Ambiguous probabilities: when does p=0.3 reflect a possibility,and when does it express a doubt?

Verbal phrases denoting uncertainty are usually held to be more vague than numerical probability statements. They are, however, directionally more precise, in the sense that they are either positive, suggesting the occurrence of a target outcome, or negative, drawing attention to its non‐occurrence. A numerical probability will, in contrast, sometimes be perceived as positive and sometimes as negative. When asked to complete sentences such as ‘The operation has a 30% chance of success, because’ some people will give reasons for success (‘the doctors are expert surgeons’), whereas others will give reasons for failure (‘it is a difficult operation’). It is shown in two experiments that positive reasons are given more often than negative ones, even for p values below 0.5, especially when the probability is higher than expected, and the target outcome is non‐normal, undesirable, and phrased as a negation. We conclude that the directionality of numerical probabilities (as opposed to verbal phrases) is context‐dependent, but biased towards a positive interpretation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding user’s travel behavior and city region functions from station-free shared bike usage data

Station-free shared bike (SFSB) is a new travel mode that shared bikes are allowed to park in any proper places. It implies that the users are more likely to park the SFSB as close as their destinations. This advantage makes the SFSB data to be an ideal source to understand the land-use distribution. Inspired by the idea in text mining, this paper proposes a topic-based two-stage SFSB data mining algorithm to understand the SFSB user’s travel behavior and to discover city functional regions. A region, a function and human mobility patterns are treated as a document, a topic and words, respectively. Then, a region is represented by a distribution of functions, and a function is featured by a distribution of mobility patterns. The point-of-interest data is combined to annotate the clustered regions to discover the real functions. At last, the proposed method is tested using 14-day SFSB data in Beijing and the results are estimated by the Satellite Map data. The proposed methods and the results can be applied to infer the individual’s travel purpose through functional regions and to improve land-use planning, etc.     

Affine representations in psychophysics and the near-miss to Weber’s law

A theoretical account for the near-miss to Weber’s law in the form of a power function, with a special emphasis on the interpretation of the exponent, was proposed by Falmagne [Falmagne, J.-C. (1985). Elements of psychophysical theory. New York: Oxford University Press] within the framework of a subtractive representation, P(x,y)=F(u(x)−g(y)). In this paper, we examine a more general affine representation, P(x,y)=F(u(x)h(y)+g(y)). We first obtain a uniqueness theorem for the affine representation. We then study the conditions that force an affine representation to degenerate to a subtractive one. Part of that study involves the case for which two different affine representations co-exist for the same data. We also show that the balance condition P(x,y)+P(y,x)=1 constrains an affine representation to be a special kind of subtractive representation, a Fechnerian one. We further show that Falmagne’s power law takes on a special form for a so-called weakly balanced system of probabilities, in which case the affine representation is Fechnerian. Finally, following Iverson [Iverson, G.J. (2006a). Analytical methods in the theory of psychophysical discrimination I: Inequalities, convexity and integration of just noticeable differences. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 50, 271-282], we generalize the Fechner method to construct the sensory scales in a weakly balanced affine representation by integrating (derivatives of) just noticeable differences.     

Interdisziplinarität und Wissensentwicklung

Interdisciplinarity and the Development of Knowledge. The author is engaged in the question how to explain the development of scientific meanings of facts which does not coincide with producing them rather with processes of the scientists' public communication. So long as the facts are adjustable to the conventional theories of those discipline which the researcher belongs to this connection does not reveal perfectly clear. More instructive is a consideration of so-called anomalies. The author demonstrates with an example of the history of science that researchers in case of new phenomena use to borrow concepts from other disciplines for resolving the interpretative problems. It emerges a loose net-work of concepts. In this way the researchers are producing a disciplinary mixed public at the same time. This process is seen as an important phase of the development of new theories and, complementary, new disciplines.     

Correlation between functional mobility and cognitive performance in older adults with cognitive impairment

Association between cognitive impairment and gait performance occurs in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer‘s disease (AD), particularly under “divided attention” conditions, leading to a greater risk of falls. We studied 36 controls, 42 MCI, and 26 mild AD patients, using the Timed Up-and-Go test (TUG) under four conditions: TUG single – TUG1; TUG cognitive – TUG2; TUG manual –TUG3; TUG cognitive and manual – TUG4. Cognition was assessed using the MMSE, SKT, Exit25, and TMT (A and B). We found significant correlations between cognitive scores and TUG2 [r values (MMSE: –0.383, TMT-A: 0.430, TMT-B: 0.386, Exit25: 0.455, SKT: 0.563)] and TUG4 [(MMSE: –0.398, TMT-A: 0.384, TMT-B: 0.352,Exit25: 0.466, SKT: 0.525)] in the AD group, and between all TUG modalities and SKT in MCI and AD. Our results revealed that functional mobility impairment in cognitive dual tasks correlated to cognitive decline in AD patients and to attention and memory impairment in MCI.     

The touch of King Midas: Collingwood on why actions are not events

It is the ambition of natural science to provide complete explanations of reality. Collingwood argues that science can only explain events, not actions. The latter is the distinctive subject matter of history and can be described as actions only if they are explained historically. This paper explains Collingwood’s claim that the distinctive subject matter of history is actions and why the attempt to capture this subject matter through the method of science inevitably ends in failure because science explains events, not actions. It argues that Collingwood’s defence of the methodological autonomy of history vis-à-vis natural science is not based on a commitment to human exceptionalism, i.e. the exclusion of human beings and their doings from the rest of nature, but on the view that explanations which appeal to norms are different in kind from explanations which appeal to empirical regularities. Given the close relationship between the method and the subject matter of a form of inquiry, actions elude any attempt to explain them through the scientific method because the application of this method entails that what is thus explained is not an action but an event.     

藏汉双语者汉语阅读理解的静息态功能连接分析

研究结合静息态全脑功能连接密度和基于种子点的功能连接（FC）分析考察了藏汉双语者汉语（L2）阅读各子能力（细节捕捉和推理判断）的固有脑功能组织特点。结果发现左侧额下回—左侧颞上回和右侧舌回—右侧中央前回之间的FC值均与细节捕捉题得分和推理判断题得分呈显著正相关,但是左侧额下回—右侧顶下小叶之间的FC值只与推理判断题得分呈显著正相关。表明藏汉双语者汉语阅读各子能力之间既有重叠的又有不同的功能连接通路。