This cross-sectional, mixed-methods study examined the nature of, and association between, causal attributions and current smoking behavior in cervical cancer survivors who were smokers at cancer diagnosis (n=50). As a whole, participants’ beliefs about smoking as a risk factor or cause of cervical cancer in general (i.e., global attribution) and/or their own cervical cancer (i.e., personal attribution) reflected far greater endorsement of global than personal attributions. Data collection involved a quantitative survey and an optional semi-structured interview to assess key variables (i.e., smoking behavior and causal attributions). Data were analyzed via descriptive statistics and inferential tests, all of which illustrated greater endorsement of global smoking-related causal attributions versus personal attributions within the sample. In conclusion, the results of this formative study highlights the potential role of causal attributions in understanding the smoking behavior of cervical cancer survivors, the results of which aids understanding of how cancer survivors think about, and make changes in, their smoking behavior.

The purpose of this study was to see if there are any differences in how high and low self-disclosers score on the Holtzman Inkblot Technique. The study employed a causal-comparative design for descriptive purposes. Two hundred four college students were given a self-disclosure inventory, and high and low self-disclosers were randomly selected from the highest and lowest interquartile ranges. The fifty subjects were administered the group version of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique. The results indicated that female high self-disclosers scored significantly higher on Barrier and significantly lower on Hostility than female low self-disclosers.

This research suggests that to model the complex dynamics of the organisational change in a firm evolving as it implements internet technologies requires capturing diverse independent and interdependent processes across multiple temporal and spatial context both within and external to the firm. This presents both an ontological and epistemological challenge as dominant research methods are either atemporal in nature and attribute action to disembodied variables or are simply storytelling. To provide explanatory legitimacy requires going deeper to capture the action of actors 'acting' within multiple levels of context and to pinpoint deeper 'rock-bottom' causal mechanisms that drive the higher order processes that give rise to the 'organisational life' we observe. To accomplish explanatory legitimacy I develop an analytical method that makes processuality fundamental and allows for the examination and theorising about mechanisms. The first essential element of this method is a framework that guides the researcher in the systematic gathering together of what we already know from the multidisciplinary and eclectic research in e-business, and in the intensive work of gathering empirical evidence. I apply a new methodology I call narrative sequence analysis, that combines process tracing and sequence analyses to make processes intelligible and help illustrate how mechanisms drive these processes. I use this method to develop an explanatory account of the process of e-business development covering three episodes of change within the Commonwealth Bank of Australia from 1995 to 2006. The research finds that the firm evolves over time as it develops new capabilities and identifies and pursues development opportunities by assembling and committing resources to e-business though both technology development and business application. It draws on past experience and gradually learns to develop, integrate and implement technology into existing business operations, discovers new innovative opportunities in which to apply the technology or is drawn into new areas by others who identify opportunities in which to apply the firm's knowledge, resources and technology. The path to development depends on the firms starting position and the timing of the sequence of events encountered along the way. It is a coevolutionary process where the firm interacts, cooperates, adapts and responds to the actions and interactions of other actors, balanced by the uncertainty of e-business and business operation risk.

Behavioural difficulty is probably the least understood area of special education as it is very problematic to identify a specific cause. Behavioural difficulties are those behaviours that students sometimes exhibit that are inappropriate and unacceptable in the classrooms or schools, as they disrupt the smooth process of teaching and learning. This study investigated primary school teachers' perspectives of the causal factors of students' behavioural problems and what can be done to minimise this problem. The study was carried out in the Madang Province involving two primary schools. From the two schools, twelve teachers (six from each school) participated in the study. The same participants were involved in both the questionnaire and the semi structured interview. The data gathered for the questionnaire and interview were analysed and transcribed respectively. The findings discovered that the family and school factors contributed substantially towards students' inappropriate behaviours. Family factors include parental problems, abuse in the families, and the constant struggle to provide the basic necessities due to the high living cost. School factors, on the other hand, include negative teacher attitudes, teacher lack of knowledge and skills to adapt the curriculum to include social skills, lack of teacher support and encouragement, and peer influences. The findings also discovered that teachers were more bothered about externalising behaviours such as disruption and aggression than internalising behavioural problems like withdrawal and depression displayed by students. Further, teachers' limited pre-service and in-service training and lack of experience in teaching students with behavioural problems contributed significantly for teachers not attending to students who behave inappropriately. Based on the findings identified in the study, several recommendations were made on how to intervene to alleviate this problem. Of particular importance is teacher training at both the pre-service and in-service level. Also government support is needed in terms of funding for training, involving specialists and other resources to respond to student behavioural problems effectively and efficiently. The findings may have particular relevance to future studies in this area and provide teachers with effective and workable intervention strategies for students' behavioural problems in the classrooms.

Causal reconstruction is the task of reading a written causal description of a physical behavior, forming an internal model of the described activity, and demonstrating comprehension through question answering. T his task is difficult because written d escriptions often do not specify exactly how r eferenced events fit together. This article (1) ch aracterizes the causal reconstruction problem, (2) presents a representation called transition space, which portrays events in terms of "transitions,'' or collections of changes expressible in everyday language, and (3) describes a program called PATHFINDER, which uses the transition space representation to perform causal reconstruction on simplified English descriptions of physical activity.

This report describes a paradigm for combining associational and causal reasoning to achieve efficient and robust problem-solving behavior. The Generate, Test and Debug (GTD) paradigm generates initial hypotheses using associational (heuristic) rules. The tester verifies hypotheses, supplying the debugger with causal explanations for bugs found if the test fails. The debugger uses domain-independent causal reasoning techniques to repair hypotheses, analyzing domain models and the causal explanations produced by the tester to determine how to replace faulty assumptions made by the generator. We analyze the strengths and weaknesses of associational and causal reasoning techniques, and present a theory of debugging plans and interpretations. The GTD paradigm has been implemented and tested in the domains of geologic interpretation, the blocks world, and Tower of Hanoi problems.

Comparative analysis is the problem of predicting how a system will react to perturbations in its parameters, and why. For example, comparative analysis could be asked to explain why the period of an oscillating spring/block system would increase if the mass of the block were larger. This thesis formalizes the task of comparative analysis and presents two solution techniques: differential qualitative (DQ) analysis and exaggeration. Both techniques solve many comparative analysis problems, providing explanations suitable for use by design systems, automated diagnosis, intelligent tutoring systems, and explanation based generalization. This thesis explains the theoretical basis for each technique, describes how they are implemented, and discusses the difference between the two. DQ analysis is sound; it never generates an incorrect answer to a comparative analysis question. Although exaggeration does occasionally produce misleading answers, it solves a larger class of problems than DQ analysis and frequently results in simpler explanations.

We introduce the de Broglie-Bohm causal interpreation of quantum mechanics and compare it to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen interpretation. We examine the possibility of experimentally distinguishing between the two theories, as well as the potential for the causal interpretation to more easily bridge the gap between the physics of the quantum and classical worlds. We then use the causal interpretation to construct a deterministic model of the helium atom in which the two electrons move along trajectories through space and time about a stationary nucleus. The dynamics are governed by the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation and the spin vectors of both electrons are assumed to be constant along their respective trajectories. We examine the Bohmian trajectories associated with (approximations to) eigenstates of the helium Hamiltonian as well as the trajectories associated with some non-eigenstates. We also compute an approximation to the ground state energy of the helium atom using a representation of the helium wavefunction in terms of hydrogenic eigenfunctions which is motivated by a perturbation approach.

The belief bias effect – the finding that prior beliefs influence judgments of logic and evidence – has been a topic of much empirical investigation in both deductive and causal reasoning. However, to date, no research has examined the degree to which such biases are the result of common or distinct mechanisms in these two domains. By using common scales of measurement, I examine the degree to which individuals show common biases in these two domains in two experiments. Surprisingly, although the belief bias effect was observed in both paradigms, biases in one domain were unreliably associated with biases in the other domain. Experiment 2 included 6 measures of individual differences in an attempt to uncover the observation of differential biases in these domains. Dogmatism was found to be the single most predictive measure of belief bias, but only in deductive reasoning. These data are discussed in terms of dual process theories of reasoning.

The de Broglie-Bohm causal interpretation of quantum mechanics is discussed, and applied to the hydrogen atom in several contexts. Prominent critiques of the causal program are noted and responses are given; it is argued that the de Broglie-Bohm theory is of notable interest to physics. Using the causal theory, electron trajectories are found for the conventional Schrödinger, Pauli and Dirac hydrogen eigenstates. In the Schrödinger case, an additional term is used to account for the spin; this term was not present in the original formulation of the theory but is necessary for the theory to be embedded in a relativistic formulation. In the Schrödinger, Pauli and Dirac cases, the eigenstate trajectories are shown to be circular, with electron motion revolving around the <i>z</i>-axis. Electron trajectories are also found for the 1<i>s</i>-2<i>p</i>0 transition problem under the Schrödinger equation; it is shown that the transition can be characterized by a comparison of the trajectory to the relevant eigenstate trajectories. The structures of the computed trajectories are relevant to the question of the possible evolution of a quantum distribution towards the standard quantum distribution (quantum equilibrium); this process is known as quantum relaxation. The transition problem is generalized to include all possible transitions in hydrogen stimulated by semi-classical radiation, and all of the trajectories found are examined in light of their implications for the evolution of the distribution to the standard distribution. Several promising avenues for future research are discussed.