Psychological tools for knowledge acquisition

Knowledge acquisition is said to be the biggest bottleneck in the development of expert systems. The problem is getting the knowledge out of the expert's head and into a computer. In cognitive psychology, characterizing metal structures and why experts are good at what they do is an important research area. Is there some way that the tools that psychologists have developed to uncover mental structure can be used to benefit knowledge engineers? We think that the way to find out is to browse through the psychologist's toolbox to see what there is in it that might be of use to knowledge engineers. Expert system developers have relied on two standard methods for extracting knowledge from the expert: (1) the knowledge engineer engages in an intense bout of interviews with the expert or experts, or (2) the knowledge engineer becomes an expert himself, relying on introspection to uncover the basis of his own expertise. Unfortunately, these techniques have the difficulty that often the expert himself isn't consciously aware of the basis of his expertise. If the expert himself isn't conscious of how he solves problems, introspection is useless. Cognitive psychology has faced similar problems for many years and has developed exploratory methods that can be used to discover cognitive structure from simple data

Flight data analysis of power subsystem degradation at near synchronous altitude Quarterly report

Flight data analysis of spacecraft power subsystem degradation at near synchronous altitud

Current standards for assessing pregnancy status before surgery are subjective and should be replaced with definitive, objective evidence

We report a case of a young woman admitted electively for laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication, and again three days post-operatively as an emergency with profuse vomiting and abdominal pain. She underwent diagnostic laparoscopy, and a small gastric perforation was found at the site of the fundoplication and this was suture-repaired. On both admissions, she was “screened” for pregnancy as per current guidelines. On the second admission, following a CT scan, she was found to have a gravid uterus with a foetus of 16–18 weeks’ gestation. In the opinion of the authors, this case highlights that current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines may be insufficient and could lead to unnecessary harm either to mother or foetus pre-, peri- or post-operatively.</p

Implicit body representations and the conscious body image

Recent studies have revealed that somatosensory processing relies on a class of implicit body representations showing large distortions of size and shape. The relation between these representations and the conscious body image remains unclear. Dissociations have been reported in the clinical literature on eating disorders between different body image measures, with larger and more consistent distortions found with depictive measures, in which participants compare their body to a visual depiction of a body, than metric measures, in which participants compare their body to some non-body standard. Here, we compared implicit body representations underlying position sense to the body image measured with both depictive and metric methods. The body image was measured using both a depictive method (template matching) in which participants judged whether their hand was wider or more slender than a shown hand picture, and a metric method (line length) in which participants judged whether different parts of the their hand were shorter or longer than a presented line. Consistent with previous findings, characteristic distortions were found for the implicit body representation underlying position sense. These distortions were also found in attenuated form for metric – but not depictive – body image measures. While replicating the basic dissociation between implicit body representations and the conscious body image, these results demonstrate that this dissociation is not absolute and specific tasks may utilise both to varying degrees depending on task demands. Metric measures may not be pure measures of body image, but some combination of visual and somatosensory body representations

Design: One, but in different forms

This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact) introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing. We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a number of directions requiring further elaboration

A new strategy against hostile takeovers: a model of defense in participations

This article examines the efficacy of a “defense in participations” policy consisting of competitors acquiring cross equity participations within the same industry to prevent hostile takeovers. This defense in participations strategy provides disincentive for raiders as partial ownerships increase market power of competitors and then reinforce the “outsider effect”. Also, we find conditions for a general result which states that takeovers are less profitable in an industry with participations rather than in an industry without any capital links. We provide information to regulators about the positive social impact of cross participations in the context of mergers, and expose an economic dilemma between a “laisser-faire” and an interventionist approach

Will to live in older people’s medical decisions: immediate and delayed effects of aging stereotypes

This research explores the duration of age stereotype priming effects on individuals’ will to live when faced with a medical terminal illness decision. Study 1 established the content of the stereotype of the older age group in Portugal. Study 2 tested the effects of priming positive or negative age stereotypes on older and younger individuals’ will to live, immediately after priming or after a delay. Results showed significant effects of stereotype valence on older people’s will to live. As expected, immediate and delayed will-to-live scores were both lower in the negative than in the positive condition. In contrast, among younger people there were no significant effects of stereotype valence. These findings demonstrate the robustness of these types of unconscious influences on older people’s fundamental decisions