Alternative Courses Of Action Research Articles

Philippines Stock Exchange Prediction Using Hybrid Neural Network

The stock market is dynamic and highly chaotic due to its complicated nature. The prediction of future stock prices has gained the interest of investors and researchers. Numerous conventional and hybrid approaches were put forth. The projections performed poorly and strangely did not get any better. This study aimed to predict Philippine Stock Exchange closing prices using a proposed hybrid method. This proposed study aimed to improve the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) performance using the Kepler Optimization Algorithm, a metaheuristic algorithm, in conjunction with the Artificial Neural Network (ANN-KOA). ANN is a widely accepted technique in predicting. Still, the Kepler Optimization Algorithm can provide random initial inputs for the method through effective feature selection. It can identify superior subsets of input variables to integrate into ANN, enabling more accurate prediction. In this study, the ups and downs were grouped, and 12 technical indicators with varying lengths of days 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 were used to decompose the original historical data, which are regular and smoother than the original data. The historical data was normalized into [-1, 1], so the predicted result would be 0 (decrease) or 1 (increase) otherwise. Finally, to obtain the train and test data, it was fused into five groups and tested using the ANN and ANN-KOA. The experiment's outcome of 0 (a declining stock price) indicates two alternative courses of action based on the two scenarios: holding if investors have already purchased it or purchasing if they haven't made a decision. In this proposed study, ANN-KOA resulted in higher accuracy than ANN. However, regarding the number of elapsed times, KOA-ANN provided a slower time than ANN. On the other hand, in terms of variations of lengths of the days, 3-5-10-KOA-ANN outperformed the variations of lengths of days: 3-5-10-ANN, 3-5-10-15-KOA-ANN, 3-5-10-15-20-KOA, and 3-5-10-15-20-KOA-ANN. In conclusion, this study suggested that it be utilized for other problems, such as predicting academic performance, diseases, floods, etc.

ViRgilites: Multilevel Feedforward for Multimodal Interaction in VR

Navigating the interaction landscape of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) presents significant complexities due to the plethora of available input hardware and interaction modalities, compounded by spatially diverse visual interfaces. Such complexities elevate the likelihood of user errors, necessitating frequent backtracking. To address this, we introduce ViRgilites, a virtual guidance framework that delivers multi-level feedforward information covering the available interaction techniques as well as the future possibilities to interact with virtual objects, anticipating the interaction effects and how they fit with the overall user's goal. ViRgilites is engineered to facilitate task execution, empowering users to make informed decisions about action methodologies and alternative courses of action. This paper presents the architecture and functionality of ViRgilites and demonstrates its efficacy through evaluation with a formative user study.

THE ESSENCE AND CLASSIFICATION OF MANAGEMENT DECISIONS: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECT

The decision-making process plays a crucial role in the management of any business and is a critical factor in its success and stable development. This process not only requires managers to be familiar with the latest methods and approaches to decision-making, but also requires a thorough analysis of the available information to provide an objective basis for selecting the most optimal solution. Management decisions made on the basis of a detailed study of factual data, the use of proven methods and the consideration of one's own experience in the field significantly increase the company's chances of success. The effectiveness of such decisions has a direct impact on the coherence and productivity of the company, transforming it into a well-established organisational mechanism capable of achieving set goals and adapting to changing external conditions. However, the key to improving management efficiency does not lie solely in the application of technical knowledge or data. It is also important for managers to understand the deeper meaning of the term "management decision". Such an understanding contributes to making decisions that are not only technically justified, but also morally justified, taking into account the broader context of the company's activities. The article examines the concept of "management decision", which is considered to be the most important element of any manager's activity. The authors reveal the essence of a managerial decision as a process and a result, which involves choosing an alternative course of action aimed at achieving the company's strategic goals. The subject of the study is a managerial decision as a process and result of a choice made by managers within their powers. The research methodology includes analysis of scientific literature, synthesis and generalisation of the results obtained, systematisation and classification of managerial decisions according to various criteria, as well as identification and description of the main criteria for making managerial decisions. The purpose of the publication is to reveal the concept of "managerial decision", to study its essence, classification and criteria for making it. The article defines the concept of "managerial decision" as a process and result of a choice between possible alternatives made by managers within the limits of their official powers and competences. This choice is aimed at achieving specific goals of the enterprise and solving emerging problems. It includes analysis of the existing situation, evaluation of possible options, their optimisation and economic justification, and finally, selection of the most effective way to achieve the goal. On the basis of generalisation of various approaches, a classification of managerial decisions by various criteria is proposed, which allows better understanding of their diversity and peculiarities. The article describes a set of criteria that serve as a basis for evaluation, development and adoption of managerial decisions. The paper emphasises the importance of a comprehensive approach to management decision-making, based on a thorough analysis of the situation, a balanced choice between alternatives and a clear definition of implementation mechanisms. The results of the study may be useful for executives at various levels, managers, and researchers studying the theory and practice of managerial decision-making.

Improved Decision Support System for College Sports Training Based on Id3 Algorithm

A Decision Support System (DSS) is a computer-based tool designed to assist individuals and organizations in making informed decisions. It utilizes data analysis, modeling techniques, and interactive interfaces to provide users with relevant information and insights. DSSs help streamline decision-making processes by synthesizing large amounts of data from various sources, generating forecasts, and evaluating alternative courses of action. They are particularly valuable in complex and uncertain situations where decisions have significant implications. DSSs can be used in a wide range of domains, including business, healthcare, finance, and logistics, to support strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making processes. This paper introduces an Integrated Hybrid Feature Subset Decision Support System (HFS-DSS) designed to optimize decision-making processes in student performance evaluation within educational institutions. The HFS-DSS combines feature subset selection techniques with decision support algorithms to identify key attributes and make accurate predictions regarding student performance. Through experimental evaluation, the system demonstrates its effectiveness in accurately assessing student performance based on selected features, with predictions closely aligning with actual observations. The results underscore the system's reliability and effectiveness in supporting informed decision-making processes, offering valuable insights for educators and administrators to enhance academic outcomes. The adaptability and versatility of the HFS-DSS make it well-suited for various educational contexts, providing potential applications in curriculum planning, student support services, and performance monitoring. The present paper highlights the significant contributions of the Integrated HFS-DSS towards enhancing decision-making processes and improving academic outcomes in educational institutions.

Impaired value-based decision-making in Parkinson's disease apathy.

Apathy is a common and disabling complication of Parkinson's disease characterized by reduced goal-directed behaviour. Several studies have reported dysfunction within prefrontal cortical regions and projections from brainstem nuclei whose neuromodulators include dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline. Work in animal and human neuroscience have confirmed contributions of these neuromodulators on aspects of motivated decision-making. Specifically, these neuromodulators have overlapping contributions to encoding the value of decisions, and influence whether to explore alternative courses of action or persist in an existing strategy to achieve a rewarding goal. Building upon this work, we hypothesized that apathy in Parkinson's disease should be associated with an impairment in value-based learning. Using a four-armed restless bandit reinforcement learning task, we studied decision-making in 75 volunteers; 53 patients with Parkinson's disease, with and without clinical apathy, and 22 age-matched healthy control subjects. Patients with apathy exhibited impaired ability to choose the highest value bandit. Task performance predicted an individual patient's apathy severity measured using the Lille Apathy Rating Scale (R = -0.46, P < 0.001). Computational modelling of the patient's choices confirmed the apathy group made decisions that were indifferent to the learnt value of the options, consistent with previous reports of reward insensitivity. Further analysis demonstrated a shift away from exploiting the highest value option and a reduction in perseveration, which also correlated with apathy scores (R = -0.5, P < 0.001). We went on to acquire functional MRI in 59 volunteers; a group of 19 patients with and 20 without apathy and 20 age-matched controls performing the Restless Bandit Task. Analysis of the functional MRI signal at the point of reward feedback confirmed diminished signal within ventromedial prefrontal cortex in Parkinson's disease, which was more marked in apathy, but not predictive of their individual apathy severity. Using a model-based categorization of choice type, decisions to explore lower value bandits in the apathy group activated prefrontal cortex to a similar degree to the age-matched controls. In contrast, Parkinson's patients without apathy demonstrated significantly increased activation across a distributed thalamo-cortical network. Enhanced activity in the thalamus predicted individual apathy severity across both patient groups and exhibited functional connectivity with dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula. Given that task performance in patients without apathy was no different to the age-matched control subjects, we interpret the recruitment of this network as a possible compensatory mechanism, which compensates against symptomatic manifestation of apathy in Parkinson's disease.

A new theory of surprise – unraveling the logic of uncertainty and knowledge

ABSTRACT Intelligence is judged by its ability to avoid surprises. Unfolding the dry logic of uncertainty shows how intelligence failures caused by surprises are unavoidable. This is done by the systematic study of the general conditions that trigger the different kinds of surprise, categorized according to their different epistemological nature. Five conceptual categories of surprise are analyzed: lack of expectations; insufficient evidence between two or more alternative courses of action; false justified beliefs; incomplete theory to ground a belief, and an utterly false expectation produced by our (usually reliable) mindset. Intelligence serves as a countermeasure to opponents’ actions at strategic and tactical levels. However, intelligence analysis can only minimize the risk; it cannot eliminate it altogether.

A practical framework for ethics assessment in wildlife management decision‐making

AbstractWildlife professionals lack a framework and process for incorporating ethical considerations in a systematic and transparent way, along with ecological and social science, to support wildlife management decision‐making. We provide such a framework and process based on 3 of the major theoretical branches ethicists have developed in Western culture: consequentialist moral theory, which focuses on consequences and outcomes; principle‐ and rule‐based approaches that deal with what is considered right or wrong; and virtue ethical theory, which considers factors such as character, virtue, and aesthetics. The framework can be used to anticipate the ethical consequences of alternative courses of action or taking no action. If wildlife professionals use this framework as an assessment tool to provide input into decision‐making, resulting decisions will be more transparent, better understood by stakeholders, and more consistent with public trust responsibilities.

On the qualitative nature of conscious states: Insights from a structuralist theory of mind and meaning

AbstractThe point of departure of this paper is Penrose's definition of conscious action as that in which stimulus and response are linked by a non‐algorithmic relationship, which Penrose defines as ‘understanding’. My purpose is to explore the nature of this understanding by means of a two‐step process. The first step is provided by Tononi's Integrated Information Theory of consciousness. This theory provides us with a quantitative measure of conscious states that we need to transform into qualitative meaning. In the second step, we obtain this qualitative meaning with the help of the structuralist theory of mind. From this perspective, meaning originates in the set of qualitative contrasts that define the alternative courses of action that might have been implemented. Work on the analogy between quantitative bits and qualitative binary oppositions does not solve the hard problem of consciousness, but it might help to reformulate it in a new, productive way.

Biomedical doctoral students’ research practices when facing dilemmas: two vignette-based randomized control trials

Our aim was to describe the research practices of doctoral students facing a dilemma to research integrity and to assess the impact of inappropriate research environments, i.e. exposure to (a) a post-doctoral researcher who committed a Detrimental Research Practice (DRP) in a similar situation and (b) a supervisor who did not oppose the DRP. We conducted two 2-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled trials. We created 10 vignettes describing a realistic dilemma with two alternative courses of action (good practice versus DRP). 630 PhD students were randomized through an online system to a vignette (a) with (n = 151) or without (n = 164) exposure to a post-doctoral researcher; (b) with (n = 155) or without (n = 160) exposure to a supervisor. The primary outcome was a score from − 5 to + 5, where positive scores indicated the choice of DRP and negative scores indicated good practice. Overall, 37% of unexposed participants chose to commit DRP with important variation across vignettes (minimum 10%; maximum 66%). The mean difference [95%CI] was 0.17 [− 0.65 to 0.99;], p = 0.65 when exposed to the post-doctoral researcher, and 0.79 [− 0.38; 1.94], p = 0.16, when exposed to the supervisor. In conclusion, we did not find evidence of an impact of postdoctoral researchers and supervisors on student research practices.Trial registration: NCT04263805, NCT04263506 (registration date 11 February 2020).

When Does Catholic Social Teaching Imply a Duty to be Vaccinated for the Common Good?

In 2017, Carson and Flood outlined a general duty to be vaccinated, arguing from Catholic social teaching on justice, love, solidarity and the common good. This necessarily relied on assumptions about the typical nature of vaccination, assumptions which do not always hold true in concrete situations. I identify twelve criteria that, where they hold, strengthen the particular duty to be vaccinated, and, if not met, weaken or reverse it. These pertain to the biological agent which vaccination aims to protect against, the vaccine and its supply, the costs and benefits of vaccination to the individual and society, and the alternative courses of action. The two-way relationship between the moral duty to be vaccinated and vaccine mandates is discussed. Individuals and policy-makers need to know these criteria – and be provided the necessary information to evaluate vaccination against them – in order to make a truly rational judgement.

Sequential Standoffs in Police Encounters With the Public

Research on interactions involving police officers foregrounds the importance of their communicative practices for fostering civilians’ perceptions of police legitimacy. Building on this research, we describe a pattern of conduct that is a recurrent source of trouble in such encounters, which we call sequential standoffs. These standoffs emerge when two parties persistently pursue alternative courses of action, producing a stalemate in which neither progress in, nor exit from, either course of action appears viable. They are routinely resolved by officers (re)casting civilians’ pursuit of one course of action as constituting resistance to the officers’ proposed course of action, and thus as warranting officers’ use of coercive violence to resolve the stalemate. In some cases, however, officers resolve standoffs cooperatively using sequentially accommodative methods. We consider how these findings advance approaches to communicative dilemmas in policing, and their broader significance for scholars of social interaction, and of the interactional organization of conflicts.

The net promoter score: What should managers know?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a popular management tool that is used in a variety of ways by firms, not-for-profits, and government. This study firstly provides an overview of the various ways in which the NPS is used. It then canvasses four concerns raised by researchers, authors and commentators about the NPS. These relate to (1) its presumed link to business growth, (2) the assumption that low NPS scores indicate negative word of mouth, (3) the weak association between stated likelihood to recommend and actual recommending, and (4) the claim that NPS is a superior metric to customer satisfaction. The evidence pertaining to those concerns is examined. The study then discusses another problem with the NPS that many practitioners are aware of, but has not been studied. The problem is that the counting method used to calculate the NPS introduces additional variation in scores compared to mean average likelihood-to-recommend scores. This additional variation occurs both across brands in a study, as well as for the same brand over survey waves. This variation is likely to be difficult for market research providers, or those who commission NPS work, to explain. The study concludes with alternative courses of action for NPS users.

Agency and responsibility: The personal and the political

AbstractIn this paper, I review arguments according to which harsh criminal punishments and poverty areundeservedand thereforeunjust. Such arguments come in different forms. First, one may argue thatno onedeserves to be poor or be punished, because there is no such thing as desert‐entailing moral responsibility. Second, one may argue that poor people in particular do not deserve to remain in poverty or to be punished if they commit crimes, because poor people suffer from psychological problems that undermine their agency and moral responsibility. Third, one may argue that poor and otherwise marginalized people frequently face external obstacles that prevent them from taking alternative courses of action. The first kind of argument has its place in the philosophy seminar. Psychological difficulties may be important to attend to both in personal relationships and when holding ourselves responsible. Nevertheless, I argue that neither type of argument belongs in political contexts. Moral responsibility scepticism ultimately rests on contested intuitions. Labelling certain groups of people particularly irrational, weak‐willed, or similar is belittling and disrespectful; such claims are also hard to prove, and may have the opposite effect to the intended one on people's attitudes. Arguments from external obstacles have none of these problems. Such arguments may not take us all the way to criminal justice reform, but in this context, we can supplement them with epistemic arguments and crime prevention arguments.

A CRITICAL REVIEW ON TECHNICAL OPERATION AND REDUCING HUMAN ERRORS

Human errors may occur everywhere and have a variety of consequences. Errors may occur as a result of pressures and situations in industrial operations and maintenance. If the prediction is inaccurate, the forecaster may die. Human error can be said to be a deliberate and voluntary action by a human interacting with another system that exceeds established tolerances defined by that system. The damages done through human error encompasses a continuum that runs from no injury or loss to major damage and casualties, including fatal accidents or death, at times. Blaming someone else often merely moves the individuals back to the setting where the error was made. Unless and until the reasons for square measurement mistakes are identified and corrected, the issue may exist indefinitely. This research looked at human errors in engineering operations. The action to be taken by the human involves the cognitive ability to decide between alternate courses of action based upon knowledge, skills, competencies, experience, and the combined external and internal inputs available to the human. The authors of this paper have made an attempt to do a review on human error in the context of engineering operations.

The availability of non-instrumental information increases risky decision-making

Contemporary models of decision-making under risk focus on estimating the final value of each alternative course of action. According to such frameworks, information that has no capacity to alter a future payoff (i.e., is “non-instrumental”) should have little effect on one’s preference for risk. Importantly, however, recent work has shown that information, despite being non-instrumental, may nevertheless exert a striking influence on behavior. Here, we tested whether the opportunity to passively observe the sequence of events following a decision could modulate risky behavior, even if that information could not possibly influence the final result. Across three experiments, 71 individuals chose to accept or reject gambles on a five-window slot machine. If a gamble was accepted, each window was sequentially revealed prior to the outcome being declared. Critically, we informed participants about which windows would subsequently provide veridical information about the gamble outcome, should that gamble be accepted. Our analyses revealed three key findings. First, the opportunity to observe the consequences of one’s choice significantly increased the likelihood of gambling, despite that information being entirely non-instrumental. Second, this effect generalized across different stakes. Finally, choices were driven predominantly by the likelihood that information could result in an earlier resolution of uncertainty. These findings demonstrate the importance of anticipatory information to decision-making under risk. More broadly, we provide strong evidence for the utility of non-instrumental information, by demonstrating its capacity to modulate primary economic decisions that should be driven by more motivationally salient variables associated with risk and reward.

Pallidal neuromodulation of the explore/exploit trade-off in decision-making.

Every decision that we make involves a conflict between exploiting our current knowledge of an action's value or exploring alternative courses of action that might lead to a better, or worse outcome. The sub-cortical nuclei that make up the basal ganglia have been proposed as a neural circuit that may contribute to resolving this explore-exploit 'dilemma'. To test this hypothesis, we examined the effects of neuromodulating the basal ganglia's output nucleus, the globus pallidus interna, in patients who had undergone deep brain stimulation (DBS) for isolated dystonia. Neuromodulation enhanced the number of exploratory choices to the lower value option in a two-armed bandit probabilistic reversal-learning task. Enhanced exploration was explained by a reduction in the rate of evidence accumulation (drift rate) in a reinforcement learning drift diffusion model. We estimated the functional connectivity profile between the stimulating DBS electrode and the rest of the brain using a normative functional connectome derived from heathy controls. Variation in the extent of neuromodulation induced exploration between patients was associated with functional connectivity from the stimulation electrode site to a distributed brain functional network. We conclude that the basal ganglia's output nucleus, the globus pallidus interna, can adaptively modify decision choice when faced with the dilemma to explore or exploit.

EDITOR'S NOTES—COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: A NECESSITY FOR PRACTITIONERS AND RESEARCHERS

EDITOR'S NOTES—COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: A NECESSITY FOR PRACTITIONERS AND RESEARCHERS

Wherein lies the heritage value of place names?

There is a growing academic consensus that place names represent a valuable form of intangible cultural heritage of humanity and therefore they deserve systematic recognition and protection. However, when we attempt to put this idea into practice, we run into many problems. First, we have to define the heritage value of place names and establish the object of protection efforts. Second, we have to weigh political, moral, and practical implications of specific choices, set protection priorities and select from alternative courses of action each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we have to reflect self-critically on our protection efforts in order to honour the dynamic nature of toponymic systems and allow people to choose or coin place names for the places which are important to them. The paper discusses the most important dilemmas we face in place-name recognition and protection and suggests possible solutions to some of them.

Health Economic Evaluation Using Markov Models in R for Microsoft Excel Users: A Tutorial.

A health economic evaluation (HEE) is a comparative analysis of alternative courses of action in terms of both costs and consequences. A cost-effectiveness analysis is a type of HEE that compares an intervention to one or more alternatives by estimating how much it costs to gain an additional unit of health outcome. Cost-effectiveness analyses are commonly performed using Microsoft (MS) Excel. However, there is current interest in using other software that is better suited to more complex problems, methods, and data, as well as improved reproducibility and transparency. That is, it is increasingly important to be able to repeat an analysis of a particular data set and obtain the same results, and access the analysis and results in a clear and comprehensive openly available form. In this tutorial we provide a step-by-step guide on how to implement a mainstay model of HEE, namely a Markov model, in the statistical programming language R. The adoption of R for the purpose of cost-effectiveness analysis is highly dependent on the ability of the health economic modeller to understand, learn, and apply programming-type skills. R is likely to be less familiar than MS Excel for many modellers and so coding a cost-effectiveness model in R can be a large jump. We describe the technical details from the perspective of a MS Excel user to help bridge the gap between software and reduce the learning curve by providing for the first-time side-by-side comparisons of the Markov model example in MS Excel and R.

Considering science needs to deliver actionable science.

Conservation practitioners, natural resource managers, and environmental stewards often seek out scientific contributions to inform decision-making. This body of science only becomes actionable when motivated by decision makers considering alternative courses of action. Many in the science community equate addressing stakeholder science needs with delivering actionable science. However, not all efforts to address science needs deliver actionable science, suggesting that the synonymous use of these two constructs (delivering actionable science and addressing science needs) is not trivial. This can be the case when such needs are conveyed by people who neglect decision makers responsible for articulating a priority management concern and for specifying how the anticipated scientific information will aid the decision-making process. We argue that the actors responsible for articulating these science needs and the process used to identify them are decisive factors in the ability to deliver actionable science, stressing the importance of examining the provenance and the determination of science needs. Guided by a desire to enhance communication and cross-literacy between scientists and decision makers, we identified categories of actors who may inappropriately declare science needs (e.g., applied scientists with and without regulatory affiliation, external influencers, reluctant decision makers, agents in place of decision makers, and boundary organization representatives). We also emphasize the importance of, and general approach to, undertaking needs assessments or gap analyses as a means to identify priority science needs. We conclude that basic stipulations to legitimize actionable science, such as the declaration of decisions of interest that motivate science needs and using a robust process to identify priority information gaps, are not always satisfied and require verification. To alleviate these shortcomings, we formulated practical suggestions for consideration by applied scientists, decision makers, research funding entities, and boundary organizations to help foster conditions that lead to science output being truly actionable.