidential approach requires larger sample sizes. This drawback is countered by the fact that users know the probability for obtaining misleading evidence (strong evidence that points to the wrong hypothesis). Even with small sample sizes, this is quite small (around 0.05) and decreases further with increasing sample sizes. The main challenge faced by the evidential researcher is of obtaining sufficiently strong evidence for or against one of the two specified hypotheses. Like the probability of a Type II error, this probability is large with a small sample size and decreases as the sample size increases. Sample size is estimated by achieving a low probability (e.g. <.1) for the combined probability of misleading and weak evidence.

ПРОБЛЕМНІ ПИТАННЯ ПРИ ОЦІНЮВАННІ ДОКАЗІВ У ГОСПОДАРСЬКОМУ СУДОЧИНСТВІ

The article examines the impact of the evaluation of evidence from the standpoint of removing the concept of "sufficiency" and consolidating the concept of "probability" in the economic process in connection with changes in the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine under the Law of Ukraine of 20.09.2019 acts of Ukraine on stimulating investment activity in Ukraine". Indeed, this law was adopted to improve the business climate in Ukraine, encourage foreign investors and their investments, improve the quality of business regulation to increase business activity and increase Ukraine’s rating on ease of doing business. This law amended the fifth chapter "Evidence and proof" of the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine, where Art. 79 has the following meaning: «1. The existence of a circumstance to which the party refers as the basis of its claims or objections is considered proven if the evidence provided to confirm such a circumstance is more plausible than the evidence provided to refute it. The question of the reliability of evidence to establish the circumstances relevant to the case, the court decides in accordance with its internal convictions.". These amendments to the Commercial Procedure Code have affected the process of proving and evaluating evidence in commercial litigation, in connection with which a new standard of proof in commercial litigation has been enshrined in law. It should be emphasized that these changes regarding the replacement of the standard of proof complement the principles of commercial litigation, namely the principles of adversarial and dispositiveness, enshrined in Art. Art. 13, 14, 74 of the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine. The legislator has tried to prove that the introduction of changes, namely the category of "probability of evidence", will improve the efficiency of the commercial court in making decisions based on new approaches to the evaluation of evidence in the case to ensure fair, impartial and lawful resolution of disputes. quality protection of violated, unrecognized or disputed rights and legitimate interests of individuals and legal entities, the state.