Empirical research on the identification of singular,multiple and subordinate argumentation

To examine to what degree argumentation skills are mastered by pupils who attend the vocational, general and academic streams in Dutch secondary education various subtests were constructed. The theoretical study of argumentation as exposed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst was the basis for this test construction. In this article tests for the identification of singular, multiple and subordinate argumentation are described. Also an account is given of a pretest of these three subtests.     

Some properties of estimated scale invariant covariance structures

Scale invariance is a property shared by many covariance structure models employed in practice. An example is provided by the well-known LISREL model subject only to classical normalizations and zero constraints on the parameters. It is shown that scale invariance implies that the estimated covariannce matrix must satisfy certain equations, and the nature of these equations depends on the fitting function used. In this context, the paper considers two classes of fitting functions: weighted least squares and the class of functions proposed by Swain.Constructive comments by the referees are greatly appreciated. The author gratefully acknowledges Michael Browne's interest in his work.     

Finite mixtures in confirmatory factor-analysis models

In this paper, various types of finite mixtures of confirmatory factor-analysis models are proposed for handling data heterogeneity. Under the proposed mixture approach, observations are assumed to be drawn from mixtures of distinct confirmatory factor-analysis models. But each observation does not need to be identified to a particular model prior to model fitting. Several classes of mixture models are proposed. These models differ by their unique representations of data heterogeneity. Three different sampling schemes for these mixture models are distinguished. A mixed type of the these three sampling schemes is considered throughout this article. The proposed mixture approach reduces to regular multiple-group confirmatory factor-analysis under a restrictive sampling scheme, in which the structural equation model for each observation is assumed to be known. By assuming a mixture of multivariate normals for the data, maximum likelihood estimation using the EM (Expectation-Maximization) algorithm and the AS (Approximate-Scoring) method are developed, respectively. Some mixture models were fitted to a real data set for illustrating the application of the theory. Although the EM algorithm and the AS method gave similar sets of parameter estimates, the AS method was found computationally more efficient than the EM algorithm. Some comments on applying the mixture approach to structural equation modeling are made.Note: This paper is one of the Psychometric Society's 1995 Dissertation Award papers.—EditorThis article is based on the dissertation of the author. The author would like to thank Peter Bentler, who was the dissertation chair, for guidance and encouragement of this work. Eric Holman, Robert Jennrich, Bengt Muthén, and Thomas Wickens, who served as the committee members for the dissertation, had been very supportive and helpful. Michael Browne is appreciated for discussing some important points about the use of the approximate information in the dissertation. Thanks also go to an anonymous associate editor, whose comments were very useful for the revision of an earlier version of this article.     

Generalized Rough Sets (Preclusivity Fuzzy-Intuitionistic (BZ) Lattices)

The standard Pawlak approach to rough set theory, as an approximation space consisting of a universe U and an equivalence (indiscernibility) relation R U x U, can be equivalently described by the induced preclusivity ("discernibility") relation U x U \ R, which is irreflexive and symmetric.We generalize the notion of approximation space as a pair consisting of a universe U and a discernibility or preclusivity (irreflexive and symmetric) relation, not necessarily induced from an equivalence relation. In this case the "elementary" sets are not mutually disjoint, but all the theory of generalized rough sets can be developed in analogy with the standard Pawlak approach. On the power set of the universe, the algebraic structure of the quasi fuzzy-intuitionistic "classical" (BZ) lattice is introduced and the sets of all "closed" and of all "open" definable sets with the associated complete (in general nondistributive) ortholattice structures are singled out.The rough approximation of any fixed subset of the universe is the pair consisting of the best "open" approximation from the bottom and the best "closed" approximation from the top. The properties of this generalized rough approximation mapping are studied in the context of quasi-BZ lattice structures of "closed-open" ordered pairs (the "algebraic logic" of generalized rough set theory), comparing the results with the standard Pawlak approach. A particular weak form of rough representation is also studied.     

A note on the investigation of local and global identifiability

In general, nonlinear models such as those commonly employed for the analysis of covariance structures, are not globally identifiable. Any investigation of local identifiability must either yield a mapping of identifiability onto the entire parameter space, which will rarely be feasible in any applications of interest, or confine itself to the neighbourhood of such points of special interest as the maximum likelihood point.The author would like to thank J. Jack McArdle and Colin Fraser for their comments on this paper.     

Satisfiability Testing for Boolean Formulas Using Δ-trees

The tree-based data structure of -tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The -trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem.     

Representing Spatial Structure Through Maps and Language: Lord of the Rings Encodes the Spatial Structure of Middle Earth

Spatial mental representations can be derived from linguistic and non‐linguistic sources of information. This study tested whether these representations could be formed from statistical linguistic frequencies of city names, and to what extent participants differed in their performance when they estimated spatial locations from language or maps. In a computational linguistic study, we demonstrated that co‐occurrences of cities in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit predicted the authentic longitude and latitude of those cities in Middle Earth. In a human study, we showed that human spatial estimates of the location of cities were very similar regardless of whether participants read Tolkien’s texts or memorized a map of Middle Earth. However, text‐based location estimates obtained from statistical linguistic frequencies better predicted the human text‐based estimates than the human map‐based estimates. These findings suggest that language encodes spatial structure of cities, and that human cognitive map representations can come from implicit statistical linguistic patterns, from explicit non‐linguistic perceptual information, or from both.     

An overview of the treatment of severe narcissistic pathology

This paper provides an overview of narcissistic personality disorders as they present clinically along a spectrum of severity ranging from the best functioning forms of pathological narcissism to the most threatening to the patient's psychosocial and physical survival. It proposes a general interpretive psychoanalytic stance with all these clinical syndromes that range from standard psychoanalysis to a specific psychoanalytical psychotherapy for the most repressive and life threatening conditions that may not respond to standard psychoanalysis proper. This general psychoanalytic approach is placed into the context of related developments in contemporary psychoanalytic understanding of pathological narcissism and its treatment.     

Creativity,chaos, and self‐renewal in human systems

The research findings from the psychology of creativity are shown to be of considerable relevance to the study of self‐organization and self‐renewal in human systems. The characteristics of the creative person, and the nature of the creative process, particularly as they have been elaborated by Barron, are shown to be remarkably congruent with recent findings and theoretical elaborations by Abraham, Jantsch, Laszlo, Prigogine, and others in the fields of evolutionary and chaos theory. The broader social implications of chaos and evolutionary theories are fleshed out through an understanding of their characteristics in creative human systems.