Fuzzy Thinking Research Articles

Trajectory of post-COVID brain fog, memory loss, and concentration loss in previously hospitalized COVID-19 survivors: the LONG-COVID-EXP multicenter study.

This study aimed to apply Sankey plots and exponential bar plots for visualizing the trajectory of post-COVID brain fog, memory loss, and concentration loss in a cohort of previously hospitalized COVID-19 survivors. A sample of 1,266 previously hospitalized patients due to COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic were assessed at 8.4 (T1), 13.2 (T2), and 18.3 (T3) months after hospital discharge. They were asked about the presence of the following self-reported cognitive symptoms: brain fog (defined as self-perception of sluggish or fuzzy thinking), memory loss (defined as self-perception of unusual forgetfulness), and concentration loss (defined as self-perception of not being able to maintain attention). We asked about symptoms that individuals had not experienced previously, and they attributed them to the acute infection. Clinical and hospitalization data were collected from hospital medical records. The Sankey plots revealed that the prevalence of post-COVID brain fog was 8.37% (n = 106) at T1, 4.7% (n = 60) at T2, and 5.1% (n = 65) at T3, whereas the prevalence of post-COVID memory loss was 14.9% (n = 189) at T1, 11.4% (n = 145) at T2, and 12.12% (n = 154) at T3. Finally, the prevalence of post-COVID concentration loss decreased from 6.86% (n = 87) at T1, to 4.78% (n = 60) at T2, and to 2.63% (n = 33) at T3. The recovery exponential curves show a decreasing trend, indicating that these post-COVID cognitive symptoms recovered in the following years after discharge. The regression models did not reveal any medical record data associated with post-COVID brain fog, memory loss, or concentration loss in the long term. The use of Sankey plots shows a fluctuating evolution of post-COVID brain fog, memory loss, or concentration loss during the first years after the infection. In addition, exponential bar plots revealed a decrease in the prevalence of these symptoms during the first years after hospital discharge. No risk factors were identified in this cohort.

Research on construction schedule risk management of power supply and distribution projects based on MCS-AHP model

In order to manage the construction schedule risk of power supply and distribution engineering, a construction schedule risk evaluation model, namely the Monte Carlo simulation method - Analytic Hierarchy Process (MCS-AHP) model, is proposed. In this model, the Monte Carlo simulation method is adopted to improve the analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and the normal distribution interval is used to replace the specific value when constructing the fuzzy complementary judgment matrix, to reduce the risk of fuzzy thinking and incomplete information or scattered data in the process of investigation and judgment and improve the scientific evaluation. This paper takes a power supply and distribution project in Guangdong Province as an example uses the MCS-AHP model to measure the key factors limiting the project progress, and uses the AHP method for comparative analysis, to verify the feasibility of the MCS-AHP model. The analysis shows that the key influencing factors are material and equipment procurement, production and arrival, installation of 10 kv high voltage switchboard, electrical acceptance and single machine commissioning, installation of low-voltage switchboard and DC switchboard, and foundation construction of power station equipment, etc., which are consistent with the actual situation. Therefore, it is feasible to construct the MCS-AHP model, which can provide a new way of thinking for schedule risk management analysis.

The utilization of electroencephalogram and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for case of COVID-19 brain fog

Although it is not a medical diagnosis, brain fog composes of sluggish or fuzzy thinking, impaired memory, confusion, and difficulty in focus. In general, this can be caused by stress, sleep disorder, or other illnesses. After the outbreak of COVID-19, an increasing number of patients suffer from COVID-19 brain fog. Since the symptoms of brain fog represent the dysfunction of the brain, electroencephalogram (EEG) plays a role in the evaluation of brain condition due to its convenience. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has long been a tool to modulate brain function. Here, we demonstrate the EEG changes of a patient with COVID-19 brain fog before and after rTMS. Before rTMS, we measured the EEG of a 29-year-old male who reported impaired memory, difficulty in concentration, and poor working performance after recovery from COVID-19. After the acquisition of EEG, we analyzed it with quantitative EEG (qEEG) methods and calculated the TMS treatment frequency. Then we used rTMS to stimulate the patient over the frontal region with the calculated frequency. After rTMS, EEG was acquired again. Initially, the EEG revealed dominant delta waves and lower alpha band power in the frontal region. After treatments, there was an increase in the power of the alpha band in the frontal region in EEGs. There is a similar finding in coherence. These results indicated that rTMS with calculated frequency could raise the power of the alpha band and the connectivity of brain regions. Clinically, improvement of symptoms was reported by the patient himself. rTMS seems to be one of the modalities to help ameliorate the symptoms of brain fog while EEGs can be a useful tool to evaluate neurological conditions before and after neuromodulation. Keywords: COVID-19, brain fog, qEEG, rTMS, frequency.

Deconstructivism, postmodernism and their offspring: disorders of our time

Abstract Our interest should always be aroused when scholars reject the testable approaches that have underwritten scientific development since the seventeenth century. Academic excursions in the arts and humanities need not adhere to scientific benchmarks, of course, and discussions relevant to science that are presented there need not always be subject to rigorous examination. When investigations move into social-science territory, however, more focused attention is called for. Since the scholars discussed in this paper clearly think of themselves as social scientists, it is quite legitimate to subject their investigations to scientific scrutiny and logical analysis. This article briefly describes contemporary investigations and research paradigms characterized by unnecessary neologisms, flatulent jargon, fuzzy thinking, and unconvincing arguments about the discovery of new territory in well-ploughed ground.

Is Your “BS” Detector Getting Rusty?

In clinical practice, as in everyday life, disciplined critical thinking is necessary to separate fact from fiction. Has your “BS” detector become rusty? A research group at Wake Forest University recently published on the many causes and consequences of “fuzzy thinking” presented as fact.1 Whether intentional or due to laziness, inaccurate thinking is an easy trap for the human brain to fall into. This is true whether you are the presenter or recipient of this faulty thinking. “Fuzzy thinking,” better known as “BS,” is the result of communicating with little regard for the truth, established knowledge, or verified facts.

Moving beyond land use intensity types: assessing biodiversity impacts using fuzzy thinking

PurposeThe impact of land use on biodiversity is a topic that has received considerable attention in life cycle assessment (LCA). The methodology to assess biodiversity in LCA has been improved in the past decades. This paper contributes to this progress by building on the concept of conditions for maintained biodiversity. It describes the theory for the development of mathematical functions representing the impact of land uses and management practices on biodiversity.MethodsThe method proposed here describes the impact of land use on biodiversity as a decrease in biodiversity potential, capturing the impact of management practices. The method can be applied with weighting between regions, such as ecoregions. The biodiversity potential is calculated through functions that describe not only parameters which are relevant to biodiversity, for example, deadwood in a forest, but also the relationships between those parameters. For example, maximum biodiversity would hypothetically occur when the nutrient balance is ideal and no pesticide is applied. As these relationships may not be readily quantified, we propose the use of fuzzy thinking for biodiversity assessment, using AND/OR operators. The method allows the inclusion of context parameters that represent neither the management nor the land use practice being investigated, but are nevertheless relevant to biodiversity. The parameters and relationships can be defined by either literature or expert interviews. We give recommendations on how to create the biodiversity potential functions by providing the reader with a set of questions that can help build the functions and find the relationship between parameters.Results and discussionWe present a simplified case study of paper production in the Scandinavian and Russian Taiga to demonstrate the applicability of the method. We apply the method to two scenarios, one representing an intensive forestry practice, and another representing lower intensity forestry management. The results communicate the differences between the two scenarios quantitatively, but more importantly, are able to provide guidance on improved management. We discuss the advantages of this condition-based approach compared to pre-defined intensity classes. The potential drawbacks of defining potential functions from industry-derived studies are pointed out. This method also provides a less strict approach to a reference situation, consequently allowing the adequate assessment of cases in which the most beneficial biodiversity state is achieved through management practices.ConclusionsThe originality of using fuzzy thinking is that it enables land use management practices to be accounted for in LCA without requiring sub-categories for different intensities to be explicitly established, thus moving beyond the classification of land use practices. The proposed method is another LCIA step toward closing the gap between land use management practices and biodiversity conservation goals.

A risk investment evaluation method based on dynamic bayesian network and fuzzy system

In order to enhance the risk investment evaluation algorithm precision of forestry rights mortgage of farmers, this paper provides a method of risk investment validating process of forestry rights mortgage of farmers based on dynamic Bayes network (DBN) and fuzzy system. For that have to be processed fuzzy data in time arrangement and evaluate the circumstance viably, Intuitionistic Fuzzy Dynamic Bayesian Network (IFDBN) is assembled. Intuitionistic fuzzy thinking is implanted into DBN as a virtual node in this method. Also, another technique to change over the intuitionistic fuzzy thinking yield into likelihood that could contribution to DBN as proof is proposed. Firstly, it analyzes the risk investment of forestry rights mortgage of farmers, raises the risk evaluation system and adopts normalization and factor analysis methods to pre-process the model index; secondly, by aid of a four-layer DBN model, it puts forward the hierarchical DBN model of risk investment, having input layer, fuzzy layer, fuzzy inference layer and output layer, designs the composition and calculation mode of fuzzy function module and DBN module; Finally, it verifies the viability of the calculation through experimental examination.

A Study of University Students’ Cognitive Competence in Performing the Learning Assignments: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach

One of the major tasks of today’s higher education schools—raising cognitively competent specialists—is still far from completion. Two University professors, a journalist and a psychologist, with different cultural backgrounds, united their pedagogical experience and the results of their long-term studies of the students’ cognitive functioning in performing learning assignments. These assignments were analogues of the problems which journalists and school teachers will have to solve eventually in their everyday professional practice. The results showed that most students in each investigated population had poor cognitive skills for working with textual information. Their mistakes in performing course work were systematic and similar. They were caused by an inability to identify key-words which most accurately point to the main ideas of the texts. Such students had no full-fledged understanding of what they read. To denote this phenomenon, the authors used the term “fuzzy thinking”. The authors concluded that today’s educators’ efforts should be aimed at teaching university students to work with textual information professionally. The necessary analytic and semantic skills should be instilled in students in every course, every semester, and throughout all years of university study.

Stages, periods, epochs, and phases in Paracas and Nasca chronology: another look at John Rowe’s Ica valley master sequence

Chronology on the south coast of Peru is adrift. Researchers have a choice of using developmental stages or historical periods. Increasingly, fuzzy thinking has led to the publication of chronologies employing both stages and periods in the same chart. Authors seem unaware that stages and periods are fundamentally different ways of organizing the past, underpinned by different sets of assumptions which ask different questions. The current work is specifically concerned with the relative chronologies for the south coast Paracas and Nasca cultures, but it also reviews the fundamental principles of stages and periods, examines the workings of John Rowe’s Master Sequence, and provides clear definitions for terminology. In conclusion, an updated chronology for the south coast Early Horizon and Early Intermediate Period is introduced.

A Contrastive Analysis of Legend of Zhen Huan and Empress in the Palace on Impact of Differences Between Chinese and Western Thinking Mode on Translation

Translation is not only a language activity, but also a conceptual work. The differences between Chinese and western thinking modes lead to different expressions. It is the key point to realize the differences between Chinese and western thinking modes and then learn to transform them appropriately in translation. This paper takes Legend of Zhen Huan and Empress in the Palace as an example to explore the impact of differences between Chinese and Western thinking modes on translation. The embodiment of thinking modes was analyzed from five aspects, which are ethical and cognitive thinking modes, comprehension and rationality thinking modes, fuzzy and precise thinking modes, subjective and objective thinking modes as well as inductive and deductive thinking modes. The comparison between the above five aspects illustrates the

Thinking and methodology of multi-objective optimization

Multi-objective optimization is one of the most important aspects of operational research, and has been applied widely. Most of the existing research works on multi-objective optimization focused on the concrete solutions to detailed optimization problem in reality, lacking of the deep investigation on the fundamental thinking and methodology of the multi-objective optimization problem. To fill this gap, this paper studies the multi-objective optimization problem from a Chinese traditional philosophic angle. Based on the theories and ideology of I Ching, we investigate the basic thinking and methodology of multi-objective optimization, and summarize three methodological patterns for modeling and solving the problems, which are local optimization for global moderation, divide and conquer after comprehensive consideration, and combination of division and integration. Basic ideas, approaches and examples for such three patterns are introduced, and the relationships among the three patterns are discussed from both philosophic and mathematical aspects. Furthermore, for the computational solutions of multi-objective optimization problems, we summarize four thinking patterns based on traditional Chinese philosophy, which are changing thinking, fuzzy thinking, uncertainty thinking, and imaginable thinking. Algorithms that are inspired by the four thinking patterns are presented. This work seeks to study the fundamental thinking and methodology of multi-objective optimization problem from a combination angle of science and philosophy, which is expected to inspire new ideas and methods for solving the problem.

Space of fuzziness: avoidance of deterministic decisions in the case of the inverse function

We investigate responses of prospective secondary school teachers to a task related to the inverse function concept. We utilize ideas of fuzzy logic as a theoretical lens in analyzing the participants’ demonstrated avoidance of refuting the existence of an inverse to a quadratic function. The analysis is based on 29 responses to a scripting task, in which participants composed a hypothetical dialog between a teacher and students. The findings demonstrate three categories of fuzzy evaluations of a mathematical statement: (a) false blurred to be true; (b) almost false; and (c) almost true. We offer possible reasons for the prevalence of fuzzy thinking in general, and in discussing the inverse of a function in particular.

Contour Classification in Drawing Based on Fuzzy Thinking

Contour Classification in Drawing Based on Fuzzy Thinking

Fuzzy Logic Based Teaching/Learning of a Foreign Language in Multilingual Situations

The concept of Fuzzy Logic (FL) has gained momentum in areas of artificial intelligence and allied researches because of its absolute ability to present efficient solutions to real life problems. Contrary to the paradigmatic approach to the solutions of being either absolutely true or false [0 or 1] the fuzzy sets provide a range of possible outputs with error prone inputs which are vague and inaccurate using linguistic objects instead of mere mathematical numbers. A multilingual situation poses a similar challenge for a language teacher/learner where languages exist in continuum. Learners with heavy mother tongue influence tend to use their natural languages instinctively in a way that can create their own fuzzy rules to encounter the situation of being taught an entirely new language. A typical Indian language classroom is highly multilingual where scope of errors is numerous though they are ignored. This leads to stress both for the teachers as well as the learners making the classroom ambience more mechanistic than human. To combat such situations FL based Three-Phase Model of language teaching has been proposed which derives its basis on the presumption that the language instructor is aware of general rules of linguistics. An empirical longitudinal study on 150 undergraduate technical students designed on the proposed framework has been conducted to establish the efficiency and the success of the model. Observing language pedagogy through the lens of fuzzy logic and fuzzy thinking will not only make the classroom more real-like but it will also tap the pre-existing linguistic knowledge of the learners. Language interference will be more of a resource than a challenge.

Foreword

Yet another year has come to its end. It brought us some new ideas and we have spent several months in preparations to realize them.The greatest change is that we may be expecting the new ALA issue within a month, in January 2018 already. From the year to come, we will still be publishing two issues per year, with the winter issue published in January coming first. The second issue will be the summer issue, published in July. At this opportunity we would like to express our gratitude to all the authors in the ALA journal, and alongside send out our call for new articles. All the rest of the changes might only be noticed by our regular readers, while newcomers will hopefully find our e-journal competent, functional, and user friendly. This number of the ALA journal is mostly dedicated to the area of translation studies, however, also contains three interesting works on language. Wing Bo Anna TSO in her work “Repressed Sexual Modernity: A Case Study of Herbert Giles’ (1845 - 1935) Rendition of Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1880) in the Late Qing” attempts the literary-cultural approach and investigates the lost in translation. She focused on examining gender ideologies in the original and translated work to find out that transgressive gender views get strongly repressed in Giles’ English rendition.A similar thought, namely the importance of the cultural background of the text in translation is stressed in the article “Metaphor in Translation: Cognitive Perspectives on Omar Khayyam’s Poetry as Rendered into English and Kurdish”, written by Rahman VEISI HASAR and Ehsan PANAHBAR. As metaphors as cognitive phenomena can not be relegated to linguistic expression only, the research findings reveal that translators have mostly been successful in translating metaphors dependent on shared cultural models, however, have failed to recreate metaphors dependent on non-shared cultural models.Difficulties in translating metaphors were also experienced by Eva VUČKOVIČ and Byoung Yoong KANG, who in their article “Prevajanje Ko Unove poezije iz korejščine v slovenščino” address several major problems they have encountered when translating poetry from Korean into Slovene. The aricle is written in Slovene and is a pionieering work on translation studies from Korean into Slovene.Lija GANTAR wrote an article “Ancient Greek Legend in Modern Japanese Literature: ‘Run, Melos!’ by Dazai Osamu” in which she discusses how the Japanese author managed to retell a Western literature story in a way to succesfully make it a part of the Japanese literature. The following three articles refer to language. Sweta SINHA in her article “Fuzzy Logic Based Teaching/Learning of a Foreign Language in Multilingual Situations” managed to incorporate the concept of Fuzzy Logic (FL), which primarily gained momentum in the areas of artificial intelligence and allied researches, into a foreign language classroom. She describes language pedagogy as more real-like when observed through the lens of fuzzy logic and fuzzy thinking, and claims that in that way language interference is more of a resource than a challenge.Now already a sequential work on adjective distribution was contributed by LI Wenchao, who wrote the article “Revisit Adjective Distribution in Chinese”. In it the author re-classifies Chinese monosyllabic adjectives and verbs in light of ‘scale structure’ and examines how various adjectives are associated with different scalar layers of verbs. Finally, an interesting project report on the development of early Persian vocabulary in the process of first language acquisition was written by Hajar SHAHHOSEINI. The report is entitled “Investigation of Early Vocabulary Development of a Persian Speaking Child at Age 2 Years Old in Iran”.Editors and Editorial Board thank all the contributors to this volume, and wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration.

Fuzzy thinking

What is the function of the fuzz on the skin of a peach? And is a nectarine a bald peach or a peach a fuzzy nectarine?

A new attitude coupled with fuzzy thinking for solving fuzzy equations

With the development on the theory of fuzzy numbers, one of the major areas that emerged for the application of these fuzzy numbers is the solution of equations whose parameters are fuzzy numbers. The classical methods, involving the extension principle and $$\alpha $$ź-cuts, are too restrictive for solving fuzzy equations because very often there is no solution or very strong conditions must be placed on the equations so that there will be a solution. These facts motivated us to solve fuzzy equations with a new attitude. According to the new fuzzy arithmetic operations based on TA (in the domain of the transmission average of support), we discuss a new attitude solving fuzzy equations: $$A+X=B$$A+X=B, $$AX=B$$AX=B, $$AX+B=C$$AX+B=C, $$AX^{2}=B$$AX2=B, $$AX^{2}+B=C$$AX2+B=C and $$AX^{2}+BX+C=D.$$AX2+BX+C=D. Through theoretical analysis, by illustrative examples and computational results, we show that the proposed approach is more general and straightforward.

Opening the Debate on the New Sepsis Definition Defining Sepsis: A Case of Bounded Rationality and Fuzzy Thinking?

Opening the Debate on the New Sepsis Definition Defining Sepsis: A Case of Bounded Rationality and Fuzzy Thinking?

The Public Interest Conception of Public Law: Its Procedural Origins and Substantive Implications

This paper charts the development and identifies the core features of a unitary conception of public law that emerged in English law in the wake of procedural reforms in the late 1970s that established the judicial review procedure. This public interest conception holds that the principal concerns of public law are regulation of public power in the public interest and according to precepts of good administration. Private law was distinguished on the basis that its concern was enforcement of private rights and protection of individual interests. This public interest conception underpinned major legal developments in a critical ten- to fifteen-year period following the procedural reform which, together, forged a distinctive, integrated “system” of public law in English law. These developments were radical in a jurisdiction characterised by the Diceyan tradition that public law is private law. On the other hand, it was consonant with the historical development of English law that a substantive legal change was secreted in the interstices of a procedural innovation.The public interest conception has proven hugely influential. It has been used as a normative idea to guide legal development across public law fields. However, the paper argues that this is problematic. This conception was forged by reference to only one branch of public law, the common law of judicial review. Contemporary public law is composed of a range of different bodies of doctrine; it has no functional unity. Where the public interest conception is used to guide development in fields other than common law review, which continues to bear its hallmarks, the risk is that the distinctively valuable functions of those other fields are impeded, while the coherence of those bodies of doctrine may be distorted. The paper analyses two examples of where this risk has become reality: the approach to grant of relief in review proceedings on EU grounds (specifically in the context of EU environmental Directives), and the approach to damages under the Human Rights Act 1998.Ironically, principal lessons to be drawn from the emergence of the unitary public interest conception of public law are that there is no such thing as a unitary system of public law in contemporary English law, and resting legal development on the idea of a general divide between private and public law is likely to lead to fuzzy thinking, incoherence and the warping of legal doctrine; such over-simplifications, while they may appear “neat” or seem “intuitive”, should be repudiated.

Analysis for Why the Emphasis of China's Higher Education Research is Theoretical Speculative

China's higher education research showed the characteristics of great importance to theoretical speculation. The reasons for this phenomenon are three aspects—traditional culture, social culture, researchers own: The impact of traditional culture expresses as the cultural tendencies of contempt for rational inquiry and empirical spirit, and a tendency of fuzzy thinking; Social structure's effects perform the tendencies of “convergence” of the same class and the influence of official position of different classes; The impact of the researcher's own expresses as the intervention for the higher education research orientation by survival inner anxiety generated by the pressure to survive and the further developed pride.