Adaptive Preferences Research Articles

Bioethics, Adaptive Preferences, and Judging the Quality of a Life with Disability

Both mainstream and disability bioethics sometimes contend that the self-assessment of disabled people about their own well-being is distorted by adaptive preferences that are only held because other, better options are unavailable. I will argue that both of the most common ways of understanding adaptive preferences—the autonomy-based account and the well-being account—would reject blanket claims that disabled people’s QOL self-assessment has been distorted, whether those claims come from mainstream bioethicists or from disability bioethicists. However, rejecting these generalizations for a more nuanced view still has dramatic implications for the status quo in both health policy and clinical ethics.

A Computationally Efficient User Model for Effective Content Adaptation Based on Domain‐Wise Learning Style Preferences: A Web‐Based Approach

In the educational hypermedia domain, adaptive systems try to adapt educational materials according to the required properties of a user. The adaptability of these systems becomes more effective once the system has the knowledge about how a student can learn better. Studies suggest that, for effective personalization, one of the important features is to know precisely the learning style of a student. However, learning styles are dynamic and may vary domain‐wise. To address such aspects of learning styles, we have proposed a computationally efficient solution that considers the dynamic and nondeterministic nature of learning styles, effect of the subject domain, and nonstationary aspect during the learning process. The proposed model is novel, robust, and flexible to optimize students’ domain‐wise learning style preferences for better content adaptation. We have developed a web‐based experimental prototype for assessment and validation. The proposed model is compared with the existing available learning style‐based model, and the experimental results show that personalization based on incorporating discipline‐wise learning style variations becomes more effective.

Smallholder farmers’ preference for climate change adaptation for lowland rain‑fed rice production in Lao PDR

Smallholder farmers’ preference for climate change adaptation for lowland rain‑fed rice production in Lao PDR

Subjectivism without Idealization and Adaptive Preferences

AbstractSubjectivism about well-being holds that an object contributes to one's well-being to the extent that one has a pro-attitude toward this object under certain conditions. Most subjectivists have contended that these conditions should be ideal. One reason in favor of this idea is that when people adapt their pro-attitudes to situations of oppression, the levels of well-being they may attain is diminished. Nevertheless, I first argue that appealing to idealized conditions of autonomy or any other condition to erase or replace adaptive pro-attitudes is mistaken. Second, I show that the most natural version of subjectivism that does not appeal to any such idealizing condition can explain why the well-being of people having adaptive pro-attitudes should not be restricted to the fulfillment of these pro-attitudes. In sum, the existence of adaptive preferences does not militate in favor of the introduction of conditions of idealization but against it.

The Irrationality of Adaptive Preferences: A Psychological and Semantic Account

AbstractThere is little agreement among moral and political philosophers when it comes to determining what it is that makes adaptive preferences problematic. The large number of competing explanations offered by philosophers illustrates the absence of any consensus. The most prominent versions of these explanations have recently come under attack by Dale Dorsey, who argues that adaptive preferences are a red herring: the problematic nature of adaptive preferences is not explained by the fact of adaptation but by an appeal to some other normative consideration. In this article I offer an account of adaptive preferences that both accommodates the thought that only some of our adaptive preferences are problematic and responds to the skeptical challenge pressed by Dorsey. I argue that some adaptive preferences are prima facie irrational as they exhibit a peculiar error in reasoning where individuals change the semantic content of the reasons underpinning the new preference.

A Smartphone-Based Technique to Detect Dynamic User Preferences for Tailoring Behavioral Interventions: Observational Utility Study of Ecological Daily Needs Assessment.

BackgroundMobile health apps are promising vehicles for delivering scalable health behavior change interventions to populations that are otherwise difficult to reach and engage, such as young adults with psychiatric conditions. To improve uptake and sustain consumer engagement, mobile health interventions need to be responsive to individuals’ needs and preferences, which may change over time. We previously created an ecological daily needs assessment to capture microprocesses influencing user needs and preferences for mobile health treatment adaptation.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to test the utility of a needs assessment anchored within a mobile app to capture individualized, contextually relevant user needs and preferences within the framework of a weight management mobile health app.MethodsParticipants with an iOS device could download the study app via the study website or links from social media. In this fully remote study, we screened, obtained informed consent from, and enrolled participants through the mobile app. The mobile health framework included daily health goal setting and self-monitoring, with up to 6 daily prompts to determine in-the-moment needs and preferences for mobile health–assisted health behavior change.ResultsA total of 24 participants downloaded the app and provided e-consent (22 female; 2 male), with 23 participants responding to at least one prompt over 2 weeks. The mean length of engagement was 5.6 (SD 4.7) days, with a mean of 2.8 (1.1) responses per day. We observed individually dynamic needs and preferences, illustrating daily variability within and between individuals. Qualitative feedback indicated preferences for self-adapting features, simplified self-monitoring, and the ability to personalize app-generated message timing and content.ConclusionsThe technique provided an individually dynamic and contextually relevant alternative and complement to traditional needs assessment for assessing individually dynamic user needs and preferences during treatment development or adaptation. The results of this utility study suggest the importance of personalization and learning algorithms for sustaining app engagement in young adults with psychiatric conditions. Further study in broader user populations is needed.

Engineering better catalytic activity and acidic adaptation into Kluyveromyces marxianus exoinulinase using site-directed mutagenesis.

Exoinulinase catalyzes the successive removal of individual fructose moiety from the non-reducing end of the inulin molecule, which is useful for biotechnological applications like producing fructan-based non-grain biomass energy and high-fructose syrup. In this study, an exoinulinase (KmINU) from Kluyveromyces marxianus DSM 5418 was tailored for increased catalytic activity and acidic adaptation for inulin hydrolysis processes by rational site-directed mutagenesis. Three mutations, S124Y, N158S and Q215V distal to the catalytic residues of KmINU were designed and heterologously expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115. Compared to the wild-type, S124Y shifted the pH-activity profile towards acidic pH values and increased the catalytic activity and catalytic efficiency by 59% and 99% to 688.4 ± 17.03 s-1 and 568.93 L mmol-1 s-1 , respectively. N158S improved the catalytic activity under acidic pH conditions, giving a maximum value of 464.06 ± 14.06 s-1 on inulin at pH 4.5. Q215V markedly improved the substrate preference for inulin over sucrose by 5.56-fold, and showed catalytic efficiencies of 208.82 and 6.88 L mmol-1 s-1 towards inulin and sucrose, respectively. Molecular modeling and computational docking indicated that structural reorientation may underlie the increased catalytic activity, acidic adaptation and substrate preference. The KmINU mutants may serve as industrially promising candidates for inulin hydrolysis. Protein engineering of exoinulinase here provides a successful example of the extent to which mutating non-conserved substrate recognition and binding residues distal to the active site can be used for industrial enzyme improvements. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.

‘The bills are a brick wall’: Narratives of energy vulnerability, poverty and adaptation in South Wales

Recent energy and social science scholarship has proposed the concept of energy vulnerability as a better and more inclusive indicator of energy injustice than dominant definitions of fuel poverty, which can exclude a range of households who nevertheless have difficulties accessing energy services. Energy vulnerability is defined as a propensity under certain circumstances to suffer loss of access to energy services, leading to deficits in key capabilities. Often characterised in the literature as a dynamic condition of instability, energy vulnerability is seen as being best understood using qualitative methods, given how it arises out of interactions between household characteristics and wider socio-material conditions. Analysis of qualitative longitudinal data, produced from three rounds of interviews carried out in a community in south Wales, UK, offers insights into how, as a dynamic condition, energy vulnerability may arise out of complex interactions between socio-material conditions, household characteristics, and capabilities. Further, it is shown how such methods help understand how the outcomes of these interactions can depend on their specific tempo or pace of change, and also upon how household responses to such interactions play out over time. In particular, the different ways in which households adapt to energy vulnerability are explored, which makes it possible to elucidate how the formation of adaptive preferences can play an additional role in undermining capabilities.

An Experimental Examination of Demand-Side Preferences for Female and Male National Leaders.

Females constitute a far smaller proportion of political leaders than their proportion in the general population. Leading demand- and supply side explanations for this phenomenon account for some of the variance but leave a great deal unexplained. In an effort to account for additional variance, this research evaluates the issue informed by the biological theory of evolution by natural selection, a foundational explanation for the diversity and function of living organisms. It experimentally assesses how varying types of inter- and intragroup threat–a recurring ancestral problem–affect demand for female and male national leaders. This work analyzes data collected from individuals (N = 826) in the U.S. during the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The results suggest the predominant preference for male over female leaders in some contexts may be the non-adaptive and non-functional but lingering outcome of an adaptive preference for physically formidable allies that was shaped by natural selection in ancestral environments.

Smart Handover for Hybrid LiFi and WiFi Networks

This work investigates handover in hybrid light fidelity (LiFi) and wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks (HLWNets). In such a network, the handover process becomes challenging due to two main factors: i) the relatively short coverage range of a single access point (AP), and ii) the largely overlapping coverage areas of different networks. As a result, HLWNets are susceptible to frequent handovers. To reduce the handover rate, the concept of handover skipping (HS) was introduced, which enables handovers between non-adjacent APs. However, conventional HS methods rely on knowledge about the user's trajectory, which is not readily available at the AP. In this paper, a novel HS scheme is proposed on the basis of reference signal received power (RSRP) and its rate of change, with an adaptive network preference adopted. Since RSRP is commonly used in the existing handover schemes, the proposed method requires no additional signalling between the user and the AP. Simulation results show that the new method can effectively reduce unnecessary handovers, especially those between LiFi and WiFi. Compared to the standard and trajectory-based handover schemes, the proposed method improves network throughput by up to about 120% and 30%, respectively.

Tourists' Willingness to Pay for Nature-based Experiences

This article deals with willingness to pay (WTP) for nature as a public good. The study addresses the relationships between motivation for nature-based experiences, environmental engagement, involvement with nature experiences, relationship with nature, preferred degree of adaptation of nature and consumers' WTP. The aim was to identify factors that influence WTP for nature-based tourist experiences. The study relies on quantitative survey data from 1,634 respondents in Norway. The data were analyzed using SPSS. WTP varies according to factors such as escape, recognition, active achievement, esthetics, social and environmental concern, preference for adaptation, and type of natural surroundings. Tourists who place importance on, for example, peer recognition and escape, have a higher WTP for nature that is not overcrowded and with little or no adaptation for tourism purposes. The article discusses practical issues such as how WTP should affect management decisions about the pricing of nature tourism, and presents the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

Support for Regionalization in Federal Belgium: The Role of Political Socialization

AbstractRegionalization, in the form of a dispersion of political power away from national political centers to regional governments, has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. The article focuses on how institutional regionalization changed citizens’ attitudes about the division of competences between the central and regional level. It argues that regional institutions and policies exert a socializing effect on citizens’ preference in favor of these institutions through a mechanism of adaptive preferences. First, attitudes are studied across cohorts in a single population to test whether cohorts that came of age in a context of more institutional regionalization are more favorable towards regional decision-making than cohorts that came of age in a centralized state. The analyses indeed show evidence for a socializing effect of institutional regionalization. Second, the article shows how regional elites’ discourses may moderate the relationship between institutional regionalization and citizens’ attitudes about regionalization. We study Belgium as a crucial case. We use five cross-sectional datasets of the Flemish and Walloon populations during the course of increased regionalization in Belgium (1991–2007).

Local varieties in India - New insights into adaptation patterns, performance and preferences over modern varieties of selected cereals among different seasons and regions

The successful development and deployment of widely adapted, input responsive high yielding varieties (HYVs) in cereals along with required inputs have been widely adopted and consequently these HYVs replaced the specifically adapted local varieties (LVs). In this review, on the basis of 13 years data (2000–01 to 2012–13), attempts have been made to analyze the prevalence of local varieties (LVs), pattern of their adaptation, adoption and diffusion, yield including variability in the yield in cereals and coarse cereals in different regions and seasons in India. It was observed that HYVs did not replace LVs completely and LVs still cover significant area and are virtually grown in all regions and seasons in India. The adoption and adaptation pattern of HYVs was found to be highly asymmetrical. It was also revealed that under marginal conditions, the performance of LVs is comparable and even out yield HYVs, but under favorable environmental conditions with high input and better management conditions, HYVs performed extremely well and, therefore, highly responsive to inputs. The yield gains obtainable through HYVs over LVs, varies from season to season in the same region and in different regions in the same season. The variability in yield (CV) was always higher in LVs as compared to HYVs among all cereal crops as LVs are grown under marginal, sub optimal and low input management conditions. The significant negative association was observed between average yield and CV in case of rice HYVs, LVs of sorghum and in both HYVs and LVs in maize.

Menu or Mandate? EU Governance and Party Politics in Poland

This article examines how the European Union (EU) has impacted party politics in Poland. Before the 2004 accession, party politics in Poland were turbulent. In this period, the EU, as a reference point, helped to create a pro- and anti-EU party cleavage. With this impact admitted, the article turns to the post-accession party politics. Centering on the nationalist Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), the article attempts to explore the EU’s impact on the PiS by studying the latter’s adaptation preferences. To do so, I employ James N. Rosenau’s political adaptation theory. Central to the article is the argument that since political parties are the protagonists in member states’ domestic politics, the EU can only affect the party politics in Poland indirectly, but not inconsequentially. Without mandate notwithstanding, the EU can create bottom-up pressures through civil society; meanwhile, since EU norms and political parties’ particular interests are not necessarily incompatible, the EU can take the initiatives to make a balance between them through policy innovations.

False Consciousness for Liberals, Part I: Consent, Autonomy, and Adaptive Preferences

The starting point regarding consent has to be that it is both extremely important, and that it is often suspicious. In this article, the author tries to make sense of both of these claims, from a largely liberal perspective, tying consent, predictably, to the value of autonomy and distinguishing between autonomy as sovereignty and autonomy as nonalienation. The author then discusses adaptive preferences, claiming that they suffer from a rationality flaw (they are typically formed for reasons of the wrong kind) but that it's not clear that this flaw matters morally or politically. What matters is whether they suffer from an autonomy flaw. To answer this question, the author develops an account of autonomy failure, according to which a preference is nonautonomous if an injustice played an appropriate role in its causal history. The author then discusses the moral implications—and in an initial way, the political ones as well—of proclaiming a preference, or consent based on it, nonautonomous in this way.

MP83-20 DOES FOOT PEDAL ILLUMINATION IMPROVE SPEED, EFFICIENCY AND ACCURACY DURING UROLOGIC SURGERY?

You have accessJournal of UrologyGeneral & Epidemiological Trends & Socioeconomics: Quality Improvement & Patient Safety IV (MP83)1 Apr 2020MP83-20 DOES FOOT PEDAL ILLUMINATION IMPROVE SPEED, EFFICIENCY AND ACCURACY DURING UROLOGIC SURGERY? Hyelin You, Jon Maldonado*, Andrew Krause, Ashley Li, Jeremy Brown, Akin S. Amasyali, Mohammad Hajiha, Phillip Stokes, Muhannad Alsyouf, John Smith, Jason Groegler, Daniel Baldwin, and D. Duane Baldwin Hyelin YouHyelin You More articles by this author , Jon Maldonado*Jon Maldonado* More articles by this author , Andrew KrauseAndrew Krause More articles by this author , Ashley LiAshley Li More articles by this author , Jeremy BrownJeremy Brown More articles by this author , Akin S. AmasyaliAkin S. Amasyali More articles by this author , Mohammad HajihaMohammad Hajiha More articles by this author , Phillip StokesPhillip Stokes More articles by this author , Muhannad AlsyoufMuhannad Alsyouf More articles by this author , John SmithJohn Smith More articles by this author , Jason GroeglerJason Groegler More articles by this author , Daniel BaldwinDaniel Baldwin More articles by this author , and D. Duane BaldwinD. Duane Baldwin More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000000975.019AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookLinked InTwitterEmail Abstract INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Endourologic procedures frequently use pedal activation in a low-light operating room (OR). Foot pedal activation in low-light conditions risks incorrect pedal activation, which may increase radiation exposure, cause patient burns, or start OR fires. This study compares speed, accuracy, dark adaptation, and surgeon preference for pedal activation in 4 different lighting conditions. METHODS: During a simulated percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), pedals for fluoroscopy (c-arm), holmium laser, and ultrasonic lithotripter (USL) were randomized to 3 different positions. Twenty participants activated pedals in a randomized order in 4 settings: a dark OR with black light illumination, a dark OR with glow stick illumination, a dark OR with no foot pedal lighting, and a bright OR with overhead lights on (Fig 1). Endpoints included time to pedal activation, number of attempted, incomplete, and incorrect presses, dark adaptation, and surgeon preference. Mann-Whitney U Test was used with p<0.05 considered significant. RESULTS: Compared to no illumination (8.47 s), the glow stick (6.77s; p < 0.001) and black light fluorescent illumination (5.34s; p < 0.001) were both associated with decreased combined and individual pedal activation times (p<0.05 for c-arm, laser, and USL). The black light resulted in a significant decrease in attempted (0.30 vs 3.45, p<0.001), incomplete (1.25 vs 7.75, p<0.001), and incorrect presses (0.35 vs 1.25, p=0.035) compared to the dark setting, while demonstrating no difference compared to having room lights on. Dark adaptation was significantly improved with black light illumination compared to having the room lights on (134.5 vs 140.5 luminance units, p<0.001). Subjectively, 100% of participants preferred illuminated pedals compared to the dark OR, with 90% preferring the black light. CONCLUSIONS: During a simulated PCNL, black light foot pedal illumination significantly improved accuracy and efficiency of instrument activation compared to the conventional dark OR, while also maintaining the surgeon’s dark adaptation compared to having the overhead lights on. This study demonstrates that the use of black light foot pedal illumination may reduce errors in the operating room due to inadvertent foot pedal activation while preserving the ability to operate in a low light environment. Source of Funding: None © 2020 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 203Issue Supplement 4April 2020Page: e1263-e1263 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2020 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Hyelin You More articles by this author Jon Maldonado* More articles by this author Andrew Krause More articles by this author Ashley Li More articles by this author Jeremy Brown More articles by this author Akin S. Amasyali More articles by this author Mohammad Hajiha More articles by this author Phillip Stokes More articles by this author Muhannad Alsyouf More articles by this author John Smith More articles by this author Jason Groegler More articles by this author Daniel Baldwin More articles by this author D. Duane Baldwin More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

Surprisingly malleable public preferences for climate adaptation in forests

Researchers and policy-makers often assume that public preferences for climate change adaptation are positive and stable compared to those of mitigation. However, public judgments about adaptation in natural resource sectors (like forestry) require that people make difficult, value-laden and uncertain trade-offs across complex social-ecological systems. The deliberative methods (e.g. focus groups and in-depth interviews) that are typically used to explore the malleability of these judgments may underestimate the level of preference malleability in broader publics by encouraging participants to rationalize their choices in relation to their own knowledge, values and beliefs, as well as those of others. Here, we use a public survey (N = 1926) from British Columbia, Canada—where forestry is economically, environmentally and culturally vital—to investigate the malleability of public preferences for genomics-based assisted migration (AM) for climate change adaptation in forests. Following an initial judgment, respondents are given new information about AM’s potential implementation and impacts—simple messages similar to those that they might encounter through traditional and social media. The results show that respondents’ initial judgments are surprisingly malleable, and prone to large bi-directional shifts across all message types. The magnitude of this malleability is related to the degree of the proposed intervention, the type of message, and individuals’ demographic and psychographic characteristics. These results suggest that high levels of initial public support may be illusory, and that more attention should be paid to the potential for malleability, controversy and contradiction as adaptation policies are developed and implemented. Process-based arguments related to transparent, evidence-based and adaptive governance may be more influential than risk-based arguments related to climate change and economic impacts.

Disability, Epistemic Harms, and the Quality-Adjusted Life Year

Health economists use a conceptual tool called the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in resource allocation decisions. Despite claims that the values of disabled people are distorted by adaptive preference, I argue that their testimony is in fact more reliable than that of nondisabled third parties. Epistemic injustice in this context harms disabled people and people with chronic illnesses. It also prevents us from challenging the current hegemonic and ableist formulation of the problem of just resource allocation. Community-based participatory research that gives disabled people greater agency in the research process would allow the reframing of the research problem.

Greener grass or sour grapes? How people value future goals after initial failure

Across six experiments (N = 1304), people dealt with failure by dismissing the value of future goals. Participants were randomly assigned to receive good or poor feedback on a practice trial of a cognitive test (Studies 1–3, 5–6) or their academic performance (Study 4). Those who received poor (vs. good) feedback predicted that they would feel less happy about a future top performance. However, when all participants received a top score on the actual test they became equally happy, regardless of initial feedback. That is, initial failure made people underestimate how good it would feel to succeed in the future. Inspired by Aesop's fable of the fox and the grapes, we term this phenomenon the “sour-grape effect”: A systematic tendency to downplay the value of unattainable goals and rewards. Mediation analyses suggest that the low happiness predictions were a self-protective maneuver, indicated by apparent denial of the personal and future relevance of their performance. Moderation analysis showed that people high in achievement motivation constituted the main exception, as they predicted (correctly) that a big improvement would bring them joy. In a final and high-powered experiment, the effect generalized from predicted happiness to predicted pride and gratitude. Crucially, the sour-grape effect was found repeatedly across two different countries (USA and Norway) and multiple settings (lab, field, online), including two pre-registered replications. In line with the principle of “adaptive preferences” from philosophy and cognitive dissonance theory from psychology, the results suggest that what people want is restricted by what they can get.

Examining the Process of Modal Choice for Everyday Travel Among Older People.

Modal choice is a prominent concept within transport studies. However, the term is often used quite loosely, with little known about the factors lying behind the choice, the alternatives available to a person, and whether the person had a ‘choice’ to begin with. This study draws on a travel survey among older people living in Sweden’s large metropolitan regions. The questions posed as part of this survey facilitate a greater insight into the processes at play behind modal choice. An analysis of the differences between: (1) the range of modal options available to respondents and (2) the modes selected from this range (modal choice) is presented. An analysis of the respondents’ reasoning for choosing the modes they did and not the others they could have chosen is also presented. It was found that more than a quarter of respondents have the option to use and actually use all modes for everyday travel. The car is more inclined to be selected among those who have a range of different modal options. Suitability and comfort are the two main reasons given for modal choice. More positive reasons are given for actively selecting walking and cycling, whereas the motives behind the selection of the car instead tend to be framed as reasons for not selecting other modes. Adaptive preference and adjustment effects are also apparent in the selection processes. This study gives us a deeper understanding of the intricate mechanisms and reasoning at play behind the process of modal choice among this group. In this way, we have a better basis for shaping and implementing measures to promote and encourage sustainable mobility, in such a way that the well-being of older people is also supported.