Operationality criterion

Operationality criterion. A predicate over concept definitions, specifying the form in which the learned concept must be expressed. 

In an earlier section, we had alluded to the need to stop the reasoning process at some point. The operationality criterion is the formal statement of that need. In most problems we have some understanding of what properties are easy to determine. For example, a property such as the processing time of a batch is normally given to us and hence is determined by a simple database lookup. The optimal solution to a nonlinear program, on the other hand, is not a simple property, and hence we might look for a simpler explanation of why two solutions have equal objective function values. In the case of our branch-and-bound problem, the operationality criterion imposes two requirements ... 

It is less clear how one should handle the requirement of unexpected and recurrent panic attacks. This is an inclusion criterion in form, while it is an exclusion criterion in function. This requirement can be operationalized either as a selection filter or as a component of the syndrome. We think it useful to break up unexpected and recurrent into two components and consider them separately. The unexpectedness of the panic attack is such a fundamental requirement in the DSM definition that it makes sense to operationalize it as a selection criterion. According to the DSM, individuals who have only experienced situationally bound panic attacks cannot have a panic disorder diagnosis, which can happen if this criterion is used as an indicator in CCK analyses. An individual can become a taxon member by being elevated on some, but not necessarily all, indicators. Moreover, unexpectedness of a panic attack cannot be easily coded as a continuous variable, which can present computational difficulties, especially for MAXCOV. 

The recurrent nature of panic attacks can be viewed as an exclusion criterion, but it can as easily be considered an integral part of the syndrome, especially if one adopts a position that a person who had one panic attack but is severely impaired and a person who is mildly impaired but has frequent panic attacks should both qualify for the diagnosis. Since the DSM requirement of at least two unexpected panic attacks seems arbitrary, we would analyze recurrence as one of the criteria. Specifically, we propose to operationalize recurrence as a simple frequency measure, the history of unexpected panic attacks (i.e., 1, 2, 3). 

Another characteristic that distinguishes the EPRI HRA Calculator fi om the SPAR-H dependence models is the operationalization of the time factor. In the EPRI Calculator, the judgments about closeness in time are guided by specific time intervals (e.g. instantaneous, 0 to 15 minutes, see Table 3), while SPAR-H uses a close in time/not close in time criterion (see Table 2). The objectively defined time intervals do remove a degree o f subj ectivity although there may still be subjectivity in the estimation of the timing between the cues. 

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