Contemporary Decision Research Articles

Addressing Fuzzy Linear Programming Problems Through Ranking Functions

In contemporary decision-making, reliance on information is paramount, yet much of it is fraught with uncertainty, making logical decision-making challenging. To tackle this uncertainty, various methods, including the use of fuzzy numbers, have been employed. This paper specifically delves into addressing linear programming (LP) problems characterized by fuzzy coefficients in the objective function, fuzzy values in the right-hand side, and fuzzy coefficients of constraints. The proposed approach involves employing linear ranking functions such as Maleki, Campos, Yager’s F1 and Yager linear ranking functions to solve these fuzzy linear programming (FLP) problems and attain optimal solutions. Furthermore, the paper elucidates the resolution steps through the presentation of numerical examples, in this study, a comprehensive methodology is presented for effectively addressing a wide range of linear programming problems.

Multidisciplinary Management of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase-Mutated Gliomas in a Contemporary Molecularly Defined Era.

Mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) genes, an early step in the ontogeny of lower-grade gliomas, induce global epigenetic changes characterized by a hypermethylation phenotype and are critical to tumor classification, treatment decision making, and estimation of patient prognosis. The introduction of IDH inhibitors to block the oncogenic neomorphic function of the mutated protein has resulted in new therapeutic options for these patients. To appreciate the implications of these recent IDH inhibitor results, it is important to juxtapose historical outcomes with chemoradiotherapy. Herein, we rationally evaluate recent IDH inhibitor data within historical precedents to guide contemporary decisions regarding the role of observation, maximal safe resection, adjuvant therapies, and the import of patient and tumor variables. The biological underpinnings of the IDH pathway and the mechanisms, impact, and limitations of IDH inhibitors, the actual magnitude of tumor regression and patient benefit, and emergence of resistance pathways are presented to guide future trial development. Management in the current, molecularly defined era will require careful patient selection and risk factor assessment, followed by an open dialog about the results of studies such as INDIGO, as well as mature data from legacy trials, and a discussion about risk-versus-benefit for the choice of treatment, with multidisciplinary decision making as an absolute prerequisite.

Reframing wildlife disease management problems with decision analysis.

Contemporary wildlife disease management is complex because managers need to respond to a wide range of stakeholders, multiple uncertainties, and difficult trade-offs that characterize the interconnected challenges of today. Despite general acknowledgment of these complexities, managing wildlife disease tends to be framed as a scientific problem, in which the major challenge is lack of knowledge. The complex and multifactorial process of decision-making is collapsed into a scientific endeavor to reduce uncertainty. As a result, contemporary decision-making may be oversimplified, rely on simple heuristics, and fail to account for the broader legal, social, and economic context in which the decisions are made. Concurrently, scientific research on wildlife disease may be distant from this decision context, resulting in information that may not be directly relevant to the pertinent management questions. We propose reframing wildlife disease management challenges as decision problems and addressing them with decision analytical tools to divide the complex problems into more cognitively manageable elements. In particular, structured decision-making has the potential to improve the quality, rigor, and transparency of decisions about wildlife disease in a variety of systems. Examples of management of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, white-nose syndrome, avian influenza, and chytridiomycosis illustrate the most common impediments to decision-making, including competing objectives, risks, prediction uncertainty, and limited resources.

Abstract 5028: Detection of non-small cell lung and bladder cancer signatures in peripheral blood using a novel antibody-free chromatin capture assay

Abstract Immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) via anti-PD-1/PD-L1 has improved clinical outcomes for multiple cancers, including bladder and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Yet, the response rates remain low highlighting a significant knowledge gap in the mechanisms driving response and resistance. While the expression of PD-L1 has been established as a predictive biomarker of ICI response, other features, including molecular tumor burden, tumor microenvironment (TME), and the host’s immune mechanisms may contribute to overall response. The complex interactions between a tumor and the immune system underscore the need for a more comprehensive approach to explore novel biological and immunological insights of cancer progression. Circulating tumor DNA assays, while integral to contemporary decision-making in oncology, fall short in delineating the transcriptional programs that dictate cancer phenotypes and their evolution over the disease trajectory. To bridge this gap, we have developed a plasma-based active chromatin capture method that enables the comprehensive epigenetic and transcriptomic interrogation of both tumor and immune components. In this study, we quantified epigenetic profiles from plasma samples (n=100) of patients with bladder cancer (n=20) and NSCLC (n=24) undergoing ICI therapy, along with samples (n=70) from healthy individuals (n=5). As expected, the total cfDNA yield (ng) of lung (1.7x, p=2.3e-08) and bladder (1.98x, p=1.6e-11) cancer samples were higher than those of healthy individuals. More Interestingly, the longer cfDNA fragments derived from regulatory-active chromatin, also showed a significantly higher abundance in plasma samples from both lung (2.0x, p=2.5e-09) and bladder (3.2x, p=3.2e-14) cancer patients. Furthermore, the patterns of epigenetic regulations across cancer and healthy conditions showed distinct and stable clusters, consistent between gene bodies and transcription start sites, highlighting the epigenetic changes that may be driving cancer progression. We also observed a common enrichment of immune epigenetic signatures in both lung and bladder cancer samples, likely attributed to shared mechanisms associated with the modulation of the tumor microenvironment and immune interactions. Understanding these changes at an epigenetic level could provide insights into novel therapeutic approaches that target the tumor microenvironment and the immune interactions. Citation Format: Kevin Lai, Katharine Dilger, Rachael Cunningham, Timothy Barnes, Khiet Truong, Kathy Lam, Rhea Boquiren, Maggie C. Louie, Diana Abdueva. Detection of non-small cell lung and bladder cancer signatures in peripheral blood using a novel antibody-free chromatin capture assay [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 5028.

A framework for fair decision-making over time with time-invariant utilities

Fairness is a major concern in contemporary decision problems. In these situations, the objective is to maximize fairness while preserving the efficacy of the underlying decision-making problem. This paper examines repeated decisions on problems involving multiple stakeholders and a central decision maker. Repetition of the decision-making provides additional opportunities to promote fairness while increasing the complexity from symmetry to finding solutions. This paper presents a general mathematical programming framework for the proposed fairness-over-time (FOT) decision-making problem. The framework includes a natural abstraction of how a stakeholder’s acquired utilities can be aggregated over time. In contrast with a natural, descriptive formulation, we demonstrate that if the aggregation function possesses certain basic properties, a strong reformulation can be written to remove symmetry from the problem, making it amenable to branch-and-cut solvers. Finally, we propose a particular relaxation of this reformulation that can assist in the construction of high-quality approximate solutions to the original problem and can be solved using simultaneous row and column generation techniques.

Protecting Future People’s Future: How to Operationalise Present People’s Unfulfilled Promises to Future Generations

AbstractAs societies become more concerned with their impacts on future generations, the question of how to translate that concern into greater consideration in contemporary decision-making is coming to the fore. Despite growing societal acceptance of the ethics of obligations to the future – as reflected in record-high number of future-sensitive constitutions and international treaties – present generations’ promises to future generations remain unfulfilled. This article explains why and offers an alternative approach to future-proofing. After providing a systematic account of the multiple efforts at aligning the actions of decision-makers with the interests of future generations, it argues that achieving the inclusion of future generations’ interests in contemporary policymaking requires more than their legal codification and the establishment of new and typically scattered institutions, mechanisms and procedures. It rather calls for a more holistic, future-orientated and proactive approach by all public authorities. These must increasingly be expected to create the conditions not only for policymakers to consider the temporal dimension of their decisions, but also for all stakeholders – including new dedicated institutions – to hold present people accountable to currently non-existent future generations. To do so beyond the environment and climate space is a matter of urgency. This is the spirit animating this Special Issue devoted to long-term risks and future generations: to nurture a more imaginative theorisation and operationalisation of the recognition of future generations’ interests in contemporary policymaking beyond today’s institutional and conceptual models.

Morality and Meat in the Middle Ages and Beyond

AbstractFood is intimately associated with the body, and what a person chooses to consume can easily be used to craft one's identity. Food brings people together, in much the same way as culinary preferences can divide. As veganism is gaining traction around the world, this article examines its origins in religious practices, philosophy, literature, and economic trade within the Middle Ages, elucidating how contemporary decisions to abstain from animal consumption mirror medieval ones and further how similar obstacles to this lifestyle exist today.

Beyond the Great War: Making Peace in a Disordered World, ed. Norman Ingram and Carl Bouchard

Historians have written extensively about the end of the First World War and the birth of the new international order, ranging from Arno J. Mayer’s Political Origins of the New Diplomacy (1959) to Margaret MacMillan’s Peacemakers (2003). The centenary of the Great War has added to this vast historiography. We now know more, for example, about the global implications of the war and its aftermath. Most studies, however, still focus on a fairly narrow set of actors and spaces, and a brief period of time. Six months changed the world, the subtitle of MacMillan’s book suggests. But was 1919 really a fresh start? Can we reduce the sortie de guerre to the negotiations in Paris, and the effect that President Woodrow Wilson had on them? The editors and contributors in this volume reject the dominant view of the peace process. 1919 was not a zero hour, they argue, nor a moment of order. Instead, the chapters emphasise the disorder and discontent that shaped the peace well into the 1920s, including voices that went unheard by contemporary decision makers. The book is the result of a 2018 conference by a group of French and Anglo-American scholars and consequently focuses on France and the anglophone world. It has eleven chapters divided into three sections, which address the emergence of internationalism, the post-war discourse in France, and the perspectives of women and non-state groups. The authors draw on a range of archival records, some of them previously untapped, as well as recent scholarship, notably the influential studies by Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela.

Undergraduate Mathematics Students’ Reported Use of Learning Resources Towards Accessing Mathematics

The topic of resources for learning mathematics commonly becomes of interest during times of disruption and rapid change in education. The considerable research on undergraduate mathematics students’ resource use largely focuses on learning resources in the form of material technologies and texts. Concerned that contemporary decisions about resourcing for learning in mathematics may take the form of simply adding material resources, we identify the need for research that is designed around a broader notion of learning resource, and which focuses on what resources students use, as well as how they use multiple resources individually and together towards accessing mathematics. Thus, in our qualitative study of undergraduate mathematics students’ resource use, we adopt a socio-cultural notion of resources as material, human, spatial, temporal and linguistic, and of resource use as transparent. We investigate six students’ resource use, reported in weekly learning logs and focus group interviews. We show that students used material technologies and texts, and human and linguistic resources in three spaces − the live lecture, informal study and tutorial − with study time available for mathematics central to their choice of resources and how they used them. How students put these multiple resources to work (or not) towards accessing mathematics involved complex, agentic, individual work. Students’ use of the lecturer’s writing on the chalkboard, talk and gestures to make lecture notes in the live lecture is an example of this. Our findings offer insights into how lecturers can select learning resources, and also support students to use these towards accessing mathematics.

The effect of transparency and trust on intelligent system acceptance: Evidence from a user-based study

Contemporary decision support systems are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence technology such as machine learning algorithms to form intelligent systems. These systems have human-like decision capacity for selected applications based on a decision rationale which cannot be looked-up conveniently and constitutes a black box. As a consequence, acceptance by end-users remains somewhat hesitant. While lacking transparency has been said to hinder trust and enforce aversion towards these systems, studies that connect user trust to transparency and subsequently acceptance are scarce. In response, our research is concerned with the development of a theoretical model that explains end-user acceptance of intelligent systems. We utilize the unified theory of acceptance and use in information technology as well as explanation theory and related theories on initial trust and user trust in information systems. The proposed model is tested in an industrial maintenance workplace scenario using maintenance experts as participants to represent the user group. Results show that acceptance is performance-driven at first sight. However, transparency plays an important indirect role in regulating trust and the perception of performance.

CORR Insights®: Do Americans Lacking a Local Orthopaedic Surgeon Have Adequate Broadband for Telehealth?

CORR Insights®: Do Americans Lacking a Local Orthopaedic Surgeon Have Adequate Broadband for Telehealth?

Searching for Similarity

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries regulations on expert testimony have sought to minimize the impact of disagreeing experts. Yet, disagreements between forensic musicologists still play a large role in contemporary music copyright decisions. This paper suggests that the disagreement between partisan experts is due, in part, to confirmation bias rather than ethical or financial allegiance. An expert hired by a plaintiff, or the party alleging copyright infringement, may start their analysis by searching for similarities between two works. On the other hand, an expert retained by the defendant, or the party denying infringement, may start their analysis by searching for differences. Given the multiple musical components present in even the “simplest” musical work, both starting points will lead to valid observations about the work, allowing for expert disagreement. This article uses a hypothetical case study to demonstrate the risk of confirmation bias in forensic musicology and concludes by proposing that appointing a panel of third-party musicologists to conduct forensic analyses from a neutral starting point could minimize the effect of confirmation bias in such cases.

Application of Chinese Traditional Elements in Furniture Design Based on Wireless Communication and Artificial Intelligence Decision

The traditional elements in Chinese classical furniture are constantly changing with the development of history and culture. It is not only quite artistic, but also has unique aesthetic value. Since the reform and opening up, Western culture has flocked into our country with the opening of the country, which has led to the blind pursuit of the aesthetic psychology of Europe and the United States, which is also more obvious in the furniture design. This kind of foreign-oriented mentality has caused my country’s furniture design to stagnate or even regress in the display process of traditional cultural elements. The traditional elements contained in the furniture of people’s homes turned out to be less, and some were even completely decorated in European and American styles. This tendency shows that the recognition of traditional elements in furniture design in our country is constantly decreasing, and we must pay more attention to it. In contemporary society, wireless communication and artificial intelligence decision-making have become an important reference for people to solve complex problems and have exerted more and more influence in all fields of social life. In the contemporary era when the global economy and culture are increasingly integrated, the daily life of people in various countries is inevitably affected. Furniture is a relatively important daily necessity in residents’ homes. It has the closest contact with people’s lives. It enhances the expression of traditional elements in furniture in China and wins the recognition of many people. It has a value that cannot be ignored for our work to promote traditional culture. In contemporary furniture style design, how to better integrate traditional cultural elements, so as to achieve the dual purpose of protecting cultural heritage and improving artistic quality and enriching the expression of traditional culture in contemporary furniture, has become a topic of concern to many people. The purpose of this research is to explore how to better integrate traditional elements into contemporary furniture under the background of contemporary technologies such as wireless communication and artificial intelligence decision-making. The study obtained the public’s attitude towards the integration of traditional elements into furniture through questionnaires and judged how to innovate traditional elements through wireless communication and artificial intelligence decision-making, which would be more in line with the aesthetic concept of contemporary people.

THE RELIEF PROVIDED TO A COMPLAINANT UNDER SECTION 163(1)(a) OF THE 2008 COMPANIES ACT: AN EXAMINATION OF THE CRITERION WITH REFERENCE TO PEEL v HAMON J&C ENGINEERING (PTY) LTD

The remedies in favour of minority shareholders that have developed over the years have been informed by the discriminatory manner in which the proper-plaintiff rule has been applied within the management of companies, in disregard of the rights and interests of minority shareholders. Broadly, section 163(1) of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 accords shareholders or directors of a company three circumstances in which they have rights to apply to court for relief. One ground for application is that an act or omission of a company, or a related person, has had a result that is oppressive or unfairly prejudicial to, or that unfairly disregards the interests of, the applicant. From the contemporary debates and court decisions consulted, it is clear that the criterion that complainants must satisfy under section 163(1) – “any act or omission of the company, or a related person, has had a result”, – and the manner in which parties must go about meeting such criterion, is not yet settled. The intention of this paper is to analyse and examine this criterion. The paper seeks to contribute to the debate by using the case of Peel v Hamon J&C Engineering (Pty) Ltd as the point of reference. The case is pertinent because it touches on all the elements that must be satisfied under section 163(1). Secondly, much as the decision is supported, it seems an error of law was made in one aspect of the decision.

The legitimacy of criminalizing drugs: Applying the ‘harm principle’ of John Stuart Mill to contemporary decision-making

The article assesses the legitimacy of criminalizing drugs on the basis of relevant liberty-limiting principles. Where appropriate, empirical findings about drugs, drug use and drug policies are used to make the assessment. John Stuart Mill's harm principle is the pivotal element of this exploration and Joel Feinberg's framework of the moral limits of criminal law is used as a heuristic. First, the article considers whether legal moralism or legal paternalism provide arguments convincing enough to justify the criminalizing of drugs. Second, it explores whether individual conduct that does not harm others but causes harm to society by accumulation provides sufficient justification. The article concludes that drug use falls within the jurisdiction of individual choice that Mill identifies in his principle of liberty and the ‘accumulative harm’ perspective does not carry enough weight to justify their prohibition, and therefore society is not morally authorized to criminalize drugs.

Model Pengambilan Keputusan Berwisata

The travelling decision model reflects the Characteristics and type of travel. It differentiates and compares the tendencies of decision-making behaviour in different situational. The Travelling decision is established by the different motives of each individualand group. Where the situational factor affects the behaviour of decision making. Most of the decision-making processes require the involvement of behaviour in using the information like in contemporary decision making. one of the examples is the decision to travel. The logical decision making is the decision made through clear steps that reflects the different characteristics of behaviour in specific decision situations which the values are related and chosen tourist destination are suitable and desirable

Gestation-Based Viability–Difficult Decisions with Far-Reaching Consequences

Most clinicians rely on outcome data based on completed weeks of gestational of fetal maturity for antenatal and postnatal counseling, especially for preterm infants born at the margins of viability. Contemporary estimation of gestational maturity, based on ultrasounds, relies on the use of first-trimester scans, which offer an accuracy of ±3–7 days, and depend on the timing of the scans and the measurements used in the calculations. Most published literature on the outcomes of babies born prematurely have reported on short- and long-term outcomes based on completed gestational weeks of fetal maturity at birth. These outcome data change significantly from one week to the next, especially around the margin of gestational viability. With a change in approach solely from decisions based on survival, to disability-free survival and long-term functional outcomes, the complexity of the parental and care provider’s decision-making in the perinatal and postnatal period for babies born at less than 25 weeks gestation remains challenging. While sustaining life following birth at the margins of viability remains our priority—identifying and mitigating risks associated with extremely preterm birth begins in the perinatal period. The challenge of supporting the normal maturation of these babies postnatally has far-reaching consequences and depends on our ability to sustain life while optimizing growth, nutrition, and the repair of organs compromised by the consequences of preterm birth. This article aims to explore the ethical and medical complexities of contemporary decision-making in the perinatal and postnatal periods. We identify gaps in our current knowledge of this topic and suggest areas for future research, while offering a perspective for future collaborative decision-making and care for babies born at the margins of viability.

Machine learning from clinical data sets of a contemporary decision for orthodontic tooth extraction.

To examine the robustness of the published machine learning models in the prediction of extraction vs non-extraction for a diverse US sample population seen by multiple providers. Diverse group of 838 patients (208 extraction, 630 non-extraction) were consecutively enrolled. Two sets of input features (117 and 22) including clinical and cephalometric variables were identified based on previous studies. Random forest (RF) and multilayer perception (MLP) models were trained using these feature sets on the sample population and evaluated using measures including accuracy (ACC) and balanced accuracy (BA). A technique to identify incongruent data was used to explore underlying characteristics of the data set and split all samples into 2 groups (G1 and G2) for further model training. Performance of the models (75%-79% ACC and 72%-76% BA) on the total sample population was lower than in previous research. Models were retrained and evaluated using G1 and G2 separately, and individual group MLP models yielded improved accuracy for G1 (96% ACC and 94% BA) and G2 (88% ACC and 85% BA). RF feature ranking showed differences between top features for G1 (maxillary crowding, mandibular crowding and L1-NB) and G2 (age, mandibular crowding and lower lip to E-plane). An incongruent data pattern exists in a consecutively enrolled patient population. Future work with incongruent data segregation and advanced artificial intelligence algorithms is needed to improve the generalization ability to make it ready to support clinical decision-making.

Aristotle’s modes of persuasion and valence effects on online review trustworthiness and usefulness

ABSTRACT Online reviews are an integral destination in the contemporary consumer decision journey as consumers systematically employ them in their decision making processes. Despite burgeoning online review literature, questions remain regarding how specific content types affect consumer judgments and decisions. This research uses Aristotle’s Modes of Persuasions (ethos, pathos, logos) as a theoretical foundation and examines trustworthiness and usefulness perceptions of these rhetorical appeals in conjunction with online review valence (positive vs. negative). Two studies employ a full-factorial between-subjects design to evaluate the 14 distinct review stimuli on trustworthiness and usefulness perceptions. Though some deviations occurred, results generally indicate that reviews featuring logos (including reviews with other modes types) lead to greater perceptions of trustworthiness and usefulness, particularly for negative reviews. Findings implications and future research directions are subsequently discussed.

THE FORMATION OF EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTING INFORMATION FOR MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING IN AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES

The questions of accounting and analytical support decision-making in agricultural enterprises are considered. The use of modern information technology and information company providing analytical processing credentials is analyzed. A primary document for the operational control over the implementation of decisions taken in the management of agricultural enterprises and the general formula for assessing the quality of management information’s offered.
 To explore the nature and quality of accounting information in accounting processes at all levels of agricultural production and to identify the factors of monitoring and reporting to ensure the effectiveness and sustainable development of the enterprise. To analyze the contemporary accounting decisions making and analytical systems automating the process of effective decision-making and to offer an algorithm for their practical use in activities of agricultural enterprises.
 For making any decision, regardless the type or the classification criterion, it is necessary to possess complete and quality information, which orients the head to select the optimal solution among the alternative options proposed. Operational tasks which are in modern management of agricultural enterprises require a high level of quality management information, which is formed of accounting and analytical system of the enterprise.
 The effective element for improving the quality of information on agricultural enterprises is the system of controlling. It is the information-analytical basis for decision, control, correction and analysis of effective managerial decisions and combines management accounting, systematization and processing of management information. Such a system should operate in a company structure because it provides comprehensive information about the work of the company, provides planning, based on targets, represents a real alternative problem solving for managers and oversees their implementation. The use of such a system will reduce a significant part of managerial work that will have a positive impact on the quality of managerial decisions.