Brief report: how adolescents with ASD process social information in complex scenes. Combining evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions

We investigated attention, encoding and processing of social aspects of complex photographic scenes. Twenty-four high-functioning adolescents (aged 11–16) with ASD and 24 typically developing matched control participants viewed and then described a series of scenes, each containing a person. Analyses of eye movements and verbal descriptions provided converging evidence that both groups displayed general interest in the person in each scene but the salience of the person was reduced for the ASD participants. Nevertheless, the verbal descriptions revealed that participants with ASD frequently processed the observed person’s emotion or mental state without prompting. They also often mentioned eye-gaze direction, and there was evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions that gaze was followed accurately. The combination of evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions provides a rich insight into the way stimuli are processed overall. The merits of using these methods within the same paradigm are discussed

Product Analytics Based On Demographic Democratization

Product analytics is a blend of computational methods with the express purpose of facilitating the multifaceted process of decision-making based on demographic and consumer preferences.  This complex subject is derived from consensus theory and includes structured analytics, categories, and the combination of evidence.  The methodology is applicable to a wide range of business, economic, social, political, and strategic decisions.  The paper describes a product allocation application to demonstrate the concepts

Categorical Analytics Based On Consensus Theory

Categorical analytics is an admixture of computational methods with the express purpose of facilitating the multifaceted process of unstructured decision making.  The complex subject is based on consensus theory and includes structured analytics, categories, entropy, and the combination of evidence.  The methodology is applicable to a wide range of business, economic, social, political, and strategic decisions.  The paper includes an election application to demonstrate the concepts

Effect of physician reminders on preventive care: meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

pre-printThe objective of this study was to assess the clinical value of the physician reminder, an information intervention, in increasing compliance for selected preventive health care measures. Meta-analysis was used to combine the quantitative evidence from randomized controlled clinical trials meeting the eligibility criteria. The trials included in this meta-analysis were conducted in a family or internal medicine clinic. Physician reminders were used in the trials to influence utilization and compliance of preventive health care activities. The use of physician reminders for preventive health care activities resulted in a homogeneous effect for the subcategories of cervical cancer screening (test for heterogeneity X22 = 4.122, non significant) and tetanus immunization (test for heterogeneity X22 = 3.139, non-significant). Similarly, the odds ratio from the combination of evidence from the three cervical cancer screening trials was significant (1.180, 95 percent CI: 1.020 to 1.339). The resulting odds ratio from the combination of evidence from the three tetanus immunization trials was significant (2.819, 95 percent CI: 2.664 to 2.975). The results of the meta-analyses for cervical cancer screening and tetanus immunizations indicate that physician reminders are an effective information intervention and can improve compliance for these two preventive health care procedures. Based on the results of this meta-analysis, further trials testing the effect of physician reminders on tetanus immunization would be unnecessary and probably unethical

A Simple Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rule

One proposes a first alternative rule of combination to WAO (Weighted Average Operator) proposed recently by Josang, Daniel and Vannoorenberghe, called Proportional Conflict Redistribution rule (denoted PCR1). PCR1 and WAO are particular cases of WO (the Weighted Operator) because the conflicting mass is redistributed with respect to some weighting factors. In this first PCR rule, the proportionalization is done for each non-empty set with respect to the non-zero sum of its corresponding mass matrix - instead of its mass column average as in WAO, but the results are the same as Ph. Smets has pointed out. Also, we extend WAO (which herein gives no solution) for the degenerate case when all column sums of all non-empty sets are zero, and then the conflicting mass is transferred to the non-empty disjunctive form of all non-empty sets together; but if this disjunctive form happens to be empty, then one considers an open world (i.e. the frame of discernment might contain new hypotheses) and thus all conflicting mass is transferred to the empty set. In addition to WAO, we propose a general formula for PCR1 (WAO for non-degenerate cases).Comment: 21 page