Today's Decisions Research Articles

Integrated Artificial Intelligence and Visualization Technique for Enhanced Management Decision in Today’s Turbulent Business Environments

The dramatic deterioration in a corporate’s profitability not only threatens its own interests, employees, and investors, but can also impact external entities and people through financial losses and high risk exposure. Thus, in today’s turbulent market environments an essential issue arises as to how to set up an effective pre-warning model that provides managers with specific avenues to avoid financial troubles from getting worse and offers investors useful directions to adjust their investment portfolios. However, extant forecasting models are not yet capable of fully explaining the relationships between past and future performances, which may be due to the omission of some critical information. To capture the multidimensional nature of performance assessment, this study extends a singular data envelopment analysis (DEA) specification to multiple DEA specifications and further incorporates them with a risk-adjusted metric so as to present an overarching reflection of corporates’ operations. To make the outcome much more accessible to non-specialists, we utilize a visualization technique to represent the data’s main structure and then feed the analyzed data into a twin parametric-margin support vector machine (TPSVM) to construct the forecasting model. Due to the obscure nature of the SVM-based model, this study executes the multiple instances learning (MIL) algorithm to extract the inherent decision logics and to represent them in human readable way. After examining it with real cases, the proposed model is a promising alternative for performance assessment and forecasting.

Theory of Planned Behaviour in Marketing: Cognitive Consideration on Purchase Decision

The desire to search for products sequentially is dominated by the gifts or rewards offered and the costs of searching for a product itself. A person's cognitive ability will affect when they stop searching for a product until they decide to buy without remembering. Advances in computerized technology that are more intensive, like today's purchase decisions, will be faster and better. Cognitive intelligence and preferences as well as long-term memory in superior decision making, if applied, will successfully avoid negative purchase decision results, where consumers who have good numeracy skills will produce more explicit mental representations; this process can be necessary for superior decision making. Resume of prior research in this study use 13 of manuscript form scopus databased index in year 2017 - 2021. The proposition in this mapping is Correlation Theory of planned behavior theory in the aspect of the field of management (e.g., marketing, Technology, Marketing, E-Commerce) make a positive contribution as a grounded theory to explain the variable antecedent and also its correlation to other theories.

Resilience

Resilience

Intermediate Commitment, Temptation, and Central Banks

Traditionally, models of central banks assume they either ignore past constraints (discretion) or completely integrate them (commitment) into today's decision making. I show how the temptation to ignore the past can be taken seriously to produce intermediate behavior. I ground the analysis in micro-theoretic treatment of temptation for a two-period model. Then, I develop an extension of recursive contracts that accommodates a broad class of intermediate decision-making processes. Next I develop a particular example of scaled commitment. It can model central banks succumbing to stabilization bias after the zero lower bound, but resisting inflation bias. Finally, I provide a general derivation of the recursive approach for any problem with a forward-looking constraint.

Future Health Scenarios at the global level

Abstract Understanding potential patterns in future population levels is critical to anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource and health care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Forecasting future population under prospective policy scenarios is an invaluable tool to investigate the potential consequences of today's policy decisions as they unfold over time. Future Health Scenarios (FHS) at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) produces future population forecasts under reference and alternative policy scenarios modelled as a function of fertility, migration, and cause-specific mortality rates. In this workshop, we will introduce FHS's forecasting methodology framework that also includes forecasting of cause-specific non-fatal health loss, including years lived with disability (YLD), DALYs and healthy life expectancy. We will discuss challenges and solutions to forecasting using statistical models as a function of drivers of health, and highlight forecasting results publicly available in IHME's viz tools.

Extraction of Doppler signature of micro‐to‐macro rotations/motions using continuous wave radar‐assisted measurement system

Mechanical–structural vibration and/or rotational parts of the targets will induce micro-Doppler frequency in addition to the main Doppler components. In the today's military era, detections, measurements and decision making have to be made after the thorough analysis of main and micro-Doppler signatures of the targets to get their full profile particularly for defence applications. In addition, few of the low radar cross-section targets can be detected only by extracting and processing the micro-Doppler signatures corresponding to the rotations of their propellant rotor blades. Therefore, experimental studies to measure the micro-to-macro rotation/motion generated Doppler frequency and performing its associated measurements become significant. The authors built a C-band (5.3 GHz) continuous wave radar and used it to measure the Doppler frequency generated by micro-to-macro rotations/motions. The detection and measurement accuracy of the developed radar is assessed by series of different open-environment experimental case studies: revolution per minute measurement of rotating blades, separation of multiple rotating blades, oscillation per minute measurement of a swinging pendulum, detection of approaching/receding motion and the Doppler signature extraction of walking/jogging/cycling person. All these measurement values are validated against the standard master instrument readings and theoretical calculations. Finally, the limitations of this system and required near-future research works to enhance its performance are listed.

Spatio-temporal changes in ecosystem service values: Effects of land-use changes from past to future (1860–2100)

Increasing global pressure on natural resources requires that decision makers and land managers adopt sustainable solutions to ensure the long-term provision of essential ecosystem services (ES). Analysing the effects of land-use changes on ES can contribute to an improved understanding of the interactions between socio-economic development, landscape changes and ES, which is fundamental in order to avoid or mitigate the undesired consequences of today's decisions. Studies at longer timescales are still underrepresented, but are also fundamental for capturing slow social and ecological processes. This study therefore analysed the impacts of land-use/land cover (LULC) changes on ES values from the past to the future (1860–2100) in the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol (Italy). Future scenarios were based on socio-economic storylines and their spatial distribution mapped. By attributing ES values to LULC types, we assessed changes in ES values as well as their spatial patterns. Our results indicate that the abandonment of mountain grassland induced an ongoing shift in ES at higher elevations, from grassland-related ES towards forest-related ES. The intensification of use in the valley bottoms had predominantly negative effects on regulation & maintenance, and cultural ES in the past. Under future scenarios, changes in ES values at lower elevations greatly depend on expected socio-economic development. Negative effects on regulation & maintenance and cultural ES were highest for the ‘Food sovereignty’ scenario due to huge transformations of grassland and permanent cultures to arable land in order to optimise food provision at the regional level. In contrast, under the ‘Liberalisation’ and ‘Rewilding’ scenarios, there were positive trends for forest-related provisioning ES and less negative effects on regulation & maintenance and cultural ES within the study area, but the dependence on imported products increased. Our findings provide valuable information for decision-making and policy development in order to minimise negative consequences through targeted management measures or payments for environmental services.

Green supplier selection and order allocation: a nonlinear stochastic model

Supplier selection and order allocation is a complex managerial decision in today's competitive markets. As an important section of this area, green supplier section has been properly focused in previous literature. However, joint supplier selection and order allocation under stochastic demand is less investigated. Firstly, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) is applied to weight and select suppliers in terms of economic and environmental criteria. Secondly, a multi-objective nonlinear programming (MONLP) is developed and solved by genetic algorithm (GA) for the aim of order allocation. Findings of this study assist managers to systemically deal with the real-world problem of green supplier selection with different priorities and order quantities.

Characterizing Cybersecurity Threats to Organizations in Support of Risk Mitigation Decisions

This study characterizes the cybersecurity threats experienced by organizations. Today's organizations face difficult decisions regarding the mitigation of cybersecurity threats. Taking different types of cybersecurity threats—physical, human, communication and data, and operational—this study applied topic modeling techniques on textual data gathered from 10-K reports of 87 organizations. A cluster analysis on the resultant topic weights showed three different clusters of organizations which were used to characterize the cybersecurity threats. Specifically, organizations in the manufacturing sector prioritized physical threats, whereas those in the information technology and finance sectors accorded greater importance to human, communication and data, and operational threats. This study offers preliminary characterization of cybersecurity threats that can be beneficial for organizational decision-makers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Artificial intelligence and policy: quo vadis?

PurposeThis paper aims to inform policymakers about key artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, risks and trends in national AI strategies. It suggests a framework of social governance to ensure emergence of safe and beneficial AI.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on approximately 100 interviews with researchers, executives of traditional companies and startups and policymakers in seven countries. The interviews were carried out in January-August 2017.FindingsPolicymakers still need to develop an informed, scientifically grounded and forward-looking view on what societies and businesses might expect from AI. There is lack of transparency on what key AI risks are and what might be regulatory approaches to handle them. There is no collaborative framework in place involving all important actors to decide on AI technology design principles and governance. Today's technology decisions will have long-term consequences on lives of billions of people and competitiveness of millions of businesses.Research limitations/implicationsThe research did not include a lot of insights from the emerging markets.Practical implicationsPolicymakers will understand the scope of most important AI concepts, risks and national strategies.Social implicationsAI is progressing at a very fast rate, changing industries, businesses and approaches how companies learn, generate business insights, design products and communicate with their employees and customers. It has a big societal impact, as – if not designed with care – it can scale human bias, increase cybersecurity risk and lead to negative shifts in employment. Like no other invention, it can tighten control by the few over the many, spread false information and propaganda and therewith shape the perception of people, communities and enterprises.Originality/valueThis paper is a compendium on the most important concepts of AI, bringing clarity into discussions around AI risks and the ways to mitigate them. The breadth of topics is valuable to policymakers, students, practitioners, general executives and board directors alike.

Usage of automation tools in systematic reviews.

Systematic reviews are a cornerstone of today's evidence-informed decision making. With the rapid expansion of questions to be addressed and scientific information produced, there is a growing workload on reviewers, making the current practice unsustainable without the aid of automation tools. While many automation tools have been developed and are available, uptake seems to be lagging. For this reason, we set out to investigate the current level of uptake and what the potential barriers and facilitators are for the adoption of automation tools in systematic reviews. We deployed surveys among systematic reviewers that gathered information on tool uptake, demographics, systematic review characteristics, and barriers and facilitators for uptake. Systematic reviewers from multiple domains were targeted during recruitment; however, responders were predominantly from the biomedical sciences. We found that automation tools are currently not widely used among the participants. When tools are used, participants mostly learn about them from their environment, for example, through colleagues, peers, or organization. Tools are often chosen on the basis of user experience, either by own experience or from colleagues or peers. Lastly, licensing, steep learning curve, lack of support, and mismatch to workflow are often reported by participants as relevant barriers. While conclusions can only be drawn for the biomedical field, our work provides evidence and confirms the conclusions and recommendations of previous work, which was based on expert opinions. Furthermore, our study highlights the importance that organizations and best practices in a field can have for the uptake of automation tools for systematic reviews.

Home Production of Childcare and Labour Supply Decisions in a Collective Household Model

This paper proposes a dynamic structural model of labour market and childcare choices for couples within a collective model of decision making. We formalise explicitly the need for childcare as a function of the age structure of the children population in the household then examine the determinants of the decision to supply labour. The fraction of home-produced childcare to household childcare needs is considered to be a public good within the household, for which preferences are heterogeneous across households. An important feature of our framework, which introduces one of the dynamic dimensions of the decision, is that we take into account the implications of today's labour supply decision on future wage growth and future bargaining power. The decision to leave (partially or not) the labour market is often taken within a couple but, in the event of divorce, the impact of this decision may not be borne by both parties equally, which may render the initial decision inefficient. Using data from the BHPS, we then present a structural estimation of our model to quantify these various components of the choice of home childcare vs. labour supply. We are able to quantify each household's sensitivity to potential childcare policies and find that a large part of the dispersion in these responses comes from households' valuation of home-produced childcare.

Scenario Development and Foresight Analysis: Exploring Options to Inform Choices

In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, where social and environmental change occur ever more rapidly, careful futures-oriented thinking becomes crucial for effective decision making. Foresight activities, including scenario development, quantitative modeling, and scenario-guided design of policies and programs, play a key role in exploring options to address socioeconomic and environmental challenges across many sectors and decision-making levels. We take stock of recent methodological developments in scenario and foresight exercises, seek to provide greater clarity on the many diverse approaches employed, and examine their use by decision makers in different fields and at different geographic, administrative, and temporal scales. Experience shows the importance of clearly formulated questions, structured dialog, carefully designed scenarios, sophisticated biophysical and socioeconomic analysis, and iteration as needed to more effectively link the growing scenarios and foresight community with today's decision makers and to better address the social, economic, and environmental challenges of tomorrow.

Responsibility in policy and management: Today's decisions determine the future

Responsibility in policy and management: Today's decisions determine the future

Istraživanje interakcija faktora u formalizaciji procesa razvoja novih proizvoda

The creation of new product development programmes in industrial organisations, as a process involves a system of activities for defining, planning and implementing projects, with a view to successful market realisation. The success of a programme and its associated projects is not unambiguous (depends to some extent on the participants' point of view) and can be related to the achievement of predetermined goals and constraints, customer satisfaction, organisational knowledge, etc. For the respective industrial company, the planning process is more important than the plan itself, because hypotheses are checked; comparable alternatives are analysed; the future consequences of one or another of today's decisions are investigated; the necessary changes to the prerequisites are made. The survey was conducted in 560 medium and large enterprises operating in the manufacturing industry of Bulgaria. The aim is to establish independent factor variables and their value impacts on the effective management of the process of developing new products related to the dependent variable 'formalisation or use of officially documented procedures describing the new product development (NPD) process'. In order to meet the target, a quantitative study was carried out by applying a correlation and regression analysis to search for relationships and dependences between the variables examined. A regression model is presented for the dependent variable studied. The results and recommendations obtained can be used to improve the management of the product innovation process.

Today's decisions, Tomorrow's outcomes: Does self-control explain the educational smoking gradient?

People with more education tend to have relatively healthy lifestyles. Among other things, they smoke less than those with less education. This link between education and smoking (known as the “educational gradient”) is frequently interpreted as causal: many researchers argue that education develops skills, habits, and preferences that discourage smoking and other unhealthy behaviors. However, an alternative possibility is that these skills, habits, and preferences develop early in life and determine the likelihood of both attaining a high level of education and avoiding smoking. I test the latter possibility using data from the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). In particular, I assess the degree to which indicators of self-control in adolescence explain the association between educational attainment and smoking in adulthood. Results from a series of regression-based tests indicate that self-control is a significant predictor of both outcomes, even when controlling for a host of other risk factors. However, it does not appear to explain the educational gradient.

Chance-Constrained Economic Dispatch With Non-Gaussian Correlated Wind Power Uncertainty

Extending traditional deterministic economic dispatch to incorporate significant stochastic wind power is an important but challenging task in today's power system decision making. In this paper, this issue is formulated as a chance-constrained economic dispatch (CCED) problem. Usually, in the presence of non-Gaussian correlated random variables, both the objective function and constraints are difficult to handle. To address this issue, this paper provides a novel method dealing with non-Gaussian random variables. First, the Gaussian mixture model is adopted to represent the joint probability density function of power output for multiple wind farms. Then, analytical formulae are derived that can be used for fast computation of partial derivatives of the objective function and transformation of chance constraints into linear ones. Thereafter, the CCED can be solved as a deterministic linear convex optimization with a global optimal solution. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed methodology are validated via a case study with a modified IEEE 39-bus system.

Features and technology and implementing decision making policy under the present

This article on "Features and technology adoption and implementation of political decisions in today's conditions," the essence and nature of political decisions. The conditions policy decisions. Considered kinds of political decisions, the main phase of the cycle policy and technology adoption. Isolate basic qualities political solution. The dependence of the quality and efficiency of policy decisions on social and political factors. The purpose of the article is therefore to review the features and technology adoption and implementation of political decisions in today's conditions. The subject of research is the process of developing modern political decisions. Regarding the methodology of scientific research, the research process used general scientific and special methods. In particular, the use of structural and functional method and the method of logical generalization possible to clarify the nature of political decisions, clarify their constituents and role in the formation. Scientifically proven that political decision is a conscious choice of one of several possible options for political action. It is proved that a political decision is a concrete manifestation of social action and political behavior

Network efficiency and vulnerability analysis using the flow‐weighted efficiency measure

AbstractAnalyzing the vulnerability of a network and identifying its critical spots is of great importance for today's decision makers. The in‐depth knowledge about the underlying network and its efficiency is fundamental to adequate decision making. In this paper, the flow‐weighted efficiency measure is introduced and exemplarily demonstrated on a physical network—the underground network of Munich, Germany. This paper addresses the usability of the weight values of a graph from an efficiency point of view. The proposed measure calculates the flow‐weighted efficiency in a subway network by computing the shortest route between every pair of stations and the according bottleneck flow of the trains. Results show that the network efficiency is invariant over all schedules, whereas the flow‐weighted efficiency is significantly varying according to the train schedules.

McCleskey and the Discretionary Death Decision

While reflecting on his fifteen-year tenure as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Lewis Powell stated that, if given the chance, he would change his vote in only one of the hundreds of cases decided during his time on the Court. In what Justice Powell later described as “a mistake,” he joined the majority and authored the 5-4 opinion of McCleskey v. Kemp. The direct effect of Justice Powell’s err in judgment was an affirmation of the lower court’s decision to uphold the death sentence for Warren McCleskey, resulting in his execution in 1991. Justice William J. Brennan’s dissent foretold of how the decision would be received; after likening the McCleskey majority to infamously derided cases Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson, the scathing dissent closed with Justice Brennan remarking, “However many criticisms of today's decision may be rendered, these painful conversations will serve as the most eloquent dissents of all.” Since McCleskey, Justice Brennan’s words have proven prophetic since the majority opinion, although good law, is maligned by many legal scholars as endorsing unequal protection under the law on the basis of race. Justice Powell’s error in judgment has impacted the fate of every individual sentenced to death in the United States since he authored the opinion of the Court in 1987; moreover, it allowed for the pernicious racial bias in the criminal justice system to insulate itself from change, fearing that acknowledging the validity of McCleskey’s claim would “[throw] into serious question the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system.” The apprehension on the part of the Court failed to quell doubts about invidious, irrelevant characteristics influencing the decision to take the life of a human being. To be consistent with the Constitution of the United States, there must be proof that capital sentencing statutes can operate in a way that does not inflict undue harm through arbitrary and capricious sentencing decisions. The significance of a death sentence has not been lost on the Court. Death is a consequence from a decision made in an arbitrary or capricious manner, the Court has emphasized that “death is different,” and, accordingly, requires greater safeguards when applying such a grave sentence. “[T]he qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination. An exploration of McCleskey’s claims, when contrasted with of the intrinsic purpose of the death penalty as a criminal sanction, reveals the peril of affording wide discretionary latitude when determining whether to apply the irreversible sentence of death. Accordingly, the Court must critically evaluate the death penalty not as an abstract hypothetical divorced from practical application but as an irreversible punishment that impacts human beings.