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Rajaratnam, David Computer Science & Engineering Faculty of Engineering UNSW. "Logical approximation and compilation for resource-bounded reasoning." Publisher:University of New South Wales. Computer Science & Engineering, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/41296.
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Providing a logical characterisation of rational agent reasoning has been a long standing challenge in artificial intelligence (AI) research. It is a challenge that is not only of interest for the construction of AI agents, but is of equal importance in the modelling of agent behaviour. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the formalisation of agent reasoning by showing that the computational limitations of agents is a vital component of modelling rational behaviour. To achieve this aim, both motivational and formal aspects of resource-bounded agents are examined. It is a central argument of this thesis that accounting for computational limitations is critical to the success of agent reasoning, yet has received only limited attention from the broader research community. Consequently, an important contribution of this thesis is in its advancing of motivational arguments in support of the need to account for computational limitations in agent reasoning research. As a natural progression from the motivational arguments, the majority of this thesis is devoted to an examination of propositional approximate logics. These logics represent a step towards the development of resource-bounded agents, but are also applicable to other areas of automated reasoning. This thesis makes a number of contributions in mapping the space of approximate logics. In particular, it draws a connection between approximate logics and knowledge compilation, by developing an approximate knowledge compilation method based on Cadoli and Schaerf??s S-3 family of approximate logics. This method allows for the incremental compilation of a knowledge base, thus reducing the need for a costly recompilation process. Furthermore, each approximate compilation has well-defined logical properties due to its correspondence to a particular S-3 logic. Important contributions are also made in the examination of approximate logics for clausal reasoning. Clausal reasoning is of particular interest due to the efficiency of modern clausal satisfiability solvers and the related research into problem hardness. In particular, Finger's Logics of Limited Bivalence are shown to be applicable to clausal reasoning. This is subsequently shown to logically characterise the behaviour of the well-known DPLL algorithm for determining boolean satisfiability, when subjected to restricted branching.
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Schmidt, Martina, and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Education. "Putting rational constraints on divergent thought : the development of scientific reasoning." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education, 1999, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/103.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate how students in Grade Five and Six generate explanation for scientific phenomena and how they evaluate the quality of these explanations. In part, this was done by analyzing the in-class explanations that the students gave in response to questions stemming from two topics in the 1996 Alberta program of studies for Grade Five Science. In addition, the students shared their own perceptions of the sources of their questions and ideas and the methods by which they evaluated them. Analysis of in-class discussions and activities occurred on an ongoing basis between January and June 1998. In addition, five students who vary in their ability to generate and evaluate scientific ideas were selected for more in-depth interviewing outside of class time. These students were interviewed once during each of the main units of study. Their interviews focused on the manner in which their thoughts and ideas had progressed during previous class discusiions and activities, how they evaluated these ideas, the manner in which they were able to generate new ideas, and their continued evaluation of these ideas. This involved reflection stimulate by requests to summarize their findings as well as on-the-spot reflection as the students continued to evaluate and develop their ideas. Attention was paid to possible effects that the metacognitive activity encouraged during class discussions and during the interviews may have had on methods that the students used to construct meaning. Each of the students who participated in individual interviews pertaining to specific content areas also participated in a narrative interview that focused on their general interests and habits. The individual interviews and class discussions were fully transcribed, analyzed and compared to generate broad themes which were then able to guide further analysis of student work.xiii, 539 leaves ; 29 cm.
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Schmidt, Martina. "Putting rational constraints on divergent thought, the development of scientific reasoning." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape8/PQDD_0017/MQ49145.pdf.
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Lamm, Millard, and David K. Pugalee. "Elementary Students’ Construction of Proportional Reasoning Problems: Using Writing to Generalize Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics." Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden, 2012. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-80517.
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This study engaged fourth and fifth graders in solving a set of proportional tasks with focused discussion and concept development by the teacher. In order to understand the students’ ability to generalize the concept, they were asked to write problems that reflected the underlying concepts in the tasks and lessons. A qualitative analysis of the student generated problems
show that the majority of the students were able to generalize the concepts. The analysis allowed for a discussion of problems solving approaches and a rich description of how students applied multiplicative reasoning in composing mathematics problems. These results are couched in a discussion of how the students solved the proportional reasoning tasks.
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Jelihovschi, Ana Paula Gomes. "Look before you leap: the effects of cognitive impulsiveness and reasoning process on rational decision making." reponame:Repositório Institucional do FGV, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10438/18251.
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Impulsivity may lead to several unfortunate consequences and maladaptive behaviors for clinical and non-clinical people. Although many studies discuss the negative impact of it, few of them emphasize the relationship between cognitive impulsiveness and decision making in non-clinical subjects. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of cognitive impulsiveness on decision making and explore the strategies used by participants to solve problems. For this purpose, we apply two measures of impulsivity: the self-report Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the performance based Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT).This is the first study that compares self-report impulsiveness based on BIS-11 and performance-based reflectivity measured by CRT. Moreover, due to the fact that we apply the instruments on pen and paper, it is possible to evaluate participants’ reasoning processes employed to answer CRT questions. These reasoning processes are related to the role of Executive Functions for decision making and its relationship with impulsiveness. In practical terms, we observed participants’ strategies by analyzing their calculation expressions and data organization to answer CRT questions in the paper sheet. The sample consists of 191 non-clinical adults, professionals, and undergraduate students from the fields of business, management, and accounting. Results show that cognitive impulsiveness may negatively affect performance. Moreover, there is no difference in strategies used by impulsive and non-impulsive people during a decision making, and who calculate in the paper sheet perform better. Finally, people who inhibit their immediate answers also perform better during a decision making.
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Nobel, Johan. "Decision-making in the inductive mode : The role of human behavior." Thesis, KTH, Entreprenörskap och Innovation, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-134385.
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Economists have convulsively maintained the assumption that humans are able to arrive at decisions by perfect deductive rationality, despite the fact empirical evidences are showing otherwise. The contradicting evidences have resulted in a personal view that instead of finding a unified theory about decision-making, a sound approach would be to study how humans in fact are reasoning in specific contexts. The context of interest for this paper is where it could be assumed humans’ persistence of acting rational is determined by the perceived burden of the problem. In this work, the inductive way of arriving at decisions plays an important role, and the paper will present a way of describing this process in a consistent way. The process will be denoted as the actual level of behavioral change, and represent the core property of this paper. Applying the presented theory is most appropriate for situations where it could be assumed the burden of a problem, expressed as a prevalence rate, will drive the behavioral change. The line of reasoning in this paper will therefore be applied to the important arena of fighting the spread of HIV.
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Armstrong, Barbara Ellen. "The use of rational number reasoning in area comparison tasks by elementary and junior high school students." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/184910.
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The purpose of this study was to determine whether fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students used rational number reasoning to solve comparison of area tasks, and whether the tendency to use such reasoning increased with grade level. The areas to be compared were not similar and therefore, could not directly be compared in a straightforward manner. The most viable solution involved comparing the part-whole relationships inherent in the tasks. Rational numbers in the form of fractional terms could be used to express the part-whole relationships. The use of fractional terms provided a means for students to express the areas to be compared in an abstract manner and thus free themselves from the perceptual aspects of the tasks. The study examined how students solve unique problems in a familiar context where rational number knowledge could be applied. It also noted the effect of introducing fraction symbols into the tasks after students had indicated how they would solve the problems without any reference to fractions. Data were gathered through individual task-based interviews which consisted of 21 tasks, conducted with 36 elementary and junior high school students (12 students each in the fourth, sixth, and eighth grades). Each interview was video and audio taped to provide a record of the students' behavioral and verbal responses. The student responses were analyzed to determine the strategies the students used to solve the comparison of area tasks. The student responses were classified into 11 categories of strategies. There were four Part-Whole Categories, one Part-Whole/Direct Comparison Combination category and six Direct Comparison categories. The results of the study indicate that the development of rational number instruction should include: learning sequences which take students beyond the learning of a set of fraction concepts and skills, attention to the interaction of learning and the visual aspects of instructional models, and the careful inclusion of different types of fractions and other rational number task variables. This study supports the current national developments in curriculum and evaluation standards for mathematics instruction which stress the ability of students to problem solve, communicate, and reason.
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Johansson, Linnea. "The United States involvement in Yemen : A case study with rational and humanitarian reasoning of the involvement, influence and its objective." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-100622.
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The purpose of this study is to examine why the US is involved in Yemen’s civil war and what factors are contributing to its involvement, particularly if the US involvement in Yemen is based on self-interest or humanitarian motives. As a qualitive desk study, this research uses rational choice theory and the humanitarian intervention framework as its analytical framework.The research results highlight that the US objectives are first and foremost following an “America first” approach, with specific economic and political benefits, such as maintaining a good bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia, arms sales and the purchase of oil which are clearly prioritized over humanitarian aspects to protect the civilians in Yemen.
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Johnson, Gwendolyn Joy. "Proportionality in Middle-School Mathematics Textbooks." Scholar Commons, 2010. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1670.
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Some scholars have criticized the treatment of proportionality in middle-school textbooks, but these criticisms seem to be based on informal knowledge of the content of textbooks rather than on a detailed curriculum analysis. Thus, a curriculum analysis related to proportionality was needed.
To investigate the treatment of proportionality in current middle-school textbooks, nine such books were analyzed. Sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade textbooks from three series were used: ConnectedMathematics2 (CMP), Glencoe's Math Connects, and the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP). Lessons with a focus on proportionality were selected from four content areas: algebra, data analysis/probability, geometry/measurement, and rational numbers. Within each lesson, tasks (activities, examples, and exercises) related to proportionality were coded along five dimensions: content area, problem type, solution strategy, presence or absence of a visual representation, and whether the task contained material regarding the characteristics of proportionality. For activities and exercises, the level of cognitive demand was also noted.
Results indicate that proportionality is more of a focus in sixth and seventh-grade textbooks than in eighth-grade textbooks. The CMP and UCSMP series focused on algebra in eighth grade rather than proportionality. In all of the sixth-grade textbooks, and some of the seventh- and eighth-grade books, proportionality was presented primarily through the rational number content area.
Two problem types described in the research literature, ratio comparison and missing value, were extensively found. However, qualitative proportional problems were virtually absent from the textbooks in this study. Other problem types (alternate form and function rule), not described in the literature, were also found.
Differences were found between the solution strategies suggested in the three textbook series. Formal proportions are used earlier and more frequently in the Math Connects series than in the other two. In the CMP series, students are more likely to use manipulatives.
The Mathematical Task Framework (Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2000) was used to measure the level of cognitive demand. The level of cognitive demand differed among textbook series with the CMP series having the highest level of cognitive demand and the Math Connects series having the lowest.
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Pensel, Maximilian [Verfasser], Anni-Yasmin [Akademischer Betreuer] Turhan, and Piero Andrea [Gutachter] Bonatti. "A Lightweight Defeasible Description Logic in Depth : Quantification in Rational Reasoning and Beyond / Maximilian Pensel ; Gutachter: Piero Andrea Bonatti ; Betreuer: Anni-Yasmin Turhan." Dresden : Technische Universität Dresden, 2019. http://d-nb.info/122720213X/34.
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Smith, Scott. "An Exploratory Study of Fifth-Grade Students’ Reasoning About the Relationship Between Fractions and Decimals When Using Number Line-Based Virtual Manipulatives." DigitalCommons@USU, 2017. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/5625.
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Understanding the relationship between fractions and decimals is an important step in developing an overall understanding of rational numbers. Research has demonstrated the feasibility of technology in the form of virtual manipulatives for facilitating students’ meaningful understanding of rational number concepts. This exploratory dissertation study was conducted for the two closely related purposes: first, to investigate a sample of fifth-grade students’ reasoning regarding the relationship between fractions and decimals for fractions with terminating decimal representations while using virtual manipulative incorporating parallel number lines; second, to investigate the affordances of the virtual manipulatives for supporting the students’ reasoning about the decimal-fraction relationship.
The study employed qualitative methods in which the researcher collected and analyzed data from fifth-grade students’ verbal explanations, hand gestures, and mouse cursor motions. During the course of the study, four fifth-grade students participated in an initial clinical interview, five task-based clinical interviews while using the number line-based virtual manipulatives, and a final clinical interview. The researcher coded the data into categories that indicated the students’ synthetic models, their strategies for converting between fractions and decimals, and evidence of students’ accessing the affordances of the virtual manipulatives (e.g., students’ hand gestures, mouse cursor motions, and verbal explanations).
The study yielded results regarding the students’ conceptions of the decimal-fraction relationship. The students’ synthetic models primarily showed their recognition of the relationship between the unit fraction 1/8 and its decimal 0.125. Additionally, the students used a diversity of strategies for converting between fractions and decimals. Moreover, results indicate that the pattern of strategies students used for conversions of decimals to fractions was different from the pattern of strategies students used for conversions of fractions to decimals. The study also yielded results for the affordances of the virtual manipulatives for supporting the students’ reasoning regarding the decimal-fraction relationship. The analysis of students’ hand gestures, mouse cursor motions, and verbal explanations revealed the affordances of alignment and partition of the virtual manipulatives for supporting the students’ reasoning about the decimal-fraction relationship. Additionally, the results indicate that the students drew on the affordances of alignment and partition more frequently during decimal to fraction conversions than during fraction to decimal conversions.
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Addison, Rachel Helen. "The problem of moral ambivalence : revisiting Henry Sidgwick's theory of 'Rational Benevolence' as a basis for moral reasoning, with reference to prenatal ethical dilemmas." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/27454.
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This thesis addresses the conflict traditionally found within moral philosophy between deontological and utilitarian schools of thought. Using the example of the serious moral ambivalence experienced by individuals who are deciding whether to end or continue a difficult pregnancy, it is argued that this ambivalence is the result of both absolute principles (such as the intrinsic value of human life) and outcome based considerations (such as the desire to avoid causing pain and suffering) appearing to be morally reasonable, while also being fundamentally opposed: Each course of action is at once morally defensible on the basis of its own reasonableness, and, conversely, reprehensible due to the reasonableness of the other. This lived experience of moral ambivalence is directly reflected by the tension between deontology and utilitarianism as it occurs at the moral philosophic level, where the deontological emphasis on the unconditional rightness of certain principles is seen to be at irreconcilable odds with the utilitarian emphasis on the attainment of certain ends. The thesis’ central claim is that such ambivalence strongly indicates that human morality is neither exclusively one type or the other, and that both types of moral property are in fact reasonable, and thus have moral value. It is theorised that accounting for this dual reasonableness would lead to the most accurate and helpful representation of the human moral experience – but that the philosophic ‘divide’ between the two types of principle has led to an either/or situation, which has largely prevented this sort of understanding from being developed. The thesis argues that Victorian philosopher Henry Sidgwick developed a view in which neither deontological nor utilitarian principles can be fully realised without reference to the other, precisely on the basis that both can be found to be ultimately rational. This thesis aims to revitalise that theory – represented by the term ‘Rational Benevolence’ - to show that Sidgwick reconciled the divide between absolute and end based principles in such a way that the relationship between them becomes a ‘synthesis’. In this synthesis, deontological and utilitarian concepts are both seen as essential components of morality, that combine to form a dynamic whole in which the value of each principle is both indicated and naturally limited by the value of the other, on account of their respective rationalities. It is argued that this provides a more comprehensive understanding of the reality of the human moral experience, and better moral justification for either course of action in situations of complex and sensitive ethical decision making.
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Tang, Antony Shui Sum, and n/a. "A rationale-based model for architecture design reasoning." Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au./public/adt-VSWT20070319.100952.
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Large systems often have a long life-span and their system and software architecture design comprise many intricately related elements. The verification and maintenance of these architecture designs require an understanding of how and why the system are constructed. Design rationale is the reasoning behind a design and it provides an explanation of the design. However, the reasoning is often undocumented or unstructured in practice. This causes difficulties in the understanding of the original design, and makes it hard to detect inconsistencies, omissions and conflicts without any explanations to the intricacies of the design. Research into design rationale in the past has focused on argumentation-based design deliberations. Argumentation-based design rationale models provide an explicit representation of design rationale. However, these methods are ineffective in communicating design reasoning in practice because they do not support tracing to design elements and requirements in an effective manner.
In this thesis, we firstly report a survey of practising architects to understand their
perception of the value of design rationale and how they use and document this knowledge.
From the survey, we have discovered that practitioners recognize the importance of documenting design rationale and frequently use them to reason about their design choices. However, they have indicated certain barriers to the use and documentation of design rationale. The results have indicated that there is no systematic approach to using and capturing design rationale in current architecture design practice. Using these findings, we address the issues of representing and applying architecture design rationale.
We have constructed a rationale-based architecture model to represent design rationale,
design objects and their relationships, which we call Architecture Rationale and
Element Linkage (AREL). AREL captures both qualitative and quantitative rationale for
architecture design. Quantitative rationale uses costs, benefits and risks to justify architecture
decisions. Qualitative rationale documents the issues, arguments, alternatives and
tradeoffs of a design decision. With the quantitative and qualitative rationale, the AREL
model provides reasoning support to explain why architecture elements exist and what
assumptions and constraints they depend on. Using a causal relationship in the AREL
model, architecture decisions and architecture elements are linked together to explain the reasoning of the architecture design. Architecture Rationalisation Method (ARM) is a
methodology that makes use of AREL to facilitate architecture design. ARM uses cost,
benefit and risk as fundamental elements to rank and compare alternative solutions in the decision making process.
Using the AREL model, we have proposed traceability and probabilistic techniques
based on Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) to support architecture understanding and
maintenance. These techniques can help to carry out change impact analysis and rootcause analysis. The traceability techniques comprise of forward, backward and evolution tracings. Architects can trace the architecture design to discover the change impacts by analysing the qualitative reasons and the relationships in the architecture design. We have integrated BBN to AREL to provide an additional method where probability is used to evaluate and reason about the change impacts in the architecture design. This integration provides quantifiable support to AREL to perform predictive, diagnostic and combined reasoning.
In order to align closely with industry practices, we have chosen to represent the
rationale-based architecture model in UML. In a case study, the AREL model is applied
retrospectively to a real-life bank payment systems to demonstrate its features and applications.
Practising architects who are experts in the electronic payment system domain
have been invited to evaluate the case study. They have found that AREL is useful in
helping them understand the system architecture when they compared AREL with traditional design specifications. They have commented that AREL can be useful to support the verification and maintenance of the architecture because architects do not need to reconstruct or second-guess the design reasoning.
We have implemented an AREL tool-set that is comprised of commercially available
and custom-developed programs. It enables the capture of architecture design and its
design rationale using a commercially available UML tool. It checks the well-formedness
of an AREL model. It integrates a commercially available BBN tool to reason about the
architecture design and to estimate its change impacts.
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Tang, Antony Shui Sum. "A rationale-based model for architecture design reasoning." Australasian Digital Thesis Program, 2007. http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au/public/adt-VSWT20070319.100952/index.html.
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Thesis (Ph.D) - Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Information & Communication Technologies, 2007.A thesis submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of ICT, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Bibliography p. 214-226.
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Case, Roland. "Understanding judicial reasoning : a conception and rationale for law-related education." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30606.
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The topic of judicial reasoning has been largely excluded from high school law and social studies curricula despite widespread ignorance and misunderstanding among Canadians of the reasoning judges are expected to employ in applying the law. The two biggest obstacles to its inclusion are: (1) insufficient appreciation among educators of the importance of public understanding of judicial reasoning, and (2) a lack of consensus about the nature of judicial reasoning. Accordingly, the major thrusts of this dissertation are to justify why judicial reasoning ought to be part of basic civic education and to articulate a defensible conception of judicial reasoning for educators' use in law-related and public legal education programs.
Defensible criteria for theorizing about judicial reasoning are explained and justified by considering different types of theorizing about social practices. Three basic types of theories are identified - formal, causal and ethical theories. It is suggested that the relevant type of theory of judicial reasoning, what I call a formal theory, involves explication of what informed practitioners would accept as the standards operating within their system. This account of theorizing about social practices is defended against objections implied by a rival account of theorizing presented by Dworkin. Dworkin's explication is rejected on the grounds that it conflates a
distinction between theories that faithfully represent the standards of proper judicial practice and theories whose account of judicial standards is controlled by instrumental purposes.
Building on Hart's conception of law as a union of primary and secondary rules, an account of judicial reasoning is developed in terms of three types of second-order rules. These rules of application, which establish standards for applying the law in particular cases, include rules for determining the legal validity of arguments for a decision, for setting the relative weight of legal arguments, and for verifying the conclusions attributed to a legal argument. Rules of application are organized into three dominant modes or forms of reasoning: (1) reasoning from interpretive guidelines, which refers to a constellation of second-order rules that govern application of law by determining a law's meaning; (2) reasoning from prior cases, which deals with rules governing application of law in light of previous judicial decisions; and (3) reasoning from principle, which involves rules for assessing the implications of potential judicial decisions in light of other legal standards. Specific judicial decisions and general judicial practices are explicated in terms of these modes of reasoning. This account of judicial reasoning is defended against a number of objections, including challenges posed by the principal rival conception of reasoning about the law - an account of judicial reasoning offered by Dworkin.
Teaching high school students about the modes of judicial reasoning is justified because greater public understanding of judicial reasoning is required to combat widespread, potentially damaging, misperceptions of judicial practices. The key elements comprising an adequate lay understanding of judicial reasoning are outlined.Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
Graduate
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Abu-Hakima, Suhayya Carleton University Dissertation Engineering Electrical. "Rationale: a tool for developing knowledge-based systems that explain by reasoning explicitly." Ottawa, 1988.
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Gavião, Filho Anizio Pires. "Colisão de direitos fundamentais, argumentação e ponderação." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/88482.
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O objetivo central desta investigação é demonstrar que a ponderação é racional. A proposição normativa particular concreta resultante de um caso de colisão de direitos fundamentais resolvido pela ponderação pode ser justificada racionalmente. O que se pretende sustentar é que o problema não está na ponderação, mas como ela é realizada para solucionar os casos de colisão de direitos fundamentais. A ponderação somente pode pretender racionalidade quando sustentada por razões dadas conforme regras. A proposição decisiva desta investigação é a de que a ponderação, como atividade argumentativa, deve observar as regras da argumentação racional. Essas regras são as regras da argumentação prática geral e da argumentação jurídica, formuladas pela teoria do discurso prático geral e do discurso jurídico. Elas configuram a base das regras próprias da ponderação racional.The goal of this research is to show that balancing is rational. The particular concrete normative statement resulting from a collision of constitutional rights resolved by balancing can be justified rationally. The aim is to sustain that the problem is not balancing itself, but how it is used to solve the cases of collision of constitutional rights.The balancing can be rational only if supported by reasons given under rules. A crucial proposition of this research is that the balancing, as argumentative activity, must observe the rules of rational legal reasoning. These rules are the rules of the general practice argumentation and the rules of the legal reasoning, raised by the theory of general practical discourse and legal discourse. They make the basis of its own rules of rational balancing.
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Hašková, Simona. "Managerial calculations from the viewpoint of logic, analysis microeconomics and other theoretical disciplines." Doctoral thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2014. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-200217.
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It is no secret that 'managerial' solutions are not, on average, nearly as reliable as 'technical' solutions. The focus of this work is to clarify the reasons why this is so, and to seek ways to increase the reliability of managerial solutions. The causes of this situation are both subjective (human factor failure), which can be influenced, and objective (complexity of the problem, the specifics of human behaviour, etc.) that can be only minimally influenced. Significant subjective causes at work were identified as: a. cognitive distortions at the mental level of thinking of the problem solvers; b. deficiencies in making inference and drawing conclusions; c. incorrect argumentation. There are two ways to reduce these causes: 1. cultivation of managerial thinking of the problem solvers; 2. the use of reserves in the implementation of approaches and tools of theoretical disciplines that already operate successfully elsewhere and are beneficial for managerial solutions. The first way deals with procedures for managerial solutions formulated in the language of the relevant discipline (the language of management), expressed by natural language and the chain of formulas (calculations) and visual (graphic) tools in the form of managerial decision trees, diagrams and charts with the rules of 'managerial logic'. This is generally defined as a set of approaches, tools, methods and skills needed for credible justification when solving managerial problems. Specifically it deals with: - the 'case-based reasoning' approach, which aims at finding the best point of view on a given problem and analysing all considered aspects within its context step-by-step in detail; - translating the tools and methods of modern logic (especially its intuitionistic version) from the language of logic into the language of management taking into account the factual content of expressive means of the language of management including the ability of their effective application; - respecting the principles of rational and ethical argumentation within managerial solutions. The second way circumvents managerial solution procedures by recasting the managerial task to the task of a scientific discipline (logic, game theory, etc.) and derives the correct result therein. In this context we talk about the use of knowledge of theoretical disciplines in management. Both of these ways are demonstrated in the work in a number of illustrative examples and the annexed case studies addressing the specific tasks of managerial practice.
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Ionica, Aurel. "Reasoning, argumentation, and persuasion with special application to Hebrew wisdom literature and Hebrew wisdom scholarship." Thesis, Toulouse 2, 2011. http://www.theses.fr/2011TOU20142.
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Le travail décrit d’abord le processus par lequel Aristote a mis les bases d’une logique qui est devenu la norme pour un raisonnement correct, ainsi que les raccourcis qu’il a pris pour faire de la logique une pratique inutile pour l’étude des arguments tels qu’ils apparaissent dans les arguments informels. Par la suite l’étude établit de nouveaux concepts sur lesquels le raisonnement et l’argumentation réelle sont fondées et introduit ce qui est étiqueté comme « carrés rationnel », une structure sur laquelle toute forme de discours peut être analysée. Afin de prouver la validité de la nouvelle théorie, il est appliqué à diverses formes de discours ou de dispositifs littéraires, puis au livre de l’Ecclésiaste, l’un des livres les plus déroutants de la Bible sur lequel aucune explication satisfaisante ou interprétation n’a pas été offerte auparavant. Et enfin, la nouvelle théorie est appliquée pour analyser des ouvrages savants concernant leur cohérence dans ce qu’ils disent ainsi que leur rapport au texte qu’ils prétendent interpréter correctementThe work outlines first the process by which Aristotle laid the foundations for logic which has become the standard for correct reasoning, as well as the shortcuts which he took and has made logic virtually useless for the study of arguments as they occur in informal arguments. Then the work establishes new concepts on which actual reasoning and argumentation are based and introduces what is labeled as reasoning square, a structure on which any form of discourse can be analyzed. In order to prove the validity of the new theory, it is applied to various forms of discourse or literary devices, then to the book of Ecclesiastes, one of the most confusing books in the Bible for which no satisfactory explanation and interpretation has been offered before. And finally, the new theory is applied to analyzing scholarly works from the point of view of how consistent they are in what they say as well as their relation to the text whose meaning they claim to accurately expose
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Smith, Daniel R. "Implicit personality and leadership in stressful and dangerous situations: a first step." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/43693.
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Leadership in stressful and dangerous situations is vitally important in terms of lives, property, and national strategic objectives. But our understanding of effective leadership in these and other contexts is limited. Part of the problem is that interactionist theoretical perspectives are not reflected in contemporary leadership thinking. In addition, the impact of individual differences on leadership is often misrepresented or hidden by linear correlations and regressions conducted on continuous scores. This study employed new, innovative, indirect conditional reasoning measures to assess the personalities of 627 leaders entering the militaryâ s most challenging and stressful combat leader development course (the US Army Ranger School). These innovative measures predicted compelling differences in leadership, attrition, and in the peer evaluations made during the training. Analyses conducted on the continuous personality scores demonstrate that these findings are misrepresented or hidden by linear correlations and regressions. As an alternative, I present a configural scoring scheme, couched in a poker analogy, to explain how these individual differences combine to predict the odds of success for each of the 18 personality types studied.
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Brinker, Laura. "Representations and students' rational number reasoning." 1996. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/36178172.html.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1996.Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-114).
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Duc, Ho Ngoc. "Reasoning about Rational, but not Logically Omniscient Agents." 1996. https://ul.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A16523.
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Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht das sogenannte logische Allwissenheitsproblem' (Logical Omniscience Problem) der epistemischen Logik und schlägt einen neuen Ansatz zur Lösung des Problems vor. Die epistemische Logik, die ursprünglich als eine Teildisziplin der philosophischen Logik entwickelt wurde, findet heute Anwendung in so unterschiedlichen Gebieten wie Philosophie, Sprachwissenschaft, Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Informatik. In der Informatik und der Künstlichen Intelligenz ist die epistemische Logik einer der Hauptformalismen zur Wissensrepräsentation und zur Spezifikation von Multiagentensystemen geworden. Allerdings ist es eine sehr umstrittene Frage, ob die epistemische Logik für diese Anwendungen geeignet ist. Kritiker behaupten, daß die epistemische Logik die Begriffe des Wissens und des Glaubens nicht adäquat erfassen kann und folglich für die Repräsentation von Wissen ungeeignet ist. Ihre Behauptung gründet sich auf der Tatsache, daß die meisten Systeme der epistemischen Logik sehr starke Idealisierungen hinsichtlich der logischen Fähigkeiten der epistemischen Subjekte (englisch: agents) machen. Es wird z. B. angenommen, daß die epistemischen Subjekte alle logischen Wahrheiten kennen, oder daß sie alle logischen Konsequenzen einer Aussage kennen, wenn sie diese Aussage glauben. Dieses Problem is als das logische Allwissenheitsproblem' (Logical Omniscience Problem) bekannt. Es gibt in der Literatur eine Reihe von Ansätzen, dieses Problem zu lösen. Fast alle vorgeschlagenen Lösungen verfolgen die Strategie, schwächere modale Systeme zu betrachten. Ich werde zeigen, daß diese Lösungen unbefriedigend sind: in dieser Weise kann logische Allwissenheit vermieden werden, aber viele Intuitionen über die Begriffe Glauben und Wissen gehen verloren. Also können auch die schwächeren epistemischen Systeme die genannten Begriffe nicht adäquat erfassen. Ein anderer Lösungsansatz wird vorgeschlagen. Ich werde argumentieren, daß sich die Hauptprobleme der epistemischen Logik in einem statischen Rahmen nicht lösen lassen. Um diese Probleme zu lösen, müssen wir auch die Denkaktivitäten der epistemischen Subjekte in Betracht ziehen. Zur Modellierung von Wissen (und Glauben) brauchen wir eine dynamische epistemische Logik. Ich werde zeigen, daß Axiome der epistemischen Logik die folgende Form haben muß: wenn alle Prämissen einer gültigen Schlußregel gewußt (geglaubt) werden und wenn das Subjekt die notwendige Folgerung vollzieht, dann weißt (glaubt) es auch die Konklusion. Um diese Idee zu formalisieren, schlage ich vor, die epistemische Logik zu d.h., eine dynamische Komponente in die Sprache einzuführen. An einem Beispiel wird erläutert, wie die Dynamisierung' der epistemischen Logik realisiert werden kann.
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Duc, Ho Ngoc. "Reasoning about Rational, but not Logically Omniscient Agents." 1997. https://ul.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A32499.
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We propose in the paper a new solution to the so-called Logical Omniscience Problem of epistemic logic. Almost all attempts in the literature to solve this problem consist in weakening the standard epistemic systems: weaker systems are considered where the agents do not possess the full reasoning capacities of ideal reasoners. We shall argue that this solution is not satisfactory: in this way omniscience can be avoided, but many intuitions about the concepts of knowledge and belief get lost. We shall show that axioms for epistemic logics must have the following form: if the agent knows all premises of a valid inference
rule, and if she thinks hard enough, then she will know the conclusion. To formalize such an idea, we propose to \dynamize' epistemic logic, that is, to introduce a dynamic component into the language. We develop a logic based on this idea and show that it is suitable for formalizing the notion of actual, or explicit knowledge.
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Pensel, Maximilian. "A Lightweight Defeasible Description Logic in Depth: Quantification in Rational Reasoning and Beyond." 2019. https://tud.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A36341.
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Description Logics (DLs) are increasingly successful knowledge representation formalisms, useful for any application requiring implicit derivation of knowledge from explicitly known facts.
A prominent example domain benefiting from these formalisms since the 1990s is the biomedical field.
This area contributes an intangible amount of facts and relations between low- and high-level concepts such as the constitution of cells or interactions between studied illnesses, their symptoms and remedies.
DLs are well-suited for handling large formal knowledge repositories and computing inferable coherences throughout such data, relying on their well-founded first-order semantics.
In particular, DLs of reduced expressivity have proven a tremendous worth for handling large ontologies due to their computational tractability.
In spite of these assets and prevailing influence, classical DLs are not well-suited to adequately model some of the most intuitive forms of reasoning.
The capability for abductive reasoning is imperative for any field subjected to incomplete knowledge and the motivation to complete it with typical expectations.
When such default expectations receive contradicting evidence, an abductive formalism is able to retract previously drawn, conflicting conclusions.
Common examples often include human reasoning or a default characterisation of properties in biology, such as the normal arrangement of organs in the human body.
Treatment of such defeasible knowledge must be aware of exceptional cases - such as a human suffering from the congenital condition situs inversus - and therefore accommodate for the ability to retract defeasible conclusions in a non-monotonic fashion.
Specifically tailored non-monotonic semantics have been continuously investigated for DLs in the past 30 years.
A particularly promising approach, is rooted in the research by Kraus, Lehmann and Magidor for preferential (propositional) logics and Rational Closure (RC).
The biggest advantages of RC are its well-behaviour in terms of formal inference postulates and the efficient computation of defeasible entailments, by relying on a tractable reduction to classical reasoning in the underlying formalism.
A major contribution of this work is a reorganisation of the core of this reasoning method, into an abstract framework formalisation.
This framework is then easily instantiated to provide the reduction method for RC in DLs as well as more advanced closure operators, such as Relevant or Lexicographic Closure.
In spite of their practical aptitude, we discovered that all reduction approaches fail to provide any defeasible conclusions for elements that only occur in the relational neighbourhood of the inspected elements.
More explicitly, a distinguishing advantage of DLs over propositional logic is the capability to model binary relations and describe aspects of a related concept in terms of existential and universal quantification.
Previous approaches to RC (and more advanced closures) are not able to derive typical behaviour for the concepts that occur within such quantification.
The main contribution of this work is to introduce stronger semantics for the lightweight DL EL_bot with the capability to infer the expected entailments, while maintaining a close relation to the reduction method.
We achieve this by introducing a new kind of first-order interpretation that allocates defeasible information on its elements directly.
This allows to compare the level of typicality of such interpretations in terms of defeasible information satisfied at elements in the relational neighbourhood.
A typicality preference relation then provides the means to single out those sets of models with maximal typicality.
Based on this notion, we introduce two types of nested rational semantics, a sceptical and a selective variant, each capable of deriving the missing entailments under RC for arbitrarily nested quantified concepts.
As a proof of versatility for our new semantics, we also show that the stronger Relevant Closure, can be imbued with typical information in the successors of binary relations.
An extensive investigation into the computational complexity of our new semantics shows that the sceptical nested variant comes at considerable additional effort, while the selective semantics reside in the complexity of classical reasoning in the underlying DL, which remains tractable in our case.
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"The Use of Proportional Reasoning and Rational Number Concepts by Adults in the Workplace." Doctoral diss., 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.29806.
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abstract: Industry, academia, and government have spent tremendous amounts of money over several decades trying to improve the mathematical abilities of students. They have hoped that improvements in students' abilities will have an impact on adults' mathematical abilities in an increasingly technology-based workplace. This study was conducted to begin checking for these impacts. It examined how nine adults in their workplace solved problems that purportedly entailed proportional reasoning and supporting rational number concepts (cognates).
The research focused on four questions: a) in what ways do workers encounter and utilize the cognates while on the job; b) do workers engage cognate problems they encounter at work differently from similar cognate problems found in a textbook; c) what mathematical difficulties involving the cognates do workers experience while on the job, and; d) what tools, techniques, and social supports do workers use to augment or supplant their own abilities when confronted with difficulties involving the cognates.
Noteworthy findings included: a) individual workers encountered cognate problems at a rate of nearly four times per hour; b) all of the workers engaged the cognates primarily via discourse with others and not by written or electronic means; c) generally, workers had difficulty with units and solving problems involving intensive ratios; d) many workers regularly used a novel form of guess & check to produce a loose estimate as an answer; and e) workers relied on the social structure of the store to mitigate the impact and defuse the responsibility for any errors they made.
Based on the totality of the evidence, three hypotheses were discussed: a) the binomial aspect of a conjecture that stated employees were hired either with sufficient mathematical skills or with deficient skills was rejected; b) heuristics, tables, and stand-ins were maximally effective only if workers individually developed them after a need was recognized; and c) distributed cognition was rejected as an explanatory framework by arguing that the studied workers and their environment formed a system that was itself a heuristic on a grand scale.Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015
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"The Influence of Motivation on Evidence Assimilation in a Controlled Judgement Task." Master's thesis, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.53931.
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abstract: Prior research suggests that people ignore evidence that is inconsistent with what they want to believe. However, this research on motivated reasoning has focused on how people reason about familiar topics and in situations where the evidence presented interacts with strongly-held prior beliefs (e.g., the effectiveness of the death penalty as a crime deterrent). This makes it difficult to objectively assess how biased people are in motivated-reasoning contexts. Indeed, recent work by Jern and colleagues (2014) suggests that apparent instances of motivated reasoning may actually be instances of rational belief-updating. Inspired by this new account, the current studies reexamined motivated reasoning using a controlled categorization task and tested whether people assimilate evidence differently when they are motivated to maintain a certain belief versus when they are not. Contrary to earlier research on motivated reasoning, six studies with children and adults (N = 1295) suggest that participants’ motivations did not affect their information search and their beliefs were driven primarily by the evidence, even when the evidence was incongruent with their motivations. This work provides initial evidence for the account proposed by Jern and colleagues.Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis Psychology 2019
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Oliveira, Carina Helena José. "Raciocinando matematicamente com números racionais." Master's thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/10578.
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O presente documento incide sobre um projeto de investigação desenvolvido no âmbito da unidade curricular Estágio no 2.º Ciclo, do curso de Mestrado em Ensino do 1.º e do 2.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico. O estudo que desenvolvi tem como principal objetivo analisar e compreender o raciocínio matemático de alunos do 5.º ano de escolaridade na resolução de problemas envolvendo números racionais não negativos. Neste sentido, formularam-se as seguintes questões: (i) Como se caracteriza o raciocínio matemático usado pelos alunos na resolução de problemas envolvendo números racionais não negativos? (ii) A que conhecimentos e representações recorrem para desenvolver e explicitar o seu raciocínio? (iii) Que dificuldades experienciam?
O enquadramento teórico aborda a importância do raciocínio matemático, o seu significado e caracterização. Além disso, foca, nomeadamente o papel das representações, do conhecimento matemático e das tarefas que se propõem aos alunos no desenvolvimento do raciocínio e, ainda, a necessidade de se criarem, na sala de aula, condições para promover e apoiar hábitos de raciocínio.
Do ponto de vista metodológico, o estudo constitui uma investigação sobre a prática que se enquadra no paradigma interpretativo e numa abordagem qualitativa. Neste âmbito, foram realizados dois estudos de caso. Os dados empíricos foram obtidos através da observação participante, recolha documental e entrevistas clínicas realizadas aos alunos caso. Estes dados foram, posteriormente, objeto de uma análise de conteúdo qualitativa orientada por categorias temáticas.
Os resultados da investigação mostram que os alunos envolvidos no estudo evidenciam atividades associadas ao raciocínio matemático como a explicação, a justificação, a formulação de conjeturas e a generalização. No entanto, as explicações e justificações surgiram com maior frequência do que as outras atividades. Para resolverem as tarefas propostas, recorreram sobretudo, a conhecimentos relacionados com os números racionais representados sob a forma de fração, tanto ao nível do conceito, como dos procedimentos de cálculo, mobilizando, com frequência, relações matemáticas. Além disso, usaram representações icónicas, simbólicas e ativas, nalguns casos para resolverem a mesma tarefa, predominando as icónicas e as simbólicas. Quer os conceitos, relações e procedimentos matemáticos conhecidos, quer as representações utilizadas e as conexões que estabeleceram entre elas, revelaram-se importantes recursos de apoio do raciocínio matemático. Entre as dificuldades encontradas estão, nomeadamente as relacionadas com o explicar e justificar algumas afirmações e com a seleção de estratégias, particularmente, no que se refere à escolha da representação dos números racionais que melhor se adequa ao contexto da tarefa proposta.This document is focused on a research project developed within the course “Estágio no 2º Ciclo” of the Master Degree in Teaching in Upper Primary School (levels 1 to 6). The main goal of this project is to analyse and to understand the mathematical reasoning of the 5th grade students when they solve problems involving non-negative rational numbers. In this regard, the following questions were formulated: i) How is characterized students mathematical reasoning in solving problems involving non-negative rational numbers? ii) To which knowledge and representations do they appeal to develop and explain their reasoning? iii) Which difficulties do they experience? The theoretical framework addresses the importance of the mathematical reasoning, its meaning and main characteristics. Besides, it is focused, particularly, on the role of representations, on the mathematical knowledge and the tasks proposed to student, on reasoning development and, also, on the importance of creating conditions to promote and support reasoning habits within the classroom. Methodologically, the study is a research into practice that it is framed on the interpretative paradigm and on a qualitative approach. In this sense, were performed two case studies. The empirical data was obtained through participant observation, documental collection and clinical interviews with the case students. This data was, afterwards, object of a qualitative content analyses of content by theme categories. The study shows that the case students, perform activities associated to mathematical reasoning, such like explanation, justification, conjectures formulation and generalization. However, the explanations and justifications arise more frequently than the other activities. To solve the proposed tasks, the students appealed manly to knowledge related to the rational numbers represented by fractions, both at the conceptual level, as the calculation procedures, often mobilizing mathematical relations. Furthermore, they used iconic, symbolic and active representations, in some cases, to solve the same tasks, predominating the iconic and the symbolic ones. Both the concepts, relations and procedures known, as the representations used and the connections established between them, revealed to be important support resources of mathematical reasoning. Among the difficulties founded are, namely, the ones related to explain and to justify some statement and to the selection of strategies, particularly in what refer to the choice of the representation of rational numbers that best suits to the proposed task context.
Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal