Contradictory Preferences Research Articles

Photoenzymatic CO2 Reduction Dominated by Collaborative Matching of Linkage and Linker in Covalent Organic Frameworks.

Artificial photoenzymatic systems based on covalent organic frameworks (COFs) provide an interesting platform for converting CO2 to value-added fuels. However, the dual roles of COFs as photocatalysts and enzyme hosts showcase contradictory preferences for structures, which poses a great challenge for their rational design. Herein, we report the collaborative matching of linkages and linkers in COFs on their ability to exert both photocatalytic activity and enzyme loading, which has been neglected until now. The linkage-dependent linker regulation pattern was elucidated, and the optimal match showed a record-breaking apparent quantum efficiency at 420 nm for photocatalytic cofactor regeneration of 13.95% with a high turnover frequency of 5.3 mmol g-1 h-1, outperforming other reported crystalline framework photocatalysts. Moreover, theoretical calculations and experiments revealed the mechanism underlying the effects of matching the linkage and linker on exciton dissociation and charge migration in photocatalysis. This newfound understanding enabled the construction of COFs with both high photoactivity and large pores closer in size to the formate dehydrogenase, achieving high loading capacity and a suitable confinement effect. Remarkably, the artificial photoenzymatic system constructed according to optimal linkage-linker matching exhibited highly efficient CO2 reduction, yielding formic acid with a specific activity as high as 1.46 mmol g-1 catalyst h-1 and good reusability, paving the way for sustainable CO2 conversion driven by visible light.

Conflicting Student Viewpoints about Online EFL Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Focus on Effective Learning and Well-being

Due to the total shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide countries regardless of their development shifted instruction to the online learning method. This study aims to investigate the views of students in undergraduate studies about the impact of online (EFL) English foreign language learning on educational issues and well-being. Through questionnaires and focus group discussions, participants revealed their real sensitivities and views about online EFL learning, thus both quantitative and qualitative research methods are implemented in the present study. Their experiences showed the advantages that supported their needs during a certain period such as the pandemic, but also the challenges they went through during that time. The study presents social and educational implications that are directly related to technology and environmental conditions during online learning that affected the well-being of students. Results showed that shifting to online classes uncovered contradictory preferences among students regarding online learning and teaching. Finally, this study provides an overview, that in case the implementation of online or hybrid learning is requested again in the future, the necessary preparations that meet the educational and social needs of the students should be taken into account.

The EU's effectiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean migration quandary: challenges to building societal resilience

ABSTRACT Under what conditions does the EU contribute to the prevention of governance breakdown and violent conflict in areas of limited statehood and contested orders by fostering societal resilience? This study seeks answers to this question by examining the EU's effectiveness in fostering societal resilience in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey while they have coped with risks emerging from cross-border mobility, mass influx, and prolonged stays of the forcibly displaced due to the Syrian crisis since 2011. The study argues that the EU has been constrained in building societal resilience. The findings suggest that the EU's effectiveness is limited by context-specific social, political, and economic risks in host countries; divergence among policy actors’ often contradictory preferences; and the impact of the EU's policies in outsourcing management of forced displacement. The study concludes that the EU needs to link the implementation of its short-term pragmatic programmes that primarily enable state resilience in crisis contexts with its long-term liberal vision for fostering high level societal resilience with democratic principles and institutions.

When top-down meets bottom-up: Local officials and selective responsiveness within fiscal policymaking in China

• We investigate how public opinion and superiors’ order influence local budget-making in China. • A survey experiment involving 3059 local officials was implemented and treatment effects were identified. • When exposed to superiors’ orders only, officials might selectively obey those for investment but ignore those for welfare. • When public opinion conflicts with superiors’ order, local officials might choose to respond to local citizens. • Local officials’ policy preferences have a strong impact on their policy decisions. Responding to public opinion is a fundamental function of the modern state. While numerous empirical studies have examined the opinion-policy link in the context of democracies, few have explored policy responsiveness in authoritarian countries and we know little about how local governments make policy decisions when the citizens’ preferences conflict with the directives of the superiors. Drawing on a survey experiment involving 3059 local officials in China, this study examines whether superiors’ priorities and citizens’ opinions have an impact on fiscal decision-making and how officials react to contradictory preferences between their superiors and the local public. Using randomized treatments that provide different scenarios across the samples, we find that local officials selectively comply with superiors’ directives and local citizens’ opinions. On the one hand, local officials would follow superiors’ directive for economic investment but might ignore those for welfare provision; on the other hand, they tend to respond to public opinion in a limited but significant fashion when the citizens’ preferences conflict with the superiors’ priorities. Moreover, the statistical results suggest that local officials’ policy preferences have a strong impact on their policy decisions. These findings help us to understand the behavior of local officials and highlight their roles in devising fiscal policies that foster local development.

A Two-Player Coalition Cooperative Scheme for the Bodyguard Allocation Problem

We address the bodyguard allocation problem (BAP), an optimization problem that illustrates the conflict of interest between two classes of processes with contradictory preferences within a distributed system. While a class of processes prefers to minimize its distance to a particular process called the root, the other class prefers to maximize it; at the same time, all the processes seek to build a communication spanning tree with the maximum social welfare. The two state-of-the-art algorithms for this problem always guarantee the generation of a spanning tree that satisfies a condition of Nash equilibrium in the system; however, such a tree does not necessarily produce the maximum social welfare. In this paper, we propose a two-player coalition cooperative scheme for BAP, which allows some processes to perturb or break a Nash equilibrium to find another one with a better social welfare. By using this cooperative scheme, we propose a new algorithm called FFC-BAPS for BAP. We present both theoretical and empirical analyses which show that this algorithm produces better quality approximate solutions than former algorithms for BAP.

Is longevity a value for older adults?

Longevity is an aspiration at the population level, a goal of public health policy and research. In the later decades of life, longevity goals also deserve scrutiny at the personal level to understand whether people welcome longer lives. Contradictory preferences could be expected, both the embrace of longevity and hesitation. The desire for extended life was examined using qualitative interviews in parallel designs among 90 persons aged 62 and older at sites in Germany, China, and the United States. Just over one third of the participants declined to express aspirations for longer life, some because they felt that their lives had reached a stage of completion and some as a form of fate acceptance. A larger number did indeed want extended lives but less than half estimated an amount of time that they desired. Moreover, there was strong opinion that longer lives were desirable only if current or acceptable levels of health were maintained. These replies indicate that future time is welcome so long as it occurs in the “third age” of independent living and not in the “fourth age” of vulnerability and decline. Replies also reveal that many older adults in these three cultures conceptually map the future not as a smooth continuum of time but rather as segmented into states, one kind of which is wanted and one which is not.

Query-based learning of acyclic conditional preference networks from contradictory preferences

Conditional preference networks (CP-nets) provide a compact and intuitive graphical tool to represent the preferences of a user. However, learning such a structure is known to be a difficult problem due to its combinatorial nature. We propose, in this paper, a new, efficient, and robust query-based learning algorithm for acyclic CP-nets. In particular, our algorithm takes into account the contradictions between multiple users’ preferences by searching in a principled way the variables that affect the preferences. We provide complexity results of the algorithm, and demonstrate its efficiency through an empirical evaluation on synthetic and on real databases.

A heuristic algorithm for solving a Multiple Criteria Carpooling Optimization (MCCO) problem

Abstract The authors consider in this paper a carpooling optimization problem, which is formulated (based on their previous work) as a constrained multiple criteria decision-making problem. Different aspects and contradictory preferences of individual stakeholders/carpoolers (drivers and passengers), including: economic, comfort- and safety-oriented, and social are considered. The formulated problem is focused on the joint matching of carpoolers and planning their routes in order to maximize the utility of all travelers. To solve the problem, the authors develop a heuristic computational procedure that applies a problem-specific heuristic method (carpooler’s matching component) combined with a utility-based shortest path algorithm (routing component). The procedure aggregates all of the considered criteria by a weighted scaling function and then applies a greedy algorithm to generate most satisfactory routes for all of the carpoolers. The proposed approach is tested through simulations on a set of real cities, and a comprehensive analysis of the results is then presented.

Balancing sustainability and commerce in international negotiation: the EU and its fisheries partnership agreements

ABSTRACTSince the 1980s, the European Union (EU) has negotiated fisheries agreements with numerous maritime countries. These agreements stipulate the conditions under which the European fishing industry gains access to foreign territorial waters. In the past two decades, the EU also wants to advance development objectives and promote environmental sustainability with these agreements. Not surprisingly, EU negotiators have found it hard to accommodate these often contradictory preferences. I argue that a mushrooming institutional structure of EU decision-making in the negotiation and ratification of fisheries agreements makes it increasingly hard for concentrated commercial interests to influence the outcome of the negotiations. As a result, diffuse interests representing a dominant normative discourse of social and ecological responsibility increasingly dominate the aggregation of preferences. I also find that the Commission (and its allies in the Council) benefit from the heterogeneity of diverse lobbies to pursue their geopolitical goals, again privileging the non-commercial dimensions of these agreements.

Rough set-based argumentative approach to support collaborative multicriteria knowledge classification

In this paper, we propose an argumentative approach aimed at automating the collaborative multicriteria knowledge classification process that is based on the resolution of conflicts between decision makers who have contradictory preferences while exploiting and managing their multiple points of view to identify ‘crucial knowledge’ that needs to be capitalised. This approach relies on the dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA) and is based on a communication protocol made of strategies allowing decision makers to exchange arguments and counter-arguments to achieve a considerable mutual impact on their different preferences and thus to come to an agreement. All exchanged arguments and counter-arguments are subject to a depth evaluation process to enable decision makers to consider the appropriate group decision to make. Our case study revealed that 75% of the detected conflicts could be resolved by applying this approach.

Tasting as a projective technique

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits of tasting as a projective technique (PT) in explicating consumers' thoughts and feelings towards food and beverage products.Design/methodology/approachIn total, ten focus groups were conducted with 35 consumers, 14 wine producers, and 13 mediators. The mediator category included those involved in marketing, wholesaling, retailing, and judging wine. Participants in each focus group were given the same four wines to taste. Initially they were invited to discuss their views on wine quality. The participants were then presented with the wines and asked to discuss their responses to them, particularly their perceptions of the quality of the wines.FindingsThe primary findings related to: the changes in apparent certainty levels amongst professionals and high‐involvement informants; exposure of real and contradictory preferences; role of cognitive, affective, and sensory responses to wine; and interpretation of the language of tasting.Research limitations/implicationsTasting as a PT has the potential to generate additional and insightful data that can increase our appreciation of the complexities involved in consumption experiences. In particular, it can reveal the uncertainty that can affect consumers' product evaluations and explicate the multiple evaluation pathways that can be used by consumers of food and beverage products.Originality/valueThe paper is of value in showing that the ability of PTs to yield both stated and actual preferences provides insight into the salient external factors that impact on consumption decisions and gives an indication of where marketers could most effectively focus their product development and promotional attention.

Making and breaking the rules: French policy on EU ‘gouvernement économique’

French policy-makers have been caught in a dilemma with regard to the construction of the economic governance dimension of economic and monetary union (EMU) between two strong but contradictory preferences: on the one hand, the supranational consequences of an interventionist approach to macroeconomic policy and, on the other hand, a Gaullist reflex to retain sovereignty as much as possible and to insist upon intergovernmentalism in EU-level macroeconomic policy-making. From the late 1980s to the present day, French governments have promoted the construction of economic governance in ways which can be seen in terms of these contradictory preferences and they have consistently maintained a communicative discourse that challenged the supremacy of the Treaty-based ‘price stability’ goals of economic governance. The development of economic governance has involved less ‘top-down’ Europeanization and ‘transformation’ of French policy than ‘bottom-up’ Europeanization, ‘accommodation’ and ‘absorption’.

Akrasia in the Protagoras and the Republic

AbstractAlthough it is a commonplace that the Protagoras and the Republic present diffent views of akrasia, the nature of the difference is not well understood. I argue that the logic of the famous argument in the Protagoras turns just on two crucial assumptions: that desiring is having evaluative beliefs (or that valuing is desiring), and that no one can have contradictory preferences at the same time; hedonism is not essential to the logic of the argument. And the logic of the argument for the division of the soul in the Republic requires the rejection of just the second of these assumptions, but not the evaluative conception of desire. I also maintain that Plato was aware, at the time of composition, of these features of the argumentation of his dialogues. Finally, I argue that there is reason to think that, even at the time of the Protagoras, Plato held the conception of the soul expressed in the Republic, and not anything like that expressed in the famous argument of the Protagoras. The Protagoras view, even without hedonism, is a poor expression of the thesis that virtue is knowledge.

La politique culturelle de l'an II : les infortunes de la propagande révolutionnaire au théâtre

Martin Nadeau, The Cultural Policy of Year II : the Misfortunes of Revolutionary Propaganda on Stage. The conceptualization of the French Revolution in terms of new practices which enhance politics with symbolic meaning led to this study of the role of the theatre in the revolutionary political arena. The theatre, a dominant cultural practice at this time, was bound to catch the attention of the political authorities. The pendulum swung from freedom of action, with the decree of 13 January 1791, to tight control, with that of 2 August 1793. A comparison of the records of stage productions and the sometimes contradictory preferences of the National Assembly, the Paris Municipality, the insurrectionary Commune, the Committee of Public Safety and the Public Education Committee, highlights the issues at stake in the debate on ways to mediate the general will. As a public cultural practice, the theatre gave expression to a complex and highly unstable discourse, in which actors and actresses, but also the audience, played the role of co-authors in configuring the meaning of a stage production. This was by no means an easy cultural practice to steer from the viewpoint of the political authorities, be it in terms of propaganda or of censorship.

Food preference of the sea urchinsEchinus acutusandE. esculentus

The reactions of the sea urchins Echinus acutus and E. esculentus to Laminaria digitata and L. saccharina with or without the encrusting bryozoan Membranipora membranacea were tested in feeding‐ and Y‐maze experiments. The experiments clearly showed that the two sea urchin species have almost identical responses to the food items offered, and that they prefer to eat L. saccharina encrusted with Membranipora. In their search for food, however, the sea urchins show the strongest attraction to the unencrusted alga. The ecological implications of these seemingly contradictory preferences are discussed.