Visual cognitive algorithms for high-dimensional data and super-intelligence challenges

In the long run the cognitive algorithms intend to make super-intelligent machines and super-intelligent humans. This paper presents a technical process to reach specific aspects of super-intelligence that are out of the current human cognitive abilities. These aspects are inabilities to discover patterns in large numeric multidimensional data with a naked eye. This is a long-standing problem in Data Science and Modeling in general. The major obstacle is in human inability to see n-D data by a naked eye and our needs in visualization means to represent n-D data in 2-D losslessly. While these means exist their number and abilities are limited. This paper expands the class of such lossless visual methods, by further developing a new concept of Generalized Shifted Paired Coordinates. It shows the advantages of proposed reversible lossless technique by representing real data and by proving mathematical properties.     

Unequal but not separate: Emergence of rich–poor cooperation in resource exchange

Addressing inequality is a critical challenge for society as a whole and requires sustained efforts to promote fairness and opportunity for all. Filling in the resource gap across social classes is essential in reducing inequality. Previous studies have revealed that ingroup favouritism hinders the rich from cooperating with the poor and expands the wealth gap. Nevertheless, how to find ways of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor remains an open question. Inducing rich–poor cooperation could be effective in eliciting resource flow across classes. In this study, two experiments using a modified Prisoner's Dilemma game were conducted in Japan (N = 213) and China (N = 150) to examine whether highlighting partners' cooperativeness under permeable group boundaries induces rich–poor cooperation. All participants were allocated to the rich group and participated in the game with programmed rich- or poor-group partner bots, whose cooperation rates were manipulated. Despite the initial resource disparities between participants and the partner bots, participants were more likely to select and cooperate with cooperative poor-group partners than with non-cooperative rich-group partners. Generalized trust played an important role in the enhancement of rich–poor cooperation. The findings shed light on the possibility of reducing inequality and promoting social mobility in society.     

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Applied Relaxation for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A Time Series Analysis of Change in Worry and Somatic Anxiety

The present study examined symptom change profiles in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) receiving either cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or applied relaxation (AR). It was hypothesized that (a) changes in worry would uniquely predict changes in somatic anxiety for most participants receiving CBT and (b) changes in somatic anxiety would uniquely predict changes in worry for most participants in the AR condition. Twenty participants (CBT n = 10; AR n = 10) completed daily ratings of worry and somatic anxiety during therapy, and multivariate time series analysis was used to assess the causal impact of each variable on the other. The hypotheses were not supported because we found no evidence of a match between individual symptom change profiles and treatment condition. Rather, a bidirectional relationship between worry and somatic anxiety was observed in 80% of participants receiving CBT and 70% of participants receiving AR. When only treatment responders were considered, 83% of participants receiving CBT and 86% of those receiving AR had such a bidirectional effect. The findings are discussed in terms of models of psychopathology that posit dynamic interactions between symptom clusters and in terms of the value of examining treatment mechanisms at the individual level.     

Tableau algorithms for factor analysis by instrumental variable methods

Simple tableau algorithms are given for the noniterative instrumental variable (FABIN 2) and two stage regression (FABIN 3) factor loading estimates of Hägglund. Corresponding generalized least squares estimates of factor covariances and unique variances are introduced. An example is given for the purpose of illustration and comparison.This research was supported by NSF Grant MCS-8301587.     

Choice, contingency discrimination, and foraging theory

Four pigeons were trained on eight or nine pairs of independent concurrent variable-interval schedules. The range of reinforcement ratios included extreme ratios (up to 532 to 1). Large samples of stable performance were gathered. Contrary to the findings of Davison and Jones (1995), the generalized matching law described choice more accurately than a contingency-discriminability model. Taking small samples (5 to 10 sessions) and applying a more liberal stability criterion used by Davison and Jones only increased the unsystematic variance in the data and in estimates of generalized-matching-law sensitivity. Because changing to dependent scheduling and inserting a changeover delay had no systematic effect, the deviations from generalized matching reported by Davison and Jones probably arose from imperfectly discriminated stimuli. Analysis of visits revealed that visits to the nonpreferred alternative were brief and approximately constant. When choice between the preferred (rich) and nonpreferred (lean) alternatives, regardless of position, was analyzed according to the generalized matching law, sensitivities approximated 1.0, with bias in favor of the lean alternative. This bias, which arose from an excessive frequency of visits to the lean alternative, explains undermatching as the result of fitting one line to a choice relation that consists of two displaced lines, both with a slope of 1.0. The pattern of deviation from the generalized matching line confirmed this account. The findings suggest an alternative analysis of choice that focuses on probability of visiting the lean alternative as the dependent variable. This probability was directly proportional to ratio of reinforcement. Matching, undermatching, and overmatching may all be explained by a view of concurrent performance based on foraging theory, in which responding occurs primarily at the rich alternative and is occasionally interrupted by brief visits to the lean alternative.     

Quantifiers and Congruence Closure

We prove some results about the limitations of the expressive power of quantifiers on finite structures. We define the concept of a bounded quantifier and prove that every relativizing quantifier which is bounded is already first-order definable (Theorem 3.8). We weaken the concept of congruence closed (see [6]) to weakly congruence closed by restricting to congruence relations where all classes have the same size. Adapting the concept of a thin quantifier (Caicedo [1]) to the framework of finite structures, we define the concept of a meager quantifier. We show that no proper extension of first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers is weakly congruence closed (Theorem 4.9). We prove the failure of the full congruence closure property for logics which extend first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers, arbitrary monadic quantifiers, and the Härtig quantifier (Theorem 6.1).     

Concurrent schedules: Interaction of reinforcer frequency and reinforcer duration

Six pigeons were trained on concurrent variable-interval schedules with unequal reinforcer durations for the two responses. The schedules arranged on the two keys were kept equal while they were varied in absolute size. As the overall reinforcer rate was increased, both response-allocation and time-allocation measures of choice showed a trend toward indifference, and measures of sensitivity to reinforcer-duration ratios significantly decreased. Recent reports have shown that the generalized matching law cannot describe the changes in behavior allocation under constant delay-, duration-, or rate-ratios when changes are made in the absolute levels of each of these variables. The present results complement these findings by demonstrating that the concatenated generalized matching law cannot describe the interactions of two reinforcer variables on behavior allocation.     

基于作答数据的模型参数和Q矩阵联合估计

Q矩阵在认知诊断的模型参数估计和诊断分类中起着重要作用。本文通过研究Liu等人的方法, 设计了同时估计项目参数和Q矩阵的联合估计算法。在DINA模型下, 对项目参数未知时开展模拟研究。研究假设项目为20个, 考察的属性个数分别是3、4和5, 初始Q矩阵中分别存在3、4和5个属性界定错误的项目。结果表明, 联合估计算法能在错误的初始Q矩阵基础上以很高的概率得到正确的Q矩阵。另外, 当专家认定测验的属性个数存在错误时, 该方法推导的Q矩阵和模型参数能提供很好的鉴别Q矩阵错误的信息。     

Does a Nation's Religious Composition Affect Generalized Trust? The Role of Religious Heterogeneity and the Percent Religious

Is religion more of an integrative or a divisive force in contemporary societies? We use multilevel analyses of World Values Survey data from 77,409 individuals in 69 countries to examine how both the percent of the population that is religious and the religious heterogeneity of a country are related to generalized social trust, the willingness of individuals to trust “most people.” When we first examine the main effects of the percent religious and religious heterogeneity we find no evidence that either variable is related to trust in the ways predicted by major theories. However, the combination of these two variables has a huge negative relationship with trust. Countries that are both highly religious and religiously heterogeneous (diverse) have, on average, levels of trust that are only half the average levels of countries with other combinations of these two variables. The results have important implications for understanding the role of religion in modern societies.     

Behavior-dependent reinforcer-rate changes in concurrent schedules: A further analysis

Six pigeons were trained on concurrent variable-interval schedules in three different procedures. The first procedure was a standard concurrent schedule, and the relative reinforcer frequency for responding was varied. The second was a schedule in which a relative left-key response rate (over a fixed period of time) exceeding .75 produced, in the next identical time period a higher reinforcer rate on the right key. If this criterion was not exceeded, equal reinforcer rates were arranged on the two keys in this period. This was the dependent procedure. In the third (independent) procedure, the periods of higher right-key reinforcer rates occurred with the same probability as in the second procedure, but occurred independently of behavior. In the second and third procedures, the fixed-time period (window) was varied from 5 s to 60 s, and to 240 s in the second procedure only. Performance on the two keys was similar in the concurrent and independent procedures. The procedure used in the dependent conditions generally affected performance when the windows were shorter than about 30 s. Models of performance that assume that subjects do not discriminate changes in local relative reinforcer rates cannot account for the data. Moreover, existing models are inherently unable to account for the effects of contingencies of reinforcement between responding on one alternative and gaining reinforcers on another that are arranged or that emerge as a result of time allocated to alternative schedules. Undermatching on concurrent variable-interval schedules may result from such emergent contingencies.