A survey and critique of multiobjective power plant siting decision rules

This paper reviews the use of multiobjective decision rules for solving power plant siting problems. After a discussion of exclusionary site screening methods for bounding the decision space, classes of multiobjective and goal programming desicion rules are discussedin the context of final site selection. Advances and limitations of these methods are highlighted. Although multiobjective decision rules have seen numerous applications to power plant siting in the literature, few electric utility companies have used these methods in practice. A review of the use of multiobjective methods in actual power plant siting decisions is also presented, and reasons for the paucity of real-world applications are suggested.     

What Emancipation for Choice?

The new socialists' apparent emphasis on consumer choice is vitiated by their enduring emphasis on the collectivist functions of the state. Norman Barry; Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham, contends that the new socialists fail to recognise the importance of consumer choice in social services and the indispensable role of the entrepreneur.     

LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT: two wrongs don't make a right

Leasehold enfranchisement is assumed by almost everyone to be desirable. But Barry Bracewell-Milnes argues that the 'reforms' included in the Queen's Speech earlier this year will have perverse effects.     

Self-insight into the cognitive processing of financial information

An experimental setting was formulated where individuals processed financial information and provided estimates of changes in security prices. The ability of subjects to express accurate subjective cue weights was assessed by comparing the subjective weights with objective (statistical) cue weights based on their judgments. The results indicate an encouraging degree of insight, especially when the results are compared with previous studies in psychology, since this group of users of accounting information were able to express indications of relative cue importance which reflected the way they were using the information.     

Market penetration model: Multimarket,multitechnology, multiattribute technological forecasting

This paper describes a multiple competing technologies market penetration model which incorporates multiple attributes rather than strictly price into the (static) market share allocation function. Application of the first-generation version (linear and deterministic) of this model in a DOE budget preparation exercise, model parametrics, and results are described. Results are most sensitive to (1) moderate shifts in commercialization date, (2) small changes in market growth rates (for technological penetrating expansion markets only), and (3) shifts in static market share curve coefficients. The assessment process, it is noted, depends upon cooperative support; it is vulnerable to any intentionally disruptive activities.