scholarly journals Modelling plant health for policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 473-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glyn Jones ◽  
Adam Kleczkowski

Plant health is relatively poorly funded compared with animal and human health issues. However, we contend it is at least as complex and likely more so given the number of pests and hosts and that outbreaks occur in poorly monitored open systems. Modelling is often suggested as a method to better consider the threats to plant health to aid resource and time poor decision makers in their prioritisation of responses. However, like other areas of science, the modelling community has not always provided accessible and relevant solutions. We describe some potential solutions to developing plant health models in conjunction with decision makers based upon a recent example and illustrate how an increased emphasis on plant health is slowly expanding the potential role of modelling in decision making. We place the research in the Credibility, Relevance and Legitimacy (CRELE) framework and discuss the implications for future developments in co-construction of policy-linked models.

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-145
Author(s):  
Sheena Chhabra ◽  
Apurva Bakshi ◽  
Ravineet Kaur

Nutraceuticals have been around for quite some time. As the nomenclature suggests, they are placed somewhere between food (nutra-) and medicine (-ceuticals) in terms of their impact on human health. Researches have focused on the impact of various types of nutraceuticals on health, their efficacy in health promotion and disease prevention, and often on suitable uses of certain categories of nutraceuticals for specific health issues. However, we are still far from utilizing the immense potential of nutraceuticals for benefiting human health in a substantial manner. We review the available scholarly literature regarding the role of nutraceuticals in health promotion, their efficacy in disease prevention and the perception of nutraceuticals' health benefits by consumers. Thereafter we analyze the need for regulation of nutraceuticals and various provisions regarding the same.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Mullaly

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of decision rules and agency in supporting project initiation decisions, and the influences of agency on decision-making effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – The study this paper is based upon used grounded theory methodology, and sought to understand the influences of individual decision makers on project initiation decisions within organizations. Data collection involved 28 participants who were involved in project initiation decisions within their organizations, who discussed the process of project initiation in their organization and their role within that process. Findings – The study demonstrates that the overall effectiveness of project initiation decisions is a product of agency, process effectiveness or rule effectiveness. The employment of agency can have a direct influence on decision-making effectiveness, it can compensate for organizational inadequacies of a process or political nature, and it can be constrained in the evidence of formal and effective organizational practices. Research limitations/implications – While agency was recognized by all participants, there are clearly circumstances where actors perceive the ability to exercise agency to be externally constrained. The study is exploratory, contributing to the development of substantive theory. Theory testing as well as a more in-depth investigation of the underlying drivers of agency would be valuable. Practical implications – The study provides executives and individuals supporting the initiation of projects with insights on how to effectively influence the effectiveness of project initiation decisions, and the degree to which personal characteristics influence organizational dynamics. Originality/value – Most discussions of agency has been framed the subject as an executive- or board-level phenomenon. The current study demonstrates that agency is in fact being perceived and operationalized at all levels. Those demonstrating agency in the majority of instances in this study do so in exercising stewardship behaviours. This has important implications for how agency is perceived by executives, and by how agency is exercised by actors at all levels of the organization.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Bwalya Umar

AbstractDifferent theories have been posited that try to explain the decision-making process of smallholders especially regarding the adoption of new technologies or new agricultural techniques. The objective of this paper is to review and re-assess the dominant household production theories to explain the decision making of smallholders practicing conservation agriculture (CA) in the southern, eastern, and central provinces of Zambia. It also discusses the potential role of CA toward economic development. It finds that the CA smallholders studied did not aim to maximize profits but tried to secure household consumption from their own production before any other considerations in risky and uncertain environments. Their response to economic incentives was contingent on minimizing risks associated with securing a minimum level of livelihood and investing into local forms of insurance. This paper concludes that the ability for CA to contribute to rural livelihoods and economic development would depend on how adequately the factors that hinder smallholder agricultural development in general are addressed.


Symmetry ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaru Li ◽  
Fangwei Zhang ◽  
Qiang Li ◽  
Jing Sun ◽  
Janney Yee ◽  
...  

The subject of this study is to explore the role of cardinality of hesitant fuzzy element (HFE) in distance measures on hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs). Firstly, three parameters, i.e., credibility factor, conservative factor, and a risk factor are introduced, thereafter, a series of novel distance measures on HFSs are proposed using these three parameters. These newly proposed distance measures handle the relationship between the cardinal number and the element values of hesitant fuzzy set well, and are suitable to combine subjective and objective decision-making information. When using these functions, decision makers with different risk preferences are allowed to give different values for these three parameters. In particular, this study transfers the hesitance degree index to a credibility of the values in HFEs, which is consistent with people’s intuition. Finally, the practicability of the newly proposed distance measures is verified by two examples.


Author(s):  
Ekaterina Jussupow ◽  
Kai Spohrer ◽  
Armin Heinzl ◽  
Joshua Gawlitza

Systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly support physicians in diagnostic decisions, but they are not without errors and biases. Failure to detect those may result in wrong diagnoses and medical errors. Compared with rule-based systems, however, these systems are less transparent and their errors less predictable. Thus, it is difficult, yet critical, for physicians to carefully evaluate AI advice. This study uncovers the cognitive challenges that medical decision makers face when they receive potentially incorrect advice from AI-based diagnosis systems and must decide whether to follow or reject it. In experiments with 68 novice and 12 experienced physicians, novice physicians with and without clinical experience as well as experienced radiologists made more inaccurate diagnosis decisions when provided with incorrect AI advice than without advice at all. We elicit five decision-making patterns and show that wrong diagnostic decisions often result from shortcomings in utilizing metacognitions related to decision makers’ own reasoning (self-monitoring) and metacognitions related to the AI-based system (system monitoring). As a result, physicians fall for decisions based on beliefs rather than actual data or engage in unsuitably superficial evaluation of the AI advice. Our study has implications for the training of physicians and spotlights the crucial role of human actors in compensating for AI errors.


Author(s):  
Eric Beerbohm

This chapter defends a theory of citizenship that recognizes our need to make online decisions under electoral pressures, given our foibles as decision makers. Drawing upon the extensive literature on decision and judgment, it examines how fragile citizens are when it comes to decision making. The usual heuristics offered by political scientists suggest that citizens rely on informational shortcuts that are morally irresponsible. If we reconceive the role of the voter in explicitly moral terms, this approach is unsatisfactory in addressing the cognitive biases and defects of citizens. The chapter also considers the notion of cognitive partisanship and argues that it is unavoidable for decision makers to rely on heuristics when they reason about complex decisions. It concludes by emphasizing the task for a democratic ethics of belief: to provide citizens with heuristics that reduce the cognitive burden while respecting the moral obligations to attach to coercive, term-shaping decision making.


Author(s):  
Dimitris Folinas ◽  
Mohammed Althrawa

This chapter has two main aims: first, to explore the role of various economical, financial, and strategic forces influencing firms towards diversification and specialization decision making within the Saudi Arabian manufacturing industry, and second to assess the challenges for both types of companies at the time of decision making and afterwards. Surveying 100 decision makers in the industrial cities of Riyadh using questionnaires developed for both groups, the chapter initially attempts to identify the factors that had the greatest impact on firm performance based on firm returns on investment. Several factors were found significant; first, attempts of specialization were found associated with risk avoidance and managers craving to achieve industry dominant economic features, whilst results show an increased concern among diversified firm decision makers towards changes in import and export policies and regulations. Moreover, industry type was found effective in managerial responses as they weigh the role of the factors presented to the direction of the expansion made.


Author(s):  
Lisa Bortolotti

In this chapter, the author argues that the ill-grounded explanations agents sincerely offer for their choices have the potential for epistemic innocence. Such explanations are not based on evidence about the causes of the agents’ behaviour and typically turn out to be inaccurate. That is because agents tend to underestimate the role of priming effects, implicit biases, and basic emotional reactions in their decision making. However, offering explanations for their choices, even when the explanations are ill-grounded, enables them to share information about their choices with peers, facilitating peer feedback and self-reflection. Moreover, by providing plausible explanations for their behaviour—rather than acknowledging the influence of factors that cannot be easily controlled—agents preserve a sense of themselves as competent and largely coherent decision makers, which can improve their decision making.


2019 ◽  
pp. 94-127
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fisher ◽  
Bettina Lange ◽  
Eloise Scotford

This chapter explains the important role that public law, particularly administrative law, plays in environmental law. This role comes about because much of environmental law requires vesting decision-making and regulatory power in the hands of public decision-makers at all levels of government. This chapter begins by providing an overview of the different constituent elements of public law: constitutional law, administrative law, the role of the EU and international law, as well the complexities of this area of law. The chapter then moves on to consider the way in which the different types of interests involved in environmental problems and the need for information and expertise provide challenges for public law. The chapter then provides an overview of four major features of public law that are particularly relevant to environmental lawyers: the Aarhus Convention, accountability mechanisms, judicial review, and human rights.


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