Integration of Analytic Hierarchy Process with Regression Analysis to Identify Attractive Locations for Market Expansion

Selection of new geographies in which to expand is a key decision for businesses aspiring to go beyond the opportunities in the existing markets. The conventional approaches of market selection can only provide a set of systematic steps for problem solving without considering the relationships between the decision factors. Decision models based on statistical techniques are able to examine the relationship between decision factors but are unable to effectively assist decision makers in identifying the most promising market, particularly in terms of prioritizing across decision factors. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a commonly used approach for choosing alternatives by prioritizing across multiple decision factors. The typical AHP modelling requires knowledge of criteria and/or alternatives along with their relative weights, generally elicited from field experts. Quite often, firms encounter situations where decision makers are aware of only the overall objective and a set of earmarked geographies for setting up market locations while being relatively unaware of decision criteria and relative weights. This precludes using AHP to identify promising market locations. This paper conceptualizes a market selection decision model that integrates AHP with statistical modelling techniques to identify the attractive market locations for the purpose of expansion. The model first uses principal component analysis and multiple regression to determine significant decision criteria and their weights. Thereafter, it applies AHP to prioritize the market locations across the decision criteria. This integrative approach is illustrated for identifying the attractive locations in rural markets for a steel firm in India. The major advantage of this approach is that unlike the existing models, it works in situations when firms have not enough knowledge about factors for evaluating alternative market locations. Another key advantage of the proposed model is that of economizing resources for data collection on variables representing decision factors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multitasking as a Predictor of Pilot Performance: Validity Beyond Serial Single-Task Assessments

Although multitasking has been identified as an important competency for many jobs, standardized preemployment tests of multitasking are uncommon, and their validity beyond separate single-task assessments is unclear. To address this gap, this study compared the validity of a preemployment multitasking assessment (with math, memorization, and monitoring tasks presented concurrently) to an assessment in which the same constituent tasks were assessed separately. Among military pilot applicants, concurrent multitasking predicted both flying and academic performance, whereas serial single-task scores and their combination predicted only academic performance. Larger multitasking decrements (i.e., operationalized as the difference between single-task and multiple-task performance of the same constituent tasks) were associated with poorer flying performance. Results suggest the potential utility of multitasking assessments in selection for military jobs requiring competing, concurrent task demands.     

Slow and steady wins the race: Life history,mate value,and mate settling

Life history theory explains how individuals decide to invest their limited resources, which involves several trade-offs. Particularly relevant to the current work, individuals can choose to invest in current or delayed reproduction (a slow life history strategy), which implicates a trade-off between the quantity and the quality of one’s offspring. Choosing to delay reproduction allows for increased self-investment, and previous research has demonstrated that traits requiring self-investment are related to higher mate value. As such, the current study hypothesizes that slow life history strategy will predict high personal mate value and high levels of partner mate-value within heterosexual partnerships. Similarly, those with a slow life history strategy should display fewer tendencies toward mate-settling. The current work employs both subjective and objective measures of mate value within mateships to investigate these hypothesized relationships. As hypothesized, significant positive relationships among life history and mate value were detected, suggesting that a slower life history strategy corresponds to high ratings of mate value for both self and partner. Also, life history strategy is a significant predictor of subjective, objective, and Mate Value Inventory ratings of partner and self. Further implications and potential future works are discussed.     

认知诊断CAT中项目曝光控制方法的比较

项目曝光率关系到题库建设和测验安全,是计算机化自适应测验(Computerized Adaptive Testing, CAT)需要考虑的重要问题。在认知诊断 CAT 情形下,首先基于传统 CAT 中 a-分层方法的思想提出按项目信息量对题库分层的分层多阶段(Stratified Multistage, SM)选题方法;然后将 SM 方法与项目合格(Item Eligibility, IE)方法相结合得到SMIE方法。在此基础上,开展模拟研究比较SM、IE、SMIE、最大修正优先指标(Maximum Modified Priority Index, MMPI)方法、限制阈值(Restrictive Threshold, RT)方法和限制进度(Restrictive Progressive, RPG)方法的选题表现。总体上,它们的测量精度从高到低依次为IE、SM、SMIE、RT、RPG和MMPI方法;项目曝光分布均匀性的优劣次序为MMPI、RPG、SMIE、RT、SM和IE方法;SMIE和RT方法能较好地平衡测量精度和项目曝光均匀性要求。     

Priming of actions increases sense of control over unexpected outcomes

Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the feeling that we are in control of our own actions and, through them, events in the outside world. SoA depends partly on retrospectively matching outcomes to expectations, and partly on prospective processes occurring prior to action, notably action selection.To assess the relative contribution of these processes, we factorially varied subliminal priming of action selection and expectation of action outcomes. Both factors affected SoA, and there was also a significant interaction. Compatible action primes increased SoA more strongly for unexpected than expected outcomes. Outcome expectation had strong effects on SoA following incompatible action priming, but only weak effects following compatible action priming. Prospective and retrospective SoA may have distinct and complementary functions.     

The Speech and Vocalization Patterns of Boys with ADHD Compared with Boys with Dyslexia and Boys Without Learning Disabilities

The domain-specific hypothesis of L. Cosmides (1989) and L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (1989, 1992) positing that conditional logic has its origin in the evolution of social exchange and in the detection of potential cheaters was tested against a more domain-general hypothesis positing that adult reasoning is logical and that errors in conditional reasoning arise from misunderstandings, not from a lack of logicality. The results of 5 experiments with undergraduate students (n = 682 for Experiments 1-4; n = 188 for Experiment 5), which involved a series of selection tasks that yielded specific predictions about participant performance, were not consistent with the cheater detection hypothesis. Findings supported the misunderstandings hypothesis and imply that adults possess general-purpose logical competence versus domain-specific modules.     

Attending to what matters: Flexibility in adults’ and infants’ action perception

Action perception is selective in that observers attend to and encode certain dimensions of action over others. But how flexible is action perception in its selection of perceptual information? One possibility is that observers consistently attend to particular dimensions of action over others across different contexts. Another possibility, tested here, is that observers flexibly vary their attention to different dimensions of action based on the context in which action occurs. We investigated 9.5-month-old infants’ and adults’ ability to attend to drop height under varying contexts—aiming to drop an object into a narrow container versus a wide container. We predicted differential attention to increases in aiming height for the narrow container versus the wide container because an increase in aiming height has a differential effect on success (i.e., getting the object into the container) depending on the width of the container. Both adults and infants showed an asymmetry in their attention to aiming height as a function of context; in the wide container condition increases and decreases in aiming height were equally detectable, whereas in the narrow container condition observers more readily discriminated increases over decreases in aiming height. These results indicate that action perception is both selective and flexible according to context, aiding in action prediction and infants’ social–cognitive development more broadly.     

Truth and Tension in Science and Religion

While evolution deserves theological support and inclusion in schools, the consensus views, Darwinian or neo-Darwinian evolution, present problems. Darwin presented two arguments: 1) that evolution, descent with modification, has occurred, and 2) that its “cause” is natural selection, the focus of neo-Darwinism. However, the products of natural selection, adaptations, are often not congruent with the lineages produced by evolution and its demonstrated effects are within species. The difficulty of using natural selection to explain evolution is used by proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) to denigrate evolution and to argue for the inclusion of ID in biology classes. However, the force of the arguments in favor of ID disappear when evolution is viewed as an informational phenomenon. Evolution, like development, is a system of increasing complexity, and emergence the inevitable outcome of the transformation of matter whereby the information in DNA is expressed that accompanies energy dynamics. Evolution is witnessed by studies in comparative biology that reveal groups of related organisms and homologies, both the result of descent with modification.     

A Preliminary Investigation of the Effects of Reading Fluency Interventions on Comprehension

Abstract

Brief experimental analyses were conducted using two dependent variables to evaluate the effectiveness of reading interventions. Specifically reading rate (words read correctly per minute) and mean reading comprehension levels for six students with reading difficulties were obtained using six different reading intervention/intervention combinations. These interventions included contingent reinforcement, listening passage preview, repeated reading, listening passage preview with contingent reinforcement, repeated reading with contingent reinforcement, and repeated reading with listening passage preview. Results suggested that no one intervention was best for all students. In addition, it was found that interventions that increased reading rate for half of the students also increased reading comprehension for the same students. Discussion focuses on student-treatment interactions, measuring student reading performance, matching treatments to students, and directions for future research.