Using Generalizability Theory to Disattenuate Correlation Coefficients for Multiple Sources of Measurement Error

Over the years, research in the social sciences has been dominated by reporting of reliability coefficients that fail to account for key sources of measurement error. Use of these coefficients, in turn, to correct for measurement error can hinder scientific progress by misrepresenting true relationships among the underlying constructs being investigated. In the research reported here, we addressed these issues using generalizability theory (G-theory) in both traditional and new ways to account for the three key sources of measurement error (random-response, specific-factor, and transient) that affect scores from objectively scored measures. Results from 20 widely used measures of personality, self-concept, and socially desirable responding showed that conventional indices consistently misrepresented reliability and relationships among psychological constructs by failing to account for key sources of measurement error and correlated transient errors within occasions. The results further revealed that G-theory served as an effective framework for remedying these problems. We discuss possible extensions in future research and provide code from the computer package R in an online supplement to enable readers to apply the procedures we demonstrate to their own research.     

A hypothesis on the rhythm of becoming

An archetype of rhythms is set forth which tries to explain, simply and coherently, the quantum discontinuities which take place both in the evolutionary dynamics of the Macrocosmos—universal history—and in the Microcosmos—individual development.

The stationary waves and musical theory give us the key to understand those quantum leaps in the vibrating processes of unfurling and furling between the Nothing and the Whole: the successive 2nd harmonics (1/3) are generating sonorous novelties. This simple scheme fits, with surprising accuracy, all the basic bifurcations that paleontologists, anthropologists, historians and psychologists speak to us about.

It seems to be confirmed then that an emerging hierarchy of order could characterize the processes of the universe. Evolution would then be the temporal unfurling (‘explicate order“) of those intrinsic levels of potential stability of the non‐dual reality (‘implicate order“).     

The Holographic Principle of Mind and the Evolution of Consciousness

The Holographic Principle holds that the information in any region of space and time exists on the surface of that region. Layers of the holographic, universal “now” go from the inception of the universe to the present. Universal Consciousness is the timeless source of actuality and mentality. Information is experience, and the expansion of the “now” leads to higher and higher orders of experience in the Universe, with various levels of consciousness emerging from experience. The brain consists of a nested hierarchy of surfaces that range from the most elementary field through the neuron, neural group, and the whole brain. Evidence from the evolution and structure of the brain shows that optimal surface areas in a variety of structures are conserved with respect to underlying surfaces. Microgenesis, the becoming of the mental state through a process of recapitulation of development and evolution, is in full accord with the Holographic Principle. Evidence from a wide variety of contexts indicates the capacity on the mind for total recall of past life events and for access to universal information, indicating connection with the holographic surfaces of prior “nows” and with the Universal holographic boundary. In summation, the Holographic Principle can help us explain the unity and mechanisms of perception, experience, memory, and consciousness.     

An ordered arrangement of atom columnar clusters in a pentagonal quasiperiodic lattice of an Al-Ni-Co decagonal quasicrystal

The structure of an Al-Ni-Co decagonal quasicrystal (called the S1-type superstructure), which shows diffraction patterns with superlattice reflections, has been studied by atomic-scale observations of electron microscopy. The structure of the decagonal quasicrystal can be characterized as an ordered arrangement of two kinds of atom columnar cluster with different directions of pentagonal symmetry. A fundamental lattice, which is constructed by connecting all the atom clusters, shows a pentagonal quasiperiodic lattice with a bond length of about 2 nm. The pentagonal lattice is divided into two superlattices, which are constructed by connecting atom clusters with the same directions of pentagonal symmetry, with a bond length of 2     

Hume's Experimental Method

In this article I attempt to reconstruct David Hume's use of the label ‘experimental’ to characterise his method in the Treatise. Although its meaning may strike the present-day reader as unusual, such a reconstruction is possible from the background of eighteenth-century practices and concepts of natural inquiry. As I argue, Hume's inquiries into human nature are experimental not primarily because of the way the empirical data he uses are produced, but because of the way those data are theoretically processed. He seems to follow a method of analysis and synthesis quite similar to the one advertised in Newton's Opticks, which profoundly influenced eighteenth-century natural and moral philosophy. This method brings him much closer to the methods of qualitative, chemical investigations than to mechanical approaches to both nature and human nature.     

Further Reflections on “The Divine Action Project”

It is now a communis opinio that Newton's metaphysics was highly theologically inspired. I will refer to this intertwinement by using the word “onto-theology,” i.e. a metaphysical system that is mainly derived from some fundamental theological assumptions. I will present the constituents of Newton's onto-theology. One important, but often neglected stratum of Newton's metaphysics is the “secularization of God.” Newton, then, was not only a reformer in science, he also was a defender of a more rationalized, i.e. secularized, conception of God. As we will see, God and all other existing entities exist on the same ontological level. Newtonian metaphysics can thus be seen as the expression of how religious attitudes adapted themselves to or secularized themselves in a world of growing complexity wherein the scientific outlook became more and more central. This analysis has implications for the secularization-debate. It will be argued that the secularization-process not only involved differentiating tendencies between the profane and the secular (as is widely accepted by the differentiation-thesis), but that unifying tendencies (exemplified by Newton's unified onto-theology) were equally important.     

THE SUPERNATURAL AS LANGUAGE GAME

Abstract. For many in the Anglo‐American tradition of language analysis, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great progenitor of twentieth‐century philosophy of language, showed conclusively that theological terms lack any referent in reality and therefore represent a discourse that can do no more than manifest the existential attitudes that speakers take toward reality as a whole. To think that such terms represent more is to be bewitched by the use of language. Is it possible, however, that theological language references a fundamental human drive? In this article I reexamine the dyad of nature and supernature from the perspective of Wittgenstein's philosophy. Perhaps surprisingly, Wittgenstein's thought on the subject offers much more than his famous, terse aphorism at the conclusion of his first masterwork, the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus ([1921] 1961, 74, §7): “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” Furthermore, the basic Tractarian drive to determine the relationship between language and reality, which is redirected but not extinguished in Wittgenstein's second, divergent, opus, the Philosophical Investigations ([1953] 1967), may be the place for a renewed examination of what the supernatural means in human discourse. Does talk of God give expression to the fundamental transcendence of human knowledge? Is it a language game we can eschew?     

中西医结合临床思路浅谈——论辨证与辨病的关系

辨证与辨病是两种不同的思维方式,西医辨病又辨证,中医辨证又辨病,辨病与辨证是中医与西医都遵循的诊治过程,在临床中辩证运用中医与西医有利于中西医结合临床思路的建立     

明式家具和现代家具审美偏好的眼动研究

本研究采用EyelinkⅡ眼动仪对不同类型家具的审美偏好进行考察,共有36名不同年龄被试参与实验。结果发现:(1)不同类型家具的总注视时间、总注视次数和平均注视次数均存在显著差异,明式家具显著多于现代家具;(2)不同家具类型兴趣区的总注视次数存在显著差异,明式家具显著多于现代家具;(3)不同年龄被试的总注视时间、总注视次数和平均注视次数不存在显著差异,即年龄因素对被试的审美偏好没有影响。     

BEYOND RELATIVISM AND FOUNDATIONALISM: A PROLEGOMENON TO FUTURE RESEARCH IN ETHICS

Abstract. This article examines the similarities between notions about the nature of reality held by some Christian mystics (Thomas Merton and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing) and those proposed by physicists David Bohm and Henry Margenau. My aim is to consider how the implications of certain metaphysical interpretations of modern physics may: (1) hold similarities with Christian mystical notions about reality, and (2) be important for guiding future research in ethics. I further look into the traditional approaches to ethical theory that come out of the foundationalist, relativist, and skeptical realist camps and argue that while skeptical realists such as Timothy Jackson are moving in the right direction, further consideration of what is meant by reality is necessary if we are to traverse the gap between foundationalists and relativists. It is here that Christian ethicists in particular have the opportunity to pick up the metaphysical batons carried by physicists like Margenau and Bohm and mystics like Merton and the author of The Cloud and begin investigating the possibility that ethical theory can be approached from a nondualistic perspective.