Examination of the SimZombie system and the sample scenarios

http://www2.docm.mmu.ac.uk/STAFF/M.Crossley/sims/

http://www2.docm.mmu.ac.uk/STAFF/M.Amos/Docs/simzombie.pdf

http://code.google.com/p/simzombie/

This is a straight forward 2d sandbox model world with interacting agents.  There is no physical collision between models so there is visual overlap and no deflection of paths.   There are no obvious "edge" effects around the walls of the sandbox, so make of that what you will. The walls are simply movement constraints.
The number of agents seems fixed and the state transitions are pretty obvious.  Its just a complex way to do deterministic modelling with a basic visualisation engine.  The scenarios seem to be straight forward SIR models (although one has four states just for variety. It's a short transition state so doesn't fundamentally change the model except cosmetically.)

The environment is Java, so while its all cross platform and stuff, it carries the curse of installing Java and suffering all the security side effects that come with it.  Yuck.

Zombie Scenario (Successful Defensive)

http://code.google.com/p/simzombie/downloads/detail?name=zombieretract.gif&can=2&q=

Zombie (Successful Defensive) Scenario Description

A sample zombie simulation where the susceptibles are capable of fighting back the zombies once awareness is raised.

Thoughts on the Zombie (Successful Defensive) Scenario

This scenario uses  Suceptable (S) as green, Infected (I) as red and something else as light blue.  I guess this is "dead" as a Zombie or a green can transform into a blue. We will call this the (R) state.

Movement - The I seem to move at a slower rate than the S.  The blue seem to not move at all.

Lifetime -  The green are infinite again, the blue are infinite and the red are probably infinite except for the attrition from getting killed.

Infection Rate -  Seems to be about medium.  An I can easily infect an S but at the same time the S can easily kill the I... so its probably fairly balanced simply because of the equilibirum between these two variables.
 

Zombie Scenario (Apocalyse)

http://code.google.com/p/simzombie/downloads/detail?name=zombiewin.gif&can=2&q=

Zombie Apocalyse) Scenario Description

A sample simulation where the zombies successfully eradicate all life.

Thoughts on the Zombie (Apocalyse ) Scenario

Similar to the above this uses green for the Succeptable(S), red for the Infected (I) and grey for the dead or (R) state.

Movement - The movement of the red and the green seem fairly similar.  About "medium" when compared to all the other scenarios.  One of the big issues is "Jumping" where the infection seems to spontaniously jump like a spot-fire ahead of the interface between the two groups. This causes a much faster spread as its not restricted to the infection "front".

Lifetime -The green is infinite until transformed. The Red appears to be fairly infinite and the grey is permanent.  The I seem to "kill" about 25-30% of the S that they encounter, while there does not appear to be much "killing" by the S of the I.

Infection rate - This seems pretty virulent.  The infection rate is pretty high and the speed of infection is also high.  This creates the "contageon" style apocalypse.

Vampires Scenario

http://code.google.com/p/simzombie/downloads/detail?name=vampires.gif&can=2&q=

Vampire Scenario Description

These vampires are more selective than the zombies; They only kill what they need - and turn fewer victims into vampires. This gives us a simulation in which a large proportion of the population end up deceased, rather than converted into vampires.

Thoughts on the Vampire Scenario

Watching the scenario, its hard to see many of the rules. If this is based on the SIR model again then we only have Succeptable(S), Infected(I) and Recovered(R).  What is a recovered Vampire?   In the Gif movie of the model run it looks like the infected are red, the succeptable are green and the R are grey. There seems to be an intermediate state of yellow, which I guess is a temporary transitional state between uninfected and infectious.

Movement - S are slow.  I are fast, and R are stationary.  Yellow move at the same pace as S.
They all seem to use a similar movement(mixing) algorithm of moving in a straight line for a random amount of time before randomly turning 90 degrees.

Lifetime - The I seem to have a finite lifespan. Either this is because they are modelled to die or they turn into the grey "Recovered"? The green state seems to have an infinite lifespan.  The yellow state seems to be fairly short.. maybe about 5 time steps.

Infection Rate - This seems to be quite high as the red agents really plow through the greens once they get going with an infection/kill rate of about 1red -> 15 grey. However the reds are only reproducing very slowly.

Werewolves Scenario

http://code.google.com/p/simzombie/downloads/detail?name=werewolves.gif&can=2&q=

Werewolf Scenario Description

Werewolves obviously only get the chance to strike for a short period of time each month - and in many cases, when infected, go about their normal life for the rest of the month. 

This gives us an interesting scenario in which the werewolves are able to spread, unhindered, throughout the population. When the phase of the moon is right, each werewolf has an ample collection of nearby individuals to attack - creating many 'pocket' locations from which the infection speads.

Thoughts on the Werewolf Scenario

In comparison, this has a slower start-up period and a higher kill rate.  Again S are Green. I are Red and the R are grey.  Again there is a transitional yellow state.

Movement - The reds move very quickly and do not change direction as frequently. Green and yellow are slow and grey are stationary.

Lifetime - The green and grey are infinite.  The reds are much more resiliant in this scenario. They seem to last almost indefinitly.  The yellow state is again quite brief.

Infection rate - This seems slower than the vampire scenario but has a very obvious tipping point.  However, there are some very long lived greens that seem to have multiple contacts with reds and remain un-infected.  So it seems that the infection rate is lower than the Vampire scenario, but is similarly effective as the agents move more quickly and have more "chances" to infect resulting in a similar infection rate over the whole population but a lower infection rate for individuals.

Final Thoughts

These scenarios seem to be fairly simple models with only a couple of variables which results in fairly simple outcome results.  It's not far from Conways game of life.  So whats the value of this system?  Hmm... nothing much comes to mind. Its a fun way to visualise simple 2 dimensional models with limited variables. That being said, I have not dug into the capacity for extension.  But then again, if I have to extend it...it's just me making it do things that it doesn't currently do, so it could be turned into anything with enough resources.  The point is that its currently just a basic system.

You can use it to model some complex systems and play around with some numerical models, but anything more complex with hidden states, environment effects, communication layers or resource models are probably way beyond what it is intended to do.


Emergent Results - Perfect for exploring the results of  deterministic models.
Emergent Behaviour - Zero.  This sucker seems to be deterministic and uses generic agent classes.

Data Visualisation Tools

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-20-data-visualisation-tools

Paper on Legal Rights for Robots

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2044797

Citation

Darling, Kate, Extending Legal Rights to Social Robots (April 23, 2012). We Robot Conference, University of Miami, April 2012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2044797 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2044797

http://io9.com/kate-darling/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119440-MIT-Researcher-Proposes-Rights-for-Robots

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/03/conference-announcement-we-robot-at-miami.html



This is a really interesting paper that explores the rationale and implications of granting rights to social robots.

It opens a whole can of scenarios that legislators will need to wrestle with.  Some of the obvious edge cases that spring to mind are:

* How might these rights apply to the manufacture, repair and disposal of the robots?

- Manufacturer's need to "test" robots, which may involve testing them to destruction, or testing them in non-legal ways to ensure saftey for the user.

- Repair technicians need to disassemble and replace components and may place the robot in a state that is "illegal". They may also return a robot to the owner in a "functional" state but a state of "change" which the owner finds disturbing.

- How do you dispose of a robot if it has rights?  Can you put it out for the trash?  Can you bury it?  How do you dispose of a robot that is damaged or completely non-functional?

* One scenario that was mentioned in the paper as being a potential area for legislation is the domain of sexual behaviour with robots.  In the case where the behaviour crosses the boundaries of currently socially acceptable behaviour, should this also apply to robots?

The complication here is that a robot can be created specicially for the purpose of either the practice or theraputic behaviour modification therapy around these practices.  As the robot becomes a "tool" in this scenario and may be programmed in ways that the practice does not engender "pain" but instead activly "enjoy" the behaviour.  Or engage in a way that theraputically modifies the behaviour in the human participant.

In this kind of scenario, the legal protection of the robot may complicate therapies that are designed to benefit society.

* Scenarios where robots could or are Injured or destroyed through use are complicated.  It's quite reasonable to conceive of robots being inadvertantly injured during "work" such as dropped or broken through rough play.  In these cases, would there be a requirement for "repair" or trauma councelling for the affected humans?

* What about indirect attacks on humans by people attacking their social robots?  Similar to cases of companion animals being attacked by other animals or humans to inflict emotional harm to the owner.

Things to think about. 


The obvious extension of this is about purely software artifacts.  Social Software Agents.  Would they also be granted similar rights?  Especially where they embody some unique content or learning that has gone on to shape their behaviour with that of their human user/owner and have a strong bond.  Do they have some right of protection, existance, power?

The future will be interesting.

How do you prioritize research article

http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/how-do-you-prioritize-research/

How do you prioritize research?  Very succinct post that captures some very nice ideas. 

More Agent Based Modelling Links

http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/abmread.htm#Readings

http://www.nd.edu/~gmadey/sim06/Resources/resources.html

http://www.openabm.org/journals

http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace.htm

Statistics Software Resources for Psychology Students

This is a list of all the stats packages that I have some level of interest in, or need to manage. This reference list is simply my way of trying to keep track of them all.


The Statistics software list for the various labs I manage:
Microsoft Excel (With various add-ins, Solver, GailsTools, NodeXL etc )Cleaning and processing
IBM SPSS and AMOS Lots of varied trickery
G*Power Shonky Post-hoc power analyis. See Here
STATA Nothing much
PSY  Not sure why, but its become flavour of the month. I would guess for Confidence Intervals.
SurveyMonkey Online Surveys and Analytics
Qualtrics Online Surveys and Analytics
BrainVision Analyzer 2  EEG Recording and Analysis
Biopac AcqKnowledge EEG Recording and Analysis
Matlab  Experiment Construction/stimuli generation and data wrangling
SigmaPlot Presenation Graphics
Epi Info Specialied study analysis
NVIVO Qualitative Data Management and Analysis


Tools I have not used/seen/been forced to learn yet but are mentioned by other psych labs
SAS
BMDP
LISREL and HLM
Mplus
R
Lumenaut
JMP
EViews
Maple
Minitab
Statistica
SYSSTAT
UNISTAT
XLStat


Other interesting packages I have found while compiling this list:
Empirisoft  Seem to be another competitor for E-prime/ Superlab / PsyScope / Inquisit etc

KrackPlot for Network Analysis (May complement NodeXL?)

Post Hoc Power Analysis Article

http://wiki.math.yorku.ca/index.php/Statistics:_Post_hoc_power_analysis

A collection of insights on the pointlessness of post-hoc power analysis to try to make something out of an insignificant result from (insert virtually all Fisher-style tests for significance here).


I've seen this style of argument made regularly over the past few years at the honors presentations... it goes something like this.

".... I did a (massivly complex research design) and then did a MANCOVA/ANOVA etc which failed to show any significance relationships between any of my variables due to tiny effect sizes.  So I did a power analysis that showed if only I had x number of more participants it would have worked out differently...."

It always bugged me.  Firstly becasue they have the usual infatuation with testing the significance of the variance between derived numbers based on (often) questionable data processing .... while being oblvious to the issues of effect magnitude. 

I have come to like confidence intervals as a better way to present arguments about wether or not an effect really occured or not.  I just wish some more attention was paid to effect magnitudes.

Computational Social Science

http://www.nature.com/news/computational-social-science-making-the-links-1.11243

This is an interesting article that touches on a couple of fun items.  Good general background piece. Couple of names to chase up on Academia.edu

Algorithmic Colour Article..

http://devmag.org.za/2012/07/29/how-to-choose-colours-procedurally-algorithms/

This is a really well developed article on selecting colour algorithmically.  Very useful for GUI and game design applications as well as explaining some of the failures. 

The variable that is always a problem in these kinds of systems is the final output and the eyeballs that receive it.  The randomness of colour output on all the monitors around here alwasy frustrates me.  No two are the same (Except perhaps the Dell Ultrasharps.) Everything else is just... random.  bad backlights, crappy ghosting, motion artifacts, dust, flakey illumination, fingerprints.... endless pain when trying to acheive "sameness" between research stations.

Debugging errors with playing movies in E Prime 2.0.10.etc

Ok, set up the experiment and test on my main dev machine.  Movies work fine.  using MOV files in this case.

Move the experiment and the movie files to laptop... failes miserably due to video codec.

Install quicktime... fails.
Install VLC... fails.
Install K-lite... plays.  (now using ffdshow)
The experiment runs like a dog. (No hardware acceleration)

Move to a new machine.... test the exp. Fails miserably due to video codec.

Install K-lite... fails.. but differently.
Install DirectX.... better but new failure. (Unable to load sound 203...)
Install VLC and Quicktime just to cover my bases... still fails but whinging about audio now. Tells me to check AudioLoadReport in Experiment folder. (They are actually in the same folder as the stimuli videos.. which is not the same as the experiment folder... but close enough. (BUG anyone at PST who cares))

The AudioLoadReport is complete garbage. It's XML, which I could deal with.. but it does not actually say anything useful.

Interestingly, of the 60 MOV files in the stimuli set, 13 have generated AudioLoadReport.xml and VideoLoadReport.xml files... but the rest have not.  This is common on all three computers.  I have had a look at all the video files in GSpot and MediaInfo and they use the same Codec's for both Audio and Video (Vanilla Mov file with MPEG4, AVC and PCM audio.)

Weirdly inconsistent.

I'm now trying to update everything on box 3 to see if it will magically come good.  I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment as to why it is having trouble.  Quicktime, VLC, Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player can all play the files correctly. There is some weird filter graph issue that shows up in an older copy of GSpot...so I think the issue is with my DirectX setup on that machine.

The investigation continues.

Ran CodecConfig.  Still no love.

Later...

I used GraphStudio from K-lite to have a look at the filter graph and found the audio pin was not rendering to anything from the Apple Media Splitter filter.  This seems to be due to the Mov files having PCM audio rather than AAC which is more usual in Mov files.  I  then tried using the Haali media splitter and hooking the audio pin to the DirectSound output filter... Success!  So all I had to do was then swap the prefered filter for Mov files from Gabest Splitter to Haali using the "Manage prefered DirectShow source Filters" tool in K-lite and the experiment played flawlessly.

Interestingly on my main dev machine the Gabest Splitter filter is not installed. It has the LAV Splitter as the primary splitter for Mov and it works perfectly.   Download LAV Splitter here

Social research for the chronically ignorant

One of the drawbacks of being involved in so many research projects is just how much I learn about society and people around me.  There are days when I just want to scream with frustration when yet another student comes to me with another experiment or survey that demonstrates their complete ignorance of people, relationships, privacy, grammar, manners, cultural and ethnic practices, sexuality, responsibility, liability etc etc etc.

Without even getting into the horrors of pointless research design or poorly thought out data collection methodology... lets just focus on some simple demographics questions...

Students Design

1. Age
2. Date of Birth
3. Today's Date
4. Postcode
5. Gender
6. Ethnicity
7. Religion
8. Relationship/Marital status

• Single,never married
• Single,previously married
• Defacto relationship
• Married

9. Highest level of education completed
....

You get the idea. There is a certain rational for very very blunt questions... but its crap.  I have lost count of the number of surveys I have prepared (got to be in the range of 60+ by now) and I also usually have the pleasure of processing the data that comes off the back end.  My point is I have seen the reaction to blunt and poorly worded questions and its BAD.

These questions are AMBIGUOUS.  The data that is collected will be similarly AMBIGUOUS, making the research CRAP. 
These questions impose ASSUMPTIONS on the participant that they may neither feel comfortable answering truthfully or make the research (and the researcher) look foolish. Preventing the participant engaging with the research truthfully is simply BIASING the research and turning the collected data into a stew of half truths and garbage. 
These questions display IGNORANCE and BIAS on the part of the researcher.  

Firsly, ask the student why they are collecting the data.  (Usual answer is ... my supervisor said it was a good idea....WRONG!... go back to the start... try again.)  The right answer is, "I need to UNDERSTAND something about my sample population".  or "I want to be able to describe my sample population clearly"  or "I think this is an important variable and need to accuratly measure it so I can identify outliers and remove participants who are unsuitable from my study" or "I need to split my sample population on this variable"  or "I have ethical clearance to study a particular population and need to clearly identify suitable participants"... etc.  There needs to be a very clear rationale for asking ANY question.  Following on from that rationale is then a clear understanding of exactly what data that question needs to collect.  Is it specific CATEGORICAL data? Is it a gently worded open ended question?

If you're splitting the sample population on a clearly defined categorical boundary then the wording of your question needs to deal quite specifically with that boundary and clarify for the participant which group they fall into.  It also needs to ensure that it does not BIAS the participants to try to put themselves in the WRONG group.  There are various reasons why someone may choose to lie about some information.  The point is to make it easy for them to answer correctly/honestly/comfortably.

1. Age
Asking for the participants age is fairly pointless.  Help the participant provide you with clean, useful data by asking them for their age in years, or years and months or whatever degree of precision you are interested in.  Let them know if you would prefer it rounded up or down, if you want really unambiguous data. (

N.B peole usually round their age down....unless they are young and want to seem older.. so if your mention a boundary of 18 years... you will find some young people will try to ... ease themselves over the line...

2. Date of Birth
DO NOT ASK FOR PARTICIPANTS DATE OF BIRTH!
Just don't. This is sensitive information. There is a great deal of conditioning going on to stop people giving their date of birth to any online form.  So you will get lies and ommisions from literate participants and accurate information from technically naive participants.  But you have no way to tell the difference.  So its pointless and unreliable data. 
In the event that your survey contains any other identifying information, this turns your data set from anonymous to containing identifying data that you are required to store securely for 7 years.  This also makes your research project higher risk and should be reviewed by a full ethics review board. 


3. Todays Date
WTF?
If you are doing the research on paper... then have the courtesy to put the date in yourself.  If you are using an electronic system... it should time stamp the results automatically. 
Firstly, if you actually care about the date the research was conducted, why are you trusting the participant to get it right? Help them out. Only ask the participant for information you do not already have.

4. Postcode
Fair enough....  But which one?  What are you trying to understand by asking that question?  Remember a postcode is about location, but as people can and do move, its also implicitly a time dependant question.
Do you mean
"What is the postcode of the location you are filling in this research form now?"
"What is the postcode of your current residence? "
"What is the postcode of your home if you live away from home to study?"
"What is the postcode you have lived in for the majority of the previous year?"
"What is the postcode that you work in at your current job?" (What if they travel for work?)

"Postcode" depends on time and place.  What place do you mean and what time do you mean?

5. Gender
Oh my.... where do I start?

Having done surveys for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and "Other" groups, I have some experience of just how complex this question actually is for some sections of the population to answer and then for the resercher to do something with the data.

There are many possible dimensions to the question..if we stick to asking about the simple expression of an old fashion gender stereotype,  not counting  sexuality or sexual preferences, reproduction capacity, nurture capacity, social role etc... then the question can be expanded to...

What gender cues do you choose to publicly express?
What gender do you choose to privatly express?
What gender does your body physically express?
What gender does your choromsomes express?
How strongly do you identify as or express the gender choice publicly?
Do you always express the same gender publicly?
Do you express the same gender cues to everyone?

The spectrum of answers include, but is not limited to:

None
Male
Female
Both
Hermaphorodite/Intersex (Physically expressing aspects of both)
Androgenous (Physcially expressing neither)
Transgender (Neither or both but not either specifically, ambiguous or electing to live as one or the other.  Various meanings... basically ambiguous)
Transexed (Assigned a gender at birth but choosing another later in life. May include social, hormonal and surgical alterations)

I have also seen scenarios where the participant answered honestly with something like this

"Male with my family, female in public and privatly with my partners I tend to play a dominant woman... until they get to know the real me".

So go and code that into a neat box... I dare you.

Here are some links to add even more detail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Gender_taxonomy
http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/HowMany/HowMany.html

So the question gets back to what the student actually wants to know..... how precise the student wants the answer and how comfortable they want their participant to be answering the question.

6. Ethnicity
Seriously.... what fucking rock have you been living under for the other bit of your life?  Or series of rocks...
I have built surveys to run in a number of different countries and the answers to this question and the sensitivities surrounding it are "varied" to say the least.

Is the student asking about the participants genetic heritage? And if so, why? 
Is the student trying to understand the cultural context that the participant brings to the discussion?  If so then ask about that....
Is the student trying to collect nationanlities?
Are they asking about where the participant origionated from or their current legal status? 
Is the student just an uniformed idiot?  .... pretty obviously

In a country that is awash with migrants, immigrants, their children, other peoples children, stolen generations, the decendants of slaves, visitors, temorary residents, illegal immigrants, various long established cultural groups... you will get a very very very wide range of answers to this question.
In a country where there are very strong ethnic/cultural/national groups ( such as Malasia) asking such a question will probably only get you one of three answers (Malay, Chinese, Indian) there are a few others but this is the big three.  The problem is that these are social group "Identities" which tells you only as much as any stereotype can.... which is sweet fuck all.  Essentially, your doing "Bad Research"(tm)


7. Religion
.... ok... there is a clear patten of dumb ignorance here.... Without beating a dead horse, the best phrasing for this question I have seen is:

What religious or spirital group if any do you identify with?

However this question does not ask about "Practising" or "strength of beleif"... simply because measuring string is not what is going on... this is simply a bullshit question for trying to categories the participant group and make a nice table or graph in some really crap research report.  Even asking the question marks the researcher out as an idiot.  But I digress....


8. Relationship status
Talk about double barrel answers to a single barrel question...
Ok. The researcher is trying to figure out what the participants relationship is currently... and what it might have been before.  (But without clarifying time frames or any other contextual information)

The big problem I see is just how many descriptors are missing from the list.

My list of favorites goes something like this....

How would you describe your relationship status?

• Single
• Divorced
• Widowed
• Sole Parent
• Shared Custody Parent
• Abandoned
• Grown Up
• Independant
• In a new relationship
• In a Defacto relationship
• In a Civil Union
• In a Religious Marriage
• In a Partnership
• In a Committed Relationship
• In an open Relationship
• Getting Divorced
• Seperated
• OTHER.... 

9. Highest level of education completed

As we have all sorts of people showing up at University I have gotten into the habit of expecting a quite varied range of answers to this question.  I still meet mature age students who report only doing their sixth form or not really going to school at all.  I meet migrants and refugees who have had fragmentary schooling in one or more countries that just does not map to a simple list.

My current favorite list is:

• Minimal formal education
• Yr 10 (Or Equivalent)
• Yr 12 (Or Equivalent)
• Certificate/Diploma (less than 1 year of study) 
• Apprenticeship/Trade Qualification/TAFE Diploma (More than 1 year of study) 
• Undergraduate Degree
• Post-graduate Qualification (Honors/Diploma/Associate Diploma)
• Masters/Doctoral Course/PhD
• Other

Again, all these answers are dependant on what the researcher is trying to do with the data they are trying to collect.  There are levels of precision that are useless for some purposes but never the less allow the participants to feel comfortable and happy to provide accurate answers, even when the researcher is going to homogenise the answers into some simplistic scale....

People factors..... gotta love 'em.

How to bake the perfect Likert Scale

I've been building a survey and needed to argue a point about some "Likert Scale" questions in the design... so I started reading a little and all the bits that I thought turn out to be crap..... damit.

What's a Likert scale?(First Error...) A tool(Second Error) to measure attitude strength and direction. (And maybe also "Conviction" or the firmness with which the attitude is held) (Third Error)

* Error 1 - "Scale" can mean a number of things.  The intended meaning of this would more correctly be a "Likert response format item"; probably as part of a scale, composed of many of these response items... which can then be called a "Likert Scale". 

* Error 2 - It's not a tool, its simply a mechanism by which to filter the possible responses of the participant into a very limited subset that are acceptable to the researcher. 

* Error 3 - One answer to one question does not measure anything.  Statistical measurement requires multiple tests and is based on a summative result.  Its pattern recognition. One data point does not make a trend line.

This post is simply looking at the variety of flavours of Likert response items in an effor to make sense of it all.

Likert item Stylin'

How many ways can you present a Likert response format?  Seems simple enough....but.... maybe not.  Some of the options I have been asked to use are...

1. Text anchors  vs text labels on all points
2. Numeric scale vs "dots" vs line vs line with dots.
3. Midpoint or no midpoint points ("Forced Choice" model)
4. NA column, "dont know" and "No opinion" choice.
5. Reverse scale or not
6. Number of points
7. One stage or two (Split the direction and the strength into seperate question items)

Seriously, can all these thing actually end up being used in the same way are they real options?  Probably not.  What you may be calling a likert scale/item may infact be a...

Discrete visual analog scale(DVAS)
Ordered-category item
Summated rating scale
Random crap

This article breaks down the above similar constructs and explains the differences (except the random crap). Essentially if your items do not have a agree-to-disagree response format... your doing something else. 
http://www.john-uebersax.com/stat/likert.htm

So are you even talking about anything Likert "like"? Here's an article on constructing a Likert style Scale with some rigor.  Chances are, if your's is not being constructed and used in a very similar way... its something else. So go find another name.

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/scallik.php


Questions of Analysis

There are various arguments about what can and cannot be done with data collected using a Likert style scale.  Parametric or not?  F-Test or not? Ordinal, Interval or Norminal?  Most of these questions illustrate a more fundamental flaw in understanding the context and the instrument that has collected the data than in any choices in analysis.  Go read a good text, define the terms clearly and re-examine the research questions... it should solve itself.


And in conclusion... 

I vow never to misuse the term "Likert scale" again.... bad me.


Further Reading

Stopping the abuse... with the one true article
http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ResearchMethods/likertscales.pdf
http://www.scipub.org/fulltext/jss/jss33106-116.pdf
(The writing style in this article is worth a look... talk about venom and breathless, hypobolic writing and run on sentences and .... you get the idea.)
(Carifio, J. & Perla, R. (2007). Ten Common Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, Persistent Myths and Urban Legends about Likert Scales and Likert Response Formats and their Antidotes. Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 106-116. )

This is the Jamison article that seems to have pissed off the writer of the above article.
http://mahenry.sumnermckenzie.com/pdf/1LikertScales.pdf
(Jamieson, S., 2004. Likert scales: how to (ab)use
them. Medical Education, 38: 1212-1218.)

To Mispoint or not to midpoint...
http://marketing-bulletin.massey.ac.nz/V2/MB_V2_N3_Garland.pdf

Breaking it up into bits and re mixing it
http://www.wedb.net/download/quanti/escalas/albaum_%281997%29.pdf

Causality vs Correlation and why its a sucky "idea"

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/02/features/trials-and-errors?page=1

This is a very relevant article for all researchers. Especially those psych students planning on doing correlation studies in the labs in a few weeks....

Why not get a PhD?

Humorous Articles

http://public.randomnotes.org/richard/PhDtalk.html


http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7520547/so-you-want-to-get-a-phd-in-theoretical-computer-science


http://northwesthistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-letter-to-my-students-no-you.html

http://www.nigels.com/jokes/phd1.pdf


http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/guidephd.htm

http://chemistry.about.com/od/careerdevelopment/a/why-get-phd.htm
(This article contains the most pointless set of reasons.... not how often knowledge or research are mentioned)



Considered Articles


http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2007_09_14/caredit_a0700130

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/nov/08/highereducation.books


http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~mihir/phd.html

http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1256/Should_I_get_a_PhD_

http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2004/07/what_you_should_know_before_starting_a_doctorate/


And the final word

http://www.postdocsforum.com/2010/06/08/why-getting-a-ph-d-should-be-a-let-down/

Explaining Version Control

http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-guide-to-version-control/

Finally I can point students at something that doesn't look like a man page written by a rambling idiot...

Weka for fun and profit

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml/weka/

Still looking at how best to use this... I think its a big hammer for a little nut at the moment.

DISCERN discource system

http://cogprints.org/524/

Text and Discourse Understanding: The DISCERN System

Need to follow up on this and have a play.  

Analysis of sytemic failures in a meritocracy

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/19/racism-and-meritocracy/

This is a really articulate analysis of the problems that I have seen in a number of "people" systems that involve a selection component.  (Duh! Now I think about it) I have just not seen it articulated so cleanly. 

Bias is a fun concept and it ties into all sorts of research going on here.  Its fun when you start to break it down and look for bias in a system, its, as the article stated, part of the patten recognition system that is based on experience. We have a bias for successful strategies based on past experience... not optimal strategies.

Makes you wonder about every single decision a person makes in a day.  If they were completely un-biased would they make "chance" decisions?  Is there any other mechanism at work?

The idea, mentioned in the article, that if confronted with a choice about something that is not part of our experience we are slower and have to work it out based on other aspects... this is just aggregating the bias from many less primary aspects of the decision, it cannot be that suddenly we are non-bias.. just less biased in comparison to a scenario where the decision can be made using a more developed pile of experience.

Need to add some thinking to this.

Breast cancer... meet our litte friend NN

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/104407-computer-more-accurate-than-human-doctor-at-breast-cancer-diagnosis

This is a handy application of Neural Networks.  It also makes some very interesting suggestions about use the NN to identify additional features beyond what was initially known/hypothesized.  This is probably the most interesting article I have read on NN for some time.  Lots to think about.

Automating Greed and Fear

http://blog.recursivity.com/post/12321213411/the-big-picture-true-machine-intelligence-predictive

https://www.greedandfearindex.com/tour/?_escaped_fragment_=/#!/

This is a really interesting project that relates to some work I am doing at the moment.  I want to know more about it. Revisit this later.