Search

This study incorporates fairness concern in a low-carbon supply chain coordination mechanism where a single manufacturer sells its product to consumers through a single retailer. We develop four different scenarios of the Stackelberg master-slave game utility model—both members are neutral (NN), the manufacturer (FN) or retailer (NF) has fairness concern, and both are not neutral (FF), where the Nash bargaining fairness reference is leveraged to capture the impact of fairness preference on low-carbon supply chain optimisation decision-making profits, level of carbon emission reduction, warranty period, and revenue-sharing. Finally, numerical studies are conducted to quantify the impact of the Nash bargaining fairness concern. Research shows that: (1) fairness concern made it worse for the retailer but beneficial for the manufacturer and the system. (2) fairness concern causes a reduction in the level of carbon emission reduction and warranty period. However, the reduction of carbon emission reduction trading price and a certain range of revenue sharing effectively reduces the impact of fairness concern on members. (3) The revenue-sharing contract effectively reduces the negative impacts of fairness concern on supply chain members. The paper is a guide for enterprises development and cooperation but also provides empirical evidence for the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balancing conflicting goals among different stakeholders is a challenging problem in various application domains. In this paper, we analyse it in the context of home healthcare. Fairness objective functions for nurses and patients are combined with system-level governance goals of the territorial centers in charge of the assistance service. From the solution of several multi-objective problems including one objective for each actor hierarchically ordered, the best goal for each stakeholder is identified and interesting managerial conclusions are drawn. To efficiently solve large-size instances, we introduce a parallel Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search algorithm with destroy and repair operators customised to solve multi-objective multi-actor problems. The algorithm proves to be highly efficient and effective when compared to a commercial Mixed Integer Programming solver, either in its plain form or enforced by a mild start and a primal heuristic. Additionally, we devise a metaheuristic method to generate the Pareto frontier of an instance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the resistance and, at times, outright condemnation of including transgender individuals in sports continue to draw upon "scientific" arguments, despite the acknowledged importance of sociocultural and (geo)political factors, resulting in a constructed "either science or human rights" landscape. In this article, I analyze historical scientifically driven International Olympic Committee documents and policies from the Olympic Studies Center to examine if and how sport organizations, such as the International Olympic Committee, have historically balanced these seemingly partitioned considerations in previous regulatory documents, especially those relating to sex, gender, fairness, and protection. Using Sheila Jasanoff's co-production, I find that, while knowledge informing policies sometimes circulates biologized gender stereotypes, sociocultural and scientific goals have, can, and should exist in cohesion rather than in contradiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the problem of distributing a set of indivisible goods among agents with additive valuations in a fair manner. The fairness notion under consideration is envy-freeness up to any good (EFX). Despite significant efforts by many researchers for several years, the existence of EFX allocations has not been settled beyond the simple case of two agents. In this article, we show constructively that an EFX allocation always exists for three agents. Furthermore, we falsify the conjecture of Caragiannis et al. by showing an instance with three agents for which there is a partial EFX allocation (some goods are not allocated) with higher Nash welfare than that of any complete EFX allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countless policies are crafted with the intention of punishing all who do wrong or rewarding only those who do right. However, this requires accommodating certain mistakes: some who do not deserve to be punished might be, and some who deserve to be rewarded might not be. Six preregistered experiments (N = 3,484 U.S. adults) reveal that people are more willing to accept this trade-off in principle, before errors occur, than in practice, after errors occur. The result is an asymmetry such that for punishments, people believe it is more important to prevent false negatives (e.g., criminals escaping justice) than to fix them, and more important to fix false positives (e.g., wrongful convictions) than to prevent them. For rewards, people believe it is more important to prevent false positives (e.g., welfare fraud) than to fix them and more important to fix false negatives (e.g., improperly denied benefits) than to prevent them.

Although allocating resources (e.g., pay) between different job groups is a critical strategic decision, relevant research is limited. Focusing on the form of pay allocation across job groups, we consider the organizational consequences of between-group pay dispersion (BGPD). Building on the multiple social comparison literature, we propose that employees construe both large and small BGPD as fair when it is aligned with the size of explained within-group pay dispersion (WGPD). We also propose that the interaction effect of BGPD and WGPD on the distributive justice climate be extended to organizational performance via intergroup helping and employee stability (voluntary turnover rates). We present supportive evidence of the hypotheses using two multiwave studies (Study 1: 205 retail stores located in China and comprising 4,234 employees, 1,899 group leaders, and 303 senior managers, featuring objective pay data; Study 2: 123 bank branches of a large state-owned bank in China) and a supplementary qualitative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to reconstruct and comment on Bernard Suits' argument concerning the paradoxicality of the perfectly played game and explain how the argument might contribute to the game vs. performance distinction. The argument was mentioned by Suits in 'Tricky Triad: Games, Play and Sport' in the course of argumentation for the distinction between games and performances but it has not been presented in any of Suits' works published during his lifetime. However, Suits' fonds deposited in the Special Collections and Archive of the University of Waterloo contains two texts that were nevertheless meant for publication: 'A Perfectly Played Game' (recently published as Appendix III to Suits' Return of the Grasshopper) and unpublished 'The Search for a Perfectly Fair Game'. The latter is a modified version of the former; there is an overlapping core in both texts, but there are also some essential differences between them. To provide a formula capable of embracing Suits' ideas from both texts and remove the tension between the ideas of a perfectly played and perfectly fair game, I introduce the concept of a perfect game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper continues the discussion of three values of sport (safety, fairness, inclusion) that has developed around the theme of inclusion of transwomen in the female category in World Rugby, as discussed by Pike, Burke and Imbrišević. In contrast to their discussion, in which these three values have been seen from the limited perspective of the inclusion of one group of athletes into a specific category of one sport, they are here discussed in the context of the categorization in sport in general, with a focus on constitutive and eligibility rules. Constitutive rules give a strong foundation for eligibility rules. From the perspective of eligibility rules, the value of inclusion is identified as the underlying main value, while fairness and safety are its functions. This view rehabilitates the value of inclusion and has implications for how we think about the inclusion of athletes in sport, and for the creation of categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating the theory of workplace deviance with person–environment fit theory, we propose a two‐pathway model to explain why and how employees who feel overqualified engage in time theft behavior. Specifically, we anticipate that feeling overqualified will negatively influence focal employees' experienced authority fairness and erode their work meaningfulness, which in turn will lead to increased time theft behavior. Further, we argue that voice endorsement serves as a key boundary condition mitigating the negative effects of perceived overqualification. We conducted two multi‐waved and multi‐sourced field studies to test our proposed hypotheses. Study 1 (247 employees and 47 supervisors) revealed that perceived overqualification is associated with time theft behavior through the mediators of experienced authority fairness and meaningfulness. Study 2 (405 employees and 73 supervisors) replicated the findings of Study 1 and tested our full model. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a philosophical defense of deception about reservation prices in business negotiation. Its discussion is prompted by arguments that Charles N.C. Sherwood makes in a recent issue of Business Ethics Quarterly and develops ideas I put forward in an earlier issue of Business Ethics Quarterly. The essay argues that although reservation price deception cannot be justified by appeal to the consent of negotiating parties, it can be justified by appeal to a separate but related notion, assumption of risk, as long as the assumption of risk occurs in a suitably fair context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the nonworseness claim, it cannot be morally worse to exploit someone than not to interact with them at all when the interaction 1) is mutually beneficial, 2) is voluntary, and 3) has no negative effects on third parties. My aim in this article is to defend the moral significance of exploitation from this challenge. To that end, I develop a novel account of why sweatshop owners have a moral obligation to pay sweatshop workers a nonexploitative wage despite the fact that their relationship is entirely optional. More precisely, I defend two main claims. First, I show that sweatshop owners are morally obligated to pay sweatshop workers a nonexploitative wage even though they have a right not to hire them and even though that will require them to pay sweatshop workers a wage that is higher than the one they voluntarily accepted. Second, I explain why this obligation on the part of sweatshop owners is not defeated by the fact that other individuals not party to the transaction would benefit even more than sweatshop workers from receiving this additional level of pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human managers are increasingly challenged by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in performing managerial functions. We undertook a field experiment that used AI vis-à-vis human managers to perform structured, data-intensive evaluations of employee performance. We generate two sets of insights. First, employees considered AI to be both fairer and more accurate in evaluating their performance than the average human manager. Second, to catch up with AI, human managers' fairness perceived by employees played a first-order role by (a) helping human managers, to a greater extent than those managers' evaluation accuracy, to close the performance gap of the employees evaluated by them compared with that of those evaluated by AI, and (b) constraining the effect of human managers' perceived accuracy of evaluations on employees' performance. Thus, facing the competition from AI, it is all the more important for human managers to treat employees fairly and build positive interpersonal relationships with employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness is an important topic that forms part of an organisation's sustainability practice and agenda, particularly from a social dimension. However, past studies have rarely considered the role of fairness as a driver of sustainability in multi-tier supply chains. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it examines the impact of fairness perceptions on the relationship between multi-tier supply chain partners. Second, it investigates the dynamics of on-going fairness formations in different stages of the vibrant multi-tier supply chain relationship development process. These gaps have been addressed by reporting the findings of qualitative research. Primary data were obtained from 18 procurement and supply practitioners of buying firms and their top tier-1 & 2 suppliers. Findings show that fairness perceptions have an impact on collaborative activities between multi-tier supply chain partners. These collaborative responses such as information sharing, joint relationship effort, and dedicated investment can also impact critical aspects of the multi-tier supply chain relationship such as trust, commitment, satisfaction, and conflict resolution. The findings show that multi-tier supply chain partners have different expectations but usually evaluate fairness at the review phase of the relationship development process. These considerations offer theoretical and practical guidance towards the advancement of sustainable multi-tier supply chain relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The handoff rate and load balancing are two important issues that have a great impact on the spectrum and energy efficiency in the small‐cell networks (SCN). This paper investigates the handoff optimization in SCN with power‐domain non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) that uses successive interference cancelation (SIC), considering the fairness among base stations (BSs). We study the joint base station association and power control problem by considering the motion of mobile users (MUs) and load balancing in the SCNs. Under the maximum allowable transmit power and minimum average‐rate constraints, two optimization problems are formulated using the number of associated MUs, the number of handoffs, and the transmit power of all MUs. The total power consumption minimization and the system‐wide and handoff utility maximization problems are combined into a single‐stage optimization problem through the weighted‐sum method. We solve the formulated problem using a game theory‐based algorithm and primal decomposition theory. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the frequent handoffs and bring a fair power‐controlled BS association in SCN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Background Method Results Conclusion Implications This study aimed to modify the Japanese version of the Justice Sensitivity Inventory for married couples raising children to help them become more aware of their partner's sensitivity to fairness.In Japan, couples with children tend to have prejudice about the division of roles, perceiving each other based on the fairness of child care, housework, and work.Our participants comprised married couples who lived together with a child aged between 1 month and 3 years. A Web company commissioned a survey, with 1,200 and 500 participants included in the first and second rounds of testing, respectively, conducted 1 week apart. We examined the correlation between each subscale of the Japanese version of the Equity Sensitivity Inventory Adapted for Married Couples (J‐ESIA), the Japanese version of the Quality Marriage Index (J‐QMI), the Japanese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (J‐IRI), and the short form of the Japanese Big‐Five Scale (S‐JBFS). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted.Three factors were identified: ES‐Perpetrator, ES‐Victim, and ES‐Beneficiary. Cronbach's α for each subscale ranged from .95 to .96.A couple‐specific correlation was confirmed for comorbid validity.Couples can recognize each other's sensitivity to fairness and bring about behavioral change in their relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated learning, a novel distributed machine learning paradigm, collaboratively trains a global model while preserving data privacy. It faces challenges of slow convergence and low accuracy in the global model under data heterogeneity. Aiming at the problem, this paper proposed a personalized federated multi-task learning optimization (FedMTO) algorithm tailored for heterogeneous data. In a multi-task learning framework that included global and local tasks, it considered the personalized federated optimization problem. Initially, FedMTO adopted the idea of parameter decomposition, coordinating global and local classifiers through the learning of adaptive classifier combination weights. This process extracted knowledge from global classifiers to achieve personalized modeling for local tasks. Furthermore, due to the varying data distributions of local tasks, FedMTO incorporated a regularization multi-task learning strategy during local updates. This approach focused on the relevance between tasks to reduce the differences among various local tasks, thus ensuring fairness in the federated learning process. Finally, experiments were conducted on the MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets under different data heterogeneity scenarios. The results demonstrate that compared with existing algorithms, FedMTO achieves higher accuracy and better fairness, verifying the effectiveness of this method in addressing heterogeneous data problems in federated learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in psychology, sociology, economics, and other disciplines investigating social justice has identified associations between fair treatment and human well-being. However, the lack of a practical and valid instrument for measuring individual experiences of fair treatment in multiple areas of life has limited the ability to understand the relationship between fairness and wellness. The purpose of these studies was to develop and establish the initial psychometric properties and convergent validity of a scale measuring personal experiences of fairness across various life domains. Development and validation occurred across three studies. Scale development in Study 1 included the generation of items, item revision, and analysis of content validity. A review of existing literature and qualitative data derived from focus group discussions informed the initial pool of items. Cognitive interviews and expert input aided in analysis of content validity and revision of items. Study 2 consisted of confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the performance of items and determine the underlying factor structure of the scale. In Study 3, factor analyses were used to evaluate convergent validity with other fairness-related instruments. Results of the first study supported the conceptualization of fairness along a social-ecological spectrum: experiences of fairness existed in multiple distinct life domains (e.g., interpersonal, occupational, community). Results from the second study revealed a bifactor model with one general Fairness factor and four Interpersonal, Occupational, Community, and Societal ecological group factors. Results from the third study suggested acceptable convergent validity among some subscales and other established instruments, while also suggesting that refinements to the Community fairness subscale might improve the scale. The final 12-item scale demonstrated good reliability. Results of this study produced an instrument able to measure individual experiences of fair treatment across four life domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which reference information do nurses select to evaluate pay and does their employment arrangement matter? To answer these questions, we investigated the role of three types of reference information (perceived responsibility, social appreciation from colleagues and patients) in pay unfairness evaluations of Swiss temporary and staff nurses. Since unfair pay signals a lack of worth, we examined the role of social appreciation from the two sources as boundary condition for the effects of pay unfairness on exhaustion and job satisfaction. We analyzed our time-lagged survey data from 262 staff nurses and 120 temporary nurses using a multi-group framework. The effect of pay unfairness on job satisfaction – but not on exhaustion – was stronger in temporary nurses than in staff nurses. Contrary to our hypotheses, we did not find evidence that social appreciation from colleagues or patients moderated the effects of pay unfairness on job satisfaction and exhaustion. Follow-up analyses showed, however, that staff nurses rely on perceived responsibility and colleagues' appreciation to gauge pay unfairness. Temporary nurses, in contrast, considered social appreciation on the output side, consistently for both sources of appreciation. This pattern of findings suggests that the comparison processes underlying fairness evaluations are not uniform across different employment arrangements. From a practical perspective, the findings imply that appreciation will not do as compensation for pay staff nurses perceive as unfair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to systematically investigate the effects of event intensity and frequency on the judgment of procedural justice in fair and unfair situations. Data were collected using Qualtrics online survey questionnaires from 420 employees across different industries in the United States. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three frequency conditions (high, medium, and low), and within each frequency condition, two conditions of event intensity (high and low) were applied. Additionally, participants were randomly assigned to either fair or unfair situations. The findings indicated that frequent exposure to fair procedures had a positive impact on perceived procedural justice, underscoring the significance of maintaining fair practices for employee perceptions of justice. Conversely, the intensity of the event significantly influenced judgments of procedural justice. Unfair procedures in high-importance events could negatively affect employees' perceptions of procedural justice. The study also revealed that specific combinations of procedural justice rules seemed to be applied based on the interaction of fairness, frequency, and intensity. Based on these findings, managers and supervisors should not overlook seemingly insignificant daily practices, as their cumulative effect can significantly affect employee perceptions of procedural justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediation has become a contemporary conflict resolution mechanism in the 21st century that offers an alternative to traditional legal processes. This qualitative study explores the experiences of mediation users in three courts in the Central Region of Ghana, with a focus on procedural fairness. Grounded in the theory of procedural fairness, the study examines how Ghanaian and African conceptions of fairness influence mediation practice. The study found that the Ghanaian and African understanding of procedural fairness is rooted in specific situations—taking into account parties' demands in generating settlement agreements, allowing parties to select their mediators, involving important personalities in mediation, ensuring the fair settlement of cases, and deciding who should speak first. Participants evaluated procedural fairness within the context of confidentiality, neutrality, party empowerment, and the assurance of being heard. These evaluations align with what has been reported in Western literature. This research contributes to the growing body of literature on conflict resolution by providing insights into the significance of procedural fairness within mediation practice, with specific reference to Ghana. The findings underscore the importance of aligning mediation processes with principles of procedural fairness, offering valuable lessons for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers who seek to optimize the efficacy and fairness of mediation as a conflict resolution mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differentiated integration is often considered a solution to gridlock in the European Union. However, questions remain concerning its perceived legitimacy among the public. While research shows that most citizens are not, in principle, opposed to differentiated integration – although support varies across different differentiated integration models and different country contexts – we still know little about the role institutional design plays in citizens' evaluations of differentiated integration. This article inspects how citizens evaluate different hypothetical differentiated integration arrangements, with varying decision-making procedures, using a conjoint experiment. We ask whether institutional arrangements can overcome citizens' preference heterogeneity over differentiated integration, and thereby foster the legitimacy of a differentiated European Union. We find that while a majority of citizens care about the inclusiveness of differentiated integration arrangements, they also support limiting the number of veto points. Our analysis also reveals noteworthy differences across citizens with pro- and anti-European Union attitudes in the perceived fairness of differentiated integration arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK's stratified HE system the question of who is able to access the most selective and prestigious universities is fraught with issues of fairness. This paper explores how decision‐makers in Oxford's undergraduate admissions process construct norms of fairness and how such norms inform their reflexive considerations and actions around admissions decisions. Framing such norms as multiple institutional habituses, the paper considers how decision‐makers compromise and negotiate between institutional habituses in tension. Further, it presents an augmented conception of institutional habitus – the relational institutional habitus – which offers a conceptual tool to make sense of the existence of multiple contested institutional norms and their partial and fragile reconciliation in institutional action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimism about our ability to enhance societal decision‐making by leaning on Machine Learning (ML) for cheap, accurate predictions has palled in recent years, as these 'cheap' predictions have come at significant social cost, contributing to systematic harms suffered by already disadvantaged populations. But what precisely goes wrong when ML goes wrong? We argue that, as well as more obvious concerns about the downstream effects of ML‐based decision‐making, there can be moral grounds for the criticism of these predictions themselves. We introduce and defend a theory of predictive justice, according to which differential model performance for systematically disadvantaged groups can be grounds for moral criticism of the model, independently of its downstream effects. As well as helping resolve some urgent disputes around algorithmic fairness, this theory points the way to a novel dimension of epistemic ethics, related to the recently discussed category of doxastic wrong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing use of algorithms in allocating resources and services in both private industry and public administration has sparked discussions about their consequences for inequality and fairness in contemporary societies. Previous research has shown that the use of automated decision-making (ADM) tools in high-stakes scenarios like the legal justice system might lead to adverse societal outcomes, such as systematic discrimination. Scholars have since proposed a variety of metrics to counteract and mitigate biases in ADM processes. While these metrics focus on technical fairness notions, they do not consider how members of the public, as most affected subjects by algorithmic decisions, perceive fairness in ADM. To shed light on subjective fairness perceptions of individuals, this study analyzes individuals’ answers to open-ended fairness questions about hypothetical ADM scenarios that were embedded in the German Internet Panel (Wave 54, July 2021), a probability-based longitudinal online survey. Respondents evaluated the fairness of vignettes describing the use of ADM tools across different contexts. Subsequently, they explained their fairness evaluation providing a textual answer. Using qualitative content analysis, we inductively coded those answers (N = 3697). Based on their individual understanding of fairness, respondents addressed a wide range of aspects related to fairness in ADM which is reflected in the 23 codes we identified. We subsumed those codes under four overarching themes: Human elements in decision-making, Shortcomings of the data, Social impact of AI, and Properties of AI. Our codes and themes provide a valuable resource for understanding which factors influence public fairness perceptions about ADM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the relationship between the sources of international law and fairness. The author addresses this issue within the framework the following main question: what is the role of fairness for the formal sources of international law? By analysing the relationship between fairness and the formal sources of international law, the author also responds to two other, substantively relevant, questions: is the typology of these sources listed in Article 38 of the Statute of the ICJ fair?; is soft law a means to fairness in the sources? The author claims that fairness is neither a material nor formal source of international law but it is a procedural value which supports the legitimacy of the making of international law. Thus, it is relevant to the formal, not material, sources of international law. The term 'formal sources' is used in the paper in the twofold meaning. First, as instrumentum or 'containers' for rules and principles (where the law can be found), and, second, as processes and forms by which rules and principles are made. The author's proposition is that fairness is primary relevant to the latter meaning. When the international law-making processes are fair, then their results, i.e., the formal sources conceived as instrumentum or 'containers' are also fair, and the law may be known. Rules and principles of international law are fair when they satisfy the requirements of a fair international law-making process, in particular, certainty, transparency and authoritativeness/representativeness. That is why, fairness may be seen as a crucial criterion of the legitimacy of international law-making processes. There are close relationships between fairness, law-making, legal certainty, effectiveness of rules and principles and the rule of law. These relationships mark the place of fairness in the sources of international law. The author seeks to point out that fairness as a product of the constantly changing social and political environment, does not occur in its pure form in practice. As such, fairness is a 'matter of degree' in the international law-making. That is why, a realistic goal of the international legal order is neutralization of unfairness as much as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsourcing is a powerful technique for accomplishing tasks that are difficult for machines but easy for humans. However, ensuring the quality of the workers who participate in the task is a major challenge. Most of the existing studies have focused on selecting suitable workers based on their attributes and the task requirements, while neglecting the requesters' characteristics as a key factor in the crowdsourcing process. In this paper, we address this gap by considering the requesters' preferences and behavior in crowdsourcing systems with competition, where the requester chooses only one worker's contribution as the final answer. A model is proposed in which the requesters' characteristics are taken into consideration when finding suitable workers. Also, we propose new definitions for clarity and the fairness of requesters and propose models and formulations to employ them, alongside task and workers' attributes, to find more suitable workers. We have evaluated the efficacy of our proposed model by analyzing a real-world dataset and compared it with two current state-of-the-art approaches. Our results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method in assigning the most suitable workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud-based computing networks have taken over the digital landscape. From small non-profits to large multinational corporations, more and more entities have been offloading computing effort to the cloud in order to take advantage of the increased cost-efficiency and scalability of cloud computing. One of the new types of cloud that have emerged is P2P cloud, which disengages from a traditional datacenter setup by allowing users to instead share their own computing hardware into a cloud to reap the benefits of cloud computing's advantages at an even lower cost. However, this new paradigm comes with a slew of challenges: (i) security, when operating with the devices of strangers and (ii) fairness when not operating in a market-based system. This paper aims to address these two issues by proposing an algorithm based on social credits for a P2P cloud system that uses a social network to establish its security measures. We implement our new Social Credit algorithm along with two other task-migration-based load-balancing algorithms adapted for a P2P social cloud in "Cloudsim Plus", and the relative gains are shown in terms of fairness and other related metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social contract is one of the most common schemes for justifying patents. According to this theory, inventors obtain a commercial exclusivity in exchange for the disclosure of the invention, with the final aim of allowing others to use that knowledge in future innovations. Under the rationale of this social contract theory of patents, if a patent system is not guided by impartiality in its decisions, the relation between disclosure of inventions and future innovation becomes an issue, because non-merit factors in patent examination influence the quality of the knowledge disclosed. The aim of this article is to analyse impartiality in patent systems and, by doing so, defend that there is an epistemic side on both impartiality and social contract theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing numbers of forcibly displaced people and their tendency to spatially cluster, destination countries around the world consider dispersing them over their territory. While the egocentric not-in-my-back-yard syndrome (NIMBYism) predicts that dispersion will spark a public backlash, sociotropic considerations and appeals to civic fairness predict the contrary. I theorise that the institutional set-up determines which force prevails. Although the local proximity of refugees triggers public opposition, it can be substantially countered by tighter regulation on refugee dispersion. Setting clear guiding rules, such as an upper limit or proportional allocation can enhance both burden-sharing in the accommodation of refugees and public support for their incorporation. Evidence from survey experiments conducted in Norway and Israel supports these theoretical accounts. The findings have implications for understanding how countries can mitigate public backlash against immigrants and refugees while maintaining their admission and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low income households in agrarian developing economies face considerable livelihood risks, which have negative impacts on welfare. A growing literature focuses on internal constraints on development, which can negatively affect saving and investment behavior. Here I propose that internal constraints may also hinder risk management. Specifically, I present a theoretical model that explores how fairness preferences may create an internal constraint on risk sharing, particularly in a context of wealth inequality, and thereby also affect demand for formal insurance. To test this theory, I utilize a lab experiment, conducted in Ghana, to investigate the impact of wealth inequality on utilization of risk‐management tools, interpersonal risk sharing and formal insurance, and explore how fairness preferences may mediate this effect. I find that inequality reduces risk sharing and increases demand for insurance. Moreover, I find suggestive evidence that fairness preferences create an internal constraint on risk sharing under inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated learning (FL) is an attractive paradigm for privacy-aware distributed machine learning, which enables clients to collaboratively learn a global model without sharing clients' data. Recently, many strategies have been proposed to improve the generality of the global model and thus improve FL effect. However, existing strategies either ignore the fairness among clients or sacrifice performance for fairness. They cannot ensure that the gap among clients is as small as possible without sacrificing federated performance. To address this issue, we propose ParetoFed, a new local information aggregation method dedicated to obtaining better federated performance with smaller gap among clients. Specifically, we propose to use multi-objective hyperparameter optimization (HPO) algorithm to gain global models that are both fair and effective. Then, we send Pareto Optimal global models to each client, allowing them to choose the most suitable one as the base to optimize their local model. ParetoFed not only make the global models more fair but also make the selection of local models more personalized, which can further improve the federated performance. Extensive experiments show that ParetoFed outperforms existing FL methods in terms of fairness, and even achieves better federated performance, which demonstrates the significance of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the multifaceted dimensions of sport promotion, development, and integrity within the context of men's football in Europe. It specifically focuses on the impact of a newly introduced competition, the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Nations League (UNL), on these three dimensions. The study utilises a dataset comprising 1,058 games played over two distinct periods: 503 games from 2014–2016 (pre-UNL) and 555 games from 2018–2021 (UNL era). The primary areas of interest are competitive balance (CB) and competitive intensity (CI), measured at the intra-match (both CB and CI) and post-match (CB only) levels, and fairness. Regressions and statistical tests were conducted to explain the determinants of CB and compare CB and CI between both periods. The analysis reveals that CB deteriorated, primarily attributed to changing incentives for the strongest and weakest teams during Euro qualifying matches. By contrast, CI increased due to the UNL's replacement of most friendly games. While recent literature has raised potential fairness issues due to the establishment of the UNL, findings of this study suggest that the integrity of national men's football team competitions and games in Europe remained intact during this period. This article advances knowledge of CB and CI. Besides, it also provides empirical evidence that the UNL did not compromise the fairness of national men's football team competitions and games in Europe. By bringing CB, CI, and fairness together, this study highlights the crucial role of sports organisations in promoting and developing their sport, while also safeguarding its integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research presents "Book-Swap-Connect," an innovative approach to enhance scalability and collaboration in decentralized book sharing. By addressing limitations of centralized libraries and small-scale exchanges, this solution employs a virtual shelf backend to facilitate cost-effective book reuse. Users engage in adding and retrieving books based on predefined constraints, broadening reading options and fostering collaboration. The model significantly boosts book allocation density, attracting a wider reader base and promoting resource efficiency. Our empirical analysis shows a 40% increase in book availability and a 25% reduction in transaction time compared to traditional book-sharing platforms. Through value-based calculations utilizing "Resource Credits" (RC) and "Redemption Points" (RP), fairness is ensured in exchanges, empowering participants and reinforcing ownership. This approach revolutionizes book-sharing practices by promoting responsible sharing, fostering a collaborative reading community characterized by fairness and transparency. By addressing scalability challenges and enabling costeffective reuse, our solution empowers readers and transforms the book-sharing landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a great deal of research investigating incentives and goal setting more broadly, little is known about the linking of goals and goal attainment to different monetary incentive structures, or the manner in which such structural choices impact various job attitudes and job performance. Consequently, a quasi-field experiment, a laboratory experiment, and an on-line survey experiment examined the effects of three monetary incentive systems on task performance (exps. 1, 3), counterproductive behavior (exper. 2), and perceptions of fairness (exps. 1, 3). Additionally, the mediating effect of prolonged effort/persistence (exp. 3) was tested. The results revealed that an all-or-nothing distal goal method of linking a monetary incentive to a goal under-performs the multiple proximal goals and linear piece-rate methods with regard to task performance, counterproductive behavior, and perceptions of fairness. The results of the third experiment revealed that persistence and perceptions of fairness mediate the monetary incentive-task goal performance relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant retailers' squeeze results in very low profits for manufacturers in the traditional reselling channel, which raises manufacturers' significant concerns about profit fairness. This paper studies the manufacturer's encroachment strategy under fairness concerns by virtue of a game‐theoretical model, in which a manufacturer sells its products to a dominant retailer who resells them to consumers in the traditional reselling channel. Besides, the manufacturer can sell its products through a direct channel, i.e., manufacturer encroachment. The equilibrium solutions and profits under different scenarios are derived to check the interplay between fairness concerns and manufacturer encroachment. Some interesting results are obtained. First, fairness concerns can reduce the motivation of the manufacturer to encroach the market. Second, manufacturer encroachment always harms the retailer in the absence of fairness concerns, while it can benefit the retailer in the presence of fairness concerns. Third, the manufacturer's profit always decreases with the direct selling cost in the case without fairness concerns, while it may increase in the case with fairness concerns. These results obtained are robust when the decision timing or fairness concerns model is changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives, the need for human interpretation of machine learning models' predictions emerges as a critical issue. Generally, interpretability is viewed as a binary notion with a performance trade-off. Either a model is fully-interpretable but lacks the ability to capture more complex patterns in the data, or it is a black box. In this paper, we argue that this view is severely limiting and that instead interpretability should be viewed as a continuous domain-informed concept. We leverage the well-known Mixture of Experts architecture with user-defined limits on non-interpretability. We extend this idea with a counterfactual fairness module to ensure the selection of consistently fair experts: FairMOE. We perform an extensive experimental evaluation with fairness-related data sets and compare our proposal against state-of-the-art methods. Our results demonstrate that FairMOE is competitive with the leading fairness-aware algorithms in both fairness and predictive measures while providing more consistent performance, competitive scalability, and, most importantly, greater interpretability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current public debates about rising violence against police officers, and conversely, criticism of racial profiling by the police force, contradict the high levels of trust in the German police reported by public surveys. This raises the question of why the tension between the police and citizens arises. German Criminology has not yet exploited the potential of procedural justice theory to explain the shifting dynamics of trust. Empirical studies on how evaluations of police fairness and effectiveness influence police legitimacy in Germany have long been overdue. Additionally, there is minimal evidence of whether police fairness is experienced differently in different social contexts. Therefore, this study answers two pertinent research questions: (1) To what extent does trust in German police and police legitimacy depend on procedural fairness? (2) To what extent do residents in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods have lower levels of trust in police fairness? Consistent with international research on procedural justice theory, the results reveal significant effects of normative predictors of trust in the police, such as perceived fairness and neighbourhood trust. Using advanced multilevel modelling, this study observes the effects of two contextual variables (welfare recipients and official crime rates) on neighbourhood levels of trust in police fairness. The results reveal that the impact of personal assessments of the neighbourhood, personal disadvantages, and experiences with the police exceeds neighbourhood context effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral agency model (BAM) posits that executive risk preferences are influenced by losses to their current option wealth relative to gains from their prospective option wealth. Accordingly, current option wealth attenuates risk-taking while prospective option wealth amplifies risk-taking. In the context of corporate irresponsible behaviors, this study attempts to advance the BAM by theorizing how the presence of conditions that give rise to distributive and procedural injustice in CEO compensation can further amplify the positive effects of CEO prospective option wealth on risk-taking, thereby destroying stakeholder value. Our findings, based on a longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 8,669 firm-year observations for the period 2001 to 2018, support our theorization that CEO perceptions of unfairness in compensation amplify excessive risk-taking, thereby increasing the likelihood of corporate social irresponsibility. Our study has important implications for advancing the BAM and for the study and design of executive compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of classical exchange economies, we study four ways in which agents can strategically take advantage of allocation rules by affecting who participates and on what terms (Thomson in Soc Choice Welf 42:289–311, 2014). (1) An agent transfers their endowment to someone else and withdraws. The two of them may end up controlling resources that allow them to simultaneously reach higher welfare levels than they otherwise would. (2) An agent invites someone in and let their guest use some of their (the host's) endowment. The guest transfers back to them what they are assigned over their endowment. The host may benefit. (3) An agent withdraws with their endowment. As in (1), they and someone who stays may end up controlling resources that allow the two of them to simultaneously reach higher welfare levels than they otherwise would. (4) An agent pre-delivers to someone else the net trade that the rule would assign to that agent had the agent participated. The second agent withdraws. The first agent participates with a modified endowment. The first agent may benefit. We ask whether "the constrained priority rules", defined by maximizing the welfare of a particular agent subject to each of the others finding their assignment at least as desirable as their endowment satisfy these various requirements. The answers are all negative. Because these types of rules are often better behaved than rules that attempt some fairness in distributing gains from trade, these results strengthen the negative conclusions reached in Thomson (2014), and they may provide the key to identifying circumstances in which rules exist that satisfy the axioms, or to proving general impossibility results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges a reductive analysis of social practices by distinguishing five kinds of reason for following the rules of conventional practices. Depending on one's preferred intellectual tradition, conventional practices enable coordination, facilitate cooperation, constitute activities, fulfil reciprocity, or specify abstract rights. Instead of being rival theories of social practices, these different models complement one another in a normative analysis of social practices. By distinguishing five kinds of reasons to follow conventional rules, this paper supports a more dynamic conventionalist analysis of subjects like property, the law, professional obligation, civic responsibility, and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new algorithm in the two-sided marriage market wherein both sides of the market propose in each round. The algorithm always yields a stable matching. Moreover, the outcome is a Rawlsian stable matching if the number of men and women is equal. Lastly, the algorithm can be computed in polynomial time and, from a practical standpoint, can be used in markets where fairness considerations are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sharing and fairness are important prosocial behaviors that help us navigate the social world. However, little is known about how and whether individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS) engage in these behaviors. The unique phenotype of individuals with WS, consisting of high social motivation and limited social cognition, can also offer insight into the role of social motivation in sharing and fairness when compared to typically developing (TD) individuals. The current study used established experimental paradigms to examine sharing and fairness in individuals with WS and TD individuals. Methods: We compared a sample of patients with WS to TD children (6-year-olds) matched by mental age (MA) on two experimental tasks: the Dictator Game (DG, Experiment 1, N = 17 WS, 20 TD) with adults modeling giving behaviors used to test sharing and the Inequity Game (IG, Experiment 2, N = 14 WS, 17 TD) used to test fairness. Results: Results showed that the WS group behaved similarly to the TD group for baseline giving in the DG and in the IG, rejecting disadvantageous offers but accepting advantageous ones. However, after viewing an adult model giving behavior, the WS group gave more than their baseline, with many individuals giving more than half, while the TD group gave less. Combined these results suggest that social motivation is sufficient for sharing and, in particular, generous sharing, as well as the self-focused form of fairness. Further, individuals with WS appear capable of both learning to be more generous and preventing disadvantageous outcomes, a more complex profile than previously known. Conclusions: In conclusion, the present study provides a snapshot into sharing and fairness-related behaviors in WS, contributing to our understanding of the intriguing social-behavioral phenotype associated with this developmental disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The equitable allocation of resources has long been a central concern for humanity, prompting extensive research into various motivations that drive the pursuit of distributive justice. In contrast to one of the most fundamental motives, inequality aversion, a conflicting motive has been proposed: rank-reversal aversion. However, it remains unclear whether this rank-reversal aversion persists in the presence of self-rank. Here we provide evidence of rank-reversal aversion in the first-party context and explore diverse moral strategies for distribution. In a modified version of the redistribution game involving 55 online-recruited participants, we observed rank-reversal aversion only when one's rank was maintained. When participants' self-rank was altered, they tended to base their behavior on their new ranks. This behavioral tendency varied among individuals, revealing three distinct moral strategies, all incorporating considerations of rank-reversal. Our findings suggest that rank-reversal aversion can indeed influence one's distribution behavior, although the extent of its impact may vary among individuals, especially when self-rank is a factor. These insights can be extended to political and economic domains, contributing to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of distributive justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on an integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system—a single platform equipped with multiple antennas transmitting a waveform to detect targets and communicate with downlink users. Due to spectrum sharing between multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) radar and multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) communication, beamforming is becoming increasingly important as a technique that enables the creation of directional beams. In this paper, we propose a novel joint transmit beamforming design scheme that employs a beam pattern approximation strategy for radar sensing and utilizes rate-splitting for multiuser communication offering advanced interference management strategies. The optimization problems are formulated from both radar-centric and trade-off viewpoints. First, we propose a radar-centric beamforming scheme to achieve sensing efficiency through beam pattern approximation, while requiring the fairness signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) to be higher than a given threshold to guarantee a minimal level of communication quality, while the obtained performance for the communication system is limited in this scheme. To address this problem, we propose a beamforming design scheme from a trade-off viewpoint that flexibly optimizes both sensing and communication performances with a regularization parameter. Finally, we propose a partial rate-splitting-based beamforming design method aimed at maximizing the effective sensing power, with the constraint of a minimal sum rate for downlink users. Numerical results are provided to assess the effectiveness of all proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]