Using an IDMI methodology to make multi-criteria decisions

Multi-criteria decisions usually require measurement or evaluation of performance in different units and their mix by application of weighting factors. This approach leads to potential manipulation of the results as a direct consequence of the applied weightings. In this paper a mechanism has been proposed to overcome this problem. It is known as the : Interlink Decision Making Index (IDMI) and has all the desired features: simple, interlink (all criteria) and automatically and quantified influence of critical criteria (i.e. no human weighting needed). The IDMI is capable of reflecting the total merits of a particular option once the normal decision making criteria and (up to two) critical criteria (CC) have been chosen. Then, without arbitrarily weighting criteria, comparison and selection of the best possible option can be made. Simple software has been developed to do this numerical transfer and graphic presentation. Two hypothetical examples are presented in the paper to demonstrate the application of the IDMI concept and its advantages over the traditional "tabular and weighting method" in the decision making process.

An empirical study on the influence of environmental labels on consumers

Purpose - Despite research studies indicating strong support for labelling information, uncertainty remains with respect to how labels influence consumers. This paper attempts to empirically investigate how consumers who differ in terms of environmentalism respond to labels.

Design/methodology/approach - The data were collected on an Australian sample using a structured questionnaire administered on the phone using quantum research (CATI) data collection services. A total of 155 questionnaires were completed and used for data analysis. The data were analysed using both descriptive measures and correlations between variables.

Findings - There appears to be a proportion of consumers that find product labels hard to understand. The research found that there are consumers who will buy green products even if they are lower in quality in comparison to alternative products, but would look for environmental information on labels. With respect to price sensitive green consumers, there appears to be a relationship between price sensitivity and 'always' reading labels as well as indicating that there is 'sufficient' information on product labels to make informed purchase decisions.

Research limitations/implications - It was beyond the scope of the research to account for some of the utilitarian approaches to interpretation or in-depth comprehension of label information. The sample size of 155, although selected using a probability method, may, to some extent, limit the overall accuracy of the results.

Practical implications - Offers some important information on different green consumer segments that would alert managers on how best to position environmental labels. Findings such as 'Satisfied with labels' correlates with 'Labels are accurate', which suggests that businesses need to provide a clear, accurate and easily legible label design to encourage satisfaction with the accuracy of content and the communication aspects of a label.

Originality/value - Contributes to better understanding of green customers purchase intentions and the usefulness of ecological product labels. It offers some insights and assistance to businesses in planning their green product/labelling strategies.

Food security measurement in cultural pluralism : missing the point or conceptual misunderstanding?

Objective : Food Security has become a global concern, yet its measurement has varied considerably across disciplines and countries. We examined the current discrepancies in the definitions of food security and propose a framework for understanding and measuring food security.

Methods : This conceptual review draws from a range of works published in Medline and the gray literature to advance the understanding of food security concepts. We begin by examining the historical background of food security and then move on to examine its various definitions and interpret food through cultural lenses in terms of food access and utilization. We finish by examining various measurements and indicators of food security and reviewing implications for public health.

Results : We argue that the reliance on coping strategies as surrogate measurements of food insecurity without taking into account the social, cultural, and political contexts in which they occur is misleading, and viewing food insecurity solely from a food access or availability perspective, without taking into account food utilization and asset creation as pillars of food security, paints an incomplete picture. Although this review does not claim to provide solutions to the discrepancies in the conceptual definition of food security, it attempts to highlights areas of concern and provide a way forward.

Conclusion : When coping strategies are used as an indicator of food insecurity, they need to be culturally relevant and focus tested, and together with objective measurements of nutritional outcomes, would allow policy makers to make evidence-based decisions to inform social and nutrition policies.

Knowledge, attitudes and experience associated with testing for prostate cancer: a comparison between male doctors and men in the community

Background: Debate about testing for prostate cancer using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and digital rectal examination (DRE) continues. The evidence of benefit from screening for prostate cancer using PSA tests is inconclusive, and it is unclear how PSA can be used most effectively in the detection of prostate cancer. Given the lack of consensus, it is important that consumers understand the issues in a way that will permit them to decide whether or not to have a test and, if symptomatic, how their condition is managed.

Aims: To compare prostate cancer knowledge, attitudes and testing experiences reported by male doctors and men in the community, despite the lack of evidence of a benefit.

Methods : The primary method for ascertaining the attitudes of male doctors (MD) was a telephone survey, with some doctors electing to complete a written survey. Each MD was selected, at random, from a register of male practitioners aged ≥ 49 years of age. A total of 266 MD participated in the survey. The community sample (CS) was accessed using a telephone survey. Five hundred male Victorian residents aged ≥ 49 years of age participated in the study.

Results:
Knowledge − Overall, 55% of the CS indicated ­correctly that prostate disease is sometimes cancer, compared to 83% of MD.

Attitudes − Fifty-five per cent of MD believed men should be tested for prostate disease at least every 2 years, compared to 68% of men in the CS.

Testing experience − Forty-five per cent of MD had been tested for prostate cancer in the past, and 92% of those tests were reported as negative. In the CS, 56% had been tested for prostate cancer in the past, and 78% of the results were reported as negative. The ­significant independent predictors of having had a prostate test among MD were: (i) age (≥ 60 years; odds ratio (OR): 1.59; 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.30−1.88) and (ii) positive attitudes towards regular testing for prostate cancer (OR: 2.27; 95% CI: 1.98−2.56). The significant independent predictors for the CS were: (i) age (≥ 60 years; OR: 1.65; 95% CI: 1.40−1.89), (ii) being married (OR: 1.30; 95% CI: 1.00−1.60), (iii) knowledge that prostate disease was sometimes cancer (OR: 1.46; 95% CI: 1.26−1.66) and (iv) positive attitudes towards regular testing for prostate cancer (OR: 2.12; 95% CI: 1.90−2.34).

Conclusions: The results highlight that testing for prostate cancer is widespread in the community and in the medical profession. Further research should be undertaken to identify how to help men make fully informed decisions about prostate cancer testing.

Learning other agents' preferences in multiagent negotiation

In multiagent systems, an agent does not usually have complete information about the preferences and decision making processes of other agents. This might prevent the agents from making coordinated choices, purely due to their ignorance of what others want. This paper describes the integration of a learning module into a communication-intensive negotiating agent architecture. The learning module gives the agents the ability to learn about other agents' preferences via past interactions. Over time, the agents can incrementally update their models of other agents' preferences and use them to make better coordinated decisions. Combining both communication and learning, as two complement knowledge acquisition methods, helps to reduce the amount of communication needed on average, and is justified in situations where communication is computationally costly or simply not desirable (e.g. to preserve the individual privacy).

Negotiating agents that learn about others’ preferences

In multiagent systems, an agent does not usually have complete information about the preferences and decision making processes of other agents. This might prevent the agents from making coordinated choices, purely due to their ignorance of what others want. This paper describes the integration of a learning module into a communication-intensive negotiating agent architecture. The learning module gives the agents the ability to learn about other agents’ preferences via past interactions. Over time, the agents can incrementally update their models of other agents’ preferences and use them to make better coordinated decisions. Combining both communication and learning, as two complement knowledge acquisition methods, helps to reduce the amount of communication needed on average, and is justified in situation where communication is computationally costly or simply not desirable (e.g. to preserve the individual privacy).

Mothering siblings: Diaspora, desire and identity in American born confused Desi

In this essay we consider the construction of cultural identity, motherhood and the family in ABCD, a film of the Indian diaspora that had its world premiere at the 2001 London Film Festival. This film reads family, apparently within familiar narrative structures such as the U.S.-immigrant story, as portrayed in films like Goodbye, Columbus and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the "leaving home" story, as classically portrayed in Pride and Prejudice, where a young person needs to escape from her clueless family. The irritating presence of the mother in the film, and the quickness with which her two children appear to make life-determining decisions following her death, seem to invite discussions of plot and character organized around ideas of individual development, self-improvement and understanding. This is the territory of the desire plot, an account of family history captured for the twentieth century by Freudian-Lacanian readings which position sexual desire within the unconscious history of familial fantasies, understood as vertical and Oedipal. In this territory, mothers and old ladies become, as Mary Jacobus memorably phrased it, little more than "the waste products" of a system in which marriageable women are objects of exchange between men (142) and a mother's death would be expected to grease the wheels of narrative. Identity and narrative are inextricably linked here: a certain understanding of narrative as developmental and teleological paves the way for an understanding of identity as either/or. There are problems, however, in trying to read ABCD as a bildüngsroman structured by what Susan Freidman calls "the temporal plots of the family romance, its repetitions and discontents" (137), rendering the "Indian" characteristics of the plot unreadable, and the apparently self-defeating nature of the characters' choices and behavior, rather pointless. A central [End Page 16] difficulty is that the film both responds to and resists readings based on the Oedipal model of the bildüngsroman with its focus on linear development through time.

Communicating about the management of medications as patients move across transition points of care: an observation and interview study

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: As patients move across transition points, effective medication management is critical for patient safety. The aims of this study were to examine how health professionals, patients and family members communicate about managing medications as patients moved across transition points of care and to identify possible sources of communication failure.

METHOD: A descriptive approach was used involving observations and interviews. The emergency departments and medical wards of two hospitals were involved. Observations focused on how health professionals managed medications during interactions with other health professionals, patients and family members, as patients moved across clinical settings. Follow-up interviews with participants were also undertaken. Thematic analysis was completed of transcribed data, and descriptive statistics were used to analyse characteristics of communication failure.

RESULTS: Three key themes were identified: environmental challenges, interprofessional relationships, and patient and family beliefs and responsibilities. As patients moved between environments, insufficient tracking occurred about medication changes. Before hospital admission, patients participated in self-care medication activities, which did not always involve exemplary behaviours or match the medications that doctors prescribed. During observations, 432 instances of communication failure (42.8%) were detected, which related to purpose, content, audience and occasion of the communication.

CONCLUSIONS: Extensive challenges exist involving the management of medications at transition points of care. Bedside handovers and ward rounds can be utilized as patient counselling opportunities about changes in the medication regimen. Greater attention is needed on how patients in the community make medication-related decisions.

Making conservation decisions under uncertainty for the persistence of multiple species

Population models for multiple species provide one of the few means of assessing the impact of alternative management options on the persistence of biodiversity, but
they are inevitably uncertain. Is it possible to use population models in multiple-speciesconservation planning given the associated uncertainties? We use information-gap decision theory to explore the impact of parameter uncertainty on the conservation decision when planning for the persistence of multiple species. An information-gap approach seeks robust outcomes that are most immune from error. We assess the impact of uncertainty in key model parameters for three species, whose extinction risks under four alternative management scenarios are estimated using a metapopulation model. Three methods are described for making conservation decisions across the species, taking into account uncertainty. We find that decisions based on single species are relatively robust to uncertainty in parameters, although the estimates of extinction risk increase rapidly with uncertainty. When identifying the best conservation decision for the persistence of all species, the methods that rely on the rankings of the management options by each species result in decisions that are similarly robust to uncertainty. Methods that depend on absolute values of extinction risk are sensitive to uncertainty, as small changes in extinction risk can alter the ranking of the alternative scenarios. We discover that it is possible to make robust conservation decisions even when the uncertainties of the multiple-species problem appear overwhelming. However, the decision most robust to uncertainty is likely to differ from the best decision when uncertainty is ignored, illustrating the importance of incorporating uncertainty into the decision-making process.

General practitioners' perspectives regarding competence and confidentiality in an adolescent with suspected anorexia nervosa: legal and ethical considerations

In Victoria, Australia, the legal position regarding young people's competence to make medical treatment decisions has not been clarified in legislation, and a number of often vague common law decisions must be relied on for guidance. This situation produces a degree of uncertainty about appropriate professional practice, while also potentially impeding young people's rights claims in health care settings. With this in mind, the present research explored general practitioners' competence and confidentiality decisions regarding a 17-year-old female who presented with symptoms of an eating disorder. Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 500 Victorian general practitioners, of whom 190 responded. After reading a case vignette, general practitioners indicated whether they would find the hypothetical patient competent and if they would maintain her confidentiality. Seventy-three per cent of respondents found the patient competent and most would have maintained confidentiality, at least initially. However, subsequent analysis of the rationales supplied for these decisions revealed a wide diversity in general practitioners' understandings and implementations of extant legal authority. This research highlights the need for general practitioners to be exposed to up-to-date and clinically relevant explanations of contemporary legal positions.

Surviving financial distress : the case of too many herbs and spices

Over 120 years ago Sir James Burns founded an organisation that is today, the international business group of Burns Philp and Company Ltd. The Group is widely known as a leading producer of yeast products and manufacturer of other bakery ingredients. Its ability to adapt to the ever-changing demands of business is widely recognised. During the late 1980’s however, after the group expanded into the herbs and spices industry its financial state deteriorated. Yet, arguably the Group had entered a market that complimented its then existing core-activities. This paper examines circumstances surrounding that venture into herbs and spices. It argues that the Group’s financial predicament, at that time, was exacerbated by the use of conventional accounting procedures. It illustrates that up-to-date market related financial details, in lieu of accounting book constructs, more aptly assist directors, managers, all stakeholders to conduct business and make informed economic decisions. This paper suggests that it is an entity’s current financial state of affairs, with regard to tangible market referents, that enables a firm’s strategic progress and facilitates proactive management; and in turn, assists in the sustainable development of business throughout the world.

General practitioners' competence and confidentiality determinations with a minor who requests the oral contraceptive pill

The right of minors to make medical treatment decisions is an issue that is not explicitly addressed in the legislation of most Australian jurisdictions. While recent common law decisions allow competent minors to consent to treatment, current legislation in Victoria does not provide adequate guidelines on how competence is to be measured. It is also unclear whether the duty of confidentiality is extended to competent minors. The current study explored general practitioners' competence and confidentiality decisions with a hypothetical 14-year-old patient who requests the oral contraceptive pill (OCP). Questionnaires were sent to 1,000 Victorian general practitioners, 305 of whom responded. General practitioners were asked to determine whether "Liz" was competent to request the OCP, and whether they would maintain her confidentiality. A total of 81% of respondents found the patient competent, while 91% would have maintained her confidentiality. Results indicate that the majority of general practitioners used rationales that generally did not conform to current legal principles when making competence and confidentiality determinations regarding this patient.

Internal social performance motivators

The growth in research and writing on social reporting over recent years has seen an overwhelming focus on the external reporting of social performance measures. A remaining gap in our knowledge relates to what motivates managers to make socially aware decisions. This project identified relevant factors that guide decision-making in a firm that publishes audited social responsibility reports.