Follow-up Interactive Long-Term Expert Ranking (FILTER): a crowdsourcing platform to adjudicate risk for survivorship care

Objectives To develop an online crowdsourcing platform where oncologists and other survivorship experts can adjudicate risk for complications in follow-up. Materials and Methods This platform, called Follow-up Interactive Long-Term Expert Ranking (FILTER), prompts participants to adjudicate risk between each of a series of pairs of synthetic cases. The Elo ranking algorithm is used to assign relative risk to each synthetic case. Results The FILTER application is currently live and implemented as a web application deployed on the cloud. Discussion While guidelines for following cancer survivors exist, refinement of survivorship care based on risk for complications after active treatment could improve both allocation of resources and individual outcomes in long-term follow-up. Conclusion FILTER provides a means for a large number of experts to adjudicate risk for survivorship complications with a low barrier of entry.

Method of using the transitive graph of a Markovian process as part of ranking of heterogeneous items

Hierarchy analysis developed by Thomas Saaty is a closed logical structure that uses simple and well-substantiated rules that allow solving multicriterial problems that include both quantitative, and qualitative factors, whereby the quantitative factors can differ in terms of their dimensionality. The method is based on problem decomposition and its representation as a hierarchical arrangement, which allows including into such hierarchy all the knowledge the decision-maker has regarding the problem at hand and subsequent processing of decision-makers’ judgements. As the result, the relative degree of the interaction between the elements of such hierarchy can be identified and later quantified. Hierarchy analysis includes the procedure of multiple judgement synthesis, criteria priority definition and rating of the compared alternatives. The method’s significant limitation consists in the requirement of coherence of pairwise comparison matrices for correct definition of the weights of compared alternatives. The Aim of the paper is to examine a non-conventional method of solving the problem of alternative ratings estimation based on their pairwise comparisons that arises in the process of expert preference analysis in various fields of research. Approaches are discussed to the generation of pairwise comparison matrices taking into consideration the problem of coherence of such matrices and expert competence estimation. Method. The methods of hierarchy analysis, models and methods of the Markovian process theory were used. Result. The paper suggested a method of using the transitive graph of a Markovian process as part of expert ranking of items of a certain parent entity subject to the competence and qualification of the experts involved in the pairwise comparison. It is proposed to use steady-state probabilities of a Markovian process as the correlation of priorities (weights) of the compared items. The paper sets forth an algorithm for constructing the final scale of comparison taking into consideration the experts’ level of competence. Conclusion. The decision procedures, in which the experts are expected to choose the best alternatives out of the allowable set, are quite frequently used in a variety of fields for the purpose of estimation and objective priority definition, etc. The described method can be applied not only for comparing items, but also for solving more complicated problems of expert group estimation, i.e., planning and management, prediction, etc. The use of the method contributes to the objectivity of analysis, when comparing alternatives, taking into consideration various aspects of their consequences, as well as the decision-maker’s attitude to such consequences. The suggested model-based approach allows the decision-maker identifying and adjusting his/her preferences and, consequently, choosing the decisions according to such preferences, avoiding logical errors in long and complex reasoning chains. This approach can be used in group decision-making, description of the procedures that compensate a specific expert’s insufficient knowledge by using information provided by the other experts.

Expert assessment of the important professional competencies of aerospace engineers

This article is dedicated to examination of the important professional competencies of aerospace engineers and specificity of their professional activity. The study represents an expert assessment of the activity and important professional competencies of aerospace engineers. The research program consisted of several stages. The first stage includes the formation of the relevant expert group and assessment of the characteristics of activity and important professional competencies based on the methodology of expert assessment of I. L. Solomin. The second stage implies the expert ranking of the important psychological characteristics in the activity of aerospace, and determination of psychological factors that affect the solution of professional tasks. Based on the acquired results, the author reveals the socioeconomic, industrial-technical, and psychological characteristics of the activity of aerospace engineers. The most important professional competencies of aerospace engineers include: attention span, ability to predict, psychic stability, memory, imagination, and distress tolerance. The effective solution of professional tasks by aerospace engineers requires psychological resilience to external influences, ability to maintain attention control, etc. The acquired data can be valuable in assessment of the important professional competencies of young specialists, as well as carrying out a set of measures aimed at developing attention span, ability to predict, and psychic stability.

A Novel Expert Finding System for Community Question Answering

With the popularity of community question answering (CQA) sites, the research on identifying the expert users in online communities attracted increasing attention. We present a novel expert ranking algorithm based on the quality of user posts and the authority of user in community, and the similarity between the knowledge tags of users and questions in CQA sites is adopted in our scheme. Experimental results show that our scheme has better performance and accuracy under the same background with an amount of data samples.

The Professional Values of Modern Economists as a Psychological and Pedagogical Problem

The relevance of the article is due to significant transformations of various aspects of public life that affect the professional values of the economist’s personality. This defines the tasks of modernizing higher economic education, including finding new approaches to its axiologization, which requires determining the system of professional values of the personality of a modern economist. The author emphasizes the lack of development of the problem of the formation of professional values of the personality of future economists due to the prevailing approaches of researchers to the study of vocational and value orientations, professional orientation and professional self-determination of these specialists. An author’s understanding of the essence of professional values of the personality of a modern economist has been proposed. A theoretical analysis of the approaches of domestic scientists to determining the professional values of the personality of an economist was carried out, which made it possible to form an initial list of values reflecting the general characteristics of different areas of economic activity. Using the method of expert assessment, a generalized system of professional values of the modern economist was formed, such as the interaction of socio-professional, vocational-group and personal-professional values. The methods of mathematical statistics revealed the reliability of the results and the possibility of using them in the study. By the method of expert ranking, the hierarchy of professional values of the personality of the modern economist for each of the groups is determined. This should be considered as the basis for determining the pedagogical conditions for the effective formation of the professional values of the personality of future economists in the process of their professional training.

Influence of Nairobi’s Biophysical Characteristics on its Vulnerability to a Changing Climate

Urban areas experience exacerbated impacts of the regional climate variability because of their form characteristics such as imperviousness of surfaces, building density and distribution of open spaces. These are further confounded by geographical aspects such as topography, soil types, and vegetation types. Nairobi city is increasingly exposed to flood and heat risk as an aggregation of its urban form and the changing global climate. The paper sought to establish the influence of Nairobi’s biophysical characteristics on its vulnerability to both flooding and heat risks. The paper used a descriptive research design augmented with Geographic Information Systems to spatially model the landcover, soil drainage, topography, green space networks, and population density characteristics at the sub-location level. Vulnerability indices were developed using the expert ranking system and used to determine the vulnerability of the different sub-locations. The findings revealed a vulnerability pattern close to the historically segregated planning of the city. The central and eastern parts of the city exhibit high vulnerability while the western, northwestern, and southern parts of the city display moderate to low vulnerability. The paper recommends that adapting existing neighbourhoods and proactive planning of new neighbourhoods uses the ecosystem-based approach. This to entail decentralization of smaller green spaces, redesign of road medians for water management, re-specification of street vegetation species to incorporate a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees and incorporating eco-roofs and walls in high-density developments like the Central Business District.

DETERMINING THE PRIORITY OF CYBER SECURITY MEASURES FOR INCOMPLETE EXPERT RANKING

High-quality functioning of the information security system and solving problems that arise in the information protection, is currently a topical trend in various areas of human life. Successful cyber protection consist in creating and implementing a multi-level system of measures that cover various aspects with complex interact and complement each other. These measures have a different nature, and their priorities may differ significantly in terms of different services of the organization, so it is logical to formalize the sequence of cybersecurity implementation in a class of group choice tasks. The paper proposes a flexible mathematical apparatus for modeling information security problems and adequate application of the opinion analysis of experts’ team in practice. The approach to finding the resultant ranking of measures priority is described as a solution to the problem of multicriteria optimization, where the sequence of measures implementation may involve the interaction of performers and require regulation of the actions sequence of all elements and subsystems of the organizational system. This approach allows to combine different information security measures proposed by the experts of various departments; to find a compromise solution for a diverse group of experts; not to violate any expert's preferences under calculating the compromise ranking of cyber security measures. The proposed approach can be useful in developing appropriate cybersecurity measures and favorable in developing and implementing of rapid response procedures to threats, as well as it can be indispensable in the overall building or improving organization security system and it can contain elements of training, coordination, and complexity of expert team members, who are the heads of units of a single organizational system.