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Questionable Assumptions (questionable + assumption)
Selected AbstractsGovernance Reform in Thailand: Questionable Assumptions, Uncertain OutcomesGOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2000Bidhya Bowornwathana This article examines the nature of governance reform in Thailand. The argument is that Thai citizens are not especially benefiting from the public reform initiatives of Thai governments because government reformers made fourquestionable assumptions about reform which have in turn produced uncertain outcomes and provided the opportunity for government reformers to avoid responsibility for their reform choices. First, the reformers support the belief that a global reform paradigm with ready-made reform packages exists which can be easily transplanted in the Thai public sector. Second, the reformers prefer to define success largely as reform output rather than reform outcomes or long term reform consequences. Third, Thai government reformers have overemphasized the efficiency aspects of the new public management at the expense of other governance goals. Fourth, governance reform in Thailand has been portrayed as a managerial problem instead of a political one. The author supports his arguments by drawing on theoretical debates in the international literature on administrative reform, and relating these debates to the Thai case. Governance reform in Thailand is still at an early stage, but the role of unintended consequences is important to administrative reform. Furthermore, the Thai case may reflect governance reform in other countries as well. [source] Deliberative Democracy and "Human Nature": An Empirical ApproachPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2006Janusz Reykowski The idea of deliberative democracy is based upon an implicit and questionable assumption that the ability for a meaningful participation in deliberation is a common characteristic of citizens of democratic countries. This paper discusses that assumption and describes the results of empirical research aimed at finding out (1) whether ordinary people are able to solve important ideological and moral controversies by means of deliberation, (2) what factors may facilitate this process, and (3) what are the effects of the deliberation. The research consisted in studying 20 small groups of parents of school-aged children who were asked to participate in a debate about sex education in Polish schools (N = 195). The debates were conducted by a facilitator. Before and after the debate participants filled out questionnaires testing their attitudes and some psychological variables. The debates were recorded on videotapes. We found that it is possible to conduct a debate on ideologically contentious issues that meets some criteria of the deliberative functioning and such a debate may have some of the effects postulated by deliberative theorists. [source] Marine reserve effects on fishery profits: a comment on White et al. (2008)ECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 3 2009Deborah R. Hart Abstract A recent study (White et al. 2008) claimed that fishery profits will often be higher with management that employs no-take marine reserves than conventional fisheries management alone. However, this conclusion was based on the erroneous assumption that all landed fish have equal value regardless of size, and questionable assumptions regarding density-dependence. Examination of an age-structured version of the White et al. (2008) model demonstrates that their results are not robust to these assumptions. Models with more realistic assumptions generally do not indicate increased fishery yield or profits from marine reserves except for overfished stocks. [source] The quest for a null model for macroecological patterns: geometry of species distributions at multiple spatial scalesECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 8 2008David Storch Abstract There have been several attempts to build a unified framework for macroecological patterns. However, these have mostly been based either on questionable assumptions or have had to be parameterized to obtain realistic predictions. Here, we propose a new model explicitly considering patterns of aggregated species distributions on multiple spatial scales, the property which lies behind all spatial macroecological patterns, using the idea we term ,generalized fractals'. Species' spatial distributions were modelled by a random hierarchical process in which the original ,habitat' patches were randomly replaced by sets of smaller patches nested within them, and the statistical properties of modelled species assemblages were compared with macroecological patterns in observed bird data. Without parameterization based on observed patterns, this simple model predicts realistic patterns of species abundance, distribution and diversity, including fractal-like spatial distributions, the frequency distribution of species occupancies/abundances and the species,area relationship. Although observed macroecological patterns may differ in some quantitative properties, our concept of random hierarchical aggregation can be considered as an appropriate null model of fundamental macroecological patterns which can potentially be modified to accommodate ecologically important variables. [source] The classical kinetic model for radical chain oxidation of hydrocarbon substrates initiated by bimolecular hydroperoxide decompositionINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL KINETICS, Issue 11 2006X. Colin Kinetic modeling of the low-temperature (typically T , 200°C) thermal aging of polymers is a problem of great technological importance, owing to the continuously increasing needs of industry in terms of reliable methods for lifetime prediction. In the temperature domain under consideration, for most hydrocarbon substrates, oxidation proceeds by a radical chain reaction initiated by bimolecular hydroperoxide decomposition. In other words, the reaction generates its own initiator, which explains its strong autoaccelerated character. The most pertinent model is, to our opinion, the model elaborated by Tobolsky et al. (J Am Chem Soc 1950, 72, 1942) in the early 1950s. This model is, however, based on three questionable assumptions: the existence of a stationary state for radical concentrations (hypothesis S), the presence of oxygen in excess (hypothesis E), and the fact that the onset of steady state can be observed in the domain of low conversions, where the substrate consumption can be neglected (hypothesis L). One hypothesis (S) lacks consistency. A sounder alternative, which does not modify significantly the mathematical expressions of the model, will be proposed. The other hypotheses (E and L) can be justified in certain cases, but the limits of their domain of validity were never established to our knowledge. It is tried, here, to express these limits in function of fundamental parameters: rate constants and concentrations of reactants. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 38:666,676, 2006 [source] A neural network versus Black,Scholes: a comparison of pricing and hedging performancesJOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 4 2003Henrik Amilon Abstract An Erratum has been published for this article in Journal of Forecasting 22(6-7) 2003, 551 The Black,Scholes formula is a well-known model for pricing and hedging derivative securities. It relies, however, on several highly questionable assumptions. This paper examines whether a neural network (MLP) can be used to find a call option pricing formula better corresponding to market prices and the properties of the underlying asset than the Black,Scholes formula. The neural network method is applied to the out-of-sample pricing and delta-hedging of daily Swedish stock index call options from 1997 to 1999. The relevance of a hedge-analysis is stressed further in this paper. As benchmarks, the Black,Scholes model with historical and implied volatility estimates are used. Comparisons reveal that the neural network models outperform the benchmarks both in pricing and hedging performances. A moving block bootstrap is used to test the statistical significance of the results. Although the neural networks are superior, the results are sometimes insignificant at the 5% level.,Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Tacit Knowledge and Public AccountsJOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION, Issue 3 2003Stella González Arnal The current quality assurance culture demands the explicit articulation, by means of publication, of what have been hitherto tacit norms and conventions underlying disciplinary genres. The justification is that publication aids student performance and guarantees transparency and accountability. This requirement makes a number of questionable assumptions predicated upon what we will argue is an erroneous epistemology. It is not always possible to articulate in a publishable form a detailed description of disciplinary practices such as assessment. As a result publication cannot achieve its stated goals. There are always elements of our knowledge that cannot be linguistically articulated. [source] Ethics, tradition, authority: Toward an anthropology of the fatwaAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 1 2010HUSSEIN ALI AGRAMA ABSTRACT Prevailing approaches to the fatwa construe it as primarily an instrument of Islamic doctrinal change and reform, as bridging the constant gap between a settled doctrinal past and a future of continual novelty. Underpinning these approaches are familiar but questionable assumptions about temporality, imitation, creativity, and tradition that obscure the fatwa's integral ethical dimensions and our understandings of its pervasive authority. This article unsettles these assumptions and, through ethnography of the Fatwa Council of Al-Azhar in Cairo, offers a different view of the fatwa that helps us both understand its ethical authority and challenges conventional oppositions between authority and ethical agency. [source] XI,Film as Philosophy: The Very IdeaPROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1pt3 2007Stephen Mulhall This paper addresses certain criticisms of my book On Film. In elucidating and defending my claim that some films can be thought of as philosophizing, I argue that my critics have missed the sense in which my work assumes the aesthetic priority and the argumentative relevance of particular experience. I further identify a number of questionable assumptions about the nature of philosophy that underlie their qualms about my project,assumptions about how one can appropriately meet the claims reason makes on philosophy, and so about the relation between reason, emotion and imagination in aesthetics and ethics, and in philosophical discourse more generally. [source] | ||||||||||