Measuring Knowledge validity

This paper analyzes secondary and primary source literature written about William Marshal - a comparatively famous 12th century knight - in order to determine what influences his reputation has had on authors, as well as what consequential perceptions there are of him due to that distortion.

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

The paper shows that the RG score, used by the Researchgate open scientific gateway, is seriously flawed. The hard-core center of the RG Score, besides interactions, is the journal impact factor system, used in the RG Score and the overall ranking of journal publications. Upon closer inspection, it is evident that RG impact factors are based on the geographically and culturally very biased Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge (WoK) database, but that the RG team even commits errors and omissions in feeding the original WoK impact factor data into the RG system.

Scopus, the fierce Thomson Reuters competitor, managed by Elsevier, offers a database, which is geographically much more diverse and already includes 18.854 journals, and only 30% of them are located in the United States of America. Scopus indeed is far better suited to serve as the basis of journal impact factor calculations than the Web of Knowledge data base, especially from the viewpoint of the rising scientific power of the BRIC countries, but also from the viewpoint of the growing knowledge power of other rapidly advancing developing countries, among them in the Muslim world.

Now what seems to happen is that while the RG impact factor data for most medical journals and science journals, checked by the present author, like the impact factor for the famous medical journals as the “The Lancet” (38.28) and “New England Journal of Medicine” seem to coincide with the current WoK figures, there are severe errors and omissions in other cases, even if we assume that the basis of the RG journal impact factor score is based on WoK. Since the present author happens to have written recently for the “rapid response” online section of the “British Medical Journal” (BMJ), I discovered by chance and with great dismay that the BMJ is listed none the less than 3 times with either different impact factors or ISSN numbers or both in the RG system.

The current RG impact factor system, as it is operated in the RG, also severely discriminates against the social sciences. This is my next and equally serious point of critique. Even the “American Political Science Review”, the journal of the most important political science association of the world, the American Political Science Association, published by Cambridge University Press, and according to the World catalogue of books (http://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch) available at 1296 libraries around the world (print version alone), is not even awarded an impact factor in the RG system.

Scopus is much more realistic in assigning a weight of somewhere near 5 at maximum to the leading medical journals, while the weighting in WoK is simply an expression of the fact that science unjustly dominates over the social sciences in that index system. Nobody can reasonably state that a medical journal is 19 times more important than an economics journal, but Researchgate system does so!

Even the neoliberal giant Milton Friedman receives from the system an impact factor of 0.

We list the RG-scores and impact factors of the Nobel laureates in economics over the last years. All are handsomely surpassed according to these RG statistics by 5% or even 50% of Researchgate users, which is comfortable to 300.000 to 3.000.000 scientists.

We simply suggest to the Researchgate decision makers to dump in into the dustbin of scientific errors and useless concepts, for good and forever.

Consultation is an important feature of research and, increasingly, researchers are required to work in partnership with stakeholders to increase the impact of their work. Our aim is to demonstrate what can be learned from the scholarship on, and practice of, member checking to facilitate productive knowledge exchange. Using dialogical analysis we explore three member check interactions from three different qualitative psychology projects focusing our analysis on difficult moments between researchers and participants conceptualised here as ‘sore spots’. We identify two major genres in these sequences: participant ambivalence and participant challenge. We then consider passages that allow us to explore a more theoretical understanding of these two genres in terms of the metaphor of portraits and mirrors. Overall, we outline how implicit epistemologies and theories of subjectivity (uncomplicated, blank, and complex) may be linked to the way in which stakeholders approach research. We also provide a map with regard to the theories within which member checks can be undertaken, associated research practices in terms of a range of researcher responses to stakeholder ambivalence and challenge, and implications of these moments for knowledge exchange for qualitative research but also for psychological science as a whole. We conclude that sore spots in knowledge exchange process can be productive opportunities of transformational validity.

Keywords: member check; knowledge exchange; research impact; dialogical analysis; participant validation

Researchers have explored various diagnostic cues to the accuracy of information provided by child eyewitnesses. Previous studies indicated that children's confidence in their reports predicts the relative accuracy of these reports, and that the confidence-accuracy relationship generally improves as children grow older. In this study, we examined the added contribution of response latency to the prediction of children’s accuracy over and above that of confidence ratings. In Experiments 1 and 2, 2nd and 5th graders studied picture-event pairs, and were tested using forced-choice, 2-alternative or 5-alternative questions. In Experiment 3, children watched a slideshow depicting a story, and were tested by 5-alternative questions about story details. The children indicated their confidence in each response, and response latency was measured. The results of all experiments suggested that children in both age groups relied on response latency as a cue for confidence, and this reliance contributed to the success with which they monitored the accuracy of their reports. When the test format was easy (Experiment 1), 2nd graders were as accurate as 5th graders in monitoring the accuracy of their answers, and the latency of their responses was no less predictive of accuracy. When the task was more difficult, age differences emerged. Nevertheless, in all experiments and for both age groups, response latency was found to have added value for predicting accuracy over and above that of confidence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for predicting the accuracy of children’s reports are discussed.

In this paper, techniques of human driven knowledge acquisition are briefly discussed and compared, then a case study of implementing knowledge acquisition (KA) in an Iranian petrochemical company is explained. In this project we've used a combination of KA techniques including semi structured interview, revised teach-back, commentary, laddering, repertory grid techniques in order to elicit both tacit and explicit knowledge of experts. This method is applicable in different kinds of industries with different branches in design engineering.

Truth is for sale today, some critics claim. The increased commodification of science corrupts it, scientific fraud is rampant and the age-old trust in science is shattered. This cynical view, although gaining in prominence, does not explain very well the surprising motivation and integrity that is still central to the scientific life. Although scientific knowledge becomes more and more treated as a commodity or as a product that is for sale, a central part of academic scientific practice is still organized according to different principles. In this paper, I critically analyze alternative models for understanding the organization of knowledge, such as the idea of the scientific commons and the gift economy of science. After weighing the diverse positive and negative aspects of free market economies of science and gift economies of science, a commons structured as a gift economy seems best suited to preserve and take advantage of the specific character of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, commons and gift economies promote the rich social texture that is important for supporting central norms of science. Some of these basic norms might break down if the gift character of science is lost. To conclude, I consider the possibility and desirability of hybrid economies of academic science, which combine aspects of gift economies and free market economies. The aim of this paper is to gain a better understanding of these deeper structural challenges faced by science policy. Such theoretical reflections should eventually assist us in formulating new policy guidelines.

Parece que no existe proceso creativo sin el accidental, el embrollar, etc. Para Baudelaire ninguna belleza sería posible sin que interviniera algo accidental… no será bello más que lo que sugiere la existencia de un orden ideal, supraterrestre, armonioso, lógico, pero que posea al mismo tiempo, como la tara de un pecado original, el gusto de veneno, la brizna de incoherencia, el grano de arena que obliga a que se desvíe todo el sistema...

The development of Information Technology today is fueling the use of Information Technology which is very brush and very easy to use. In the development of Information Technology becomes a good tool in connecting giver and receiver of information. The development of Information Technology today is not only used by the company, but various universities use Information Technology as an effective means of delivering information to its users. Application of good Information Technology will produce a good information also for the recipient. Application of Information Technology within the scope of Higher Education is the University of Mercu Buana. University of Mercu Buana has a very good and big role in providing information for the recipient. In this case the University of Mercu Buana also rely on Information Technology to run activities within the scope of Higher Education. Information Technology to be built is to bolt the design of mdel wake system performance assessment assistant lab at the Faculty of Computer Science. It is hoped that with the design of this system model, the performance of lab assistants will be better so that the learning process becomes more effective.

Much is written about risk-assessment scales (RASs) for pressure ulcers (PU) and their properties demonstrating that they are of limited value. Less is known about the reasons for these limitations and the scope for improvement. This review examines issues such as structure and scoring for the Norton, Waterlow and Braden scales, showing that the equal-weighting technique behind the current RASs is too simplistic and leads to limitations. It concludes that properly trained, experienced nurses should conduct PU risk assessments, whilst more robust data-driven RASs should be developed using the differential weighting scoring method together with advanced statistical techniques.

This paper investigates the importance of justice and fair dealings in business activities. Twentieth-first century is considered the century of development for globalization and consumerism. Due to this, many other countries had indulged in effects of consumerism. And Islamic countries that have a totally different culture than the western culture, these countries also did not remain free from its influences. While Islamic doctrine has vivid commandments to deal with fair dealings and prohibited to eat others' wealth wrongfully. But unfortunately, in Muslims societies, unfair dealings and low-quality things are being occurred. This denotes now Muslims are not acting fully upon Islamic doctrines.

Values have been shown to be a pervasive part of both marriage and family therapy (MFT) clinical practice and research. Yet, many therapists and researchers remain unclear about how values affect their work. This article examines the influence of Western philosophical assumptions and therapy traditions in light of current understandings of values in therapy. The influence of values in MFT research processes is similarly examined. Implications for how family therapy professionals can be more reflective and sophisticated in their understanding of values in clinical practice and scientific inquiry are discussed. Suggestions for addressing values in MFT training also are given.

The execution of collaborative activities enables interaction among its participants, however, the real problem is to evaluate how much each subject contributed in the development of the activity. The evaluation process allows to inform important aspects about the individual or the group, such as: reliability, interdependence, flexibility, commitment, interpersonal relationship, productivity and management strategies. This work proposes is based in domain based architecture and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) in order to measure individual and group contributions to the accomplishment of its activities. The evaluation of the collaboration is made in a semi-automated way using as criteria measures of collaboration present in the literature like counting the amount of meaningful and valid words in conversations, which allows to evaluate its commitment. After the activity finalizes, a collaboration score is given to the participant of the group. The proposed architecture was implemented in the education domain. In addition to generate a set of exercises to the studied subject, the architecture helped to provide statistic data related to the collaboration assessment among the peers during the development of collaborative activities.

Background: Echocardiographic measurement of the mitral valve in patients with mitral stenosis is important for treatment and follow-up. The aim of this study was to assess the effect on the valsalva maneuver mitral valve area measurement. Methods: 83 patients with mitral stenosis were included in the study. Valve area of the patients was measured by echocardiography before and after valsalva maneuver. Results: Mitral valve area of the patients were measured as the planimetric being 1.62 ± 0.41, cm 2. It was found out that valsalva maneuver had no effect on valve area measured by planimetry. It was observed that valve area measured by PHT decreased with valsalva maneuver while valve area measured by PISA method significantly increased with valsalva maneuver. It was understood from other echocardiographic findings that systolic pulmonary artery pressure, gradients on the cover and velocities decreased with the valsalva. Conclusion: The modes of measurement of mitral valve area are discretely influenced by valsalva maneuver. It is significant to keep in mind potential effects as patients may suffer involuntarily during echocardiography.

The first series of the Dahlem Seminar for the History of Ancient Sciences, convened in the Autumn and Winter of 2010 at the Freie Universität Berlin, was devoted to the theme of fallacies (Irrtum) in antiquity. The Seminar series aimed at approaching the subject of fallacies from both ancient and modern perspectives, i.e. what ancients considered to be fallacious and how modern scholarship views fallacies within ancient thought. Since all of the contributions to this study have in some way related their topics to fallacies, we will survey the range of topics without specific reference to Irrtum.