Simple Categorization Research Articles

The academic non-consultation phenomenon revisited: a research agenda

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to revive interest in the question, never definitively answered, which Stephen Watson raised in the title of his 2000 paper, “Why is it that management academics rarely advise on their own institutions?” It is argued that finding the answer to the question would not only be interesting in and of itself but could also lead to valuable contributions to the theory of the learning organization.Design/methodology/approachInspired by Watson’s original paper and a new interview the authors made with him in 2017, this paper discusses the possible explanations for why management academics rarely advise on their own institutions and sets out an agenda for future research.FindingsThe authors suggest a simple three-way categorization of the nine hypotheses identified by Watson (2000), grouping them by the themes of management knowledge, motivation of higher education institution (HEI) managers and incentives for academics to engage. This study proposes an integrated framework to illustrate how these three categories of hypotheses are connected and can jointly explain the observed phenomenon. The study provides theoretical underpinnings for the most promising hypotheses and suggests an agenda for future research, emphasizing the potential of such research to contribute to the learning organization field.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper should not be interpreted primarily as an attempt to provide support for any particular hypothesis. Rather, the principal aim of the authors is to sketch out a future research agenda and inspire others to contribute empirical evidence that can help shed light on the paradox of why management academics rarely advise on their own institutions.Originality/valueThe theoretical contribution of this paper is to revive the important research topic of “why management academics do not seem to be widely engaged in advising university managers” (Watson, 2000, p. 99) and to introduce a research agenda that can help realize the potential contribution of this topic to the learning organization literature. The practical contribution is to re-address the difficulties of HEIs in becoming full-fledged “learning organizations” and to suggest that HEI managers re-examine the possibilities for using hitherto untapped internal expertise.

The West African experience in establishing steering committees for better collaboration between researchers and decision-makers to increase the use of health research findings

BackgroundAware of the advantages of a project steering committee (SC) in terms of influencing the development of evidence-based health policies, the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) encouraged and supported the creation of such SCs around four research projects in four countries (Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone). This study was conducted to describe the process that was used to establish these committees and its findings aim to assist other stakeholders in initiating this type of process.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional, qualitative study of the initiative’s four projects. In addition to a literature review and a review of the project documents, an interview guide was used to collect data from 14 members of the SCs, research teams, WAHO and the International Development Research Center. The respondents were selected with a view to reaching data saturation. The technique of thematic analysis by simple categorisation was used.ResultsTo set up the SCs, a research team in each country worked with health authorities to identify potential members, organise meetings with these members and sought the authorities’ approval to formalise the SCs. The SCs’ mission was to provide technical assistance to the researchers during the implementation phase and to facilitate the transfer and use of the findings. The ‘doing by learning’ approach used by each research team, combined with WAHO’s catalytic role with each country’s Ministry of Health, helped each SC manage its contextual difficulties and function effectively.ConclusionThe involvement of technical and financial partners motivated the researchers and ministries of health, who, in turn, motivated other actors to volunteer on the SCs. The ‘doing by learning’ approach made it possible to develop strategies adapted to each context to create, facilitate and operate each SC and manage its difficulties. To reproduce such an experience, a strong understanding of the local context and the involvement of strong partners are required.

How Many Cases? Assessing the Comparability of EU Judicial Datasets

Efficiency is often considered a key component of any effective justice system, and a crucial drive for economic growth. A growing body of comparative studies explores how judicial reforms leading to a greater efficiency or effectiveness are positively correlated with economic growth (e.g. Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum, Doing Business Report of the World Bank, Judicial Reforms in Europe Report of the ENCJ, The Economics of Civil Justice of the OECD). At EU level, the European Commission has launched tools like the EU Justice Scoreboard to help the Member States to improve the effectiveness of their justice systems. This instrument, in particular, has been created to help EU Member Stares upholding more effective justice and, in particular, to measure and compare the efficiency of EU justice systems. The belief is that more effective and efficient justice systems will drive stronger economic growth, since “effective justice systems are a prerequisite for an investment and business friendly environment” (EU Justice Scoreboard 2016, p. 1). Efficiency and effectiveness are just two, out of several, basic features of justice systems. An efficient (or effective) justice system could potentially suffer from a lack of an independent judiciary and/or miss fairness of procedures and quality of judicial service. This paper, though, does not want to challenge the efficiency approach on these grounds. The researchers aim to check to what extent the data on efficiency used in academic and political discourses that are provided by the Scoreboard is sound enough to make empirically grounded statements in a valid comparative format among the Member States. In a simplified (but not simplistic) way, efficiency can be defined as the ratio between inputs (resources) and outputs (decisions) of the system. While formally aiming to measure and compare efficiency of Member States’ justice systems, the EU-Justice Scoreboard does not link inputs and outputs indicators to for this purpose. Furthermore, we argue that any attempt to make cross-country comparisons is affected by the comparability of the data sets used for the purpose. Another scholar presenting his proposal at this conference, Marco Fabri, explores the question of the comparability of human resources data (judges) that in labour intensive organisation like courts can be considered as the key production factor (“Too few judges” paper). This paper explores a different area, complementing Fabri’s work. The researchers choose to explore the case-flow indicators presented by the Scoreboard which bases its analysis on the number of incoming, pending and resolved cases. The number of cases a court system manages to handle in a year is often considered emblematic for its efficiency. In Europe, the Commission for the Efficiency of Justice of the Council of Europe is the primary collector of such data, which is published in the “CEPEJ Evaluation of European Judicial Systems Report”. The same data is also used by the EU Justice Scoreboard and by many other academic and policy documents. The analysis will deal with the comparability of these data and show that such comparability cannot be taken for granted. It will assess if the definition of “case”, of the different “case types” and of their status (incoming, pending and resolved) is consistent across the different Member States. It will check if national peculiarities make the comparison between apparently identical groups of cases unreliable or inconsistent. Previous analysis suggests that the comparability of such data is critical in many areas, such as the consistency of the answers across time (at state level), and between countries within the same period. The paper will show how the data provided by the Member States to fill apparently simple categories of cases like small claim, and litigious or non-litigious cases vary, making a comparison at least problematic. This finding, together with similar problems associated with measuring the number of judges, suggest caution should be exercised in the use of such indicators for comparative purpose among justice systems in the academic and political debate.

The new categorizing system of interictal EEG in pediatric epilepsy

Objective: We aimed to classifying of interictal EEG patterns in patients with pediatric epilepsy and determine the effectiveness of this simple EEG categorization. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed initial EEGs of 200 children with epilepsy. Two epileptologists reviewed them blindly by using 2 interictal EEG features: organization of the background activity and a morphology/topography of epileptiform discharges. These patterns relate to categories: (1) familial epilepsies, (2) genetic generalized epilepsies, (3) self limited epilepsies, (4) epilepsies with encephalopathy, and (5) focal structural epilepsies. From medical records, demographic features, brain imaging findings, response to therapy, and developmental outcome were analyzed. Results: Among 200 EEGs, the reviewers agreed on 187 (93.5%) EEGs and disagreed on 13 (6.5%) by categorizing the EEGs in different EEG groups. Interobserver agreement was high (κ = 0,91). Children who had normal background (pattern 1) were more likely to be seizure-free and had normal development and neurological examination than the other groups (p<0.0001). Children with pattern 2, stereotyped generalized spike-waves and a normal background, were likely to have normal MRI (p=0.004), normal development and neurological examination (p=0.017) than the other groups. Children who showed multifocal pleomorphic spikes and slow background on EEG (pattern 4) were more likely to have abnormal development (p<0.0001), neurological examination (p<0.0001) and MRI (p=0.006) and least likely to be seizure-free (p<0.0001) than the other groups. Children who showed focal pleomorphic spikes and slowing on EEG (pattern 5) were more likely to show abnormal MRI (p=0.015) and abnormal development (p=0.005) than the other groups. Conclusion: The simple categorization of interictal EEG abnormalities in children was firstly reported by Kim et al. at a pilot study. We also show in a large series, this classification could be helpful for educational tool, clinical evaluation, and to triage between patients requiring urgent evaluation or avoiding unnecessary procedures.

Evaluation of the Melanoma Tumor Burden Score (MTBS) in a real-world setting.

9565 Background: Clinical cancer registration is increasingly important for healthcare delivery and outcome research in oncology. As compared to clinical trial data, information from clinical routine is often limited regarding the granularity and quality of measures for individual tumor load and distribution. Methods: In an effort to implement a robust and useful measure of tumor burden for patients with metastatic melanoma in a German national skin cancer registry (ADOReg) we evaluated the melanoma tumor burden score (MTBS), originally developed for analyzing chemotherapy data in melanoma patients. The MTBS contains a simple categorization of size, number an distribution of metastatic lesions in individual patients. It is aimed at being used on routine radiologic report allowing for a certain level of uncertainty and imprecise quantification of metastatic lesions. Basically, the lesions are categorized per affected organ with respect to number (solitary, few, multiple) and size (≤1cm, &gt;1- 5cm, &gt;5cm). For evaluation of prognostic significance the summary score was calculated and included in univariate and multivariate survival analysis. We performed extensive sensitivity analyses for a variety of different model settings. Results: In the primary analysis set we re-evaluated 898 radiologic reports in a total of 235 various chemotherapies in n=128 stage IV melanoma patients. The confirmatory data sets consisted of n=384 stage IV melanoma patients with various treatments including chemotherapy, BRAF inhibitor treatment, and immune checkpoint blockade. MTBS categorization could be applied on routine radiologic reports in the majority of cases (95.7 %). In a multivariate model MTBS remained significantly correlated with outcome when adjusted for age, sex, LDH, and number of metastatic sites. Moreover, change in MTBS correlated to a formal response evaluation according to RECIST. Conclusions: The MTBS appears to be a promising tool for meaninful quantification of metastatic tumor load in metastatic melanoma for real life data collection like in clinical cancer registries. [Table: see text]

The changing nature of the environmental policy agenda in New South Wales, Australia, 1979–2010

ABSTRACTWhile the detail of policy change has been often examined, there is a lack of fine-scale empirical investigation into actual policy agendas over time. This is especially the case for environmental policy in Australia. A time-based trend analysis of 505 environmental policies made by the New South Wales Government between 1979 and 2010 found the most commonly addressed issue was flora and fauna, followed by pollution and climate change. Between 1979 and 1994, policy-making on the coast, forests, rivers, soils and catchments was much more common. Then between 1995 and 2010, policy on climate change, pollution, water quantity, waste and wetlands became more common and the marine and alpine environments were also addressed. These overall trends provide a basis for understanding the changing policy agenda. The simple issue-based categorisation of a large number of policies reveals trends not discernible from a deeper analysis of fewer policies. Using actual policies (rather than proposed policies or positions) provides an understanding of the practical ability of governments to address environmental issues, where intent mixes with political, social and economic constraints.

A Blessing in the Midst of the Earth

A Blessing in the Midst of the Earth

Aesthetics of Law and Literary License: An Anatomy of the Legal Imagination

As a normative discipline, law defines its territory according to simple categories which establish absolute principles purporting to offer a single truth as to what is just and unjust, right and wrong, good and bad. In addition, linguistic and extrasemantic devices such as synecdoche, metonymy, rhythm and metaphor serve a referential function with which to penetrate the collective consciousness. The core assumptions derived from the implementation of socio-linguistic mechanisms transform the nature of legal analysis and are embedded within a diverse interplay of meanings. Aesthetic imaginings are evidenced to underpin and sustain ‘law’s symbolic processes and doctrines, institutions and ideas; that is, a realm of limitless fantasy, of free-flowing nomological desire, fixed around, and fixated upon controlling images that condense its central juridical concepts’; as the ‘jurists follow their own poetic and aesthetic criteria, their own spectral laws’ (MacNeil in Novel judgments: legal theory as fiction. Routledge, Oxford, p 9, 2012; Goodrich in Legal emblems and the art of law: obiter depicta as the vision of governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 155, 2013). Yet still, founded on the negation of its own history, legal practice maintains that juridical arguments comprise only dialectical reasoning about objectively determined concepts: ‘law is a literature which denies its literary qualities. It is a play of words which asserts an absolute seriousness; it is a genre of rhetoric which represses its moments of invention or fiction… it is procedure based upon analogy, metaphor and repetition [that] lays claim to being a cold or disembodied prose’ (Goodrich in Law in the courts of love: literature and other minor jurisprudences. Routledge, Oxford, p 112, 1996). This article will explore the continuing commitment of modern legal practice to particular aesthetic values and how these are crucially implicated in a variety of legal competencies including the formation of key legal concepts and general intellectual activity.

Coral forests diversity in the outer shelf of the south Sardinian continental margin

Ecological theory predicts that heterogeneous habitats allow more species to co-exist in a given area, but to date, knowledge on relationships between habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity of coral forests in the outer shelf and upper slope along continental margins is rather limited. We investigated biodiversity of coral forests from 8 sites spread over two different geomorphological settings (namely, pinnacles vs. canyons) in the outer shelf along Sardinian continental margin. Using a combination of multivariate statistical analyses, we show here that differences in the composition of coral assemblages among contrasting geomorphological settings were not statistically significant, whereas significant differences emerged among sites within similar geomorphologies (i.e. among pinnacles and among canyons). Our results reveal that environmental and bathymetric factors such as sediment coverage, slope of the substrate, terrain ruggedness, bathymetric positioning index and aspect were important drivers of the observed patterns of coral biodiversity, in both settings. Spatial variability of coral forests' biodiversity is affected by environmental factors that act at the scale of each geomorphological setting (i.e. within each pinnacle and canyon) rather than by the contrasting geomorphological settings themselves. This result allows us to suggest that simple categorization of benthic communities according topographically defined habitat is unlikely to be sufficient for addressing conservation purposes.

Quantifying uncertainties in radar forward models through a comparison between CloudSat and SPartICus reflectivity factors

AbstractInterpretations of remote sensing measurements collected in sample volumes containing ice‐phase hydrometeors are very sensitive to assumptions regarding the distributions of mass with ice crystal dimension, otherwise known as mass‐dimensional or m‐D relationships. How these microphysical characteristics vary in nature is highly uncertain, resulting in significant uncertainty in algorithms that attempt to derive bulk microphysical properties from remote sensing measurements. This uncertainty extends to radar reflectivity factors forward calculated from model output because the statistics of the actual m‐D in nature is not known. To investigate the variability in m‐D relationships in cirrus clouds, reflectivity factors measured by CloudSat are combined with particle size distributions (PSDs) collected by coincident in situ aircraft by using an optimal estimation‐based (OE) retrieval of the m‐D power law. The PSDs were collected by 12 flights of the Stratton Park Engineering Company Learjet during the Small Particles in Cirrus campaign. We find that no specific habit emerges as preferred, and instead, we find that the microphysical characteristics of ice crystal populations tend to be distributed over a continuum‐defying simple categorization. With the uncertainties derived from the OE algorithm, the uncertainties in forward‐modeled backscatter cross section and, in turn, radar reflectivity is calculated by using a bootstrapping technique, allowing us to infer the uncertainties in forward‐modeled radar reflectivity that would be appropriately applied to remote sensing simulator algorithms.

The delay period as an opportunity to think about future intentions: Effects of delay length and delay task difficulty on young adult's prospective memory performance.

The current study examined the impact of length and difficulty of the delay task on young adult's event-based prospective memory (PM). Participants engaged in either a short (2.5min) or a long (15min) delay that was filled with either a simple item categorization task or a difficult cognitive task. They also completed a questionnaire on whether they thought about the PM intention during the delay period and how often they thought about it. Results revealed that participants' PM was better after a difficult delay task compared to an easy delay task. Participants thought about the PM intention more often during the difficult delay task than during the easy delay task. PM performance was positively related to participants' reports of how many times they thought about their intentions. The important role of delay task difficulty in allowing or preventing individuals from refreshing their future intentions is discussed.

Women’s Oppressed and Disfigured Life in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

The present study attempts to analyze Margaret Atwood’s (1939- ) The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) based on theories of feminist thinker, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and applies her theories presented in The Second Sex (1949) that leads to better apprehension of sex and gender. Beauvoir’s ideology focuses mainly on the cultural mechanisms of oppression which cause to confine women under the title of Other to man’s self. In her view woman cannot be a simple biological category, and she asserts that womanhood is imposed on woman by civilization. In her idea, the fundamental social meaning of woman is Other. She believes that biology is the main source for woman’s oppression within patriarchal society, and challenges the discourse through which women are defined based on her biology. She also believes that sexuality is another aspect of women’s oppression and exploitation and all functions of women. In Beauvoir’s view, prostitution and heterosexuality are exploitation of woman. She rejects the heterosexuality as the norm for sexual relations. This paper tries to show how Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale speculates feminist issues such as loss of identity, subordination of woman in a male dominated society and women’s exploitation in consumer society where woman’s body is treated as an object, a tool and consumable item. Atwood focuses on the problems such as gender inequality, and pitfalls of patriarchal system for women’s oppression.

Clinical importance of personality difficulties: diagnostically sub-threshold personality disorders

BackgroundCurrent categorical classification of personality disorders has been criticized for overlooking the dimensional nature of personality and that it may miss some sub-threshold personality disturbances of clinical significance. We aimed to evaluate the clinical importance of these conditions. For this, we used a simple four-level dimensional categorization based on the severity of personality disturbance.MethodsThe sample consisted of 352 patients admitted to mental health services. All underwent diagnostic assessments (SCID-I and SCID-II) and filled in questionnaires concerning their social situation and childhood adversities, and other validated tools, including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), health-related quality of life (15D), and the five-item Mental Health Index (MHI-5). The patients were categorized into four groups according to the level of personality disturbance: 0 = No personality disturbance, 1 = Personality difficulty (one criterion less than threshold for one or more personality disorders), 2 = Simple personality disorder (one personality disorder), and 3 = Complex/Severe personality disorder (two or more personality disorders or any borderline and antisocial personality disorder).ResultsThe proportions of the groups were as follows: no personality disturbance 38.4% (n = 135), personality difficulty 14.5% (n = 51), simple personality disorder 19.9% (n = 70), and complex/severe personality disorder 24.4% (n = 86). Patients with no personality disturbance were significantly differentiated (p < 0.05) from the other groups regarding the BDI, 15D, and MHI-5 scores as well as the number of Axis I diagnoses. Patients with complex/severe personality disorders stood out as being worst off. Social dysfunction was related to the severity of the personality disturbance. Patients with a personality difficulty or a simple personality disorder had prominent symptoms and difficulties, but the differences between these groups were mostly non-significant.ConclusionsAn elevated severity level of personality disturbance is associated with an increase in psychiatric morbidity and social dysfunction. Diagnostically sub-threshold personality difficulties are of clinical significance and the degree of impairment corresponds to actual personality disorders. Since these two groups did not significantly differ from each other, our findings also highlight the complexity related to the use of diagnostic thresholds for separate personality disorders.

A combinatorial algorithm for computing higher order linking numbers

We develop the intersection theory at relative chain-cochain level, and apply it along with the use of Seifert disks for an oriented link to give a combinatorial algorithm to compute Massey's higher order linking numbers. It is subtle to compute higher-order linking numbers, and it has been a folklore to use the intersection theory in the process, which was first suggested by W. Massey. Massey introduced the higher-order linking as an application of his higher-order cohomology operations defined in terms of suitable cochains, and he calculated the third-order linking numbers for some 3-component links by shifting from cohomology and cup product to homology and intersection theory via duality theorems for manifolds. Later several works along this direction gave methods in various forms for computing the higher-order linking numbers, and others computed Milnor's invariants by using their well-known connection to Massey invariants; but a formal derivation of the general formulae in intersection theory which are used for the computation has not yet been given, and a concrete algorithm for the computation is hence lacking. In this paper we complete Massey's original approach by developing systematically the intersection theory at the relative chain-cochain level in the simplicial category, and use it to derive recursive combinatorial formulae for computing all higher-order linking numbers.

Recent developments in the selective dispersion of single-walled carbon nanotubes using conjugated polymers.

A significant barrier that impedes the commercialization of single-walled carbon nanotube-related applications is that all known synthetic methods produce a complicated mixture of semiconducting and metallic species. For device applications, pure semiconducting or pure metallic samples are desirable. Thus far, the purification methods that have been identified are capable of separating individual carbon nanotube species on a microgram scale, but purification on a large scale has remained elusive. The use of conjugated polymers to selectively disperse specific nanotube species is a promising approach to resolve the scalability issue, but a comprehensive understanding of the selectivity mechanism has not yet been achieved. Here, several of the trends reported in the literature are outlined to further the rational design of conjugated polymers for nanotube sorting. Numerous variables influence dispersion selectivity, including polymer structure and molecular weight, nanotube type used, sonication temperature, amount of polymer relative to nanotube, and solvent. We have organized these seemingly disparate parameters into two simple categories: conjugated polymer structure, and dispersion preparation conditions. Most importantly, we consider the mechanistic arguments that have been proposed, and provide additional insights based on the observations in the literature.

Critical perspectives on the diversity of research into sexualities and health in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Thinking outside the boxes

In this article we provide a critical narrative review of the diverse contemporary research into sexualities and health in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We outline the specific colonial context of Aotearoa/New Zealand and the implications of this context for health research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The review draws on examples from our own experience carrying out LGBTQ health psychology research and wider research outside the boxes of psychology as a discipline, outside sexualities as simple identity categories, and outside HIV/AIDS as focus of much LGBTQ health research in recent decades and at present. We review existing LGBTQ health research from Aotearoa/New Zealand with regards to three central themes: (1) holistic approaches to health and healthcare for LGBTQ communities; (2) challenges in working towards health equalities for LGBTQ communities; and (3) theorisation of the impact of discrimination on the health of members of LGBTQ communities. Throughout the review we emphasise critical perspectives on research into sexualities and health and the importance of considering whether LGBTQ communities benefit from research. We also make suggestions for enhancing the criticality of LGBTQ health research in Aotearoa/New Zealand and illustrate how research into sexualities and health in Aotearoa/New Zealand provides useful examples for LGBTQ health researchers in other contexts.

Quantitative Definitions of Collaborative Research Fields in Science and Engineering

Practical methodology for categorizing collaborative disciplines or research in a quantitative manner is presented by developing a Correlation Matrix of Major Disciplines (CMMD) using bibliometric data collected between 2009 and 2014. First, 21 major disciplines in science and engineering are defined based on journal publication frequency. Second, major disciplines using a comparing discipline correlation matrix is created and correlation score using CMMD is calculated based on an analyzer function that is given to the matrix elements. Third, a correlation between the major disciplines and 14 research fields using CMMD is calculated for validation. Collaborative researches are classified into three groups by partially accepting the definition of pluri-discipline from peer review manual, European Science Foundation, inner-discipline, inter-discipline and cross-discipline. Applying simple categorization criteria identifies three groups of collaborative research and also those results can be visualized. Overall, the proposed methodology supports the categorization for each research field.

The impact of identity breadth on consumer preference for advanced products

Prior research documents that individuals may categorize themselves along a hierarchy of social identities and that their subsequent behavior is guided by whichever identity is salient at the moment. The current research investigates how activating one's social identity at different breadth levels influences consumers' subjective knowledge and the consequences for product choice. We propose and document that consumers will perceive that they have greater knowledge and thus prefer more advanced product options when their broad identity rather than narrow identity is salient (experiment 1). We also rule out simple categorization mindset and construal level as the alternative explanations of the identity breadth effect (experiments 2A and 2B). Moreover, our findings suggest that the effect of identity breadth on subjective knowledge will lessen for consumers with high self-esteem (experiment 3) and will reverse when the product domain is highly relevant to the narrow identity (experiment 4). Both theoretical contributions and marketing implications are discussed.

On the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of a simplicial map

In this paper, we study the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of a simplicial map between simplicial complexes, generalizing the simplicial category of a complex to that of a map. Several properties of this new invariant are shown, including its relevance to simplicial products and fibrations. We relate this category of a map to the classical Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of a map between finite topological spaces. Finally, we show how the simplicial category of a map may be used to define and study a simplicial version of the category weight of Y. Rudyak and J. Strom.

환경보건지표를 이용한 지역 환경보건수준 평가 사례연구

Objectives: This study was conducted to assess environmental health status on a local scale using environmental health-related indicators. It demonstrated the possibility of using a structural equation model, a methodological approach to provide synthesized information. Methods: Eighteen indicators were selected from official statistical data published by local governments. Each environmental health-related indicator was classified according to the PSR (pressure-state-response) model. Aggregation methods were performed using principal component analysis and fuzzy sets. Results: The five principal components were classified through principal component analysis (PCA) and obtained eigenvalues >1.0 from the initial 18 indicators. The aggregated index was obtained by condensing the original information into two broad and simple categories through fuzzy sets. Conclusion: This could be useful in that the aggregation procedure may provide a basis for establishing environmental health policies and a decision-making process. However, the availability and quality of indicators, assessment of aggregation method bias, choice of weighted scores for indicators, and other factors should be examined in future studies.