Search

An editorial is presented discussing the crucial role of practitioner papers in health marketing, emphasizing the need for collaboration between academics and practitioners. Topics include the unique value of practitioner papers, barriers and enablers to publishing, and guidance for both practitioners and editors to facilitate successful publication.

The decision to implement a biogas production project involves the evaluation of multiple variables, such as the problem to be solved, the biodigester, business model, investment, and final products. An integrative literature review was conducted, in which 58 papers were obtained and relevant criteria for decision-making in biogas production projects from organic waste were identified. Three stages were considered in the analysis of the biogas production cycle: initial, plant, and final, as well as the economic, environmental, and social aspects that influence the decision. In general, the publications are dispersed over 30 different journals. The methodology used in most studies is empirical, quantitative, and descriptive, with data collected mainly from secondary sources. From the studies, 499 original criteria were identified, which were classified into one of four categories: economic, environmental, social, and technical, which cover a total of 39 sub-criteria. Economic and technical criteria were the most frequent in publications, while environmental and social criteria were less common and less prioritized. This suggests that there is a tendency to prioritize economic and technical dimensions over environmental and social dimensions in the analysis of the papers found. Finally, a preliminary decision-making model based on the findings is proposed. Implications: The integrative review of the literature on biogas and decision-making presented in this study holds significant implications for policy and practice in the field of sustainable energy production, organic waste management and decision making for public managers. By analyzing 159 papers and developing a comprehensive classification system, we have identified key sub-criteria for decision-making in various stages of the biogas production cycle. The predominance of technical and economic sub-criteria demonstrates the priorities of the current state of biogas projects and, at the same time, the need to promote balance between the technical, economic, social and environmental spheres in decision-making in order to achieve truly sustainable biogas projects. Policymakers can utilize these findings to promote the adoption of more holistic decision-making approaches that consider diverse factors, fostering the development of environmentally-friendly and socially equitable biogas ventures. This research provides valuable insights into aligning biogas production with broader sustainability goals and guides policymakers in formulating evidence-based strategies for the advancement of renewable energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to issues surrounding the participation rights of young people in research and the implications of their growing involvement in research as well as providing a discourse on the ethical implications related to consent. The unique contribution of this paper is that it considers children’s rights in respect to the increasing opportunities for young people to take part in evaluation research. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to acknowledge the growing involvement for young people in research and the implications of ensuring that their rights of participation are respected. Secondly, we will consider the children’s rights legislation and our obligations as researchers to implement this. Finally, we will explore consent as an issue in its own right as well as the practicalities of accessing participants. This paper will postulate that any research about young people should involve and prioritize at all stages of the research process; including participation in decision-making. We conclude by identifying five key principles, which we believe can help to facilitate the fulfilment of post-primary pupils’ ability to consent to participate in trials and evaluative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper machines are very complex production systems, but their scope is simple: they consume materials and resources, called factors, to produce paper, which in turn can be described by its characteristics. In this paper, a decision support system is developed in cooperation with an industrial partner to help them with operational decision making when tuning a paper machine. The decision support system was developed in two phases. Firstly, the knowledge of experts is collected and stored in the form of a fuzzy ontology. Secondly, this knowledge is made usable so that a user of the decision support system can specify what characteristics of the produced paper to increase or to decrease and be returned with a recommendation on what factors to change. In this paper, we will work out the optimization problems on which the system is based. Additionally to a basic goal programming model, two extensions are explored, accounting for uncertainty and non-linearity, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrating Construction Management and Economics's (CME) 40th anniversary, the goal of this paper is to investigate the knowledge structure and evolution of research trends in CME since its inception. The associated objectives include: (1) analyzing CME's scholarly characteristics; (2) studying CME's publication output over time; (3) examining interconnectivities between CME's research trends; and (4) exploring the potential citation impact of recently published CME's papers. In doing so, this paper implemented a multistep methodology that consists of descriptive assessment, social network analysis (SNA), and predictive machine learning (ML). Results of descriptive assessment showed that CME has witnessed over the years a noticeable growth in the number of publications, citation trends, and collaborative research as depicted increased co-authorship, and that highest percentage of publications were related to "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk, and Finance", "Project planning and Design" and "Contemporary Issues". Output of SNA highlights that research areas with the highest interconnectivity included "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk and Finance" and "Project Planning and Design", and "Labor and Personnel Issues". Furthermore, predictive ML revealed that CME papers have a high probability of becoming high impact publications. In addition to that, the predictive ML results re-emphasized the outcomes of the performed descriptive assessment by reflecting the importance of "Contemporary Issues", "Organizational Issues", "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk, and Finance", and "Labor and Personnel Issues" as emerging research topics with increased potential impact in the future. Ultimately, this paper benefits all CME stakeholders by quantitatively studying current research patterns, their interconnectivities, and future potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is my response to criticisms of my paper "The Problem with Probability" (JPKE, 2023, n. 3) given by Dequech, Cantillo, and Skillman and Veneziani (also appearing in JPKE 2023, n. 3). The main issues discussed concern the possibility of having knowledge of the future and empirical testing of decision-making models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though protection of human research subjects is universally recognized as a critical requirement for the ethical conduct of research, few studies have examined retractions of medical articles through apparent noncompliance with that requirement. From our survey of 99 retracted papers published from 1981 to 2011, we found that the basis for those decisions was poorly explained in retraction notices and that most of the articles continued to be cited. In retraction notices, the current manner of explaining failure to protect human subjects is misleading and confusing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rock–Paper–Scissors (RPS), a game of cyclic dominance, is not merely a popular children’s game but also a basic model system for studying decision-making in non-cooperative strategic interactions. Aimed at students of physics with no background in game theory, this paper introduces the concepts of Nash equilibrium and evolutionarily stable strategy, and reviews some recent theoretical and empirical efforts on the non-equilibrium properties of the iterated RPS, including collective cycling, conditional response patterns and microscopic mechanisms that facilitate cooperation. We also introduce several dynamical processes to illustrate the applications of RPS as a simplified model of species competition in ecological systems and price cycling in economic markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My response to Carla Fischer's paper enlarges upon one of the powerful subthemes she introduces. Beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, there is a long history in psychoanalysis in which questionable decisions furthering the interests of the institution itself have been made at the expense of individual psychoanalysts. These conscious and unconscious choices have established an unfortunate precedent; they have had a profound effect on the culture of psychoanalysis as a whole, with technical and theoretical consequences that continue to reverberate throughout the profession. The "submission and castration" of the institution of psychoanalysis, as Fischer puts it so succinctly, have led to a loss of integrity and the sacrifice of the founding principles of a discipline that had privileged understanding, an investigative discipline that sought the truth even if that truth was a threat to the social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States, with a majority of this population having limited access to the U.S. healthcare system. This article draws upon in-depth interviews with 25 undocumented immigrants currently living in South Florida to examine how they survive and maintain their health given they are disenfranchised from the U.S. healthcare system. Using a culture-centred approach, I invited 'people without papers' to share stories about how their marginalised social status and cultural backgrounds influence the everyday ways they navigate the healthcare system and make health decisions. Participants' stories focused on four main themes: finding accessible healthcare spaces through the 'silent network' (local undocumented immigrants); making healthcare comfortable through cultural solidarity; and supporting emotional/mental health through the 'silent network'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most families can access a range of health information and advice. Information and advice sources often include nurses, the Internet, social media, books, as well as family and friends. While the immediate aim may be to find information, it can also be to assist with parenting skills, solve parenting problems or as part of decision-making processes about their child’s health. These processes are strongly influenced by the parent’s level of health literacy. Health literacy describes a person’s capacity to obtain and utilize health related information. Although there are numerous health literacy definitions all have clearly defined steps. These steps are: obtaining relevant information; then understanding this information; and finally being able to use the information to achieve the expected outcome. Previous research has linked low levels of parental health literacy with poorer child health outcomes. Given this link, increasing health literacy levels would be advantageous for both families and health services. Nurses working with families are in a position to support the family to increase their health literacy through the use of a variety of strategies. This article outlines how health literacy can influence the way parents seek help when they are concerned about child health issues, the relevance of parental health literacy for nurses and suggests some tools that could be used to support the increase of health literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The current study identified recent trends in socioscientific issues (SSIs) in the field of education. Through descriptive analysis and co-word analysis, selected articles published in journals listed in the Social Science Citation Index and Scopus from 2000 to 2021 were screened. A total of 334 papers were retrieved as research target samples from the Web of Science and Scopus databases after many rounds of searching and filtering. An analysis revealed an overall growing trend of SSI-related publications in the field of education. High-impact journals that published SSI-related research and highly cited articles were also identified. A series of co-word analyses were then conducted to determine co-occurring relationships among the keywords of the sample papers. This study extracted 39 author-defined keywords shared by at least three studies in the target samples. The analytic results indicated that 'argumentation,' 'decision-making,' 'scientific literacy,' and 'knowledge' were frequently used along with SSI as keywords. The co-word networks of the whole corpus of keywords and selected keywords were visualised to refine the common understanding of the educators and obtain the SSI research foci. This paper also offers future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between news and investor decision making is widely discussed in the literature. Utilising unique U.S. firm-level news data between 1979 and 2016, we document a cross-sectional difference in the speed of the diffusion of information contained in news. We distinguish news articles as being either slowly or quickly incorporated into contemporaneous stock prices. The return spread between stocks classified according to these two types of news yields a statistically significant profit of 139 basis points per month. This abnormal return cannot be explained by other well-known risk factors and is robust when allowing for trading costs. Overall, our research refines the role of news regarding information dissemination in the financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to describe a model for creating a successful service engagement partnership with a community organization that may lead to the development of a short- or long-term service engagement project or course. The article explains how to create a successful partnership, including how to identify and choose the right community partner, the importance and development of a memorandum of understanding, and procedures for evaluating the partnership. Examples of two successful partnerships with two different structures, at two different universities, with one organization (Special Olympics) will be used. One partnership has produced a service-learning course for a sport management program that includes service-engagement opportunities for physical education, health, and exercise science students, while the other partnership has resulted in a three-tiered service-engagement project that involves interns, two community recreation and nonprofit leadership classes, and a co-curricular registered student organization. Lessons learned from this article can be replicated in other higher education programs, as well as in elementary, middle, and secondary education settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a qualitative study of school-to-university transition focused on working-class first-generation university students, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, it illustrates the multiple intertwining dimensions of the process of moving from school to university within an 'open-door' admission policy context such as the Italian one. Second, it emphasizes the role of students' social networks and secondary school institutional habitus in differentiating how working-class students experience university decision-making. Using a Bourdieusian framework, this paper show that family habitus and cultural capital influence the decision to transition to university. However, the paper also shows that these influences are mediated by schools' institutions according to their positions within the Italian tracking structure. In this respect, it is argued that institutional habitus constitutes a relevant heuristic to provide deeper understanding of barriers encountered by working-class students to access to university and to acknowledge the existence of important dimensions of differentiation among these students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of new information technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) has caused a deep impact on production and operations management in various fields. In this paper, a mixed-integer programming model is proposed to generate integrative decision-making in the IoT-enabled fresh agri-products supply chains. The designed model integrates three key stages, that is, planting, storage, and distribution, to help growers make the optimal decisions for maximising revenue. Decisions are made after comprehensive consideration of market factors such as price and demand as well as agricultural characteristics such as crop yield and shelf life. Results of numerical experiments show that significant improvement of benefits can be obtained through the overall decision-making of planting, storage, and distribution. Additionally, it may be most beneficial for growers to keep the warehouse's storage time and storage capacity at a medium level. The IoT-based integrative decision-making method explored in this study can be applied to other fields including manufacturing to achieve more efficient production and operations management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing is undergoing a paradigmatic shift as it assimilates and is transformed by machine learning and other cognitive technologies. A new paradigm usually necessitates a new framework to comprehend it fully, organise extant knowledge, identify gaps in knowledge, guide future research and practice, and synthesise new knowledge. Paradoxically, such a framework to guide the research and practice of ML in manufacturing remains absent. This paper attempts to fill this gap by presenting the interpretive model of manufacturing as an integrative framework for ML in manufacturing. A systematic hybrid literature review approach has been adopted to conduct both thematic and conceptual synthesis of the literature. The descriptive literature review method has been used to conduct a thematic synthesis of the literature. The framework synthesis method has been used to complete a conceptual synthesis of the literature. The resultant framework, the interpretive model of manufacturing, is articulated as consisting of scan, store, interpret, execute, and learn as its purposive components. Research questions have been identified for each of these components, as well as at their interfaces, to develop a comprehensive and systematic research agenda. Additional areas for extending research have also been identified. Implications for manufacturing operations, manufacturing strategy, and manufacturing policy have been drawn out for practitioners and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the influence of transnational challenges and decision-making heuristics and biases on the implementation of risk assessment (RA) process in the context of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). The investigation, which is based on a review of existing literature and a critical analysis of the ISO31000:2018 process, suggests that contemporary RA models and processes fail to adequately consider the domain-based characteristics of transnational Critical Infrastructure (CI) characteristics. They also fail to recognize the full extent of the human decision-making influence on the RA process itself, as well as the relative lack of homogeneity across assets, stakeholders, countries, paradigms, and people in transnational CI environments. The findings from this work provide a theoretical contribution towards a better understanding of the complexities introduced by the transnational nature of CIP and the effect of human decision-making. They can provide the impetus for further research in the fields of CIP and RA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the role of an Action Learning Coach in real-world scenarios. The coach addresses challenges such as team members leaving for phone calls, disruptions caused by important participants and the team returning from a break visibly shaken. As the coach, I employed an approach involving awareness, team queries, and collaborative decision-making. The paper emphasizes the vital function of language in coaching, advocating for a non-judgmental, future-positive approach to instill a learning mindset. The paper underscores the transformative potential of action learning, a process that encourages constant questioning and questioning everything. Action learning coaching leverages coaching at the group level, fostering self-awareness, goal setting and feedback. The article concludes by highlighting the impact of coaching on participants' goal orientation and self-efficacy, stressing the importance of a learning orientation for building powerful, growth-oriented teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer attention is a significant feature in the horizontal cross-loading of EU countries when there are many uncertainties in the decision-making. Taking the case of the 28-EU countries' interactive media attention during China's second Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum in April 2019, this paper explores the two questions of who pays attention to whose action to the BRI, and what are the determinants of the peer attentions? The measurements from the network analysis identify the positions and roles of EU countries in the attention network. The gravity model further examines the determinants on different levels of peer attention flows. The findings suggest that the peer attention network the EU countries formulate is a core-periphery structure where big powers and forerunners construct the core and connect other big power and peripheral countries from the nearby to the far-reaching. Substantively, this paper contributes to the literature on the horizontal interaction of countries in response to China's engagement. Methodologically, the network analysis is an innovative method to study how a country receives the influence imposed by a single country, by a cluster of countries and the peer attention network as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criterion measures are foundational to an effective selection and classification process and valid enlistment aptitude standards. The Department of Defense, when possible, considers eligibility standards based on empirical evidence of the relationship between recruit attributes and applicable performance to be best practice. Ensuring use and incorporation of appropriate criteria is critical to this process. However, this process is often complex and costly. Numerous policy related issues must be considered. This paper provides commentary on each of the technical papers included in this issue from a policy and operational perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a survey of the literature on the application of operational research (OR) in healthcare, with a particular focus on behavioural considerations. In order to explore the extent to which behavioural aspects are included, we perform a search of the most relevant OR journals for articles with content related to the representation of behaviour in models, evidence of behavioural change using models, and the impact on organisations beyond the use of a model. A detailed analysis of 130 articles is presented and shows that the majority are focused on improving service delivery at an organisational level. The most common OR methods depicting behaviour are simulation and qualitative methods, but there is evidence of the use across a range of methods. However, in many cases, authors do not necessarily acknowledge the behavioural aspects in their papers. Given many aspects of healthcare are influenced by human behaviour, it is important that future work makes more explicit the assumptions used to represent behaviour, test the sensitivity of models to different behavioural assumptions, and offer more information about how users employ models to make decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TH Wu was among the seminal figures of geotechnical reliability. In a long string of publications beginning in the 1960s he introduced concepts of probabilistic design, statistical analysis of soils data, and Bayesian decision analysis to problems of practical importance to foundation engineers, both on- and off-shore. This paper highlights important practical contributions TH made through his published case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the Theory and Methods Special Issue on Precision Medicine and Individualized Policy Discovery. The issue consists of four discussion papers, grouped into two pairs, and sixteen regular research papers that cover many important lines of research on data-driven decision making. We hope that the many provocative and original ideas presented herein will inspire further work and development in precision medicine and personalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the benefits and pitfalls associated with integrating a common blockchain model within a distinct administrative environment, focusing particularly on its effects on decision-making processes. The study is grounded in the doctrine of procedural due process, a holistic concept encompassing intertwined administrative rules and principles, designed to promote fairness and justice in decision-making, which can be succinctly distilled into three core principles: accuracy, integrity, and transparency. On initial examination, these principles seem to correspond with the fundamental characteristics of blockchain technology, which are identified as authenticity, integrity, and transparency. In our analysis, we measure the extent to which the attributes of blockchain technology align with the principles of the due process doctrine. An essential component of this assessment includes a meticulous examination of the practical merging of each characteristic within the decision-making procedure. The approach and practical applications explored in this study highlight the potential of blockchain technology to enhance adherence to due process, especially in areas where traditional trust-based systems have faltered in maintaining basic procedural safeguards. However, given the intricate complexity tied to its implementation, this technology should be regarded as a fallback option, strictly reserved for situations where the benefits of its utilisation unmistakably outweigh the numerous inherent risks. In the ensuing sections of this paper, we will delve deeper into these risks and propose actionable mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method of ranking discrete alternatives when attribute weights are incompletely known. There are a variety of situations in which it is reasonable to consider incomplete attribute weights and several techniques have been developed to solve such multi-attribute decision making problems. Most frequently, a linear programming (LP) problem subject to a set of incomplete attribute weights is solved to identify dominance relations between alternatives. In this paper, we explore a dual problem to find a closed-form solution and determine the extreme points of a set of (strictly) ranked attribute weights. A simple investigation of the dual optimal solution often leads to a preferred alternative and permits to find the optimal attribute weights that can be applied to the primal, based on the primal-dual relationship. Furthermore, we extend the approach to several examples of incomplete attribute weights and to linear partial information expressed as linear inequalities that satisfy some predefined conditions. Finally, we present a case study to demonstrate how the dual approach can be used to establish dominance between alternatives, when preference orders are specified for a subset of alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term international mobility programs are being increasingly adopted by universities to achieve internationalisation, secure international accreditation and prepare graduates for global careers. A plethora of beneficial outcomes of student participation in short-term mobility education programs [Roy, A., A. Newman, T. Ellenberger, and A. Pyman. 2019. 'Outcomes of International Student Mobility Programs: A Systematic Review and Agenda for Future Research.' Studies in Higher Education 44 (9): 1630–1644; Waibel, S., H. Ruger, A. Ette, and L. Sauer. 2017. 'Career Consequences of Transnational Educational Mobility: A Systematic Literature Review.' Educational Research Review 20: 81–98] has motivated governments and universities to fund such programs [Pfotenhauer, S. M., J. S. Jacobs, D. J. Newman, and D. T. Roos. 2013. 'Seeding Change Through International University: The MIT-Portugal Program as a Driver of Internationalization, Networking and Innovation.' Higher Education 26: 217–242; Quan, R., A. Pearce, and Y. Baranchenko. 2017. 'Educational Mobility in Transition: What Can China and The UK Learn from Each Other?' Journal of Management Development 36 (6): 828–843; and Sin, C., O. Tavares, and G. Neave. 2017. 'Student Mobility in Portugal: Grappling with a Adversity.' Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (2): 120–135]. Scholarly work on student mobility in education has grown phenomenally in the last two decades. However, the specific study of antecedents of student participation which shape a student's decision to participate in short-term mobility programs has not received adequate attention in literature. The need to study antecedents of student participation in mobility is highly relevant and critical to the creation of student opportunities for participation in such programs. With this aim, our paper undertakes a comprehensive review of scholarly works thus far on antecedents of student participation in short-term mobility programs classifying antecedents into personal and contextual antecedents. We identify areas of study needed to enhance scholarly understanding of antecedents of student participation and propose an agenda for future research complemented with recommendations for studying antecedents to short-term mobility participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing use of optimization models to help decision making has created a demand for such tools that allow formulating and solving more models of real-world processes and systems related to human activity in which hypotheses are not verify in a way specific for classical optimization. One of the approaches for real-world extremum problems under uncertainty is interval-valued optimization. In this paper, a twice differentiable vector optimization problem with multiple interval-valued objective function and both inequality and equality constraints is considered. In this paper, the first order necessary optimality conditions of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker type are proved for differentiable interval-valued vector optimization problems under the first order constraint qualification. If the interval-valued objective function is assumed to be twice weakly differentiable and constraints functions are assumed to be twice differentiable, then two types of second order necessary optimality conditions under two various constraint qualifications are proved for such smooth interval-valued vector optimization problems. Finally, in order to illustrate the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker type necessary optimality conditions established in the paper, an example of an interval-valued optimization is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber security is a growing area of international importance, with shortages present for cyber security skills. While many universities have introduced degree programmes for cyber security, the major focus of these programmes is on the development of technical skills with some reports indicating how graduates of these courses lack in softer skills and business acumen. However, cyber security management is a topic area where students can develop such skills. This paper presents the pedagogical and assessment approaches used for cyber security management education, and presents a case study of developing a 'Cyber Security Management' module of study through utilising Finks' Integrated Course Design. This paper presents the findings that active learning approaches are effective methods for teaching this subject area, which include the use of decision-making scenario tasks, group projects, and tasking students with conducting a management report for a real company, where they should conduct interviews with the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has become omnipresent in migration control and mobility surveillance, with AI systems now deployed across all aspects of migration management. Critics of such trends typically examine questions of ethics and rights from the vantage point of regulatory mechanisms and the limited venues for the redress of grievances. But if legal frameworks are as of yet forthcoming and do not necessarily apply to migrants, are there alternative mechanisms to critique algorithmic decision making? To explore this and related questions, this paper engages one such alternative by taking a 'visual turn.' In asking 'what can AI see' the paper interrogates the role of images in constructing AI's capacity to both understand migration and make appropriate decisions about migrants. In addition, a visual turn allows for exploration of an emergent age of post-visualization: a phenomenon whereby the values and meanings of what we see will be increasingly imparted to us by AI systems. The paper examines what AI sees with the help of an experiment, prompting an AI generative platform to draw distinctions between migrants, refugees, and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the growing green awareness and increasingly stringent emission regulations, heavy-emitting supply chains are required to re-schedule their operations for environmental responsibility. Although coordination helps the supply chains overcome the decentralised disadvantages to achieve desirable profits, literature considering option contracts under emission constraints, especially combining warehousing contracts, remains scarce. This paper fills this research gap with the novelty in the dual-contract-coordinated decision analysis for achieving profit maximum and emission reduction targets considering customers' green awareness through option and warehousing contracts, based on the originality of using the Lagrange-Stackelberg optimisation method, which overcomes the difficulty in expressing the first-mover's decisions and simplifies the problem-solving process. Analytical and numerical results show that Pareto-efficient coordination can be fully achieved by the option contract if the warehousing contract ensures the same inventory costs before and after coordination. Otherwise, partial coordination also raises insiders' profitability only through the option contract. Purchasing extra emissions with green investment is the best in most cases. The contract-maker should deliberate its contract settings including the option and wholesale prices, as well as warehousing, to develop Pareto-efficient coordination. Sustainability comes at a cost, but coordination raises profitability and emission mitigation in a well-built ETS market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protecting an unborn baby from abuse and neglect presents particular challenges for professionals due to the uncertainties about appraising future harm and functioning of family relationships. This systematic narrative review synthesises studies of professional decision making by health and social care professionals regarding child protection of an unborn baby. Five bibliographic databases (ASSIA, CINAHL Plus, Ovid MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Social Care Online) were searched using an explicit and robust search; papers identified as relevant were appraised for quality and combined using a narrative synthesis based on the main themes in the papers. Ten papers met the inclusion criteria, including qualitative studies, surveys and randomised trials of the effectiveness of decision support tools. The papers identified the following case risk factors relating to risks to an unborn baby: alcohol abuse; ante-natal care; previous children in care; domestic violence; drug abuse; lack of education; employment issues; unrealistic expectations of the baby; housing issues; learning disability; feelings about pregnancy; low socio-economic status; mental illness; mother's childhood experiences; lack of parenting capacity; physical disability. There were several papers on developing risk assessment tools. A few papers focused on risk assessment and decision processes including engagement with pregnant women. There was some discussion of psychosocial supports for risks in pregnancy. There is useful published material on the range of risk factors, and more limited material on the development of assessment tools and on decision processes. The psychosocial supports that might be provided to the pregnant woman as decision options is an area for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the journal's 2014 Best Paper Award to the article "The cycles and spirals of justice in water-allocation decision making" by Marian J. Neal.

In multi-objective optimisation problems, optimal decisions need to be made in the presence of trade-offs among conflicting objectives which may sometimes be expressed in different units of measure. This makes it difficult to reduce the problem to a single-objective optimisation. Furthermore, when disruptive changes emerge in manufacturing environments, such as the arrival of new jobs or machine breakdowns, the scheduling system should be adapted by responding quickly. In this paper, we propose a rescheduling architecture for solving the problem based on a predictive-reactive strategy and a new method to calculate the reactive schedule in each rescheduling period. Additionally, we developed a methodology that allows the use of multi-objective performance metrics to evaluate dispatching rules. These rules are applied at a benchmark specifically designed for this paper considering three objective functions: makespan, total weighted tardiness and stability. Three types of disruptions are also considered: arrivals of new jobs, machine breakdowns and variations in job processing times. Results showed that the RANDOM rule provides a better behaviour compared to other evaluated rules and a lower ratio of non-dominated solutions compared to ATC (apparent tardiness cost) and FIFO (first-in-first-out) rules. Moreover, the behaviour of the hypervolume metric depends on the problem dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the experiences of English primary school leaders who perform critical roles in interpreting government policy and navigating the landscape to design relationship and sex education (RSE) for their pupils. It considers schools as sites of political contestation and educators as policy actors, the voices of whom are often absent in the literature about RSE. Drawing on Peter Morriss' theory of power, the paper considers how primary school decision makers utilise their epistemic abilities to advance their policy preferences and how structures of authority and legitimacy energize and constrain them in their policy-making work. The findings suggest a paradox in power: while the national government has delegated decision-making about RSE to individual schools, it has simultaneously failed to uniformly equip schools to make appropriate policies about RSE and enabled parents to deny schools' credibility and authority as leaders in RSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many papers on international student mobility have analysed different macro factors influencing the decision making of international students. However, only a limited number of studies have considered the role of language distance on international educational choices. This paper aims to fill that gap by identifying the role of language proximity in international degree seeking student flows among 21 countries of the European Economic Area in the years 2005, 2010 and 2015. Our gravity models reveal a statistically significant influence of language proximity on student flows within these 21 countries. We argue that language proximity simplifies academic, cultural and socio-economic integration of international students in the destination country and as a result makes the process of their adaptation to a new environment easier and smoother. Future research should expand on the mechanisms of that influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, councils involving young people have become widespread, both in developed and developing countries. However, these councils are said to reflect the hierarchical nature of parliamentary and representative democracy, leading to tokenistic participation. Studies on the formal structures of youth participation have tended to focus on their failings and reveal little about structures and processes that might encourage youth participation. To address this gap, this paper examines three youth councils in Denmark and argues that the structures of these youth councils – referred to as 'dialogic democracy' in this paper – are what encourage effective participation, ensure the fairness of decision-making processes and develop young people's citizenship skills so that they can have agency in the arena of local policy. Crucially, dialogic democracy can be seen as a form of informal learning, with peer learning being central. Lessons can therefore be drawn for developing citizenship education programmes in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criterion identification and measurement is often an afterthought in criterion-related validation research. Yet it is essential in determining what predictor measures to use in operational settings. Accordingly, this special issue discusses recent advances in addressing the "criterion problem" in U.S. military enlisted personnel selection and classification research. In this introductory paper, broad issues regarding criterion identification and measurement in the military and previous research on this topic are reviewed and subsequent papers, which address specific criterion issues and describe an unprecedented joint-service criterion project, are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of who should be trusted as an expert and when, particularly in the context of public deliberation. Trust in experts is crucial in making decisions about public policies that involve complex information beyond the expertise of most people. However, fruitful deliberation also requires being able to resist misinformation campaigns, no matter how widespread these might be; being able, in general, to evaluate the evidence at our disposal and form our own opinions. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on this apparent tension between epistemic deference and epistemic independence. The paper has two goals. First, it aims at providing a more nuanced understanding of the question of who should be trusted as an expert by examining cases in which seemingly factual claims are made in public settings by experts. Second, it emphasizes the need to pay attention to the conditions under which we actually trust each other. We suggest that fostering trust in science may be better approached by modifying the conditions under which scientific dialogue takes place, rather than trying to convince the public to trust experts, or blaming them for not doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have identified a deficit with the higher education (HE) decision-making support offered by further education (FE) colleges, compared with other post-16 providers. However, there has been little research as to why this might be the case. This paper explores this issue by considering the HE choice-making experiences of Level 3 Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) students and the staff supporting them in an FE college in England. Data are viewed through the theoretical lens of the Theory of Practice Architectures, a framework which illuminates the pre-existing conditions holding the practices of HE choice-making in place. The investigation reveals inconsistent College HE choice support, with a reliance on tutors and local universities that can both enable and constrain the programme. Factors underlying the construction of the programme include the structural parameters of both the BTEC qualification and the College, competing College priorities and the varying relationships the College has with different types of universities. The paper concludes by highlighting the complexity of the tensions and conflicts inherent in FE and making a number of practical recommendations as to the underlying conditions that would need to change in order for FE HE choice support to fulfil its potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, the growth and development of the fields of Dance Science and Pedagogy, as practice, research and area of study, has changed the landscape of 21st Century training and performance. The aim of this paper is to stimulate thinking and initiate dialogue between practitioners and academics in the exploration of new solutions to ongoing pedagogical tensions within the vocational training environment. In recognising the challenge which an interdisciplinary approach brings to dance (integrating the science of content and the art of delivery), this paper explores the integration of coaching pedagogical concepts and practices, to inform an innovative approach to dancer empowerment, placing the dancer central to the learning environment. The paper proposes an empowered dancer focused framework for coaching with the emphasis being placed on the development of the dancer displaying the skills of self-determined, decision-making and are empowered across the life cycle of their career(s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adult-centric concept of 'age-appropriateness' is an arbitrary signifier and yet it commands a powerful common-sense appeal in governing the shape of sexuality education. The visibility of LGBTQ+ lives in primary schools is deeply impacted by the cis-heteronormative ways in which age-appropriateness is commonly understood and mobilised; very often resulting in silence and delay. The concept of age-appropriateness also becomes entangled with moral panics about 'promoting' LGBTQ+ lives, or children being somehow 'recruited' to identify as LGBTQ+. This paper draws on findings from a study with the parents of eleven trans and gender diverse children (then aged between 5 and 13) conducted in 2017, as well as a follow-up study conducted with seven participants from the same group of parents and children in 2022. The paper explores how the politics of age and agency intersect and become intensified as trans and gender diverse children and their parents navigate and make decisions about their bodies, lives and everyday worlds in primary schools. These stories of trans and gender diverse children provide an arresting invitation to adults to attend closely to the rich stories of children themselves in (re)considering the potential of sexuality education across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a dynamic duopoly game where firms choose both the timing and size of their investments. The existing real options literature predominantly consists of contributions where firms have a single option to invest. This paper relaxes this assumption by giving Firm A multiple options to undertake further investments with the purpose to expand whereas Firm B only holds the option to enter the market. In this asymmetric setting we get the surprising result that, in equilibrium, Firm B invests first. If Firm A invests first, Firm A and Firm B keep on being involved in preemption games for subsequent investments until Firm B enters the market, which leads to inefficiently early investments of Firm A. When Firm B invests first, then only one preemption game is played, which leads to Firm A being free to choose its unrestricted optimal investment moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determination of reasonable improvement direction is the key difficulty of directional distance functions in data envelopment analysis target setting method, but there is no consensus direction determination method at present. This paper introduces the concept of minimizing the distance between decision-making units (DMUs) and production frontier for constructing a new endogenous mechanism of improvement direction, and the corresponding target setting method is constructed to setting target for DMUs, which is used to minimize the total projection distance between DMUs and their targets. In addition, the free direction and unit invariant of improvement direction are discussed for meeting the diverse needs of decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the leadership of ECEC principals in the private sector in Chile, which is barely investigated worldwide. In Chile,10% of children attending ECEC are enrolled in private centres. Following a tradition of qualitative research, a multiple case study was carried out, allowing the exploration of four private ECEC settings. Different techniques were used for data collection: semi-structured interviews with principals, ECEC teachers, teaching assistants, and parents. In addition, a shadowing technique was used to observe principals in their daily activities. Findings show three types of leadership practices: pedagogical leadership, leadership distribution and leadership practices with families, in addition to a note about resource autonomy. All those practices were highly influenced by the nurseries' ownership status. Where principals were the owners of the nursery, much more autonomy for decision-making and resources was observed, together with a focus on pedagogical leadership. On this basis, we conclude that in the cases where the principals are not the nurseries' owners, it is essential to promote spaces to lead the pedagogical experiences children will have and to take decisions. Also, parents and the community must have opportunities to reflect collaboratively about education, which is also a task better promoted by the principal through fostering a shared vision in the nursery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, increased interest in the Professional judgment and Decision Making (PJDM) of outdoor instructors has focused on experts. This paper builds on earlier work, exploring the components and development of PJDM in mid-career outdoor instructors. The study conducted and thematically analysed semi-structured interviews with nine senior instructors working for Outward Bound Trust (the Trust) in the UK. Findings included two over-arching themes; (1) a Hahnian approach to development, in line with the philosophies that underpin the Trust's work, and (2) practical wisdom: the synergy of contextual comprehension and appropriate options. We conclude that these mid-career outdoor instructors' decision making is dependent on high levels of situational awareness, situational demands, and availability of appropriate options as a course of action. We further identify a philosophical chain between the Trust's ethos, instructor development, and adaptive expertise. These skills develop through a process akin to a cognitive apprenticeship within the Trust's community of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a competitive multi-purpose (MP) trips model, it is assumed that the proportion of customers that do MP trips is given. In this paper, we investigate a model with a stochastic proportion of MP trips. Five decision analysis criteria are analyzed for finding the best location for a new facility under these circumstances. We first design a general approach that can be applied to many location problems. We then prove that by the optimistic rule, the solution is one of the extreme cases and construct solution algorithms to solve problems based on the other four rules optimally. The approach is demonstrated on the MP trips model. We performed computational experiments on instances between 100 and 20,000 demand points on five different models and two distance decay functions. The largest problem was solved within a given accuracy in about 8 h for the most time-consuming model. Our general approach can be applied to other location models (not necessarily competitive) when a parameter of such models is stochastic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]