"On Modelling Negotiations within a Dynamic Multi-objective Programming Framework: Analysis of Risk Measurement with an Application to Large BOT Projects"

The dynamic and multi-objective programming is used here to establish a risk measurement model. We develop an iterative algorithm and the convergence conditions for the model solution. The results obtained from the model developed here show that the sum of the interactive utility value (IUV) could determine whether or not the interactive relationship is characterized by independence among negotiators. In addition, the numerical example shows that this risk measurement model of the negotiation group can reflect risk assessment by the negotiation group for certain events and can analyze interaction characteristics among negotiators. We show the feasibility and applicability of the model and the exact solution algorithm, and their policy relevance for analyzing BOT projects.

Toward Robust Long Range Policy Transfer

Humans can master a new task within a few trials by drawing upon skills acquired through prior experience. To mimic this capability, hierarchical models combining primitive policies learned from prior tasks have been proposed. However, these methods fall short comparing to the human's range of transferability. We propose a method, which leverages the hierarchical structure to train the combination function and adapt the set of diverse primitive polices alternatively, to efficiently produce a range of complex behaviors on challenging new tasks. We also design two regularization terms to improve the diversity and utilization rate of the primitives in the pre-training phase. We demonstrate that our method outperforms other recent policy transfer methods by combining and adapting these reusable primitives in tasks with continuous action space. The experiment results further show that our approach provides a broader transferring range. The ablation study also shows the regularization terms are critical for long range policy transfer. Finally, we show that our method consistently outperforms other methods when the quality of the primitives varies.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 202

Why Employee Turnover? The influence of Chinese Management and Organizational Justice

Employee turnover is an important topic in organizational behavior research. Understanding how to address turnover in Chinese organizations is also a practice problem. The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of paternalistic leadership (authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality) on employee turnover and examine the moderating effect of organizational justice (distributive justice, interactional justice, and procedural justice). Data were collected from 207 supervisor and subordinate dyads of 51 stores in a Chinese food and beverage company. Paternalistic leadership and organizational justice were initially collected from subordinates. After six months, employee turnover was collected from supervisors. The results indicate that benevolent and moral leadership were both negatively related to employee turnover. Authoritarianism failed to predict employee turnover. Furthermore, the relationship between authoritarianism and employee turnover is moderated by distributive justice and procedural justice. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome and related factors in Taiwanese high-tech industry workers

OBJECTIVES: In light of the increasing number of high-tech industry workers and the differences in their working conditions compared to those of the general population, the health status of these workers merits serious attention. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its correlates among Taiwanese high-tech industry workers. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 4,666 workers who participated in labor health examinations at a hospital in southern Taiwan in 2008. Participants with metabolic syndrome were defined using the criteria proposed by the Taiwan National Department of Health in 2007. Factors associated with metabolic syndrome were determined using multiple logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 8.2%, and the prevalence was higher in men than in women (14.0% vs. 2.3%,

Expression profiling of miR-96, miR-584 and miR-422a in colon cancer and their potential involvement in colon cancer pathogenesis

Purpose: To determine the correlation between miRNAs; miR-96, miR-422a and miR584, and colon cancer, and also to test whether any of these miRNAs can act as non-invasive biomarkers in colon cancerMethods: The tumor samples and the corresponding normal mucosa used in this study were collected from 60 patients diagnosed with colon cancer. HT-29, HCT-116 and SW-620 cell lines were used for miRNA expression profiling. Total RNA was extracted using kit-based methods with minor modifications, and specific miRNAs were detected and quantified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR].Results: The results indicate down-regulation of miR-96, miR-584 and miR-422a in colon cancer tissue and decreased expression levels in the three colon cancer cell lines (all p < 0.01). Lower miRNA expression levels are correlated with increased tumor size.Conclusion: This study shows that miR-96, miR-584 and miR-422a are down-regulated in colon cancer and are associated with tumor size. Thus, the ratio of miR-96/miR-638 in plasma is a potential noninvasive biomarker in colon cancer.Keywords: Colon cancer, miR-96, miR-422a, miR-584, Expression profiling, Biomarke

Assessing the Risks of Airport Airside through the Fuzzy Logic-Based Failure Modes, Effect, and Criticality Analysis

To identify risk items, measure risk value objectively, and establish risk assessment matrix of airports is the major task of airport safety. This paper first extracts 14 risk items of airports from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation accidents database and then applies Failure Modes, Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) to define the decision factors of probability, severity and detectability of airport risks. This paper also designs a questionnaire and applies fuzzy logic to discover the importance of decision factors, to find out the threshold value of Risk Assessment Matrix, and to prioritize the airport risks. This paper uses Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport as a case study to demonstrate the modeling process and analyze the results