Decision‐Analytic Approach for Water Sustainability Definition: A Higher Education Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a multi‐criteria decision analysis approach that can be used to circumscribe the definition of sustainability within an organization or institution with multiple operational divisions. Although our overall definition of sustainability is a process, the George Washington University (GW) definition of water sustainability is articulated through construction of an objective‐value hierarchy representing GW's strategic objectives and articulation of strength of preference among the attributes in that hierarchy. This study used multi‐criteria decision analysis methods, including structured interviews with four individual stakeholders and swing weighting. Three findings are of note. First, our stakeholders' thinking about their objectives was greatly influenced by perceived constraints and mandatory obligations on institutional performance implied by contracts or tradition. Second, in considering the trade‐off weights obtained from the swing‐weighting portion of the value assessment, all stakeholders placed similar emphasis on each of the fundamental objectives. Third, because of the decentralized nature of the university, the process through which the value assessment will be achieved must be transparent and accepted by each of the stakeholders supporting sustainability decisions. This case study illustrates a decision‐analytic sustainability approach that may be applied to large‐scale infrastructure systems, stakeholder engagement and negotiation in sustainability investments or alternatives assessments. Although the commitment to reduce climate impacts has been widespread, there have been fewer publicly announced water initiatives at the university level. At the university level, GW is only one of a handful of universities with a cohesive, visible, water plan. In addition, we demonstrate an approach in which explicit structuring of fundamental sustainability objectives may increase transparency for sustainability definition construction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Imitation and Creativity: Beneficial Effects of Propulsion Strategies and Specificity

Prior studies examining imitation of exemplar solutions have produced a mixed pattern of findings with some studies indicating that exemplar imitation contributes to creative problem‐solving and other studies indicating that it may inhibit creative problem‐solving. In the present effort, it is argued that the effects of exemplar imitation on creative problem‐solving depend on the strategies people use when working with exemplars. In the present study, people were asked to provide advertising campaigns in response to a marketing problem. Prior to starting work on this problem, manipulations were made in exemplar content. Imitation strategies used in problem‐solving, for example, forward incrementation, and redefinition, were assessed. It was found that imitation strategies were strongly related to the production of higher quality, more original, and more elegant advertising campaigns. Moreover, use of these strategies was facilitated when more specific information was presented in exemplar solutions. The implications of these findings for understanding the role of imitation in creative problem‐solving are discussed.     

The Epistemic Regress Problem,the Problem of the Criterion,and the Value of Reasons

There are important similarities between the epistemic regress problem and the problem of the criterion. Each turns on plausible principles stating that epistemic reasons must be supported by epistemic reasons but that having reasons is impossible if that requires having endless regresses of reasons. These principles are incompatible with the possibility of reasons, so each problem is a paradox. Whether there can be an antiskeptical solution to these paradoxes depends upon the kinds of reasons that we need in order to attain our epistemic goals. This article explains the problems and considers the ways in which two different conceptions of human flourishing support the value of different kinds of reasons. One conception requires reasons that allow an easy solution to these paradoxes. The other—rational autonomy—requires reasons that depend upon endless regresses. So we cannot have the kinds of fully transparent reasons required for rational autonomy.     

Here Today,Gone Tomorrow? Assessing How Timing and Repetition of Scandal Information Affects Candidate Evaluations

Scholars and political consultants alike know that during a campaign even the hint of a scandal has the potential to distract from a candidate's policy messages—or even worse—can have dire consequences on Election Day. But does it matter whether the scandal breaks early as opposed to late in the campaign? And how do citizens respond when the scandal drags on for weeks? This study represents the first effort to shed light on these temporal dynamics. Results reveal that timing affects the immediate impact of scandal information, the rate at which those initial effects decay, and candidate evaluations offered at the campaign's conclusion. Additionally, I develop two competing hypotheses regarding how citizens may process scandal information when it is repeated throughout a campaign. Empirical tests suggest that voters eventually reach a saturation threshold after which additional repetition of scandal information has negligible effects on evaluations unless new details are a prominent feature of ongoing coverage, in which case repetition can extend the negative effects of scandal.     

AN ALGORITHMIC INFORMATION THEORY CHALLENGE TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN

William Dembski claims to have established a decision process to determine when highly unlikely events observed in the natural world are due to Intelligent Design. This article argues that, as no implementable randomness test is superior to a universal Martin‐Löf test, this test should be used to replace Dembski's decision process. Furthermore, Dembski's decision process is flawed, as natural explanations are eliminated before chance. Dembski also introduces a fourth law of thermodynamics, his “law of conservation of information,” to argue that information cannot increase by natural processes. However, this article, using algorithmic information theory, shows that this law is no more than the second law of thermodynamics. The article concludes that any discussions on the possibilities of design interventions in nature should be articulated in terms of the algorithmic information theory approach to randomness and its robust decision process.     

THE INSPIRATION OF GOD AND WOLFHART PANNENBERG'S “FIELD THEORY OF INFORMATION”

Abstract This paper will examine the implications of an extended “field theory of information,” suggested by Wolfhart Pannenberg, specifically in the Christian understanding of creation. The paper argues that the Holy Spirit created the world as field, a concept from physics, and the creation is directed by the logos utilizing information. Taking into account more recent developments of information theory, the essay further suggests that present creation has a causal impact upon the information utilized in creation. In order to adequately address Pannenberg's hypothesis that the logos utilizes information at creation the essay will also include an introductory examination of Pannenberg's Christology which shifts from a strict “from below” Christology, to a more open “third way” of doing Christology beyond “above” and “below.” The essay concludes with a brief section relating the implications of an extended “field theory of information” to creative inspiration, as well as parallels with human inspiration.     

The face inversion effect—Parts and wholes: Individual features and their configuration

The face inversion effect (FIE) is a reduction in recognition performance for inverted faces (compared to upright faces) that is greater than that typically observed with other stimulus types (e.g., houses). The work of Diamond and Carey, suggests that a special type of configural information, “second-order relational information” is critical in generating this inversion effect. However, Tanaka and Farah concluded that greater reliance on second-order relational information did not directly result in greater sensitivity to inversion, and they suggested that the FIE is not entirely due to a reliance on this type of configural information. A more recent review by McKone and Yovel provides a meta-analysis that makes a similar point. In this paper, we investigated the contributions made by configural and featural information to the FIE. Experiments 1a and1b investigated the link between configural information and the FIE. Remarkably, Experiment 1b showed that disruption of all configural information of the type considered in Diamond and Carey's analysis (both first and second order) was effective in reducing recognition performance, but did not significantly impact on the FIE. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that face processing is affected by the orientation of individual features and that this plays a major role in producing the FIE. The FIE was only completely eliminated when we disrupted the single feature orientation information in addition to the configural information, by using a new type of transformation similar to Thatcherizing our sets of scrambled faces. We conclude by noting that our results for scrambled faces are consistent with an account that has recognition performance entirely determined by the proportion of upright facial features within a stimulus, and that any ability to make use of the spatial configuration of these features seems to benefit upright and inverted normal faces alike.     

Causal powers and preventers: An explanatory account of cue interaction effects in human causal judgement

According to the causal powers theory, all causal relations are understood in terms of causal powers of one thing producing an effect by acting on liability of another thing. Powers can vary in strength, and their operation also depends on the presence of preventers. When an effect occurs, there is a need to account for the occurrence by assigning sufficient strength to produce it to its possible causes. Contingency information is used to estimate strengths of powers and preventers and the extent to which they account for occurrences and nonoccurrences of the outcome. People make causal judgements from contingency information by processes of inference that interpret evidence in terms of this fundamental understanding. From this account it is possible to derive a computational model based on a common set of principles that involve estimating strengths, using these estimates to interpret ambiguous information, and integrating the resultant evidence in a weighted averaging model. It is shown that the model predicts cue interaction effects in human causal judgement, including forward and backward blocking, second and third order backward blocking, forward and backward conditioned inhibition, recovery from overshadowing, superlearning, and backward superlearning.     

The Influence of Person Traits on Lawyer Selection Among British Adults

The present study examined selection criteria for lawyers among British adults, which begins to overturn a dearth of studies examining this issue among legal professions. A total of 122 participants were asked to rate eight lawyers dichotomized along lawyer origin (Britain versus South Asia), gender (women versus men), and age (younger versus older). A mixed-design analysis of variance showed that there was a main effect of lawyer origin, with British lawyers preferred over the South Asian counterparts. There were also a number of significant interactions between lawyer variables, as well as participant gender and age. The effect sizes of these interactions were generally smaller (η_p ² = .07?.24) than the main effect lawyer origin (η_p ² = .54). Limitations and practical implications are discussed in conclusion.