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Decision prediction based on neurophysiological signals is of great application value in many real‐life situations, especially in human–AI collaboration or counteraction. Single‐trial analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is a very valuable step in the development of an online decision‐prediction system. However, previous EEG‐based decision‐prediction methods focused mainly on averaged EEG signals of all decision‐making trials to predict an individual's general decision tendency (e.g., risk seeking or aversion) over a period rather than on a specific decision response in a single trial. In the present study, we used a rock–paper–scissors game, which is a common multichoice decision‐making task, to explore how to predict participants' single‐trial choice with EEG signals. Forty participants, comprising 20 females and 20 males, played the game with a computer player for 330 trials. Considering that the decision‐making process of this game involves multiple brain regions and neural networks, we proposed a new algorithm named common spatial pattern‐attractor metagene (CSP‐AM) to extract CSP features from different frequency bands of EEG signals that occurred during decision making. The results showed that a multilayer perceptron classifier achieved an accuracy significantly exceeding the chance level among 88.57% (31 of 35) of participants, verifying the classification ability of CSP features in multichoice decision‐making prediction. We believe that the CSP‐AM algorithm could be used in the development of proactive AI systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved global access to novel age‐appropriate formulations for paediatric subsets, either of new chemical entities or existing drugs, is a priority to ensure that medicines meet the needs of these patients. However, despite regulatory incentives, the introduction to the market of paediatric formulations still lags behind adult products. This is mainly caused by additional complexities associated with the development of acceptable age‐appropriate paediatric medicines. This position paper recommends the use of a paediatric Quality Target Product Profile as an efficient tool to facilitate early planning and decision making across all teams involved in paediatric formulation development during the children‐centric formulation design for new chemical entities, or to repurpose/reformulate off‐patent drugs. Essential key attributes of a paediatric formulation are suggested and described. Moreover, greater collaboration between formulation experts and clinical colleagues, including healthcare professionals, is advocated to lead to safe and effective, age‐appropriate medicinal products. Acceptability testing should be a secondary endpoint in paediatric clinical trials to ensure postmarketing adherence is not compromised by a lack of acceptability. Not knowing the indications and the related age groups and potential dosing regimens early enough is still a major hurdle for efficient paediatric formulation development; however, the proposed paediatric Quality Target Product Profile could be a valuable collaborative tool for planning and decision making to expedite paediatric product development, particularly for those with limited experience in developing a paediatric product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A person‐centred approach in the context of health services delivery implies a biopsychosocial model focusing on all factors that influence the person's health and functioning. Those wishing to monitor change should consider this perspective when they develop and use guidelines to stimulate active consideration of the person's needs, preferences and participation in goal setting, intervention selection and the use of appropriate outcome measures. Objective: To develop a position paper that promotes a person‐centred approach in guideline development and implementation. Design, setting and participants: We used three narrative discussion formats to collect data for achieving consensus: a nominal group technique for the Allied Health Steering Group, an Internet discussion board and a workshop at the annual G‐I‐N conference. We analysed the data for relevant themes to draft recommendations. Results: We built the position paper on the values of the biopsychosocial model. Four key themes for enhancing a person‐centred approach in clinical guidelines emerged: (i) use a joint definition of health‐related quality of life as an essential component of intervention goals, (ii) incorporate the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) as a framework for considering all domains related to health, (iii) adopt a shared decision‐making method, and (iv) incorporate patient‐reported health outcome measures. The position statement includes 14 recommendations for guideline developers, implementers and users. Conclusion: This position paper describes essential elements for incorporating a person‐centred approach in clinical guidelines. The consensus process provided information about barriers and facilitators that might help us develop strategies for implementing person‐centred care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mouse tracking, a new action-based measure of behavior, has advanced theories of decision making with the notion that cognitive and social decision making is fundamentally dynamic. Implicit in this theory is that people's decision strategies, such as discounting delayed rewards, are stable over task design and that mouse trajectory features correspond to specific segments of decision making. By applying the hierarchical drift diffusion model and the Bayesian delay discounting model, we tested these assumptions. Specifically, we investigated the extent to which the "mouse-tracking" design of decision-making tasks (delay discounting task, DDT and stop-signal task, SST) deviate from the standard "keypress" design of decision making tasks. We found remarkable agreement in delay discounting rates (intertemporal impatience) obtained in the keypress and mouse-tracking versions of DDT (ρ = 0.90) even though these tasks were given about 1 week apart. Rates of evidence accumulation converged well in the two versions (DDT, ρ = .86; SST, ρ = .55). Omission/commission error in SST showed high agreement (ρ = .42, ρ = .53). Mouse-motion features such as maximum velocity and AUC (area under the curve) correlated well with nondecision time (ρ = -.42) and boundary separation (ρ = .44)-the amount of information needed to accumulate prior to making a response. These results indicate that the response time (RT) and motion-based decision tasks converge well at a fundamental level, and that mouse-tracking features such as AUC and maximum velocity do indicate the degree of decision conflict and impulsivity., (© 2021 Cognitive Science Society LLC.)

The author presents comments on a paper on the use of machine learning to support the system dynamics method. Topics discussed include its interpretation of simulation models and explanation of policy analysis, and the emerging view whereby dynamic problems from endogenous feedback structures can be tackled via wider tools and methodological approaches. Also noted is the resulting potential for greater insights into the modelling process.

We demonstrate that the key components of cognitive architectures (declarative and procedural memory) and their key capabilities (learning, memory retrieval, probability judgment, and utility estimation) can be implemented as algebraic operations on vectors and tensors in a high-dimensional space using a distributional semantics model. High-dimensional vector spaces underlie the success of modern machine learning techniques based on deep learning. However, while neural networks have an impressive ability to process data to find patterns, they do not typically model high-level cognition, and it is often unclear how they work. Symbolic cognitive architectures can capture the complexities of high-level cognition and provide human-readable, explainable models, but scale poorly to naturalistic, non-symbolic, or big data. Vector-symbolic architectures, where symbols are represented as vectors, bridge the gap between the two approaches. We posit that cognitive architectures, if implemented in a vector-space model, represent a useful, explanatory model of the internal representations of otherwise opaque neural architectures. Our proposed model, Holographic Declarative Memory (HDM), is a vector-space model based on distributional semantics. HDM accounts for primacy and recency effects in free recall, the fan effect in recognition, probability judgments, and human performance on an iterated decision task. HDM provides a flexible, scalable alternative to symbolic cognitive architectures at a level of description that bridges symbolic, quantum, and neural models of cognition., (© 2020 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.)

The article argues against simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to several scholarly journals. Journal Publications also serve as a primary measure of the relative ranking of economics department and as such help to determine the reputation of economics department and programs at different schools. Another line of criticism has been directed at the decision making processes that journals employ. Specifically, journals have been faulted for discriminating against women and individuals from less prestigious institutions. Such discrimination may take the form of higher rejection rates, fewer requests to revise and resubmit papers, or slower response rates from editors. Journal referees have been biased against empirical results that do not conform to their theoretical perspective. Multiple submissions would also lead to quicker acceptances through elimination of "rejection waiting time" having to wait for one rejection before being able to send a paper to another journal. Under any multiple submission policy a journal would presumably accept a paper and then allow the author a certain period within which to agree to have the paper published in that journal.

Objective: To determine the level of agreement of disease flare severity (distinguishing severe, moderate, and mild flare and persistent disease activity) in a large paper-patient exercise involving 988 individual cases of systemic lupus erythematosus.Methods: A total of 988 individual lupus case histories were assessed by 3 individual physicians. Complete agreement about the degree of flare (or persistent disease activity) was obtained in 451 cases (46%), and these provided the reference standard for the second part of the study. This component used 3 flare activity instruments (the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group [BILAG] 2004, Safety of Estrogens in Lupus Erythematosus National Assessment [SELENA] flare index [SFI] and the revised SELENA flare index [rSFI]). The 451 patient case histories were distributed to 18 pairs of physicians, carefully randomized in a manner designed to ensure a fair case mix and equal distribution of flare according to severity.Results: The 3-physician assessment of flare matched the level of flare using the 3 indices, with 67% for BILAG 2004, 72% for SFI, and 70% for rSFI. The corresponding weighted kappa coefficients for each instrument were 0.82, 0.59, and 0.74, respectively. We undertook a detailed analysis of the discrepant cases and several factors emerged, including a tendency to score moderate flares as severe and persistent activity as flare, especially when the SFI and rSFI instruments were used. Overscoring was also driven by scoring treatment change as flare, even if there were no new or worsening clinical features.Conclusion: Given the complexity of assessing lupus flare, we were encouraged by the overall results reported. However, the problem of capturing lupus flare accurately is not completely solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: For too many people, their care plans are designed without fully accounting for who they are, the lives they live, what matters to them or what they aspire to achieve. We aimed to summarize instruments capable of measuring dimensions of patient–clinician collaboration to make care fit. Methods: We systematically searched several databases (Medline, Embase, Cochrane, Scopus and Web of Science) from inception to September 2021 for studies using quantitative measures to assess, evaluate or rate the work of making care fit by any participant in real‐life clinical encounters. Eligibility was assessed in duplicate. After extracting all items from relevant instruments, we coded them deductively on dimensions relevant to making care fit (as presented in a recent Making Care Fit Manifesto), and inductively on the main action described. Results: We included 189 papers, mostly from North America (N = 83, 44%) and in the context of primary care (N = 54, 29%). Half of the papers (N = 88, 47%) were published in the last 5 years. We found 1243 relevant items to assess efforts of making care fit, included within 151 instruments. Most items related to the dimensions 'Patient‐clinician collaboration: content' (N = 396, 32%) and 'Patient‐clinician collaboration: manner' (N = 382, 31%) and the least related to 'Ongoing and iterative process' (N = 22, 2%) and in 'Minimally disruptive of patient lives' (N = 29, 2%). The items referred to 27 specific actions. Most items referred to 'Informing' (N = 308, 25%) and 'Exploring' (N = 93, 8%), the fewest items referred to 'Following up', 'Comforting' and 'Praising' (each N = 3, 0.2%). Discussion: Measures of the work that patients and clinicians do together to make care fit focus heavily on the content of their collaborations, particularly on exchanging information. Other dimensions and actions previously identified as crucial to making care fit are assessed infrequently or not at all. The breadth of extant measures of making care fit and the lack of appropriate measures of this key construct limit both the assessment and the successful implementation of efforts to improve patient care. Patient Contribution: Patients and caregivers from the 'Making care fit Collaborative' were involved in drafting the dimensions relevant to patient–clinician collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Liver disease is an increasing cause of morbidity and mortality in the United Kingdom and can be challenging to live with in the advanced stages. There has been little research exploring the healthcare experiences of UK individuals with decompensated disease when the liver cannot carry out its functions properly. A PhD research project was developed with people who have liver disease to explore care experiences in decompensated advanced liver disease. Public involvement (PI) is an essential aspect of meaningful health research, and this paper reports on the progression of our PI approach in this ongoing study. Objective: To embed PI throughout the research project to ensure that the study is meaningful to individuals with liver disease and the people who support them. Methods: The research adopts a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology to develop a theory of care experience. Various PI approaches were considered in developing the PI strategy for this qualitative study. Initially, Embedded consultation was the preferred model, which has evolved to include aspects of collaboration and coproduction. A PI group was set up to oversee the project through the national public engagement website VOICE, and reflections on PI from three members of the group are included in this paper to illuminate the PI process. Results: Six individuals with liver disease and three carers from across the United Kingdom are part of an ongoing PI group. Their role includes commenting on the findings of the systematic literature review for this project and contributing to decisions about recruitment, data collection and data analysis. Additionally, they had a direct impact on changing the focus of the research. The PI group will continue involvement until the completion of the project. Conclusion: Successfully embedding PI into doctoral research, as demonstrated in this project, requires commitment, planning and dedication to reciprocal working for the benefit of PI contributors as well as the research. This approach could be adopted by other postgraduate researchers. Patient or Public Contribution: This project is overseen by the PI group, whose contribution is described throughout, including reflections from three PI group members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of automated vehicles, researches related to automated vehicle platoon (AVP) have received more and more attention. AVP is considered one of the effective means to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce vehicle energy consumption. This paper studies a three‐layer method of avoiding obstacle vehicles in traffic by switching the formation for the automated heavy vehicle platoon. In the decision‐making layer, a decision‐making system based on the finite‐state machine is established for formation switching. In the second layer, the lane‐changing trajectory is optimized based on the quantic polynomial curve fitting for vehicles that need to change lanes. In terms of vehicle control layer, each vehicle has a longitudinal controller based on sliding mode control and a lateral controller based on model predictive control to track the planned trajectory to complete the target formation. Finally, the proposed method is simulated in MATLAB/TruckSim. The simulation results show that the proposed method could effectively avoid the obstacle vehicles by switching the formation and has a small average value of errors in speed tracking and trajectory tracking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents comments on an article on a simulation model on sustainable and healthy diets for decision makers in 2021. Topics discussed include meat and dairy alternatives and the possible extension of the model boundary and understanding of transition policies, the expected tripling of insect market volume in Europe by 2023, and the environmental impacts of fertilizers and declining groundwater levels. Also noted is a suggested bipartisan approach on the food and health system.

We test whether environmental regulation affects investment decisions, using Census data for individual paper mills. New mills in states with strict environmental regulations choose cleaner production technologies, with differences in air and water pollution regulation also influencing technology choice. Examining investment allocation across existing plants, we find that abatement and productive investment tend to be scheduled together. However, plants with high abatement investment over the entire period spend significantly less on productive capital. This seems lo reflect both environmental investment 'crowding out' productive investment within a plant, and firms shifting investment towards plants facing less stringent abatement requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in the context of limited resources will require prioritising the most vulnerable and ensuring health policies and services are responsive to their needs. One way of addressing this is through the engagement of marginalised voices in the priority setting process. Public engagement approaches that enable group level deliberation as well as individual level preference capturing might be valuable in this regard, but there are limited examples of their practical application, and gaps in understanding their outcomes, especially with rural populations. Objective: To address this gap, we implemented a modified priority setting tool (Choosing All Together—CHAT) that enables individuals and groups to make trade‐offs to demonstrate the type of health services packages that may be acceptable to a rural population. The paper presents the findings from the individual choices as compared to the group choices, as well as the differences among the individual choices using this tool. Methods: Participants worked in groups and as individuals to allocate stickers representing the available budget to different health topics and interventions using the CHAT tool. The allocations were recorded at each stage of the study. We calculated the median and interquartile range across study participants for the topic totals. To examine differences in individual choices, we performed Wilcoxon rank sum tests. Results: The results show that individual interests were mostly aligned with societal ones, and there were no statistically significant differences between the individual and group choices. However, there were some statistically significant differences between individual priorities based on demographic characteristics like age. Discussion: The study demonstrates that giving individuals greater control and agency in designing health services packages can increase their participation in the priority setting process, align individual and community priorities, and potentially enhance the legitimacy and acceptability of priority setting. Methods that enable group level deliberation and individual level priority setting may be necessary to reconcile plurality. The paper also highlights the importance of capturing the details of public engagement processes and transparently reporting on these details to ensure valuable outcomes. Public Contribution: The facilitator of the CHAT groups was a member from the community and underwent training from the research team. The fieldworkers were also from the community and were trained and paid to capture the data. The participants were all members of the rural community‐ the study represents their priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the behavioral research in a broadening variety of fields, focusing on behavioral system dynamics, behavioral sciences and behavioral economics combined with other social sciences. Topics include behavioral operations management, behavioral accounting and smallholder farming.

This paper offers an analytical review of Miller's classic paper of 1956 on 'the magical number 7'. It takes account of that paper's contradictions as well as of its implicit conclusions. Miller's text is by no means clear in its logic or in its terms, and a review might be deemed helpful to those who are trying to understand it. The discussion begins with a brief historical overview. Miller's paper is then reviewed according to the order of the points made by Miller, thus facilitating a lucid comparative reading with that paper. Guidance on interpreting Miller's text is given throughout, leading to a number of technical conclusions. Finally, two general conclusions are offered, one which refers to the decision-making literature, and one which refers more synoptically to science itself. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the research opportunity in participatory system dynamics, focusing on operations management and economics and studies of stakeholder engagement in sustainability. Topics include problem solving process, quantitative content analysis of business and new production process.

In unmanned aerial vehicle ad‐hoc network (UANET), the node speed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may reach up to 400 km/h. The fast or slow movement of UAV nodes leads to different speeds of topology change of the nodes. Traditional optimized link state routing (OLSR) protocol cannot adaptively adjust the routing update period when the network topology changes, which may lead to the nodes calculating incorrect routing tables. This increases the average end‐to‐end delay and packet loss rate for packet transmission. To enhance the adaptability of OLSR routing protocol to network topology changes, this paper proposes a multi‐agent independent deep deterministic policy gradient‐OLSR (MA‐IDDPG‐OLSR) routing protocol based on distributed multi‐agent reinforcement learning. The protocol deploys DDPG algorithm on each UAV node, and each UAV node adaptively adjusts the Hello and TC message sending intervals, according to the one‐hop neighbouring nodes as well as its own state. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol is able to improve the throughput and reduce the packet loss rate as compared to traditional AODV, GRP, OLSR, and distributed multiple‐agent independent proximal policy optimization‐OLSR (MA‐IPPO‐OLSR), distributed multiple‐agent independent twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient‐OLSR (MA‐ITD3‐OLSR) routing protocols. Since MA‐IDDPG‐OLSR relies only on local information, there is a minor performance degradation in MA‐IDDPG‐OLSR compared to centralized single‐agent DQN‐OLSR routing protocol. But it is more suitable to a completely distributed UAV network without a centralized node. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular caching (VC) in electro‐mobility networks has become promising for supporting the needs of low end‐to‐end service delays and reducing the load of networks (i.e. edge caching [EC]) for content delivery service. However, since VCs are available only when they are in the vicinity of the user, intermittent connectivity should be considered. In this paper, the opportunistic offloading scheme for content delivery service is proposed, and a decision is made regarding whether to use VC or EC for the content delivery service. In the proposed scheme, when VC is not available, the user determines whether to choose VC or EC for the content download. If VC is chosen, the user delays the content download to increase the VC utilization according to the expectation of VC contacts. This results in the delayed service completion but can reduce the EC load (i.e. offloading gain). If EC is chosen, the user can download the content without any delay or service interruption. To find the optimal policy, this paper formulates a Markov decision process (MDP) problem and uses the value iteration algorithm to solve the problem. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the comparison schemes based on the expected reward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Collaborations between patient organisations (POs) and the pharmaceutical industry can help identify and address the unmet needs of people living with a disease. In Alzheimer's disease (AD), the scale and complexity of the current unmet needs call for a broad and cross‐sectoral collaboration, including people living with Alzheimer's (PLWA), their care partners and the wider research community. Objective: This study aimed to describe learnings from the Finding Alzheimer's Solutions Together (F.A.S.T.) Council, a collaboration between POs and Roche, convened to better understand the unmet needs of PLWA and their care partners. Results: 1. Learnings from the collaboration, including clarifying objectives and members' expectations upfront, and establishing a set of guiding values and engagement principles. 2. Insights and recommendations for improving care in AD, including a wide range of unmet needs and potential solutions, systematically captured throughout the PLWA journey. These have resulted in several published reports and other outcomes, including (1) 'Portraits of care', highlighting the role of care partners, and the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on care; (2) Clinical trial guidebook, recommending how PLWA and care partner experience can be incorporated into trial design; (3) 'Commitments Catalogue', highlighting progress by governmental organisations in achieving their commitments; and (4) a report to guide policy on improving diversity, equity and inclusion in clinical trials. Conclusions: Close collaboration between POs and the pharmaceutical industry in AD can enable effective research, in which PLWA and care partners are engaged as 'experts through experience' to help identify key unmet needs and co‐create solutions with the wider AD research community. This paper and the work undertaken by the F.A.S.T. Council may act as a blueprint for meaningful collaboration between POs and the pharmaceutical industry. Patient or Public Contribution: The paper reports the collaboration between POs, the F.A.S.T. Council and Roche to progress towards a future in which PLWA can live fulfilling lives with their disease managed well. Clinical Trial Registration: Not applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: To guide good practices in patient and public involvement (PPI), several calls have been made to share detailed accounts of practical experiences. We describe our collaboration with young people with a chronic condition (YPCC) in the development, testing and implementation of the digital communication tool MyBoT (Map your Burden of Treatment). Methods: MyBoT was developed by a team of academic researchers, some of whom were practising care providers, YPCC and designers. In addition to the two co‐researchers in the research team, various groups of YPCC were involved in decision‐making through participation in a design session, workshops and a dialogue session. The Involvement Matrix was used to reflect on the PPI of all YPCC. Results: Initially, the two co‐researchers were involved in the roles of informer and co‐thinker, but their decision‐making power within the study increased over time. In the final stages of the study, the co‐researchers and researchers became partners. The other YPCC who participated in the different sessions and workshops were co‐thinkers in all stages of the study. Conclusion: The PPI of two YPCCs as co‐researchers within the research team ensured continuous involvement, whereas the PPI of various groups of YPCCs guaranteed a representative and inclusive approach. Researchers play an essential role in bringing all perspectives together, integrating them within the technical and financial constraints and ultimately building a tool that is tailored to its users' needs. Patient or Public Contribution: YPCC played a significant role in the present study. Two YPCC—who are also co‐authors of this paper—were involved in all stages of this project as members of the research team. In addition, various YPCCs were involved in the development, testing and implementation stage of MyBoT by organizing design sessions, workshops and a dialogue session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines physicians' responses to complex information technologies (IT) in the health care supply chain. We extend individual-level IT adoption models by incorporating a new construct: system accessibility. The main premise of the study is, when faced with a decision between alternate IT systems, individual users tend to select and make use of the technology or system that is most readily accessible. We discuss both physical and logical dimensions of accessibility as they relate to adoption of electronic medical records (EMR). Physical accessibility refers to the availability of computers that can be used to access EMR, while logical accessibility refers to the ease or difficulty of logging into the system. Using data from a survey of 199 physicians practicing in a large U.S. hospital, we show that, when deciding between the paper chart and EMR, accessibility is an important consideration in a physician's decision to use the system. Both dimensions of accessibility act as barriers to EMR use intentions through their indirect effect on physicians' perceptions of EMR usefulness and ease of use. Logical access also has a direct effect on EMR use intentions. We conclude that accessibility is an important factor that limits acceptance of complex IT such as EMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, and positive organizational behaviour.

In this study, different types of antioxidants (AO) such as natural and synthetic AOs are mixed with mineral oil (MO) at various individual and grouping concentrations to enhance the life of transformers. Water content in oil, water content in paper, breakdown voltage, acidity, 2‐furaldehyde concentration, degree of polymerisation and tensile strength are the laboratory‐based ageing‐related performance characteristics considered in the proposed work to evaluate the degradation rate of MO samples. Multi‐criteria decision‐making methods such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are used to identify the sample concentration which gives maximum performance while considering all the characteristic performance of the MO samples precisely. Two different methods are employed to assess the performance characteristics of the MO samples. In first method, AHP is employed for both priority weight calculation and ranking of MO samples. In second method, AHP is used for weight calculation and TOPSIS is used for ranking. From the experimental results, it is found that, the MO sample S5 yields better performance when compared with other samples. Hence, it is suggested that MO sample S5 can be the best alternative for transformer oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a rich new data source, we explore the selection of economics lecturers into the last UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. Only some one‐in‐two (54%) of these lecturers were submitted to REF2014; 57% of men and 46% of women. The decision making of institutions is found to be well approximated by a simplified selection approach; focusing on working papers and higher quality journal publications. Our results also reveal sizeable conditional differences in the probability of selection, especially so in departments with higher research rankings. More than half of the variance in selection probability remains unexplained, revealing considerable idiosyncrasies in the management of submissions and uncertainty across the discipline in this research assessment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on special issue of Systems Research and Behavioral Science (SRBS) on systems thinking for creative and flexible practice. Topics include prominent projects in sectors such as ecological management, social innovation, sustainable energy, regenerative farming, organizational development and holistic wellbeing; and dependent on nature and nurture drawing from the related disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience and sociology.

This is the fourth of a series of papers on the stages of critical systems practice. Critical systems practice is a multimethodology that seeks to employ the ideas of critical systems thinking to intervene in and improve complex real‐world 'messes'. It has four stages—Explore (the problem situation), Produce (an intervention strategy), Intervene (flexibly), and Check (on progress)—called to mind as EPIC. The aim is to set out where thinking has reached on the best way to carry out each of these stages and to invite comment on what more needs doing. This paper discusses the fourth stage, Check. During Check, decision makers, and other stakeholders, evaluate the intervention, reflect on what has happened with a view to improving future interventions, and discuss next steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several behavioral scientists have contributed to special issues of the "Decision Science" journal. K. MacCrimmon and J. Siu tackled the significant problem of modeling and measuring and individual decision maker's inevitable trade-offs. The authors find that the choice mode consistently exceeds the equivalence mode in its predictive accuracy. R. Duncan's paper examined possible determinants of the structure of decision units within organization. A. Delbecq studied contextual variables affecting decision making in program planning. Lastly, V. Vroom and A. Jago wrote a paper about decision making as a social process.

Introduction: Neonatal care is complex, involving multiple people and technologies within a community of care. When preterm babies are cared for far from home and/or transferred between units, the whole community of care (and particularly parent participation) is disrupted. Although previous studies have captured subjective experiences of parents, there has been little research exploring the material practices undertaken by parents as a consequence of place‐of‐care decisions, or the social organisation of those practices. Methods: As part of a wider study exploring optimal place‐of‐care, semistructured interviews were conducted between July 2018 and October 2019 with 48 parents (36 families) with one or more preterm babies (born at 27–31 weeks gestation) cared for in a neonatal unit in the last 12 months. Findings: We highlight parents' labour‐intensive and stressful work to: (1) parent in the neonatal care community (an oversight role that goes beyond contemporary notions of 'involvement'); (2) create continuity amid place‐of‐care disruptions; and (3) adapt to the managerial logics of neonatal care settings. Our analysis focuses on the work generated by managerial systems that organise place‐of‐care decision‐making and other efficiency‐focused practices. Parents are absorbed into negotiating institutional systems and diverted from routine parenting activities. Conclusion: Those involved in the organisation and management of neonatal care should take account of how managerial systems impact parents' workload, ability to participate in their baby's community of care and, ultimately, on the wellbeing and development of babies and their families. Patient or Public Contribution: The OPTI‐PREM study embedded parents' experiences of neonatal care into the research, through a discrete workstream that employed qualitative methodology to capture parents' experiences—as reported in this paper. The OPTI‐PREM project was also supported by a Bliss volunteer parent panel, which was involved in designing and overseeing the research. Bliss 'champion[s] the right for every baby born premature or sick to receive the best care by supporting families, campaigning for change and supporting professionals and enabling life‐changing research' (https://www.bliss.org.uk/about-us/about-bliss). A representative of Bliss is a co‐author of this manuscript, and a parent representative (named in the Acknowledgements) provided feedback during its preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the implementation of person‐centred care (PCC) has gained momentum in healthcare systems, it is not always obvious why it is an important objective in clinical settings and educational institutions that train future healthcare professionals. Various conceptions about PCC have flourished, such as that it only works in certain healthcare contexts, it is the same as the patient making all their own healthcare decisions, it is too demanding for most patients, the word 'patient' may no longer be used, the care provided is already person‐centred, and that there is simply not enough time and resources to achieve it. This viewpoint paper aims to problematize these conceptions and may be used for didactical and reflective exercises that support the transition towards more person‐centred healthcare. Patient or Public Contribution: The Person Council for patients and carers at the University of Gothenburg provided focus group input on and validated the occurrence of the conceptions discussed in the present paper. The person council consists of a group of persons with many years of personal experiences of health care, either as patients and/or relatives/carers. One member of the person council who is also a designer and artist created the illustration for the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The role of patient participation and representation during crises, such as the COVID‐19 pandemic, has been under‐researched. Existing studies paint a pessimistic picture of patient representation during the pandemic. However, there are indications that patient representatives have adapted to the new situation and can contribute to the resilience of healthcare systems. This paper aims to further explore the potential contribution of patient representatives for healthcare system resilience during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Methods: The study used a qualitative approach. We conducted a thematic analysis on the following data: interviews with client council members (n = 32) and representatives from patient organizations (n = 6) and focus groups (n = 2) to investigate patient representation on both the national policy level and organizational level in the Netherlands. Results: We identified the crisis discourse, the dependent position, the diversity of patient perspectives and the layered decision‐making structure as themes that help to understand what made patient representation in pandemic times a struggle for national and local patient representatives. The analysis of the subjects these representatives put forward during decision‐making shows that their input can play an important role in broadening discussions, challenging decisions, and suggesting alternatives during a crisis. We identified several strategies (e.g., collaborating with other actors, proactively putting subjects on the policy agenda, finding new ways of contacting their 'constituency') used by the patient representatives studied to exert influence despite the difficulties encountered. Conclusions: The struggle for patient representation during pandemic decision‐making is a missed opportunity for resilient healthcare systems as these representatives can play a role in opening up discussions and putting different perspectives to the fore. Moreover, the adaptive strategies used by representatives to influence decision‐making offer lessons for future representation activities. However, adaptations to the crisis decision‐making structure are also needed to enable patient representatives to play their role. Patient Contribution: We conducted interviews with patient representatives and discussed our preliminary findings with patient representatives during the focus groups. Zorgbelang, a patient organization supporting client councils and enabling and organizing patient participation for organizations and municipalities, was partner in this research and contributed to the interview guide, conducting interviews and focus groups. Additionally, the analysis made by the first author was discussed and refined multiple times with the partners of Zorgbelang and one of them co‐authored this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the cooperative vehicle‐infrastructure system (CVIS), due to its computation limitation, vehicles are difficult to handle computing‐intensive delay‐sensitive tasks, so offload tasks to roadside unit (RSU) become popular. Due to the complexity of vehicles' tasks and tasks generated by different vehicles have different delay constraints, minimize energy consumption of RSUs under task dependence and delay constraints is challenging. This paper defines the task priority queuing criterion for the task priority division problem, proposes a task scheduling strategy for energy‐packet queue length tradeoff (TSET) in CVIS under RSUs distributed task scheduling problem and establishes the vehicle speed state model, task model, data queue model, task computing model and energy consumption model. After Lyapunov optimization theory transformed the optimization model, a knapsack problem was described. The simulation results verify that TSET reduces the average energy consumption of roadside units and ensures the stability of the data queue under task dependence and deadline conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Despite high levels of mental ill‐health amongst young people (aged 15–30), this group demonstrates low help‐seeking and high drop‐out from mental health services (MHS). Whilst shared decision‐making can assist people in receiving appropriate and effective health care, young people frequently report that they do not feel involved in treatment decisions. The current study focused on co‐design of a clinical education and participant information programme for the Brain and Mind Centre Youth Model of Care. This model, which articulates a youth‐focused form of highly personalised and measurement‐based care, is designed to promote shared decision‐making between young people and clinical service providers. Methods: We conducted workshops with 24 young people (16–31; MAge = 21.5) who had accessed mental health services. Participants were asked what advice they would give to young people entering services, before giving advice on existing materials. Workshops were conducted and transcripts were coded using thematic analysis by two lived experience researchers and a clinical researcher. Results: Young people found it empowering to be educated on transdiagnostic models of mental illness, namely clinical staging, which gives them a better understanding of why certain treatments may be inappropriate and ineffective, and thus reduce self‐blame. Similarly, young people had limited knowledge of links between mental health and other life domains and found it helpful to be educated on multidisciplinary treatment options. Measurement‐based care was seen as an important method of improving shared decision‐making between young people and health professionals; however, to facilitate shared decision‐making, young people also wanted better information on their rights in care and more support to share their expertise in their own needs, values and treatment preferences. Conclusions: These findings will inform the delivery of the further development and implementation of a youth‐specific clinical education and participant information programme for the BMC Youth Model. Patient or Public Contribution: Workshops were facilitated by researchers with lived expertise in mental ill‐health (A.H. and/or C.G.) and a clinical researcher (who has expertise as an academic and a clinical psychologist). A.H. and C.G. were also involved in conceptualisation, analysis, interpretation, review and editing of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous growth of electricity demand, the safe and stable operation of distribution lines is crucial for power transportation. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) inspection has been widely used for the maintenance and repair of distribution lines. Due to the limitations of computational power and endurance, it is difficult for UAVs to independently complete data processing. Combined with mobile edge computing (MEC), this paper proposes a computing offloading strategy based on multi‐agent reinforcement learning and double‐layer offloading mechanism, which can further utilize the computing power of non‐task devices and edge servers. Firstly, three‐layer system architecture, named MEC‐U‐NTDC (MEC‐UAV‐Non‐task Device Cloud), is built. Secondly, double‐layer offloading mechanism is designed to comprehensively utilize the computing power of edge servers and neighbouring non‐task devices. Finally, a multi‐agent algorithm DLMQMIX is proposed to minimize the total cost for UAV inspection. Simulation experiments show that the proposed algorithm can effectively solve the task offloading problem of UAV‐aided distribution line inspection, and compared with algorithms such as PSO, GA, and QMIX, it performs better in terms of average delay, system cost, and load balancing, achieving a smaller total system cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key motivation of this paper lies in the development of a high‐level decision‐making framework for autonomous overtaking maneuvers on two‐lane country roads with dynamic oncoming traffic. To generate an optimal and safe decision sequence for such scenario, an innovative high‐level decision‐making framework that combines model predictive control (MPC) and switching control methodologies is introduced. Specifically, the autonomous vehicle is abstracted and modelled as a switched system. This abstraction allows vehicle to operate in different modes corresponding to different high‐level decisions. It establishes a crucial connection between high‐level decision‐making and low‐level behaviour of the autonomous vehicle. Furthermore, barrier functions and predictive models that account for the relationship between the autonomous vehicle and oncoming traffic are incorporated. This technique enables us to guarantee the satisfaction of constraints, while also assessing performance within a prediction horizon. By repeatedly solving the online constrained optimization problems, we not only generate an optimal decision sequence for overtaking safely and efficiently but also enhance the adaptability and robustness. This adaptability allows the system to respond effectively to potential changes and unexpected events. Finally, the performance of the proposed MPC framework is demonstrated via simulations of four driving scenarios, which shows that it can handle multiple behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current climate of welfare reform, it is important to understand how perceptions of the poor affect policy decisions. This paper examines how people distinguish between the undeserving poor and the deserving poor, and how this differentiation affects policy decisions. Survey respondents rated each policy in a set of hypothetical policies on a liberal-conservative continuum. Analyses were then conducted to explore differences in the respondents' likelihood of recommending the most liberal and the most conservative of these policies. Study I demonstrated that liberal policies were more likely to be recommended and conservative policies were less likely to be recommended when the target group was perceived to be deserving rather than undeserving. Study 2 replicated this effect of perceived deservingness and demonstrated an effect of attribution of responsibility. That is, liberal policies were more likely to be recommended and conservative policies were less likely to be recommended when the responsibility for the target's poverty was attributed to society rather than to the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Interviews are a widely used methodology in conservation research. They are flexible, allowing in‐depth analysis from a relatively small sample size and place the focus of research on the views of participants. While interviews are a popular method, several critiques have been raised in response to their use, including the lack of transparency in sampling strategy, choice of questions and mode of analysis. In this paper, we analyse the use of interviews in research aimed at making decisions for conservation. Through a structured review of 227 papers, we explore where, why and how interviews were used in the context of conservation decision making The review suggests that interviews are a widely used method for a broad range of purposes. These include gaining ecological and/or socio‐economic information on specific conservation issues, understanding knowledge, values, beliefs or decision‐making processes of stakeholders, and strengthening research design and output. The review, however, identifies a number of concerns. Researchers are not reporting fully on their interview methodology. Specifically, results indicate that researchers are: failing to provide a rationale as to why interviews are the most suitable method, not piloting the interviews (thus questions may be poorly designed), not outlining ethical considerations, not providing clear guides to analysis and not critically reviewing their use of interviews. Based on the results of the review, we provide a detailed checklist aimed at conservation researchers who wish to use interviews in their research (whether experienced in using the methodology or not), and journal editors and reviewers to ensure the robustness of interview methodology use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategy implementation scholars have traditionally focused their attention on behavioral and social phenomena in a firm that enable it to both choose and implement its strategies. Unfortunately, some of this work has assumed that it is possible to study strategy implementation independent of the content of a firm's strategies, and independent of the particular competitive context within which a firm operates. Recent developments in the resource-based view of the firm reaffirm the importance of studying the strategic consequences of behavioral and social phenomena within a firm, but suggest that separating this work from the content of strategy, or from the competitive context of a firm, is inappropriate. The papers in this special issue focus on important behavioral and social phenomena in a firm (e.g., organizational behavior), but do so in an explicit competitive context (e.g., competitive organizational behavior). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing queries in wireless sensor networks causes quality of service challenges such as data latency and validity. In fact, this paper is going to shed light on identifying the right trade‐off between latency and the freshness of the data. For this purpose, a fuzzy logic‐based decision‐making system that assigns incoming queries either to the sensor network, where the queries are waiting to be processed into a queue, or a central database which provides stored and potentially stale data or to a cache server which in turn provides acceptable latency and recent data, is provided. Thus, a new rule‐based system decision is introduced, that minimizes the request latency and returns the most recent data. In addition, a comparison between the approach and other work that is restricted to the database server and sensor network with no focus on the caching server is provided. This paper is going to carry on with the theory of Markov Chain which is more complicated compared to the fuzzy logic system. This approach is confirmed in the basis of an experience is developed with python. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with advanced incurable cancer face difficult decisions about palliative treatment options towards their end of life. However, they are often not provided with the appropriate information and support that is needed to make informed decisions. This review aimed to identify contexts and mechanisms associated with communication tools, patient decision‐aids and shared decision‐making (SDM) approaches that influence patient outcomes. Methods: We used a realist review method to search for published studies of patients (adults > 18) with advanced cancer who were expected to make a decision about palliative treatment and/or supportive care in consultation with healthcare practitioners. We appraised and synthesised literature describing the contexts of (when and how) decision aids and SDM approaches are used, and how these contexts interact with mechanisms (resources and reasoning) which impact patient outcomes. Stakeholders including academics, palliative healthcare professionals (HCPs) and people with lived experience of supporting people with advanced incurable cancer contributed to identifying explanatory accounts. These accounts were documented, analysed and consolidated to contribute to the development of a programme theory. Results: From the 33 included papers, we consolidated findings into 20 explanatory accounts to develop a programme theory that explains key contexts and mechanisms that influence patient and SDM. Contexts include underlying patients' and HCPs' attitudes and approaches. These need to be understood in relation to key mechanisms, including presenting information in multiple formats and providing adequate time and opportunities to prepare for and revisit decisions. Contexts influenced mechanisms which then influence the levels of patient decisional satisfaction, conflict and regret. Conclusions: Our programme theory highlights mechanisms that are important in supporting shared treatment decisions for advanced noncurative cancer. The findings are informative for developing and evaluating interventions to improve understanding and involvement in SDM for patients with advanced incurable cancer. Patient and Public Contribution: We included patient and public involvement (PPI) representatives in four stakeholder meetings. PPI helped to define the scope of the review, identify their unique experiences and perspectives, synthesise their perspectives with our review findings, make decisions about which theories we included in our programme theory and develop recommendations for policy and practice and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Involving men and boys as both users and supporters of Family Planning (FP) is now considered essential for optimising maternal and child health outcomes. Evidence on how to engage men and boys to meet FP needs is therefore important. Objectives: The main objective of this review was to assess the strength of evidence in the area and uncover the effective components and critical process‐ and system‐level characteristics of successful interventions. Search Methods: We searched nine electronic databases, seven grey literature databases, organisational websites, and the reference lists of systematic reviews relating to FP. To identify process evaluations and qualitative papers associated with the included experimental studies, we used Connected Papers and hand searches of reference lists. Selection Criteria: Experimental and quasi‐experimental studies of behavioural and service‐level interventions involving males aged 10 years or over in low‐ and middle‐income countries to increase uptake of FP methods were included in this review. Data Collection and Analysis: Methodology was a causal chain analysis involving the development and testing of a logic model of intervention components based on stakeholder consultation and prior research. Qualitative and quantitative data relating to the evaluation studies and interventions were extracted based on the principles of 'effectiveness‐plus' reviews. Quantitative analysis was undertaken using r with robust variance estimation (RVE), meta‐analysis and meta‐regression. Qualitative analysis involved 'best fit' framework synthesis. Results: We identified 8885 potentially relevant records and included 127 in the review. Fifty‐nine (46%) of these were randomised trials, the remainder were quasi‐experimental studies with a comparison group. Fifty‐four percent of the included studies were assessed as having a high risk of bias. A meta‐analysis of 72 studies (k = 265) showed that the included group of interventions had statistically significantly higher odds of improving contraceptive use when compared to comparison groups (odds ratio = 1.38, confidence interval = 1.21 to 1.57, prediction interval = 0.36 to 5.31, p < 0.0001), but there were substantial variations in the effect sizes of the studies (Q = 40,647, df = 264, p < 0.0001; I2 = 98%) and 73% was within cluster/study. Multi‐variate meta‐regression revealed several significant intervention delivery characteristics that moderate contraceptive use. These included community‐based educational FP interventions, interventions delivered to women as well as men and interventions delivered by trained facilitators, professionals, or peers in community, home and community, or school settings. None of the eight identified intervention components or 33 combinations of components were significant moderators of effects on contraceptive use. Qualitative analysis highlighted some of the barriers and facilitators of effective models of FP that should be considered in future practice and research. Authors' Conclusions: FP interventions that involve men and boys alongside women and girls are effective in improving uptake and use of contraceptives. The evidence suggests that policy should continue to promote the involvement of men and boys in FP in ways that also promote gender equality. Recommendations for research include the need for evaluations during conflict and disease outbreaks, and evaluation of gender transformative interventions which engage men and boys as contraceptive users and supporters in helping to achieve desired family size, fertility promotion, safe conception, as well as promoting equitable family planning decision‐making for women and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificially intelligent systems (AISs) are being created by software developing companies (SDCs) to influence clinical decision-making. Historically, clinicians have led healthcare decision-making, and the introduction of AISs makes SDCs novel actors in the clinical decision-making space. Although these AISs are intended to influence a clinician's decision-making, SDCs have been clear that clinicians are in fact the final decision-makers in clinical care, and that AISs can only inform their decisions. As such, the default position is that clinicians should hold responsibility for the outcomes of the use of AISs. This is not the case when an AIS has influenced a clinician's judgement and their subsequent decision. In this paper, we argue that this is an imbalanced and unjust position, and that careful thought needs to go into how personal moral responsibility for the use of AISs in clinical decision-making should be attributed. This paper employs and examines the difference between prospective and retrospective responsibility and considers foreseeability as key in determining how personal moral responsibility can be justly attributed. This leads us to the view that moral responsibility for the outcomes of using AISs in healthcare ought to be shared by the clinical users and SDCs., (© 2023 The Authors. Bioethics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Informal care features high on the policy agenda of many countries to deal with workforce shortages. As a consequence, care provision increasingly takes place in the care triad of care recipients, informal caregivers and care professionals. How collaboration between care partners takes shape depends on how the different partners perceive this collaboration. This paper aims to investigate the relative importance of the different aspects of collaboration from the perspectives of care recipients, informal caregivers and care professionals in the context of the care for older persons in The Netherlands. Methods: Using Q‐methodology, 32 participants ranked 28 statements that reflect different aspects of collaboration in the care triad and explained their ranking during a follow‐up interview. Participants comprised 9 older persons, 10 informal caregivers and 13 care professionals. Data were analysed using by‐person factor analysis to identify common patterns in the rankings of the statements. Emerging patterns were interpreted and described as views on collaboration using aggregated rankings and qualitative data from the interviews. Results: Five distinct views on collaboration were found: (1) Emphasizing warm collaboration, (2) trusting care professional's expertise, (3) open and compassionate care professionals, (4) responsive decision‐making by autonomous care professionals and (5) prioritizing care recipient's and informal caregiver's interests. Care recipients and/or informal caregivers were associated with views 1, 3 and, 5, whereas care professionals were associated with all five views. Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of recognizing the potential diversity of views between and within different partner groups in care triads. Governmental and organizational policy makers, as well as healthcare professionals who aim to increase or support the involvement of informal caregivers, should take this heterogeneity into consideration. Patient or Public Contribution: An advisory board of older persons (care recipients and informal caregivers) was involved in the recruitment of the participants, the formulation of the statements and the reflection on the findings of the study and potential implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important cause of stunting is limited consumption of complementary foods, in terms of both quantities and nutrients. Although existing studies show a positive association between fathers' engagement and children's diet, programmes designed to improve complementary feeding practices often only target mothers. In response to this, maternal behaviour change communication (BCC), paternal BCC and food voucher programmes were designed and implemented in Ethiopia using a clustered randomized controlled trial design. The paternal BCC programme included gender‐equal messages to increase fathers' participation in childcare, household labour and decision making. The research reported in this paper is an examination of the BCC programmes, characterizing the behavioural, normative and control beliefs of both mothers and fathers in BCC households compared to those in control households. In this study, a total of 40 participants were included, with 13 mother–father pairs in the BCC + food voucher group, and seven pairs in the control group. Each participant was interviewed separately. We found that BCC mothers showed more gender‐equal tendencies than the control mothers despite being more rural in location. By contrast, the beliefs of BCC and control fathers were similar overall, suggesting men are more resistant to gender‐equal BCC. More work is needed to develop and test effective methods for changing fathers' beliefs and practices. Key messages: Mothers in behaviour change communication (BCC) group mothers held more gender‐equal beliefs than control mothers, while BCC and control fathers shared similar views, suggesting a male resistance to gender equality.Mothers found fathers' involvement in childcare socially acceptable but often perceived them as inexperienced, which limited their participation.Control mothers' traditional view on household chores maintained the conventional labour division, influencing fathers' involvement.Fathers typically resisted maternal control of resources; however, they agreed that the more knowledgeable should lead decision‐making. BCC mothers showed greater confidence in making household decisions as effectively as fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vehicle platoon lane changing is significant for alleviating road congestion and diminishing transportation energy consumption. However, the lane changing strategy for a group of vehicles is still a great challenge in this field. This paper investigates the vehicle platoon lane changing problems, in which the safety and efficiency in the lane changing procedure are both taken into consideration. Since the safety of the platoon lane changing would be affected by the lane changing gap and the length of the platoon, a novel platoon lane changing strategy is proposed by using the deep Q‐network. In detail, the proposed platoon lane changing strategy contains two layers, where the first one is a decision layer and the other one is the verification layer. In the decision layer, the deep Q‐network is employed to improve the lane changing efficiency. Then, the verification layer is presented to enhance the platoon lane changing safety. In final, some typical platoon lane changing scenarios are provided in an existing ramp containing a vehicle platoon and some random vehicles. The related numerical simulations are conducted to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculosis (TB) is an extremely contagious illness caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Chest tuberculosis classification is conducted based on a deep convolutional neural network architecture. In this research, a pre‐trained network is utilized to demonstrate the advantage of using the oversampling technique on the classification of TB and compare results with recent research that used the same dataset. Therefore, the dataset consists of 3500 uninfected TB cases and 700 infected with TB. This paper circumvents the imbalance by using the oversampling technique in X‐ray TB images to be fed into several pre‐trained networks for TB classification. The oversampling technique is crucial in enhancing the performance of TB classification compared with other pre‐trained models reported here. Inceptionv3 shows a promising result compared to other pre‐trained models; it achieves 99.94% accuracy, 99.88% precision, 100% recall, and 99.94% F1‐Score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an autoregressive weighted network (ARWNet) time series forecasting model inspired by the idea of ensemble learning. The model adopts the classical autoregressive analysis to optimize weak learners. Meanwhile, the combined weight optimization method is used to construct an efficient, strong learner. With these methodological foundations, the scalability of the framework is greatly enhanced by the possibility of experimenting with other learners to assist in decision‐making. Machine learning can provide great utility and acceptable cost in the prediction process of electricity transformers. Over the years, many research papers on time series prediction have been reported. This work will focus on the analysis using the potential properties in the series: long‐term, continuity, periodicity, and delay. In our experiments, the ETT‐small dataset is used to compare the prediction accuracy of ARWNet and other mainstream models. All results suggest that the proposed ARWNet model demonstrates strong generalization ability and high predicting accuracy with delay characteristics, which outperform current popular time‐series prediction methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a transformative technology, connected and automated driving technology is expected to deal with the issues of traffic congestion and conflicts, and meanwhile to ensure the driving safety in intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Chen et al. presented a finite time disturbance observer (FTDO)-based super-twisting sliding mode control (SMC) for a vehicle platoon system against parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. Cai et al. designed a Platoon Sharing Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient Algorithm for a multi-vehicle network. [Extracted from the article]

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