The Selection of Multiattribute Decision Making Methods for Scholarship Student Selection

Selecting scholarship students from a number of competing candidates is a complex decision making process, in which multiple selection criteria have to be considered simultaneously. Multiattribute decision making (MADM) has proven to be an effective approach for ranking or selecting one or more alternatives from a finite number of alternatives with respect to multiple, usually conflicting criteria. This paper formulates the scholarship student selection process as an MADM problem, and presents suitable compensatory methods for solving the problem. A new empirical validity procedure is developed to deal with the inconsistent ranking problem caused by different MADM methods. The procedure aims at selecting a ranking outcome which has a minimum expected value loss, when true attribute weights are not known. An empirical study of a scholarship student selection problem in an Australian university is conducted to illustrate how the selection procedure works.     

Evaluating municipal policy: an analysis of a refuse packaging program

The effect of a municipal enforcement program to improve residents' packaging of refuse was analyzed in a multiple-baseline design across two areas of a city. The enforcement program involved instruction concerning refuse-packaging regulations, collection only of appropriately packaged refuse, and feedback notices to residents concerning the reasons for noncollection of their inadequately packaged refuse. Both the number of violations and the percentage of residences violating each day were markedly reduced during the enforcement program. Furthermore, sanitation workers considered that the packaging of refuse and the safety and efficiency of refuse collection had improved. This study served as a pilot evaluation of a policy change in the city sanitation department, and was functional in determining the direction of that policy.     

自然选择质疑

当代对达尔文进化论的争论几乎是全方位的。尽管当今达尔文主义者的立场和论调与原先的达尔文的进化论已有很大出入,比如说,现代综合进化论对自然选择的创造性作用的突出强调,间断平衡论对达尔文随机渐变理论的重新解释等等,但现代达尔文主义者对作为达尔文进化论核心的自然选择理论一般都是坚持的。本文试图立足于现代自然科学发展的前沿,对这一理论做出再反思。     

Preconception Gender Selection

Safe and effective methtods of preconception gender selection through flow cytometric separation of X- and Y-bearing sperm could greatly increase the use of gender selection by couples contemplating reproduction. Such a development raises ethical, legal, and social issues about the impact of such practices on offspring, on sex ratio imbalances, and on sexism and the status of women. This paper analyzes the competing interests in preconception gender selection, and concludes that its use to increase gender variety in a family, and possibly for selecting the gender of firstborn, might in many instances be ethically acceptable.     

福利经济学的伦理选择

本文依据效率与伦理两个基本标准探讨了福利经济学对于经济运行体系的伦理选择问题。首先分别讨论了福利经济学参照两个基本标准对于经济运行体系进行伦理选择的具体情况。其次分析了福利经济学在参照第二个基本标准对于经济运行体系进行伦理选择时所遇到的理论困难及其原因,即仅仅依据功利主义伦理基础的狭窄理论框架与包含道义主义伦理学在内的广阔的价值世界之间的矛盾。最后指出:通过引入道义主义伦理学作为福利经济学的伦理基础之一,特别是通过引入伦理妥协的方法解决经济学的功利主义基础与道义主义基础之间的矛盾,便可以扩展福利经济学的理论框架,消除福利经济学在参照第二个基本标准对于经济运行体系进行伦理选择时所遇到的理论困难,使福利经济学能够在新的意义上同时参照两个基本标准对于经济运行体系进行有效的伦理选择。     

The Effect of Selection Ratio on Perceptions of the Fairness of a Selection Test Battery

This research examined the effects of the selection ratio on applicants’ perceptions of the fairness of a battery of tests. These fairness perceptions were also examined to assess whether they moderated the validity of the tests. A laboratory study was undertaken to examine the effects of the selection ratio on applicants going through a selection process and to examine the effects of being hired or rejected. Results revealed that the selection ratio did not have an effect on perceptions, but that hired individuals perceived greater distributive fairness. Furthermore, attitudes towards the cognitive ability test moderated the validity of the cognitive ability test, but attitudes toward the personality test did not moderate the validity of the personality test.     

最佳数据选择模型——华生选择任务的理性解释

介绍华生选择任务的Oaksford概率解释模型-最佳数据选择模型.对该模型的数学结构、相关推论、及其心理学意义作了说明.     

Selection and Predictive Success

By means of a citation analysis I aim to determine which scholarly journals are most important in the sub-field of philosophy of science. My analysis shows that the six most important journals in the sub-field are Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Journal of Philosophy, Synthese, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, and Erkenntnis. Given the data presented in this study, there is little evidence that there is such a field as the history and philosophy of science (HPS). Rather, philosophy of science is most properly conceived of as a sub-field of philosophy.     

Inhibition Accompanies Reference-Frame Selection

Spatial relational terms are ambiguous because they can be defined by different and sometimes conflicting frames of reference. Previous research has suggested that multiple reference frames are simultaneously active before a reference frame is selected. Two experiments examined the on-line selection of a reference frame to determine whether it is assisted by inhibition. These experiments used a negative-priming paradigm in which access to a reference frame was assessed on trial n when that reference frame was either available but not selected or not available on trial n – 1. Significant negative priming was observed; it operated along the axis of the reference frame, encompassing both endpoints. In addition, reference-frame selection seems to be independent of object selection. We cast these findings within the view of negative priming as an inhibitory mechanism, and discuss their implications for the use of spatial relations.     

Systematic Selection of Job Evaluation Items

Disposer d'items pertinents pouvant servir à la comparaison des postes est de premiere importance. Pourtant la littérature ne propose pas de solutions claires pour la selection de ces items. Notre travail suggere des principes pouvant presider a leur selection et a leur elaboration. Une serie d'items d'evaluation ont été selectionries et soumis a une prevalidation. L'analyse des relations entre les items d'evaluation des taches a mis en evidence trois types de relations: lineaires, non lineaires et absence de relations. Les items en relation lineaire et ceux qui pouvaient etre observes fidelement ont été juges convenir a revaluation du travail.
Des principes complementaires de selection des items ont été tires de l'analyse de contenu: les items decrivant la realisation de la tache, le niveau de la performance, et les items suffisamment generaux et independants de postes precis ou de groupes professionnels ont été retenus. Quatre dimensions de 1'evaluation du travail ont aussi été mises en evidence (la notion de limitation de l'autonomie dans la realisation de la tache les concerne tous): (1) precision des instructions recues, (2) controle hierarchique, (3) maitrise du travail, et (4) possibility d'introduire des changements.
Sur la base des principes et des dimensions, on a defini une serie de sept items generaux de 1'evaluation du travail. Les evaluations empiriques ont corrobore l'hypothese selon laquelle une hierarchie des postes approximative-ment unidimensionnelle pouvait etre obtenue.     

Screening-off and The Levels of Selection

In The Levels of Selection (Brandon, 1984), Robert Brandon provides a suggestive but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to use the probabilistic notion ofscreening off in providing a schema for dealing with an aspect of the units of selection question in the philosophy of biology. I characterize that failure, and suggest a revision and expansion of Brandon's account which addresses its key shortcoming.     

Selection of Patients for Group Psychotherapy

The concept of projective identification is reviewed, and its application to family and group systems is noted. Projective identification is then applied as a construct central to couples' groups, particularly useful in sorting out dynamics within couples, between couples, and toward the group-as-a-whole and its leader(s). Clinical examples are provided from a couples group co-led by the author, with indications of how this perspective on disavowal, interaction, and containment can be utilized therapeutically to provide a stimulus for intrapsychic and interpersonal change. The couples group offers a unique forum for working with projective identification, where this process presents a challenge to the therapist regarding the multiple levels from which to select appropriately and to “contain” skillfully.