Estimation of nonlinear mixed-effects continuous-time models using the continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter

Many intensive longitudinal measurements are collected at irregularly spaced time intervals, and involve complex, possibly nonlinear and heterogeneous patterns of change. Effective modelling of such change processes requires continuous-time differential equation models that may be nonlinear and include mixed effects in the parameters. One approach of fitting such models is to define random effect variables as additional latent variables in a stochastic differential equation (SDE) model of choice, and use estimation algorithms designed for fitting SDE models, such as the continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter (CDEKF) approach implemented in the dynr R package, to estimate the random effect variables as latent variables. However, this approach's efficacy and identification constraints in handling mixed-effects SDE models have not been investigated. In the current study, we analytically inspect the identification constraints of using the CDEKF approach to fit nonlinear mixed-effects SDE models; extend a published model of emotions to a nonlinear mixed-effects SDE model as an example, and fit it to a set of irregularly spaced ecological momentary assessment data; and evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach to fit the model through a Monte Carlo simulation study. Results show that the proposed approach produces reasonable parameter and standard error estimates when some identification constraint is met. We address the effects of sample size, process noise variance, and data spacing conditions on estimation results.     

Murphy on Postmodernity, Science, and Religion

Nancey Murphy claims that a shift in "thinking strategy" from modern to postmodern modes of thought makes it easier to exhibit the intellectual respectability of theology vis-à-vis the sciences. Her case for this proposition depends on modernist interests, most notably in systematizing the sciences for reasons that have their origin in Plato's divided line.     

Ordinal network representation: Representing proximities by graphs

Ordinal network representations are graph-theoretic representations of proximity data. They seek to provide parsimonious representations of the ordinal (nonmetric) information in observed proximity data by means of the minimum-path-length distance of a connected and weighted graph. In contrast to traditional tree-based graph-theoretic approaches, ordinal network representation is not limited to but includes the representation by trees. Asymmetry in the proximity data and violations of zero-minimality are allowed for. The paper explores fundamental representation and uniqueness results and discusses a method of constructing ordinal network representations. A simple strategy for handling the problem of errors in the data is described and illustrated.This work was supported by grant Fe 75/20-2 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The author is indebted to Hubert Feger for many inspiring discussions.     

Teacher reported types of sexual abuse of learners with intellectual disability in a South African school setting

This study investigated prevalent types of sexual abuse of learners with intellectual disability, as reported by teachers. Participants were 28 teachers from special educational needs schools in Gauteng Province, South Africa (females = 80%, age range = 30 to 55 years). The teachers participated in a focus group discussion on prevalent types of sexual abuse they were aware of that occurred to learners with intellectual disabilities. Thematic analysis of the data suggested five forms of sexual abuse of learners with intellectual disability: incest, rape by the members of the community, sexual harassment, child prostitution, and exposure to adult sexual encounters. Future research should focus on the ways to mitigate in-school sexual abuse of learners with intellectual disability; prioritising which forms of interventions would be effected.     

Reexamining Nonlinear Structural Equation Modeling Procedures: The Effect of Parallel and Congeneric Measures

The current study examines the performance of the extended unconstrained approach (EXUC) and the latent moderated structural equation modeling procedure (LMS) in situations where quadratic and interaction terms are tested simultaneously and investigates their limitations with regard to the employment of parallel and congeneric measures, relatively low indicator reliabilities, and relatively large numbers of indicators. By means of a Monte Carlo study, we found LMS to be the best option for testing multiple nonlinear effects given sufficient sample size (n ≥ 500) and normally distributed exogenous variables. Its advantages became more prominent when indicator reliabilities were heterogeneous and small. The EXUC was a viable option for estimating the model when indicators were parallel and exhibited large indicator reliabilities. An empirical example of the results is provided, and the relevance of measurement model characteristics to assess nonlinear relationships is discussed.     

Do corporations have minds of their own?

Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status role, in which the collectively accepted function is expressed in part through its occupier’s intentional expression of her agency in that role (where the occupier is part of the group whose collective acceptance underwrites her having the relevant function in social transactions). I identify institutions as systems of status roles and show how this is compatible with seeing the agency of institutions generally, even over time periods in which there is complete change in role occupiers, as a matter of the contributions only of individual agents. I explain how the reduction of the institution to its members is compatible with its potentially having had a completely different membership. I show in the case of the corporation in particular that, once we see its origins and function, the surface features of legal discourse about corporate agency are misleading and are compatible with a deflationary account of corporate agency. I show in connection with this that the corporation is to be identified with its shareholders, and that where a corporation separates ownership and control, its managers and employees are proxy agents of the shareholders doing business under the corporate form. Finally, I canvass the legitimate ways of construing ordinary talk about corporate intention, belief, and so on, in light of this, none of which support the attribution of genuine agency or intentionality to any group per se associated with the corporation.     

Lessons and new directions for extended cognition from social and personality psychology

This paper aims to expand the range of empirical work relevant to the extended cognition debates. First, I trace the historical development of the person-situation debate in social and personality psychology and the extended cognition debate in the philosophy of mind. Next, I highlight some instructive similarities between the two and consider possible objections to my comparison. I then argue that the resolution of the person-situation debate in terms of interactionism lends support for an analogously interactionist conception of extended cognition. I argue that this interactionism might necessitate a shift away from the dominant agent-artifact paradigm toward an agent–agent paradigm. If this is right, then social and personality psychology—the discipline(s) that developed from the person-situation debate—opens a whole new range of empirical considerations for extended cognition theorists which align with Clark & Chalmers original vision of agents themselves as spread into the world.     

Extended music cognition

Discussions of extended cognition have increasingly engaged with the empirical and methodological practices of cognitive science and psychology. One topic that has received increased attention from those interested in the extended mind is music cognition. A number of authors have argued that music not only shapes emotional and cognitive processes, but also that it extends those processes beyond the bodily envelope. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the case for extended music cognition. Two accounts are examined in detail: Joel Krueger’s “musically extended emotional mind” and Tom Cochrane’s “expression and extended cognition.” Each account is evaluated using three “anti-extension” arguments. I argue that Krueger and Cochrane’s accounts offer important steps toward extended music cognition, but that each account remains underdeveloped in various ways. To supplement existing approaches, I propose a complementary extended computational approach to music cognition (ECMC). The claim is that music cognition forms part of an extended system in virtue of involving computational processes that range across environmental and in-the-head elements. The paper concludes by showing how the ECMC deals with each of the three anti-extension challenges and responds to objections.