Exploration and Exploitation of Victorian Science in Darwin's Reading Notebooks

Search in an environment with an uncertain distribution of resources involves a trade-off between exploitation of past discoveries and further exploration. This extends to information foraging, where a knowledge-seeker shifts between reading in depth and studying new domains. To study this decision-making process, we examine the reading choices made by one of the most celebrated scientists of the modern era: Charles Darwin. From the full-text of books listed in his chronologically-organized reading journals, we generate topic models to quantify his local (text-to-text) and global (text-to-past) reading decisions using Kullback-Liebler Divergence, a cognitively-validated, information-theoretic measure of relative surprise. Rather than a pattern of surprise-minimization, corresponding to a pure exploitation strategy, Darwin's behavior shifts from early exploitation to later exploration, seeking unusually high levels of cognitive surprise relative to previous eras. These shifts, detected by an unsupervised Bayesian model, correlate with major intellectual epochs of his career as identified both by qualitative scholarship and Darwin's own self-commentary. Our methods allow us to compare his consumption of texts with their publication order. We find Darwin's consumption more exploratory than the culture's production, suggesting that underneath gradual societal changes are the explorations of individual synthesis and discovery. Our quantitative methods advance the study of cognitive search through a framework for testing interactions between individual and collective behavior and between short- and long-term consumption choices. This novel application of topic modeling to characterize individual reading complements widespread studies of collective scientific behavior.Comment: Cognition pre-print, published February 2017; 22 pages, plus 17 pages supporting information, 7 pages reference

Optimization of stand-alone photovoltaic system by implementing fuzzy logic MPPT controller

A photovoltaic (PV) generator is a nonlinear device having insolation-dependent volt-ampere characteristics. Since the maximum-power point varies with solar insolation, it is difficult to achieve an optimum matching that is valid for all insolation levels. Thus, Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) plays an important roles in photovoltaic (PV) power systems because it maximize the power output from a PV system for a given set of condition, and therefore maximize their array efficiency. This project presents a maximum power point tracker (MPPT) using Fuzzy Logic theory for a PV system. The work is focused on a comparative study between most conventional controller namely Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm and is compared to a design fuzzy logic controller (FLC). The introduction of fuzzy controller has given very good performance on whatever the parametric variation of the system

Information Metrics (iMetrics): A Research Specialty with a Socio-Cognitive Identity?

"Bibliometrics", "scientometrics", "informetrics", and "webometrics" can all be considered as manifestations of a single research area with similar objectives and methods, which we call "information metrics" or iMetrics. This study explores the cognitive and social distinctness of iMetrics with respect to the general information science (IS), focusing on a core of researchers, shared vocabulary and literature/knowledge base. Our analysis investigates the similarities and differences between four document sets. The document sets are drawn from three core journals for iMetrics research (Scientometrics, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and Journal of Informetrics). We split JASIST into document sets containing iMetrics and general IS articles. The volume of publications in this representation of the specialty has increased rapidly during the last decade. A core of researchers that predominantly focus on iMetrics topics can thus be identified. This core group has developed a shared vocabulary as exhibited in high similarity of title words and one that shares a knowledge base. The research front of this field moves faster than the research front of information science in general, bringing it closer to Price's dream.Comment: Accepted for publication in Scientometric

Casting Light Upon The Great Endarkenment

While the Enlightenment promoted thinking for oneself independent of religious authority, the ‘Endarkenment’ (Millgram 2015) concerns deference to a new authority: the specialist, a hyperspecializer. Non-specialists need to defer to such authorities as they are unable to understand their reasoning. Millgram describes how humans are capable of being serial hyperspecializers, able to move from one specialism to another. We support the basic thrust of Millgram’s position, and seek to articulate how the core idea is deployed in very different ways in relation to extremely different philosophical areas. We attend to the issue of the degree of isolation of different specialists and we urge greater emphasis on parallel hyperspecialization, which describes how different specialisms can be embodied in one person at one time

Electronically Manufactured Law

This Article seeks to strengthen the case for the academy and the legal profession to pay heed to the consequences of the shift to electronic research, primarily by employing cognitive psychology to guide predictions about the impacts of the shift and, thereby, address a perceived credibility gap. This credibility gap arises from the difficulty and imprecision in postulating how changes in the research process translate into changes in researcher behavior and research outcomes. Applying principles of cognitive psychology to compare the print and electronic research processes provides an analytical basis for connecting changes in the research process with changes in researcher behavior and research outcomes. Cognitive psychology generates two specific predictions about how electronic research will change the law. First, electronic research will lead to increased diversity in framing -- divergence in the selection of the legal theory or theories through which to conceptualize facts, arguments, and cases. Second, electronic research will lead to more tilting at windmills -- the advancement of marginal cases, theories, and arguments. The Article explores how an increase in diversity in framing and tilting at windmills could affect the legal profession and the law. For example, in an adversarial system, judicial options for case resolution are largely defined and constrained by the theories proffered by counsel. Diversity in framing could expand judicial authority by providing judges with a wider variety of options for dispute resolution. This underlines the way in which counsel serve as gatekeepers by exercising judgment about which cases and theories have sufficient merit to warrant pursuit. Increased tilting at windmills may require recalibration of the existing limits placed on lawyers in their role as gatekeepers. Recalibration may be necessary to prevent the dedication of client and judicial resources to lost causes spurred by lapses in judgment related to electronic research and to allow attorneys to advance, without fear of sanctions, thoughtful arguments designed to push doctrinal boundaries. Specifically, Part II reviews existing legal theory, scholarship, and data that suggest that the shift to electronic research will likely have broad-ranging impacts. Part III compares print and electronic research and discusses three particularly salient changes in research process: (1) electronic researchers are not guided by the key system to the same extent as print researchers when identifying relevant theories, principles, and cases; (2) electronic researchers do not encounter and interpret individual cases through the lens of key system information to the same extent as print researchers; and (3) electronic researchers are exposed to more and different case texts than print researchers. Part IV uses principles of cognitive psychology to examine these process differences and predict two major non-process consequences of the shift to electronic research: increased diversity in framing and tilting at windmills. Part V concludes by assessing the broader significance of these hypothesized consequences