Implementation of Belief Change Operators Using BDDs

While the theory of belief change has attracted a lot of interest from researchers, work on implementing belief change and actually putting it to use in real-world problems is still scarce. In this paper, we present an implementation of propositional belief change using Binary Decision Diagrams. Upper complexity bounds for the algorithm are presented and discussed. The approach is presented both in the general case, as well as on specific belief change operators from the literature. In an effort to gain a better understanding of the empirical efficiency of the algorithms involved, a fault diagnosis problem on combinational circuits is presented, implemented and evaluated.     

Validation of the General Attitude and Belief Scale

The purpose of this study was to provide further validational information on the General Attitude and Belief Scale (e.g., DiGiuseppe, Leaf, Exner & Robin, 1988). Particular interest was in determining further the factor structure of the General Attitude and Belief Scale as confirming REBT theory concerning the nature of irrational thinking. A sample of 236 males and 490 females drawn from a variety of populations completed the General Attitude and Belief Scale as well as a number of cross-validational measures (Spielberger's Trait Anxiety, Curiosity and Anger Scales, Spielberger's Anger Expression Scale, Beck's Depression Inventory (short-form) and Diener's Life Satisfaction Scale). A second sample of 18 couples receiving on-going marriage counselling and 43 couples not receiving counselling also completed the General Attitude and Belief Scale. A principal factors analysis yielded one factor of rationality and six irrationality factors (need for achievement, need for approval, demands for fairness, need for comfort, self-downing and other-downing). Significant correlations were obtained between the seven sub-scales of the General Attitude and Belief Scale and cross-validational measures. The clinical group of distressed couples scored lower in rationality and higher on three of the six sub-scales of irrationality. The findings support the continued use of the General Attitude and Belief Scale as a research instrument and of value to practitioners.     

A General Family of Limited Information Goodness-of-Fit Statistics for Multinomial Data

Maydeu-Olivares and Joe (J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 100:1009–1020, 2005; Psychometrika 71:713–732, 2006) introduced classes of chi-square tests for (sparse) multidimensional multinomial data based on low-order marginal proportions. Our extension provides general conditions under which quadratic forms in linear functions of cell residuals are asymptotically chi-square. The new statistics need not be based on margins, and can be used for one-dimensional multinomials. We also provide theory that explains why limited information statistics have good power, regardless of sparseness. We show how quadratic-form statistics can be constructed that are more powerful than X ² and yet, have approximate chi-square null distribution in finite samples with large models. Examples with models for truncated count data and binary item response data are used to illustrate the theory.     

Representations of Family Practices, Belief in Sex Differences, and Sexism

Two hundred twenty-one adults and young adults answered one of three versions of a questionnaire of opinion scales, which induced a comparison between three pairs of targets (husband and wife; husband and home helper; wife and home helper). After they evaluated the targets’ contributions to family work, participants judged whether the contributions were fair and satisfactory. Then participants’ degree of belief in sex differences and level of sexism were measured. Results show that spouses’ contributions are only judged satisfactory when wife was compared with home helper; male respondents’ reported that they believed more strongly in sex differences when husband and wife were compared; men’s and women’s level of benevolent sexism did not differ when husband was compared with home helper.     

结构式家庭治疗在精神分裂症患者中应用的研究概况

精神分裂症属于重性精神病,在世界人口中的患病率约为1％,其特点是病程迁延,治疗进展缓慢,且复发率以及病残率均相对较高.它是一类病因尚未完全明了的精神障碍,社会心理因素(尤其是家庭关系)在其发病、转归和预后方面具有重要作用.针对精神分裂症家庭特点的研究,推动了家庭治疗的发展,也增加了帮助患者全面康复的治疗手段.结构式家庭治疗假设家庭中被标定的个体的问题与家庭的动力和结构有着密切的联系,改变家庭的动力及其组织过程,可改变个人及家庭,可以应用于精神分裂症患者家庭中,并且具有良好的治疗效果.     

信念之谜(下)

在1972年《命名与必然性》的演讲中,作者提出了直接指称论的观点:名字的语义学内容仅仅就是所指称的对象。一般认为,如果接受直接指称论就必然导致信念之谜。因为,假如专名的语义学内容仅仅就是所指称的对象,那么两个共指称的专名,比如"Cicero"("西塞罗")和"Tully"("图利"),就应该在信念语境中可以替换。但这似乎是错误的,因为,似乎"琼斯相信西塞罗是秃子但不相信图利是秃子"可以是真的,而倘若作替换,就会得出矛盾。在本文中,作者试图论证:实际上导致信念之谜的乃是两个更为基本的原则,即去引号原则和翻译原则;不能把信念之谜的产生归咎于直接指称论。通过这种间接论证,作者认为,直接指称论没有被信念之谜难题驳倒,它还是能够获得辩护的。     

论桂西岑大将军信仰的原生形态与次生形态

岑大将军的原型是元代土官岑世兴,对他的信仰最初来自土司家族的祖先崇拜,后来经过神化与普世化成为地方性的神祇。岑大将军信仰在传播的过程中,被不断改造,形成地方民众自己心目中不同的将军形象,从而产生了众多的次生形态。但就实际而言,岑大将军信仰无论其原生形态或次生形态都反映了土司社会权力的文化网络。     

A Natural History of Belief

Contemporary philosophy of mind is dominated by a conception of our propositional attitude concepts as comprising a proto-scientific causal-explanatory theory of behavior. This conception has given rise to a spate of recent worries about the prospects for naturalizing the theory. In this paper I return to the roots of the theory-theory of the attitudes in Wilfrid Sellars's classic Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. I present an alternative to the theory-theory's account of belief in the form of a parody of Sellars's Myth of Jones, one that highlights the normative and pragmatic aspects of this concept and, hopefully, enables us to bypass questions about its physical realization.     

A Survey of non-Prioritized Belief Revision

This paper summarizes and systematizes recent and ongoing work on non-prioritized belief change, i.e., belief revision in which the new information has no special priority due to its novelty.     

Family Therapy Training in Selected General Psychiatry Residency Programs

This paper describes the current state of family therapy training in general psychiatry residency programs (GPRP) in the United States. Based on a national survey of 80 GPRP training directors, current practices and attitudes toward family therapy training are assessed. The principal finding is that there has been a significant increase in the amount of required family therapy training in GPRP over previous years and many of the programs would like to expand their current curriculum. Issues concerning course content, definition of family therapy employed, and the meshing of different theoretical paradigms are considered. Recommendations for further research and for the initiation of intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue are presented.     

A Theory of Belief for Scientific Refutations

A probability function on an algebra of events is assumed. Some of the events are scientific refutations in the sense that the assumption of their occurrence leads to a contradiction. It is shown that the scientific refutations form a a boolean sublattice in terms of the subset ordering. In general, the restriction of to the sublattice is not a probability function on the sublattice. It does, however, have many interesting properties. In particular, (i) it captures probabilistic ideas inherent in some legal procedures; and (ii) it is used to argue against the commonly held view that behavioral violations of certain basic conditions for qualitative probability are indicative of irrationality. Also discussed are (iii) the relationship between the formal development of scientific refutations presented here and intuitionistic logic, and (iv) an interpretation of a belief function used in the behavioral sciences to explain empirical results about subjective, probabilistic estimation, including the Ellsberg paradox.     

A Model for Structural Changes of Belief

The paper suggests a way of modeling belief changes within the tradition of formal belief revision theories. The present model extends the scope of traditional proposals, such as AGM, so as to take care of “structural belief changes” – a type of radical shifts that is best illustrated with, but not limited to, instances of scientific discovery; we obtain AGM expansions and contractions as limiting cases. The representation strategy relies on a non-standard use of a semantic machinery. More precisely, the model seeks to correlate knowledge states with interpretations of a given formal language L, in such a way that the epistemic state of an agent at a given time gives rise to a picture of how things could be, if there weren’t anything else to know. Interpretations of L proceed along supervaluational ideas; hence, the model as a whole can be seen as a particular application of supervaluational semantics to epistemic matters. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Parental Perceptions of Characteristics of Non-Parental Child Care: Belief Dimensions, Family and Child Correlates

Investigators argue that it is essential to consider why parents select non-parental child care arrangements in studying the effects of that care on a child’s development. Existing investigations explore family economic and demographic characteristics as determinants of child care choice. The present investigation examined a wide array of parents’ beliefs about characteristics of child care arrangements with the goal of determining if these could be reduced to coherent dimensions. The emergent belief sets were examined in relation to maternal and child characteristics as potential correlates. Two hundred and twenty respondents with children in non-parental care completed surveys. These individuals represent diverse ethnic and economic groups. Ratings of the importance of characteristics were factor analyzed resulting in a six factor solution: Practical Concerns, Institutional Structure, Curriculum, Scheduling, Child Centered Orientation and School Readiness. The latter factor, or program components promoting social skills and classroom behaviors associated with succeeding in school, was identified as the most important dimension. Parents describing their children as more difficult temperamentally and as less developmentally advanced tended to describe school readiness and curriculum issues as less important. Child characteristics accounted for unique variance above and beyond mothers’ characteristics in predicting to parental beliefs. Results suggest that parents as consumers possess coherent belief sets and are sensitive to children’s developmental needs in evaluating care arrangements.     

A Paraconsistent Theory Of Belief Revision

This paper presents a theory of belief revision that allows people to come tobelieve in contradictions. The AGM theory of belief revision takes revision,in part, to be consistency maintenance. The present theory replacesconsistency with a weaker property called coherence. In addition to herbelief set, we take a set of statements that she rejects. These two sets arecoherent if they do not overlap. On this theory, belief revision maintains coherence.     

A Topological Approach to Full Belief

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Stalnaker (Philosophical Studies, 128(1), 169–199 2006) introduced a combined epistemic-doxastic logic that can formally express a strong concept of belief, a...     

A Phenomenal, Dispositional Account of Belief

This paper describes and defends in detail a novel account of belief, an account inspired by Ryle's dispositional characterization of belief, but emphasizing irreducibly phenomenal and cognitive dispositions as well as behavioral dispositions. Potential externalist and functionalist objections are considered, as well as concerns motivated by the inevitably ceteris paribus nature of the relevant dispositional attributions. It is argued that a dispositional account of belief is particularly well-suited to handle what might be called "in-between" cases of believing—cases in which it is neither quite right to describe a person as having a particular belief nor quite right to describe her as lacking it.