Showing papers on "Context (language use) published in 1981"

Statistical Theory of Reliability and Life Testing: Probability Models

Abstract: : This is the first of two books on the statistical theory of reliability and life testing. The present book concentrates on probabilistic aspects of reliability theory, while the forthcoming book will focus on inferential aspects of reliability and life testing, applying the probabilistic tools developed in this volume. This book emphasizes the newer, research aspects of reliability theory. The concept of a coherent system serves as a unifying theme for much of the book. A number of new classes of life distributions arising naturally in reliability models are treated systematically: the increasing failure rate average, new better than used, decreasing mean residual life, and other classes of distributions. As the names would seem to indicate, each such class of life distributions provides a realistic probabilistic description of a physical property occurring in the reliability context. Also various types of positive dependence among random variables are considered, thus permitting more realistic modeling of commonly occurring reliability situations.

Uric acid provides an antioxidant defense in humans against oxidant- and radical-caused aging and cancer: a hypothesis.

Abstract: During primate evolution, a major factor in lengthening life-span and decreasing age-specific cancer rates may have been improved protective mechanisms against oxygen radicals. We propose that one of these protective systems is plasma uric acid, the level of which increased markedly during primate evolution as a consequence of a series of mutations. Uric acid is a powerful antioxidant and is a scavenger of singlet oxygen and radicals. We show that, at physiological concentrations, urate reduces the oxo-heme oxidant formed by peroxide reaction with hemoglobin, protects erythrocyte ghosts against lipid peroxidation, and protects erythrocytes from peroxidative damage leading to lysis. Urate is about as effective an antioxidant as ascorbate in these experiments. Urate is much more easily oxidized than deoxynucleosides by singlet oxygen and is destroyed by hydroxyl radicals at a comparable rate. The plasma urate levels in humans (about 300 microM) is considerably higher than the ascorbate level, making it one of the major antioxidants in humans. Previous work on urate reported in the literature supports our experiments and interpretations, although the findings were not discussed in a physiological context.

Multivariable feedback design: Concepts for a classical/modern synthesis

Abstract: This paper presents a practical design perspective on multivariable feedback control problems. It reviews the basic issue-feedback design in the face of uncertainties-and generalizes known single-input, single-output (SISO) statements and constraints of the design problem to multiinput, multioutput (MIMO) cases. Two major MIMO design approaches are then evaluated in the context of these results.

The professional stranger : an informal introduction to ethnography

Abstract: Ethnography Reconstructed: The Stranger at Fifteen. The Concepts of Fieldwork. Getting Started. Who Are You to Do This? Ethnography. Beginning Fieldwork. Narrowing the Focus. Informal to Formal: Some Examples. The Ethnographic Research Proposal. Ethnography in Context.

The Causes of Terrorism

Abstract: Terrorism occurs both in the context of violent resistance to the state as well as in the service of state interests. If we focus on terrorism directed against governments for purposes of political change, we are considering the premeditated use or threat of symbolic, low-level violence by conspiratorial organizations. Terrorist violence communicates a political message; its ends go beyond damaging an enemy's material resources.' The victims or objects of terrorist attack have little intrinsic value to the terrorist group but represent a larger human audience whose reaction the terrorists seek. Violence characterized by spontaneity, mass participation, or a primary intent of physical destruction can therefore be excluded from our investigation. The study of terrorism can be organized around three questions: why terrorism occurs, how the process of terrorism works, and what its social and political effects are. Here the objective is to outline an approach to the analysis of the causes of terrorism, based on comparison of different cases of terrorism, in order to distinguish a common pattern of causation from the historically unique. The subject of terrorism has inspired a voluminous literature in recent years. However, nowhere among the highly varied treatments does one find a general theoretical analysis of the causes of terrorism. This may be because terrorism has often been approached from historical perspectives, which, if we take Laqueur's work as an example, dismiss explanations that try to take into account more than a single case as "exceedingly vague or altogether wrong." 2 Certainly existing general accounts are often based on assumptions that are neither explicit nor factually demonstrable. We find judgments centering on social factors such as the permissiveness and affluence in which Western youth are raised or the imitation of dramatic models encouraged by television. Alternatively, we encounter political explanations that blame revolutionary ideologies, Marxism-Leninism or nationalism, governmental weakness in giving in to terrorist demands, or conversely government oppres

Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom

Abstract: Hawaiian culture as it met foreign traders and settlers is the context for Sahlins's structuralist methodology of historical interpretation

Scaling Community Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill

Abstract: The measurement of public attitudes toward the mentally ill has taken on new significance since the introduction of communitybased mental health care. Previous attitude scales have been constructed and applied primarily in a professional context. This article discusses the development and application of a new set of four scales explicitly designed to measure community attitudes toward the mentally ill. The scales represent dimensions included in previous instruments, specifically, authoritarianism, benevolence, social restrictiveness, and community mental health ideology, but are expressed in terms of an almost completely new set of items that emphasize community contact with the mentally ill and mental health facilities. Data from a study of community attitudes about neighborhood mental health facilities in Toronto are used to test the internal and external validity of the scales. Results of the analysis provide strong support for the validity of the scales and demonstrate their usefulness as explanatory and predictive variables for studying community response to mental health facilities.

Direct measurement of structural forces between two surfaces in a nonpolar liquid

Abstract: The force as a function of separation has been measured between two molecularly smooth surfaces immersed in the liquid octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (OMCTS) whose molecules are quasispherical of diameter ∼1.0 nm. The force is an oscillatory function of distance, varying between attraction and repulsion, with a periodicity equal to the size of the liquid molecules to within the experimental resolution of ∼0.1 nm. The oscillations decay rapidly with distance: their measurable range is 6–10 molecular diameters and their magnitude exceeds that of conventional van der Waals forces at small distances. The magnitude of the oscillations is insensitive to changes in temperature, but sensitive to the chemical nature of the surfaces, and very sensitive to the presence of water. The results are considered, qualitatively, within the context of current theories of the liquid state near solid interfaces, and some implications for surface chemistry and colloid science are discussed.

Urban Operations Research

Abstract: The book presents the basis of a course intended to provide relevant analytical skills, and also an awareness of, institutional and environmental issues arising in urban situations and focuses on certain urban service systems including delivery services, emergency services, transport services, street maintenance and social services. The following chapters discuss various aspects: 1) introduction; 2) brief review of probabilistic modeling; 3) functions of random variables and geometrical probability; 4) introduction to queueing theory and its applications; 5) spatially distributed queues; 6) applications of network models; 7) simulation in the urban context; and, 8) implementation. (TRRL)

Maximization theory in behavioral psychology

Abstract: Maximization theory, which is borrowed from economics, provides techniques for predicing the behavior of animals - including humans. A theoretical behavioral space is constructed in which each point represents a given combination of various behavioral alternatives. With two alternatives - behavior A and behavior B - each point within the space represents a certain amount of time spent performing behavior A and a certain amount of time spent performing behavior B. A particular environmental situation can be described as a constraint on available points (a circumscribed area) within the space. Maximization theory assumes that animals always choose the available point with the highest numerical value. The task of maximization theory is to assign to points in the behavioral space values that remain constant across various environmental situations; as those situations change, the point actually chosen is always the one with the highest assigned value.Maximization theory is an alternative to reinforcement theory as a description of steady-state behavior. Situations to which reinforcement theory has been directly applied (such as reinforcement of rats pressing levers and pigeons pecking keys in Skinner boxes) and situations to which reinforcement theory has occasionally been extended (such as human economic behavior and human self-control) can be described by maximization theory. This approach views behavior as a quantitative outcome of the interaction of the putative instrumental response, the reinforcer, and the other activities available in the situation. It provides new insight into these situations and, because it takes context into account, has greater predictive power than reinforcement theory.

Biased decision-making processes in aggressive boys.

Abstract: Recent evidence has suggested that aggressive boys demonstrate a bias toward attributing hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances. This study explored two aspects of cognitive processing that might be related to attributional bias: speed of decision making and selective recall of hostile cues. Groups of aggressive and nonaggressive boys at three age levels participated in a detective game in which the task was to accumulate evidence in order to decide whether or not a peer had acted with benevolence or hostility. Aggressive boys were found to respond more quickly and with less attention to available social cues than nonaggressive boys. Aggressive boys also overattributed hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances, but only when they responded quickly. This restriction suggested that training aggressive boys to respond more slowly could lead to fewer biased attributions on their part. Selective recall was also related to biased attributions, for both groups of boys. This suggested that training boys to recall all cues nonselectively could reduce the frequency of their biased attributions. The results are discussed in terms of a cognitive model of aggressive behavior. Because of the correlational nature of this study, the conclusions are stated as tentative. Recently, researchers have suggested that biases in children's social perceptions may act as mediators of deviant interpersonal aggressive behavior. Nasby, Hayden, and DePaulo (1980), for example, found that institutionalized aggressive boys display an attributional bias toward interpreting social cues from others as displays of hostility, even when the cues were meant to be benign. Similarly, Dodge (1980) found that in reaction to an ambiguously intended frustrating event, aggressive boys responded behaviorally as if the peer instigator had malevolently intended the act, whereas nonaggressive boys responded as if the peer had acted benignly. In a second study, Dodge also found that aggressive boys were more likely to attribute hostility to peers in ambiguous situations than nonaggressive boys were. The importance of this attributional bias in understanding interpersonal behavior is reflected in the work of Kelley and Stahelski (1970), who demonstrated in a different context that such attributional biases could lead to interpersonal conflicts that perpetuate the biased judgments. Support for this research was provided by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of administrators and teachers of the Monroe County Community School Corporation and the individual contributions of Cynthia Frame, Bryan Burke, and Scott Robbins.

Toward Symbolic Functioning: Structure of Early Pretend Games and Potential Parallels with Language.

Abstract: MCCUNE-NICOLICH, LORRAINE. Toward Symbolic Functioning: Structure of Early Pretend Games and Potential Parallels with Language. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 785-797. The sequence of developments of pretend play behaviors between 8 and 30 months exhibits a hierarchical order consistent with the theories of Piaget and Werner and Kaplan. Prior to pretending, children demonstrate knowledge of the functions of real objects by gesture. Next they pretend at their own everyday activities. As the ability to symbolize advances, pretending becomes decentered so that children pretend at others' activities and apply pretend schemes to dolls and other substitute participants. Such play is then integrated into sequences. Early pretending is context dependent, apparently suggested by available objects. Late in the second year children begin to indicate verbally or nonverbally that pretend games are constructed mentally prior to action, suggesting that play is becoming more independent of available objects and context. A theoretical analysis proposing concurrent developments in symbolic play and language as aspects of the semiotic function, and evidence for certain correspondences are presented.

Reliability studies of psychiatric diagnosis. Theory and practice.

Abstract: • The existing literature on the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis falls into two periods, the earlier reporting low reliability and the latter reporting much higher figures. The reasons for this trend are examined in the context of a discussion of the design of diagnostic reliability studies. The problems of research design and execution in studies of diagnostic reliability are reviewed, and statistical problems are examined. Solutions to many of these problems are suggested, including recommendations of appropriate reliability coefficients and data analyses.

Issue Involvement As a Moderator of the Effects on Attitude of Advertising Content and Context

Abstract: Two persuasion experiments were conducted manipulating the personal relevance of the message, the quality of the arguments employed, and the characteristics of the message source. The results suggested that message content factors are more influential than source characteristics under high involvement conditions. The reverse tends to occur under low involvement. THE INVOLVEMENT CONCEPT Persuasion researchers within both social and consumer psychology have recently emphasized the need to distinguish between high and low involvement situations (cf., Petty, Cacioppo, & Heesacker 1981, Pay 1976). Although there are many specific definitions of \"involvement\" within both disciplines, there is considerable agreement that in high involvement situations, the persuasive message under consideration has a high degree of personal relevance to the recipient, whereas in low involvement situations, the personal relevance of the message is rather trivial. In social psychology, this view is best represented by the work of the Sherifs who have argued that high involvement occurs when the message has \"intrinsic importance\" (Sherif & Hovland 1961, p. 197) or \"personal meaning\" (Sherif et al. 1973, p. 311), and in consumer psychology this view is well-represented by Krugman (1965) who defines involvement as the number of \"personal references\" or connections that recipients make between the message and their own lives (p. 355). Despite the widespread agreement that involvement has something to do with the personal relevance of a message, there is little agreement on the research operations employed in studying involvement. Some of the research on involvement conducted by both social (e.g., Hovland, Harvey, & Sherif 1957) and consumer (e.g., Newman & Dolich 1979) psychologists has investigated existing groups that differed in the extent to which an issue or product was personally important, or has employed designs allowing subjects to assign themselves to high and low involvement groups. These methods, which are correlational in nature, confound involvement with all other existing differences between the high and low involvement groups. Other social (e.g., Rhine & Severance 1970) and consumer psychologists (e.g., Lastovicka & Gardner 1979) have defined involvement in terms of the specific issue or product under consideration. This procedure, of course, confounds involvement with aspects of the issue or product that are immaterial to their personal relevance. Finally, some researchers have studied involvement by varying the medium of message presentation. Interestingly, however, some investigators have argued that television is a more involving medium than is print (Worchel et al. 1975), whereas others have argued Just the opposite (Krugman 1967). A preferable procedure that keeps recipient, message, and medium characteristics constant for high and low involvement conditions was introduced by Apsler & Sears (1968) and is the method employed in the studies to be reported here. In this procedure subjects are randomly assigned to high and low involvement conditions and receive the same message via the same medium, but high involvement subjects are led to believe that the issue or product has some personal relevance whereas low involvement subjects are not. In addition to the methodological differences that have plagued the involvement concept, another area of disagreement concerns the effects on persuasion that involvement is expected to have. The Sherifs have argued that increased involvement is associated with increased resistance to persuasion (cf., Sherif, Sherif & Nebergall 1965). The notion is that on any given issue, highly involved persons exhibit more negative evaluations of a communication because high involvement is associated with an extended \"latitude of rejection.\" Thus, incoming messages on high involvement issues are thought to have an enhanced probability of being rejected because they are more likely to fall within the unacceptable range of a person's implicit attitude continuum. This view has received considerable acceptance within social psychology (e.g., Eagly & Manis 1966, Greenwald 1980). Krugman (1965) has proposed an alternative view that has achieved considerable acceptance within consumer psychology (e.g., Ray 1974, Rothschild 1979). Under this second view, increasing involvement does not invariably increase resistance to persuasion, but instead shifts the sequence of communication impact. Krugman argues that under high involvement, a communication affects cognitions, then attitudes, then behavior, whereas under low involvement a communication affects cognitions, then behavior, and then attitudes. The focal goal of the present paper is to present and test a third view of how involvement affects persuasion. INVOLVEMENT AS A DETERMINANT OF CONTENT-BASED PERSUASION Elsewhere we have proposed that the level of involvement directs the focus of a subject's thoughts about a persuasive communication (Petty & Cacioppo 1979). Specifically, we have suggested that under high involvement conditions, the focus of thought is on the content of the persuasive message, whereas under low involvement conditions, the focus of thought is on noncontent cues. Thus, under high involvement, if the communication presents arguments that are subjectively cogent and compelling, the recipient's thoughts will be primarily favorable and persuasion will result. If the communication presents arguments that are subjectively specious and subject to counterargumentation, resistance to persuasion (and perhaps boomerang) will occur. Thus, contrary to the Sherifs' view, increasing involvement can lead to either enhanced or reduced persuasion depending upon the quality of the arguments presented in the message. In contrast to this focus on the content of a message under high involvement conditions, we have suggested that subjects who are not involved are more likely to focus on such non-content cues as the rewards available for adopting a certain attitude, the attractiveness, credibility, or power of the communication's source, and the number of others who advocate a certain position. Focusing on each of the latter aspects of a communication allows a person to evaluate a message or decide what attitudinal position to adopt without engaging in any extensive cognitive work relevant to the issue or product under consideration. As Miller et al. (1976) noted: \"It may be irrational to scrutinize the plethora of counter-attitudinal messages received daily. To the extent that one possesses only a limited amount of information processing time and capacity, such scrutiny would disengage the thought processes from the exigencies of daily life\" (p. 623). Thus, when a person is not highly involved with a persuasive message (i.e., when the message has no personal consequences), we propose that the person relies on a short-cut means of evaluation. Although, like Krugman, we are proposing that there are separate processes governing persuasion under high and low involvement, unlike Krugman we believe that the sequence of communication impact is the same--cognitions, attitudes, then behaviors. The difference between the two processes lies in what cognitions are affected--cognitions dealing with issue-relevant argumentation (high involvement), or cognitions dealing with non-content features of the influence situation (low involvement). EMPIRICAL TESTS OF THE INVOLVEMENT CONCEPT In an initial test of our two-process model of involvement (Petty & Cacioppo 1979), subjects heard a counterattitudinal message containing either strong or week arguments under conditions of either high or low involvement. As expected, increasing involvement enhanced the production of counter-arguments to the weak arguments and increased the production of favorable thoughts to the strong arguments. Consistent with this finding, increasing involvement increased the persuasiveness of the strong arguments, but decreased the persuasiveness of the weak arguments. Although the results of this initial study did support the view that subjects do more thinking about the content of a message under high involvement than under low, it did not directly address whether subjects are more attentive to content-irrelevant cues under low involvement then under high. Next, we report two experiments designed to test the full two-process model of involvement. In each study, subjects were exposed to a persuasive communication. In Experiment 1 (conducted in collaboration with Rachel Goldman) the message was presented on audio tape and concerned a change in a campus regulation. In Experiment 2, the message was presented in print form and concerned a new consumer product. The following variables were manipulated in each study: (a) the personal relevance of the message (high and low involvement), (b) the quality of the arguments which subjects heard or read in support of the advocated conclusion (strong or weak arguments), and (c) a characteristic of the source presenting the message (high or low expert source in Experiment 1, high or low attractive source in Experiment 2). The two-process model of involvement would expect that under high involvement conditions, persuasion would be affected most by the quality of the message arguments employed, but that under low involvement conditions, persuasion would be tied most strongly to the credibility or attractiveness of the message source.

Residential Satisfaction: Compositional and Contextual Correlates

Abstract: A theory of residential satisfaction is developed and used in the specification of a path model wherein compositional characteristics of households and the context of the dwelling and neighborhood ...

Priming and the effects of sentence and lexical contexts on naming time: Evidence for autonomous lexical processing

Abstract: Models of language processing which stress the autonomy of processing at each level predict that the semantic properties of an incomplete sentence context should have no influence on lexical processing, either facilitatory or inhibitory. An experiment similar to those reported by Fischler and Bloom (1979) and Stanovich and West (1979, 1981) was conducted using naming time as an index of lexical access time. No facilitatory effects of context were observed for either highly predictable or semantically appropriate (but unpredictable) completions, whereas strong inhibitory effects were obtained for inappropriate completions. When lexical decision time was the dependent measure, the same results were obtained, except that predictable completions now produced strong facilitation. In a further experiment the inhibitory effects of context on lexical decision times for inappropriate targets were maintained, even though unfocussed contexts were used, in which no clear expectancy for a particular completion was inv...

Data collection in context

Abstract: Theory, method and data research practice, theory, methods and data variable analysis and social measurement social surveys interviewing observational methods recent developments conclusion.

Perceived risk: psychological factors and social implications

Abstract: Subjective judgements, whether by experts or lay people, are a major component in any risk assessment. If such judgements are faulty, risk management efforts are likely to be misdirected. This paper begins with an analysis of biases exhibited by lay people and experts when they make judgements about risk. Next, the similarities and differences between lay and expert evaluations are examined in the context of a specific set of hazardous activities and technologies. Finally, insights from this research are applied to the problems of informing people about risk and forecasting public response towards nuclear power.

Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho

Abstract: This book examines the effects of migrant labour in a southern African labour reserve. Politically independent, Lesotho is acutely dependent on the export of labour to South Africa. Men spend long periods on contract labour in the South African mines, leaving their wives and families at home. This system of oscillating migration is analysed in its historical context - the development of industrial capitalism in South Africa - and with particular emphasis on its contemporary implications. Dr Murray draws on the experience of particular migrants and their families in Northern Lesotho to illustrate the problems which arise where household members move repetitively between home in Lesotho and workplace in South Africa. This monograph on social structure in the rural periphery of southern Africa places the results of detailed anthropological fieldwork in the framework of the post-1970 radical historiography in southern African studies. It offers an account of changing perspectives on migrant labour in the subcontinent.

Inference From Stratified Samples: Properties of the Linearization, Jackknife and Balanced Repeated Replication Methods

Abstract: The asymptotic normality of both linear and nonlinear statistics and the consistency of the variance estimators obtained using the linearization, jackknife and balanced repeated replication (BRR) methods in stratified samples are established The results are obtained as $L \rightarrow \infty$ within the context of a sequence of finite populations $\{\Pi_L\}$ with $L$ strata in $\Pi_L$ and are valid for any stratified multistage design in which the primary sampling units (psu's) are selected with replacement and in which independent subsamples are taken within those psu's selected more than once In addition, some exact analytical results on the bias and stability of these alternative variance estimators in the case of ratio estimation are obtained for small $L$ under a general linear regression model

Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn

Abstract: This article deals with the transition in House leadership from Cannon to Rayburn. The transition involved moving from a hierarchical pattern of leadership to a bargaining pattern. In accounting for this transition, we argue that it is the institutional context of the House that determines leadership power and style. Moreover, we argue that there is no straightforward relationship between leadership style and effectiveness; rather, style and effectiveness are contingent or situational. We conclude that the impact of institutional context on leadership behavior is itself primarily determined by party strength. When party strength is high, power is concentrated and leaders are task- or goal-oriented, whereas when party strength is low, power is dispersed and leaders will be oriented to bargaining and maintaining relationships.

Individual differences in language development: Implications for development and language.

Abstract: Differences in characteristics of language development that have been identified in a number of recent studies are reviewed. In these studies, some children have been found to emphasize single words, simple productive rules for combining words, nouns and noun phrases, and referential functions; others use whole phrases and formulas, pronouns, compressed sentences, and expressive or social functions. The evidence for two styles of acquisition and their continuity over time is examined. Explanations in terms of hemispheric functions, cognitive maturation, cognitive style, and environmental context are considered, and an explanation in terms of the interaction of individual and environment in different functional contexts is suggested. Implications for development and the mastery of complex systems are discussed. A new consensus is emerging about the appropriate framework within which to view the important problems of language acquisition. In contrast to the prevailing view a decade ago that language development could only be understood within a linguistic, genetic, rule-testing, individual framework, students of child language today have increasingly accepted the premise of a developing social, cognitive, and communicative system within which language is gradually mastered. The implications o f this shift for our view of both language and development are important, as the burgeoning literature in the journals and in such recent edited collections a s Collins (1979), K . E . Nelson (1978, 1980), and Lock (1978) indicate. A sense o f the richness and interest o f the newer approaches can be gleaned from these sources. Here I would like to consider how the study of individual differences in development fits into this new framework and adds to it. Research reported in this article was supported in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. I would like to thank Ellen Tanouye for her valuable contribution to data collection and transcription and

Organizational Context and Scientific Productivity

Abstract: An earlier study found that while a scientist's productivity does not affect the prestige of the academic position obtained, the prestige of the position does affect later productivity. In this paper consideration of contextual effects is broadened to include differing organizational contexts of scientific employment. Chances of obtaining employment in a particular context are not strongly affected by productivity. Once employment is obtained in a specific context, individual levels of productivity soon conform to characteristics of that context. These results do not support the "idea that scientists are allocated to organizational contexts on the basis of their scientific contributions. Past research indicating that the most productive scientists are recruited to academic locations may have confused the cause of a scientist working in a given context with the effect of working in that context.