AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF COMPUTER-ASSISTED DECISION ANALYSIS*

Decision analysis tools often are used in semistructured and ill-structured situations. While some researchers have argued that computerized decision analysis programs may improve decision quality in such situations, research support for this assertion is weak. In this laboratory study, business students used a computerized decision-analysis program with short strategic-management cases to prepare decision reports. Independent raters' perceptions of aided and unaided decision performance were contrasted, attitudes of students toward the program were assessed, individual differences were correlated with attitudes, and the program's impact on students' perceptions of their decision processes and performance was examined. Student attitudes toward the computerized aid were favorable, and individual differences in reactions generally were as predicted. However, the program did not improve the independent ratings of students' decision reports and recommendations. These findings suggest that computerized decision aids should be adopted cautiously. If such aids result in positive user affect and heightened decision confidence without corresponding improvements in decision quality, they may be dysfunctional. Rigorous research methodologies which incorporate independent evaluations of analyses and decisions are recommended for use in future research on computerized decision-analysis programs.     

Lessons from a comparative study of user involvement

Abstract

Grounded in the context of the significant differences in service user involvement in social work education and research between the UK and Israel, a joint project between Anglia Ruskin University in the UK and Tel-Hai College in Israel was developed. Its aim was to develop a comparative research methodology to evaluate the outcomes of service user involvement in social work education. A main tenet of our research methodology consisted of partnering with a group of older people who used health and social care services as co-researchers from each country. This co-researching methodology together with the evaluation tools worked effectively in the two respective countries. The key findings highlight that while students in both countries valued the involvement of service users in their training, this occurred more so in Israel, where this is a very new development. Students in both countries developed rich concept maps illustrating the complexity of such an involvement. Yet, while the responses of both groups to vignettes describing user involvement scenarios reflected the positive impact of such an involvement, the UK students focused on the negative impact of potential risk more so than the Israeli students.     

美德伦理学和正确的行动

最近一些著名的美德伦理学家试图对正确的行动提出种种美德伦理学所独有的解释。文章打算证明这些解释并不成功。如果它们能够回答岛民诘难 (根据这一诘难 ,评价行动要求注意行动者之外的外部世界的效果 ,然而美德伦理学只关心评价行动者的内在状态 ) ,它们依赖的是某些普遍接受的美德伦理学的理由 ,而这些理由本身又取决于没有任何解释的关于正确性的判断。因此这样的解释导致了循环论证的诘难。简言之 ,美德伦理学的这些避免岛民诘难的解释只是以请进循环论证的诘难为代价的。它们直觉上的合理性大致上只达到这样的程度 :它们失去了有别于其他理论的美德伦理学的特征     

Der Ebenenwechsel und seine Folgen Eine Gruppe experimentiert

Today, professionality is no longer safeguarded only by a specific professional membership. Particularly in the field of supervision, even organized supervisors have problems with quality safeguarding. For this reason the authors insist on a continuous reflection and development of concepts, and they report on their activities relating to this demand. The shift of level is a method of group dynamics based on the concept ”shift of perspectives“ in phenomenology.     

A Markov Chain Model for an EMS System with Repositioning

We propose and analyze a two‐dimensional Markov chain model of an Emergency Medical Services system that repositions ambulances using a compliance table policy, which is commonly used in practice. The model is solved via a fixed‐point iteration. We validate the model against a detailed simulation model for several scenarios. We demonstrate that the model provides accurate approximations to various system performance measures, such as the response time distribution and the distribution of the number of busy ambulances, and that it can be used to identify near‐optimal compliance tables. Our numerical results show that performance depends strongly on the compliance table that is used, indicating the importance of choosing a well‐designed compliance table.     

Unmasking the Barriers to Financing Social Enterprises

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The institutional complexity of social enterprises (SEs) often hinders their access to financing from conventional...     

Risk-Informed Requirements for Design and Assessment of Structures Under Temporary Use

The relatively high failure rates, with important consequences in many cases, suggest that the implicitly acceptable risk levels corresponding to temporary civil engineering structures and activities might exceed the bounds of normally acceptable levels associated with different societal activities. Among other reasons, this may be attributed to the lack of a rational approach for the assessment of risks associated with the different technologies supporting these activities in general, and for structures in particular. There is a need for establishing appropriate target reliability levels for structures under temporary use taking into account specific circumstances such as reduced risk exposure times. This issue is being addressed in this article. Acceptance criteria for building-structure-related risks to persons obtained in prior studies are adapted to the special circumstances of nonpermanent risk exposure. Thereby, the general principle followed is to maintain the same risk levels per time unit as for permanently occupied buildings. The adaptation is based on the statistical annual fatality rate, a life safety risk metric that allows for a consistent comparison of risks across different societal activities and technologies. It is shown that the target reliability indices taking account of the temporary use of buildings might be significantly higher than the values suggested for permanently used structures.     

A generalized Fleming and Harrington's class of tests for interval‐censored data

The class $G^{\rho,\lambda }$ of weighted log‐rank tests proposed by Fleming & Harrington [Fleming & Harrington (1991) Counting Processes and Survival Analysis, Wiley, New York] has been widely used in survival analysis and is nowadays, unquestionably, the established method to compare, nonparametrically, k different survival functions based on right‐censored survival data. This paper extends the $G^{\rho,\lambda }$ class to interval‐censored data. First we introduce a new general class of rank based tests, then we show the analogy to the above proposal of Fleming & Harrington. The asymptotic behaviour of the proposed tests is derived using an observed Fisher information approach and a permutation approach. Aiming to make this family of tests interpretable and useful for practitioners, we explain how to interpret different choices of weights and we apply it to data from a cohort of intravenous drug users at risk for HIV infection. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 40: 501–516; 2012 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada     

Measuring Marital Satisfaction: A Comparison of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Satisfaction with Married Life Scale

Marital satisfaction has been psychometrically measured using many different instruments not soundly based on theory. The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS), consisting of 14 items, is commonly accepted by researchers and practitioners to measure marital satisfaction but was not specifically designed to measure marital satisfaction. The Satisfaction with Married Life Scale (SWML), consisting of five items, is a short scale specifically targeted toward measuring marital satisfaction. An online sample collected from 1,187 couples throughout the United States was used to compare these instruments' correlation (r = .782), factor structures, reliability (SWML, α = .958; RDAS, α = .943), theoretical foundation, and validity. These instruments are on parity with each other when measuring marital satisfaction; however, each instrument yields implications for practitioners and researchers desiring to measure marital satisfaction.