Information from managing information systems as a fundamental element to support decision-making in hospitals

This article deals with the activity of defining information of hospital systems as fundamental for choosing the type of information systems to be used and also the organizational level to be supported. The use of hospital managing information systems improves the user`s decision -making process by allowing control report generation and following up the procedures made in the hospital as well.

Risk-based decision making method for maintenance policy selection of thermal power plant equipment

This study presents a decision-making method for maintenance policy selection of power plants equipment. The method is based on risk analysis concepts. The method first step consists in identifying critical equipment both for power plant operational performance and availability based on risk concepts. The second step involves the proposal of a potential maintenance policy that could be applied to critical equipment in order to increase its availability. The costs associated with each potential maintenance policy must be estimated, including the maintenance costs and the cost of failure that measures the critical equipment failure consequences for the power plant operation. Once the failure probabilities and the costs of failures are estimated, a decision-making procedure is applied to select the best maintenance policy. The decision criterion is to minimize the equipment cost of failure, considering the costs and likelihood of occurrence of failure scenarios. The method is applied to the analysis of a lubrication oil system used in gas turbines journal bearings. The turbine has more than 150 MW nominal output, installed in an open cycle thermoelectric power plant. A design modification with the installation of a redundant oil pump is proposed for lubricating oil system availability improvement. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sequential decision making with partially ordered preferences

This paper presents new insights and novel algorithms for strategy selection in sequential decision making with partially ordered preferences; that is, where some strategies may be incomparable with respect to expected utility. We assume that incomparability amongst strategies is caused by indeterminacy/imprecision in probability values. We investigate six criteria for consequentialist strategy selection: Gamma-Maximin, Gamma-Maximax, Gamma-Maximix, Interval Dominance, Maximality and E-admissibility. We focus on the popular decision tree and influence diagram representations. Algorithms resort to linear/multilinear programming; we describe implementation and experiments. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Outsourcing decision-making aspects considered by IT departments in Brazilian companies

The study of Information Technology (IT) outsourcing is relevant because companies are outsourcing their activities more than ever. An important IT outsourcing research area is the decision-making process. In other words, the comprehension of how companies decide about outsourcing their IT operations is relevant from research point of view. Therefore, the objective of this study is to understand the decision-making process used by Brazilian companies when outsourcing their IT operations. An analysis of the literature that refers to this subject showed that six aspects are usually considered by companies on the evaluation of IT outsourcing service alternatives. This research verified how these six aspects are considered by Brazilian companies on IT outsourcing decisions. The survey showed that Brazilian companies consider all the six aspects, but each of them has a different level of importance. The research also grouped the aspects according to their level of importance and interdependency, using factorial analysis to understand the logic behind IT outsourcing decision process. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intuition: Myth or a Decision-making Tool?

Faced with today’s ill-structured business environment of fast-paced change and rising uncertainty, organizations have been searching for management tools that will perform satisfactorily under such ambiguous conditions. In the arena of managerial decision making, one of the approaches being assessed is the use of intuition. Based on our definition of intuition as a non-sequential information-processing mode, which comprises both cognitive and affective elements and results in direct knowing without any use of conscious reasoning, we develop a testable model of integrated analytical and intuitive decision making and propose ways to measure the use of intuition.

Volunteer decision making by older people: A test of a revised theory of planned behavior

This study was designed to test the utility of a revised theory of planned behavior in the prediction of intentions to volunteer among older people. Such a perspective allowed for the consideration of a broader range of social and contextual factors than has been examined in previous research on volunteer decision making among older people. The article reports the findings from a study that investigated volunteer intentions and behavior in a random sample of older people aged 65 to 74 years living in an Australian capital city. Results showed that, as predicted by the revised theory of planned behavior, intention to volunteer predicted subsequent reported volunteer behavior. Intention was, in turn, predicted by social norms (both subjective and behavioral), perceived behavioral control, and moral obligation, with the effect of attitude being mediated through moral obligation.

Assisting decision-making in Queensland barley production through chance constrained programming

A chance constrained programming model is developed to assist Queensland barley growers make varietal and agronomic decisions in the face of changing product demands and volatile production conditions. Unsuitable or overlooked in many risk programming applications, the chance constrained programming approach nonetheless aptly captures the single-stage decision problem faced by barley growers of whether to plant lower-yielding but potentially higher-priced malting varieties, given a particular expectation of meeting malting grade standards. Different expectations greatly affect the optimal mix of malting and feed barley activities. The analysis highlights the suitability of chance constrained programming to this specific class of farm decision problem.

The effect of defendant gender on juror decision-making

Research investigating the role of stereotypes in jury decision-making has typically considered stereotypes as acting as peripheral cues in determin ing the credibility of experts or likelihood of guilt of defendants — with counter-stereotypic courtroom participants faring less well. The present study investigated the possibility that the extent to which courtroom participants are stereotypic can alter the mode of information processing. Students (N = 78) read a transcript of a case in which either a male or female allegedly committed an armed robbery. As predicted, the female counter-stereotypic defendant was distracting and effortful processing only occurred when the defendant was male. The male was seen as more guilty and the prosecution's case was more convincing when the prosecution had a strong, but not weak, case. There were no effects of case strength for the female defendant. Results are discussed in terms of the role of stereotypes in the jury decision-making.

Decision-Making Deficits Linked to Real-life Social Dysfunction in Crack Cocaine-Dependent Individuals

Crack cocaine-dependent individuals (CCDI) present abnormalities in both social adjustment and decision making, but few studies have examined this association. This study investigated cognitive and social performance of 30 subjects (CCDI x controls); CCDI were abstinent for 2 weeks. We used the Social Adjustment Scale (SAS), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Disadvantageous choices on the IGT were associated with higher levels of social dysfunction in CCDI, suggesting the ecological validity of the IGT. Social dysfunction and decision making may be linked to the same underlying prefrontal dysfunction, but the nature of this association should be further investigated. (Am J Addict 2010;00: 1-9).