Indeterminacy (literature)

About: Indeterminacy (literature) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2530 publications have been published within this topic receiving 39603 citations.

The Place of Story in the Study of Teaching and Teacher Education

Abstract: ith increasing frequency over the past several years we, as members of a community of investigator-practitioners, have been telling stories about teaching and teacher education rather than simply reporting correlation coefficients or generating lists of findings. This trend has been upsetting to some who mourn the loss of quantitative precision and, they would argue, scientific rigor. For many of us, however, these stories capture, more than scores or mathematical formulae ever can, the richness and indeterminacy of our experiences as teachers and the complexity of our understandings of what teaching is and how others can be prepared to engage in this profession. It is not altogether surprising, then, that this attraction to stories has evolved into an explicit attempt to use the literatures on "story" or "narrative" to define both the method and the object of inquiry in teaching and teacher education. Story has become, in other words, more than simply a rhetorical device for expressing sentiments about teachers or candidates for the teaching profession. It is now, rather, a central focus for conducting research in the field. We are certainly not alone in giving formal attention to story. This term, like others from linguistics and literary theory (e.g., discourse, text, deconstruction), has caught on with considerable enthusiasm throughout the intellectual world and is beginning to appear in widely different contexts. In psychology, for example, Bruner (1985) speaks of a narrative mode of thought, and Sarbin (1986) proposes story as a "root metaphor" for the study of human conduct. Within education, scholars such as Cole and Knowles (1992); Clandinin and Connelly (1992); Elbaz (1991); Grossman (1987); Gudmundsdottir (1991); Hollingsworth (in press); and Richert (1990) have recently made story a central element in their analyses of teachers' knowledge. As Mitchell (1981) noted as early as 1981, "The study of narrative is no longer the province of literary specialists or folklorists ... but has now become a positive source of insight for all branches of human and natural science" (p. ix). Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the literatures on story soon realizes, however, that these are quite turbulent intellectual waters and quickly abandons the expectation of safe passage toward the resolution, once and for all, of the many puzzles and dilemmas we face in advancing our knowledge of teaching. Much needs to be learned about the nature of story and its value to our common enterprise, and about the wide range of purposes, approaches, and claims made by those who have adopted story as a central analytical framework. What does story capture and what does it leave out? How does this notion fit within the emerging sense of the nature of teaching and what it means to educate teachers? These and many other critical questions need to be faced if story is to become more than a loose metaphor for everything from a paradigm or worldview to a technique for bringing home a point in a lecture on a Thursday afternoon. Given both the excitement story has generated and the many issues this movement has brought to the fore, it seems appropriate to provide an analysis of the place of story in the study of teaching and teacher education. My overall purpose here is to begin the process of clarifying the arguments, mapping the intellectual terrain, and casting light on the major issues we need to consider in incorporating story into our research activities. I have no illusions that this discus-

Hierarchical ordering of sequential processes

Abstract: One of the primary functions of an operating system is to rebuild a machine that must be regarded as non-deterministic (on account of cycle stealing and interrupts) into a more or less deterministic automaton. Taming the degree of indeterminacy in steps will lead to a layered operating system. A bottom layer will be discussed and so will the adequacy of the interface it presents. An analysis of the requirements of the correctness proofs will give us an insight into the logical issues at hand. A "director-secretary" relationship will be introduced to reflect a possible discipline in the use of sequencing primitives.

A new approach to risk evaluation and management: risk-based, precaution-based, and discourse-based strategies.

Abstract: Our concept of nine risk evaluation criteria, six risk classes, a decision tree, and three management categories was developed to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and political feasibility of risk management procedures. The main task of risk evaluation and management is to develop adequate tools for dealing with the problems of complexity, uncertainty. and ambiguity. Based on the characteristics of different risk types and these three major problems, we distinguished three types of management--risk-based, precaution-based, and discourse-based strategies. The risk-based strategy--is the common solution to risk problems. Once the probabilities and their corresponding damage potentials are calculated, risk managers are required to set priorities according to the severity of the risk, which may be operationalized as a linear combination of damage and probability or as a weighted combination thereof. Within our new risk classification, the two central components have been augmented with other physical and social criteria that still demand risk-based strategies as long as uncertainty is low and ambiguity absent. Risk-based strategies are best solutions to problems of complexity and some components of uncertainty, for example, variation among individuals. If the two most important risk criteria, probability of occurrence and extent of damage, are relatively well known and little uncertainty is left, the traditional risk-based approach seems reasonable. If uncertainty plays a large role, in particular, indeterminacy or lack of knowledge, the risk-based approach becomes counterproductive. Judging the relative severity of risks on the basis of uncertain parameters does not make much sense. Under these circumstances, management strategies belonging to the precautionary management style are required. The precautionary approach has been the basis for much of the European environmental and health protection legislation and regulation. Our own approach to risk management has been guided by the proposition that any conceptualization of the precautionary principle should be (1) in line with established methods of scientific risk assessments, (2) consistent and discriminatory (avoiding arbitrary results) when it comes to prioritization, and (3) at the same time, specific with respect to precautionary measures, such as ALARA or BACT, or the strategy of containing risks in time and space. This suggestion does, however, entail a major problem: looking only to the uncertainties does not provide risk managers with a clue about where to set priorities for risk reduction. Risks vary in their degree of remaining uncertainties. How can one judge the severity of a situation when the potential damage and its probability are unknown or contested? In this dilemma, we advise risk managers to use additional criteria of hazardousness, such as "ubiquity versibility," and "pervasiveness over time," as proxies for judging severity. Our approach also distinguishes clearly between uncertainty and ambiguity. Uncertainty refers to a situation of being unclear about factual statements; ambiguity to a situation of contested views about the desirability or severity of a given hazard. Uncertainty can be resolved in principle by more cognitive advances (with the exception of indeterminacy). ambiguity only by discourse. Discursive procedures include legal deliberations as well as novel participatory approaches. In addition, discursive methods of planning and conflict resolution can be used. If ambiguities are associated with a risk problem, it is not enough to demonstrate that risk regulators are open to public concerns and address the issues that many people wish them to take care ot The process of risk evaluation itself needs to be open to public input and new forms of deliberation. We have recommended a tested set of deliberative processes that are, at least in principle, capable of resolving ambiguities in risk debates (for a review, see Renn, Webler, & Wiedemaun. 1995). Deliberative processes are needed, however, for ail three types of management. Risk-based management relies on epistemiological, uncertainty-based management on reflective, and discourse-based management on participatory discourse forms. These three types of discourse could be labeled as an analytic-deliberative procedure for risk evaluation and management. We see the advantage of a deliberative style of regulation and management in a dynamic balance between procedure and outcome. Procedure should not have priority over the outcome; outcome should not have priority over the procedure. An intelligent combination of both can elaborate the required prerequisites of democratic deliberation and its substantial outcomes to enhance the legitimacy of political decisions (Guttman & Thompson, 1996; Bohman, 1997. 1998).

Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy: Reply

Abstract: This paper considers a prototypical New Keynesian model, in which the equilibrium is undetermined if monetary policy is "passive." The likelihood-based estimation of dynamic equilibrium models is extended to allow for indeterminacies and sunspot fluctuations. We construct posterior weights for the determinacy and indeterminacy region of the parameter space and estimates for the propagation of fundamental and sunspot shocks. According to the estimated model, U.S. monetary policy post-1982 is consistent with determinacy, whereas the pre-Volcker policy is not. We find that before 1979 indeterminacy substantially altered the propagation of shocks.

Reference and consciousness

Abstract: Introduction 1. Experiential Highlighting 2. What is Knowledge of Reference? 3. Space and Action 4. Sortals 5. Sense 6. The Relational View of Experience 7. The Explanatory Role of Consciousness 8. Joint Attention 9. Memory Demonstratives 10. The Anti-Realist Alternative 11. Indeterminacy and Inscrutability 12. Dispositional vs. Categorical Bibliography Index