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one of the premises in the standard determinist argument that was set out earlier is that all actions are events. And it would, of course, be an adequate refutation of the argument to show that this premise was false. Attempts to show the falsity of the statement that all actions are events have been common in recent philosophy. Let us consider a given piece of behavior—say, a man signing his name. This consists of a number of neural and muscular events with consequent movements of the pen and making of marks on paper. Let us assume that these events can be explained as a causal sequence, as no doubt they can. Then we have explained a piece of behavior deterministically by analyzing it into a series of events that are linked in a causal chain or network. But this explanation is certainly not the explanation of an action. For precisely the same physical movements may constitute any of a wide range of different actions. The man signing his name may, for example, be signing his will or a marriage register or a death warrant or a check, and so on; or he may simply be testing a new pen or narcissistically contemplating his own calligraphy. Thus it is clear that the explanation of a piece of behavior cannot be the explanation of the action that embodies it.

The causal theory of time, which had occupied an important place in the thought of Leibniz and of Kant, again became a subject of central philosophic interest during the current century after its detailed elaboration and logical refinement at the hands of G. Lechalas,1 H. Reichenbach,2 K. Lewin,3 R. Carnap,4 and H. Mehlberg.5 Specifically, it earned its new prominence in recent decades by its role in the magisterial and beautiful constructions of the relativistic topology of both time and space by Reichenbach6 and Carnap.7 More recently, I used the causal theory of time to show semantically that, with respect to the relation “later than” the events of physics can meaningfully possess the seemingly counter-intuitive denseness property of the linear Cantorean continuum. And, in this way, I was able to supply the semantical nervus probandi which had been lacking in Russell’s mathematical refutation of Zeno’s paradoxes of motion.8

I should like to introduce these general reflections on causality with the following provisional formulation of the causality principle: (i) perceived or assumed events can be arranged in chains that are continuously linked in space and time; (ii) these chains can be analysed into fragments each having specific structures.

It is true that classical science was fully aware of the limitations of human perception; but it firmly believed that by the artificial lowering of the threshold of perception this limitation could be overcome. Objects too far away as well as objects too small still can be perceived when their physical action on our sensory organs, which is too small to be effective, is concentrated by means of specially constructed devices like the telescope, microscope, seismograph, acoustic concave mirror and other means of detection; and also when conditions can be so arranged that the individual physical action, too weak in itself, can be repeated long enough to produce finally a perceptible trace. The long-time exposure of the photographic plate joined to the telescope is illustrative of both methods combined into one. The general pattern of all such instances was the same: to construct artificially a causal chain leading from the unperceived physical agency to the physical effect perceptible by human senses. The last term in the chain was always either a retinal image or an audible vibration. The very continuity of this chain seemingly guaranteed the belief that its first link cannot be essentially different from the last one; in other words that the microscosmic or megacosmic object differs merely in its dimensions from its retinal image. It is true that both telescope and microscope discovered things never seen before and in many respects strange and surprising.

The ability to efficiently recognize the emotions on others’ faces is something that most of us take for granted. Children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits and impulsivity/conduct problems (ICP), such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, have been previously described as being “fear blind”. This is also associated with looking less at the eye regions of fearful faces, which are highly diagnostic. Previous attempts to intervene into emotion recognition strategies have not had lasting effects on participants’ fear recognition abilities. Here we present both (a) additional evidence that there is a two-part causal chain, from personality traits to face recognition strategies using the eyes, then from strategies to rates of recognizing fear in others; and (b) a pilot intervention that had persistent effects for weeks after the end of instruction. Further, the intervention led to more change in those with the highest CU traits. This both clarifies the specific mechanisms linking personality to emotion recognition and shows that the process is fundamentally malleable. It is possible that such training could promote empathy and reduce the rates of antisocial behavior in specific populations in the future.

Hypotheses about possible mechanisms for spillover processes between pro-environmental behaviours are developed and tested by means of structural equation modelling. Data were collected by means of telephone interviews with a representative sample of Danish adults. Personal norms concerning recycling and packaging waste prevention are found to be rooted in the same more general, internalised values. Further, a predicted positive spillover effect from recycling to packaging waste prevention is confirmed. However, whereas a positive spillover effect from re-cycling to personal norms concerning packaging waste prevention is predicted, the reverse is found. Neither is it confirmed that performing an environmentally friendly behaviour makes attitudinal and more distal antecedents of related behaviours more predictive of the next step in the assumed causal chain. Udgivelsesdato: FEB Hypotheses about possible mechanisms for spillover processes between pro-environmental behaviours are developed and tested by means of structural equation modelling. Data were collected by means of telephone interviews with a representative sample of Danish adults. Personal norms concerning recycling and packaging waste prevention are found to be rooted in the same more general, internalised values. Further, a predicted positive spillover effect from recycling to packaging waste prevention is confirmed. However, whereas a positive spillover effect from re-cycling to personal norms concerning packaging waste prevention is predicted, the reverse is found. Neither is it confirmed that performing an environmentally friendly behaviour makes attitudinal and more distal antecedents of related behaviours more predictive of the next step in the assumed causal chain.

IntroductionIt is assumed that a running-related (overuse) injury occurs when a specific structure of the human body is exposed to a load that exceeds that structures’ load capacity. Therefore, monitoring training load is an important key to understanding the development of a running-related injury. Additionally, other distribution, magnitude and capacity-related factors should be considered when aiming to understand the causal chain of injury development. This paper presents a study protocol for a prospective cohort study that aims to add comprehensive information on the aetiology of running-related injuries and present a new approach for investigating changes in training load with regard to running-related injuries.Methods and analysisThis study focused on recreational runners, that is, runners exposed to a minimum weekly average of 15 km for at least 1 year. Participants will undergo baseline tests consisting of a clinical/anthropometrical examination and biomechanical measurements. Furthermore, participants will log all training sessions in a diary on a weekly basis for 1 year. The primary exposure variable is changes in training load. A medical practitioner will examine runners suffering from running-related pain and, if possible, make a clear diagnosis. Finally, additional time-varying exposure variables will be included in the main analysis, whereas the analysis for the secondary purpose is based on time-fixed baseline-related risk factors.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval (DNR: 712–15) for the study and its design was obtained from the Gothenburg regional ethical review board. The results of the study will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

Despite the mixed results of Brown and colleagues' review of the evidence for the use of performance indicators in health policy, this paper argues that they have an important place. Healthcare organizations cannot rely on altruism alone to motivate improved performance. Berwick, supporting the use of performance indicators in healthcare, argues "threats to survival are necessary to build will for improvement." He argues that the job of managers is to create organizations where such threats are clearly perceived, but balanced against a culture of "safety" in which individuals can learn and improve the care provided. This step in the causal chain gets insufficient attention from the "KAB+" evaluation model that Brown and colleagues employ. The use of performance indicators in publicly funded healthcare systems goes beyond arming the "consumer" of healthcare with relevant information; it is a fundamental question of democratic accountability. Methods for evaluating the evidence base of public policy must take into account the contextual (economic, social and political) factors that support or impede the achievement of policy objectives.

International audience; In certain cases, such as secure humanitarian corridors in a conflict zone, a special type of SoS, needing a rapid deployment, has to be developed. Because of the tense time constraint, usually only a domain expert is responsible with this development. However, many such SoSs also have to take into account the security aspect. How to help a domain expert integrate the security aspect into the rapid development of an SoS? In this proposal paper, we present an approach and a tool suite that help the domain expert tag business assets using security properties, which are then used to identify vulnerabilities and to propose possible security control mechanisms. We illustrate our proposal on a case study.

Background Mortality data are affected by miscertification of the medical cause of death deaths and changes to cause of death classification systems. We present both mappings of ICD9 and ICD10 to a unified list of causes, and a new statistical model for reducing the impact of misclassification of cause of death. Methods We propose a Bayesian mixed-effects multinomial logistic model that can be run on individual record level death certificates to reclassify “garbage-coded” deaths onto causes that are more meaningful for public health purposes. The model uses information on the contributing causes of death and demographic characteristics of each decedent to make informed predictions of the underlying cause of death. We apply our method to death certificate data in the US from 1979 to 2011, creating more directly comparable series of cause-specific mortality for 25 major causes of death. Results We find that many death certificates coded to garbage codes contain other information that provides strong clues about the valid underlying cause of death. In particular, a plausible underlying cause often appears in the contributing causes of death, implying that it may be incorrect ordering of the causal chain and not missed cause assignment that leads to many garbage-coded deaths. We present an example that redistributes 48 % of heart failure deaths to other cardiovascular diseases, 25 % to ischemic heart disease, and 15 % to chronic respiratory diseases. Conclusions Our methods take advantage of more detailed micro-level data than is typically considered in garbage code redistribution algorithms, making it a useful tool in circumstances in which detailed death certificate data needs to be aggregated for public health purposes. We find that this method gives different redistribution results than commonly used methods that only consider population-level proportions. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12963-016-0082-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Voluntary movements are usually preceded by a slow, negative-going brain signal over motor areas, the so-called readiness potential (RP). To date, the exact nature and causal role of the RP in movement preparation have remained heavily debated. Although the RP is influenced by several motorical and cognitive factors, it has remained unclear whether people can learn to exert mental control over their RP, for example by deliberately suppressing it. If people were able to initiate spontaneous movements without eliciting an RP, this would challenge the idea that the RP is a necessary stage of the causal chain leading up to a voluntary movement. We tested the ability of participants to control the magnitude of their RP in a neurofeedback experiment. Participants performed self-initiated movements and after every movement they were provided with immediate feedback about the magnitude of their RP. They were asked to find a strategy to perform voluntary movements such that the RPs were as small as possible. We found no evidence that participants were able to to willfully modulate or suppress their RPs while still eliciting voluntary movements. This suggests that the RP might be an involuntary component of voluntary action over which people cannot exert conscious control. Significance statement The readiness potential (RP), a brain signal that precedes spontaneous, voluntary movements, has been a matter of controversial research for several decades. There has been a long debate on the nature of this signal and the degree to which it undermines the control a person has over their behavior. Thus, assessing the degree to which people are able to exert control over this brain signal is of vital importance. We addressed this question in a neurofeedback experiment. Our results show that people are unable to willfully suppress their RPs, even when explicitly trying to do so. This suggests that the RP is an involuntary and irrevocable component of voluntary action over which people have no control.

Background Neighbourhood has risen as a relevant determinant of health. While there is substantial evidence that environmental factors affect health, far less evidence of the role of social mechanisms in the causal chain between neighbourhood characteristics and health is available. Method To evaluate the role of social cohesion as a mediator between four different neighbourhood characteristics and health using data from German Socio-Economic-Panel (SOEP), a longitudinal mediation analysis was performed. Multilevel linear regression models adjusted for socio-economic variables involved three time points and two measures of physical and mental health (physical and mental component scores (PCS and MCS) of the SF12 Questionnaire. Participants were followed-up for 4 and 10 year starting in 2004. Results A total of 15,518 measures of MCS and PCS on 10,013 participants living in 4985 households were included. After adjusting for values of MCS and PCS at baseline and demographic/socio-economic variables, social cohesion was a significant positive predictor of both MCS and PCS (β-coefficient MCS: 1.57 (0.27); PCS: 1.50 (0.24)). Interaction between social cohesion and follow-up were significant for PCS. The effect of environmental and built characteristics on health was consistently mediated by social cohesion with proportion varying between 10 and 23%. Discussion We show that social cohesion is part of the causal chain between environmental and built characteristics of a neighbourhood and health, with increasing mediation effect over time for physical health. Social mechanisms should be considered when studying the effect of neighbourhood characteristics on health inequalities making social cohesion as a legitimate target of public health interventions at neighbourhood level.

This paper aims to formulate some principal questions which should be used as start-point for design and analysis of the performance measurement conceptual framework. The paper is based on literature study followed by analysis and generalization. It reflects the diversity of approaches to performance measurement in performance-oriented literature and it investigates their similarities and differences. The paper is divided into two sections. First section defines performance measurement as a causal chain of activities and it deals with the role of subjectivity in this chain. Second section concerns common features of various performance models for organizational performance, namely motivational aspects of performance model design, users and purposes of performance information, hierarchical structure and time dimension of performance model etc., peer-reviewed

Nationalist discourse has been identified as a driving factor in the causal chain linking democratization to the likelihood of ethnic conflicts, due to its nature of polarizing us against others along ethnic lines. However, we lack systematic knowledge of the structure and dynamics of this polarization. Adding to the established practices of analysing in-group/out-group divisions in ideological and political discourses, this article proposes an innovative way of measuring the divisiveness of nationalist discourse using social network analysis. Instead of looking at direct nationalist interaction between actors, deeper discursive structures are found by analysing indirect relationships across actors, based on their nationalist interaction with third parties. In this manner, it is possible to identify whether certain actors form structurally similar clusters, based on whom they direct their nationalist appeals to, how intense these appeals are towards specific actors, and what other groups they are targeted by themselves. By applying the measure of Structural Equivalence to the original data on nationalist appeals obtained from the quantitative content analysis of the Georgian print media across the 20 years of its democratization (1991–2012), this article shows that the actor structure of nationalist discourse conveys information on group polarization. Further, it demonstrates that the divisiveness of this discourse in Georgia became sharper during electoral periods, with the first two elections after independence being particularly dangerous in this regard.

The Algebra of Connectors is used to model structured interactions in the BIP component framework. Its terms are connectors , i.e. relations describing synchronization constraints between the ports of component-based systems. Connectors are structured combinations of two basic synchronization protocols between ports: rendezvous and broadcast . They are generated from the ports of P by using a binary fusion operator and a unary typing operator. Typing associates with terms (ports or connectors) synchronization types: trigger or synchron . In a previous paper, we studied interaction semantics for which defines the meaning of connectors as sets of interactions. This semantics reduces broadcasts into the set of their possible interactions and thus blurs the distinction between rendezvous and broadcast. It leads to exponentially complex models that cannot be a basis for efficient implementation. Furthermore, the induced semantic equivalence is not a congruence. For a subset of , we propose a new causal semantics that does not reduce broadcast into a set of rendezvous and explicitly models the causal dependency relation between triggers and synchrons. The Algebra of Causal Trees formalizes this subset. It is the set of the terms generated from interactions on the set of ports P , by using two operators: a causality operator and a parallel composition operator. Terms are sets of trees where the successor relation represents causal dependency between interactions: an interaction can participate in a global interaction only if its parent participates too. We show that causal semantics is consistent with interaction semantics. Furthermore, it defines an isomorphism between and the set of the terms of involving triggers. Finally, we define for causal trees a boolean representation in terms of causal rules .

Mathematical models are a useful tool for investigating a large number of questions in metabolism, genetics, and gene–environment interactions. A model based on the underlying biology and biochemistry is a platform for in silico biological experimentation that can reveal the causal chain of events that connect variation in one quantity to variation in another. We discuss how we construct such models, how we have used them to investigate homeostatic mechanisms, gene–environment interactions, and genotype–phenotype mapping, and how they can be used in precision and personalized medicine.

This paper contributes new evidence on the wealth distribution in the rural North on the eve of the Civil War,' evidence which shows a greater degree of egalitarianism among a large segment of the population than have other studies. We argue that the wealth distribution in this particular historical economy may be used as a yardstick against which contemporary distributions might be judged. We also present evidence on the demographic and social characteristics of various groups of wealthholders and posit a causal chain from these characteristics to the concentration of wealth. To the extent that contemporaries asserted that the rural, free northern states were an egalitarian society, a study of the nature, extent and sources of economic inequality in that environment might demonstrate what is realizable as a policy objective in contrast to the Lorenzian goals or even the new standard recently proposed by Morton Paglin (1975 and 1977). Traditionally, historical analyses of egalitarianism in the nineteenth-century United States have focused on the distribution of wealth in two areas where it was least likely to be manifest, the slave-South and the urban centers.2 Our focus, however, is upon that segment of the population among which wealth, historically, was felt to have been most equally distributed: the nineteenth century rural North, an area that has received little attention despite its importance. Even where the rural North has been studied, as by Main (1976) or Newell (1977), the focus has been on narrowly defined geographic areas. The figures reported in table 1 present measures of the distribution of wealth for that group.

McKinsey is concerned with one version of the so-called causal theory of name reference; any theory of name reference, in the sense with which he is concerned, is "an attempt to provide a statement of the condition which any use (utterance or token) of a proper name and any object satisfy if and only if the former denotes the latter, where denotation is understood to be a manyone semantic relation." The two tenets of the kind of causal theory he attacks are (1) a name use's denotation is determined (in part) by a Kripkean causal chain of communication leading from the speaker back in time to that denotation,3 and (2) the mental states of a speaker which give rise to his use of a name disambiguate that use of the name, since what those mental states are of or about is determined by a causal chain linking the speaker and what they are of or about. The point of (2), which McKinsey credits to Michael Devitt,4 is that many names are names of more than one person, only one of whom is denoted by a particular use

Jencks et al. (1983) provide two replications of the Wisconsin status attainment model, comparing their results closely to the results reported by Sewell and Hauser (1975). While concluding that thl WVisconsin data are not seriously biased, they raise a number of questions regarding the interpretation of the model. Hauser et al. (1983), while not responding to the Jencks et al. paper directly, provide analyses which speak to the issues they raise. Using multiple indicators of most concepts in the model and the LISREL approach to estimation, they suggest a return to the basic causal chain interpretation originally posited by Sewell et al. (1970). The Hauser et al. estimation procedures are complex, and this paper attempts to explicate them. While the Hauser et al. analysis answers a number of questions and clarifies some important issues, many questions remain including the following: What is the meaning and interpretation of "unmeasured" family background? Should disaggregated measures of ability and performance be used rather than composites? Is a more elaborate model of the socialization process, particutarly one which permits reciprocal effects, required to understand status attainment? Finally, what is required to deal effectively with charges that the status attainment model ignores social structure? This paper attempts to answer those questions.

THE PROCEDURES AND RESULTS OF MAJOR STUDIES which explore the relation between reading disability and complications of pregnancy and birth are critically reviewed. Attention is given to issues of research design, test use, and statistical methods. Although none of the studies reviewed is free of methodological problems, the research does point up a correlation between perinatal events and reading disability. That relationship tends to be of a low order, but it is statistically significant. To some extent, there appears to be a likely causal chain from perinatal anomaly to neurological insult to reading disability. Neonatal neurological damage is suggested as the major independent variable for investigators interested in this topic.

In Reply.— I am sympathetic with Dr Gillette's concern that social and political forces may prevent meaningful government action against voluntary health risks. This kind of concern I incorporate into what I call the social structural model. Social institutions (economic, political, and others) may be real and important factors in the causal chain that makes the behaviors less than voluntary. The core of the argument, however, was to separate paternalistic interventions that would have as their goal the prevention of the behavior per se and nonpaternalistic interventions that would provide greater equity in the distribution of the costs of the risky behavior. Thus, I am sympathetic with Dr Gillette's observation that many of the behaviors give pleasure to certain persons. I never classified any of these activities as undesirable. They are merely potentially costly. If they are truly voluntary behaviors and truly risky behaviors, then equity requires that the individual

In a situation in which subjects listened to a persuasive communication while working on a task, they were told either to attend primarily to the communication (message set) or to the task (task set). There was, in addition, a message-only condition. Relative to the message-only condition, message set increased attitude change and communicationfavorable thoughts, and decreased number of counterarguments and recall. Relative to the message-set and message-only conditions, task set decreased attitude change, recall and effort attending to the communication. On the basis of these results it was argued that different mediational models are operating for message-set distraction and task-set distraction. Specifically, it was proposed that message set produces a causal chain running from an increase in communication-favorable thoughts to a decrease in counterarguments to an increase in attitude change. On the other hand, it was proposed that task set decreases attitude change partially through a consistency-achieving devaluation of the interfering communication, and partially through a large decrement in recall. Application of Blalock's method of testing causal hypotheses with correlational data was used to illustrate the theoretical models.

BARENBOIM, CARL. The Development of Person Perception in Childhood and Adolescence: From Behavioral Comparisons to Psychological Constructs to Psychological Comparisons. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 129-144. A developmental sequence of 3 person perception processes is proposed and examined in the current set of experiments, using an open-ended, person-description task. Posited as coming first in the causal chain are "behavioral comparisons," in which children describe others by comparing them along behavioral dimensions. Comparing people's behaviors should eventually lead to the child's creation and use of inferred, stable, and dynamic attributes about others, termed "psychological constructs." In turn, a new comparison process would be created (termed "psychological comparisons") in which children would use the newly created psychological constructs to compare persons. Experiment 1 used children of ages 10, 12, 14, and 16 and indicated that psychological comparisons increased most sharply between the 10-12-year-old groups. In experiment 2, children of ages 6, 8, and 10 were interviewed, and reinterviewed 1 year later. Results from this hybrid cross-sectional/longitudinal design indicated that: (a) behavioral comparisons first increased and then decreased, (b) psychological constructs increased after behavioral comparisons did, and (c) psychological comparisons increased only in the oldest age group. Additional analyses, including the prediction of children's use of higher levels of person perception from their developmentally prior use of lower levels, gave strong support to the proposed sequence. In Experiment 3, a proposed relationship between late adolescents' person perception levels and their recognition of psychological disorder was investigated and supported by the results.

Recent arguments against pornography are being translated into action, with several American cities adopting or considering ordinances aimed at removing pornography from society. Many of the supporting arguments try to establish a causal link between pornography and direct harm to women. One objection is that the attitude taken toward women in pornography is inculcated in its audience, at least some of whom then translate this attitude into actions that directly harm women. Because the existence of such a causal chain has been questioned, some attacks on pornography simply hold that pornography systematically degrades women, that to degrade persons on the basis of contingent class membership is to strip them of their rightful human dignity, and so pornography should be censored because "it is defamatory and libelous."' But both the causal chain and defamation arguments hold that pornography is a certain sort of objectionable content and that that content can and should be censored. I wish to challenge the viability of these arguments and ordinances against pornography by taking an aesthetic standpoint and questioning their understanding of pornography as a certain represented content. Ethical objections to such ordinances often begin with their conflicts with the First Amendment or by questioning whether they will significantly reduce violence against women. I will consider neither of these matters, but restrict my discussion to the question of whether those who are attempting to combat pornography with a civil rights approach have adequately identified what makes representations pornographic. While I accept that much pornography is morally objectionable because it defames or degrades

This is an attempt to test the following causal chain of relationships: goals→effort→ success→satisfaction→self-image→involvement→future goals, as hypothesized in Hall's (1971) model of career deve...

The distributions of selected schizophrenic populations in Nottingham are analysed. The main hypotheses concerning the aetiology of schizophrenia are discussed. The possibility that several aspects of the social and urban environment explain the areal variations in the incidence of schizophrenia is investigated by means of oblique factor analysis. The results suggest that these 'ecological' factors may form an important link in the causal chain. IN both theoretical and practical terms it can be argued that the distribution of mentally disturbed persons in urban areas should rank as an important field of research in social geography. Investigators from other sciences have preempted the work of geographers with graphic analyses showing the marked concentration of disordered persons in the inner, decaying areas of large cities.1 In England and Wales, such studies are available for Liverpool, Bristol, London, Salford and Sheffield.2 The present author is aware of only three such investigations by geographers, relating to Derby, Luton and Southampton.3 The dearth of theoretical and empirical geographical research in this field can partly be ascribed to the fact that urban geographers have generally restricted their attention to

There are very good reasons in favor of the principle that criminal law must not take into consideration anything but the real facts of the case; the real aim is however to reform the culprit's position within criminal law. Casting a retrospective glance at how the problem of the culprit has been treated during the last fifty years we are able to distinguish two phases; a positivistic and a nonpositivistic one. The final aim of criminological positivism is to find the reasons why a certain person committed a certain crime on a certain place, at a certain time. This question is parallel to the problem of the Laplace formula of the Universe. Positivists regard all individual fields of science (e.g., Criminal Statistics, Criminal Biology, Criminal Psychopathology, the Art of Deduction, the isolated analysis of certain phenomena, like Graphology) as components of a mosaic picture which will reveal the connection-viz, the causal interrelation-without the need of any further explanation. Positivism recognizes only one connection and this is the causal interrelation. The perpetrator is the provisional last link of a causal chain. The other theory (and there is no reason why it ought to be dubbed idealistic) is based on the plain given facts. And in criminology man is not given as a mosaic picture composed of individual facts, not as a last link of a chain but as a coherent structure which in its history and development, in social space, in legal and religious dimensions exceeds beyond the boundaries of the "When" and "Where," beyond the boundaries of the individual Self and of the actual given facts. Criminology faces the task of realizing criminal-i.e., normativel-states of matter through actual actions. Criminology has consequently to adapt itself to two planes: the plane of Existence and the plane of Moral Necessity. If criminology-the intelligent elaboration of given facts-would be the only way of achieving the

The parting of the ways between causal chain (recursive) and interdependent (nonrecursive) systems is reviewed from the point of view of explanatory relations specified in terms of conditional expectations. On the customary assumptions, a causal chain system is designed so that its relations both in the original form and in the reduced form can be specified in terms of conditional expectations, whereas the relations of interdependent systems allow such specification only in the reduced form. A third type of model is discussed, called conditional causal chains, which formally is similar to interdependent systems, with the important difference that the behavioural relations of the original system are specified in terms of conditional expectations.

If two simultaneous equations economic models, each purporting to explain the same endogenous variable in terms of the same exogenous variable differ only in this respect, that one is in the form of an ‘interdependent’ representation and the other is an ‘explicit causal chain,’ then the question whether one is a more accurate representation of economic reality than the other cannot even in principle be settled by appeal to observations. The failure of proponents of ‘explicit causal chains’ to appreciate the significance of the foregoing theorem has led to the proposal of a remarkable interpretation of unfavorable outcomes of statistical tests of econometric hypotheses (which is mentioned in Section 3.2).

According to Wold, information on some of the variables at time t cannot be used for prediction of the values of the remaining variables at t, in a simultaneous equation system. This, however, is not the case with his implicit causal chain model. This paper considers the stochastic processes underlying the two models, uses the theory of canonical correlation to discuss Wold's criticism, and suggests the type of additional information necessary to remove these objections. It further shows how both these models are complementary to each other. IN A SERIES of papers, Wold [9, 10, 11, 12] has recently proposed a new type of econometric model, which he calls the "implicit causal chain" model. The main incentive for this model was an attempt to combine the advantages of Tinbergen's causal chain model with those of the simultaneous equation systems initiated by Haavelmo [3, 4]. This latter model, which has been studied in detail by the Cowles Commission, is also known as the interdependent system. Wold has raised some objections, mainly from the point of view of prediction, against the simultaneous equation system; and in order to remedy these, he relaxed some of the restrictions on the correlational properties of the residuals in the simultaneous equation system. In this paper, these two models are discussed from an angle which offers a possibility for reconciling them. It is shown how the merits of both systems can be utilized by effecting some synthesis of them with the help of the stochastic process underlying both models. Furthermore, by using canonical analysis, it is shown how both these models are complementary. It must, of course, be added that the prediction problem has been considered purely on the basis of the stochastic model assumed, and the possible applicability of different representations of such models, for example, in economic contexts, under wider conditions is not discussed. Wold has objected to "interdependent" models on grounds other than prediction, especially from the point of view of the interpretation of structural parameters as elasticities, etc. The present paper, however, will not deal with this aspect of the problem. Instead, it deals primarily with the stochastic processes underlying economic models, and the "demand and supply" model, considered in the next section, is only for illustration.

This paper discusses two forecasting experiments involving models of the watermelon market. The first experiment compares the forecasts of an interdependent model estimated by limited information, single equation with those of a model using least squares reduced form. The second experiment compares the forecasts of the interdependent model with those of a causal chain model. It is found that the forecasts of the interdependent model are generally better than those of the alternative models.

IN A SUPERFICIAL VIEW, the twenty-year history of the Indian Republic falls into two equal but very different phases, neatly coinciding respectively with the decades of the 'fifties and the 'sixties. In a similar view, the election1 held in March I97I marks the start of a third phase, equally different from the first and the second and perhaps destined to fill out the decade of the 'seventies. The calendar of the decades certainly corresponds to the calendar of some of the most significant Indian events: India was proclaimed a Republic at the start of I950, when the Constitution was adopted, making the country the largest adult franchise democracy in the world. Thereafter, for ten years India enjoyed a degree of political stability which could be the envy of all the new nations of Asia and Africa and many others as well. The conflict with China, which began in the 'sixties, started India hurtling down a perilous slope: the political fabric was torn into parochial shreds, disorder became a way of life in large parts of the country, the political leadership proved unable to cope with the problem, and the ruling Congress party split at the end of i969. Recovery began in 1970, with a basic reorganisation of the political party system: the gains of this process gave such a startling demonstration in the March I97i election that they won plaudits all over the world for India's parliamentary system, although until only recently it had become the fashion in the West to predict its doom. But the fortunes of an ancient country do not move up or down with such suddenness; there are hidden linkages between the opposite phases, which are probably all the more potent for being invisible to the naked eye. Despite appearances to the contrary the basic movement of Indian politics has been guided from below by a steadily moving causal chain. The changes reflected in the last general election are indeed basic, marking a

This paper, which in part serves as a common introduction to the two papers following in this issue, attempts to define the meaning of the "causal interpretability of a parameter" in a system of simultaneous linear relationships. It attempts, moreover, to expound a basis for interpreting the parameters of a nonrecursive or interdependent system causally. This is done in terms of an underlying causal chain system to which the interdependent system is either an approximation or a description of the equilibrium state. OVER THE PAST fifteen years there has been an extended discussion of the meaning and applicability of nonrecursive as distinct from recursive systems in econometrics, and throughout this discussion there has been a marked divergence of views as to the merits of the two types of models. It is not the purpose of this note to extend that controversy further, but rather to attempt a constructive statement of the relationship betweenthe two approaches and the circumstances under which each is applicable. We assume that the reader is generally familiar with the past discussion' and that it will suffice here simply to recall that a recursive, or causalchain, system has the formal property that the coefficient matrix of the non-lagged endogenous variables is triangular (upon suitable ordering of rows and columns) whereas a nonrecursive, or interdependent, system is one for which this is not the case. While the triangularity of the coefficient matrix is a formal property of recursive models, the essential property is that each relation is provided a causal interpretation in the sense of a stimulus-response relationship. The question of whether and in what sense nonrecursive systems allow a causal interpretation is the main theme of this paper.

This paper develops a theoretical model for the socioeconomic career in which income and occupational attainment at successive stages in the life cycle are both modified causal chains. Income is affected only by education, current occupation, and income in the immediate past; occupation is affected only by family background, education, and occupation in the immediate past. Neither is affected by attainments in the more remote past. This dual causal chain model is an extension of Blau and Duncan's single causal chain model for occupational attainments over the life cycle. Previous research suggested that both causal chain patterns were inadequate and so provided support for the alternative "historical" models proposed by Featherman. But when corrected for attenuation due to measurement error, the crucial data in fact provide strong support for the two causal chain models and evidence against the alternatives.

It is argued that accidents are the product of a basically simple closed-loop process. The forward causal chain is essentially observations-decisions-accidents, the relationship between decisions and accidents being a stochastic one. The loop is closed by the feedback of information from decisions to observations, which occurs when the consequences of past decisions help to determine a decision-maker's interpretation of his observations. The effect on a hazardous activity of a change in its properties, such as the introduction of a safety measure, can be widely diffused both in time and space because a change in a person's interpretation of his observations can affect his decisions throughout his subsequent participation in the activity. In practice it is very easy to observe only a local part of the effect of making a change to the system, such as when a dangerous cross-road is improved. It is suggested that material causes of accidents may determine the distribution of accidents without greatly affecting their total number. An operational game is proposed for investigating the extent to which subjects playing the game regulate the level of risk of incurring a penalty which they allow themselves to take.

Each step forward in science represents a simplification. Complex and hitherto apparently unrelated phenomena begin to fall into place after the development of an idea or hypothesis. The nearer a causal chain approaches to the final event, the more influential do individual factors seem to be until, when we reach the terminal stage, the causal agent seems to be in unique relationship with the ultimate effect. G. W. Pickering "High Blood Pressure" Ever since Johnson (1868) advanced the conception that hypertension results from the contraction of the arterioles throughout the body there has been ceaseless clinical and experimental investigation aimed at the detection of the factors responsible for arteriolar constriction in hypertension. Although Johnson's teleological explanation is untenable nowadays, the conception that hypertension is produced by functional vasoconstriction has steadily gained ground and is now universally accepted. Two main factors have been considered in the mechanism of arteriolar constriction for

We can talk of the functional or causal chain involved in discrimination behavior by three links: organism's exposure to stimuli, inner mediated condition, and response. Direct information of the second link is, however, usually not available. While cognitivists tend unintentionally to create a homunculus in the organism, behaviorists prefer to fill the second link with hypothetical constructs or simply to keep it in a black box and seek a functional relationship between the first and third links. The author of this book tries to pry open the box and make the invisibles visible and manipulable. In this endeavor, the author uses the first 13 chapters for the critical review of the experimental and theoretical works relating to the discrimination processes and identifies the sequence of operations which is assumed to be essential in discrimination behavior. Description of the author's cybernetic model of the discrimination process

In this paper, I consider some technical aspects of the process by which public health recommendations are inferred from the results of epidemiological field trials and other research on new vector control products and technologies. I argue that the conventional Cochrane Collaboration methods for summarising clinical trials may need to be modified and extended in order to be valid when applied to vector control. With medical interventions, for which the Cochrane methods were originally designed, the primary mode of action of the intervention works through biological processes within an individual, and the individual person is a natural experimental unit. This makes it easier to assume that a series of trials from different locations are more or less replicates of each other: they are asking more or less the same question, and in the absence of bias and sampling error they should produce more or less the same answer. In the case of vector control, on the other hand, the intervention has its most direct effects on mosquitoes, and the causal chain that leads to health benefits mostly occurs outside people, in the external environment. For this reason, in order to summarise a series of vector control trials, it is necessary to standardise not only the human populations, the interventions and the observed outcomes, but also the local vector populations and the broader ecological characteristics of the settings where the trials were carried out. Only with this additional matching is it valid to assume that vector control trials carried out in different settings are asking the broadly same question about the same intervention. The same applies to the process of generalising from a set of field trials in specific settings to broader public health recommendations. We know from first principles that a vector control intervention that is effective in one setting may not be so in another. Moreover, the field trials of a new intervention can include only a small subset of the likely range of settings where the intervention might eventually be used. Thus we need systematic methods for asking not just “whether” an intervention will be effective, but also “where and when” it will be effective. In the past, malariologists have used “eco-epidemiological stratification” to deal with this problem: this approach now needs to be made more systematic and integrated. Particular attention therefore needs to be given to the “epidemiological mode of action” of entomological interventions. This is the causal chain by which effects on mosquitoes lead to reduced infective biting for at least some people (e.g. “personal protection” and “the mass effect” caused by ITNs). This useful new concept, which has emerged from current discussions within the vector control product development community, appears to play a central role in the interpretation of evidence from vector control field trials for public health purposes.

Little is known about exactly which elements of alcohol brief motivational intervention (BMI) make it work. A causal chain between therapist motivational interviewing behaviors, subsequent client change talk (CT), and actual behavior change has been postulated. Other researchers have proposed the notion of a working alliance between counselor and client to explain better outcomes. However, these links have never been tested within a single mediation framework. We investigated the articulation of counselor behaviors, CT, working alliance, and six-month alcohol use outcomes (drinks per week at follow-up adjusted for drinks per week at baseline) during BMI with young men using regression analyses. There were no direct links from counselor skills to alcohol outcomes. Some counselors skills predicted more CT (MI-consistent behaviors frequency [p = 0.02] and MI spirit rating [p = 0.04]) as did working alliance (p more ADN > better outcomes). Adding a step in this model, we showed that the percent of MI-consistent behaviors and the MI spirit, empathy, and acceptance ratings predicted better working alliance scores (all p < 0.01). As the final step, we will calculate the mediated effects in these models. We found that MI skills and behaviors predicted a better working alliance, which, in turn, predicted more ADN change talk, which, in turn, predicted better alcohol use outcome. This gives support to previous findings but also highlights the importance of working alliance. Such findings might give precious clues for clinicians by giving an indication of the most determinant elements in BMI.