An evaluation framework for developing green infrastructure by using a new hybrid multiple attribute decision-making model for promoting environmental sustainability

With the expansion of urbanization caused by the growth of population and industrial activities, the urban/city and suburban areas are facing a variety of environmental threats. Although more research and urban policy has advocated and practiced the development of green infrastructure (GI) to support urban sustainable environment, the evaluation framework for the development of GI for promoting environmental sustainability is still insufficient. Moreover, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) commonly applied in published literature, makes an unrealistic assumption of independent relationships among dimensions/criteria in decision making for satisfying the real-world problem. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to construct the evaluation framework, including four dimensions and related ten criteria, using a new hybrid-modified multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) model for developing and improving the GI for promoting environmental sustainability. This MADM model is combined with three different methodologies of MADM, including the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) for constructing the influential network relation map (INRM) to explore the complex influential inter-relationships and DEMATEL based on Analytic Network Process (DANP) for determining the influential weights with the VIse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) for evaluating and presenting improvement strategies for six different GIs. The empirical study indicates that DEMATEL and DANP Results suggest that decision-makers should pay more attention to the improvement of Design (D₄) and Materials (D₂) in terms of dimensions when utilizing the GI to promote environmental sustainability. Because these dimensions are enhanced, Species (D₁) and Energy (D₃) will be improved in synchronization. From the perspective of criteria, five are key core criteria and need to be focused on first: increasing the green coverage rate (B₉), utilizing sustainable materials (B₄), using ecological engineering (B₈), shaping species biodiversity (B₁), and reducing energy consumption (B₅). Modified VIKOR reveals that “grass swales” are a comparatively better choice among six GIs for promoting environmental sustainability toward achieving the aspiration level. Therefore, this MADM model is beneficial to provide a more convincing assessment framework and improvement strategies for the development of GI for promoting environmental sustainability. As a result, these modified MADM models can be shown more conveniently and reasonably than traditional methods such as traditional AHP or ANP method.     

The decision game: a serious game approach to understanding environmental risk management decisions

Abstract

Here we describe the implementation of an experimental research tool called the Decision Game that we used to collect data on household flood risk management decisions. Participants using this tool play an interactive game that involves making household decisions about place of residence and a variety of household expenditures, including spending on flood insurance and private flood risk mitigation. Participants also answer survey questions before and after playing the game; the pre-game survey collected demographic information, and the post-game survey collected information about participant experiences with flooding and flood mitigation. Online and face-to-face participants showed similar engagement with the experiment, and most participants appeared to have made deliberate and considered decisions about risk mitigation. Online study participants had similar responses to those who participated in person, although face-to-face participants seemed slightly more likely to mitigate against risk. Overall, participants in this research were younger, more educated and more likely to rent a home than the average Canadian. Serious games may be useful for augmenting existing data gathering strategies used in understanding environmental decision making, particularly for rare catastrophic events for which stated preference surveys may be less informative. Serious games allow for sharing a mixture of information with study participants, including maps, video clips, text and even immersive 3D experiences, and can be administered online to increase participation levels. Future research will consider longer duration online experiments and more immersive interaction frameworks.     

Optimizing station location and fleet composition for a high-speed rail line

This paper proposes a new strategic planning model for high-speed rail ventures. It is a mixed-integer optimization model that applies to a given line and focuses on two key strategic decisions: station location and fleet composition. Our purpose is to improve on previous station location models by including fleet composition decisions. In the new model, we additionally take into account in an approximate fashion the interrelationships between strategic and subsequent tactical decisions, regarding line planning, train scheduling and fleet assignment issues. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated for a case study involving a planned Lisbon-Oporto high-speed rail line.     

强化质量意识 需从细节做起——从表面形貌特征评定参数的拓展谈起

工件的某些表面形貌特征会对产品的性能和质量产生重大的影响,因此,拓展表面形貌特征的评定参数,以提升产品的质量监控水平已成为必需。文章以工件的回转密封面为例,就螺线纹理这一表面微观结构的形貌特征及其可能引起的产品质量隐患做了详细的说明,并介绍了如何利用精密仪器实施相关的测量。文中透过对这一往往被业内忽略的细节的监控思路,阐明了在企业内,强化质量意识必须从重视每个细节做起的观点。     

Modelling airline flight cancellation decisions

In order to predict airline responses to Traffic Management Initiatives (TMIs), and reveal the underlying preference structures that shape these responses, we study US domestic airlines’ cancellation decisions in response to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s TMIs, in particular, to Ground Delay Programs (GDPs). By observing the actual flight-cancellation choices made by airline dispatchers, the airlines’ cancellation utility functions can be inferred through the use of binary choice models. The model captures how delays to a given flight and potential delay savings to other flights affect flight cancellation decisions. We also find larger, fuller, less frequent, shorter-distance, and spoke-bound flights are less likely to be cancelled, and that there is inter-airline variation in flight cancellation behaviour.     

Design and Management of Participatory Public Policy Making

In The Netherlands many local governments make public policy in a participatory way. Civilians and other interested parties are invited by policy makers to design public policy cooperatively. As a consequence many actors and information are embedded in the policy making process, because these actors describe the issue(s) and solutions for the policy problem differently. Some municipals are able to cope with the growing complexity of the policy process, others not. In order to deal with the growing process complexity, local governments hire independent process professionals. These process professionals design and manage the participatory policy process. However this is far from easy in practice. The process-architects and process-managers are faced with a lot of dilemmas in their process-design and process-management activities of the participatory public policy process. This article will describe some dilemmas for process-design as well as for process-management of participatory public policy making, and ways of coping with these dilemmas.     

Building internal business scenarios based on real data from a performance measurement system

This paper presents a new methodology to build internal business scenarios from the data gathered by some key performance indicators (KPIs) defined within a performance measurement system. The application of the principal components analysis technique leads to the identification of latent relationships between KPIs that underlies some important business aspects. Further, this methodology allows to represent not only the temporal evolution of the organisation as a function of these business aspects but also the definition and determination of internal business scenarios, being therefore the source of meaningful managerial information. At the end of the paper, results of a practical application are presented and discussed, as well as their importance for the organisation from a decision making point of view.     

Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context

Product pricing has been one of the central issues in the field of marketing and consumer services for managers and researchers alike. However, pricing of information goods has not been paid much attention in literature. For information goods the marginal costs of production and transportation of information goods (online movies, video games, etc.) is almost zero. Hence, the pricing decisions need to be thought of purely in competitive profit maximizing terms. This paper proposes mechanisms for managers to evaluate and base their pricing decisions on rational frameworks that takes into account various situations when they enter a new market and when they are incumbent in a new market. This paper addresses the research gap of spatially differentiated pricing strategy for information goods that has not been studied in literature so far. We create stylized theoretical models under both, sequential and simultaneous decision-making conditions. We determine the equilibrium price and the equilibrium profit for the two firms for each of the four possible scenarios based on their pricing strategies. Our analysis reveals that the dominance of one pricing strategy over the other depends on product differentiation factor capturing joint effect of the product substitutability and consumer's price sensitivity under sequential decision making and the market size along with consumer's price sensitivity for simultaneous decision making. As an extension, we propose a generalized model demonstrating the uniform and spatially differentiated pricing strategies of the firms under simultaneous and sequential selection for multiple domestic and international markets.     

基于期权定价理论的风险投资决策

项目评价的传统方法———净现值(NPV)法在应用于风险投资项目时,由于低估了投资价值,往往会使得投资者失去一些有价值的投资机会。结合风险投资的特性,将期权定价理论应用于风险投资决策中,并建立连续及离散两种状态下的决策模型