Flexible Goals Research Articles

Developing a Dynamic Business Strategy: From Research and Goal Setting to Implementation and Evaluation

A dynamic company plan was essential for retaining competitiveness in today’s continuously shifting corporate climate. This review paper explored the effectiveness of combining continuous research, flexible goal formulation, agile execution, and continuing assessment to provide a strong framework for adjusting to market changes, technological breakthroughs, and competitive challenges. This review conducted a comprehensive evaluation of literature published using data from Scopus and Google Scholar. It employed thematic and meta-analytical methodologies to identify the key elements of dynamic strategy creation. The main discoveries consisted of the significance of using real-time data analytics to make well-informed decisions, the need for flexible goal-setting frameworks, and the advantages of Agile and Lean techniques in carrying out tasks. Furthermore, the implementation of ongoing evaluation and feedback processes was essential for improving tactics and maintaining a competitive edge. The review also highlighted problems such as the integration of real-time data, the establishment of flexible goals, and the promotion of organisational agility. Subsequent investigations prioritised examining the effects of developing technology and dynamic tactics on small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). This examination offered a thorough comprehension of how to manage and flourish in the current dynamic business environment by combining theoretical ideas and practical experiences. Keywords: Dynamic Business Strategy Continuous Research, Flexible Goal Formulation, Agile Execution Ongoing Assessment, Real-Time Data Analytics, Agile Methodologies Lean.

A Continuous Time Framework for Sequential Goal-Based Wealth Management

We develop a continuous time framework for sequential goals-based wealth management. A stochastic factor process drives asset price dynamics and the client’s goal amount and income. We prove the weak dynamic programming principle for the value function of our control problem, which we show to be the unique viscosity solution of the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. We develop an equivalent and computationally efficient representation of the Hamiltonian, which yields the optimal portfolio within a factor-dependent opportunity set defined by the maximum and minimum variance hypersurfaces. Our analysis shows that it is optimal to fund an expiring goal up to the level where the marginal benefit of additional fundedness is exceeded by the opportunity cost of diverting wealth from future goals. An all-or-nothing investor is more risk averse toward an approaching goal deadline if well funded, but more risk seeking if not on track with upcoming goals, compared with an investor with flexible goals. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, finance. Funding: This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Discovery Grant RGPIN-2020-06290] and Fi-Tek.

Dynamic criticality for infrastructure prioritization in complex environments

As infrastructure confront rapidly changing environments, there is an immediate need to provide the flexibility to pivot resources and how infrastructures are prioritized. Yet infrastructures are often categorized based on static criticality framings. We describe dynamic criticality as the flexibility to reprioritize infrastructure resources during disturbances. We find that the most important prerequisite for dynamic criticality is organizational adaptive capacity characterized by flexible goals, structures, sensemaking, and strategies. Dynamic capabilities are increasingly important in the Anthropocene, where accelerating conditions, uncertainty, and growing complexity are challenging infrastructures. We review sectors that deployed dynamic management approaches amidst changing disturbances: leadership and organizational change, defense, medicine, manufacturing, and disaster response. We use an inductive thematic analysis to identify key themes and competencies and analyze capabilities that describe dynamic criticality. These competencies drive adaptive capacity and open up the flexibility to pivot what is deemed critical, depending on the particulars of the hazard. We map these competencies to infrastructure systems and describe how infrastructure organizations may build adaptive capacity toward flexible priorities.

Barriers and facilitators to the engagement of physical activity among Black and African American cancer survivors during and after treatments.

To identify physical activity (PA) barriers and facilitators among Black and African American (Black/AA) cancer survivors that should be considered in future PA intervention development for this population. A community advisory board (CAB) of Black/AA cancer survivors and patient advocates guided in-depth qualitative interviews (n = 19) that were completed via telephone using a semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and data were analyzed using directed content analysis to detail a report of PA barriers and facilitators during and after cancer treatment. The CAB reviewed and interpreted these barriers and facilitators to identify the final results. Survivors (n = 19) of nine different types of cancer completed interviews. PA barriers during cancer treatments included physical and psychological suffering. PA barriers after cancer treatments included social and environmental constraints (e.g., lack of access needed for PA, safety concerns, and competing priorities). PA facilitators both during and after cancer treatments included family support, faith, and support from other survivors. PA facilitators during treatment also included feeling better after doing PA, setting realistic and flexible goals, and gaining a sense of control of one's health by striving for PA goals. To increase PA among Black/AA cancer survivors, PA interventions are needed that address structural barriers, include the role of faith, leverage family support, highlight the psychological benefits of PA, and use goal setting.

Long-Term Positive Effects of Flexible Partnerships

ABSTRACT This article seeks to illustrate the outcome of entering partnerships with open and flexible goals and lines of communication. Two unique, long-term partnerships at a medium-sized, regional museum of art and science are described, with details of the impact of these partnerships and different audiences served. Using current research on best practices for community partnerships and anecdotal information, the article outlines ways to enter open communication with community partners and what to expect out of long-term partnerships.

Flexible Goals Require that Inflexible Perceptual Systems Produce Veridical Representations: Implications for Realism as Revealed by Evolutionary Simulations.

How veridical is perception? Rather than representing objects as they actually exist in the world, might perception instead represent objects only in terms of the utility they offer to an observer? Previous work employed evolutionary modeling to show that under certain assumptions, natural selection favors such "strict-interface" perceptual systems. This view has fueled considerable debate, but we think that discussions so far have failed to consider the implications of two critical aspects of perception. First, while existing models have explored single utility functions, perception will often serve multiple largely independent goals. (Sometimes when looking at a stick you want to know how appropriate it would be as kindling for a campfire, and other times you want to know how appropriate it would be as a weapon for self-defense.) Second, perception often operates in an inflexible, automatic manner-proving "impenetrable" to shifting higher-level goals. (When your goal shifts from "burning" to "fighting," your visual experience does not dramatically transform.) These two points have important implications for the veridicality of perception. In particular, as the need for flexible goals increases, inflexible perceptual systems must become more veridical. We support this position by providing evidence from evolutionary simulations that as the number of independent utility functions increases, the distinction between "interface" and "veridical" perceptual systems dissolves. Although natural selection evaluates perceptual systems only on their fitness, the most fit perceptual systems may nevertheless represent the world as it is.

How Can Video-Reflexive Ethnographers Anticipate Positive Impact on Healthcare Practice?

Evidence suggests that studies aiming to improve healthcare practice should be flexible and prioritise patient, family and clinician engagement. Video-reflexive ethnography (VRE), a form of qualitative research often employed in healthcare settings, is well-suited to these aims. VRE supplements ethnographic techniques with video-recordings of in situ practices, allowing practitioners to reflect on taken-for-granted practices. Its prioritisation of collaboration, affective entanglement, theory-driven analysis and flexibility – aligned with participatory and post-qualitative inquiry (PQI) – can facilitate reflexivity among researchers and participants for local practice improvement. Yet paradoxically, flexibility can hinder the predictability of impact, and demonstrating likely impact is crucial to securing research funding. This article offers practical advice to qualitative researchers facing this methodological challenge. Using three exemplars, we examine how differing onto-epistemological groundings, conceptualisations of participant engagement and researcher positionings affect the timing, predictability, scalability and transferability of each study’s impact. We show how prioritising affective engagement, flexible goals and collaboration can enable local healthcare practice improvement; prioritising theory generation via consultation can lead to traditional, more transferable, forms of impact. We share insights for researchers seeking to improve healthcare using methods inspired by PQI such as VRE. While predicting impact is fraught, optimising conditions for impactful VRE research can be accomplished by: foregrounding epistemology; prioritising affective engagement; aligning research and stakeholder goals; assessing timing and organisational readiness; and considering researcher and participant positioning.

Flexible goals require that inflexible perceptual systems produce veridical representations: Implications for realism as revealed by evolutionary simulations

Flexible goals require that inflexible perceptual systems produce veridical representations: Implications for realism as revealed by evolutionary simulations

Exploring Language Teachers' Beliefs About the Medium of Instruction and Actual Practices Using Complex Dynamic System Theory

This paper explores the relations between teacher beliefs and practices about the medium of instruction from the perspective of complex dynamic systems theory. Through a functional framework of teacher classroom discourse, mixed analytical models were adopted to fully describe the close interaction and non-linear relations between teacher beliefs and practices. Data were collected through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews from three college teachers working in a typical research-based university in northeast China. The findings revealed the complex and dynamic relations between teacher beliefs and practices about the medium of instruction. The consistency and inconsistency between the analysis of interviews and classroom observations represented the tensions and changes between teacher beliefs and practices about the medium of instruction. The study calls for attention to the socially situated and co-evolving relations between teacher beliefs and practices and how they develop with contextual affordances, attractor states, flexible goals, and high dependence on initial conditions.

Re-categorisation of High-Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for Safeguards Verification: Is It Necessary? What are the Other Options?

The desirability and necessity of having a relook into the re-categorization of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defined High-Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Plutonium (Pu) by focussing on the relevance of strategic value/isotopic composition of the materials for re-categorization, for example, creating an intermediate category between the existing Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and weapons-grade uranium (U-235 > 90 per cent) and re-categorizing plutonium into Weapons-Grade Plutonium (WGPU) and Reactor-Grade Plutonium (RGPU), specifying the content of Pu-240 in each case, had been suggested by various specialists. According to them, this re-categorization facilitates flexible IAEA inspection goals, does not compromise on safeguards efficacy and at the same time could result in reduced inspection efforts and costs. An assessment has been made from the available literature and it is possible to conclude that (i) only a relatively small enrichment effort is needed to enrich uranium with 20 per cent U-235 to weapons-grade uranium and (ii) non-weapons-grade plutonium can also be used in nuclear weapons. This article therefore argues that there is no need to change the existing IAEA categorization of HEU and Pu, and the current IAEA practices should continue for a more meaningful safeguards implementation. In addition, it is argued that technological advancements in safeguards verification, and pragmatic adaptation of integrated safeguards, state-level approach may bring about flexibility in safeguards approach. Further, it is suggested that with a large safeguards verification database at its disposal, the IAEA may take a decision on revising the value of Significant Quantity (SQ) without changing other criteria.

Compromise allocation problem in multivariate stratified sampling with flexible fuzzy goals

In a multivariate stratified sample survey, we assumed p-characteristics which are to be measured on each unit of the population and the population is further subdivided into L subpopulations. For estimating the p-population means of all characteristics, which are not known in advance usually, a random sample is taken out from the population with the help of simple random sampling. In a multivariate stratified sample survey, the optimum allocation of one character is not considered as optimum for others. Then a solution is needed to work out an allocation that may be optimum for all characteristics in some sense, called as compromise allocation in sampling literature. The estimation of p-population means in the presence of non-response, for a fixed cost, is discussed. The formulated integer non-linear programming problem is converted into a binary goal programming problem. The problem's solution is obtained by using the concept of flexible fuzzy goal programming.

The Tension Between Flexible Goals and Managerial Control in Exploratory Projects

Over the last 20 years, research on the management of exploratory projects has shown the need for flexible execution methods. However, while the managers involved in such projects recognize the need for flexibility in the means, supervising managers are reluctant to provide flexibility in evolving project goals. Indeed, supervising managers tighten control rather than loosen it when projects become more uncertain. We show empirical evidence of how this resistance emerges in the gray area between “being flexible on the means” and “losing control.” We also offer proposals on how to make exploration projects more acceptable to top management.

Beyond the Quality Illusion: The Learning Era.

By highlighting the intangible, personal, contextual, and illusory nature of "quality," the authors reconceptualize quality improvement as a pluralistic and moral journey. They imagine a new era of quality improvement in which patients and health care providers work together to understand and achieve quality. The authors recommend, for the path forward, a "travel kit" of 10 crucial elements-compassion, deliberation, flexible goals, ownership, the engagement of patients, the inclusion of payers, the involvement of learners, feedback loops, the fostering of learning, and the application of different sources of knowledge-to reframe quality improvement in a new era of learning.

Using Goal Programming To Increase The Efficiency Of Marketing Campaigns

Organizations allocate a part of their financial resources to optimize their market segmentation strategies, plan marketing campaigns, and improve customer relationships. Throughout this process, they use a vast amount of electronic records generated by online and offline purchases to design effective marketing campaigns and introduce personalized promotions for their customers by employing data analytics. The problem of selecting target customer segments, given various priorities and the budget constraint, can be modeled as a multi-objective optimization problem with flexible goals and different priorities, interdependencies and resources constraints. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the use of the goal programming approach to address this challenge.

The concept of management by flexible goals

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the directions of change of contemporary organizations and present assumptions of a management concept based on flexible goals. The paper starts with the presentation of conditions in which modern organizations operate. It is followed by the discussion of the essence of the concept of governance based on flexible goals and description of the principle of agreement about relative improvements. Finally, a model of the organization implementing the management process based on flexible goals is presented and the rules of management based on flexible goals are defined.

Treatment for severe and enduring anorexia nervosa: A review

Many patients with anorexia nervosa develop an intractable and debilitating illness course. Our aims were to (i) conduct a systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of treatment for chronic anorexia nervosa participants, and (ii) identify research informing novel therapeutic approaches for this group. Systematic search (SCOPUS plus previous reviews date 2011) of literature for (i) RCTs of treatment that included anorexia nervosa participants with a mean duration of illness of at least 3 years, (ii) studies reporting new treatments addressing factors associated with chronicity. Evidence of efficacy for treatment approaches in severe and enduring anorexia nervosa is limited. Only one unpublished RCT designed to test a specific psychological approach for these patients was identified. There is a probable advantage for specialist psychotherapy over treatment as usual, and a promising study of relapse prevention with cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for anorexia nervosa (CBT-AN). Open trials have, however, reported developments in psychological therapies that warrant further specific evaluation. These include forms of CBT modified for anorexia nervosa, cognitive remediation therapy with emotion skills training, the Maudsley Model for Treatment of Adults with Anorexia Nervosa, the Community Outreach Partnership Program, Specialist Supportive Clinical Management and the approach of Strober with its emphasis on therapeutic alliance and flexible goals. Treatment trials need to move beyond targeting core eating disorder pathology (primarily weight restoration) and examine efficacy and effectiveness in minimising harm and reducing personal and social costs of chronic illness. There is also a need to develop better definitions of chronicity, with or without treatment 'resistance' specifiers.

Multi-stage modeling using fuzzy multi-criteria feature selection to improve survival prediction of ICU septic shock patients

In many binary medical classification problems, the cost of misclassifying one category is higher than the other, and in these applications it is desirable to employ a classifier with selective sensitivity or specificity. This work explores the utility of a fuzzy multi–criteria function for performance evaluation during knowledge–based medical classification and prediction. The method presented here uses fuzzy optimization to combine the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of classification as goals in a single objective function. This approach is used to assign flexible goals, which can be used to maximize the outcome in terms of each one of the goals. The proposed approach significantly increases the sensitivity and the specificity while maintaining or increasing accuracy. The versatility of the method is further exploited in a multi-model approach, using individual structures of multi-objective optimization of sensitivity and specificity separately, and then combining their outcomes through a decision-making module. Among various medical benefits derived from applying this technique, the divergent feature sets selected by high sensitivity and specificity models lend insight into factors more integrally connected to what causes risk of death for patients.

Reclaiming math for economists: a pedagogical approach to overcoming a persistent barrier to pluralism in economics

This paper presents ideas for a course in the undergraduate economics curriculum designed to de-mystify mathematics and empower students to respond creatively and ethically when they encounter situations that involve mathematics. We build on the strengths of courses that already exist in many departments of mathematics under titles such as ‘Math for the Liberal Arts’. The unpretentious yet comprehensive presentation in texts for those courses, combined with flexible course goals and design provide an effective paradigm for engaging mathematics. We report our experiences in teaching such a course, involving key features of drawing insights from the Moore method to develop mathematical self assurance; using free software to introduce computational thinking; and using history and biography to explore the role of values and ethics.

Measles Control and Elimination in Somalia: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Despite enormous challenges, Somalia has been successfully implementing accelerated measles control activities since 2005. Through innovative strategies and with the support of local and international partners, the country has shown potentials of implementing measles mortality reduction activities in complex emergencies. Measles incidence has been reduced by >80% after the measles catch-up campaigns of 2005-2007, and national reported measles routine immunization coverage with first dose measles containing vaccine has reached 59% for the first time in 2009. However, the near collapse of the health care system and the ongoing insecurity continue to hamper the implementation of recommended measles control and elimination strategies in some parts of the country, making these achievements fragile. Somalia exemplifies the challenges in meeting measles elimination goals in the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean region. As the region is entering its 2010 measles elimination goals, it appears necessary to establish realistic and flexible interim goals for measles control in Somalia that will take into consideration the specificities of the country. Maintaining flexibility in conducting field operations, securing financial resources, multiplying opportunities for measles vaccination, and improving disease monitoring systems will remain vital to sustain and improve current achievements.

Multi-Objective Performance Evaluation Using Fuzzy Criteria: Increasing Sensitivity Prediction for Outcome of Septic Shock Patients

AbstractThis work introduces a fuzzy multi-objective function for performance evaluation in feature selection for a knowledge based medical classification task. Fuzzy optimization was used to combine the sensitivity, specificity, and percentage of correct classifications as objectives, and assign flexible goals to strengthen the sensitivity. Using the same soft computing methods and publicly available septic shock database as in Fialho et al. (2010), an increase in sensitivity of 30% was achieved while maintaining the percentage of correct classifications. Feature subsets selected were different from those previously published, lending insight into factors more integrally connected to what causes risk of death for patients.