In the automotive industry, assembly lines are used to produce vehicles. These assembly lines improve throughput, and need to be carefully planned. Planning, or balancing, an assembly line constitutes identifying precedence relationships between tasks in the assembly line, and assigning tasks to stations to fit some criteria. This procedure is costly to do by hand, and is well-suited for some level of automation. The problem of balancing assembly lines has been researched since the 1950’s, but modern assembly lines largely rely on engineers to balance the line by hand. This thesis proposes that the work flow of engineers planning the assembly line would be improved by a group decision support system. This group decision support system could supply engineers with proposals for assembly lines, which the engineers can choose to modify further, either by hand or with the decision support system. The group decision support system is realized with a distributed system, consisting of a front-end, a back-end, an application programming interface to balance assembly lines, and two databases. The front-end is a website, where the users can create problems with a precedence graph. The back-end allows data to be permanently stored in the two databases, and allows communication with the application programming interface. The contribution of this thesis is a proof of concept of a group decision support system that can solve two basic types of assembly line balancing problems, SALBP-1 and SALBP-2. During development it was found that the developed system was generic enough to support different types of tasks, such as planning cooking. Further development is needed to use the system in an industrial setting, as real assembly lines need more complex models than the current version support.

Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problems are often associated with tradeoffs between performances of the available alternative solutions under decision making criteria. These problems become more complex when performances are associated with uncertainty. This study proposes a stochastic MCDM procedure that can handle uncertainty in MCDM problems. The proposed method coverts a stochastic MCDM problem into many deterministic ones through a Monte-Carlo (MC) selection. Each deterministic problem is then solved using a range of MCDM methods and the ranking order of the alternatives is established for each deterministic MCDM. The final ranking of the alternatives can be determined based on winning probabilities and ranking distribution of the alternatives. Ranking probability distributions can help the decision-maker understand the risk associated with the overall ranking of the options. Therefore, the final selection of the best alternative can be affected by the risk tolerance of the decisionmakers. A Group Decision Support System (GDSS) is developed here with a user-friendly interface to facilitate the application of the proposed MC-MCDM approach in real-world multiparticipant decision making for an average user. The GDSS uses a range of decision making methods to increase the robustness of the decision analysis outputs and to help understand the sensitivity of the results to level of cooperation among the decision-makers. The decision analysis methods included in the GDSS are: 1) conventional MCDM methods (Maximin, Lexicographic, TOPSIS, SAW and Dominance), appropriate when there is a high cooperation level among the decision-makers; 2) social choice rules or voting methods (Condorcet Choice, Borda scoring, Plurality, Anti-Plurality, Median Voting, Hare System of voting, Majoritarian iii Compromise ,and Condorcet Practical), appropriate for cases with medium cooperation level among the decision-makers; and 3) Fallback Bargaining methods (Unanimity, Q-Approval and Fallback Bargaining with Impasse), appropriate for cases with non-cooperative decision-makers. To underline the utility of the proposed method and the developed GDSS in providing valuable insights into real-world hydro-environmental group decision making, the GDSS is applied to a benchmark example, namely the California‘s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta decision making problem. The implications of GDSS‘ outputs (winning probabilities and ranking distributions) are discussed. Findings are compared with those of previous studies, which used other methods to solve this problem, to highlight the sensitivity of the results to the choice of decision analysis methods and/or different cooperation levels among the decision-makers

During the 2010s Swedish principals received an increased responsibility to make decisions regarding the schooling for individual students. Simultaneously the influx of immigrants to Sweden was high and the responsibility of sorting out housing and schools for the migrants was split between the municipalities. This meant more schools received responsibility for newly arrived students. Laws and regulations regarding newly arrived was changed gradually after 2015 and principals were given increased responsibility of the decision-making. In the light of this a case study was designed to increase knowledge about decision making and influencing process relating to newly arrived students schooling. A partial purpose was to deepen the understanding around principals’ conditions and prerequisites to make decisions in line with the education act. Principals and representatives of the administration in the form of unit managers for mother tongue or reception units were interviewed. The study’s theoretical perspective emanates from theories of bounded rationality, institutional logics and a framework on organizational learning that describes how routines are developed. The result showed that decision-making was influenced by the frames and organizational conditions which existed in the context of each municipality and school. The decision-making usually happened with the hallmark of bounded rationality; the decision makers used solutions which had worked prior to achieve a result that they regarded as sufficient. This meant that the organizational solutions that were available in the organization prior were used to incorporate the new students in the school. Decision-making could be understood from several competing institutional logics: to realize political goals and comply with legislation (bureaucratic logic), to be an attractive school (market logic), to provide students with a good education (professional logic) and to use resources efficiently (organizational logic). The three cases showed major differences regarding the development of routines in the organisation. In one of the municipalities there were routines in place for a few important areas of decisions such as school placement processes and home multilingual classroom assistance. This led to a quick reception and school start for the newly arrived students while the lack of a functional routine in another municipality led to long school placement processes and frustration among the decision-makers. The results of the study points to the importance of having discussions on individual, group and organizational levels to develop routines which reduces the need of repeated decision-making. The result deepens the understanding of the complex context principals and unit managers must deal with in decision-making and underlines the importance of having discussions at the individual, group and organizational level to develop routines that reduce the need for repeated decision-making. / Svenska rektorer fick under 2010-talet ett gradvis utökat ansvar för att fatta beslut kring enskilda elevers skolgång. Samtidigt tog Sverige emot många nyanlända och ansvaret för att ordna boende och skola för gruppen fördelades mellan alla Sveriges kommuner. Det innebar att fler skolor fick ansvar för nyanlända elever. Lagstiftning och reglering kring nyanlända elever förändrades successivt efter 2015 och rektor fick utökat ansvar för beslutsfattandet. Med detta som bakgrund utformades en fallstudie med syfte att öka kunskap om besluts- och påverkansprocesser kring nyanlända elevers skolgång. Ett delsyfte var att fördjupa förståelsen kring rektorers villkor och förutsättningar att fatta beslut som följer skollagen. Rektorer och representanter för förvaltningen i form av enhetschefer för modersmåls- eller mottagningsenheter intervjuades. Studiens teoretiska perspektiv utgår från teorier om begränsad rationalitet, institutionella logiker och ett ramverk om organisatoriskt lärande som beskriver hur rutiner utvecklas. Resultatet visar att beslutsfattandet påverkades av de ramar och organisatoriska villkor som fanns i respektive kommun och i respektive skolas kontext. Beslutsfattandet skedde ofta med den begränsade rationalitetens kännetecken: beslutsfattarna använde sig av lösningar som fungerat tidigare för att uppnå ett resultat som de uppfattade som tillräckligt bra. Det innebar att de organisatoriska lösningar som fanns tillhands i organisationen sedan tidigare användes för att slussa in de nyanlända eleverna i skolan. Beslutsfattandet gick att förstå utifrån flera konkurrerande institutionella logiker: att förverkliga politiska mål och följa lagstiftningen (byråkratisk logik), att vara en attraktiv skola (marknadslogik), att ge eleverna en god utbildning (professionell logik) och att utnyttja resurser effektivt (organisationslogik). De tre fallen uppvisade stora skillnader gällande utvecklandet av rutiner i organisationen. I en av kommunerna fanns rutiner på plats för flera viktiga beslutsområden som skolplacering och studiehandledning på modersmålet. Det ledde till snabbt mottagande och skolstart för de nyanlända, medan avsaknad av fungerande rutin i en annan kommun ledde till utdragna skolplaceringsprocesser och frustration bland beslutsfattarna. Resultatet fördjupar förståelsen för den komplexa kontext rektorer och enhetschefer har att hantera i beslutsfattandet och understryker vikten av att föra diskussioner på individ-, grupp och organisationsnivå för att utveckla rutiner som minskar behovet att upprepat beslutsfattande.

In real-world settings, decision-making typically resembles a stepwise process in which one decides which information to sample before deciding to which decision option to commit. The former step is called instrumental information-seeking, and theoretical and empirical findings indicate that it is mediated by the value of information (VOI), the extent to which obtaining information increases the expected value of future actions and decisions. Economic theory predicts that to estimate VOI, decision-makers conduct a preposterior analysis in which they prospect what they would expect to know about the decision options after observing the information—or, in terms of Bayesian inference, they should prospect the future posterior probabilities. But the neural mechanisms underlying this early step of the computation of VOI remain an open question. Therefore, to further investigate the neural substrates of instrumental information-seeking, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in conjunction with two interrelated behavioral tasks in humans. With one task, we examined the demand for instrumental information, but since preposterior analysis relies on the prospection of potential future posterior beliefs, we included another task to examine how people form posterior beliefs after receiving information. We found that regions of posterior parietal cortex and occipital fusiform gyrus appear to support a preposterior analysis through the prospection of expected posterior certainty. This aligned with our finding of a region of parieto-occipital cortex that appears to support Bayesian inference by integrating the prior probability of a hypothesis with the likelihood of observed information. These results imply that parietal cortex plays a key role in Bayesian inference, supporting preposterior analysis during information-seeking in addition to Bayesian inference during categorical decision-making.

No description available.

BACKGROUND: Contraception is an effective, preference-sensitive intervention that supports quality of life, management of health, and self-determination. Contraception is used by 99% of people assigned female at birth with an average of 3.4 methods used across their lifespan. Providers counsel patients on contraception and patients want to be counselled. Shared decision-making frameworks promote using decision aids (DA) during counseling as best practice. Existing DAs lack transparency in their development methodologies and evaluation results and may not facilitate patient-centered care. AIM: Create a contraception DA and accompanying contraception method information sheets (MIS) that are informed by patients’ values, align with international standards, meet health literacy and accessibility guidelines, and are evaluated by patients and providers to be acceptable, quality, and feasible to use during contraceptive counseling. METHODOLOGY: To create the DA/MIS, (1) literature was reviewed on contraceptive counseling frameworks, DAs, patients’ contraceptive preferences, health literacy, accessibility, user-centered design, and validated patient education material quality measures, (2) results were reviewed from a patient focus group and provider meeting where they defined user requirements, and (3) evidence-based contraceptive information was synthesized. Once created, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods study iteratively refined the DA/MIS after each data collection phase: (1) provider focus groups and survey, (2) patient focus groups and survey, (3) observed patient testing during counseling followed by an interview and survey, (4) expert patient and provider review, and (5) provider field testing in clinic followed by an interview and survey. DA/MIS readability levels were assessed. RESULTS: Quantitatively, the DA/MIS were acceptable, quality, and feasible to use during counseling. Qualitatively, the DA/MIS were preferred to verbal-only counseling and other DA/MIS, centered patients’ preferences, increased knowledge, focused on patient autonomy, challenged bias/coercion, improved counseling satisfaction and quality, offered a novel design, and were appealing, inclusive, and accessible. CONCLUSION: This DA/MIS had positive quantitative and qualitative results, offered a novel design aligned with international standards, and had a transparent, rigorous development process aligned with frameworks and validated tools. Initial results show this DA/MIS can support and improve patient-centered contraceptive counseling. / 2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

Research on historical consumers has focused on physical products, financial services have received less attention. A model, "The Consumer Decision Making Model for Financial Services," emphasizes variable interaction and was introduced to address this lack of knowledge. The study focuses on Generation Z, a consumer group with over 2 billion individuals and increased purchasing power. Despite extensive research on this group, there is a lack of empirical data on their consumption of financial services. The purpose of studies is to deepen the understanding of Generation Z's decision-making processes in financial services by analyzing their psychographic, demographic and situational characteristics.  The study follows a quantitative research design with a deductive approach. The deductive approach means that hypotheses are formulated based on existing knowledge and theoretical considerations. By using a quantitative method, objectivity was enabled in the exploration of various themes, which also provided the ability to identify trends and connections. To collect empirical data, a web-based survey was conducted, where responses were obtained from 51 respondents within the relevant target group. The research questions that guide the study's design and data collection are anchored in theoretical considerations. This approach increases the credibility and relevance of the study by following a systematic methodology that is anchored in established theory.  The theoretical basis of the study is based on established theories of decision-making and decision-making models, with particular emphasis on the complex landscape of financial services. A central point of reference is "The Consumer Decision Making Model for Financial Services" by Milner and Rosenstreich (2013a), introduced to address the unique challenges of this specific field. Literature about Generation Z have also been extensively researched to highlight the unique factors that influence their decision-making processes. The study on Generation Z's financial decision-making processes shows that demographic factors do not have a major impact on their choices. Despite varying life situations and incomes, education is a priority for them. Life events such as parenthood or moving house affect their search for financial information, and despite their digital skills, family still plays an important role in their decisions. The study provides both theoretical insights and practical guidelines for actors in financial services and marketing. / Forskning om konsumenter har historiskt fokuserat på fysiska produkter, finansiella tjänster har fått mindre uppmärksamhet. En modell, "The Consumer Decision Making Model for Financial Services", betonar variabel interaktion och introducerades för att åtgärda denna brist på kunskap. Studien fokuserar på Generation Z, en konsumentgrupp med över 2 miljarder individer och ökad köpkraft. Trots omfattande forskning om denna grupp saknas det empirisk data om deras konsumtion av finansiella tjänster. Syftet med studier är att fördjupa förståelsen för Generation Z:s beslutsprocesser inom finansiella tjänster genom att analysera deras psykografiska, demografiska och situationella egenskaper.  Studien följer en kvantitativ forskningsdesign med en deduktiv ansats. Den deduktiva metoden innebär att hypoteser formuleras utifrån befintlig kunskap och teoretiska överväganden. Genom att använda en kvantitativ metod möjliggjordes objektivitet i utforskningen av olika teman, vilket också gav möjligheten att identifiera trender och kopplingar. För att samla in empirisk data genomfördes en webbaserad undersökning där svar erhölls från 51 respondenter inom den relevanta målgruppen. Forskningsfrågorna som styr studiens design och datainsamling är förankrade i teoretiska överväganden. Detta tillvägagångssätt ökar studiens trovärdighet och relevans genom att följa en systematisk metod som är förankrad i etablerad teori.  Den teoretiska grunden för studien bygger på etablerade teorier om beslutsfattande och beslutsfattande modeller, med särskild tonvikt på det komplexa landskapet för finansiella tjänster. En central referenspunkt är "The Consumer Decision Making Model for Financial Services" av Milner och Rosenstreich (2013a), introducerad för att ta itu med de unika utmaningarna inom detta specifika område. Litteratur om Generation Z har också undersökts mycket för att lyfta fram de unika faktorer som påverkar deras beslutsprocesser. Studien om Generation Z:s ekonomiska beslutsprocesser visar att demografiska faktorer inte har någon större inverkan på deras val. Trots varierande livssituationer och inkomster är utbildning en prioritet för dem. Livshändelser som föräldraskap eller flytt påverkar deras sökande efter ekonomisk information, och trots deras digitala kompetens spelar familjen fortfarande en viktig roll i deras beslut. Studien ger både teoretiska insikter och praktiska riktlinjer för aktörer inom finansiella tjänster och marknadsföring.

Professionals charged with planning treatment for abusive families often seek consultation during the process of making decisions about treatment. This study examined whether the level of experience of the consultant and the frame in which the case is presented affect conceptualizations and recommendations for treatment for cases of child abuse. To provide theoretical background for the study, a developmental ecological systems perspective on child abuse is presented. Research indicating that the most effective treatment for multiproblem abusive families addresses multiple ecological levels is reviewed. Consultants were forty members of Multidisciplinary Teams on Child Abuse and Neglect with treatment planning experience, 40 team members with related experience but no treatment planning experience, and 40 undergraduate psychology students with no experience in child protection (novices). Each consultant reviewed written copies of two case presentations of child abuse. One was presented in a frame emphasizing factors related to the individual abuser in the development of the abuse, the other in a frame presenting factors from multiple ecological levels in the development of the abuse. Consultants provided written recommendations and conceptualizations for each case, rated the effectiveness of interventions from four ecological levels in treatment of the abuse, and rated the importance of factors from the four ecological levels in development of the abuse. Results showed that the number of levels of recommendations provided increased as consultants’ experience increased. Treatment planners and consultants with related experience also rated multiple levels of intervention as more effective and as more important to the development of abuse than novices did. In ratings provided for these variables, treatment planners and consultants with related experience did not differ from each other. Individual framing of cases led to a higher percentage of individual level conceptualizations for all consultants. However, nonsignificant trends in the responses suggest that the treatment planners may be the least affected by framing of cases. The author reviews the implications these results have for clinical practice. / Ph. D.

The principal purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationships between film genres and the decision-making process of the tourist. Within the tourism industry, the specific type of tourism-Film Tourism-has recently been recognised and approached in several research projects and case-studies. As a result of these efforts, the researchers agree that, in certain conditions, a film may influence the decision of the viewer to travel to the destination that such film portrays. However, due to the recent recognition of this type of tourism and consequent low number of explanatory research in this area, there is an evident lack of understanding about the underlying reasons why films may have such a stimulating effect on tourist decisions. To develop deeper understanding of this newly emerged type of tourism, it is vital to research different elements of the film and their possible effects on tourism-related decisions of the viewer. This pioneering study focuses on the previously neglected “genre” element of the film and the role of this element in the overall influence of the film on the tourist’s decision making process. Accordingly, an extensive survey (n=241) was conducted, implemented via the Internet and to randomly selected Exeter residents. The survey was followed by a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews (n=10) of randomly selected respondents from Exeter. The results suggest that film genres may affect the motivational factors, such as Exciting and Achievement (Yoon and Uysal, 2005). Moreover, emotions are an important factor in the decisions of Film Tourists (Kim, 2012), and films of specific genres may infuse destination with such emotions, alter the destination image and create an interest in the destination. The major contribution of this study is the discovery that the effect of film genres on the Film Tourist is but a small subconscious part of the overall film influence, which encompasses a wider range of elements such as visual beauty, plot, actors, credibility and the atmosphere. Moreover, it would appear that, for most tourists, film is an additional and not a primary factor which creates a wish to travel. The visual portrayal of the destination is the key element which determines whether the film will affect the decision of the viewer to travel, but the genres of the film may allow the prediction of tourist type and possible travel behaviour.

Due to the limited supply and perishable nature of blood products, effective management of blood collection is critical for high quality healthcare delivery. Whole blood is typically collected over a 6 to 8 hour collection window from volunteer donors at sites, e.g., schools, universities, churches, companies, that are a significant distance from the blood products processing facility and then transported from collection site to processing facility by a blood mobile. The length of time between collecting whole blood and processing it into cryoprecipitate ("cryo"), a critical blood product for controlling massive hemorrhaging, cannot take longer than 8 hours (the 8 hour collection to completion constraint), while the collection to completion constraint for other blood products is 24 hours. In order to meet the collection to completion constraint for cryo, it is often necessary to have a "mid-drive collection"; i.e., for a vehicle other than the blood mobile to pickup and transport, at extra cost, whole blood units collected during early in the collection window to the processing facility. In this dissertation, we develop analytical models to: (1) analyze which collection sites should be designated as cryo collection sites to minimize total collection costs while satisfying the collection to completion constraint and meeting the weekly production target (the non-split case), (2) analyze the impact of changing the current process to allow collection windows to be split into two intervals and then determining which intervals should be designated as cryo collection intervals (the split case), (3) insure that the weekly production target is met with high probability. These problems lead to MDP models with large state and action spaces and constraints to guarantee that the weekly production target is met with high probability. These models are computationally intractable for problems having state and action spaces of realistic cardinality. We consider two approaches to guarantee that the weekly production target is met with high probability: (1) a penalty function approach and (2) a chance constraint approach. For the MDP with penalty function approach, we first relax a constraint that significantly reduces the cardinality of the state space and provides a lower bound on the optimal expected weekly cost of collecting whole blood for cryo while satisfying the collection to completion constraint. We then present an action elimination procedure that coupled with the constraint relaxation leads to a computationally tractable lower bound. We then develop several heuristics that generate sub-optimal policies and provide an analytical description of the difference between the upper and lower bounds in order to determine the quality of the heuristics. For the multiple decision epoch MDP model with chance constraint approach, we first note by example that a straightforward application of dynamic programming can lead to a sub-optimal policy. We then restrict the model to a single decision epoch. We then use a computationally tractable rolling horizon procedure for policy determination. We also present a simple greedy heuristic (another rolling horizon decision making procedure) based on ranking the collection intervals by mid-drive pickup cost per unit of expected cryo collected, which results in a competitive sub-optimal solution and leads to the development of a practical decision support tool (DST). Using real data from the American Red Cross (ARC), we estimate that this DST reduces total cost by about 30% for the non-split case and 70% for the split case, compared to the current practice. Initial implementation of the DST at the ARC Southern regional manufacturing and service center supports our estimates and indicates the potential for significant improvement in current practice.