2,437 research outputs found
Open Data for Evidence-based Decision-making: Data-driven Government Resulting in Uncertainty and Polarization
Over the last decade, more and more data are collected and opened. Governments actively stimulate the opening of data to increase citizen engagement to support policy-making processes. Evidence-based policy-making is the situation whereby decisions made are based on factual data. The common expectation is that releasing data will result in evidence-based decision-making and more trust in government decisions. This study aims to provide insight into how evidence-based policy based on open data can result into uncertainty and even polarize the policy-making process. We analyze a case study in which traffic and road utilization datasets are used and model the decision-making process using the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The BPMN model shows how the government and business organizations can use the data and give different interpretations. Data-driven decision-making might potentially create uncertainty, polarization, and less trust in decisions as stakeholders can give different meanings to the data and arrive at different outcomes. In contrast to the common belief, we found that the more data released, the more discussions happened about what is desired according to the data. The various directions derived from the data can even polarize decision-making. In other words, the more data opened, the more people can construct their perception of reality. For further research, we recommend understanding the types and role of data to create an evidence-based approach
Explaining cognitive behaviour : a neurocomputational perspective
While the search for models and explanations of cognitive phenomena is a growing
area of research, there is no consensus on what counts as a good explanation in
cognitive science.
This Ph.D. thesis offers a philosophical exploration of the different frameworks
adopted to explain cognitive behaviour. It then builds on this systematic exploration
to offer a new understanding of the explanatory standards employed in the
construction and justification of models and modelling frameworks in cognitive
science. Sub-goals of the project include a better understanding of some theoretical
terms adopted in cognitive science and a deep analysis of the role of representation in
explanations of cognitive phenomena. Results of this project can advance the debate
on issues in general philosophy of cognitive science and be valuable for guiding
future scientific and cognitive research.
In particular, the goals of the thesis are twofold: (i) to provide some necessary
desiderata that genuine explanations in cognitive science need to meet; (ii) to identify
the framework that is most apt to generate such good explanations.
With reference to the first goal, I claim that a good explanation needs to
provide predictions and descriptions of mechanisms. With regards to the second
goal, I argue that the neurocomputational framework can meet these two desiderata.
In order to articulate the first claim, I discuss various possible desiderata of
good explanations and I motivate why the ability to predict and to identify
mechanisms are necessary features of good explanations in cognitive science. In
particular, I claim that a good explanation should advance our understanding of the
cognitive phenomenon under study, together with providing a clear specification of
the components and their interactions that regularly bring the phenomenon about.
I motivate the second claim by examining various frameworks employed to
explain cognitive phenomena: the folk-psychological, the anti-representational, the
solely subpersonal and the neurocomputational frameworks. I criticise the folk-psychological
framework for meeting only the predictive criterion and I stress the
inadequacy of its account of cause and causal explanation by engaging with James
Woodwardâs manipulationist theory of causation and causal explanation. By
examining the anti-representational framework, I claim that the notion of
representation is necessary to predict and to generalise cognitive phenomena. I reach
the same conclusion by engaging with William Ramsey (2007) and Jose Luis
Bermudez (2003). I then analyse the solely subpersonal framework and I argue that
certain personal-level concepts are indeed required to successfully explain cognitive
behaviour. Finally, I introduce the neurocomputational framework as more
promising than the alternatives in explaining cognitive behaviour. I support this
claim by assessing the frameworkâs ability to: (i) meet the two necessary criteria for
good explanations; (ii) overcome some of the other frameworksâ explanatory limits.
In particular, via an analysis of one of its family of models â Bayesian models â I
argue that the neurocomputational framework can suggest a more adequate notion of
representation, shed new light on the problem of how to bridge personal and
subpersonal explanations, successfully meet the prediction criterion (it values
predictions as a means to evaluate the goodness of an explanation) and can meet the
mechanistic criterion (its model-based methodology opens up the possibility to study
the nature of internal and unobservable components of cognitive phenomena)
Bayesian participatory-based decision analysis : an evolutionary, adaptive formalism for integrated analysis of complex challenges to social-ecological system sustainability
Includes bibliographical references (pages. 379-400).This dissertation responds to the need for integration between researchers and decision-makers who are dealing with complex social-ecological system sustainability and decision-making challenges. To this end, we propose a new approach, called Bayesian Participatory-based Decision Analysis (BPDA), which makes use of graphical causal maps and Bayesian networks to facilitate integration at the appropriate scales and levels of descriptions. The BPDA approach is not a predictive approach, but rather, caters for a wide range of future scenarios in anticipation of the need to adapt to unforeseeable changes as they occur. We argue that the graphical causal models and Bayesian networks constitute an evolutionary, adaptive formalism for integrating research and decision-making for sustainable development. The approach was implemented in a number of different interdisciplinary case studies that were concerned with social-ecological system scale challenges and problems, culminating in a study where the approach was implemented with decision-makers in Government. This dissertation introduces the BPDA approach, and shows how the approach helps identify critical cross-scale and cross-sector linkages and sensitivities, and addresses critical requirements for understanding system resilience and adaptive capacity
Impact of Occupant Behaviour (OB) on building energy use and thermal comfort: From stochastic modelling and occupant profiling to interdisciplinary user engagement
L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen
On politics and social science â the subject-object problem in social science and Foucaultâs engaged epistemology
The epistemological problem of the relationship between the subject of knowledge and
the object being known has itâs form in social science as a problem of the relationship between a
social scientist as a researcher and society and itâs phenomena as an object of this inquiry. As
Berger and Kellner note in their book âSociology Reinterpretedâ a social scientist is necessarily a
part of the object he studies, being embedded in a position in society from which he studies it.
Hence social sciences as scientific endeavors face a problem of the inseperability of their
researchers from object they study. Two main solutions two this problem have arisen: positivism
and interpretivism. Positivism postulates that rigorous methods for research will insure that
objective knowledge will be produced while interpretivism sees society only as an aggregate of
individuals whose interactions should be interpreted. A third epistemological framework has
arisen in the first half of the twentieth century usually called âcritical theoryâ. Critical theory
states that researchers should aim their research towards changing the object they are
researching, therefore their scientific practice should have extra-scientific effects, namely
political effects. This perspective violates Webers postulate of value neutrality which claims that
social sciences can only study the state of affairs but canât subscribe desirable ways of action. As
we will see the main topic of our paper is the epistemological framework of the work of Michel
Foucault and his contribution to the resolution of the problematic relation between a researcher
and his research object in social science. We will claim that Foucault broadly falls into the
critical theory paradigm but manages to solve itâs conflict with the value neutrality postulate.
Foucault envisions society as an amalgam of discursive and non-discursive practices that
interconnect in a way that gives them regularity and coherence through time. As Gayatri Spivak
notices for Foucault discursive practices create meaning and in doing so chart a way for nondiscursive
practices and therefore for action. This can be seen as an explanation for Foucaultâs
well known postulate of the relationship between power and knowledge, discursive practices
create knowledge that makes visible certain paths for action. Both of these types of practices
intertwine to create what Foucault calls âdispositifsâ that can be seen as mechanisms that bind discursive and non-discursive practices in a coherent manner and enable their regular repetition
through time. Foucault calls his methodology âgenealogyâ and sees it as a historical research of
the emergence of dipositifs. Genealogy is a historical research of the contingent ways in which
practices got interconnected in the past to create dispositifs we see today. As Foucault claims
genealogy begins with a âquestion posed in the presentâ about a certain dispositive and then
charts historical events and processes that led to its current form. The main aim of genealogy is
to show that there is no transcendental necessity for a certain dispositif to exist in itâs current
form by exposing the historical contingency that led to itâs current state. Foucault claimed that
his intent was to show that there is no metaphysical necessity that grounds the existences of
dispositifs and hence that their current form is arbitrary. As we can see Foucault follows his
postulate on the relationship between knowledge and power and formulates his scientific practice
as an opening of possibilities for different forms of action. This is way he calls his books
âexperimentsâ and claims that they are to be used for readers to re-examine their own links to the
currently existing dispositifs and possibilities of their alternative arrangements. But as Foucault
claims the genealogical method doesnât include normative prescriptions and can be seen only as
a form of an anti-metaphysical âunmaskingâ of current dispositifs. This unmasking doesnât
prescribe a desirable form to any dispositive but only shows that it can be arranged in different
ways. Hence we can say that Foucault sees the relationship between a researcher and his object
of study as a form of an intervention of the subject that aims at showing that the object is an
arbitrary construction. In that regard Foucault falls into the critical theory paradigm. Where he
differs from critical theory is his anti-normative stance that refuses to prescribe any desirable
form of action unlike for example Horkheimer who in his essay on critical theory claims that
âthe task of the theorist is to push society towards justiceâ. Foucault claims that his research
results should be used as âinstrumentsâ in political struggles but he himself doesnât ever
proclaim a desirable political goal. So we can conclude that Foucault solves the problem of the
subject-object relation in social science by envisioning the research process as a practice of
production of tools for social change. Therefore he connects social science to extra-scientific
political goals but doesnât violate the value neutrality postulate because his research doesnât
prescribe any concrete political goals but only shows the possibility for social change
Recommended from our members
The flight of information: New approaches for investigating aviation accident causation
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The investigation and modelling of aviation accident causation is dominated by linear models. Aviation is, however, a complex system and as such suffers from being artificially manipulated into non-complex models and methods. This thesis addresses this issue by developing a new approach to investigating aviation accident causation through information networks. These networks centralise communication and the flow of information as key indicators of a systemâs health and risk. The holistic approach focuses on the system itself rather than any individual event. The activity and communication of constituent elements, both human and non-human agents, within that system is identified and highlights areas of system failure. The model offers many potential developments and some key areas are studied in this research. Through the centralisation of barriers and information nodes the method can be applied to almost any situation. The application of Bayesian mathematics to historical data populations provides scope for studying error migration and barrier manipulation. The thesis also provides application of these predictions to a flight simulator study in an attempt of validation. Beyond this the thesis also discusses the applicability of the approach to industry. Through working with a legacy airline the methods discussed are used as the basis for a new and forward-thinking safety management system. This holistic approach focuses on the system environment, the activity that takes place within it, the strategies used to conduct this activity, the way in which the constituent parts of the system (both human and non-human) interact and the behaviour required. Each stage of this thesis identifies and expands upon the potential of the information network approach maintaining firm focus on the overall health of a system. It is contended that through the further development and application of this approach, understanding of aviation risk can be improved
A network approach toward literature review
This study introduces a method that uses a network approach towards literature review. To employ this approach, we use hypotheses proposed in scientific publications as building blocks. In network terms, a hypothesis is a directed tie between two concepts or nodes. The network emerges by aggregating the hypotheses from a set of articles in a specific domain. This study explains the method and its potential for reviewing literature in a particular domain. As a proof of concept, we provide a case study reviewing the research literature on the adoption of eGovernment services. Our analyses show that a network approach towards literature review provides novel insights into the current state of a research domain. Although there are limitations, this approach has the potential to help scholarly communities focus their research and formulate new research qu
A therapeutic elimination of âbeliefâ and âdesireâ from causal accounts of action
This introduction sets out the objectives, topic, method and structure of this thesis. I describe philosophical folk psychology and the roles that it is presumed to play in action choice, interpersonal understanding and reason giving. Philosophical folk psychology â particularly when expressed as belief-desire psychology â is suggested by some as a way to describe all three of these phenomena under a single model.
I argue, however, that this comes at the cost of a number of unwarranted commitments which give rise to philosophical problems. I introduce a handful of influential thinkers who have advanced folk psychological positions and also some contemporary examples of philosophers addressing problems arising directly from it. I then introduce the diagnostic-therapeutic intent of this thesis, grounded in a reading of Wittgensteinâs approach to philosophy through the later work of Gordon Baker. Thereafter I set out the two-part structure of the thesis and briefly outline the chapters
The low cost production imperative and foreign direct investment decision by small and medium sized enterprises
Global production shifts in the form of foreign direct investments are reshaping the economic map: one of the outcomes is todayâs global production system. The firms in focus are confronted with the effects of the reshaped economic map, especially with the differences in production conditions of nations. The new situation, which has emerged, is summarised by the term âlow cost production imperativeâ. Consequently, the purpose of this dissertation is to empirically explore the notion of the âlow cost production imperativeâ; and to investigate the implications and consequences of the low cost production imperative for internationalisation decision-making.
Scholars of academic studies summarise that fairly little is known about companiesâ foreign direct investment decision-making processes and the combination of the determinants with location-specific variables with the strategic motivation of the investing firm. It is assumed even more rarely, that investigations combine the knowledge based on which firms identify important location-specific variables under an enforcing strategic motive and then have to decide a location choice in a low cost operation area.
The research is carried out with the eventual aim of generating theory and producing insights into the strategic management practices of the firms in focus and their position in relation to uncertainty, predictability, and preparedness for the outcome of their decision-making related to the phenomenon. The methodological conduct of this inquiry is framed within the qualitative paradigm. The methodological contribution lies in the combination of applied methodologies and modus operandi so that a rich and holistic insight into the phenomenon will be achieved.
The research results show a rich variety in outcomes and details from the cases regarding their examination with the determinants important for a successful foreign direct investment. It is evident in all the cases that decision makers behave according to different rules than those assumed much of in the international business literature. Further, the phenomenon is identified as a serious outside force that causes firms to consider a decision to look abroad or more detailed, to look for efficiency in distant regions. This dissertation identifies details of mentioned aspects and calls for applications in future research in international business
- âŚ