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Rationale, Aims and Objectives: Despite extensive evidence on the value of patient decision support interventions (DESIs), there is no consensus on optimal DESI formats. Assessing clinicians' perceptions about DESI formats can help facilitate their adoption. The aim of this study was to assess clinicians' perceptions of DESIs formats and potential use in practice., Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with doctors from diverse practice areas (internal medicine, OB/GYN, surgery, medical oncology, emergency medicine) and elicited perceptions toward patient DESIs formats (digital vs. paper) and timing of administration. Questions also elicited beliefs underlying attitudes, perceived social norms and self-efficacy for using DESIs and the feasibility of doing so. Data analysis was conducted using a thematic analysis approach., Results: Participants identified strengths of both more comprehensive digital and shorter paper-based tools and thought they could complement each other. Participants consistently expressed the advantages of using DESIs outside the consultation to supplement clinical discussions about cancer decisions given the amount of information to discuss during these emotion-laden conversations. Participants felt that patients with older age and lower socio-economic status were more likely to use a paper-based compared with a digital DESI. Participants also noted challenges related to reliable resources such as computers and Internet in the practice setting, which would be necessary for implementing the digital DESIs on site., Conclusions: Clinicians' perceptions and opinions about value of DESIs can vary widely across doctor, patient and clinic characteristics. A one-size-fits-all approach to implementation might not be feasible, suggesting that flexible approaches to providing decision support for patients are needed to drive broader adoption., (© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

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]

Reviews have long been recognized as among the most important forms of scientific communication. The rapid growth of the primary literature has further increased the need for reviews to distill and interpret the literature. This review on Reviews and Reviewing: Approaches to Research Synthesis encompasses the evolution of the review literature, taxonomy of review literature, uses and users of reviews, the process of preparing reviews, assessment of review quality and impact, the impact of information technology on the preparation of reviews, and research opportunities for information science related to reviews and reviewing. In addition to providing a synthesis of prior research, this review seeks to identify gaps in the published research and to suggest possible future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Should the assessment of decision-making capacity (DMC) be risk sensitive, that is, should the threshold for DMC vary with risk? The debate over this question is now nearly five decades old. To many, the idea that DMC assessments should be risk sensitive is intuitive and commonsense. To others, the idea is paternalistic or incoherent, or both; they argue that the riskiness of a given decision should increase the epistemic scrutiny in the evaluation of DMC, not increase the threshold for DMC. We respond to the critics' main concerns by providing a comprehensive account of how risk-sensitive DMC is coherent, avoids paternalism, and best fulfills the epistemic goal of DMC evaluations., (© 2023 The Hastings Center.)

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]

This article applies a two-process "neural autopilot" model to field data. The autopilot model hypothesizes that habitual choice occurs when the reward from a behavior has low numerical "doubt" (i.e., reward prediction errors are small). The model toggles between repeating a previous choice (habit) when doubt is low and making a goal-directed choice when doubt is high. The model has ingredients established in animal learning and cognitive neuroscience and is simple enough to make nonobvious predictions. In two empirical applications, we fit the model to field data on purchases of canned tuna and posting on the Chinese social media site Weibo. This style of modeling is called "structural" because there is a theoretical model of how different variables influence choices by agents (the "structure"), which tightly restricts how hidden variables lead to observed choices. There is empirical support for the model, more strongly for tuna purchases than for Weibo posting, relative to a baseline "reduced-form" model in which current choices are correlated with past choices without a mechanistic (structural) explanation. An interesting set of predictions can also be derived about how consumers react to different kinds of changes in prices and qualities of goods (this is called "counterfactual analysis")., (© 2023 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.)

The simplest example of non-transitive competition is the game rock-paper-scissors (RPS), which exhibits characteristic cyclic strategy replacement: paper beats rock, which in turn beats scissors, which in turn beats paper. In addition to its familiar use in understanding human decision-making, rock-paper-scissors is also played in many biological systems. Among other reasons, this is important because it potentially provides a mechanism whereby species- or strain coexistence can occur in the face of intense competition. Kerr et al. (2002, Nature 418: 171-174) use complementary experiments and simulations to show that RPS-playing toxic, resistant, and susceptible E. coli bacteria can coexist when interactions between the strains are spatially explicit. This raises the question of whether limited interactions associated with space are sufficient to allow strain coexistence, or whether space per se is crucial. I approach this question by extending the Kerr et al. model to include different (aspatial) population network structures with the same degree distributions as corresponding spatial lattice models. I show that the coexistence that occurs for some parameter combinations when simulated bacterial strains compete on lattices is absent when they compete on random regular graphs. Further, considering small-world networks of intermediate 'quenched randomness' between lattices and random regular graphs, I show that only small deviations from pure spatial interactions are sufficient to prevent strain coexistence. These results emphasize the explicit role of space, rather than merely limited interactions, as being decisive in allowing the coexistence of toxic, resistant, and susceptible strains in this model system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispersal is crucial for both individual fitness and spatiotemporal population dynamics. In sexual organisms, females and males have different reproductive strategies and therefore have different reproductive demands (i.e., reproductive resources and mating partners, respectively), which leads to differences in dispersal decision making between sexes. Although many studies have described sexual differences in dispersal behavior, little is known about the consequences for spatiotemporal population dynamics because metapopulation theory has considered only either nonrandom dispersal in asexual systems or random dispersal in sexual systems. To fill the knowledge gap, we propose a modeling framework that incorporates nonrandom and sex‐specific dispersal into metapopulation theory. It allows us to ask how female‐biased (e.g., in mammals) or male‐biased (e.g., in birds) dispersal can influence persistence of sexual organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Critical appraisal skills enabling assessment of the validity and importance of evidence are essential for clinicians to make informed decisions regarding what new information should be incorporated into their clinical practice. This review highlights key points to consider in a critical review concentrating on common study designs used in the equine literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, Aims, and Objectives: The way in which care providers describe incapacitated elderly people is not without implications. The different ways in which they describe their patients-client, patient, or a sick human being-have consequences for their relationships with these patients and the decision-making processes. The aim of this study is to use insights from complexity thinking to understand the dynamic relations between various patient descriptions in decision-making., Method: We conducted a retrospective qualitative empirical study. Health care professionals were interviewed on how their decisions with the families of the patients were made during the course of the patients' illness. Transcriptions of interviews with physicians, residential practitioners, nurses, and head nurses were made regarding their contribution to the decision-making process. Methodologies of complexity thinkers can be helpful to not articulate the implications of individual patient descriptions, but also their interrelationships., Results: Instead of reducing their patients with the logic of the market to clients or with the logic of medicine to patients, health care providers learn in an emergent dialogic encounter to care for them as sick persons., Conclusions: Shared-decision-making favours the involvement of patients and their families in decision-making. However, due to a domination of the logic of the market and the logic of medicine, decision-making is problematic. As professional mediators, health care providers learn, however, to balance client demands, medical perspectives, and embodied dialogic care in decision-making for voiceless patients., (© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Abstract: In order to prevent tunnel vision, and ultimately miscarriages of justice, police, prosecutors, and judges must remain open to alternative scenarios in which the suspect is in fact innocent. However, it is not evident from the literature that people are sufficiently aware of how alternative scenarios should be employed in the decision‐making process. In the present research, participants read a case vignette and formed an impression of the suspect's guilt. Some participants were made familiar with an alternative scenario. Others were not only presented with an alternative scenario but were also instructed to score (with pen and paper) the extent to which every piece of evidence fitted in the primary and the alternative scenario. Findings suggest that this pen‐and‐paper task helped to reduce tunnel vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After offering great promise and attracting substantial investment in technology development, fields emission did not succeed in the competition against liquid crystal technology for computer screens and plasma technology for large flat panel television. We review and analyze some of the challenges that prevented field emission from becoming a mayor information display technology. W e report the development of a novel modelling tool that can be used to support the design of field emitters optimized to the application requirements. The previous lack of such a simulation tool that incorporates the range of phenomena that affect field emission has been a limiting factor in emitter performance and data analysis. The new model enables more accurate and effective design of field emitters including the emission dynamics and thermal behaviour for a wide range of geometries and materials. It provides a powerful tool with high accessibility to support engineers to make informed decisions as part of the product design process. This increases opportunities for field emission to be used in a range of non‐display applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With increased use of artificial intelligence in the classroom, there is now a need to better understand the complementarity of intelligent learning technology and teachers to produce effective instruction. Objective: The paper reviews the current research on intelligent learning technology designed to make models of student learning and instruction transparent to teachers, an area we call model‐based learning analytics. We intended to gain an insight into the coupling between the knowledge models that underpin the intelligent system and the knowledge used by teachers in their classroom decision making. Methods: Using a systematic literature review methodology, we first identified 42 papers, mainly from the domain of intelligent tutoring systems and learning analytics dashboards that conformed to our selection criteria. We then qualitatively analysed the context in which the systems were applied, models they used and benefits reported for teachers and learners. Results and Conclusions: A majority of papers used either domain or learner models, suggesting that instructional decisions are mostly left to teachers. Compared to previous reviews, our set of papers appeared to have a stronger focus on providing teachers with theory‐driven insights and instructional decisions. This suggests that model‐based learning analytics can address some of the shortcomings of the field, like meaningfulness and actionability of learning analytics tools. However, impact in the classroom still needs further research, as in half of the cases the reported benefits were not backed with evidence. Future research should focus on the dynamic interaction between teachers and technology and how learning analytics has an impact on learning and decision making by teachers and students. We offer a taxonomy of knowledge models that can serve as a starting point for designing such interaction. Lay Description: What is currently known: Current learning analytics solutions are often not perceived helpful by teachers What this paper adds: Model‐based learning analytics seeks to make these systems more transparent and actionableOur review shows there is good potential that systems designed in this way would have greater impact on classroom teaching Implications for practitioners: Pedagogical‐psychological models should be an integral part of intelligent learning systems designsWe offer a taxonomy of such models and current good practices of their use as a starting point [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about auditing and accounting is presented. It discusses the definition of critical synthesis which is an antonym for analysis and how the author will analyze research done on auditing practices and accounting. It examines other papers concerning auditing procedures and accounting methods including the one by Neil Churchill.

Evidence suggests that psychological stress has effects on decision making, but the results are inconsistent, and the influence of cortisol and other modulating factors remains unclear. Based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria, 18 studies carried out between 2015 and 2020 that examined the effects of psychological stress on decision making and measured cortisol levels were selected. Eight studies employed uncertainty-based economic tasks, five studies used decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations that can be encountered in real life or in a specific setting and five studies employed prosocial decision tasks. Seventeen studies assessed acute stress, and two assessed chronic stress; eight evaluated the influence of sex. Most of the studies that explored the association between stress and decision making using uncertainty-based economic tasks found statistically significant differences as a function of stress exposure and the cortisol response to stress, whereas most of the studies that employed non-economic decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations did not find statistically significant differences. When prosocial decision making was evaluated, more altruistic decisions were found after acute stress, and these decisions were positively associated with cortisol. Half of the studies that assessed the role of sex observed a greater impact on decision making after stress in women. Results suggest that it is important to consider modulating factors-the type of decision-making task, the cortisol response to stress, the characteristics of the psychological stressor or the subject's sex-when trying to understand psychosocial stress phenomena., (© 2022 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Young adults with long-term conditions can struggle to accept their diagnosis and can become overwhelmed with managing their condition. Suboptimal transfer from paediatric to adult services with a resultant disengagement with the service can result in less involvement in care and decision-making. Shared decision-making can improve involvement in health decisions and increase satisfaction with treatment/therapy and care., Objectives: An integrative literature review was conducted to explore and understand young adults' experiences of decision-making in health care., Design: An integrative literature review., Data Sources: CINAHL, EMCARE, PsycINFO, HMIC, EMBASE, Web of Science, PubMed, MEDLINE, EBSCOHOST and COCHRANE databases were searched for relevant literature published between January 1999 and January 2020., Findings: Thirteen primary research papers met the inclusion criteria. Four main themes were identified: (1) Information delivery and communication; (2) participation in decision-making; (3) social factors influencing decision-making and (4) emotional impact of decision-making., Conclusions: Young adults with long-term conditions have specific decision-making needs which can impact their emotional health. Research with a specific focus on young adults' experiences of decision-making in health care is needed., (© 2021 European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association/European Renal Care Association.)

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]

Projective mapping has recently attracted a lot of attention and the main sensory data acquisition software packages have developed interfaces to collect projective mapping data. However, the comparison between paper- and computer-based projective mapping has never been reported. The objectives of this research were to (1) compare the consensus maps and panelists' performances for paper- and computer-based projective mapping and (2) analyze the panelists' strategies while performing either tasks. In the first part of the study, 32 panelists were asked to perform both paper- and computer-based projective mapping on eight beer samples. In a second part of the study, 10 panelists were asked to repeat the tasks while 'thinking aloud' their strategy. There was no significant difference in panelists' performance as assessed by the people performance index between the paper and computer tasks. The consensus maps obtained were similar with respect to sample groupings, RV coefficients and variation explained by the first two dimensions. Individual panelists adopted similar strategies on paper and computer, but strategies differed greatly between panelists. Practical Applications The results reported here will help panel leaders in making informed decisions with respect to support choice when designing projective mapping tests. Additionally, an insight into the diversity of panelists' mapping strategies is provided which may inform further research and discussion into the most appropriate instructions given to panelists and/or type of panel used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing system complexity has provided the impetus to develop new and novel systems engineering methodologies. One of these methodologies is set‐based design (SBD), a concurrent design methodology well suited for complex systems subject to significant uncertainty. Since the 1990s, numerous private, public, and defense sector design programs have successfully implemented SBD. However, concerns regarding SBD's complexity, tendency toward qualitative methods, and lack of quantitative tools have limited its use. To address these issues, our research surveys 122 refereed journal articles and conference papers to assess SBD's state‐of‐practice and identify relevant research opportunities. To accomplish these tasks, we perform a structured literature review to identify and assess relevant and influential research. We found that SBD's state‐of‐practice relies heavily upon decision and tradespace analysis with increasing emphasis on uncertainty modeling and MBSE. We found that the majority of SBD research consists of quantitative methodologies focusing on component and small system applications. We also found that complex system applications used mostly qualitative methodologies. We identify SBD research opportunities for requirements development, MBSE, uncertainty modeling, multiresolution modeling, adversarial analysis, and program management. Finally, we recommend the development of a comprehensive SBD methodology and toolkit, suited for complex system design across all stages of the product development life cycle. [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.

Introduction and Aims: Over half of people presenting to alcohol/other drug (AOD) treatment services also have a mental health condition. Guidelines support numerous viable treatment options, meaning that treatment decisions need to be evidence based and patients' preferences need to be considered. Shared decision-making (SDM) facilitates evidence- and preference-based decisions and is well researched in other health-care areas. Little is known, however, about people's attitudes towards and experience of SDM in co-occurring AOD and mental health conditions., Design and Methods: Systematic literature review via key database searches MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Scopus, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Database of Systematic Reviews (January 2000-July 2019). Two independent reviewers assessed study eligibility, extracted data and rated study quality using a validated tool., Results: Of 2393 articles identified, 10 studies were retained for final inclusion. The reviewed studies suggested that SDM is a well-accepted and preferred approach to treatment decision-making. SDM-based interventions are viewed as feasible, acceptable and useful; are associated with improvements in the quality of the decision-making process and the decision made; and have accrued less consistent evidence to support improvements in patient-related outcomes (e.g. symptoms, treatment adherence/engagement)., Discussion and Conclusions: This is the first rigorous synthesis of the empirical literature on SDM in co-occurring AOD and mental health conditions. SDM remains a nascent area of research in comorbidity treatment. Preliminary evidence supports SDM's acceptability, feasibility and utility in managing mental health and AOD comorbidities. Further research is needed to build the evidence base, especially with regard to the efficacy of SDM at improving patient-related outcomes., (© 2020 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.)

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.)

Summary: There is more and more online information available at our fingertips, but how do we efficiently identify and extract relevant information for good clinical decision making? The aim of this review article is to provide equine professionals with the building blocks to be able to develop skills for expertly navigating the scientific literature in a timely fashion. This includes what key questions you need to ask before starting (why am I searching and how much time do I have), where the best places are to search and how to find freely available legal copies of papers (articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and dissertations). Additionally, how to best conduct an information search and what you get from searches of varying comprehensiveness. Finally, this article will cover where to find databases of research syntheses where others have already carried out the hard work for you and some advanced techniques which are likely to save you substantial amounts of time. This article draws together expertise from a panel of veterinary clinicians, nurses and technicians, information specialists and librarians and clinical researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The UNCRC (1989) established the importance of listening to children's views globally. In England, seeking the views of pupils with special educational needs and disability about their education, and involving them in decision-making, has been mandatory since 2015. Autistic children's views and experiences are particularly underrepresented in this context., Aims: To provide a detailed exploratory analysis of practices that enable autistic pupils to participate in educational decision-making, and to generate new knowledge about pupil participation in a school context, using the Framework for Participation (Black-Hawkins, 2010) as an analytical frame., Sample: Four male pupils aged 11-15, with autism spectrum diagnoses, and 11 staff members from a specialist, independent school took part in this case study., Methods: Observations were made of pupils in lessons, and pupils completed a photo-voice activity focusing on where they felt 'most listened to' in the school. Staff members participated in semi-structured interviews., Results: A range of practices supported pupils' participation in everyday decision-making, underpinned by a respectful and positive culture led by the senior management team. The focus was on what learners can do and how they make decisions to facilitate achievement. Pupils and staff developed mutually respectful relationships, within which boundaries were negotiated and compromises offered. Flexibility through decision-making was provided within the timetabling and content of the curriculum. Pupils' special interests and expertise were valued as 'keys' to supporting their engagement., Conclusions: These insights provide a tool for reflection by educators and educational psychologists for considering how they might promote the participation of autistic pupils in different educational contexts., (© 2019 The British Psychological Society.)

Context: Authorship has major implications for researchers' careers. Hence, journals require researchers to meet formal authorship criteria. However, researchers frequently admit to violating these criteria, which suggests that authorship is a complex issue. This study aims to unpack the complexities inherent in researchers' conceptualisations of questionable authorship practices and to identify factors that make researchers vulnerable to engaging in such practices., Methods: A total of 26 North American medical education researchers at a range of career stages were interviewed. Participants were asked to respond to two vignettes, of which one portrayed honorary authorship and the other described an author order scenario, and then to describe related authorship experiences. Data were analysed using thematic analysis., Results: Participants conceptualised questionable authorship practices in various ways and articulated several ethically grey areas. Personal and situational factors were identified, including hierarchy, resource dependence, institutional culture and gender; these contributed to participants' vulnerability to and involvement in questionable authorship practices. Participants described negative instances of questionable authorship practices as well as situations in which these practices were used for virtuous purposes. Participants rationalised engagement in questionable authorship practices by suggesting that, although technically violating authorship criteria, such practices could be reasonable when they seemed to benefit science., Conclusions: Authorship guidelines portray authorship decisions as being black and white, effectively sidestepping key dimensions that create ethical shades of grey. These findings show that researchers generally recognise these shades of grey and in some cases acknowledge having bent the rules themselves. Sometimes their flexibility is driven by benevolent aims aligned with their own values or prevailing norms such as inclusivity. At other times participation in these practices is framed not as a choice, but rather as a consequence of researchers' vulnerability to individual or system factors beyond their control. Taken together, these findings provide insights to help researchers and institutions move beyond recognition of the challenges of authorship and contribute to the development of informed, evidence-based solutions., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.)

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]

To evaluate potential learning outcomes for pre-registration house officer (PRHO) training and develop an evidence base for informed decision making. A 2-stage Delphi process was employed to establish the opinions of Scottish stakeholders with regard to learning outcomes for the PRHO year. Doctors involved in the provision of PRHO training, including deans, postgraduate tutors and general practitioners (GPs) with trainees, were invited to participate in the study. Respondents rated a range of outcomes according to which they believed should be included or excluded from the PRHO training year. Learning outcomes identified for PRHOs were grouped under the 12-domain framework of the 3-circle model: ‘What the doctor can do’, ‘How they approach their practice’ and ‘Their professionalism’. Based on the consensus opinions gained in the Delphi study, the ratings were classified into priority groupings. Priority 1 contained 45 of the original 81 learning outcomes, representing each area of the 3-circle model, with emphasis on the domains of clinical skills, patient investigation/management, communication, appropriate attitudes and personal development. Health promotion and disease prevention was the only domain not represented at priority 1. Priority 2 contained 24 outcomes with emphasis on the understanding of clinical skills, patient management and personal development. Priority 3 contained 12 outcomes indicating a lack of emphasis for some outcomes, particularly the role of the doctor and health promotion. Consensus on the learning outcomes for PRHO training has been achieved, providing an evidence base for curriculum planning. The relative priority assigned to these outcomes can facilitate the use of the evidence. This evidence base should be referred to when reviewing any PRHO training programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subculture of developmental disabilities services has embraced ideological perspectives from academia in general and from other service sectors, including, in recent years, the educational sector. Prevalent ideological and philosophical perspectives with growing influence within the professional literature and to a lesser degree, the practitioner community, include postmodernist and constructionist doctrine. These perspectives influence the depiction of utility of a wide variety of clinical and programmatic activities that typify services and, generally, impact upon decision making by policy makers, administrators, and possibly, to an important degree, by managers who influence events at the point of clinical and service contact. This article discusses the nature and character of these influences and the issues facing the field, centering on the act of classifying a person with mild mental retardation, as well as uncertainties regarding both the process and consequences of classification. Recommendations are made for an expanded but modified role for adaptive behavior assessment in this process. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [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.

Scrutiny about and controversy regarding the use of college admissions tests have increased since COVID‐19 eliminated mass face‐to‐face testing. At that time, many selective colleges chose to make their admissions decisions without using such tests. More recently, the controversy has been sustained as some selective colleges and universities have reinstated requiring test scores. These tests, primarily the ACT and SAT, have received empirical support but also have faced substantial criticism from test critics and researchers. This paper examines contributions of admissions tests for predicting college outcomes in the presence of additional information available for making college decisions. We investigate relations of ACT tests with academic outcomes for four successive (2011–2014) first‐year cohorts at a large, moderately selective Midwestern Research 1 university. Analyses examine how strongly ACT college admissions tests are related to short‐ and long‐term college success for students controlling for their backgrounds (citizenship, race/ethnicity, first‐generation, sex, socio‐economic status). ACT tests contributed modestly to the prediction of first‐year performance. However, with first year college GPA included, ACT tests failed to add to the prediction of GPA in years 2, 3, and 4, and to prediction of dropout and graduation. These findings inform conversations about the use of college admissions tests post‐COVID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

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 presents the discussion on significant increase in the submission and publication of research papers in nutrition and dietetics which was associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic. Topics include recruited to participate in a study which utilised an online food frequency questionnaire to look at nutrient intake and to self‐report for having diagnosis of type‐2 diabetes; and food frequency questionnaires having low validity while assessing intakes of micronutrients and trace elements.

The research into patient involvement is seldom concerned with the significance of cultural and structural factors. In this discussion paper, we illustrate our considerations on some of the challenges in implementing the ideal of patient involvement by showing how such factors take part in shaping the ways in which the intentions to involve patients are converted to practical interventions. The aim was to contribute to the approach dealing with contextual and structural factors of significance for patient involvement. With the idea of "institutional logics," borrowed from the Danish scholar, Erik Riiskjær, we first demonstrate, with examples from our own research, how patient involvement is interpreted differently within the different logics. Then, we show how the different interpretations of patient involvement meet and conflict in mutual competition as the ideals are sought to be converted to practical interventions. At last, we argue that an adequate theoretical model for the development in the future health care system should be expanded with a "patient logic." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims To understand processes placing individuals at risk for stimulant (amphetamine and cocaine) use disorder. Design Longitudinal study. Setting University of California, San Diego Department of Psychiatry, CA, USA. Participants Occasional stimulant users (OSU; n = 184) underwent a baseline clinical interview and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. On the basis of a follow-up clinical interview completed 3 years later, OSU ( n = 147) were then categorized as problem stimulant users (PSU: n = 36; those who developed stimulant use disorders in the interim) or desisted stimulant users (DSU: n = 74; those who stopped using). OSU who did not meet criteria for PSU or DSU ( n = 37) were included in dimensional analyses. Measurements fMRI blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) contrast percentage signal change from baseline collected during a Paper-Scissors-Rock task was examined during three decision-making conditions, those resulting in: (1) wins, (2) ties and (3) losses. These data were used as dependent variables in categorical analyses comparing PSU and DSU, as well as dimensional analyses including interim drug use as predictors, controlling for baseline drug use. Findings PSU exhibited lower anterior cingulate, middle insula, superior temporal, inferior parietal, precuneus and cerebellum activation than DSU across all three conditions (significant brain clusters required > 19 neighboring voxels to exceed F(1,108) = 5.58, P < 0.01 two-tailed; all Cohen's d > 0.83). Higher interim marijuana use was linked to lower pre-central and superior temporal activation during choices resulting in wins (> 19 neighboring voxels to exceed t = 2.61, P < 0.01 two-tailed; R2 change > 0.11). Conclusions Individuals who transition from stimulant use to stimulant use disorder appear to show alterations in neural processing of stimulus valuation and outcome monitoring, patterns also evident in chronic stimulant use disorder. Attenuated anterior cingulate and insular processing may constitute a high-risk neural processing profile, which could be used to calculate risk scores for individuals experimenting with stimulants. [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]

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]

The article announces the winners of the 2018 Best Paper Award given by the journal "Corporate Governance: An International Review" including "The Influence of Board Chairs on Director Engagement: A Case-Based Exploration of Boardroom Decision-Making" by Pieter-Jan Bezemer et al and "The Market for Independent Directors" by Lei Chen and Frank Moers.