Set Of Causes Research Articles

Perturbation graphs, invariant causal prediction and causal relations in psychology.

Networks (graphs) in psychology are often restricted to settings without interventions. Here we consider a framework borrowed from biology that involves multiple interventions from different contexts (observations and experiments) in a single analysis. The method is called perturbation graphs. In gene regulatory networks, the induced change in one gene is measured on all other genes in the analysis, thereby assessing possible causal relations. This is repeated for each gene in the analysis. A perturbation graph leads to the correct set of causes (not nec-essarily direct causes). Subsequent pruning of paths in the graph (called transitive reduction) should reveal direct causes. We show that transitive reduction will not in general lead to the correct underlying graph. We also show that invariant causal prediction is a generalisation of the perturbation graph method and does reveal direct causes, thereby replacing transitive re-duction. We conclude that perturbation graphs provide a promising new tool for experimental designs in psychology, and combined with invariant causal prediction make it possible to re-veal direct causes instead of causal paths. As an illustration we apply these ideas to a data set about attitudes on meat consumption and to a time series of a patient diagnosed with major depression disorder.

Mining Charity

Scalding water, plummeting cage elevators, cave-ins, fiery explosions, toxic air. These were among the many hazards of silver ore mining on Nevada’s Comstock Lode in the late 1800s. This article explores the nature of silver mining society in the 1860s and 1870s, focusing on the dangerous conditions in which miners worked in the mineshafts that ran beneath the communities of Virginia City and Gold Hill, Nevada. The material culture and conditions of mining, the article argues, were central to determining the community’s needs and the charitable efforts mounted to address them. Philanthropic work and fundraising for a diverse set of causes—from attending to individuals’ needs to building a hospital to running an orphanage—shaped residents’ social and cultural lives, as well as the built environment in which they lived.

Migration Causes and Challenges at the European Border in North Africa: A Practitioner-Based Grounded Theory

ABSTRACT This investigation took place in Melilla, a European city in North Africa, and in the neighboring cities of Granada and Malaga, on the southern Mediterranean coast of Spain. As well as exploring an under-researched geographical area, the article also focuses on an under-researched group in the field of migration: first-line practitioners. Grounded theory research was conducted to develop a working model of practitioners’ perspectives surrounding causes of migration, and related challenges, at (and through) the European Union-Moroccan border. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were used to gather qualitative data from 19 first-line practitioners. Their perspectives suggested a complex set of causes underlying migration at an economic, individual, community, national, and geopolitical level. They also identified eight central risks, and challenges, for the migrant population during their journey to (and process of establishing their lives in) Europe. To reduce such risks, practitioners emphasized the need for safe migratory routes, quick institutional responses in the presence of unexpected phenomena (such as COVID-19), promoting and educating for empathy, and the development of more interregional solidarity on a national, European and international level. The paper concludes reflecting on the importance of these proposed responses in “out-of-place” European territories such as the city of Melilla.

The Study of Modern Theater: Literary - Psychological - Social Through Little Eyolf Play- Henrik Ibsen

Little Eyolf is a play that simulates an objective reality in a very narrow episode, which makes it a more classic psychological play than others. This dialogue extends into three acts and takes into its aspects a model of a simple Norwegian family through which the reality lived in other families, and their way of life is transmitted, because Ibsen is the great modern realistic theater, this author deliberately catches up with the exact details through which he can point out the scale of the realism of the work, the consistency of the characters and the exact realistic details all in order to create a realistic work reflecting the social nature in which this child lives and suffers from these many social overlaps. Little Eyolf plays the reason for existence and departure; Ibsen conveys prosperity and tragedy in one house at close Times. He draws a plan for the future family dramatically and realistically that abstracts from those temporary passions and moves everyone to reality in its clear form, making the place of reality higher than imagination and emotions. That Eyolf is the result of a set of causes, the most important of which was his parents' neglect of his own psychological and social needs, and this is what caused the end that Eyolf and the whole family faced. In the end, little Eyolf is a psychological treatment and social simulation of the lived reality, which leads to a set of results at the end of the play represented by tragedy and social-family torment.

Prioritizing competencies for soldier's mental resilience: an application of integrative fuzzy-trapezoidal decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory in updating training program.

The development of resilience is of the utmost importance in military training due to the demanding and high-stress nature of combat situations. Although there have been numerous studies on resilience competencies in the military, there is a research gap when it comes to identifying the most essential competencies that should be prioritized in training programs, particularly within compressed timeframes. With the current geopolitical landscape and ongoing military conflicts in Europe, it is necessary to expedite training of soldiers, including resilience training, without compromising the effectiveness of the program. This study aims to address this research gap by using a reductionist approach to resilience training and identifying the critical competencies that senior soldiers need to be trained to coach younger soldiers to maintain psychological strength during deployment. By filling this research gap, the study will contribute to the development of more efficient and targeted resilience training programs that optimize the ability of soldiers to adapt and excel in challenging military environments. To address the issue, this study assessed the competencies comprising the master resilience training (MRT) program, widely recognized as one of the most effective military resilience training programs. Two groups of military experts, totaling 16 individuals, were involved in the evaluation process, representing two military contexts. The first group consisted of Ukrainian military experts whose experiences primarily focused on defending their own country's territory. The second group comprised Lithuanian military experts who had greater expertise in conducting military missions abroad. The assessment of resilience competencies was carried out using a deep analysis approach through the application of effective multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Specifically, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method was used, which is a significant multicriteria technique used to determine relationships among criteria and assign weight coefficients. In this study, the DEMATEL model was extended using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (TrFN-DEMATEL) to accommodate decision-making under uncertainty conditions. The research findings highlight the critical importance of three core resilience competencies: self-regulation, mental agility and strength of character. The importance of each competency varies depending on the specific military context. When defending one's own country's territory, strength of character emerges as the key factor in enhancing soldiers' mental resilience. Conversely, during military operations abroad, self-regulation is the primary factor that promotes psychological resilience. Furthermore, the results show that these three primary competencies form a 'cause group' that influences other competencies through a cause-and-effect dependency. Based on the findings, the theoretical conclusion is drawn that the importance of resilience competencies is contextually differentiated. Furthermore, each resilience competency is associated with a set of causes or effects. These are valuable insights for improving resilience competency training programs.

Neural Causal Information Extractor for Unobserved Causes.

Causal inference aims to faithfully depict the causal relationships between given variables. However, in many practical systems, variables are often partially observed, and some unobserved variables could carry significant information and induce causal effects on a target. Identifying these unobserved causes remains a challenge, and existing works have not considered extracting the unobserved causes while retaining the causes that have already been observed and included. In this work, we aim to construct the implicit variables with a generator-discriminator framework named the Neural Causal Information Extractor (NCIE), which can complement the information of unobserved causes and thus provide a complete set of causes with both observed causes and the representations of unobserved causes. By maximizing the mutual information between the targets and the union of observed causes and implicit variables, the implicit variables we generate could complement the information that the unobserved causes should have provided. The synthetic experiments show that the implicit variables preserve the information and dynamics of the unobserved causes. In addition, extensive real-world time series prediction tasks show improved precision after introducing implicit variables, thus indicating their causality to the targets.

Causes and factors of deindustrialization in old industrial regions

The subject of the study is the process of deindustrialization in the regions of the Central Federal District of Russia (hereinafter – CFD) and a set of causes and factors that determine industrial production reduction dynamics. The purpose of the study is to determine algorithms of industrial production recovery depending on the identified factors and causes of deindustrialization. Statistical groupings, analysis and synthesis method, comparative analysis of deindustrialization processes in the CFD regions were used as a methodology. Exclusive ways to restore industrial production in the CFD regions have been identified: innovation transfer based on the experience of techno-zones, special economic zones, territories of advanced development, and technoparks; integrated use of natural resources; modernization of high-tech industries; industrial agglomerations development in the peripheral territories of the federal subjects. The results of the study can be applied in the process of building strategic plans for revival of industrial production, first of all, when ensuring import substitution and strengthening the country’s defense capability. The process of deindustrialization is influenced by a group of factors that should be considered when establishing original sequence of strategic measures to revive industrial production.

Strong aerosol cooling alone does not explain cold-biased mid-century temperatures in CMIP6 models

Abstract. The current generation of global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) exhibits a surprisingly cold-biased ensemble-mean mid-20th century global-mean surface temperature anomaly, compared to the previous generation Phase 5 (CMIP5) and to the observed mid-century (1940–1970) temperature anomaly. Most CMIP6 models, 31 of 36 models in contrast to 17 of 27 CMIP5 models, are colder than the uncertainty range of the observed anomaly, indicating that the CMIP6 suppressed warming is not caused by a few cold models. However, no clear cause that sufficiently explains the tendency towards suppressed mid-20th century warming emerges. Whereas models that best match observations exclusively exhibit weaker aerosol forcing than that exhibited by colder models, there is not a clear relationship between mid-century temperatures and aerosol forcing. Likewise, no systematic differences emerge among other model aerosol representations, such as inclusion of aerosol–cloud interactions for ice clouds in the model or the type of aerosol model input data set used, nor variations in greenhouse gas forcing or climate sensitivity, that could explain the suppressed warming. This indicates the presence of another cause, or more likely a set of causes, of the suppressed warming in many CMIP6 models. Thus, the prospect of a strong constraint on present-day aerosol forcing based on the mid-century warming is weakened, even if it is encouraging that those models that do match the observed warming best all have relatively weak aerosol forcing.

STATISTICAL ASPECTS OF THE STUDY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT

The article presents practical aspects of statistical research of the dynamics of development of industrial enterprises. It is determined that the main task of a statistical study of industrial enterprises is to determine the volume of industrial production, its structure; analysis of plan implementation by volume and assortment, grade, completeness, rhythm; identification of additional reserves. It is proved that in order to raise the level of industrial production statistics in Ukraine, it is necessary to make certain changes in the proportions of individual industries, and they should be consistent and interrelated. The study found that the main factors of industrial recovery will be: a gradual improvement in the situation on world markets, the resumption of production in certain sectors of the economy, improvement of the financial condition of enterprises, as well as an increase in investment and consumer demand. The following mathematical and statistical methods are used depending on the purpose of the statistical study and the nature of the source data: 
 1) mathematical methods of quantitative characterization of relationships: correlation and regression analysis; operations research and queuing theory; economic cybernetics; classical methods of elementary mathematics; simulation modeling; functionally hierarchical (forecast scenarios); methods of structural analogy; method of expert estimates; 
 2) statistical methods of quantitative characterization of relationships: analysis of variance; correlation analysis; method of analytical groupings; rank correlation; complex statistical coefficients; statistical equations of dependencies; statistical indices; indicators of dynamics analysis.
 When choosing statistical methods for studying socio-economic phenomena, it is necessary to take into account their interconnectedness and interdependence. Any phenomenon is the result of a certain set of causes and is the cause of other phenomena and processes. Therefore, the statistical study of the interrelationships of economic phenomena and processes should be approached comprehensively, trying to classify a wide range of methods that allow them to be quantified.

Similar cities, but diverse carbon controls: Inspiration from the Yangtze River Delta megacity cluster in China

Addressing global uneven urban development and the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions (CE), this study presents a new method for calculating urban socioeconomic development indexes using a variety of data sources. Using the Yangtze River Delta as an example, we categorize urban areas into core, transitional, and peripheral cities. With the help of extended Kaya-index decomposition models, we evaluate the effects of regional industrial growth, consumer markets, and spatial expansion on urban CE. The research explores differences in CE drivers across and within these city categories. Our findings reveal that in core cities, 31.5 % of CE is due to the industrial structure and 14.9 % due to population density. In transitional cities, CE increases by 60.22 % primarily due to industrial structure and consumer consumption. Peripheral cities, on the other hand, have a complex set of causes for CE, with per capita living, spatial expansion, population size, urbanization, and consumption limitation contributing to 91.97 %, 10.73 %, 14.2 %, 9.34 %, and 24.92 % of CE respectively. Varied factors influence CE intensity differences within each city group. Cleaner production technologies and potential carbon reductions in consumption and industry are identified as key strategies for compensating CE reduction. We propose the adoption of carbon function zoning in urban clusters to leverage the role of carbon function in each area. Territorial spatial planning should ensure a balanced layout of production, living, and ecological functions. Residents' consumption, being the key factor driving CE, must transition toward green, low-carbon consumption, reinforced by societal norms and responsibilities. This research provides valuable theoretical and practical insights into urban classification and CE reduction strategies.

Assessment of the Forest-Pathological Condition of Cedar Forests of Irkutsk Region

Siberian cedar is the most valuable tree species in the Siberian taiga. The condition of the cedar trees deteriorates annually under the influence of adverse biotic and abiotic factors in the forests of Irkutsk region. The authors analyzed and assessed the sanitary and forest- pathological condition of cedar plantations. The research used statistical data of forest pathology monitoring, which proved long-term negative changes in the condition of cedar forests. We investigated a set of causes of degradation and destruction of cedars in the Irkutsk region based on the results of 2021. The authors concluded that anthropogenic factors are causing the imbalance of the forest ecosystem, creating conditions for the negative manifestation of the most biotic factors. The proposed recommendations to reduce the impact of pathogenic factors include: introduction of interdiction and restrictions for nut harvesting, strengthening control over the implementation of sanitary measures, the use of scientific methods for predicting the development of pathogens. We also proposed to create semi-cultivated cedar plantations in the cedar forests to produce cedar nuts using forestry and agricultural techniques.

Updating the Know Your Chances Website to Include Smoking Status as a Risk Factor for Mortality Estimates

To make wise decisions about the health risks they face, people need information about the magnitude of the threats as well as the context, such as how risks compare. Such information is often presented by age, sex, and race but rarely accounts for smoking status, a major risk factor for many causes of death. To update the National Cancer Institute's Know Your Chances website to present mortality estimates for a broad set of causes of death and all causes combined by smoking status in addition to age, sex, and race. In this cohort study, mortality estimates using life table methods were calculated with the National Cancer Institute's DevCan software package, combining data from the US National Vital Statistics System, National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files, National Institutes of Health-AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), Cancer Prevention Study II, Nurses' Health and Health Professions follow-up studies, and Women's Health Initiative. Data were collected from January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2018, and analyzed from August 27, 2019, to February 28, 2023. Age-conditional probabilities of dying due to various causes and all causes combined, accounting for competing causes of death, for people aged 20 to 75 years over the next 5, 10, or 20 years by sex, race, and smoking status. A total of 954 029 individuals aged 55 years or older (55.8% women) were included in the analysis. Regardless of sex or race, for never-smokers, coronary heart disease represented the highest 10-year chance of death after about 50 years of age, which is higher than for any malignant neoplasm. Among current smokers, the 10-year chance of death due to lung cancer was almost as high as for coronary heart disease in each group. For Black and White female current smokers aged from the mid-40s onward, the 10-year probability of death due to lung cancer was substantially higher than for breast cancer. After 40 years of age, the observed effect of never vs current smoking on the 10-year chance of death due to all causes approximated adding 10 years of age. After 40 years of age when conditioning on smoking status, mortality risk for Black individuals was approximately that of White individuals 5 years older. Using life table methods and accounting for competing risks, the revised Know Your Chances website presents age-conditional mortality estimates according to smoking status for a broad set of causes in the context of other conditions and all-cause mortality. The findings of this cohort study suggest that failing to account for smoking status results in inaccurate mortality estimates for many causes-namely, they are too low for smokers and too high for nonsmokers.

The Possible Link Between Oral Microflorae and Oral Cancer Development: A Literature Review

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) research is still inconclusive due to methodological differences and constraints. The study aimed to review the function of oral microflora in the progression of oral cancer and to highlight the need for good oral hygiene practices for various reasons beyond only avoiding dental problems such as cavities and gum disease. Oral carcinoma is a rapidly increasing cancer with a high mortality rate, particularly in adolescents and young adults. Despite the progress of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, the percentage of people who will be alive is less than 50% after 5 years. Oral cancer has a terrible prognosis and can spread if it is not detected early; thus, researchers should focus on developing biomarkers that might detect the disease at an earlier stage. SCC has a complex set of causes. Factors and conditions predisposing to oral cancer include tobacco, alcohol, infections (e.g., candidiasis), viruses (human immunodeficiency virus, herpes simplex virus, and human papillomavirus), and systemic conditions (iron deficiency anemia, malnutrition, and vitamin A deficiency). Changes in the structure of oral bacteria are caused by two primary risk factors for oral cancer, including smoking and alcohol consumption. These microorganisms produce carcinogenic products such as acetaldehyde, which are associated with oral cancer. The oral cavity is host to a wide variety of microflora, including fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms, as one of the most abundant microbial habitats in the human body. Recent epidemiological research has linked specific periodontitis microorganisms to an increased risk of developing oral premalignant and neoplastic lesions. Clinicians have long noted a correlation among dental state, poor oral hygiene, and oral cancer, which may be independent of tobacco and alcohol use. Based on the results, more research is required to determine the precise results and the nature of the correlation between oral microbiota and oral cancer, considering the findings of the previous studies.

Clear-Air Bragg Scattering Observed above the Convective Boundary Layer in the Morning

Reflected waves have been frequently observed via weather radar, even during sunny, cloudless days. Additionally, it is recognized that turbulence and biological scatterers can also dominate the scattering process. In previous studies, echo returns of turbulence from clear-air Bragg scattering (CABS) have been used to detect the height of the convective boundary layer (CBL). However, in a dual-frequency antenna multiplexing radar system, through which the dual-wavelength ratio (DWR) identifies the CABS clearly, CABS can be unexpectedly observed not only at the edge of the CBL but also above the CBL, highlighting the need for an expanded set of causes of clear-air echoes. It was further identified that the negative second derivative of horizontal wind speed, which is measured by a coherent Doppler Lidar, is consistent with the variation of the CABS layers’ height above the CBL. These results emphasize the presence of physical processes leading to turbulence in the troposphere, with implications for Bragg scattering studies and the theory of turbulence in general. This study will help the ecology of research better understand the laws of biological activity.

Causal Unfoldings and Disjunctive Causes

In the simplest form of event structure, a prime event structure, an event is associated with a unique causal history, its prime cause. However, it is quite common for an event to have disjunctive causes in that it can be enabled by any one of multiple sets of causes. Sometimes the sets of causes may be mutually exclusive, inconsistent one with another, and sometimes not, in which case they coexist consistently and constitute parallel causes of the event. The established model of general event structures can model parallel causes. On occasion however such a model abstracts too far away from the precise causal histories of events to be directly useful. For example, sometimes one needs to associate probabilities with different, possibly coexisting, causal histories of a common event. Ideally, the causal histories of a general event structure would correspond to the configurations of its causal unfolding to a prime event structure; and the causal unfolding would arise as a right adjoint to the embedding of prime in general event structures. But there is no such adjunction. However, a slight extension of prime event structures remedies this defect and provides a causal unfolding as a universal construction. Prime event structures are extended with an equivalence relation in order to dissociate the two roles, that of an event and its enabling; in effect, prime causes are labelled by a disjunctive event, an equivalence class of its prime causes. With this enrichment a suitable causal unfolding appears as a pseudo right adjoint. The adjunction relies critically on the central and subtle notion of extremal causal realisation as an embodiment of causal history. Finally, we explore subcategories which support parallel causes as well the key operations needed in developing probabilistic distributed strategies with parallel causes.

The Common Law of Landscape Hostility in the Lives and Deaths of Honeybees

This article offers a legal explanation for the decline of honeybees. While most investigations into bee populations and bee survival rates have been scientific, this article provides an additional set of causes, showing how our legal definitions of property and standards of negligence contribute to a landscape hostile to the lives of bees. Examining recent litigation in the United States and Canada, it shows how legal concepts of property impact the lives of bees, especially in cases of pesticide overspray near property boundaries, and in the forms of knowledge and ignorance in play in contesting duties of care in negligence cases. By expanding our understanding of the causes of bee death, this article points toward additional ways in which the stressors that bees face might be reduced.

On a Supposed Contradiction in Max Weber’s Logic of Science

This paper grapples with two objections against Max Weber’s methodology that arise because Weber borrows some ideas from Heinrich Rickert’s neo-Kantian philosophical system. The first objection (“the contradiction argument”) is raised by Julius J. Schaaf who disagrees with Weber’s claim that historical objects are constituted through retrospectively and hypothetically applied selections of value relations and that we can understand these objects. Weber’s idea that the relating ideal type constructions are also non-arbitrary—i.e., not merely subjective—and can be rectified, Schaaf maintains, contradicts his own characterization of historical objects and reality. The second objection (“the incom¬patibility argument”) was made by Gerhard Wagner and Heinz Zipprian. It focuses on the conception of objective possibility. According to this, counter¬factual chains of historical events are contrived to figure out the relevant set of causes by which a certain event can be said to necessarily occur. The critics claim that it is only based on the ontological assumption of a preexisting real object that this thought-experiment can operate. That is, the pre-emptive assumption of realism is indis¬pensable for explaining the historical individual. To refute these two objections, I clarify some foundational notions and ideas of Weber’s methodology.

The Influence of Parents’ Mutual Support on the Socialization of Children with Special Needs in Rehabilitation Centres: Neuropsychological Aspects

The article presents theoretical and methodological aspects of social support for families with adolescents with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in rehabilitation centres. In particular, it describes the process and results from the implementation of the author’s work with mutual support groups of parents of adolescents with MSDs. The article aims to determine and quasi-experimentally verify the methods of rehabilitation of individuals with MSDs and prove their effectiveness in rehabilitation centres with the involvement of parents. During the implementation of the programme, social work with families in centres for social rehabilitation of children with MSDs consists of the following main areas: family therapy, family psychoprophylaxis, providing social assistance to families, mediation in resolving family conflicts, family counselling, social and pedagogical work with families. The content and forms of social and pedagogical work with the family are determined by a group of the following factors: a family type, problems in the family; areas of professional training of the specialist providing services to the family. The quasi-experimental group (EG) consists of 40 leavers from the Vinnytsia Centre for Social Rehabilitation of Children with Special Needs “Promin”, who are diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and six leavers with mild mental disorders. The control group (CG) consists of 40 individuals diagnosed with cerebral palsy and seven individuals with mild mental disorders. The age requirement for EG is 14-19 years old. The formative experiment also involves 27 parents of children with MSDs. The measures taken during the experiment have contributed to developing the skills of conscious psychological separation from constant parental care, taking responsibility for their lives, setting real-life goals and destroying the position of helplessness in individuals with MSDs. The article shows that a set of causes and factors affecting families’ well-being positively or negatively determines the interpersonal relationships and the traditions of family education. The international relevance of the article lies in the effective combination of social support for families with adolescents with MSDs in rehabilitation centres and parents’ involvement. The author’s methodology forms the basis for the new aspects of synergistic family and institutional rehabilitation and support.

Coral growth anomalies, neoplasms, and tumors in the Anthropocene.

One of the most widespread coral diseases linked to anthropogenic activities and recorded on reefs worldwide is characterized by anomalous growth formations in stony corals, referred to as coral growth anomalies (GAs). The biological functions of GA tissue include limited reproduction, reduced access to resources, and weakened ability to defend against predators. Transcriptomic analyses have revealed that, in some cases, disease progression can involve host genes related to oncogenesis, suggesting that the GA tissues may be malignant neoplasms such as those developed by vertebrates. The number of studies reporting the presence of GAs in common reef-forming species highlights the urgency of a thorough understanding of the pathology and causative factors of this disease and its parallels to higher organism malignant tissue growth. Here, we review the current state of knowledge on the etiology and holobiont features of GAs in reef-building corals.

Shadow Economy Estimation Using Cash Demand Approach: The Case of Serbia

Informalities in the Serbian economy seem to be relatively persistent and widespread, as suggested by some empirical evidence and numerous anecdotal evidence provided by citizens and companies. Nevertheless, the shadow—or informal—economy is a rather complicated phenomenon with a complex set of causes and consequences, implying that there are no universally accepted definitions nor quantification methods for determining the relative size of its impact. This paper takes a pioneering approach using the “monetary method” or the “currency demand approach” for the Serbian economy, based on econometric estimates of the demand for money. In this context, we rely on the well-known currency demand approach, expanding and applying it to the case of Serbia. Against the backdrop of the key research question, we found that the shadow economy in Serbia has decreased to roughly 20% of GDP in late 2021 from roughly 30% in 2005.