Dynamic temporary blood facility location-allocation during and post-disaster periods

The key objective of this study is to develop a tool (hybridization or integration of different techniques) for locating the temporary blood banks during and post-disaster conditions that could serve the hospitals with minimum response time. We have used temporary blood centers, which must be located in such a way that it is able to serve the demand of hospitals in nearby region within a shorter duration. We are locating the temporary blood centres for which we are minimizing the maximum distance with hospitals. We have used Tabu search heuristic method to calculate the optimal number of temporary blood centres considering cost components. In addition, we employ Bayesian belief network to prioritize the factors for locating the temporary blood facilities. Workability of our model and methodology is illustrated using a case study including blood centres and hospitals surrounding Jamshedpur city. Our results shows that at-least 6 temporary blood facilities are required to satisfy the demand of blood during and post-disaster periods in Jamshedpur. The results also show that that past disaster conditions, response time and convenience for access are the most important factors for locating the temporary blood facilities during and post-disaster periods

Study on Nuclear Accident Precursors Using AHP and BBN

Most of the nuclear accident reports used to indicate the implicit precursors which are not easily quantified as underlying factors. The current Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is capable of quantifying the importance of accident causes in limited scope. It was, therefore, difficult to achieve quantifiable decision-making for resource allocation. In this study, the methodology which facilitates quantifying these precursors and a case study were presented. First, four implicit precursors have been obtained by evaluating the causality and hierarchy structure of various accident factors. Eventually, it turned out that they represent the lack of knowledge. After four precursors are selected, subprecursors were investigated and their cause-consequence relationship was implemented by Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). To prioritize the precursors, the prior probability is initially estimated by expert judgment and updated upon observations. The pair-wise importance between precursors is calculated by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the results are converted into node probability tables of the BBN model. Using this method, the sensitivity and the posterior probability of each precursor can be analyzed so that it enables making prioritization for the factors. We tried to prioritize the lessons learned from Fukushima accident to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology

Problem structuring: A study on the available methods and their integration and effective proposition for successful interventions

Several critical elements (such as uncertainty, complexity and lack of structure) limit the use of analytical models and methods in problem solving and decision-aid in practice. In an effort to solve these problems, the initial representation or conceptualization of a problem is so crucial to its subsequent treatment that one is tempted to say that the most important as well as most difficult issue underlying the subject of problem solving is precisely ‘how to structure the problem’. The purpose of study is to review concepts related to the problems that require structuring (ill-structured or unstructured problems), the methods that are available in order to deal with these problems (problem structuring methods) and to study the use of these methods in interventions. The research involved creation of a community with the aim of integrating competences on how different methods may be used and integrated to face complex and unstructured decision situations, in order to develop methodological skills that could effectively facilitate the analyst’s work. Each member of this community was involved, at the start in relation to a specific old intervention, in an investigation project, in relation to some cases and their modeling processes, which have been developed in real organizations, by means of a specific technical approach or with the support of a multimethodology with formal tools that propose a limited quantification within a systematic framework. Therefore the operational idea for the investigation was a procedure at two phases, the first for the creation of a knowledge base for the second phase and the second of interaction with the author of the paper that describes an intervention case. The information gathered from the community provided important insights into the problem structuring interventions and the results aim to facilitate the analysts to have an idea about the competences that need to be developed for a successful intervention

The application of multi-criteria decision analysis methods into talent identification process: a social psychological perspective

This case study offers a new insight into application of multiple-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) to social identity issues in the context of talent management. This study used MCDM to help a high-tech company to identify potential talents in its sale and marketing team (n = 54). MCDM adjusted subjective information consisted of intangible organisational political issues into a transparent, objective benchmark. The transparency and consistency of this evaluation process reduced potential social identity disruption between individuals or groups. Furthermore, the involvement of multiple decision-makers (both managers and employees) in the talent identification procedure enhanced employees' motivation for further development