Systematic Tendencies Research Articles

Alăturări dificile (II): Nae Ionescu și Emil Cioran

How could a fervent skeptic (as Cioran was in his youth) engage with a religious philosopher with systematic tendencies like Nae Ionescu? A detractor of philosophy with a philosophy devotee? Such are the questions we have to begin with when considering the challenging connection between the two. The conclusion will be that, despite the friendship between the two thinkers, they had rather different philosophical views. However, even though they stand at opposite ends from the perspective of these questions, we can find a fundamental common element in the two great Romanian thinkers, and they can also be joined philosophically, not only through the friendship relationship between a teacher and one of his favorite students: this common element would be an interest in religion, but from fundamentally opposite positions, one being a believer, the other a non-believer.

Frequent winners explain apparent skewness preferences in experience-based decisions

Do people's attitudes toward the (a)symmetry of an outcome distribution affect their choices? Financial investors seek return distributions with frequent small returns but few large ones, consistent with leading models of choice in economics and finance that assume right-skewed preferences. In contrast, many experiments in which decision-makers learn about choice options through experience find the opposite choice tendency, in favor of left-skewed options. To reconcile these seemingly contradicting findings, the present work investigates the effect of skewness on choices in experience-based decisions. Across seven studies, we show that apparent preferences for left-skewed outcome distributions are a consequence of those distributions having a higher value in most direct outcome comparisons, a "frequent-winner effect." By manipulating which option is the frequent winner, we show that choice tendencies for frequent winners can be obtained even with identical outcome distributions. Moreover, systematic choice tendencies in favor of right- or left-skewed options can be obtained by manipulating which option is experienced as the frequent winner. We also find evidence for an intrinsic preference for right-skewed outcome distributions. The frequent-winner phenomenon is robust to variations in outcome distributions and experimental paradigms. These findings are confirmed by computational analyses in which a reinforcement-learning model capturing frequent winning and intrinsic skewness preferences provides the best account of the data. Our work reconciles conflicting findings of aggregated behavior in financial markets and experiments and highlights the need for theories of decision-making sensitive to joint outcome distributions of the available options.

1D along-track pre-processing of the GOCE gravity gradients and nonlinear filtering of the radial components Vzz in spatial domain

The paper presents pre-processing and nonlinear filtering of the GOCE gravity gradients (GGs) in spatial domain. At first, a multiple fully automatic 1D along-track pre-processing of the GOCE GGs in the gradiometer reference frame (GRF) is introduced. This tool is based on the nonlinear diffusion filtering in 1D while treating issues like a detection of ‘jumps’ in time series, outliers and unforeseen systematic tendencies. We focus on the 1D along-track pre-processing of the GOCE GGs in GRF for the last period of the GOCE satellite mission (from 2012-12-01 to 2013-10-19) that are later transformed into the local north-oriented frame (LNOF). Afterwards, the radial components Vzz are reduced on a reference surface chosen as a mean value of all altitudes of the GOCE satellite orbits from the processed period. Here they are filtered using the nonlinear diffusion filtering on a closed surface. Finally, a grid of the filtered radial components Vzz in LNOF on the reference surface is obtained.

Review of Systematic Tendencies in (001), (011) and (111) Surfaces Using B3PW as Well as B3LYP Computations of BaTiO3, CaTiO3, PbTiO3, SrTiO3, BaZrO3, CaZrO3, PbZrO3 and SrZrO3 Perovskites.

We performed B3PW and B3LYP computations for BaTiO3 (BTO), CaTiO3 (CTO), PbTiO3 (PTO), SrTiO3 (STO), BaZrO3 (BZO), CaZrO3 (CZO), PbZrO3 (PZO) and SrZrO3 (SZO) perovskite neutral (001) along with polar (011) as well as (111) surfaces. For the neutral AO- as well as BO2-terminated (001) surfaces, in most cases, all upper-layer atoms relax inwards, although the second-layer atoms shift outwards. On the (001) BO2-terminated surface, the second-layer metal atoms, as a rule, exhibit larger atomic relaxations than the second-layer O atoms. For most ABO3 perovskites, the (001) surface rumpling s is bigger for the AO- than BO2-terminated surfaces. In contrast, the surface energies, for both (001) terminations, are practically identical. Conversely, different (011) surface terminations exhibit quite different surface energies for the O-terminated, A-terminated and BO-terminated surfaces. Our computed ABO3 perovskite (111) surface energies are always significantly larger than the neutral (001) as well as polar (011) surface energies. Our computed ABO3 perovskite bulk B-O chemical bond covalency increases near their neutral (001) and especially polar (011) surfaces.

Changing Decisions: The Interaction between Framing and Decoy Effects.

Cognitive biases are popular topics in psychology and marketing, as they refer to systematic cognitive tendencies in human thinking that deviate from logical and rational reasoning. The framing effect (FE) and the decoy effect (DE) are examples of cognitive biases that can influence decision making and consumer preferences. The FE involves how options are presented, while the DE involves the addition of a third option that influences the choice between the other two options. We investigated the interaction between the FE and the DE in the case of both incongruent (ID) and congruent (CD) decoys in a sample of undergraduates (n = 471). The study had a two (positive vs. negative valence) × three (original, congruent decoy, incongruent decoy) within-subject design. The ID option reduces the FE in both positive- and negative-framed conditions compared to the controls, while adding the CD option increases the FE only in the positive-framed condition. Additionally, the inclusion of the CD option enhances the level of decision confidence, whereas no significant differences were found in the ID condition. Our findings gave new insights into the interplay between two of the most frequent cognitive biases.

Cognitive bias and how to improve sustainable decision making.

The rapid advances of science and technology have provided a large part of the world with all conceivable needs and comfort. However, this welfare comes with serious threats to the planet and many of its inhabitants. An enormous amount of scientific evidence points at global warming, mass destruction of bio-diversity, scarce resources, health risks, and pollution all over the world. These facts are generally acknowledged nowadays, not only by scientists, but also by the majority of politicians and citizens. Nevertheless, this understanding has caused insufficient changes in our decision making and behavior to preserve our natural resources and to prevent upcoming (natural) disasters. In the present study, we try to explain how systematic tendencies or distortions in human judgment and decision-making, known as "cognitive biases," contribute to this situation. A large body of literature shows how cognitive biases affect the outcome of our deliberations. In natural and primordial situations, they may lead to quick, practical, and satisfying decisions, but these decisions may be poor and risky in a broad range of modern, complex, and long-term challenges, like climate change or pandemic prevention. We first briefly present the social-psychological characteristics that are inherent to (or typical for) most sustainability issues. These are: experiential vagueness, long-term effects, complexity and uncertainty, threat of the status quo, threat of social status, personal vs. community interest, and group pressure. For each of these characteristics, we describe how this relates to cognitive biases, from a neuro-evolutionary point of view, and how these evolved biases may affect sustainable choices or behaviors of people. Finally, based on this knowledge, we describe influence techniques (interventions, nudges, incentives) to mitigate or capitalize on these biases in order to foster more sustainable choices and behaviors.

Asteroseismology: Looking for Axions in the Red Supergiant Star Alpha Ori

In this work, for the first time, we use seismic data as well as surface abundances to model the supergiant α-Ori, with the goal of setting an upper bound on the axion–photon coupling constant g a γ . We find that, in general, stellar models with g a γ ∈ [0.002; 2.0] × 10−10 GeV−1 agree with the observational data, but beyond that upper limit, we do not find stellar models that are compatible with the observational constraints and the current literature. From g a γ = 3.5 × 10−10 GeV−1 on, the algorithm did not find any fitting models. Even so, all the axionic models considered present distinct internal profiles from the reference case, without axions. Moreover, as the axion energy losses become more significant, the behavior of the stellar models becomes more diversified, even with very similar input parameters. Nonetheless, the consecutive increments of g a γ still show systematic tendencies, resulting from the axion energy losses. Moreover, we establish three important conclusions: (1) the increased luminosity and higher neutrino production are measurable effects, possibly associated with axion energy losses; (2) stellar models with axion energy loss show a quite distinct internal structure; and (3) the importance of future asteroseismic missions in observing low-degree nonradial modes in massive stars is emphasized—as internal gravity waves probe the near-core regions, where axion effects are most intense. Thus, more seismic data will allow us to constrain g a γ better and to prove or dismiss the existence of axion energy loss inside massive stars.

A Design for High-Speed Journal Bearings with Reduced Pad Size and Improved Efficiency

Improving efficiency is a general task in the design process of high-speed journal bearings. A specific fixed-pad bearing geometry featuring reduced pad length and additional design measures with the intention of reducing frictional power loss is investigated, experimentally and theoretically, for a journal diameter of 500 mm up to surface speeds of 94 m/s and unit loads of 5.0 MPa. To model fluid flow in the bearing outside the lubricant gap, an extension to Elrod’s cavitation algorithm based on assuming the inertia of fluid flow is proposed. Validation of the extended thermo-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) model shows good agreement between measurement and prediction in wide operating ranges, however, with systematic tendencies of the remaining deviations. Furthermore, measured local pressure and film thickness distributions indicate a complex formation of cavitation with an influence of axial flow that is not covered by pure Couette-flow in the cavitation region. Measured as well as predicted data prove increased bearing efficiency for high rotor speeds. To provide understanding on the impact of the applied design measures improving efficiency, their combination is separated into the individual ones. Reduced axial and peripheral pad length both contribute almost equally to the reduction in power loss and improve its value by 37% compared to the standard design. Finally, further steps to deeper identify the behavior of the bearing are comprehensively discussed.

Ab initio computations of BaZrO3, CaTiO3, SrTiO3 perovskite as well as WO3 and ReO3 (001) surfaces

We computed, at the ab initio level, BaZrO3, CaTiO3, SrTiO3 as well as WO3 and ReO3 (001) surfaces and analyzed systematic tendencies therein. As obtained by our ab initio hybrid DFT-HF computations, at BO2-terminated (001) surfaces of investigated ABO3 perovskites as well as WO3 and ReO3 oxides, all top-layer ions shift in the direction of the crystal bulk. The single-deviation from this tendency is upward shift of the WO2-terminated WO3 (001) surface top layer O ion by the magnitude of +0.42% of the bulk lattice constant a0. In contrary, all second layer ions, with the single exception of ReO2-terminated ReO3 (001) surface O ion, shifts upwards. Our computed BO2-terminated SrTiO3, CaTiO3, BaZrO3, WO3 and ReO3 (001) surface Γ–Γ band gaps always are smaller than their respective bulk Γ–Γ band gaps. The B–O ion chemical bond populations in the SrTiO3, CaTiO3 and BaZrO3 perovskite bulk are always smaller than at their nearby BO2-terminated (001) surfaces. On the contrary, the W–O and Re–O ion chemical bond populations in the WO3 (0.142e) and ReO3 (0.212e) bulk are slightly larger than at nearby the WO2- and ReO2-terminated WO3 and ReO3 (001) surfaces (0.108e and 0.170e). Nonetheless, the W–O and Re–O chemical bond populations between the W and Re ions located in the upper layer and the O ions located in the second layer of the WO2- and ReO2-terminated (001) surfaces (0.278e and 0.262e) are the absolutely largest bond populations in the WO3 and ReO3 crystals.

Looking (for) patterns: Similarities and differences between infant and adult free scene-viewing patterns.

Systematic tendencies such as the center and horizontal bias are known to have a large influence on how and where we move our eyes during static onscreen free scene viewing. However, it is unknown whether these tendencies are learned viewing strategies or are more default tendencies in the way we move our eyes. To gain insight into the origin of these tendencies we explore the systematic tendencies of infants (3 - 20-month-olds, N = 157) and adults (N = 88) in three different scene viewing data sets. We replicated com-mon findings, such as longer fixation durations and shorter saccade amplitudes in infants compared to adults. The leftward bias was never studied in infants, and our results indi-cate that it is not present, while we did replicate the leftward bias in adults. The general pattern of the results highlights the similarity between infant and adult eye movements. Similar to adults, infants’ fixation durations increase with viewing time and the depend-encies between successive fixations and saccades show very similar patterns. A straight-forward conclusion to draw from this set of studies is that infant and adult eye movements are mainly driven by similar underlying basic processes.

Systematisation in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion

Our Western religious context leads us to expect that ancient religions would tend to have a systematisation that incorporated all beliefs and practices. This expectation may be tested with Mesopotamian religion, which demonstrates many problems with this assumption. There was a weak systematisation with some procedures, leading to legitimation through a divine figure or an earlier stage of creation. However different legitimations were not connected. Extispicy, divination by means of inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals, is a particular puzzle because different legitimations of the one procedure may not have been consistent. Myths may contradict the presuppositions of procedures. They may incorporate elements that have a purely literary role and do not reflect theological beliefs, or elements that have a theological role and do not reflect cosmological beliefs. Where there are systematic tendencies behind myths the driving force may be political, prompting the suggestion that lack of system is the normal state.

ВИДАТКИ НА РОЗВИТОК МІНІСТЕРСТВА ОБОРОНИ УКРАЇНИ ЗА 2014 – 2020 РОКИ

The article presents and analyses the budget of the Ministry of Defense in the course of the latest years according to datawhich have been approved by the State budget of Ukraine, its state and perspectives of development, as well as the features thatit is influenced by. There’s a presented comparison of the defense budget of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in absolute andrelative indicators with a consideration for inflation. In every country the sector of defense in a variety of its manifestationshappens to be a powerful community that often plays a dominating and crucial role. The aspiration of the government to assurethe defense capability of the state is reflected in the adequate establishment of the military budget, the appropriate expendituresfor defense purposes, the peculiarities of their implementation under the conditions of a military conflict and its adherence tointernational norms. Due to the increase in short terms of combat capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine it was possible tostop the illegal armed formations. Yet, the issue of supporting the combat capabilities of our Armed Forces due to the resourcesand finances used for its purpose remains part of the current agenda. At the current stage of development of Ukraine there ar ethe challenges to increase the defense capabilities of the state, the conduct of reforms of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as well asother military formations in accordance with the state of the art requirements and including the experience obtained in the courseof the United Forces Operation, yet also the development of the defense-industrial complex, which is necessary to satisfy theneeds of our Armed Forces to the maximum. The successful implementation of the set tasks is in a significant way dependent onthe appropriate financial support the basis of which is formed by the expenditures of the state budget. Thus, the issue ofdynamics and the structure of the expenditures mentioned as well as the identification of systematic obvious tendencies in thesphere of defense financing are a part of the current agenda, especially under the conditions of the Russian armed aggressionagainst Ukraine.

High-status lobbyists are most likely to overrate their success.

Overconfidence helps individuals reach higher status within social groups by making them seem more competent regardless of objective ability, so this bias may be especially prevalent among status-oriented members of elite communities. Based on this premise, we explore whether lobbyists in the USA misperceive their success. Using models that (1) control for legislative outcome when predicting self-assessed policy success and (2) compare self-assessed policy success on specific proposals against the average success reported by all lobbyists working on the same side of an issue, we identify systematic tendencies to overrate achievements. Lobbyists with higher incomes, who reside in Washington, DC, USA, have congressional experience and who engage in a broader range of activities are more likely to overrate their success. Public interest group lobbyists tend to underestimate success. We conclude that political elites are subject to the same biases as others when evaluating their performance, and these biases may be largely status-driven.

Attention Disorders in Organizations, Incompetence Traps and Business Failure

Advancing the attention-based view (ABV), we define attention disorders in organizations as systematic tendencies to misallocate attention to goals (i.e., the temporal dimension), interests (i.e., ...

Clustering preference data in the presence of response-style bias.

Preference data, such as Likert scale data, are often obtained in questionnaire-based surveys. Clustering respondents based on survey items is useful for discovering latent structures. However, cluster analysis of preference data may be affected by response styles, that is, a respondent's systematic response tendencies irrespective of the item content. For example, some respondents may tend to select ratings at the ends of the scale, which is called an 'extreme response style'. A cluster of respondents with an extreme response style can be mistakenly identified as a content-based cluster. To address this problem, we propose a novel method of clustering respondents based on their indicated preferences for a set of items while correcting for response-style bias. We first introduce a new framework to detect, and correct for, response styles by generalizing the definition of response styles used in constrained dual scaling. We then simultaneously correct for response styles and perform a cluster analysis based on the corrected preference data. A simulation study shows that the proposed method yields better clustering accuracy than the existing methods do. We apply the method to empirical data from four different countries concerning social values.

Classroom management - pledoaje za efikasno delovanje u učionici

The development of teaching involves the totality of systematic tendencies to optimize teaching practice in the direction of meaningful and effective learning. Learning this way through the exchanges of guided and independent work often deals with open and authentic problems. These endeavors open up a series of questions that want to give an answer on what conditions the successful classroom management should take into consideration, which occurs in the school in the form of a wide range of direct and indirect activities that the teacher should realize in order to overcome various and unexpected tasks of school everyday life . The range of activities ranges from the perspectives of teachers through the perspective of students to the perspective of teaching and teaching process. Different elements and forms in which classroom-management appears vary with the intensity, the time and the duration, and occur in numerous combinations and with varying degrees of representation. In order to understand the effects of classroom management, we need transparent and challenging goals, understanding of the dynamics and structure of learning, success criteria, good will of students and teachers, logic and strategies to achieve the desired goals. In doing so, one should not ignore the multidimensionality of the teaching process: teaching and learning have their own focus, effect, tendency, types, their fidbek, as binding or complex interactions, communication and relationships mediated in the teaching and learning process.

Behaviorally Informed Policies for Household Financial Decisionmaking

Low incomes, limited financial literacy, fraud, and deception are just a few of the many intractable economic and social factors that contribute to the financial difficulties that households face today. Addressing these issues directly is difficult and costly. But poor financial outcomes also result from systematic psychological tendencies, including imperfect optimization, biased judgments and preferences, and susceptibility to influence by the actions and opinions of others. Some of these psychological tendencies and the problems they cause may be countered by policies and interventions that are both low cost and scalable. We detail the ways that these behavioral factors contribute to consumers’ fiancial mistakes and suggest a set of interventions that the federal government, in its dual roles as regulator and employer, could feasibly test or implement to improve household financial outcomes in a variety of domains: retirement, short-term savings, debt management, the take-up of government benefits, and tax optimization.

Behaviorally informed policies for household financial decisionmaking

Low incomes, limited financial literacy, fraud, and deception are just a few of the many intractable economic and social factors that contribute to the financial difficulties that households face today. Addressing these issues directly is difficult and costly. But poor financial outcomes also result from systematic psychological tendencies, including imperfect optimization, biased judgments and preferences, and susceptibility to influence by the actions and opinions of others. Some of these psychological tendencies and the problems they cause may be countered by policies and interventions that are both low cost and scalable. We detail the ways that these behavioral factors contribute to consumers' financial mistakes and suggest a set of interventions that the federal government, in its dual roles as regulator and employer, could feasibly test or implement to improve household financial outcomes in a variety of domains: retirement, short-term savings, debt management, the take-up of government benefits, and tax optimization.

Genetically-mediated associations between measures of childhood character and academic achievement.

Researchers and the general public have become increasingly intrigued by the roles that systematic tendencies toward thinking, feeling, and behaving might play in academic achievement. Some measures of constructs belonging to this group have been well studied in genetics and psychometrics, while much less is known about measures of other such constructs. The current study focuses on 7 character traits prominently featured in influential intervention-oriented and/or socialization theories of academic achievement: grit, intellectual curiosity, intellectual self-concept, mastery orientation, educational value, intelligence mindset, and test motivation. In a population-based sample of 811 school-aged twins and triplets from the Texas Twin Project, we tested (a) how each measure relates to indices of the Big Five personality traits, (b) how the measures relate to one another, (c) the extent to which each measure is associated with genetic and environmental influences and whether such influences operate through common dimensions of individual differences, and (d) the extent to which genetic and environmental factors mediate the relations between fluid intelligence, character measures, verbal knowledge, and academic achievement. We find moderate relations among the measures that can be captured by a highly heritable common dimension representing a mixture of Openness and Conscientiousness. Moreover, genetically influenced variance in the character measures is associated with multiple measures of verbal knowledge and academic achievement, even after controlling for fluid intelligence. In contrast, environmentally influenced variance in character is largely unrelated to knowledge and achievement outcomes. We propose that character measures popularly used in education may be best conceptualized as indexing facets of personality that are of particular relevance to academic achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record

Robust Political Economy Revisited: Response to Critics

ABSTRACTRobust political economy is the attempt to theorize about political institutions in such a way as to guard against the knowledge and incentive problems that we can expect will threaten the public good in the real world. An implication of this attempt is the need to reason symmetrically about whether a proposed institution is liable to be as prone to failure due to knowledge and incentive problems as the situations it is designed to address. Another implication is that one should be wary of ad hoc institutional or policy proposals, that is, proposals that are not grounded in systematic tendencies to mitigate the knowledge and incentive problems. With these implications in mind, I am not convinced that the alternative institutions, conceptions of the state, and conceptions of social justice defended by my critics meet the test of robustness that, I maintain, can best be met through decentralization of power down to the level of the individual.