Methodological Revolution Research Articles

Recent Advances in Simulation of Dendritic Polymers

AbstractDendrimers and hyperbranched polymers represent a revolution in methodology for directed synthesis of monodisperse polymers with enormous possibility of novel architectures. They demonstrate ability to attain micelle-like structures with distinct internal and external character. Furthermore polyfunctional character of dendrimers allows varied response to environment and promise as selective sensors, carrier for drugs, encapsulation of toxic chemicals and metals. One of the key problems are the characterization of the structures. Theory and simulation can be essential to provide and predict structure and properties. Here, we present some recent advances in theory, modeling and simulation of dendritic polymers.

Pareto and Political Economy as a Science: Methodological Revolution and Analytical Advances in Economic Theory in the 1890s

It is argued that Schumpeter's widely accepted judgment that Pareto's work is “completely rooted in Walras's system” constitutes a misreading of Pareto. In fact, already during the period 1892–1900, Pareto traces the methodological outlines of an economic science profoundly different from that of Walras. It is maintained that his methodological contribution represents an attempt to define the conditions for political economy to be a science. In this context, Pareto examines the theoretical premises of economic theories and questions the hypotheses of perfect foresight and rationality. The ordinalist hypothesis is also shown to be a consequence of these methodological reflections.

Does Rehabilitation in Psychiatry Have Scientific Foundations?

Not only the specific approaches to but also the theoretical prospects attendant upon the psychotic experience in its various constitutive dimensions have been radically transformed by a rehabilitation that sees itself not only as a therapeutic but also as an epistemological model. There can be no true rehabilitation in psychiatry without a Copernican methodological revolution that brackets what is pathological and, at the same time, inserts the social field, with its diverse interpersonal and environmental articulations, into the context of the illness (together with the accidents of its historical pathomorphosis) and endeavors to integrate the pharmacotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic argument with the rehabilitative one. Indeed, a radical psychiatry must necessarily be a social psychiatry [4]: it must, of course, deal with the person of the patient, but that person as it is directly and permanently immersed in its world: the world of interpersonal relations.

The place of metaphysics in the historiography of science

Legitimating the use of metaphysics in scientific research constituted a farreaching methodological revolution, invalidating the inductivist demands that science be guided by empirical information alone. Thus, science became tentative. The revolution was established when pioneering historians of science, Max Jammer among them, exhibited the working of metaphysics in scientific research. This raises many problems, since most metaphysical ideas are poor as compared with scientific ones. Yet taking science to be the effort to explain facts in a comprehensive manner, makes some metaphysics unavoidable, and presents the better metaphysics as the possible frameworks within which older scientific theories may be reinterpreted and improved and newer ones may be developed.

Real Business Cycle Analysis: A Needed Revolution in Macroeconometrics

The contention of this paper is that real business cycle (RBC) analysis has highlighted fundamental flaws in the underlying macroeconomic theory and econometric methodology of traditional macroeconometric model building, but by stating its message crudely and proposing an inferior statistical procedure has failed to receive the recognition it deserves. Properly understood, the lessons to be learned from RBC analysis, combined with the new approach of bringing evidence to bear proposed here, would amount to a revolution in macroeconometric methodology. The outcome of this revolution would be a macroeconometrics better based on macroeconomic theory, and a macroeconomics more consistent with the evidence. The main failing of most macroeconometric models is in not taking macroeconomic theory seriously enough with the result that little or nothing is learned about key parameter values, a fault no amount of econometric sophistication will compensate for. Consequently, macroeconometrics has had surprisingly little influence on macroeconomic theory (or macroeconomics teaching), and even the main users of macroeconometric models business, government, the monetary authorities and other national and international bodies are reluctant to employ them for anything other than short-term forecasting. The popular view of RBC analysis is that it is about whether technology shocks are the predominant cause of aggregate output fluctuations, and whether calibration rather than standard econometric methods should be used to analyse this question. Although this may be a reasonable description of the initial work of Kydland and Prescott (I982) and Prescott (i 986), subsequent developments make it outdated and obscure its fundamental insights. In fact RBC theory is part of a research programme which can be traced back to Ramsey and is associated in modern times with Lucas, in which the aim is to bring out the general equilibrium, inter-temporal, characteristics of macroeconomics before turning to (the more difficult) issues of disequilibrium. In large part the stimuli for adopting the Ramsey approach were the now well known criticisms of macroeconometric models made by Lucas (I976) who argued that macroeconomics should be built on the same theoretical foundations as microeconomics. In addition to the weak theoretical foundations of these models, Lucas objected to the way in which the econometric methods used lent themselves to ambiguous interpretations. A good example of this is the difficulty of deciding what meaning to give to observed dynamics. The new

The inexact and separate science of economics

List of figures Introduction Part I. Introduction, Structure and Strategy: 1. Rationality and utility theory 2. Demand and consumer choice 3. The theory of the firm and general equilibrium 4. Equilibrium theory and economic welfare 5. Models and theories in economics 6. The structure and strategy of economics 7. Overlapping generations: a case study Part II. Theory Assessment: 8. Inexactness in economic theory 9. Methodological revolution 10. Karl Popper and falsificationism in economics 11. Imre Lakatos and economic methodology 12. Economics as an inexact and separate science 13. On dogmatism in economics: the case of preference reversals Part III. Conclusion: 14. Economic methodology 15 Conclusions Appendix: an introduction to philosophy of science Bibliography Index.

Game Theory and Economic Modelling

Over the past two decades, academic economics has undergone a mild revolution in methodology. The language, concepts and techniques of noncooperative game theory have become central to the discipline. This book provides the reader with some basic concepts from noncooperative theory, and then goes on to explore the strengths, weaknesses, and future of the theory as a tool of economic modelling and analysis. The central theses are that noncooperative game theory has been a remarkably popular tool in economics over the past decade because it allows analysts to capture essential features of dynamic competition and competition where some parties have proprietary information. The theory is weakest in providing a sense of when it - and equilibrium analysis in particular - can be applied and what to do when equilibrium analysis is inappropriate. Many of these weaknesses can be addressed by the consideration of individuals who are boundedly rational and learn imperfectly from the past. Written in a non-technical style and working by analogy, the book, first given as part of the Clarendon Lectures in Economics, is readily accessible to a broad audience and will be of interest to economists and students alike. Knowledge of game theory is not required as the concepts are developed as the book progresses.

A note on comparison of nonlinear least squares algorithms

The nonlinear least squares problem is a special case of the unconstrained minimization problem. While a large number of new algorithms have been developed in recent years, both for general unconstrained minimization and the least squares case, comparative studies are limited. Further, there has been practically a revolution in algorithm testing and comparison methodology. Recent advances include a more comprehensive performance criteria, use of large numbers of randomly generated test problems, and application of sophisticated statistical techniques for experiment design and data evaluation.These developments have made questionable the findings of the few earlier comparative studies of least squares algorithms. This creates a necessity of a comparative study employing current methodology that evaluates the specialized least squares algorithms along with a few general algorithms for unconstrained minimization.

The Illusion of the Economic Margin

The concept of the margin, its place in economic optimization analysis, and its canonicity in decision-making criteria lie at the heart of the neoclassical system of thought. In a remarkably clear manner following the Ricardian methodological revolution at the beginning of the 19th century, when the notion of the margin found its way into the theory of production and rent, it became a central building block in the neoclassical edifice.1 The concept of the margin has been combined, in a wide variety of analyses and applications, with two other ideas or assumptions: first, the notion of rational behavior by economic agents and decision-makers; and second, that of the equilibrium position or conjuncture of rest to which economic forces could be expected to drive the system. Rationality, equilibrium, and the economic margin have forged an analytical commonalty among the practitioners of the discipline and have acquired a sacrosanct, if not a sine qua non, status (Bausor, 1985). Our objective in this note is not to survey developments under any of these headings. A sharper focus is in view. Our central question follows from an examination of the meaning and the analytical usefulness of the behavior functions from which the significance of the margin is generally

Les grandes lignes d'une histoire culturelle de la psychologie politique

The hypothesis of J. van Ginneken is that political psychology was developed through a long historical process in Europe and in USA since the 1860-1870 period. In this article he shows that political psychology was born as an answer to specific needs of countries in the midst of transformation. Thus, the emergence of individuals with the liberty of choice and political instability in France and authoritarianism in Germany brought very important texts from Le Bon to Freud. Finally, the profound changes which occurred in the 20th century established political psychology and allowed the methodological revolutions which led to survey techniques.

RICARDO'S MANTLE*

This paper analyzes the recent debate over Ricardian economics and assesses its implications for both the history of thought and modern economics. It is argued that Mantle is worth fighting for because lineages in ideas form the implicit bedrock of assumptions which condition the framing of explicit models. The methodological chasms involved in interpretation are explored by developing skeletal versions of the traditional model and S. Hollander's new view. The importance ascribed to the Corn Laws debate in forming Ricardo's system is seen to be central and Hollander 's unfamiliar Ricardo is argued to rest on a methodological revolution in interpretation. Copyright 1986 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd/University of Adelaide and Flinders University of South Australia

An Interview with Woodrow Borah

HIS interview was conducted by representatives of two generations of students who worked with Woodrow Borah, one in the 196os and one in the 198os. To work with Borah was to be constantly involved in an implicitly intellectual duel wherein students sought to avoid Borah's thrusts with parries and thrusts of their own. Elegance of statement and repartee highlighted Borah's approach. Many history graduate students at Berkeley shied from these gruelling duels, and his seminar students often came from outside the Department of History. While undergraduate students remarked on his reputation as a severe grader, large numbers nevertheless filled his classes to enjoy his trenchant lectures. Woodrow Borah trained in interdisciplinary studies during the 1930s, and belongs to that generation of scholars whose work in the post-World War II decades transformed the study of Latin American Taught by such prominent scholars as Carl 0. Sauer and Lesley Byrd Simpson, he had made their approaches into a bridge for generations emerging from Berkeley in the 196os and 1970s. Within the general tradition of historical inquiry, Borah is an innovator in the use of source material and methodology. He pioneered, with Sherburne F. Cook, the use of time-series statistical documentation and methods of treating it. That he would initiate a revolution in methodology and spark much of the controversy that has occurred within Latin American during the last thirty years, surprises him. He sees his own work conservatively, stressing as he does the fundamental continuity of scholarship as well as the fundamental continuity of Mexican history.

Exploring reliability data

AbstractDespite the recent revolution in statistical thinking and methodology. practical reliability analysis and assessment remains almost exclusively based on a black‐box approach employing parametric statistical techniques and significance tests. Such practice, which is largely automatic for the industrial practitioner, implicity involves a large number of physically unreasonable assumptions that in practice are rarely met. Extensive investigation of reliability source data indicates a variety of differing data structures, which contradict the assumptions implicit in the usual methodology. As well as these, lack of homogeneity in the data, due, for instance, to multiple failure modes or misdefinition of environment, is commonly overlooked by the standard methodology.In this paper we argue the case for exploring reliability data. The pattern revealed by such exploration of a data set provides intrinsic information which helps to reinforce and reinterpret the engineering knowledge about the physical nature of the technological system to which the data refers. Employed in this way, the data analyst and the reliability engineer are partners in an iterative process aimed towards the greater understanding of the system and the process of failure. Despite current standard practice, the authors believe it to be critical that the structure of data analysis must reflect the structure in the failure data. Although standard methodology provides an easy and repeatable analysis, the authors' experience indicates that it is rarely an appropriate one. It is ironic that whereas methods to analyse the data structures commonly found in reliability data have been available for some time, the insistence about the standard black‐box approach has prevented the identification of such ‘abnormal’ features in reliability data and the application of these approaches. We discuss simple graphical procedures to investigate the structure of reliability data, as well as more formal testing procedures which assist in decision‐making methodology. Partial reviews of such methods have appeared previously and a more detailed development of the exploration approach and of the appropriate analysis it implies will be dealt with elsewhere. Here, our aim is to argue the case for the reliability analyst to LOOK AT THE DATA. and to analyse it accordingly.

Early American Intellectual History After Perry Miller

It is one of the pecular ironies of current American historiography that intellectual historians have turned increasingly from writing the history of ideas to writing about the history of ideas.1 During the 1940s and 1950s intel- lectual historians such as Merle Curti, Ralph Gabriel, Richard Hofstadter and Perry Miller led the profession away from the economic determinism of the Progressive historians toward a new synthesis which emphasized political consensus and the unity and uniqueness of the American past.2 The preemi- nence of the history of ideas, however, was short lived. A near revolution in methodology during the 1960s elevated social history to the cutting edge of the profession and precipitated the demise of intellectual history as a coherent field. Intellectual historians have now begun to join their colleagues in turn- ing to the social sciences—psychology, sociology and anthropology—to rejuvenate the field, and they are writing more frequently about the history of ideas in order to evaluate the work which has relied on methodologies from other disciplines.3 Whereas earlier intellectual historians aspired to a literary mastery of their sources, their successors have become obsessed with method and technique.

On Revolutions and Progress in Economic Knowledge

The wealth of nations and the smithian revolution James Mill and richardian economics - a methodological revolution? the decline and fall of English classical political economy and the Jevonian revolution the Jevonian revolution and economic policy in Britain the Keynesian revolution and the history of economic thought demythologizing the Keynesian revolution - Pigou, wage-cuts, and the general theory the Keynesian revolution, uncertainty, and deductive general theory economists and the history of economics - revolutionary and traditional versions on recent revolutionary versions of hte history of economics on the influence and effects on poloicies of economic ideas and theories on revolutions and progress in economic knowledge - definitions and conclusions.

Dame Kathleen Kenyon 1906-1978

A giant in the land who brought about a revolution in methodology in Palestinian archeology with her introduction of stratigraphic controls and carefully limited excavcations.

The Mormon Genealogical Society and Research Opportunities in Early American History

T t HE study of American history has experienced conceptual and methodological revolutions in recent years. Scholars in increasing numbers are combining statistical computation with traditional literary sources to effect more comprehensive historical portraits; important work is going forward in such areas as demography, prosopography, and family reconstitution. Since the method often determines the message, there has been a trend toward microcosmic analysis; close examinations of towns, counties, and kinship groups have appreciably altered our perspectives on cultural life, social structure, wealth distribution, and political activity. As readers of this journal are well aware, some of the earliest and finest community and family studies have been done in the field of early American history. Practitioners of the new social history face special difficulties in research. The vital statistics, court records, deeds, local government registers, and like sources are voluminous. But these records often repose in distant courthouses, town halls, and churches, and their volume presents problems in systematically collecting and recording information. Fortunately, twentieth-century technology offers invaluable assistance to students of seventeenthand eighteenth-century America. Even more important than the computer, which facilitates the tedious task of collating and counting data, are the photoduplication processes that bring the resources to the researcher. Richard W. Hale's Guide to Photocopied Historical Materials in the United States and Canada indicates that the largest collection of microfilmed material for the study of early American history is that of the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (Mormon) in Salt Lake City, Utah. The purpose of this communication is to acquaint readers of the Quarterly with the holdings of the Genealogical Society Library and to suggest means of utilizing the collection in historical research.

The Detection of Change in Disease Activity in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

SUMMARY Interest in defining reliable parameters of disease activity to be followed in the management of rheumatoid arthritis has been greatly heightened by the recent revolution in methodology for the evaluation of anti-rheumatic therapy. The greater use today of carefully controlled double-blind studies and the analysis of these studies with sophisticated statistical routines makes it imperative to develop reliable objective and quantitative measurements for a disease which so often tends to defy quantitation. A number of subjective, semi-objective and objective historical, physical, and laboratory parameters have been described above. Continued evaluation of a panel of semi-objective physical parameters such as indices of joint pain or tenderness, grip strength and ring size will indicate which combination of parameters correlates best with the overall assessment of change in activity of disease. Newer laboratory tests which may be more directly tied to the pathogenetic activity of disease may in the future yield more relevant assessments particularly early in the course of treatment when current laboratory tests are not helpful. Radiographic assessment, radio-isotopes and thermography have shown themselves capable of objectively paralleling improvement in disease activity. How early these methods may be used to predict improvement and whether these complex and expensive techniques may be reasonably applied to the clinic remains to be determined. Finally, in our quest for mechanisation and quantitation, we should not allow ourselves to overlook the value of a patient’s subjective opinion regarding disease activity. Until such time as we develop therapeutic interventions in rheumatoid arthritis which are so dramatic that experts are not needed to recognise changes in disease improvement, we will have to continue struggling to use these very difficult subjective and objective measurements.

The Revolution in English Social Thought, 1880-1914

IN 1958, H. Stuart Hughes justified confining his survey of reconstruction of European social to western and central Continent by arguing that Germans, Austrians, Frenchmen, and Italians contributed more than Englishmen, Americans, or Russians to the fund of ideas that has come to seem most characteristic of our own time.' This tendency to neglect English social in generation before First World War fits well with prevailing view of late Victorian and Edwardian periods as a time of decline, a view given now almost classic form by George Dangerfield and newly reiterated by Samuel Hynes, who sees that period as a time of undifferentiated rebellion. But is it true that, as J. W. Burrow has recently concluded, made no distinctive contribution to rethinking of fundamental concepts of social thought in early twentieth century?2 On contrary, from i88o's until 1914 there was in England a genuine, vital revolution in contents, methodology, and purposes of social thought. An inductive, behavioral social science bent upon effecting practical social reform overthrew a deductive social theory that assumed inherent laws of human nature and society.3 By end of nineteenth century, a second industrial revolution, social dislocation, agricultural decline, unemployment, and mounting discontent exerted a persistent and accelerating pressure upon traditional social theory. Throughout nineteenth century development of methods of social inquiry testifies to recurrent, though disparately motivated, efforts to reduce complex social phenomena to more manageable, often quantitative form.4 What these efforts

Trends and Projections in Social Control Systems

This paper considers certain aspects of social change and its relation to the necessity for variety in a dy namic social system. Certain consequences for social control in the future can now be predicted by references to techno logical developments. It seems unlikely that the rate of tech nological change will be diminished, and it is essential that social changes be made which can accommodate the techno logical innovations. The problems which can now be fore seen form a basis for considering the priorities which should be accorded to different forms of social research. It may be that the pressing demand that social research should be de voted to the current social problems may have many undesir able consequences. Perhaps social science today is in an unsatisfactory state because ten years ago it was too much concerned with problems of ten years ago! Most of the simple models which were thought to suffice in social research are now clearly unsatisfactory. A revolution in social science method ology is necessary.