1. |
- Barkhuus, Louise, et al.
(author)
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Interactive Performances as a Means of Social Participation and Democratic Dialogue
- 2014
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In: International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI). - 1861-4280. ; 11:1, s. 11-20
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this position paper we present our ongoing research in relation to cultivating democracy and civic participation through the writing and performance of interactive theater experiences1. We provide an example of a performance that facilitates audience participation through expression and sharing of opinions and emotions, by means of digital technologies. The performance leads to further discussion within the community and inspires more artistic and theatrical experiences in this context.
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2. |
- Bergholtz, Maria, et al.
(author)
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Framework for evaluating tools used in edemocracy : transparency, autonomy, consensus and pluralism
- 2014
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In: DSV writers hut 2014. - Stockholm : Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University. - 9789163774577
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The concept of e-democracy has been around for a while. However, the intercontextual understanding of this is still immature which complicates interdisciplinarity and communication with a diversity of stakeholders, resulting in a weak participation and implementation of e-services. This is even more emphasized in an international setting, not the least in the context of various European Union initiatives regarding e-service provision. To increase the participation in the context, e-democracy services can be utilized for strengthening individual capabilities as well as political processes. The effective design of such processes requires tools to support decision-making, collaboration, and collaborative decision-making, voting engagement and involvement in the democratic process. This article presents an evaluation framework suitable for tools for e-democracy aiming at forming a constructive base for implementing an efficient support for enabling an increased participation in vital democratic processes.
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3. |
- Borking, Kjell, et al.
(author)
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Transcending Business Intelligence
- 2011. - 1
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Book (pop. science, debate, etc.)abstract
- How on Earth did this happen? The question is not infrequent, but more to the point, it?s unnecessary. It arises because in many cases people haven?t thought things through beforehand. Yes, sometimes people can be unlucky, but far from every time that things go awry; bad luck is never so consistent - by definition. Thinking things through properly beforehand might seem a fairly obvious requirement for making a good decision, but startlingly often, even critical decisions are made without any in depth analysis. Well, there may have been some background data lying around somewhere, but not much is done with it. Though it's easy to blame authoritarian leadership or the like, poor decision making is far more usually due to not really knowing what to do with the available information, whether it's sufficient and what else needs to be known There?s nothing weird or idiotic about today?s decision makers, but there often is about the tools and methods available to them. It would be more accurate to say that many decision makers have been lead astray regarding their remit and capacity, but fortunately with structured decision processes they can be guided back on track far more easily than had they been as dim- witted as some of their decisions would indicate.Businesses introduce various BI solutions both timely and untimely, but what most of them don't have is any kind of methodology by which to deal with decisions. With no processes, knowledge, techniques or tools, they soon come to grief. Happily this is fairly easy to remedy.Decision processes and decision methods can be greatly improved. In this book we simply explain how to go about it.
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4. |
- Caster, Ola, et al.
(author)
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Combining Second-Order Belief Distributions with Qualitative Statements in Decision Analysis
- 2012
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In: Managing Safety of Heterogeneous Systems. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. - 9783642228834 - 9783642228841 ; , s. 67-87
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- There is often a need to allow for imprecise statements in real-world decision analysis. Joint modeling of intervals and qualitative statements as constraint sets is one important approach to solving this problem, with the advantage that both probabilities and utilities can be handled. However, a major limitation with interval-based approaches is that aggregated quantities such as expected utilities also become intervals, which often hinders efficient discrimination. The discriminative power can be increased by utilizing second-order information in the form of belief distributions, and this paper demonstrates how qualitative relations between variables can be incorporated into such a framework. The general case with arbitrary distributions is described first, and then a computationally efficient simulation algorithm is presented for a relevant sub-class of analyses. By allowing qualitative relations, our approach preserves the ability of interval-based methods to be deliberately imprecise. At the same time, the use of belief distributions allows more efficient discrimination, and it provides a semantically clear interpretation of the resulting beliefs within a probabilistic framework.
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5. |
- Caster, Ola, et al.
(author)
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Quantitative Benefit-Risk Assessment Using Only Qualitative Information on Utilities
- 2012
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In: Medical decision making. - 0272-989X .- 1552-681X. ; 32:6, s. E1-E15
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Utilities of pertinent clinical outcomes are crucial variables for assessing the benefits and risks of drugs, but numerical data on utilities may be unreliable or altogether missing. We propose a method to incorporate qualitative information into a probabilistic decision analysis framework for quantitative benefit-risk assessment. Objective: To investigate whether conclusive results can be obtained when the only source of discriminating information on utilities is widely agreed upon qualitative relations, for example, ''sepsis is worse than transient headache'' or ''alleviation of disease is better without than with complications.'' Method: We used the structure and probabilities of 3 published models that were originally evaluated based on the standard metric of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs): terfenadine versus chlorpheniramine for the treatment of allergic rhinitis, MCV4 vaccination against meningococcal disease, and alosetron for irritable bowel syndrome. For each model, we identified clinically straightforward qualitative relations among the outcomes. Using Monte Carlo simulations, the resulting utility distributions were then combined with the previously specified probabilities, and the rate of preference in terms of expected utility was determined for each alternative. Results: Our approach conclusively favored MCV4 vaccination, and it was concordant with the QALY assessments for the MCV4 and terfenadine versus chlorpheniramine case studies. For alosetron, we found a possible unfavorable benefit-risk balance for highly risk-averse patients not identified in the original analysis. Conclusion: Incorporation of widely agreed upon qualitative information into quantitative benefit-risk assessment can provide for conclusive results. The methods presented should prove useful in both population and individual-level assessments, especially when numerical utility data are missing or unreliable, and constraints on time or money preclude its collection.
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6. |
- Caster, Ola, 1982-
(author)
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Quantitative methods to support drug benefit-risk assessment
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Joint evaluation of drugs’ beneficial and adverse effects is required in many situations, in particular to inform decisions on initial or sustained marketing of drugs, or to guide the treatment of individual patients. This synthesis, known as benefit-risk assessment, is without doubt important: timely decisions supported by transparent and sound assessments can reduce mortality and morbidity in potentially large groups of patients. At the same time, it can be hugely complex: drug effects are generally disparate in nature and likelihood, and the information that needs to be processed is diverse, uncertain, deficient, or even unavailable. Hence there is a clear need for methods that can reliably and efficiently support the benefit-risk assessment process. For already marketed drugs, this process often starts with the detection of previously unknown risks that are subsequently integrated with all other relevant information for joint analysis.In this thesis, quantitative methods are devised to support different aspects of drug benefit-risk assessment, and the practical usefulness of these methods is demonstrated in clinically relevant case studies. Shrinkage regression is adapted and implemented for large-scale screening in collections of individual case reports, leading to the discovery of a link between methylprednisolone and hepatotoxicity. This adverse effect is then considered as part of a complete benefit-risk assessment of methylprednisolone in multiple sclerosis relapses, set in a general framework of probabilistic decision analysis. Two methods devised in the thesis substantively contribute to this assessment: one for efficient generation of utility distributions for the considered clinical outcomes, driven by modelling of qualitative information; and one for computing risk limits for rare and otherwise non-quantifiable adverse effects, based on collections of individual case reports.
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7. |
- Cunningham, Paul, et al.
(author)
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Baseline Analysis of 3 Innovation Ecosystems in East Africa
- 2014
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In: 2014 International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer). - 9781479977314 ; , s. 156-162
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The potential impact of computing innovations supporting social and economic development (particularly in developing countries) is very dependent on the level of maturity of National Innovation Ecosystems (including policy environment, infrastructure and socio-economic diversification). East Africa has experienced significant growth in ICT-enabled Innovation (particularly mobile) in recent years. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have experienced considerable entrepreneurial growth, facilitated by Innovation friendly regulatory environments, evolution of National Research Education Networks (NReNs) and rollout of fibre optic backbones. While it is clear that ICT, Job Creation and developing a Knowledge Economy are common policy priorities, the Innovation Ecosystems in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kampala are quite fragmented. While support for entrepreneurship is improving, Innovation Spaces have sustainability challenges with their business models and there is a limited availability of funding, and training and mentoring for entrepreneurs. Greater collaboration between different stakeholders and more efficient support systems are required to promote accelerated development. In this paper, we provide a survey of the key Innovation Stakeholders in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kampala. This is based on semi-structured face to face interviews (November 2012 – February 2013), supplemented by IST-Africa Surveys, focus group engagement during Research and Innovation Stakeholder workshops, and supported by desk research, follow-up e-mails and telephone interviews to reflect developments up to July 2014.
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8. |
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9. |
- Danielson, Mats, et al.
(author)
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Augmenting Ordinal Methods of Attribute Weight Approximation
- 2014
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In: Decision Analysis. - : Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). - 1545-8490 .- 1545-8504. ; 11:1, s. 21-26
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) methods have been around for quite some time. However, the elicitation of preference information in MCDA processes and the lack of supporting practical means are problematic in real-life applications. Various proposals have been made for how to eliminate some of the obstacles and methods for introducing so-called surrogate weights have proliferated in the form of ordinal ranking methods for criteria weights. Considering the decision quality, one main problem is that the input information allowed in ordinal methods is sometimes too restricted. At the same time, decision makers often possess more background information, for example, regarding the relative strengths of the criteria, and might want to use that. We propose combined methods for facilitating the elicitation process and show how this provides a way to use partial information from the strength of preference judgment over weights in assessing weights for multiattribute utility functions.
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10. |
- Danielson, Mats, et al.
(author)
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Development of Software for Decision Analysis
- 2013
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In: 12th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781479904211 ; , s. 171-177
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To be useful in reality, decision analytical tools must be able to handle imprecise information. This paper presents the algorithmic software design against a background of an evaluation method for analysing decision situations under semi-strong uncertainty. The design is built on a relaxation of the requirement for precise utilities, probabilities, and weights. To handle this, the calculations involved become computationally intensive to match an interactive work flow and the approach required implementation of new algorithms. We describe some particularly interesting implementation aspects of these and show how these computations can be tractable.
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