Consensus Reaching Research Articles

Counselling: Decision Making, Consensus, and Mediation

We analyze three fundamental configurations in practicing counselling in order to help the autonomous capabilities of an individual to make decisions about his/her own choices, and to help individuals with different conflicting interests or diverging opinions to mediate situations and reaching consensus. The method followed is an approach based on an interdisciplinary collaboration of a group of experts, respectively, on decisional logic, consensus reaching procedures, and mediation strategies. The idea is that the interconnection among these experiences can have many applications in practicing with incisiveness counselling, mediation, and consensus. The originality of the study consists into considering the Ars Maieutica of the Counsellor in the direction of the interlocutor in a “unitary logic” of “Decision Making - Mediation Task- Consensus Reaching”, and based on a reciprocal interaction and strategic behaviour. Moreover, an original formalization of the practice of counselling, mediation strategies, and consensus procedures, based on mathematical multiobjective and multiperson decision making and game theories is considered. Fuzzy extensions are sketched.

Asymmetric Multilateral Teleoperation through Scaled Consensus Reaching on Graphs

Consensus algorithms enable nodes on a Laplacian graph to dynamically reach an agreement-consensus on certain values, such as the average of initial conditions or local inputs. In this paper we propose a different kind of algorithm, the scaled consensus algorithm based on weighted digraphs. This algorithm enables nodes to track different values which are functions of a common consensus value, depending on the weights of the graph. We employ this algorithm for asymmetric multilateral teleoperation, which requires scaled force reflection and position tracking. More specifically; we generalize the four-channel based multilateral teleoperation architecture for various network configurations, taking the scalings into consideration as well. We also show that the algorithm can be applied to micro-macro teleoperation systems.

Toward a Taxonomy of Essential Evaluator Competencies

This article discusses an exploratory study designed to determine the extent to which evaluation professionals, representing diverse backgrounds and approaches, could reach agreement on a proposed taxonomy of essential evaluator competencies. Participants were 31 diverse individuals in the field of program evaluation in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota area who systematically engaged in a Multi-Attribute Consensus Reaching process. Both quantitative and qualitative results predominantly indicated consensus on more than three-fourths of the proposed competencies. Areas of disagreement reflected the role- and context-specific nature of evaluation practice.

Toward a taxonomy of essential evaluator competencies

This article discusses an exploratory study designed to determine the extent to which evaluation professionals, representing diverse backgrounds and approaches, could reach agreement on a proposed taxonomy of essential evaluator competencies. Participants were 31 diverse individuals in the field of program evaluation in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota area who systematically engaged in a Multi-Attribute Consensus Reaching process. Both quantitative and qualitative results predominantly indicated consensus on more than three-fourths of the proposed competencies. Areas of disagreement reflected the role- and context-specific nature of evaluation practice.