Background. Previous research has shown that moral judgments are affected by social cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind (ToM). This study examines how information about an actor's beliefs and the consequences of their actions affect the moral evaluation of the character's behavior in social events. Our research builds upon previous studies, which have shown that these factors contribute differently to moral judgments made by both adults and young children. Objectives. This study aimed to explore how participants with schizophrenia and healthy controls read stories about social situations in the context of moral judgments. Materials and methods. The study used the research procedure that included 4 variants of 16 scenarios describing social situations, and thus comprising 64 stories. After each story, participants evaluated their confidence level on a 4-point scale. To assess delusional beliefs, the Polish adaptation of the Peters Delusion Inventory (PDI) questionnaire and the Paranoia Checklist (PCh) were used. Respondents completed these questionnaires after completing the scenario test procedure. Results. In social situations, patients with paranoid schizophrenia were found to evaluate actions of protagonists who attempted to harm another person more leniently than when it was an accident. Conversely, healthy individuals judged those actors who expressed intentions to hurt another person significantly more harshly than in an accident situation. Metacognition measures show that paranoid schizophrenia patients make moral judgments with high confidence, despite being based on an incorrect reading of the other person's intentions. Conclusions. The study indicates that ToM has a significant impact on the moral judgment of others. Decreased moral cognition can result from both positive and negative symptoms. Deficits related to metacognition can also sustain such cognitive distortions.

The aim of this article is to determine and assess the changes in the central functions of major Polish cities in the context of Poland’s 1999 administrative reform. This study covers a period of twenty-two years (1998–2019), which provides a solid perspective for evaluating the functional changes occurring within the current territorial division of the country. The conclusions indicate that the dynamics of changes in central functions in former provincial capitals differed from those in cities that retained this status. At the same time, it was found that the administrative reform sanctioned the scope and scale of earlier socio-economic dependencies in the present regional centers. The research results suggest that administrative reforms in Poland solidified existing socio-economic development paths in cities, but were not the sole catalyst for change. They point to a complex interaction of factors influencing urban evolution. By utilizing indicators that measure the centrality of cities in relation to their demographic potential, this research offers a quantitative assessment of the level of development of central functions, which is crucial for monitoring progress towards sustainable urbanization. By providing this information, this research also contributes to a broader discussion on the advancement and dynamics of sustainable urban development.

In this article, we describe and assess the implementation of several methods of multi-criteria decision-making using a web-based computer application. Such an application makes it easier to determine the effective- ness of decisions. The methods adopted in this application are SMART (Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique), AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Pro- cess), and ANP (Analytic Network Process). Each of these methods has distinctive characteristics in determining the best alternative for the user. This study assesses the feasibility of each method in the application. The application is assessed based on functionality, reliability, efficiency, and usability. (1) Functionality is tested according to the appropriateness of the decisions made, (2) Reliability is assessed using stress testing, (3) Effi- ciency is assessed according to the computational effort, and (4) System usability is tested according to the user’s answers to the Computer System Usability Questionnaire authored by J.R. Lewis. This research results in a decision support system based on SMART that has been appropriately tested and is ready for use. Keywords: multi-criteria analysis, SMART, AHP, ANP, system usability.

Road transport, as ‘a producer’ of carbon dioxide (CO2), causes high levels of air pollution, especially in cities. A suggested solution to this situation is the effective diffusion of electric vehicles (EVs). Regulations in the European Union aim to encourage consumers to buy electric cars. In addition, car manufacturers are constantly expanding their range of hybrid vehicles (HEVs) and EVs. Nonetheless, consumers have still many doubts regarding adopting an EV. Our survey among social media users investigates the attitudes and readiness of consumers to adopt HEVs and EVs. To investigate the factors underlying consumers’ attitudes to such vehicles, Bayesian networks were used as an exploratory tool. This paper presents results of this analysis.

Thanks to the Internet, basic information can be found about a very large number of offers at very little cost. Many sites give basic information about real estate offers, including price, size, location and number of rooms. Information of this kind is sufficient to assess whether an offer is potentially attractive or not, but does not suffice in making an ultimate decision. The number of real estate offers in a city may be very large. In such a case, it can be beneficial to use an automatic procedure to first eliminate offers that do not satisfy the basic criteria of an individual or family and then construct a shortlist of varied and potentially attractive offers. This article recalls an algorithm that derives such a shortlist for an individual searcher. The novelty of this article lies in adapting this algorithm to scenarios in which a group decision is made. A practical example based on real estate offers in Warsaw is used to illustrate the algorithm.

Nowadays, consumers can find basic information about a wide range of offers with almost no effort.For example, Internet sites give information about second-hand cars regarding the mark, age, price, engine type/size and distance travelled.This information suffices to assess whether a car is potentially attractive, but is not sufficient to make a final decision.The authors have developed an automatic procedure for selecting a shortlist of offers that aims to maximize a weighted average of the attractiveness and diversity of the offers on the shortlist.The consumer determines the number of offers to be placed on the shortlist and the relative importance of the traits considered.The authors have compared the results obtained by applying two methods of multicriteria assessment.

Most of the academic literature indicates that high administrative status positively influences the development of a city, while the loss of such status leads to marginalisation. Most of these studies, however, investigated national capitals, and relatively little research has analysed the effect of a change in status at lower levels of government. Poland is an obvious subject for such research, due to the recent extensive reforms of its system of territorial government. This article presents the recent dynamics of socio-economic development in Polish cities and their relation to whether a city maintained or lost its status as a regional capital. These results enable us to identify correlations between the dynamics of socio-economic development and the status of a city. The nature of these correlations is more ambiguous than the results presented in previous studies. The findings of this study give new insight into the effect of changes in a city's administrative status.

A decision maker must choose one of n offers. The reward obtained is the value of the offer accepted minus the costs of making the pairwise comparisons required to make a decision. If pairwise comparisons are perfect, then comparing each successive offer with the currently highest ranked one is optimal. In practice, decision makers may make errors when comparing two offers or be unable to compare them. Under a round robin procedure, the decision maker compares each offer with all of the other o ffers. The search costs incurred under such a procedure are greater than under the sequential procedure. However, when comparison is imperfect, the round robin procedure is more robust against selecting a sub-optimal o ffer. Models of these two procedures are presented. Simulations are used to compare these procedures.

The Internet allows people to access information about a large number of offers almost at the click of a button. For consumers, this has a number of advantages. However, humans have a limited capacity for processing the available information. Hence, consumers often use simple rules of thumb (heuristics) to process this information. Such heuristics allow consumers to choose a good offer, while keeping the search costs low. One such heuristic is the concept of a shortlist, which is useful when searching for a unique valuable good, e.g., a second-hand car or flat. A consumer can find basic information about an offer from the Internet. This information is used to choose a shortlist of offers to inspect more closely, before a final decision is made. This paper gives an overview of recent research on mathematical models of such search processes. These models can be split into three categories: (a) optimization models considering a single decision maker, (b) game theoretic models, and (c) models of group decision procedures. Directions for future research are also considered.

Consumers can nowadays easily access information via the Internet about a wide range of offers on the market. For example, a family looking for a new flat can find basic information on offers via an Internet site. Much of this information is of a quantitative nature (e.g. price, size of the flat), which is very useful in determining a set of potentially very attractive offers. However, many of the traits associated with the attractiveness of a flat are qualitative in nature and can only be assessed by physically viewing an offer. (e.g. view from the balcony, attractiveness of the immediate location). This necessitates physically viewing a number of offers before making a final decision. Since the costs of physically viewing a flat are much greater than the costs of finding data about flats in the Internet, consumers often use information from the Internet to form a short list of offers to be viewed. Since the decision to buy such a product is often made collectively, e.g. by a couple or family, we consider a game theoretic approach to such a problem with two players who have symmetric roles. The one possible asymmetry considered is that one player might exhibit a higher level of altruism than the other. Although short lists are often used in practice, there is little research on determining e.g. how many offers should be placed on the short list according to the parameters of the problem and the relations between the players. This model indicates that altruism between the players and coherent preferences are important factors in facilitating search. When the players neither have coherent preferences nor feel altruism towards each other, a situation similar to the battle of the commons exists, which leads to a large number of offers being placed on the short list.

Thanks to the Internet, consumers can easily obtain basic information about a very large number of offers at very little cost. This enables consumers to judge whether an offer of a unique valuable good (such as a flat or second-hand car) is potentially attractive, but more information (normally gained by observing an offer in real life) is needed to make a final decision.

: Collaboratively - Developed ERP (CD - ERP) is an intermediate model between two well - known models, namely: closed - and open - source systems. This model is based on the community - source paradigm and ERP packages. It has been proposed for Libyan higher education (LHE) to be governed by a consortium of LHE institutions. To investigate the applicability of this model in LHE, this paper presents an analysis of critical success factor (CSFs) based on both a review of the relevant literature and lessons learnt from similar projects. Using the literature review, the title of the model was proposed on the basis of its fundamental elements. Cases of other projects which follow a similar approach show that community source has been adopted by many universities and government bodies worldwide. Also, many of the issues observed in such projects are similar to those that appear in the literature, especially in regards to distributed and collaboratively working environments.

The CD-ERP model describes an approach to the collaborative development (CD) of information systems based on the framework of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This approach is proposed to solve the problem of IS development in Libyan Higher Education (LHE). This paper presents an assessment of IS performance at three Libyan Universities. The findings from these cases are analysed and discussed on the basis of selected models. This analysis indicates that the level of both the ISs implemented in LHE and the capability for in-house system development is low.

This paper is a part of an exploratory study with the goal of investigating the applicability of collaboratively-developed enterprise resource planning (the CD-ERP approach) within Libyan public universities. Since it is being proposed in order to overcome the topical issue of information system (IS) development in Libyan higher education (LHE), Libyan universities were investigated to assess IS performance while using the approach of methodological assessment. Accordingly, three public universities were chosen to be studied, namely the University of Tripoli (UOT), Misurata University (MU), and Sirte University (SU). The UOT was run as an initial study to identify practical problems in conducting a formal study. Previous papers have discussed the use of a formal study, in which a methodological assessment of IS performance at Libyan universities was conducted. The findings from all three cases are discussed and analyzed on the basis of selected techniques and models. This analysis indicates the low level of the ISs implemented in LHE at the university level, as well as the lack of system development capabilities within these universities. This paper focuses on the management of information flow between universities during student exchange. Business process maps are presented, and improvements based on the CD-ERP approach are proposed.

This article considers several aspects of a multi-person household making an important consumer decision, e.g. buying a new flat. In such situations, normally several members of the household have input in the decision making process. Also, when there are a large number of offers, search can be facilitated via the use of the Internet. Basic information about offers, e.g. price, location, number of rooms and size, can be found on the Internet at very little cost. However, in order to make a final decision, members of the household should physically view a number of offers. The costs involved at this stage of the search process are much higher. In such scenarios, search based on the short list heuristic are efficient. Search via the Internet is used to find a relatively small number of promising offers from a large number of propositions. These promising offers are then more closely inspected, before a final decision is made. Results from simulations indicate that group decision procedures based on each decision maker ranking offers and the short list heuristic can be highly effective and robust.

Like other HE institutes in the world, Libyan universities have continuously been working on developing their own ISs or adopting commercial solutions.Both models have shown negative results to some degree.This research was aimed, therefore, to introduce a new model, called: Collaboratively-Developed Enterprise Resource Planning (CD-ERP) to be applied in Libyan Higher Education (LHE).Generally, the model is based on two main principles: ERP packages and community-source.This study comes as the conclusion to a series of studies in a project to assess the CD-ERP model.After investigating the applicability of this model in the Libyan context, a CD-ERP model for LHE is proposed in this paper, including: the business model of the consortium, cloud architecture, alongside several recommendations for successful and efficient transformation from the current systems to the CD-ERP model.

This article considers a model of partnership formation in which there are two classes of player (called male and female). There is a continuum of players and n types of both sexes. These types can be interpreted as levels of attractiveness and each searcher prefers to pair with a partner of high attractiveness. Players start searching at time zero and continue until they find a mutually acceptable partner or the mating season ends. When a pair is formed, the individuals involved leave the pool of searchers. Hence, the proportion of players still searching and the distribution of types change over time. Prospective partners are found at a rate which is non-decreasing in the proportion of players still searching. Nash equilibria are derived which satisfy a refinement based on the following optimality criterion: each searcher accepts a prospective partner if and only if the reward which that searcher would gain from such a partnership is greater or equal to the expected reward that he/she would obtain from future search. Some general properties of such Nash equilibria are given and a characterization of the equilibria of games in which there are three types of player is presented. Two examples are given which illustrate the possible forms of Nash equilibria and show that multiple equilibria are possible.

This article aims to identify and assess the investment activity of major Polish cities, taking into account the division into current voivodship cities (regional capitals) and former regional capitals which, as a result of reforms in the public administration system carried out in Poland in the 1990s, lost this function. Based on a group of diagnostic features (cities' investment expenditure per capita, the capital expenditure of cities as a percentage of their total expenditure, the capital expenditure of cities as a percentage of their own revenue), taxonomic synthetic measures were constructed for the studied cities. This research covers the years 2004–2015 – a period of particular investment intensity caused by the inflow of EU funds. It was concluded that even though the status and revenue potential of a city are, to some extent, determined by its investment activity, there are, however, clear examples showing that an appropriate local policy can modify these determinants.