Decision-making dysregulation in first-episode schizophrenia

Studies with chronic schizophrenia patients have demonstrated that patients fluctuate between rigid and unpredictable responses in decision-making situations, a phenomenon which has been called dysregulation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether schizophrenia patients already display dysregulated behavior at the beginning of their illness. Thirty-two first-episode schizophrenia or schizophreniform patients and 30 healthy controls performed the two-choice prediction task. The decision-making behavior of first-episode patients was shown to be characterized by a high degree of dysregulation accompanied by low metric entropy and a tendency towards increased mutual information. These results indicate that behavioral abnormalities during the two-choice prediction task are already present during the early stages of the illness.

The radiographic assessment of implant patients: decision-making criteria

Indications for the most frequently used imaging modalities in implant dentistry are proposed based on clinical need and biologic risk for the patient. To calculate the biologic risk, the authors carried out dose measurements. They demonstrated that the risk from a periapical radiograph is 20% of that from a panoramic radiograph. A panoramic radiograph and a series of 4 conventional tomographs of a single-tooth gap in the molar region carry 5% and 13% of the risk from computed tomography of the maxilla, respectively. Panoramic radiography is considered the standard radiographic examination for treatment planning of implant patients, because it imparts a low dose while giving the best radiographic survey. Periapical radiographs are used to elucidate details or to complete the findings obtained from the panoramic radiograph. Other radiographic methods, such as conventional film tomography or computed tomography, are applied only in special circumstances, film tomography being preferred for smaller regions of interest and computed tomography being justified for the complete maxilla or mandible when methods for dose reduction are followed. During follow-up, intraoral radiography is considered the standard radiographic examination, particularly for implants in the anterior region of the maxilla or for scientific studies. In patients requiring more than 5 periapical images, panoramic radiography is preferred.

From Statistical Data to Spatial Knowledge - informing decision making in Vietnam

Vietnam has developed rapidly over the past 15 years. However, progress was not uniformly distributed across the country. Availability, adequate visualization and analysis of spatially explicit data on socio-economic and environmental aspects can support both research and policy towards sustainable development. Applying appropriate mapping techniques allows gleaning important information from tabular socio-economic data. Spatial analysis of socio-economic phenomena can yield insights into locally-specifi c patterns and processes that cannot be generated by non-spatial applications. This paper presents techniques and applications that develop and analyze spatially highly disaggregated socioeconomic datasets. A number of examples show how such information can support informed decisionmaking and research in Vietnam.

Financial decision making about found oil and gas in Ghana : real options vs. traditional methods

This research is a study of the use of capital budgeting methods for investment decisions. It uses both the traditional methods and the newly introduced approach called the real options analysis to make a decision. The research elucidates how capital budgeting can be done when analysts encounter projects with high uncertainty and are capital intensive, for example oil and gas production. It then uses the oil and gas find in Ghana as a case study to support its argument. For a clear understanding a thorough literature review was done, which highlights the advantages and disadvantages of both methods. The revenue that the project will generate and the costs of production were obtained from the predictions by analysts from GNPC and compared to others experts’ opinion. It then applied both the traditional and real option valuation on the oil and gas find in Ghana to determine the project’s feasibility. Although, there are some short falls in real option analysis that are presented in this research, it is still helpful in valuing projects that are capital intensive with high volatility due to the strategic flexibility management possess in their decision making. It also suggests that traditional methods of evaluation should still be maintained and be used to value projects that have no options or those with options yet the options do not have significant impact on the project. The research points out the economic ripples the production of oil and gas will have on Ghana’s economy should the project be undertaken. These ripples include economic growth, massive job creation and reduction of the balance of trade deficit for the country. The long run effect is an eventually improvement of life of the citizens. It is also belief that the production of gas specifically can be used to generate electricity in Ghana which would enable the country to have a more stable and reliable power source necessary to attract more foreign direct investment.

Peer influence in NIPF landowner decision making in the western Upper Peninsula, Michigan

Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners hold the largest amount of privately owned forest in the United States. Activities undertaken by NIPF owners have the potential to drastically impact the forested landscape of the United States, along with its associated biodiversity and ecological services. Many government sanctioned programs are in place to discourage the conversion of forest to other uses as well as to ensure sustainable management and a continuous supply of timber. Reaching NIPF owners with information about these programs and other management information is therefore important to the forests of the United States. This thesis presents research on how the NIPF owners of the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan communicate about forest management with neighboring NIPF owners. The data were obtained from 34 telephone interviews with owners of NIPF properties in the western Upper Peninsula. The goal of this research was to understand the way information moves through NIPF owner dominated landscapes in order to provide recommendations to policy implementers on how to best reach NIPF owners with information. Understanding where NIPF owners get information about management and landowner assistance programs is vital to ensuring a sustainably managed forest landscape in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Using transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe decision-making and memory

Decision-making and memory are fundamental processes for successful human behaviour. For eye movements, the frontal eye fields (FEF), the supplementary eye fields (SEF), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the ventrolateral frontal cortex and the anterior cingulum are important for these cognitive processes. The online approach of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), i.e., the application of magnetic pulses during planning and performance of saccades, allows interfering specifically with information processing of the stimulated region at a very specific time interval (chronometry of cortical processing). The paper presents studies, which showed the different roles of the FEF and DLPFC in antisaccade control. The critical time interval of DLPFC control seems to be before target onset since TMS significantly increased the percentage of antisaccade errors at that time interval. The FEF seems to be important for the triggering of correct antisaccades. Bilateral stimulation of the DLPFC could demonstrate parallel information-processing transfer in spatial working memory during memory-guided saccades.

Using a Prediction and Option Generation Paradigm to Understand Decision Making

In many complex and dynamic domains, the ability to generate and then select the appropriate course of action is based on the decision maker's "reading" of the situation--in other words, their ability to assess the situation and predict how it will evolve over the next few seconds. Current theories regarding option generation during the situation assessment and response phases of decision making offer contrasting views on the cognitive mechanisms that support superior performance. The Recognition-Primed Decision-making model (RPD; Klein, 1989) and Take-The-First heuristic (TTF; Johnson & Raab, 2003) suggest that superior decisions are made by generating few options, and then selecting the first option as the final one. Long-Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995), on the other hand, posits that skilled decision makers construct rich, detailed situation models, and that as a result, skilled performers should have the ability to generate more of the available task-relevant options. The main goal of this dissertation was to use these theories about option generation as a way to further the understanding of how police officers anticipate a perpetrator's actions, and make decisions about how to respond, during dynamic law enforcement situations. An additional goal was to gather information that can be used, in the future, to design training based on the anticipation skills, decision strategies, and processes of experienced officers. Two studies were conducted to achieve these goals. Study 1 identified video-based law enforcement scenarios that could be used to discriminate between experienced and less-experienced police officers, in terms of their ability to anticipate the outcome. The discriminating scenarios were used as the stimuli in Study 2; 23 experienced and 26 less-experienced police officers observed temporally-occluded versions of the scenarios, and then completed assessment and response option-generation tasks. The results provided mixed support for the nature of option generation in these situations. Consistent with RPD and TTF, participants typically selected the first-generated option as their final one, and did so during both the assessment and response phases of decision making. Consistent with LTWM theory, participants--regardless of experience level--generated more task-relevant assessment options than task-irrelevant options. However, an expected interaction between experience level and option-relevance was not observed. Collectively, the two studies provide a deeper understanding of how police officers make decisions in dynamic situations. The methods developed and employed in the studies can be used to investigate anticipation and decision making in other critical domains (e.g., nursing, military). The results are discussed in relation to how they can inform future studies of option-generation performance, and how they could be applied to develop training for law enforcement officers.