Reasoning In Measurement

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized – it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world.

In Measuring and Reasoning, Fred L. Bookstein examines the way ordinary arithmetic and numerical patterns are translated into scientific understanding, showing how the process relies on two carefully managed forms of argument: • Abduction: the generation of new hypotheses to accord with findings that were surprising on previous hypotheses, and • Consilience: the confirmation of numerical pattern claims by analogous findings at other levels of measurement. These profound principles include an understanding of the role of arithmetic and, more importantly, of how numerical patterns found in one study can relate to numbers found in others. More than 200 figures and diagrams illuminate the text. The book can be read with profit by any student of the empirical nature or social sciences and by anyone concerned with how scientists persuade those of us who are not scientists why we should credit the most important claims about scientific facts or theories.

This book provides information about how the numeric ability of individuals can impact the decisions they make about healthcare.

This is a compendium of over 30 tools for the measurement of professional and educational outcomes in nursing. It is a second edition of the award winning series of books on measuring outcomes in nursing. The tools and methods are presented with attention to purpose and utility, conceptual basis, development, testing, and reliability and validity assessments. Major topic areas focus on clinical decision making and performance in education and practice, student outcomes, and research. In most cases the complete measurement instrument is included in the book.

The vigorous development of the internet and other information technologies have significantly expanded the amount and variety of sources of information available on decision making. This book presents the current trends of soft computing applications to the fields of measurements and information acquisition. Main topics are the production and presentation of information including multimedia, virtual environment, and computer animation as well as the improvement of decisions made on the basis of this information in various applications ranging from engineering to business. In order to make high-quality decisions, one has to fuse information of different kinds from a variety of sources with differing degrees of reliability and uncertainty. The necessity to use intelligent methodologies in the analysis of such systems is demonstrated as well as the inspiring relation of computational intelligence to its natural counterpart. This book includes several contributions demonstrating a further movement towards the interdisciplinary collaboration of the biological and computer sciences with examples from biology and robotics.

This edited volume examines the very essence of the function of judges, building upon developments in the quality of justice research throughout Europe. Distinguished authors address a gap in the literature by considering the standards that individual judgments should meet, presenting both academic and practical perspectives. Readers are invited to consider such questions as: What is expected from judicial reasoning? Is there a general concept of good quality with regard to judicial reasoning? Are there any attempts being made to measure the quality of judicial reasoning? The focus here is on judges meeting the highest standards possible in adjudication and how they may be held to account for the way they reason. The contributions examine theoretical questions surrounding the measurement of the quality of judicial reasoning, practices and legal systems across Europe, and judicial reasoning in various international courts. Six legal systems in Europe are featured: England and Wales, Finland, Italy, the Czech Republic, France and Hungary as well as three non-domestic levels of court jurisdictions, including the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The depth and breadth of subject matter presented in this volume ensure its relevance for many years to come. All those with an interest in benchmarking the quality of judicial reasoning, including judges themselves, academics, students and legal practitioners, can find something of value in this book.