Collective Priorities Research Articles

A consensus model for group decision making with self‐confident linguistic preference relations

Preference relation has been one of the most useful tools for experts to express their comparison information over alternatives in group decision-making (GDM) problems. Recently, a new type of preference relations called linguistic preference relations with self-confidence (LPRs-SC) has been proposed, which makes multiple self-confidence levels into consideration when experts provide their preferences. This study focuses on the consensus reaching process for GDM with LPRs-SC. To do that, some new operational laws for LPRs-SC are presented. Subsequently, an iteration-based consensus proposal for LPRs-SC is proposed. In the proposal, we aggregate the individual LPRs-SC using a self-confidence indices-based method which gives more importance to the most self-confident experts. A self-confidence score function is presented to derive the individual and collective priority vectors. Moreover, considering experts’ acceptable adjustment range of preference values, a two-step feedback adjustment mechanism is utilized to improve the consensus level, which adjusts both the preference values and the self-confidence levels. Finally, an example and some analyses are furnished to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Sex-Based Harassment in the United States’ K-12 Schools: Rates and Predictors of Allegations, Student Reporting, and Student Discipline

ABSTRACT Title IX prohibits sex-based harassment (SBH) in all federally funded educational activities, yet little is known about SBH in K-12 schools. We used the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) data (N = 96,440) to examine rates and school-, district-, and state-level predictors of SBH in K-12 schools. Results found the vast majority of schools had zero allegations of SBH. Girls were more likely to be reporters of, while boys were more likely to be disciplined for, SBH; Black students were disproportionately impacted by SBH. A series of negative binomial regression models showed that schools with higher student enrollment and rates of White students, greater numbers of supportive school personnel, Title IX policies, and state sex education laws were associated with increased allegations, reporting students, and disciplined students. State mandatory reporting for child abuse was associated with fewer reports; Title IX coordinators and security personnel were associated with more disciplined students. Our findings offer baseline information on SBH in K-12 schools and recommendations for future data collection, research, and policy priorities.

Evaluating Stakeholder Engagement: Stakeholder-Centric Instrumentation Process (SCIP).

Evaluating engagement in a research partnership can capture the success and impact of the research team-stakeholder partnerships. This article describes the Stakeholder-Centric Instrumentation Process (SCIP), an iterative method to develop an evaluation that reflects research team-stakeholder collective values, language, and priorities. We describe our implementation of the SCIP and provide the Stakeholder-Centric Engagement Evaluation, an evaluation developed in collaboration with our advisory committee. Mean scores across three administrations of the tool remained constant. We monitored responses received from our advisory committee during each administration for changes in scores that guided refinements to our stakeholder engagement strategy. Face validity and acceptability questions showed high satisfaction for the tool's time required to complete, (M = 4.50, SD = 0.86), clarity (M = 4.56, SD = 0.78), and relevance (M = 4.67, SD = 0.49) (maximum score = 5). The SCIP methodology and the Stakeholder-Centric Engagement Tool can be used during study planning and data collection to capture research team-stakeholder collaborations that reflect stakeholder priorities.

Research Priorities for Coastal Geoscience and Engineering: A Collaborative Exercise in Priority Setting From Australia

We present the result of a collaborative priority setting exercise to identify emerging issues and priorities in coastal geoscience and engineering (CGE). We use a ranking process to quantify the criticality of each priority from the perspective of Australian CGE researchers and practitioners. 74 activities were identified across seven categories: Data Collection and Collation, Coastal Dynamics and Processes, Modelling, Engineering Solutions, Coastal Hazards and Climate Change, Communication and Collaboration, and Infrastructure, Innovation, and Funding. We found consistent and unanimous support for the vast majority of priorities identified by the CGE community, with 91% of priorities being allocated a score of ≥ 3 out of 5 (i.e., above average levels of support) by ≥ 75% of respondents. Data Collection and Collation priorities received the highest average score, significantly higher than four of the other six categories, with Coastal Hazards and Climate Change the second ranked category and Engineering Solutions the lowest scoring category. Of the 74 priorities identified, 11 received unified and strong support across the CGE community and indicate a critical need for: additional coastal data collection including topographic and bathymetric, hydrodynamic, oceanographic, and remotely sensed data; improved data compilation and access; improved understanding of extreme events and the quantification of future impacts of climate change on nearshore dynamics and coastal development; enhanced quantification of shoreline change and coastal inundation processes; and, additional funding to support CGE research and applications to mitigate and manage coastal hazards. The outcomes of this priority setting exercise can be applied to guide policy development and decision-making in Australia and jurisdictions elsewhere. Further, the research and application needs identified here will contribute to addressing key practical challenges identified at a national level. CGE research plays a critical role in identifying and enabling social, environmental, and economic benefits through the proactive management of coastal hazard impacts and informed planning to mitigate the potential impacts of growing coastal risk, particularly in a changing climate. The prevalence and commonalities of the challenges faced by coastal communities globally due to increasing pressures from coastal hazards in a changing climate suggest that our findings will be applicable to other settings.

Social and Behavioral Variables in the Electronic Health Record: A Path Forward to Increase Data Quality and Utility.

Social and behavioral determinants of health (SBDH) are important factors that affect the health of individuals but are not routinely captured in a structured and systematic manner in electronic health records (EHRs). The purpose of this study is to generate recommendations for systematic implementation of SBDH data collection in EHRs through (1) reviewing SBDH conceptual and theoretical frameworks and (2) eliciting stakeholder perspectives on barriers to and facilitators of using SBDH information in the EHR and priorities for data collection. The authors reviewed SBDH frameworks to identify key social and behavioral variables and conducted focus groups and interviews with 17 clinicians and researchers at Johns Hopkins Health System between March and May 2018. Transcripts were coded and common themes were extracted to understand the barriers to and facilitators of accessing SBDH information. The authors found that although the frameworks agreed that SBDH affect health outcomes, the lack of model consensus complicates the development of specific recommendations for the prioritization of SBDH data collection. Study participants recognized the importance of SBDH information and individual health and agreed that patient-reported information should be captured, but clinicians and researchers cited different priorities for which variables are most important. For the few SBDH variables that are captured, participants reported that data were often incomplete, unclear, or inconsistent, affecting both researcher and clinician responses to SBDH barriers to health. Health systems need to identify and prioritize the systematic implementation of collection of a high-impact but limited list of SBDH variables in the EHR. These variables should affect care and be amenable to change and collection should be integrated into clinical workflows. Improved data collection of SBDH variables can lead to a better understanding of how SBDH affect health outcomes and ways to better address underlying health disparities that need urgent action.

‘Cadáveres Amados’: Martyrs, Memory, and Cuban National Symbols

Abstract On November 27th, 1871, eight young medical students were marched into a public plaza in Havana and shot by Spanish authorities. On the first anniversary of their death, the exiled José Martí used their execution to denounce Spanish rule in Cuba, and to legitimize the violent struggle for Cuban Independence. The executed students became martyrs to Cuban nationalism. Since then, their execution at the hands of tyrants has been repeatedly repurposed in revolutionary periods in Cuban history. This article engages with the work of Maurice Halbwachs, Jan Assmann, and Pierre Nora to reflect on the process of collective and cultural memory formation and reformation. It considers the factors that contributed to the transformation of the execution of these students from a singular tragedy, among a wider field of atrocity, into a defining moment in Cuban identity. Further, drawing on works by Jay Winter, Robin Cohen, and Ron Eyerman, this article interrogates the role of individuals and groups in this process. Over one hundred and fifty years, members of exile communities, moral witnesses, student protesters, and revolutionary leaders used the memory of these martyrs to contest authoritarian rule, hoping to advance their vision of a Cuba that could be. Driven by changing political imperatives, the memory of the students altered to reflect new collective priorities. This case study shows change and continuity in cultural memory. Tracing the evolution of this narrative from the Cuban War of Independence, through the rule of dictators, Castro’s revolutionary war, and the following socialist era, this article concludes by asking how their memory is being—once again—transformed today. With a focus on the construction and use of public monuments and memorials, but incorporating literature, images, annual marches, and films, this article argues that the public memory of their deaths altered in different periods to invoke a revolutionary vision of Cuban national identity battered by a century and a half of instability.

Making Regulation Robust in the Innovation Era

The next few years in regulatory history will be pivotal. On one hand, we are witnessing renewed interest in robust state action in the economy and society. Battered by a poorly managed global pandemic and the undeniable persistence of racism and discrimination; terrified about the consequences of climate change; having suffered through years of political tumult and populist anger following a disastrous financial crisis; and having recognized once again that there is more to a person’s value than their economic productivity – it seems clear that over recent decades, public policy swung too far away from the humane, collective, and dignity-affirming priorities that underpinned the postwar Welfare State. At the same time, we know that we cannot simply return to the mid-twentieth century. Innovation is too fast-moving now, and conditions too complex and heterogeneous, to imagine that a replica of the postwar Welfare State would function property. Regulation operates at the front lines of policy now. And today, some of the greatest challenges that regulation faces stem from the speed, extent, and nature of human-driven change. Workable twenty-first century regulatory models will have to contend with the destabilizing, ongoing effects of innovation. After reviewing some Welfare State and Regulatory State history, this chapter suggests that innovation raises three fundamental analytical problems for regulation: information and data problems, visibility problems, and legibility problems. It then sets out five regulatory priorities that will be essential, if a forceful contemporary state is to be resilient in the face of innovation, while maintaining credibility and agency in the service of public priorities.

"When Anything Can Happen”: Anticipated Adversity and Postsecondary Decision-Making

We examine how disadvantaged students make postsecondary education decisions, focusing on why they often opt for short, flexible programs that tend to have low returns in the labor market. Prior literature emphasizes information deficits and financial constraints. We draw upon qualitative data collected via open-ended interviews conducted with a sample of economically disadvantaged Black youth in Baltimore. We use these data to develop and explore a complementary narrative: students who have faced instability or hardship in the form of disruptive events, or “adverse shocks” (e.g., violence, eviction or incarceration of a family member), anticipate future shocks that could derail their educational plans. In response, they opt for shorter, more flexible educational programs that they expect they can complete despite anticipated shocks. When possible, we corroborate this narrative using publicly available, large-N data sets such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Finally, we formalize this narrative as a simple dynamic structural model calibrated using data on education choices and returns. The model clarifies that it is impossible to identify costs of schooling without data on beliefs about the probability of non-completion, thus providing guidance on future data collection priorities. More broadly, our approach demonstrates a novel application of mixed methods research: using qualitative data to aid in the specification of a structural model. This approach could be applied in other contexts where behavior is poorly understood and extant data do not contain all of the information needed to generate and test plausible hypotheses.

Modeling Ambitions Outpace Observations of Forest Carbon Allocation.

There have been vociferous calls for 'tree-centered' vegetation models to refine predictions of forest carbon (C) cycling. Unfortunately, our global survey at flux-tower sites indicates insufficient empirical data support for this much-needed model development. We urge for a new generation of studies across large environmental gradients that strategically pair long-term ecosystem monitoring with manipulative experiments on mature trees. For this, we outline a versatile experimental framework to build cross-scale data archives of C uptake and allocation to structural, non-structural, and respiratory sinks. Community-wide efforts and discussions are needed to implement this framework, especially in hitherto underrepresented tropical forests. Global coordination and realistic priorities for data collection will thereby be key to achieve and maintain adequate empirical support for tree-centered vegetation modeling.

Ex situ and in situ conservation gap analysis of crop wild relative diversity in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are important reservoirs of adaptive traits for crop breeding programmes. Both ex situ and in situ conservation approaches should be deployed to ensure CWR availability for use. This paper aims to (a) create a regional database of occurrence records for the 441 priority CWRs in the Fertile Crescent, (b) identify CWR-rich areas in the Fertile Crescent, (c) recommend locations to implement genetic reserves intended for CWRs active in situ conservation and (d) undertake ex situ and in situ conservation gap analyses. The study area comprises Jordan, Syria, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. Occurrence records of the 441 priority CWR within the Fertile Crescent were gathered from herbaria, gene banks and online databases. Gaps in the current ex situ and in situ conservation were identified. Hotspots of CWR diversity were identified, and complementary analysis was carried out to identify areas for in situ conservation using DIVA-GIS. Then proposed genetic reserves were compared with the existing protected areas to establish genetic reserve areas whether within or outside the protected areas. A total of 23,878 occurrence records were collated for 441 CWR priorities. The first priority grid square is located in Syria near Tal Kalakh City, close to the Lebanese border from the north. The second priority site is located in Turkey’s Izmir Province near Kemal Atatürk Mahallesi. The third priority site is located in Turkey’s Sahinbey/Gaziantep Province. The ex situ gap analysis revealed that of the 441 taxa, 134 (30%) CWRs are totally absent from the current gene banks collections. Only 307 (70%) CWRs are represented in gene banks, and, of these taxa, 252 (57%) of them have less than 10 accessions in gene banks. A total of 353 taxa were categorised as a high priority for collection and conservation; 23 taxa were categorised as a medium priority and 41 taxa as a low priority. However, 24 taxa were identified that did not require urgent collection (see Supplementary Table 7). The most important areas for a further collection of ex situ conservation are located in the west and south of Turkey across the Mediterranean seashore, north of Lebanon and west of Syria (in Lattakia and Tartus Governorate), across the border between Turkey and Syria and northern Iraq. Ten genetic reserves are recommended in the Fertile Crescent for CWR conservation. The results and methods used will help meet the conservation targets of CWR in the Fertile Crescent; they will also help achieve global food security.

Prioritizing Additional Data Collection to Reduce Decision Uncertainty in the HIV/AIDS Response in 6 US Cities: A Value of Information Analysis.

The ambitious goals of the US Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative will require a targeted, context-specific public health response. Model-based economic evaluation provides useful guidance for decision making while characterizing decision uncertainty. We aim to quantify the value of eliminating uncertainty about different parameters in selecting combination implementation strategies to reduce the public health burden of HIV/AIDS in 6 US cities and identify future data collection priorities. We used a dynamic compartmental HIV transmission model developed for 6 US cities to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a range of combination implementation strategies. Using a metamodeling approach with nonparametric and deep learning methods, we calculated the expected value of perfect information, representing the maximum value of further research to eliminate decision uncertainty, and the expected value of partial perfect information for key groups of parameters that would be collected together in practice. The population expected value of perfect information ranged from $59 683 (Miami) to $54 108 679 (Los Angeles). The rank ordering of expected value of partial perfect information on key groups of parameters were largely consistent across cities and highest for parameters pertaining to HIV risk behaviors, probability of HIV transmission, health service engagement, HIV-related mortality, health utility weights, and healthcare costs. Los Angeles was an exception, where parameters on retention in pre-exposure prophylaxis ranked highest in contributing to decision uncertainty. Funding additional data collection on HIV/AIDS may be warranted in Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New York City. Value of information analysis should be embedded into decision-making processes on funding future research and public health intervention.

Potential of standard perinatal data for measuring maternal integrity in childbirth

Abstract Background Measuring the phenomenon of violation of maternal integrity in childbirth (e.g. obstetric violence) relies in part on the completeness of maternity care providers' data. The population coverage and linkage possibilities that they provide make for a great untapped potential. Although violation of integrity is a complex phenomenon best measured with dedicated instruments, standard data provide details about the birth and care received. Relevant variables include justifications of medical procedures (e.g. episiotomy) and characteristics of the birth process (e.g. length of labour). Demographic variables can be used for intersectional analyses to track potential discrimination -a dimension of violation of integrity in childbirth. Methods Using a baseline questionnaire and perinatal data obtained from hospitals, birth centres and midwifes in the BaBi study (Germany), we compared the completeness of integrity-relevant variables across providers and depending on the demographic and clinical characteristics of the women. We investigated potential for analysis from an intersectional perspective. Results Our analyses included 908 births, of which 32 outside hospital. There were 634 vaginal birth vs. 274 caesarean sections. We found poor reporting on demographic variables, in particular with regard to the 'region of origin' variable (correct origin recorded for half of the migrants). There was better reporting by midwives than by hospitals for “soft indicators”, such as the position of the women during birth (100% vs. 87.6%). Conclusions Putting more emphasis on completeness of standardised data could increase their potential for research. Healthcare setting, organisational culture and working conditions might determine what is judged important in terms of reporting; therefore, targeted education may improve this process. Next, we will interview care providers to understand data collection constraints and priorities and potential reporting bias in real-life settings.

Identifying femicide locally and globally: Understanding the utility and accessibility of sex/gender-related motives and indicators

Femicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, has received an unprecedented rise in international attention in the past decade, prompting increased discussions about how to define and measure femicide. Following a review of definitions and indicators, this article examines the utility of numerous sex/gender-related motives and indicators (SGRMIs) for distinguishing femicide from other homicides as well as the accessibility of these indicators in data sources typically accessed by social science researchers. Specifically, using a comprehensive database whose primary focus is femicide, the presence of SGRMIs in male-perpetrator/female-victim homicide – those killings most closely aligned with the concept of femicide – is compared to other perpetrator–victim gender combinations. Results show that multiple SGRMIs are more common in male-perpetrator/female-victim killings than other homicides, meaning they are useful for distinguishing femicide as a distinct type of violence. However, accessibility to information is weak with high proportions of missing data. Implications of these findings for prevention are discussed, including how data biases may be putting the lives of women and girls at risk and the need to emphasize prevention as the priority for data collection rather than administrative needs of governments.

Rethinking the role of the European Stability Mechanism for local communities

ABSTRACT The Covid19-related emergency has changed our perspectives on individual and collective priorities. One of them is to invest on infrastructures at the level of local communities, where most social and economic relations take place. This note explores the possibility to use a fully fledged European Stability Mechanism for this purpose. This would provide a solution to the required transformation of the ESM from a temporary instrument for financial assistance into a growth-promoting fund.

The role of the philosophy of law in the development of modern consciousness

The purpose of the study is to find out the place of the philosophy of law as scientific knowledge of legal reality in the system of formation of consciousness and legal consciousness of society. The relevance of the work lies in the need to explore the importance of the philosophy of law as a reflection of the legal reality of society in its theoretical aspect, the place and significance of the philosophy of law in creating the socio-cultural discourse of our time; it is necessary to identify how this knowledge can and should respond to the challenges of our time. The article considers the need to study the importance of the philosophy of law in the process of the formation of consciousness and legal consciousness of the individual and to understand how the philosophy of law, fulfilling its direct purpose of studying the ontology of law, can participate in overcoming the permanently existing crises in society. The results of the analysis made it possible to find out that the philosophy of law, fulfilling its many functions, becomes the fundamental basis for the formation of consciousness and legal awareness of society. It was found that such functions of legal philosophy as educational and value-oriental build a system of individual and collective priorities of values and logically substantiate their importance and universality for the existence of man and society. It is analyzed that the philosophy of law helps to establish a connection between one’s own individual experience of legal understanding and acquired scientific knowledge. It is proved that a theoretical study of legal reality models by the philosophy of law as a branch of scientific knowledge about the essence of law occupies a significant place in the system of studying social values. The conclusions of the work prove that, plunging into the legal system, the philosophy of law contributes to the development of the individual ability of a person to critical thinking and subjective assessment of acquired knowledge. The significance of philosophical and legal consciousness as one of the factors for overcoming permanently existing crises in society is established. The use of the philosophy of law as a methodology for the assimilation of legal reality contributes to the formation and constant reproduction of the ability to process information on the principles of justice, equality and respect for cultural diversity.

A novel additive consistency for intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations in group decision making

Deriving the priority vectors of the alternatives from preference relations is an interesting research topic for group decision making with preference information. This paper uses an example to show that the ranking or the optimal alternative could not always be derived from the existing additively consistent intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations. Thus, we provide novel additively consistent intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations and characterize them with Tanino’s normalized (T-normalized) intuitionistic fuzzy priority vectors. Then, we propose some methods to check and achieve the T-normalization, acceptably additive consistency and consensus of the intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations in group decision making using the local, individual and optimal collective intuitionistic fuzzy priority vectors, respectively. We also give some examples to show how the proposed models work and make comparisons with the existing methods to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed methods.

Art crime: discussion on the Dancing Shiva acquisition

Purpose This paper aims to explore how stolen Indian antiquities were purchased by a major Australian collecting institution, despite cultural protection policies designed to prevent such inappropriate acquisitions. Using the acquisition of the Dancing Shiva as a case study, the purpose of this paper is to examine how collecting institutions such as the National Gallery of Australia experience difficulty when determining legal title through provenance research. The impact of incautious provenance research produces significant risk to the institution including damaging its social responsibility credentials and reputation when the acquisition is discovered to be stolen. Design/methodology/approach This research applies a qualitative case study method and analysis of sourced official policy documents, personal communication with actors involved with the case, media reports and published institutional statements. Findings This work identifies four contributing factors that resulted in the National Gallery of Australia’s acquisition of stolen Indian artefacts: a misguided level of trust of the art dealer based on his professional reputation; a problematic motivation to expand the gallery’s Asian art collection; a less transparent and judicious acquisition process; and a collaboration deficiency with cultural institutions in India. Crime preventative methods would appear to be a strategic priority to counter art crime of this nature. Research limitations/implications Additional research into how collecting institutions can be effectively supported to develop and implement crime preventative methods, especially less-resourced institutions, can potentially further enhance cultural heritage protection. Practical implications Fostering a higher degree of transparency and institutional collaboration can enhance cultural heritage protection, develop a greater level of institutional ethics and social responsibility and identify any potential criminal activity. Changing the culture of “owning” to “loaning” may provide a long-term solution for cultural heritage protection, rather than incentivising a black market with lucrative sums of money paid for artefacts. Social implications Art crime involving the illegal trade of antiquities is often misinterpreted as a victimless crime with no real harm to individuals. The loss of a temple deity statue produces significant spiritual anguish for the Indian community, as the statue is representative not only of their God but also of place. Collecting institutions have a social responsibility to prioritise robust provenance policy and acquisition practices above collection priorities. Originality/value Art crime is a relatively new area within criminology. This work examines issues involving major collecting institutions acquiring stolen cultural heritage artefacts and the impact art crime has on institutions and communities. This paper unpacks how motivations for growing more prestigious collections can override cultural sensibilities and ethical frameworks established to protect cultural heritage. It highlights the liabilities associated with purchasing antiquities without significant due diligence regarding provenance research and safeguarding cultural heritage. It also emphasises the importance for collecting institutions to establish robust acquisition policies to protect the reputation of the institutions and the communities they represent.

Primary data priorities for the life cycle inventory of construction products: focus on foreground processes

Life cycle assessment can support decisions for improving the environmental performance of construction products. However, the amount of data required for developing life cycle inventories limits the adoption of LCA. This work associates the interpretation of the impact results of construction products at the unit process level with a quantitative definition for the foreground and background system, for guiding primary data collection towards foreground processes that can be affected by decision-makers in the construction sector. A set of construction products commonly used in Brazil is selected, and their cradle-to-gate life cycle inventories are modeled using the ecoinvent database (version 2). Life cycle impact assessment is performed using the ReCiPe Midpoint Hierarchist method. The contribution of each process during the life cycle of construction products for each impact category is quantified. These processes are associated with economic sectors, which are classified as belonging to the foreground or background system from the perspective of the construction industry. Foreground sectors are those controlled or influenced by the construction sector and are defined based on the production share consumed by the construction value chain. The elementary flows defining each impact category are also identified. Foreground processes show significant contributions to most impact results of construction products. Global warming, fine particulate matter formation, ozone formation, acidification, human carcinogenic toxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity are mainly caused by direct emissions and fossil fuel combustion in manufacturing processes. Land occupation for production activities contributes to land use change, while the consumption of fuels, raw materials, and water causes fossil and mineral resource scarcity and water consumption respectively. Freshwater and marine ecotoxicities and human non-carcinogenic toxicity have foreground contributions only for steel and copper products due to emissions from the landfilling of mining tails. Ionizing radiation and stratospheric ozone depletion are mostly driven by background processes. A reduced group of elementary flows covers a big share of the environmental impacts of most construction products. The results indicate priorities for life cycle inventory primary data collection of construction products, by focusing on foreground processes and the corresponding elementary flows that cause many of the potential embodied impacts of construction. Increasing the availability of primary data for these processes improves the reliability of LCA-based decisions in the construction sector, especially in countries which still lack local LCI databases.

Adaptive Consensus-Based Model for Heterogeneous Large-Scale Group Decision-Making: Detecting and Managing Noncooperative Behaviors

Large-scale group decision-making (LSGDM), which involves dozens to hundreds of decision-makers (DMs), is attracting extensive attention and has become an interesting and hot topic in recent years. Because of various backgrounds and expression habits, DMs tend to elicit preferences with different preference representation structures. Moreover, due to various attitudes and interests, some DMs may adopt noncooperative behaviors to further benefit themselves in LSGDM. To cope with these issues, this study develops an adaptive consensus framework to support heterogeneous LSGDM. A cosine similarity based optimization model is constructed and its analytical solution is derived to directly obtain the collective priority vector of the group using heterogeneous preferences. An extended k-means algorithm is then used to classify DMs. Subsequently, a two-stage uninorm-based behavior management method is developed to generate personalized weight feedback to each DM and subcluster according to their cooperative and noncooperative degrees in the consensus-reaching process. Finally, an illustrative example followed by simulation and comparative analyses is provided to reveal the advantages and features of the proposed approach.

A Horizon Scan of research priorities to inform policies aimed at reducing the harm of plastic pollution to biota

Plastic pollution in the oceans is a priority environmental issue. The recent increase in research on the topic, coupled with growing public awareness, has catalyzed policymakers around the world to identify and implement solutions that minimize the harm caused by plastic pollution. To aid and coordinate these efforts, we surveyed experts with scientific experience identified through their peer-reviewed publications. We asked experts about the most pressing research questions relating to how biota interact with plastic pollution that in turn can inform policy decisions and research agendas to best contribute to understanding and reducing the harm of plastic pollution to biota. We used a modified Horizon Scan method that first used a subgroup of experts to generate 46 research questions on aquatic biota and plastics, and then conducted an online survey of researchers globally to prioritize questions in terms of their importance to inform policy development. One hundred and fifteen experts from 29 countries ranked research questions in six themes. The questions were ranked by urgency, indicating which research should be addressed immediately, which can be addressed later, and which are of limited relevance to inform action on plastics as an environmental pollutant. We found that questions relating to the following four themes were the most commonly top-ranked research priorities: (i) sources, circulation and distribution of plastics, (ii) type of harm from plastics, (iii) detection of ingested plastics and the associated problems, and (iv) related economies and policy to ingested plastics. While there are many research questions on the topic of impacts of plastic pollution on biota that could be funded and investigated, our results focus collective priorities in terms of research that experts believe will inform effective policy and on-the-ground conservation.