Deliberative Decision-Making in Macaques Removes Reward-Driven Response Vigor

Most of our daily decisions are governed by one of two systems: an impulsive system driving instantaneous decisions and a deliberative system driving thoughtful ones. The impulsive system reacts to immediately available concrete rewards. In contrast, the deliberative system reacts to more delayed rewards and/or punishments, which imposes consideration of longer-term choice consequences. Contingency management for addiction treatment is hypothesized to engage deliberative processes. Ultimately, in both decision-making situations, an action is needed to enact the decision. Whether those actions differ in implementation is an open question whose answer could inform as to whether distinct neural systems are engaged. To explore whether there is evidence of separate mechanisms between deliberated and immediate choices, we trained monkeys to perform a decision-making task where they made a choice on a touch screen between two visual cues predicting different amounts of reward. In immediate choice (IC) trials, the cues appeared at the final response locations where subjects could immediately touch the chosen cue. In deliberated choice (DC) trials, compound cues appeared orthogonally to the response locations. After a delay, allowing for decision formation, an identifying cue component was displaced to the randomly assigned response locations, permitting subjects to reach for the chosen cue. Both trial types showed an effect of cue value on cue selection time. However, only IC trials showed an effect of the competing cue on response vigor (measured by movement duration) and a reach trajectory that deviated in the direction of the competing cue, suggesting a decision reexamination process. Reward modulation of response vigor implicates dopaminergic mechanisms. In DC trials, reach trajectories revealed a commitment to the chosen choice target, and reach vigor was not modulated by the value of the competing cue. Our results suggest that choice–action dynamics are shaped by competing offers only during instantaneous, impulsive choice. After a deliberated decision, choice–action dynamics are unaffected by the alternative offer cue, demonstrating a commitment to the choice. The potential relevance to contingency management is discussed.

Authenticity vs. Inauthenticity in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest

Unlike other living creatures, human being requires an authentic life to reflect the true self and independence. Due to the limitations and complicacies of life, either personal or from the surroundings, people sometimes play inauthentic roles and express inconsistent statements. Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ represents the same situation where two protagonists Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncireff frequently change their valid identity and address for abundant freedom and worldly pleasure. Considering two fundamental existentialistic concerns such as authenticity and inauthenticity along with qualitative and descriptive analysis method, the study evaluates how authentic or inauthentic decisions Algernon and Jack have made to transform their long carried name, definite identity and diversified location. It highlights how Wilde’s major characters are intertwined with complicated relationships affecting self-motivated decision, choice and freedom. Nevertheless, the study takes into account all the self-contradictory commitments of both Algernon and Jack Worthing and their ridiculous attitude towards religious perception. Finally, it inspects the authenticity of the name “Earnest” for what both Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax always feel an inexorable urge and fervor.

MPC Tracking Controller Parameters Impacts in Roundabouts

The work is proposed to design a controller of the form known as the roundabout scenario trajectory tracking problem. The road condition is a four-leg, single-lane roundabout; the reference path is given. Due to the decision choice of exits, the MPC tracking controller is used to test the effect of weight parameter and target speed on the performance of the tracking controller. Two sets of test cases are proposed to make the experimental comparison, see the relationship between the control parameters and road conditions (different curvature path), and also see how the weight parameters Q and R and sample time affect the tracking performance. Our work, MPC controller utilization in a roundabout, plays an essential role with the increasing autonomy of vehicles.

Impact of Pharmacists’ Interventions and Patients’ Decision on Health Outcomes in Terms of Medication Adherence and Quality Use of Medicines among Patients Attending Community Pharmacies: A Systematic Review

Community pharmacists are responsible for providing the appropriate information on the use of medications to patients, which may enhance their medication adherence. The extent of control that patients have on their health care preferences creates many challenges for community pharmacists. This study aimed to determine the impact of pharmacist interventions and patient decisions on health outcomes concerning medication adherence and the quality use of medicines among patients attending community pharmacies. Appropriate studies were identified in a systematic search using the databases of Medline, Scopus, Google Scholar, and PubMed. The search included literature published between 2004 and 2019. The database searches yielded 683 titles, of which 19 studies were included after the full-text analysis with a total of 9313 participants. Metaprop command in Stata software version 14 was used for the analysis. This study was undertaken based on the general principles of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and subsequently reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) extension. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) approach was directly used to rate the quality of evidence (high, moderate, low, or very low). The results revealed the effective interaction between patients and community pharmacists, the importance of pharmacist intervention on medication adherence and quality use of medicine, and the role of community pharmacists in counselling patients. Decision/choice of patients in self-care and self-medication is a factor contributing to health outcomes. Effective interaction of community pharmacists with patients in terms of medication adherence and quality use of medicines provided a better health outcome among patients. The community pharmacists influenced the decision/choice of patients in self-care and self-medications.

The Relationship Between Cat Bond Market and Other Financial Asset Markets: Evidence from Cointegration Tests

This study examines the relationship between Cat Bonds market and the other financial markets. Precisely, cointegration tests (the Engle and Granger’s methodology) were applied on weekly data of five indexes over the period 2012- 2019 to test for the existence of a long-run dynamic equilibrium relationship between Cat Bonds market and four financial markets, namely, Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) market, S&P 500 (first stock market), MSCI (second stock market) and Corporate Bonds market. In addition, a comparative analysis correlation vs cointegration was conducted to verify whether Cat Bonds can be really considered as zero-beta assets in the short-run (correlation) as well as the long-run (cointegration). For correlation analysis we employed three correlation coefficients (Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient and Kendall's Rank Correlation Coefficient). Overall, the main findings of this study showed that in the short-run, Cat Bonds are partially zero-beta assets while over the long-run they are entirely zero-beta assets. Such results will be of great importance for investors in their decision choice between a short strategy or a long strategy in Cat Bonds’ investing.

Shifting the patterns of agency: identifying some requirements for transformative change

<p>I propose an analytical distinction between four different modes of human agency: decision, choice, solution and routine. These modes are distinct through their respective combination of two basic criteria: one is the question, if the options the agentic mode is dealing with are commensurable or incommensurable; the other concerns the question whether the agentic mode is eliminating or retaining options. That way, the four modes of agency do very different things to the reality they are applied to. I suggest that purposive interventions into socio-ecological reality follow patterns that are typical to the respective political-economic order they are part of. For example, contemporary liberal democratic orders tend to favor combinations of solution (typically: technological innovation) and choice (typically: individual market behavior), while avoiding decisions (the collectively binding selection between incommensurable options) for their disruptive potential. At the same time, the establishing of new niche routines in terms of more sustainable social practices is encouraged or at least tolerated. I argue that the resulting agentic regime of liberal democratic orders (i.e. their constitutive pattern of agency) is only very weakly transformative, as it shuns decisions and individualizes the selection of incommensurable options (e.g. ‘ideological’ choices between different production standards, forms of mobility or models of infrastructure). It tends to institute an agentic regime resulting in ‘evolutionary’ patterns of change (the combination of technological variation and market selection) rather than opting for willful, political and (therefore) conflictive forms of change.</p><p>A purposive steering of human-environment interactions under time pressure towards radical system transformation, however, requires a different type of agentic regime: a new combination of agentic modes with a much stronger weighting of (collective) decisions. Indeed, the paper argues, any purposively ‘transformative’ agentic regime would have to institute patterns of agency that combine solutions, choices, routines and decisions in a novel, and much more disruptive, way. For example, solutions (technological innovations) and new routines (social innovations) that are proven to have a highly transformative impact when rolled out would need to be subject to collective decisions rather than individual choice. The result would be a new pattern of agency leading to a different rhythm and pattern of change, but also to new political-economic challenges and conflicts. Therefore, shifting the patterns of agency is at the same time a necessity and a massive institutional and political challenge for complex societies.</p><p>The paper concludes by outlining some suggestions as to how the proposed distinction of agentic modes can be operationalized for empirical investigations into the transformative capacities of human agency in different political-economic settings. </p>

Decision Choice Optimization With Genetic Algorithm in Communication Networks

Optimization is an essential tool in the field of decision support. In this chapter, the authors study an inverse problem applied in the telecommunication networks. Indeed, in the telecommunication networks, service providers have subscription offers to customers. Since competition is strong in this sector, most of these advertising offerings, totally or partially ambiguous, are prepared to attract the attention of consumers. For this reason, customers face problems in making decisions about the choice of the operators that gives them a better report price/QoS. Mathematical modeling of this decision support problem led to the resolution of an inverse problem. More precisely, the inverse problem is to find the function of the QoS real knowing the QoS theoretical or advertising. This model will help customers who seek to know the degree of sincerity of their operators, and it is an opportunity for operators who want to maintain their resources so that they gain the trust of customers.

Reflecting of the Life Path: Phase-Strategic Structure

The article presents a phase-strategic model of the life path reflecting, the features of its components manifestation at different stages of the life path, the associations between its components and other characteristics of the life course. The study involved 296 participants: 220 are at the start stage of their life path, 46 are at the culmination stage, 30 are at the finish stage. The key method for collecting data was a written story about yourself and your life. Content analysis was used for data processing. Also, a number of psychodiagnostics tests was used to measure individual characteristics of the life path. In the phase-strategic structure of the life path reflecting, three structural and functional components are distinguished: exposition – actualization of meanings and senses; problematization – emergence of a conflicting, contradictory meaning, sense; decision-choice – rethinking the situation, the emergence of a new meaning, sense. It is shown that the identified strategies-phases have features of manifestation at the different life path stages: at the start stage, persons are more inherent in exposition, at the culmination stage – problematization, at the finish stage – decision-choice. The associations between the phases-strategies of reflecting and other characteristics of the life course have been established. The positive perception of his life path and himself is highly expressed in the phase of exposition, it significantly decreases in the phase of problematization and it rises again in the phase of decision-making. That is, in the phases of exposition and decision-making, the person believes that his life corresponds to his ideas, it is constructive, he can experience it fully and holistically, be independent, competent and confident. In the problematization phase, the person is dissatisfied with his life, and perceives himself as powerless and unable to overcome life difficulties and build quality relationships with people.

Feedback-Related Brain Potentials Indicate the Influence of Craving on Decision-Making in Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder: An Experimental Study

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Alcohol craving is a key symptom of alcohol use disorder (AUD) and a significant cause of poor treatment outcome and frequent relapse. Craving is supposed to impair executive functions by modulating reward salience and decision-making. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> The present study sought to clarify this modulation by scrutinizing reward feedback processing in an experimental decision-making task, which was accomplished by AUD patients in 2 conditions, in the context of induced alcohol craving and in neutral context. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> AUD inpatients (<i>N</i> = 40) accomplished the Balloon Analog Risk Task, while their EEG was monitored; counterbalanced across conditions, the tasks were preceded either by craving induction by means of imagery and olfactory alcohol cues, or by neutral cues. Decision choice and variability, and event-related potentials (ERPs) prior to (stimulus-preceding negativity [SPN]) and following (P2a) reward feedback upon decisions, and the outcome-related feedback-related negativity (FRN) were compared between conditions and between patients, who experienced high craving upon alcohol cues (<i>N</i> = 18) and those who did not (<i>N</i> = 22). <b><i>Results:</i></b> Upon craving induction (vs. neutral condition), high-craving AUD patients showed less adjustment of decision choice to preceding reward experience and more variable decisions than low-craving AUD patients, together with accentuated reward-associated ERP (SPN and P2a), while outcome-related FRN was not modified by craving. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Results support orientation to reward in AUD patients, particularly amplified upon experienced craving, which may interfere with (feedback-guided) decision-making even in alcohol-unrelated context. Craving-accentuated ERP indices suggest neuroadaptive changes of cognitive-motivational states upon chronic alcohol abuse. Together with altered reward-related expectancies, this has to be considered in intervention and relapse prevention.

Revisiting image theory: decision styles, temptations and image theory’s compatibility test

This thesis project revisits the compatibility test, Image Theory's screening process to form decision choice sets, and considers its elements and mechanisms in the light of three aspects: first, it investigates how the affect heuristic influences the compatibility screening. In this context, the claim of earlier research that only criteria violations are considered during the option screening process is reconsidered; second, a structural model is evaluated establishing links between a decision-maker's decision styles and the variables defining the compatibility test; and third, a neural network is created and tested to predict even irrational choice of decision-makers for a specific screening situation and based on their compatibility test in- and outputs. 741 participants of two populations were administered three online questionnaires to collect required data. 40 questionnaire items have been used to identify the participants decision styles. The participants were tasked to select companies as potential acquisition targets and, thus, performed a compatibility test based on criteria and their importance weights provided by the researcher. Companies met and failed to meet the criteria to differing extent. Two temptation alternatives that outperformed all other companies in the most important criteria multiple times and failed to meet all others were administered to the participants. Based on what companies were selected, the participants rejection threshold and their inconsistent choices were determined. The research provides evidence that the claim of earlier research that Image Theory's compatibility screening process relies only on criteria violations is untenable. Further, a structural equation model was confirmed establishing links between participants' decision styles and the variables defining their compatibility screenings. Eventually, a neural network was generated, trained and tested that correctly predicted with close to 90% reliability a participant's choices, even the objectively irrational ones. It is recommended that future research further develops the idea of neural networks mimicking human decision behaviour.