Mutual Utility Research Articles

Modelling contagious viral dynamics: a kinetic approach based on mutual utility.

The temporal evolution of a contagious viral disease is modelled as the dynamic progression of different classes of population with individuals interacting pairwise. This interaction follows a binary mechanism typical of kinetic theory, wherein agents aim to improve their condition with respect to a mutual utility target. To this end, we introduce kinetic equations of Boltzmann-type to describe the time evolution of the probability distributions of the multi-agent system. The interactions between agents are defined using principles from price theory, specifically employing Cobb-Douglas utility functions for binary exchange and the Edgeworth box to depict the common exchange area where utility increases for both agents. Several numerical experiments presented in the paper highlight the significance of this mechanism in driving the phenomenon toward endemicity.

ANALYTICAL DESIGN OF COMPOSITES IN TERMS OF SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Introduction. The development of composite materials is considered with account for the shifts of paradigms based on the basic models of the continuous self-developing environment towards paradigms based on the models of the structured self-developing environment using the ideas and methods of the system approach and synergetics. The system approach can: reduce or even eliminate the uncertainty inherent to the problem to be solved; reconstruct it in models meeting the objectives of the study; identify objects, properties, and relationships in the system under consideration, taking into account the mutual influence of the external environment. Methods. It is shown that the structural organization of the material determines the design of the product or structure and largely determines the functional properties of the entire system. Composite materials are considered as large, complex systems formed based on a modular principle; material properties are determined on the basis of autonomous studies of individual subsystems. Results. It is assumed that individual subsystems have a certain degree of autonomy; it is possible to introduce customizable reference models with the simultaneous decentralization of modules by inputs; the conditions for transferring the results of autonomous studies to the system as a whole are determined by the completeness of understanding the processes of the formation of the structure and properties of the system. In the development of composites, the relative importance, the mutual utility of the quality criteria, a reasonable balance between the internal logic of science and its practical significance are taken into account. Partial criteria are analyzed, and a generalized quality criterion for the building material is formalized. The following is considered: the complexity of the object of study (multi-dimensionality, multi-connectedness, incompleteness of diagnostic information), diagnostic interpretation of the analyzed factors, the probabilistic nature of diagnostic information (using methods of both concrete and abstract-logical cognition; each new logical stage continues the previous one and serves as a prerequisite for the previous one).

America and the special relationship: the impact of the Trump administration on relations with the UK.

The article seeks to assess to what extent the Trump presidency damaged the Anglo-American special relationship. By drawing on a theoretical framework that is broader than much of the existing literature, this article argues that the Trump presidency inflicted largely short-term damage on the special relationship. Though common interests, common sentiments and mutual utility between the US and the UK were weakened in the Trump era, the institutionalized underpinnings of the special relationship were sufficiently robust to withstand the corrosive effects of the ‘Trump doctrine’. While President Biden cannot undo the negative impact of Brexit on the UK’s utility to the US, the early period of his presidency has witnessed the special relationship’s rapid recovery from most of the damage inflicted by the Trump presidency.

The Experience of Designing Building Materials

The evolution of views on the development of composite materials is analyzed from the point of view of paradigm shift based on basic models of a continuous self-developing environment towards paradigms based on models of a structured self-developing environment based on ideas and methods of a systematic approach and synergetics. A system approach can reduce or even eliminate the uncertainty inherent in the problem being solved; to reconstruct it in models that meet the objectives of the study; identify objects, properties and relationships of the investigated system, taking into account the mutual influence of the external environment. It is shown that the structural organization of the material determines the structural design of the product or structure and largely determines the functional properties of the entire system. Composite materials are considered as large complex systems formed on a modular principle: integrative properties are approximately determined on the basis of autonomous studies of separate subsystems. Separate subsystems are supposed to have a certain degree of autonomy; the introduction of custom reference models with the simultaneous decentralization of modules by inputs is possible. It is shown that the conditions for transferring the results of autonomous studies to the system as a whole are determined by the completeness of understanding the processes of formation of the structure and properties of the system. When developing composites, the PATTERN method and the SATURN technology are used to determine the criteria for assessing the relative importance, mutual utility, state and timing of research and development, maintaining a reasonable balance between the internal logic of science and its practical significance. Partial criteria and formalization of the generalized quality criterion of building material are analyzed. As an illustration, the definition of flocculation conditions in a disperse system is given on the basis of its representation as a system of particles moving under the action of gravitational and pair interaction forces, interaction with boundaries and a dispersion medium. It is shown that the uniformity of the steady-state configuration and the sedimentation stability of the polydisperse system are mainly determined by the volumetric degree of filling. Given the complexity of the composite as an object of study (multidimensionality, multiconnectedness, incompleteness of diagnostic information), diagnostic interpretation of the analyzed factors, the probabilistic nature of diagnostic information the necessity of using methods of both specific and abstract logical cognition is shown (each new logical stage continues the previous one and serves as the initial prerequisite for the previous one).

Anglo-American Relations and Soft Power: Transitioning the Special Relationship

This article argues that British soft power is a hitherto under-recognised factor in explaining the survival and changing character of the Anglo-American special relationship during the so-called long-1970s. First, the long-term interpenetration of UK and US soft power became a shared resource that British and American governments used to cohere their bilateral relations and provided for a ‘common cast of mind’ that facilitated high levels of policy congruence. Second, the particular international and domestic political changes that occurred during the long 1970s elevated the relative importance of soft power and thereby gave the British, within American calculations of mutual utility, a means of offsetting, in part at least, the relative decline of their hard power capabilities.

Archimedean Utility Copulas with Polynomial Generating Functions

Archimedean utility copulas comprise the general class of multiattribute utility functions that have additive ordinal preferences and are strictly increasing with each argument for at least one reference value of the complementary attributes. The construction of an Archimedean utility copula requires an assessment of an individual utility function for each attribute as well as a single generating function. The assessment of individual utility functions for the attributes of a decision has had a large share of literature coverage, but there has been much less literature on the construction of the generating function for the Archimedean functional form. This paper focuses on the assessment of Archimedean utility copulas with polynomial generating functions. We provide methods to assess these generating functions and derive bounds on the types of utility surfaces that they provide. We demonstrate that linear generating functions correspond to the multiplicative form of mutual utility independence, and then we show how higher-order polynomial generating functions allow more flexibility in the types of multiattribute utility functions and corner values that can be modeled. The results of this paper provide a new method to help the analyst construct multiattribute utility functions in a simple way when utility independence conditions do not hold.

The strange non-retreat of the state: implications for the sociology of work

The article critically reviews the reasons for the decline in the engagement with the state in the sociology of work after the 1970s, and for its resurgence after the financial crisis of 2008. It assesses three separate streams of literature (sociology of work, political sociology and welfare state sociology), and argues for the benefits of their integration. Articles in this special section of Work, employment and society provide examples of the mutual utility of such integration. This introduction concludes by identifying some important avenues for future research on the state and work.

Rollout Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Network-Assisted Target Search

We consider a mobile, autonomous searcher that aims to find the source of a broadcast message in a network of location-agnostic wireless sensor nodes. In certain types of networks, the hop count of the broadcast message, given the distance from the source node, is well approximated by a simple parametric distribution. The mobile searcher can interrogate a nearby node to obtain, with a given success probability, the hop count of the broadcast message. The search is modeled as an infinite horizon, undiscounted cost, and partially observable Markov decision process. A computationally efficient approximate online solution is obtained through policy rollout using a novel heuristic. Simulation results show that our rollout approach outperforms commonly used search methods based on a mutual information utility. We quantify the loss due to the use of an approximate hop count observation model and study the effect of statistical dependence between observations. Furthermore, we discuss how to account for this dependence by adapting an integer autoregressive model for the hop count.

Multiattribute decision analysis using strict preference relations

To identify multiattribute utility functions under the assumption of the mutual utility independence, a decision maker must specify indifference points and subjective probabilities precisely. By relaxing this rigorous evaluation, multiattribute value models with incomplete information have been developed. In this paper, we present a new method finding the best alternative through strict preference relations derived from the decision maker by asking questions that are relatively easy to answer compared to the indifference questions. In our method, alternatives consistent with the derived strict preference relations are obtained by solving mathematical programming problems with constraints representing the preference relations, and eventually we can find the most preferred alternative by deriving additional preference relations.

Multi-attribute non-expected utility

In management applications of risk theory, planning and decision making are typically concerned with complex multi-dimensional attributes of risk and utility trade-offs between them. This paper presents a novel approach to multi-attribute non-expected utility which is especially designed to serve application and risk management purposes. It is based on a recently developed non-expected utility model that accommodates systematic violations of expected utility of various kinds observed in risky choice experiments. In the model, the possible outcomes of risky decisions are assumed to be multi-dimensional, that is, classified, measured, compared and assessed from different economic and non-economic perspectives simultaneously. Of the risk attributes to be jointly evaluated in a decision problem, each is supposed to be utility independent of the complementary set of all the other attributes also considered. Mutual utility independence and additive independence are particularly pronounced forms of utility independence. An order-preserving preference functional exists if the agent’s risk preferences satisfy familiar rationality requirements. The functional provides a consistently scaled, multi-linear representation in terms of single-attribute probability-dependent utility functions. Finally, the formalism is applied to explain observed trade-offs between monetary benefits obtained, and fatalities incurred, in the operation of large-scale industrial systems.

Empirical Validation of Patient versus Population Preferences in Calculating QALYs

A fundamental assumption of the quality-adjusted life year model is mutual utility independence between life years and health status. However, this assumption may not hold for severe health states: living in a severe health state may cause disutility beyond a so-called maximal endurable time (MET). It is unknown, however, whether persons without experience of a disease, who are often used in health state valuation exercises, account for MET. Using data from 159 respondents from two convenience samples in Germany who were presented a health state description of depression, this study shows that persons without experience of depression had a lower rate of MET than persons with a history of depression. Furthermore, they had more preference reversals in case of MET, thus violating a fundamental principle of rational choice theory. While these findings suggest that severe health states should be assessed by patients rather than the community, confirmation in additional studies outside Germany and based on other health-state valuation techniques and diseases is recommended.

Functional ANOVA, ultramodularity and monotonicity: Applications in multiattribute utility theory

Utility function properties as monotonicity and concavity play a fundamental role in reflecting a decision-maker’s preference structure. These properties are usually characterized via partial derivatives. However, elicitation methods do not necessarily lead to twice-differentiable utility functions. Furthermore, while in a single-attribute context concavity fully reflects risk aversion, in multiattribute problems such correspondence is not one-to-one. We show that Tsetlin and Winkler’s multivariate risk attitudes imply ultramodularity of the utility function. We demonstrate that geometric properties of a multivariate utility function can be successfully studied by utilizing an integral function expansion (functional ANOVA). The necessary and sufficient conditions under which monotonicity and/or ultramodularity of single-attribute functions imply the monotonicity and/or ultramodularity of the corresponding multiattribute function under additive, preferential and mutual utility independence are then established without reliance on the utility function differentiability. We also investigate the relationship between the presence of interactions among the attributes of a multiattribute utility function and the decision-maker’s multivariate risk attitudes.

Sensitivity of decisions with imprecise utility trade-off parameters using boundary linear utility

In earlier work we have developed methods for analysing decision problems based on multi-attribute utility hierarchies, structured by mutual utility independence, which are not precisely specified due to unwillingness or inability of an individual or group to agree on precise values for the trade-offs between the various attributes. Our analysis is based on whatever limited collection of preferences we may assert between attribute collections. In this paper we introduce three methods to assess the robustness of our selected decision. Two of these use the metric generated by the weights of the boundary linear utility. The third applies directly to the space of trade-off parameters.

Multiattribute Utility Satisfying a Preference for Combining Good with Bad

An important challenge in multiattribute decision analysis is the choice of an appropriate functional form for the utility function. We show that if a decision maker prefers more of any attribute to less and prefers to combine good lotteries with bad, as opposed to combining good with good and bad with bad, her utility function should be a weighted average (a mixture) of multiattribute exponential utilities (“mixex utility”). In the single-attribute case, mixex utility satisfies properties typically thought to be desirable and encompasses most utility functions commonly used in decision analysis. In the multiattribute case, mixex utility implies aversion to any multivariate risk. Risk aversion with respect to any attribute decreases as that attribute increases. Under certain restrictions, such risk aversion also decreases as any other attribute increases, and a multivariate one-switch property is satisfied. One of the strengths of mixex utility is its ability to represent cases where utility independence does not hold, but mixex utility can be consistent with mutual utility independence and take on a multilinear form. An example illustrates the fitting of mixex utility to preference assessments.

Invariant multiattribute utility functions

We present a method to characterize the preferences of a decision maker in decisions with multiple attributes. The approach modifies the outcomes of a multivariate lottery with a multivariate transformation and observes the change in the decision maker’s certain equivalent. If the certain equivalent follows this multivariate transformation, we refer to this situation as multiattribute transformation invariance, and we derive the functional form of the utility function. We then show that any additive or multiplicative utility function that is formed of continuous and strictly monotonic utility functions of the individual attributes must satisfy transformation invariance with a multivariate transformation. This result provides a new interpretation for multiattribute utility functions with mutual utility independence as well as a necessary and sufficient condition that must be satisfied when assuming these widely used functional forms. We work through several examples to illustrate the approach.

Almost-Pareto Decision Sets in Imprecise Utility Hierarchies

Abstract We develop methods for analysing decision problems based on multi-attribute utility hierarchies, structured by mutual utility independence, which are not precisely specified due to unwillingness or inability of an individual or group to agree on precise values for the trade-offs between the various attributes. Instead, our analysis is based on whatever limited collection of preferences we may assert between attribute collections. These preferences identify a class of Pareto optimal decisions. We show how to reduce the class further by combining rules which are almost equivalent and introduce general principles appropriate to selecting decisions in an imprecise hierarchy. The approach is illustrated by the design of a university course module.

Social History and World History: Prospects for Collaboration

This article discusses the several reasons for the complex relationship between social history and world history. It notes also the increasing interest among social historians for reconsidering their geographical range and base, which provides new opportunities for interaction between the fields. Using childhood as an example, the article argues for the mutual utility of running social history topics through world history periodization and related concerns with interregional contacts.

The “militarizing” of organization and management studies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to undertake an analysis of the engagement of organization and management literature with military and militarization themes and issues.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretive, textual literature analysis which identifies a range of international themes and issues in relation to militarization.FindingsIdentifies a modernistic‐managerialist tendency in the organization and management literature which elects to engage with military aspects and issues. This is predicated on a perceived mutual utility between the apparently separable “military” and “non‐military” domains and revolves around a series of commonly invoked texts and sets of popular cultural representations. Also recognises that organization and management commentaries influenced by critical perspectives tend not to engage so readily with military contexts and points up political commitments that might make this the case. Identifies approaches to blurring military/non‐military divides in current militaristic representations.Research limitations/implicationsProvides a considered thematic and paradigmatic reflection on militarization commentary in extant organization and management literature. Identifies and explores methodological challenges in considering militarization and its pervasive effects and delineations.Practical implicationsMaps the organization and management literature in relation to militarization and generates a series of critical platforms from which to embark on a corresponding exploration of militarization.Originality/valueConducts a novel consideration of the limitations of management and organization literature's hitherto treatment of military and militarization aspects. Generates a fruitful set of conditions and insights for international critical organization and management approaches to military topics and issues.

Exponential health utility

In a recent contribution Happich and Muhlbacher proposed an axiom of constant absolute trade-off of life-years for health states, and studied the family of QALY models satisfying this axiom under expected utility and mutual utility independence between life-years and health states. Here we provide a complete characterization of the family of QALY models satisfying these conditions. This family should not be mistaken for the family of multiplicative exponential QALY models; in particular, it violates the zero condition.

A semi-separable utility function for health profiles

Under expected utility, the individual preferences over lotteries on health profiles can be represented either by a multiplicative utility function, when mutual utility independence is claimed, or, an additive one (known as QALY), when it is claimed additive independence. In this paper, we impose a weaker condition, i.e., utility independence with respect to the initial health states of an individual decision maker, initial independence, and we derive a semi-separable utility function. In addition, we assess its parameters by a Standard Gamble procedure. Our results could be useful in cost-utility analysis for carrying out health care program evaluations.