Implicit Assumption Research Articles

Unfit to Bounce Back: On the Martial Politics of Resilience in WWI-Weimar Germany and Austerity Britain

Abstract Resilience discourse, with its implicit assumption of a return to health and productivity following a crisis, is often mobilized to target disabled people. Yet while resilience scholarship has rapidly expanded and become prevalent in various fields over recent decades, it has largely failed to analyze the multiple connections between resilience, disability, and eugenics. This article argues that resilience discourse is a form of martial politics, wielded against disabled people to protect the health and prosperity of the political community. A martial politics of resilience works through three registers, responsibilizing disabled subjects by withdrawing state support, dehumanizing them as unproductive and a burden, and exposing these subjects to abandonment/death through medical and policy interventions. I use the lens of martial politics to think through relationships between resilience, disability, and security in Germany and Britain in the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries, respectively, focusing on psychiatric treatment of trauma in the former and the implementation of austerity policies in the latter. The article thus expands our understanding of relationships between resilience, subjectivity, and security by highlighting the ableist and lethal contours of resilient subjects, polities, and economies.

Exploring the intersection of psychiatry, art, and medical education through photographic portraits

This paper describes a technique using photographic portraits in medical education to encourage close observation, cultivate empathic curiosity, explore learners’ values and beliefs, and to reveal and reflect on fundamental biases. This new and evolving educational method uses the lens of psychotherapy to explore learners’ experience of the portrait in a similar way we would discuss a case in psychodynamic supervision. Through close looking and small group engagement, the facilitator creates a space for deeper reflection and collaborative exploration of the therapeutic relationship, with emphasis on countertransference and the role of prior expectations. The exercise strengthens dialectical thinking through perspective-taking, challenging implicit assumptions and fostering cultural humility. Radiologists are taught to look in every corner of the X-ray and to observe each shadow, all while evaluating the entire image. Portraits can be examined in the same way, looking for subtle clues to the personality and history of the subject. Information from other sources confirms, or sometimes profoundly changes, our evaluation. In this example, we use a historical photographic portrait to demonstrate ways of engaging medical learners as they discover common psychotherapeutic approaches. The method has the potential to enhance therapeutic encounters, improve analytical skills and reduce bias.

MinJoT: Multimodal infusion Joint Training for noise learning in text and multimodal classification problems

Amidst the critical role that high-quality labeled data plays in advancing machine learning, the persistence of noise within widely-used datasets remains a challenge. While noise learning has gained traction within machine learning, particularly in computer vision, its exploration in text and multimodal classification domains has lagged. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparison of noise learning techniques in text and multimodal classification has been lacking, partly due to variations in experimental noise settings across prior studies. Addressing these gaps, this research introduces a pioneering Multimodal Infusion Joint Training (MinJoT) framework featuring a novel co-regularized loss function that seamlessly integrates multimodal information during joint training. This framework notably excels in maintaining model robustness amidst noisy data environments. Adapting established noise learning methods from computer vision to text classification, the study conducts extensive experiments across five English and Chinese textual and multimodal datasets, involving four methods, five noise modes, and seven noise rates. Critically, this work challenges the implicit assumption that widely-used datasets are devoid of noise, revealing that these datasets indeed encompass noise levels ranging from 0.61% to 15.77% which is defined as intrinsic noise in this study. For the first time, the study investigates the impact of intrinsic noise on model performance, categorizing it into distinct levels of ambiguity. To facilitate accurate method comparison, a new dataset, Golden-Chnsenticorp (G-Chnsenticorp), is introduced, carefully crafted to be free of intrinsic noise. This research establishes the inaugural noise learning benchmark for text classification, while simultaneously pioneering the first noise learning framework tailored for multimodal sentiment classification. Through these contributions, the study advances the understanding of noise learning in text and multimodal contexts, providing a novel framework, benchmarks, and insights to propel the field forward.

“They don’t take notes!” Tensions perceived by first-line workers in an action research project

PurposeThis study aims to emphasize the importance of taking into account the perspectives of prospective participants and identifying potential tensions in action research.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reflects on a (participatory) action research (AR) project in which the first author was involved as an embedded researcher. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, field notes and observed project activities. The authors conducted a thematic analysis.FindingsThis paper thematically categorized four types of tensions between both groups. These were tensions connected to: internal facilitators giving guidance, project goals, top-down expectations and unfamiliarity with AR working formats.Practical implicationsQuintessential to AR is giving the less privileged a voice. For this to work, gaining a good understanding of their perspectives is crucial.Originality/valueThis paper challenges the implicit assumption that prospective participants of AR projects are always willing to participate.

Evolution of the highest sound pressure levels in vertebrate communication calls

The loudest communication calls produced by vertebrates have been proposed to have a physical limit. However, this idea is at odds with the implicit assumption that loudness is driven by body size, where each section of an acoustic system (e.g., vocal tract, pharyngeal space, lungs) increases in size as an animal gets larger. A physical limit to loudness may exist for animals with different acoustic systems, but this has not been explored using comparative analysis. We compare the loudest communication calls across 80 vertebrate species and show the assertion of a physical limit to loudness exists for animals with particular acoustic systems but breaks down where others scale with body mass. We show that for vertebrates with air sacs, loudness scales with body mass but it approaches a physical limit. We also show that air sac location can affect loudness, where louder calls are correlated with air sacs that filter (after the sound source) as opposed to air sacs that increase air volume (before the sound source). We examine ecological and evolutionary pressures which may have led to these modifications and their influence on vocal signaling.

To fully leverage fine-grained clinical phenomena, we have to think beyond DSM-based concepts and the presumption of diagnostic kinds.

In light of the limitations of dominant psychiatric classification systems such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), this special section positions fine-grained clinical phenomena as key to the future of psychopathology research. This shift is necessary given the constraints DSM-based diagnoses place on (a) the specificity of theories and models of psychopathology and (b) efforts to develop alternative paradigms. Fine-grained clinical phenomena offer comparative advantages, but transitioning to their study involves significant challenges. Chief among these challenges is the need to move beyond DSM as a source of concepts. Implicit assumptions that DSM-based disorders provide valid, circumscribed, and explanatory definitions of clinical phenomena perpetuate existing reification of diagnostic categories rather than reimagining psychopathology nosology beyond DSM, thus needlessly restricting and even undermining research efforts. Moving forward requires careful attention to consensual operationalization. Otherwise, we will continue to struggle to develop valid compositional explanations of clinical phenomena and to organize them into explanatory conceptual taxonomies. Scientific progress here depends on coordinated pluralism that incorporates different lenses into psychopathology and different approaches to data collection and analysis, with a firm grounding in construct validity and a corresponding commitment to continually reimagine rather than reify our concepts and objects of study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Being taken for a ride: Social and technological externalist complements to the internalist reading of the Buddhist chariot similes

Slavoj Zizek's (2014) criticism of Western Buddhism for being a late capitalist opiate of the people is partly unwarranted and partly of undeniable relevance. His implicit assumption is that Buddhism is an internalist path that only looks into in the individual inner world, leaving harmful societal systems in peace. This paper offers a response to Zizek's analysis, by interpreting the chariot simile in the Buddhist Pali Canon. Even though Pali chariot similes indeed support an internalist perspective, some of them also allow for a reading that opens up to two 'externalist' complements: the social outer world and the technological environment. In this way, while acknowledging Zizek's criticism, we point at Buddhist philosophy's inherent potential for developing a social-technological critical stance, for instance by linking it to mediation theory.

Implications of porpoise echolocation and dive behaviour on passive acoustic monitoring.

Harbour porpoises are visually inconspicuous but highly soniferous echolocating marine predators that are regularly studied using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). PAM can provide quality data on animal abundance, human impact, habitat use, and behaviour. The probability of detecting porpoise clicks within a given area (P̂) is a key metric when interpreting PAM data. Estimates of P̂ can be used to determine the number of clicks per porpoise encounter that may have been missed on a PAM device, which, in turn, allows for the calculation of abundance and ideally non-biased comparison of acoustic data between habitats and time periods. However, P̂ is influenced by several factors, including the behaviour of the vocalising animal. Here, the common implicit assumption that changes in animal behaviour have a negligible effect on P̂ between different monitoring stations or across time is tested. Using a simulation-based approach informed by acoustic biologging data from 22 tagged harbour porpoises, it is demonstrated that porpoise behavioural states can have significant (up to 3× difference) effects on P̂. Consequently, the behavioural state of the animals must be considered in analysis of animal abundance to avoid substantial over- or underestimation of the true abundance, habitat use, or effects of human disturbance.

A Quantile-Conserving Ensemble Filter Framework. Part II: Regression of Observation Increments in a Probit and Probability Integral Transformed Space

Abstract Traditional ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation methods make implicit assumptions of Gaussianity and linearity that are strongly violated by many important Earth system applications. For instance, bounded quantities like the amount of a tracer and sea ice fractional coverage cannot be accurately represented by a Gaussian that is unbounded by definition. Nonlinear relations between observations and model state variables abound. Examples include the relation between a remotely sensed radiance and the column of atmospheric temperatures, or the relation between cloud amount and water vapor quantity. Part I of this paper described a very general data assimilation framework for computing observation increments for non-Gaussian prior distributions and likelihoods. These methods can respect bounds and other non-Gaussian aspects of observed variables. However, these benefits can be lost when observation increments are used to update state variables using the linear regression that is part of standard ensemble Kalman filter algorithms. Here, regression of observation increments is performed in a space where variables are transformed by the probit and probability integral transforms, a specific type of Gaussian anamorphosis. This method can enforce appropriate bounds for all quantities and deal much more effectively with nonlinear relations between observations and state variables. Important enhancements like localization and inflation can be performed in the transformed space. Results are provided for idealized bivariate distributions and for cycling assimilation in a low-order dynamical system. Implications for improved data assimilation across Earth system applications are discussed.

The Course of Anxiety-Specific Cognitive Bias Following Daycare/Inpatient Treatment in Youths with Social Phobia and School Absenteeism.

Social phobia (SP) is a common mental disorder in youth often accompanied by absence from school, which may require daycare or inpatient intervention (DC/IN). Objective: The present explorative study investigates changes in anxiety-specific implicit assumptions and interpretation bias following DC/IN. Methods: The study included 16 youths with SP (M age = 15.8 [SD = 1.24], females: 62.5 %) participating in DC/IN. We assessed the main outcomes using the Implicit Association Test and Affective Misattribution Procedure. Results: A large effect was shown for reducing implicit assumptions of feeling anxious (p = .142; η2p = .171) and for reducing the implicit interpretation bias (p = .137; η2p = .162). No change was indicated by effect size in implicit assumptions of feeling socially rejected (p = .649; η2p = .016). Social phobia symptoms initially correlated with changes in implicit assumptions of feeling anxious (r = .45). Conclusion: Effect sizes indicate that implicit anxiety-specific assumptions and interpretation bias descriptively improved following DC/IN. Thus, DC/IN may lead to meaningful improvements of anxiety-specific cognition in some individuals with high SP symptoms, emphasizing the relevance of cognitive behavioral approaches in the treatment of SP. Several limitations are discussed.

Carbon Emissions Effect on Vendor-Managed Inventory System Considering Displaced Re-Start-Up Production Time

Background: The classical mathematical formulation of the vendor-managed inventory (VMI) model assumes an infinite planning horizon, and consequently, the solution derived ignored the impact of the first cycle. The classical formulation is associated with another implicit assumption that input parameters remain static indefinitely. Methods: This paper develops two mathematical models for VMI for a joint economic lot-sizing (JELS) policy. Each model considers investment in green production, energy used for keeping items in storage, and carbon emissions from production, storage, and transportation activities under the carbon cap-and-trade policy. The first model underlies the first cycle, while the second underlies subsequent cycles. Results: The re-start-up production time for subsequent cycles commences only at the time required to produce and replenish the first lot, which implies further cost reduction. Mathematical formulations are perceived as important both for academics and practitioners. For example, the base model of the first cycle (subsequent cycles) generates an optimal produced quantity with 18.42% (4.35%) less total system cost when compared with the pest scenario in favor of the existing literature. Moreover, such a percentage of total system cost reduction increases as the production rate increases. Further, the proposed models not only produce better results but also offer the opportunity to adjust the input parameters for subsequent cycles, where each cycle is independent from the previous one. Conclusions: The emissions generated by the system are very much related to the demand rate and the amount of investment in green production. Illustrative examples, special cases, model overview, and managerial insights are given. The discussion related to the contribution of the proposed model, the concluding remarks, and further research are also provided. The proposed model rectifies the base model adopted by the existing literature, which can be further extended to be implemented in several interesting further inquiries related to JELS inventory mathematical modeling.

Intermediate perfects

Abstract The cross-linguistic variation in distribution and meaning of perfect constructions building on have + past participle in Western European languages has been analysed in terms of the aoristic drift, the shift from resultative via perfect to perfective past meaning that takes us from ‘classical’ perfect languages like English to ‘liberal’ perfect languages like French. This paper challenges the (often implicit) assumption that there is a single path along the aoristic drift, resulting in a linear perfect scale. Data coming from translation corpora reveal that the perfect in three ‘intermediate’ languages (Dutch, Catalan and Breton) is sensitive to lexical aspect (state vs. event), narrativity and hodiernal vs. pre-hodiernal past time reference. These meaning ingredients appear in different combinations in the three languages, thereby establishing them as independent dimensions of variation. The conclusion that there are multiple paths along the aoristic drift has implications for the cross-linguistic semantics of tense and aspect.

What drives broadband traffic?

Worldwide there is an ongoing policy and regulatory push to make very high speed broadband available as widely as possible. Underlying the policy interventions to support higher speeds is an implicit assumption that higher speeds will enable different (and socially valuable) use. In this paper we empirically test whether higher speed lines are associated with greater household data usage in the UK. We find that after allowing for demographic factors, higher speed in fact has a very limited relationship to traffic. This suggests that mid-speed broadband is not in fact a constraint on household usage (as measured by traffic), and thus the benefits of policy interventions to support higher speeds remain somewhat speculative.

The Learning Hypothesis revisited: A discussion of Sani, Shroff and White (2023)

While Sani, Shroff and White (2023) examine a plausibly exogenous shock to the information acquisition landscape that arguably changes informed traders’ incentives to generate private information without the focal firm changing its disclosure policy, the causal chain underlying their analyses shares the implicit assumptions employed in the extant empirical literature that tests the Learning Hypothesis. Thus, the focus of our discussion is to make explicit the implicit assumptions and highlight the resulting challenges faced by authors who wish to interpret Investment Sensitivity to Price as evidence of managerial learning. In the end, we suggest future research work to extend our understanding by exploring in greater detail and more directly the What and the How managers learn from outsiders.

Permissible preference purification: on context-dependent choices and decisive welfare judgements in behavioural welfare economics

ABSTRACT Behavioural welfare economics has lately been challenged on account of its use of the satisfaction of true preferences as a normative criterion. The critique contests what is taken to be an implicit assumption in the literature, namely that true preferences are context-independent. This assumption is considered not only unjustified in the behavioural welfare economics literature but unjustifiable – true preferences are argued to be, at least sometimes, context-dependent. This article explores the implications of this ‘critique of the inner rational agent’. I argue that the critique does not support a wholesale shift away from the use of true preferences as an evaluative standard in normative economics; instead, the critique implies that behavioural welfare economists need to inquire into and establish the ‘source’ of particular context-dependent choices in individuals’ decision-making. The source determines the permissibility of correcting individuals’ context-dependent choices and can, in some situations, support decisive welfare judgements.

Whose Approval Matters Most? Examining Discrepancies in Self- and Other- Perceptions of Drinking

Background Research demonstrates that perceptions of others’ attitudes toward drinking behaviors (injunctive norms) are strong predictors of alcohol consumption and problems. Personalized normative feedback (PNF) aims to reduce the discrepancy between one’s perception of others’ attitudes toward drinking and others’ actual attitudes toward drinking. An implicit assumption of PNF is that self and (perceived) other attitudes toward drinking are aligned (thus, shifting one’s perceptions of others’ attitudes shifts one’s own attitudes). However, there is minimal research on the extent to which alignment (or discrepancy) in self-other attitudes toward drinking is associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Methods College students (N = 1,494; M age = 20.11, 61.0% female, 66.4% White) who endorsed past-month heavy episodic drinking reported injunctive norms toward drinking on weekends, drinking daily, drinking to black out, and drinking and driving. Participants reported their perceptions of attitudes toward these drinking behaviors for three reference groups: close friends, typical university-affiliated peers, and parents. Outcomes included weekly drinking, alcohol problems, and alcohol-related risk. Results Response surface analyses indicated that alignment in approval (versus alignment in disapproval) of drinking demonstrated a linear association with alcohol-related outcomes. Discrepancies in self-peer and self-parent attitudes were associated with alcohol-related outcomes and one’s own attitudes (versus one’s ratings of others’ attitudes) of drinking were more strongly associated with outcomes. Conclusions Results provide evidence of how self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking are associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Future work is needed to test whether self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking impacts response to norms-based interventions.

Fast Diffusion Characterization by Multiphoton Excited Fluorescence Recovery while Photobleaching.

Multiphoton-excited fluorescence recovery while photobleaching (FRWP) is demonstrated as a method for quantitative measurements of rapid molecular diffusion over microsecond to millisecond timescales. Diffusion measurements are crucial in assessing molecular mobility in cell biology, materials science, and pharmacology. Optical and fluorescence microscopy techniques enable non-invasive rapid analysis of molecular diffusion but can be challenging for systems with diffusion coefficients exceeding ∼100 μm2/s. As an example, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) operates on the implicit assumption of a comparatively fast photobleaching step prior to a relatively slow recovery and is not generally applicable for systems exhibiting substantial recovery during photobleaching. These challenges are exacerbated in multiphoton excitation by the lower excitation efficiency and competing effects from local heating. Herein, beam-scanning FRWP with patterned line-bleach illumination is introduced as a technique that addresses FRAP limitations and further extends its application range by measuring faster diffusion events. In FRWP, the recovery of fluorescence is continuously probed after each pass of a fast-scanning mirror, and the upper bound of measurable diffusion rates is, therefore, only limited by the mirror scanning frequency. A theoretical model describing transient fluctuations in fluorescence intensity arising as a result of combined contributions from photobleaching and localized photothermal effect is introduced along with a mathematical framework for quantifying fluorescence intensity temporal curves and recovering room-temperature diffusion coefficients. FRWP is then tested by characterization of normal diffusion of rhodamine-labeled bovine serum albumin, green fluorescence protein, and immunoglobulin G molecules in aqueous solutions of varying viscosity.

Polarization and properties of low-frequency waves in warm magnetized two-fluid plasma

This paper presents the derivation of a general wave dispersion relation for warm magnetized plasma under the two-fluid formalism. The discussion is quite general except for the assumption of low frequency and slow phase speed, for which the displacement current is negligible, under the implicit assumption that the plasma is sufficiently dense to satisfy the condition ωpe>ωce, where ωpe and ωce denote the plasma oscillation frequency and electron gyro frequency, respectively. The present discussion does not invoke charge neutrality associated with the fluctuations although it is implicitly satisfied. The resulting dispersion relation that includes the fluid thermal effects shows that there are three eigen modes, which include those corresponding to ideal MHD, namely, fast, slow, and kinetic Alfvén waves, as well as higher-frequency modes including the ion and electron cyclotron and lower-hybrid resonances. The fluid effects in the ideal MHD wave branches are influenced by the finite Larmor radius scales, and when the wave number in the cross field direction is comparable to these values, the fluid effects become significant. It is found that the Larmor radius should be interpreted in the sense as ion-acoustic gyro-radius instead of ion thermal gyro radius only. That is, it is found that the electrons also contribute to the non-ideal effect associated with the kinetic Alfvén wave. A comprehensive explanation of the polarization of each mode is also presented. The present findings indicate that the polarity may change its sign only for the kinetic Alfvén mode branch and that such a transition is based on the propagation angle. When such a change does take place, it is found that the kinetic Alfvén wave transits to an ion-acoustic mode. For each branch, it is also found that the electric field along the ambient magnetic field is purely transverse.

Classicality and Bell’s theorem

A widespread view among physicists is that Bell’s theorem rests on an implicit assumption of “classicality,” in addition to locality. According to this understanding, the violation of Bell’s inequalities poses no challenge to locality, but simply reinforces the fact that quantum mechanics is not classical. The paper provides a critical analysis of this view. First we characterize the notion of classicality in probabilistic terms. We argue that classicality thus construed has nothing to do with the validity of classical physics, nor of classical probability theory, contrary to what many believe. At the same time, we show that the probabilistic notion of classicality is not an additional premise of Bell’s theorem, but a mathematical corollary of locality in conjunction with the standard auxiliary assumptions of Bell. Accordingly, any theory that claims to get around the derivation of Bell’s inequalities by giving up classicality, in fact has to give up one of those standard assumptions. As an illustration of this, we look at two recent interpretations of quantum mechanics, Reinhard Werner’s operational quantum mechanics and Robert Griffiths’ consistent histories approach, that are claimed to be local and non-classical, and identify which of the standard assumptions of Bell’s theorem each of them is forced to give up. We claim that while in operational quantum mechanics the Common Cause Principle is violated, the consistent histories approach is conspiratorial. Finally, we relate these two options to the idea of realism, a notion that is also often identified as an implicit assumption of Bell’s theorem.

Benchmarking bed and breakfast industry in a sharing economy: a frontier-based technology forecasting approach

The sharing economy affords new opportunities to the global tourism industry, accelerating the development of tourism at a striking rate. This paper examines productivity of the bed and breakfast (B&B) industry and how to improve the performance of the B&B industry in a sharing economy. A modified global Malmquist index using slack-based measures is developed to measure productivity, and benchmark selection models using technology forecasting are proposed to improve future performance. The future technology is forecasted by averaging the frontier shifts (technology changes) in previous periods. This study challenges the implicit assumption that the technology will be stationary in traditional benchmarking, and suggests that how the information of frontier shifts derived from Malmquist index can be used to forecast future technology in a rational manner. The empirical results inform that there is a productivity growth in the B&B industry in a sharing economy, and the main driver of the growth is technology progress rather than performance improvement. In particular, a counterintuitive but interesting result is that the B&B industry experienced a slight productivity growth after the outbreak of COVID-19. The benchmarks in 2021 and 2022 are forecasted to improve the performance of the B&B industry.