Insight

Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context. The term insight can have several related meanings:

An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is sometimes called by the German word Aha-Erlebnis. The term was coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler. It is also known as an epiphany.

Psychology

In psychology, insight occurs when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning. It is the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based on trial and error.

Insight (TV series)

Insight is an American religious-themed weekly anthology series that aired in syndication from October 1960 to 1983. Produced by Paulist Productions in Los Angeles, the series presented half-hour dramas illuminating the contemporary search for meaning, freedom, and love. Insight was an anthology series, using an eclectic set of story telling forms including comedy, melodrama, and fantasy to explore moral dilemmas.

The series was created by Roman Catholic priest Ellwood E. "Bud" Kieser, the founder of Paulist Productions. A member of the Paulist Fathers, an evangelistic Catholic order of priests, he worked in the entertainment community in Hollywood as a priest-producer and occasional host, using television as a vehicle of spiritual enrichment. Many of the episodes of the series were videotaped at CBS Television City and then Metromedia Square.

Overview

The anthology format and the religious nature of the program attracted a wide variety of actors (including Jeff Hunter, Ed Asner, Jack Albertson, Beau Bridges, Carol Burnett, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Patty Duke, Ann Jillian, Wesley Eure, Bob Hastings, Cicely Tyson, James Doohan, Ricky Kelman, Jack Klugman, Robert Lansing, Randolph Mantooth, Walter Matthau, Deborah Winters, Bob Newhart, Bill Bixby, John Ritter, Bill Mumy, Mark Hamill, Flip Wilson, Keenan Wynn, Marty Feldman, Michael Shea, and Martin Sheen), directors (such as Marc Daniels, Arthur Hiller, Norman Lloyd, Delbert Mann, Ted Post, Jay Sandrich, and Jack Shea), and writers (Rod Serling, John T. Dugan, Lan O'Kun, and Michael Crichton) to work on the series.

Insight on the News

Insight on the News (also called Insight) was an American conservative print and online news magazine. It was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate founded by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, which at the time owned The Washington Times, United Press International, and several newspapers in Japan, South Korea, Africa, and South America. Insight's reporting often resulted in journalistic controversy.

Background and history

In 1991 Insight was one of the first publications to use the word "Islamophobia". In 1997 Insight reported that the administration of President Bill Clinton gave political donors rights to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This charge was widely repeated on talk radio and other conservative outlets; but was later denied by the United States Army, which has charge over Arlington Cemetery. Media investigations turned up the burial of M. Larry Lawrence, a former United States Ambassador to Switzerland at Arlington, which led to a congressional investigation. Republican Party members of congress searched military records and found no evidence that Lawrence was ever in the Merchant Marine. As a result, Lawrence's body was disinterred in 1997 at taxpayers' expense and moved to California. Richard Holbrooke, an assistant secretary of state, had helped obtain the rights to bury Lawrence at Arlington, and had written a letter to the White House praising Lawrence and saying that he deserved burial at the National Cemetery.

Precision

Precision (statistics)

In statistics, the dual term variability is preferred to the use of precision. Variability is the amount of imprecision.

There can be differences in usage of the term for particular statistical models but, in common statistical usage, the precision is defined to be the reciprocal of the variance, while the precision matrix is the matrix inverse of the covariance matrix.

One particular use of the precision matrix is in the context of Bayesian analysis of the multivariate normal distribution: for example, Bernardo & Smith prefer to parameterise the multivariate normal distribution in terms of the precision matrix rather than the covariance matrix because of certain simplifications that then arise.

History

The term precision in this sense (“mensura praecisionis observationum”) first appeared in the works of Gauss (1809) “Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium” (page 212). Gauss’s definition differs from the modern one by a factor of . He writes, for the density function of a normal random variable with precision h,

Significant figures

The significant figures of a number are digits that carry meaning contributing to its measurement resolution. This includes all digits except:

Significance arithmetic are approximate rules for roughly maintaining significance throughout a computation. The more sophisticated scientific rules are known as propagation of uncertainty.

Numbers are often rounded to avoid reporting insignificant figures. For example, it would create false precision to express a measurement as 12,345.00 kg (which has seven significant figures) if the scales only measured to the nearest gram and gave a reading of 12,345 kg (which has five significant figures) . Numbers can also be rounded merely for simplicity rather than to indicate a given precision of measurement, for example to make them faster to pronounce in news broadcasts.