A Multi-Criteria Group Decision Making Methodology Using Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Sets: Application to Water Resources Management

In this paper, a new fuzzy group decision-making methodology which determines and incorporates negotiation powers of decision makers is developed. The proposed method is based on a combination of interval type-2 fuzzy sets and a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model, namely TOPSIS. To examine the applicability of the proposed methodology, it is used for finding the best scenario of allocating water and reclaimed wastewater to domestic, agricultural, and industrial water sectors and restoring groundwater quantity and quality in the Varamin region located in Tehran metropolitan area in Iran. The results show that the selected scenario leads to an acceptable groundwater conservation level during a long-term planning horizon. Although the capital cost of this scenario is high, which leads to groundwater restoration during the 34-year planning horizon, it is determined as the best allocation scenario. This scenario also entails the second least pumping cost, due to less water allocation from the groundwater. To evaluate the results of the proposed methodology, they are compared with those obtained using some well-known interval type-2 decision-making approaches including arithmetic-based, TOPSIS-based, and likelihood-based comparison methods. The Spearman correlation coefficient shows that the obtained results generally concur with those of the other methods. It is also concluded that the proposed methodology gives more reasonable results by calculating and considering the negotiation powers of decision makers in an extended TOPSIS-based group decision-making model.

     

Measurement and mathematical modelling of nutrient level and water quality parameters

Physico-chemical water quality parameters and nutrient levels such as water temperature, turbidity, saturated oxygen, dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll-a, salinity, conductivity, total nitrogen and total phosphorus, were measured from April to September 2011 in the Karaj dam area, Iran. Total nitrogen in water was modelled using an artificial neural network system. In the proposed system, water temperature, depth, saturated oxygen, dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll-a, salinity, turbidity and conductivity were considered as input data, and the total nitrogen in water was considered as output. The weights and biases for various systems were obtained by the quick propagation, batch back propagation, incremental back propagation, genetic and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithms. The proposed system uses 144 experimental data points; 70% of the experimental data are randomly selected for training the network and 30% of the data are used for testing. The best network topology was obtained as (9-5-1) using the quick propagation method with tangent transform function. The average absolute deviation percentages (AAD%) are 2.329 and 2.301 for training and testing processes, respectively. It is emphasized that the results of the artificial neural network (ANN) model are compatible with the experimental data.     

Lake Urmia restoration success story: A natural trend or a planned remedy?

Lake Urmia is the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world. There has been a drastic water level drop of 7.2 m from 1995 to 2016. Beginning in October 2013, the Lake Urmia Restoration Plan (LURP) launched a 10-year program. An increase in water level and a relative improvement in Lake Urmia condition has been observed since 2017. It is an undecided and controversial issue whether the recent positive trend of Lake Urmia has been due to the LURP activities or it is a natural contribution of climate factors variations. To shed some light on this issue, we examine three other lakes, adjacent to the Lake Urmia basin, with similar rainfall variability to investigate their status during the same period. Van (Turkey), Mosul, and Tharthar (both in Iraq), are evaluated as well as Lake Urmia. Three decades of remotely sensed data including precipitation ($P$), water level ($\mathit{WL}$), and lake extent ($A$) were considered for the mentioned lakes. A significant correlation was observed between standardized $\mathit{WL}-P$, and $A-P$ over the long-term period, especially for the recent three years ($R$² = 0.63–0.87). We show that the cumulative precipitation in the antecedent months played a major role in the improvement of these lakes' situation but with different time lags (up to 6 months for Van and Mosul lakes and up to 36 months for Lake Urmia and Tharthar lake). These findings could inform the planners of LURP to adopt strategies for achieving a sustainable state of Lake Urmia based on a more realistic outlook.     

Incorporating Economy and Long-term Inflow Forecasting Uncertainty into Decision-making for Agricultural Water Allocation during Droughts

Optimizing water allocations for the agricultural sector, the main water consumer, at the beginning of a period of drought is essential. However, long-term inflow forecasting, with its high uncertainty, is a necessary component of the allocation process. This paper presents a methodology that combines this uncertainty with economic factors to determine water allocation. The following models were developed and linked: optimization of agricultural water allocation under water scarcity, long-term flow forecast and quantification of forecast uncertainties. The approach coordinates economic values of water with system operational requirements. The Zayandeh Rud dam and irrigation system was selected to explore the methodology of this research.     

Marketing Innovation in Rural Small Food Industries in Iran

Marketing innovation is essential for small industries to transform products into profit; therefore, understanding its nature and determinants is of utmost importance. This study aimed at understanding marketing innovation and its determinants in the 60 small food industries in the rural areas of Tehran province, Iran. Using a census sampling method, 111 managers of these firms were interviewed. Results showed that the firms’ performance in marketing innovation is generally weak, and a higher level of radical innovation in marketing is perceived compared to the incremental innovation. Also, a cause-and-effect relationship exists between both product and organizational innovations and marketing innovation. Furthermore, while incremental marketing innovation was negatively influenced by formal R&D unit, product diversification, and the manager’s years of experience, radical marketing innovation was affected by the capacity of production, product diversification, and managers’ age and education. The study concluded that in order to boost marketing innovation, innovation should be made also in products and organization. In addition, in order to facilitate the process of marketing innovation, practical and updated training for managers encouraging incremental innovation in marketing, product diversification, and improving R&D activities in the studied firms should be regarded.     

文件处理中的工作流管理系统

流程活动中的大多数活动通常需要使用手工来实现工作流状态的频繁改变,这是工作流在控制、监测和优化方面的一个由来已久的老问题了,这个老问题现在可以通过使用一种新的信息系统来解决,即支持业务过程的工作流管理系统。工作流管理是业务过程逻辑的一个直接表现,它是通过计算机支持来完成管理的。文章讨论了处于一个组织内部的用于文件处理的工作流管理系统,该系统在该组织内部的不同地方被多个用户所使用。     

SPH numerical investigation of the characteristics of an oscillating hydraulic jump at an abrupt drop

This paper shows the results of the smooth particle hydrodynamics(SPH) modelling of the hydraulic jump at an abrupt drop,where the transition from supercritical to subcritical flow is characterised by several flow patterns depending upon the inflow and tailwater conditions. SPH simulations are obtained by a pseudo-compressible XSPH scheme with pressure smoothing; turbulent stresses are represented either by an algebraic mixing-length model, or by a two-equation k-ε model. The numerical model is applied to analyse the occurrence of oscillatory flow conditions between two different jump types characterised by quasi-periodic oscillation,and the results are compared with experiments performed at the hydraulics laboratory of Bari Technical University. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a deeper understanding of the physical features of a flow which is in general difficult to be reproduced numerically,owing to its unstable character: in particular, vorticity and turbulent kinetic energy fields, velocity, water depth and pressure spectra downstream of the jump, and velocity and pressure cross-correlations can be computed and analysed.     

Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process as a Two-phase Integrated Decision Approach for Large Nominal Groups

When decision makers who comprise a large nominal group face an unstructured decision problem and no simultaneous interactive communications are available, problem identification and consensus building are difficult, if not impossible. Few tools are available to assist decision makers in this situation. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has typically been used to evaluate a set of alternatives after a decision problem has been structured as a hierarchy with various levels of criteria above the alternatives. With a group of decision makers, AHP has been used to evaluate those alternatives either by consensus building or by combining judgments or priorities using the geometric mean to aggregate their preferences. In this paper, we extend the use of AHP to a situation involving a large nominal group of dispersed decision makers where the entire hierarchy is not defined at the outset. In particular, we use the AHP as an integrative approach to identify the priorities of the various criteria and then use those priorities to screen and consolidate a large set of potential alternatives. This results in considering a reduced set of alternatives that will be affected by the more important criteria. The consolidated set of alternatives is evaluated by each individual in the group using AHP, combined using the geometric mean, and the results are synthesized to obtain the overall priorities of the alternatives. The approach is demonstrated and evaluated in a case study to select an alunmi anniversary gift to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a large nominal group of decision-makers dispersed throughout the United States.     

Ethical Principles that Make the World and its Economy More Equal

Abstract

No doubt, the global economic (and political) structure is very unequal. The paper begins by demonstrating the various dimensions of this inequality as they relate to economic measures such as per capita GDP, degree of consumption and ownership, health measures, education, and power and influence in various global organizations such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and others. Next, the paper, supporting a more equal global economic and political structure, investigates the various instruments in welfare economies and ethics theory that can be utilized to justify a sort of distributional change that could lead to more global equality. Finding various economic and ethical instruments associated with utilitarianism, Pareto Optimality and the Hicks–Kaldor compensation test less than satisfactory in dealing with and advocating sufficient global distributional changes, we will investigate ethical principles developed by John Rawls in both his 1971 The Theory of Justice and his 1999 The Law of Peoples, Sen's capability approach, the debate between Rawls and Sen regarding their ethical principles, and whether or not those ethical principles can justify necessary global distributional changes. As we will argue, although the principles developed by Sen and Rawls can be utilized to justify global distributional changes to a degree, they cannot advocate a global difference principle that can justify sufficient global distributional changes. Attempt is made to develop a global difference principle that can justify and advocate more drastic distributional changes.     

Optimal contracting with dynastic altruism: Family size and per capita consumption

We use a Barro–Becker model of endogenous fertility, in which parents are subject to idiosyncratic shocks that are private information (either to labor productivity or taste for leisure), to study the efficient degree of consumption inequality in the long run. The planner uses the trade-off between family size and future consumption and leisure, to provide incentives for workers to reveal their shocks. We show that in this environment, the optimal dynamic contract no longer features immiseration in consumption. We also discuss the implications of the model on the long run properties of family size in the optimal contract and show that the long run trend in dynasty size can be either positive or negative depending on parameters.