Program explanations and causal relevance

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have defended a non-reductive account of causal relevance known as the ‘program explanation account’. Allegedly, irreducible mental properties can be causally relevant in virtue of figuring in non-redundant program explanations which convey information not conveyed by explanations in terms of the physical properties that actually do the ‘causal work’. I argue that none of the possible ways to spell out the intuitively plausible idea of a program explanation serves its purpose, viz., defends non-reductive physicalism against Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument according to which non-reductive physicalism is committed to epiphenomenalism because irreducible mental properties are ‘screened off’ from causal relevance by their physical realizers. Jackson and Pettit’s most promising explication of a program explanation appeals to the idea of invariance of effect under variation of realization, but I show that invariance of effect under variation of realization is neither necessary nor sufficient for causal relevance.     

Order restricted randomized designs for control versus treatment comparison

We develop a method of randomizing units to treatments that relies on subjective judgement or on possible coarse modeling to produce restrictions on the randomization. The procedure thus fits within the general framework of ranked set sampling. However, instead of selecting a single unit from each set for full measurement, all units within a set are used. The units within a set are assigned to different treatments. Such an assignment translates the positive dependence among units within a set into a reduction in variation of contrasting features of the treatments. A test for treatment versus control comparison, with controlled familywise error rate, is developed along with the associated confidence intervals. The new procedure is shown to be superior to corresponding procedures based on completely randomized or ranked set sample designs. The superiority appears both in asymptotic relative efficiency and in power for finite sample sizes. Importantly, this test does not rely on perfect rankings; rather, the information in the data on the quality of rankings is exploited to maintain the level of the test when rankings are imperfect. The asymptotic relative efficiency of the test is not affected by estimation of the quality of rankings, and the finite sample performance is only mildly affected.     

Static extracting method of software intended behavior based on API functions invoking

The method of extracting and describing the intended behavior of software precisely has become one of the key points in the fields of software behavior＇s dynamic and trusted authentication. In this paper, the author proposes a specified measure of extracting SIBDS （software intended behaviors describing sets） statically from the binary executable using the software＇s API functions invoking, and also introduces the definition of the structure used to store the SIBDS in detail. Experimental results demonstrate that the extracting method and the storage structure definition offers three strong properties： （i） it can describe the software＇s intended behavior accurately; （ii） it demands a small storage expense; （iii） it provides strong capability to defend against mimicry attack.     

Comparison of Drought-Resistance about Three Wild Rocky-Grasses

In this experiment, using the methods of drought-stress in the pot and PEG simulative drought-stress, three native rocky-slope grasses Pogonatherum panideum（Lam.） Hack, Erioophorum comosum nees and Cynodon dactylon cultivated in the pots were selected as materials to study their drought-resistance by analyzing the indexes such as the leaf area index, the drying roots accumulation, the holding water ability of leaf, the relative conductance of leaf, the soluble protein, chlorophyll. At the same time, by comparing with membership function value of each index, the order of each grass drought-resistance was decided. The results showed that the drought-resistance of Erioophorum comosum nees was stronger than Cynodon dactylon and drought-resistance of Cynodon dactylon was stronger than Pogonatherum panideum （Lam.） Hack. The purpose of the experimental results was to find theoretical foundations for selecting and cultivating native protecting-slope vegetations to adapt to rocky slopes.     

When should you sack a football manager? Results from a simple model applied to the English Premiership

What strategy should a football (soccer, in American parlance) club adopt when deciding whether to sack its manager? This paper introduces a simple model assuming that a club's objective is to maximize the number of league points that it scores per season. The club's strategy consists of three choices: the length of the honeymoon period during which it will not consider sacking a new manager, the level of the performance trapdoor below which the manager get the sack, and the weight that it will give to more recent games compared to earlier ones. Some data from the last six seasons of the English Premiership are used to calibrate the model. At this early stage of the research, the best strategy appears to have only a short honeymoon period of eight games (much less than the actual shortest period of 12 games), to set the trapdoor at 0.74 points per game, and to put 47% of the weight on the last five games. A club adopting this strategy would obtain on average 56.8 points per season, compared to a Premiership average of 51.8 points.     

Homology Priority Task Scheduling in μC/OS-Ⅱ Real-Time Kernel

μC/OS-Ⅱ is an open source real-time kernel adopting priority preemptive schedule strategy. Aiming at the problem of μC/OS-Ⅱ failing to support homology priority tasks scheduling, an approach for solution is proposed. The basic idea is adding round-robin scheduling strategy in its original scheduler in order to schedule homology priority tasks through time slice roundrobin. Implementation approach is given in detail. Firstly, the Task Control Block （TCB） is extended. And then, a new priority index table is created, in which each index pointer points to a set of homology priority tasks. Eventually, on the basis of reconstructing μC/OS-Ⅱ real-time kernel, task scheduling module is rewritten. Otherwise, schedulability of homology task supported by modified kernel had been analyzed, and deadline formula of created homology tasks is given. By theoretical analysis and experiment verification, the modified kernel can support homology priority tasks scheduling, meanwhile, it also remains preemptive property of original μC/OS-Ⅱ.     

On Bayes and unbiased estimators of loss

We consider estimation of loss for generalized Bayes or pseudo-Bayes estimators of a multivariate normal mean vector, θ. In 3 and higher dimensions, the MLEX is UMVUE and minimax but is inadmissible. It is dominated by the James-Stein estimator and by many others. Johnstone (1988, On inadmissibility of some unbiased estimates of loss,Statistical Decision Theory and Related Topics, IV (eds. S. S. Gupta and J. O. Berger), Vol. 1, 361–379, Springer, New York) considered the estimation of loss for the usual estimatorX and the James-Stein estimator. He found improvements over the Stein unbiased estimator of risk. In this paper, for a generalized Bayes point estimator of θ, we compare generalized Bayes estimators to unbiased estimators of loss. We find, somewhat surprisingly, that the unbiased estimator often dominates the corresponding generalized Bayes estimator of loss for priors which give minimax estimators in the original point estimation problem. In particular, we give a class of priors for which the generalized Bayes estimator of θ is admissible and minimax but for which the unbiased estimator of loss dominates the generalized Bayes estimator of loss. We also give a general inadmissibility result for a generalized Bayes estimator of loss. Research supported by NSF Grant DMS-97-04524.