Pessimistic Evaluation Research Articles

Fearful snake pictures make monkeys pessimistic

Judgment bias is the cognitive tendency of animals experiencing negative (or positive) affect to expect undesirable (or favorable) outcomes in ambiguous situations. The lack of examination of judgment biases induced by ecologically relevant stimuli hampers our understanding of the adaptive role of these biases. We examined whether predator-related stimuli, i.e., pictures of snakes, induce a pessimistic judgment bias in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Our subjects underwent a touchscreen-based Go/No-go judgment bias test. We found that the subjects were less likely and slower to make Go responses to ambiguous stimuli after viewing the snake pictures, indicating that pictures of snakes induce a pessimistic evaluation of ambiguous stimuli. In environments with high levels of threat, behavioral strategies that reduce risk-taking would be evolutionarily advantageous. Hence, an affective response system that lowers expectations of favorable outcomes in ambiguous situations after encountering threat-related stimuli would serve adaptive purposes, such as curbing excessive exploratory behavior.

Henry Adams’s Protean Views of the American Empire, 1890–1905

AbstractIn the history of the Gilded Age and its geopolitics, Henry Adams has a reputation for being an imperialist. While not universally subscribed to by historians, this characterization has waxed sufficiently as to eclipse Adams’s more complex, even contradictory, record on the American Empire. The evidence I will marshal will not prove that Adams was actually an anti-imperialist, but it will reveal the protean nature of Adams’s views of the American Empire. To get a grip on this relatively unexamined aspect of Adams’s thought, I will analyze his correspondence during the last decade of the nineteenth century in which he criticized the extension of American power across the Pacific, particularly in regard to its political economy, religion, and civilization. With the onset of the American Filipino War, Adams raged at the news of American atrocities. This paper shows that Adams’s outrage was part of an incipient civilizational ideology, one that neither materialized into an attachment to the anti-imperialist cause nor accepted the vaunted superiority of the West. Even though Adams possessed no principle to guide his thinking on the empire, his pessimistic evaluation of the extension of American power is enough to reconsider his reputation as an imperialist.

Increasing Importance of Risk Management in the Context of Solid Waste Sphere Reforming in Russian Regions

This article analyzes the risk factors influencing the achievement of solid waste sphere reforming goals in Russia. The given arguments present the current state of the reform as not very effective from an economic, environmental, and social perspective. The authors identify four groups of risk factors and put forward, as a critical condition for successful reform, the availability of reliable information, as well as risk management incorporated in the decision-making process. The basis for the research execution was the information from the regional solid waste sphere Master Plans and expert opinions on the readiness to achieve the reform goal regarding 100% MSW sorting based on the staff performance, public awareness, technology availability, and tariff validity assessments. The authors use a decision tree method and MSW sorting system development scenarios to provide the pessimistic and optimistic evaluation on the potential for fulfilling the reform tasks. The conclusions indicate the unattainability of the goals set by the Russian authorities for MSW sorting by 2030. The authors propose to change the status of risk factors through the implementation of certain measures for the transition from a negative to a positive scenario of reforming and to set the realistic goals for MSW sorting in Russia.

Single-cluster systematic sampling designs for shark catch size composition in a Central American longline fishery

Sampling designs for collection of shark size composition data are needed to fill one of the primary knowledge gaps hampering management of shark fisheries in Central America. These designs need to be tailored towards multi-species fisheries with highly structured landings, which are driven by buyer demand in port. In addition, due to the difficulty of maintaining catch quality outdoors in a tropical environment, the designs ideally would have minimal impact on the often-rapid catch landing process. In this study, simulations based on data from exhaustively sampled landings of Costa Rican mediana escala (78 landings) and avanzada (21 landings) commercial longline vessels were used to test single-cluster systematic sampling designs for estimating size (commercial weight category) composition of retained catches of shark species, as well as of other taxa present in landings with sharks. The wide range in numbers of sharks per landing led to sampling designs for which the frequency of within-landing sampling depended on the number of sharks to be landed. Designs for shark-only sampling and sampling of all taxa were tested. For the mediana escala fleet component, these designs performed well in terms of absolute relative error (ARE) for common species in the landings, including the silky shark, the dominant shark species, and swordfish, striped marlin and yellowfin tuna. There was less than a 5% chance that the ARE would exceed 0.2 for most weight categories of these species, even at the lowest sampling frequency. For all but the large weight category of striped marlin, there was only a 2% chance (or less) that the ARE would exceed 0.3. These results suggest that a single sampling design can be implemented for this fleet component to obtain estimates of the size composition of common shark and non-shark species, alike, in landings with sharks. For relatively uncommon shark species in the landings, such as hammerhead and the pelagic thresher sharks, the same sampling designs generally resulted in higher ARE, except for the dominant weight categories (small hammerhead sharks and large pelagic thresher sharks). However, the level of error itself associated with these designs may still be acceptable, depending on management needs; ARE can provide an overly pessimistic evaluation of performance for uncommon species. For landings of the avanzada fleet component, the performance of the shark-only sampling scenarios for the silky shark was generally similar to the results obtained for the mediana escala fleet component, except for the large weight category, although performance for this weight category, as measured by error, might still be acceptable. However, differences in performance between the shark-only and the all-fish scenarios for the silky shark raise the concern that the number of landings of avanzada vessels available for this analysis may be too small to make a definitive statement about sampling design performance for this fleet component. Development of sampling designs for the avanzada fleet component would benefit from an increase in sample size for analysis and a more detailed study of landing characteristics.

Rola ascetyzmu w antropologii filozoficznej Henryka Elzenberga

The aim of this article is the reconstruction, analysis and presentation of Henryk Elzenberg’s philosophy of the human being, with particular emphasis on his concept of asceticism. Elzenberg’s philosophical anthropology is based on the pessimistic evaluation of reality, which itself is founded on the negative evaluation of human nature. Human nature is corrupt because of the primary will of humanity, which is selfish and self-seeking and which strives only for utilitarian values. The overcoming of pessimism is possible by the transformation of self-seeking will, and asceticism is a remedy which enables human beings to see and realise true, perfectionist values. Asceticism can overcome basic instincts, which pull human nature down to the animal-like state of being. In Elzenberg’s philosophical anthropology, asceticism creates culture and culture grants humanity to humans, which is a trope similar to the ancient conception of paideia.

Anticipatory Futures: Framing the Socio-technical Visions of Online Ratings and Reviews inWired

AbstractDrawing insights from the sociology of expectations and recent studies on future visions in communication studies, this article traces and analyzes how Wired—a technology news provider and socio-technical vanguard whose vision is to uncover technological innovations—anticipated socio-technical visions of online ratings and reviews over two decades (1998–2018). The qualitative textual analysis of Wired’s coverage revealed two socio-technical visions, namely, promissory futures and problematic futures. The former embraced neoliberal discourses of consumer empowerment and accountability, whereas the latter entailed a pessimistic evaluation of the manipulation of online ratings and the potential of adopting online ratings beyond e-commerce platforms. The visions represented in Wired largely followed the logic of “technological solutionism.” This study affords opportunities for thinking about the role of popular media discourses and temporalities in shaping imagined futures of emerging technologies.

Co-constructed oppositional stance and facework in an office hour interaction

AbstractStance plays a salient role in communicating interpersonal meaning through language use. Understanding stance as co-constructed within dialogic interaction uncovers subtleties of how interlocutors use language to express their subjectivities and thus, negotiate their interpersonal relationship. The notion of face and facework, or relational work (Locher 2004), is therefore relevant to the understanding of stance in interaction. Drawing on Du Bois’ (2007) stance triangle, our study analyzes oppositional stance in a single, extended interaction and shows how two interlocutors in an academic setting jointly construct oppositional stance, each by drawing on their own interpretations. Our analysis indicates that this co-constructed oppositional stance is enacted throughout three broader stages, which we call initiation, negotiation, and resolution. We also demonstrate that expressing oppositional stance is a complex process where interlocutors employ various discourse strategies to express pessimistic evaluation, shifting positionings, and (dis)alignment. Meanwhile, instances of oppositional stance become face-maintaining and face-challenging at different stages in which directness and indirectness are variably employed.

A Descriptive Study on Attitudes Toward Local Health Resource Allocation: The Case of Chongqing Province in China

Background: The variance of attitudes among stakeholders of health resource allocation has rarely been reported because health officials play a dominant role in most countries with implicit rationing. Objectives: The aim of this descriptive study is to explore the priority-setting value in local health resource allocation in the province of Chongqing, China. Methods: To test the local health rationing values in Chongqing, a survey was conducted on attitudes through a self-administered Likert scale questionnaire. The data were collected from February 1, 2013 to August 30, 2016. Attitudes among respondents (174 health officials and 480 health workers) were analyzed and compared through convenience sampling with the help of the local health bureau by using IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0. Results: The mean values of officials’ self-perception and health workers’ assessment were opposite, with a coherent and optimistic perception from officials (most mean values > 4) versus a varied and pessimistic evaluation among health workers (most mean values < 3). Officials ranked highly on the severity of the disease, the fair distribution of resources, and public satisfaction, while health workers gave all the items of the questionnaires below 3 points. Officials ranked deemed the procedural process fair and officials depended more on themselves and public hospitals for health rationing, while the health workers prefer media and scholars. Value-based preferences for priority setting between the two groups were quite different. Conclusions: The study concludes that local health rationing in Chongqing is a matter of political and value preference rather than an evidence-based decision. Officials were not willing to share their rationing power, and the lower evaluation of health workers than officials’ assessment may result from insufficient participation.

불완전정보하의 다요소의사결정을 위한 일반화된 선형계획법

This study is concerned with the use of incomplete information on both decision alternative scores and importance weights in multiple attribute decision making (MADM). Incomplete information implies various forms of ordinal and bound data on the alternative scores and weights, which often occurs in practice. In the case of incomplete information, two different mathematical programming models can be built to evaluate the alternatives, both of which become nonlinear programming problems. One scenario seeks to evaluate an alternative in the best scenario for the given incomplete information, also referred as the most optimistic evaluation approach. By contrast, the other scenario seeks the worst scenario, referred as the most pessimistic approach. The earlier work has resolved the optimistic evaluation problem, which transforms the nonlinear model into a linear programming model. However, knowing how to solve the pessimistic evaluation problem remains unclear for MADM with incomplete information. We therefore show in this study that the generalized linear programming techniques can solve the pessimistic evaluation problem, which alters the nonlinear model into a class of linear programming models. This scheme accomplishes a more complete evaluation because the non-dominated alternative evaluated under the worst scenario is superior to the non-dominated alternatives under the best scenario. An application of the software selection problem is also demonstrated.

A comparative study on interval arithmetic operations with intuitionistic fuzzy numbers for solving an intuitionistic fuzzy multi–objective linear programming problem

Abstract In a real world situation, whenever ambiguity exists in the modeling of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs), interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs) are often used in order to represent a range of IFNs unstable from the most pessimistic evaluation to the most optimistic one. IVIFNs are a construction which helps us to avoid such a prohibitive complexity. This paper is focused on two types of arithmetic operations on interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs) to solve the interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy multi-objective linear programming problem with pentagonal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (PIFNs) by assuming different α and β cut values in a comparative manner. The objective functions involved in the problem are ranked by the ratio ranking method and the problem is solved by the preemptive optimization method. An illustrative example with MATLAB outputs is presented in order to clarify the potential approach.

Sovereign debt and incentives to default with uninsurable risks

Sovereign debt is not sustainable even in the presence of uninsurable risks; which extends the result of Bulow and Rogoff (1989). But the argument is not as general. Indeed, examples show that positive borrowing may be enforced even though the sovereign’s natural debt limits, corresponding to the most pessimistic evaluation of future endowment, are finite. Unsustainable sovereign debt in incomplete asset markets requires a strong version of high implied interest rates: the value of the most optimistic evaluation of future endowment is finite Keywords: Sovereign risk, Ponzi games, Reputational debt, Incomplete markets. JEL Classification: F34, H63.

Does knowledge of fetal outcome influence the interpretation of intrapartum cardiotocography and subsequent clinical management? A multicentre European study.

To investigate whether knowledge of fetal outcome influences retrospective interpretation of cardiotocographic tracings and subsequent management recommendations. Prospective online study. Seven university hospitals in five European countries. Forty-two intrapartum tracings from women with singleton pregnancies and uneventful antepartum courses. Using an online questionnaire, 123 healthcare professionals interpreted 42 tracings without any knowledge of fetal outcome and provided management recommendations according to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence guidelines (intrapartum care). Two months later, 93 of the 123 participants re-interpreted the same re-ordered tracings, this time with information on the newborn's umbilical artery pH. Comparison of the evaluation of tracing features, overall tracing classification, and management recommendations between the initial analysis and re-interpretation. In newborns with umbilical artery pH ≤ 7.05, knowledge of the pH value led to significant changes in the evaluation of all basic tracing features. In this group, classification of tracings as 'normal' decreased 76% (8.8-2.1%, P < 0.001), whereas classification as 'pathologic' increased 51% (44.7-67.5%, P < 0.001). In newborns with pH 7.06-7.19, classification of tracings as 'normal' decreased 36% (22.4-14.4%, P < 0.001), and in those with pH ≥ 7.20, classification of tracings as 'pathologic' decreased 40% (23.4-14.1%, P < 0.001). In the group of newborns with umbilical artery pH ≤ 7.05, the recommendations 'no attention needed' decreased 75% (10.2-2.6%, P < 0.001), and the number of recommendations 'rapid reversal of hypoxic cause or immediate delivery' increased 70.3% (42.1-71.7%, P < 0.001). When provided with information on adverse fetal outcome, healthcare professionals provide a more pessimistic evaluation of basic tracing features, overall classification, and clinical management recommendations. Knowledge of adverse fetal outcome leads to more pessimistic CTG evaluation and management recommendations.

Strategic Uncertainty and Missile Defence: Revisiting the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate

Strategic uncertainty remains a significant challenge for defence planners and national leaders responsible for developing and acquiring future military capabilities. Concerns in the United States over missile proliferation during the 1990s were embodied in the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which predicted the emergence of a long-range ballistic missile threat by 2015. Comparing the NIEs predictions with the actual evolution of the threat reveals not only an overly pessimistic evaluation but also politicization of the intelligence assessment. At the time of its release, the report added to a growing sense of vulnerability and further encouraged policy-makers to make suboptimal missile defence acquisition decisions. In particular, the worst-case scenario thinking exemplified by the 1999 NIE contributed to an unnecessarily rushed testing programme, the premature deployment of homeland missile defence and an oversized system in Europe. Although missile defence may have strategic value, the rush to deploy has resulted in a costly and less effective military capability due to unfounded fears of strategic surprise and entrenched notions of the ballistic missile threat. Strategic uncertainty will always be a challenge, but focusing solely on developing capabilities with less regard to the actual threat environment is a recipe for costly and ineffective weapons systems.

We are not alone: Extraterrestrial Technological Life in our Galaxy

This paper is an evaluation of the number of technological civilizations presently in our Milky Way galaxy. The current estimate of the present number of Earth-like planets (± 25% of Earth’s radius) in the habitable region of Sunlike stars is about 6.6 billion. Using a modified Drake Equation, “optimistic”, “pessimistic” and “unlikely” estimates of six constraints indicate that about 40,000 technological civilizations are presently in our galaxy for a “pessimistic evaluation”. Even “unlikely” values that are half the “pessimistic” values give over 600 technological civilizations in the galaxy. It would take a completely unrealistic value of 2.5% for each constraint to get just 1 technology (us). “Therefore, we are almost surely not alone in our Milky Way galaxy”. Furthermore, almost all of the extra-solar system technologies are probably much further advanced than ours, i.e., they probably began thousands to millions of years before our Industrial Revolution. It is possible, but highly uncertain, that we have been visited by one or more of these civilizations.

A Zealous (but Respected) Adversary: John Lewis's Correspondence with John Wesley

Abstract This article contains annotated transcriptions of several previously unknown letters between John Wesley and Revd John Lewis of Holt, Wiltshire, in the mid-1740s. Holt's letters articulate the concerns of a typical Anglican parish priest about irregular ecclesial practices and some doctrinal emphases of the Methodist revival. Wesley's responses contain his most frank (or pessimistic) evaluation of Anglican clergy—that two thirds of those he has known are ‘blind leaders of the blind, dumb dogs that cannot bark, priests of Baal rather than God’. Together the letters provide an instructive window into the reception of early Methodism.

Evaluation and Selection of Alternatives for the Promotion of Sustainable Urban Mobility

This study aims at the adjustment and application of a strategy to assess and select alternatives for improving the mobility conditions of a city. The approach was tested in the city of Itajubá, MG, Brazil, as follows: i) assessment of the current conditions, as given by the Index of Sustainable Urban Mobility, and ii) application of a strategy designed to indicate alternatives for the improvement of the mobility conditions in a sustainable way. The overall value of the index in Itajubá was 0.452, in a scale varying from zero to one. The comparison of this value with the results of reference cities, such as Curitiba (0.754) and Uberlândia (0.714), indicates an important difference. However, the approach seems to indicate lines of action for the improvement of mobility, given that it allows a fast identification of positive or negative points raised by the experts. Based on the results obtained, it can be assumed that the level, activity or profession of the participant will influence the results. In this case, for example, the external specialist presented a more pessimistic evaluation than the manager. Keeping in mind the viability of these responses, every change proposal must take into consideration the potential evaluator bias. It is evident that, if the number of evaluators is substantially raised, these discrepancies tend to diminish, and would also enable the analysis using mean values.

The Justice Ayre in the Border Sheriffdoms, 1493–1498

This article examines the administration of justice in the southern part of the kingdom during the first decade of James IV's reign. It does so through an analysis of the earliest surviving records of the justice ayre, for Lauder (1493), Jedburgh (1493), Jedburgh (1495), Selkirk (1495) and Peebles (1498). The character, intended purpose and provenance of the records is discussed. The function of the itinerant court is assessed, including how it worked with royal and seigneurial officials, and its relationship to regalian jurisdictions. The numbers of cases, outcomes and types of offences are examined, noting differences with the statutory record, especially with reference to the classification of theft and homicide. Comment is made on the process of pardon, highlighting the ways in which royal mercy could precede assythement, and the steps preliminary to remission. The extent to which a culture of private vengeance, feud and compensation can be detected in these records, and how this related to the ambitions and mechanisms of royal justice, underpins a cautiously pessimistic evaluation of this system.

Reduced risk-taking behavior as a trait feature of anxiety.

Affect can have a significant influence on decision-making processes and subsequent choice. One particularly relevant type of negative affect is anxiety, which serves to enhance responses to threatening stimuli or situations. In its exaggerated form, it can lead to psychiatric disorders, with detrimental consequences for quality of life, including the ability to make choices. This study investigated, for the first time, how pathological anxiety affects risk-taking behavior. In this study, 20 anxious participants meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria for either generalized anxiety disorder (n = 10) and for panic attack disorder (n = 10), as well as 20 matched nonanxious controls, performed a gambling task. To investigate the tendency toward either a risk-seeking or a risk-averse behavior, we employed a task that did not allow for learning from outcomes. Anxious participants made significantly fewer risky choices than matched nonanxious participants. Specifically, they become risk-avoidant after gains. Moreover, anxious participants not only were less happy after gains but were also less sad after losses, and they also evinced less desire to change their choices after losses than did nonanxious participants. Importantly, whereas the desire to switch choice was followed by actual choice switch for all participants, happiness directly predicted subsequent risky choices, particularly in the nonanxious participants. Further analyses revealed that the anxious participants' risk-avoidance behavior was independent of different types of anxiety disorder (panic attack disorder and generalized anxiety disorder) as well as of the effects of psychotropic drugs treatment. This study demonstrates a specific role for anxiety in individual decision making. In particular, hypersensitivity to potential threats and pessimistic evaluation of future events reduced risk-taking behavior.

Implications of uncertainty in the spawner–recruitment relationship for fisheries management: An illustration using bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) in the eastern Pacific Ocean

The impacts of the steepness parameter of the Beverton–Holt spawner–recruitment curve on fisheries stock assessment and management performance were evaluated, using data for bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The analysis was conducted using the Stock Synthesis model. The estimates of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and related management reference points are sensitive to the value of steepness (ranging from 0.4 to 1.0) of the Beverton–Holt spawner–recruitment relationship assumed in the assessment model. Steepness also impacts the evaluation of stock status. A lesser value assumed for steepness leads to a more pessimistic evaluation of the stock status regarding whether the stock is overfished or overfishing is occurring. However, a lesser value does not reduce the estimates of MSY due to the interaction between steepness and the estimates of other model parameters. When managing the stock under effort limitation using MSY-based fishing mortality, a lower assumption of steepness yields less expected losses in catch than does a higher assumption. This is due to the flatness of the yield curve when the steepness is high. A lower assumption of steepness also maintains a higher level of spawning biomass and recruitment.

On the irrationality of mind-uploading: a rely to Neil Levy

In a paper in this journal, Neil Levy challenges Nicholas Agar’s argument for the irrationality of mind-uploading. Mind-uploading is a futuristic process that involves scanning brains and recording relevant information which is then transferred into a computer. Its advocates suppose that mind-uploading transfers both human minds and identities from biological brains into computers. According to Agar’s original argument, mind-uploading is prudentially irrational. Success relies on the soundness of the program of Strong AI—the view that it may someday be possible to build a computer that is capable of thought. Strong AI may in fact be false, an eventuality with dire consequences for mind-uploading. Levy argues that Agar’s argument relies on mistakes about the probability of failed mind-uploading and underestimates what is to be gained from successfully mind-uploading. This paper clarifies Agar’s original claims about the likelihood of mind-uploading failure and offers further defense of a pessimistic evaluation of success.