Ordering vs. AHP. Does the intensity used in the decision support techniques compensate?

The manifestation of the intensity in the judgment of one alternative versus another in the peer comparison processes is a central element in some decision support techniques, such as the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). However, its contribution regarding quality (expected performance) with respect to the priority vector has not been evaluated so far. Using the Intentional Bounded Rationality Methodology (IBRM), this work analyzes the gains obtained from requiring the decision-maker to report an intensity judgment in pairs (AHP) with respect to a technique that only requires expressing a preference (Ordering). The results show that when decision-makers have low levels of expertise, it is possible that a less informative and computational cheap technique (Ordering) performs better than a more informative and computational expensive one (AHP). When decision-makers have medium and high levels of expertise, AHP technique obtains modest gains with respect to the Ordering technique. This study proposes a cost-benefit analysis of decision support techniques contrasting the gains of a technique that requires more resources (AHP) against other that require less resources (Ordering). Our results can change the managing approach of the information obtained from experts’ judgments

Formación y evaluación psicológica del candidato al sacerdocio

In accordance with the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis and knowledge of mental health, various strategies are proposed for the formation and evaluation of candidates for the priesthood in order to assist them in developing a balanced and mature personality. This article is also intended as a help in deciding which moments are suitable for psychological evaluation, what aspects it can focus on, or what contents could be included in the formative project, in anticipation of specific indications from each Episcopal Conference.De acuerdo con la Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis y los conocimientos en salud mental, se proponen diversas estrategias para la formación y evaluación de los candidatos al Sacerdocio para ayudarles en la consecución de una personalidad equilibrada y con madurez suficiente. Pretende también ayudar a decidir qué momentos son adecuados para la evaluación psicológica, en qué aspectos puede focalizarse y qué contenidos se podrían incluir en el proyecto formativo en espera de las indicaciones específicas de cada Conferencia Episcopal

Intentional bounded rationality methodology to assess the quality of decision-making approaches with latent alternative performances

Expert’s judgments have been crucial in the development of decision theory; however, what criterion to use in the selection of experts remains an issue to address. Decision support techniques proposed to improve the quality of expert judgment decision making consider a demonstrated inconsistency of the judgments expressed by an expert as a criterion of exclusion in the decision-making process of such expert. Although consistency appears to be a desirable condition to qualify as “expert”, little is known about the quality of the decisions made imposing consistency as the expert qualifying condition. This paper proposes a simulation methodology, based on an automaton programmed to make decisions in an intended but bounded rational way, to assess the cost-benefit of different aspects of decision support techniques. Within this methodology, the imposition of the consistency condition in the selection of experts is studied. In particular, the paper shows with a case study example that the Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) decision support technique expected payoff is at most 5% higher when implementing Saaty’s consistency criterion of the expert’s judgments than when the consistency criterion is not considered.Spanish Government ECO2017-86305-C4-3-RGobierno de AragonEuropean Social Fund (ESF)Spanish Government PID2019-103880RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/50110001103

Functional representation of the intentional bounded rationality of decision-makers: A laboratory to study the decisions a priori

open access articlefirst_pagesettings Open AccessReview Functional Representation of the Intentional Bounded Rationality of Decision-Makers: A Laboratory to Study the Decisions a Priori by Carlos Sáenz-Royo 1,*ORCID,Francisco Chiclana 2,*ORCID andEnrique Herrera-Viedma 3ORCID 1 Department of Organization and Business Management, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain 2 Institute of Artificial Intelligence, School of Computer Science and Informatics, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK 3 Andalusian Research Institute on Data Science and Computational Intelligence (DaSCI), University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain * Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed. Academic Editor: Romualdas Bausys Mathematics 2022, 10(5), 739; https://doi.org/10.3390/math10050739 Received: 24 January 2022 / Revised: 23 February 2022 / Accepted: 24 February 2022 / Published: 26 February 2022 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Reviews in Mathematics and Applications) Download PDF Citation Export Abstract The judgments of decision-makers are frequently the best way to process the information on complex alternatives. However, the performances of the alternatives are often not observable in their entirety, which prevents researchers from conducting controlled empirical studies. This paper justifies a functional representation that, due to its good predictive results, has been widely used ad hoc in studies in different branches of knowledge; it formalizes aspects of the human mental structure that influence the ability of people to decide and the intentional bounded rationality, and it subsequently analyzes how the reliability of decision-makers is affected by the difficulty of the problem and the expertise and beliefs of the decision-maker. The main research objective of this paper is to derive explicitly a general functional form that represents the behavior of a decision-maker linked to their way of thinking. This functional form allows a laboratory to be created to study a priori the performance of human decisions, i.e., the probability of choosing each of the alternatives, once the returns of the alternatives, the level of expertise, and the initial beliefs of the decision-maker are known exogenously. This laboratory will allow (1) the evaluation of decision support techniques; (2) the creation of agent-based models that anticipate group performances due to individual interactions; and (3) the development of other investigations based on statistical simulations

Treatments for Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder in Women: A Scoping Review.

Background Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) is characterized by elevated discomfort associated with persistent genital arousal in the absence of sexual desire. Aim To perform a scoping review of the proposed treatments for PGAD and their efficacy. Methods A scoping review was carried out (PRISMA-Scr) that included articles on PGAD as the main disorder, only in women, which explained, in detail, the treatment and its efficacy, was empirical, was written in English and Spanish. No prior filtering by years was performed. Outcomes Three different effective treatments were found (physical therapies, pharmacological therapies, and psychotherapeutics in combination with other therapies). Results Thirty-eight articles were selected. From physical therapies, treatments using neuromodulation, transcutaneous electrical stimulation, Botox, surgery, electroconvulsive therapy, manual therapy, pelvic floor therapy, dietary changes, and transcranial magnetic stimulation showed effectiveness. Using the pharmacological approach, paroxetine, duloxetine, pramipexole, ropinirole, and clonazepam treatments were effective. Psychotherapy treatments showed effectiveness only in combination with other types of treatments, specifically a combination of cognitive–behavioral strategies with pharmacological treatment. Clinical implications Pharmacological treatment, specifically SSRIs, have proven to be the therapy of choice for different subtypes of patients. Strengths and limitations This study analyzed treatment effectiveness with different approaches and took into consideration those articles where psychotherapy was used as a combination treatment with pharmacological and physical therapy. The main limitation is that it was focused exclusively on women, and the results cannot be generalized to include men. Conclusions To date, a combination of pharmacological interventions with physical therapy and, in some occasions, with psychological therapy is main strategy followed to accomplish effective treatment of PGAD.post-print311 K

Steering committee management. Expertise, diversity, and decision-making structures

open access articleThis paper proposes to analyze how the differences in expertise, diversity, and group decision procedures affect the quality of the strategic decision of steering committees. Strategic decisions are difficult to anticipate, and performances of the alternatives are often not observable in their entirety, which prevents researchers from obtaining controlled empirical studies. This paper proposes to analyze the performance of steering committees where managers can err in their decisions using the Intentional Bounded Rationality (IBR). The majority procedure improves the committee's performance concerning authority when the level of diversity and expertise increases. However, in situations of low expertise, the gains over authority narrow. This work provides guidance in terms of trade-offs between the mentality of managers, their expertise, group decision procedures, and diversity, which in the empirical works are contradictory. This study contributes to current theorizations of committee management using the IBR methodology, which is new and allows quantifying the contribution of the distinct characteristics of the committee

Ranking and selection of unsupervised learning marketing segmentation

This research paper has been partially conducted during a three-months visiting period by German Sanchez-Hernandez to the Centre for Computational Intelligence (CCI).NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in . Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Knowledge-Based Systems, 44, pp. 20–33 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2013.01.012This paper addresses the problem of choosing the most appropriate classification from a given set of classifications of a set of patterns. This is a relevant topic on unsupervised systems and clustering analysis because different classifications can in general be obtained from the same data set. The provided methodology is based on five fuzzy criteria which are aggregated using an Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operator. To this end, a novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) system is defined, which assesses the degree up to which each criterion is met by all classifications. The corresponding single evaluations are then proposed to be aggregated into a collective one by means of an OWA operator guided by a fuzzy linguistic quantifier, which is used to implement the concept of fuzzy majority in the selection process. This new methodology is applied to a real marketing case based on a business to business (B2B) environment to help marketing experts during the segmentation process. As a result, a segmentation containing three segments consisting of 35, 98 and 127 points of sale respectively is selected to be the most suitable to endorse marketing strategies of the firm. Finally, an analysis of the managerial implications of the proposed methodology solution is provided.This work is supported by the SENSORIAL Research Project (TIN2010-20966- C02-01, 02), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Information Technology

Pornography Use in Adolescents and Its Clinical Implications

(1) Background: The Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM) suggests that pornography use effects are conditional and they depend on dispositional, developmental, and social differential susceptibility variables. This framework also highlights that the differential susceptibility variables act as predictors of pornography use and as moderators of the effect of pornography on criterion variables. (2) Methods: By administering a survey to n = 1500 adolescents, we tested whether these assumptions were met. (3) Results: Pornography use was related to being male and older, having a bisexual or undefined sexual orientation, higher substance use, being non-Muslim, and reporting sexual interest and the use of the media to obtain sexual information. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that higher levels in the criterion variables were directly related to pornography use, older age, substance use, and being women. Some mediational links also emerged. Pornography use mediated between the age and criterion variables. Moreover, substance use mediated the association between age and gender with the criterion variables. (4) Conclusions: Our findings support the clinical applicability of the theoretical DSMM framework. Knowing adolescent pornography consumers' profiles and the impact of pornography on this population would allow for the designing of more effective prevention and regulation proposals