Circular Reasoning Research Articles

323 Selected Septic Patients Can Be Safely Discharged from the Emergency Department

“Septic” patients (pts), as classically defined, have at least 2 Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) criteria + an infectious diagnosis (inf dx). Some septic pts are deliberately “treated and released” (Tx/Rel) from an Emergency Department (ED), probably based upon “physician gestalt.” Prior peer-reviewed studies of septic pts’ outcomes have been limited to hospitalized pts; mostly those in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Thus, no peer-reviewed literature exists to provide clinical or medicolegal support for any ED “Tx/Rel” strategy, when applied to septic pts. We tested the primary hypothesis that the 95% CI for 7-day (d) mortality (7dMort) & 30d mortality (30dMort) of septic pts Tx/Rel from the ED with an inf dx of Pneumonia (PNEU), Cellulitis or Abscess (SKIN), or UTI or Pyelonephritis (PYELO) includes 0%. We performed an 18 mo retrospective study of adults in an urban ED with an annual volume exceeding 80,000 pts. Secondary hypotheses were that short-term outcomes (STO) of 72hr & 30d ED returns related to the first ED visit, and the STO of 7d & 30d ED returns that result in hospital admission, also are very rare events for this pt cohort. Searching the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) confirmed lack of 7dMort or 30dMort. Age, vital signs, chief complaint, white blood cell count & discharge diagnosis data were collected. SIRS scores at least 2 plus a dx of PNEU, UTI, PYELO or SKIN identified the septic group studied. SIRS, not qSOFA defined the septic group; qSOFA score is an ICU-validated PROGNOSTIC tool. A valid PROGNOSTIC tool requires all pts to have a correct dx upon study entry. Principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM) lead inextricably to two justifications NOT to use qSOFA to define sepsis. These include 1) Use of qSOFA for ED diagnostic purposes would require “circular reasoning” & 2) An ED environment differs markedly from ICUs in which qSOFA was validated. *227 Tx/Rel septic pts included those with SKIN (31), PYELO (38), PYELO (111) or PNEU (47). *The 7dMort and 30dMort were 0/227 (0%) (95% CI 0-1.3%). *33/227 (13.3%) returned to the ED within 30 d with a similar chief complaint, mostly between 72 hr. & 30 d. after the initial ED visit. *4/33 were admitted for inpatient care within 30 d.; only 1 of these 4 patients’ admitting diagnosis was related to their initial ED chief complaint. Prior outcomes studies have overlooked study of septic pts of the type included in this study. ED physicians successfully identified pts with sepsis, as classically defined, to be Tx/Rel from the ED. Low risk existed for 7dMort or 30dMort, or need for admission to hospital for a reason related to the initial visit. Occasional pts will deteriorate or fail to improve, demonstrating that clear “ED return precautions” are important. No clinical strategy is foolproof, but we provide evidence to help support medicolegal defense of physicians who, using a supportable clinical rationale, Tx/Rel a septic pt with an inf dx after an episode of ED care.

373 Emergency Physicians Can Safely Treat and Release Selected Influenza, Pneumonia and Pyelonephritis Patients With Sepsis

Some patients (pts) with “sepsis”, as classically defined, are nonetheless “treated and released” (Tx/Rel) from the emergency department (ED). [“Sepsis” means at least 2 “SIRS” criteria with an infectious diagnosis (dx)]. Careful ED physicians (EDPs) probably use “physician gestalt” to identify septic pts for this strategy. Prior peer-reviewed outcomes studies of septic pts have included only those hospitalized. Thus, no peer-reviewed literature exists to support an ED “Tx/Rel” strategy for any septic pts. We tested the hypothesis that the 95% CI for 7-day (d) mortality of septic pts Tx/Rel from the ED with a dx of pneumonia (PNEU), influenza (INF) pyelonephritis (PYELO), Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) or undifferentiated sepsis (SEP) includes 0%. We tracked the short term outcomes (STO) of 7-d & 30-d mortality, & 7-d & 30-d returns for ED care. Search of the Social Security Death Index verified a lack of short-term (<30 d) mortality among pts who did not return to our ED for any subsequent care. SIRS scores, not qSOFA scores, plus one of these 5 infectious dx, were used to identify the study group with sepsis, because qSOFA score is a prognostic tool, validated in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) setting, & because a valid prognostic study requires all pts to have a correct dx upon study entry. Thus, qSOFA is a tool unsuitable for identifying septic pts in the ED, because: 1) Use of qSOFA for diagnostic purposes would require “circular reasoning” & 2) An ED environment differs from ICUs where qSOFA was validated. *Between 1/1/2017 and 12/31/2018, 2677 patients were Tx/Rel from a busy tertiary hospital ED (2018 pt volume 59,788) with a dx of PNEU, INFL, PYELO, UTI or SEP. Of these, 1067 patients were “SIRS-positive” at ED arrival. *The 7-d and 30-d mortality of these 1067 pts was zero (95% CI 0-0.28%). Thus, these pts were safely Tx/Rel. 4/1067 returned to the ED within 30d for an unrelated reason. 17/1067 returned with a chief complaint (CC) apparently related to the 1st visit, but without evidence of decline of clinical status; 13/17 within 7d. All 17 were again Tx/Rel. 23/1067 pts returned to the ED within 30d due to evidence of decline or failure to improve as expected, of whom 1 returned beyond 7d. All 23 had a change in the therapeutic plan implemented, such as administration of oxygen and/or change of antibiotic. 13/23 were admitted to hospital at time of the 2nd ED visit, none to an ICU, & 12/13 within 7d. 10/23 were again Tx/Rel. Characteristics (Age, Sex, Dx, SIRS & qSOFA scores of those 23 with objective evidence of need to return to the ED will be presented at the Forum. Only 9/1067 SIRS+ pts had initial qSOFA scores of 2 or 3. ED physicians can safely Tx/Rel selected septic patients, apparently via “physician gestalt,” with very low risk of short-term mortality. Occasionally, septic pts Tx/Rel from an ED will deteriorate or fail to improve after discharge, demonstrating a need for clear “ED return precautions.”

Examining Argument Elements and Logical Fallacies of English Education Students in Oral Discussion

This study aims to report on the argument elements and logical fallacies performed by English education students. This study is framed within a descriptive qualitative study in that it interprets the ways students of English education deliver their arguments. The data were collected through observation, recording and in-depth interviews on the objects studied. The findings of this study showed that the students’ ability to present logical arguments varies with the dominant label in the “non-standard argument” category. In regard to the logical fallacy, hasty generalization becomes the most general logical fallacy found in students’ arguments, followed by the appeal to pity, the appeal to fear, the questionable statistics, the slippery slope, the appeal to the bandwagon, the circular reasoning, the pointing to another wrong, and the personal attack. Based on the interview, lack of understanding of arguments and logical fallacies, limited vocabularies, as well as nervousness are identified as the possible causes of these phenomenons. Finally, it is suggested that students should be given exposures on how to structurize the logical arguments and avoid logical fallacies.

Quasi-religious Belief in Darwin and Darwinism: “Straw-Men” Scientist Believers Everywhere

Narratives that describe models of how the world works involve some form of idealization, but all models are subjective and influenced by many human factors including the location, period of time, and profession of the narrator. Charles Darwin is a particularly fascinating case. Many scientists have tended—and continue—to idealize him as a person and a scientist, as well as his evolutionary ideas, in particular those related to “adaptationism” and the “struggle for existence.” In fact, many still defend that there is no need for any kind of new or even “extended” evolutionary theories: what we have from Darwin, or from the subsequent “Modern Synthesis,” is enough, as if the thousands of studies made in the last decades, including the discovery of the DNA, the genomes of humans and other species, or the crucial evolutionary role played by epigenetics, did not add anything relevant to how we understand biological evolution. Interestingly, such reactions are somehow comparable with those of some religious leaders that, when certain scientific discoveries contradict narratives of a religious text, argue that these are just “minor” details that do not put those narratives into question. An example concerns certain adaptationist narratives, which as Gould noted cannot be falsified: by assuming a priori that a structure has to have an “adaptive function,” even when hypotheses that the function is A, B, C, or D are contradicted, one tries to show that perhaps the function is E, or F, and so on, instead of being at least open to the hypothesis that perhaps those “negative results” mean that the structure has no current “adaptive function.” Such circular reasoning is deeply related to another common feature of humans-the-storytelling-animals: our continuous search for “purpose.” As the founder of biology, Aristotle, famously stated, nature “does nothing in vain”—a teleological notion that deeply influenced Darwin, and continues to influence us. The aim of this paper is not to criticize Darwin—I profoundly admire his life, travels, persistence, naturalism, and brilliant ideas such as that of natural selection. Instead, here, I discuss subjects such as adaptationism and the notions of progress, purpose, and “struggle for life” and their links to racism and misogyny to call attention to the remarkable parallel between religious thinking and the inflexible way in which many defend Darwin’s, Darwinist, or Neo-Darwinist ideas, even when such ideas might have contributed to enduring biases and prejudices within both the scientific community and broader society.

Validation and Optimization of Multi-Organ Segmentation on Clinical Imaging Archives.

Segmentation of abdominal computed tomography (CT) provides spatial context, morphological properties, and a framework for tissue-specific radiomics to guide quantitative Radiological assessment. A 2015 MICCAI challenge spurred substantial innovation in multi-organ abdominal CT segmentation with both traditional and deep learning methods. Recent innovations in deep methods have driven performance toward levels for which clinical translation is appealing. However, continued cross-validation on open datasets presents the risk of indirect knowledge contamination and could result in circular reasoning. Moreover, "real world" segmentations can be challenging due to the wide variability of abdomen physiology within patients. Herein, we perform two data retrievals to capture clinically acquired deidentified abdominal CT cohorts with respect to a recently published variation on 3D U-Net (baseline algorithm). First, we retrieved 2004 deidentified studies on 476 patients with diagnosis codes involving spleen abnormalities (cohort A). Second, we retrieved 4313 deidentified studies on 1754 patients without diagnosis codes involving spleen abnormalities (cohort B). We perform prospective evaluation of the existing algorithm on both cohorts, yielding 13% and 8% failure rate, respectively. Then, we identified 51 subjects in cohort A with segmentation failures and manually corrected the liver and gallbladder labels. We re-trained the model adding the manual labels, resulting in performance improvement of 9% and 6% failure rate for the A and B cohorts, respectively. In summary, the performance of the baseline on the prospective cohorts was similar to that on previously published datasets. Moreover, adding data from the first cohort substantively improved performance when evaluated on the second withheld validation cohort.

Interval 2‐tuple Pythagorean fuzzy linguistic MULTIMOORA method with CIA and their application to MCGDM

The reliable evaluation of financial performance of universities plays an important role in sustainable development of universities, and it could be regarded as a multicriteria group decision making problem. Based on this, in this paper, with respect to the attribute evaluation values are expressed by interval 2-tuple Pythagorean fuzzy linguistic variables, we develop an extended MULTIMOORA method. First, we propose the interval 2-tuple Pythagorean fuzzy linguistic set based on Pythagorean fuzzy set and interval-valued 2-tuple linguistic variables, and further introduce the score and accuracy functions and Hamming distance of it. Then, considering that there are some deficiencies in the traditional MULTIMOORA method, such as exist the case of circular reasoning, and so forth. We improve it by proposing a comprehensive integration approach, which can not only consider both the utility values and sort results, but also reflect the preference attitude of decision makings simultaneously. Based on these research findings, an interval 2-tuple Pythagorean fuzzy linguistic MULTIMOORA method is presented and the calculation process of this method is described in detail. Finally, we give the numerical example concerning the evaluation of financial management performance in universities to illustrate practicability and reliability of the proposed approach and compare the proposed method with different methods to perform its flexibility.

Beyond circular reasoning: Fishing the uncertainty behind shaken baby syndrome – Conceptual case report

Beyond circular reasoning: Fishing the uncertainty behind shaken baby syndrome – Conceptual case report

The Pentateuch: Genesis

The PentateuchGenesis Christopher T. Begg and Fred W. Guyette 1207. [Genesis–Joshua: P and D] Pekka Pitkäanen, "Reconstruction [sic! Reconstructing] the Social Contexts of the Priestly and Deuteronomic Materials in a Non-Wellhausian Setting," Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, 323-35 [see #1595]. This paper has outlined a possible way of looking at and reconstructing the social context of the Priestly and Deuteronomic materials in a setting that does not assume the main Wellhausian scheme of development and dating of the pentateuchal materials. Such an examination is clearly, if not naturally, linked with dating and compositional issues that relate to the ancient document that is the Pentateuch. Accordingly, I have outlined how such an alternative reconstruction can be linked with the wider isagogical issues. I have above all suggested that priests and Levites as cultic personnel were responsible for creating Genesis–Joshua in the context of Israel's settling the Canaanite highlands and creating a new society there to replace existing indigenous societies. Such a reconstruction [End Page 403] is certainly different from the Wellhausian one; nevertheless, it builds on the idea that a variety of sources were available to the authors from which they created the document we have before us in the Pentateuch. I hope this paper can stimulate further discussion about the Pentateuch in a context that is not limited to the Wellhausian paradigm that in my view is a hindrance when trying to understand this amazing work from antiquity and the history of ancient Israel. Any new understandings may also then have related new ethical, religious, and political implications for today (and also implications for academics). I believe that the above considerations, together with the other presentations that form the basis of this volume, do present a plausible and credible alternative to the Wellhausian approach, which, at a minimum, accounts very well for the data as a whole. [Adapted from published abstract] 1208. [Pentateuch; Roman Law] Matthias Armgardt, "Why a Paradigm Change in Pentateuch Research Is Necessary. The Perspective of Legal History," Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, 79-91 [see #1591]. In this essay, A., a legal historian, makes the case that after two hundred years of scholarly work on the basis of critical foundation of M. W. L. de Wette and a more or less modified Wellhausenian paradigm, pentateuchal research has reached a dead end. The methodological flaws of the enterprise, among them circular reasoning in particular, are obvious. Interestingly, something similar happened in the discipline of the study of Roman Law. After decades of searching for interpolations in the Corpus Iuris Civilis (CIC), about 30 years ago legal historians became aware that there was something wrong with the methods and assumptions that formed the foundation of their research. Today, almost every scholar of Roman Law assumes that the legal texts in the Digest have not, in fact, been interpolated, unless there is really strong evidence to the contrary. If all the theories about interpolations that scholars in the first decades of the 20th century assumed had been correct, the making of the CIC would have taken at least 30 years, not three years. A. further notes that in the case of the CIC there is no doubt that some interpolations did occur, but not nearly as many as earlier scholars suspected. Nowadays, everybody wonders how it is possible that brilliant scholars could have walked into the trap of arbitrariness and uncontrolled speculation in this field of research. A. suggests that a similar turning point has come for Pentateuch research now. A critical analysis of the assumptions and methods of this field of research is needed. At the same time, it is clear that a change of paradigm is never easy. A help in this critical situation is the fact that groundbreaking work has already been done, in particular by Kenneth Kitchen. He, among others, has shown that the right way forward in pentateuchal studies is to rely on external evidence, esp. that from the 2nd millennium b.c.e. In this connection, A. points out that attempts to show a connection between the 1st millennium Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon or the Law of Gortyn or the Roman Twelve...

Subduction Polarity in Ancient Arcs: A Call to Integrate Geology and Geophysics to Decipher the Mesozoic Tectonic History of the Northern Cordillera of North America: REPLY

Subduction Polarity in Ancient Arcs: A Call to Integrate Geology and Geophysics to Decipher the Mesozoic Tectonic History of the Northern Cordillera of North America: REPLY

A Sentence-Based Circular Reasoning Model in Multi-Hop Reading Comprehension

Multi-hop Machine Reading Comprehension (MRC) requires models to mine and utilize relevant information from multiple documents to predict the answer to a semantics-related query. The existing researches resort to either document-level or entity-level inferences among relevant information, but such practices may be too coarse or too subtle to result less accurate understanding of the text. To address this issue, this research proposes a Sentence-based Circular Reasoning (SCR) approach, which starts with sentence representation and then unites the query to establish a reasoning path based on a loop inference unit. Further, the model synthesizes the information existing in the reasoning path and receives a probability distribution for selecting the correct answer. In addition, this study proposes a nested mechanism to extend the probability distribution for weighting. And it is proven that this mechanism can assist the model to perform better. Some experiments evaluate SCR on two popular multi-hop MRC benchmark datasets, WikiHop and MedHop, achieving 71.6 and 63.2 in terms of accuracy, respectively, and thus exhibiting competitive results compared with the state-of-the-art model. Additionally, qualitative analyses also demonstrate the validity and interpretability of SCR.

Allocating species in Grime’s strategy space: an alternative to trait-based approaches

Background: The three primary-strategy theory proposed by Grime identifies stress and disturbance as key environmental factors leading to the emergence of distinct plant strategies. These are defined by a combination of stress and disturbance tolerance. Plant strategies are usually inferred from sets of traits, but this may lead to circular reasoning and artificial restrictions to species’ distribution in strategy space. &#x0D; Question: Can measurements of stress and disturbance tolerance be used to estimate the position of different species relative to each other in Grime’s strategy space?&#x0D; Data description: Stress, disturbance, and abundances for 50 species at 25 0.5 ha sites.&#x0D; Study site and dates: Semiarid grassland, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2014.&#x0D; Methods: Species’ tolerance to stress and disturbance were inferred from abundances, and used to allocate species in Grime’s space. We tested if some attributes of our study species changed over the strategy space according to theoretical expectations.&#x0D; Results: Most species were allocated towards high disturbance and low stress intensities. Species attributes were in line with the trends expected from their position in the strategy space. &#x0D; Discussion: Perhaps because of a long grazing history, most species were tolerant to disturbance. The allocation of species in the strategy space using stress and disturbance measurements seemed correct based on their attributes. Thus, our measurements seem to reflect the basic principles proposed by Grime. Our method provides relative positions in the strategy space, and (as previous work) requires defining somewhat arbitrary limits to such space if we wish to label species as ruderals, competitors or stress-tolerant.

Limits and the Uniformity Principle; Yet Another Run at Uniformity, Induction, and Everything

The Uniformity Principle is the notion that the future will resemble the past; relationships between events that occur in the future will resemble the relationships between similar events that happened in the past. Thus past events allow predictions of future events. The primary objection to use of the Uniformity Principle is that it appears to be circular; its content is the prediction itself. This essay proposes to show that the Principle is not a part of circular reasoning. Rather, its truth can be shown by showing that its denial produces an absurd result. Assume the world is nonuniform, and that which produces a given result one moment might not do so at the next moment. That assumption eventually reaches the conclusion that something is and is not at the same time.

A Comprehensive Overview of Activities of Daily Living in Existing Frailty Instruments: A Systematic Literature Search.

The relationship between frailty and disability in activities of daily living (ADLs) can be seen in different ways, with disability being-to varying degrees-a characteristic, negative outcome, or predictor of frailty. This conflation of definitions is partly a result of the different frailty tools used in research. Aiming to provide a comprehensive overview, this systematic literature search analyzed (i) if, (ii) to what extent, and (iii) how ADLs are evaluated by frailty instruments. A search was performed in PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and PsycINFO to identify all frailty instruments, followed by categorization of the ADL items into basic (b-), instrumental (i-), and advanced (a-) ADLs. In total, 192 articles described 217 frailty instruments, from which 52.1% contained ADL items: 45.2% b-ADLs, 35.0% i-ADLs, and 10.1% a-ADLs. The most commonly included ADL items were bathing (b-ADLs); using transportation (i-ADLs); and semiprofessional work engagement in organized social life or leisure activities (a-ADLs). These instruments all had a multidomain origin (χ 2 = 122.4, p < .001). Because 52.1% of all instruments included ADL items, the concepts of frailty and disability appear to be highly entangled. This might lead to circular reasoning, serious concerns regarding contamination, and invalid research results.

Identifying Consumer Lifestyles through Their Energy Impacts: Transforming Social Science Data into Policy-Relevant Group-Level Knowledge

The analytical framework presented herein is based on the identification of social groups with distinct patterns in their energy-relevant behaviour. This was achieved by clustering individuals according to their primary energy demands in six main areas of life. Due to the close relationship between energy-relevant behaviour and associated impacts, the suggested approach is considered better suited for the identification of groups with actual differences in their climate and energy-related behaviour than conventional approaches that cluster individuals based on their psychological or sociodemographic characteristics. Moreover, it is assumed that this focus on energy-relevant behaviour leads to a higher measuring equivalence in a country comparison or in a longitudinal setting. From an analytical point of view, the most significant benefit of the presented method over conventional lifestyle typologies is that all psychological, cultural and sociodemographic factors can be used as explanatory variables without resulting in circular reasoning. In terms of required data, the approach was designed around what could be collected by conventional survey methods. Variables such as energy use and emissions were calculated by the means of life cycle assessment (LCA) based on self-reported behaviour and equipment use.

Circular reasoning. Forbonnais and the intricate history of circular flow analysis in the 1750s

Circular flow analysis in mid-18th century France is normally associated with the writings of François Quesnay. From the early 1750 s, however, François Véron de Forbonnais developed a distinct theory of circulation in then well-known contributions to the Encyclopédie and his Elémens du commerce of 1754. This article argues that like Quesnay, Forbonnais was in part inspired by Cantillon’s Essay on the Nature of Trade in General. But while Quesnay gave original developments to the real aspects of Cantillon’’s analysis of circulation, Forbonnais focussed on developing monetary aspects, including arguments for the ‘non-neutrality’ of money and an original theory of the money interest rate.

Between the modelling and the engineering of learning: preservice teachers’ performance in course essays

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to explore Swedish preservice teachers’ performance in coursework essays about their observations and analyses of teaching situations. A total of 38 essays were analysed using practical inferences in which the students’ written utterances were interpreted as a means to an end. The results show that, in addition to the students who conducted their analyses in accordance with the normative way of understanding the task, there were students who engaged in ‘alternative performance’. This was done by negotiating the content of the course and explaining the observed actions of teachers in terms of the course’s theoretical perspectives. The results also indicate that, in addition to an analytical interest in understanding and explaining learning, the very engineering of learning becomes a prominent concern in students’ essays. It is argued that students who do not distinguish between these approaches face problems related to reductive and circular reasoning. To address these problems, it is suggested that educators mobilise students’ critical thinking and self-reflection, which may involve exceeding the administrative boundaries that frame single courses and unveiling the very foundations of teacher education.

How should the law determine capacity to refuse treatment for anorexia?

This article critically assesses the way a certain court has determined the capacity of a person diagnosed with anorexia to refuse medical treatment. It is shown that when making this determination, the court has adopted a process of circular reasoning, meaning anyone with the diagnosis will be found to lack capacity to refuse its treatment. This circular reasoning means that indicia of capacity that ought to be considered by the court is ignored. The result is a procedure in which the anorexic patient has no voice, and an outcome against which he or she has no effective legal recourse. This problem, it is argued, can be overcome in two ways. Firstly, courts must make sure that the ‘functional’ test of capacity is properly applied, meaning any finding of incapacity must rest on evidenced deficits in decision-making ability. Secondly, courts must properly engage with the subjective reasoning of the person making the treatment refusal.

Uma perspectiva analítico-comportamental do desenvolvimento

In this article, I describe how my behavior-analytic perspective on infant and child development evolved andwhat a behavior-analytic theory of development might look like. I begin by describing how my approach toteaching child development courses changed from focusing mostly on behavior analysis to teaching criticalthinking skills that would enable students to evaluate traditional developmental research and theory and thento find a behavior-analytic perspective more appealing. I describe the critical thinking skills I teach students,including nominal fallacy, circular reasoning, reification, and parsimony. Throughout, I contrast a traditionaldevelopmental approach to research and theory with a behavior-analytic approach. In particular, I notedifferences between the between-subjects experimental designs used by developmental researchers and thewithin-subjects experimental designs used by behavior analysts in terms of internal and external validity andtheir implications for theory construction. I argue that, because behavior-analytic theory is inductively derivedfrom decades of experimental analysis, it is in a better position to achieve the goals of prediction, control, andunderstanding and can generate successful technologies of behavior change.

EVERI PAYMENTS, INC. V. WASHINGTON STATE DEPT. OF REVENUE Case No. 50791–9–II, 2018 WL 6497601 (Wash. Ct. App. Dec. 11, 2018)

EVERI PAYMENTS, INC. V. WASHINGTON STATE DEPT. OF REVENUE Case No. 50791–9–II, 2018 WL 6497601 (Wash. Ct. App. Dec. 11, 2018)

An improved fuzzy MULTIMOORA approach for multi-criteria decision making based on objective weighting method (CCSD) and its application to technological forecasting method selection

MULTIMOORA (Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis plus full multiplicative form) is a somewhat new multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) method which provides high efficiency and effectiveness in problem solving. To evaluate different alternatives and calculate their scores, it uses three major approaches; namely, ratio system (RS), reference point (RP), and full multiplicative form (FM). Based on the scores, alternatives are individually ranked in each approach. The obtained ranks are the basis for final ranking, which is determined under the rules of dominance theory. However, this method impose some limitations on the evaluation model such as the need for aggregation and final ranking based on each alternative’s ranks already obtained by three different approaches (i.e., RS, RP, and FM) with no consideration to score differences, taking the same importance level for these approaches, the lack of attention to deviation of scores, the complexity of aggregation in the dominance theory and the need for multiple comparisons to obtain final rankings, and the probability of a circular reasoning with no distinction between alternatives included. In order to overcome shortcomings, we applied an objective weight determination method called CCSD (Correlation Coefficient and Standard Deviation) method to enhance the MULTIMOORA performance. In this regard, the scoring distance of every alternative is completely included in the aggregation. Using regression statistics, standard deviations and correlation coefficients; the dispersion in the set of scores is also computed in relation to three approaches of RS, RP, and FM. The application of unique weight for each approach will yield more realistic results. Further, it is no longer needed to use the dominance theory and the problems such as multiple comparisons and a circular reasoning are also eliminated. Finally, a real decision making problem is applied to select the proper technological forecasting method which illustrates the validity and practicality of the proposed approach.