Terms Of Inference Research Articles

Ordered probit Bayesian additive regression trees for ordinal data

Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) is a nonparametric model that is known for its flexibility and strong statistical foundation. To address a robust and flexible approach to analyse ordinal data, we extend BART into an ordered probit regression framework (OPBART). Further, we propose a semiparametric setting for OPBART (semi‐OPBART) to model covariates of interest parametrically and confounding variables nonparametrically. We also provide Gibbs sampling procedures to implement the proposed models. In both simulations and real data studies, the proposed models demonstrate superior performance over other competing ordinal models. We also highlight enhanced interpretability of semi‐OPBART in terms of inference through marginal effects.

Why interference phenomena do not capture the essence of quantum theory

Quantum interference phenomena are widely viewed as posing a challenge to the classical worldview. Feynman even went so far as to proclaim that they are the only mystery and the basic peculiarity of quantum mechanics. Many have also argued that basic interference phenomena force us to accept a number of radical interpretational conclusions, including: that a photon is neither a particle nor a wave but rather a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of entity that toggles between the two possibilities, that reality is observer-dependent, and that systems either do not have properties prior to measurements or else have properties that are subject to nonlocal or backwards-in-time causal influences. In this work, we show that such conclusions are not, in fact, forced on us by basic interference phenomena. We do so by describing an alternative to quantum theory, a statistical theory of a classical discrete field (the `toy field theory') that reproduces the relevant phenomenology of quantum interference while rejecting these radical interpretational claims. It also reproduces a number of related interference experiments that are thought to support these interpretational claims, such as the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester, Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment, and the quantum eraser experiment. The systems in the toy field theory are field modes, each of which possesses, at all times, both a particle-like property (a discrete occupation number) and a wave-like property (a discrete phase). Although these two properties are jointly possessed, the theory stipulates that they cannot be jointly known. The phenomenology that is generally cited in favour of nonlocal or backwards-in-time causal influences ends up being explained in terms of inferences about distant or past systems, and all that is observer-dependent is the observer's knowledge of reality, not reality itself.

Disentangling runoff generation mechanisms: Combining isotope tracing with integrated surface/subsurface simulation

The majority of runoff studies to date have reported a similar pattern of rapid rain-to-runoff conversion via overland flow and shallow subsurface water flow, as well as the ubiquity of thresholds and hysteresis in rainfall-runoff response. But each of those approaches has limitations in terms of inference and process description. Processes of water transport and mixing and how they influence runoff generation are still not well understood or quantified. In this study, HydroGeoSphere, a fully-integrated surface/subsurface flow model, was used together with stable isotopes for disentangling runoff generation mechanisms in a headwater catchment. The study area (0.21 km2) is the first-level tributary of the Xin’an Jiang River located in a humid climate region of eastern China. Water flow simulation elucidated the spatial water transport process, and isotope tracing quantified the complex water mixing process between the shallow soil and hillslope surface. This study provides insights into the rapid transformation of rainfall infiltration and mixing in soil and exfiltration to a hillslope. Results show that the stream runoff was separated into rainfall-induced overland flow (9 %), exfiltration-induced overland flow (including the 53 % of mixed water from rainfall infiltration and 6 % of the stored soil water), and subsurface flow (32 %). Exfiltration-induced overland flow was the dominant water source in the headwater catchment during a rainfall-runoff event. The mutual influence of rainfall infiltration and soil water exfiltration caused the shallow soil to rapidly become saturated, thus forming saturation excess overland flow. The consistence of estimated soil water velocity based on the integrated isotope and numerical modeling approach, at about 0.4 m/d nearby the stream channel, improved the reliability of model visualizations. Further analysis indicates that water flow paths and velocities responding to the rainfall event were attributed to the soil moisture conditions and topography. This study demonstrates that identifying the rapid mixing processes between the rain and the soil water was crucial for understanding hillslope overland flow and runoff generation in headwater catchments.

Educational Comic Strip as Visual Medium for Enhancing Learners’ Higher Order Thinking Skills in Economics

The research paper entitled “Educational Comics Strip as Visual Medium for enhancing Learners’ Higher Order Thinking Skills in Economics” was conducted to identify the learners’ higher order thinking skills in terms of inference, analyzing, evaluating, and predicting using educational comic strips in Economics. Using a quasi-experimental method, it involved 34 purposively selected Grade 9 students of Bondoc Peninsula Agricultural High School during the school year 2021-2022. Data gathering was done online; the respondents through Google Forms accomplished a digitized version of the questionnaire. The students were given a self-made pre-test, and then engaged in a comic strip; afterward, a post-test was administered, followed by a survey questionnaire on their perception of the comic strip. Pearson product-moment correlation, t-Test, Mean and Standard Deviation were used to analyze and interpret the data. The result revealed that the students were in a very great extent-using comic strip in terms of multimodal communication, narrative experiences, text and images, and contextual clues. There is an improvement in the students’ Higher Order Thinking Skills. The pre-test resulted in less frequency of satisfactory to very satisfactory on inferring and analyzing and did not meet expectations on evaluating and predicting. While the post-test resulted in a greater frequency of very satisfactory to outstanding, compared to the pre-test, on inferring, analyzing, and predicting. This result implies that different type of questions on pretest and posttest with the same competencies affects the respondents’ post-test scores, especially in terms of analyzing and evaluating. Based on the findings, the following conclusions were derived. There is a significant difference in the students’ pre-test and post-test mean scores on Higher Order Thinking Skills assessment. Moreover, there is a significant relationship between the student’s perception of the use of comic strips in terms of multimodal communication, narrative experiences, text and images, and contextual clues, and their Higher Order Thinking Skills to analyze, evaluate and predict. Also, there is a significant relationship between their higher-order thinking skill inferring and multimodal communication, text, images, and contextual clues. Keywords: comic strip, Higher Order Thinking Skills, inferring, analyzing, evaluating, predicting

Causality in psychotherapy research: Towards evidential pluralism

ABSTRACT Identifying causal relationships is at the heart of all scientific inquiry, and a means to evidence base practices and to guide policymaking. However, being aware of the complexities of interactions and relationships, scientists and academics are cautious about claiming causality. Researchers applying methods that deviate from the experimental design generally abstain from causal claims, reserving them for designs that adhere to the evidential ideals of empiricism (e.g., RCTs), motivated by the Humean conceptions of causality. Accordingly, results from other designs are ascribed lower explanatory power and scientific status. We discuss the relevance of also other perspectives of causality, such as dispositionalism and the power perspectives of various realist approaches, which emphasize intrinsic properties and contextual variations, as well as an inferentialist/epistemic approach that advocates causal explanations in terms of inferences and linguistic interaction. The discussion will be illustrated by the current situation within psychotherapy research and the APA Policy Statement on Evidence-Based Practice. The distinction between difference-making and causal production will be proposed as a possible means to evaluate the relevance of designs. We conclude that clarifying causal relationships is an ongoing process that requires the use of various designs and methods and advocate a stance of evidential pluralism.

Jump detection in high-frequency financial data using wavelets

The presence of spikes or cusps in high-frequency return series might generate problems in terms of inference and estimation of the parameters in volatility models. For example, the presence of jumps in a time series can influence sample autocorrelations, which can cause misidentification or generate spurious ARCH effects. On the other hand, these jumps might also hide relevant heteroskedastic behavior of the dependence structure of a series, leading to identification issues and a poorer fit to a model. This paper proposes a wavelet-shrinkage method to separate out jumps in high-frequency financial series, fitting a suitable model that accounts for its stylized facts. We also perform simulation studies to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method, in addition to illustrating the effect of the jumps in time series. Lastly, we use the methodology to model real high-frequency time series of stocks traded on the Brazilian Stock Exchange and OTC and a series of cryptocurrencies trades.

Comparing the Reasoning Capabilities of Equilibrium Theories and Answer Set Programs

Answer Set Programming (ASP) is a well established logical approach in artificial intelligence that is widely used for knowledge representation and problem solving. Equilibrium logic extends answer set semantics to more general classes of programs and theories. When intertheory relations are studied in ASP, or in the more general form of equilibrium logic, they are usually understood in the form of comparisons of the answer sets or equilibrium models of theories or programs. This is the case for strong and uniform equivalence and their relativised and projective versions. However, there are many potential areas of application of ASP for which query answering is relevant and a comparison of programs in terms of what can be inferred from them may be important. We formulate and study some natural equivalence and entailment concepts for programs and theories that are couched in terms of inference and query answering. We show that, for the most part, these new intertheory relations coincide with their model-theoretic counterparts. We also extend some previous results on projective entailment for theories and for the new connective called fork.

Improved Regional Frequency Analysis of rainfall data

Rainfall are subject to local orography features and their intensities can be highly variable. In this context, identifying climatically coherent regions can greatly help interpreting rainfall patterns and improve the inference of return levels. In practice, partitioning a region of interest into homogeneous sub-regions is a delicate statistical task, especially in regards to modeling heavy rainfall features.In this work, our main goal is to propose and study a fast and efficient clustering algorithm. Compared to classical regional frequency analysis techniques, a key aspect is that our algorithm does not rely on the a priori choice of covariates. The proposed numerical scheme is only based on the precipitation dataset at hand, including low, moderate and heavy rainfall. In terms of inference, our approach builds on the easy-to-compute and reliable probability weighted moments commonly used in hydrology. While being in compliance with extreme value theory, we do not impose a parametric form on rainfall distributions and, neither thresholding nor block maxima steps are required in our proposed approach. By construction, our clustering method preserves the scale invariance principle of any classical regional frequency analysis.The performance of our clustering algorithm is assessed on a detailed experimental design based on the extended Generalized Pareto distribution.Sensitivity to the number of clusters is carefully analyzed.We apply our clustering algorithm on Switzerland daily precipitation measured at 191 sites. The found homogeneous regions are consistent with local orography and our approach outperforms the classical regional frequency analysis based on normalized elevation and coordinates as covariates. To complete our analysis of Swiss rainfall, we propose three models based on our clustering outputs. A comparison between our local, semi-regional and regional models indicates that a relatively simple model with two clusters and a spatially varying scale parameter can compete very well against complex models.

On the Experimental Feasibility of Quantum State Reconstruction via Machine Learning

We determine the resource scaling of machine learning-based quantum state reconstruction methods, in terms of inference and training, for systems of up to four qubits when constrained to pure states. Further, we examine system performance in the low-count regime, likely to be encountered in the tomography of high-dimensional systems. Finally, we implement our quantum state reconstruction method on an IBM Q quantum computer, and compare against both unconstrained and constrained MLE state reconstruction.

The impact of the quality of financial reporting on unusual fluctuations in stock returns

Objective: Anomaly output vibrancy has priority to some cases like portfolio diversification, active management portfolio and relation between risk and reward; also, examination of impact factors on it could be important. Methodology: In this research is evaluated about impact of finance reporting quality and time passage on output of anomaly stock in accepted companies in Tehran Stock Exchange for five years period (between 2009 to 2013). In this study are used from two models of Dechow et al. and Francis for measurement the finance reporting quality and time passage. Also, in this research linear regression is used for data analysis. Results: This study is application type and also in terms of inference is description-analytical (apriority) and in terms of research plan is scientific. Variables of finance reporting quality (FQR2), vibrancy of yearly stock output (VCF) and variable of book value to market value (BM) with significant level of less than 0.05 have significant impact on relative variable. Conclusion: Variables of investment stock ratio (INST) with significant level of more than 0.05 have no significant impact on relative variable, so these variables have no significant impact on anomaly vibrancy of stock output.

Effect of over time on Unusual fluctuations on stock returns of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

Objective: Finance reporting with quality and clear finance statement could eventuate to important economic results such as reduction in vibrancy of anomaly stock output. In other words, how much the finance statement of companies, specially reported profit by firms, be more quality; based on efficient market theory, it is expected this information peers in stock price, so price of stock will have less vibrancy. Methodology: In this research is evaluated about impact of finance reporting quality and time passage on output of anomaly stock in accepted companies in Tehran Stock Exchange for five years period (between 2009 to 2013). Results: In this study are used from two models of Dechow and Francis for measurement the finance reporting quality and time passage. Also, in this research linear regression is used for data analysis. Conclusion: This study is application type and also in terms of inference is description-analytical (apriority) and in terms of research plan is scientific. Variables of time (T); variable of book value to market value (BM) with significant level of less than 0.05 have significant impact on relative variable. Variables of yearly stock output (RET) with significant level of more than 0.05 have no significant impact on relative variable, so these variables have no significant impact on anomaly vibrancy of stock output.

Leave inference alone: Direct inferential social cognition

Direct perception and theory–theory approaches to social cognition are opposed with respect to whether social cognition is inferential. The latter argues that it is inferential, the former that it is not. This article argues that the opposition in terms of inference is mistaken. A sense of inference is specified on which social cognition can be inferential and directly perceptual. Arguing for inferential social cognition does not commit to a defense of indirect social cognition if inferential access to other minds can be direct. Contrary convictions are symptomatic of working with too simplistic a notion of inference. The dispute between direct and inferentialist social cognition is one in which both sides can be right. The argument, then, is that inferentialism should not be called on to witness in favor or disfavor of advocates of either direct or indirect social cognition.

Peirce on Analogy

This paper explores Peirce’s concept of analogy. I begin by arguing that he understands it along two main lines: (1) as a natural cognitive operation that discerns the resemblance of structural relations, pivotally signified by the diagram sign-class, and (2) as a “mixed” form of argument employing abduction, deduction, and induction. After exploring these two aspects, along with their interpenetration, I compare Peirce’s account of analogous reasoning with the highly influential view of the late-Medieval scholastic Thomas Cajetan. I argue that Peirce presents a superior approach because his diagrammatic logic renders a view that is methodologically open to further inquiry, explains that openness in terms of inference through sampling, and capaciously accepts a variety of potential determinations for any one analogy due to the objective vagueness of signs. Cajetan’s appeal to the irreducible proportionality of analogous thinking, on the other hand, excludes further explanation of analogy’s workings.

التوظیف النحویُّ و الدلالیُّ للَّام (الجارّة) و معانیها فی صحیح البخاریّ دراسة و تحلیل

ملخص التوظيف النحوي و الدلالي للام (الجارة) و معانيها في صحيح البخاري دراسة و تحليل إن أحاديث الرسول - صلى الله عليه وسلم– مصدر مهم للدراسات النحوية ينبغي أن توضع في مکانها المناسب من حيث الاستشهاد بها في القضايا النحوية بعد کلام الله عز وجل، وقد أعد هذا البحث لتناول اللام الجارة من حيث البعد النحوي والبعد الدلالي؛ لأن اللفظ لا ينفک عن المعنى، وأتبع فيه المنهج الوصفي التحليلي، واحتوى على توضيح معاني اللام الجارة ودلالاتها المتمثلة في: (الاستحقاق, الاختصاص, التعليل, الملک, التمليک, شبه التمليک, لام الجحود, التبليغ, والتعجب، والقسم, والتوکيد, والتعدية, ومن أجل, والفارقة. کما بين تأدية اللام معنى حرف من حروف الجر, التي هي: ( إلى ), ( عن) , (عند) , (بعد), (من), (مع), (الباء), (على), (کي) وأثبت أن لاما (کي) و(الجحود) من عوامل الأسماء ومن أقسام اللام الجارة, واستند البحث على شواهد من الحديث النبوي الشريف إثراء له. الکلمات المفتاحية: الاستعمال النحوي – البعد الدلالي – اللام الجارة – صحيح البخاري. دکتورة حامدة أحمد عثمان أستاذ النحو والصرف المساعد ـ قسم اللغة العربية کلية العلوم والآداب بمحايل عسير ـ جامعة الملک خالد Email : haaothman@kku.edu.sa Abstract Grammar and Semantic Employment of Mother (Neighbor) And its meanings in Sahih Bukhari The hadith of the Prophet (peace and be upon him) is an important source of grammatical studies that should be put in his proper place in terms of inference in grammatical issues after Quran and Sunnah. The evidence in Quran That you may make clear to the people what was sent down to them and that they might give thought.This study deals with the grammatical and semantic levels, and clarified the meanings of the LAM JARA and its semantics. The study also showed the performance of the LAM meaning of a preposition, which are: (to), (about), (at), (after), (from), (with) , (B), (on), (Ki) and proved that Lama (Ki) and (ingratitude) of the factors of the names and sections of the LAM JARA, and this study was based on evidence from the Hadith. Key words: grammatical usage - semantic dimension - neighbor neighbor - Sahih al - Bukhari. Dr. Hamda Ahmed Othman Assistant Professor of Arabic Grammar and Morphology College of Arts and Sciences, Muhayil Assir, King Khalid University Email : haaothman@kku.edu.sa

CASE STUDY: Delegated Distribution: Hotels Should Be Warned! An Example from Croatia

The penetration of online booking among hotels has been growing steadily. In order to maintain its market position, online travel agencies (OTAs) are offering small and medium hotels, mainly to those which have not yet adopted e-commerce, their own booking engines for websites or as apps to be integrated on hotels' platforms. Hotels are persuaded by cuts in commission, no commissions and other privileges. The implications of such a decision are of crucial importance to hotels in the struggle for tourists. This article presents a new classification of tourism e-distribution which includes this phenomenon named “delegate distribution”, a partnership strategy of OTA-s with hoteliers drawing on a study on the expansion of delegated distribution in Croatia. The key advantages and disadvantages are also listed, along with a comparison with direct and indirect forms of distribution in terms of inference upon other marketing mix elements.

The emergence of synchrony in networks of mutually inferring neurons

This paper considers the emergence of a generalised synchrony in ensembles of coupled self-organising systems, such as neurons. We start from the premise that any self-organising system complies with the free energy principle, in virtue of placing an upper bound on its entropy. Crucially, the free energy principle allows one to interpret biological systems as inferring the state of their environment or external milieu. An emergent property of this inference is synchronisation among an ensemble of systems that infer each other. Here, we investigate the implications of neuronal dynamics by simulating neuronal networks, where each neuron minimises its free energy. We cast the ensuing ensemble dynamics in terms of inference and show that cardinal behaviours of neuronal networks – both in vivo and in vitro – can be explained by this framework. In particular, we test the hypotheses that (i) generalised synchrony is an emergent property of free energy minimisation; thereby explaining synchronisation in the resting brain: (ii) desynchronisation is induced by exogenous input; thereby explaining event-related desynchronisation and (iii) structure learning emerges in response to causal structure in exogenous input; thereby explaining functional segregation in real neuronal systems.

A Computationally Efficient Projection-Based Approach for Spatial Generalized Linear Mixed Models

ABSTRACTInference for spatial generalized linear mixed models (SGLMMs) for high-dimensional non-Gaussian spatial data is computationally intensive. The computational challenge is due to the high-dimensional random effects and because Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for these models tend to be slow mixing. Moreover, spatial confounding inflates the variance of fixed effect (regression coefficient) estimates. Our approach addresses both the computational and confounding issues by replacing the high-dimensional spatial random effects with a reduced-dimensional representation based on random projections. Standard MCMC algorithms mix well and the reduced-dimensional setting speeds up computations per iteration. We show, via simulated examples, that Bayesian inference for this reduced-dimensional approach works well both in terms of inference as well as prediction; our methods also compare favorably to existing “reduced-rank” approaches. We also apply our methods to two real world data examples, one on bird count data and the other classifying rock types. Supplementary material for this article is available online.

THE CORRELATION OF STUDENTS’ CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMKN 1 KOTABUMI

The objectives of this research were to find out: i) the correlation between the students’ critical reading strategies and their reading comprehension achievement and ii) which aspects of reading comprehension significantly correlate with students’ critical reading strategies. This research was quantitative research. The subjects of this research were 30 students of SMKN 1 Kotabumi, North Lampung. The data were collected through questionnaire and reading comprehension test. The result showed that there was a statistically significant correlation between the students’ critical reading strategies and their reading comprehension achievement. Furthermore, reading aspects in terms of inference, determining main idea, and identifying specific information of the text had a statistically significant correlation with the students’ critical reading strategies. This suggests that critical reading strategies facilitates students to improve their reading achievement.

The Probit Choice Model Under Sequential Search with an Application to Online Retailing

We develop a probit choice model under optimal sequential search and apply it to the study of aggregate demand of consumer durable goods. In our joint model of search and choice, we derive an expression for the probability of choice that obeys the full set of restrictions imposed by optimal sequential search. Estimation of our partially analytic model avoids the computation of high-dimensional integrations in the evaluation of choice probabilities, which is of particular benefit when search sets are large. We demonstrate the advantages of our approach in data experiments and apply the model to aggregate search and choice data from the camcorder product category at Amazon.com. We show that the joint use of search and choice data provides better performance in terms of inferences and predictions than using search data alone and leads to realistic estimates of consumer substitution patterns. Data, as supplemental material, are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2545 . This paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta, marketing.

“Now that the magic is gone” or toward cognitive analysis of verbal/co-verbal communication

The paper addresses the problem created by the gap between Cognitive Linguistics usage-based theoretical commitment and the lack of empirical cognitive research on live communication. Its primary objective is to analyse advanced models of cognition in an attempt to outline basic methodological principles of cognitive analysis of verbal/co-verbal communication and, building on these principles, define the workable units and instruments of such analysis. I propose the key unit of cognitive analysis of verbal/co-verbal communication: an inter-subjective act, i.e. an inter-action including at least two verbal / co-verbal utterances (one initial and the other responsive) embedded in the complex dynamic psychic experiential context ‘shared’ by the communicants focusing attention on the same utterance as a perceptual stimulus. Such perceptual stimulus triggers parallel conscious / nonconscious inference processes involving cognition, volition, and affect to issue a command of a motivated, goal-oriented communicative and/or (immediate or postponed) social action. I also suggest analysing the process of the generation of meaning in communication in terms of inference. An inference is viewed as both a natural emergent product of conscious / nonconscious interplay of volition, cognition, and affect, triggering a communicative and/or social action, and also a tool of discovering this key structure of human psychic experience in cognitive linguistic analysis of communication.