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To develop an overview of generalized scales based on pansystems‐relative quantification.

This is a discussion paper exploring the key issues surrounding generalized measures.

The concrete contents of the study include generalized measure views, dimension theory, concepts, logic, theories, Einstein's relativity, quality‐quantity‐degree, methodology of physics, theorems in pansystems mathematics and physics explained within the framework of pan‐scale transformations.

Provides an overview of generalized scales based on pansystems‐relative quantification.

Why do strangers in collectivist societies act prosocially? Previous work indicates that generalized trust (trust in strangers) is necessary for prosocial behavior; however, generalized trust exists at low levels in collectivist societies. Researchers have also argued that without trust among strangers, social order is threatened. Yet, collectivist societies are not characterized by social disorder; therefore, individuals must be acting prosocially. Without generalized trust, how is this possible? In this work I argue that institutional trust (a belief that institutions induce others to act in a trustworthy manner) is responsible for prosociality in collectivist societies, not generalized trust. Does a similar relationship hold in individualist societies? Although some evidence suggests that prosocial behavior is predicated by generalized trust, other evidence indicates that the stronger predictor is institutional trust. All arguments are tested with data from the World Values Survey (WVS) with data from 14 countries. Results from regression analyses are reported. The chapter concludes with implications and directions for future work.

To help investors find an investment policy with strong competitiveness, the purpose of this paper is to construct a multi-period investment decision model with practicality and superior performance.

The paper uses a suitable multi-period risk measure to construct a multi-period portfolio selection model, where target returns at intermediate periods and market frictions are taken into account simultaneously. An efficient scenario tree generation approach is proposed in order to transform the complex multi-period portfolio selection problem into a tractable one.

Numerical results show the new scenario tree generation algorithms are stable and can further reduce the tree size. With the scenario tree generated by the new scenario tree generation approach, the optimal investment strategy obtained under the multi-period investment decision model has more superior performance and robustness than the corresponding optimal investment strategy obtained under the single period investment model or the multi-period investment model only paying attention to the terminal cash flow.

The new risk measure and multi-period investment decision models can stimulate readers to find even better models and to efficiently solve realistic multi-period portfolio selection problems.

The empirical results show the superior performance and robustness of optimal investment strategy obtained with the new models. What's more important, the empirical analyses tell readers how different market frictions affect the performance of optimal portfolios, which can guide them to efficiently solve real multi-period investment decision problems in practice.

The paper first derives the concrete structure of the time consistent generalized convex multi-period risk measure, then constructs a multi-period portfolio selection model based on the new multi-period risk measure, and proposes a new extremum scenario tree generation algorithm. The authors construct a realistic multi-period investment decision model. Furthermore, using the proposed scenario tree generation algorithm, the authors transform the established stochastic investment decision model into a deterministic optimization problem, which can provide optimal investment decisions with robustness and superior performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of social capital on happiness. The previous literature generally measures social capital using “generalized trust”, which is a narrow dimension of social capital. In this study, social capital is measured as a multidimensional concept consisting of generalized trust, institutional trust and trust on family, neighborhood and strangers.

This study explores the relationship between social capital and average happiness using a panel data of 89 countries from 1980 to 2017. The empirical analysis is done by employing pooled OLS (POLS), fixed effects method (FEM), random effects method (REM) and system generalized method of moments.

The findings demonstrate that all measures of social capital are positively associated with happiness while comparatively institutional trust and generalized trust appear more significant for happiness. The findings are robust to different robustness checks. The findings document the importance of social capital for average happiness.

The research has certain limitations. First, the objective of study was to cover global sample of countries, however, the data series were not available for all countries. Second, the empirical is restricted to global evidence instead of exploring separate estimates for developed and developing world.

The findings document the importance of social capital for average happiness. The awareness of the importance of social capital needs to be increased. Government can develop such organizations or institutions that are conducive for social capital development.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a probabilistic uncertain linguistic (PUL) TODIM method based on the generalized Choquet integral, with respect to the interdependencies between criteria, for the selection of the best alternate in the context of multiple criteria group decision-making (MCGDM).

Owing to decision makers (DMs) do not always show completely rational and may have the preference of bounded rational behavior, this may affect the result of the MCGDM. At the same time, criteria interaction is a focused issue in MCGDM. Hence, a novel TODIM method based on the generalized Choquet integral selects the best alternate using PUL evaluation, where the generalized Choquet integral is used to calculate the weight of criterion. The generalized PUL distance measure between two probabilistic uncertain linguistic elements (PULEs) is calculated and the perceived dominance degree matrices for each alternate relative to other alternates are obtained. Furthermore, the comprehensive perceived dominance degree of each alternate can be calculated to get the ranking.

Potential application of the PUL-TODIM method is demonstrated through an evaluation example with sensitivity and comparative analysis.

As per author's concern, there are no TODIM methods with probabilistic uncertain linguistic sets (PULTSs) to solve MCGDM problems under uncertainty. Compared with the result of existing methods, the final judgment value of alternates using the extended TODIM methodology is highly corroborated, which proves its potential in solving MCGDM problems under qualitative and quantitative environments.

Trust is one of the key elements in social interaction; however, few studies have analyzed how the proliferation of new information and communication technologies influences trust. The authors examine how exposure to hate material in the internet correlates with Finnish youths’ particularized and generalized trust toward people who have varying significance in different contexts of life. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to provide new information about current online culture and its potentially negative characteristics.

Using data collected in the spring of 2013 among Finnish Facebook users (n=723) ages 15-18, the authors measure the participants’ trust in their family, close friends, other acquaintances, work or school colleagues, neighbors, people in general, as well as people only met online.

Witnessing negative images and writings reduces both particularized and generalized trust. The negative effect is greater for particularized trust than generalized trust. Therefore, exposure to hate material seems to have a more negative effect on the relationships with acquaintances than in a more general context.

The study relies on a sample of registered social media users from one country. In future research, cross-national comparisons are encouraged.

The findings show that trust plays a significant role in online setting. Witnessing hateful online material is common among young people. This is likely to have an impact on perceived social trust. Hateful communication may then impact significantly on current online culture, which has a growing importance for studying, working life, and many leisure activities.

In order to make grey relational analysis applicable to the interval grey number, this paper discusses the model of grey relational degree of the interval grey number and uses it to analyze the related factors of China's technological innovation ability.

First, this paper gives the definitions of the lower bound domain, the value domain, the upper bound domain of interval grey number and the generalized measure and the generalized greyness of interval grey number. Then, based on the grey relational theory, this paper proposes the model of greyness relational degree of the interval grey number and analyzes its relationship with the classical grey relational degree. Finally, the model of greyness relational degree is applied to analyze the related factors of China's technological innovation ability.

The results show that the model of greyness relational degree has strict theoretical basis, convenient calculation and easy programming and can be applied to the grey number sequence, real number sequence and grey number and real number coexisting sequence. The relational order of the four related factors of China's technological innovation ability is research and development (R&D) expenditure, R&D personnel, university student number and public library number, and it is in line with the reality.

The results show that the sequence values of greyness relational degree have large discreteness, and it is feasible and effective to analyze the related factors of China's technological innovation ability.

The paper succeeds in realizing both the model of greyness relational degree of interval grey number with unvalued information distribution and the order of related factors of China's technological innovation ability.

The multidimensional nature of well-being is now widely recognized. However, multidimensional poverty measurement is still an expanding field of research and a consensus about the “best” composite indicator has not yet emerged. In this chapter, we provide an empirical analysis using three existing methodologies: Bourguignon and Chakravarty (2003), Alkire and Foster (2007), and Lemmi (2005); Chiappero Martinetti (2000). We present an empirical study of the convergence and divergence of poverty profiles for children in Uruguay considering the following dimensions: nutritional status, child educational achievement, housing condition, and household income. Our data gather information of 1,185 children attending public schools in Montevideo and the surrounding metropolitan area, and were specially gathered to carry out a multidimensional analysis of poverty.

Our results indicate that the three families of indexes yield very different cardinalizations of poverty. At the same time, the correlation coefficients among the three groups of measures for the generalized headcount ratio also highlight important differences in the children labeled as “more deprived.” For the generalized severity and intensity indexes the correlation coefficients increase significantly suggesting a high level of concordance among the three measures, particularly among the Bourguignon and Chakravarty methodology and the Alkire and Foster one.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate trust in salespersons of direct selling companies. The major purpose of the study is to examine three alternative measures of trust and to assess the effects of consumer trust in the direct selling salesperson on intended purchase behavior in a non‐Western culture, Hong Kong.

The research was designed as a personal interview survey of purchasers and non‐purchasers of product from direct selling companies in Hong Kong. A street‐intercept method of personal interview was used in three major shopping areas. The major measurement was of three different measures of trust in buying behavior from direct selling companies.

Survey results show that the measures of trust are not equally significant in being related to intention to repurchase. Only one measure, “Affect Trust”, is statistically correlated to repurchase intention. This measure is based on emotions which are affective in nature.

Gaining trust is crucial to all salespeople, industrial and consumer alike, as trust facilitates an exchange relationship while mistrust hinders it. Consequently, having valid measures of trust is essential to ensuring that exchange relations are positive. The research to date has been in the context of Western cultures and is dated (ten or more years ago). The paper examines trust in a non‐Western culture. In addition, the sales relationships studied in the past have been non‐direct selling. The paper expands this domain as it looks at direct selling to consumers in a non‐fixed business location.