Rain-Dancing with Pseudo-Science

In this polemical essay the authors ask whether computerisation has become the neurosis of our age. By comparing the application of IT methodologies with ritual behaviour within human social institutions, they propose that the so-called rationality of management science, with its tidy benchmarking, auditing, categorisation and performance measurements etc., is actually a pseudo-science. They show that from the position of Nietzschean epistemology, this rationality is merely a false claim to the instrumental efficacy of data modelling, that is indistinguishable from the rain-dancing of primitive tribes.     

Arguments against the possibility of perfect rationality

Many different arguments against the possibility of perfect rationality have appeared in the literature, and these target several different conceptions of perfect rationality. It is not clear how these different conceptions of perfect rationality are related, nor is it clear how the arguments showing their impossibility are related, and it is especially unclear what the impossibility results show when taken together. This paper gives an exposition of the different conceptions of perfect rationality, an the various sorts of argument against them; clarifies which conceptions of perfect rationality are targeted by which arguments; and finally attempts to systematize the results available to date.     

论电子证据的证明力和有效性

电子证据这种新的证据形式的出现,对我国现有的证据体系和证据意识提出了一定的挑战,本文通过对电子证据的证明力和有效性的论证,来阐述电子证据存在的合理性和必要性,以期完善我国目前的证据法体系。     

Shaping a buyer's software selection process through tendering legislation

Tendering legislation aims to enhance competitiveness by promoting equality, proportionality, transparency, and non‐discrimination. Such legislation applies to the procurement of software packages by public institutions in many countries. This study explores how tendering legislation shapes a buyer's software selection process through the lens of competing decision‐making rationalities. From the literature, 3 rationalities enacted in software selection are deduced that we relate to the software selection literature regarding tendering legislation. Through this lens, we subsequently examine how a large health care provider selected a supplier for an electronic health record system after an extensive tendering process. Many health care professionals within this organization were in favour of a particular software package. Yet, the organization purchased a different package from a relatively unknown supplier, the implementation of which failed. The actors involved experienced shaping on 5 decision‐making themes, the implications of which are evaluated against the functional, economic, and political rationality norms derived from the literature. The findings suggest that compliance with tendering legislation over the public procurement of software results in increased legal complexity, greater linearity and objectivity, more extensive formalization, and less relational communication. Functional norms of rationality are stressed, seemingly to balance the enforced economic norms of rationality and to compensate for the decreased room for political rationality. Even so, the shaping by the tendering legislation threatens functional rationality. Ultimately functional and economic norms of rationality win over political rationality, yet the latter still dribbles through, albeit in a different guise than reported for software selection in general.     

雕塑与自然

当下流行的后现代主义是对现代主义的一种批判思潮。它反对现代主义的工具理性,提出科学技术是把"双刃剑";它反对人类中心主义,提出人是世界的一部分,主张重建人与自然、人与人之间的自然和谐关系;它反对权威中心,倡导多元,强调不确定性和差异性。这些都体现出后现代艺术在机械统驭状态下对自然和谐的一种回归。在如此时代背景下,后现代主义的艺术,具体至雕塑艺术,试问其最佳状态如何?"自然"无疑是较佳答案。     

What is rational about killing a patient with an overdose?: enlightenment, continental philosophy and the role of the human subject in system failure

This paper raises the issue of ergonomics' role in giving primacy to fully rational individual human actors in the creation of system failure, despite its commitment to see action as constrained by design and operational features of work. Reflecting on recent contributions to the journal, ergonomics' dilemma is considered against Enlightenment assumptions about individual human reason as the route to truth and goodness and its critics in continental philosophy. There is a pervasive, unstated pact here. What ergonomics chooses to call certain things (violations, errors, non-compliance, situation awareness) not only simultaneously affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, it also coincides with what the West sees as scientific, true and instrumental. Thus, ergonomics research legitimates its findings in terms it is expected to explain itself in. But by doing so, it reproduces the very social order it set out to repudiate. Statement of Relevance: Ergonomics' choice of words (violations, errors, non-compliance) at once affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, reproducing the very social order it is meant to question and change.     

企业铁路调车计划的AHP模糊综合评价

针对目前企业铁路调车计划的评估仍不够完善的现状,建立了AHP（层次分析法）与模糊综合评价相结合的调车计划评价方法.利用层次分析法确定了调车计划各评价指标的权重,采用模糊综合评价的方法对评价信息进行分析处理,最后得到评价结果,验证了层次分析法和模糊综合评价相结合进行调车计划评价的合理性与可靠性.     

What is rational about killing a patient with an overdose? Enlightenment,continental philosophy and the role of the human subject in system failure

This paper raises the issue of ergonomics' role in giving primacy to fully rational individual human actors in the creation of system failure, despite its commitment to see action as constrained by design and operational features of work. Reflecting on recent contributions to the journal, ergonomics' dilemma is considered against Enlightenment assumptions about individual human reason as the route to truth and goodness and its critics in continental philosophy. There is a pervasive, unstated pact here. What ergonomics chooses to call certain things (violations, errors, non-compliance, situation awareness) not only simultaneously affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, it also coincides with what the West sees as scientific, true and instrumental. Thus, ergonomics research legitimates its findings in terms it is expected to explain itself in. But by doing so, it reproduces the very social order it set out to repudiate.

Statement of Relevance: Ergonomics' choice of words (violations, errors, non-compliance) at once affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, reproducing the very social order it is meant to question and change.     

“Backward” coinduction, Nash equilibrium and the rationality of escalation

We study a new application of coinduction, namely escalation which is a typical feature of infinite games. Therefore tools conceived for studying infinite mathematical structures, namely those deriving from coinduction are essential. Here we use coinduction, or backward coinduction (to show its connection with the same concept for finite games) to study carefully and formally infinite games especially the so-called dollar auction, which is considered as the paradigm of escalation. Unlike what is commonly admitted, we show that, provided one assumes that the other agent will always stop, bidding is rational, because it results in a subgame perfect equilibrium. We show that this is not the only rational strategy profile (the only subgame perfect equilibrium). Indeed if an agent stops and will stop at every step, we claim that he is rational as well, if one admits that his opponent will never stop, because this corresponds to a subgame perfect equilibrium. Amazingly, in the infinite dollar auction game, the behavior in which both agents stop at each step is not a Nash equilibrium, hence is not a subgame perfect equilibrium, hence is not rational. The right notion of rationality we obtain fits with common sense and experience and removes all feeling of paradox.     

A Comparative Study of Game Theoretic and Evolutionary Models of Bargaining for Software Agents

Most of the existing work in the study of bargaining behavior uses techniques from game theory. Game theoretic models for bargaining assume that players are perfectly rational and that this rationality is common knowledge. However, the perfect rationality assumption does not hold for real-life bargaining scenarios with humans as players, since results from experimental economics show that humans find their way to the best strategy through trial and error, and not typically by means of rational deliberation. Such players are said to be boundedly rational. In playing a game against an opponent with bounded rationality, the most effective strategy of a player is not the equilibrium strategy but the one that is the best reply to the opponents strategy. The evolutionary model provides a means for studying the bargaining behaviour of boundedly rational players. This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of the game theoretic and evolutionary approaches to bargaining by examining their assumptions, goals, and limitations. We then study the implications of these differences from the perspective of the software agent developer.     

层次分析算法及优化在网络视频评比中的实践

随着新媒体时代的到来,网络信息传播变得更加便捷,很多单位开展了视频网上评比活动,但往往对其缺少合理快捷的评估方法.本文通过分析视频网上评比的影响因素,构建出多指标的层次分析模型.文章介绍了层次分析法及其基于PageRank的优化算法的主要步骤,利用它求出各评比指标的权值,从而给出评比计算方法.本文的研究方法为处理多指标问题提供了一些参考价值.     

基于虚拟仪器平台的多通道示波器设计

利用虚拟仪器平台强大的功能，在较短的时间内可以开发出满足各种需求的工业现场多参数测试要求的仪器。介绍了基于虚拟仪器平台的多通道示波器的开发设计过程，包括数据采集卡的选择、计算机的配置、仪器界面的设计、信号调理与外触发电路设计、打印设备的选择等。该仪器已经在燃料电池汽车用DC／DC变换器的测试工作中投入使用，在精度、直观性和易用性等方面都获得了很好的效果。     

A computational model of labor market participation with health shocks and bounded rationality

This paper presents a computational agent-based model of labor market participation, in which a population of agents, affected by adverse health shocks that impact the costs associated with working efforts, decides whether to leave the labor market and retire. This decision is simply taken by looking at the working behaviors of the other agents, comparing the respective levels of well-being and imitating the more advantageous decision of others. The analysis reveals that such mechanism of social learning and imitation suffices to replicate the existing empirical evidence regarding the decline in labor market participation of older people. As a consequence, the paper demonstrates that it is not necessary to assume perfect and unrealistic rationality at the individual level to reproduce a rational behavior in the aggregate.     

Managing strategic contradictions in hybrid teams

It has become a common practice to organize work teams to include members in multiple geographic locations. In contrast to co-located teams and purely virtual teams, these ‘hybrid’ teams combine face-to-face communication with computer-mediated interaction. In this paper, we report a qualitative study of management practices in three hybrid teams in one organization. We adopt the theoretical approach of strategic contradiction, in which apparently contradictory pairs of elements can be managed by attending to their possible synergies or clarifying their distinctions so as to make balanced trade-offs over time. Our data reveal four sets of paradoxical frames in hybrid teams: remoteness–closeness, cultural uniformity–cultural diversity, rationality–emotionality, and control–empowerment. In referencing these paradoxical frames, teams engaged in three cognitive processes: (a) integrating to produce synergies between opposing tensions, (b) differentiating to clarify distinctions between opposing tensions and to balance trade-offs over time, and (c) polarizing to remove tensions between opposing elements by using one element to reduce the effects of another. Both integrating and differentiating processes were found to be instrumental to sustaining contradictions as interdependent dualities, whereas polarizing processes were found to preserve contradictions as dualisms. Our findings advance the understanding of managing strategic contradictions by showing how managers influence cognitive processes that paradoxically emphasize remoteness and closeness, cultural uniformity and cultural diversity, rationality and emotionality, and control and empowerment.     

互联网金融产品的协同及其风险和防范

我国互联网金融的起步较晚,监管还不够完善,互联网金融产品的协同发展更是处于无先例可循、探索发展的 状态。在这种情况下,要及时发现协同发展带来的风险并进行防范。本文以综合型金融机构复合型产品开发销售的多层次供 给为背景,从互联网金融产品的协同发展着手,借鉴国内外的创新模式,为我国互联网金融产品的协同发展提供有益的借鉴; 同时注重发现互联网金融产品的协同发展过程中出现的问题和潜在的风险,并提出解决的办法和预防措施。     

The EU data protection reform and the challenges of big data: remaining uncertainties and ways forward

As the first broad reform of the EU data protection legislation is being achieved, and notwithstanding EU institutions’ confident discourse, scepticism remains about the reform’s ability to safeguard the fundamental right to data protection in the face of evolving data processing techniques underlying so-called big data. Yet, one might wonder whether the cause for this difficulty should be ascribed mainly to technological progresses that the law finds it hard to deal with or rather to the policy choices embedded in the legal reform itself. Indeed, a new data protection enforcement model is being adopted, which relies heavily on risk assessment and management by the data controllers themselves. Likewise, data protection authorities see their supervisory role significantly weakened. These developments and the underlying rationality are discussed. Given the limitations of the risk-based approach as currently devised, we suggest that it be reappraised in consideration of risk regulatory experiences in other domains.     

Agent社会理性模型的计算框架

理性是选择策略的标准,在社会背景下,关系着MAS目标的实现,Jennings给出了Agent社会理性＝k1*自我理性＋K2*合作理性,该模型存在的问题是K1,K2是主观确定的,本文基于协同学原理,给出了K1,K2客观的计算框架。     

Computational intelligence determines effective rationality

Rationality is a fundamental concept in economics. Most researchers will accept that human beings are not fully rational. Herbert Simon suggested that we are ＂bounded rational＂. However, it is very difficult to quantify ＂bounded rationality＂, and therefore it is difficult to pinpoint its impact to all those economic theories that depend on the assumption of full rationality. Ariel Rubinstein proposed to model bounded rationality by explicitly specifying the decision makers＇ decision-making procedures. This paper takes a computational point of view to Rubinstein＇s approach. From a computational point of view, decision procedures can be encoded in algorithms and heuristics. We argue that, everything else being equal, the effective rationality of an agent is determined by its computational power - we refer to this as the computational intelligence determines effective rationality （CIDER） theory. This is not an attempt to propose a unifying definition of bounded rationality. It is merely a proposal of a computational point of view of bounded rationality. This way of interpreting bounded rationality enables us to （computationally） reason about economic systems when the full rationality assumption is relaxed.